Medieval Captives 1 Sebastian the Alchemist and His Captive He takes her for hate. Will he keep her for love? Sebastian, lord of the tower in the northern high lands, is a proud, bitter man with a dark past. An alchemist and a warrior, he has had lovers but knows he is ugly—experience and betrayal have taught him that. When Melissa, the beautiful, neglected daughter of two old enemies, falls into his possessive hands he is determined to hold her. Why? As one of the detested and defeated Felix family, Melissa must cling to her courage when she is claimed as a war-prize by the tall, grim Sebastian. Expecting torture and ravishment, she finds instead a peace and sanctuary that she has never known. Treated with kindness for the first time in her life, Melissa begins to blossom. But there are secrets and old betrayals between them. Sebastian’s abiding jealousy is not easily quelled, especially when someone at the tower seeks to destroy his growing love with Melissa… Genre: Historical Length: 22,019 words SEBASTIAN THE ALCHEMIST AND HIS CAPTIVE Medieval Captives 1 Lindsay Townsend ROMANCE www.BookStrand.com ABOUT THE E-BOOK YOU HAVE PURCHASED: Your non-refundable purchase of this e-book allows you to only ONE LEGAL copy for your own personal reading on your own personal computer or device. You do not have resell or distribution rights without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner of this book. This book cannot be copied in any format, sold, or otherwise transferred from your computer to another through upload to a file sharing peer to peer program, for free or for a fee, or as a prize in any contest. Such action is illegal and in violation of the U.S. Copyright Law. 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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission. All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental. PUBLISHER www.BookStrand.com SEBASTIAN THE ALCHEMIST AND HIS CAPTIVE Medieval Captives 1 LINDSAY TOWNSEND Copyright © 2014 Chapter 1 Sebastian settled back in his chair. He still had many petitions to read and tomorrow he would fight a duel, with mace and daggers, but for the rest of the evening…Yes, he could grant himself the time, the indulgence. Ignoring the dull ache in his lower back, he stretched his long arms above his head. “Robert.” He spoke quietly to the gangling chestnut-headed squire patrolling by the door. “Send the girl to me. Then get some rest before you fall over.” The youth had only lately recovered from a fever and even in the firelight looked as pale as the falling snow outside. “I will sleep when you do, my lord.” Robert gave a brief, jerky bow and slipped from the stone chamber, his rapid footsteps fading in the vastness of the tower. Sebastian returned to his reading, making notes on the parchment, listening to the spit of the flames, and waiting. What will she be like? He had only caught a glimpse yesterday, when he had claimed her as his prize. The child of an old enemy and my first, unrequited love. What have her people told her about me? Sebastian the Alchemist and His Captive 7 The door swung open, slowly at first and then in a rush, as if whoever was entering was determined not to be cowed. Headstrong, just like her mother. Amused, Sebastian rested the tip of his writing quill on the tabletop to watch an energetic, vivid figure hasten into the chamber. “Idonotcarewhatyoudotome, butdonothurtmypeople…” Sebastian raised the quill and the spate of words instantly stopped. “Closer,” he commanded, when the creature remained still, glancing behind her at the closing door. “Look at me, girl.” She took a step forward this time, halting exactly in the shadows cast between the torches and firelight so that her face and form remained hidden. Arrogant and stubborn, just like her father. A whip of irritation cracked down his spine. “Artos, guard,” he ordered the black wolf he had saved as a cub from a hunter’s trap. Artos yawned, stretched himself up from the rug by the fire, and trotted to the threshold. With widening eyes the girl studied the wolf as it began a steady pacing back and forth before the entrance. “He is not my familiar, if that is what you are thinking.” “Your shadow, then.” The girl swung round to face him. Her voice was low, cracking a little from nerves or disuse. “He is handsome.” Unlike you. The unspoken words filled the chamber like the apple-wood smoke. Sebastian pushed back his chair and strode toward his captive, circling his prize. She stood stiffly at attention, her head held perfectly straight, her hands clenched by her sides, half-hidden in her once gaudy, now tattered, green and gold robes. In the shifting alliances of these lush and rugged highlands her kindred had backed the wrong overlord and lost. In the scramble afterward between the northern princelings for booty and lands, Sebastian had been able to take the girl, claim her by right of revenge. Revenge. What a monster she must think me, this dainty youngster, to make her pay for ancient hurts her 8 Lindsay Townsend father wreaked on me, for the old betrayals of her mother. Does she even know that pitiful tale? He circled her again, sensing her quiver as he loomed. She was a brunette, but there all similarity between them ended. Where he was tall and lean and intense, large-jointed and craggy, precise from years of deliberate, often hard-won control, this tiny girl shimmered like a flame. Where his hair was black, dull and fine as silk, hanging straight to his broad shoulders, hers was the color of brimstone and treacle, long, heavy ropes of shining curling waves, sunset brown shot through with chestnut. Her father’s coloring, and wasn’t Baldwin always aware of his good looks? As for her mother in her—Sebastian halted before the girl and, with a long finger, tipped up her chin, glimpsing a pair of bright brown eyes in a freckled, delicate face. The child shifted, lowering her head in a gesture of apparent submission. The shape of her eyes are the same as Rosemond’s, but not the color. Her mother had blue eyes and gold hair and smiled like a Madonna, all the better to beguile men. “Like but not like,” Sebastian murmured, releasing his grip and continuing his prowl. The girl was easily a head shorter than himself, small and thin, where Rosemond had been tall and stately. “How old are you?” “Eighteen.” The bright eyes fixed on his and a spark of heat tingled from his chest to his groin in response. He saw her blush and wondered if she had also sensed the spark. “Eighteen, Sir Sebastian.” He scowled at her address, disliking the arrogant assumption behind it that only knights had value. Just like her father. “I am no knight, girl, remember that,” he barked. She trembled and he could not decide if that was due to fear or revulsion. Watching the pretty glow drop from her face like a fallen ribbon, he decided it was both. Irritated and a little ashamed with his behavior, he closed his eyes, desperately trying to entomb his own past within himself. “Who would care for such a lanky thing as you?” His mother had first told him that. “Sallow, dark, possessive,” a previous lover or two had Sebastian the Alchemist and His Captive 9 complained, before each one had parted with him due to his jealousy. “An ugly, crook-nosed brute...” Sebastian remembered that description only too clearly, the taunts “ugly” and “crook-nose” following him throughout his service as a page, then squire, before he had turned his back on the cruel, glittering world of chivalry. And who had first called him ugly and crook-nosed? Baldwin of course, this girl’s father, jibing and taunting, bullying and tormenting, setting on him with his friends and cronies, four, five, six against one. Sebastian had stomached that but then worse followed—he had heard Rosemond agreeing with Baldwin, the pair laughing together, laughing at him. After all I did for her and tried to do for her, after I helped her, after I told her I loved her. Strange after all these years that it should still ache so much, as if an anvil had been hurled into his chest. Fighting the despair, Sebastian growled like Artos and shook his head to clear it. Here he was, aged three and thirty, still re-fighting old battles, old hurts. I am pathetic. He opened his eyes, relaxing his grip on the quill before he shattered it. The girl was staring at the floor now, nervously rubbing her mouth with her thumb. “Melissa Felix of the winter lands.” She flinched at her name and title, clearly expecting him to mock her. For an instant Sebastian was tempted to do just that, but held off. This child is not Baldwin or Rosemond. She has never harmed you, so try not judge her as such. “Daughter of the brave and the beautiful.” Stalking again, this time stopping behind the girl, Sebastian stroked the quill lightly across the narrow shoulders, feeling a slight shiver through the feathers. “That much I can agree with in the endless praise-fest that is sung about your parents.” “Please—” Melissa twisted round quickly, slipping on the stone floor. Sebastian caught her one-handed before she stumbled, briefly astonished at how light-boned she was. From being rosy-cheeked, then pale, her expressive face brimmed with life, with questions. Clearly the wench has never been taught any discretion. “You were 10 Lindsay Townsend brought up with them, sir. You knew them. Hardly anyone talks about them, not really, not stories how they were, what they enjoyed, the little things they did. Please tell me what they were like.” Of course she had been a child, an infant, when Baldwin and Rosemond had been ambushed and killed by Viking raiders, Baldwin dying with a blood eagle carved into his body. That foul end I would not have wished on anyone, even him. The sudden, hideous memories of finding too many other warriors murdered in that way made his voice harsh. “You do not want my recollections of them, girl! Have your people truly told you nothing? Are you a fool? Is this a ploy to trick me? Or do you not care for the feelings of others? Are you prideful and spiteful, too, as your father and mother were?” “They were not!” “And how would you know, little girl? You have just told me no one speaks of them.” She flared anew, clearly taking his words as an insult. “I am no child. I stand for my people!” “Oh yes, the fragile creatures whom you do not want me to hurt. How insufferably noble of you, how unbelievably presumptuous.” Anger and suspicion coiled along his body in a choking miasma. Already she is poisoned against me. Did that matter? “No one is hurt in this tower.” Sebastian laid his hand flat across her shoulders, feeling the surge of muscle and bone beneath her skin as Melissa gathered herself to spring away. “No one,” he said again, winding his free arm about her narrow waist, lifting her to trap against him, her back and bottom tight against his front. “No,” Melissa whispered. She had stiffened in indignation at being so easily handled but had now stopped moving altogether, stopped breathing, even. Deciding it would be unkind to press himself any closer into the inviting cleft between her surprisingly pert, round arse—her gown does not fit her properly and why is she wearing cast- offs?—Sebastian blew softly against the side of her neck.