Darcy Branwyn

Worth Fighting For:

England, 1192

…Jennifer nodded sleepily. “I suppose we should.”

He slipped her off of his lap and then retrieved his clothing. She rolled onto her side, leaning on her elbow with her head propped in her hand. She had no idea if she would survive the winter on her own, which meant she’d likely never see him again, which also meant she might as well have him while she could. No sense in dying without that.

She frowned then. She was going to break both their hearts likely.

He returned to her, her borrowed tunic in hand. “It’s a shame,” he said, “but I suppose I can’t have you going around naked.” She sat up and he pulled it over her head. She pushed her arms through.

“I could say the same of you,” she told him.

“I think you’d draw more of a crowd than I would, but I thank you just the same.” He sat down next to her, then he changed his mind and stood back up. “I almost forgot your present.”

She sighed, watching him cross the room to a trunk. “I don’t need a present.”

“I have to give you something. It’s tradition.”

Yes, that’s right, Matthew, just rip my heart out through my chest and then expect me to survive after I’ve left you.

He came back to her with something behind his back. “Close your eyes.”

“I don’t need…”

He lifted his brows in challenge.

“Fine.” She closed her eyes.

“Hold out your hands.”

She put them out before her and he set something in them. She felt a leather sheath in one hand, and cold metal in the other.

“Now you can open them.”

She looked at the weapon in her hands. It was a jewel encrusted dagger. There was a dark red garnet at the end of the grip, along with a smattering of smaller stones in a variety of colors all along the handle. She pulled it free from the leather sheath. It was finely crafted. Her mother had had something of similar quality but it wasn’t the sort of thing one saw every day.

“The stones were spoils of war,” he said, sitting next to her. “Not mine but my father’s. He had this made…”

“For your mother,” she finished.

He nodded.

Jennifer put it back into the sheath. “My mother had something like this too.”

“My sister thought she’d sold everything after the fire but I put this aside.” He shrugged. “I couldn’t part with it.”

And he was giving it to her. Of course he was. Damn you, Matthew of Berkley. Tears blurred her eyes. “It’s so beautiful,” she said, not able to see it anymore…

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