22 Nights (33 page)

“I don’t think love can be given that way,” she said, “though apparently it can be taken away.”

“Lust, then, if not love. Plant a few seeds of desire in the mind of the man you choose, and he will be yours. Most men cannot tell the difference between lust and love, so you will have all that you want.”

All that she wanted was here, in this room, and she did not dare say so.

“We will share the money I found in Trinity’s saddlebags,” she said. “That will help us get started. After that, I thought I might find a job as a governess or a nurse. I don’t have much experience caring for children, but I have always liked them well enough, and many such positions come with room and board.”

“No woman will hire you,” Savyn said harshly. “You are too beautiful for her to trust, if there is a man in the house.”

“I won’t marry without love, not again,” Leyla said harshly. “I am a fully grown woman, and I will make my own way, wherever that takes me.”

“You would rather be a governess than a lady?” Savyn asked, disbelief dripping from his usually pleasant voice.

“Yes. I want an honest life, even if it becomes a harsh one in the process.”

“Honest,” Savyn said softly. “Does that mean you will no longer use your abilities?”

“I suppose it does.” She would use them to benefit Savyn, to get him safely to Arthes, but that was not the same as using the gift to get what she wanted; to make her life easier.

Savyn rolled onto his side so he faced her, even though it was pitch-black in the hut and he could not see her face. This was what he saw all the time, now. Knowing that, her heart broke.

“Since you have decided to embrace honesty,” he said, his voice still bitter but perhaps less so, “and obviously neither of us is near sleep, will you tell me how we met?”

Her heart thumped. Oh, this was a horrible idea! Why would he wish to torture her with the telling of details? She did not want to remember, much less relive, what she’d given up. But how could she refuse him something so simple? “I have always known you, since I arrived in Childers. In a small town . . .”

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it,” he said harshly. “You took the memories from me. The least you can do is inform me how and why we were so foolish as to become lovers.”

She did owe him that much, she supposed, even though the telling would hurt. She’d made so many mistakes in her life. “It started a little more than two years ago,” she said. “My husband had been gone nearly three years, and I’d had a very bad day dealing with my stepson. He wanted to arrange another marriage for me. He wanted to make me a part of a business deal. I refused, and he was very unhappy with me.

“The wheel on my carriage needed repair, and you saw to it, as usual. When you were finished, I offered you something to eat, as you had worked right through suppertime and I knew you would be hungry.”

“You fed me yourself, instead of calling upon one of your servants to see to the menial task?”

“I did. It was late in the day, and everyone else was busy or had retired for the evening, and I . . . I didn’t want you to go just yet.”

“Why not?”

He was going to make her say it. “Because you are so incredibly beautiful, and I had little beauty in my life. You always smiled at me, and your smile was genuine and without motive. And yes, I knew you looked at me the way a man looks at a woman he desires—I am not blind to such things—but there seemed to be something more. Something I had missed in my life.”

“Who made the first move?”

“I’m not sure,” she whispered. “We were alone in the kitchen and you smiled at me, and it was different from other times. Maybe because we were alone, maybe because I’d had such a bad day and it was so nice. The smile was . . . inviting. It made my heart leap more than a little. When I took your emptied plate from you, our hands touched and it was startling. I felt like lightning had passed through my blood. I had never . . .” she stopped. How much should she say? How much was safe?

“You never what?” he prodded.

Perhaps she owed him honesty this time. Perhaps that was all she could do to make up for what she’d done. “I had never known desire until that moment. I was no virgin, no untouched maid. I’d been sold to a husband who would not be denied his rights.” Her voice was bitter as she remembered her unhappy marriage. “But desire, for me . . . it was unknown, it was new and exciting. So I kissed you. You were sitting there, and I held your plate in my hand and I bent down and pressed my lips to yours. It was an innocent enough kiss, a test of sorts. You kissed me back, and I was lost in sensations which were so new to me, which were so wonderful and exciting.

“We made love that very night. I secretly led you up the back stairway, telling myself all along that it would be only that one time, that I was curious and lonely and you were more than willing, so what was the harm? With your good looks and your strength and your manliness, I assumed you were an experienced lover, but it was your first time.” If she had known he’d never lain with a woman, perhaps she would’ve had more control that night.

“I was already in love,” Savyn said softly. “I was foolishly saving myself for you. I still don’t remember the details of that night, but I can imagine how happy I must’ve been.”

“You should not remember love,” Leyla said.

“You took away the memories of our relationship,” he said. “I was in love with you long before any sort of relationship began. You didn’t take that away. You could not.”

“I thought you said . . .” She remembered too well what he had said. He did not love her, and if he ever had, it was now gone. She’d killed it.

“I lied to hurt you,” he said harshly. “To hurt you and to set you free from the burden I have become. I cannot stay angry with you, Leyla, no matter how I wish to do so. I still plan to go my own way, once we reach the village. That has not changed. It’s best for you.”

Leyla scooted closer to Savyn and placed her head against his chest. She could hear his heartbeat, as she had so many times before, and she took comfort in the steady sound. “Perhaps, perhaps not.”

“You do not think I will do as I say?”

Hurting and scared, she still managed a smile. “I cannot tell you how many nights we said it was the last time. We both knew there was no future in our relationship, that if we ever got caught, it would be disastrous for both of us. And yet we continued to find ways to be together. One night I would vow to let you go, and the next I was meeting you in the stable, or you were sneaking up the back stairway, or I was opening my window to you. It’s not so easy to give up something you want so desperately, even if you know it’s not good for you or for someone else.” Someone you love—she could not say that.

“More than two years, and you did not catch a child,” Savyn said. “Why? Is one of us unable?”

“At first we were just lucky, I suppose, but soon after we began meeting, I started taking a potion to keep me from conceiving. It was the same potion I secretly took while my husband was living.”

“You don’t want babies?”

“I did not want his.”

It was likely too late for her, even if she did dream of children. She was thirty-four years old and had never given birth. Yes, she had the body of a younger woman, thanks to her witch’s blood, but still . . . thirty-four!

“Are you taking that potion now?” Savyn asked.

“No. I saw no need.” For the past two years she had taken what she wanted from Savyn, losing herself in him, taking her only joy in life from their time together. He made her laugh, he made her scream in pleasure, he made her dream of all the wonders of life she could never have, and yet the dream continued.

“And now?” he asked.

Leyla imagined the emperor’s sentinels searching for and finding what remained of the traveling party Trinity had decimated. She’d heard Hilde’s screams, so she knew the other woman was dead. Would they think the body in the carriage was that of Lady Leyla Hagan? Would the world believe she was gone? The very idea made her feel suddenly and wonderfully free.

“You might not agree, you might think I’m incredibly foolish, but I’m going to tell you what I want to happen next.”

“Tell me,” Savyn whispered, when she did not immediately continue.

All her life she had allowed choices to be made for her. She had bemoaned her lot in life and done nothing to change it. This was her chance, perhaps her last and only chance, to make her life what she wished it to be. Was she brave enough to say what was in her heart?

“If I could choose,” she said softly, “if I could have all that I desired . . . I would want us to stay here a while longer.”

“In this hut?” he asked, amazed. “Maybe I can’t see it now, but I do remember well what it looks like. It’s small and dirty and falling apart . . .”

“I’ve cleaned it very well,” Leyla interrupted. “And I’ve moved things around a bit, separating what’s useful from what’s not. The hut is not as bad as it was when we first found it.”

“Still, it’s hardly what you are accustomed to.”

She did not tell Savyn this place was not so very different from the house where she’d been born. “Not for very long, just . . . I want to take time enough for you to heal, to wait awhile and see if your sight will return, and I enjoy being alone with you. I like having you all to myself.”

“I’m blind.”

“You’re Savyn, and that’s all that matters to me.” How honest could she—
should
she—be? If she was going to be straightforward with him, perhaps she could not hold back, not anymore. “I would never let myself love you before, because I knew it was foolish. I told myself we could never be together, that we could never have more than stolen moments. I told myself again and again that it was wrong to keep you from finding a love you could proclaim to the world, a love you did not have to be ashamed of. We can be together now, if we wish.”

“Is that what you want?”

She was laying her heart out for a man who had reason to hate her, to squash her, to decimate her. It was more frightening than facing an assassin, more terrifying than not knowing what tomorrow would bring. “Yes, more than anything. I want us to stay here, as if we were man and wife and this was our home. I will call you my husband, if you’ll let me, and we will lie together each night. We will learn, in time, if what we have is more than forbidden passion, if it’s more than sex and laughter. True love survives tragedy, it lives through hardships as well as happiness. Maybe your sight will return, maybe it will not. I don’t care, and if you love me at all, you’ll allow me to help you. You’ll allow us to try to live a normal life, together.”

In the moment of silence that followed, Leyla held her breath and waited for Savyn to tell her again that he did not need or want her.

“We are not normal,” he said.

“True enough. You’re blind and I’m an old witch.”

“What a perfect pair we make,” he responded.

Leyla smiled. Savyn laughed. And then somehow she was in his arms and the night was not so black.

 

BELA
was breathless, though she did everything in her power not to let Merin see the weakness. They had traveled from the ledge where they’d spent that first night to a ragged passageway near the top of the mountain. The passage had been rough, but they had managed. They’d found water, they’d slept when it was necessary, they’d clung to one another in the night and not spoken of their uncertainties or of the child she might be carrying. The nights had been chilly and they’d had no fire to warm them, so they’d had to rely on one another for warmth. They’d held one another, but it had gone no further. She would not make the next move, not when Merin was so obviously hesitant.

In a matter of days, they’d traveled over the summit of Forbidden Mountain and down a rugged path to recover what they had left behind when they’d entered the small cave where Kitty had been discovered years ago. The last time she and Merin had been there they had found . . . well, she did not want to think of what they had found there. It was best to leave it all behind, to forget, for now. She tried to think ahead. They were not horribly behind schedule, as they had planned to have a few days to search this part of the mountain.

She felt as if they had been on this mountain far longer than they had. Three days up, a long a day inside the mountain, then another four days to get back to the original campsite. There would be another three days getting off the mountain and to the village, which by her reckoning would give them only three days to prepare for Nobel’s visit. They had been on this mountain more than long enough!

Bela was damn tired of sleeping on bare rock and eating the bitter leaves Merin had insisted on taking from the waterfall site. She had never thought to be glad to eat a cold, hard oatcake! Tonight she would sleep on a blanket, and perhaps, if they traveled to the creek and collected some wood, they could have a fire.

Their campsite was exactly as they had left it, except there was no longer an entrance to the mountain there. Rocks small and large blocked the way; the face of the mountain had changed here. Kitty was in there, deep in the rock and alone, hidden from the world for the time being.

Was it foolish to miss a sword the way one might miss a friend? Was it shallow of her to long to have the magic of the sword in her possession again? Not that she had ever possessed Kitty. Kitty might’ve possessed her. Yes, that was closer to the truth.

With their packs and blankets recovered, she and Merin made their way back down the mountain. There was still so much to be decided. It wasn’t as though she did not want Merin, and she knew very well that he wanted her. Men were so easy to understand in that respect, especially when they slept so close at night.

But was the wanting real? When they reached the village and were without the influence of the crystals which wanted their child, would they feel this same incredible draw to one another?