A Kiss in the Night (2 page)

"Do you renounce your pact with Satan and accept Jesus Christ as Savior—"

She knew the words. "Aye! Aye! With all my heart!"

The priest moved the noose to her head and she screamed, "No! No!" She shook her head in terror, the movement tearing the strap that held her tunic in place. "Please! I do not want to die! For mercy's sake! I'll take each moment more of life given by the torture of the flames! Let me burn alive!"

The bishop gasped, drew back slightly as it slapped. The other priests genuflected to ward off this certain sign that the devil spoke through the girl. Holding tight to the torch, the wide-eyed priest stared hard at the Bishop, awaiting his signal to ignite the wood beneath her. The bishop stared at the girl. Her tunic had slipped to her small waist, revealing the untouched white skin of her heaving bosom, her arresting, beautiful face twisted with the agony of these last moments.

The Bishop's eyes narrowed with outrage. He shot a glance at the priest and nodded. The priest lowered the torch. Firelight changed her silver eyes to red as she stared at the flames that would bring her death.

"Mother Mary, Mother Mary, Mother Mary!"

A tingling sensation shot through her limbs again. The flames leaped to life. Smoke streamed up the column and filled her chest. Tears poured from her closed eyes in protest.

There came another great crash and the gates opened at last. Mounted knights and foot soldiers rushed into the keep. The Gaillard army the bishop had sent for dashed viciously with the last throng of the archpriest’s army. With screams and shouts, the bishop and his priests rushed away from the flames to the castle keep. Thundering horses’ hooves clamored into the courtyard, more and more. The clang of swords sounded weak against the hungry ravishment of the fire. She couldn't see through the smoke. Gray and black clouds formed a swift-moving stream that shot right up to her face. She coughed and coughed, until she collapsed, her chest convulsing in desperation for the mercy of air.

A spark caught her hair and she screamed as it touched her tunic. No sound issued from her choked and scorched lungs.

Lord Paxton Gaillard Chamberlain sent his sword across the foot soldier's thighs, disarming him but leaving him mercifully alive when he turned back to see the girl through the smoke. Like a nightmare, he saw a young, half-naked girl bound to a pole and set on fire. His heart trembled violently as he forced his warhorse into the burning logs beneath her bare feet. Horses’ hooves crashed over burning wood. A sword sliced through the air and she was suddenly falling, falling into burning embers. A strong arm circled her waist and for one wild moment she imagined she flew up to heaven again. She was thrown stomach side down over a warhorse and she held onto the horn with all her strength, coughing, choking, her eyes burning with smoke.

The rescuer swung his sword in a wide arc, connecting to the metal of another sword, to send it flying through the air. From the corner of her eye she watched him thrust the sword through the edge of another knight's metal chest plate and withdraw it bloodied, leaving the knight screaming as he dropped to the ground.

His black-gloved hand came to the slender arch of her back. A tingling shot up her spine. An arrow hit the rider's chest, bouncing off his metal plates, slipping over her legs and to the ground.

She remembered little after that. Ashes and smoke swirled about her. The world turned vicious with the sound of screams, the furious clang of swords, the terrified neighs and thunder of hooves as the rider slew four men in his way. Curses and screams sounded in a symphony of terror. Within minutes the stables, pigpen, and kitchen were in smoldering ruins. Blood splattered across his horse and hit her legs. She squeezed her eyes tight.

From seemingly far away she heard the man who held her shout, "These fires smell of the foul deeds and our holy church. Hang the culprits from the battlements!"

"Aye, my lord!"

"Ready the remaining ranks. Send out half in search of my brother's wife. The other half goes to chase the retreating army! Let no one escape!'

He turned his horse through the gates and suddenly there was fresh air in her lungs, the sweetest mercy shot straight from heaven. She coughed and sputtered and coughed some more. The thick leather saddle massaged her midsection hard while the gallop of the warhorse slammed her against the saddle so that she couldn't think to understand what was happening. She couldn't think past the purest joy of drawing sweet air into her body.

Blue summer sky rose overhead. Soft white clouds scattered against the blue, oblivious to the march of human folly below. The horse headed to the wooded foothills behind the burning village. Trees began to appear, spruce and beech with long silver trunks and spiky tops. More and more brambles grew in bright green clumps, and in places these bushes reached over six feet. Green beds of undergrowth crowded beneath the shade of the very thickest part of the forest. The sound of running water filled the warm air.

The knight stopped his horse. He swung down and turned to help Linness. Too late. She was sliding off the horse already. Her feet touched the ground. Her silver eyes searched the familiar surroundings, as if to determine for a fact she was still on earth. When this miracle was perceived and felt, it washed her in an emotional ebullience so swift, so powerful, as to be a kind of madness.

She dropped to her knees, laughing and crying. She kissed the green earth ten times before she lifted her lovely eyes to the heavens as she thanked Mary over and over.

Then she started dancing.

She leaped up with the words, "I'm alive! I'm alive!" She turned in fast circles, laughing and crying. "I'm alive!"

Paxton's dark blue eyes watched the girl dance like a Gypsy in firelight. His heart still thundered violently, pumping the battle rage hard and fast through his tall frame. His broad chest heaved with the girl's own thirst for fresh air. He had not slept, eaten, or drunk for two days as he led his Gaillard knights in chase of the outlaws terrorizing the countryside. Now, in the aftermath of battle and for the first time in his warring life, he felt it. The battle lust.

The girl's very same madness filled him; the madness brought by having faced the certainty of death a dozen times, only to find now, quite unexpectedly, he was suddenly very much alive. And the need to celebrate this miracle came in an explosion of desire.

The explosion caught his breath and nearly knocked him over. Hot blood engorged his groin and tightened each second he watched this strange and magical wood creature fly across the forest floor. With her arms spread wide, her head tilted, her mysterious cloudy eyes filled with the joy of the living.

The girl’s loosened hair, singed at the ends, fell in a stream of dark ringlets down her back. Ash smudged the comely, flushed face, her eyes lit with madness and joy. She wore only the odd tunic of a condemned woman and the cloth hung about her small waist, down to her bare knees. Her legs were long, slim, and pale. Her bare breasts, dear Lord, were full and ripe, more tempting than heaven, brushed by the streams of her dark hair.

He removed first his blood-soaked gloves, before unlacing his heavy leather jerkin and the heavier haubert underneath. For the first time in his life he wished to God for a page or squire. He could not get his clothes off fast enough. She looked wild and mad and more beautiful than any maid he had ever seen. His hands trembled with his need to touch her, to cup the softness of her breast, to lay her down to the soft moss of the bank and part her thighs.

Linness felt Mary's blessing cascading over her like a stream of warm tingling caresses. She closed her eyes and held perfectly still, wiping at her wet cheeks, overwhelmed with gratitude. She was alive…

The strange stillness and whispers of the forest came to her in a sudden heightening of senses. She heard the running stream, the slow plod of the warhorse moving to it, the rustle of the leaves overhead. A merlin called out in flight above. She listened to the little noises of footsteps, soft fringed wing beats, her own pounding heart and deep breaths. Then she perceived his labored breaths.

She opened her eyes as her arms came over herself to protect her modesty. The knight stood a dozen paces away. The orange sun was setting behind him, casting him in a majestic glow. He stood unusually tall for a man, taller than any man she had seen before. Like all warriors, tightly corded muscles encased his towering frame and his bronze skin displayed more battle scars than stars set in the distant Milky Way. Red cuts and bruises were laid over these. His hair was light brown, streaked by the sun, and the only soft thing about him. His was not a handsome face, but she was struck by the compelling lure of its unnatural strength: his square-cut, too large chin, his hawkish nose and wide lips, thick brows that darted like wings over his black, widely spaced eyes. Absolutely black eyes. His bare chest had a mat of curly dark hair. His heavy clothes lay in a pile behind him: the leather metal-plated jerkin and chain mail, boots, helmet, and gloves. None of it mattered. Nothing mattered but the idea that presented itself to her.

In a whisper of wonder, she said, "Mary sent you."

The words were tossed up in the still air. She was unsure if he heard her. She was unsure if he was real…

The idea disappeared as her gaze riveted to the mound of his raised manhood beneath his breeches. He was enormous; he would kill her. She started to shake her head in protest that rose from her virgin's fear.

"Aye," was all he said. All he had to say.

She froze, watching with widening eyes as he stepped towards her.
Mary sent him, Mary sent him,
she told herself to keep herself still and give herself courage as he came to stand in front of her. He towered above her, a good foot taller, maybe more—and she was considered tall for a woman. She stared into his eyes, dark blue eyes, but appearing as black orbs reflecting her own pale and frightened face. Her senses filled with his scent made of fire and blood.

Her sight did not often come so forcefully.

It was like an opening into a kaleidoscope made of images drawn from his memories. First she saw him practicing the warring arts as a boy, then mounting his warhorse as a man. She saw the mangled bodies of his slain—and they were many. He was discussing wine vats with an old man he loved, a man with blue eyes that had lost their shine, but none of their wisdom. She saw him staring in wonder at fields of vines. He was studying books and paper by candlelight. Now, kneeling at the altar as he married a lady clad in yellow velvet. She saw the woman's death and felt his grief. There came to her mind a beautiful castle surrounded by farmland and vineyards, and she felt his love for this place. He was nursing a sick hound that he loved, then helping children climb a ladder to the hayloft where they swung from a rope he had made. He joked and teased his peasant cottars and made them laugh. He was singing as he bathed.

The string of images lasted a minute, no more, and yet she now saw the shadow of a man who loomed large over his life. A darkness that always hung around him. This shadow became a cold, bitter wind he had to fight constantly against. This shadow was his brother.

He felt the intimate probe of her eyes. Silvery, catlike, startling eyes. Beauty was considered blond, blue-eyed, dainty like a wildflower. She was the opposite. A steamy-eyed witch-child, sculpted with flesh and bone, made of earth and wind and fire.

He felt a stab of raw desire as he stood there staring down. "Will you fight me, witch-child?"

The question was asked with incongruent gentleness. For a moment she lost herself to the compelling lilt of his voice, French, aristocratic, deep, as his callused hands came to her slender shoulders. The touch of the large hands went through her like a shock. She drew a sharp breath, her eyes darting over his face with confusion. She closed her eyes a moment, and struggled to find her courage.

She shook her head. Yet she asked, "Would it matter?"

A serious question. She saw him search his conscience, and what he said next made her know he was heaven-sent. "Aye, it would matter." His hands caressed the sculpted muscle of her slim back, and he leaned over to breathe deeply. The scent of lilacs and smoke was in the dark hair. "I would not want to hurt you. I don't think I could, and yet, my sweet temptress, and yet..."

He never finished. He swung her up in the air as if she were made of straw, and carried her to a mossy bank near the stream. Bracing her back with his arm, he lowered her against the green backdrop and came partially over her.

The press of their bodies brought on a jolt that left them both speechless. He closed his eyes, struggling up through the sweet assault on his senses. Raw, hot sensations washed over them, so many millennia removed from the Abbey of Sauvage, the ravages of the flames, or the bloodied battle fought and won there. So many millennia removed from anything on earth.

She stared up in astonishment, waiting for him to explain this magic. Excitement rushed through her veins like a potent fuel, pumped by her pounding heart and quick breaths. He brought her hands above her head and held them there with one of his own. She struggled to get enough air, and each intake of breath riveted her consciousness to the naked muscle and heat against her, the press of her breasts against his bare chest, his hard shaft against her side, his thigh pressed between hers.

His breath came hard and fast, too. His hair fell in a riot of curls around his handsome face. For a moment she thought he struggled with the same astonishment, but no, his pause was a desperate measure to catch the wild race of his desire. His struggle only grew as he drank the sight of her dark hair spread over the moss, studied the bewitching eyes and the beckoning of her parted lips, and felt the thrust of her breasts against his chest, a sudden flood of heat as she shifted beneath his weight.