Conquer the Night (22 page)

She landed on the bed again but rose on her knees, still in defiance. “Do it, fine! Just do it, try it in front of the villagers and see if—”

“If they don't rise against me, so that my men can hack them down like so many armed enemies?”

“Oh!”

That time she slammed his chest. And she didn't have to rise to try to make a departure again, because he dragged her up, one arm around her midriff, and started for the door himself.

“No, no! What are you doing? Stop, you can't, you can't! Stop, you must—”

He was halfway out the door. She grasped the door frame. “Please stop; I don't want more dead men. I … damn you!”

She took a wild swing at him and managed to connect hard with his jaw.

She gasped, stunned at the feel of her knuckles hitting bone—then panicked. He was dead still for a moment, as stunned as she. Then he plucked her up by the waist, lifting her back into the room. He slammed the door shut with a vengeance that reverberated. He reached for her, dragging her toward him, half lifting her then, half dragging her, approaching the bed.

“There is an alternative; we can deal with this right here!”

“What? No … I didn't mean … I … I … stop … I …”

In horror, she found that he was sitting, wrenching her over his knees, tugging at her tunic and undergown.

“No!” she shrieked, struggling against him. She managed to slide back; she was on her knees looking up at him, her face flooded with crimson color.

Shivering, she lowered her eyes.

“I-I don't want anyone fighting for me, dying for me.”

“Were you expecting someone to burst into the bedroom here?”

Her eyes rose to his. He arched a brow. “Kinsey Darrow? Do you think he's coming now to rescue you, that you'll get to see me hanged, drawn and quartered, and disemboweled?”

“No!”

He was quiet for a moment, studying her. “Nay!” he said softly. “You don't think that's going to happen … but it's an enjoyable concept, eh?”

“What do you want from me?” she whispered somewhat desperately.

“Indeed, what do I want from you?” he murmured, then rose. He strode toward the fire and remained there for several minutes, watching the flames. “Surrender, unconditional surrender!” he said softly, then moved away. “For this wretched night, at the very least!”

He began to disrobe, his actions unhurried. His sword and scabbard were carefully placed on a trunk; his long stretch of tartan was folded. He made no movement toward her then; she might not have existed. She should have inched away to a distant corner of the room; she might have kept far from him. Yet she found herself asking in a whisper, “Why do you hate me so much?”

He was still for a moment. Firelight played off his naked shoulders. Muscle and sinew seemed to ripple in shades of crimson and gold. His head was lowered, and she could read nothing of his expression.

“Because you are—”

“Don't!” she protested.

But he continued. “Because you are Kinsey Darrow's,” he said.

“But I am not!” she insisted passionately. She rose, carefully backing away from him. “People do not own people!”

“You think not? Among your English, lady, wives are but property.”

“Wives bring property to a marriage.”

He still hadn't glanced her way, but continued to undress as casually as if they had long shared chambers, maintaining his argument as he did so. He cast shoes and hose aside, his patience coming to its limit as he glared at her. “Aye, and you brought Darrow quite a bit, didn't you? The vast income that allowed him to train and arm a legion of men. And it is said that you are a favorite of King Edward, and would goad Kinsey into any action that would please Edward.”

“And you believe that?” she whispered. She did not turn away from him.

“Should I not?”

“I am not a murderess.”

“Are your hands stained with blood? Perhaps not—though you are quite adept at handling a sword. An interesting talent for so innocent a lass.”

“I learned at court for the entertainment of the lessons.”

“There was no one to show you needlework?” he inquired dryly.

“I learned many things at court.”

“Aye, King Edward's court?” he inquired.

She lowered her head.

“I learned many things at Alexander's,” he murmured. “Including the fact that no man is greater than the country, though the country can be run by the dictates of one man. Edward did not murder every man, woman, and child at Berwick—but he gave the order, and thus he is drenched in all that blood. Indeed, the rivers of blood that flow here are all of his doing, whether he strikes the blows that kill or not.”

“What is it I am guilty of, then? A betrothal made in my name?”

“You have never sworn fealty to King Edward?” he demanded, sitting upon the bed. He stared at her a long moment before bending to blow out the bedside candles. The room darkened, but the glow of the fire continued to grant both light and shadow.

“Aye, but that—”

“And you will wed Lord Kinsey Darrow, knowing the blood that he has shed?” he inquired, throwing back linen sheets and furs to settle into the bed.

She stood still, not answering as he turned his back on her. She felt a strange sense of weary exhaustion sweep over her. There seemed no way to explain to this man that she had grown up as Edward's subject, but that no matter what loyalty she had sworn, there was, in life, the matter of humanity—and a difference between right and wrong, battle and brutality, warfare and murder. Yet how could he condemn her when so many of the great Scottish barons still feuded with one another, when they were willing to kill each other for the crown, and when the most powerful men in the country vacillated continually in their loyalties, wanting to honor the tradition of Scotland, but ever fearful of Edward's strength and power, and fearful they would lose their holdings?

He remained with his back to her. She had been dismissed, so it seemed.

“Surrender the night, Kyra; let it go.”

She lowered her head and said softly, “Nay, please let
me
go.”

He remained still for so long that she thought he hadn't heard her. Then he turned, staring at her from the dark shadows on the bed. “What is it that I'm doing to you that is so brutal and so cruel?”

She couldn't see them but she felt his eyes. “I don't know what will happen, sir, from one moment to the next.”

“Ah, lady, then you stand as all Scotland!”

She walked to the hearth and stood before the fire. She felt the warmth of the blaze against her face, heard the crackling of the kindling within. “I never know when you will choose to put on a pretense of courtesy, when you will hate me for the actions of others, when you will lose patience and seize me up—”

Her words broke off, for she heard something, a whisper of swift movement on the air. He was up and striding toward her quickly with sure purpose. She cried out softly as he reached her, lifting her into his arms with a determined force that brooked no opposition. But when her eyes met his, she was surprised to find no anger. In fact, something within her froze the protest she would have issued.

“I would not torture you with wonder as to when this would happen, my lady. So I have seized you up; courtesy is lost. Come to bed, because I am weary still, and anxious for comfort.”

“But I am not comfort.”

“Tonight you will be.”

“You're wrong; I do not give in so easily. I will never surrender, even for the night.”

“I don't believe you,” he said softly.

She burned. And why should he? She had not fought him so desperately before….

“Tonight you must believe me.”

“If I do or do not, it will not matter. I will continue the conquest, and as before, my lady, offer no quarter. That's what you need to hear, isn't it?”

“No! It has nothing to do with what I need to hear!” she told him, but her arms were around him as he carried her.

If he dropped her, she assured herself, she could break bones. She had to hold fast to him.

“Then why fight?”

“Because it's wrong; you're wrong.”

“I don't think that you really hate me so much.”

“Ah, but, sir! You loathe me.”

“I loathe many things. But not you. Nay, not you, not at this moment!”

She had protested, but she was too weary to struggle against him.

Her words were the best fight she could manage, and though she wanted to deny it, her fight was all for her pride.

Somehow, at that moment, it felt ridiculously good to be held by her enemy. She was sorry that he was the foe, and sorrier still that any gentle touch from him would mean less than nothing—she was Kinsey Darrow's, and that was all, like the castle, the produce, the riches here.

He laid her down and stretched beside her, and the firelight flickered against the stone walls of the castle, and strange patterns and shapes were cast there, and the room glowed in night currents from the blaze in mists of crimson and blue. His fingers brushed her cheeks, and suddenly he was leaning over her, staring into her eyes, studying her face. She wondered what he could see, for the room was so deep in shadows, and yet she was aware of the shape of his face, and the length of his form, and she closed her eyes. Even then she was aware of his heat, his scent, and the force of his length beside her own. She was acutely aware of him, of the linen of the sheets beneath her, the tickle of the fur pelts that covered the bed. She was so aware of his touch. Aye, she had closed her eyes, but she did not shut him away at all, but brought him closer, and it was difficult to breathe, and she wanted to escape, and …

There was something so compelling about the way that he touched her. Just her face. The whisper of his fingers against her cheekbones. The pad of his thumb stroked her lower lip, and then she felt his mouth against her own. A sound formed in her throat, and perhaps she managed the slightest moan of protest. But his lips were firm, not brutal, forming to hers, parting them thus, and his tongue seemed to invade with a sensual stroke of pure liquid fire.
Twist away
. Aye, she tried, surely, but his palms fell on either side of her cheeks, he seemed to quest and drink from her lips, and his kiss was slow and leisurely and she was not fighting it … rather the sensations seemed engulfing, like heady wine, sweeping her into a spiral that whispered of wonders untold. When his mouth parted from hers at last, she inhaled on a long and ragged breath, her lips remaining parted and ever so slightly swollen, cold now to the air in the room, and hungry, and she still knew the taste of him. She hadn't wanted to open her eyes; it was so easy to deny him in self-imposed darkness. But her lashes betrayed her, streaking upward, and he was studying her again, and there was something deep in the cobalt of his eyes that first made her want to run … and then want to stay. His fingers threaded into her hair, and he murmured then, “Darkness is always best, isn't it, my lady?”

But before she could respond, he was kissing her again, and there was a subtle change to his touch. Though not brutal, it demanded; where his tongue had quested, it now invaded. She lay busily trying to field and fend sensation when all was already lost. He awakened something within her. He was the enemy and he should have repelled her, but rather he seduced.

And she wanted to be held.

She felt his hands upon her, at the laces of the brocade tunic she wore, at the ties of the linen undergown. Her fingers curled around his, yet each time his lips parted from hers, they returned, and when she would have stopped him he paused, and stroked her cheek again, feathered his touch over her face, found her hands again. She wasn't conscious of exactly when she discovered that her clothing had melted away like so much ice at the coming of spring; she knew only that when she shivered, he touched her, that she was close to him for warmth. The memory that she owed it to herself, king, and country to fight him stirred within her, yet she was still able to tell herself it would not matter. Would it?

She had used this argument before.

Yet could she have changed anything?

Again, she realized she would never know, for she was being seduced, and she was allowing it to be so.

And more …

She did not lie still.

She did not tolerate him in an effort to save her life.

She
anticipated.…

She felt his lips against her throat, and the pulse of her own heartbeat in the slender vein that beat against his kiss. The tip of his tongue teased her flesh, a brushstroke of blue fire, and it seared a path between her breasts, then followed around the fullness of one, a slow, flickering voyage, until his caress centered upon the peak of her nipple. The graze of his teeth, the brush of his tongue, the fullness of his kiss played there, and through that touch, streaks of lightning seemed to enter within her. It was her breast he so encompassed with the liquid fire of his mouth, yet the flames he ignited seemed to burn deep into her being, to find a center like the sun, radiate there, burn back into each limb and each inch of flesh, mind, soul, being. She stirred against him, murmuring, no words, just whispers that were as incoherent as the thoughts and desires arising, all that she struggled against, all that she struggled to find. She meant to protest in some small way; her fingers fell upon his shoulders, and through that simple touch she felt the fire that burned in him, felt the ripple and pulse of muscle, scent, motion, and life, vital beneath her. She meant to press him away; she pressed him downward. Her nails stroked over him; her fingers dug. She twisted, turned, tossed her head upon the pillow, and murmured anew. Protests … oh, God …

His tongue laved her navel. His fingers stroked down the length of her thigh, rubbed over her belly. Her hips twitched and moved. The hard heel of his palm moved low on her abdomen. Her fingers moved in his hair. She gasped in a breath, moving, rocking, writhing, twisting away … twisting back. His touch sliced between her thighs, his thumb pressed, found entry, rotated, caressed. And then his mouth was upon her, low, intimate. Tongue teasing, penetrating. Searing wet heat seemed to burn straight into her. She arched and writhed in protest and astonishment, in protest and on fire, the length of her crimson, and still … such a sea of lightning streaking through her. Her fingers clutched convulsively, burying themselves in his hair. He clutched her wrists, breaking her hold, never breaking the intimacy of his seduction. Words tore from her then, and still they meant nothing, cries and whispers in the blue shadows that played upon the castle walls, and nothing more. Then suddenly he was on top of her, and her limbs were parted, and he sank deeply within her, and again his lips caught her own, and the intimacy between them was in his kiss. His fingers entwined with her own; he drew her hands above her head and pinned them there, and met her eyes, and her breathless stare, as he began to move.