Heather Graham (3 page)

“Well, sir, you came for me. I was duly stopped in my efforts. And I know that you will judge me and sentence me as you see fit—you condemned me when I was innocent. At least this time I am guilty of hoping to see King Jean live! But as you are in such a wretched mood, I am well aware that there’s nothing else I can say to you this evening. I cannot apologize for what I meant to do. I have never lied to you about my loyalties or—emotions.” But she
had
lied. She’d never let him know that trying to remain loyal to old vows had slowly become harder and harder, that she had long loved him as fiercely as she fought him.

She certainly couldn’t tell him such a thing now. And indeed, she needed to tread very carefully. She had crossed him before, and paid the price, but she had never seen him quite this angry.

Don’t think of it! she warned herself.

Head high, she started walking across the room. He had turned his back on her in anger once before. If only she could escape his fury now.

He watched her for several moments, not making a move, one brow arched high with amazement.

But she didn’t make the door.

“Oh, no, milady! You’re not leaving tonight!” he assured her, his long strides allowing him to beat her soundly to the door. He blocked it with the formidable wall of his body.

She stepped back, struggling anew for some dignity, pride, and control.

And courage.

“I should flay you to within an inch of your life!” he snapped out so suddenly that she jerked back, biting into her lip.

“I had to—”

“Ah, yes, the hell with the English blood in you—you had that French vow to keep! Well, that somewhat explains why you would so wretchedly use the very king within whose household you were raised.”

“Then give me over to the king!” she cried out, alarmed at how desperately she pleaded. “Let’s end this—”

He shook his head slowly. “End it? We’ve barely begun.”

“Surely,” she mocked, “you are needed elsewhere. You are the king’s champion. Have you no enemies to challenge tonight? No dragons to slay?”

He smiled. “No dragons this evening for me, my pet. Just one for you. Me.” His glittering gold eyes narrowed dangerously. “Tell me, milady, just what did you write to that dolt, Langlois? You had taken no vows? No marriage was consummated?”

Color stained her cheeks. “I merely said that I needed his assistance.”

“You were willing to lie with him to reach the French king?” he demanded.

She shook her head, blood draining from her face. “You were there! You know that I was not—”

“Ah, yes, my love, thank God that I am aware you were not willing to give anything away—for free.”

“How dare you—”

“How dare you ask?” he demanded, cutting her off, his voice deep and husky with fury.

She was still for a moment. The room seemed tight and small.

Once, she had been determined to deny him. Maybe she had been afraid even then of the tempest he would create within her heart. Maybe she had always known that if he touched her but once …

Adrien continued. “You seduced him with promises of your hand in marriage. Sweet Jesu, milady, but you speak of vows! I remember the vows you made to
me
, quite clearly, if you do not. Every vow.”

He was walking toward her. It was all that she could manage to keep from screaming aloud, from running madly and wildly, only to slam herself against the wall.

“I remember the vows!” she whispered.

He stood just inches from her, and she felt his tremendous strength and heat as if he touched her. His eyes raked her with their golden fire and now she did move back again, just inches, yet he followed her. She stood to the far wall and he set a palm against it, leaning closer to her still, and smiling once again.

“Ah, milady, do you know what astounds and dismays me most?” he demanded.

She wet her lips warily. “What?”

“That you could say that our marriage had not been consummated. Indeed, I remember even that first night so very well!”

“Aye!” she cried, newly alarmed, for he had thought her guilty of treachery that night as well. She decided she must go on the offensive. “You threatened to prove to that rabble tonight that our marriage was real. You call yourself a knight! You speak of chivalry—”

“I seldom speak of chivalry. And I merely informed the fools that a midwife could be summoned to prove that you were no sweet, innocent lass!”

She gasped. “You would have had me—”

“I would have given nothing to those wretched fools, milady, even to prove to your too-amorous but well-besotted Frenchman that you are
legally
and in every way very much a wife—
my
wife. But there is something I do most earnestly intend to give you!”

She swallowed hard, fought for courage, narrowed her eyes. “And what is that, milord tyrant?”

“A jog to your memory, milady wife. I had not realized I had so failed in my husbandly duties that you could forget such a thing as the consummation of your marriage.”

“Oh, you fail at nothing!” she cried out. “And my memory is just fine. I haven’t forgotten a thing—”

She broke off, gasping as she found her blanket wrenched from her and thrown to the floor. She recognized the glitter in his eyes as more than anger and she caught her breath in dismay, thinking of the times when she had longed for him, ached for him, and yet …

He would not forget what she had done tonight, and he would not forgive her, and she couldn’t even fathom where they would go from here. She hadn’t been his choice for a wife; her memory, especially now, seemed far more keen than he could ever fathom. As seconds flew between them, she felt the years cascading past, the pain, the anguish, the Black Death, the loss of so very much to them both.

“No …” she whispered.

“Damn you,” he told her.

She tried to wrench away. He would not allow it.

“You will remember who you are.”

“And to whom I belong?” she cried in protest.

“Aye, lady, indeed!

His lips touched hers. They burned, they were fire, like his eyes … they ignited the seeds of desire deep inside her, aroused her mercilessly. His palm cradled her cheek, his lips and tongue caressed her mouth. She closed her eyes, aware of nothing but her senses for several seconds …

Dear God, no, he would never forgive her this time!

His lips broke from hers.

She struggled from a fog, trying to remind herself that she knew him well, that he held her in contempt and distrust for this night’s work, and that she would be made to pay.

“Please …”

She heard the word, and was surprised to realize that she had issued the plea herself.

For a moment, he was equally startled. “Ah, lady? Beg mercy, would you?”

The taunt in his voice brought her eyes flying open full upon his.

“Not in a—”

“In a pig’s eye?” he suggested, using her term.

“You are the worst of knaves and I’ll never beg anything of you!” she promised, pushing wildly against his chest to free herself.

But his hands were suddenly upon her wrists. His eyes were burning into hers once again, and they were dead still together while the flames snapped and crackled in the hearth.

“Indeed, milady, tonight, by God, you will please me! For I want everything that I have remembered, the hungers of so many nights appeased. Aye, please me. Ease away the rage. I demand it!”

She found herself up and in his arms, and falling into the softness of the bed that had awaited them, his body wickedly hot as he pressed her nakedness down into the coolness of the linen sheets. Again his lips caught hers. With pressure now, with fierce demand. She tried to twist from his assault, felt the liquid flame as his tongue pressed past the barriers of her lips and teeth, entering into her, filling her sweetly. His hands raked over her naked thighs and hips, rose to cover and caress her breasts. His weight held her still; his hands commanded a magic of equal power, his lips seduced with ruthless hunger. He rose above her, casting aside tunic and shirt with an urgency that tore the latter, yet he didn’t seem to notice. She swallowed again, feeling the tremors fill her that had from the start when she gazed upon his body. He was bronzed and scarred upon the shoulder and chest, incredibly beautiful nonetheless, for his taut muscles were temptation in themselves, the copper sheen of the fire that danced upon them as haunting as the flicker of flame that drew a moth to a fire’s deadly heat.

She would not touch, she would not fall, she would not burn in the flames …

But she would, for he drew her hand to his chest, where it lay upon the thunder of his heart, the softness of the crisp red-gold hair. And she met his eyes still when he drew her hand ever downward, enclosing her slender, trembling fingers around the great shaft, life and fire itself. His body shuddered massively, yet his eyes pinned her still and when she would have gasped and drawn her touch away, his fingers curled around her own and a half-smile curved his lip.

“Lest you forget!” he whispered, and she discovered herself meeting his eyes, trembling within, and longing for him in the most traitorous way. Yet his gaze held her until he eased himself downward, parted her thighs, met her eyes once again. She cried out, trying to twist away again, knowing his intent. There was no escape. He ravaged her intimately with tongue and touch until it seemed that she plummeted into an abyss, writhing, gasping, and crying out again …

Burning in the flames.

He rose above her, entered her. His fingers entwined with hers at either side of her head as the fullness of him thrust into her, deeper, deeper still, deeper again. She closed her eyes, yet felt his fierce gaze upon her, and opened them again.

“Lest you forget
me
…” he whispered.

She could never forget. Never, never.

Not this tempest, not this fire. Not the man, tension and steel above and within her now, not this reckless beat and thrust, climbing, thundering, demanding …

Sweet, mindless pressure spiralled within her. Honeyed pleasure doused her body and soul even as she felt his last shuddering thrust impale her, the stream of his seed fill her. She closed her eyes tightly, dismayed by the hot tears that threatened to spill as he moved away from her.

Already, he was rising.

Tonight he had come for her.

But her fate had to be decided. Come the daylight, he had to ride to battle, and she was a traitor.

It was war. As it had always been, from the first time they had met. Aye, she had known him forever. Perhaps she had loved him just as long. Been his enemy as long.

Alas, no!

Longer.

For war had begun before they met, before she was even born.

And thus their roles had been cast.

The Castle of Aville

Fall, 1336

“I
KNOW HOW TO
breach the walls,” Adrien MacLachlan said.

No one heard him. Edward was in a rage. Sweeping his great mantle behind him, the towering Plantagenet king shouted again in fury. “By God, this is madness! I, Edward, the warrior king, cannot breach walls held by a woman!”

Around his campfire, the king’s most illustrious knights held silent against his wrath, deeply frustrated themselves. They were muddied, weary, bloodied, and cold. It had seemed a simple enough measure to take Aville, a small fortress situated on land within Edward’s own duchy. A fortress held by Lenore, daughter of the late Comte Jon d’Aville, a second cousin to the Valois king.

It was rumored that the French king hid within the walls, and thus, King Edward’s preoccupation with taking the fortress, despite the countess’s talent with boiling oil, flaming arrows, and other methods of defense.

“Can’t someone give me advice?” the king demanded.

“Sire!” Adrien cried. “I know how to breach the walls.”

Edward, hearing the boy at last, spun around. His ward, the Scottish lad, stood at the entry to the tent.

The boy was just ten, but he was already tall and showed great promise of strength in the breadth of his shoulders. His golden eyes were steady and shrewd, and along with his growing prowess with arms, he had a keen desire for knowledge, spending many of his free hours with his head buried in books. He also showed great courage, Edward thought, to come upon this gathering at his tender age—and offer advice.

“Ah, the Scots lad is going to advise us!” Brian of Perth groaned angrily. He was in a foul mood, having received a burn on his shoulder that day. “Get on out of here, lad!”

“Wait!” the king commanded, his cold blue gaze putting Brian in his place. “The Scots have been known to teach us many a lesson! Come in, boy. I’ll listen to any piece of tactical advice at this time!”

Adrien MacLachlan stepped into the center of the circle, closer to the fire. He kept his head high, his shoulders straight, aware that he must give an impression of wisdom and strength far greater than his years allowed. His father had taught him well.

“A poor man, even one with noble blood, must be a strong one, boy. If you would survive these troubled times, my lad, I would create a great warrior of you. Most importantly, impoverished men
—
aye, even defeated men, such as ourselves!
—
must excel, and thus, in the end, become the victorious. Never accept defeat, my son. Not when you fear a stronger opponent. Not when you have taken the first blow. Never surrender, for the only surrender there can be is death itself. Fight hard, boy, fight with your wits as well as your brawn. Never be afraid to learn. Then fight for honor, fight to carve a place for yourself in this fine harsh world of chivalry and death. Fight hard, and so, my boy, you will conquer even kings!”

Not long ago, Carlin, chieftain of the clan MacLachlan, had said those words to him. Grandson of a Scottish earl, kin to the family of the late, great Robert the Bruce, he was then suffering the defeat of the forces of Robert’s son, David II, as Edward of England set another pretender, another Baliol, upon the throne of Scotland. Because of that unrest, it seemed to Adrien that he had been born fighting. Constant battle with the English had stripped them of crops and livestock. Baliol was on the throne, but the MacLachlans fought for David II.