Her Dark Knight (14 page)

“Have you told your husband?”

She shook her head. “He would not believe me. He puts his trust in Lucien and would not like to know his trust is misplaced.”

“Then he is a fool. Everyone makes mistakes. Especially when it comes to someone’s character.”

“Not my husband.”

“Most especially your husband.” Christien stepped back. “You must learn to fight Lucien. If you cannot avoid him, then you must fight him so he will never approach you again.”

“I try to stay away. I’m very vigilant.”

“What happened today?”

“I thought I was alone but he must have followed me.” Her gaze jumped to the bed and the clothes Lucien had thrown on the mattress. Her suppressed fear broke free. How had it come to this? Such a hopeless situation. Much like her life since coming here.

Lucien had carefully cultivated his reputation of a man in control of everything and with an answer to every question. To many of the men, including her husband, Lucien was all-knowing and all-seeing. He was the closest thing to God here. Lucien wouldn’t destroy everyone’s belief. He would keep quiet, but he would silently seethe and he would come back.

Fighting him wasn’t going to save her, merely delay the inevitable. She looked at Christien, at the hope in his face and remembered a time when she’d been as hopeful, before everything she believed in was destroyed.

“Let me help you,” he said softly.

She was so tired. So weary of her life. Danger lurked everywhere she turned—from her husband, from Lucien. Even Christien was a danger to her heart. And her love for him was a danger to her well-being if her husband were to discover them. And he would eventually.

“Madelaine?” He searched her eyes. His lips turned down. “What is wrong,
mon couer?
”

“Hold me,” she whispered, swaying beneath the gravity of her thoughts.

Christien pulled her to him in a tight hug. She melted into him, leaning her body against his, all of his dips and angles, the hard muscles and warmth fitting into hers. She closed her eyes and inhaled his scent. Man, horse, leather, sunshine. His rough tunic scratched her cheek and she rubbed her face against it. Christien’s hold suddenly became something more. Less exuberant, more tender. His arms cradled her instead of simply holding her, his hands moved slowly up her back, his fingers exploring.

“Madelaine,” he murmured, his voice husky.

“Mmm.”

She wrapped her arms around him, letting her hands explore as his did. His back was roped with tight muscles that flexed beneath her fingers. He was all sinew and strength.

She pressed her thighs to his, luxuriating in the strength of him. If she were strong like Christien she wouldn’t have to worry about fighting Lucien or her husband.

She tilted her head up to find Christien’s silver eyes looking down at her, sparking with longing and need. His lips parted, little puffs of breath fanning her cheek. She touched those lips with the tip of her finger, memorizing the softness. Her stomach clenched and a heaviness developed between her legs. A restlessness overtook her and she stood on tiptoe, pressing her lips to his.

At first he didn’t respond, then something broke loose inside him and he groaned. Cupping the back of her head with his large hand, he urged her forward, his mouth opening, his tongue touching the seam of her lips, prodding them open.

In the past, she’d been disgusted when her husband wanted her to kiss open-mouthed, but now she wanted Christien inside her in any way she could get him. She opened eagerly, hungrily, sucking his tongue in and causing him to moan. The sound vibrated through her, making her move her legs to ease the pressure between them.

The rigid outline of his erection pressed against her belly. Just one time she wanted to know how it could be between a man and a woman who loved each other. She’d heard the maids whisper and understood it could be so much more than what she’d experienced. She wanted that with Christien.

But he pulled away and took a deep breath, holding her at arm’s length. “We must stop.”

“Why?”

“’Tis not right.”

“I want you to show me how beautiful it can be. I want to see the beauty, Christien. I want to know it’s more than pain and degradation. That it’s more than being controlled and humiliated.”

He closed his eyes and groaned. His arms still held her at a distance but they were shaking with the effort. “I would like nothing more than to show you how beautiful it can be. But I cannot.”

“I see.” She looked away, embarrassed she had asked. Mortified he had rejected her.

“Madelaine. Love. Please do not think I don’t want you. You have already witnessed the proof. I want you very much, but there is nothing I can offer you. You are married to a brutal man who will kill us if he discovered our transgressions.”

“Is not being alone with you in this room a transgression? Have I not already broken my wedding vows? Don’t you understand, Christien? I don’t care anymore. He has destroyed everything I once honored and cherished.”

“Shhhh.” He pressed his fingers against her lips. “Do not say such things.”

She broke away from him and paced across the room. “Look at me, Christien. Look at me and tell me what you see. I am but a mere woman. You can teach me to fight, but it changes
nothing.
I will still live in this castle between two men—one who hates me and abuses me and one who hates me and wants me. I can fight, but in the end we both know what the outcome will be. I am a walking corpse.”

“Stop this!” He took an angry step forward. His fingers curled into fists at his sides, but she knew Christien well enough not to be afraid. He would never hit her. He was too honorable to ever hit a woman. “We will think of something.”

She opened her arms wide. “What? What can we do? Will you take me with you? How long before he discovers us gone and sends his men after us? How far will we get before we are found and brought back? What will happen to us then, Christien? You will be killed most certainly but not before he tortures you. And I…” She was unable finish her thought. It mattered not, they both knew what her fate was.

“Don’t you see?” She took a step toward him. “I’m already damned.”

Christien stepped off the elevator and loosened his tie with a weary sigh. He’d left Lucheux’s office and returned to the club in time to help Sabine open. Normally Wednesday nights weren’t busy, but of course tonight was the exception. He’d been running nonstop since walking through the doors.

Even though Madelaine was constantly in his thoughts, he purposely didn’t check on her. When he left her with the vague excuse he had business to attend to—he had no intention of telling her he was going to speak to Lucheux—she’d looked beaten down, exhausted, weary beyond her endurance and haunted. He thought it best to leave her to sleep. He hoped she took the doctor’s advice and rested. Even though she was recovering well enough to leave the hospital, he was still concerned by how slowly she moved and how stiff she was. He hated that she was in such pain.

The elevator doors silently closed behind him and he rolled the tension from his shoulders, glad the night was over.

His home was dark with only strategically placed night lights illuminating enough to see where furniture was so he didn’t trip. He made his way down the hall, tired, but anxious to see her.

Quietly he pushed open the door to her room and peered in. She was lying in the bed, the covers drawn to her chin, eyes closed, breathing deep. Fast asleep. Something inside him loosened, a tension he hadn’t realized he’d been carrying. He’d put a man on each exit to his quarters and trusted his men implicitly to keep her safe, but until now he didn’t realize how much he had to see for himself that she was all right.

He wanted to crawl into bed beside her, to slide into her wet heat, to kiss the hollow of her throat and make her squirm beneath him. The thought had him hard and his blood turned sluggish. Instead he forced himself to step back into the hall and silently pull the door closed.

Much to his irritation, she was being stubborn, refusing to take the pain medication the doctor prescribed even though she was hurting. If he could take the pain from her and make it his own, he gladly would, but such was not his burden to bear and so he vowed to ease whatever suffering he could. And that meant leaving her alone.

Pulling his tie off, he entered his bedroom and suddenly stopped, his senses on alert.

Someone had been in his room.

He stood in the doorway, his gaze sliding from the bed to his dresser, to the open closet door, to the bookcase and back to the bed. Nothing had been disturbed as far as he could tell with a cursory look, but he knew someone had been in here. Every instinct told him so.

Only Madelaine had been in his living quarters today. His guards would have told him if someone else had entered.

He walked to the dresser and opened a drawer. His clothes were undisturbed. To the naked eye, nothing had been touched in his closet. His gaze roamed the room and fell on the trunk shoved into the corner and nearly forgotten until now. The contents of the trunk had followed him from place to place for centuries. The original had fallen apart long ago, replaced with another and still another, but the contents stayed the same. Why they survived and the trunks didn’t, he wasn’t sure. It’d been years, nigh on a century since he opened it, but he knew exactly what was inside.

His gut clenching, he slowly lifted the lid. ’Twas as if his buried grief had been lurking inside and the raised lid set it loose. Like a whirlwind it nearly knocked him over. This was why he never opened the lid. The pain was almost unbearable, but he stood against it, weathered it like he had so many times before.

With his mind raw and bleeding, he knelt and touched the garments within.
Hers
lay at the top. He had to close his eyes against the wave of pain. He remembered exactly what she looked like in it, how it molded to her gentle curves and flowed over her hips. The garment wasn’t the most elegant nor best made—her husband would not allow her such luxuries—but on her it looked magnificent.

Christien clenched his teeth and hung his head, cursing his mind for not being able to forget. ’Twas as if he’d lost her just yesterday, the pain was so acute.

When his emotions were under control, he sat back on his heels and withdrew his hand from the fabric. Even though it’d been decades since he opened the lid, he knew without a doubt that her gown hadn’t been on top. So how had it come to be there?

She searched through your bedchamber.

Looking for what? Proof of what he tried to tell her? There wasn’t any better proof than her own gown. But would it be enough?

He closed the lid and stood, suddenly needing to see her, to touch her, to know she lived, that she was real and not a figment of his imagination.

He made his way to her bedroom and knelt beside the bed. Her face was beyond pale with dark circles beneath her eyes and a bruise on her chin. Her cheeks were wet with tears. Behind closed lids, her eyes moved back and forth. Once again she was immersed in her dreams. Silently he cursed. As much as he wanted her to remember, sometimes he thought it best if she remembered nothing at all. This trickle of memories was tearing her apart and in turn tearing him apart.

“Ah, Madelaine,” he whispered, tortured to see her crying in her sleep yet afraid to bring her out of it. Would it be best to let her remember through her dreams or wake her before the memory was complete?

She cried out softly. At first Christien thought she was in pain but quickly realized it wasn’t the physical kind. What was she remembering? What painful memory had her mind dredged up? There were so many bad memories and so few good ones. He wished it had been the other way around.

He stood, kicked off his shoes and stripped to his boxers. He lifted the covers and carefully crawled into bed. Immediately Madelaine curled her warm body around his, snaked her arm across his chest and laid her head on his shoulder. He put his arm around her and squeezed his eyes shut, but knew the sleep he desperately needed wouldn’t come. That the memories Madelaine was experiencing and the memories released when he opened the trunk would haunt him until he slipped from her bed in the early morning dawn before she awoke.

“What are you doing?”

Lainie jumped and twirled around, her hand going to her suddenly racing heart. “Christien. You scared me to death.”

He glanced at the folded clothes on the bed. “What are you doing?”

“Getting my clothes together.”

“Why?”

She hesitated, distracted by the way he was leaning against the doorframe, a frown marring his brow. Christien in a designer suit was magnificent. In well-worn jeans molding his perfectly formed thighs and a black T-shirt stretching across an impressively muscled chest, he was…scrumptious. She had to squash the urge to run her hand through his mussed hair and across cheeks shadowed by a day’s worth of beard. What this man did to her should be illegal.

This reaction scared her the most, the intense relief when she saw him after being away from him for even the smallest amount of time. It wasn’t natural to feel that way for a person you barely knew.

“Why what?” she asked, stalling.

He scowled and crossed his arms, not stepping any farther into her room. Since coming to his home five days ago he’d been like this, remote, yet attentive. Seeing to her every need, but keeping his distance. She was hurt by his attitude, yet understood it because she felt the same way. Words were left unspoken, conversations avoided that needed to be said, but neither of them had the guts to broach the subject. Things between them were up in the air and both were left wondering what the next step should be.

If this were a normal relationship, Lainie would demand they sit down and talk, but this was far from normal and she had no idea how to proceed. The conversation from the night in her hospital room went round and round in her head and the more she stewed on it, the more confused she became. He knew things no other person knew. Things she dreamt of. He claimed they were lovers in a past life, but how was that possible? Did things like that happen? Was there more than heaven and hell at the end of it all?

Did God really give people a do-over?

They should talk, yet she shied away from broaching any discussion. He ran a popular nightclub and conducted business throughout the world. He was gone more often than not. The opportunity for discussion was limited.

She purposely didn’t mention the dress she’d found in the trunk. How do you broach something like that?

By the way, Christien, I was snooping through your things the other day and found a trunk with very old clothes in them. What’s that all about?

Not hardly.

Yet she couldn’t stop thinking of the clothing. She’d even gone so far as to use his computer to research the garments and discovered the design of the dress was from the early fourteenth century.

The same time period her dreams took place.

She also learned the sword hanging above the fireplace was from the fourteenth century, as well. Was it the same sword hanging at her dream man’s side? Was this yet more proof he was right? That maybe they did know each other in a different time?

“Madelaine?”

She sighed and looked him in the eye, refusing to lie to him. “I can’t stay here forever.”

“Yes, you can.”

“No, Christien, I can’t. I have a life to get back to. I have a job I can’t lose.”

His scowl deepened. “Lucheux said—”

“I know what Mr. Lucheux said, but I can’t take advantage of him. At some point I need to go back.”

He uncrossed his arms. His jaw flexed. “When are you leaving?”

“Tonight.”

“So soon.”

“You had to have known.”

He looked away. “I don’t like you going back out there when someone tried to hurt you.”

She didn’t either, but she refused to cower. “I can’t stay locked away forever.”

His look told her he thought hiding away forever was a very good idea.

“The police are looking into it,” she added.

He scoffed.

“You can’t protect me from everything. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe someone bumped into me and being a klutz I lost my balance.”

“You said you were pushed.”

Lainie ran her hands through her hair in exasperation. She’d thought a lot about that moment on the curb. She
had
believed she was pushed, but what if she was wrong?

“The police talked to all the witnesses. No one saw anyone push me nor did they see the blond guy. What are you going to do, keep me here forever?”

His gaze snapped back to hers, and she realized in his long look that he’d considered the option.

“I can’t live my life in fear and I can’t stay up here hiding from the rest of the world.”

What she didn’t tell him was she needed room to think. It was so hard to think in his home, with his presence all around her and with her ears attuned to his every movement. The dreams were becoming more and more disturbing, haunting her in the middle of the night. Almost every morning she woke to a wet pillow where she’d cried in her sleep, desperately afraid for Madelaine’s safety. The people in her dreams were as real to her as the people she saw on the streets and it worried her. She was losing touch with reality. Returning to work, to her apartment and bills and obligations, would bring her back to reality faster than anything else.

She
needed
to leave to keep her sanity.

“Stay one more night.”

“Christien.” She sighed his name, frustrated.

“Spend the night with me.”

She froze. The bottom dropped out of her stomach and she blinked several times. “What do you mean?”

“I think you know.”

“I don’t know.” She was afraid to hope. Afraid she was reading too much into this.

“I want you to stay the night with me. To be with me.”

She wanted to stay so badly she ached with it, but still she held back. Why now? Why did he come to her now, as she was getting ready to leave when for the past four nights he’d carefully kept his distance? Her old fears resurfaced. Doubts, misgivings. Things they needed to discuss before they took such an important step.

“Does this have anything to do with the other Madelaine? The one in my dreams?” When he didn’t answer she had to look away, the pain nearly unbearable. “I see.”

“I don’t think you do.”

She pressed her lips together to keep her chin from trembling. He didn’t want
her,
Madelaine Alexander from a small farming town in Wisconsin. He wanted Madelaine, the Countess of Flandres.

“When you look at me, Christien, what do you see?”

She’d purposely worded her question the same way the other Madelaine had to test him, to see if he really did know the details of her dreams. He flinched as if she’d slapped him and his face paled. He knew. More proof. It was as if the final puzzle piece fell into place. Her last question had been answered. No way could he have known about their conversation in her dream unless he truly was the knight in her dreams. She put her hand on the bedpost to steady her trembling legs.

The gown she’d discovered in his room, the details of dreams she’d never told him, the sword. The dreams themselves. Everything pointed to the same thing.

Christien took a step forward, his shock turning to concern. “Madelaine?”

“It’s true, isn’t it?”

His brows came together. “What’s true?”

She swallowed a lump in her throat, her mind moving so fast she couldn’t keep up with her thoughts. “You and I. We did know each other all those centuries ago.”

She clutched the post tighter as the world narrowed to Christien. Everything else became unfocused, unnecessary.

“Yes.” He watched her closely, a worried frown creasing his brow.

Oh
my God, oh my God, oh my God. This isn’t happening.
For a brief moment she wished she’d never accepted Giselle’s job offer and never met Christien. But the thought quickly passed, leaving guilt in its place. Would she have wanted to live the rest of her life without knowing him?

No. Emphatically, definitely, absolutely no. He frustrated her and bewildered her, but deep in her heart she knew she’d been searching for him her entire life. Maybe even longer.