Kathryn Le Veque (10 page)

“De Vere has what he wants, Kinlet
and her lands. Alisanne means nothing to him.”

It was true. But the priest did
not give up. “Then you are telling me, in essence, that you condone your
daughter living in sin with another man?”

Edward was deadly serious. “Given
the choice of my daughter living honorably as the wife of a dishonorable man,
or living with an honorable man dishonorably, I shall choose what is best for
her. In this case, it is the morally lesser of the choices.”

“Living in
sin like an animal?”

“Aye.”

Joseph Ari shook his head again;
it wasn’t that he didn’t agree. But as an emissary for the church, he must take
the moral stand.
 
Throwing up his hands,
he moved away in a gesture of defeat.

“What do we do now?” Alisanne
asked Roane.

He was quiet a moment as he
considered their options. “The Hospitallers want to return me to Clavell Hill
within the week, so we must leave sooner than that.”

“But you are not well enough,” Alisanne
insisted. “You cannot travel yet.”

Roane knew that. But he also knew
that time was of the essence. “I can travel in a day or two,” he said, though
he wasn’t at all sure. “But I cannot do it alone.”

It was an open suggestion. Edward
took the bait. “I’ll help you,” he said. “Have no
fear,
I shall do what I can.”

“You are coming with us, Father,
“ Alisanne
insisted softly.

“Of course you are,” Roane
confirmed. He eyed the priest, pouting in the shadows. “So are you, John Adam.”

Father Joseph Ari cocked an
eyebrow. “And be a party to your sin? I think not.”

“Would you rather stay here and
face Dodge’s wrath?”

Joseph Ari was silent a moment.
He hung his head, chewed his lip. “You will take me back to my monastery,” he
said quietly. “I will be safe there. Dodge cannot touch me.”

Alisanne rose from the bed,
feeling her way across the room until she reached her uncle. She held his arm
tightly. “You will not come with us?”

He kissed her on the forehead.
“Truly, child, I cannot. My place is here.”

“But you will help us, will you
not?”

He could never resist her. “I
will do what is necessary.”

“Helping the morally depraved?”

He sighed and grunted at the same
time. “I prefer to think of it as assisting the cause of love. And that is, God
has said, the greatest cause of all.” He looked at Roane, lying flat on the
bed. “You do love her, do you not? I’ll not lift a finger to help you if this
is just a passing fancy.”

Roane knew that Joseph Ari knew
him well enough to know that Roane was not impulsive when it came to women. But
the priest, for his own conscience, wanted confirmation.

“She has become my reason for
living,” he said quietly. “I was dead until I met her. She has given me a
reason to go on.”

The priest nodded his head at
being told what he already knew. “Then I shall help.”

Alisanne hugged him tightly.
“Thank you, Uncle John.”

He smiled at the use of his old
name. He remembered long ago the beautiful toddler who spoke with a lisp. “You
are welcome, child.”

***

It was very late. Alisanne didn’t
know how long she had been asleep when strange sounds woke her. It was dark as
she sat up in bed, her heart pounding in her ears as she struggled to gain her
bearing. She was still, listening intently, when the sounds came again; the
chair in a darkened corner gave way with a groan and she yelped with surprise,
holding the bed linens up around her neck as if to protect herself.

“Who’s there?” she demanded.

The chair popped and groaned
again.
“’Tis only your husband, Alisanne.”
Dodge was
drunk; she could smell the alcohol that wafted on his breath. “It is perfectly
within my rights to be here.”

Horror filled her. She knew,
without words, why he had come and she struggled to be strong. “Aye, it is,”
she said, trying to sound casual. “But I am exhausted. I’ll speak with you come
the morn.”

“It wasn’t speaking I had in
mind.”

His words were like a brutal blow
and the mere thought made her nauseous. “I am still unclean, my lord,” her
voice was quaking. “You must give me time to recover my strength.”

Dodge issued a frustrated sigh.
“How much strength does it take? You simply lie there while I do all of the
work. It’s easy, really.”

She swallowed hard, laying back
down on the bed and turning away from him. “I… I feel weak and ill. I’ll faint,
I am sure. You must allow me to heal.”

“But it’s already been a week.”

“Sometimes I take a long time.”

“You couldn’t possibly be
stalling, could you?

“No, my lord.”

Dodge was aggravated and drunk.
Throwing himself on the bed, he pinned Alisanne beneath him and she gasped,
flinching when he stuck his tongue in her ear in what was supposed to be a
seductive move.
 
He was heavy, and his
weight was crushing her.

“My lord!” she breathed. “I
cannot… I cannot catch my breath.”

He licked her cheek, slobbering
on her delicate skin. “That shall be nothing compared to the breathlessness you
will feel when I take you as my wife.”

It was all she could do to keep
from screaming.
 
But to yell would only
bring her panicked father and Roane, who would undoubtedly try to kill Dodge in
his weakened state.
 
And that would only
lead to his greater harm.

“Please,” she gasped. “You are
hurting me.”

Dodge licked her again before
leaping off. He adjusted the bulge in his hose. “That is only a foretaste, my
lady. I plan to hump you like a rabbit until you are with child. And when that
child is born, I’ll hump you again and again. We shall have lots of sons to
fill this place, and I’ll enjoy every bloody moment of the mating.”

The idea brought tears to her
eyes. Alisanne lay as still as stone, biting off her sobs, listening to Dodge’s
footfalls as the crossed the floor. The door opened and closed again. Then, and
only then, did she let the tears come aloud.
 
When she was positive Dodge had gone, she stumbled out of her room and
into the corridor.

Roane was sound asleep when
something burrowed beneath his covers. He was still considerably weak as a
result of his injury and,
weaponless,
he threw back
the covers to see what possible threat could have entered his bed.
 
It didn’t take him long to deduce that Alisanne
was hovering against him, shivering like a terrified child.

“Alisanne,” he hissed.
Instinctively, his arm went around her and pulled her close. “What’s the
matter, love?”

She was sobbing. “Dodge,” she
sniffed. “He… he came to me.”

Roane was filled with horror.
“What happened?”

She could hear the fury in his
voice. “Nothing,” she whispered, burying her face against his bandaged chest.
“But I cannot hold him off forever. He said that he is going to fill me full of
children, and that he is going to enjoy every minute of our mating.”

Roane sighed, struggling to stay
calm. But he had expected nothing less.
 
He pulled her closer, protectively. “We shall be free of this place
before that can happen,” he assured her. “It will never come to that.”

“But what if it does?” her head
came up, her unfocused eyes full of tears. “Roane, I can’t
see
him to fight him off. I can’t run away because I won’t know
where I am going. I am completely helpless against him!”

He shushed her softly, pulling
her back down against him. “You are not alone in your fight against him, you
know that. I am here, and I shall protect you.”

She sniffled and wept until the
tears finally cooled. She needed his reassurance desperately.
 
Roane continued to hold her in the darkness,
his eyes wide open and staring into the darkness. He knew that she could
probably not hold Dodge off more than another day, but he was so terribly weak
that it would make traveling extremely difficult.
 
Yet there was no choice; they had to leave
immediately.

“Where’s your father?” he asked.

“In his chamber across the hall,
I would imagine,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

“Because it
is apparent that we must leave tonight.
We can’t waste time waiting for me to regain
my strength; to do so jeopardizes both of us. The longer we stay, the more
chance there is of the situation taking a turn for the worse.”

She sat up, looking in his
general direction. “But to risk your health also jeopardizes us. You need to
rest before we can….”

He cut her off gently. “I shall
recover more quickly given the chance to move about. Besides, Gargrave is a
good distance north. We must get a head start. Now, do you think you can make
it across the corridor and tell your father of our plans?”

Her expression was dubious. “Are
you sure?”

“Very sure, love.”

“Very well,” she said quietly.
“Roane?”

“Aye?”

She swallowed hard, struggling to
form the words. “I wouldn’t normally ask anything of you, you know that.
But I…
I….”

He touched her cheek gently. “You
may ask me anything. What is it?”

She fidgeted. “I was wondering…
if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, or wouldn’t be too taxing, if you might
consider laying your hands upon me.”

He wasn’t quite sure what she had
in mind. “What do you mean?”

She put her hand to her face. “My
eyes,” she whispered. “Would you consider using your gift on my eyes?”

He was struck with the ironic
horror of her statement, stunned into silence. He should have known that at
some point she would have asked this of him, but in truth, it was such a
terrible subject that he had deliberately pushed it from his mind. Alisanne
mistook his quiet for disapproval.

“It’s just that I feel so useless
and vulnerable because it is so difficult for me to see,” she said quickly.
“With you wounded, I could be of more assistance to you if I could only see a
little better.
 
It would be the greatest
miracle of all if you could only heal my eyes, just a little.”

He was glad she couldn’t see his
face. He knew there were tears in his eyes. “Alisanne,” he said hoarsely.
“Nothing would give me greater pleasure. But I’ve not used my gift since the
day it was given to me and… I don’t… I don’t believe I possess the power any
longer.”

Her expression passed between
disappointment and surprise. “How do you know?”

Christ,
how can I tell her?
“Because I
do,” he said lamely, knowing it sounded as if he was being evasive.

Alisanne thought that mayhap he
was nicely trying to tell her that he did not wish to heal her. A lump formed
in her throat and she turned away from him so he would not see the anguish in
her face. “I see,” she murmured. “I am so sorry to have asked you, then. I did
not know.”

He knew what she was feeling; he
was feeling it too. Reaching out, he grasped her so she would not slip away.
“Believe me, love, if I could heal your eyes, I would gladly do so. Nothing in
this world would give me greater joy. But my so-called gift is gone.”

She was shaking when she turned
to him. “How do you know?”

He had to tell her. He had no
choice.
“Because I tried to use it once before.”

“When?”

“On you, a week ago, while you
were asleep,” he almost choked on his guilt. “The morning you awoke with your
sight so much worse was the morning I had tried to heal you.”

She thought back to that day when
she woke up to a very blurry world. “You tried to heal my eyes then?”

He wouldn’t have blamed her if
she left him forever. “I tried,” he tried not to sound like he was begging for
her forgiveness. “But it did not work. When you awoke, you were worse than
ever. I… I thought not to tell you what I’d done.”

“Why not?”

“I did not want you to hate me
for worsening your condition.”

She looked at him quizzically.
“Roane, why would I hate you for trying to heal me?”

“Because I ruined you,” he
whispered. “It’s the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to live with, Alisanne,
believe me. What I’ve caused is unforgivable.”

“You didn’t cause anything. My
sight was already going bad.”

“I think I helped it along.”

“That’s madness.”

He shifted on the bed, burying
his face against her supple breasts, feeling her heat and life against him.
“Can you ever forgive me for what I’ve done?”