Suzanne Robinson (27 page)

“Wheedle?” Christian rose and gave them both a startled look.

“Wheedle?” Morgan cried.

“Aye,” Pen said, brightening as she went on. “You see, she knows all manner of remedies for pigs. They ofttimes wound themselves because they’re so clumsy of form.”

“You stuck a pig poultice on my shoulder. A pig poultice!”

He stopped because Christian burst out with a raucous laugh that built into a guffaw so strong that he had to lean against his chair for support. Morgan’s temper snapped. He felt as if his hair were standing on end and crackling with the force of his anger.

He began tugging and pulling at the bandage. Pen cried out and rushed over to slap at his hands and try to prevent him from removing the wrappings. He shoved her hands aside and tore the bindings. He lifted the padding, squeezed his eyes shut against the fumes, and thrust it at her.

Pen took the wrappings from him. “Look what you’ve done. Wheedle says you must keep the poultice on the wound for another day.”

“Wheedle can go—”

“Morgan,” Christian warned.

Morgan pounded the bed. “Jesu, next you’ll be roasting me in wine and spices like a loin of pork. Fetch clean cloths and hot water at once, woman.”

His irritation expanded when she gave him a contrite look.

“Fear not. That’s what I intended.”

As she spoke, a serving man entered with the required items. He bore a request from Lord Rochefort that
Christian join him at the stables, for his men had returned from searching for Jean-Paul. With a glance of admonition at Morgan, Christian left with the serving man.

He was so distracted with glowering at Christian that he started when Pen began to bathe his wound. For an instant he was back in the chamber that she’d made his, surrounded by a dome of painted azure sky, peacocks, and winged putti with round pink cheeks, soothed by the chimes in her voice. Then he fell back into the present with a jolt that bruised his heart. The pain evoked fear and an overwhelming urge to strike out at the one he blamed for it and his confusion.

Pen began to wrap a bandage around his shoulder. Each time she touched his bare flesh, prickles of awareness crawled across his body and darted to his groin. His gaze seemed anchored to her full lower lip. He tried to look away, and failed. The failure reminded him of his vulnerability, and the urge to lash out at the cause of it overpowered him.

“Saints, Tristan, what a tangle,” Pen was saying. “I shall never be able to forgive myself for hurting you.”

He heard that old name, the one that didn’t belong to him, that he didn’t want. Pulling free of her grasp, he turned on her.

“Damnation. When will you learn to call me Morgan?”

Pen covered her lips with her fingers. “Forgive me, but I have a passing fondness for Tristan.”

“Then go find him,” Morgan said in an even tone. “For he’s not here.”

“When we return to Penance Isle, you’ll find him.”

“How haps it that you think I’ll ever return to that gravestone in the middle of the sea?”

Occupied with smoothing sheets, Pen sighed, causing his glance to drop to her breasts. His unruly body began to stir.

“You’re fretful, Tris—Morgan. It’s the wound and the weakness from the fever that make you so querulous.”

“I’ll not be quibbled at like a teething babe.”

He heard himself growling at her. He was losing governance of himself. Quickly dampening his anger, he hid it behind another urge. He took a pillow from her hands and shoved it aside when keeping hold of her hand. His gaze held hers as he evoked his own particular kind of sensual enchantment with the intensity of his regard.

“I need solace after enduring so much pain, Gratiana.”

“But your wound.”

“It troubles me not, and I assure you I won’t feel it with you to distract me.”

As he whispered to her then, murmuring with his lips close to her ear,

He drew her close and covered her mouth with his. She responded by lacing her arms around his chest and stroking his back. He’d misjudged himself and her power over him. Her hands felt so small against him, but everywhere she stroked him, he burst into dry-tinder flames.

He nuzzled behind her ear, into the hollow of her throat. She was murmuring to him now in that enraptured, chimelike voice that spurred him deeper into arousal. His hands worked at her bodice until it hung loose. He pressed his chest against hers and sighed as if he’d been starved and had suddenly found a banquet.

Burrowing down her neck and shoulder, he captured a nipple in his mouth. His skin smoldered with heat. His fingers danced at her ankle, then skimmed up her calf and thigh to find heat and blessed moisture. The feel of her excited him beyond endurance.

He shoved the covers from his body. Rising over her, he yanked skirts aside and pressed the length of his body to hers. Their flesh touched, melded, and he settled between her legs. Aroused to the point of pain, balancing on his good arm, he arched his back. He moved, stroking himself and her. She clawed at his back and sank her teeth into his breast.

She was murmuring to him again, but all he caught was one word.

“…  Tristan …”

The name battered its way past his defenses like a siege ram, grinding his desire to powder. He’d closed his eyes against the torture of holding back in order to please her. Now his eyes flew open and he stared ahead in alarm.

Disgusted with himself for falling prey to weakness, he drew back from Pen. His hands fell away from her body. She opened her eyes and gazed up at him from the pillows upon which he’d pressed her.

He regarded her with distaste. “Tristan is a fantasy of your own making. If you wish to make love, do it with me, Morgan.”

Rising, Pen brushed a lock of hair from her eyes. “I love you both.” Her hand strayed to his chest and
kneaded the flesh over his ribs. “Saints, but you’re right marvelous made.”

He shoved her hands away before she engulfed him in a black squall of desire again. Seeking refuge beneath the covers, he held her off with one hand.

“Are you ill?” she asked. “Have I hurt your wound? Dear, beautiful Tristan. Forgive me.” When he didn’t answer and only stared at her, she shook her head and smiled.

“Upon mine honor, you’ve worked upon me so I have no maiden’s timidity left at all. Did you know that the very sight of you suffices to make me long to touch your most pleasureful parts.”

“Jesu, keep silent!”

He had to get away from her. His flesh sizzled, and the pain in his gut and groin raked his temper. He was so distracted by his own anguish, he failed to notice that Pen had slipped beneath the covers with him. Thus, when she put her hand on his bare inner thigh, he jumped and shoved it away.

She turned her head to the side and regarded him with a confused look. “Don’t you want me, Tristan?”

“No, God curse you!” He winced as his movements jarred his wounded shoulder. “Can you not leave me be?”

“But—”

“Hasn’t it sufficed that you’ve almost killed me? Must you also ravage me on my sickbed?”

Pen sprang out from the covers, knelt on the bed, and put her hands on her hips.

“You were the one who began—”

“Pleasureful parts.” Morgan was sneering now.

Pen lapsed into silence and gazed at him with dismay. Taking care not to jar his wound, he yanked a sheet from the bed, wound it around his hips, and sat
down before he lost strength. The more she pleaded, the more she inflamed his anger.

“ ‘I long to touch you, Tristan,’ ” he mimicked in a high voice. Then he swore. “ ‘Shall I lay myself down on the bed and part my legs for you? Come. I’ve lost strength and can’t fight you. Have me.’ ”

He leaned closer so that he could sneer into her face. “Then perhaps you’ll have your fill of my body and leave me in peace.”

Through the black mist of his rage, Tristan barely perceived how the last vestiges of color drained from Pen’s face. She hadn’t spoken. Like a butterfly dashed by the wind against a stone, she remained motionless.

At last, eyes glittering with moisture, she left the bed. Her movements disjointed and uneven, she fastened her clothing. With the deliberate actions of a priest conducting mass, she gathered up old bandages, cloths, and a basin of water.

Turning from him, she walked to the door and opened it without making a sound. Not once did she look at him. As the door shut, he noticed that she’d been careful to close it gently so that the latch slipped into place with a muffled click.

It had been like watching a ghost. Remorse enveloped him but faded when he reminded himself of how he’d believed in her only to face betrayal. And now she could expose his vulnerability merely by whispering a name. He felt as though she’d flayed the skin from his body and rubbed salt in the raw flesh. He knew without question that to avoid feeling this way, he would never be able to touch Penelope Fairfax again.

Once she’d seen a leaf from a beech tree, still green, frozen in ice at the edge of a brook. She felt like that leaf—chilled into lifelessness. Yet her thoughts wouldn’t keep still inside her frozen shell. They wandered afar, as if to seek warmth and shelter from the familiar.

She should never have left Highcliffe. She’d missed All Hallow’s Eve. At Highcliffe, the end of harvest brought feasting and merriment. Great platters of mutton and roast suckling were passed around the great hall along with custards and spiced ale. And of course there was an enormous frumenty-pot of hulled wheat boiled in milk.

Then arrived the night when spirits roamed abroad, the night when they were the easiest for mortals to see. All work came to a halt while the Highcliffe’s denizens indulged in pageantry and mummery. Lads and lasses ducked for apples. Pipe and tabor played lustily so that all could dance.

Mayhap it was better to be in this foreign house after all. She had no merriment left. And nothing could induce her to listen to music, not even a dirge.

Pen glanced about her. After Morgan had attacked, she had fled without looking where she was going. Without interest she noticed that she’d taken refuge in
a bay in the long gallery. She had been blindly staring out across a courtyard through one of the diamond-shaped panes in a bank of windows that ran almost from the floor to the ceiling. The window was sweating, and she watched a drop of water trickle to the next pane.

He had turned on her like a maddened destrier.

She remembered being hurt, shamed, and she remembered nearly screaming with the pain of his assault. But then numbness had seeped into her. With it came relief. Vaguely she perceived that this winter of the soul preserved her from torment, and so she clung to the deadness, took care not to shatter the icy coffin that contained her emotions.

“Mistress Fairfax.”

She turned her head to find Christian de Rivers standing behind her. He held out his hand but dropped it when she shook her head.

“I am going home.”

“Marry, lady, I haven’t come to stop you.”

He held out his hand again and gave her a look of such command that she placed her own upon it without protest. Conducting her down the gallery, he led her into a withdrawing chamber. She took the chair he offered before a snapping fire and stared at the marble mantel.

“Warm your hands, sucket. They’re like ice.”

“I’m going home,” she said without taking her gaze from the marble. “You don’t need me to hunt down your priest-spy.”

Abruptly Christian knelt beside her and covered her hands with one of his. She started at the sudden warmth.

“I feared Morgan would try to murder your love. I tried to stop him.”

Pen heard herself speaking in a dead voice. “I don’t care about him anymore.”

“Yes, you do. It takes much more to kill a love such as yours, my sweet comfit. I assure you that cruelty is foreign to Morgan’s nature. I’m surprised he hasn’t been driven to it more by his family. No, he hasn’t killed your affection yet.”

Christian squeezed her hands. “No more than he’s succeeded in vanquishing his love for you. That is what drives him to lash you with such ruthlessness.”

A crack appeared in her icy shroud. It grew, branched, and spread until she was left wearing slivers like a cloak of diamonds. But now she could feel the pain again. Pen turned her face away from Christian.

“He made me feel disgust for myself. I’ll never forgive him, and I don’t want ever to see him in this life again. I should have known no one can force another to abandon long-held fears. I learned that just now.”

“Aye,” Christian said. “But we can provide Morgan with the opportunity to learn to abandon them of his own will. And believe me. I’m a formidable teacher.”

Pen turned to give him a vexed look. The more this man spoke, the more his barbs fragmented her icy cloak.

“I told you, my lord. I have no wish to amend Lord Morgan’s character. Indeed, I heartily hope that someday a lady of great beauty and wit takes his heart and grinds it beneath her heel. By the cross, I’ve never hated anyone in my life, but I do hate Morgan St. John.”

“But you’ll forgive him.”

“Not if God himself begged it of me.”

“I shall have to, as God is occupied elsewhere.”

“No, my lord.”

Christian sighed. “Very well.” He glanced at her from
beneath thick lashes. “But I’m grieved, for I had hoped to distract my raven from his predations among English gentlewomen. God’s blood, sometimes I fear for his health, he so overtaxes himself.”

“What gentlewomen pray—no.” Pen hugged herself. “I care not.”

She refused to meet his half-amused stare. After a few moments, he sighed and spoke again.

“Then mayhap you can help me in another matter.” He held out something in his hand. A cross dangled from a chain, a cross about which slithered ruby-eyed, golden serpents.

“The companion piece to the serpent dagger,” Christian said.