The Claiming (29 page)

“This is not what you’re thinking, Alain,” Blane said hoarsely, his face almost as pale as Alain’s.

“You know me so well then?”

“We came to talk.”

“And stayed to touch?”

“I knew you’d misconstrue the situation!” Blane said angrily.

Alain flushed, obviously holding his temper by a thread. “You fabricate some hair brained excuse to speak with me, then disappear—and next I find that Jana has disappeared, as well. I suppose it’s only my low mind that makes me think it a strange sort of coincidence that the two of you happened to think of taking a walk to the creek at almost the same time?”

Blane reddened. “I know how it must look to you, but you are making a mistake, Alain ... one we’re both liable to regret. She needed someone to talk to. What was I supposed to do? Ignore her like you do!”

Alain looked for several moments as if he would launch himself at Blane. After an inner struggle, however, while Jana waited in absolute terror that they would fight and that one, or both of them, would be hurt, he turned and strode in the direction from which he’d come.

Blane stared after him, unmoving. Jana found that she could not move either. Finally, she rose shakily. “He thinks we are sharing ourselves?”

“What?”

She moved closer, took Blane’s hand and gave him a little shake. He looked down at her, flung her hand off. “Yes. That’s exactly what he thinks. What the hell did you think he’d believe if he caught us sneaking off to talk?”

Jana backed away a step.

Blane glared at her angrily for several moments and finally raked his fingers through his hair. “I can’t stay here now. I’ve got to … go away for a while. I love Alain, even if he is behaving like a madman these days. If I stay, one of us is going to say, or do, something completely unforgivable.”

Chapter Fifteen

It was worse when Blane left. Jana had not thought anything could be worse than it already was, but after the confrontation between the brothers, Alain began to spend most of his time in his study, rarely coming out even to eat.

The few times she saw him alarmed her. He looked as if he was deathly ill. He was pale. He’d lost weight. His eyes were bloodshot from Brie.

The hope Jana had felt after speaking with Blane died.

Her fears about being pregnant might not be nearly as paralyzing. Her certainty that she most go where she could have it removed might have faltered, but she had done something far, far worse.

She had turned Alain against his brother.

She had to go. If she stayed, she would be destroying something vitally important to both Blane and Alain, might already have done so. She could not bear to think that it was her fault.

She was so relieved when she realized the time had come at last when the ship would be arriving that she did something she had never done in her life, something she’d thought she was incapable of. She wept. There were no tears filling her eyes and flowing gently down her cheeks. Hoarse, painful sobs tore from her chest as if her whole body was being ripped apart by them—for hours and hours, it seemed, until she couldn’t breathe, until her nose turned red and runny, until she was so exhausted with effort that she fell asleep.

It was late into the night when she awoke at last. The house was as still and silent as death.

Slowly, she dragged herself from the bed and dressed. She debated briefly about whether or not to take clothes with her besides those she wore, but she had no idea of where she might be going. It seemed doubtful that the clothing she wore on Orleans would be appropriate on another world. Finally, she decided to take at least a change of clothes, and her own that she’d worn from Earth.

She’d gathered up valuables to use to barter her passage. She felt badly about taking them when they did not belong to her, but she could not leave otherwise. She would not be given passage without something of value to exchange. She just hoped she had enough. It was impossible for her to tell. If Blane had not told her the gold metal and stones were valuable, she wouldn’t even have known that much.

It seemed unlikely that Alain would try to stop her from leaving, now, after everything that had happened. It also seemed unlikely that he would know it. He had been drinking heavily of Brie earlier. She thought it probable that he was sleeping off the effects by now, which meant she needn’t worry overmuch about being quiet.

She thought it safer not to take a chance, however, and took her bundle and moved as quietly as possible down the stairs. She was startled to see that Alain’s study door was open. Easing up to the door frame, she peeked around the corner.

He was sprawled in his chair, facing the window. Her heart skipped a beat, but then she noticed there was a bonelessness about him that indicated sleep.

She crept past the door. She was on the point of leaving the house when something stopped her, some urge she couldn’t quite name. After a moment, she set her bundle down and returned to the study.

Alain lay as he had, looking as if he would slide from his chair and onto the floor at any moment. Something painful knotted in her chest as she studied him.

She knew she should just go, but found she couldn’t.

She would never, ever see him again. She felt she had to look at him just once more, just so she could memorize his face.

She moved into the room, studying his face to make certain he really was asleep. When he didn’t so much as flinch, she crept closer until she was standing over him.

She was glad that she had come. In the dim light filtering through the window from Orleans’ tiny pink moon, he did not look pale, ill, angry. He looked young, without care, handsome as she remembered him before she had made him so unhappy.

Her insides knotted in misery. It hurt to look at him. It wounded her to realize how much pain she’d caused him. But more even than either of those circumstances, the thought of leaving him and never seeing him again made her feel as if she would die from the terrible pain.

And, in that moment, she knew. She loved him with every fiber of her being, with everything that she was. It was strange that she’d spent so much time trying to define it and understand it and now realized without any explanation at all that she felt it.

The pain was blinding, worse than she could ever have imagined hurting only from an emotion and she wondered why anyone would wish to find love if it could mean hurting this badly.

That was why she had to go. Maybe that was why she’d always felt that she must leave. She loved him too much to cause him any more pain. He would be happy again when she wasn’t here to hurt him.

She thought for several moments that she was going to break down and sob as she’d done before. It took an effort to calm herself.

She wanted to touch him. It was not enough, she realized only to look. She wanted to be near enough that she could breathe his scent, feel his skin, remember what it had been like when they’d shared themselves with each other. She wanted to tell him she loved him.

She could not do any of that.

He would wake. He would stare at her angrily, demand to know what she was doing.

She backed away. Turning, she left the room as quietly as she’d entered, collected her bundle and eased outside. She’d nearly reached the barn before she realized tears were streaming down her cheeks. A sob caught her unaware and she clapped her hand to her mouth, breathing deeply to regain control. Now that she’d learned to release the horrendous emotions dammed inside of her, though, she found it took everything she had to hold it inside.

She did not saddle the Zell. She had no idea of how to do so, and didn’t think she could lift the heavy thing anyway. Instead, she tossed a blanket over it’s back and placed the halter on it’s head. She hoped she could stay on its back without a saddle. She didn’t have any choice.

The ship was scheduled to arrive tomorrow just after nightfall. Before then, she would have to ride all the way to Val-risa’s home and discover where it was to land. It might be the same place where the ship had landed when she arrived, but it might not. It seemed doubtful that it would, but she would not know for certain until she’d asked. In any case, she needed Val-risa to look at the valuables she’d brought to barter for passage so she would know if it was enough. She didn’t know what she’d do if it wasn’t, but she couldn’t deal with those doubts now. She would worry about it when, and if, she had to.

Clutching her bundle in one hand and the reins in the other, she led the Zell from the barn as quietly as she could, holding her breath for fear the handler would wake. When she’d reached the chopping block in the kitchen yard, she made the Zell stand beside it, then climbed onto the block and finally managed to swing her leg over the animal’s back. Settling her bundle before her, she straightened her skirts and urged the animal forward.

***

It was almost laughable, Alain thought wryly, that waking, sleeping, or dead drunk off of Brie, his senses responded instantly to Jana’s nearness. If he had not been so certain he was dreaming again, he would have given himself away when Jana had come into his study to stare down at him. As it was, it had taken a supreme effort of will to remain unmoving—that and curiosity.

Almost as laughable—he’d felt a jolt of hope that she’d come to him. Her back had been to the light filtering through the window and he had not even been able to tell her expression, had no clue of what she’d been thinking, but she had said nothing, hadn’t even touched him to see if he was still sleeping. Disappointment had coalesced into anger when he realized his mistake, but he had been determined to find out what she was up to this time and had restrained himself with a supreme effort.

He’d felt sick when he saw she had packed, watched her make her way to the stable. She was leaving. Going to Blane? Had they arranged something?

He waited in the shadows until she’d come out of the stable once more, leading her Zell.

He watched until she had mounted and disappeared into the gloom.

He saddled his own Zell then, taking the time to tie cloths over it’s hooves to muffle the sound it’s hooves would otherwise make. She’d been riding slowly. He thought it unlikely that she would get far before he could catch up to her.

Regardless, he was tense and uneasy until he heard the tread of her mount in front of him. Risking detection, he closed the gap. He had to be sure it was her before he dropped back to a safer distance to follow.

The moon was full. It shed very little light for all that, but it was sufficient that he managed to keep her in sight most of the time. He realized after a while that they were nearing Jaxon. It occurred to him that she might not be going to meet Blane after all. Her friend, Val-risa lived nearby. Perhaps she was going there?

He dismissed it. She would not go to visit a friend in the dead of night.

To his surprise, that was exactly where she went.

He pulled his Zell to a halt some distance away. The house was dark, its occupants obviously sleeping. They could not have been expecting her. Why had she come here? Why slip away in the middle of the night?

Obviously, he was still laboring under the influence of the Brie. None of it made any sense to him. He decided to wait and watch.

Jana tossed her bundle to the ground and slid off the Zell. After tethering the beast, she picked up her bundle and moved to the front door, tapping on the wood.

Alain dismounted, tethered his own mount and moved closer.

In a matter of moments, the door was opened. Val-risa stood in the opening holding a lantern.

Undoubtedly, he’d mistaken the matter. Val-risa was expecting her.

“Jana? What in the world are you doing here at this time of night?”

Maybe not.

As Val-risa and Jana moved inside, closing the door, Alain worked his way closer, watching the windows to see which room they entered.

The light appeared in the front room to the right of the entrance hall. Alain moved to the window. Like all the windows on the front of the house, it stood half ajar, to catch the cooling night breezes.

***

“I apologize,” Jana said breathlessly, relieved beyond measure that she had not had to go to any great lengths to get her friend’s attention, but then it occurred to her to wonder why Val-risa had been downstairs in the middle of the night. “Did I wake you?”

“No. I was already downstairs. What are you doing here? Has something happened?” Val-risa asked quickly, sounding more than a little breathless herself.

Jana burst into tears. Somehow, she could not seem to stop herself. “Yes! Alain thinks I have been sharing myself with his brother and they have fought and now Blane has gone away because he said he loved Alain and if he stayed they would do or say something unforgivable to each other…. And I must leave! I have to!”

Val-risa blinked at her. “Slow down. I didn’t catch half of what you just said. Your husband thinks you’ve been … carrying on with his brother?”

Jana nodded, mopping the tears from her face with the skirt of her dress since she had nothing else.

“Why would he think that?”

Jana dropped into the nearest chair and covered her face. “Because Blane was trying to explain … some things I didn’t understand and he knew Alain wouldn’t like to find out what we were talking about and we slipped off to the creek so he could talk to me and not make Alain angry, but he found us and he thought….”

Val-risa held up a hand. “Stop. You’re giving me a headache. It’s no wonder he thought the worst! Anybody would have under those circumstances. I would have thought Blane was old enough to know better!”

“It wasn’t Blane’s fault. It was mine. I shouldn’t have gone.”

“No, you shouldn’t!” Val-risa snapped, but then clutched her stomach, bending over slightly.

Jana was taken aback by Val-risa’s attitude, and hurt. She’d expected that Val-risa, at least, would understand. When she saw her friend was obviously in pain, however, she realized that that was most likely the reason she was irritable. Alain was certainly very nasty when he was hurt. Of course, that was emotional, not physical, but then she had come to realize that emotions could hurt as much, or more, than wounds. She dismissed her own concerns, worried now about Val-risa. “Are you hurt?”