True Love (19 page)

“That will be your shoulder,” she said. “The
flat of l'Inconnu's blade against your upper back was the stroke
that felled you.”

“I know that,” he said irritably. “I was
there.”

“I marvel that you are not more seriously
injured.” She considered making an attempt to examine him
thoroughly, in case Robert had missed a bruise or a broken bone.
After the beating Braedon had sustained from l'Inconnu's well-aimed
sword, she was amazed that he was not in danger of his life. The
unknown knight had dealt heavy, deliberately aimed, yet
well-controlled strokes. He could easily have killed Braedon. But
he had not.

“Go away, Catherine.”

Braedon's harsh voice interrupted her
troubling speculations. She took her hand from his forehead and
wound her fingers together in her lap, but otherwise she did not
move. Something was very wrong and she suspected the problem was
not tournament damage to Braedon's side or his shoulder. She sat
looking hard at him, wishing she could see into his mind, until
with a sound of exasperation Braedon fell back against his
pillows.

“Now that you are in a more comfortable
position,” she said, “I expect you to tell me why you are
pretending to be severely injured.”

“I am injured,” he declared. “I have bandages
to prove it.”

“And you have Robert, your faithful squire,
to lie for you.” She kept her hands tightly together in her lap,
fearing that if she unclenched them she would hit him. Of course,
she was relieved to learn that Braedon was not badly hurt, but she
was also annoyed that she had been allowed to worry unnecessarily.
As her relief ebbed a bit more, anger washed over her.

“You let me think you were wounded and
possibly near to death,” she said. “And my father joined you in
your pretense. That is why he refused to let me tend to you.”

“Catherine—”

“Why?” Her voice cracked with the emotion she
was striving to supress. “What are the two of you hiding?”

“Nothing. I wish you would go away and stop
tormenting me.”

“
I
am tormenting
you
? I have
just spent the most miserable day, out there in the broiling
sun—”

“You were sitting in the shade,” he
interrupted, “on a pillow, under a canopy.”

“—with a headache that grew worse by the
hour, and for most of that time I feared for your life—”

“You knew I was alive,” he said coldly.

“—and then I had to act as hostess and seem
as if my only concern was whether or not my father's guests were
enjoying themselves, while Eustace defamed your valor and my father
would not let me speak in your favor. And all the time, I wanted
only to be with you because I believed you were lying helpless and
perhaps near to death!”

“You should not be here,” he said.

“And I suffered all of that after a night
spent lying awake while I worried if what Gwendolyn said was true.”
She finished her litany of complaints with considerable heat.

“Ah, the lovely Gwendolyn. When she uncovered
the tools of my trade I was certain she would report to Royce or to
you. I dared to hope it would be Royce she chose.”

“Royce,” she repeated, and paused while she
considered again the events of the past few days. “Those vials and
jars are the tools of your trade, are they? And you wanted
Gwendolyn to report what she found to my father, rather than to me?
That can only mean that you and he are working together. You are
King Henry's man,” she concluded, and drew a deep breath to tell
him exactly how she felt about his subterfuge.

“All this time, your deception led me to fear
that you might intend to harm my father. He invited Phelan and
Eustace – and Achard – here to Wortham for reasons devised by King
Henry, and then the two of you deliberately left me ignorant,
knowing that I might blunder into a dangerous situation. As I did
with Achard.”

“You were rescued from Achard in good time,”
he reminded her.

“That is why my father wanted me to allow
Achard to court me, isn't it? It's part of his plan. How dare he
use me so! How dare you help him!”

“I warned Royce that you were too intelligent
to remain blind to our activities for long,” he said. “It was only
a question of how soon you would make the correct guesses.”

“Oh, how I despise you!” She raised a hand to
strike him. Braedon caught her wrist.

“Let me go,” she cried. “You said I ought to
leave. Well, I will!”

“Not while you are so angry that you are
capable of saying or doing something that could betray us.”

“I would never betray my father. If only he
had told me what he was doing, I could have helped him. You,
however, are another matter entirely. Wretched liar! Schemer! Spy!”
Her voice rose as her outrage increased.

“So is your father a spy. You are making too
much noise. Someone is bound to hear you.”

“I don't care.”

“But I do. I cannot allow you to compromise
what Royce and I have achieved thus far. Not when we are so close
to proving – stop that!” He caught her free hand just in time to
prevent her from scratching at his eyes.

Catherine was so angry she scarcely knew what
she was doing. All of her emotions were jumbled together in a vast
confusion. She wanted to find her father and scream her outrage at
him for the careless way he was treating her, for refusing to
provide the answers she needed. She wanted even more to storm out
of Braedon’s room, slam the door, and never see him again. Worse,
she wanted Braedon to kiss her – kiss her and never stop. Most of
all, she longed for something she did not fully understand but knew
she must have.

Without any warning Catherine found herself
lying on her back atop Braedon’s bed, with her hands firmly pinned
to the mattress on either side of her head and with Braedon's body
across hers, holding her down. And now a new and far more dangerous
emotion joined the relief and the fury that assailed her. Braedon
was naked under the sheet; he was freshly bathed and he had used
the scent she was beginning to recognize as uniquely his, the smell
of woods and spices. The fragrance tantalized her senses, making
her want to move closer to him when she knew she should not.

Making one last effort to fight what she was
feeling, she wrenched a hand free of his grip and pushed on his
shoulder, trying to force his weight off her, but he was too heavy
and too strong for her to make any impact against him. His flesh
was warm beneath her fingers, his muscles hard.

“You will be quiet,” he said, his voice low
and tense.

“You cannot make me!” By now she was far
beyond anger, she was capable only of responding to the tightly
leashed strain evident in his face and to the insistent, sensuous
longing awakening deep inside her body.

“Is that a challenge, my lady? Shall I
demonstrate just how easily I can silence you?” For an instant a
wild light glowed in Braedon's eyes, like a shooting star flashing
across the heavens. His lips brushed over hers, then settled more
firmly.

Catherine was unprepared for the sensation of
his tongue plunging into her at the same time that she became aware
of a definite masculine hardness pushing against her thigh. During
their struggles the sheet had twisted down around Braedon's knees,
so that only the thin barrier of her silk gown and her linen shift
separated them. It was the most bewildering, unnerving phenomenon
she had ever experienced. She wanted it to continue, for she
recognized his rigid masculinity as the very thing she required if
she was to continue to breathe.

Braedon's mouth was still hard on hers but
his hands were unwinding the ribbons that held her braids and he
was loosening her hair. Catherine gave up fighting him and put her
arms around his waist, pulling him closer. Braedon winced when she
touched his side and she knew he was not feigning that particular
wound. When her hair was undone he released her lips and raised his
head to look down at her.

“How I have wanted to see your beautiful hair
spread across my pillow.” He wound one hand through the tresses,
letting them flow and curl around his fingers, weaving a bright net
of hair and hand to draw the two of them ever closer together. “I
have no right to touch you – none at all – yet I cannot stay away
from you,” he whispered.

“I don't want you to stay away from me,” she
said, and laid her hand on the bandage over his ribs to keep him
where he was. The pressure of Braedon's lower body against hers was
delicious and she did not want it to end. She knew she ought to
insist that he release her at once. She ought to get off his bed
and leave his room, but she could not. She was certain that if she
tried her legs would refuse to support her.

She was experiencing the oddest combination
of emotions, feeling small and fragile compared with his large
size, sure she was completely safe with him, while at the same time
knowing she was in peril of losing all self-control. She was
remarkably comfortable in his embrace, yet aware of an eager
stirring in the core of her being that she instinctively knew would
very soon make her extremely uncomfortable. To her astonishment,
she wanted to become uncomfortable in that way, so she stayed where
she was and took the path that seemed right and reasonable to
her.

“If I threaten to scream, will you kiss me
again?” she asked in a throaty voice quite different from her usual
clear tones.

“Will you scream?” he rasped, as if he spoke
with some difficulty.

“Most assuredly, I will,” she whispered. “I
intend to scream to high heaven unless you kiss me.”

“Catherine, you will drive me mad.”

He tried to leave her then, tried to untangle
his hand from her hair and his long legs from the sheet, so he
could remove himself from the bed as honor demanded. He only
succeeded in loosening the sheet further, until it fell away
completely. One long lock of Catherine's red-gold hair wound itself
around his forearm as if in protest against his attempt to free
himself from her embrace.

“Oh, Braedon!” Catherine was allowed one fast
glimpse of him from shoulder to knee before he grabbed at the sheet
to cover himself again. She caught his hand, staying the motion
while she looked her fill. He was badly bruised along his left
side, and both of his knees were scraped. “You really were hurt. It
was no pretense.”

“Not all of it.” he said. “But we wanted to
make it look real.”

It wasn't his injuries that held her
attention, or even the remark that suggested cooperation between
Braedon and l'Inconnu. What attracted her gaze was the upthrusting
evidence of his desire for her. In many ways Catherine was a
typical noble lady of her time. She had seen unclothed men before.
She had handled men's bodies to sew up and bandage wounds and to
treat the various illnesses that afflicted the folk who lived in
castle or village, and on several sad occasions she had bathed and
prepared a man for burial. Never had she seen a man whose naked
form rocked her maiden's soul to its depths.

Catherine swallowed hard before meeting
Braedon's eyes, knowing he would see in her face that she wanted
him with a most unladylike need. She did not care whether she was
behaving as her father's daughter ought. She knew that in his heart
Braedon was an honest man and there was no denying that he wanted
her as much as she wanted him. She was twenty-four years old, a
decade beyond the usual age of marriage for a noblewoman, and it
occurred to her in that breathless moment that her body was her
own, to bestow or to withhold as she wished. She wanted to bestow
it upon Braedon.

“I really think you would be wise to kiss
me,” she said.

“Wise?” he responded with a broken laugh.
“Where you are concerned, I took leave of my senses the first
moment I saw you. There is no wisdom left in me.”

“Then do what your heart tells you to
do.”

“I never knew what temptation was until I met
you.” He tried again to remove the long strands of her hair from
his arm.

Catherine took her hand from his side to
caress his cheek. Braedon groaned and her heart constricted at the
sound, though she was certain his pain was not caused by his
injuries. She knew what the ache was. She felt it, too.

“Damn it, Catherine!” His eyes blazed
midnight fire. “You could waken the statue of a saint to life.”

Catherine wound her arms around his neck and
pulled his head down. She had no qualms and no guilt for what she
was doing. She did not think beyond the present hour. She only knew
it was highly unlikely they would ever again be alone together like
this, with Braedon naked of both armor and clothing and his body
undeniably eager to love her.

His mouth met hers in a crushing kiss that
she felt right to her toes and fingertips – and to other places
that had so far in her life remained untouched by any man.
Braedon's hands were on her breasts, stroking her soft flesh
through the light silk and linen, pressing down until she felt the
heat of his big palms. She trembled and the warmth far inside her
increased. She let her hand stray downward, over his shoulder and
arm, skimming past the roughness of the bandage that wrapped his
ribs, to his sinewy flank, coming to rest on his hard-muscled
thigh.

“Say no to me, Catherine.” Braedon's voice
was a low whisper, taut with urgent need. “Leave me now. I will be
miserable for an hour or two, but I will recover.”

“And if I do not leave?” She met his eyes
fearlessly and saw in them all the aching desire that she was
feeling.

I have been a virgin too long,
she
thought, but did not say the words aloud, not wanting to remind him
that she was unclaimed for fear he would refuse her.

Braedon stared at her in silence until she
moved her hand again, wrapping her fingers around a velvety
softness that sheathed a hardness firm as steel. She did not know
what made her so bold, she only knew her heart would break if
Braedon did not make her his then and there.