Vow of Seduction (29 page)

Kat did not feel him drape her on the bed. Or brush her hair back from her moist brow tenderly. Or hold her close against him as their heartbeats slowly returned to normal. Her senses were still reeling and overwhelmed. She tried to keep her eyes open, but exhausted, emotionally and physically, she fell into blessed sleep.

Kat opened her eyes. Alex stared down at her. Lying on his side next to her, his head propped on one hand, he stroked her temple with his left hand. She must have fallen asleep. She looked down, wary and embarrassed, clasping her hands on top of the coverlet that covered her.

The musky scent of their lust perfumed the air inside the curtained bed.

“Your pardon. I did not mean to fall asleep.”

Alex chuckled. “I am hardly offended.”

Kat sat up abruptly and then screeched when the sheet dropped. She grabbed it and clutched it to her breasts. “You need not boast. I have had very little sleep what with nursing you then Sir Luc—”

Alex jumped out of the bed and spun on her, his handsome face furious to behold. Against her will, her gaze dropped to stare at his
still
hard member jutting up heavenward, threatening. “You need not mention that scurrilous bastard. Are you not angry that he betrayed you? He was Lydia’s lover. He was going to marry you under false pretences because of his obsession with the conniving bitch,” he swore, his eyes filled with wrath.

His accusations infuriated her. Clutching the sheet to her chest, Kat scrambled out of the bed and wrapped the linen around her to shield her nudity. They stared at one another across the chasm of the bed. She knew her eyes blazed as bright as his. “You are a hypocrite, Sir Alex.
You
were Lady Lydia’s lover.
You
married me under deception.”

Alex raised his chin defiantly and punched the bedpost with his clenched fist. “That may be true, but the circumstances are completely different and you know it. Sir Luc pretended to love you to get you to marry him, so he could whore with Lady Lydia behind your back. So why do you not hate the bastard as you hate me?”

When she did not answer he stormed around the bed, his face twisted in fury. She did not move a muscle, standing her ground, prepared to give no quarter. It was a decision she came to regret. Alex grabbed her shoulders and shoved her against the bedpost, trapping her. The carvings dug into her back as he shook her. “Answer me. If you do not, I shall personally see we are bound together forever. No matter my vow to annul our marriage.”

Kat gasped. “You would not break a sworn vow. Your honor means more to you than your life. Than even me!” Her voice cracked with the pain of betrayal.

“Answer me!” he roared.

Fear made her blurt, “Because I do not love him, you fool. I never have!” she cried.

Kat gasped at her unbidden revelation. Alex’s eyes widened when he caught the significance of her words.

He plopped down on the chest at the foot of the bed, holding her gaze. “You love me,” his voice a mixture of hope, wonder, and disbelief.

“Nay, I hate you.” Kat heard the desperation in her voice.

His eyes sparked with deep emotion, with love. “’Tis too late, my love. You cannot undo the words.”

A tight grip on the sheets, she shuffled away. “It changes naught. I still want an annulment.”

He stood, his eyes narrowed. “So you can forgive only those you do not love? Is that what you are saying?” his voice vibrated dangerously.

She glared. “I expected more from you.”

“That is your problem, Kat. You expect those around you to be perfect. You give your loyalty unswervingly to those you love and woe to anyone who fails you. Long ago you built up this heroic image of me in your mind that never existed. I am no legendary King Arthur. I am just a man, nothing more. An imperfect, fallible man who made unwise decisions that caused harm to the woman he loves.”

She shook her hair back off her face and jabbed her hand out pointing a finger at him. “You shall not turn this on me, Alex. Are you going to fulfill your sworn oath and have the marriage annulled as you agreed?” She stubbornly refused to listen to him and open her heart to rejection again. It hurt too damn much.

Alex quickly shuttered his expression, concealing all emotion except anger. “By God, Kat, you are a hard, unforgiving woman.”

A brief wail of pain escaped her lips as she clutched her chest. It felt as though he plunged a hot stake through her heart. All her life, all she ever wanted was to be loved. But always, the people who were supposed to love her most had failed her. Suddenly, his cruel words opened a rift and years of heartache and despair that she kept hidden from everyone lest she be pitied spewed forth.

“Unfair! If I am a hard woman, ’tis because I have had to be. Everyone I have ever loved has abandoned me!”

“What are you talking about, Kat? I have no intention of abandoning you. ’Tis you who wish to sever our marriage.”

“First my mother abandoned me, then my father. I had no family left, so when you and I married, I thought if I could just make you love me I would not be so alone anymore and we could start a family of our own. But you left me, too,” she whispered in misery, her shoulders sagging in defeat.

Kat did not resist when Alex tugged her into his arms. “Oh Kat, I have been such a fool. Aye, I left you, but part of me was running away from the deep feelings I had come to have for you. I was afraid, never having felt aught like it before, not even for Lady Lydia. That was why I snuck away like a thief. It did not take me long to realize that running away was a mistake. But by then it was too late to turn back.”

Tears rolled down Kat’s face as Alex held her pressed to his chest. His admission eased the hard ache she had carried around in her heart for as long as she could remember. Since her mother died giving birth to a stillborn, much-desired heir.

After her mother had had several miscarriages, the midwife told her parents that if she ever carried a baby to full term she could die. But despite the warning, her mother desperately wanted a boy. Kat, a girl, was not enough to make her mother happy. Kat had never forgotten that, and feelings of inadequacy tormented her through her whole life.

Then when her mother died, Kat and her father grew closer. She became the boy he never had. Then her father died, too. And she did not know where she belonged anymore.

Kat pulled out of his arms and gave him her back.

“I love you, Kat. I believe you are the strongest, bravest, most courageous woman I know. Except when it comes to your heart. I gave you up once and hurt you badly. But I promise I will never hurt you again. Can you not find it inside you to forgive me? To trust me with your heart and give me a second chance?”

Kat was forlorn. Alex was right. She was afraid. Only cowards could not confront their fears and triumph over them. She despised cowardice. Alex was a good man who made mistakes and asked that she forgive him. On her part, she loved him and knew he truly regretted hurting her. How could she not put her trust in Alex when he would brave death to protect her? He proved that to her when he nearly died saving her and Matthew from the bear.

And Lady Lydia no longer stood in the way. Alex was free of the woman’s manipulative influence. Even before he learned Lydia was the traitor, he had recognized that his love for her had been a youth’s infatuation. That day in the linen cupboard, he had believed Kat’s word over Lydia’s lies.

But was she brave enough to entrust her heart to Alex?

“If I have to beg, I will,” he said grimly.

At the rustling sound behind her, she twisted around. Alex knelt before her and raised the linen material pooling around her feet. She watched in horror as Alex bent over and kissed the hem.

She jerked the sheet from his hands. “Get up, Alex. You look ridiculous. You need not beg. It will not change my decision.”

He ignored her and took her hand in his. His bold blue gaze shone with emotion, with a tenderness that made her tremble. “I beg your forgiveness for deserting you after our marriage. I beg you let me love you for all the days we have left on this earth. I cannot promise I shall not die. Only God has that power. But I have had a glimpse of Heaven here on earth with you and I swear I shall never abandon you again.”

“Alex—”

He kissed her hand. “I beg you be my partner in marriage, my confidant, my conscience and my protector. And grant me the same right to protect you when you are in need. I am naught without you, Kat. Can you forgive me?”

“Aye, you fool. I forgive you. Now prithee, stand up, begging does not become you.” Alex appeared so startled Kat nearly laughed.

“You forgive me?”

She nodded gravely.

He did not move, but remained kneeling. “You forgive me, but what of your heart? The choice is yours to make. Would you have me as your husband to love and honor from this day forward, till death parts us?”

Kat threw up her arms, frowning. “You are insufferable. Aye, I choose you. Now I beg
you
, rise.”

Alex rose onto his feet, his blue eyes wide and stunned. “Do you mean it? Verily?”

Kat grinned. Her heart felt as though it would float away. For too long she allowed fear to get a grip on her heart and in the way of her happiness. Alex loved her and she loved him. If they never lost sight of that, any other troubles that arose in future they could face together.

“Verily. I do. You were right. ’Twas fear holding me back, though I hate to admit it,” she confessed ruefully. “But I shall not let it dominate my life anymore. I love you, Alex. I always have and always will.”

Alex pulled her into his arms, clutched her face between his warm palms and stared down at her with a passionate intensity. “I must be dreaming. Tell me you love me again.” His eyes shone with an odd combination of fear, disbelief, and hope.

She licked her suddenly dry lips, her heart pumping rapidly in her chest. “I love you, Alex. I want naught more than to share my life with you at Montclair and if the Lord wills it, have a passel of babies to fill the castle with laughter.”

Alex grinned with wicked promise. “A passel of babies? I love this woman,” he shouted. He wrapped his uninjured arm around her hips, lifted her up in the air and spun around, the sheet trailing behind her. Kat giggled above him, her hands braced on his shoulders. But she did not fear he would let her fall.

“Aye, a whole castle full.”

Slowly, Alex slid Kat down his naked torso. It was enough to make a man explode. Instead, he felt a grin spread from ear to ear. “I want to have little girls just like you—bold and beautiful, with black hair and silver eyes. I shall teach them how to hunt and ride and fish and swim. And wield a dagger, of course,” he said, a devilish gleam in his eyes. His wife blushed adorably.

This is the happiest moment of my life
, Alex thought. With Kat by his side he could achieve anything.

Kat planted her hands on her hips. Her eyes sparkled. “And what of using the bow and arrow?”

“My girls shall be the best marksmen in the entire shire, nay, the country.”

“Markswomen. We shall start a new trend. And what if we have boys?”

“You shall teach them. But first we must begin procreating at every opportunity if you want a large family.” He whipped the sheet off Kat.

Kat pressed her hand on her bare belly. “Who knows?” she said in wonder, “I may be with child even now.”

Alex’s heart jolted at her words. A buzz sounded in his ears, his vision spun, right before his knees buckled beneath him. Luckily, he fell forward and landed on the bed, unconscious, shock at the possibility of impending fatherhood too much.

Kat watched, amazed, as Alex fainted. The notion that such a brave, strong man like Alex, a man she had thought invulnerable, feared becoming a father, endeared him to her as naught else could. She crawled up on the bed next to him and gently brushed back his hair from his moist forehead.

Breathing in his enticing manly scent, she kissed his cheek. And uttered a whispered caress. “I love this man.”