Stealing Heaven

by Madeline Hunter

  None too gently he turned her face to the window, making the world spin, confusing her. The sudden light shocked her and the crisp air nipped her flushed skin.

  She blinked hard, and the blurred scene outside sharpened.

  Sickening despair hit her stomach like a fist.

  Four men wearing Anglesmore’s livery were dismounting from their horses. Genith sat on the rump of one steed, with tears running down her face. Behind the saddle of another, his hands bound and his long dark hair falling halfway down his back, was one of the young men who had come to take Genith to safety.

  “We had her before I came here. My men delayed to try and catch the other thieves,” Marcus said lowly in her ear.

  The hand at her head pulled her back from the window. Still hot-eyed with anger and passion, he released his hold on her body but took her face in a grip.

  “Do not try to make me into your fool again, Nesta. And never taunt me as you did today. The craving between us goes both ways, woman, and it is my weapon to use as surely as it is yours.”

  He pressed another furious kiss on her, then thrust her away, toward the chest of garments. “When I give a command, obey it. Put something on and cover yourself.”

  The men of Anglesmore carried out the chests and set them in the wagon. The wagoner Nesta had hired in London kept up an argument with Marcus, explaining that he had not bargained for a journey to Wales, and how he expected an escort out of that bandit-filled land if he was forced to go there. The whole village had come to watch the spectacle and dawdled in groups on the dirt lane.

  Nesta stood with her arm around Genith’s shoulders. It had taken a long while to get her sister to stop crying, and Marcus’s icy manner as he ordered the preparations had not helped matters any. Whenever he glanced their way, Genith had resumed weeping like a woman doomed.

  Nesta touched Genith’s arm and gestured to the young man who had been captured along with her sister. His hands were still bound, and a rope now tethered him to the wagon’s side. Of middle height and slight of build, he appeared no match for the powerful warrior who had captured him. He wore a sack tied to his back that was too flat and long to only be holding food and garments.

  “What is his name?”

  “Dylan,” Genith whispered. “The others ran when they saw all was lost, but he did not.”

  “Brave of him,” Nesta said. Brave but rash. He should have run too, if capture was inevitable.

  Dylan watched Marcus with lidded, sparkling blue eyes. He showed no fear. Nesta looked back to her sister in time to see admiration flicker as Genith regarded the prisoner.

  “Do you know him? Is that why he stood by you?”

  Genith blushed. “He served last winter at our kinswoman’s household. I was surprised to see him with the others here. I did not know that he had joined them.”

  “Do not let Marcus know this. He may think that Dylan pursued you, and accuse him of abduction.” It would be a very neat explanation for Genith’s escape, Nesta admitted to herself, and she would need a good one soon. She could not risk the young man’s life in that way, however.

  It turned out that Dylan was in danger with no help from her. After the chests had been moved and the horses prepared, one of Marcus’s men pointed to the prisoner and addressed his lord. “Might as well hang him now. Easier that way, and he’s either a thief or a traitor.”

  Marcus stood at the cottage door, dwarfing the threshold behind him. He examined the young man tied to the wagon, and Dylan gazed back fearlessly. Two pairs of fiery eyes locked on each other. Dylan’s challenge could not have been more clear if he had voiced it. Nesta could almost hear Marcus weighing the trouble awaiting if he did not hang Dylan immediately.

  “Would you punish him for foolishly following his elders?” she called to Marcus. “His greatest treason was to his own safety, in not fleeing like the others. Besides, the sack on his back clearly carries a harp, and he can entertain us on the evenings of this journey.”

  That brought Marcus’s gaze on her instead. His expression suggested she had been very stupid to remind him that she existed. “You would have me spare him, Nesta?”

  “Aye.” She hoped that Marcus would not hang Dylan merely to spite her.

  “And my bride. What would she prefer?”

  Genith lowered her gaze modestly. “The decision is yours, my lord, but if he can sing for us and ease this journey, I would have him spared.”

  “Then it will be so, for now.” He gestured for the women to get into the wagon. “We will delay all punishments until we get to Anglesmore, where the rights of judgment are legally mine.”

  Nesta helped Genith into the wagon, and climbed in to settle beside her. She could have done without Marcus’s reference to all punishments.

  They crossed Offa’s Dyke, the ancient border of Wales, before nightfall. Marcus decided they would camp rather than seek shelter at some manor house. They were in Clun now, a marcher estate held by Fitzalen, the Earl of Arundal, and Marcus did not want to be explaining the situation to Arundal if he was in residence here.

  The women created a little camp adjacent to the men’s. After a meal had been cooked and served, one of his soldiers eagerly brought the prisoner forward. He put Dylan near the main fire and cut his bindings. Dylan removed the sack from his back, and withdrew his harp.

  As soon as the fingers touched the strings, Marcus knew that Dylan was a bard. His voice and skill announced it as surely as the old legends he sang. The harp itself, inlaid with silver knotted lines, possessed an ancient look. Marcus guessed it had been given to Dylan by an older bard, who had in turn received it from one, and on and on back through time.

  Aye, he should have hung the young man. Dylan would not have to raise a weapon or attempt escape to be trouble. He need only sing the right song at the right time to speak sedition to the Welsh people.

  Bodies gravitated to the pure sound of the music, and soon a hushed audience circled the fire. Genith’s soulful eyes appeared glazed, as if the songs entranced her. Or perhaps the bard did. Marcus knew that should concern him more than it did. Still, he would have to find out the truth behind Genith’s attempt to flee.

  Seated on a log at the edge of the group, Nesta attended to the entertainment more impassively than the others, occasionally ducking her head as if Dylan could not even hold her attention.

  Marcus circled through the trees surrounding the clearing, drawn to that bobbing head. The music trickled over and around him as he approached her, and the breeze and forest sounds seemed a part of the melody.

  She wore an old flowing robe of a deep rose hue. Of the simplest cut, it hung from her shoulders and obscured her body. It barely revealed the shape that it skimmed, but he had no trouble seeing what was beneath. The image of her naked, tapering back and nipped waist, of the lovely curve of her hips flaring above the feet on which they rested, kept flicking in his head all day, like a banner snapping in the breeze.

  He stepped toward her, but she did not notice him behind her. Instead her head ducked again as she bent toward her knees, reminding him of the suggestive pose she had assumed in the cottage when she leaned forward and rested her weight on her hands. In his mind’s eye she completed the movement, rising on her knees so her pretty, round bottom lifted…

  Blinking the fantasy away, he looked to the ground and saw what occupied her more than the music.

  She had smoothed the dirt at her feet, and now drew on it with a stick. The scene in front of her, of men and women surrounding a fire, filled the middle of the dirt. Animals of the hunt and birds of the forest watched from the edges. All of the figures, human and beast, directed their attention to a man atop the fire holding a harp. He was drawn larger than all the others, and in more detail.

  It was another tapestry design, such as she had sold to David. He noted with some annoyance that she had not included him.

  “It is clever,” he said. “A pity you cannot save it.”

  “It is in my head. When I have time
to use ink and parchment, I will remember most of it.” She spoke as if she had known he was behind her after all.

  “You were taught this in the convent?”

  “I sought to learn it. There was not much else to do there except pray and learn Latin. And it proved useful. I sell the images to earn some coin for cloth and such, since I was left with little when I was widowed.”

  “You will not need to clothe yourself in the future.”

  She straightened, and tilted her head to examine her work. “Well, one never knows. Even so, I might continue. I have grown fond of doing it.”

  “Then we will make sure that you have inks and parchments.”

  He stood by her shoulder. Only the barest space separated them. He was very conscious of how close he was to her. He could feel her warmth on his thigh. He could imagine the skin beneath the rose cloth. He tasted her again, as if his mouth pressed and bit her neck as it had hours ago.

  That embrace had been a livid response to the anger and hunger that had gripped him while he watched her bathe. It had been a furious impulse born of insult and desire, and he had succumbed too greedily. He could not regret it, however, no matter how the memory would torture him. He was glad he had forced her to acknowledge that a taste of hell waited for both of them.

  He touched her shoulder with his fingertips. She flexed as if she had been waiting for it, and the vaguest tremble shook out of her and into him through the tiny contact.

  Aye, hell awaited.

  “I would speak with you, Nesta. Come with me.”

  She hesitated, but rose and faced him. Her expression remained composed, but for an instant he saw resentment in her eyes, and an unspoken rebuke for what he had done in the cottage.

  He dared not take her into the trees because he didn’t trust himself to have her alone. Instead he led her to the women’s camp, where they could talk but still be seen.

  A smaller fire burned here, and she sat on another log near its low flames. “Sit,” she said. “I’ll not have you looming over me like some threat out of hell. I am not easily intimidated, so you might as well rest yourself.”

  It was the only log, so he settled beside her—and knew at once that he had lost an advantage in doing so. They were too close. She had intended that. He was sure of it.

  “Dylan sings beautifully,” he said. “Your sister appears enchanted by him. Does Genith know him? Or has she fallen in love in one day?”

  “You see more than is there. She is just a girl touched by a jongleur’s love song.”

  He had to smile. “Nesta, have you spent your life around unusually stupid men? I ask because you act as if you assume I am denser than stone. Dylan is no mere jongleur, and he has not been singing about love. I know the Welsh language, my lady, and I recognize the old bardic songs.”

  She shrugged, and picked up a stick and began absently drawing in the dirt again. “Most of the English lords do not know Welsh.”

  “My family has been on the marches for hundreds of years. My grandmother was Welsh.”

  “Still, most of you do not know the language. I did not think you dense, just typical of the English families who hold Wales but rarely visit their lands here. Their English manors are more to their taste, and we are glad for that.” She glanced toward Dylan. “He is no danger to you. Not in his songs, nor with my sister.”

  “He is if she fled to be with him. Did this man and his friends take her from you?”

  “I handed her to them. I arranged it all.” She said it blandly, utterly indifferent to what his reaction would be.

  “Where were you sending her?”

  “To my father’s men. She does not want this marriage, and when I saw her distress I could not deny her. It was foolhardy, I know, but her pleas touched me, and your behavior when you met with her only made it worse.”

  He did not miss that she had turned it around so this was his fault. “So you sent your sister to the mountains to live out her life among bandits in order to save her from me.”

  She pursed her lips at the sarcasm in his tone. “I sent her from a marriage she did not want. As to where she would live, I would have arranged something else later. But with you insisting on a quick wedding, I had to get her away at once.”

  It vexed him that she assumed he would swallow the swill she was offering. “There is a capricious logic to your tale, Nesta. The only problem is that I do not think you are capricious. You are lying.”

  “Why would I bother to do that?”

  “Maybe to protect your sister, who sought to run off with her lover. Or maybe to hide the fact that you only want to thwart this marriage in order to spite the King.”

  Her attention sharpened on him. Color rose to her cheeks. “You insult me. Better to accept that I am capricious than accuse me of such childishness.”

  “A woman used and spurned can be very childish. I do not insult you. I only assume that you are typical, as you assumed about me. If I am wrong, your opposition to this marriage makes little sense. This union will benefit your family’s honor. You should have been explaining that to your sister, to allay her girlish fears, not plotting to help her run away. Aye, to me this looks like the scheme of a smart woman made stupid by wounded pride, whose vision has turned shortsighted because of an old insult.”

  She was up on her feet before he finished, glaring at him. The low fire reflected off marvelous sparks of anger in her eyes. They reminded him of other sparks he had seen in them, of passion and desire.

  Challenge silently crackled out of her, but as they gazed at each other it changed. The argument and its reason became submerged in the spiritual push and tug of their other battle.

  Too much passed between them in that gaze. That she lied and that he suspected why. That each would find the other a formidable foe. That they wanted each other with a fiery desire that kept threatening to consume good sense. It was all there, instantly, harshly, and undeniably.

  A glint of confusion joined the other lights in her eyes. She quickly dropped her gaze, but he saw it just the same. In his dazed absorption, it seemed a yielding and submission. He came close to pulling her onto his lap.

  She stepped away, as if she sensed his impulse. “Think of me what you will, Marcus. Actually, I believe you may be right. Perhaps in my heart I did take Genith away in order to spite the King.”

  The rose drapery swayed around her as she strolled to where Dylan still made lyrical sounds on his harp. Marcus watched her every step, and imagined the way the fire glow would play over her invisible body if the robe were removed.

  She had not done this to spite the King. Her admission itself convinced him of that. She had merely retreated to another lie in order to feed him a story he would find palatable.

  He suspected that the explanation was more complicated than the simple ones they had traded. When they got to Anglesmore, he would have to learn the truth.

  Chapter 5

  Dylan remained tethered to the wagon throughout the journey, a prisoner who walked while others rode. On the second day, as the way grew increasingly rough, Nesta could tell that he wearied. He finally fell, and the rolling wagon dragged him while he struggled vainly to scramble back on his feet.

  Nesta smacked the shoulder of the wagoner and ordered him to stop. She climbed out and helped Dylan up, then told him to take her place in the wagon.

  She soon had cause to regret her generosity. Her thin shoes offered little protection and she felt every rut and rock in the, road. Marcus, riding at the lead of the entourage, glanced back and noticed her walking. He turned his horse aside and waited for the wagon to catch up.

  As they passed, he fell into place behind her. She could feel the horse’s breath on her shoulder, and its rider’s attention on her progress.

  Suddenly the horse moved beside her. A looming body leaned, and a vise of an arm imprisoned her waist.

  The world shook, spun, and blurred, and the next moment she was sitting sideways on the horse, in front c Marcus.

  She
frowned up at him. “What are you doing?” Hi face was very close. Too close. All of him was.

  “Keeping a prideful woman from becoming a cripple before the day is out.”

  He retook his place in the lead. She twisted an< stretched to see the wagon, but his body blocked he view of the women and other riders. And theirs of her.

  They rode in a heavy silence, and the stomp of the horse’s hooves beat out the rhythm of time that had slowed. She silently cursed the stupid flutters beating their way up from her stomach to her throat. She grew too conscious of the chest pressing her shoulder, and of the breath titillating her cheek, and of the fingers firmly resting on her waist, steadying her so she did not fall from her perch. She worried that his hand would move but also admitted dismally that a part of her was urging it to do so.

  She groped for an excuse to get off the horse. “We should stop to eat soon, shouldn’t we?”

  “I did not intend to for some time. Are you hungry?”

  “Aye.”

  His hand left her, and pulled at a leather string around his neck. A little sack emerged from under his tunic. “Open it.”

  Inside the sack were small pieces of dried venison. She wasn’t really hungry, but she plucked one out anyway since she had claimed she was. “Despite a wagon and a mule packed with provisions, you wear your meal?”

  “I am accustomed to wearing it.”

  “You hunger easily?”

  “It is a habit, that is all.” He tucked the sack away, and gestured to the terrain that they passed. “You must be glad to finally return to Wales. It has been a long time since you left.”

  “Too long.” Not very long at all, actually. Did he suspect as much? He did not appear to be probing for information, but she had learned not to underestimate this man.

  “It is much as you remember it, is it not?”

  “Little has changed.”

  Very little. The Welsh travelers they passed were a people always at a disadvantage under English law. The small towns were the domains of English merchants. The lands produced wealth that flowed to English coffers.