Stealing Heaven

by Madeline Hunter

  He could not disagree. Already a wistful melancholy drenched the air. Still, he resented the cool determination with which she announced the end. Sad or not, doomed or not, he would have gladly continued this passion a fortnight and allowed duty to wait for a while.

  She cast aside the blanket and knelt, unmindful of how cold it was outside their makeshift bed. He filled his mind with her as she dressed, and regretted every part of her body as it disappeared beneath the torn shift and wrinkled gown.

  She reached for the remains of the food. “Just as well that we are not staying. We did not pack this food last night. The bread is hard and the cheese is wet.”

  “I can hunt. The fear that has you ending this is not one of hunger.”

  She ignored that, and rummaged through his garments until she found the little sack of dried venison. “Fortunately, you never eat the meal that you wear.”

  She threw his clothes to him, and he dressed while she pried at the drawstring. His head emerged through the neck of his tunic to find her immobile, staring into the sack.

  “It is not for eating, is it? Not really.” The gaze she turned to him had all of the softness he had seen while they made love. It was as if she looked right into his soul and understood all that she surveyed. Memories from the night filled his head, clearer now than in the actual living of them, and longing filled his chest. He suddenly understood why he did not want to leave this lodge, and the loss that waited when he did.

  She held the little sack as if it were stitched from cloth of gold and not rawhide. “Do you wear it to remind you of the starvation, or as a talisman against it happening again?”

  The question astonished him. He busied himself with his belt. “As a youth, after I returned to Anglesmore, I grew accustomed to wearing it, that is all.”

  He reached for the sack and took a piece of venison, to prove it was a convenience and nothing more. The small strip of meat was very old and tough, but he chewed with determination.

  She finished her own dressing. As if both of them wanted to delay opening the lodge door, they were fastidious in folding the furs and banking the fire. Neither of them spoke as they obliterated the evidence of the night.

  Finally all was prepared. They stood by the dead fire in a space still full of the night’s shadows but stabbed by dozens of arrows of bright sunlight.

  Her hand sought his. “I should have asked about it. Last night I should have had you tell me more about your years in London, and your father’s death, and your sister’s sacrifice, and what you owe to Anglesmore and his memory and your own past.”

  “I did not want to speak of such things.”

  “Aye, but still I should have asked.”

  He pulled her into his arms. The embrace was too much like one shared by people parting, and the warmth of her, the spring scent now mixed with sensual odors, moved him. Very deliberately he caressed her, branding his memory so that her feel would never be lost.

  As they walked to the door, he thought of nothing but the night. She pulled it open, not him. Beyond the threshold spread a dazzling day, and a bright sun melting the last of the night’s snow.

  As they walked to the horses, her last words repeated in his mind. He realized that if she had asked him about those things last night, he would have told her everything, just as he had told her about Joan buying his life. It would have been easy to speak of it, even though he never had before with anyone else.

  The omission was not just hers. He should have asked about her own father, and more about her years in Scotland, and what she owed to Llygad’s memory and to Wales and to her own past.

  He had not asked because he did not need to. He already knew most of it. Not the most dangerous parts, he was sure, but the reasons.

  He knew because, during the hour before he had followed her and Genith and Dylan, he had read her letters.

  She had hoped that the daylight would burn away the intimacy, but it did not happen that way. They were as connected on the ride back to Anglesmore as they had been in each other’s arms, and the sweetness refused to die throughout the miles they journeyed.

  She rode her own horse, with her sack tied behind her saddle. As she had suspected, her belongings had not been lost. Marcus had left them outside so that she would have no garments. When he had retrieved the sack from the hay in which it was buried, it never entered her mind to scold him for the wicked deception.

  They did not speak much as they rode through the valley. There was much that needed saying, but they both knew what it was and so it was unnecessary to voice the words. Her heart both relished the slow journey and dreaded its progress. She knew that she should be steeling herself for what was to come, but she found herself incapable of relinquishing the intimacy by contemplating its end.

  Only as they faced the gate, side by side, and looked up at the massive walls and towers of Anglesmore’s power, only then did her rebellious heart accept the truth. They had shared a magical night in another world. Entering the gate would return them to the real one, and to their duties.

  They stayed there a long time, immobile on their horses. Marcus looked at her, and she saw that he understood what the next steps would mean.

  A different man and woman might have thrown caution to the wind. Others may have even turned from the gate, and sought other shelter and other lives. But she was Nesta verch Llygad, and he was Marcus of Anglesmore, and such as they were born for destinies bigger than happiness.

  Separate destinies. Opposing ones.

  Her heart filled with a searing pain. Her throat began burning, and she blinked a sudden film from her eyes. She dared not give a name to what she was feeling. She resisted admitting what the last day’s joy and sadness revealed. If the emotion overwhelming her was recognized, she would be sliced in two, and one part of her would eventually have to betray the other.

  Still, she found that she could not move her horse. The bravery with which she had thrown open the lodge door had deserted her.

  She peered up at the remorseless, iron teeth of the hanging portcullis. “Do you dream much, Marcus? Vivid dreams that you remember on waking?”

  “Not so much anymore. I did when I was young.”

  “I rarely do too. I am glad for it, I think. If they are bad dreams, I am terrified. If they are good dreams… if they are good ones, life seems so drab and ordinary the next day.” She smiled at him, and wished they were not in view of the wall so that she could give him a kiss. “I have been in a dream for hours now, but the morning has truly come.”

  He vaguely nodded his acknowledgment of that. There was no need to express how completely the dream was about to end. He was a clever man, and he understood.

  Neither one of them moved first. At the same instant their two horses stepped forward, and they rode through the gate.

  Chapter 11

  You say that you found her on the road? She spent the night alone out there in the cold with no horse, no weapon, and no cloak?“

  Paul asked the question early the next morning as they broke their fast. He was not very good at being subtle, and Marcus noticed the overly deliberate nonchalance in his friend’s tone.

  “She is a resourceful woman, and stronger than most. I daresay she could survive more than one night with the little she had with her.”

  Paul nodded solemnly. “To be sure. Still, she was fortunate that you came upon her.”

  “The good fortune was mine. I might be thought negligent if she perished.”

  Paul began responding but bit back the words. Marcus had no trouble guessing what had been sacrificed to better judgment. More than a few eyebrows had shot up when he and Nesta had ridden in the gate yesterday.

  Without discussing it, they had both known the story to give. No one had dared to question it outright even though the possibilities had been obvious to everyone. Now, as Marcus watched Paul biting his tongue, he decided that the household’s curiosity about that night had a benefit. It kept everyone from examining the rest of the story,
and the peculiar detail of how Marcus had lost Genith and Dylan in hills that he could journey through blinded.

  Paul angled forward so he could speak confidentially. It appeared he had decided that better judgment could go to hell. “No one will be bold enough to say it to your face, of course, but you should know that there is a lot of talk. Wondering, mostly. After all, she is not reputed to be the most virtuous woman, now is she?”

  Marcus had intended to take this in stride, but now a sharp annoyance stabbed his head. “Talk is inevitable, but are you saying that it is not my possible lack of chivalry that is being bantered about? That Nesta is being blamed for any sins that may have happened?”

  Paul shrugged. “To be expected, isn’t it, with a woman who has been the King’s whore? It should quiet down soon enough, now that she is preparing to leave. Her servant confided the plans to Jane, the groom’s wife. I say it can’t be soon enough.”

  Marcus broke off a hunk of bread and ate it. He drank his ale. Paul turned the conversation to other things and some time passed during which Marcus brought the livid fury that had blazed through him under control.

  His meal done, he rose. “Paul, send men to the town and farms and speak with the people. Let it be known that I want to parlay with Carwyn Hir. Perhaps someone in these parts knows how to get word to him, and the message will travel.”

  Paul agreed that might work, and that an attempt at negotiations might bear fruit.

  “I also ask that you do what you can to stop this talk, for the lady’s sake.”

  Paul nodded, but did not appear very hopeful.

  “There is one more thing, Paul. Let it be known that if anyone ever calls her a whore again, that person, man or woman, will be exiled from these lands forever.”

  Paul’s gaze snapped up. He grimaced with exasperation and dismay. “Ah, hell, Marcus, you didn’t. There’s going to be hell to pay now, that’s for sure.”

  Paul was right about that. There was going to be hell to pay, and some of it was waiting in a chamber up above. Marcus aimed there, to speak with the woman whose servant had conveniently been indiscreet with Jane, the groom’s wife.

  He found Nesta sitting near the window, her makeshift table arranged to catch the sun rays flowing through the thick window slit. Only one little pot was open, and she used her brush to fill green into the back of her design.

  He strolled over and examined the parchment. It showed seven women holding various objects and seated on the backs of seven primitive men who crawled about in loincloths.

  It was almost complete. She must have been laboring over it since their return yesterday. He had thought that her absence from the hall had been a way to avoid him, not the result of absorption in her designs. He did not care for the evidence that her head had not been filled with thoughts of their time together, as his had.

  “It is the seven virtues triumphant over the seven vices,” she explained with her head still bent.

  He knew what it represented. The image of chastity caught his attention. The face of lust on whom she sat bore a striking resemblance to himself.

  “You have been laboring hard at this, Nesta. You have had a sudden burst of artistry.”

  “It passes the time.”

  “It also provides you with coin, you once said. Do you need some now?”

  “One can never have enough coin.”

  “True, especially if one is planning a journey. I have heard talk that you think of making one. Put that idea aside. You will be staying here.”

  She paused her delicate strokes. Straightening, she cleaned the little brush, set it down, and covered the ink. Finally she rose and faced him.

  Nesta the adversary had returned.

  “I had assumed that you would see the Tightness of my leaving, but it appears that you are not nearly as clever as I had thought.”

  “Clever enough to know that I need to keep an eye on you.”

  “I think that it is not just an eye that you want to keep on me.”

  “Nay, it is my hands and my mouth and my whole body, but you will not be staying because of that. You have been determined to thwart the crown’s plan for making peace with your father’s men. I intend to make the peace without your interference.”

  She frowned with frustration. Her fretful expression touched him. He moved to embrace her, but she shrugged him away and his hands only came to rest on her shoulders. Since she seemed to accept that, he let them stay there.

  “I know something about duty to a father’s will, Nesta, and much about responsibility to a father’s memory. In this you and I are the same. Whatever burden Llygad’s life and death placed on you, however, I cannot allow you to encourage his men in their rebellion. Not just because of my duty to my king and not only because it will mean their deaths at my command. In the doing of it, you place yourself in danger. I will not allow you to engage in anything that might be seen as treason. Already Stratford is suspicious of you.”

  A belligerent glint entered her eyes. “Let Stratford be suspicious. I do not fear him.”

  “If he finds evidence to support those suspicions, at the least he will have cause to put you away.”

  “He has already done so once. I will survive it again.”

  Her reckless attitude both angered and worried him. He gripped her shoulders tighter. “Tell me what you are up to, Nesta. If it is truly treasonous, we can end it cleanly and no one will be the wiser. If we do not, even the King’s favor may not protect you.”

  She looked in his eyes so long that he thought she would confide in him. A sadness passed over her expression, however, and her gaze slid past him.

  Gently, she stepped out of his hold and limped to the window. “If it were truly treasonous, it would be your duty to hand me over to the King’s judgment. If you did not, you would be as guilty as I, and would risk everything with your silence.”

  “What I risk is my concern alone.”

  She did not respond. She merely gazed out the window. It meant he could not see her face. Her pose, perfectly balanced despite her sore ankle, held a serenity that was in stark contrast to his own churning emotions.

  Her silence became a dismissal and her posture a repudiation. It amazed him that she could act so indifferently after what they had shared. Then again, perhaps he had misunderstood, and they had not shared much at all.

  He reacted to that notion with a furious denial, but he quickly swallowed it. If that was how it had been, it was probably for the best. Hadn’t he always sought out women just like the one being so cool now? Experienced ones, who could enjoy pleasure and then walk away?

  He began to leave, annoyed by the hollow sensation growing in his heart. “Nesta, if you have the means to send messages to Carwyn Hir, let him know that I would meet with him. It would be as in a truce, so that we can learn what became of Genith.”

  “And so you can also offer him absolution or death?”

  “Aye, that too.”

  “You assume that I can contact him. You are convinced of my treason then, and have been for some time, I think. You do not have many scruples about the women you bed, do you? Or did you even seduce me out of duty? Perhaps you hoped to trap me into indiscreet confidences with the intimacy?”

  If she had kept silent, if she had said anything else at all, he would have left the chamber. Instead his legs took him to the window in long strides.

  He grabbed her and swung her around. “That night had nothing to do with what we speak of here. I said it would not for me, and later asked if it did for you. Neither of us was fettered by thoughts of duty or obligations or trades or traps. To say otherwise is unworthy of you, and an insult to us both.”

  She looked pointedly at his grip on her arm. “Forgive me. I seem to have forgotten what that night did have to do with.”

  Her flippant response infuriated him. “This. It had to do with this.”

  He pulled her to him. She squirmed to get away but he imprisoned her resistance in an embrace and silenced her objection
with a kiss.

  He had sworn to himself that he would not touch her again, but his passion soured in triumph at the taste and feel of her. He sensed her flex of yielding even before it rippled through her and he urged her to join him with his caress. She held back for an excruciating instant before responding in a burst of madness that made him burn so hotly he thought he would die. They might have been back in the lodge again, sealed together, breathing each other’s air and sharing each other’s essence.

  Memories from that night filled his head. The low voice of reason chanted the cost, but he ignored its irritating caution. He wanted her with a ferocity that made the last weeks seem tame. He pushed her against the wall and took her breasts in his hands. A throaty groan sighed out of her as he caressed and teased and commanded her to totally capitulate to the delirium with him.

  He thought she would. Thought she had. Her soothing hands stroked up his back to his shoulders, and slid down his arms to his hands. She held them to her breasts and returned a kiss of such poignant depth that he thought his body would split in two. Then her fingers closed tightly on his wrists and stilled his caress. She broke the kiss and stayed there, breathing deeply, her head resting against the wall, her eyes closed and her expression sad.

  Her lids fluttered open. “Now I remember what that night was about. Lust.”

  He wanted to hit her for that. If not for the softness in her gaze that said more than any words, he might have. “Calling it base does not make it so, Nesta.”

  “Considering your duty, it would be unbearably reckless for either of us to call it anything else.” She slipped away from him, and limped to her table. “You must not touch me again. If you have any affection for me at all, if you truly do not think me a whore, you must do what I have done, and make that night a magical memory from another world.”

  “Your ability to be practical impresses me, my lady.”

  “Well, I have had more experience at that than most When the troubadours sing about me, they do not warble love songs.”