Stealing Heaven
Page 19
It was a joyous spectacle, and he wouldn’t mind being down there too. Instead he was holed up in this chamber trying to decipher the witch’s plans.
Sighing with resignation, he walked back to the table. He peered over Paul’s hunched shoulders.
Paul had done some aimless rearranging, and Marcus blandly observed the results. Something in the new combination plucked at him. Reaching over, he moved several bits. Then several more.
They began falling into place. His hand moved rapidly, filling in the gaps, just knowing where the words should go. His eyes narrowed on the emerging message.
Damn the woman. She was going to drive him mad.
Paul went very still. He snuck a glance over his shoulder and made a weak, apologetic smile.
Marcus stared at the message that they had just spent the whole day discovering and deciphering.
Marcus I send no messages fall of plots to Carwyn. Do you think I would be so stupid as to plan treason by such dangerous means.
Chapter 15
Nesta dared not send a written message to Carwyn, but she needed to explain the betrothal just the same. She asked some farmers to pass a verbal message west, but she could not count on it arriving as she said it, or even completing the journey. She was stuck, forced to hope that Carwyn would see the truth and know what to do.
News trickled in about Carwyn’s continuing raids, indicating that he did. More revealing was the evidence of Marcus’s response. Young men began arriving from the farms. The yard and nearby field rang with the practice of arms.
Nesta watched it all, and read the implications. Perhaps being confined to this castle did not render her impotent to the cause, after all. She would know exactly what Marcus intended to do. She would know the size of his force, and whether and when he called up the neighboring lords. It would all play out in front of her, and even if Marcus locked her in the cellar, he could not hide any of it.
She was not sure that she wanted to know, however. She did not want to have the chance to betray him so directly.
She admitted that as she strolled along the wall walk late one morning as the last of the farmers left the yard.
She realized with dismay that time was dulling her anger. She had to think about his deceit very specifically in order to work up her outrage now. She no longer carried it with her all day and fretted about it all night.
That worried her. She needed that anger. She needed it when they passed each other in the hall. She desperately needed it when they sat beside each other at meals. She never looked at him, but she felt him there as they ate. Eventually, when the food was finished, she felt him physically, as he firmly covered her hand with his on the table so that everyone could see that, despite her distant behavior, she belonged to him.
Slowly, appallingly, that touch was bridging more than the space between them. Last night, to her shock, she realized that she spent the whole meal waiting for him to reach for her.
She circled the wall two times, examining her response to him, fighting the truth of her weakness, and eventually admitting the shame of it. Her inner argument left her disgusted with herself.
She stopped and looked down into the yard. Marcus stood at the top of the keep stairs, his body encased in armor. The sun glinted off the metal and made his hair glow, turning him into an image of chivalrous beauty and strength much like the ones she put in her designs.
He was watching her. Despite their distance, she felt the intensity of his attention. Stripped of its defenses by her self-examination, her heart flipped foolishly and then sank painfully.
Once more he would ride out, as he had so often since their false betrothal. He was finding evidence of more than small raiding parties.
Some of the men he had called to arms had not come here, but had headed into the hills instead. There had also been reports of cymanfaoedd, meetings being held throughout the region.
If that was true, she should rejoice. She felt no triumph or elation at the notion, however. Marcus looked glorious in armor, but she did not like seeing him in it.
A spike of anger pierced her. A new wrath, unlike the one she had clung to these last days, stabbed hotly. There was nothing righteous in this blade of rage. It was unholy and unforgivable. In that instant of seething rebellion, she hated her father, and his dream, and Wales itself.
Marcus rode out the gate. She ran to a section of the wall overlooking the western fields, and watched him join his men and ride away. Waves of yearning and anger and head-splitting confusion hit her, and she gritted her teeth with frustration.
Beneath the chaos there flowed a heartbreaking helplessness. They were trapped on a fast current that would take them where it chose now, and steering clear of rocks would be nigh impossible.
Nesta woke in the middle of the night. Her sleep had been fitful, and alive with vivid dreams of swords and death.
She sat on the edge of the bed, suddenly alert. Her women dozed under blankets, but the chamber seemed sticky and hot to her. She rose and stepped over to the window, and lifted a corner of the oiled parchment that had been placed over the thick slit to keep out the night’s chill. The flow of cold air felt delicious.
The sky looked clear and beautiful and full of stars. Its vastness offered a soothing balm. She reached for her gown and drew it on and hastily tied the lacing.
She felt her way through blackness, down the stairs. Utter stillness met her every step, even as she passed the second level. In a chamber there Marcus slept, at peace no doubt. There was no reason for him to toss with bad dreams. The path of his duty lay straight and cleanly marked. She was the one getting lost in a maze of conflicting loyalties.
She stepped outside and breathed in the crisp air. She lifted her hair so it could dry the dampness that her restless night had left on her nape.
The yard seemed much larger now with the absence of people and activity. The walls loomed high and ominous in comparison to its stretching void. The hollow silence of the castle intensified, unsettling her. She aimed for the garden, seeking a place less remindful of a tomb.
The familiar shapes of low boxwood and bushes, of fruit trees and ivy beds, lightened her spirits. A garden did not need people in order to be alive and natural. The flowers might have died, and the last leaves might be falling, but the space was still redolent with the odors of life. It contained a thousand reassurances that no matter what one person’s strife, the seasons continued their cycle.
She strolled along a side path littered with fallen apples. She did not think about her father or Carwyn Hir or even Marcus. She let the quiet beauty of the night garden create a spot of solace for a while.
Halfway along the path, the mood suddenly changed.
A streak of lightning might have flashed in the sky, so abruptly was she pulled out of her reverie. With one step she passed from peace to turmoil.
She recognized the reason, and halted. She was not alone in this garden. Someone else was here, and she knew who it was.
She peered into the deep shadows beneath the trees. She found him the last place that she looked, on a bench against the garden wall, not twenty paces from where she stood.
“It is odd for you to be here, Marcus. After a day in the saddle, you should be sleeping like the dead.”
He rose. “I often visit here at night, Nesta.”
“Do not come near me.”
He ignored her command. The way he walked had her on the alert. Her inner voice warned that she should leave immediately.
She pictured herself fleeing like a mouse, confirming her weakness. She stood her ground, but her blood quickened with something too much like fear. “I am not surprised that you seek this place out at night. It is so peaceful, and perfect for contemplation. Better than a church.”
“I do not come here for prayer or contemplation, Nesta. I have been waiting for you. I have come almost every night since we first arrived here.”
“You assumed that I had a habit of visiting gardens at night?”
&nbs
p; “You did so once. I thought you eventually might do so again.” He came up beside her and looked down. “It appears I was correct.”
“I came here tonight looking for solitude.”
His fingertips brushed at the hair framing her face. “I think that you came here looking for me.”
“That is not true. I—”
His fingers touched her mouth, silencing her. He left them there, and she felt the quick pulse of her lips beating against his warm, firm touch. The same trembling beat took possession of her body.
He took her hand, and gently tugged her toward the bench. Her heart broke with the desire to follow. Heaven waited in the shadows.
She halted after a few steps.
He felt her resistance. “Do not give me excuses, and denials, and arguments. I know how divided your heart is. But that is for tomorrow, and for the world outside these low walls. I ask for nothing more than to have you beside me in this garden, free of our burdens.”
His words undid her. She followed, despite knowing this was madness. The worldly woman in her sighed with exasperation at the silly girl whose heart pounded because a handsome knight spoke of needing her.
He sat and drew her toward him. She found herself on his lap, and not on the bench by his side. She tried to move off him.
His arm held her firmly. “There is no danger with me. You are at least my match in this, as everything else. You have never done one thing with me that you did not want. Resting in my arms is hardly a defeat.”
She should not listen to him. She should break his hold on her, and run from this place. The daughter of Llygad should not be enticed to any intimacy with this man, let alone one of the spirit.
But the closeness, the warmth, the support of his strength, spoke to her heart more seductively than his words. Just the sound of his voice lured and excited her. She should run away, but she could not.
Her body gave up and relaxed like a physical sigh, and she laid her head on his shoulder. She touched the hand resting on her hip, and relished the small connection of skin on skin. She might have found an unexpected lull in a relentless battle, so comforting did she find their embrace.
“I hate you,” she muttered. “You have put me in an impossible place. I asked you not to. Begged you.”
“I did not have a choice, Nesta.”
“And I have no choice. So here we are, and our lack of choices makes this embrace a mockery. A prelude to each of us betraying the other.”
“There is no mockery in the contentment that I have holding you.”
More than contentment passed between them. Desire covered them like a cloak. The fierce wanting had been given new life with this embrace, and it pulled and twisted and made every part of her tingle.
“I do not think that you only want to hold me like this, Marcus. I think that you have been waiting in this garden for more than that.”
He kissed her cheek, and she felt his smile form against her skin. “That is true.”
“Do you hope to befuddle me with passion? Should I trade everything for this ecstasy?”
“I am not asking for what you cannot give. I do not expect you to abandon who you are. I only want what is already mine.”
“That was one night of pleasure.”
“I am not speaking of the pleasure, or of one night.”
His quiet statement moved her heart, and did befuddle her, as no physical passion could. She dared not respond to his allusion. Speaking of that would acknowledge emotions that must be ignored. It pained her to deny them, but she had to unless she wanted her heart to be shredded one day.
“There is confusion and deceit in what you propose. We meet as lovers during the night, and battle each other by day.”
“There is already confusion in it, Nesta. Staying apart has not resolved that. I do not see much deceit in this embrace. Each of us knows where the other stands. I do not see what has transpired since we returned from the lodge as a repudiation of what happened that night. Do you?”
Nay, she did not. She had tried to make that repudiation, though. God knew how hard she had tried, and how miserably she had failed.
“You speak of exploring a passion that is doomed, and that we ourselves will destroy.”
“I speak of having what I want while I can, before the world forces me to give it up.”
He made it sound so possible. Almost sensible. The warmth of his embrace reminded her of how real their special intimacy could be.
Her body wanted to accept his strange logic and reckless offer, and her heart did too. The voice in her head that warned of unimaginable pain quieted to a dull whisper. It would not be silenced, however.
His hand turned her chin. He moved, so that his arm cradled her shoulders. His gaze absorbed her so completely that his eyes became a star-filled sky in which her soul floated.
He kissed her, and the cautious whisper spoke no more.
It was a sweet kiss, as gentle and luxurious and soulful as the one from her drugged memory. Its poignant mood touched her heart like a magician’s wand, and a glorious, sparkling sensation that spoke of dawn and spring and endless joy broke all through her.
She slid her hand behind his neck and held him to her so it would not end. She waited for him to touch her. She wanted him to. Needed him to. Her breasts itched for his caress with an anxious craving that already made her body move and left her breathless.
She took his hand, and laid it on her breast.
He broke the kiss and looked into her eyes.
His touch left her body and he gently slid her to the bench beside him. Taking her face in both his hands, he kissed her again, then stood.
“Not here. I do not want you excusing it later as madness in a moonlit garden, or a magical dream in a firelit lodge. Nor will it be a seduction where pleasure buries your good sense. I am not looking to subvert you with passion. Consider whether you believe I am telling the truth about that, and make your decision.”
To her astonishment, he walked away.
“You know where to find me, Nesta.”
Chapter 16
He waited for her to come to him.
He waited so hard that time slowed.
As the night slid past, he moved from the chair to the window and finally to the bed. His mind shifted too, from expectation to resignation and finally to fury.
He cursed himself for not just taking what she offered in the garden. Saints knew he would never do anything that stupidly chivalrous again.
He imagined her sleeping peacefully, relieved that his demand for clearheaded surrender had saved her. His mind’s eye saw himself entering that chamber and throwing out the servants and using his hands and mouth to defeat the misgivings that kept her from him.
That they were sensible misgivings ceased to matter as his thoughts churned and boiled.
Finally, he admitted she would not come. He swung off the bed smothering him with its soft warmth, suddenly understanding Nesta’s immunity to the cold. The fire had shrunk to mere embers in the hearth, but he was hot. It was not just anger and arousal making him burn. An agitation of the spirit warmed him, and kept his body alert and alive and unable to rest.
As he stripped off his clothes, he tried to tell himself that her resolve was probably for the best, but his attempt at acceptance was futile. He wanted her, and nothing else really mattered. Wanted her with the kind of reckless persistence that caused a man to risk everything to obtain the object of his desire.
He stretched out on the pallet that lay on the floor between his bed and the wall. His body found some comfort there, but not his mind. She filled his head, as she had every night since he first saw her. Memories flowed and merged as he embraced her phantom presence.
A vague sound broke the silence. He snapped alert.
He rose. Nesta stood near the door, barely illuminated by the dim fire. The faint glow made little golden lines and lights on her shadowed form. She still wore the gown from the garden. Perhaps she had not been sleeping either.
She did not move for a long while, and then she turned her head to look around, as if she was surprised to find herself in this strange place.
He waited for her to decide if she had made a mistake in coming. Not that it would make a difference now.
She strolled to the fire, and the light made her beauty more distinct with each step. “The chamber appeared empty when I came in.”
“I was lying over here.”
From her new position, she could see the pallet at his feet. “You prefer the floor to a feather bed?”
“Sometimes. I can see the sky out the window from the pallet.”
“Why not move the bed so that you can see the sky in comfort?”
Because when I was a youth, it was not a window but a hole in a thatched roof that I looked through, and it was not a feather bed, but a pallet on a dirt floor that I lay on. “That puts one too high. I prefer to look up to the sky, not over to it.”
She cocked her head, as if thinking about that. Her gaze took in his nakedness, slowly and completely.
“You are undressed. I disturbed your sleep.”
“I was not sleeping.”
She turned to pace slowly in front of the fire while she examined its dying light. “You are magnificent, standing there with the moonlight flowing over your face and chest, and your dark eyes lit with tiny fires. I have told myself that it is your beauty that makes me weak with you, so I must look away now, since there are things we must agree upon if I am to stay much longer.”
“You have terms?”
“I do not negotiate a surrender, Marcus, only a brief truce. That is the first thing that must be understood.”