"Nay," he rasped.
Luke's fingers dug painfully into his shoulder, quelling his impulse to bolt to his feet. "Be still."
"Nay." Bracing his hands on the table, he tried to rise, but Luke slammed him down, hard. In the tumult of excitement, no one seemed to notice.
"Not now," Luke ground out as Peter called for silence so that he could finish his announcement. "Not here."
"When, then?" Luke whispered harshly.
"Never."
"I entreat you all to join us at the chapel door tomorrow morning at terce to witness the joining in holy wedlock of—
"Tomorrow!" Alex's outcry was drowned out by a chorus of astonishment.
"The wedding must needs be hasty," Peter said with exaggerated patience, having evidently anticipated this uproar, "for word arrived late last night that the bride's uncle, Henri de St. Clair, has been stricken with a stoppage of the liver. The ladies Nicolette and Sybila are compelled to return posthaste to St. Clair. My brother, as Lady Nicolette's lord husband, will accompany them."
"Christ." Alex wrested himself out of his brother's grasp and stalked out of the hall.
So deeply shaken was he that, when he found himself in the middle of the sheep meadow, he could not recall having walked there. Gazing across at the woods that hid their little cave, a torrent of rage and loss rose within him, ripping out of his lungs as a raw animal howl. The sheep scattered, bleating. He dropped to his knees, fists clenched, and screamed every foul oath he knew as loud as he could.
A hand on his back made him whip around, trembling. "Jesu! Luke."
Luke sat next to him. "Didn't you notice me following you?"
Sinking down, Alex rested his arms on his updrawn knees and shook his head.
"Come on." Luke patted him on the shoulder. "Let's go home."
"You go ahead," Alex said raspily, his throat sore from screaming. "I'm going to wait and talk to her."
"Alex..."
"I just need to talk to her. Don't worry about me, brother. You're always watching out for me. I feel smothered. I'm not a child anymore."
"I know that, Alex, but you're upset. 'Tis best if you come home with me—"
"How could she do this?" Alex dragged shaking fingers through his close-cropped hair. "I love her. She knows it, she must. I've shown her in a thousand ways. I've treated her like a princess. I've been gentle and chivalrous and..." He shook his head helplessly. "Why?"
Luke hesitated, as if choosing his words. "Perhaps you've been...a bit too chivalrous."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Perhaps she didn't want a gentle chevalier. Perhaps she wanted...a man."
It took Alex a moment to grasp his brother's meaning. When he did, he leapt to his feet. "She's an innocent maiden. She knows naught of such things." Turning away as Luke stood up, he added, "I'm going to go talk to her."
Luke grabbed his arm and came around to face him. "Alex, think about it...a rushed wedding and all. Have you considered the possibility that...they had to get married?"
Alex hauled back and slammed his fist into Luke's face. His brother fell to the ground, blinking in astonishment, blood oozing from beneath the hand cupped over his nose.
Stunned at what he'd done—he'd never struck his brother in anger, only for sport—Alex's knees buckled. Finding himself kneeling in the grass, it only seemed right to whisper a brief prayer of forgiveness.
Luke sat up, chuckling to find Alex executing a solemn sign of the cross. "You'll have to work on your punch if you expect to do enough damage to pray over."
"I broke your nose."
Luke prodded his swollen nose, from which blood trickled. "'Tisn't broken, just angry." Gently fingering the reddened flesh around his left eye, he said, "I'll have a black eye tomorrow, though. 'Twill give me an excuse to visit Tempeste. She's good with poultices and such. And when it comes to giving comfort, she's without equal."
Alex shook his head mournfully. "I'm an animal."
Luke slapped him on the back. "I spoke without thinking, said things I shouldn't have, especially with you so upset. I suppose all I really meant was...well, Milo is older than you, and...women tend to be attracted to a more mature man. And, of course, they've much in common. There's a sort of affinity of the mind between them. Surely you've noticed."
Steeped in misery, Alex could only nod.
"It really shouldn't surprise you that she chose him," Luke said gently.
"But it does," Alex said hoarsely. "It astounds me. You don't understand, Luke. You don't know...what's transpired between us."
Luke frowned. "You told me you'd done naught but hold her hand."
"I don't mean physically. I never...I wouldn't have...I love her! It doesn't make sense. None of this makes sense. She loves me, I know it!" Rising to his feet, Alex offered his brother a hand up. "I'm going to talk to her."
Luke sighed. He started to say something, then shook his head. "Do as you must. But don't make this a public event. Find some way to speak to her privately."
"The things I need to say to her," Alex assured his brother, "I could hardly say in front of an audience."
* * *
Chapter 6
Alex spent the rest of that afternoon lying on the floor of the cave, studying the mysterious paintings and feeling very juvenile and inept for having let things come to this pass. His heart pushed against his chest as if it were trying to burst through. Part of him wished it would, just to put an end to this torment.
When night fell, he made his way undetected to the little guest house in which Nicki and her mother slept, a thatched stone cottage across the flagstone courtyard from Peter's main house. Anxious not to be seen, he slipped around back, jimmied open the shutters on the single window, and crept inside.
By the watery moonlight he found a lantern and lit it. The one-room cottage was homey and well-kept, with a fresh coat of whitewash on the walls and herb-strewn rushes carpeting the clay floor.
A bowl of fragile little wild roses sat in the middle of a linen-draped table. They were from the edge of the sheep meadow, near the cave. Alex had picked them for Nicki yesterday. He lifted one to smell it, but a thorn bit into his thumb, drawing blood. Slipping the blossom back into the bowl, he licked the blood absently.
On a little table next to the wash stand he found a tidy arrangement of toiletries on an embroidered cloth: a lump of soft soap on a clay dish, a comb of bird's-eye maple, a boar's hair brush. He unstoppered a tiny bottle of thick, bubbly blue glass and sniffed; it contained rose oil. A little pot of some sort of balm smelled spicy. He opened a small ivory case carved in an intricate pattern and found that it housed a polished-steel looking glass. Fancying that it retained Nicki's image in its silvery depths, he entertained a reckless urge to slip it into the leather pouch on his belt. In the end, he replaced it where it had been.
From hooks on the wall hung an assortment of ladies' tunics. He counted four of plain black wool—the lady Sybila's, of course—and half a dozen silken gowns in the delicate hues that her daughter favored—ivory, dove gray, lavender, icy blue, a pink as muted as a blush...and the pale green trimmed with silver that she'd been wearing the day they discovered their cave.
Alex touched the green gown, rubbed the liquid-smooth silk between his fingers. It was nearly the same sea-green as her eyes. Perhaps that's why she looked so devastatingly beautiful in it.
His throat spasmed. Taking deep breaths, he forced his anguish deep inside. He hadn't cried since he was a child. He'd be damned if he'd let Nicki find him weeping over her.
Against the back wall stood a large bed. Alex crossed to the trunk at its foot and opened it. A white silken garment lay on top, as if tossed in carelessly. Lifting it, he found it to be a sleeping shift—a rather scanty one, obviously designed with warm summer nights in mind. The detachable sleeves had been removed at the shoulders, and the bodice dipped low in front; it was surprisingly short. He envisioned Nicki wearing this slick little layer of silk and nothing else, and t
he breath caught in his lungs.
Gathering the shift in his fists, he brought it to his face and breathed in the warm, tantalizing scent that had held him in a bewitched haze all summer. His mind reeled with the provocative thoughts and images that had haunted his nights—damp flesh...secret places...dark, unyielding needs.
A faint rattling came from the door—a key being turned in the lock. Alex threw the shift into the trunk and slammed it shut as the door swung open.
Nicki took one step into the room and drew up short, eyes wide. An enormous key slipped from her fingers, disappearing into the rushes. "Alex!"
"Nicki."
The lady Sybila stepped out from behind her, gaping in shock. She stalked into the room, looking back and forth between the two of them, nostrils flaring. "Jesus have mercy," she whispered, her eyes igniting with comprehension.
"Mama..." Nicki began.
"Nicolette, didn't I warn you?" her mother asked in a quavering voice. "Do you never learn?"
"Mama, please—"
"He's got to leave! If he's found here, you'll be destroyed." Turning to Alex, she held the door wide and pointed rigidly toward the courtyard. "Get out! What were you thinking, coming here? My daughter is to be married tomorrow morning. If anyone saw you come in here, she'll be ruined."
"No one saw me," he said with as much calm as he could muster. "I came in through the window."
"Merciful God," Sybila muttered.
"I'm not going," he said. "You are."
Sybila's face twisted into a mask of outrage. "And leave you alone with her? Are you mad?"
"I mean to speak to her, nothing more. If you don't go now, I'll let my presence here be known to one and all."
"You wouldn't."
"I assure you I will," he said gravely.
"Go, mama," Nicki implored. "Please. I'll be all right. He just wants to talk."
Sybila pinned Alex with a look of loathing so intense that it chilled him. "You have made a grievous error, coming here," she said softly.
Whether that was intended as a threat, Alex knew not, for she didn't elaborate, merely departed quietly. Alex fetched the key from the rushes and locked the door. Tossing the key onto the table, he turned to Nicki. "Are you carrying his child?"
Her hand flew to her bosom. "Nay! How can you ask that? He's never touched me! I swear it!"
She seemed sincere, but that wasn't the only reason Alex believed her. Milo had always said he found Nicki too thin and pale and delicate for his taste. He liked buxom, earthy women like his Violette.
"Then why?" Alex demanded. "Why, Nicki?"
"He..." Nicki's voice shook. "He proposed last night. 'Twas after the letter came, about my uncle. Mama told him we had to return to St. Clair, and he found me and asked me to marry him."
"He doesn't love you. He loves a woman named Violette."
"I know. He told me last night."
"Did he tell you he's only marrying you to get out from under his brother's thumb?"
"I know why he's marrying me, Alex," she said quietly, her voice a bit more steady. "I'm no fool."
"Then why are you doing this?" he roared.
"Alex, please!" She darted an anxious glance toward the door.
Resting his hands on his hips, Alex stared into the rushes and concentrated on slowing his breathing. In a more subdued voice he asked, "Are you hoping he'll transfer his affections from Violette to you? If so, you're deluding yourself. He'll love her till the day he dies."
She turned away from him slowly, her arms wrapped around herself. "You're so young, Alex."
"I'm only two years younger than you."
"Aye, but there are so many things you don't understand." The back of her long neck, revealed by the braids draped over her shoulders, was graceful and perfect and luminous as white marble. Oftentimes he'd been tempted to kiss it.
He took a step toward her. "I understand more than you think. I know you set your sights on Milo, encouraged him even as you spent every afternoon with me..."
She pivoted to face him. "That's not true, Alex."
"I may be young, but I'm not a fool either, Nicki." He stalked toward her and she backed up, eyes wide. "Milo is a man—a man of learning—and I'm just an uneducated boy. That's it, isn't it?"
"Nay!"
"A harmless puppy who follows you around slavishly, lavishing you with attention—"
"Nay!" she cried, stumbling backward. "Alex, please—"
"Desperate for some morsel of affection. Irritating, but slightly amusing. Is that how you think of me?"
She tried to sidestep him, but he seized her by the arms and backed her roughly against the wall. His heart drummed in his ears; his chest heaved.
"Is that what I am to you?" His gaze traveled from her face downward, lighting on the thick plaits of golden hair resting against her chest. Letting go of her arms, he wrapped one hand around each braid, high up, and slid them down slowly. The slick ropes felt heavy and cool against his palms; the white satin ribbons tickled slightly, making him shiver.
"A harmless, smooth-faced boy?" he murmured, stroking the braids downward. Against the backs of his hands, he felt the birdlike racing of her heart, the soft rise and fall of her breasts. "A boy who's content to merely hold your hand...who would never think of doing more..."
His knuckles grazed her nipples through the sleek tunic. Her indrawn breath stirred a quickening in his loins. Moving fractionally closer to her, he glided his hands upward, back over the little crests, and down again, feeling them stiffen as he stroked them.
She closed her eyes; her throat moved as she swallowed. "Alex..."
"I think about it all the time." Releasing the braids, he closed his hands over her breasts, all the while watching his actions from above, as if it were not he, but another man, taking such scandalous liberties with the undefiled Nicolette de St. Clair. He felt the weighty resilience of warm flesh through silk, the rigid peaks so sensitive that she gasped every time he touched them.
It was a kind of panic driving him, he realized, a frantic dread of losing what he'd shared with her—and the bitter awareness that what had been the fiercest passion to him might only have been a summer's diversion to her. Panic turned to hunger as he fondled her—a primitive hunger, a desire to possess her, make her his.
"I lie awake at night thinking about it," he said gruffly, lowering his head. "About you."
"Please go," she whispered raggedly. "You shouldn't be here. Mama's right—I'll be ruined if anyone knows that you've been—"
Alex silenced her by closing his mouth over hers, his hands trailing upward to hold her head still when she tried to evade him. He kissed her hard, not knowing or caring whether he was doing it right, just needing the hot, sweet pressure of her mouth against his. The time for gentleness was over.
She shoved his chest. Grabbing her wrists, he pinned them against the wall. "I love you," he breathed against her lips. "As a man loves." He pressed himself against her, aching with need. Let her feel what she'd done to him; let her know.
She grew very still and quiet, in that way she had. "You want me. It's not the same thing."
"I want you and I love you."
"Alex, I..." She shook her head. "I'm not the woman you think I am. There are things about me you don't know. You're better off without me."
Alex backed away a bit, his grasp on her loosening. Rubbing her wrists, she stepped cautiously away from him and crossed to the big bed, where she sat with her head in her hands. He thought he heard her say, "And I'm better off without you."
"How can you say that?" he asked incredulously as he approached her. "How can you possibly think it? We belong together."
Kneeling on the floor front of her, he lifted one of her braids and untied the white ribbon woven through it. Sliding it out, he tossed it onto the bed, and then he did the same to the other braid.
"You belong on the battlefield," she said.
"You've been listening to your mother." He combed his fingers through the heavy
satin tendrils, crimped from having been plaited. Lifting a handful of hair, he stroked his face with it, inhaled its scent.
"I've been listening to you," she countered. "Soldiering is in your blood. You love your sword above all else."
"You're in my blood." Cupping the back of her head, he pulled her head down, kissing her thoroughly but taking his time, trying to do it right this time. His other hand stole to her breast. "I love you."
She looked earnestly into his eyes. "Don't say that."
"I do. And you love me, too." He kneaded her breast, rubbed his fingertips over the pebbly little nipple.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she said breathlessly, "I can't afford to love you."
"You love me." Reaching down with his other hand, he slid it under her the hem of her skirt.
Her eyes flew open. "I'm going to marry Milo." She scrambled backward on the bed in an effort to get away from him. He pounced in a blur, leaping onto the bed and trapping her beneath him. Her hair sprayed out around her in a breathtaking halo of gold.
Taking her face in his hands, he said, "I know you've got your heart set on being Milo's wife, but he'll never love you. You'll never steal his heart away from Violette. It can't be done. He doesn't love you and you don't love him. You love me." He shifted his weight on top of her, nestled his hips against hers. "You belong to me." Compelled as before by a primal need—the urge to take her, to claim her as his—he moved against her in an intuitive rhythm.
"W-what are you doing?" she asked.
"What I should have done long ago."
She pushed futilely against his shoulders. "I belong to Milo now."
"He can't have you." Whipping her skirt up, he wedged a knee between her legs and reached between them. She cried out softly at his first light touch on her most sensitive flesh.
"He'll never have you," he vowed, his voice low and rough. "You don't want him. You want me."
Alex lowered his mouth to hers as he explored the hidden mysteries he'd so often imagined during long, sleepless nights alone on sheets damp with sweat. He knew his touch was awkward, inexperienced, but he didn't care, driven as he was by brute instinct. He was rigid as a sword beneath his tunic.
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