by Lara Adrian
Raina slid off him, and he rose up onto his elbow and gazed down at her. “We can't hold on to wishes or dreams, but we can hold on to each other. Hold on to me now.”
The look in his eyes deepened and he pressed her to the blanket. She clutched him to her, holding him tight as he loved her in the only way he dared.
Chapter 19
Alaric woke that next day, and in the eve, the keep feasted on roasted wild boar. The lad being yet too weak to rise, Gunnar and Cedric carried him out to the hall so he could partake of the festivities he had been so instrumental in making happen. They placed him in Gunnar's chair at the lord's table, beside Raina, who beamed to see him up and around.
It seemed to her that an oppressive cloud had somehow been lifted, not only from her life, but from Gunnar's as well, and indeed from the entire keep. With Burc's antagonistic presence gone and Alaric well on the way to recovery, the castlefolk became animated, going about their usual tasks with a lighter step and ready smiles. She turned to Gunnar, who sat on a faldstool to her right, and found him smiling too.
Her heart swelled as she drank in the reborn hall.
Torches lit every corner of the modest room, illuminating it and everyone inside with a warm, golden glow. A spit had been raised over the central hearth where the boar had been roasting all day, filling the keep with its mouthwatering aroma. Agnes and the other three women carried out an astonishing array of breads and root vegetables, along with a seemingly endless supply of wine and ale.
As honorary lord of the keep, Alaric was served first, his trencher dwarfed by the huge shank of boar presented him by Wesley, who had been commissioned cook for the eve. The lad's eyes nearly popped from their sockets as he stared at his meal.
“I'll be glad to take a bite of you, now!” he declared, then, to the delight of everyone gathered, he hefted the leg to his mouth and tore off a large chunk.
After everyone had eaten more than their fill, the boar's head was given a place of prominence beside Alaric, who stared at it with the morbid curiosity of a lad of his years.
“What a dreadful-looking beast,” Raina said, cringing to be so close to its evil, sightless sneer. “Its eyes seem to follow me.”
Alaric grinned at her. “Like as not, it's never seen a prettier face,” he replied, and blushed wildly.
“I'll thank you--and your ugly boar--to keep your eyes to yourselves,” Gunnar warned with a smile, leaning across Raina. “Is it not enough I forfeit my chair to your tender arse? Must I now compete with you for my woman as well?”
His woman.
Raina's heart tripped and she fought the urge to lovingly place her hand on his head, which hovered so near her breasts. Did he consider her his woman? She didn't dare contemplate what that might mean, simply basked in the warmth of possibilities.
She was not able to linger there long, for Wesley jumped onto a table near the center of the hall and clapped his hands for attention.
“My lords and ladies.” He bowed with all the courtly air of a royal troubadour. “In honor of our young Lord Alaric, who has so graciously gifted us with a meal we are likely to be tasting for many a day--” He clutched his stomach and belched, loudly, earning guffaws and a rousing flurry of pounding cups. “I would like to bestow on him a song.”
Gunnar groaned beside Raina. “The only thing worse than Wesley's singing is his rhymes,” he told her with reluctant mirth. “But don't tell him so; I'm afraid he fancies himself something of a bard.”
Raina watched with delighted expectation as Wesley squared his shoulders, then cleared his throat.
“This boar we did eat was a mean one,
Its bite clear as bad as its breath.
The lad may be lame, but he's brave just the same,
For its flesh might as yet mean his death!”
Wesley clutched his gut and doubled over, leaning forward precariously close to falling off the table. A wave of laughter and applause circled the room before he righted himself with a spirited hop, and turned to face Gunnar and Raina.
“Now, Lord Gunnar, he scares these poor beasties,
They see him and flee him right quick.
And wenches, they swoon when they spy him,
For his blade's nigh as big as his--”
“More wine,” Gunnar blurted, vaulting to his feet. “Another flagon of wine!”
Raina looked at him with fascination as he resumed his seat. He was blushing! She laughed out loud, hiding her giggles behind her hand as the page rushed to fill Gunnar's tankard. He gulped a large mouthful as Wesley leapt off the table and the hall erupted into loud cheers and jests about their lord's virility.
“I couldn't be entirely sure without making the comparison myself,” she whispered, “but I suspect Wesley may be right in his assessment.”
Gunnar looked at her slack-jawed and in obvious shock, then downed the rest of his wine. “Have a care, my lady, elsewise you may find yourself whisked out of this gathering to do just that.”
She nearly called him on the challenge, but the raucous sounds of makeshift music drew her attention back to the hall. Odette was atop a table, hoisting her skirts and baring her sturdy ankles as she danced to the rhythm of banging cups and clapping hands. Wesley, Cedric, and a couple other men hastily pushed all but Odette's table to the far walls, creating an open area in the center of the hall. Rupert, the young page, hopped onto the table and grasped Odette's hands, dancing with her. Someone else took Dorcas by the arm and swung her in a wide arc to the center of the hall.
Raina found the revelry contagious and joined the clapping, tapping her bare foot under the table. She knew Gunnar watched her, but she didn't feel inhibited in the least. Things like this never happened at Norworth. Meals were ever stuffy affairs, even when jongleurs came from distant places to entertain. Her father had always discouraged dancing and celebration, except when he was entertaining noblemen or other dignitaries.
But Raina was not going to think about that right now. Tonight and for the next three nights she had remaining with Gunnar, she was going to enjoy herself.
So when Cedric appeared at the lord's table a moment later, requesting to dance with her, she took his hand and followed him out to the circle of revelers.
* * *
Gunnar watched Raina spin about the floor on Cedric's arm, laughing gaily, her unbound hair floating behind her like a veil of silk. Her bliaut was in tatters, its pale green color all but lost amid the stains and dirt that soiled it.
To anyone else at that moment, she might have looked like an unfortunate waif with her bare, dirty feet and torn, flopping sleeve, but to him she was radiant. A faerie princess, and he stood enchanted.
“Why did you not tell me you had d'Bussy's daughter?”
Merrick's question drew Gunnar's attention sharply to the old man. God's wounds, he hadn't even noticed him approach. All he had noticed, and all he could focus on still, was the woman lighting up his hall...and his heart.
“Your men have told me of your plan to bargain her for her father. Do you really think that is a wise wager?”
Gunnar thought about the day he'd struck that bargain. It seemed a lifetime ago. “'Twas the only choice I had at the time.”
“And now?”
Gunnar scowled, pensively tracing the rim of his cup with his thumb. “I'm not certain.”
“It seems to my mind that you've wagered something you're now unwilling to give up, eh? Mayhap 'tis time to let the past go, lad.”
“I can't, you know that. I made a promise. I staked my damned life on it!”
“And what of her?” Merrick nodded in Raina's direction. “You mean to tell me you've made no promises to her?”
Gunnar thought about the day before in the glade, when she told him of her dream for them, her innocent wish for a peaceable life together. “She's asked for none. I've promised her naught.”
Merrick pursed his lips and let out a long sigh. “Think you that a promise is binding only if you voice it?” He shook his head gravely. “Sometim
es, the promises we don't make are the most important ones to keep.”
Raina's laughter drew Gunnar's attention like a physical caress, leaving him shaking with want to take her in his arms and demand that she tell him what to do, that she wring the promise from him that he so wanted to make. She glanced his way and their eyes met across the room. Her laughter melted into a warm, innocent smile, and he knew she'd never ask him to break his vow, no matter how it pained her.
She trusted him to do right.
That realization hit him like an iron-fisted blow to the gut. He broke her gaze, unable to bear the idea that he might disappoint her. That she might hate him.
And in just four days' time.
“Think on it, lad,” Merrick advised soberly. Then he rose and walked away.
As Wesley gathered Raina's hands in his and spun her round in the center of the crowd, Gunnar took the opportunity to quit the hall without her notice. He had to get out of the stifling confinements of the keep; had to get away from it all.
Away from Raina.
Away from himself.
He nearly bolted down the stairs to the muddy bailey, heedless of the rain that beat down upon his shoulders. The heavy downpour did little to muffle Merrick's words, which echoed in his ears as he mounted his destrier.
Sometimes the promises we don't make are the most important ones to keep.
Damnation.
Why had he allowed himself to feel anything for the woman? It wasn't as if he were some beardless youth, sick with lust for his first lover. And God help him, but it was more than lust he felt for Raina.
Much more.
How had he let it happen? How was it he had managed to keep control all these years only to lose it to a strong-willed, tender-hearted lamb? How had he let her get inside of him?
Saints' blood, but how would he ever let her go?
Gunnar jabbed his heels into the mount's sides, urging it into a thunderous gallop. The rain stung his face as he sped through it, drenching his hair and tunic. He charged into the darkness, not knowing where he was going, nor caring. He crashed through bracken and thundered over hills, past landscapes made ghostly and black by the storm.
He was lost now and did not care, racing blindly in the dark toward nothing, toward a future of nothing...a future alone. His mount was tiring beneath him, huffing and slick from the rain and sweat, its muscles tight with strain, but Gunnar pressed the destrier on, needing the speed, needing to hear the pounding of its hooves. Anything to drown out the sound of his heart being torn asunder in his chest.
The storm raged on outside him as well, great claps of thunder booming overhead and shaking the earth. And then, a large bolt of lightning zigzagged out from the heavens, so pure and white and strong it might have been thrown from God's own hand. It arrowed down in blinding fury and struck a large oak that stood in the path less than a furlong away. The ancient tree roared, cracking and groaning under the force of the splintering blow. Orange flames and white-hot sparks shot out from the massive trunk as it split in two, exploding into the cool, dark night.
Gunnar's mount shrieked and in that next instant it reared, tossing him from the saddle.
He crashed to the ground. His vision went black as he struck the hard earth. All the air in his lungs left on a wheeze. Stunned, he lay there on his back, unable to move, unable to draw breath, blinking up at the sky and gasping futilely like a fish washed ashore. Rain spattered his face. Smoke from the smoldering, hissing oak drifted on the wind, stinging his eyes while his head swam with a flood of hazy images and sounds.
Raina's face floated before him, so innocent and lovely. She smiled down at him tenderly and he murmured her name, at least he thought he did. He felt it resonate in his every fiber and bone, the melody of her name both an agony and balm. He thought she might reach out to him, prayed she would, but her sweet expression became pained, her gaze distant and shimmering with unshed tears.
How pitiful to care more for the dead than the living.
Nay. He wanted to yell it, scream that it was not true, prove it to her, but she was fading, drifting away from him, her features growing pale and paler still, until she was no more than a whisper of gray smoke swirling off into the darkness.
Gunnar squeezed his eyes shut, swallowing past a lump of regret that had formed in his throat. Never in his life, had he felt so empty and completely alone. More than alone...he felt lonely. So scared and tired and in need of comforting.
Whether it was the wind or the rain or a trick of his rattled mind, he knew not, but beside his ear he heard the soothing hush of his mother's voice, whispering that he would be all right, that she loved him.
Remember your father's courage...his honor...make me proud.
The plea that haunted his dreams for so long, the words that urged him on, beckoned him to fight, to avenge his parents' deaths now suddenly seemed so different. Gentle, speaking not of vengeance and death but of something else entirely. Life.
Love.
Jesu, could he have been wrong all this time?
What courage did it take to slay a feeble old man? What honor was there in stealing his daughter? None, certainly, and he doubted his parents would take any measure of pride in what their son had become, nor in the meaningless ruin he had made of his life.
Some part of him knew it would take far greater courage to face his enemy with peace in his heart, to hear him out, accept his apology and forgive. He knew too, that as long as he held Raina against her will, captive in his home and in his heart, honor would never be his to claim. But did he have the strength to do what he now knew to be right?
God help him, he wasn't certain.
All his life he had fought his feelings, denied his fears, beaten his weaknesses. For thirteen years courage and honor had meant vengeance. Now, when he was so close to having it, it seemed the definition had changed. Like his mother's plea, courage and honor no longer meant what he'd believed all along that they had.
He had found them both in a proud woman with a gentle heart and a loving spirit. His beautiful Raina, his beloved.
As Gunnar picked himself up from the ground and mounted his horse, his mind was on neither courage nor honor. All that filled his thoughts as he rode back to the keep--what soothed his soul--was a desperate longing to be in Raina's arms, safe and sound, sheltered from the storm and the terrible reality that they would soon be parted.
Chapter 20
Lightning cracked across the sky and the loud roll of thunder echoed in the bailey, shaking the tower keep and setting Raina's nerves further on edge. Twice this hour she had peeked through the crack between the shutters, hoping to spy Gunnar riding within the safety of the curtain wall. Twice she had been disappointed. Anger turned to worry that he was out in the midst of the storm.
Why had he gone? And where?
Raina sat on the bed, knees drawn to her chest, waiting and watching the night candle burn to a smoldering stub. It had been several hours since the keep had been abed and still no sign of him. What if he was hurt? Or, dear God, what if he'd decided to confront her father this very night?
She had already settled it in her mind that she would accompany Gunnar to the meeting, prepared to defend him against her father in any way she could. Determined to make peace. Neither man would inflict harm on the other with her present, that much she knew. That much she trusted.
But should the matter come to a choice between returning to Norworth and remaining with Gunnar, Raina was prepared to bid her father farewell forever.
Panicked that he might have decided to leave for Norworth without telling her, Raina was just about to don Gunnar's mantle and ride out after him when she heard the gate grind open. In the space of a heartbeat, she was at the window, fumbling to unfasten the shutters. Her fingers trembled with anticipation, but at last she freed the bindings.
She flung the shutters wide open and peered out anxiously. Cold rain slanted in through the window. Below, in the bailey, a dark knight leapt from his mount. Her he
art slammed against her ribs.
“Gunnar!” She lifted her hand and laughed with near-hysterical joy at his safe return. He hesitated, looking up to where she stood in the window, but his expression was concealed by the driving rain and the dark of a moonless night. He threw the reins to an approaching guard and bolted into the castle.
Raina ran from the chamber to the stairwell, hearing his spurs clink on the steps as he took them two at a time. Relief and something so much stronger flooded her senses in the moments it took for him to reach the top.
Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of him, a wet and haggard warrior, his hair plastered in slick, raven spikes to his face. His tunic, soaked and dripping, clung to him like his own skin. His grin was lopsided and completely unrepentant.
She threw her arms around him. “I was worried.”
Her intended scold had somehow been reduced to a whisper. The words scarcely left her lips before he caught her behind the knees and scooped her into his arms, carrying her to his chamber with a look of passionate determination in his blazing dark eyes. He kicked the door shut with his foot. Depositing her on the mattress, he stripped off his baldric and scabbard then pulled his wet tunic over his head, throwing it to the floor.
Raina felt compelled to fill the silence. “'Tis been several hours since you left, and the storm...” Her voice drifted to nothingness as Gunnar climbed onto the bed. “Have you nothing to say?”
“Aye,” he growled. “Your worries were wasted.”
He crawled toward her on the bed like a sleek, wet panther stalking his prey, the muscles in his arms and shoulders bunching and flexing with each move he made. He looked unearthly, animalistic, and Raina willingly surrendered to his power. She drew in her breath when his arm snaked out and seized her ankle, pulling her down onto her back. In one fluid movement he was upon her, his chest pressing against hers, further soaking the thin fabric of her bliaut. He pressed into her, melding their bodies together as he buried his face in the crook of her neck.