The Spymaster's Protection

by S A Monk

  One had to know that the cave was there, and how to get in. While enemy troops might water their horses in the pool and stream below the falls, they would not consider going inside because the cave was difficult to enter and well concealed. Gabrielle and Lucien had to maneuver their horses carefully over the surface of the wet slippery rock. Leading the skittish animals on foot under the water pouring over the bluff above, they got a fairly good soaking in the process.

  When they got past the falls and stepped inside, Gabrielle was amazed. The initial grotto was long and narrow, but there was a short corridor that led to another. The ceilings in the front section of the cave were the equivalent of three or four stories, but appeared to diminish in height the farther back one went.

  Guiding their nervous mounts, Lucien led the way inside through the high-domed entrance, then back into the lower-ceilinged corridor, coming to a stop at a crevice in the jagged rock walls. From it, he pulled a wooden club with a cloth soaked in oil wrapped around one end. With his flint, he lit the cloth, then held the torch overhead to guide their way deeper into the cavern.

  “You’ve been here before?” Gabrielle asked behind him.

  “I have,” he replied succinctly. “I left the torch, if you are wondering, and a few other supplies. We are quite alone in here. Omar and Nephrim have watched the cave the past week to make sure it was not being used.”

  “You are very clever, Sir de Aubric,” she laughed, watching her step in the shadowy golden light as she followed Lucien down the narrow corridor.

  “Not necessarily, mi’lady,” he laughed back. “I simply like to plan ahead whenever I can. Things go much smoother that way.”

  A good quality, she thought as they entered the second grotto. It was smaller than the first, and the rock ceiling gradually dropped until it was only a few feet over their heads. Above their heads, there was a hole in the natural roof. It let in enough light to illuminate the rock room during the day, and it could serve as a smoke hole.

  “If we build a small fire, will the smoke give our location away?” Gabrielle wondered if she would be able to dry out her soaked clothes.

  “We will be fine as long as it is not too big. The bluff above us is forested and the wind blows strongly up there. It will carry what little smoke rises before anyone sees it.”

  Lucien took the reins of her piebald horse from her and guided the animal to a spot at the back of the cave where some sticks and a bundle of hay had been left. “We’ll have to take the horses out to the stream to water, and I’ll bring back some more wood when I return, but you should have enough here to enjoy drying out by a small fire.”

  “You’re leaving?” she asked, unable to mask the alarm in her voice.

  Lucien nodded. “Just for a little while,’ he informed her, taking her hand in his free one. “I need to scout the area and make sure we are secure here, as well as bring home a rabbit or a quail for dinner. Which would you prefer?”

  “Either,’ she said dismissively. “Be careful.”

  “Would you like me to unsaddle your horse for you?”

  “No. I can do it.”

  Lucien looked down at her wet slender form and hooked an arm around her shivering shoulders. “Don’t be afraid. I will not be gone long, an hour, two at most. Get out of those wet clothes and beneath a warm blanket before you catch a chill. Take a nap. You look tired.”

  Gabrielle hugged him to her tightly for a long moment. “You’re wet, too.”

  He rubbed her back and pressed his lips to the top of her head. “I will dry out quickly in the afternoon heat. And there is another small entrance to the cave that avoids the waterfall, at least partially. With a quick kiss to her forehead, he turned and left by way of another passage.

  +++

  Gabrielle spent the next two hours drying her wet clothes over a very small fire. Constantly turning them helped accomplish the task before the low heat. She could not sleep, though, as Lucien had advised. She was too anxious. The cave was a pleasant enough place, with its rocky walls and soft sandy floor, but it was way too lonely without Lucien. Sitting on a flat-topped boulder near the fire pit someone had built long ago¸ she leaned back on her out-stretched arms and stared overhead at the hole in the granite ceiling of the grotto.

  The sun was moving quickly to the western horizon, leaving long shadows in the forest. She wondered what she would do if Lucien did not return by nightfall. She had plenty of food and several gourds of water, but she shuddered to think she might have to spend the night alone in the cave. She had extinguished the torch he had lit earlier because it was unneeded in the cavern during the day, but she would have to relight it as it got darker in the cavern. She’d already used the small supply of wood, and unless Lucien returned, she’d have to forego it’s meager warmth after the sun set.

  But despite all that, it was not her own discomfort or fears that truly worried her. It was Lucien. She had fallen in love with him, and he had become everything to her. She could no longer deny it. She’d come to depend on his strength and steadfast protection, but she needed him for a lot more than protection. His melting tenderness turned her inside out. He held all her hopes and dreams now. There was nothing else she wanted but to be with him. He had become her best friend, and she thought that maybe soon he would become her lover.

  While she was still afraid of the physical union between a man and a woman, she wanted Lucien to make love to her. She was sure he would be caring and gentle. She had no reason, no reason at all, to fear him the way she had feared Reynald. He would never hurt her, and she wanted to experience once again the incredible pleasure he had given her the other night. It was the inevitable next step in their relationship. Her only real fear was that once she let Lucien into her body, she would never be able to release him from her heart.

  Her marriage to Reynald wasn’t annulled yet, nor was Lucien truly free of his vows. And they were a hairbreadth’s away from war. Lucien was a warrior. He would fight alongside his fellow Christians, which meant he could also die doing so.

  There was much that could tear them apart in the coming months. After years of misery and persecution, she had finally found happiness, and it could all be snatched away in a moment’s time. It all seemed so precarious, and at times, so overwhelming. And yet Gabrielle knew she could not turn away from her feelings for Lucien de Aubric. He simply had become essential to her.

  As if her thoughts had conjured him, he came walking into the cavern, leading his horse in one hand and carrying a dead rabbit and a quail in the other. “We will dine on both tonight, my lady,” he greeted her with a broad smile, placing just the slightest emphasis on his use of the words “my lady”.

  Gabrielle pushed to her feet, ran to him, and impulsively flung her arms around his neck, startling his horse and him.

  “God’s bones, lady, is aught amiss?” he asked as she hugged him tight, refusing to let go.

  She shook her head against his shoulder, feeling rather foolish. “I was just worried about you. That’s all.”

  Her murmured words were laced with a bit of laughter, but they were husky with emotion as well.

  “I fared well all afternoon, and return dry and hale, lovely Gabi. Rest at ease.”

  She stepped back finally and shook her bent head in embarrassment. “Forgive my dramatic display, sir. I was being silly.”

  “Nay,” he argued gently. “I understand, but come take these from me so we may soon eat. I am starved!”

  She really did laugh this time. “I have never skinned an animal before, but I will be glad to get the firewood off your horse and rebuild our fire.”

  “Then we shall be at it,” he chuckled as he took his horse to the rear of the cave and unsaddled it to be with Gabrielle’s mount.

  ╬ ╬ ╬

  The setting sun sent a bolt of crimson gold through the sky hole in the cave, then disappeared to leave deep shadows in the rock carved room. Gabrielle packed away the remains of their meal, while Lucien retrieved their bedrolls a
nd spread them out on the ground near the fire pit. He chose a soft sandy spot and swept it clean of rocks. Gabrielle noticed that there was not a lot of space between his blankets and hers.

  He turned to her as she was staring at the arrangement. Because she didn’t want him to think she disapproved, she lifted her gaze to him immediately and smiled.

  “I thought I’d bathe before going to bed,” he informed her as he lit the hand torch for the evening. “I will not be long.”

  Gabrielle did not want to sit alone. During their evening meal they had shared such pleasant conversation, she did not want the warmth of that to evaporate.

  “May I come with you?”

  Lucien studied her for a long moment, then nodded. “Bring an extra drying cloth if you intend to bathe.”

  Together they retraced their footsteps to the entrance of the cave. He brought the torch, but set it well back from the opening so it couldn’t be seen from outside. Though the outer cavern dropped down behind the falls, at night, a light from inside could be detected. The opening above provided enough moonlight to see by as it was.

  Gabrielle found a perch on a smoothly rounded boulder and sat down. She hadn’t really wanted to bathe in the cold water. She had simply wanted to be with Lucien. It was a measure of their growing closeness that she had not thought about needing to give him privacy to disrobe.

  “Should I turn around?” she asked him with an impish smile, feeling just a little bit wicked.

  He stared across the cave at her with that penetrating dark gaze he used so often. Only this time, his eyes reflected the moonlight with a twinkle of mischief.

  “That is entirely up to you, mi’lady. I would not be offended if you chose to watch or to join me.”

  “You try the water, first,” she finally decided. “See if it is very cold.”

  With a nod of assent, he strode to an area a few feet from her where the spray from the falls created a misty shower and a knee-deep, sandy pool. Above his head, the water fell off the overhanging escarpment in a continuous sheet that acted as a veil over the cave’s entrance. Most of the water flowed into the pool at its base, but some was redirected into the grotto over a narrow rock ledge that created a gentle shower.

  It looked too inviting to ignore, and Gabrielle decided to try it. She slid off her rock and drew her ankle-length tunic over her head, then set it aside where it would remain dry. Beneath it she wore her loose pants and her hip length, sleeveless chemise.

  She was so absorbed in disrobing that when she turned back to Lucien, she sucked in a startled breath, for he too had been busy removing clothes. With his back to her, he stood in the center of the pool, wearing nothing but his braies. They were not lamb’s wool, but a lightweight linen fabric, gathered around the waist with a drawstring. They hung to the middle of his thickly muscled thighs, and were very loose. The cascading water had already soaked them, causing them to hang extremely low on his hips. It had also made them quite transparent.

  Gabrielle stared at his tightly muscled buttocks and felt her mouth go dry, despite the humidity in the little antechamber. The sight of him rooted her to the sandy floor near her boulder. Rivulets of water poured off his powerful body as he turned this way and that under the shower, highlighting every sculpted detail. He held a sliver of soap in one hand and lifted one arm at a time to wash.

  Gabrielle’s eyes followed the path of the soap along his upper arms, which flexed in a symmetry of muscle every time he moved. When the soap slid downward, so did her gaze, along his powerful forearms to his thick swordsman’s wrists, then back up again to his impossibly broad shoulders.

  She couldn’t see him laving his chest, but she imagined it, very vividly, before sliding her eyes downward. His powerful body gradually narrowed to a waist that was lean and trim. When he turned sideways a little, she saw that his stomach was hard as a rock; flat and sculpted with muscle that rippled from his hipbones to his ribs.

  He was all hard planes and bulging contours. There was not an inch of him that did not scream virility and heartstopping masculine beauty. Barefoot and damp now, Gabrielle was too mesmerized to move, either forward or in retreat.

  Lucien solved her dilemma by turning fully to her. Then there was no thought of retreating, not when she looked upon him fully, from the front. His hair was plastered to his neck, slicked back smoothly from his face, and water glistened over every incredible bronze inch of him.

  Her wide eyes made a quick inventory, and noted that he was becoming aroused as he stared at her. Gabrielle swallowed and willed herself to breathe. Had she not been longing for this secretly for many days now?

  “The water is not too cold here,” he informed her in a husky deep baritone as he held out a hand. “Come join me, Gabi.”

  Ah, when he used that name for her, her heart skittered! She closed the distance between them and found herself instantly in his arms.

  All that muscle and strength enveloped her in a mantle of heat and well-disciplined power as she nestled against his chest and felt the gentle spray of water flow over their entwined bodies. Her shift was thoroughly soaked and it provided no barrier between her flesh and his.

  Eventually, his hands began to move over her, beginning at her hair. With gentle care, he unbraided it, raked his fingers through it, then soaped it from scalp to ends. Gabrielle got a whiff of sandalwood, and knew when her hair dried, it would smell like him. She smiled against the wet mat of dark hair scattered across his upper chest. Tentatively, her fingers followed it down his abdomen, as far as his navel, but she could not call up the courage to follow it further, where it disappeared below his undergarment.

  When he was finished washing her hair, he turned her in his arms to let the cascading water rinse it clean. It took a while, for it was very thick and long. Wet, it fell nearly to her knees. Face to face, she saw him staring at her, from her head to her waist. The moonlight filtering into the cavern accentuated his prominent cheekbones and all the slashing angles of his face.

  “Remove your shift.” His words were dark and thick, more request than command.

  Gabrielle stepped away from him and lifted her plain linen chemise over her head. Her hands were shaking. Tangled in the wet fabric, momentarily blinded by the garment, she heard Lucien’s swift intake of breath.

  “My God! You are a vision!”

  She heard his husky exclamation as she struggled out of her tunic. Just as she cast it aside, he crushed her against the hard wall of his chest. Her naked breasts pressed against wet whorls of hair. His viselike grip loosened then, and he set her an arm’s length away from him so that he could stare unabashedly at her.

  Her linen pants were as transparent as her chemise had been. Like his, they hung low on her hips, far below her belly button. She looked down and knew that he could clearly see the dark triangle between her legs. Her body was shockingly revealed to him.

  Her fingers fumbled with her sagging waistband as she tried to pull up her pants. Lucien put his hands over hers, stopping her.

  “You are too lovely to conceal, my lady,” he whispered in the moonlit dark. “Let me look and touch and taste.”

  With a groan, he reached for her and pulled her back into his arms. His hands sought her everywhere, learning every curve and slope and hollow, outlining her shape with fingers that were infinitely gentle, yet wildly hungry.

  Gabrielle had never felt so adored or wanted. She was mesmerized by Lucien’s devotion and skill. He left no place on her untouched. She melted against him, reveling in his caresses. It was perfect, until his fingers found the raised scars on her back.

  The instant he touched the old ridges, she gasped and stepped back from him. Oh God, how could she forget all of the humiliating evidence of the beatings her father and Reynald had delivered over the years? Her disgrace swept over her in a fierce wave of agony as she spun away from him, toward the discarded tunic she’d left on the boulder behind her. Dear God, Lucien must surely be repulsed by what a coward she had been!

 
“I am going back to camp to dress. Please, do not follow!” Her voice was choked with tears as she reached blindly for her tunic.

  “Nay!” Behind her, Lucien’s voice was firm in its resolve. Gabrielle turned to look at his shadowy shape as he stepped toward her. Her arm shot out to halt him.

  “Come back to me, Gabi. If it is those scars you are afraid to let me see, know that I have seem most of them already. They bear testimony to your courage and perseverance. They should not shame you.”

  “Oh, Lucien, they represent years of humiliating punishment. I am ashamed!”

  “God’s blood!”

  Anger laced his curse, but there was no thread of impatience or censure. Despite that, Gabrielle took a step backwards. Lucien advanced anyway, and when his hand came out to reach for her, she ducked. Damnable habit! Even after five years of relative freedom from Reynald and Armand, she still reacted to a man’s anger like a coward!

  “Aw, Gabi,” he murmured. “Do not be afraid of me.” His grasp was infinitely gentle as her rational mind had known it would be. “Your scars do not tell me you were a coward,” he reassured her, pulling her into the closing circle of his arms. “You are the bravest, most honorable woman I have ever met. And I will never raise a hand to you. Never!”

  She knew that, and she did trust him. She forced old fears away and lifted her arms, rising onto her toes to lock her hands behind his thick neck. She tilted her head back to tell him so, but before she could utter a word, he bent his down to kiss her.

  Her lips parted instantly and his tongue swept inside to take her mouth in searing hunger. It was a passionately possessive kiss, and it told her more than words ever could how beautiful he found her and how much he desired her.

  Lucien groaned deeply as he slid his hands down her half-clothed body to cup her buttocks and press her even more tightly against his linen draped hips. The hard ridge of his erection thrust against her, and he reveled in the shivering moan he drug from her. God forgive him! He could not hold himself from her tonight! He needed her like he had never needed anything before.