HEARTS AFLAME

by Nancy Morse

  “Is Lothair truly committed to a divorce?”

  Rowan was worrying something out of his teeth with his tongue and took his time doing it. Then he looked at the cleric flatly. “That goal affects every decision of late.”

  The monks groaned and sighed in distress at the idea.

  “Our noblemen should discourage him,” the abbot said.

  All at the table stilled.

  A slight smile lifted the corners of Rowan’s mouth. “At this point, I think only the Pope himself will be able to do that.”

  The abbot frowned in disappointment. “It should not require the Pope’s intervention to save our king from sin, but so be it.”

  Rowan barked out a laugh. “Are you truly so sheltered out here, to think that divorce would be his first sin? Or even the first sin related to his marriage?”

  The abbot’s head shook slowly. “No, my lord, unfortunately I am not. Everyone knows he wants to legitimize his mistress’s son as his heir.”

  Rowan bent his head cordially, and the topic barely had time to change before the call to prayer came.

  After their hosts filed out, Rowan leaned back in his chair with one arm carelessly draped behind it, legs sprawled haphazardly in front. The light of the oil lamp warmed his hair to deep auburn while the shadows darkened his brown eyes to almost black.

  His heart is just as black, Fia reminded herself, despite the rather dashing exterior. How many nights had they spent by firelight, talking, when they’d been friends? She ran her finger along the top of the goblet as she searched for a question that would take his penetrating stare from her.

  “Where are you supposed to be now?” she asked. “If you weren’t rescuing me, I mean.”

  “With the army. We had gathered near Metz though I am sure they’ve marched off in some direction by now.”

  “Ah. The life of a nobleman.”

  He sat silent, and she feared the conversation would dwindle to nothing again. Then he surprised her. “You know I prefer the life of a weaponsmith.”

  She sat up straighter. “Still?”

  He shrugged. “What would have changed?”

  Her nail picked at a nearly imperceptible dent in the rim of her cup. “Age. Maturity. Although you were an adult even when we first met. Papa always said —”

  Suddenly it felt as if a rock had been tossed onto her stomach, an impossibly heavy boulder suffocating her with its weight, the surprise of the grief bursting through all her defenses.

  Papa would never say anything again.

  Ever.

  Not even her hand clapped over her mouth would stop the sorrow this time. There was only loss and finality unleashed.

  She bolted for the door.

  The sympathy in his voice as he called her name only undid her more. She stumbled across the courtyard toward the biggest, strongest thing she could see in the twilight, the giant, ancient tree. She was blind and lurching, and it was not the tree’s trunk that caught her and held her up as she wailed. Rowan’s strong arms wrapped around her, enveloping her in warmth and strength and murmured reassurances. The hold willingly loosened when she reared back to pound a fist against him, unable to contain the anger and chaos whirling inside her.

  She raged against the terrifying past and future, and who better to receive that rage than him?

  Chapter Six

  Rowan did not know how to help her so he stood within the storm, hoping at least to keep her whole when it felt like she could explode with the force of a lightning strike. He held her as she flailed against him, wordlessly lashing out against her plight.

  As the worst passed, he cradled her head against the chest she’d thumped to the point of bruising. His fingertips stroked dampness from her hot cheek, trying to settle her and gratified to feel the wild pounding of her heart subside as she calmed, still in one piece.

  Then she began to speak. He’d never imagined she would want to talk to him. About anything. Yet the words poured out just as the grief had.

  “He died so badly, Rowan. He didn’t deserve that.”

  He hummed a noncommittal sound deep in his chest, afraid to break the spell of her trust in him.

  “It seemed like a small wound at first.” She pressed a hand to her abdomen. “The slice of an axe across his stomach, not very wide, but something inside….”

  Rowan gritted his teeth against visions of what his mentor had endured and what poor Fia had witnessed.

  “He was in agony and I couldn’t soothe him. He screamed off and on, all afternoon and all night and most of the next morning and all I could do was wipe him with water and try to keep the flies away.” She jerked her head back to stare up at him, stricken. “Was there something I should have done? The old soldier said there was nothing, but you would have known what to do, wouldn’t you?”

  “No. There was nothing you could have done,” he assured her. He’d watched men, including Victor, die in the exact same way. The only aid you could provide was to kill them to end the suffering, a merciful act he’d never found the strength to perform.

  “And the burial. Oh, it is awful,” she said, her mouth twisting with torment. “The grave is not deep and he is just lined up, shoulder to shoulder with strangers.”

  He looked at her bracingly, hoping to convey confidence in his words. “Heric is no longer in his body. His suffering is over, so do not worry about where his shell lies.” He couldn’t stop himself from swiping a thumb under her eyes to steal her tears.

  “Yes, but what will I tell Mam?”

  She was still looking at him, begging him with her eyes for comfort. He cupped her face between his hands. “Fia, you were in an impossible situation. Your mother will understand you did the best you could.”

  Her head began to shake in denial. He released his hold to clasp her against him again. “You did the best you could. ’Tis all any of us can do.”

  She nodded this time. “I think I won’t tell her the worst. Or about the grave.”

  “Very well.”

  “She will be devastated. And Julius….” She choked on the name. “I’ll have to be strong for them. It seems….”

  “What?” he urged when she faltered.

  “It seems so unfair that I have to go through this again.” She drew breath with a shudder. “Grief is like carrying a boulder. I’m not strong enough to do it again, even for myself, but to carry it with my whole family? I don’t know if I can.”

  All he could do was hold her. He didn’t know much about grief, at least not for the dead, and dared not comment at all about her first experience with it.

  She looked up at him again. “No, I won’t tell her. It was such a comfort to me that Victor didn’t suffer.”

  A lie. A lie he’d told her for the exact reason she would lie to her mother. When he’d found Victor on the battlefield, there were parts of him on the outside meant to be on the inside. He hadn’t suffered as long as Heric, but he had suffered nonetheless, for hours, his belly pale and sliced open like a fish caught for supper.

  And now Fia stared up at him, adrift, frightened, seeking comfort, needing help to carry the boulder. He cupped her face a second, dangerous time. He wiped at the wetness on her cheeks again as he fought the pull of her wide, shining eyes.

  “Fia,” he murmured. He’d been apart from her for two years, and to have her in his arms made him burn, even if she’d been brought there by grief, not love. The pain of never winning her had dulled but not the longing he’d always had for her. “You are strong enough,” he said briskly, trying to remember he was the person she hated most in the entire empire.

  She wanted to believe him. He could see it, and then her desire for strength altered to something else. Her hands flattened on his chest, found the curve of his muscles, slid up to his neck. The caress on his bare skin sent fire straight to his loins. Even as she pulled him down, gazes locked, he knew how foolish he was to cooperate.

  They had never kissed. They shoul
d never kiss, not when she despised and blamed him. In the last corner of his mind where sanity still reigned, he knew it was high emotion and desperation driving her. That, and the wine goblet he hadn’t monitored as closely as he should.

  Yet how could he resist that which he’d desired for so long?

  The first touch of her lips stunned him like the accidental meeting of skin with red-hot metal. He pulled back. Her eyelids fluttered, and her chin lifted as she sought his mouth. He kissed her again, trying to be smart and careful, but when her arms wrapped around his neck, he lost his restraint. Their lips caressed again and again, seeking the dangerous burn that flexed his hips toward her and curled his shoulders down.

  He would absorb her if he could. He’d surround her and protect her from everything, if she’d let him.

  Whimpers of desperate pleasure escaped her throat and enflamed him, and then her lips parted to him, willingly. For a lusty second she pressed against his erection, and their tongues tangled in slick, fiery heat that burned like nothing before, like a brush fire out of control.

  The fire also burned her, though instead of whipping her forward, it brought her to reality. A strangled, anguished cry wrenched her entire body as she turned her face away and struggled against him. It took him about two counts to register her distress, then he let her go.

  She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand as she staggered back. “Oh, no. What have I done now?” she cried.

  “You were…you were accepting comfort from a friend,” he said, recognizing the ridiculous lie.

  “A friend? Of all people. You’ve made me pretend to be your wife, and now this. What would Victor think?”

  The name froze him. “It was a kiss, Fia. Nothing so terrible,” he said flatly, lying again.

  Her fingers touched her lips. It had been much more than a kiss and she knew it. It had been pure passion, at the very least, and perhaps the sign of a finer emotion between a man and a woman, though he dare not let his hopes venture very far in that direction.

  Her shoulders drew back as she collected herself. “Yes, only a kiss.” She glared at him boldly. “I am not your wife, but I was Victor’s, in every way except the vows.”

  His eyebrows rose. A jagged chunk of ice grew in his stomach.

  “And there will never be another man for me, not a true husband,” she added.

  “You are young. Don’t say such things.” How quickly he was reduced to the brotherly role again.

  She bit her lip. “I am not a virgin, and I will not give another what I gave to him.”

  Fia the Defiant had returned to cut him to the quick yet again. He could only stare like the dumb ox he was.

  “I see I’ve shocked you. Victor and I were set on marriage. We were determined, and if I were with child, Papa would have had to agree.”

  Rowan pivoted a quarter turn to contemplate the gate he’d ridden through a few hours before with a silent, bedraggled, helpless woman who’d been replaced by this cruel temptress.

  “Now you have a disgust of me?” she taunted. “You no longer want to touch what will, in my heart, always belong to Victor?”

  “You could never disgust me,” he assured her through gritted teeth. His body would respond to her, always, if offered the slightest encouragement, foolish girl. “What you see is disappointment that Victor would put you at such risk, then leave for the army.” He turned toward her, angry at both of them. At all three of them, really. “What if you’d succeeded but not known of your happy news until after he’d gone? You’d have been pregnant and he’d have been dead. Then what?”

  “We will never know, will we? Because you ruined everything!” She spat the last word. “We loved each other and we were willing to do anything to be together. You know nothing of such feelings,” she said derisively. “All you can do is find fault where none exists. You…you tore out my heart with your lies!”

  She stomped away and he let her, watching until her form, dark and wraithlike in the dying light, disappeared into the safety of the low building.

  “I tore out your heart?” he muttered. His fists uncurled one finger at a time.

  He tilted his head back to study the stars. We loved each other….

  Had they? Victor had whored his way to battle, then rushed to find a mortal wound like the proud, arrogant fool he was. He’d suffered, and in the blackest part of Rowan’s soul he’d seen the justice in that suffering. Victor had called out for his mother, for his God. He’d begged for death, a death Rowan would not give him, partly because he did not want to kill a man he’d once considered a friend, and partly because he did not want another reason for Fia to hate him.

  She’d loved Victor, but not once during his hours of torment and impending death had he said her name. Never a word of love or regret for the life they wouldn’t have. One might say it was because it was Rowan who sat with him through all those hours, but Rowan didn’t think so. He suspected Victor had given up on Fia when capturing her as a wife required too much effort. After all, a smith’s daughter should have been easy prey for him.

  He hadn’t given up as easily as Rowan had thought, however. The rotten cowardly cad had tried to impregnate her.

  He raked his hand through his hair. Saints preserve him, the thought of Victor alone with Fia chilled him almost as much as visions of the Northmen had.

  Through it all, Rowan had only tried to protect her, and she claimed his actions had torn out her heart. Well, she’d ripped his out and chopped it to bits.

  And she would do it again, every time he gave her the chance.

  Fia woke herself with a cry, terrified by images of bloody abdomens connected to nothing — no heads or arms or legs — just bleeding wounds on white skin. The darkness around her didn’t seem real until a door opened.

  “Fia,” Rowan’s deep, soothing voice said.

  “I’m sorry. It was a dream,” she answered automatically.

  It didn’t occur to her until after he’d left to wonder where he’d been sleeping. She pressed her fingers against her brow.

  What was happening to her tonight? She’d been happy, then sad, then she’d grabbed him then shoved him away and told him…. Dear God, she’d kissed him and for a searing moment been free of everything in her past, freed by an intense lust unlike anything she’d ever imagined. She’d kissed him then admitted she’d been Victor’s lover. Not admitted. She’d thrown the fact at him like a lance, suspecting it would hurt him. And it had.

  And now she’d been shrieking in her sleep again.

  He must think her a madwoman.

  “How many more days until we are in Metz?” she asked the next morning as they rode away from the abbey, water bladders sloshing against the rumps of the horses, each again pretending nothing untoward had happened the night before.

  He eyed the short legs of the cob. “Two weeks, at least. Probably more.”

  An eternity.

  “I’m sorry I was so…volatile last night.”

  He turned his head slightly so she could just see the tip of his nose but not his full profile. “Your grief is natural. I only wanted to comfort you. I never intended to take liberties I know you find objectionable.”

  They only became objectionable when I remembered who I am and who you are, she thought. “Two weeks is a long time to be at odds,” she said. “Can we try to forget it ever happened and declare a truce?”

  “I have not been the one on the offensive,” he said with a hint of prickliness in his tone.

  It was possible she deserved his ire. “Well, then, perhaps I can try to be civil and you can forget last night.”

  His dry laugh warned her how absurd he found the idea, yet he agreed. “Yes, ’tis probably best.”

  “Where did you sleep that you heard me?”

  “Outside the door of the building. I have no knowledge of the people there and thought it best that I keep some sort of watch.”

  “But they are monks.”

&nbs
p; “Underneath the robes and crosses they are men, and I can’t imagine there aren’t one or two among them with less than holy thoughts.”

  She wouldn’t argue. There was a fragile truce to maintain, after all, until she got home to Metz.

  Chapter Seven

  Riding the leagues away from Paris was an entirely different experience than the journey toward had been. Rowan was not driven by the urgent need to find Fia, nor could he ride at his normal brisk pace, which left many boring hours to fill with thoughts. Thoughts he had no desire to entertain yet no choice but revisit, it seemed, with Fia’s accusations about Victor rattling around in his brain.

  He’d been as charmed as everyone by Victor’s outgoing and carefree manner, which meant the most disturbing thing to him about Victor had been how much about the man he’d not noticed. The failure had raised a guard in him toward every new acquaintance since.

  There were depths to all men, and women he supposed, ugly inclinations hidden by manners. Where others wore a thin veneer over certain parts of their being, Victor must have had a second skin to hide cruel tendencies that went past thought to action.

  He’d gone to Victor’s family’s estate in the fall of 858 to visit for a few days before they returned for their third winter in Metz. Rowan had tried his best in the months prior to resign himself to Fia and Victor’s attachment. Whatever limited success he’d achieved had been because he’d recognized Victor as a worthy adversary. Victor made Fia laugh, never discouraged her from her lively schemes, and never alluded to their difference in class. Though not as lofty as a match to a lord of Alda, the marriage would lift her from the trade class, nonetheless.

  His first impression of Victor’s family estate was one of modesty, but a noticeable improvement over the one-room hut Fia shared with her family. If Victor chose to pursue her, Rowan could not in good conscience stand in his way. He accepted this, reaffirming his decision to avoid any bitterness in his dealings with either of them. They would marry, and he would disappear back to Alda, to what was expected of him, and hope he could find a wife among the aristocracy who could make him feel the way Fia did.