by Amy Tolnitch
“Duty makes a cold companion.”
Cain rolled his eyes. “You sound like Piers.”
“Your brother is wiser than he knows.”
“Why are you here?”
Suddenly, Gerard’s head lifted and his eyes opened wide. “She is near.” He started to fade.
Cain reached out and passed through a light blue tunic. “Wait! Why did you come?”
“To warn you not to make the same mistake I did.”
Chapter 14
Amice knew Laila was right to contact Muriel here, but the last place she ever wanted to see again was the room where she had revealed too much of herself to Cain. Though he lounged in one corner watching her, she refused to look at him.
He had not spoken one word to her since that afternoon.
She bent down and tossed more sage on the fire burning in the brazier.
“Courage, te’ sorthene,” Laila whispered.
“Tonight she will come. I can feel her in the air.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Amice saw Cain unbend and walk toward her. She stiffened and finally looked at him, blanking her eyes of any expression.
He looked grave. “Gerard Veuxfort paid me a visit.”
“What? When?”
“Before supper.”
Amice frowned. “Why did you not mention it at supper?”
He did not answer.
Amice crossed her arms. “What did he say?”
“He has tried to apologize, explain to Muriel, but she will not listen.” Cain gave her a wry look. “Gerard claims when he attempted to talk to her, Muriel cursed him to some awful place for a time.”
“Did he tell you what he did to her, what happened?”
“Nay. He sensed Muriel and… dissolved before I could question him.”
Amice and Laila shared a look. “Why did he appear to you?”
Cain shrugged and shifted his gaze away.
He was lying. Hiding something. Which probably meant it had something to do with them. With her. “What else did he say?”
“That is all.”
Amice stared at him until he looked into her eyes. “Are you sure?”
Cain’s jaw tensed. “Aye.”
Amice turned away to find Muriel with an expression of utter outrage on her face. Her hands were fisted at her sides, and her form was so solid Amice had to remind herself she was a spirit.
“How dare you?” she hissed.
For a moment, Amice floundered, wondering whether Muriel referred to her being in the chamber or what had transpired earlier with Cain. She bit her lip.
Laila stepped forward and raised her palms. “We only seek to help you.”
“By invading my privacy, exposing my secrets? This is how you help?”
A cold breeze snapped through the room.
“Tell me why you linger,” Amice said.
Muriel glared at her, but Amice saw something else in her eyes. She drew in a breath.
“You want in death what you could not have in life.”
“Nay.” Muriel turned vaporous. “You are wrong.”
“I am right. You stay for him, for Gerard.” Amice walked toward her. “And he is here for the same reason.”
Abruptly, Muriel became solid, fury radiating from her.
“He wants to apologize.”
“Apologize,” Muriel snarled. “’Tis far too late for that.”
Amice took a deep breath. “But it is clear he loved you.”
“Oh, yes.” Muriel’s lips twisted into a bitter smile. “Loved me so much he broke our betrothal. Loved me so much he believed Elena’s lies.” She advanced on Amice. “Loved me so much he would not even listen to me! Loved me so much he stripped my precious necklace from my dead body and gave it to his wife!”
“But, Muriel, perhaps there is an explanation.”
“There is no explanation. He used my body and threw me away when a more advantageous match came along.”
“The… his drawings do not look that way,” Amice said softly. “They look like love.” She sensed Cain move behind her, felt the force of his stare at her back, but she could not look at him.
“You want to know what really happened?”
Amice nodded.
Muriel’s gaze turned so bleak Amice’s heart ached for her. “I loved him. Loved him with all my heart and soul. When we were together, ’twas so perfect to be almost like a dream. I gave him everything.
“And then he turned away. Believed that I had betrayed him.” Her eyes narrowed. “Refused to believe the babe I carried was his.”
Amice gasped. Dear Lord, not this too.
Muriel nodded. “Aye, I had a child growing inside me. Gerard’s child.”
How could she kill herself with an innocent babe inside? Amice’s horror must have shown in her face, because Muriel shook her head.
“Nay, I did not kill the babe.” Muriel came so close that the edge of her gown fluttered over Amice’s bare feet. “When Gerard broke the betrothal, my sire was most displeased. Of course, he did not believe me either. He beat me so badly I lost the babe,” she spit out.
“Oh, my God.”
“I wished I had died too. Somehow I survived.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “But I did not want to live anymore.”
Amice reached up and felt tears on her cheeks. “I understand.”
“Aye, you do.”
“Then what do you want, if not to be reunited with Gerard?” Cain suddenly asked. “Do you stay solely to plague me?”
Muriel glowered at him, then started laughing. “Aye, my lord. And I shall until the end of your miserable days.” With that, she was gone.
Cain smashed a hand against the wall. “Damn her.”
As Gifford and Piers crept into the chamber, Amice slowly turned toward Cain. “I do not entirely believe her, Cain.”
“Neither do I,” added Laila.
He turned anguished eyes on them. “What do you mean?”
Amice shook her head and tried very hard to separate Muriel and Gerard’s saga from her own. “I still think the reason she stays is to be with Gerard.”
“She hates him.”
“I am not so sure about that.”
“He certainly thinks so.” Cain’s voice sounded strained and Amice had to look away from his gaze.
“Aye, but it makes the most sense.”
Cain raised his palms. “What can we do?”
“Got to bring them together,” Piers offered. “Make them confront the past.”
Amice was glad the light in the chamber was dim as she was sure her face reddened.
Gifford rubbed his hands together. “Aye, that is the thing to do.”
“How?” Cain asked. “How can we force them to do what they have spent so many years avoiding? Amice?”
“I… I must think on this,” Amice managed to stutter. She felt as if she were breaking apart from the inside. “There must be a way to help Muriel achieve the peace she needs.”
Laila took her arm. “Come, Amice. You need to rest.”
“Aye.” She ventured a last glance at Cain. Frustration was stamped on his features, and she fought back a longing to soothe the strain from his face.
“Mayhap Muriel must learn to forgive Gerard,” Piers mused.
Amice turned to look at him. “But why should she?”
Piers’s eyes widened with suspicion.
Suddenly, it was all too much. From a place deep in her soul, sobs erupted like a great tidal wave. Tremendous, wrenching sobs, her tears flowing like an erupting storm. As Piers looked at her in confusion, Amice bent over, gasping for air.
Laila pulled at her arm but Amice could not move.
All she could think was how she had lost her child. How her grief at Cain’s betrayal was so great her body could no longer function as it should. How she lay bleeding to death in the grass before Laila had found her. How tiny her daughter’s body was.
She blinked through tears and saw Cain standing in front of her.
/> “What is wrong, Amice?” His gaze held a mixture of concern and bafflement.
Fury ripped through her like thunder. Amice looked over at Piers and Gifford. “Please leave,” she managed to whisper.
They filed out, followed by a clearly reluctant Laila.
Cain’s expression of confusion deepened, and he crossed his arms.
She shook her head in disgust. Disgust at him and at herself. “Give me the villa. Let me leave here.”
He set his jaw. “I cannot until that… apparition is gone.”
“Find another way.”
“How?”
Tears pooled in her eyes.
“Why has this upset you so? I do not understand.”
“Nay. You do not.” Her voice was raw. “’Tis the shame of it.”
“Were you carrying a man’s babe once?” he asked in a whisper.
She could not believe it. After everything, he still did not believe in her. “You bastard,” she spat. “I was carrying your babe.”
“What?” Cain took a step closer and his arms dropped.
“Aye. And when you calmly informed me you were leaving to marry, I lost her.”
“Oh, my God, Amice. Why did you not tell me you had conceived?”
“I never had the chance.”
“Amice, I am sorry. I did not know.”
“Nay, how could you? You were gone.”
She could see Cain’s throat working and the look he sent her was bleak. “I am so sorry,” he whispered.
“Sorry.” Amice laughed. “Such a mild word. I nearly bled to death by the time I lost my child. I shall probably never be able to bear another child because of it.”
Cain’s face turned bone-white, and he took another step toward her.
“Get out,” she rasped. “Leave me be.”
He bowed his head and left.
The next morning, Lugh MacKeir sought out Cain on the training field. At the man’s approach, Cain held up a hand to his training partner and lowered his sword. “What do you want?”
The MacKeir barreled to a stop and put his hands on his hips. “My Agatha wishes me to take her to Tunvegen. Soon.”
“You have no shame in you at all, do you?”
“No. And even if I did succumb to such a weak emotion, I would not feel it over this.”
Cain stepped up and scowled at him. “You dishonored my sister and Amice.”
The MacKeir did not even flinch. “I did not shame Agatha as I fully intend to wed her as soon as possible. And I did not lay with Amice.”
“She was your betrothed.”
“Aye, but ‘tis clear she cares for another,” he paused, “for some reason I cannot fathom. I cannot accept a wife who longs for a different man in her bed.” He looked pointedly at Cain.
Cain rubbed the back of his neck and scowled at The MacKeir. Would that his words were true, but he knew Amice better than that. She cared for him once, true, and obviously their physical desire for each other had not abated, but he had only to recall her words to Piers to know they had no future.
Amice would never forgive him. Why should she? His chest tightened as he remembered her revelation. Dear God, a child. She had lost a child because of him. Their child.
“She intends to leave England, you know,” The MacKeir said conversationally. “Forever.”
“What?” Cain barked.
He looked smug. “Aye. As soon as her mother passes.”
Cain felt as if The MacKeir had driven a blade into his heart. “Why would she do such a thing? Leave her family and all that she knows? Why would her brother allow it?”
“Looks to me like she is running away from something. Or someone. And Rand loves her enough to grant her wish.”
Was she so determined to avoid him she would put countries between them? Aye, she would. Amice possessed the most independent will of any woman he had ever known. The sharp edge of loss cut through his belly.
The MacKeir put his hands out, palms up. “I am a simple man. If I want something, I go after it. If I think or feel something, I say it. But you, Hawksdown, you are an onion.”
Cain raised his brows. “An onion?”
“Aye, with too many hidden layers.” He leaned toward Cain and fixed him with an intent stare. “Take some advice. If you want her, seize her! Do not let her leave.”
“You do not understand.”
The MacKeir sighed and shook his head. “Aye, I do. But about Agatha—”
“You shall wed my sister before taking her anywhere.”
“Agreed. Now, there is one more thing.”
“More comparisons to vegetables?”
“Woodford.” MacKeir’s expression turned grim. “I would like to help you finish that whoreson before I return to Tunvegen.”
“I can fight my own battles, MacKeir.”
“I feel obligated to Amice to assist you.”
“Very well.” Cain sheathed his sword. “Now, here is my plan.”
Amice entered the bailey and saw Cain and Lugh over on the training field deep in discussion. Good. She walked quickly across the open ground and into the tower containing Cain’s solar.
The document transferring Villa Delphino to her had to be either here or in Cain’s chamber, and she would prefer to avoid that place.
Anger and shame swirled in her belly. She could not bear to stay at Falcon’s Craig any longer. Once she found the document, she would try one more time with Muriel, then leave. Surely, she had earned Villa Delphino by now.
Slowly, she pushed open the door and peeked in to make sure the room was empty. With a sigh of relief, she went in and shut the door behind her.
For a moment, she simply absorbed the room, sensing Cain’s essence, smelling the lingering scent of cedar.
A table stood in the center of the room, stacked with rolls of parchment. Against one wall was a cupboard stuffed with more papers. Where could it be?
Amice walked around the table and saw a small trunk. It was a beautifully carved piece, made of mahogany and gilded with gold paint.
She bent down and jiggled the lid. Locked.
Knowing Cain, he probably kept the key with him. Amice stood and shuffled through the piles on the desk, looking for something to use. A dagger lay next to a stack of quills.
She snatched it up and went to work on the lock. This had to be it. She twisted one way and then the other, all the while feeling as if the door would open at any instant and she would be discovered. Determinedly, she attacked the lock. If Cain walked in, so be it. She would simply demand her due.
With a soft click, the lock parted.
Holding her breath, Amice slowly lifted the lid and lowered her head to peer inside.
Her heart dropped and she gasped. With unsteady fingers, she reached down into the velvet-lined interior. Two objects lay inside, carefully nestled in the rich, blue velvet.
The purple ribbon she had worn in her hair the last time she and Cain had been together.
And the ring she gave him when they secretly promised to each other. She turned it over in her palm, her vision blurring with tears.
Why had he kept the tokens? And why in such a special place?
Suddenly, the door crashed open and Amice whirled around, her hand to her mouth.
Cain’s face could have been chiseled from granite. “What are you doing?” He stalked toward her, his cheeks tight, his eyes glittering.
Amice swallowed her embarrassment and stood, still clutching the ring in her hand. She held it out in her palm. “Why did you keep this?”
He clenched his hands. “It has some value. There was no reason to toss it away. I had forgotten about it, truth be told.” Cain moved closer, crowding her. “Why are you skulking around in here?”
His body trapped her behind the table. Amice dropped the ring back into the trunk and lifted her chin. “I want Villa Delphino.”
“Muriel is not gone.”
“You have had enough of me,” Amice snapped.
Cain’s eyes flas
hed and he curved his mouth. “Oh, no, my sweet. Never enough.”
His words shot through Amice’s brain like a bolt of lightning.
Just before he kissed her.
Cain tangled his fingers in her hair, imprisoning her head, plunging his tongue in deep, ravishing her mouth in long, smooth strokes. She wound her arms around him and held on, meeting his hunger with her own, their mouths and tongues mating feverishly. God, she wanted this, needed this. It was as if without his mouth, his taste, she was forever doomed to hunger.
He slid one hand down to her buttocks and thrust her against him, rubbing against her center as he plundered her mouth.
Amice whimpered.
At the sound, Cain growled a curse and shoved her away from him.
Amice stood staring wide eyed, her arms hanging limply at her sides.
“What do you do to me?” Cain bit out.
“What in the hell am I going to do with you?”
Love me! Amice wanted to scream, but she bit her lip instead. “Give me Villa Delphino,” she whispered. “Let me go.”
Cain stared back at her, his face set into grim lines, his eyes like fire-lit sapphires. “Nay,” he said in a low voice, then whipped around and stalked out of the room.
Amice looked down at the ribbon and ring and felt something inside her set adrift. Surely, he lied about the tokens. He kept them too close.
It was as if he deliberately distanced himself. As if he imposed an iron will upon his wants, his emotions, buried them in a huge pile of responsibility.
But why?
Amice slammed the lid back on the trunk and turned toward the door. It was time she discovered the truth about Cain and Luce.
Chapter 15
Cain left Falcon’s Craig the next day. He had to. Amice’s arrival had awakened something dormant within him. He had spent years burying himself in the business of being the Earl of Hawksdown.
He had only to look at Amice and the most elemental part of him thought, That is mine. Mine to possess, mine to sink my body into until my skin is permanently stamped upon hers.
Mine to love.
It was madness.
“Think you he will come?” The MacKeir asked from the horse beside him.
“Aye.” He glanced at the other man. “The guards watched Jack, the traitor, slip out the postern gate last night. He is undoubtedly on his way to Hexham now.”