by Speer, Flora
“Are you asking me because you believe I won’t interfere in your beloved game of spying?” she demanded with just a hint of annoyance in her words.
“No.” His smile deepened and mischief sparkled in his eyes. “I’m asking you because I think you need protection from your mother.”
“I can protect myself from my mother, thank you very much. I’ve been doing it most of my life.” She glared at him. “I will not marry you.”
“I need you.” His smile did not waver, which only infuriated Elaine.
“You may need a chatelaine, and certainly you need a mistress, but as a spy, you most definitely do not need a wife. I refuse to serve as a convenience you may use or leave, as you see fit.”
“I came to this room, to you,” he said. “To no other woman. You are the only woman I want to bind up my wounds and lie in my bed, to kiss me and touch me and drive me to near madness with desire.”
“I will not marry you.” She was shaking with her need to fall into his arms and accept his proposal. She knew he was the only man she’d ever want, and she did not doubt that her mother was already choosing a husband for her whom Elaine was sure to dislike, whom she’d insist Elaine must marry. She’d rather enter a convent. No, she’d far rather marry Desmond, but not if he didn’t love her. Marriage to him if he didn’t, or couldn’t, love her would be a foretaste of Hell. She turned her face away so he wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes.
“Not even if you are carrying my child?” he asked softly.
“What?” she gasped.
“It’s entirely possible. We have lain together twice.”
“You cannot trick me this way! I will not -” She choked back anger and tears. In her innocence and her eagerness to know Desmond in every way, she hadn’t stopped to think of a child.
“Would you deny your child its father? Allow it to be branded a bastard?”
“Don’t do this to me! You are cruel!” She tried to leap from the bed, but Desmond caught her, holding her against his warm, muscular chest.
“Elaine, you welcome me into your arms with such sweet passion,” he murmured, his lips on her forehead. “I know you find pleasure when we embrace so intimately. Why do you insist upon refusing what we both want?”
“Because you crave the suspense and secret excitement of spying. And because you don’t love me.” She wrenched herself out of his arms to kneel facing him, her hair tangled over her shoulders, while the tears she could no longer control streaked down her cheeks.
“I do believe that living with you will be excitement enough for any man,” he said. “Certainly, enough for me.”
Elaine shook her head, denying her feelings and his words.
“In recent weeks we have both seen the tragedy that can ensue when men and women who do not love each other are bound together,” she said. “Lord Bertrand and Lady Benedicta, and my mother and Sir Lamont, are only two examples. Others are all around us, here at court. I refuse to marry without love.
“Oh, I wish you could see yourself now,” she cried. “The way you look at me in horror at the very thought of loving. Or, far worse for you, of confessing to love.”
“You are wrong,” he said. “I thought you knew. But then, I’m so unaccustomed to loving that I suppose I don’t know yet how to show it so you’ll understand. That is one of two reasons why I want to marry you. I’m hoping you can teach me how to say aloud what I’m feeling in my heart. No other woman holds the power to teach me.”
Deeply moved by his words, she put out a hand to touch his bare chest just over his heart. But when he lifted his hand to cover hers, she shied away.
“You said there are two reasons why you want to marry me. What is the second reason?”
“Because I cannot live without you.” He swallowed hard before uttering the next words, and they sounded as if they were wrenched out of him by force. “I want to marry you because I – I love you.”
“You do?” She brushed her tears away. “Truly?”
“I think I must,” he said, “because the thought of losing you is like tearing my heart from my chest. I am a whole man only when I’m inside you and your arms are around me and I hear you cry out my name in pleasure.”
“Oh, Desmond.”
“I’ve spent most of my life shutting my heart against love. My mother died when I was little. My father never loved her, or me, or my twin. Our older half-brother despised Magnus and me. I left Ashendown as soon as I was old enough, after deliberately quarreling with Magnus so the parting wouldn’t hurt either of us so much. Only in the last year have I begun to understand what a brother’s love can mean, and to witness a loving marriage, for somehow Magnus and his wife have managed to create one.
“Given all of that, how can you expect me to admit to loving anyone, much less a woman who has the power to destroy me by rejecting me?”
“You do love me.” She sighed, venturing a tremulous, weepy smile. “The more often you say the words, the easier they will become.”
“Then I promise to say them at least once every day. But only if you promise to say them to me, too.”
“I love you, Desmond.”
“I love you, Elaine.” He said it haltingly, and she knew he’d find the words difficult, for a time, at least.
“Will you marry me?” he asked. “Since I’ve said twice that I love you – no, three times – will you marry me?”
“Yes. But,” she said, holding him off when he tried to embrace her, “I do make one.
Author’s Note
Readers often ask where I find the ideas for my books. Seldom do I have a simple answer, but in the case of this story, the origin is clear. While checking on a reference, I came upon an entry in The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year A.D. 1117:
“King Henry spent all of this year in Normandy because of the hostility of the king of France and his other neighbors. Toward summer of this year the king of France and the count of Flanders together invaded Normandy with levies, but remained only one night, retiring in the morning without a battle.”
That struck me as odd. After all the preparations and the expense necessary to gather an army and launch a joint invasion, why withdraw at once? What happened to convince the French king and his ally to avoid a battle?
At that point I asked the writer’s traditional question: What if? And the story began to build. Suppose the mysterious disappearance of a young noblewoman is a red herring that conceals a deadly political plot? Then a friend made an off-hand comment about a late twentieth century scandal and I discovered both motive and means for murder. Where Love Has Gone is the result.
I chose the island of Jersey for its isolation and because the kings of France coveted the Channel Islands throughout most of French history.
The mount at the eastern end of Jersey is an ideal location for guarding against an invasion from the mainland, and there has been a fortification of some kind on that spot since men first settled the island. Unfortunately for my purposes, the present stone castle wasn’t built until the mid -1400’s, much too late for this story, so I created a manor house to be used by the Warden of the island, who was appointed by the Duke of Normandy, the owner of Jersey.
About the author:
Flora Speer is the traditionally published author of twenty full-length novels and two novellas. She writes historical, futuristic, and time-travel romances. Born in southern New Jersey, she now lives in Connecticut. Among her favorite activities are doing the research for the next book, which is always fun, gardening (especially herbs and flowers used in medieval gardens) and amateur astronomy. She firmly believes in space travel and wishes the U.S. would restart its manned program, which provided some great ideas for her futuristic romances.
Flora is currently writing a series of medieval romances, Lord Royce’s Knights, soon to be published on Smashwords, in which a group of young men who have no prospects in life at all, still manage to achieve remarkable results by valor and intelligence. Since these are romances, never fear tha
t they will also find their true loves, ladies who are every bit as dauntless and determined as the men.
Connect with this author:
Web site: www.floraspeer.com
E-mail: [email protected]
Other books by Flora Speer, all now available through Smashwords:
HISTORICAL ROMANCES:
By Honor Bound
Much Ado About Love
The Viking Passion
For Love And Honor
Rose Red
Castle of Dreams
Castle of the Heart
Two Turtledoves (Christmas Novella)
TIME-TRAVEL
Twelfth Night (Christmas Novella)
Christmas Carol
A Time to Love Again
A Love Beyond Time
Timestruck
Love Just in Time
Love Once And Forever (also paranormal)
PARANORMAL – Medieval Magic
Heart’s Magic
The Magician’s Lover
A Passionate Magic
Love Once And Forever (also time-travel)
FUTURISTIC ROMANCES
Venus Rising
Destiny’s Lovers
No Other Love
Lady Lure
ORIGINAL E-BOOKS, coming in 2014-2015:
Lord Royce’s Knights series:
So Great A Love
Cast Love Aside
True Love
Where Love Has Gone
Love Everlasting
MORE ORIGINAL E-BOOKS, coming in 2015-2016:
A prequel to Lord Royce’s Knights:
Love Above All
And a Romantic Fantasy series:
The Secret Heart
The Fire of The Soul
The Anvil of the Mind