Blue Heaven, Black Night

by Heather Graham

  Fear was rushing up to engulf Elise even as she desperately fended them off. Damn Bryan! Damn him to a fiery hell! How could he have left her to this—

  She heard her bodice rip, and furiously brought her knee hard against the peasant’s groin. He yelped with real pain, buckling over. Elise gave him a shove, then raced wildly for the door, throwing it open and tearing out into the night.

  She stopped short suddenly, seeing Bryan leaning against his destrier. “You son-of-a-bitch!” she railed.

  He lifted a brow politely. “You told me once that you would rather have ten toothless peasants than me. There are only four in there—and they all seem to have their teeth . . .”

  He broke off as Renage came running out with his sons, all armed with pitchforks.

  Bryan reached out and grasped Elise, throwing her atop the mare, leaping upon the destrier himself. “Go!” he warned her. “They’re an awkward lot and I’ve my sword, but I’d hate to take their poor lives for the paltry fact that they were dragged into our quarrel.”

  A grunt of pain escaped him as he finished speaking; Elise saw him clenching down on his jaw as his features paled.

  “Go!” he screamed, clawing at his back. Elise was frightened and confused; her heart thundered in her chest, but she dared not disobey him.

  She nudged her heels against the mare’s flanks. A second later Bryan was rushing past her, leading her through the darkness. The night, the moon, the stars whipped by. The glow from the cottages faded. Again, it was like that first night; they might have been alone in the world, racing the wind.

  At last he slowed the destrier, sliding off the horse rather than leaping, as he was accustomed.

  “Bryan?” Elise queried hesitantly, her voice seeming to echo in the darkness about them.

  He didn’t answer her; she saw that he was leading the destrier through a narrow, overgrown path amid the trees. Silently, she followed him, again feeling danger in the night, in the black that surrounded them in the forest. “Bryan!” she called softly, unable to see him. But she could follow the destrier, and she did. The path led to a copse by a stream.

  The moon played upon the water here; Elise saw that he had torn off his red mantle, and his tunic. She picked them up. Both were stained with blood. She hadn’t seen the blood before because the mantle was the same shade.

  “Bryan!” she called out, alarm rising in her voice. And then she heard him, at the water’s edge. She saw his broad back, the bronzed flesh gleaming in the moonlight . . .

  And the blood. “Bryan!”

  Elise raced to his side; he spun about, raising a hand to her. She swallowed. “Bryan . . . I want to help you—”

  “Why?” he demanded with dry bitterness. “Just get away from me.”

  “But you’re wounded—”

  “Not badly. I’m not going to die.”

  Tears stung her eyes. “I don’t want you to die. I just wanted you to leave me alone, Bryan. Please . . . let me help you.”

  He stared at her a moment, eyes raking over her, their emotion shadowed by the night.

  “No,” he said bluntly.

  He turned back to his task, wetting a torn strip of his mantle, then cleansing the wound in his back. “Damn!” he muttered, grimacing as he rose.

  “Bryan, I never meant for something like this—”

  “Then what did you mean!” he shouted with sudden fury, stalking to her in two swift steps that took a painful toll upon him, evident as the strain riddled his eyes. He wrenched her arm and she gasped, but his words thundered out, bleak and weary, before she could speak. “What do you mean to happen? Do you intend to go to war against me—against Richard? Will it satisfy your sense of honor to see men battle and die? You claim you hate me because I raped you. I’m a brutal man. Duchess, you don’t begin to understand what violence is—what rape is! I should have left you. I should have left you to those double-chinned brothers and then you could have learned—”

  “Bryan!” Her teeth were chattering as he shook her, tears were springing to her eyes, and she was sorry, very sorry, but also terrified and about to scream with the pain of his tense fingers biting into her arm. “Bryan . . . let . . . go . . . of . . . me . . .”

  He did, pushing her from himself so vehemently that she fell against the pine-softened bed of the forest.

  And he was quickly on top of her, straddling over her, pinning her wrists to the ground. His voice was still swift, harsh thunder in the night. “Let you go? Never, Duchess! Don’t you understand that yet? Be gentle! Marshal tells me. Have patience! And for my pains, I take a dagger in the back. Milady, perhaps it’s time for me to be guilty of all that I am accused!”

  His face was so tensed and strained; his eyes were so cold and hard and laced with pain. She felt the ripple of his muscles as he leaned closer to her, the terrible, shuddering power of his enraged body.

  His hands, moving, releasing her only to touch her once more; his thumb was rough as it grazed over her cheek; his palm was shaking. He was so angry.

  Her tears started sliding down her cheeks. “Bryan,” she whispered, “please . . .” She couldn’t find the words to tell him that she knew her attempts to escape him were at an end—that she was resigned to being his wife. That she was just begging he not take her in such awful anger.

  He paused. His eyes closed briefly, then opened. He took a deep breath, then jerked away from her, standing quickly over her, then walking away. It took her a moment to realize that he was gone.

  She was suddenly very, very cold, and she didn’t think she had ever felt so empty, so totally void, in her life.

  Slowly, she roused herself. He was standing by the stream again, winding strips of his mantle around his torso. Elise stood, shivering for a minute, then finding that she was compelled to walk to his side again. She spoke to the breadth of his back, swallowing hard at the silent dignity of his stance.

  “Bryan . . . I swear, I had no wish for you to be harmed. I . . . behaved recklessly and foolishly and I brought on your injury—and I am truly, truly sorry.”

  He didn’t reply to her. Not for a long while. She stood tensely, miserably behind him. Then she saw his dark head lower as he stared into the water of the stream; he issued a soft sigh.

  “Elise, you are my wife. You have to come with me.” He paused. “I, too, have been guilty—of condemning you unjustly at times. I know now that you didn’t poison my wine.” He lifted his head again but still did not turn to face her. “Jeanne put the poison in my wine. She admitted the deed to me.”

  “Jeanne!” Horror swept through Elise, and a new fear. Fear for Jeanne. “Please, Bryan!” she whispered with soft vehemence. “Jeanne is aging—her real crime was her love for me. The fault was mine, if she sought to injure you. You must not deal harshly with her. I . . . I beg you.”

  “She will not be punished.”

  Elise stood still, dizzy with relief. He might have done many things. Jeanne was a villein of Montoui; Bryan could even have ordered her executed for such a crime. Or flogged so cruelly that a woman of her age could not survive the ordeal. And yet, he was stating that Jeanne would not be punished. She owed him for that mercy.

  “Bryan, I . . .” she began softly, but her throat tightened, and she had to begin again. “I swear by the blessed Virgin that I will not try to escape you again.”

  He turned to her then, curiosity touching his eyes, along with a cool skepticism. “You needn’t be so frightened or humble, Elise. My decision about Jeanne has nothing to do with promises from you. Whether you tried to run a thousand times, I could never bring vengeance against an old woman who had risked her own life for love of her mistress. Don’t make a vow you don’t intend to keep.”

  “I . . . intend to keep it,” Elise said softly.

  He did not reply. Elise winced as she saw blood escaping the bandage of fabric strips he had wound about it.

  “Bryan, your wound—I wish to help you.”

  “Bind it more tightly,” he said with a s
igh. “The lout could not throw his dagger hard or with a decent aim, but it is a scratch that bleeds like rain.”

  Elise picked up the remnants of his mantle and ripped it into broader, wider strips. With her eyes lowered, she approached him. She tore away his efforts at a bandage, and carefully wound the strips about him again, putting padding upon the wound. She noticed the tense, sporadic ripple of his taut abdomen as she touched his torn flesh, but he didn’t emit a word, a sigh, or even a grunt.

  She could not look at his face when she finished. He stepped away, and she heard him with the horses. A moment later, he was back beside her, carrying his saddle and blanket. “This is all we have for the night,” he said curtly. “I left the packhorse with the old woman at the cottage we came to this morning. I could travel more swiftly without it. Let’s get some sleep.”

  Elise nodded numbly. She was shivering again. Not with cold; not with fear.

  Moments before, she had pushed him to his limit of endurance. She had felt his touch; the sinewed heat of his body pulsing against hers. She had cried out, and found reprieve . . .

  Yet had been stunned by the cold when he left her.

  How long, she wondered, feeling dizzy, how long before he did insist . . . ?

  “We’ve only one blanket. Come here; if you don’t sleep beside me, you could have a chill by morning.”

  Nervously, she tucked at the ripped material of her bodice, but he wasn’t paying any attention to her. He was laying the blanket upon the ground, positioning the saddlebags as cushions for their heads.

  He lay down, staring up at the night sky.

  Elise walked over silently and lay down beside him. He pulled the blanket around her, but the warmth that she felt came from him.

  She would never sleep so, she thought. Feeling the even keel of his breathing, the movement of muscle, the heat . . .

  She closed her eyes. He made no move to touch her, and she wondered in misted confusion if she were relieved . . .

  Or bereft.

  XVII

  He felt her movement as she twisted slowly from his grasp, but Bryan made no move to stop her. He opened his eyes, barely, allowing his jet-black lashes to shield them as he watched her.

  Dawn was breaking; sunlight,. gold and crimson, streaked against the gray of the dying night. The clear water of the brook was reflected in its glow like thousands of sapphires glittering to greet the day.

  As Bryan watched, Elise cast off her boots and tunic and waded into the stream dressed only in her thin linen shift. She gasped slightly at the shock of the cold, then bent, heedless of her clothing, to cup the clear water in her hands and splash it over her face. Just as the sunlight caught the water in magic, it touched upon her hair, making the tangled strands appear like silken webs of purest gold and copper.

  She stood, shivering slightly, then began to unwind the coil of her hair, allowing it to fall about her. The tips of the longest tendrils swept over the water. She combed through it with her fingers, and when she released it, it was like a cloak of sunlight itself streaming about her with a rich and radiant glory.

  Bryan opened his eyes fully and leaned upon an elbow, and drew in his breath. She turned around suddenly and stared at him, her eyes startled and wide, crystal blue today, along with the color of the stream.

  The water in which she had recklessly played dampened her shift and molded it to her form. The linen had become taut, enhancing the full rise of her breasts, the dip of her belly, the swell of her hips. He smiled suddenly, thinking of how capable she usually was of appearing aloof and . . . regal. A duchess born: proud, distant, judicial. Beautiful, but untouchable.

  But now . . . with her hair in silken disarray, fluttering softly to her knees in tangled splendor, her eyes so wide, her young figure so clearly outlined, she looked like . . .

  A magical, legendary creature. A child of legend. Some sweet creature created for the delight and reward of a man. A “Melusine,” to haunt and possess the soul . . .

  She wouldn’t much like the description, he thought dryly.

  His smile began to fade, although his eyes remained riveted to hers. The morning was cool; he felt uncomfortably hot. His limbs were tense, his muscles coiled and tightened—and damn if he didn’t feel his breath coming hard and fast from lungs that seemed to burn! His desire for her was painful, tearing at his gut like a gnawing hunger, tightening him, hardening him, when he hadn’t even touched her except with his eyes.

  Be patient, Marshal had told him. Be gentle. Let her come to you . . .

  But Marshal did not live with a constant longing that was never abated. She was his wife. And now, she had sworn not to leave him again.

  He lifted a hand to her, palm up and open. “Come here,” he said softly.

  She hesitated, and in those moments he prayed silently that she would not refuse him. His pride would demand that he go to her, and magic would fade to battle once again.

  He stood, unwilling to let it come to that. She was proud, too, he knew. And he could not forget the broken way she had cried out to him when he had lost his temper and thrown her down.

  He walked to her slowly, ignoring the water that soaked his hose and boots. Not once did he stop gazing at her eyes; it was imperative that he hold her so; he did not want her to run.

  She did not run.

  She watched him come, shivering against the morning cold.

  He stopped before her. Her arms were bare, glistening with water. He set his hands upon them. His eyes at last left hers as he watched the gentle movement of his fingers as they caressed the soft flesh of her shoulders.

  Was it the cold that she shivered from? Or did she shrink from his touch?

  His eyes met hers again. “It is inevitable that you come to me,” he told her quietly.

  She did not answer him, but neither did her eyes waver from his.

  “I hurt you once,” he continued, not pleading, but speaking truthfully. “For that, I am sorry. The union of a man and woman should not be a hurtful thing.” He offered her a crooked smile. “It should be a . . . touch of heaven, for the lady as well the lord.”

  Such a dubious glitter touched her eyes that he laughed. “I swear by my sword, it is true, Duchess!”

  She sighed softly, casting her lashes over her eyes. “I have learned that it is futile to fight the . . . inevitable.”

  Bryan’s lip continued to curl with a secret amusement. No, she wasn’t going to fight him. But neither was she going to offer a simple acquiescence. Coming from her, the words were as close to a willing consent as he was ever going to get.

  “You’re injured,” she reminded him a little breathlessly. “You must be in pain.”

  “A nick in the flesh, nothing more. I am, indeed, in pain—but the pain has nothing to do with a minor wound to the flesh. And,” he murmured, “it seems rather ridiculous to put off until tomorrow what is going to happen anyway . . .”

  He moved his fingers to the straps of her shift, peeling them from her shoulders, then slowly tugging the sodden garment lower. A flush rose throughout her when her breasts, their peaks rosy and hard from the cold, were bared. The material abetted his effort at that point, falling free to wind about her ankles in the water.

  She was like the dawn, flame and pastels. Shrouded in innocence, yet not innocent.

  “I’m going to freeze,” she told him nervously, and he knew that it embarrassed her to stand naked before him. He took her into his arms, freeing her from the look of ardent hunger in his eyes.

  “I will make you warm,” he assured her, and his mouth was hot with that promise as he took hers in a deep, thirsting kiss. Instantly, she thought of that kiss in the chapel. His lips seemed to meld with hers, widen, taking the whole of her mouth. Moist . . . velvet . . .

  She felt the same sensations. The weakness. The sweetness. Invading her bones, her blood. Her breasts were hard against his chest. The coarse hair there teased her. His chest was so hard . . . she pressed her palms against it, not to push him away,
but to feel him with her fingertips . . .

  He stepped away. Elise was afraid that she would waver and fall. She did not, and he reached out a sun-browned hand to cup the fullness of her breast. She lowered her lashes, unable to meet his eyes.

  It was so like that distant day at a different stream. She was cold; where he touched her she was hot. Fire and water, heat and cold, and that feeling . . .

  The promise that if she just reached out, something infinitely fine and sweet would tumble into her hands.

  How long had she been fighting him? Since that black, rainswept night when they had met. Even then she had felt the promise, but then she had been dreaming of Percy, and now...

  She couldn’t even summon a likeness of Percy’s face to her mind’s eye. The name was a confusion. Memory of him was nothing more than a misted haze.

  Someone moaned softly; it was Elise. She had stepped toward him, burying her face against his shoulder, slipping her arms around his neck. She stumbled in the tangle about her ankles that was her shift, and she didn’t mind at all when he slipped his arms around her, carrying her from the stream. Elise closed her eyes and rested pliantly against him. She didn’t know how to reach out and seize that elusive promise, but she felt drugged by the beauty of the morning, and the tenderness of his touch. A dazzling mist of magic seemed to encompass her; if she allowed the mists to swirl, the sweetness that rendered her limbs so very weak could grow and . . .

  Her shift was discarded upon the bank, and she found herself lying upon the bed of blanket and earth that was still warm from the hours they had slept. She opened her eyes. Far above her, the leaves of the old oak spattered across the soft, glowing, now crimson morning sky. A breeze wafted through the leaves, creating dappled patterns of light shadow upon her flesh. She closed her eyes. She could hear him removing his boots . . . his heavy wool hose. She felt him stretch out beside her, but still she did not open her eyes. She knew that he was propped upon an elbow on his side; his naked flesh brushed against hers.

  His fingertips, light and feathery, touched her cheek, caressed and outlined her jaw. That soft touch followed along her throat, and long before he did so, she was craving that he touch her breasts. Still, it was that feathery touch, circling, as elusive as the breeze. She tried so hard to remain still.