“Why am I not surprised?”
Her hand froze as it reached for another book.
He was her primary concern. She was weary of his vague explanations and half-promises. Weary of not understanding why this man who seemed to love her did not wish to be with her in truth. But some of that resolve melted when he reached down to touch her neck.
She began to turn around, but he whispered, “Nay. Don’t let me disturb you.”
Her fingers reached for the volume that most caught her eye. Rather than leather, the pages were bound together by some type of metal with an engraving that looked vaguely familiar.
Toren no longer touched her, but he stood so close she could feel his breath on her neck. She shivered visibly, eliciting a chuckle from behind her.
“Open it.”
She did. And gasped.
“’Tis beautiful,” she said, tracing the lines of the illustration, even more colorful and vibrant than the first manuscript she’d admired. It was one of the most artfully crafted scenes she’d ever seen. Cadmium yellow and crimson wove around gold leaf in a naval battle scene. Knights in one ship raised their swords against Saracens in the other. So stunning was the scene, she hardly even noticed the perfectly formed words.
“The romance of Gillion of Trazegnies,” she murmured.
Toren reached out for her from behind and grazed her hand as he traced the initial at the opening of the text. And Juliette, who normally would have been too enamored with the craftsmanship of the text to pay any attention to her companion, could think of nothing other than the man who stood behind her.
“Aye.” He guided her hand to the bottom of the manuscript and turned the page with her. “This is where Gillion is stripped to the waist and tied to the column where he’ll be saved.”
The memory of Toren stripped to the waist, fighting to be the champion, surfaced in her mind, though in truth those edges and ridges of muscle were never far from her mind.
“By Gracienne.” She knew the tale well, though had never seen it illustrated.
Toren encircled her waist and pulled her closer to him.
“The Sultan’s daughter,” he murmured in her ear.
She shivered.
When he pulled her hair to one side, Juliette was powerless to stop him. The brush of his lips on her neck forced her eyes closed. A pool of desire flooded her as his lips moved upwards.
As much as she wanted to stand there, to turn the page and continue to relish this moment that melded the two things she held most dear, she needed to speak with him. Juliette closed the manuscript, stepped away from him to replace it, and finally faced him.
“Their story did not end well,” she started. “And I fear ours will not either. Unless you begin to trust me.”
Toren’s jaw clenched.
“Tell me what holds you back. Why you left as you did.” Juliette warmed to her topic. “Should I leave now that the message has been delivered?”
He didn’t answer at first. Finally, he ran his hands through his hair and tipped his head back.
She couldn’t take it any longer.
“What is it, Toren? Tell me!”
He looked directly at her, his expression unreadable.
“I don’t want you to leave.”
After making that declaration, he made no move toward her. It was what she’d wished to hear, but it wasn’t enough.
“What do you want then?”
He moved so quickly she hardly had time to react.
“I want you.”
He brought his lips down on hers, and she had to fight to retain any semblance of thought. And that was the effect of one mere kiss.
She allowed herself much more. His lips moved expertly across her own, his tongue dueling with hers until she finally relented and wrapped her arms around him. He pressed their bodies together, and Juliette now understood the need that drove him. That drove them both. She relished in the feel of him against her until she finally remembered her purpose.
“Nay,” she said, pushing against him. “I need answers, Toren.”
The look on his face told her he was at war with himself.
Juliette could only wonder at the cause. She nearly told him that she loved him. But that look on his face stopped her. It dawned on her again—the certainty that he was keeping something important from her.
“I’d give them to you.”
“But?”
“I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?” She backed away from him. “You say you want me. And mayhap even care for me. And yet you do not trust me. . . even though I’ve done nothing to earn such treatment. I gave myself to you, Toren. Do you understand what that meant for me?”
“You’re not being fair,” he said.
“Fair?” She couldn’t help but raise her voice. “You’re right. I gave myself to you with no expectations for the future. Knowing you were unable, unwilling. . .” She couldn’t continue. What more could she say? If he didn’t love her enough to be fully honest with her, however difficult the truth, what was she fighting for?
She tried to walk around him, but he grabbed her arm.
“You don’t understand.”
“Of course I don’t,” she agreed. “Am I supposed to?”
The look on his face made her heart weep. He looked so. . . vulnerable.
“Stay. For a few days. I promise to explain everything. But I need more time.”
“Time for what, Toren? What are you waiting for?”
She could tell he still wasn’t going to tell her.
“My father will be looking for me. Hedford—”
“I will take care of Hedford. Please, Jules.”
Juliette wanted to say she’d be returning home immediately. That if he didn’t trust her enough to explain himself now, immediately, he wasn’t the man she’d hoped for anyway.
But something Christina had said at the end of their stay at Condren stopped her. She’d asked her friend if she’d come to love Lord Hedford, and her response had been most curious.
“’Tis hard to love a man I’ve known for such a short while,” she’d said. “But I do love that which he’s shown me. When I know all of him, I can answer your question more honestly.”
It was an interesting point. She fancied herself in love with Toren because he made her feel things no other man had ever made her feel before, and she’d had plenty of suitors. But could she fully love a man she didn’t know completely? Mayhap the only way to know for sure how she truly felt about him, and him about her, was to wait. To wait and find out what he’d been hiding from her.
“You will tell me everything in a few days?” Jules asked him now.
He didn’t flinch. “Aye, I will.”
They stood there like that for a while, silent and staring at each other, when the door suddenly swung open.
“Oh, pardon,” Catrina said, more flustered than Jules had ever seen her. “I didn’t realize you were here, Toren.”
Before Catrina could close the door she’d opened, Juliette called her back.
“He was just leaving,” she said.
Except he made no move to leave. His eyes had not shifted one inch from hers.
Finally, she nodded. As long as all was revealed at the end of it, she could wait a few days.
So why did that thought leave her so unsettled?
18
The clergyman would live.
Catrina had made that spectacular announcement yesterday eve at the start of the meal. None were happier than Juliette, for she knew the implications for her father were substantial.
She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the poor, innocent men who had been so brutally attacked. The villains who’d used her father’s name as a shield still had not been found, and Juliette feared that the arrest might not be the end of the matter.
She hadn’t see Toren since the conclusion of that meal.
“Something troubles you?”
She ignored the question. So much troubled h
er, she hardly knew where to begin.
It was the following afternoon, and she was walking arm in arm with the lady of the manor, who’d promised to take her for a “most spectacular view.” Juliette had been reading when Catrina had shown up to fetch her. Christina and Hedford had left that morning to visit Bristol’s village. She had declined their offer to accompany them, wishing to give the couple some time alone.
Catrina led her into what appeared to be an unused bedchamber. Though it appeared modest, Bristol housed an impressive number of rooms.
“A bedchamber?” she asked in confusion.
“Not just any bedchamber,” Catrina said with a wink. She led the way to a small window, its wooden shutters already open. Curious, Juliette peered over the other woman’s shoulder.
The scene below that offered exactly what Catrina had promised.
A most spectacular view.
She smiled as her hostess moved to the side, allowing for her to get a better look.
“That isn’t. . . typical.”
Granted, the training yard back home was quite a distance from the main keep, and she hardly visited the place regularly. But she was sure that most men trained with at least light armor.
“Nay, not in England at least. Back home Toren and his men regularly train this way, and I suspect my husband is doing it simply to prove he can.”
They weren’t the only shirtless men on the training field, but they were certainly the two who attracted the most attention. The sight of Toren’s naked chest, the muscles responding to his every move, was enough to draw her even closer. It only just occurred to her that she should be embarrassed to stare so brazenly at her companion's brother.
“I. . .” She began to back away, stopping only when Catrina pulled her back.
“Do not be embarrassed. My brother is quite fit, nearly as much as Bryce.”
“Nearly as much?” She stopped, realizing she’d been goaded.
Juliette watched as Toren struck a wooden pell from every angle. She marveled at how easily he wielded his training sword. Most often these were twice the weight of a regular broadsword, making even experienced knights look slow and clumsy in training.
Not so with Toren. He attacked the stake as if it were the enemy, applying himself with such vigor that some of the other men actually stopped to watch.
“Like two boys,” Catrina said. Juliette hadn’t noticed Bryce performing a similar ‘dance’ on a different pell. She smiled now, realizing that they were indeed treating it as a competition.
“It must be difficult for them. . .” Juliette stopped herself.
“’Tis very much so,” Catrina answered unselfconsciously. “I told Bryce once that there was only one man more stubborn than he: my brother. A five-year-old feud is not so easily buried.”
Juliette’s heart fluttered when Toren stopped and looked directly up at her. How long had he noticed them watching?
His body glistened with sweat, the sunny day unrelenting, she imagined, for such rigorous training. Even from this distance, she could see each of his muscles clearly.
“He loves you.”
Juliette froze.
“I know my brother well and have never once seen him look at a woman the way he looks at you.”
Tearing her gaze from the training yard, Juliette looked at Catrina. Her eyes, the exact shade of her brother’s, were intelligent. Unwavering.
“Did he tell you that?” Though she intended to sound confident, Juliette could hear the uncertainly in her own voice.
“Nay,” she admitted. “He would not. As I said, Toren is stubborn, and he’s said in the past that marrying was for us, for his siblings. That his job was simply to keep us safe.”
She walked toward the bed, its covering a pure white embroidered with pink flowers. Sitting, she gestured for Juliette to join her. With a final glance below—Toren was no longer looking up—she lifted her blue gown, one of her favorites for its simple cut and bright color, and sat next to the lady of the house.
“St. Mary help him.” Catrina twisted her lips in apparent frustration and began again. “My apologies. I haven’t quite become accustomed to not swearing. Although—” her face lit up, “—that was my first slip of the day!”
Juliette had never met a woman who took holy names in vain. She’d heard plenty of men do so, but never a woman. And while Sister Heloise would no doubt be appalled, she herself found it quite refreshing.
“Toren has been both brother and parent to us, as he likely told you.”
Juliette nodded.
“He has made some difficult decisions for the sake of his family and clan.” Catrina frowned. “And I fear he’ll be forced to make the most difficult one of all soon.”
“I don’t understand.”
Juliette recognized Catrina’s expression, for she had seen the exact same expression on her brother’s face the previous day.
“You will.”
She stood and Juliette followed suit. “Please be patient with him,” Catrina rushed to add. “I know he’s not been completely forthright, and it’s not for me to tell you what he has not. But when he does tell you. . .” Her shoulders slumped. “Please remember that he loves you, Juliette. Of that I am sure.”
Juliette’s stomach sank, and it felt as if she’d just eaten something rotten. Not for the first time, she wondered if it might have been easier not to have found love at all. To have joined the convent and been done with it. For whatever Toren wasn’t telling her was increasingly becoming something she dreaded to hear.
“Toren, you need to tell her. For God’s sake, you’re going to lose her. Is that what you want?”
He had avoided being alone with Catrina after their last discussion, which had ended much like this one seemed doomed to end. For someone who was always accusing him of being stubborn, his sister could be so as well.
“You’ve had my answer. And I’ll ask you not to interfere in this.”
He had asked Juliette to stay nearly two days past, and he knew he could not keep her here for much longer, especially not without telling her all. She wanted answers, and though she deserved to get them, he had none to offer. Until he heard from Douglas, he could do nothing more than attempt to mollify everyone around him. Juliette. His sister. Hedford and his wife.
“What happens if you’re relieved of your mission? What will you do then? Do you plan to tell her, ‘Oh happy days, we can be together. Let’s be off so I may obtain your father’s permission for us to marry?’ Will you really leave it at that?”
His eyes narrowed. “I never said—”
“You didn’t have to, Toren. You asked her to stay for a reason. ’Tis obvious to anyone with eyes, or at least to anyone who knows you well, that you love her. Just admit it, you stubborn fool.”
He already had. To himself.
“What does it matter? The only thing that matters now is Douglas’s decision.”
“Ugh.” Catrina paced restlessly in the solar chamber. She’d pulled him in there after the evening meal. “You’re even more thick-headed than I thought, brother. Even if Douglas calls off the mission, Juliette must know your true purpose. You can’t begin a life based on lies.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
He’d thought of nothing else these past two days—it had haunted him while he was in the training yard, when he was dining across the table from her, when he was trying to sleep at night. He could not kill her father. And yet, if he was ordered to do so and didn’t, he’d put his clan at risk. Endangering his family and kinsmen was not something he’d do willingly. It would put him in an impossible situation.
“Tell her.”
He’d heard that refrain too many times.
“Enough.” Fists clenched, he marched toward the door, which he pulled open with so much force Waryn nearly fell on top of him from the other side.
He shoved past his brother-in-law, pausing only to glare at him, and made his way to his own bedchamber. After pacing there for what seemed like hours,
he left in search of the timid maid. After he found her, nearly scaring the poor girl witless with his rumbled request, Toren retreated to his chamber once again and waited until she brought him a flagon of ale.
Then he drank.
Kicking into the fire with his boot, he rearranged the logs and drank some more. Though the day had been warm, the night was as cold as it always was here.
Angry at everyone, most of all himself, Toren was prepared to refill his mug when the sound of a soft knock at the door stayed his hand.
He opened it, prepared to tell Elise he did indeed require more ale.
“Your timing is impeccable. I—”
It was not Elise.
“Were you expecting someone?”
“Jules.”
She was a vision in blue, standing in the threshold of his chamber, awaiting his answer. It was as if she were desire given human form. He grabbed her and pulled her into the room, shutting the door behind her.
Without any preliminaries, he kissed her, hard. She responded by wrapping her hands around his neck.
“Ah God, I’ve wanted this so much.” He kissed her neck, pulled down the thick robe and shift under it, and then kissed her shoulder.
“Who were you—”
“The maid,” he murmured against her soft, creamy skin.
He then realized how that must have sounded.
“Nay,” he said. “For more ale. Not for. . .”
He groaned, looking down at her exposed skin dotted with wisps of hair that had escaped onto her shoulders.
“Not for this.”
He opened the cream robe wider and reached beneath it for the hem of her shift. Lifting it, Toren gently backed her against the stone wall for support and glided his hand up to the treasure he sought.
He held her gaze while he explored her with his fingers, intent on easing some of the pain he’d caused by leaving Condren so abruptly. By avoiding her these past days.
She watched him as he began to ease his fingers in and out, slowly at first. Touching her, bringing her toward her release, made his own arousal grow, but he never took his eyes from hers. Jules swallowed hard, her lids hooded and her head tipped back, and he knew she was close. Her expression was one he’d never forget.
The Chief's Maiden (Border Series Book 3) Page 18