Secret Heart
Page 11
With a soft exclamation he picked her up, gathering her into his arms, and sat down on the cushions, holding her on his lap with her head on his shoulder. And as he held her, brave, defiant Jenia, with her secret past and her refusal to answer his repeated interrogations, wept as if she were a heartbroken child.
Like most men, Roarke hated feminine tears and resented the way women too often used them as weapons to get what they wanted. But Jenia hadn’t known he would walk into her bedchamber. She had been weeping in private. With no thought save comforting her, he kissed her forehead.
“Why are you crying?” he murmured into her ear. “What’s wrong?”
“This room,” she said between sobs. “The garden. Even the gowns I wear.”
“What about them, my dear?” He dared to kiss her moist cheek and she didn’t pull away as he feared she might.
“Garit prepared all of them for his love,” Jenia said. “For Chantal.” Her voice cracked on that last word.
Roarke didn’t move, couldn’t move. He recognized her vulnerability and sensed that a bit of subtle probing on his part would lead Jenia to say more, would produce the information he had been seeking since he’d first met her. But if he went about it in the wrong way she’d revert to her stubborn insistence that she recalled nothing about her past, or her real identity.
As Jenia nestled closer into his arms a faint fragrance touched his alert senses. It was a different scent from the lavender in which her gown had been stored and which he had noticed when she sat beside him at the high table on her first night at Auremont and then, later, in the garden. The sharp, tangy smell of lavender still permeated the silk dress, but beneath it lay a softer, sweeter perfume.
Roses. Jenia smelled of roses after an early summer rain. Roarke thought of sunshine breaking through grey clouds to warm moist rose petals and thus evoke their tantalizing, flowery essence. It was a smell gentler, yet stronger than lavender, and he instinctively knew it was Jenia’s own, true scent.
“Poor Garit.” Jenia sighed.
“Why do you call him poor?” Roarke asked, keeping his voice quiet and undemanding, wanting to ask her about the rose perfume, while at the same time not wanting to divert her attention from the subject of Garit and Chantal.
“Garit believes he will find his love and bring her here, to live with him.”
“Perhaps he will,” Roarke said in the same quiet tone.
“It’s impossible.” Her voice was low, slightly broken with the threat of new tears, yet very firm.
“Why do you say so?” He thought he was coaxing her to reveal more, to explain her strange sadness, but it was immediately clear to him that he’d said the wrong thing.
Jenia pulled away from him to sit very straight on the cushions. Her chin was up and her mouth was a hard pink slash in her tearstained face.
“Will you seize any opportunity you can find to pry into my memory?” she cried. “Leave me alone!”
“I cannot,” he said.
“Then, you are my enemy, not my friend.” She leapt to her feet, her eyes blazing with amber fire. “Garit doesn’t pry. Why should you?”
“That’s a very good question. Why doesn’t Garit pry? Does he know something I don’t?” Roarke knew he sounded like a jealous lover, but he couldn’t stop himself from demanding, “What have you told Garit and kept from me?”
“Nothing! Unlike you, Garit does not have a prying nature.”
“Don’t be too sure of that. Garit’s methods are merely somewhat different from mine.” When she gasped and stood gaping at him, Roarke forced down his anger and his jealousy and tried again. “Jenia, I want to help you. Please, let me do that in return for the help you are going to provide to Garit and me in Calean.”
“You cannot help me. No one can.” She looked away, her lips quivering as if she was going to cry again. Her woebegone expression tore at Roarke’s heart even as her stubbornness roused his anger anew.
“You are the most intransigent woman I have ever known,” he said with a sigh of irritation.
“I suppose I am,” she agreed. “But then, noblewomen are trained to compromise, to sway with the strongest wind blowing, always to do what their menfolk tell them to do, or expect them to do. Men don’t know how to deal with a woman who thinks for herself. They see such a woman as unfeminine, even dangerous.”
So, you finally admit to being a noblewoman, he thought, but did not say it aloud. Instead, he asked, “Have you always been this strong?”
“Not always. Only recently. I had no choice, you see. I was forced to become strong.” She stopped to glare at him, but Roarke saw respect and a glint of humor in her amber gaze. “You never stop, do you?”
“Not until I have what I want.”
“And what you want is to have all of my thoughts and all of my memories exposed for your inspection. You will never believe that I may lack certain memories.”
“I believe that some memories are too terrible to recall, and those are the ones we put away deep in our hearts and minds,” he said. “But I have known warriors who found comfort and great relief in dredging up such memories and speaking of them.”
She looked at him for a long time with her eyes suspiciously bright and her beautiful mouth softened from its harsh line.
“I wish I could reveal my darkest memories, but I cannot,” she said at last. “Not yet.”
“Then I’ll trouble you no more.” He walked past her toward the door, but stopped before he reached it. He turned back to her as if he had just thought of something. “Where in this castle filled with warriors did you find rose perfume?” he asked.
“In the stillroom,” she answered. “The maidservant who attends me prepares it because she favors it.”
“And so do you?”
“Always.”
She didn’t seem to notice her slip, apparently didn’t realize what she had just told him, but Roarke left her room with a lighter heart.
In the hours and days following that rainy morning, Roarke began to fear he’d go mad from wondering who Jenia was and what her true intentions were. Some facts about her he did know beyond any doubt. From the awkward way in which she had at first responded to his embrace, he was certain she was an innocent so far as lovemaking was concerned. Roarke seriously questioned whether Garit, despite his overly romantic vision of Chantal’s purity, could have loved any lady for several years without ever kissing or caressing her. That fact, coupled with Jenia’s admission that she was concealing dark and secret memories gave him a perverse sort of hope. The lady did, after all, favor rose perfume over lavender.
In view of all the questions he harbored about Jenia, he knew he’d be wise to stay away from her. It was the only means of saving himself from continuing frustration. He quickly discovered he could not stay away. Under the excuse of instructing her so she’d know what to expect at court, he spent hours with her each day in the enclosed garden. But she needed no instruction. She was as well trained as any lady he’d ever met at court, and far more intelligent than most noblewomen.
He found the lessons that she didn’t need tedious, and he knew she disliked his continual probing into a past she insisted she could not reveal. So he was relieved at first when she asked him about his early life.
They were sitting together on the bench in the garden, with Roarke trying to keep a cautious distance between them. Jenia perched on the edge of the stone seat, her back perfectly straight and her hands in her lap, the very picture of an elegant, self-possessed court lady. She tilted her head and smiled a little when he began to talk. Despite her pose, he knew she was listening intently.
“I was born at Alton Castle, son of Oliver, the baron of Alton, and Lady Constancia of Weston,” he said. After a moment of tense silence on his part, he continued before she could ask any other question and he offered her as little real information as she had ever provided to him. “You know about my years as a squire under Lord Giles’ training, how I met Garit at Nozay and we became friends.
Her gaze slid away from his for a moment. She appeared to be thinking about what he’d just said.
“What of your family?” she asked, just as he had feared she would. “Are your parents still alive?”
“My mother died when I was very young.”
“I am sorry. And your father?”
“I do not discuss my father.” He clamped his jaw shut on the abrupt words. How he wished he had not responded to her first question. Jenia was as insistent with him as he had ever been with her.
“Why not talk about your father?” She laid a hand on his arm. “Roarke? Tell me, please?”
“Why should I tell you anything, when you refuse to confide in me?” He knew he sounded childish, but he couldn’t help himself, not where his father was concerned.
“Because you remember and I do not,” Jenia said.
“Lady, you lie in your teeth.” He rose to pace away from her, knowing the irritation he directed toward her in that moment was actually meant for his father. “You remember very well. You just won’t admit it.”
“I do admit it. I told you as much only yesterday. I thought you understood.”
When Roarke spun around to stare down at her in amazement at what she’d just said, he found her sitting with her head bent and her gaze on the fingers twisted together in her lap.
“I have explained to you how I am sworn to silence until after I reach the royal court,” she said. “Are you sworn to silence about your father?”
“It would be better if I were,” he rasped, frowning at her.
“What can a parent have done to elicit so harsh a response to a simple question?” She looked up then, her eyes wide and her lips curving into a half smile.
“Do you really want to know?”
When she nodded, it occurred to Roarke that if he told her the worst about himself and his father, perhaps she would in turn reveal something of her own past and of the terrible memories she had mentioned.
“Very well,” he said. “I’ll tell you the sordid tale. Did you know Garit has a sister? No, I suppose he hasn’t mentioned her in the short time we’ve known you. Nowadays, he pretends she doesn’t exist.”
“Why?” She looked so solemn and so interested that Roarke continued the unpleasant story.
“Lady Marjorie has the same color hair as her brother, and the same sparkling blue eyes. There the resemblance ends. Unlike Garit, she is beautiful of face, but she is dishonest where he is honorable. Some years ago, shortly before he and I were to be knighted I visited Garit’s home at Kinath in Kantia, and there I met Marjorie. She entranced me, so much so that I asked her father for permission to wed her. I believed she cared for me.”
“And she didn’t?” Jenia asked softly. “You must have been terribly disappointed when she refused you.”
“Oh, she promised to marry me,” Roarke said. “But, of course, I had to speak to my father first and obtain his permission to marry, and the two parents had to agree to the marriage contract. Quite a bit of land was involved, both in Kantia and in Sapaudia. I returned to Alton and spoke to my father. He seemed amenable, seemed to understand how much I wanted the marriage.
“Since I was obligated to return to Calean by a certain date, my – Lord Oliver offered to travel to Kinath Castle to make the marriage arrangements with Marjorie’s father, and then to escort her to Calean for our wedding. So I, young fool that I was, sailed off across the Sea of Lestrac to Sapaudia, confident that my happy future was assured,” he ended with more bitterness than he had intended. That was surprising; he’d thought he was over the anguish and the disappointment.
“What happened?” Jenia asked. “Oh, Roarke, never tell me Lady Marjorie died on the journey to meet you.”
“She lives,” he said. “Lord Oliver, the parent I had loved and respected all of my life, took one look at Marjorie and decided he wanted her for himself. My father married the girl he was bound to bring to me as my betrothed. By the time the two of them reached Calean, she was already carrying his child. I did not learn any of this until we met at court.”`
“Dear heaven,” Jenia whispered.
“Dear heaven, indeed,” he said. “I was much younger then, and so deeply hurt that I ignored Garit’s wise advice to keep quiet about what had happened. I confronted Lord Oliver and Lady Marjorie in public and accused them of betraying me. Of course, the matter became a great scandal, and I was the object of unrelenting pity.”
“Which was worse for you?” she asked with deadly insight. “The end of your respect for your father, the loss of the girl, or the pity?”
“In all honesty, I’m not sure,” he admitted. “The pity didn’t last long, and neither did the love I’d imagined I felt toward Marjorie. If she’d betray me with my own father, she would most likely have taken lovers the first time after our marriage that I was absent on some mission for King Henryk. Let Lord Oliver deal with her faithless heart. I consider myself well rid of her.”
“Garit must have been hurt by the scandal, too,” she said.
“Like the loyal friend he is, Garit stood by me,” he told her. “He publicly repudiated his own beloved sister for what she had done. Lord Oliver could not challenge him for the insult, because every word Garit spoke was true.
“Now you understand,” Roarke concluded, “why I cannot allow myself to care for Lady Chantal, nor will I ever attempt to steal Garit’s beloved away from him. Not after what he did for me.”
“I am—” She halted, ran her tongue across her lips, and began again. “Roarke, you have not stolen Garit’s beloved. You could not.”
“Does that mean you are not Chantal?” He bent over her, placing one hand on the pear tree, forcing her to lean backward. “Is that what you were going to say, that you are someone else?” He breathed in her rose perfume and prayed she would tell the truth – whatever the truth was, for he still could not be absolutely certain.
“Roarke.” She grabbed at him, perhaps to prevent herself from falling off the bench.
Whatever her intention, as Roarke straightened up she came with him, still clinging to his shoulders. When they were both on their feet she was still much too close, too tempting, too utterly desirable with her eyes wide and her bosom heaving with sudden emotion. Wanting her, longing to make her his, still Roarke fought the temptation. And failed.
Jenia was in his arms, his mouth was searing across hers, and he knew he’d never stop wanting her, not even if she wed Garit. He had thought, years ago, that he was in love with Marjorie. Now he knew his infatuation with Garit’s sister had been but a flaring candle compared to a gigantic bonfire. Jenia – mysterious, lying, scheming Jenia – was the only woman whose touch he craved, whose heart he wanted to own.
Wanting her, longing to make her his, to possess her completely, still he pulled away from her and held her at arm’s length. For Garit’s sake, for his own soul’s peace, he must stop holding her and kissing her.
“Tell me who you are,” he demanded, his voice rough with desire and anger and frustration such as he had never known before. “Jenia, I implore you. Until I know the truth, I am in fiery torment in the lowest Afterlife.”
“I cannot speak.” Tears washed down her cheeks. “I am in torment, too, but I have sworn a solemn oath. Surely, you can understand? If you had sworn an oath to Garit, would you ever break your word to him?”
“No.” The anger leached out of him, leaving him tired and sad. The desire remained, but he knew he could fight bodily yearning and win. He had done it before, after losing Marjorie. He’d do it ag
ain, if the woman standing before him proved to be Chantal after all, and if she married Garit. The longing of his deepest soul was a different matter and he wasn’t certain he’d be able to deal with it. Still, his sense of honor prevailed. “I apologize for touching you,” he told her.
“Roarke, you are a decent, honest man, who is trying to do the right and honorable thing. I am sorry I’ve caused you pain. But it’s only for a short time. Soon, this unhappiness will be over, and you will go on with your life, with your missions for King Henryk. You will forget about me.”
“I think not.” If she were Garit’s Chantal, he’d have no choice in the matter. But she didn’t sound as if she expected to spend the rest of her life with Garit. She sounded like a warrior about to go into battle, as if she had accepted the very real possibility that she wouldn’t live much longer. With a chill at his heart he wondered yet again what her ultimate goal was in Calean.
She started for the garden gate and he watched her leave without trying to stop her. He knew they had to keep their distance from each other. If ever he took her into his arms again, he wouldn’t be strong enough to let her go. He would make her his beyond any doubting. But he wasn’t lost to the demands of friendship and he could recall too well the pain of Marjorie’s betrayal. He refused to inflict such pain on Garit, not on the loyal friend who had repudiated his family for Roarke’s sake.
“If you are Garit’s Chantal, I will have no choice but to try to forget you,” he murmured. “You could end my unhappiness with a single word, but you won’t speak it. Ah, well, whoever you are, I can take some small comfort in knowing I love an honest woman. No matter what the cost, you do keep your promises.”
Part II
Interlude In Calean
Chapter 8
Roarke’s squire, Elwin, appeared at Auremont toward nightfall of the next day. He came escorted by four men-at-arms and with a packhorse that was loaded down under two large baskets filled with the clothing, cosmetics, and jewelry that Jenia would require when she made her appearance at court.