She’d been so furious—and yes, hurt—by Alex’s accusations that she hadn’t been able to resist taunting him. She might have even known what he would do. She might have even wanted it. If he’d ravished and devoured her with lust the way he was supposed to, she was certain she would have been able to push him away and revile him the way she should. He would be just like all the others.
But he wasn’t like all the others. He was different. And his kiss was very different. It was gentle and tender—almost reverent.
She didn’t understand it. How could he think her a wanton and kiss her like this? It was beautiful. Sweet. Shattering. With every smooth caress, with every gentle press, with every tender stroke, he ripped her defenses to shreds. He stripped her bare, revealing yearnings—desires—that belonged to another person. The person she’d been.
He kissed her like she meant something. Like she was special. He made her feel like a woman who was worthy of respect—not just a quick, lusty swive against the wall—and she hated it.
These feelings made her weak. He made her weak.
But she couldn’t break away. It simply felt too good. That she felt anything at all was a surprise. She’d thought herself incapable after the horror of that day. But the numbness—the coldness—that she usually felt wasn’t there.
She loved the solid hardness of his body against hers, which didn’t make any sense. All that strength should be threatening. He could hold her down. Prevent her from moving. Instead it made her warm and melty. And maybe a little achy.
She couldn’t help but remember how all those muscles had looked in the flesh. How they’d flexed and rippled as he moved.
She wanted to make them jump under her fingertips. She wanted to slide her hands up the hard ridges of his back and shoulders, over his bulging arms, and maybe even across the steely bands of his stomach.
She’d never felt desire so physically or viscerally—even that first time before everything had gone so terribly wrong—and the intensity of it took her by surprise.
Surely that was the explanation for the little gasps emitting from low in her throat. Gasps that seemed to be encouraging him to respond with a deep groan and a deeper swirl of his tongue.
His hands moved from cradling her head to down her spine and then to her waist and hips. He was folding her into him, bending her back, bringing her closer.
Confusing her.
All she could think about was the heat of his body, the dark, spicy taste of his mouth, and the sharp pull of sensation that drew her closer with every deft stroke of his tongue. He kissed wonderfully. With skill and purpose and something else . . . feeling? He didn’t rush, smother, or slobber with eagerness. He was slow and calculated—as if all he cared about was making her feel good.
It was working.
His hand moved over her breast and she nearly jumped out of her skin. Heat gathered under his palm. Her nipple grew taut. He rubbed her, circling the pad of his thumb over the throbbing tip until she pressed against him. Arching into the firm cup of his hand.
He had great hands. They were so big and strong, but surprisingly gentle. He didn’t grasp too tightly or squeeze too hard, or move too roughly.
At first. But then his control started to slip, and he moved a little quicker, a little harder, and maybe a little rougher. But she didn’t mind. She liked it. She felt it in the increasing fierceness and intensity of his groans. The thick column of flesh wedged between her legs began to grind in slow, sensual circles reminiscent of . . .
That was when the memories returned. She jerked back suddenly. Harshly. Horror stripped the color from her face.
My God, she’d almost . . .
What was she doing? She couldn’t do this. The fact that she’d wanted to—even for a moment—struck her cold. But the feelings had been so powerful, so overwhelming, so intense.
She knew better than to trust those feelings; she was more surprised that after all that had happened she still had them.
He seemed just as shocked as she about what had happened—and just as horrified. He recovered first. Somewhat.
“Shite.” An instant later, he winced as if he couldn’t believe he’d just said that. After raking his fingers through his hair, he stood a little straighter and tried again. “I must beg for your forgiveness. I hope you will accept my apology for the dishonor I have done you. I have no excuse. I do not know what came over me, but I assure you it will not happen again.”
Joan couldn’t believe it. The sharp sound of a laugh was out before she could prevent it. Was he for real? There was something so charmingly old-fashioned and proper about him, she felt as if she’d slipped back in time into the pages of some faerie tale. Would he bend his knee and hand her his sword to do her will? Good gracious, she knew exactly what had come over him. Lust. Desire. Passion. It made people do things they never intended.
“You have much to learn about dishonor, Sir Alex. A kiss hardly qualifies.”
She’d meant it more wryly than sarcastically, but she could tell by the way his jaw clenched and his eyes darkened that she’d offended him—unintentionally as it was. He gave her a hard look. “Maybe it is you who have much to learn about honorable men, my lady.”
The reply took her aback. She stared at him. With a short bow of his head, he moved past her up the stairs, leaving her to ponder what he’d said.
9
JOAN? I ASKED you a question.”
Startled from her reverie, Joan turned to her cousin with a smile as they walked down the high street. It was Whit Monday, the day following Whitsun—or Pentecost—and one of the biggest celebration days of the year. Villeins would be free from service for the entire week and, as in most big towns, war or no war, Berwick was celebrating with a fair. The streets and markets were more crowded than she’d ever seen them. “I’m sorry, Alice, I was thinking. What is it that you asked?”
Alice’s scowls tended toward petulance and this one was no different. “You’ve been distracted all week. Whatever is the matter with you? I’m getting tired of repeating myself.”
As it was the truth, Joan could hardly argue.
Alice eyed her speculatively. “Perhaps Sir Hugh’s leaving has upset you more than you let on? I doubt a week’s absence will cause his eye to wander, although I suppose you are right to worry. He is a man.”
Alice’s experience with her husband’s affairs had obviously colored her view of men in general. Not for the first time since that night in the tower Joan wondered the same about herself. “Maybe it is you who have much to learn about honorable men.” Was Alex right? Had her view of all men been colored by her experience with a few? She didn’t want to think so. She’d met few honorable men and so many more who weren’t. It was hard not to become cynical.
But she wasn’t so cynical that she couldn’t acknowledge that she might have misjudged Alex. Her first impressions may have been right. Despite his judgmental reaction to her “behavior,” he seemed to truly believe some of the principles most men only parroted, such as honor, gallantry, and chivalry. Yet he’d turned his back on his friends and betrayed them.
She knew him well enough now to know that he must have had a reason—or thought he’d had a reason. Lachlan had been very closemouthed on the subject when he’d told her about it, except to say that “Sir Galahad” had never fit in, and he and Boyd had been a mismatch from the start. It just didn’t make sense.
Nothing about him made sense, least of all her reaction to him. A week later and she was still confused by what had happened. She’d kissed him back, not because she had to but because she wanted to. She’d done what she thought impossible and welcomed a man’s kiss.
More than welcomed, she thought with a grimace of shame. She’d kissed him openly and wantonly, no doubt only reinforcing his opinion of her. That was probably why he seemed to be making a concerted effort to avoid her all week. Though she had felt his eyes on her more than once. He must be wracked with shame for dishonoring himself by frolicking with a woman of
her sort.
But she still didn’t understand why he’d kissed her as if she weren’t that sort of woman at all, but rather someone who was special.
Dear God in heaven, just listen to her! Could she really still be so naive as to ascribe sentiment to a kiss? The first man who didn’t try to shove his tongue down her throat and she thought it meant something?
It was probably his seductive trick—making women think they were special.
But it hadn’t felt like a trick.
She sighed, telling herself not to think about it. She had other things to worry about. Sir Hugh was due to return any day.
Undoubtedly the best thing to come out of that night was Sir Hugh being called away on a mission for the king. Although frustratingly, she’d been unable to find out anything about it. No one seemed to know the details, or if they did, they were being very secretive.
She would have to wait until he returned to see what she could find out. Instincts or not, it was clear she could no longer break things off with him—at least not right away. But at least his absence gave her a chance to breathe and figure out how she was going to handle him.
The sound of a stomp interrupted her musings.
“You are doing it again,” Alice said, clearly annoyed.
“Leave her alone, Alice,” Margaret said. “She does not need to confide all her secrets to you.”
Alice gave her sister a skeptical frown. “What secrets could Joan have?”
You’d be surprised, Joan thought.
Margaret smiled at her as if she’d heard her. “We all have secrets,” her cousin said softly.
Alice looked at her sister as if she knew what some of those secrets might be, and they upset her. She frowned and was about to say something when Margaret stopped her. “Isn’t that the knight we saw practicing at Wark the other day? Alex Seton?”
Joan tried to feign disinterest as she turned in the direction of Margaret’s gaze, but she suspected her sharp intake of breath had not gone unnoticed. Though she immediately averted her eyes lest their gazes meet, the quick glance through the crowd was enough to confirm his identity and bring a hot flush to her cheeks as memories hit with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Her heart started to beat at an alarmingly accelerated rate.
It was nothing, she told herself. Just a kiss. She had no reason to be embarrassed or feel awkward. But there was no denying that she was both. The memory of that kiss—and how thoroughly she’d responded to it—was too fresh.
“Aye,” she answered with as much nonchalance as she could manage. Then before he noticed them, or her cousin did something dreadful like call out a greeting, she took Margaret’s arm to steer her away. “Come, I think I smell tarts.”
There was no surer way to get them moving quickly—like her, both of her cousins loved tarts. It must be a family trait.
Unfortunately, they weren’t quick enough. They’d only taken a few steps toward the stalls when someone—a big someone—blocked their path.
“Ladies.”
The deep masculine voice sent shivers of awareness down Joan’s spine that made her skin prickle and the tiny hairs on her neck stand on edge. Blast it, how did he do that? And did he have to smell so good? He was a man in full armor on a hot day. He should stink with sweat, not smell like he’d just stepped out of a steamy bath.
Her cheeks flushed hotter as that image came unwittingly to mind. His naked chest had been spectacular; she imagined the rest would be . . .
Nothing that she should be thinking about!
But if she were the type of woman to admire backsides—which she just might be—she would be in heaven. She couldn’t help but notice the strong muscles of his flanks in the leather breeches when she’d been able to tear her eyes away from his bare chest the other day.
God in heaven, what was the matter with her?
Something about Alex made her feel like a lovesick maid again—before she’d had the stars wrenched from her eyes and her innocence stolen forever. Although she couldn’t ever remember being so physically attracted to a man and filled with such decidedly unmaidenly thoughts.
Annoyed by her silly reaction to him, she looked up with a purse to her mouth that faltered a bit when she found those spectacular crystal-clear blue eyes riveted on her. She feared she sucked in her breath again.
“My lord,” she said with a curt bow of her head that was more to avoid that penetrating gaze than out of deference.
Had he noticed her flushed cheeks? She hoped he attributed them to the warm day. Her sixteen-year-old lass’s reaction to him was bad enough without him being aware of it.
She wasn’t to be so fortunate.
“Is something wrong, Joan?” Alice asked, waving her fan in her direction as if to cool her off. “Your face is as red as a beet.”
And no doubt getting redder. Joan cursed her cousin and shook her head stiffly, not daring to look in Alex’s direction. “It’s a bit warm, that’s all.” With as much dignity as she could muster, she forced herself to meet Alex’s gaze. “If you’ll excuse us, my lord, my cousins and I were just about to get some refreshment.”
She was being rude, and they both knew it. But all she wanted to do was get away. She sensed he felt the same—which didn’t necessarily make her feel any better—but he looked behind them, frowning. “Where is your escort?”
Joan pointed to the young squire kicking the dirt with boredom a few feet behind Alice. “Right there.”
“The lad?”
“My husband’s squire,” Alice interjected, looking back and forth between Alex and Joan with a slight furrow between her brows.
Joan nearly groaned. Wonderful. Was it so obvious that her oblivious cousin was noticing it? Whatever it was.
Alex turned to Alice and gave her a gallant bow. “Please, allow me to accompany you. The crowds can sometimes get unruly, and I cannot in good conscience let you go without proper escort.”
“No.” Joan’s objection came immediately, which is probably why he’d directed the request to her cousin in the first place. Aware of the three sets of eyes on her, she hastily explained, “I mean, thank you for your generous offer, but it isn’t necessary. Charlie is quite capable of looking after us.”
She looked in the squire’s direction only to see that he wasn’t paying attention to them at all. No longer bored, he was enthralled with a pair of young lasses who were standing a few feet away whispering and giggling behind their hands at the handsome young squire. Joan and her cousins could have had their purses cut—or throats for that matter—and he wouldn’t have noticed. Both young girls were rather generously proportioned in the breast area.
“Aye, I can see that,” Alex said dryly.
“We do not want to take you from your duties,” Margaret said.
Joan could have hugged her.
But Alex didn’t bite. His jaw was locked. She sensed a steely tenacity in him that would not be easily dissuaded. Which was exactly why she needed to avoid him.
“My duties can wait,” Alex said.
Joan sensed he would rather they not, but apparently chivalry took precedence.
The matter apparently decided, Alex joined them as they strolled through the stalls of the market. She had to admit his presence was not without effect. People seemed to give them a wider berth with the imposing knight leading the way, and if any men in the crowd might have been inclined to look at and admire the three noblewomen, they quickly looked away. The women, however, weren’t so shy. Joan noticed plenty of young—and not so young—women staring at the uncommonly handsome mail-clad knight. It irritated her for no reason—or at least not for one she wanted to admit.
Joan kept to the rear of the group and pretended not to listen to the conversations that sprang up between Alex and her cousins. But one struck her cold.
“Seton . . .” Alice said. “Ah, now I remember. My husband has spoken of you. I believe you are taking care of a little problem for him.”
There was something about the way she said i
t that pricked Joan’s curiosity.
Alex seemed inclined not to respond with more than a mumbled acknowledgment, but Margaret asked, “What kind of problem?”
“The problem of the traitor who has been feeding information to the rebels,” Alice said angrily.
Joan was fortunate they’d stopped for a moment to take advantage of shade while they finished their refreshment or her step might have taken the same hitch as her heartbeat.
“Really?” Margaret asked, an odd note in her tone. “Who would do such a thing?”
“My husband has his suspicions, but that is what Sir Alex has agreed to find out.”
Joan’s stomach sank to her feet. Alex was searching for the spy? Good God, she was glad no one was looking at her because she feared that flush on her face had suddenly gone very pale.
“Have you any promising leads so far, my lord?” Margaret asked.
Alex appeared vaguely uncomfortable. “I’ve only just begun, my lady.”
In other words, no. Joan let out the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding.
She felt his eyes on her and realized it might have sounded too much like a sigh of relief. Wanting to distract him, she said, “I’m surprised they chose a Scot for the job.” Then she added with what she hoped was the right amount of innocence, “Although maybe they think your recent experience in Bruce’s army will be helpful?”
Apparently not innocent enough. His gaze hardened. “Aye, something like that, my lady.”
Though she’d obviously made him angry, at least she’d succeeded in deflecting attention from herself.
For a moment at least.
“Joan,” Margaret said. “Isn’t this the shop you were talking about?”
To her horror, Joan looked over and realized they were standing beside the mercery. She’d mentioned it to her cousins, hoping to have the chance to make contact. But she hadn’t anticipated having Alex Seton with her again.
“Aye,” she said. “I noticed it on my last trip to town. They seem to have a large display of silks.”
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