TWELVE
Morning broke on the horizon, the first rays of light streaming through the iron grate in the villa window. With bright fingers it pried through the layers of slumber in which Deirdre had found refuge. She cracked open one eye, then closed it quickly as the direct sun assaulted it. Turning on her side, she prayed instinctively.
Thank You, Father, for another glorious day.
Her nose registered the scent of bread baking and some sort of meat frying, which produced a small growl in her stomach and launched moisture to her tongue. Flexing her feet she stretched lazily, hands extended to the head of the bed.
Her fingers contacted warm flesh instead of the cool wood that should have been there, waking the memory of where she was … and with whom.
Recoiling, Deirdre opened her eyes to find herself staring face-to-face with the sleeping prince of Galstead. Somehow, during the night she’d crossed to the side where he’d placed his bench and lay poised on the edge as if to watch him sleep—indeed as she was doing now.
Motionless, Deirdre studied the chiseled square of his jaw, almost soft in repose. The morning light made the stubble of his beard glisten like gilded dew. With his long, narrow nose buried into the pillow and lips puckered like a round-cheeked swain for his first kiss, he looked deceptively boyish and sweet.
Except she knew Alric of Galstead was no boy when it came to kissing. Faith, he might have invented the art, the way he’d claimed not just her lips but all her senses. Caught in the embrace of the sinewy arms now holding the blanket against his broad chest, there’d been no escape from the farewell warning he’d given her on the deck of the Wulfshead …
She shook herself from the thought. How could the memory linger through all that had happened since? Deirdre caught her breath at the shiver of excitement kindled by the memory. With a low grunt, the man turned with a short snatching motion onto his back. The arm that had been stretched under his pillow was now flung across his face, but there was much more to her strapping captor than his face. Deirdre had seen the bared chests of many warriors, but never close enough to touch. Even at rest, the lines of muscle looked as firm as those of a statue. Hanging about his neck, on a black leather thong, was some sort of medallion, turned so that its wooden back faced away from him.
Strange, she’d never noticed it before. It was probably a wolf, like the one on his belt buckle. Her gaze shifted to the wall where Alric had hung his scramasax before turning out the light the night before. Dare she take it while the man slept?
A few days ago, she’d not have hesitated, but the more she crossed this man, the worse her situation became. She no longer trusted her instincts, much less her interpretation of God’s will. Even the answers to her prayers left her wary. Last night she’d prayed fervently that someone save her from the wolfhound and the prayer was answered, although the Almighty once again chose His own way of going about it.
Should I have told the truth from the start and made it easier for him to ruin my life and that of my loved ones?
Deirdre clutched the golden cross she wore on a fine chain round her neck as if she might squeeze the answer from it. Father, I do not mean to be disobedient or disrespectful but surely You never intended me to marry a heathen … even if he might pass as one of Your golden warriors.
She cut a sheepish glance at the sleeping Saxon, her cheeks warming. What a sight that would be, Alric brandishing his sword for God, with her at his side much like her ancestors Kieran and Riona or Rowan and Maire. Beyond the flat plain of the man’s stomach, the garnet eyes of the wolf’s-head belt buckle hanging on the wall glittered in mockery of her foolish notion. A chill swept through her, lifting the hair on her arms. The predatory creature looked as though it stood guard over its master and his weapon, daring her to even think of possessing either. Indeed, was that low rumble Alric’s snoring, or was it a feral growl she imagined that came from the beast engraved in silver just beyond him?
Of course, it was all an illusion. Satan toyed with her mind, playing on the accounts of demons, which the priests reputedly exorcized from the unsaved. Even if it was a demon, she had nothing to fear. She wore the armor of her faith … even if the wolf peered right through it to where her heart fluttered unevenly at its brutish challenge.
In the name of Jesus, I have nothing to fear. Slowly, so as not to awaken her Alric, Deirdre slipped out from beneath the covers and up on her knees. The garnet eyes of the silver image seemed to grow wide at her impudence. All she had to do was turn the buckle away from the sunlight and the eyes would dim. Holding on to her cross with one hand, Deirdre reached for the buckle with her other, lips moving silently. Neither demons, nor Satan himself can harm me for I am washed in the—
“Blo … ood!” she screamed as an unseen hand locked in the thick of her hair and yanked her away from the hanging weapon.
“Frig’s—” Alric began as she fell across him, cutting short his breath as well as her own. He gave a pained grunt as her elbow dug into his ribs.
Suddenly she was falling, the impact of striking the floor knocked the wind from her startled shriek.
Deirdre struggled to escape as Alric rolled off her, but the now fully alert warrior had wound her hair in one hand, grunting broken oaths and warnings as he pinned her to the floor. Outside the window, Tor barked and lunged at the ornate grill as if to come through it.
She seized a fist full of Alric’s hair with her free hand and yanked vengefully. “Hurts, doesn’t it?” she panted.
“I wasn’t about to let you … ach!” He grunted, pinning the knee she raised between his with a shift of his body. “Slit my throat with my own blade.”
“I …” She could hardly breathe, much less speak beneath the full weight of his torso. “I wasn’t; I swear it.”
“Then what were you about?” He snarled the question, eyes glowing molten with fury like those of the wolf, golden and death dealing.
“I only wanted to look at the wolf’s head.”
He narrowed his gaze. “Swear on it.”
“Swear on what?”
To Deirdre’s disbelief and horror, the Saxon bared his teeth and lunged at her throat. Where she found the air to scream, she had no idea, but scream she did until there was nothing left to fuel it.
“Dis,” Alric growled, lifting something with his teeth.
Her cross. Somewhere within her chest, the blood that had stilled there thawed with relief. Alric wasn’t going to tear out her throat like a bloodthirsty hound. Really he wasn’t, reason scolded. Deirdre moved her lips to swear, but her throat would not give up the words. In truth, relief made her head swim so that she lost them amid the heaving of their chests and the frantic barking of the dog in the distance.
A sharp pounding at the door burst the bubble of confusion pressing at Deirdre’s temples. “Milord Alric?” Belrap shouted.
Above her, Alric spat out the necklace. “Everything is fine, Belrap. Just take that blasted hound and feed him to shut him up.”
“Shall I send Doda for the lady, sir?”
“No!” the prince roared. “All the lady and I need is privacy.”
Privacy. Deirdre blanched, her strength waning away as she stared at her captor and realized what was happening. He barked his orders in that savage tongue of his … yet she understood every word—
She stared, terror sweeping her. His image blurred, changing from the hairy face of the wolf on the belt to the golden warrior until darkness edged in from all comers of her mind to take him away.
“Deirdre? Deirdre!” Alric shook her face from side to side as he faded from her view. “What is wrong with you?”
Gradually he came into focus—the man, not the animal. “I …” Deirdre hesitated, adrift in a fog of recollection. He thought she’d meant to kill him. His brow rose in impatience, his eyes dark with distrust.
“On the cross, I swear I meant no harm, I did think about it,” she admitted, “but … but God wants me here.” What else could it be? Emotion welled in her v
oice as well as her eyes. “I just don’t know why.”
She stared into Alric’s face, as if the answer might lie behind his guarded gaze. Something incredible was happening to her and it frightened her. Had she inadvertently tempted a Saxon demon? How else could she suddenly understand this heathen tongue?
Father God, save—
Alric dipped down, catching a renegade tear with a kiss so tender her prayer stalled.
“Don’t cry sweetling. I swear by all the gods, I will not dishonor you.” His deep-pitched croon was velvet enough to make the marble nymph of the fountain outside swoon in his arms. “On my mother’s grave, I promise I will make you my wife before your God and His priest.”
Priest. The very mention kindled hope. Yes, she needed a priest. “I want to see Father Scanlan. I—” He caught yet another tear, this one dangerously close to her lips. The thought of Alric, particularly this gentle Alric, staking claim on them warmed her body like a wildfire, despite the cold floor beneath her. Her heightened senses could almost discern the perspiration forcing its way through each pore, making her tremble with anticipation. Though of what, she had no idea. All she knew was that the demon inside her wanted it.
“You need not fear for your soul,” he whispered against her lips, “for I shall respect your faith.”
Her soul. She had to think of her soul. The heady nuzzle of Alric’s cheek, rough and manly against her face, combined with his long, relentless kiss would only lead to its destruction. If she gave in, the hands that wormed their way behind her would weave chains she could never break away from, for the demon hacked away at her control, one heartbeat at a time.
“Jesus save me, for I cannot save myself.” Even as she prayed, she clasped Alric’s face between her folded hands. Lucifer himself was the most beautiful of all the angels. If she gave herself to Alric—“Deliver me, Lord, else I am lost. Take away this demon, I beg you—”
“Demon!” Alric pulled away looking at her as though she’d driven his scramasax through his chest. “Is that what you see in me?” He held her by the shoulders at arm’s length.
Alric’s wounded gray gaze faded from view as the medallion he wore swung back and forth between them. The eyes of the wolf’s head mounted on the wooden disc glowed with unnatural fire. Deirdre turned her head, but there was no escaping as its snarl gave way to gaping jaws that opened wider with each pass until all she could see was a pair of red eyes in the blackness. And when they closed, not even the scream propelled from the last thread of her consciousness could find a way out.
“She’s burning up with fever!” Doda cast a reproving look at Alric as she tucked Deirdre in. “This poor girl has been through so much, it’s no wonder her constitution has weakened.”
Alric stopped pacing beside the bed. Try as he might, he could not shake Deirdre back into consciousness. Perhaps if he’d seen what had struck such stark terror on her ashen face, he might be able to explain.
“So what is it?” he demanded as Doda poured water from a pitcher into a bathing pan. “The plague? Some female malady? What?”
“A protected princess and likely a virgin.” Doda snorted. “Maybe it was the sight of a hot-blooded man who scared her witless with his—”
Alric held up his hand. “You know me better than that. I did no more than subdue her when she tried to turn my sword on me.”
“That is not my business.” The housemistress turned to soak a clean towel in the water.
“No, it is not.” All the same, he’d done nothing to frighten Deirdre except defend himself. As for his kisses …
Alric plowed his hands through his hair. She’d been warmed by his attentions until she panicked. “If I’d an inkling of the ill wind waiting on that cursed ship of hers, I’d have retreated in the opposite direction as fast I could make sail. She’s been near the death of me.” Was his destiny to never have peace of mind again?
“Looks to me, it’s the other way around. It’s sure you look hale and hearty as the day you came squalling from your sainted mother’s womb.”
Alric groaned inwardly. When old crones started running on about knowing him since the day of his birth, a stern lecture was in the making. “Doda, I have heard all I will hear on this. Whatever is wrong with that woman, it’s not of my making.”
She looked up at him, her brow raised. “Did I say it was?”
Frig’s mercy. “I’m going to find the priest she asked for.” He turned to the wall where his sword belt still hung.
“She asked for a priest, and you refused her?”
Alric swung the belt around his waist, patience exhausted. “Of course I did! But only after I ravaged her until she fainted.”
Doda swelled like a toad, not even deigning to look Alric’s way as she switched the towels on Deirdre’s forehead. “Utter nonsense! Don’t think that I don’t know my princeling better than that,” she muttered as he rolled his eyes and stalked out of the room.
Alric fetched Tor from the chain Belrap used to restrain the dog when he became unmanageable. The animal jumped up on Alric, lavishing him without censure. That was the good thing about a dog. It never judged, just gave unconditional affection and, at times, concern when it sensed something was amiss with its owner. Or maybe it was wishful thinking that suggested such affinity.
“Come along, friend. We’ve some hunting to do,” he told the hound, shoving him down as he tried to jump at him. “Now, stand guard!”
Obediently Tor dropped behind Alric and sat down, waiting with a puppylike wriggle for him to move on. Grinning, Alric petted the coarse ruff of Tor’s neck, working his fingers under the leather collar to the dog’s ecstasy “Good dog. Good dog.”
Since the rest of Alric’s world had been turned upside down by Deirdre’s entry into his life, he’d wondered if Tor had been affected as well. He took a short leash and tucked it under his belt, in the event that it was needed. Perhaps that was what he needed, Alric thought, flushing with the memory of kissing Deirdre. When she was in his arms, the discipline he prided himself on was as elusive as the reason for such loss of control.
Tor’s impatient bark tore Alric from his quandary. With a lopsided grin, he nodded. “You are absolutely right, my friend. What we need is action. Let’s go to the Wulfshead.”
Tor vaulted ahead of Alric at the word go, but in midgait, he seemed to recall his training and dropped to heel again. With a comical yelp that seemed to say “oops,” he showed Alric his teeth. To someone who didn’t know the animal, it might have appeared a threat, but Alric knew it as a grin and returned it halfheartedly. At least someone still remembered who he really was and loved him for it.
A demon. The cursed woman thought him a demon!
Struck with an overwhelming urge, Alric kneeled down and gathered the eager wolfhound in his arms, hugging it to him tightly. Not since he was a callow youth at his mother’s knee had the need for understanding and acceptance weighed so heavily upon his heart.
THIRTEEN
Deirdre struggled to open her eyes, her mind as blurred as her vision until she made out Father Scanlan sitting on a bench at her bedside, where he’d nodded off against the wall. It took a moment for her to piece together where she was. A lamp burned on the table at the far side of the mattress and the day waned beyond the open window. Frowning, she raised her arm to wipe the dampness from her forehead and was shocked by its weight, more like stone than flesh, as if she’d been bled of strength, although she saw no sign of a leech’s pan. Was she dying?
Deirdre closed her eyes, trying to remember. As she searched through the mire of recollections, it was difficult to separate what was real and what was illusion. She saw herself tiptoeing past a sleeping Alric—how boyishly handsome he looked in slumber, despite the golden shadow of manhood upon his cheek. But it was his scramasax that called to her. No, not the blade. It was the belt buckle, with the red-eyed wolf, mocking her with its glowing gaze. Even as she’d reached for it, she felt foolish to think its demonic glow was anything more than
morning sun lending its fire to the stones, then—
Deirdre shot up with a gasp, clutching her chest.
Beside her, Father Scanlan started. “Oh … you’re awake.”
Yes, she was awake, but the fright Alric had given her, grabbing her and wrestling her to the floor managed even now to wedge her heart in her throat. Deirdre hardly noticed the priest as a steady flood of memories swept into her mind. Alric had lunged at her throat with bared teeth … then the wolf’s head swinging between them ever closer to her, its eyes—
“Lady Deirdre?” Scanlan watched as she clutched her neck. It was damp but without wound.
Nay, it was an illusion. She saw it clearly now, a cross, not a wolf’s head. Alric had wanted her cross, wanted her to swear upon it that she had not thought to cut his throat with his own weapon. The recollection drained the stiffness from her shoulders as tears of humiliation and relief stung Deirdre’s cheeks. Still, she heard again Alric ordering Belrap to take Tor away, the syllables of his pagan words as harsh to the ear as the wolfhound’s bark. The thunderous prince had wanted to be left alone with her …
She’d understood his baffling language! So how could she swear that she hadn’t seen the garnet eyes of the graven wolf’s head open and close?
Deirdre grabbed the golden cross between fingers of flesh as invisible ones cold as the grave raked up her spine. “Holy Father,” she whispered, trembling.
“You’re safe, milady” Scanlan’s voice seemed as far away as God, beyond the black fear congealing about her.
“I’m lost,” she protested with a wail. “Possessed to be sure.” At the touch of Scanlan’s hands upon her shoulders, Deirdre threw herself at him, clinging to him to keep the gaping, snarling demon from taking her over completely.
“You’ve a fever, child, nothing more.”
“It was real. Father, a demon gave me the Saxon tongue. I heard it and I understood it.”
Deirdre Page 12