His relaxed stance worried her; he should be miles away by now! She sat up abruptly, catching at the pelt to yank the edges around her shoulders, her expression intense, serious. ‘Talvas, you must go, ride away from this place! They’re looking for you!’ Her hair, unbound, fell forward about her shoulders in a cascade of blond ripples, still damp from their recent immersion.
‘It matters not.’ His words held a rough gentleness.
‘But Maud? She holds your castle, your home!’
‘Maud will be taken care of.’
Emmeline shook her head. A trickle of river water ran from one ear, trailing over the side of her face, wetting her neck. ‘Talvas, I don’t understand! Your life is in danger, yet you came back. Why?’
Talvas rose, a silent, stealthy movement. In the half light, his eyes glittered like burning coals. In two strides his leather-bound legs had covered the floor space and he was beside her, kneeling in the straw. Emerging from his rich green surcoat, the arms of his chain-mail glittered like millions of silver scales.
‘I came back for you.’
Breath punched into her lungs.
‘Nay…’ Her fingers reached out to skim the linked mesh across his chest, disbelieving. ‘Talvas, I don’t understand,’ She whispered. ‘You risked your life to come back?’
He seized her hand, his big grip heating her frozen fingers. ‘Believe it, mistress. Did you really think I would leave you in their hands?’ His heart beat unsteadily at her nearness, the depth of his feeling for this maid leaving him unbalanced, out of kilter. He took one deep, shuddering breath, forcing himself to remain indifferent to the exposure of one creamy shoulder, the dark pelt slipping seductively.
When he had finally found her, huddled and shivering in the corner of the hut, her lips had turned blue, her body almost frozen. With no thought other than to warm her, he had ripped the soaking garments from her body, rubbing her icy limbs with the dry straw, wrapping her in his fur cloak. He had thought that the speed of his actions would save her life, prevent him from holding the memory of her naked body.
And he believed, damn it, that he had succeeded. Yet the details flooded back to him: the tempting curve of her breast, the narrowness of her slim waist as she had lain so fragile, so vulnerable against the burnished straw; the images rushed back with agonising vividness. Now, as she faced him, her golden braids turning to gemlike brilliance in the light of the fire, her wide, catlike eyes alive with enquiry, the realisation that he wanted her struck with blinding ferocity. Mother of Mary, he’d come back to carry her to safety, to her sister’s home if that’s what she wished, yet all he yearned to do was bed her.
‘You came back…for me?’ Emmeline laughed, hoping to ease the peculiar, dangerous tension that had grown between them. A warm sensation coiled around her heart. ‘Why on earth would you want to do that?’
‘Why indeed?’ His eyes gleamed at her, sparkles of sapphire in his tanned skin. A tantalising eddy purled from him, a sense of excitement, of a danger that she couldn’t identify.
‘No one has ever done that for me before.’ Her words hitched. Talvas had risked his own life to come back. Giffard would certainly have left her, thinking of no one else but himself. The moment she had become of no use to him, she would have been out of the door and on the street. Wasn’t that the reason he had pushed her down the stairs in the first place? Because he had no intention of sharing her with anyone else? Because she carried his child? ‘You useless whore!’ he had yelled at her. ‘Fat lot of good you’ll be to me when there’s a bairn clutching at your skirts. I’ll teach you to whelp under my roof!’
‘You are kind.’ Almost in disbelief, Emmeline touched one fingertip to the sculptured angle of his cheekbone, anxious to dispel the unnerving images in her mind.
He closed his eyes, savouring the silken press of her fingertip, the exquisite heat that trailed over his skin. Kindness was the last thing on his mind. He fought to control the wildness that fired his blood, sent it hurtling through his body with reckless abandon, forcing his eyes open.
Her hand dropped away from his face. ‘Talvas, you must go now,’ she urged. ‘I wouldn’t want them to catch up with you; the Earl said they would slit—’
‘Stop worrying about me, maid,’ he growled unsteadily. ‘I am big enough and ugly enough to take care of myself.’
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘It’s your wish, I suppose. But I can’t think why you would want to stay here.’
‘Can’t you?’
The simple question rippled over her, hung in the air. His eyes devoured her.
‘You think I’m wilful, my independence drives you mad.’ She laughed, a nervous trickle of sound against the crackling of the fire.
He caught her hands to him, the pads of his fingers like nubbled bark against her soft palms. ‘It did. But your behaviour grows on me…as you do.’
‘What do you mean?’ She trembled, a fearful anticipation growing in her chest.
‘This.’ he rose over her swiftly, self-control slipping effortlessly away, in ruins. He had to possess her, to have her, just this once, if only to forget her afterwards. His lips descended on hers, fierce, demanding. Pushing her back against the straw, his hands smoothed the pelt from her shoulders, revealing the delicate corded line of her collar bone, the shadowed dip between her breasts.
‘Talvas…I…’
Under the heady power of his kiss, her body relaxed, loosened, like flower petals opening beneath the sun. The tight bonds, imposed since Giffard’s death, her promise never to be with another man, shattered under the first burning touch of his fingers. She gasped as one of his hands found the gap in the pelt covering her naked skin, his hand levelling over the flatness of her bare stomach, the sensitive curve of her waist. Crushing her against the sweet-smelling straw, the fine mesh of his hauberk pressing into her soft, sensitive curves, he deepened the kiss, hungry for possession. She pushed her fingers into the thick strands of his hair, drawing him closer, closer. But he lifted his lips from hers, pulling against her hold, the azure brilliance of his eyes scalding her inflamed skin, his big hands framing the oval fragility of her face.
‘You are mine,’ he whispered, hoarse.
She slumped then, hands dropping away, falling limply to her sides, staring at him with a desolate light in her eyes, wanting to weep.
‘Giffard used to say that.’
Chapter Twelve
Talvas jerked back to sit on his heels, his breathing hard, sweeping his hand violently across his eyes as if to clear his head. ‘Ye gods, Emmeline, what did that bastard do to you?’
She curled away from him, hunching her shoulders to hide her face, drawing her knees up into her chest. The pallid greyness of her skin, her shuttered, blank pupils, jolted at his conscience. He wanted to reach out and touch her, comfort her, but feared his compassion might be misinterpreted, might drag up more unwanted memories.
‘Emmeline, forgive me.’ His words seemed raw, untried. The dark golden strands of her hair curved over the straw, twisting coils of gold as she glanced at him. He pushed a hand through his dark curls, hesitant, unsettled by her silence, her distance. Possessed by an invisible memory, her huddled form reminded him of a broken doll. Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears; he leaned forward instinctively to brush them away.
She flinched, lurching back. ‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered hoarsely.
‘Nay,’ he answered, surprised. ‘It’s my fault.’
‘It was just those words, Talvas.’ Her fingers picked at a crumbling piece of mud in the wall of the hut, loosening the caked earth until it fell to the ground in a shower of dust.
‘Powerful words, indeed, to have that effect upon you,’ Talvas replied. ‘What happened?’
She sat up clumsily, hair cloaking her shoulders like finespun golden net. ‘I married Giffard to try to keep my family alive after my father’s death.’ Her voice dropped to a dull monotone, listless. ‘It was not my choice, but it was my duty.’
A burning tw
ig crackled and spat within the circle of stones that contained the fire, sending a shower of sparks toward the rush ceiling. Talvas ground at a glowing ember that had fallen outside the fire with the heel of his leather boot, extinguishing it. The silence quivered between them.
‘I made a mistake,’ Emmeline whispered. ‘My mother and I could have survived on our own if we hadn’t panicked, if we hadn’t thought that a male presence was needed to protect us. We would have survived.’ Emerald eyes met his. ‘Anything would have been preferable to that living hell that was my marriage.’
Talvas sucked in his breath sharply, an invisible fist punching him in the guts.
‘When they carried Giffard’s body in, run through by an errant hunting arrow, I could have jumped for joy. The sense of relief was unbelievable. Never again would that man humiliate me or hurt me.’
Talvas’s gaze flicked to her shapely calves, her fine ankles, peeking out from beneath the pelt. The permanent bruising, the slightest twisting at her ankle were just discernible. ‘How did that happen?’ Talvas nodded at her foot, shifting himself carefully into a seated position against the wall.
‘He kicked me down the stair ladder. He’d been drinking in one of the taverns, celebrating after a successful voyage. So you see…’ She threw him a wan, bleak smile ‘…I did have some respite from him when he was away.’ Emmeline picked up a few strands of straw, looping and turning the dried grass between her fingers. ‘I knew he was drunk by the way he threw back the door, bellowing for me. I was upstairs, preparing for bed.’ Her voice trembled. She flushed, remembering the violent way Giffard had thrown her onto the bedcovers, ripping at her nightgown. ‘And…and…when it was over…I told him about…oh, God!’ She sank her face into her hands, crouching low, as tears coursed down, sparkling through her fingers, before dropping in great, dark spots onto the earth.
Talvas clenched his fists, grinding his knuckles into the ground. Purposely, he fixed himself to the spot, knowing that if he went to her, he would break this moment. And he needed to know. Wanted to know. ‘What did you tell him, Emmeline?’ he probed gently above her noisy sobs, his voice edged with steel.
‘God forgive me!’ she gasped out between sobs. ‘I…told him about the baby! Stupid! Stupid!’ Thumping at the wall, her fist connected with more of the fragile earth, dislodging it. ‘I told him I was with child, his child…’ Her voice trembled, creeping higher and higher ‘…and, God in heaven, Talvas, I’ll regret that decision till the day I die!’ Jamming her fists into her eyes, she strove to contain the flow of tears. The sound of her crying clutched at him, tearing into the barren wasteland that was his heart. Every muscle in his body clenched with the strain of listening to her whispered speech. ‘I’ve tried to forget,’ She muttered, finally. ‘I’ve thrown myself into life and tried to forget what he did, but I cannot. ’Tis always there. I bled and bled that night, Talvas, but the child had been lost from the moment he punched me in the stomach.’ She turned her desolate, tearstained face toward him. ‘He made me what I am today.’
‘Sweet Jesu!’ Talvas sprang to his feet, striding to the door, wanting to challenge the bastard who had done such a thing, who had treated her thus. Emmeline watched the reaction to her words play across his face: anger, murderous anger, and revenge. ‘That bastard should pay for what he did to you!’
‘He’s dead and buried, Talvas.’ Emmeline smiled softly, the tears drying on her cheeks. A curious sense of release flooded over her, the shackles to her past beginning to loosen, to disintegrate.
Talvas dropped to her side, kneeling in the straw, trying to control his inner turmoil. ‘Not in here, he’s not.’ He touched the side of her head. ‘I wish to God it had never happened.’ He curved his big palms around the delicate flush of her cheeks, noting the dark circles around her eyes, wanting to erase the hurt, the pain, from her mind. His thumbs smoothed over the high crest of her cheekbones, testing the velvet of her heated skin.
‘I’ve never told anyone before,’ She said shakily. ‘And I am not certain why I told you.’ What had prompted her to tell him so much? Had it been the soporific warmth in the hut that played on the fatigue in her mind, or the steady reassurance of Talvas, his intelligent eyes trained on her, listening without judgement, without comment, to her words?
Talvas moved to the pile of logs in the corner of the hut, sweeping up her clothes that had now dried in the warmth of the fire. Holding the garments between his hands, he stared down at her, his eyes brooding. ‘I’m glad that you did, chérie.’
Emmeline threw him a tentative smile, knowing that something had changed between them. In that moment, a flash of understanding bound them, a tiny flicker of trust that drew them closer, braiding them inexorably together.
Behind his towering figure, through the open doorway, the darkness was a mass of swirling snowflakes. Emmeline smothered a yawn, her whole body trembling with the exertion of staying awake. Talvas smiled. ‘We need to sleep. The hour grows late and we will travel on the morn.’ He nodded, confirming her enquiring look. ‘Aye, I will take you to your sister’s…make sure you are safe. You’d best put these back on.’ A peculiar restraint governed his voice as he handed her the pile of clothes. ‘I will wait outside.’
Despite being warm and dry, dressed once again in her stiff, mud-caked garments, sleep eluded Emmeline as she lay wrapped in Talvas’s cloak before the fire. He had stacked chunks of wood around the heart of the flame, enough to keep the fire burning till morn and now the glimmering embers drew her gaze, causing flickering images to play over and over in her head. A weariness sank through her limbs, yet her mind refused to relax, constantly recalling the words she had poured out to Talvas.
A tiny click, a movement, distracted her. She turned her head toward the sound, feeling the soft fur caress her cheek. Although Talvas lay stretched out, the top of his dark head just inches from her own, Emmeline caught the glint of his eyes, wide open. ‘What’s the matter, can you not sleep?’
‘That bastard should have suffered for the way he treated you, Emmeline.’ Talvas propped himself up on one elbow, turning onto his side to face her. He had removed his mail hauberk and padded gambeson, and now wore only his linen chemise and surcoat. He had kept on his leather boots, laced in criss-cross fashion over his woollen braies.
‘Don’t think on it, Talvas,’ Emmeline replied softly. She hadn’t expected him to be so concerned, so agitated by the matters of her past.
One hand shot out to capture her wrist, encircling the fragile bones in a gentle snare. ‘I can’t, Emmeline. I can’t forget your words. No man should treat a woman thus.’
A churning, blossoming excitement pulsed up her arm. Her heart began to thump, its rate so fast it threatened to overwhelm her. How could a single touch of his fingers send her into such a spiral of desire? ‘It happens all too often, Talvas…’ she shuddered ‘…which is why I vowed from the day I watched the earth fall onto Giffard’s coffin that no man would ever own me, ever possess me, again.’
‘Such a waste,’ Talvas whispered. Hitching his body around so it lay parallel with hers, he touched one lean finger to the sweet curve of her bottom lip. ‘You deny your true feelings.’
‘Nay,’ she murmured huskily. ‘It keeps me safe.’
‘Are you certain about that?’
She closed her eyes.
‘Kiss me,’ he requested softly. He held his breath. The last thing he wished for was for her to draw away, to remain in this prison of fear—nay, he wanted to kindle her desire, kindle that carefree, easy loving that the bastard had driven out of her with brutality and threats.
Her eyes shot open. His face was inches from her own, his stern, chiselled features alive with desire. A trembling weakness possessed her; tentatively she placed her fingers on the fine linen that covered his broad shoulders. Her mind spun.
‘Kiss me,’ he urged, ‘don’t think about it.’
Setting one finger against the softness of his bottom lip, she traced the generous curve out to on
e side. His lips parted at the sweetness of her touch, a hot surge of his breath caressing her skin. She shifted her head forward, brushing her mouth to his—a movement of trust, an avowal of passion. The touch of his cool, pliant mouth sent a spasm of excitement rippling, unchecked, within her. He groaned, catching the back of her head to pull her closer, a flush of desire staining his cheeks, unable to withstand the deepening of the kiss. His hands caught impatiently in her hair, testing its wanton silkiness, running his hands down the curling tendrils, snaring one long length around his palm.
‘What about “love” you, Emmeline?’ He pulled his lips away, breathing unsteadily. ‘Would you ever let a man love you again?’
Her whole body flushed under his question. She knew what he was saying, what he asked of her. ‘In truth, Talvas, I have only ever known the love of one man, that of my father. I have no experience of the other.’
‘You mean marriage?’
‘Hah! Love and marriage are poles apart. The two cannot be together. Marriage is ownership, possession, a curbing of independence. But love…love is…’ Her speech trailed away, for she had no explanation.
‘I disagree.’ His voice rumbled deep in his chest. ‘If you love someone, care for them, then you marry them.’
She shook her head sadly. ‘Not from my experience.’
‘You have made this judgement on the basis of your marriage to Giffard.’ He sat up abruptly, pushing his hands into his hair, separating the dark strands.
‘And what do you base your thinking upon?’ Her voice rose above the crackle of the fire. ‘You’re a rebel through and through, conforming to nothing, following your own path through life. What do you know of love and marriage, Talvas?’
A log rolled from the fire, and he kicked at the burning wood with his foot, scattering ash. ‘More than you would care to know, mistress. More than you would care to know.’
Lord Edgar of Waldeath pulled his thick-set frame out of his carved chair and hurled his bowl in the direction of his cowering wife. ‘This porridge is stone cold!’ he snarled. Quailing visibly, Sylvie jerked her thin body sideways to avoid the missile, which flew past her, splattering its contents on the wall behind. Slimy gobs of sticky oatmeal clung to the stone momentarily before beginning to slide down. Edgar slurped at his tankard of mead, wiping his wet, shiny mouth on the back of his sleeve. ‘Fetch me more, you useless wench!’ He belched, noisily.
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