“She is not my mistress.”
“How generous.”
“My lady, what mistress could you imagine who would allow her lover to disappear on the trail of a beautiful young woman, and hold her prisoner in his bed through the night?”
“Perhaps she believes in your honor. Perhaps—”
“Perhaps you should cease prying.”
“Perhaps I am curious—”
She was startled when she was suddenly silenced in a way she had not imagined. His mouth suddenly molded upon her own, bringing with it a shattering, evocative liquid heat.
He did not hold her, he did not force her to lie still. Yet had chains bound her to the bed, she could not have been any more his prisoner. He tasted of wine, of the forest, of the creek, of the pulse and desire that had riddled her throughout the day. His mouth moved with pure seduction, lips commanding and coercive, tongue so insinuative. A brief desperation seized her, and she knew that he would leave her be now, if it was her choice. She played on dangerous ground. There would be no hesitant lover’s kisses here, the game they played would be for real and she was frighteningly aware of that fact and still, she had no desire to move, no will to stop the ardor of his kiss, which grew more impassioned with each passing second.
Now he did hold her. Hands upon her arms, lips upon her throat. Tongue teasing, finding a pulse point. Lips falling against the thin linen material of her gown, finding her breast beneath it, taunting the nipple with wicked little licks until he took it fully within his mouth.
Her fingers wound into his hair; she trembled like an autumn leaf blown upon the forest floor. Even as his mouth caressed and seduced her, she became aware of the full length of his body, the wall of his chest against her abdomen and hips, the length of his legs, the swell of his sex. Feeling him seemed to spiral a new wave of sensation throughout her, something twisting, writhing, finding root in an intimate, secretive place she had not known could be so awakened….
She burned. Were she made of bubbling, boiling oil, she could feel no more alive, her blood heated, her limbs alive. His teeth grazed her flesh. His hand moved over the curve of her hip, slipped beneath the hem of her shift, stroked against the bareness of her flesh. She nearly shrieked as the startling sensations ripped throughout her, yet she choked back all sound until he was above her, whispering against her lips, “You are quiet now, my lady.”
His mask remained in place. He stared down at her, and despite the darkness, she could see the hazel-gold glitter in his eyes.
“Quiet now, when to speak might serve you well!”
To speak…
She could not begin to do so. He kissed her again, his lips just brushing hers. Again. Again. Still searching out her eyes.
“No protest?” he demanded.
“Perhaps…you’re an honorable man.”
“Honorable men have their limits. Sweet Jesu, I have found mine!” She felt the pad of his thumb against her lower lip, felt the touch of his lips once again. His tongue, entering her, his hands…upon her. The shift was wound around her waist. She wasn’t aware that he tore it, yet it was suddenly ripped asunder. His naked flesh was fierce against her own.
She played no game! she reminded herself. What happened here was real. He had commanded her to speak, to protest, and she could suddenly find no words. Her arms snaked around him, her fingers threading into the inky darkness of his hair once more as if she could hold tight while some wild, reckless ride took place through the night, dancing across the wind. Again he touched her, again and again. A palm rubbing over her breast, hand flowing over her hip, fingers stroking her thigh. His eyes on hers, while that same erotic touch entered within her intimately.
She tried to twist and turn, unwilling to meet his eyes, his gaze. His demand. “You will have me now, my lady?”
She murmured nothing, trying again to bury herself within the spill of her own hair, within the strength of his body. His voice was suddenly harsh.
“You have told me it’s your wish to be turned over to Manning as his bride.”
“Aye!”
His face came close, eyes gleaming beneath the mask. “No force here, my lady. No rape, no rudeful use of a hostage. Despite what tomorrow will bring, you will have me now?”
She gasped, dismayed that he would wring such an admission from her. Yet she felt him, felt the fierce heat of his body, the taut strength and demand of it, the feel of his touch within her own. No coercion, but seduction! she longed to cry out. For his touch moved within her, rotated, played, discovered…
Indeed, aroused, seduced. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t reason…
“No!” she cried out suddenly, but his lips found hers.
“Yes!” he whispered against them.
“Yes!”
“Ah, lady!”
Then again his lips were everywhere. Kissing, seducing, demanding. His hands moved and manipulated her. Brought her against him, against the force of his chest. She yearned, she longed, she ached. The night was filled with darkness, with shadow, and yet within her there was a bursting light. It was madness, such sweet madness. She tossed, she writhed. She twisted from his most intimate caress and was dragged back to it, choking, gasping and yearning again, decrying his intimacy, yet climbing ever higher atop a precipice….
He paused, rising above her, thrusting apart her thighs with the force of his knees. Staring down at her again. “You’ve called me rogue, my lady, but I give you this—one word, and I will turn away.”
“Please…”
“Please what? Have it that you are forced by a renegade? Nay, lady, it will be of your doing as well as my own, yet from this point on…”
She shivered violently. “I have said I—”
“Yes?”
“That I will have you.”
“Say that you want me.”
“You are a wretched highwayman—”
“Indeed. Say that you want me.”
“Thief! Abductor of innocents—”
“My sweet innocent, say that you want me.”
She whispered.
“What?”
“I want you. Damn you…”
It was all; it was enough. She wasn’t quick enough or prepared enough to still her shriek when he first thrust into her. He stilled it with his kiss, with his gentle words. He didn’t cease his invasion, yet held so still so long, cradling her, then moving ever so slightly, rocking…
Creating a rhythm, thrusting deeply, withdrawing slowly. Again…slowly. Slowly. Until…
He began to move like the night wind. Shadow upon shadow. Within her again and again, creating a tempest that screamed within her. The yearning began again. The desperation deep inside. The desire to touch fire, touch a star, feel an explosion. She ached, and knew that surcease would come. And still she reached, and writhed and danced with the Shadow’s rhythm. Felt him, felt him inside her. Filling her. One with her, thrusting, stroking, slow, fast, slow…fast, faster, faster…
The heavens split, and starlight spilled down upon her. That for which she reached was tasted. Its sweetness filled her, permeated her, seized her with such volatile strength that she was barely aware of his hands still upon her, his force, his shuddering, the final sweep within her that brought waves and waves of liquid heat coursing from his body into hers….
He fell to the side, lay there. Staring up into the darkness above them.
“Damn you!” he said huskily after a moment.
It wasn’t what she had expected.
“Why?” she demanded furiously.
“Because now I am a defiler of an innocent! And this mask is itching me.”
“Take it off!” she whispered.
He spun on her again, bronze body glistening with a sheen of perspiration. “Would you have me take it off? Would you remain here in the forest then?”
“I—can’t!”
“What if I force you?”
“You would not!”
“How can you be so certain?”
; “Because—”
“Because why?”
“Because you wouldn’t even…you wouldn’t…” She felt her cheeks growing flushed, nay, the whole of her body reddening. “I did bring this about!” she admitted. “Yet you would have given me any escape tonight.”
“Perhaps. And perhaps things will not change. Perhaps I would not be so generous again.”
She stared at him. “You don’t understand. I—I must go on to Manning. I made a vow.”
He groaned. “A vow would mean nothing to the likes of Manning.”
“It is my vow.”
“Then don’t suggest that I shed the mask again.”
She turned away from him, suddenly shivering. His warmth was gone from her. He lay stiffly at her side. She tried to fight the misery seeping into her, and hold tight to moments of splendor she had discovered.
“Why are you so angry with me?” she whispered after a moment. “I…”
“You what?” he asked curtly.
“I wanted you,” she said simply. “You are unique, you are honorable…and I wanted to touch something that I might never touch again….”
Her voice faded, yet by the time it had died away, he had pulled her against him. He held her close, his stroke against her tender as time passed, as the embers in the fire died even lower.
Then subtly, that touch changed. And the passion returned, and the demand. He seemed ever more urgent now, leading her along a windswept trail of wildness and hunger, pulling her to a brink, bringing her down, sweeping her so high she thought that she would die when the explosive sweetness shuddered through her once more.
Again, he held her. Again, time passed. She awoke to a cock crowing, and realized that he lay awake by her side.
“Is it still your desire to be returned to Manning?” he asked her.
She looked away from him. “I have to be returned to Manning!” she whispered.
She didn’t look into his eyes, but she felt his disappointment, felt it as it came over her in great sweeping waves.
He rose upon her, and she had no recourse but to meet his glittering stare. “Then I shall have Manning’s bride one more time, and this morning, my lady, I’ll truly not give a damn if you’re willing or nay!”
CHAPTER SEVEN
He had left her. Made love to her with both passion and tenderness, no matter what his threat, yet then…he had left her. Without saying a single word.
Beth had come to tell her later in the day that her escort from the forest had been arranged. The Shadow had not demanded a ransom for her, Beth explained, but since she was a lady with a considerable good family behind her, she was free to take her clothing, but the rest of her dowry would remain behind.
As the morning passed, she felt more and more like crying. When she wept, she grew furious with herself. She was disastrously hurt over his treatment of her, when he was her abductor! She told herself again and again that he was a villain, a thief and an outlaw. He’d no right to judge her. Even if she hadn’t been betrothed to the Duke of Manning, what right had he to imagine that she would join a band of renegades?
But she would have, she realized. She would have stayed with him, and given up her title, land and position, if she didn’t have to find justice for the past.
She couldn’t have fallen in love with him.
But she had.
And it hurt desperately that he was so disappointed in her.
In the early afternoon, Joshua came for her. He and the others would ride with her to a certain tree in the far north of the forest, and there be met by the Duke of Manning’s men.
“Where is the Shadow?” she asked when he escorted her out.
“By the creek, my lady, but we must hurry—”
She ran quickly toward the place where they had laughed together. He was there, indeed, mask in place, one booted foot against a root as he stared out over the water with unseeing eyes until he heard her, and quickly turned to see her, frowning as she ran toward him.
“Whoa!” he murmured, catching her when she would have fallen against him.
“I don’t want to go, I have to go. I know I can’t make you understand. But I would never betray you. I don’t understand what you’re doing here, but I—I believe in you.”
He smiled very slowly beneath the mask. “Stay!” he said softly.
“By God, I swear, I wish that I could!” she told him.
He pulled from his finger a silver ring with a single small whitish stone within it. “Moonstone, for we met upon the hunter’s moon,” he said huskily. Then he began to speak quickly. “If you should ever need me, there is a man named Peter who tends the horses at Castle Manning. See that he brings the ring to me. I will be with you.”
She threw herself into his arms once again, holding him tightly. She stared up into his face. “I will remember your eyes always.”
He kissed her. Very long. Very hard. She trembled as he held her. Trembled, and remembered.
At last, she broke away from him and ran to the wagon where Joshua and several of the other men were waiting to begin their ride through the forest. Beth was there, waiting to hug her fiercely before seeing her into the wagon. “This isn’t right. It isn’t right at all,” Beth fretted.
“I have to go,” Kate insisted. “But I thank you deeply for your concern, and God knows, perhaps our paths will cross again one day.”
Joshua closed the door to the wagon and they started out. Kate pulled the drape and looked out, disturbed to see that Beth was watching her go with distress still puckering her kindly face.
Kate leaned back in the wagon. It was madness, all madness. The outlaws seemed so good, and the nobles could often be so evil.
And who, she taunted herself, was she to judge either?
She didn’t know how long they rode; she had leaned back in misery throughout the journey. It was evening when the wagon pulled to a halt and Joshua tapped upon the door before opening it. “Manning Castle lies ahead, my lady. Though we won’t be far if you fear danger, we leave you here so that Manning’s men do not betray this trust and seek to hang us all.”
Manning Castle.
She bit her lip, accepting Joshua’s massive arms as he helped her from the wagon. She stared through breaks in the trees and could see the fortress that rose high upon a moated hill. It had originally been one of King William’s castles, built by the conqueror toward the end of his realm in his never-ending struggle to rule the people he had bested. Normans—fresh off the conquering field—had been seneschals of the castle for the first fifty years. Then the original line had died out, and in 1160 the title of Fifth Duke of Manning had been given to a distant cousin of Richard’s father, Henry II, for services in battle.
That family had died out, as well.
Comte Phillippe Rousseau had then received the title. And after him, his son and namesake.
The castle was a bastion with walls that gleamed in the rising moonlight. A moat circled it, a drawbridge granting the only entry. Perched upon its hill, it seemed almost mythic, like King Arthur’s fabled home. A place of enchantment, perhaps. The lands surrounding it were rich. Crops flourished. Sheep and goats thrived.
“My lady?” Joshua said, clearing his throat.
She smiled and winked at him. “Nothing can harm me now, good Joshua. I’ve already been accosted in the forest, you know.”
“Ah, sweet lady, if only you knew…”
“I wish I did know, Joshua. What is it that he cannot trust me to know?”
“I fear it’s not for me to tell, my lady.”
She stood upon her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek, offering him a massive hug. “I can’t believe I am saying this! I will miss you all sorely.”
“Walk deep into the forest, and you will need miss us no more!” he assured her.
“I have to go,” she said.
Joshua smiled. “What is it that you cannot trust him to know, my lady?”
She smiled, lowering her head. “Go quickly, Joshua. Those men
the Shadow injured may be with the Duke of Manning when he comes. I’m sure he’d gladly hang the lot of you!”
Joshua gravely remounted his giant gelding. She smiled at him, Gawain and Thomas, who had been her escorts here. They all looked at her with the greatest sorrow, then turned their mounts. In seconds, they had disappeared into the forest.
A timely retreat, for in just seconds, she heard voices.
“We must move quickly now if we’d take any of those wretched fellows.”
“Lady Kate!”
Horsemen burst into view, so many of them that at first Kate could not ascertain their numbers. They were all armed and in armor, mounted on huge destriers, well-trained war-horses.
She saw then that the man who had called out to her was none other than Sir Waylon. He rode at the side of a younger man.
Manning.
Powerfully built, he sat his saddle tall. His eyes were a startling blue, his hair a corn silk blond. He was lean and hard, a striking man. Yet there were curious twists to his mouth and chin, a glitter about the eyes. She wondered if the evil in him was apparent, or if she just saw it through the mirror of his eyes, lurking in his soul.
“Lady Kate!”
She was to wed him, yet she had met him very few times. She had set her bait, greeted him as a lady must and let it be known that Lord Gregory had left her wealthy; her dower portion of his estate was extensive. She was aware that she had been something of a prize within the marriage game. She hadn’t a title comparable to Manning’s, but she had great wealth, no pockmarks, all her own teeth, and she was relatively young.
Often, healthy, strong lords, young men prone to a young man’s fancy, wed women twice their ages, just as young lasses were often given over to doddering old widowers. Ah, but such was the structure of their feudal society, where both wealth and power were forever sought upon various quests.
“My lady, my dear, dear lady!” Phillippe Rousseau, Duke of Manning, said, leaping down from his destrier, hurrying to her. He took both her hands within his own, searching her for any sign of harm. “That this should have befallen you! The forests will be cleared of these wretched outlaws who try to rule the country! I swear, I will find these fellows who seized you and they will pay a deadly price, I do so swear it! Tell me, lady, were you harmed?” he asked.
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