Captive Rose (15 page)

"What are you saying?" Leila blurted, pushing
the goblet away so roughly that water spilled onto the coverlet. Her mind spun
as she stared at the spreading stain, an unsettling thought niggling at her.
Had the woman said "Guy"?

Refaiyeh
shrugged her slender
shoulders and set the goblet on the inlaid copper table by the bed. "You're
overwrought, Leila, which is understandable after what you've suffered—"

"How do you know my name?" Leila cried
sharply, growing more alarmed. "I demand that you tell me what is going
on!"

Clearly stunned by her outburst,
Refaiyeh
seemed at a loss to answer her. Her silver bracelets jangled as she twisted her
hands in her lap. "You're safe, Leila, and in Acre—"

"So she's awake at last," a deep male voice
said from the open doorway. Both women started in surprise. "Thank you for
watching her,
Refaiyeh
. I'm sorry I was gone so long.
The markets were crowded this afternoon."

"Lord de
Warenne
!"
Leila gasped, the room snapping into sharp focus. She felt the blood drain from
her face, her rampant heartbeat like thunder in her ears. What strange trick
was this?

Her eyes darted over him, from the rugged contours of
his clean-shaven face to his foreign clothing, a white calf-length garment emblazoned
with a large red cross over a black long-sleeved tunic, hose, and black leather
boots. Gone was the bearded and bare-chested prisoner dressed only in
sirwal
, and gone was the wild fury and desperation she had
last seen in his eyes. This man exuded authority and confidence . . . and he
was smiling at her!

Refaiyeh
rose from the bed,
sighing with relief. "Leila is upset, Guy," she said in heavily
accented English, moving toward him and placing her hand with familiarity on
his forearm. She shook her head in confusion. "If not from what you had
told me, I would swear she has absolutely no inkling of why she's here."

"The drugs,
Refaiyeh
,"
Guy said, looking at Leila's wide-eyed, stricken expression. "She'll be
fine. Perhaps you might prepare a light meal for her."

"Of course."
Refaiyeh
turned to the slave girl, who had stopped scrubbing the carpet and was watching
everything with rapt interest. "Come,
Hayat
."

The girl jumped to her feet and ran after her mistress,
and Guy closed the door behind them. He strode across the sunlit room and
stopped beside the bed, enchanted by the lovely sight Leila made with her black
hair streaming around her in a silky cascade. He still could not get over the
incredible length of her hair.

His dreams last night had been filled with erotic
visions of Leila's lithe body wrapped in her ebony tresses. Looking at her
pale, exquisite beauty now, he felt a familiar heat rising in his loins, but he
quickly steeled himself against it. Such feelings were unseemly for a guardian
knight, and Leila was an innocent virgin, doubly worth his protection.

Sweet
Jesu
, the weeks ahead
would be hell, Guy thought honestly, staring at her parted lips.

It was a good thing he had
Refaiyeh
to ease the lust which had built inside him over the past weeks or he would
have an even more difficult time once he and Leila left Acre.

"I'm glad to see you are awake," Guy said
gently, noting the two spots of high color on her cheeks. "For a while I
thought I might have to call a physician. I believe I poured too much of that
foul-smelling liquid on the sponge."

"That was you?" Leila blurted incredulously. "In
my mother's apartments?" She tensed when he nodded, a hundred questions
flooding her mind, along with a glaring realization. "You escaped from the
governor's prison. How?"

"You don't want to hear about it," Guy said,
his expression becoming grim. "I knew something had gone wrong the moment
your father mentioned England, but I didn't have a chance until—"

"My—my father?" Leila cut him off, stunned.
She felt her face grow hot, not believing what he had just said. "How do
you know this?"

"I know a great deal about you, Leila. I know you
are not a slave, although you are Christian. And I know you were soon to marry
an infidel, which your mother told me was causing you great unhappiness."
The hard
lines
in his face eased, and his voice took
on a husky, intense quality. "You no longer have to fear, my lady. That
blasphemous wedding will never take place. Tomorrow a ship will take us to
France, and then we'll journey from there to England. Once you are in your
brother's care, he will no doubt arrange a pleasing marriage for you."

So great was Leila's shock, it took a long moment
before she could even bring herself to speak.

"You are mad," she finally rasped, her
thoughts spinning in horrified confusion. "My mother would never have said
such a thing about my marriage to Jamal Al-Aziz. She knew I was happy . . . no,
not just happy. Ecstatic!" She sat up, her whole body trembling as her
voice grew shrill. "Oh, God, you killed them, didn't you? My mother and
Majida
. You murdered them after you drugged me!"

Now Guy looked stunned, then angry, his blue eyes
darkening to steely gray. "Of course I didn't kill your mother or her
slave. Those drugs have addled your reason."

"My reasoning is fine! Murderer, it is you who are
mad! How else could I have come to this place . . . Acre" —she spat— "if
not by foul play? How else could this be happening to me?"

"I'll tell you how," Guy said, resting his
weight on his knuckles as he leaned on the bed, so close to her that Leila
instinctively drew back, terrified. "I rescued you at great risk to my own
life and your mother's. I have never met a woman braver than Lady Eve. It was
her idea to hide us in a wagon loaded with corpses so we could safely escape
Damascus, and it was her idea to drug you so you might be spared the horror of
such a grisly experience. And it was her emerald necklace that bought us horses
to bring us here."

"No . . . that cannot be true!"

"Not true? It's as true as I'm standing here
before you, a free man instead of a headless corpse rotting in an unmarked
grave. As true as the jewels Lady Eve gave me to pay for our passage to
England."

Leila continued to shake her head in disbelief, which seemed
to anger him all the more. He began to shout, his handsome face livid. "By
the blood of God, woman! Even now your mother might be imprisoned for the part
she played to help you. She told me it was what you wanted! "

The room resounded from his thunderous outburst, each
of them staring furiously at the other.

Eve would never have done this to her! Leila thought
desperately. This was a nightmare. A bad dream. She dug her nails into her arms
so hard she cried out in pain, glancing down at the deep imprints she had left
in her skin. They were real, the pain was real,
Guy
de
Warenne
was real. Then his fantastic story must be

"No, I don't believe you!" Leila shouted as
she threw back the satin coverlet and sprang from the bed. She dashed toward
the door but frantically checked her path when he began to follow her.

"Leila . . ."

"Murderer! Stay away from me!" she cried,
rushing back to the bed. She grabbed the crystal pitcher from the table and
upturned it like a weapon, the cold water sloshing down the side of her body
and soaking her silken clothes. She scarcely felt it, so great was her rage. "You
lie, you . . . you filthy barbarian! You killed my mother and kidnapped me!"
She waved the pitcher threateningly. "I demand you release me at once! I
want to go home . . . to Damascus!"

Guy wished there was some cold water left in that
bobbing pitcher to splash on his face. He had never heard such lunatic ranting.
His head was beginning to pound. What the devil was she talking about? Surely
the drugs . . .

"Get back into bed before you collapse," he
ordered, noting she was swaying slightly, her forehead furrowed with pain.

He also noticed her pink, puckered nipples beneath her
sodden silk dress and the delicious curves of her hips and thighs where the
transparent fabric clung provocatively. He stared hungrily, unable to help
himself. Why did she have to be so damn lovely?

Another pounding began anew in his lower body, much
different from the one in his head. He gritted his teeth, reminding himself
again of his sworn duty, but it took greater effort this time to quell his
burgeoning desire. There was something about sheer wet clothing molded to
female flesh that could drive a man wild, and this woman's body was perfection.

Leila must have sensed his discomfort, or perhaps even
seen the swelling below his sword belt, for she yanked the coverlet from the
bed and held it in front of her breasts. Her gaze grew wider, angrier, and he
thought for sure she was going to loft the glass pitcher right at him. He
tensed, ready to dodge.

"Put down the pitcher, Leila, and get into bed,"
he commanded again, but she only lifted it higher. "If you don't, I swear
I shall come and take it from you myself and force you into the bed!"

She blinked, her expression uncertain as she weighed
his dark threat, then she spouted, "Barbarian! Come near me and I'll crack
this right over your skull!"

"Very well." Guy strode around the bed,
ducking to the side just in time to avoid the hurtling pitcher which barely
missed his head. It crashed to the floor behind him and shattered into a thousand
glittering shards.

"Bastard! Murderer! Beast! Stay away from me!"
Leila screamed, jumping onto the bed as he lunged for her. She tried to
scramble across the wide mattress, but he caught her leg and no small amount of
her hair, easily pulling her back. "No! Let me go!" she shouted at
the top of her lungs, gasping for breath and wincing at the pain in her scalp.
She tore desperately at the linen sheet, dragging it with her as he grabbed her
around the waist and spun her around to face him.

She dropped the sheet and raised her clenched fists to
strike him, but at the dangerous look in his eyes she was suddenly swept by
terror. The crusader had murdered her mother and
Majida
.
He could easily do the same to her. Glaring at him, she lowered her arms, their
faces so near his breath fanned her flushed cheek, burning her skin.

Leila had never been this close to a man.

She could feel the warmth of his powerful body
emanating through his clothes. Her nostrils flared at the scent of him . . .
sweat and sandalwood. She did not pull away, in that spellbinding moment drawn
to his heat, his smell, as inexplicably as a moth to a searing flame.

She met his eyes, seeing in those stunning cerulean
depths a will as strong and determined as her own. Becoming flustered, she dropped
her gaze to his mouth, watching as he moistened his lips with his tongue.
Unconsciously she licked her own lips,
then
glanced
back at his eyes as his mouth curved into the smallest of smiles. She saw a
flash of humor and something else, something that sent shivers down her spine.
It made her want to slap him. Hard.

But before she could, he tossed her onto the mattress. "Cover
yourself."

As Guy walked to the foot of the bed, Leila grabbed the
satin spread and angrily tucked it around herself, bringing the embroidered
edge up under her chin.

"Listen well, my lady," he began in a low
voice, staring into her defiant gaze. "I am no murderer. I would like to
think it is the drugs speaking through your lips, but I am beginning to believe
I have been misled. As I already told you, your mother claimed you wanted
desperately to leave Damascus and the marriage that had been arranged for you
with an infidel. From your vicious display of temper, it seems that this is not
the case."

"No, it is not!" Leila declared vehemently. "And
I can assure you that the drugs have sufficiently worn off so that I know this
is not a nightmare, though I wish it was one! If my mother did help you, and I
can't imagine why she would have—" Leila paused, recalling like a flash
Eve's lingering melancholy, and then just as quickly brushed it off. But before
she could finish, Guy broke in, his tone harsh.

"Your mother said it was your birthright that you
should have a Christian marriage. A home and family in your true country, to
quote her exactly. Perhaps that explains Lady Eve's motives."

Stunned, Leila remained silent as everything suddenly
became clear in her mind. Terribly clear.

It was the marriage. It had to be. Her mother did not
want her to wed Jamal.

That would account for Eve's unhappiness during the
past weeks, the haunted look in her eyes, her hesitation in sharing news of the
wedding date, her tears. And now it accounted for Leila finding herself in this
dreadful predicament. Well, she would not stand for it!

"Whatever my mother's motives, she was in error,
Leila stated coldly.
"
I have no desire whatsoever
to go to England with you or anybody else, and I certainly have no wish to
allow a brother I have never known to decide my fate. Why would I possibly want
to leave the country of my birth for your barbaric land? Damascus is my home. I
have been very happy there. Jamal AI-Aziz is to be my husband. I demand you
release me at once so I might return—"

"Your desires, wishes, and demands are of no
concern to me," Guy said with little emotion. "It is to your mother's
I have sworn."

"What do you mean?" Leila asked, feeling
apprehension at the grim set of his jaw.

"I made a vow to Lady Eve that I would see you
safely to England and your brother, Roger
Gervais
,
and so I will."

"No," Leila breathed, her heart beginning to
race. "This cannot be happening . . ."