Claire Delacroix (11 page)

“I think it is of import,” she argued. “And as lady of the keep, I believe I should know...”

“You will know what I choose to have you know,” the Hawk retorted. He kept a firm grip upon her elbow as he hurried her through the hall.

Servants halted to stare, more than one stifling a smile. He knew that Aileen’s uncommon garb had been noted and feared that her place in his household would be misconstrued.

“My lady wife,” he called to them by way of explanation, not slowing his pace to properly introduce her. Aileen struggled against his grip, which only would feed their speculative whispers. “Behave yourself,” he bade her in an undertone. “This is not the time to defy me.”

Aileen granted him a look of such fury that he longed to kiss her. “I am not a poorly trained hound that can be bidden to follow your will,” she muttered.

“Sadly not, for a disobedient hound can be whipped.”

She abruptly pulled away from him, her eyes wide, and he knew he had chosen the wrong words. “You granted your pledge to me,” she reminded him, a thread of fear in her voice.

“So I did. You need not make me regret it with such haste.” The Hawk fairly shoved Aileen up the narrow staircase to the chambers above, though she fought his every step.

The Hawk looked back to the company in his hall with apparent confidence. “Sadly, my lady wife is too tired from our journey to accept your congratulations on our marriage,” he said to them. “On the morrow, she will undoubtedly be much restored.”

Aileen took advantage of his diverted attention to pivot and pummel her fists against his chest. The Hawk grasped both of her elbows to compel her up the stairs.

A low whistle carried over the company and Guinevere sauntered toward the Hawk and Aileen. She smirked. “Truly, Hawk, why would you ride a week to find a wench so unwilling?” She propped a hand upon her hips, the pose showing her curves to advantage. “There are many here who would be glad to welcome your attentions.”

“I am not a whore who must do your bidding to earn a paltry coin,” Aileen fairly spat. “Though many of those in your household appear to ply that trade.”

The Hawk glared at her, ignoring Guinevere. “You must be tired after our journey, lady mine,” he said, willing her to agree.

The lady did no such thing. “I will not meekly do your bidding,” Aileen insisted with undisguised defiance. “Not afore you tell me who has been captured and why.”

“I cannot tell you what I do not know and I will not tell you what I choose to keep secret.” He compelled her toward the stairs, leaving Guinevere behind and well aware of the many souls observing this dissent. “Hasten yourself to bed!”

Aileen paled, though her eyes glittered with new anger. “I will not hasten to be raped!”

“Trust me, rape is not my intent,” the Hawk whispered.

She caught her breath in trepidation. “Then what?”

“I had imagined we might meet amiably abed.”

“I doubt as much...” she began to scoff, but the Hawk bent and kissed her thoroughly. He aimed to reassure her with his touch as he had failed to do with his words.

Truly, he had forgotten the challenge of women. He was gentle, cajoling, though he did not turn away. She shook like a spring leaf in the wind, but seemed powerless to fight her response to his touch. The Hawk delighted when she gave a small sigh of surrender, then leaned into his kiss. Her lips softened and the resistance melted from her hands, which had been braced against his shoulders. Now, she twined them around his neck.

He heard the company applaud when he finally lifted his head, but noted only that Aileen was unsteady on her feet. A wolf whistle echoed over the company, and he did not doubt that the Guinevere mocked him. The Hawk did not care. Aileen’s eyes were glazed and she seemed disoriented. He suddenly feared what she would say.

“I saw...” she began to whisper.

“No! You saw nothing.” The Hawk interrupted her with resolve, having no patience for more talk of visions. He would not let her speak of this here, not where the company might overhear her and begin to whisper of that she was mad.

The lady’s chin lifted with determination. “I saw...”

“You will ascend the stairs willingly or I shall cast you over my shoulder again and carry you.” He muttered through his teeth, letting her see his determination. “And I will suffer no talk of visions this night. The choice, lady mine, is yours.”

His manner seemed to dismiss her dream-like manner. Aileen glanced back at the rapt servants and made a sound of frustration.

She met his gaze, her eyes snapping anew. “You have a most irksome tendency to insist upon your way alone, my lord,” she whispered hotly.

The Hawk smiled. “You will find that my way is not always so loathsome as you tend to assume.”

Aileen’s gaze lingered on his lips for a breathless moment. The Hawk bent to ensure his meaning was not misconstrued and kissed her ear with leisure. She shuddered to her very toes, then turned and marched up the stairs before him, her stature as proud as that of a queen.

At the first landing, she hesitated, but the Hawk urged her on. There was but one door on the second and last landing, and he threw it open.

“I trust your chambers will suit,” he said, knowing the room was far finer than the lady’s chamber that Blanche shared with all her women. His wife would have no cold pallet upon the floor for her nightly rest, but a curtained and pillared bed, hung with the most costly of weavings.

Aileen granted him a mutinous glance before she proceeded him into the chamber at the summit of the tower. She might well be convinced that he meant to rape her this night, but he liked that she did not balk before her worst fear. Hers was a courageous heart, one that he knew would partner well with his own.

And he heartily anticipated proving Aileen’s foul expectations of him to be wrong. He would seduce her, not force her, so that they both found the summit of pleasure. The prospect made his blood thunder in his ears.

* * *

Aileen was nigh dizzy from the visions inflicted upon her and the ardor of the Hawk’s kiss. She stumbled across the chamber and clutched the sill of the window, willing her feet to steady. Her heart was galloping and she took a deep breath afore she turned to face her taciturn spouse.

He watched her, impassive, a thousand secrets hidden in his thoughts.

But Aileen had glimpsed a few of them. She still could not make sense of the rapid sequence of images she had seen, much less her intuitive understanding of them. She had seen herself in a dozen guises—as a crippled boy, as young girl, as a babe, as a crone, as a peregrine, as a young mother, as a grieving widow—and for each glimpse of herself, she had seen another soul, a partner, who she knew was the Hawk.

How could she be so certain of such a thing? Aileen could not guess, nor could she shake her conviction.

Clearly, the power of his sorcery knew no bounds. He watched her, his eyes gleaming, and Aileen feared suddenly for her fate in his keep. Was this madness that tinged her thoughts? Was this uncertainty of what lurked within her own mind what her mother had endured?

She gripped the sill and stared out into the darkened bailey, desperate to compose herself afore he embraced her again. A shadow slipped over the walls and she caught its movement from the periphery of her vision. She turned and peered into the darkness, but it was gone, so surely that it might not have been there at all.

Was this the progression of the madness? Would she see things with her eyes open that were not there in truth? What did this man do to her that so dissolved her wits?

Aileen had watched hawks hunt and knew they harried their prey before they made their kill. She shivered in fear. The hawk only pounced once the hare was tired and its strength was fading. Aileen dared not let her husband guess how weakened her defenses—and her wits—had become. She must demand something of him, as if she was the one who launched an assault.

But what?

* * *

As the Hawk watched, his bride pivoted to face him again. He admired how she squared her shoulders, even in her trepidation, facing her fears of his intent with courage.

Indeed, she sauntered across the chamber, openly appraising its contents. She trailed her fingertips across the linens on the bed, clearly choosing her words, then halted beside one of its pillars.

“I thought you had not come to Abernye to hunt a bride,” she said, granting him a look so filled with challenge that he was tempted to let the MacLaren spy rot all the night long in the dungeon.

“I did not.”

“Then why is this chamber prepared?” She arched a brow. “Have you a wife already, whose acquaintance I have yet to make?”

“No. I have never wed until now. I knew, though, that one day I would find the woman I would take to wife.” He smiled, hoping to reassure her. “I am a man who claims his desire without delay, lady mine, so I wished to have all prepared for this day.”

She averted her face, but her caressing fingers revealed that she was impressed by the chamber. The Hawk knew he should leave, but he could not resist the opportunity to grant her one small kiss, a kiss to keep her warm until his return.

A kiss to encourage him to not linger long in the dungeon. He caught Aileen’s shoulder and spun her to face him, touching his lips to hers before she could protest.

As always, she stiffened slightly at his touch, but when he persisted, she softened. In a trio of heartbeats, the fire was kindled between them. Her hands were on his chest and she was on her toes, straining to taste him more fully. He locked his hands around her waist and lifted her against him, liking well that there was no pretense between them in this.

When he lifted his lips from hers, his heart pounding in his ears, she tilted her head to regard him. “Tell me one thing,” she asked softly, even as she took a step away from him.

“You have only to ask.”

“Will you always use the visions to disorient me?” Aileen folded her arms across her chest to regard him.

The Hawk shook his head and took a step back in his turn. He spoke with resolve. “I have told you that there are no visions.”

Her expression hardened. “If you desire a match in truth, then there must be honesty between us, at least in this chamber.”

“I have inflicted no visions upon you,” the Hawk insisted, his voice low. He dared not agree with her, not after his earlier experience with Adaira had so shaken the confidence of his men in his leadership. Not now, not when a mere three days stood between him and triumph. He would not jeopardize their support.

“But, of course, there are!” she retorted. “You have forced strange thoughts into mine every time we have kissed. When I would resist you, you plant memories in my thoughts that persuade me to accept you as my destiny. At least, have the grace to admit it!”

“I do not!”

“You most certainly do!” Her eyes flashed. “Do not deny that you used your kiss to confuse me in my father’s hall that I might be more readily captured!”

The Hawk held his wife’s gaze stubbornly, letting her see his conviction. “I do deny it. I used my kiss to ease my desire for the woman beneath me, and perhaps to surprise a demoiselle to silence.”

“Your sorcery is foul enough, but to protest it is even more foul.”

“If there is sorcery here, it is no more beneath my command than the rising of the sun each morn.”

They glared at each other, each as convinced of their view as the other. Aileen clearly sought some evidence in his expression that he lied, but the Hawk knew she would find no hint of guile.

So determined was she that he found himself curious. “What appears in your visions?”

She granted him a scathing glance. “Now, you would give them credence?”

“Now, I would understand what we confront.”

She shook her head and walked across the room, then turned to face him, her eyes glinting. “So, you might find me mad. Is that to be my fate? To be locked away as a madwoman? What advantage do you hope to gain in this?”

“I ask only so that I might understand what you fear.”

Aileen glared at him for an eternity, then she shook her head. “You must know what I see.”

“If I did, then I would not ask!”

She propped her hands upon her hips, her pose defiant. “I see you and I, but in other lives, it seems. You were Magnus, and I was the true love you rejected. Anna was her name. Since and before that, we were together also, but something went awry in that life.” Her words faltered. “It is a most strange sensation, to see these people and recognize who they are, knowing all the while that they are strangers to me. I cannot fathom how you inflict this upon me.”

“I am not responsible,” he said gently, though the very words made her eyes flash. The Hawk fought to find an alternative explanation. “Perhaps it is maidenly whimsy to find the root of everlasting love in a hasty match?”

Aileen shook her head, impatient with the very suggestion. “I am not whimsical! The visions are clear.” She granted him a shrewd glance, though it was her words that shocked him. “You fight my assertion so vehemently. I would wager that either you lie to me or you know more of this matter than you would admit.”

The Hawk recoiled. “Nonsense!”

But Aileen was not so readily dissuaded as that. “You argue overmuch,” she accused softly, crossing the floor toward him. Her manner was intent, like a huntress who knows she has spied her prey. “You know more of this matter than you would confess to me.”

“And I have responsibilities, duties of greater import than this futile discussion,” the Hawk said flatly, then turned to depart.

“Liar!” Aileen cried. “You lied when you said you desired a true marriage. Marriage is wrought of honesty...”

“And life is filled with treachery.” He glanced back at his wife’s fury and desire nigh took him to his knees.

He had to leave immediately, or he would not leave at all. Cursing the fact that a spy had been caught on this night of nights, the Hawk closed the door and turned the key in the lock.

“Cur! You leave to avoid answering me!” Aileen shouted. He heard her jiggle the latch without success and then what might have been her foot collided with the oaken door. He winced, but turned on his heel to descend.