Deirdre (15 page)

“I let my father and Cairell—all of Gleannmara down.” She sniffed wretchedly into the pillow.

But it wasn’t
his
fault. He hadn’t intentionally set out to ruin this young woman’s life. “Why in blazes did they send a woman in the first place?”

Deirdre rallied brokenly, glaring over the pillow. “My father is ill. Time was of the essence and … and I don’t have to explain anything to you! I was perfectly capable of negotiating the exchange. I am a princess. I have been trained for such things.”

“Then why are you here in this situation now?”

“Because I was trained to deal with honorable men, not scoundrels.”

The broken blade in her voice cut Alric in two. A nobler part of him wanted to throttle his lesser self and protect her from himself. But what was done was done. He couldn’t undo it. This was war. Deirdre and her brother were casualties.

“Maybe I can ask around to see what might have become of your brother—”

“Prince Cairell of Gleannmara.”

“I’ll see what can be done.” Alric had no idea what exactly that was, but the brightening of hope in her gaze peeping over the pillow’s edge might just be worth the effort. At least
one
of them would have some relief. He certainly preferred the role of comforter to that of scoundrel.

“You don’t need this now,” he told her, gently taking the pillow from her.

Childlike in her fear, she drew in a fragile breath, “I thought the dog would—”

“I know” Alric put his finger to her lips. “I’d forgotten how Tor could open a latch when it suited him. I’m sorry, but he’d never hurt you.”

She shook her head as if to contradict him.

“He only threatened you at first because he thought you intended me harm.” Alric kept his tone gentle. “Frankly, I am surprised he didn’t try to roll you out of the bed, since you were in his rightful place. He’s pushed me out before, during a sound sleep.”

Doubt reined in her gaze, but a slight twitch of her mouth encouraged him to go on. He couldn’t help but run coaxing hands down the cold flesh of her arms, moving her stiff body into the intended comfort of his embrace. She neither resisted nor cooperated. “Come here, sweetling. I promise you are safe now.”

Her breath was warm against the front of his shirt as he pressed her face to his chest. It was uneven, riddled with the terror that had held her at bay for the last few hours. Alric could well imagine the warrior queen he’d seen brandish a sword against Gunnar struggling with the terrified child within. The first would draw his blood; the latter, his compassion. He inhaled the scent of the golden hair falling in disarray about her shoulders. His soap had never been so appealing. For all its masculinity, it could not detract from Deirdre’s softness. If anything, it enhanced his awareness of her femininity, stirring instincts that had failed him earlier.

Alric’s mind and body reeled. Was there merit to Aelfled’s talk about love and his mother’s musings of his destiny? Everything stacked like a
cromlech
upon his mind.

“Come, let’s put you to bed before you take a chill.” With sheer will he turned her toward the bed, breaking the close contact between them before his body betrayed him. The renewal was sheer relief and pure torture at the same time.

Alric tugged back the covers and held them as Deirdre obediently slipped between them. Gathering them in her hands, she pulled them tightly under her chin, watching him warily.

“You will have to move over, milady I sleep on this side, next to my sword.”

He watched as she absorbed his meaning.

“Here?” Her voice was little more than a rasp.

“There’s no other bed in the room.” Alric’s pragmatism was not shared.

“There’s the bench at the end.”

The plea in her eyes was almost impossible to ignore. Besides, Alric was too tired and weary for another confrontation. It was easier to drag the bench around to the side on which he customarily slept, grab a pillow and blanket from it, and settle on the thin cushion.

She watched him, doubt furrowing her brow. “What about Tor?”

“I bolted the door so that he will not join us,” he said gruffly

Us.
The concept ran through Alric like a bolt of lightning, but he weathered it behind a mask of reassurance. Despite the distance between them, the room itself made her nearness inescapable. Desire played havoc with him, denying him a female he might enjoy with a free mind and placing him with one his conscience forbade him to touch in intimacy. His mother had been such a maid of privilege, snatched from her home and thrown into the bed of her captor.

Alric shuddered inwardly turning away from the bed. Why after all these years, he wondered as he stripped off his shirt, did he ponder such things? He’d accepted his parents’ relationship as it was, never thinking of how it came to be … until now.

As he reached for the laces of his breeches, he heard a small gasp behind him. With a pull of a smile, he turned out the lamp before he finished undressing and settled in on the bench. He’d slept on harder surfaces, but not with a large, plump mattress and a warm wench a turn away.

“You
are
still abed, aren’t you?” he said, tugging the blanket up to his shoulders. She’d grown so quiet, it sounded as though he were alone.

“I … I have nowhere to go.”

Alric flinched as though the doleful words had been hurled like barbed arrows and almost wished they had. Fighting her defiance had been far easier than resisting the compelling lure of her vulnerability He tried to shed his conscience—and any other finer emotions she had the knack of bringing out in him. He was a prince and a warrior doing his duty in taking the
Mell
and its passengers. It was his right and her misfortune. All in all, he’d been gracious and honest toward her, which was more than he could say on her part. And if he kept her, he would
not do what his father had done. She would be his wife, not a slave. That should count for something, shouldn’t it?

He caught his breath as the thought settled like a blanket upon his confusion. Had this many advantages pointed toward claiming a prize ship, he’d have taken it by now and cursed the risk. It was a tactical decision. In doing so, he gained not just the prospect of his birthright, but his manhood as well, for he was suddenly overripe with it in her presence. Gritting his teeth, he closed his eyes.

Surely this was the beginning assault of the dark powers Aelfled warned him about. If indeed Deirdre was his destiny, it was so close—and yet too far away.

M
orning 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.