Heather Graham (31 page)

The questions taunted her mercilessly, but at last, she wore herself to exhaustion and she sat upon the rug before the fire, seeking warmth since she felt so very cold. She stretched out, laying her head down upon the soft white fur. She couldn’t start crying. She wouldn’t stop. And she couldn’t admit that having to face the truth of Adrien’s steadfast loyalty where Edward was concerned seemed all the more bitter because he had made her care.

She stared at the fire, and her eyes began to close.

When Adrian returned to the room, his heart first seemed to skip a beat, then stop, for she was not there. Not pacing, not on the bed, not in the chair, and not by any arrow slit, looking out into the freedom of the night. But then his eyes fell to the fur rug before the hearth, and he saw her there. He paused in the doorway, for the candles in the room had burned low in their brass holders, and the only light in came from the fire. The rug was white, her nightdress was white, and her hair was a contrast of striking sleek ebony against it, sweeping over her shoulders, tendrils falling over her hips and buttocks, long locks sweeping in waves over the fur itself. Time seemed to stand still, with only the crackling sound of the fire to surround him, its warmth to beckon to him. And Danielle …

He closed the door and came into the room, striding to the fire to stand over her, anguish seeming to rip through him from limbs and loin and heart into his soul. Sweet Jesu! He had not imagined this knifing turmoil when he had come here, that he could feel himself entangled into such knots with her, that the passion and anger and even tenderness she could evoke would rival any other emotion he’d ever felt. He had loved Joanna, but he had never felt this fever, never the haunting pain, and d
amn
her, never the fear! Never before in his life had he remained in his great hall until no one else stirred, until even the wolves in the forest had fallen silent, staring into flames and wondering
just what in God’s name to do.
Never.

He hunched down beside her, felt the tightening within, the pain of muscles clenching, the thunder of his heart. If she had tried to tempt him, had created some exotic fantasy, she could not have awakened a fiercer hunger and thirst and anguish than she did just by lying here, simply sleeping. The flames created a flickering light that delicately pierced the white linen of her gown, outlining her breasts and hips, dipping into the contours of her waist. Fabric fell from her right shoulder, baring perfect flesh all the way down to the mound of her breast, leaving just the hint of the rose-peaked nipple, inviting a man’s touch. Strands of ebony hair were all that clothed her where the gown fell free. Where she had curled her knees up, the gown had fallen away as well. A wickedly long, shapely length of leg and thigh were visible, hauntingly seductive.

Raven-black lashes fell in a soft sweep over her cheeks, alabaster touched with gold in the firelight. He was not dismayed to want her the way he did, with all the fire and life within him. Fate had made her legally his wife. A night’s treachery had made her so in all ways. The force of his own passions had made her his lover. He had buried Joanna and known nothing but guilt; he had come here thinking that he had buried emotion as well, that strength and power and
possessions
were what mattered in life now. He had meant to have her simply because she had been destined to be his. He had never realized that though he might take her, she would be the one to actually
have
him.

She called him a tyrant; he had commanded many things. He had touched her, touched her again … but it seemed that he could never touch deep within her. She remained his enemy, sworn to a vow made when she was a child far too young to know or understand …

Sworn against him.

But it couldn’t be.

He reached out at last, smoothing a strand of hair from her face. She awoke, her dark lashes rising above emerald eyes. She stared at him for a moment, then rose quickly to her knees, breathless suddenly as she sat back upon her heels, barely a foot from where he hunched down beside her.

“Adrien!” she whispered. Studying her, he realized that she was glad that he had come, that she had been awaiting him. Aye. She might not ever beg mercy, but tonight she probably meant to seduce him from his anger. She knew what he had the power to do, and she had hastily threatened him. She had to know that he might well send her to England as a prisoner.

He forced a wall to close around his heart. He could not be seduced.

“Come!” he told her suddenly, his voice so rough that for a moment, he saw a hint of alarm in her eyes. That was as it had to be. He caught her hands, and drew her heedlessly to her feet, and all but dragged her across the room. He paused just briefly to take one of her mantles from the hook by the door and sweep it around her.

“Adrien, what are you doing?” she demanded.

He didn’t reply.

“This is insane!” she told him as he led her down the stairs. He still ignored her, his hold upon her implacable as he led her through the still and empty hall and out into the chill night air in the courtyard. She shivered fiercely. “Adrien! Damn you—!” she gasped, panting. She cried out suddenly, and he realized with a certain remorse that he had taken her out barefoot. But he couldn’t stop, and he damned well couldn’t afford to offer her apologies now. He lifted her up into his arms to continue his long strides toward the chapel. He paused for a moment to seize a torch from the outer wall before entering into the dark interior.

“Adrien, before God—” she protested.

“Indeed, lady, before God!” he agreed, setting her upon the ground once again. In the eerie light cast by the torch’s wavering glow, statuary of virgins and saints seemed to move. Danielle pulled back, but he gripped her wrist more tightly, leading the way down to the altar, and then to the left of it, where a wide stairway led down to the crypt.

“Adrian!” she cried furiously, struggling fiercely to escape his hold. Her voice had a note of desperate pleading. He ignored it. The torch brightened the way as they moved into the cool, pitch-darkness of the crypt. Once there, he set the flaming torch into a niche in the wall, and it illuminated most of the realm of the dead.

The temperature here, deep in the earth, helped preserve the bodies. To one side lay the simple shelving where the dead nobility and gentry of Aville decayed slowly within their shrouds upon beds of stone and marble. Throughout the crypt were elegant tombs made for those who could afford them.

“Adrien!” she cried again, desperately trying to free herself. He let her go. To his amazement, she went tearing for the stairway to escape the crypt. He flew after her and captured her with an arm around her waist, spinning her back into the center of the crypt. He met her eyes. They were wild. To his amazement, he realized that he had inadvertently discovered his wife’s Achilles’ heel: she was afraid of the crypt, of the bodies in their shrouds. He hadn’t meant to terrify her in such a way, but maybe it was best that she be terrified of something.

“You’re afraid!”

“No …”

“Liar!”

“Why are we here?” she cried out.

“Why are you afraid?”

“I’m not!”

“Why, damn you!”

“I came after my mother died … the doors were closed by accident.” She paused, moistening her lips. “I was locked in here in the dark for hours …”

“Ah,” he murmured, and started to walk by her, deep in thought.

“Adrien, don’t leave me, don’t lock me in here!” she cried out.

He spun back to her. She was white as a sheet, her beautiful features fragile and delicate against the ebony of her hair and the green of her eyes. He didn’t dare show her compassion, but he’d never had any intention of leaving her. He strode back to her, an arm around her waist, and she cried out as he drew her over to her mother’s tomb, in the center of the crypt. She struggled against him again, slamming her fists wildly against his chest. “You will not leave me here—”

Once again, a wave of remorse swept over him as her head fell back. She tried so desperately, always, to hide her fear and emotion from him.

He shook her, determined to force her from the raging fear that had assailed her. “I’ve not come to leave you here!” he told her. “What kind of a monster do you think I am? Never mind!” he said wryly. “It is just that you are so damned fond of vows.” He took her hand again. She resisted but he ignored her, laying her hand palm down, fingers splayed, upon her mother’s tomb. “Here lies Lenore. Now, you’ll give me a vow. Swear. Swear on her grave that you will not run from Aville while I am gone, that you will await me, your husband. Swear that you will not welcome my enemies, that you will hold this place in my name for its rightful overlord, Edward of England.”

“Adrien …” she began in protest, but her voice was weak.

“Swear it!” he interrupted harshly.

“Oh, damn you! I swear it!” she cried at last. Then a sob suddenly shuddered through her and she cast her face against his chest, hiding from the scent and feel and touch of decay and death.

Sweet Jesu, but the little things that she could do! Had she held a knife against his throat, he would have forgotten and forgiven at that moment. He swept her up into his arms once again, grabbed the torch to lead the way up the steps, and carried her from the crypt. He strode swiftly from the chapel, fitting the torch back into the sconce on the wall outside it. He brought Danielle back across the courtyard once again. They entered the keep, and she still lay silent, curled within his arms as they crossed the hall and climbed the stairs. In their room he set her in one of the huge tapestried chairs before the fire. He poured wine from a carafe on a nearby table into a goblet and brought it to her. Her fingers closed around the goblet. “Sip it!” he commanded, and as she did so, he knelt upon one knee and took a small, very cold foot into his hands, rubbing it until the warmth of life seemed to sweep back into it again.

“How did you know?” she whispered to him suddenly. “How could you have known?”

He looked up at her, a small frown knitting his brow. “Know—what?” She didn’t answer, but sipped the wine again, and he sighed softly. “Ah, that you were afraid of the crypt?”

Her lashes, lowered.

Afraid
was not a word she liked, he thought, and he smiled. “I didn’t know that you were
uneasy
in the crypt. Had I known, I wouldn’t have brought you there.”

“Really?” she asked, and she looked up frowning. Her eyes were so bright on his. Her lips were the color of a rose against the pale marble of her face. They trembled slightly as she spoke. “But what else might you have done to—”

“I don’t know. I didn’t know that I intended to force a vow from you until I came into this room,” he admitted flatly.

She stared at him, sipped the wine once more, then passed the goblet to him. He took a long swallow himself, and was glad, for it did take away the chill of the night. “You did give me your word,” he reminded her softly. “You made a vow.”

She stood and walked across the room, hanging her mantle back on the hook, her head slightly bowed. She hesitated there, then walked back to the fire, staring into the flames before she turned back to him. “I gave my word,” she admitted after a moment. “I’m not so very sure that you needed it. I threatened you because I was angry. But where would I have gone? What rebellion did I stir up before you came? What will be different here now when you leave?”

“Danielle, you did threaten me. There’s the small matter of Simon, and indeed, if you desired, you could run to the French king.”

“I love Aville. I was not a part of Simon’s schemes, whether you believe me or not.”

“Danielle, you threatened to be gone.”

“I’ve never lied to you, in all these years. You know I cannot break a certain loyalty I feel I owe to the Valois kings of France! I have sworn to you that I will not leave, and that I will hold Aville in your name for you and your king. I never meant to threaten you. It’s just that I am weary of this constant tug of war—not just between you and me!—but between Edward and the house of Valois, my countrymen against my countrymen. So many dead on the battlefields, so many wounded, maimed, dying cruel deaths long after the fights have been waged. And you are to ride away …”

As her voice trailed off, she lifted her shoulders and turned her back on him.

He strode across the room to her, spinning her around to face him again. “Could it be that you fear for me, milady?” He couldn’t quite keep the taunt from his voice, and he damned himself for it.

She kept her head down and would not look at him.

“Perhaps I fear what will happen to me if you fall, and I am left to the whim of kings once again. God knows what King Edward might plan next. You have already warned me he intends something dire.”

“But I never fall, lady, in battle or game or life.”

“No man is immune—you said so yourself when you were showing me the gun.”

“I said that one day gunpowder might well make all our armor, chain and plate, obsolete. That lies far in the future, lady. Far beyond any battles here. And at this point, we are doing nothing but retaliating against those who cruelly raided Edward’s territory. I am not at great risk—other than that risk which threatens me here.”

“How can I threaten you?” she whispered.

“You hold yourself, and Aville.”

“Even if you were to lose both, what difference would it make? You are the Earl of Glenwood, laird in your far northern country. You have come here by order of the king—”

“I have come here because you and Aville are mine, and because I give up nothing that is mine,” he told her.

“Then you have it, for fair or foul. You have wrenched your promises of Aville—and myself!—from me!”

The argument could go on, he thought, circles within circles. She had made a promise to him, but she had made the deathbed vow to her mother as well, and no words he could say now would change her mind. The night was slipping away. The dawn would come so quickly. Despite the tenseness in her body he engulfed her in his arms, drawing her closely against him, chin atop her head as he whispered “And once again, Countess, you have gained freedom. The fortress is yours once again, and yours alone, from the great walls surrounding it to this room and the bed within it.”