Lady Gallant (35 page)

He watched her flee, hating the way her curls swayed with each light step as she ran, hating the bounce of her breasts and the hunted look in her eyes. He was so busy hating that he didn't feel Mag's hand rubbing his thigh until she cupped him and squeezed. He gasped and threw his body back in his chair.

"You were right, Kit," Mag said. "She's an evil hag. Let me help you forget her."

He captured Mag's invading hands. "Not yet, curse you. It's not time. Later," he added almost to himself, "upstairs, when I know she'll hear…"

Mag laughed at him, "Why not now, too, my sweeting?"

He shoved her away. "You're too greedy, woman. It's a fault you'd do well to curb. A man enjoys being pursued, but it's in his nature to also enjoy playing the hunter. Why do you think we prey on maidens?" Christian realized what he was saying and stopped. "Damnation."

Mag dipped her finger in his wine goblet and ran it over his lips. "Yes, Kit? What about maidens?"

"Nothing. I care naught for maidens or mice, or dragons either."

"Have you been swilling bad ale?"

"God's blood, woman, give me peace. Can't you see I'm eating?"

Nora had placed a pillow on a stool and lay her rosary on it soshe could look at the cross. It had been her mother's. It was made of silver with intricately embossed beads, and a single pearl dangled from it. Nora folded her hands and bent her head in prayer, but she couldn't seem to talk to God. Mayhap it was because she was afraid. Afraid that the horror of these last days was of His designing.

Squeezing her hands tightly together, she tried to remember a psalm. No words came to her. What she did remember was that terrible walk down the hall between rows of belching and contemptuous outlaws. As if it were a tableau from a stained-glass window, she could see the figures on the dais.

That woman… Mag… she'd touched Lord Montfort as if she owned him. She was much older than he, but her skin was taut, her figure lithe. Blond and beautiful and possessing a body that moved with confident sensuality, Mag possessed qualities for which Nora longed. Mag, and Holly, and Annie, they had all laughed at her, and Lord Montfort had said before them that she was plain. Not that it was a thing to be missed by any with eyes.

What was she doing? Self-pity was a sin, and she'd indulged herself with it for the better part of the evening. Nora wasn't sure how much time had passed since she'd left the hall. Ever since her wedding night, time slipped by while she remained still. She rose on stiff legs and began to undress by the light of the single candle Simon Spry had given her.

What was he doing now? Foolishness, that speculation. He caroused with those people, those purveyors of sin and deception. He was with Mag. She wished he had beaten her instead of flaying her alive with his rejection and hate. Each day he slipped farther from her reach, and each night fed his wrath.

Standing in the middle of the chamber, Nora glanced about, her gown, petticoats, and farthingale in her arms. They'd given her a small chest stuffed with a few of her things. She draped her clothing on the window seat and searched the chest for a smock. Yards of lawn appeared at the bottom, and she tugged the nightgown free.

Once immersed in the soft garment, she doused the candle and clambered onto the bed. Only after she'd seated herself on top of the covers did she notice she was shivering. She drew the spread around her shoulders but didn't lie down. From experience she knew it would be useless. The only way she'd be able to sleep was if she sat up or paced the chamber for a few hours.

So she sat. Blinking slowly at the darkness, she wondered if she could ask her father for help. A mad thought. The Queen? Not unless she wanted Lord Montfort clapped in the Tower, and much as she feared him and much as he'd hurt her, she couldn't bear to see him hurt in return.

After all, this misunderstanding wasn't his fault. She should have asked for a different hiding place for her ciphers the first time he invaded the garden. Lord Montfort was right. She wasn't at all clever, not at all.

She must have dozed, for she opened her eyes to find her nose buried in the spread. She was curled in the middle of the bed. Her eyes burned from weariness, and her legs ached from spending hours on her knees. Stretching them, she burrowed under the cover, anxious to sink into merciful blankness before her brain started working again and she remembered the unhappiness.

As she nuzzled into the bed, she heard someone groan. Bed ropes creaked against wood, but they weren't her bed ropes. She lifted her head. Eyes now accustomed to the darkness, she could make out the half-open door to her chamber. She'd closed it when she came back from the hall. Hadn't she? And Lord Montfort had said he would lock her in. Could he have forgotten?

She could see light through the open doorway, and the groan had come from beyond the door, in the direction of the light. There it was again. This time it was longer, softer. Someone was in pain, and it sounded like a woman.

Dragging the spread around her body, Nora scooted off the bed. She tiptoed across the chamber, the cover trailing behind. Bed ropes whined as she emerged from her chamber, and she turned to peer at the door of the chamber beside her. It was ajar, like her own.

She pursed her lips while she listened to a woman's moan. It had to be one of those bawds. What if she were sick from too much ale or had a cramp in her gut? Sometimes cramps could be dangerous. She would ask if she could help. Nora crept to the door and peeked into the chamber.

A lewd masque greeted her. A dark room. A bed sur-rounded by candles. Tousled sheets. A woman on her back, legs spread wide. A man lying over her, suckling on her breast. A man with honey-colored skin and soft hawk's-feather hair. Nora crinkled her brow as confusion settled over her. She stared at the man, his skin bathed in candle glow; watched his muscles flex as he lifted his head and rubbed his chest against the woman's breasts. Lifted his head and turned to the door.

Nora stumbled back, closing her eyes against the sight of Lord Montfort's face. Her shoulder hit the door frame, and she turned to run, her gorge rising.

"Perhaps my wife would like to join us."

Nora froze.

"Turn around," Lord Montfort said.

She shook her head. She held on to the door frame, afraid she would fall. A hand grabbed her arm, and she was yanked into the room. Her husband stood before her, naked, his phallus turgid. She shrank from him, and he released her. She huddled in her cover and kept her gaze on the floor.

"Look at me." He waited. "Look at me, or I'll lock you in this room and resume the ride you interrupted."

She could look at him, she decided, because her sight was blurred anyway. He put his fingers under her chin and stared at her with eyes as cold as his body was hot. "If you tell me the name of your master, I'll come back to your bed."

She blinked at him. Her lips moved, but nothing came out of her mouth. Without warning he caught her to him, thrusting aside the spread to press his heated flesh to her body. His leg forced its way between hers, and she felt his thigh nudge her groin. He squeezed her buttocks and murmured into her ear.

"Tell me." He began to move, thrusting against her to the beat of an unheard drum. "Tell me, tell me. Yield, Nora."

She cried out and hurled herself away from those erotic hips and demanding body. Every inch of her own body quivered, and all warmth drained from it as she scrambled for the safety of her chamber, nausea roiling in her stomach. She stumbled over the spread and let it fall as she ran. Gaining her room, she slammed the door shut, but Lord Montfort thrust it open and sauntered in to the accompaniment of Mag's giggles. He stopped when Nora fled to the far corner and put her back to it. Indulging in a stretch, he spread his arms and legs wide, displaying himself to her. She covered her mouth and swallowed bile.

"From your response," he said, "I take it you refuse my offer."

Nora was too busy trying to keep from vomiting to answer.

"Very well. I'll have the news soon anyway, and I'll be spared a tedious chore, for which I thank you. And since you don't require my service, I'll go back to Mag."

He left, and Nora sank to the floor. It was possible to die and still breathe, she realized, for she accomplished the feat herself, there in that dusty room, on the night her husband lay between the thighs of a whore while she watched. And since she was dead inside, she couldn't be hurt again. So at last, she was free.

As a child he had lived with terror. Jack Midnight used to play with him, forcing him to steal or beg, then beating him if he refused or failed. Day after day his captor thrust him into the streets full of cutthroats and whores, and day after day he risked his life so he could return for his reward: pain.

Once Jack hung him from a tree limb and whipped him with a willow switch until he screamed for coming back empty-handed. The next day he chose an old man as his coney. He played the lost child, producing tears that came easily if he allowed himself to feel the pain of his wounds. The man took him up, held him gently, comforted him. Kit pointed the way to his fictitious house in an alley while fingering the man's purse. The man set him down in the alley, and Kit launched his thin body away from the coney.

He'd gone only a few yards when he heard the old man cry out. Looking back, he saw Midnight carve an arc through the man's throat. Silver metal traced a path across flesh, leaving a trail of blood. Transfixed by exposed, quivering muscle and spurting blood, Kit watched the flapping skin, listened to the gurgling, muted scream, met the old man's frightened eyes.

Christian huddled on the floor outside Nora's chamber, naked and drowning in the gore of that memory. The old man's eyes—why did he have to remember them now? Because Nora's eyes held that same look of wounded terror.

"God's mercy, what have I done?"

Shivering, he rested his arms on his knees and pressed his forehead to them. He heard his own dry sob, and bit his lip to stop it. He'd become that tortured child-animal again, ever since he'd learned of Nora's betrayal. Just now, when he had touched her and offered to return to her bed, he'd expected to evoke the passion he'd discovered on their wedding night. He'd brought forth agony instead.

If he lived into the next century, he would never escape the vision of her eyes, those soft eyes that could brim with love and compassion for the weak and unwanted but now reflected the tortures of the rack, the stake, and the brand. And he—Christian de Rivers—he turned the rack, lit the faggots at the stake, wielded the brand. He couldn't do it anymore. He'd hoped to shame and hurt her this night with Mag, but it was himself he was torturing. He was killing his own soul.

"Kit?" Mag bent over him and touched his bare shoulder. "Kit, you've been out here forever. Come back to bed."

She leaned closer and brushed his hair back. Her voice grew louder. "Kit, what's wrong?"

"Go away," he said.

"What did she do to you?" Mag sank to her knees and held his face in her hands. "Dear God, what did she do to you?"

Pulling his head free, Christian stood up and propped an arm against the wall. "I did this to myself, dear Mag. I tried to put her in Hell, and put myself there, too."

"Come back to bed. I'll make you forget."

"No," he said as he moved to the stairs. "It's not a thing you can do for me."

"I can. I've done it before."

"I was a child then, Mag. No, don't fight me in this." His lips twisted into something like a smile. "I am become 'a monster fearful and hideous, vast and eyeless.' "

"That's pig's swill. She did you a bad turn, you said. Betrayed you. We all hate her for it, you know." Mag rushed to him and slipped her arms around his waist. She kissed his chest, but Christian didn't respond. He withdrew his body from her grasp and took a step down the stairs.

"Take the key I gave you and lock her in. Give the key to
Simon. And Mag, you have my thanks and my heart's fondness."

"I want more," she said. "You belong to me, Kit, and to those thieving runagates below."

"I'm cold. I'll see you in the morning."

"And ever after."

His hand strangled the banister as he regarded Mag. "I thought you learned long ago that I belong to myself."

"Do you, Kit?" Mag pointed at Nora's door. "Or do you belong to her, fight how you will to be rid of the chains she's wrapped about that touchable body of yours?"

"I'm cold and I'm going to bed. Rest you well, Mag." Christian descended the stairs, praying that Mag would let him go in peace. He should have known better.

"Send her away," she called down to him. "She's destroying you and you can't see it. Get rid of the bitch before she hurts you again, or the next time you may not survive."