A Kingdom of Dreams (24 page)

Jenny gaped at the rather comic spectacle, unable to believe her own eyes until Friar Gregory was so close she could actually see the stricken expression on his face. Rounding on her husband, sputtering in her furious indignation, she burst out, "You—
you madman
! You've stolen a
priest
this time! You've actually done it! You've stolen a priest right out of a holy priory!"

Transferring his gaze from the riders to her, Royce regarded her in bland silence, his utter lack of concern only adding to her outrage. "They'll hang you for this!" Jenny prophesied with furious glee. "The pope himself will make sure of it! They'll behead you, they'll draw and quarter you, they'll hang your head from a pike and feed your entrails to—"

"Please," Royce drawled in exaggerated horror, "you will give me nightmares."

His ability to mock his fate and ignore his crime was more than Jenny could bear. Her voice dropped to a strangled whisper, and she stared over her shoulder at him as if he was some curious, inhuman being beyond her comprehension. "Is there no
limit
to what you will dare?"

"No," he said. "No limit whatsoever." Jerking on the reins he turned Zeus into the road and spurred him forward just as Arik and Friar Gregory galloped abreast. Tearing her eyes from Royce's granite features, Jenny clutched at Zeus's flying mane and glanced sympathetically at poor Friar Gregory, who bounced past, his fear-widened eyes clinging to her in mute appeal and terrified misery.

They kept up the breakneck pace until nightfall, stopping only long enough to rest the horses periodically and give them water. By the time Royce finally signaled Arik to stop, and a suitable camp had been found in a small glade deep within the protection of the forest, Jenny was limp with exhaustion. The rain had stopped earlier that morning, and a watery sun had put in its appearance, and then shone with a vengeance, causing steam to rise from the valleys and adding tenfold to Jenny's discomfort in her damp, heavy velvet gown.

With a tired grimace, she tramped out of the thicket she'd used to shield herself from the men so that she could attend to her personal needs. Raking her fingers through her hopelessly tangled hair, she trudged over to the fire and sent a murderous glance at Royce, who still looked rested and alert as he knelt on one knee, tossing logs onto the fire he'd built. "I must say," she told his broad back, "if this is the life you've led all these years past, it leaves
much
to be desired." Jenny expected no answer, nor did she receive one, and she began to understand why Aunt Elinor, who'd been deprived of human companionship for twenty years, had missed it so much that now she eagerly chattered away at anyone she could find to listen to her—willingly or no. After an entire night and day of Royce's silence, she was desperate to vent her ire on him.

Too exhausted to stand, Jenny sank down onto a pile of leaves a few paces from the fire, reveling in the opportunity to sit upon something soft, something that didn't lurch and bump and jar her teeth, even though it was damp. Drawing her legs up to her chest, she wrapped her arms around them. "On the other hand," she said, continuing her one-way conversation with his back, "perhaps you find much pleasure in galloping through the woods, ducking tree limbs, and fleeing for your life. And, when that becomes tedious, you can always divert yourself with a siege or a bloody battle, or an abduction of helpless, innocent people. 'Tis truly a perfect existence for a man like you!"

Over his shoulder, Royce glanced at her and saw her sitting with her chin perched upon her knees, her delicate brows raised in challenge, and could not believe her daring. After everything he'd put her through in the past twenty-four hours, Jennifer Merrick—no, he corrected himself, Jennifer Westmoreland—could still calmly sit on a pile of leaves and
mock
him.

Jenny would have said more, but just then poor Friar Gregory staggered out of the woods, saw her, and stumbled over to sink gingerly onto the leaves beside her. Once sitting, he shifted experimentally from one hip to the other, wincing. "I—" he began, and winced again—"have not ridden much," he admitted ruefully.

It dawned on Jenny that his entire body must be racked with aches and pains, and she managed to smile at him in helpless sympathy. Next it occurred to her that the poor friar was a prisoner of a man with a reputation for unspeakable brutality, and she sought to allay his inevitable fears as best she could, given her animosity for the man who'd captured them both. "I do not think he will murder you or torture you," she began, and the friar looked at her askance.

"I have already been tortured to the full limits, by that horse," he stated dryly, then he sobered. "However, I shouldn't think I'll be killed. 'Twould be foolhardy, and I don't think your husband is a fool. Reckless, yes. Foolish, no."

"Then you aren't concerned for your life?" Jenny asked, studying the friar with new respect as she recalled her own terror at her first sight of the Black Wolf.

Friar Gregory shook his head. "From the three words that blond giant over there allotted me, I gather that I'm to be taken with you to bear witness to the inevitable inquiry that is bound to take place on the matter of whether you are well and truly married. You see," he admitted ruefully, "As I explained to you at the priory, I was merely a visitor there; the prior himself and all the friars having gone into a nearby village to minister to the poor in spirit. Had I left on the morn, as I meant to do, there would have been no one to attest to the vows you spoke."

A brief flair of blazing anger pierced Jenny's weary mind. "If he"—she glanced furiously at her husband, who was near the fire, his knee bent as he tossed more logs onto the blaze—"wanted witnesses to the marriage, he had only to leave me in peace and wait until today when Friar Benedict would have married us."

"Yes, I know, and it seems odd he didn't do that. 'Tis known from England to Scotland that he was reluctant, no, violently
opposed
, to the idea of wedding you."

Shame made Jenny look away, feigning interest in the wet leaves beside her as she traced her finger on their veined surface. Beside her, Friar Gregory said gently, "I speak plainly to you, because I sensed from our first meeting at the priory that you are not fainthearted and would prefer to know the truth."

Jenny swallowed the lump of humiliation in her throat and nodded, cringing inside at the realization that everyone of importance in two countries evidently knew she was an unwanted bride. Moreover an unvirginal one. She felt unclean and humiliated beyond words—humbled and brought to her knees before the populace of two entire countries. Angrily she said, "I don't think his actions of the past two days will go unpunished. He snatched me from my bed and hauled me out a tower window and down a rope. Now he's snatched you! I think the MacPherson and all the other clans may well break the truce and attack him!" she said with morbid satisfaction.

"Oh, I doubt there'll be much in the way of
official
retaliation; 'tis said Henry commanded him to wed you posthaste. Lord Westmoreland—er—his grace, has certainly complied with that, although there's bound to be a bit of an outcry from James to Henry over the way he did it. However, at least in theory, the duke obeyed Henry to the letter, so perhaps Henry will be merely amused by all this."

Jenny looked at him in humiliated fury. "Amused!"

"Possibly," Friar Gregory said. "For, like the Wolf, Henry has technically fulfilled the agreement he made with James to the very letter. His vassal, the duke, has wed you, and wed you with all haste. And in the process, he evidently breached your castle, which was doubtlessly heavily guarded, and snatched you right from your family's midst. Yes," he continued more to himself than to her, as if impartially considering a question of dogmatic theory, "I can see that the English may find all this highly entertaining."

Bile surged in Jenny's throat, almost choking her as she recalled all that had happened last night in the hall, and realized the priest was right. The hated English had been wagering amongst themselves, actually
wagering
in the hall at Merrick, that her husband would soon bring her to her knees, while her kinsmen could do naught but look at her—look at her with their proud, set faces, as they bore her shame as their own. But they were hoping, depending upon her, to redeem herself and all of them by never yielding.

"Although," Friar Gregory said more to himself than to her, "I cannot ken why he would have put himself to such risk and trouble."

"He raves about some plot," Jenny said in a suffocated whisper. "How do you know so much about us—about everything that's been happening?"

"News of famous people flies from castle to castle often with surprising speed. As a friar of Saint Dominic, 'tis my duty and my privilege to go among our Lord's people
on foot
," he emphasized wryly. "Whilst my time is spent among the poor, the poor live in villages. And where there are villages, there are
castles;
news filters down from lord's solar to villein's hut—
particularly
when that news concerns a man who is a legend, like the Wolf."

"So my shame is known to all," Jenny said chokily.

" 'Tis not a secret," he admitted. "But neither is it
your
shame, to my thinking. You mustn't blame yourself for—" Friar Gregory saw her piteous expression and was instantly consumed with contrition. "My dear child, I beg your forgiveness. Instead of talking to you about forgiveness and peace, I'm discussing shame and causing bitterness."

"You've no need to apologize," Jenny said in a shaky voice. "After all, you, too have been taken captive by that—that monster—forced, dragged from your priory, as I was dragged from my bed, and—"

"Now, now," he soothed, sensing she was teetering between hysteria and exhaustion, "I wouldn't say I was taken captive. Not really. Nor dragged from the priory. It was more a matter that I was
invited to
come along by the most enormous man I've ever beheld, who also happens to carry a war axe in his belt with a handle nearly the size of a tree trunk. So when he graciously thundered, 'Come. No harm,' I accepted his invitation without delay."

"I hate
him
, too!" Jenny cried softly, watching Arik stroll out of the woods holding two plump rabbits he'd beheaded with a throw of his axe.

"Really?" Friar Gregory looked nonplused and fascinated. " 'Tis hard to hate a man who doesn't speak. Is he always so stingy with words?"

"Yes!" Jenny said vengefully. "All he nee-needs to do"—the tears she was fighting to hold back clogged her voice—"is look at y-you with those freezing cold blue eyes of his and you j-just
know
what he wants you to do, and y-you d-do it, because he's a m-monster, too." Friar Gregory put his arm around her shoulders and Jenny, who was more accustomed to adversity than sympathy, especially of late, turned her face into his sleeve. "I hate him!" she cried brokenly, heedless of Friar Gregory's warning squeeze on her arm. "I hate him, I
hate
him!"

Fighting for control, she moved away from him. As she did so, her eyes riveted on the pair of black boots planted firmly in front of her, and she followed them the full distance up Royce's muscled legs and thighs, his narrow waist and wide chest, until she finally met his hooded gaze. "I hate you," she said straight to his face.

Royce studied her in impassive silence, then he transferred his contemptuous gaze to the friar. Sarcastically, he asked, "Tending to your flock, Friar? Preaching love and forgiveness?"

To Jenny's amazement, Friar Gregory took no offence at this biting criticism, but instead looked abashed. "I greatly fear," he admitted ruefully as he awkwardly and unsteadily came to his feet, "that I may be no better at that than I am at riding horses. The Lady Jennifer is one of my first 'flocks,' you see. I've only been about the Lord's work a short time."

"You're not very good at it," Royce stated flatly. "Is it not your goal to console rather than incite? Or is it to line your purse and grow fat on your patron's good graces? If the latter is the case, you'd be wise to counsel my wife to try to please me, rather than encourage her to tell me of her hatred."

At that moment, Jenny would have given her very life to have Friar Benedict standing here instead of Friar Gregory, for she would have relished seeing Royce Westmoreland receive the sort of thundering tirade that Friar Benedict would have launched at the insolent duke.

In that respect, however, she had misjudged the young friar again. Although he did not rise to the Black Wolf's verbal attack, neither did he retreat or cower before his daunting adversary. "I gather that you do not hold those of us who wear these robes in very high regard?"

"None whatsoever," Royce snapped.

In her mind, Jenny wistfully envisioned Friar Benedict in this clearing, his eyes bulging with fury as he advanced on Royce Westmoreland like the angel of death. But, regretfully, Friar Gregory merely looked interested and a little puzzled. "I see," he said politely. "May I ask why?"

Royce Westmoreland stared at him with biting scorn. "I despise hypocrisy, particularly when it is coated with holiness."

"May I ask for a specific example?"

"Fat priests," Royce replied, "with fat purses, who lecture starving peasants on the dangers of gluttony and the merits of poverty." Turning on his heel, he strode back to the fire where Arik was roasting the rabbits on a makeshift spit.

"Oh dear God!" Jenny whispered a minute later, without realizing she had started fearing for the immortal soul of the very same man she'd just wished to perdition. "He must be a heretic!"

Friar Gregory shot her an odd, thoughtful glance. "If he is, he is an honorable one." Turning, he stared at the Black Wolf, who was crouching near the fire beside the giant who guarded him. In that same preoccupied, almost amused voice, he said softly, "A very honorable one, I think."

A
ll the next day, Jenny endured her husband's stony silence, while her mind whirled with questions that only he could answer, until in sheer desperation she finally broke down just before noon and spoke herself: "How long will this interminable journey to Claymore last,
assuming
that is our destination?"

"About three days, depending on how muddy the roads are."

Ten words. That was all he'd said in days!
No wonder he and Arik were so congenial
Jenny thought furiously, vowing not to give him the satisfaction of speaking to him again. She concentrated on Brenna, instead, wondering how she was faring at Merrick.

Two days later, Jennifer broke down again. She knew they must be nearing Claymore and her fears of what awaited her there were escalating by the minute. The horses were three abreast, moving down a country lane at a walk, with Arik riding in the middle and slightly ahead. She considered talking to Friar Gregory, but his head was bowed slightly forward, suggesting he might be at prayer, which is how he'd spent most of their journey. Desperate to talk about anything to take her mind off the future, she glanced over her shoulder at the man behind her. "What happened to all your men—the ones who were with us until we reached the priory?" she asked.

She waited for some answer, but he remained coldly silent. Pushed past the boundary of reason and caution by his cruel refusal even to speak to her, Jenny shot him a mutinous look. "Was that question too difficult for you, your grace?"

Her jeering tone pricked the cold wall of reserve Royce had carefully erected around himself to guard against the inevitable result of having her body pressed intimately against his for three endless days. Slanting her a heavy-lidded look, he considered the foolhardiness of opening up any sort of conversation with her and decided against it.

When he couldn't even be
angered
into speaking to her, Jenny suddenly saw a rare opportunity to enjoy herself at his expense. With childlike delight and well-concealed animosity, she promptly launched into mocking conversation
without
his participation. "Yes, I can see the question about your men has baffled you, your grace," she began. "Very well, let me find a way to make it simpler."

Royce realized she was deliberately mocking him, but his momentary irritation soon gave way to reluctant amusement as she continued her charming, reckless, one-way conversation with him:" 'Tis obvious to me," she remarked, giving him a look of false sympathy beneath her long, curly lashes, "that 'tis not lack of intelligence which causes you to stare at me so blankly when I question you about your men, but rather that your memory is failing! Alas," she sighed, looking momentarily crestfallen on his behalf, "I fear your advanced years are already taking their toll on your mind. But fear not," she told him brightly, sending him an encouraging look over her shoulder, "I shall keep my questions very, very simple, and I shall try to help you recall where you've put your misplaced men. Now then, when we arrived at the priory—you
do
recall the priory do you not?" she prompted, looking at him. "The priory? You know—the big stone building where we first met Friar Gregory?" she prompted again.

Royce said nothing; he glanced at Arik, who was staring straight ahead, impervious to everything, and then at the friar, whose shoulders were beginning to shake suspiciously as Jenny continued with sad gravity: "You poor,
poor
man—you've forgotten who
Friar Gregory
is, haven't you?" Lifting her arm, she glanced brightly over her shoulder at Royce, pointing her long, tapered finger at the friar. "There he is!" she declared eagerly. "That man, right there, is
Friar Gregory
! Do you see him? Of
course
you do!" she answered, deliberately treating him like a backward child. "Now then, concentrate very, very hard, because the next question is more difficult: Do you remember the
men
who were with you when we arrived at the priory where Friar Gregory was?" Helpfully, she added, "There were about forty of them.
Forty
," she emphasized with extreme courtesy, and to Royce's disbelief, she actually held up her small hand before his eyes, splayed out five fingers, and politely explained, "Forty is this many—"

Royce tore his gaze from her hand, swallowing back his laughter.

"And this many more," she daringly continued, holding up her other hand. "And this many more," she repeated thrice more, holding up ten fingers each time. Now!" she finished triumphantly, "can you remember where you
left
them?"

Silence.

"Or where you sent them?"

Silence.

"Oh dear, you're worse off than I thought," she sighed. "You've
lost
them completely, haven't you? Oh well," she said, turning away from him in frustration at his continued silence, as her momentary delight at mocking him was demolished by a burst of anger. "Don't worry overmuch! I'm certain you'll find other men to help you steal innocents from abbeys and slaughter children, and—"

Royce's arm tightened suddenly, jerking her back against his chest, and his warm breath in her ear sent unwanted tingles up and down Jenny's spine as he bent his head and said softly, "Jennifer, you merely try my patience with your mindless chatter, but you test my temper with your jibes, and
that
is a mistake." The horse beneath them responded instantly to the slackened pressure from his master's knees and instantly slowed his pace, letting the other horses move ahead.

But Jenny didn't notice; she was so deliriously relieved by the sound of a human voice, and conversely furious that he'd denied her even that for so long, that she could hardly contain her ire. "Good heavens, your grace, I shouldn't wish to rile your temper!" she said with deliberately exaggerated alarm. "Were I to do that, I might suffer a horrible fate at your hands. Let me think, now—what dire things could you do to me? I know! You might compromise my reputation. No," she continued as if considering the matter impartially, "you couldn't do that because you compromised it beyond recall when you forced me to stay with you at Hardin without my sister there. I have it!" she cried, inspired. "You might force me to lie with you! And then, you could arrange it so that everyone in two countries knows that I shared your bed! But no, you've already done those things—"

Each barbed word she spoke pricked Royce's conscience, making him feel like the barbarian he was oft called, and still she continued hammering at him with her words:

"I have it at last! Having done all that to me, there's only one thing left to do."

Unable to stop himself, Royce said with feigned unconcern, "And that is?"

"You could marry me!" she exclaimed in pretended triumphant delight, but what had begun as a jibe directed at him, now seemed to Jenny like a painful joke on her, and her voice shook with bitterness and pain, despite her valiant effort to speak in the same bright, satirical vein as she continued: "You could marry me, and in so doing, take me away from my home and country and bind me to a life of public humiliation and scorn at your hands. Yes, that's it! It's
exactly
what I deserve, is it not, my lord, for committing the unspeakable crime of walking up a hill near an abbey and putting myself in the way of your marauding brother!" With sham disdain she said, "Why—considering the enormity of my crime—having me drawn and quartered is much too kind! It would end my shame and misery prematurely. It would—"

She gasped as Royce's hand suddenly swept up from her waist and gently cupped the side of her breast in a caressing gesture which shocked her into speechlessness. And before she could recover, he put his cheek against her temple, and spoke in her ear, his gruff whisper strangely gentle. "Cease, Jennifer. That's enough." His other arm went around her waist, drawing her back against his chest. Clasped against his body with his hand caressing her breast, surrounded by his reassuring strength, Jenny succumbed helplessly to the unexpected comfort he was offering her now, when she faced the terrors of an unknown, and unkind, future.

Numbly, she relaxed against him, and the moment she did, his arm tightened, drawing her nearer, while the hand that had been caressing her breast slid forward to softly cup the other one. His unshaven jaw rubbed lightly against her temple as he turned his head and touched his warm lips to her cheek, his hand sliding slowly, endlessly over her breasts and midriff, soothing and caressing, while the hand that curved around her waist clasped her tightly between his muscular thighs. Faced with a future that held nothing but misery and fright, Jenny closed her eyes, trying to hold her fears at bay, and gave in to the fleeting sweetness of the moment, to the poignant sensation of feeling safe again, of being surrounded by his body, protected by his strength.

Telling himself that he was doing no more than comforting and distracting a frightened child from her woes, Royce brushed the heavy hair from her nape and kissed her, then he trailed his lips lightly up her neck to her ear, nuzzling her there before he brushed his mouth against the creamy skin of her cheek. Without realizing what he was doing, his hand slid upward, over her breast to the warm flesh above her bodice, then it delved down to cup the sweet breast beneath. And that was his mistake—whether from protest or surprise, Jennifer squirmed against him, and the sliding pressure of her buttocks against his loins ignited the very desire he'd been fighting to control for three long days… three endless days of having her hips between his thighs and her breasts tantalizingly exposed to his view, within reach of his hand. Now those three days of suppressed desire erupted, raging through his veins like wildfire, nearly obliterating his reason.

With an effort of will that was almost painful, Royce dragged his hand away and lifted his lips from her cheek. But the moment he did, his hand, which seemed to have developed a will of its own, lifted to her face. Taking her chin between his thumb and forefinger, he turned her face and tipped it up to his, gazing down into the bluest eyes on earth—a child's eyes filled with confusion and bewilderment, while the gist of her words revolved around and around in his brain, stabbing at a conscience that would no longer keep silent.
I put myself in the way of your marauding brother by walking up a hill
…
and for that crime I deserve my fate
...
You compromised my reputation. You forced me to lie with you and then you humiliated me in the eyes of two countries. But I deserve to be drawn and quartered
—
Why? Because I put myself in the way of your marauding brother
...
All because of that
…
only that

Without thinking what he was doing, Royce tenderly laid his fingers against her smooth cheek, knowing he was going to kiss her, no longer certain he'd had any right to berate her.
All because I put myself in the way of your marauding brother
…

A plump quail ran out of the woods, dashing across the road in front of the horse. Beside the road, the bushes parted and a boy's round, freckled face peered out, his eyes slowly scanning the brush on his right for the quail he'd been illegally stalking through Claymore's woods. Puzzled, his gaze retraced the same path, moving slowly to the left now… along the road… directly in front of him… then a few feet further. His brown eyes riveted in alarm on the powerful legs of a great black warhorse just to his left. His heart thumping with fear that he'd been caught poaching, Tom Thornton reluctantly followed the legs of the stallion upward, past its wide, satiny chest, praying hard that when he looked at the rider's face he'd not be staring into the cold eyes of the castle bailiff—but no—this rider wore golden spurs, which signified his knighthood. With relief, Tom also noted the man's leg was very long and very muscular—not fat like the bailiff's leg. Tom heaved a sigh of relief, glanced up and almost screamed in terror as his eyes riveted on the shield hanging beside the knight's leg—a shield emblazoned with the dreaded symbol of a snarling black wolf with white fangs bared.

Tom turned to flee, took a step, then checked the motion, and cautiously turned back. 'Twas said the Black Wolf's knights were coming to Claymore, and the Wolf himself was going to reside in the great castle there, he remembered suddenly. And if so, the knight on the horse could possibly be… might actually be…

With hands that shook from a combination of terror and excitement, Tom reached for the bush and hesitated, trying to recall every description he'd heard of the Wolf. Legend had it that he rode a huge stallion as black as sin, and that he was so tall men had to lean back to see his face—the warhorse in the road was
definitely
black, and the man who rode him had the long, powerful legs of a very tall man. It was also said, Tom remembered excitedly, that on his face, near his mouth, the Wolf bore a scar in the shape of a C—put there by a wolf he killed with his bare hands when he was but a boy of eight and the animal attacked him.

Excited at the thought of the envy he'd enjoy were he to be the first to actually set eyes on the Wolf, Tom parted the leaves and peered out and stared straight at the man's dark face. There, beneath the stubble, near the corner of his mouth—there was… a scar! In the shape of a C! His heart hammering wildly, he stared at the scar, then he remembered something else and tore his gaze from the Wolf's face. Glancing eagerly up and down the road, he searched expectantly for the fair-haired giant called Arik—the giant who was said to guard his master day and night, and who carried an axe with a handle thick as a tree trunk.

Failing to catch sight of the giant, Tom quickly turned his gaze back for a longer study of the entire, famous man, and this time he took in the entire picture before him—a picture that made his mouth drop open in shock and disbelief: The Black Wolf, the most fierce
warrior in all England—in the
world
—was sitting atop his mighty warhorse, with a
girl
cradled in his arms—holding her as tenderly as a
babe
!