Defiant (33 page)

“Aye.” Angus sounded indignant now. “’Twas my mam’s brew.” He turned to Jamie. “I’ve been guarding everything from sheep to soldiers for years now, as ye well know, and ne’er has someone slipped my net. I canna tell ye how . . . bleeding surprised I am. And sorry.” He hung his head again.

Jamie watched the huge, angry Scotsman prostrate himself on the altar of Eva’s escape. It was highly satisfying. In all these years of Angus refusing to do more than acknowledge the debt he owed Jamie for calling off King John’s wrath years back, and incurring much suspicion and some good debt of his own as a result, Angus had never truly exhibited sorrow. Or remorse. Until now. Eva was giving gifts even when she was gone.

“But I’ll tell ye, Lost, anyone would have been distracted by the lass.”

“Is that so?”

“Ye should have seen what she did on my table,” Angus said darkly.

“Your . . . table?”

Angus nodded grimly. “Aye. My mam.”

Jamie nodded blankly. “Your mother.”

Angus flung his hands around as if he were scattering seed. “Aye, my
mam.
On the table. Painted with fruits and the like. Fruit, Jamie. With her hands, and her”—he sputtered a bit—“her blessed mind, she drew the likeness of my dear mam right there, on the table.”

“Ah. She’s surprising,” Jamie murmured. He wanted to smile. Smile large, and not in amusement. In . . . happiness?

Angus stared. “
Surprising?
That’s like to calling her
charming.
”

“Is she not?”

Angus fixed Jamie in a glare, then planted his palms on the table and bent down. “Ye’re no’ comprehending, Lost. She’s no’
charming,
or
pleasin’
or whatever pale goods ye’re flinging about. She’s more’n all that. She’s, she’s . . .” He lifted a beefy palm to wave it about, as if pushing aside mists to find his word. Then he leaned close again, pinched his fingers an inch apart, and said,
“This close to being fycking magic.”

He straightened and gave a sharp tug down on the hem of his tunic, adding in grim tones, “You’d best take care, Lost.”

“We are far past that,” Jamie said, setting down his mug. “Go home, Angus. The debt is settled.”

But the Scotsman shook his head. “Not on yer addled life. The debt is no’ settled, and I’m weary of it hanging around my neck. I’m sticking till ’tis over.”

“What if I do not want you?” But he did. Angus’s sword arm would be an immeasurable boon. As would repairing the damage done to this old friendship.

Angus thrust out his chin. “I’m sticking, Lost. Like as not there’s a whole host of men wanting to wring yer stubborn neck come morn”—Jamie and Ry exchanged another, more guilty glance—“and I can help. I’ll start by finding the lass.”

Jamie shook his head, rising. “I know where she is. Ry, hie me for the watch at matins. And get another room for the night.”

And he went upstairs to wait for her.

B
ut she was already there. He knew it the moment he pushed open the door. Eva, waiting in the shadows, on the bench by the wall.

He scanned the rest of the darkness, then moved in and stood, arms crossed over his chest, shoulder against the wall. Eva remained sitting.

They looked at each other for a long minute.

“Allow me to be clear,” she said in her low, throaty non sequitur way. “I have changed my mind.”

He felt a smile begin deep inside. She spoke as if they were continuing some previous conversation. Perhaps they were, in her mind. Perhaps she’d been speaking to him ever since he left her. There was something debilitatingly potent about this.

He shifted his shoulder against the wall. “Changed your mind about what?”

“You.”

He gave a soft laugh. “Now that I have turned you over to mine enemy, now that you have escaped,
now
you have altered your opinion of me? Keep your original one, woman.” He shook his head.

“How many years have you served King John?” she asked quietly.

Ah, so they were to do this after all. “Fifteen.”

“How did you come to that position in the king’s household?”

“FitzWalter.”

“He placed you there, to kill the king.”

“Aye.”

“You did not do it.”

“Clearly.”

“Why not?” She sounded confused. But he did not want to talk politics. He wanted to lay her out on the bed and undo her.

“We have spoken of this already, Eva; there is always something worse. Anything else?”

“But you do not esteem John,” she insisted. “In your heart. This I can see.”

He was quiet for a moment. “No. I do not.”

“Why not?”

“He killed my parents.” She gave a little gasping laugh, but he ploughed through the sad, shocked sound, churning up details. “My father was killed when John was but Regent. He was the first to return with news that King Richard was not dead, only imprisoned, and in need of a very large ransom. John had been hoping to keep that news from spreading; he was next in line for the throne. My mother was murdered years later, after John was crowned. I do not know why he killed her.”

But you do,
he thought.

She considered him through the dim light of a single candle stub and the brazier, and the moonlight spilling through the shutters. “How could this be, Jamie?”

“How could what be?” he said, surprised to hear his voice gone hoarse.

“How can you serve the man who murdered your parents?”

He gave a twisted smile. “Revenge.”

She shook her head. “That makes no sense.”

“I have not achieved it yet. Is there more? Or are we done?”

She inhaled, lifting her chin. “Why did you leave me with Angus?”

He shoved off the wall. “Eva, this serves no purpose. You have not been wrong about me. You should go.”

“Why do they call you Jamie Lost?”

He reached for the pot of wine on the floor and poured a drink. He extended the cup. She glanced at it but did not reach.

“You came for Roger,” he said, setting the cup down and turning away. “Go get him. I will not stop you, not from anything you wish to do.”

“That is good.” She unfolded to her feet, and he saw she was wrapped in furs from the bed. “For I did not come back for Roger.”

Deep inside, in the dark pit of him, a small spark, which had been banked for many years, suddenly lit. Slowly she extended her hand, her pale arm moving through the firelit darkness like a dancer’s. On her palm hung five dusky red ribbons.

“What are these?”

“Ribbons.” He did not recognize his own voice.

“Why?”

“For your hair.” It was choked, the words forced through his twisted throat.

She nodded. The furs slipped off her shoulders and draped down her back, held only by her elbows and forearms. In the darkness, her body shone.

She moved through the room toward him, slow, languid, her eyes never leaving his, her body sinuous, her hair down, damp. His bath. She’d been naked in his bath.

“I am what I am, Eva,” he said hoarsely. “You have already seen the best of me, and ’tis not a high plain.”

“We shall see, shall we not?”

“We shall see what?” he almost growled.

“Who the good man is,” she said, and it was ridiculous, for it would never be him.

He felt a surge of . . . something with no name. Not anger, not arousal, not fury or vengeance or hate. He knew those things well, and it did not taste of them. It was not even desire. It was nothing he’d ever felt before, and it beat its hard, swooping wings in his head and chest, like a dragon taking wing. It hummed.

This was the thing that should not be loosed. All these years, holding it in, and now Eva was believing so boldly in something that was not within him. Instead, what
did
lie within, all the dammed ferocity, might come flying out, and never stop its rampage.

He held himself rigid, hands clenched at his sides. “Know this, Eva: you tread on dangerous earth. Do not be mistaken. I
will
take you, if you lay yourself out before me. But you are meant for something other. Better.”

She kept moving toward him. “Know this, Jamie: you are wrong about me. From the moment of my birth, I have been meant for maneuverings and much coin, but I am whelped from witchy blood. I do not want the things I have been made for. I want you.”

His blood was churning. She was only a step away now.

“You do not know what you are saying,” he muttered, but he stretched out his arm and ran the tip of a finger into the valley between her breasts. She tipped her chin up to exhale, her eyes on his. His desire surged hot and thick. He unclenched one hand and, splaying his fingers, cupped the curve of her spine, pulling her roughly forward. Their bodies collided, belly to belly, chest to chest, their gazes locked.

She pushed up on her toes, put her lips gently on his, and he kissed the breath of her next words:
“I choose you, Jamie.”

“Then know what you choose, Eva,” he replied hoarsely. “I
am Everoot.” And in that way, decades of secrets slipped out in a kiss.

He did not want to share them, but if desperate Eva was choosing, she should know what poison she drank.

“I am Everoot,” he said again, harshly, “and I shall never claim it. But you, I will claim.”

Silence and stillness, then she exhaled, a long,
realizing
breath. He wanted to kiss this breath too, but instead stood motionless, one hand splayed across her back, the other still hanging, fisted by his side.

Give her a moment
, he thought, feeling dizzy. A moment to understand the implications: that the Everoot heir was not dead; that the home Eva had lived in for years was in fact
Jamie’s
home; that the woman Eva had grown to love as a mother was
his
mother.

That Jamie had watched his father be murdered, then run and never returned. Never tried to return. Everything had been blanked out by the almost-blinding desire to wreak his vengeance on King John, only to be thwarted by the utter inability to follow through, because then the country truly
would
fall to wreck and ruin.

But at least King John would never have another Everoot pledge him fealty.

So let Eva see the blackness inside him, the charred emptiness of him. Then she could decide.

For a long moment, there was no response but for her breath touching his lips, her gray eyes thoughtful on his. Then she laid her palms on his cheeks and, smiling, whispered, “But of course. I see her in you. You look like your mother.”

He felt as though he were falling backward.

“Do not fear this, Jamie.” She kissed his chin. “I still choose you.”

His head roared with silence. It rolled through him like
a flash flood coming down a mountain.
Now
it was time to unleash. To claim. Eva.

He cupped the back of her head and kissed down her neck, lips, tongue, teeth, nipping, devouring, inhaling. She pulled him back up, wanting to kiss him, and it was like a flame laid to wood; they ignited.

He assaulted her mouth, not tasting but taking, sinking into all the private places of her, laying claim to the hot, hidden recesses of her mouth. This is what he’d wanted, in the tavern, against the tree, every time she smiled, his whole life. Her. Eva. In his hands. His.

He backed her up to the bed, never stopping his kiss, while she tugged impatiently at the ties of his braies. He moved into action. Sword belt, tunic, everything was scattered behind him until her knees hit the back of the bed and she sat. Swathed in furs, she scooted back as he yanked off his boots and hose, then put a knee on the bed, hot satisfaction and a sense of destiny thudding inside.

His gaze raked her body. She was stretched out before him like a gift. Curved waist, high, small breasts, long, muscular legs, and the tangle of dark curls between her legs brought him dangerously close to the edge. He dragged a testing fingertip across her belly, raising throaty whimpers and an arched spine. Her face, always so pale, was flushed with color, her eyes dark and filled with passion—and trust—as she reached for him.

He kissed her hand, then propped himself up on an elbow and stretched out beside her. She made an impatient sound and tugged on his shoulder.

“What is this, this
stopping
?” she complained.

“This is not stopping,” he disagreed, and slid a palm down the front of her, over her breasts, down her belly, down one shapely thigh, to her knee, a long, possessive swipe. She took a
sharp inbreath. He looked up. “You see?” He slid his hand back up to cup her breast.

“I think I see,” she whispered weakly.

“This is called
beginning
,” he explained, and bent to her breast.

He took a slow, lapping journey across her chest as her body arched for him. When he heard a whimper drift from her lips, he expanded his caress, exploring every inch of the hot weight of her breasts, licking and nipping, until she was lying across the forearm of his bent arm, her fingers threading through his hair. She whispered something as he slid his hand down the silky length of her leg and slicked his finger between her thighs, into her folds, a slippery swipe.

The breath exploded out of her and their mouths met in a hot, messy kiss. He dipped into her again, teasing with hot, slow strokes of his finger. At first he was gentle, holding himself in check, but when she lifted her hips to his touch, her knees spread, when she held his face between her palms and kissed him as madly as he was kissing her, open-mouthed, panting, he pushed her harder, faster. Her body rocked beside him, her breath hitched on each inhale, then she gave a ragged cry of his name.