Linda Barlow (3 page)

Sweet Jesu. That voice... those eyes... the way he walked... surely she knew him. He didn't look much like Will: he was taller, his body was leaner, and his features were more finely chiseled. But the family resemblance was there.

Her heart kicked into a gallop. "Roger?" she whispered.

His dark eyes narrowed for an instant as he came to the bottom of the chancel steps. He proceeded to assess her thoroughly, head to toe, in a manner that made her flush. No, she thought. It couldn't be. Roger had never looked at her like that. The last time he’d seen her, though, she had been a child.

His eyes came back to hers, and he had begun to smile. "God's blood! 'Tis Alexandra Douglas, all grown up. Good day to you, milady." The last word was said affectionately as he mounted the steps in two quick strides and opened his arms for her.

She threw herself at him in a most undignified manner, her voice echoing against the disapproving walls of the church. "Roger! I don't believe it. It's been years and years. 'Tis high time you came home!"

He tipped her chin up with one sun-browned finger and kissed her upturned mouth in a lusty manner that was new to her. It happened so swiftly that she hardly had time to note the unfamiliar tingle that shivered along her nerves at the feel of his lips pressing on hers. It was pleasant—very pleasant—but before there was time to savor the moment, he set her back to look at her. "God's bones, but you've improved. I remember you as a short, skinny little baggage."

She grinned at him from her new vantage point of only a few inches shorter than he. She was tall. Most women would come no higher than his shoulders. "You look different too." She considered the faint lines around his eyes and mouth. "Rather cynical and world-weary."

"How perceptive." He touched a finger to the end of her nose. "You're not world-weary yet, I trust?"

"Heavens, no," she said cheerfully. "How could I be? I've hardly even lived. Already a widow though never a bride—" She stopped speaking as the thought struck her that he might not know of his brother's death. He might have come here to visit the grave of his beloved mother. She felt her bones shake with the dread of telling him.

She glanced uneasily back toward the crypt. Watching her, the look in his eyes sobered, and he said, "You were praying for Will, I take it?"

"So you know?"

"That my brother is dead and I'm the new heir? Aye, I heard the news when I came through London on my way home." He left her to move closer to the stone over the crypt. "Poor old Will. Sensible, sober, and sane by all accounts. I never expected to look upon his grave."

He spoke without emotion, and his coolness startled her. She remembered him hot, over-brimming with feeling. But that had been nigh on a decade ago. Ten eventful years, if there was any truth to the rumors that occasionally reached Roger's family about his activities. Since that day long ago when Roger had run away to sea, he had been a mariner, an initiate in a monastery, a Christian warrior defending the True Faith from the Mohammedan infidels, a captive of the Turks in Stamboul, and finally a sea captain skippering his own trading vessel from port to port in the Middle Sea. Although Alexandra had never given up hope of seeing him again, he had been gone for so long that it had begun to seem unlikely that he would ever return. Yet, without warning, here he was. His father was sick, his elder brother was dead without issue, and Roger stood to inherit extensive lands, a title, and a fortune.

"Weren't you and Will supposed to marry and unite our estates? God's blood, I'd forgotten that. Was that what you meant? You're not really his widow, are you, Alix?"

His use of her old nickname made it seem as if no time at all had passed since they had last met. "No. We had a pre-contract but no actual wedding. We were to have been joined next spring."

He hesitated briefly before putting his next question. "Pre-contracts are binding. Was your union consummated?"

"No." She spoke without embarrassment. He was not the first to wonder about this. Many young couples considered the pre-contract a license to engage in lovemaking, but Will had never pressured her to anticipate the formal ceremony. "There'll be no posthumous heir to supplant you."

"That's not why I asked. I was only thinking of you. I don't even want the bloody barony."

This was an intriguing disclaimer. She wondered if it were true. If so, why had he returned so fast?

"We weren't lovers." Smiling ruefully, she added, "I'm a virgin."

Roger's eyebrows went up, and his dark eyes gleamed with amusement. "God's wounds, Alix, you say it the way someone might say, 'I'm a leper.'"

She laughed. The stone wall echoed the sound, and she endeavored to affect a more solemn mien. Surely both the subject and the levity it induced were inappropriate in this particular setting. But Roger seemed intent to pursue the matter:

"The marriage could have been solemnized long before this—you're certainly old enough. Was the disinclination on my brother's side or on yours?"

She began to feel a trifle uncomfortable. Disinclination? Was that what it had been? "Nobody seemed to be in any particular hurry. I didn't love him, if that's what you're asking. Not that way."

"And he? Did he love you 'that way'?"

"No. It wasn't in his nature, I don't think. He wasn't passionate. He wasn't at all like—" she stumbled a little "—like most people." She had been about to say "like you."

Roger's eyes were making another survey of her body, skimming over the small swell of her breasts under the laces of her square-necked bodice, the narrow span of her waist, which was accented by the tight leather girdle that bound it; and her long legs, disguised by her voluminous kirtle and overskirts. Her slim ankles, visible because she wore her skirts a few finger-widths shorter than was proper, so she could walk quickly, or upon occasion, run, received his full consideration. She tossed her head in what she hoped was a careless gesture. She wasn't accustomed to such attentions.

When his gaze returned to her face, she was smiling bravely. "I feel like a slave girl you're contemplating buying. They do buy slaves in the Mediterranean, don't they? How much would you give for me?"

"If you were on the auction block, you wouldn't be wearing so many confining garments, and neither would you be looking so saucily into my eyes. You would be properly intimidated, Alix." He met her saucy grin with one of his own. A moment later, though, he looked back at the gravesite, and his merriment faded. "You and Will weren't in the least suited. You were marrying out of a sense of duty. Obeying the dictates, no doubt, of my honored father."

The subtle mockery underlying his words reminded her of all the strife between the baron and his second son. She wanted to ask him if he still blamed his father for Lady Catherine's death, but she couldn't bear to open his old wounds, especially not here, where his mother was buried. Instead, she returned his appraising stare. He was older, that was certain. He looked as if he might be thirty or so, instead of twenty-four. His body was lean and hard, and his skin darker than she remembered it, due, no doubt, to the Mediterranean sun. He was broad across the shoulders, although by no means brawny, and slim at the waist and hips. Lithely built and graceful, while at the same time uncompromisingly masculine.

And he was handsome—rather strikingly so. His brown eyes were large and thickly lashed; expressive eyes, eyes that could fix upon you and draw your soul out of your body. And his mouth had an undeniably sensual twist to it. Defying fashion, he wore no beard, which further accented the well-shaped, angular lines of his face.

Alexandra also noted that he seemed prosperous: his doublet and hose were richly fashioned, if rather severe in style. His sword belt, boots, and gloves were of the finest leather, but the only true ostentation about him was found in the fat jewels around his Spanish collar; they were deep in color and flashed fire when he moved.

He cocked his head a little to one side. "You like what you see?" He was obviously amused by her scrutiny.

"I haven't decided. I believe I expected you to be much fiercer. A gold earring or two and a scimitar held between your teeth."

"God's blood, you make me sound like a Mediterranean corsair. Is that what everybody imagines I've been up to all these years?"

"Naturally. You have a colorful reputation. Kindly don't disabuse anyone. Alan and I have taken great trouble to make a legend of you."

"Is that so?" One of his hands reached out and tugged a lock of her thick red hair, which, as was usual at this time of the day, was coming loose from its somewhat untidy braid. The sensation of his fingers whispering through her hair sent a series of curious little quakings through her. "On further consideration I'll wager that I could make my fortune with you in the Mediterranean slave markets. Red hair is rare and much prized in that part of the world. And if you're really still a virgin at eighteen, that'll send the price soaring."

Alexandra managed to jerk her head free without hurting herself unduly. He was jesting, of course, but hadn't it occurred to him that all her life she had been the intended bride of the heir to the barony of Whitcombe? Now that Will was dead, Roger was the heir.

He cast a more somber look around the church. "Let's get out of this dismal place, shall we?"

Perhaps he wished to mourn his brother in private. She chastised herself for not having thought of this sooner. "Would you like to be alone for a bit? I can wait for you outside."

But he stepped away from the altar and, taking her arm, steered her down the steps. "I've had enough of churches, thank you. They're little more than tombs. What's wrong with this one, incidentally?" He looked curiously at the bare walls as he walked her down the center aisle. "Where are the candles, the plate, the altar cloth, the sacred hangings, and the priests, for that matter? Has my father tried to save his immortal soul by erecting a newer, more elaborate house of worship?"

"No. He's trying to save his soul by practicing Luther's heresy. Or is it Calvin's? All religious articles that smack of popery have been removed from this church. Hardly anyone comes here anymore. They hold Scripture readings every day in the great hall at Whitcombe Castle."

"How very interesting. My father used to adjust his religion to suit the times, along with anyone else with any sense. Monasteries out, Book of Common Prayer in, but this chapel always retained its popish flavor. Surely that would be the wisest course now that Bloody Mary's so avidly burning Protestants at the stake."

"The more martyrs the ecclesiastical courts burn, the more converts the dissenters make. It's a kind of stubbornness, I think."

"Have you joined them, Alix?"

She clenched her fingers, thinking of Will's unshriven soul. "No. No, I haven't, despite Mr. Lacklin's determined efforts to convince me of the error of my ways."

Roger stopped short by the old stone baptismal font; she could feel his fingers biting into her arm. "Mr. Lacklin? Francis Lacklin?"

"Yes. You know him?"

There was a long silence. Roger seemed to have turned in upon himself. "Aye," he said finally. "Is he here?"

"He's at Whitcombe, yes. He's the one who persuaded your father and Lady Dorcas to become such faithful Protestants. Now he's working on Alan, who is proving to be less malleable than usual. No doubt he'll be delighted to start in on you too." She glanced down at his hand on her arm. "You're hurting me."

He released her, his lips curving briefly in an apologetic smile. But he seemed preoccupied. She was seized with curiosity, not only about his interaction with the formidable Francis Lacklin but also about everything else in his wild and dramatic life. For the first time since Will's accident, she was able to think about something other than the bitter power of death. She felt her spirits leap as they stepped into the sunlight. With Roger home, she was sure they would soon see the last of Francis Lacklin and of everything else that smelled of hypocrisy and gloom.

* * *

Instead of returning through to her own home at Westmor Abbey, as the converted monastery was still called, Alexandra decided to accompany Roger to Whitcombe Castle. The homecoming of the prodigal was an event she didn't want to miss.

Leading his horse, they walked the mile together over the rolling fields toward the old castle. She besieged him with questions about his life abroad, which he answered good-naturedly. He hadn't been a slave, although he had been captured; he had toiled briefly as a clerk for a wealthy Turkish merchant in Smyrna, a man who became his friend and, later, his business partner. He'd learned piloting and navigation while at sea, and he'd talked his mentor into allowing him to lead a trading voyage from Turkey to Marseilles. "After that the challenge was in my blood. I had a light, fast ship built, hired an expert crew, and thereafter made two or three runs a year. Eventually I acquired two additional ships, which are still operating, engaging in trade."

"It sounds like an exciting life."

"It has its rewards," he conceded, his dark eyes dancing.

She supposed the rewards included a woman in every port and his own personal harem back in Turkey. She imagined all those women, each exotically beautiful with black hair and almond-shaped eyes.

"Why did you give it up to return to this gray and damp climate?" As she spoke, she brushed a burnished curl out of her eyes. She wished she'd taken the trouble to dress more carefully today. Normally the state of her garb wouldn't bother her, but the women she had just conjured up for Roger came swathed in silken veils, cloth of gold, and curled slippers. None of them had the curse of red hair, nor were they quite so tall and flat-chested as she believed herself to be.