Linda Barlow (50 page)

"I hope it’s not something more ardent, for his sake."

"Back when I was trying to be noble, I thought he might be good for you. A far less dangerous match for you than me."

"I love Alan as a brother. I’ve always assumed he felt the same way about me."

He had kissed her fiery hair. "No man with any real blood in his veins could feel brotherly about you for long, love. You've turned into a very exciting woman. It is natural for a man to want to possess you. "

"Rot!" she had snorted, obviously—and rather endearingly—not believing him.

Reluctantly, he had asked one of the questions that had been haunting him: "What’s happened to Alan? Surely Geoffrey wouldn’t have dared to kill him?"

"No. He insisted that Alan was alive. I think he was telling the truth."

"Your father’s probably got Alan locked up somewhere. Geoffrey will have turned him over to the Crown in an attempt to salvage something from the debacle of my slipping through his fingers."

"My father won’t hurt Alan," she said, a bit uncertainly. "He regards him as a boy, too young for treachery."

"The Queen might see it differently." The idea that Alan might be suffering for the crimes that he and Francis had committed was dispiriting, to say the least.

It had also been hard to ask her what had happened in Geoffrey's bedchamber, but he needed to make her understand that nothing, however sordid, could alter his love for her one iota. And so he held her close and murmured, "About this attempted rape Geoffrey practiced upon you. When, during all the hectic events of the night, did he find time for that?"

She shivered, convincing him his instinct was right. This was a demon that must be exorcised. Now, at the start. "After the torture session. You're right, I think, that he must have been in a hurry. Mayhap it was that, and not my witch's hex, that prevented him from…" Her voice trailed off.

He rubbed her temples lightly with his thumbs. "Tell me. There's nothing you cannot share with me."

"His body and his touch made me so ill I thought I would vomit. 'Twas a defilement. He forced me to touch him, but he was cold, passionless, horrible. Like the snake you once told me he was. He couldn't... His manly parts were not so vital as yours..." She stopped again. "It makes me sick to remember."

"Then forget," he said swiftly, cursing Geoffrey under his breath.

"I was afraid you wouldn't want me anymore, after that monster had so debased me."

"The crime was his, not yours, and it does not debase you, beloved. Do you understand? Nothing could ever debase you. Your spirit is pure as fire, and it's that I love, although your sweet body is very dear to me also."

She smiled.

"I love you, Alix. Whatever harm he did, I will erase. I promise, my beloved," he said as he reverently renewed his courtship of her. "I promise."

* * *

Roger must have slept again after all, for it was full daylight when a loud pounding on his cabin door made him jerk upright in his bunk. Beside him, Alexandra rolled over and groaned. "Wake up, lass," he whispered to her. "'Tis well into a new day and we're both still abed. 'Tis not my usual habit, I assure you. My men probably think you've murdered me in here."

"Ha. If anyone's life was in danger last night, 'twas mine, not yours."

"Who brandished a dagger during the act of love? Who ravished whom?"

"I was defending myself. Leave it to a man to twist the truth," she added in feigned outrage. "I believe I shall put a hex on you."

He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. "You're a terror, poppy-top, you know that?" Laughing, he rose and strode stark naked to the door, opening it a crack. Tom Comstock, his surgeon, was standing there, with Daniel Bunty just behind him. Daniel looked belligerent, but Tom's sad eyes met his own serenely, as always.

"Francis?" Roger asked in sudden dread. While he'd been romping with the woman he loved, had Francis slipped into a solitary death?

"He's hanging on," Tom said. "That's not why we've come."

Roger untensed slightly and offered up a silent prayer of thanks. "Well then?"

"The young woman you're holding prisoner is a patient of mine. I wish to see her."

"Indeed?" Roger's eyebrows went up. "Well, I doubt that she'll receive you at the moment, gentlemen."

"You weren’t yourself last night," Daniel said. "What have you done to the lassie?"

"'Tis a little late for the two of you to be leaping to her defense," Roger returned with some amusement. "If you'd really been concerned for her welfare, you'd have found some way to restrain me last night."

At these words, both men looked alarmed, and Roger took pity on them. He looked back over his shoulder to where Alexandra was sitting up in bed with the bedclothes up to her chin and her long hair cascading wildly over the dark wool of his blankets. "There're two rather tardy knights of chivalry asking after your health, sweetling. What shall I tell them?"

Alexandra's voice came sweet and clear. "I am well, gentlemen, thank you."

"You mean you're there in that bed with him willingly?" Bunty asked, as Roger opened the door more widely.

"Oh yes. And I was beginning to think I'd never get here. It’s taken me an entire year to seduce him."

Bunty opened his mouth, then shut it again.

"But I thank you kindly for your concern," she added politely.

Mumbling to himself, Daniel Bunty left. Comstock stayed for another few minutes, long enough for Alexandra to smile at him and say, "You see, sir, I am better."

The physician's eyes moved silently from her radiant face to Roger's naked body. Roger frowned and reached for his clothes from the floor. "Don't go all priestly on me, Tom. I haven't beguiled her with honeyed promises if that's what you think." He sat down, pulled on a shirt and slung an arm around her shoulders, drawing her head against his throat. "The lady is no longer my prisoner. She is my betrothed wife."

Comstock nodded solemnly. "And when do you expect to marry?"

"As soon as possible." Tom Comstock was one of the few men who could make him feel uncomfortable. "Don't glare at me like that, Tom; you're worse than her father."

"I'm not glaring. You look infinitely better than you looked yesterday, both physically and spiritually. So does your lady. For that I am thankful."

"How are your other patients?" Alexandra asked.

"Alive. The boy is better and will live. The woman has a struggle on her hands. The next few hours will determine her fate. As for Francis, there's no change. No sign, yet, of infection, but he hasn't regained consciousness. The longer he drifts in the nether world, the worse his chances are."

"Roger should sit beside him and talk to him. It might help."

Comstock regarded her curiously. "It might indeed. How do you know that, mistress?"

"I have some training in the healing arts. Perhaps I can be of assistance to you in your infirmary."

"I would welcome your help."

"I'll dress and come at once."

"No," said Comstock with a smile. "This day is for you and your lover. The world will crowd in soon enough." He nodded to Roger. "You see? You were wrong. God is more just than you supposed."

"I like him," Alexandra said as the physician left.

Roger uttered a soft curse. Paradoxically, Tom's words had reminded him that apart from the private world of their love, there was little to be joyful for. "He’s a good man. Me, on the other hand, I don't deserve a woman like you. There's still so much you don't know about me. So much in my past that would hurt and disgust you."

"If you're referring to Celestine, your physician told me the truth of that yesterday morning. I know how she died. I probably understand her condition better than you do, in fact. Malplaced pregnancies are invariably fatal."

"She wouldn't have been pregnant if I hadn't insisted on bedding her. I was responsible for her, you see. Her brother had placed her in my care. She was fresh from a convent, for God's sake."

"You told me once that she was no virgin."

"It's true. Convent education or not, she was experienced and quite adept." He envisioned Celestine's lush, wanton body, heard her husky, liquid voice inviting him to love her. "She was young, but she had come early to her womanhood. I cannot even say with certitude that the child she lost was mine. Tom told me later that she may have already been pregnant when she came to me."

"Did you tell any of this to Geoffrey?"

"I tried. It only made him angrier. What brother believes his sweet young sister to be of easy virtue? Besides, the condition of her maidenhead is not the point. Virgin or whore, I should not have touched her. I used her without love. When she expected more than that, we fought. We argued bitterly on the night she died, and I feared, I still fear, that the anguish I caused her must have brought on her miscarriage."

"Did you beat her, strike her, harm her in any way?"

"No, of course not. Why would you think I—" He stopped, remembering last night. "No. I never hurt her the way I hurt you."

"You didn’t hurt me." Her voice was fierce. "Don’t you ever think that. You were very angry, but you did
not
hurt me, not at all."

"I intended to," he said, his voice shaking slightly. "There’s a vile, black part of me that wanted to."

"I think we all have that vile, black part somewhere deep down inside. You controlled it, though, which is all that counts. I’m sure you controlled it with your former lover, also."

"Does Geoffrey believe I beat her to death?"

"Yes, I think so. He had a witness, he said, someone on your ship who had reported to him that you used to abuse Celestine."

"Our arguments were probably overheard. There is little that remains a secret in the close quarters of a ship. His witness, no doubt, was Peters, that scum whom we believe to have been involved in the queen's 'accident' on the quayside. But he is wrong if he believes I ever raised a hand in violence to her. Still—"

"Still, nothing," she interrupted. "She did not die of a miscarriage, Roger, not precisely. She died because the child had taken root in the wrong part of her body. When it grew too large for the area in which it was confined, it ruptured through her tissues and caused the bleeding. The babe had no chance, and neither did she. Do you understand? It was an error of nature. You did not bring about her death."

"Except in placing the child within her in the first place."

"No, my love. Listen: the act of love is life-giving, not death-dealing. You yourself have taught me that. Anyway, the past is dead and your former lover is gone forever. Your present lover would be obliged if you applied yourself to the task of forgetting her!"

He smiled and touched her lips with his. "She is forgotten already, I promise you." They kissed sweetly, but just as Alexandra was beginning to melt against him once again, he turned his face away, still troubled. "Consider the present, then, if not the past. Look at my crimes against you—in front of witnesses, I abducted one of the queen's ladies at knife-point. The story will be all over London by now. The evil was mine, but 'twill be you who suffers. Your honor is blasted forever. Even our marriage will not erase the blot upon your name. You will never again, for instance, be received at court."

"I wasn't brought up to be a fine court lady. I had little joy in my months there, and I shall not miss that life."

"But what kind of life can I offer you? Between them, your father and Geoffrey will make sure I am branded a heretic and a traitor. I cannot return to England, Alix. Have you considered that?"

She had a moment's pain as she thought of her mother, her father, Merwynna, Alan. Quickly she put it aside. "Whither thou goest, I shall go," she quoted softly. "Thy country shall be my country, thy god shall be my god."

Roger stared at her, his brown eyes were shining with unshed tears. "I don't deserve you. I fear some unforeseen circumstance will arise to drive us apart."

"Must you always look at the dark side?" Seizing his hands, she placed them on her breasts. "Come. Show me again the fire and the light."

He needed no further urging. Moments later she knew the pleasure of his fierce yet tender loving. "Tell me you're mine," he demanded roughly, his carnal mouth poised just above hers while his strong body pinned her to the bed. "I want to hear you swear it."

"Forever, beloved," she promised as he joined his flesh to hers.

Chapter 28