Authors: Carolyne Cathey
He panted hot and rapid against her dampened skin. Wet
trails tickled and cooled, reminders of his ardent labors. Then he caressed
his tongue in a circle on the scar around her nipple and she gasped, pressing
her breast toward his incredible mouth.
"You seduce me, Lady Rochelle?"
If only she knew how.
He teased her nipple to a hard bead and a mystical
pressure expanded from out of her chest until she hovered above herself.
"We engage in an erotic battle of wills, my
falcon. What lusty acts might you agree to in your maneuverings for my
submission?"
Her fortitude faltered at what he hinted. And yet he
erred when he called her a falcon. She felt as a moth drawn to his flame, her
heartbeat the thrum of her wings. His heat drew her towards him. His enticing
heat.
She felt him slide down between her thighs.
"And I have yet to explore your silken body
revealed by your tossed hem, your tempting flesh that guides me, lures me, to
taste your womanly essence."
His tongue touched her bared thigh and circled a
tortuous path toward her indecently high skirt. "Soft. So soft."
Heat slid from his erotic intimacy up through her
melting womanhood and forced a weak cry of ecstasy from her chest Surely he
didn’t intend to . . .
Of a sudden he ceased and she whimpered a protest. She
heard loud thuds, a male voice, mumbled words. In the haze of her vision she
saw Becket push to his feet as he jerked down her skirt, then turn and stand in
front of her as if to shield her from view. Her moth-like spirit dived and she
had to swim upward from a deep pool.
Becket spun to face her again, his eyes flames of fury,
the keys in his shaking fist.
"You are a master, Lady Rochelle."
"In truth?" And yet he hadn't meant a
compliment. Dread slid over her flesh like the brush of death. Struggling to
clear her clouded thought, she pulled her bodice together and pushed her spine
against the wall. She couldn't see past Becket's body to whomever stood at the
door, but Becket's enraged expression screamed he wished he could strangle her.
He shook the keys in front of her eyes. "You
almost seduced me into believing you possessed an innocent soul."
"I don't understand. I know I let myself into
your chamber, but---"
"Gaston. He has escaped. Aided by a woman. The
guard heard the swish of skirts before someone attempted to crush his skull.
And of all the women here, only you would have desperate enough cause to free
that butcher. You warned me you would use any source, any power, to defeat
me."
Reality of his accusation and the consequences, slammed
into her mind like an iron bar. His eyes shimmered his hatred and held her a
doomed prisoner.
"Lady Rochelle, you realize I must punish you.
After I am finished with you, you will wish you hadn't played this dangerous
game."
He would kill her.
C
HAPTER
E
IGHT
C
atch her. Kill her.
Catch her. Kill her.
Rochelle's heart pounded the certainty as she lifted
her skirt and waded through the stream as icy as Becket's soul. She scrambled
up the rocky side of the mountain toward the nightmarish cave.
When Becket had confronted her about Gaston, she had
darted past him and a giant of a man who had pressed his hand to the back of
his head as if injured. And now her lungs hurt. Her sides ached. And
somewhere behind her, Becket followed. But how far?
Scraped and bleeding, she yanked her wet hem out from
under her feet and limped past a boulder to the crest of the hill. She froze.
The view. The spectacular, moon-bathed view. Rochelle
pressed her hand against the stitch in her side, gasping cold air into her
lungs as she wandered to the edge of the cliff.
The DuBois valley sprawled between the Pyrenees
mountains and the Garonne River as a herald of Spring, of hope reborn---patches
of renewing pastures, tilled fields already sown with seed, row upon row of
budding grape vines that shone in the moonlight like a fan of silver streamers
eager for a May Pole. The river cascaded down the face of the mountain and
greeted her with inappropriately-joyous melody. The chill wind kissed her
scratches and wrapped the damp skirt around her ankles as if to encourage her
to pause, to allow the beauty to soothe her bruised body, her bloodied spirit.
Before the magnificence wrenched tears from her soul,
Rochelle turned toward the black misshapen entrance to the cave, a ghoul's
mouth in a fossilized scream of terror. Except now, the mouth appeared hungry,
eager to swallow her forever into its bowels. Rochelle shuddered. She hated
that murky hellhole. And she had no torch to reveal what horrid creatures
lurked beyond the moonlight. And yet, Pierre . . .
Rochelle took a hesitant step toward the cave.
Something moved inside. Tingles prickled her nape like frantic spiders. She
stilled in wait for another movement but heard nothing more than her panted
breaths.
Becket had forced her to this dangerous pass. She
clutched her bodice together to ward off the chill and spun to feast her eyes
once more upon the land she loved. A tearing agony shafted through her heart.
Then anger. The land's refusal to capitulate to winter shone as an example for
perseverance. Surrender this?
Never
. She raised a defiant fist toward
the heavens.
"This I vow, Sire Becket. DuBois is mine. I will
do aught to destroy you."
"Even to releasing Gaston?"
“Becket!”
She whirled and took a step back---onto air! Her
scream rent through the valley, then she felt a jerk on her wrist and she
jolted against his chest.
"You do not escape me so easily, my traitorous
falcon. I have a more creative punishment planned for you."
His too-controlled threat rammed a fist into her
stomach. She had run because she feared he would kill her. Now she feared he
wouldn't. Unable to stand on her boneless legs, she held onto the steel of his
arms and concentrated on her next breath. Somehow, she must reach the oblivion
of the cave before the devil exacted revenge.
"Think on this as you dwell behind cloistered
walls, Rochelle. Because of your treachery, many you know and love will die in
the battles over DuBois and Moreau, for Gaston will seek retribution and
reclamation, and I will never relinquish what is mine."
She pushed for freedom, but he shackled her against his
body with his arms. Too weak to fight, she rested her forehead on his chest as
hard as his stone-like heart. "I didn't release Gaston."
"Then who?"
"Perhaps one of his men."
"In skirts?"
"Mayhap one of their doxies. Many women are
foolish enough to do a man's bidding despite the idiocy of the command."
"My point exactly. Especially if she is
desperate."
"I may be desperate, but not dull-witted."
She lifted her chin and her heart faltered. He seemed
as an invincible Roman god. The moon's rays sculpted his down-tilted face,
casting his eyes in shadow, bathing his forehead, cheekbones, and the
Romanesque line of his nose in silver glow.
"If you would have me believe you, Lady Rochelle,
then prove your honesty. Tell me why, out of all the caves on the land, you
ran here."
He tested her. Did he know of the secret passageway?
And yet, he might not. Her gaze flicked to the entrance, then away. "I
love the view."
"How foolish of me. I should have realized the
vista is of primary importance when fleeing from your enemy." He shook
his head as if disappointed. "'Tis but truth hidden within truth. A
female trait of which you are a master."
She wrenched from his hold. "If 'tis a female
trait, then shall I give you a gown to don? You hide the truth beneath so many
mysteries you could qualify as one of the hated English. Open
your
soul, knight. Reveal
your
secrets."
Becket stilled as if caught off-guard. Then he curved
a false grin. "I also love the view."
He gestured to indicate their surroundings. "In
truth, I consider this location a symbol of womankind." He roamed a slow
gaze to the wet hem of her gown, then up to her ripped bodice. "The evil
and the good as one enticing whole."
She clutched at the open edges of her gown, but as if
to verify his power he clamped his hands over hers, fire over ice.
"The rows of vines, her tresses. The rim we stand
upon, her breasts."
He stroked his callused thumbs over the indecent swell
of her partially exposed bosom in another of his unusual tortures. The peculiar
heat she had felt before seeped into the core of her fear. She stepped back.
He pulled her forward.
"The Pyrenees foothills, her arms that embrace the
castle like her beloved child."
She shoved against his grip, but he forced apart her
hands and seared his focus on her widening bodice. The newly-birthed heat sank
a frightening path to her womanhood. He had too much effect on her feelings.
She must escape his touch, escape him.
He ran his tongue over the silvered fullness of his
lower lip as if remembering his decadent torment of her but moments ago.
"The cave, the dark mysteries of her heart that lure a man to brave the
dangers of discovery and then learns too late he is forever lost."
Torn between the urge to kiss him and the urge to run,
she twisted for freedom, but he pressured her arms to her sides and captured
her with his dark gaze as potent as his strength.
"
Non
, 'tis as with the land, Lady Rochelle.
Man's mission is not to be tamed by woman, but to tame, to control."
He squeezed her hands as though to prove his power,
then released her, rubbing his palms on his pourpoint as if to cleanse the feel
of her from his skin.
"The world through a man's eyes." Cursing
her voice as unsteady as her legs, she crossed her arms over her chest and
lifted her attention to the stability of the vista, determined to behave as
though unaffected. "I have always seen the land as the giver of
life."
"And are they not the same? She is capable of
giving birth, and death. The stream that flows is sustenance from her breast to
feed the land."
"Or the flow of her tears. And yet, her cave-like
heart is not so mysterious. With persistence, a man might find the pathway to
a secret treasure and find himself home, at last."
"Or in a grave."
"So little faith in the fairer sex, Sire Becket.
Scorned by a woman?"
She glanced over her shoulder and saw that he studied
the entrance as if he watched for someone. He met her gaze, then turned away
from her without acknowledging her question. Another secret, this of a past
love. And yet she must worry about Pierre, not possible wrongs against her
adversary.
Moonlight lingered on Becket like a devoted lover as he
picked something dark from the ground, then draped a cloak around her
shoulders. Stunned with the realization that he had not only arrived at the
bluff before her, but had stopped for a mantel on the way, she crossed the
fabric over her breasts, thankful for the warmth, the coverage.
He quirked a smug grin. "Your veiled truths are
like that cloak. I know what lies beneath."
He knew she had come to that cave because of the secret
passageway.
But she must be certain. If she escaped
into the labyrinth and braved the dangers to reach Pierre, Becket might secure
the hidden door
and
the cave entrance, entombing her to a slow death.
"So, knight, beyond refuge, what is my supposed
purpose here?"
"You meet Gaston to plot my overthrow."
"I told you---"
"Lies."
"That still doesn't answer why
this
cave,
knight. Be more specific with your flawed surmisal."
His silence screamed the truth. He knew of the secret
tunnel. She must find another way to rescue Pierre. Or even better, convince
him to allow her to stay. She studied the valley, a reminder of her dreadful
loss should she fail.
"Sire Becket, I request the rights of a hermit to
dwell in a cave on the boundaries of DuBois. You will never see me or be
bothered by me again. I only request one person to stay with me. He---"
Becket grabbed her arm and she stifled a scream. His
eyes blazed his fury. "You dare request a lover after you know my
feelings on the matter? Now I understand why your frantic desperation not to
wed me. You had already chosen another. You play me for a fool with your act
of innocence. Who has stolen from me what is mine to take?"
"You misunderstand."
"Who is your love, Lady Rochelle? Gaston? Is he
slow in coming to your rescue?"
She jerked against the iron band of his hold.
"Leave me be!"
"Who?" His eyes narrowed. "The third
conspirator? Curse you to perdition." Her head jerked as he shook her.
"His name."
"I but speak of a child---not mine---but he is
someone I can hold when I am lonely and with whom I can share my life."
Relief tangled with suspicion within his dark eyes and
he relaxed his clamp. "You speak of Pierre? What is this odd attachment
you have with that servant lad?"
She attempted a dry swallow as she searched her mind
for a safe answer. "I rescued him during the plague when he slipped from
his barely-dead mother’s womb. I brought him here to the keep. He survived,
but he is frail and needs my care."
"Hah. As frail as a young goat eager to butt
heads."
"'Tis an illusion. Most times he is well, then of
a sudden, he falls to the earth and writhes, and I know not how to help him.
The other women believe him bewitched and refuse to aid him, so I am his only
hope. But he's someone I can love, and who will love me in return."
"Do you truly believe I would leave you in the
wilderness, available to any lust-driven male who sniffs you out? Never. You
go to the convent." He released her and stepped back.
Tears welled and blurred his image. She turned her
face toward the view, determined to hide her weakness. "I don't
understand why King Jean has allowed you to do this to one of his loyal
supporters. My father fought beside his uncle, King Phillip, at
Crécy
.
Did you?"
He didn't answer for a moment, then he cleared his
throat. "I fought in the blood-bath."
"How unfortunate you weren't one of the thousands
of French soldiers slain that day. 'Tis rumored the English used a sorcerer to
win."
"'Twas not sorcery but much like your failure upon
this bluff: abysmal planning, the poorest of battle sites, disastrous leadership."
"Your concept of me is no surprise, but you
criticize the crown?"
"I criticize the ineptness. Did you know that
while ten thousand French soldiers died that day, the English lost less than a
hundred? 'Tis undeniable---King Edward won a great victory at Crécy. 'Twas a
military revolution, a triumph of firepower over armor."
Rochelle stared at him, stunned by his support for the
enemy.
"Don't look at me, thus, Lady Rochelle. I but
admire that which is well executed, no matter which faction."
Nausea roiled her stomach. "Do you also admire
their well-executed
chèvauchèes?
Their murderous raids through the
French countryside?"
He shrugged. "'Tis unpleasant, for certain. But
'tis the custom of warfare to wreak as much damage as possible on both towns
and country in order to weaken the enemy government. War is ugly, Lady
Rochelle, no matter which side of the bloody battle-line one stands."
"Unpleasant. And where were you during the
unpleasant
English
chèvauchèe
in '36?"