Margaret Moore - [Maiden & Her Knight 03] (35 page)

He was no knight in shining armor coming to her rescue. He was the villain who had kidnapped her.

Yet he was not like Osburn, or Oswald, or his father. He was far better, even if he did not shine with virtue, like Connor. He was darker, more troubled, more full of pain and sorrow. His noble impulses, the true goodness that lived in him, had been pushed far below the surface. But like the diamonds that came from far inside the earth, those virtues were all the more precious and valuable when they finally came to light.

She had seen the worst of him, but here, now, she was seeing the best of him. He had seen her, too, as few ever had, including her family. In her duress, she had shown him the real Isabelle—the woman who was nothing like the demure sort most noblemen wanted for their wives. Yet she had seen admiration in his eyes even when she’d upbraided him and defied him and fought him. She had seen the tenderness there, too, as he had nursed her after he had carried her from that dungeon.

Her heart seemed to open and expand, and what had been a grudging admiration, gratitude and undeniable lust combined and melded into a new and powerful emotion that she could no longer hold back, or deny.

She loved him. She loved the bastard son of her family’s enemy, the man who had stolen her away—and who had brought her back again. She loved him with a greater depth of feeling than she had even suspected she possessed.

Now she understood why Allis had done what she had done to be with Connor. Why her father had been so stricken with grief at her mother’s death that it had drained the vibrancy from his own. Why a woman would leave her home and all its comforts to be with a man who stirred the embers of her heart into fierce and fiery flame. She could even understand, if not excuse, why Alexander’s mother had pined for her unworthy lover long after he had abandoned her.

But despite her love, there could not be a future together for them. Even if she begged for mercy for Alexander, she doubted he would get it. He had committed a serious offense, and Connor and every other nobleman in England who feared for their family’s safety from kidnap and ransom would demand that he be punished as an example. No doubt the safest place for him would be with Ingar and his men.

So they had no hope and no future together, except for this one night. After tomorrow, she would never see him again.

She would be home, she would be safe … and she would surely measure every man who came to ask for her hand against her memory of Alexander, and find him lacking.

But they had this one night.

As the sun sank below the trees on the other side of the stream, she took Alexander’s face between her hands. “I forgive you, Alexander.”

Then, as his eyes widened with astonishment, she pulled him to her and kissed him.

Deeply. Passionately.

She didn’t care if it was right or wrong. She didn’t wonder anymore how or why she could love him. She didn’t care about anything other than being with him, if just this once. Her whole body cried out for him, and her heart yearned to be with him completely.

If only just this once.

With a low moan, he clasped her to him, gathering her into his arms as he returned her kiss, passion for passion, need for need. Reveling in his powerful embrace, her hands slid slowly through his tangled hair and pulled him closer still, so that her breasts pressed against the hard muscles of his chest. Deepening the kiss, she thrust her tongue into his willing mouth.

With a low moan of matching hunger, his broad, strong hands moved down her back with a leisure that belied the fire of his lips and tongue. She arched against him, the rough wool of her gown rubbing against her in a way that sent new tremors of excitement through her already excited body.

His mouth left hers to trail featherlight kisses along her neck down to her collarbone. She groaned softly, the sound voicing her wanton demands, encouraging him. Telling him in a way words never could how much she wanted him, and this.

For a long while they kissed, and caressed and touched, warmed by their embrace even as the sun disappeared and night slowly fell.

She slipped her hand beneath his tunic to feel his taut flesh, not visible now but so well remembered. He gasped as the pads of her fingertips tiptoed across his stomach. Arching against him, she silently invited him to touch her intimately, too, as he had before.

His eyes flew open, and he caught hold of her hand. His hot, eager gaze searched her face in the dusk and belied the words he spoke. “We must stop.”

“Must we?”

“Yes.” He shakily ran his hand through his disheveled hair. Hades, indeed, dark and brooding and wondrous. “I … I forgot myself, and what must be.”

She faced him squarely, boldly, as an equal. As she always had. “If I didn’t want to be with you this way, don’t you think you would know it?” She took hold of his hand and led him toward the shelter they had built.

He stared at her incredulously as he grasped what she was offering. He halted outside the shelter and planted his feet, giving her the oddest sensation. It was as if he were playing the coy maiden and she the ravaging savage. The notion made her nearly as giddy as her desire, until he spoke in a grim and serious voice. “You could get with child.”

It was as if a wave had come up from the sea to wash over her, for he was right.

“You’re a virgin, too,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Do you understand all that you give up if you let me make love with you?”

She reached out to take his callused hands in hers, feeling the strength in them—and in him, that would allow him to refrain from taking what she was so obviously offering. “Does anyone, Alexander?” she mused. “Does any of us ever really know what we risk when we fall in love?”

He stiffened, his eyes wide with disbelief. “What are you saying, Isabelle?”

She looked up at him, willing to let him see her sincerity, and hear it in her voice. “I’m saying I have fallen in love with you.”

He stepped back, as if she had shoved his dagger into his flesh. “You can’t have.”

She smiled wistfully, hearing her own doubts echoed in his words. “I thought I could not, too. I knew I
should
not. But I cannot lie to you about what I feel, any more than I can to myself anymore. Not now. Not when this will be our last chance to be together.”

He took another step back. “I will not make love with you, Isabelle, and not just because of a possible child.” His gaze faltered. “I dare not, for your sake. And my own.” His hands curling into fists of tension, he raised his tortured eyes. “I already fear I will end up like my mother. I see myself forever mourning the love I lost. In my arrogance I thought I was strong and proof against such loving weakness, but God help me, I am not.”

She took his hand and pressed it against her cheek. “Love is not weakness, Alexander. I thought it was, too, and secretly cursed my sister for her frailty, and my father, too. But we have been wrong. Love is strength, Alexander, for good or ill. It has the power to destroy, or the power to redeem, to fulfill, to make us more than we were. Even if we must part, Alexander, and forever mourn the parting, I will be stronger for having loved you. I will know what love is, if nothing else. No matter what else happens to me in this life, I will have loved once completely, wondrously, with all of my heart. I will not regret that.”

He twisted away from her, as if the touch of her skin burned his flesh. “Isabelle, I love you as I never believed I could love anyone, but there can be no future for us. Please, do not tempt me to give in to my desire for you. I will not have another bastard child endure what I have.”

She went close to him, but with great effort did not touch him. “And you think you are not a good man? Here is proof that you are, if I needed more.” She gave him another wistful smile. “But Allis and Connor would not cast me out, even if I disgraced them.”

“Isabelle,” he pleaded, his willpower fast losing the struggle against his desire.

“I will respect your wishes, and your wisdom, Alexander. As you say, I do not fully understand what it is I crave.”

He nearly groaned.

“Can we not simply be near one another?” she proposed. “I promise I will try not to touch you, although it will be difficult.”

“No.” He gestured at the shelter. “Go to sleep. We may have another long walk tomorrow. I’m going to build a fire, and I’ll stay near it.”

Isabelle nodded and knelt down, then disappeared beneath the leaves and branches.

Scarcely knowing what he did, Alexander set about gathering dry dead grass, twigs and branches to make a fire, although it was nearly pitch dark. He had to do something to take his mind from her, the woman who’d said she loved him. The woman who had been willing to make love with him. Aye, and more than willing, to offer her beautiful body along with her heart.

It was wonderful and terrible, and never had he been more wretched.

He felt around for the tinderbox in the leather pouch. His hand curled around it and he drew it out, then struck the flint and steel. The sparks were bright in the darkness as they flew onto the tinder. He blew gently on the ones that began to smoke until flame appeared, then he added larger sticks. As the fire grew, the smoke rose up in the still air, and it cast a flickering light over their little clearing, and the sides of the shelter where Isabelle, who loved him, lay.

On her side in the little shelter that smelled of damp foliage, her arms wrapped around herself for both warmth and comfort, Isabelle was wide awake. The scent of the smoke drifted into her nostrils, and she could hear small sounds of animals held back by the fire.

And by the presence of Alexander, too, no doubt.

She rolled over onto her back. She wasn’t going to fall asleep, although she was tired and the branches beneath her were relatively soft and springy. She couldn’t. All she could think about was Alexander, and what he had said.

He was right that there could be serious consequences of giving in to her desires. She should guard her virginity and keep it for her future husband.

Who would not be Alexander.

She should not bear a child out of wedlock.

Not even his.

She should be thinking about seeing Allis, and making sure she was well, and Connor and all at Bellevoire who cherished her.

But who did not make her feel as beloved and necessary as Alexander could with just one glance from his intense blue eyes.

No one had ever loved her as he did. Not her family, not any of the young suitors who had paid her attention. Auberan—poor, foolish Auberan—might have loved her in his poor, foolish way. She had cared for him as she would a kitten or a puppy that was incapable of caring for itself. There had been nothing of the passionate hunger that Alexander inspired.

As she expelled her breath in a sigh, she heard a new sound—the slight patter of raindrops on the leaves above her. Even as she identified it, the rain began to fall more heavily.

She sat up and scooted toward the entrance of the shelter. Alexander sat on the far side of the clearing, huddled miserably beneath a tree. Between them was the remains of the fire, a damp, smoking mess of twigs and ash.

“Come here where it is dry,” she called out to him.

“I don’t think that’s wise,” came his answer.

“Is it any wiser to sit in the rain when there is shelter here?” She thought of something more to say, and with a bittersweet sigh before speaking, she added, “I promise you’ll be safe. I won’t touch you. Alexander, don’t be a fool.”

She held her breath as she waited, wondering if he would truly rather be soaked through than share the shelter with her. If he did, she didn’t know whether she would laugh or cry.

Suddenly he crouched at the entrance, his wet hair clinging to his head. She had not heard him approach.

“Since I would not have you think me any more of a fool than I already am, and I do not want to get sick, I accept your offer of hospitality, my lady.”

He shoved his sword and scabbard in along the side, then crawled in. She could see him more clearly now that he was so close, and he made a rueful smile as he looked at her. “I also appreciate that you will respect my honor as I respected yours,” he said, his voice low and soft and deep.

Her chest constricted and she suddenly wondered if this had been a good idea, after all. Still, she didn’t want him to fall ill, either. “I’ll … try.”

“Try?” The word came softly. “Have I not your word that you will not touch me?”

“I will not give my word when I doubt that I can keep it. When I do not want to keep it.”

He turned. “Perhaps I should go back out into the rain—”

She grabbed his arm. “No!”

For one moment when all seemed still, when she did not even hear the rain, he turned back and their gazes met, and held.

And then nothing else mattered except their love. Whatever thoughts and fears and doubts lingered were suddenly unimportant, immaterial, consumed by the fire of their love and desire, and the knowledge that they were alone.

With hot, fierce need Alexander gathered Isabelle into his arms and kissed her. As he did, passion and need combined and ripped through her willing body. She thrust her tongue between his lips, feverishly deepening the kiss.