He could honestly think of no place he’d rather be.
Consciousness came to Imogen all at once. As she went from slumber to wakefulness, her senses suddenly came alive to the smells and sounds that surrounded her.
Her heart nearly stopped.
Instead of her familiar chamber, a strange world greeted her, and it was a moment before any rational memory filled in the strangeness.
“Gareth?” she called quietly as she sat up, trying to control her panic. “Gareth, are you still there?” Please don’t leave me alone in the dark, she pleaded silently, but was too afraid to say it out loud.
“Not quite,” came the hushed reply.
The relief that flooded over her at the sound of Robert so near left her no room to pretend cold indifference. Her face broke into a tremulous smile, and she found herself saying the first thing that popped into her head.
“Oh, I was just dreaming about you,” she said, barely recognizing the breathy voice as her own.
She felt a finger trace the line of her cheek, starting a small tingle that fired through her nerve endings.
Walking for miles was almost worth all this pain, she thought dreamily, as she threw her arms around his neck when he moved to hold her. It was worth it, if it meant that she was in his arms at the end.
Where she belonged.
Robert closed his eyes and, just for a moment, let himself savor the feel of her body close to his own. It seemed like an eternity since he had held her, inhaled the scent of her warm skin, heard the pounding of her heart in time with his own fevered pulse.
Without any conscious thought his lips sought hers. She opened her mouth to meet the heat of his and he felt his desire rise till it consumed all rational thought. Her tongue met and mated with his, first sliding along his almost timidly, but soon staking a bold claim to him.
A groan started low in his chest and rumbled up and into her mouth, causing a delicious shiver to run down her spine, spreading like a liquid flame through her body. When his hands moved up from her waist slowly, his fingertips just grazing the underside of the swell of her breasts, her heart stopped beating entirely. It started again only when his warm palm rested tensely against the side of them, then it raced as she waited for him to touch her properly. With an almost unhurried desire, he slowly moved till he covered her softness completely.
She had never been touched with such gentle passion before and she gave herself over to it. She tore her lips free from his and threw back her head as a soundless moan escaped, waves of longing pulsing low in her abdomen.
His lips, now free, began to explore the soft skin of her neck, branding her with their moist heat. That heat, as it moved down her neck, seemed to find an echo in every fiber of her body, her nipples hardening almost painfully under the rhythmic pressure of his hand. Her breath caught, but she did nothing to stop him from deftly undoing the brooch that held her cloak closed. He trailed openmouthed kisses along the neckline of her gown, dragging them over the fine fabric of her simple bodice, dampening it where he lingered. As his mouth moved relentlessly on, the damp fabric turned cold and Imogen shivered with delight as the sensation brought her deliciously to life.
He paused for a moment, before claiming one of her nipples through the fabric. Her head dropped to his shoulder with a shudder, her lips grazing the soft skin of his bent neck.
He drew back to look hungrily at the darkened patch of fabric and the peaking nipple evident beneath it. “You’re so beautiful,” he said thickly. “So goddamn beautiful.”
He lifted her chin with one finger, his eyes moving over her face. Her fine skin was flushed a gentle rose and her lips were open and inviting him back.
He closed his eyes and lowered his head once more, the frenzy of raw desire replaced with an almost aching tenderness. Where before there had been a war, now their lips mated as if part of the same being. Imogen curled her arms around his neck and buried her hands deep into his hair, holding on to him as if afraid he would leave.
He had absolutely no idea of leaving, although he should, he thought foggily. He tried to ignore that sensible voice, but he couldn’t seem to make it go away.
He held her tightly, his hands moving to cover the gentle swell of her bottom, drawing her ever closer to the aching heat of his erection for a moment, then he slowly pulled away again with small, nipping kisses. She groaned in protest, her lips clinging to his, begging his return. His jaw clenched with frustrated want, but he forced himself to lift his head from hers.
“I don’t think this is the place to continue this,” he said after drawing a shaky breath.
She made a whimper that sounded to him like pain. He rested a comforting hand over her cheek, which she covered with one of her own hands, and something inside him clenched at the simple gesture. Time and place ceased to matter. All he wanted was the warm woman he was moments away from making love with. He looked up into the sky, desperately trying to cool the inflamed heat of his mind and body, but when he looked back down she was still there, in his arms.
“Night has fallen. We should move quickly,” he murmured softly, trying to stop himself from giving in to the temptation of her lips once more.
His words chilled her to the core and the aching limbs and blistered feet that she had momentarily forgotten in the haze of desire returned to her with a vengeance. She let her head fall against his chest to hide the embarrassment that stained her cheeks. “I don’t think I can make it all the way back to the Keep, not without falling over,” she said stiffly, hating her helplessness.
Robert’s brow creased with concern. “But there is nowhere else that we can go. I don’t like being out in the open at night in the snow.”
“Gareth said that we were quite near to the tower,” she said slowly after a moment. “I’d like to visit it, if we could go there.”
“A pile of rocks with no door won’t be doing us much good,” he said dryly, trying to ignore the jealousy that flared at the sound of the other man’s name on lips he had just possessed so thoroughly.
“There is a door.”
“Ah, actually, there isn’t. Matthew and I walked round the thing this morning and the only holes to be seen were windows near the top and they are no good to us unless you know how to fly.”
“Just because you didn’t see one doesn’t mean one doesn’t exist.” Her chin shot up defiantly. “The door to the tower is twenty strides to the east of the tower itself, beside a stone marker. The trapdoor is obscured by brush and it covers a stone staircase.”
Robert’s brows shot up. “Good lord!” he muttered. “Not that it does us any good. The bloody thing would fall down around our ears if we tried to shelter there. The whole structure is dangerously unstable.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. It should be safe enough.”
“You wouldn’t be so sure if you had seen the stones lying about everywhere.”
“I can’t see stones, be they lying or part of a hundred-foot wall,” she muttered darkly, making Robert almost glad she couldn’t see, and was therefore ignorant of the dark flush that rose up his neck.
She sighed.
“I’m not trying to say you didn’t see what you saw,” she said slowly as if to a simple child, “but that I think you’ve misinterpreted it.”
Robert felt his jaw tighten. “Oh, yes, and how would you interpret it?” he asked with mock politeness.
She smiled, and leaned closer to whisper confidingly in his ear. “Well, Robert, I’d draw on my still-functioning memory and recall someone saying that the rubble around the tower wasn’t from stones coming down so much as from having them never gone up in the first place.”
Robert stared at her blankly for a moment.
“Hadn’t thought of that,” he admitted sheepishly. “So, my lady, in your informed opinion, do you think the tower will be safe enough for us to shelter there for the night?” Robert asked simply, seemingly impervious to the chaos he created inside her.
She felt as if her brain was going to explode with confusion. She had gone through so many emotions in such a short space of time that she now couldn’t seem to adjust to Robert’s strange, calmly accepting behavior. She hadn’t expected him to actually admit that he could be wrong. Roger certainly would not have. It bewildered her so much that she didn’t quite know how to react. Her world had suddenly shifted and she no longer knew what was expected of her.
“Probably,” she said frowning.
He leaned over and dropped a small kiss on her frown. “Well then, we had better be off if we don’t intend being eaten by wolves.”
He helped her to her feet, went and stamped out the embers of the fire after making a torch to light the gloom. Imogen tried to take a small step, but the pain from her badly blistered feet was so intense she could have screamed with it. Pride, however, demanded that she keep her inadequacies to herself and she quickly made her face blank.
“Are you all right?” Robert asked, his voice tight with concern as he appeared suddenly at her side.
He sounded sincere, but she couldn’t stop herself from reaching up a hand to feel if he meant it. His face muscles were tense, his soft lips pressed in a firm line of worry. He really was concerned about her, she realized with some astonishment.
“No, I don’t think I am,” she said slowly, frightened by her own honesty.
“Damn,” he swore softly, then broke into a boyish grin. “I left Dagger quite near here. I had thought to send someone back for him to save you walking further away from the Keep, but how would you like a moonlight gallop? You’re not afraid of horses, are you?”
She caught her bottom lip in her teeth as she shook her head, trying to hold in the delight that swamped her. A horse! How long had it been since she had sat on a horse and felt its muscles strain as it worked to make them fly?
“I’d love to go for a ride,” she said and couldn’t stop her voice from squeaking with excitement.
He lifted her effortlessly into his arms and nestled her against him. “Well then, my lady, your steed awaits. We have no time to waste.”
She smiled and said almost to herself, “Oh, Robert, if only you could comprehend just how much time has been wasted already.”
She ran her hands gently over the velvet of the horse’s nose. Dagger blew softly into her palms, then moved his head to nudge her between the shoulder blades, causing her to stumble. She laughed softly.
“Oh, so now you have forgiven me for waking you from your sleep, have you?” she murmured. “Somehow I don’t think Sir Robert is going to be quite so forgiving.” Her smile broadened as the sound of Robert’s frustrated swearing carried to her clearly on the breeze.
It was strange but she found herself unafraid of Robert’s temper.
Her bewilderment hadn’t gone away by any means, but one thing was becoming increasingly clear to her: Robert was like no man she had ever met before. The rules that she had needed to live by for so long just to survive no longer seemed to apply. She was, fortunately, learning new ones, fast. She was learning that for all the power Robert had over her as her lord and husband, he could be infinitely gentle, he didn’t like harming her, and he actually seemed to care for her.
She was learning that he alone had the ability to melt the hard darkness inside of her.
She nuzzled her face into the horse’s neck, inhaling deeply the nearly forgotten scents of the animal, hoping that in the memories of that long-lost innocence she would find an escape from the tantalizing hope that was beginning to burn into life inside her. She, of all people, should know that hope was a fool’s gold. She should know that gentle people didn’t survive in her world and that hope was only a dangerous weapon that was used against you. Somehow, though, Robert was destroying all of her carefully constructed walls. With him she could almost believe in a world filled with light and hope.
Mind you, judging by the cursing that colored the air, hope alone wasn’t going to get them into the tower, she thought with a small smile.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to help?” she called over to him, but a grunt was all the reply she got.
A momentary silence fell, and suddenly the night was filled with the sharp sound of timbers snapping, followed by a low, masculine whistle of admiration.
In seconds he was by her side, giving her an enthusiastic squeeze of excitement.
“You were bloody right. Under that decrepit trapdoor there is a stone staircase.” Enthusiasm and energy radiated from him. “It’s damn ingenious.”
“Don’t sound so surprised,” she said with mock ferocity, trying to ignore the thrilling feel of his arm around her, “or I might find myself thinking that you thought I was lying.”
“Well…” he murmured provocatively, then moaned dramatically as she aimed a blow at his stomach. He easily restrained her fist and gave it a squeeze. “No, not lied, but you could have very easily been misinformed.”
She raised a skeptical eyebrow but changed the topic.
“Well, if you’ve managed to open the door, then perhaps we should enter it.” She tried to keep the excitement out of her voice but failed, just as she failed to suppress the fear that was also rising inside her to match the excitement.
I’m here, Roger, she called out silently, her lighthearted mood turning pensive again, I’m finally here at your tower despite all of your threats and taunts.
I’m here, but I am so afraid.
She touched the wall as they walked down the steep steps and into the small passageway, feeling the rough edges of the stone grating along her skin. A shiver ran down her spine as the cold from the stones settled in her bones.
It was almost as if Roger was in every stone.
“I’m here, Roger.” She whispered the words aloud this time, using them like a prayer to ward off evil. “I’m here.”
Robert slanted a curious look down at her tense, pale face, but all emotion seemed to be carefully hidden behind a wall of stiff courage.
His jaw tightened and his hand instinctively reached for his sword hilt. He wanted so badly to ask why all her early confidence had so suddenly evaporated, why she was so afraid. He wanted to ask why just being here made her look suddenly so fragile that the act of holding her hand put him in fear of breaking her into a million pieces.
He wanted to ask, but found himself saying instead, “How old is the tower?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “It was built the second summer after I came here. More building was planned but…” Her voice fell away as visions of those early days of her hell rose up before her. She could almost catch the faint whiff of her past terrors in the stale air of the passageway. The tower had been such a vital part of that hell that she couldn’t stop her hand from flinching away from the cold stones.
Robert had to bite his tongue, knowing that if he pressed her, she might retreat to that place in her mind where he couldn’t reach her, but even knowing that it was for the best, the act of patience sat uncomfortably with him.
He silently pulled her possessively close, as they walked slowly up the stairs.
“Hold this,” Robert said as they reached the top, curling her hand around the torch. He began to feel around the wall, searching for a door. The solid thump of flesh hitting unyielding stone told Imogen of his lack of success.
“To the left of the door there should be an engraving that looks like circles within circles. Press first the inner circle, then the third from the inside, then the fourth and then the second,” she said softly, her face eerily blank.