Queen's Heart: An Arthurian Paranormal Romance (Arthurian Hearts Book 2) (19 page)

He brought the hand he held to his lips and kissed the back of it with a tender caress. Then he trembled as he released it.

I hoped I hadn’t made yet another mistake.

Yseult had loved me. Since the time she had told me, I could focus on little else. Spells didn’t always last forever. I was proof of that. Or would be once I’d fulfilled the provisions of my curse. Brinn, too, had broken free of hers.

That Fate had delivered Yseult Tristan rather than the innocent bard she thought she’d succored or the humble knight who’d seduced her gave me a last hope to win back the heart I’d lost to him.

She and I met in the courtyard at noon and walked on the cliffs above the sea. Every step was agony watching her in her grief and sadness. Every muscle of me longed to wrap her in my arms and kiss her pain away.

My only solace was that Tristan had not been with her to comfort her himself since we’d come ashore. Favored of the king, he had a rare chamber here to call his own and whatever more he felt for me, I was his guest and his responsibility. Well-drunk by the time we retired from the feasting, he bade me the hospitality of his room. When I sought a pallet on the floor, he waved me to the bed.

We’d been naked with each other before. What men lodged in close quarters had not? As fae, immune to all but the most extreme of temperatures, and in need of the freedom to shift at will from fae to hound and back again, I seldom wore so much as a jewel.

As a man, the necessity of clothes in the late spring was predicated, not by the body’s needs, but by the needs of their culture. What God would create a being in His own image, then demand shame in the displaying of it? Or were men so weak they must devise laws to curb their natural desires?

As man, I took my cues of culture from what I had seen of them as fae and from what my fellow men did around me.

So when Tris stripped without thought in front of me, I did the same. Had he not been so drunk on Yseult’s snubbing and mead to the point he was snoring almost before he collapsed on the bed, perhaps what had remained of the night would have gone much differently.

Tristan or Drustan, Yseult’s lover or no, he commanded desire from me, pure and physical. Not the soul-deep desire that drove me to madness with Yseult, but something more basic, more carnal. Something as fae we would have indulged in long before now. Something as men that was only acknowledged in the deepest shadows of night. A taboo broken more often than not.

Drunk as he was, I could have slaked my desire and taken pleasure from him and he would have remembered nothing of it in the morning. Respect for him stayed me, stayed my half-risen staff, and I contented myself with the salty scent of him and a hand across his shoulder, as much to know if he woke and left the bed as it was to comfort me.

He had not gone to Yseult, that much was certain. That much I knew as I walked with her.

“I look at Mark,” she confided to me, “and all I see is a man thrice my age, worn and grayed.”

“Are you afraid he cannot be a husband to you in all ways?”

She blushed, a trait of blood that washed easily and endearingly over her. “Even Brangien would not have been so bold to ask,” she reprimanded. Though we both knew it wasn’t true. And Yseult, alone in a new world, needed most a close friend and confessor.

I could be that for her now, if there was promise that later I could be so much more.

“No,” she sighed. “I fear otherwise, if truth be told. The way he looks at me. The way he touches me.”

“He’s… touched you… my Lady?”

“He’s tried in not so discreet ways. I’ve rebuffed him so far. But once he’s my
husband
,” the word fell like venom from her lips, “I’ll have no recourse but to submit.”

“An heir
will
be expected,” I reminded her gently while I considered what it might mean to Ireland should King Mark wind up dead by the jaws of a Gabriel Hound. The taste of his bitter blood would be most satisfying, I presumed.

“I’ve
tried
to be attracted to him, but I can’t even bring myself to have fond thoughts for him. And when I imagine us… together…” She shuddered, and when I draped an arm about her shoulders to comfort her, instead of pulling away as I was afraid she might do in her state, she melted into my half-embrace, desperate for a caring touch.

Desperate myself, I clung to the moment. Wanting nothing more than to crush her to me—to feel her chest tight to mine, the willowed length of her pressed against me, to inhale the essence of her—I forced my arms to simply hold her, and they trembled with the effort.

A minute passed, then two. With a sniffle, she gently pulled away. Against all desire I let her go.

She knew the reluctance on my part and smiled, a fragile expression threatened by tears. “Mark would not be so courteous as you.”

“Yet he could never want you as much as I.”

The tears did come at that. “You, Tristan, Mark—what am I to do?”

“You feel for Tristan—still?”

She shook her head, but not in answer to my question. “He did what duty commanded. For that same duty, my father requires me wed the man who ordered him. How can I condemn him without condemning myself? I loved Drustan. And much as I would wish to find an ember of love for Mark, and to stop loving Tristan, I can do neither. Mother knew it would come to this. Happily would I drink her philtre now, as she had meant it to be.”

I closed my eyes as the pain of her confession filled me. What hope I’d had that Tristan revealing himself to her might be enough to turn her away from him had been thoroughly trampled. The way to another outcome would not be easy.

“It is ten days to your wedding. Let me spirit you away for a week. To an abbey perhaps. A place of peace where you can pray about your future. Will you trust me? Will you come with me, away from Mark and Tristan, where you can listen to your own heart’s pleading and decide the path that you will walk?”

Her tears dried as she bit her lower lip, considering my offer. “To have heart and mind agree would be balm to my soul,” she agreed at last. “Perhaps a few days peace
is
what I need. But could Tristan bear to see me go?”

“Why tell him? Would he not follow, regardless? Mark must grant your vigil, but Tris has no such duty to uphold. Let Mark alone know that you’ll be gone so he doesn’t send knights out in search of you. Tris will discover your absence soon enough.”

“Seven days?” she asked. “Seven is a holy number, or did you know? Four for the body, three for the soul.”

“Seven for eternity,” I whispered, so soft she didn’t hear.

~ ~ ~

There had been so many lies already, what was one more? I had no intent of carrying Yseult to an abbey. I had run the cliffs for miles the dusk before and found the perfect spot for Yseult’s vigil.

I arranged for a palfrey to be ready for her at dawn while she informed Mark by missive of her leave. That evening the joyous belling of my hound resounded in the woods about Tintagel.

When I returned, I looked for Tris to sup with and found him with Yseult in the private garden by the king’s chambers. They sat on a bench in close embrace, their passion palpable in the starlight.

I watched—how could I not?—as their questing arms and gentle kisses turned more frantic. Tris’ hands roamed her gowned body. He covered her mouth, and it took no imagination to know how his tongue plunged in and out, invading her.

They paused long enough for Yseult to untie the knot at the waist of Tris’ breeches. Standing, he and she together, she tugged only far enough for him to spring free. With a long, sweet moan, she caught him in both hands. My own staff leaped against its confines. Jealousy and desire tore through me.

She would have bent her head to him, but Tris pushed her back the three steps to the garden wall. He lifted her skirts to her waist and she guided him in, her face rapt with the pleasure of his filling her. He moved slowly at first, his hands to hers, lifting her arms above her head. She writhed against him, her head rocking to and fro against the wall, both of them moaning softly to the rhythm.

Dropping my hand to my own lacings, I let free my staff, long and slender and now doing worship to the moon.

Soon Tris’ beat increased, I keeping time with them.

Yseult, head thrown back against the stones, throat and back arched in ecstasy, cried out first. A moment later Tris groaned into Yseult, and my own staff quivered as it fountained in silent communion.

~ ~ ~

I met Yseult at her chamber door just before dawn carrying a pack of provisions raided from the kitchens and a spare tunic. Her own pack was respectably small. “Two gowns and their undershifts,” she said when I eyed it. I noted the silver cross hung from her neck and guilt twinged through me.

We rode for no more than three hours along the wild Cornish coast, high on the cliffs above the rough waters below. When I pulled rein in a quiet grotto, Yseult gladly dismounted.

“How enchanting!”

Tiny mosses grew along the faces of the rounded rocks that cradled this hollow while wispy willow branches waved above.

“There’s another delight, as well.” I led her to the far end of the grotto where it narrowed into a smooth-walled sea cave floored with the finest sand and over-arched by a crystal-studded ceiling. The crash of the waves, muffled by the rocks between, was both urgent and soothing.

“So perfect and peaceful,” Yseult said, running her fingers along the cool walls.

“Somewhere you could spend hours in private meditation and communion with God?” I prompted>.

“If it were a close walk to Tintagel, I’d come here every day. How could I tire of its beauty and serenity?”

“Then my Lady, consider it your private chapel for the next week.”

“The next—? But you said—” Confusion quickly gave way to anger. “What happened to the abbey?”

“Won’t God hear you just as well here?”

“Of course, but that isn’t the point.”

“Then what is, my Lady?”

I watched her anger dissolve into exasperation. “Why else did you bring me here?”

“I only did as my heart bade.” I gave her my sweetest smile, and watched even her exasperation melt away.

“I cannot love you and I will not bed you,” she sighed. “If you can accept that, then I will stay.”

My heart rejoiced. She had not said
did not
love me but
can not
. I clung to hope and eagerly agreed.

That evening I brought her a rabbit and roasted it through the night. We walked along the cliffs at noon that next day and she retreated to the cave after to find her peace.

I brought her a grouse that evening.

“I heard the hound,” she told me when I returned. I nodded. “You heard it too, then?” I nodded again. “Surely it can’t be the same one?”

“How could it be?” I asked.

“Right. How could it be?”

When she woke on the third morning, she set her overgowns aside, and when we walked again at noon, the breeze flutter her shift in tantalizing waves across her most delicious curves. I took her hand as we walked, and she didn’t protest.

That night I brought back a brace of quail and we sat together, side-by-side, by the low fire, turning them on their spits till they were done. I offered her mine and, laughing, she gave me hers.

Noon on the fourth day I found her at prayer in the cave. She rose eagerly. “Already time for our walk?” she asked.

“My dearest Lady”—my eyes wandered in adoration across the perfection of her face to where her blue shift hung on the prominences of her shapely form—“I hoped today we might… forego… our walk.”

She sucked air between her teeth under the scrutiny of my adoration. Already I could see the slight shake of her head in protest while her body began to tremble with anticipation. “I can’t love you!” she cried, and it could as easily have been a reminder to herself as to me.

“Then you betray no one should you accept the simple comfort offered.”

“Damn you!” Once again I couldn’t be sure which of us she cursed, though it struck my heart like a physical blow.

“Damn your beauty,” she sobbed. “And your kindness. And your terrible patience. Damn you for bringing me here and for making it so perfect. Damn you for your own perfection. And damn me for what I’m about to do.”

I tensed, half in hope, half in fear.

She flowed into my arms, pulling my head down and covering my face with kisses. Then her lips found mine and she suckled at them with bruising force.

Shifting my weight, I settled her into me as I nudged apart her lips. With my tongue’s tip I teased and tickled before plunging deep. With a moan she tried to swallow me. Then I felt her hips insistent against mine.

A memory flashed of her pinned against a garden wall while Tris swived against her.

My staff, already hard, grew painful. I groaned into her mouth. She squeezed the linened globes of my hips with urgent hands and pressed me close.

No matter how slow and seductive I’d planned for this, it was clear neither of us had such patience.

Grabbing handfuls of her shift at the small of her back, I tugged up. We parted long enough for me to raise the shift over her head and for her to—