Secret Heart (15 page)

But he was stronger than she, and far more
honorable. He released her and moved backward a single step. While
she continued to clutch at his tunic in hope of keeping herself
erect, Roarke took her face between his hands.

“
Look at
me, Jenia.”

Though his voice was soft, she knew the words
were a command she dared not disobey. She opened her eyes to meet
his dark and determined gaze.

“
Are you
Chantal of Thury?” he asked with quiet intensity. “If you are, tell
me now and I’ll never come near you again. I refuse to trespass on
Garit’s love; I’ll not trample my dearest friend’s heart. If, for
some deep reason of your own, you must keep your name secret from
everyone else in the world, then I swear to you, I will never
reveal it. I will keep your secret until I die, or until you
release me from my promise of silence.”

“
No, you
cannot die!” she cried, her fears about the dangers awaiting them
in Calean erupting into words. “You must not. Roarke, don’t ask me
again for answers I dare not give. Swear that you won’t
ask.”

“
Very
well, then.” He rested his forehead against hers. “After this last
hour, you cannot be ignorant of my feelings toward you. Many men
believe women have no sense of honor, that they cannot be trusted
unless they are kept under close guard. I have more reason than
most to ascribe to that belief. Still, my heart tells me not all
women are the playthings of their own uncontrollable emotions. My
mother was an honest woman. So is Queen Hannorah. And though you
have given me more than ample cause to doubt your honor, I prefer
to believe that your purpose in Calean, whatever it is, must be an
honorable one.”

“
It is,”
Jenia said. Reluctantly, she unwound her hands from his tunic,
separating herself from all physical contact with him, so she could
think more clearly. “I can tell you this much: I am on a quest. You
are the only man I’ve ever known who would not laugh to hear a
woman use such a word. I am willing to go to Calean with you, and
to pretend to be Lady Chantal, because doing so will further my
quest.”

“
If you
will only tell me more, I am sure I can help you,” he
said.

“
Very
likely, you could. But I am sworn to silence on the matter until I
reach Calean. It’s the nature of my quest, you see.”

“
You are
as fervent and determined as any knight ever was,” he said with a
slight smile.

“
So I
must be, for just a few days more. Trust me, Roarke, and do not
insist on answers I cannot provide.”

“
Since
you ask it of me, I will obey the strictures of your quest,” he
said. “If you need my help at any time, you have only to ask. I
will not demand explanations until you are free to give
them.”

“
That’s
more than any woman ought to require of a man,” she said. “Thank
you, Roarke.”

With that, she placed her fingers on his
wrist and allowed him to lead her to the midday meal.

The next
day it rained so hard that the garden was dripping, the moss sodden
with water. When Jenia had not appeared in the great hall by
midmorning Roarke knocked on her bedchamber door. He assured
himself he was there only to inform her that because of the weather
she’d receive no further instruction from him until the morrow.
He’d deliver his message and leave.

When the maidservant opened the door to him,
he glimpsed Jenia on the window seat. Her knees were drawn up under
her and she was leaning against the stone window frame with her
chin propped on one hand as she gazed out at the rain and fog. Her
posture was so dejected that Roarke was drawn to join her.

He told himself he only wanted to cheer her,
even as he recognized that he was making an excuse to stay with her
because he could not bear to be apart from her for an entire day.
In silence he motioned to the maidservant to leave and when she was
gone he quietly closed the door.

“
Jenia.”
At first she didn’t move. As Roarke stepped closer she turned her
head and he saw moisture on her face. His next words were spoken
with impatience at what he saw as female foolishness. “The rain is
coming in. Let me close the shutters before you catch a
chill.”

Only when he was next to her did he realize
that her bronze silk gown was dry, the wind was blowing the rain
away from the open window rather than into it, and the dampness on
her cheeks came from tears.

With a soft exclamation he picked her up,
gathering her into his arms, and sat down on the cushions, holding
her on his lap with her head on his shoulder. And as he held her,
brave, defiant Jenia, with her secret past and her refusal to
answer his repeated interrogations, wept as if she were a
heartbroken child.

Like most
men, Roarke hated feminine tears and resented the way women too
often used them as weapons to get what they wanted. But Jenia
hadn’t known he would walk into her bedchamber. She had been
weeping in private. With no thought save comforting her, he kissed
her forehead.

“
Why are
you crying?” he murmured into her ear. “What’s wrong?”

“
This
room,” she said between sobs. “The garden. Even the gowns I
wear.”

“
What
about them, my dear?” He dared to kiss her moist cheek and she
didn’t pull away as he feared she might.

“
Garit
prepared all of them for his love,” Jenia said. “For Chantal.” Her
voice cracked on that last word.

Roarke
didn’t move, couldn’t move. He recognized her vulnerability and
sensed that a bit of subtle probing on his part would lead Jenia to
say more, would produce the information he had been seeking since
he’d first met her. But if he went about it in the wrong way she’d
revert to her stubborn insistence that she recalled nothing about
her past, or her real identity.

As Jenia nestled closer into his arms a faint
fragrance touched his alert senses. It was a different scent from
the lavender in which her gown had been stored and which he had
noticed when she sat beside him at the high table on her first
night at Auremont and then, later, in the garden. The sharp, tangy
smell of lavender still permeated the silk dress, but beneath it
lay a softer, sweeter perfume.

Roses.
Jenia smelled of roses after an early summer rain. Roarke
thought of sunshine breaking through grey clouds to warm moist rose
petals and thus evoke their tantalizing, flowery essence. It was a
smell gentler, yet stronger than lavender, and he instinctively
knew it was Jenia’s own, true scent.

“
Poor
Garit.” Jenia sighed.

“
Why do
you call him poor?” Roarke asked, keeping his voice quiet and
undemanding, wanting to ask her about the rose perfume, while at
the same time not wanting to divert her attention from the subject
of Garit and Chantal.

“
Garit
believes he will find his love and bring her here, to live with
him.”

“
Perhaps
he will,” Roarke said in the same quiet tone.

“
It’s
impossible.” Her voice was low, slightly broken with the threat of
new tears, yet very firm.

“
Why do
you say so?” He thought he was coaxing her to reveal more, to
explain her strange sadness, but it was immediately clear to him
that he’d said the wrong thing.

Jenia pulled away from him to sit very
straight on the cushions. Her chin was up and her mouth was a hard
pink slash in her tearstained face.

“
Will you
seize any opportunity you can find to pry into my memory?” she
cried. “Leave me alone!”

“
I
cannot,” he said.

“
Then,
you are my enemy, not my friend.” She leapt to her feet, her eyes
blazing with amber fire. “Garit doesn’t pry. Why should
you?”

“
That’s a
very good question. Why doesn’t Garit pry? Does he know something I
don’t?” Roarke knew he sounded like a jealous lover, but he
couldn’t stop himself from demanding, “What have you told Garit and
kept from me?”

“
Nothing!
Unlike you, Garit does not have a prying nature.”

“
Don’t be
too sure of that. Garit’s methods are merely somewhat different
from mine.” When she gasped and stood gaping at him, Roarke forced
down his anger and his jealousy and tried again. “Jenia, I want to
help you. Please, let me do that in return for the help you are
going to provide to Garit and me in Calean.”

“
You
cannot help me. No one can.” She looked away, her lips quivering as
if she was going to cry again. Her woebegone expression tore at
Roarke’s heart even as her stubbornness roused his anger
anew.

“
You are
the most intransigent woman I have ever known,” he said with a sigh
of irritation.

“
I
suppose I am,” she agreed. “But then, noblewomen are trained to
compromise, to sway with the strongest wind blowing, always to do
what their menfolk tell them to do, or expect them to do. Men don’t
know how to deal with a woman who thinks for herself. They see such
a woman as unfeminine, even dangerous.”

So, you finally admit to being a
noblewoman,
he thought, but
did not say it aloud. Instead, he asked, “Have you always been this
strong?”

“
Not
always. Only recently. I had no choice, you see. I was forced to
become strong.” She stopped to glare at him, but Roarke saw respect
and a glint of humor in her amber gaze. “You never stop, do
you?”

“
Not
until I have what I want.”

“
And what
you want is to have all of my thoughts and all of my memories
exposed for your inspection. You will never believe that I may lack
certain memories.”

“
I
believe that some memories are too terrible to recall, and those
are the ones we put away deep in our hearts and minds,” he said.
“But I have known warriors who found comfort and great relief in
dredging up such memories and speaking of them.”

She looked at him for a long time with her
eyes suspiciously bright and her beautiful mouth softened from its
harsh line.

“
I wish I
could reveal my darkest memories, but I cannot,” she said at last.
“Not yet.”

“
Then
I’ll trouble you no more.” He walked past her toward the door, but
stopped before he reached it. He turned back to her as if he had
just thought of something. “Where in this castle filled with
warriors did you find rose perfume?” he asked.

“
In the
stillroom,” she answered. “The maidservant who attends me prepares
it because she favors it.”

“
And so
do you?”

“
Always.”

She
didn’t seem to notice her slip, apparently didn’t realize what she
had just told him, but Roarke left her room with a lighter
heart.

In the
hours and days following that rainy morning, Roarke began to fear
he’d go mad from wondering who Jenia was and what her true
intentions were. Some facts about her he did know beyond any doubt.
From the awkward way in which she had at first responded to his
embrace, he was certain she was an innocent so far as lovemaking
was concerned. Roarke seriously questioned whether Garit, despite
his overly romantic vision of Chantal’s purity, could have loved
any lady for several years without ever kissing or caressing her.
That fact, coupled with Jenia’s admission that she was concealing
dark and secret memories gave him a perverse sort of hope. The lady
did, after all, favor rose perfume over lavender.

In view
of all the questions he harbored about Jenia, he knew he’d be wise
to stay away from her. It was the only means of saving himself from
continuing frustration. He quickly discovered he could not stay
away. Under the excuse of instructing her so she’d know what to
expect at court, he spent hours with her each day in the enclosed
garden. But she needed no instruction. She was as well trained as
any lady he’d ever met at court, and far more intelligent than most
noblewomen.

He found
the lessons that she didn’t need tedious, and he knew she disliked
his continual probing into a past she insisted she could not
reveal. So he was relieved at first when she asked him about his
early life.

They were sitting together on the bench in
the garden, with Roarke trying to keep a cautious distance between
them. Jenia perched on the edge of the stone seat, her back
perfectly straight and her hands in her lap, the very picture of an
elegant, self-possessed court lady. She tilted her head and smiled
a little when he began to talk. Despite her pose, he knew she was
listening intently.

“
I was
born at Alton Castle, son of Oliver, the baron of Alton, and Lady
Constancia of Weston,” he said. After a moment of tense silence on
his part, he continued before she could ask any other question and
he offered her as little real information as she had ever provided
to him. “You know about my years as a squire under Lord Giles’
training, how I met Garit at Nozay and we became
friends.

“
After I
was knighted, I took service in King Henryk’s household. He’s
generous to those who serve him faithfully and I soon discovered an
extra benefit to my service. Since Garit was sent as an emissary to
King Henryk’s court, I see him nearly every day when we are both in
Calean. It’s good to know there’s one honest man among so many who
aim at currying royal favor and gaining rewards of lands and
titles. Not to mention the men and women who plot intrigues and
even treason.”