The Rose of Blacksword (17 page)

Yet if Cleve’s departure quelled one sort of tension, finding herself alone with her strange protector created another tension entirely. To make matters worse, her right foot still lay in his lap; her calf rested quite intimately upon his muscular thigh. In sudden mortification she started to pull away. However, he was too fast. Before she could get away, he caught her ankle in his grasp.

“We’re not through yet,” he said quietly as his eyes locked with hers.

At that all her aplomb fled. “I-I don’t need the shoes. Truly,” she added as a hint of amusement lifted a corner of his mouth.

But his hand only slid a little up her calf and his other hand cupped the sole of her foot. “You’ve bruises here.” He caressed the heel of her foot. “And scrapes and cuts.” He stroked along the side of her little toe.

A shiver coursed up her spine, followed by a ripple of warmth. To her chagrin he seemed quite aware of her reaction to him, and he gave her a disarming grin.

“Why don’t we agree to work together on this one task? It won’t take long. Then once your shoes are finished, you can go back to disliking me if you want.”

It was said as if she were a petulant child and he the tolerant adult. As a result, she found it most difficult to take umbrage with his statement, for she would only look more the fool. Although her jaw was clenched in clear annoyance, she managed a curt nod. He rewarded her with a touch of his knuckle to her chin. Then he set to work.

As he fitted the rabbit skin to her foot, she tried to appear as dignified as she could. But with his warm hands on her foot and his unexpected touch to her chin, she found her nerves completely unsettled. As dawn spread its sparkling light over the little clearing, she could hardly control her skittering emotions.

Whatever had possessed her to side with him against Cleve? she wondered hopelessly. Even if it was a logical choice in this case, this Blacksword still was not someone to trust. And now she had put herself practically in his lap! To make matters worse, her emotions were running completely awry. Every time he touched her, no matter how impersonal it might seem, something turned over deep inside her. She must get hold of herself!

“I can do that one,” she blurted out when he reached for the other fur. “I saw where you put the holes and how you strung the cord through.” She bit her lower lip as he stared deeply into her eyes. “Thanks … thank you for doing this one.”

“You’re welcome,” he said simply. Then he handed her the skin and the knife, and leaned back on his elbows to watch her.

Rosalynde was so relieved that he’d not argued that she set to the task with pleasure. She made a series of holes
along the two long top edges, then three more along each of the short sides that would circle her ankle. She worked swiftly and with sure hands, for she was no stranger to the sewing room. As she was beginning to feed the narrow strip of cord through the holes, however, she suddenly sat up very straight.

To her complete shock and total bewilderment, Blacksword was running one hand slowly down the length of her hair, from the bend of her neck, down her back to where her hair pooled on the ground behind her. Then he gathered a handful and gently twirled it around his wrist and hand.

“You have beautiful hair,” he murmured as she turned in astonishment to face him. His gaze moved up to her stunned expression. “And captivating eyes.” He moved his hand up to her face and lightly caressed her chin once more. “If I didn’t already know that you were flesh and blood—warm,” he added softly, “I’d think you were some wood nymph sent to bewitch me.”

“Don’t,” she warned, albeit breathlessly. “You have no right.” She grabbed his wrist to push it away, but he would not budge.

“I have every right,” he countered, staring deeply into her eyes. “Every right.”

Rosalynde was so undone by his startling words and the compelling force of his gentle touch that any retort died unsaid. When he sat up, the hand at her chin came around to circle her neck. Her heart raced ferociously and every fiber of her being seemed intensely alert.

“You are mine. My wife,” she heard him murmur. Then his lips met hers and she became oblivious to everything else.

His kiss was neither harsh nor demanding. Indeed, his lips were astoundingly soft as they moved over hers. Yet
she did not mistake the possessiveness with which they claimed hers. Perhaps it was the way they teased her own lips apart with soft nibbles and subtle pressure. Perhaps it was only the heated stroke of his tongue on her lips. She was far too dizzy to be sure. She only knew that she went from numb to light-headed to wildly intoxicated in the space of a few seconds. Bending to the seductive pressure of his hand, she was drawn down onto his chest, and then somehow rolled over until he lay above her, kissing her more and more insistently. His tongue slid silkily along the seam of her lips and, without being aware of it, she opened to him.

At once he deepened the kiss, using both lips and tongue in the most erotic manner imaginable. Heat flared in her belly and raced like wildfire through her. He moved and she was suddenly conscious of his weight against her breasts and stomach and legs. One of his knees slipped between her thighs, and the fire flamed even higher as every part of her responded to him. Then his tongue found hers and her reaction was acute. Like a stroke of lightning, it stunned her and she stiffened at the intimate caress.

But even as her body was flooded with the most sultry of sensations, the very power of it helped her shake off the lethargy that had overwhelmed her.

“No,” she pleaded as she twisted her face away from his searching mouth. “No!” she repeated as she finally began to push him away.

“You are my wife,” he murmured low against her ear. “Don’t deny me. Don’t deny yourself this pleasure.”

In her ear his voice was warm and seductive, and she felt a forbidden thrill run through her. But he spoke of a wife, and that was a point she would not relent on.

“Let me up!” she insisted as panic overcame this unfamiliar passion. “Get off!”

This time her words got his attention, but he did not move from his dominant position over her. Instead he only lifted his head and stared down into her huge, darkened eyes.

“You opened your mouth this time,” he said with a slight mocking grin. “I told you you would like it better.”

“I didn’t!” she muttered, shoving ineffectively at his wide chest.

“What a little liar you are,” he said with a low chuckle. He caught her mouth once more in a lusty, demanding kiss, clearly proving his point. Then, while she lay there, dazed anew by how easily he commanded her emotions, he rolled off her to lay on his back in the grass.

For a moment Rosalynde could not move. She had no power over her ragged breathing nor her limp muscles. But when he reached one hand out to slide a stray tendril from her neck, she reacted as if she had been burned. Up she leapt, scurrying away from him as if her life depended on it. Only when she saw that he still lay where he was did she slow her flight at all.

“You … you …” she sputtered. But she was too flustered to think straight, and too undone to compose her thoughts. “You are a wicked man!” she finally hissed as unseemly tears started in her eyes. He was wicked and without morals or even a shred of human decency. Yet in spite of that, it was not the reassuring heat of anger that filled her. Instead, she was bewildered by a myriad of confusing emotions and strange, lingering sensations.

“Why did you do that?” The words came unbidden to her lips even as she dashed her tears away with the back of one hand.

He rolled to his side and propped himself up on one elbow. “It’s only normal for a man to kiss his wife,” he
answered, but his eyes grew watchful and his expression turned serious.

“I’m not your wife,” Rosalynde insisted, thoroughly unsettled by his too-perceptive stare.

“You made the vow willingly,” he countered. “You sought me out.”

“You know why I did that!” she cried. Then she glanced fearfully to where Cleve had gone to sleep, and lowered her voice. “You benefited as much as I.”

“And now I will benefit even more.” So saying, he sat up, propping his forearms on his bent knees. “You may deny me now, but eventually you’ll admit to the truth.”

“If you tell my father I’ll say you lie,” she warned, although the very thought of her father knowing any of this terrified her. “He’ll never believe you.”

One of his brows arched in arrogant amusement. “It’s an easy enough fact to verify. Dunmow is little more than a good day’s ride from Stanwood.”

Rosalynde could not stay to hear any more. His words were too true, too horribly true. With a cry of anguish she turned and stumbled blindly into the copsewood. Branches caught at her gown and tugged at her wildly streaming hair, but she didn’t care. She had to get away from him. It didn’t matter where as long as it was far, far away.

When Rosalynde finally stopped her headlong flight, she was gasping for breath and holding her throbbing side. She sagged against an ancient oak tree, then slowly, hopelessly slid down along its trunk to sit in a desolate heap amidst its spreading roots.

Why had he kissed her like that? Why? she agonized as tears quickened once more in her haunted eyes. And why,
why
had she let him?

But Rosalynde knew she had done far more than just let
him kiss her. She closed her eyes with a groan and sagged back against the uncompromising bulk of the old tree. No matter how she wished to blame him for everything, she knew she had gone along with the kiss of her own free will. He might have lulled her into complacency with his deceptively mild behavior. He most certainly had manipulated her into siding with him against Cleve. And he had used that episode with the rabbit-skin shoes to get near enough to stroke her and practice his powers of seduction on her. But from the first moment his lips met hers she could have rejected him. Instead of accepting his indecent attentions, she should have reacted with revulsion and disgust.

Only that had not been what she’d felt.

A shudder of complete humiliation shook her and fresh tears streaked down her cheeks. She’d accepted his kiss, opening freely to the vivid sensations he’d raised in her. And, oh, how incredibly vivid they had been! How shamefully wicked! But no amount of self-abasement could erase the truth. She had been stupid, reckless, and sinful in the extreme, yet her entire being buzzed still with the remembered pleasure of his tongue moving sensuously along hers. She swallowed a sob and shook her head hard against the undeniable fact. He was a practiced seducer, but she had been his more-than-willing accomplice. If he was insistent before about this farce of a marriage he aspired to, how much more relentless would he now be?

Rosalynde rubbed her damp eyes with the edge of her sleeves, then tried to dry her cheeks as well. What would she do? she agonized, curling into a tight ball in a hollow between the roots. How could she face him again? Now it would truly be impossible to keep him silent about their handfast vow. She buried her head in her arms as another
sob shook her exhausted body. Why had she given him this new power over her?

But she was so physically drained and so thoroughly traumatized by the long night’s events that she could not properly fashion any answers to her desperate questions. As she huddled in the hard security of the oak tree, trying to block out the harsh light of another day, she was beyond all rational thought. Her mind closed against the terrible reality of her situation and sleep brought the only promise of relief.

But even in her dreams she was tormented by clear gray eyes and the seductive power of a beckoning smile.

When Aric found her he was taken aback by the scene that met his eyes. She had fled in tears, angry and frightened and horrified as well. She had kissed a murdering outlaw, a common criminal, and he was certain that her sheltered upbringing had not prepared her for such a thing. The fact that she had enjoyed it no doubt troubled her sorely.

He had enjoyed it as well, he recalled with vivid clarity as he looked down on the sleeping woman before him. He’d not wanted to let her go at the time, but he’d thought it best not to scare her off completely. So he had let her escape and just waited. There was nowhere for her to go, and perhaps a little time alone would help her to think things out a bit. It had given him time as well, and as he had lain there in the little clearing, staring up through the branches of the beech trees, he’d decided to force her to listen to the truth. Maybe if she could see him in a better light, if she knew he was of noble upbringing, the idea of marriage to him might not seem so abhorrent. He was already certain she would not long object to the duties of the marriage bed.

Now as he took in her slender figure curved within the dark embrace of the ancient oak root, he vowed to convince her, no matter what it took. Once more the image of a wood nymph came to mind. A fairy rose. There was an air of sweetness about her, of fragility. Yet he knew she was far tougher than she appeared. She had survived that attack, then fearlessly gone for help. In a moment of desperation she’d been brazen enough to claim a man who, by all appearances, was capable of the direst crimes, and she’d done so solely with the hope that he might be coerced into helping her for sufficient reward.

He shook his head in bemusement and his eyes followed the gleaming curve of her mahogany colored hair as it fell along her neck and draped over her arms. One of her hands showed beyond the heavy, dark tangle. Small and pale, the palm was slightly open; the fingers were curled loosely in repose. Her hand was small and pale, her feet were soft and pale. No doubt beneath that shapeless gown she wore she was small and pale all over. Yet he recalled the press of her breasts against his chest, and he knew her woman’s curves were soft and ample. She was no young girl, but a woman, old enough—and ready enough—for marriage.

At that thought he felt a returning rush of warmth to his loins. By rights she was already wedded—to him. And he was more than ready to consummate their vow. With a muttered oath at his own burning impatience, he bent down on one knee to gather her up. He’d allowed her this temper tantrum, but he could not let her stay so far from the safety of his protection any longer.