The Stolen Brides 02 -His Forbidden Touch (36 page)

“I hope to have many children, Your
Highness.” The words were true, the feeling behind them
genuine.

Daemon closed in until he backed her against
the tapestry. He leaned over her, bracing one hand against the
wall. “I am glad to hear of it, Princess. Because I intend to plant
my seed deeply and often until it bears fruit. And you may not find
the experience especially pleasant. More than one lady has
complained of feeling split asunder when breached by my fearsome
sword.”

Ciara refused to tremble before him,
revealed no hint of the sick feeling that twisted her stomach. He
sounded as if he looked forward to hurting her.

“I will do my duty,” she whispered, meaning
every word.

“Aye, you will.” His wolflike smile
reappeared.

Just as suddenly as he had boxed her in, he
straightened and turned away. “I am so pleased we have become
better acquainted, Princess. But at the moment, other matters
require my attention.” He moved toward the door, pausing there to
glance back over his shoulder. “You may remain here if you wish,
but remember what I said about touching my things. You will find
that I do not tolerate disobedience.”

With that, he left her alone, shutting the
door behind him.

Ciara closed her eyes, took a deep,
shuddering breath, and very nearly sank to the floor. Then she
shook her head, refusing to succumb to her fear.

Daemon would never have the chance to make
good his sickening threats. She would never be his bride. The
rebels’ plan would succeed.

It had to.

And she had to help. Straightening, pulling
her royal robes more closely around her, she went to find Miriam,
to report what little she had learned in her first day as a
spy.

***

Ciara sat up in bed, groggy with sleep. The
fire on the hearth had burned to embers. Blinking drowsily, she
realized the hour must be well after midnight. She pushed her
tangled hair out of her face, wondering what had awakened her.

Then she heard it again. A soft knock echoed
across her chamber.

Rubbing her eyes, she got out of bed. It
must be Miriam. After supper, she had gone to tell the others about
Ciara’s meeting with Daemon, though the two of them had agreed that
there was no need for the men to know
everything
Daemon
had said to her. Nor did they need to know that he had sent his
royal physician to examine her this afternoon and was now satisfied
that she was, indeed, a maiden.

Royce and the others already wanted Daemon’s
blood. It would not help to make them so angry that they became
reckless.

Barefoot, wearing only a thin cotton kirtle,
she was halfway to the door when she realized that the knocking
sound was not coming from there at all … but from the window.

Someone outside was tapping on her
window.

She froze, turned, looking at the barred
shutters with her head tilted to one side, thinking she must be
dreaming, yet certain she was fully awake. And quite sane.

But her room was at the very top of the
tower, more than two hundred feet above the ground. And there was
no wall outside, not even a sill. Naught but a sheer, deadly drop
to the courtyard below.

Who—what—could be rapping on her window,
other than some crazed bird?

If it was a bird, it was quite a large and
impatient creature, for the knock sounded again, more insistent
this time.

She rushed over and lifted the bar.

Then jumped back with a gasp when a
black-garbed figure kicked the shutters open and leaped into the
room.

The bar almost slipped from her numb
fingers, but he dived and caught it before it could clatter to the
floor.

“Take care, my love,” a familiar deep voice
whispered. “I would hate to survive such a climb only to be run
through by Daemon’s guards.”

Her heart performed a somersault. Royce
turned back to the window, yanked hard on a pair of ropes that
dangled outside, and quickly gathered both in, along with a heavy
wooden device attached to them.

She gaped at him, shaking her head in shock.
He was garbed from head to toe in black, including his gloves, his
boots, and the raven-colored tunic and leggings worn by Daemon’s
guards—minus the bright red-and-gold silk surcoat. He had even
blackened his face with soot.

Her questions finally sputtered out in a
stunned whisper. “Where … how … what in the name of all the
saints are you
doing
here? How did you—”

“Shhh.” He pushed the shutters closed,
dropped the bar back in place. “It was no more difficult than a
steep mountain slope,” he claimed, setting down his equipment. “And
with a new moon, a cloudy night, and a bit of sooty help from a
torch, I am all but invisible—”

“Invisible? You could have been killed! What
could have
possessed
you to take such a risk? Dangling out
there from a rope when your arm cannot have healed yet from the
fight in Gavena—”

“I would have asked you to let down your
hair,” he said, turning to regard her with a grin, his teeth a
slash of white in his blackened face, “but it is not quite long
enough anymore.”

Ciara blinked at him. Not only was the
reckless madman unrepentant, he was thoroughly pleased with
himself! “I do not find this at all funny.” She placed her hands on
her hips. “Daemon thinks you are dead, and if he catches you in the
palace, you will be.”

“Then we will have to make sure he does not
catch me.” He leaned back against the wall and removed his
metal-studded climbing boots. “I needed to test this new device I
have been working on all day.” He nodded toward the ropes on the
floor, which were attached to what looked like a pulley and a
crossbow bolt. “It makes a difficult ascent faster, but as I told
Thayne, I needed some practice.”

“And did you tell Thayne
where
you
intended to practice?”

“Aye.” The white grin flashed again. “He
relented after only an hour or so of arguing with me.”
Straightening, he stripped off his gloves and tossed them aside.
“Now, are you going to stand there chastising me all night, or are
you going to come over here and give me a kiss?”

The only thing Ciara gave him was a glower.
She wanted to throttle the man! Wanted to shake him! Wanted to …
to …

He held out a hand in silent entreaty and
she ran forward into his embrace, whispering his name, and settled
for kissing him senseless.

His arms caught her close, molding her body
to his as their mouths met in a deep, hungry joining. She forgot
her anger and fear, reveled in the feel of his strength and his
tenderness enveloping her. Their lips and tongues caressed,
stroked, plundered until she was trembling and dizzy. Her face
became almost as sooty as his and she did not care.

Finally he lifted his head, breathing hard,
still holding her tight. He nuzzled her cheek, his voice thick with
emotion. “God, how I missed you.”

She pressed her face against his chest,
listening to the thunder of his heartbeat beneath his black tunic.
She had missed him as well, more than she dared tell him. “It has
been only a day, but it felt like a lifetime.”

He tilted her head up, tracing his fingers
over her cheek. “I never did have a chance to thank you for the
gift you gave me yesterday.”

She smiled. “It was no more than you
deserve, Baron Ferrano.”

He was silent for a long moment.

“I love you, Ciara.”

He said it so solemnly, his eyes and his
voice so dark and intense, that the words took her by surprise.
“And l love you, Royce,” she whispered.

She lifted her head, her mouth seeking his
again.

But he evaded her this time, releasing her
gently and stepping away. “And now that you have made me a knight
again,” he said lightly, “I will have to keep my mind on certain
knightly virtues like … chastity.”

Ciara could not recall that ever being a
knightly virtue and would have told him so, if her head had not
been spinning from his words and his kiss, if her attention were
not fastened on the way he was looking at her.

Or rather, the way he was looking at the
thin cotton kirtle she wore.

Her entire body still felt sensitive from
the heat and friction of being held against him, and as he gazed at
her, she felt the flood of restlessness that she now knew was
called
desire
. She caught her lower lip between her teeth
as the tips of her breasts rose to hard, tight pearls.

He turned suddenly away, walking over to a
table in one corner, where there was a basin and ewer and a neat
stack of linens. He splashed his face with cold water. “In truth,
Ciara, I came here for more than climbing practice. I came to tell
you that your meeting with Daemon today yielded more helpful
information than you thought.”

“My meeting with …” The memory and the
name cleared the fog of passion from her mind. “But all I found was
a room full of riches and—”

“The black cross you described to Miriam,
the one he said was a ‘gift’ Mathias sent from Rome.” Scrubbing his
face with a length of linen, he cleaned away the rest of the soot.
“There is a mountain in the Ruadhans that spewed up molten earth
centuries ago, and when the rock cooled, it hardened into a
strange, glassy black stone such as you described.”

Ciara gasped. “So
that
is what it
was.”

“Apparently Daemon had some of it made into
that cross, which he keeps in a reliquary, mayhap to serve as some
kind of talisman—”

“Thinking that sparing his brother will
spare him an eternity in Hell,” she whispered, seeing how it would
make sense to Daemon’s twisted way of thinking. She shook her head
in disbelief … but then felt a rush of hope. “So now we know
where Mathias might be!”

“Aye.” Royce set the sooty towel aside, then
seemed to think better of it and carried it to the hearth, tossing
it in and stoking the flames. “On a peak they call the
Gunlaug.”

The somber tone of his voice as he said the
name made Ciara shiver with apprehension. “What does that
mean?”

“It is an ancient word from the language of
the tribes that once lived in those mountains. It roughly means”—he
hesitated—“ ‘the Maker of Widows.’ ”

Ciara felt her blood run cold. “And
that
is the mountain you are going to climb?”

“If I hope to rescue Mathias,” he said
quietly, gazing down into the flames, “aye, that is the mountain I
am going to climb.”

She shook her head in denial. “When?”

“We leave at dawn.”

Terror gripped her, icy and overwhelming.
She suddenly understood why he had taken the risk of coming here
tonight: he had wanted to give her one last kiss, hold her one last
time, tell her he loved her before he…
“Royce—”

“I am to meet the others at first light.” He
turned to face her. “That is why Thayne finally relented and
allowed me to see you. It seems he lost someone who mattered a
great deal to him in the war … and he never had the chance to say
farewell to her.”

Her vision blurred with tears as he drew
close. She could not lose him! Not again, not now. Sweet Mary, only
hours ago, she had felt such hope. “But you cannot—”

“Ciara, I have no choice.” He took her hand
and led her to the basin in the corner, dampening a fresh cloth.
Tilting her head up with his fingertips, he began to tenderly clean
the dark smudges from her face.

She stood gazing up at him in mute anguish
as cool drops of water and hot tears ran down her cheeks, down her
neck, dampening her kirtle. Why did he have to be so honorable and
loyal and brave? The very qualities she loved about him were taking
him from her.

“The wedding is in nine days,” he whispered
as he worked, “and until then you must pretend as if naught has
happened. I have every intention of returning before you walk down
the aisle, little one. We would not be going if we did not believe
we had a chance to succeed. A good chance. Every one of us was born
and raised in these mountains, and my new device over there”—he
nodded toward the window—“worked even better than I had hoped. We
will be back, with Prince Mathias—”

“So that I may marry him instead of Daemon,”
she finished dully.

He paused, the wet cloth poised above her
chin.

Then he continued washing away the marks
that his kiss had left on her. “Aye.” He turned away before she
could interpret the clash of emotions in his eyes.

“Will Mathias make a good king?” she asked
quietly.

“He is a gentle and kind man, but I think he
is strong enough to rule.” He rinsed out the rag. “And his subjects
love him greatly, as they did his father.”

“And will he be good to both his own people
and those of Châlons? Will he deal fairly with all?”

“Aye.”

“Then I will not marry him.”

His head came around with a jerk and his
eyes fastened on hers. “What?”

“I wish to marry you,” she informed him
softly.

“Ciara …”

“My duty is to assure that my people have a
safe, peaceful future, and with Mathias on the throne, that is what
they will have. You just said so yourself.”

“But there is still the matter of the peace
agreement between Châlons and Thuringia—which includes a
betrothal.” He set the cloth aside and moved away from her, toward
the hearth.

“Aye, but everyone has said that Mathias
prefers the life of a monk or a priest,” she pointed out, following
him. “Is it not rather presumptuous of us to be arranging his
marriage? You do not even know if he would
want
me for his
wife.”

Royce spun to face her, about to utter some
quick retort, but as he looked down at her, only a strangled groan
escaped him.

Ciara followed the direction of his gaze,
realizing that the water he had used to clean away all evidence of
his kiss had created a different, and far more sensual, display:
the damp front of her kirtle clung to the curves of her breasts,
the cloth almost transparent in the low firelight.