wcEND.rtf (31 page)

Hunter rose to his feet and strolled away, his back turned to her. What was she asking of him? He pivoted and found her standing before him.

Deus!
But he loved this woman. Détra had never cared enough to speak to him about their feelings like she was doing now. He took her in his arms and kissed her. She softened in his arms and kissed him back. When they finally parted, his breath came in gasps. He wanted her with a desperation that had become part of his life. He turned to lead her to the cot, but she held her place.

Unsure, he gazed at her.

"I need to know who I am," she said. "And I need the chalice for that. Would you give it to me?"

Hunter staggered back. He wanted to give her the chalice. Wanted to believe all would end well. But something in her demeanor, in her gaz
e
—
s
adness, regret,
,
he could not quite ascertain wha
t
—
h
alted him.

"Where is it, Hunter?" she asked. "Where is the chalice?"

After a long silence, he said, "At the bottom of the lake."

THE room spun wildly around Isabel, and with rubbery legs she staggered back, backing against the cot. She slumped down on it, sitting in stupefied silence, body frozen but mind in turmoil.

Had she misheard him? Did Hunter really say the chalic
e
—
t
he only way for her to return to her own bod
y
—was buried deep at the bottom of a lake?

The memory of her finding the chalice in the future by the lake's shore gave credence to Hunter's revelation. How else would the chalice appear in that location centu
ri
es in the future if not for someone putting it there in the past?

And with the chalice gone she would be stuck in this time, with Hunter. The thought took hold. Would she dare hope this could be the answer? The temptation to accept her fate was to remain here with Hunter was great.

But not great enough!

Isabel jerked to her feet and stalked across the room. Stark wooden wall greeted her. How could she even consider taking over Détra'
s
l
ife without knowing what happened to her in the future? And how could she be happy with Hunter without knowing when or if Détra would find a way to return to her own life, her rightful place at Hunter's side?

Desperation clamped her heart with an iron vise, and Isabel felt the strength seeping out of her limbs. She fought the oblivion threatening to overcome her, but the walls closed on her and she forgot how to breathe.

She was trapped. Without the chalice she would forever live in fear of being jerked away from Hunter, and there was nothing she could do about it.

"Détra
.
"
Hunter's disembodied voice reached her as if from afar. He gripped her shoulders and led her to the cot where he gently lowered her down, one hand supporting her back.

"Speak to me," he demanded.

She clung to his forearm with clammy fingers. "Why did you get rid of it?" she asked.

A shadow fell over his face. He rose and moved across the room, away from her. With rubbery legs Isabel followed him. "If you do not believe in the chalice's magical powers," she said to his back, "why did you send it to the depths of a lake? Why keep it away from me?" She needed to understand, to make some sense of what was happening to them.

Her hand on his shoulder, she turned him around to face her. 'This is too important to me, Hunter. Without the chalice I have lost the only way to my past."

"I understand your need for answers, but why can you not forget the past and begin anew? We have each other, Détra. Is that not enough?"

"I cannot begin anew as long as my past hangs over
me like a dark cloud."
As long as there's the threat of Détra returning,
she silently added.

His fingers raked his hair and he sighed heavily, clearly in the throes of some inner struggle. She kept her gaze firmly on his face while his gaze strayed around the room, men finally settled back on her.

"Very well," he said. "I see you cannot be dissuaded. The chalice's powers are beyond my control. Not knowing what effect it would bring upon you, since it had already robbed you of your memories, I made the decision to keep it away from you and everyone else. Hence the lake."

"How can you make such a decision for me?"

He grabbed her shoulders. "You are my lady wife, my heart's wish, and my life. It is my duty to protect you. I shall not allow any harm to befall you."

"The chalice took my life away, Hunter," she insisted. "Only the chalice can give it back to me."

"Not your life, just your memories," he said.

"And what is a life without memories?" she insisted.

Hunter's hands fell from her shoulders and he trod to the stool in the corner of the room. He peeled his hauberk from his body as if it weighed nothing, then dumped it down on the stool. The stool fell over and the clinging of metal rings echoed in the small room until the heavy hauberk lay silently on the floor.

With one sweeping motion he brought the stool and the hauberk up straight, then removed the padded tunic covering his chest
,
leaving a linen shirt in place. He pivoted, his gaze seeking her. "I shall give you back your memo
ri
es without putting you in harm's way."

Isabel wanted to scream in frustration. Wrong answers were always the result of talking in circles and that was what she'd been doing since the beginning.

"The chalice was given to me by my mother on the
day she sent me to Hawkhaven Castle to begin my training for knighthood," Hunter began. "She promised me the chalice would one day grant my deepest heart wish." His face split into a bitter grimace. "At the time all I longed for was to know my father's name. Which I never learned, as you well know."

He moved again, as if he needed action to be able to get the words out. He took his sword belt and leaned it against the wa
l
l, then perched himself against the war chest.

Even without his armor and half undressed Hunter presented a rough, dangerous, and utterly masculine picture. Isabel had to shake her head to escape the enthralling image.

"I did not believe in the chalice's powers," he continued. "Not then, and not for a long time, but I kept the chalice with me as a reminder of a dearest mother I once had. I was vindicated in my disbelief when I obtained the gold spurs of knighthood, not through any magical powers, but after years of straggles and adversity. Knighthood led me to be called to King Edward's service in his war against Scotland, which led to my saving the king's life in the battlefield, which led to him awarding Windermere to me and you for my wife."

Hunter told his story in a matter-of-fact, detached way. And though Isabel had many questions she decided not to interrupt until he was finished.

"However," he continued, "after only two weeks of marriage I discovered I had wedded and been in love with a dream that did not exist, and it mattered not how much I wished otherwise, my lady wife wanted naught to do with me."

"Do you know the reason o
f
... my rejection?" Isabel asked. Did Hunter know of Rupert?

"
You mean, besides the fact I am a lowborn bastard of unknown sire?"

He didn't know!

But that didn't erase the pain in his dark eyes, even though Hunter tried to sound nonchalant. How much deeper would he hurt if he found out Détra had betrayed him? Damn the woman for her callousness.

"
Whether you know your father or not makes no difference to me," she said. And yet her reassurance meant little, for Détra obviously thought differently.

A brief smile crossed his face and warmed her heart.

"
That fateful morning," he continued, "I thought I would be condemned to live my life with a wife who despised me. That was when the chalice chose to reveal its power for the first time in a vision of my heart wis
h
—
a
joyful portrait of a happy life with you." He laughed a humorless, dry laugh. "A prospect you swiftly rejected, of course. You grabbed my hand and the chalice, and something went wrong. We were both jerked into unconsciousness, and when we came to, you remembered naught of your ill will toward me. Selfishly, I chose not to enlighten you and used the opportunity to prove to you, and to myself, the vision could come true."

Finally understanding what had happened relieved the guilt Isabel had car
ri
ed solely on her shoulders all this time. The vision she'd seen had been Hunter's wish for a perfect life with hi
s
wife, which had prompted D
£
tra to reject him at the same time Isabel had wished to be in Détra's place. It hadn't been only her misguided wish that had provoked the body switching; they'd all had a part in it.

And yet, Isabel was the only one who knew the truth on all sides. That knowledge, however, didn't make things any easier on he
r
—
o
n the contrary. It tore her apart to know Détra would reject Hunter again once she returned.

And she would return. Détra might not want Hunter but she had other reasons to want her life back, reasons Hunter was unaware of.

Hunter strode to where she stood and took her hands into his. "I never meant to hurt you," he whispered. "I ask that you seek in your heart to forgive me. And I vow to spend the rest of my life proving to you that we belong together."

Were the circumstances different Isabel
m
ight
'
ve been less than understanding of Hunter's motives and actions, but considering
Détra
's deceit of him, and Isabel's own
l
ess than truthful self, she thought it wise to defer judgment. It was obvious the three of them had behaved in a less than truthful way, and yet neither Isabel nor Hunter had made any claim to sainthood. And she certainly wouldn't presume to speak for
Détra
. They were all flawed, imperfect human beings, and as such subject to making mistakes. Even huge ones.

But unlike her, Hunter had come clean with his secret.

Guilt at her own deception stabbed at her. The last thing in the world she wanted to do was hurt Hunter, but he would be hurt when she left, and the means would matter little to him. He would be losing the wife he thought loved him.

He waited for her answer with a stoic expression frozen on his face.

Hunter didn't know she was not his wife, he didn't know her love was not the one he sought, he didn't know that her surrender, her acceptance, and her forgiveness would mean nothing once Détra returned.

The pain Isabel fe
l
t in her heart was almost physical. The desire and the need to tell him the whole truth bubbled inside of her, swelling her heart to the point of explosion. But how could she ask him to believe in the impossible? It was one thing to accept a chalice possessed
magical power
s
—
p
eople sometimes relied on amulets for good luck, even in the twenty-first centur
y
—
b
ut time travel? Body switching? That was beyond the realm of possibility, especially for a medieval man, especially in these circumstances. Hunter would surely think she was concocting the story to hide some nefarious reasons to reject him again.

Isabel's worst nightmare had come true. She, who for so long had sought a place to belong, who had tried so hard not to interfere in other people's lives, could not find happiness living another woman's life. Could not keep on lying and deceiving for the sake of survival. Could not live forever in fear she'd be wrenched away from the man she loved without as much as a warning, never really knowing when Détra would make her move.