Elianne considered the moisture-slickened rocks. Lacy ferns, thick moss and the occasional star-bright daisy marked the tiny crags she’d have to use as handholds. The last time she’d climbed to the cave this way she’d been but eleven. Somehow, she didn’t remember it looking as daunting as it did now.
Yet, with each breath, her need for this sanctuary grew by leaps and bounds. What choice had she, save to climb? The only other route to the cave was from Coneytrop and she had no intention of returning to her home any time soon.
Kicking off her shoes, Elianne tucked her hems into her belt, then again stepped to the edge. The falling water boiled as it hit the pond. What if she fell and her sodden clothing dragged her under the water to drown? Not even the depth of the ruin facing her was enough to make Elianne long for death. That surprised her. However broken, she yet held her own life precious.
It was her need to survive to the morrow’s dawn that made her step back. She stripped off all but her chemise. Then, bundling her other garments together, she tied them with her belt. With her clothing tossed over her shoulder, she started down the slippery rocks to her childhood refuge.
Elianne had been nearly a quarter mile ahead of Josce when she’d jogged over the rippling union where this hill crashed into yet another massive roll of earth. Once over the crest, she’d disappeared as if swallowed whole. Now as Josce’s horse neared the same crest, the creature lifted his head, his nostrils wide. Only then did Josce taste the moisture in the air and catch the distant sound of tumbling water.
Dropping over the rise he found himself in a wee dale caught between the two hills. No more than ten yards long, this cup of land was deep enough to conceal his horse from anyone looking up from the base of the hill. A substantial stream sprang out of the hillside itself to course along a mossy furrow to where the dale ended. There the water arched ever so slightly out into open air, sparkling in the sun, only to fall, writhing and twisting, out of sight behind misty folds of grassy earth.
It still took Josce a moment to recognize that he stood above Coneytrop’s pool. But where was Elianne? Leaving his horse to drink his fill from the stream and nibble at the lush grass, he strode to the wall’s edge and peered down toward the water below him.
Terror stole his breath. Dressed in naught but her chemise, the bundle of her clothing hanging from one arm, Elianne inched her way down the slick wall by fingers and toes. Before Josce could muster his tongue to call to her, she thrust through the sheet of water and disappeared into the hillside itself.
He blinked. The image of a long crack on the hill’s face woke from his memory. The tumbling water must hide a cave.
Sensations rushed up from within him, none of them having to do with concern for Elianne’s safety. It was the recall of what they’d once done at the pool that fed his imagination. A cave was a place of seductive privacy. The need to once more hold Elianne in his arms and lose himself in the glory of her body tumbled over him.
Josce caught himself. Now that he meant to live beyond the satisfaction of his vengeance he wanted more than secret trysts with his ‘Lianne. But even as thoughts of marriage rose, his father’s legacy haunted him. To wed the woman he wanted was to betray his sire’s plan for him.
Setting aside these thoughts for now, he returned to his mount. After he’d seen to his horse’s comfort, offering an oatcake in reward for all his effort on his behalf, Josce retrieved his sword from behind his saddle, then stripped off all save his braies for the climb down, bundling it as Elianne had done. With that pack and his weapon slung across his back, he started down the slick wall.
Drawing in a deep breath, Elianne thrust into the falling water. She let the cascade pummel her for a moment, washing away dirt and sweat, then pushed into the cave’s entrance. Now that she was no longer a slender child the opening was almost too narrow for her, the rocks jutting out from either side nearly touching her back and belly.
The cave’s threshold was a thick line of moss. Stepping past it, Elianne brushed spider silk and water from her arms, then shivered. As always a steady chill breeze wended its way through this place, drawing from the doorway to move past the area she and her sisters used for play. Where it went after that Elianne didn’t know, having never ventured farther into the cave than where light reached.
A few steps beyond the doorway, the path took a sharp upward turn to the right. That corner stymied the water spraying in from the falls, leaving the floor in the next chamber drier. She stepped into the tiny chamber she and her sisters made their own. Enough pallid light penetrated to this point to reveal three seats of carefully piled stones.
Elianne smiled. How they’d worked, diving into the pool to find the right rocks, then carrying them back here to make their thrones. If the seats now seemed impossibly small, the lacy droplets of water that ever oozed from the cave’s ceiling had burnished them to a richness worthy of any queen.
Something lay across the stack of rocks she’d once claimed. Reaching out, she picked up a crude sword made of crossed branches bound by a willow withe. It shouldn’t surprise her that Will and his brothers might make her playground theirs, despite that their mother had told them that the Devil himself dwelt in here; Aggie worried her bold boys would push past the darkness that edged this room and be lost in the earth’s bowels. Aggie’s warning must have daunted her lads, for if this toy told the tale, Will and his brothers hadn’t been here in the recent past. The weapon was spongy from the wet.
Setting her bundled clothing on the slick stones, Elianne sighed, then frowned. A hint of a smell tickled at her nose. Turning, she drew a deep breath and found it again. Faintly sweet, the aroma came from the thick darkness that cloaked this chamber’s far end.
As she took a step toward the fragrance, something changed in the steady thrum of the falling water. An instant later, the light in this room died to near blackness. Her heart in her throat, Elianne whirled toward the opening. Someone was in the doorway, someone far larger than Will or his brothers.
There was a man’s quiet grunt. Metal scraped on stone. Torn between her fear of the darkness at the cave’s end and the impossibility of anyone else entering this place at the same time she did, Elianne froze. An instant later, the interloper stopped in the entrance to her erstwhile throne room.
“Josce.” She breathed his name in disbelief.
Like a saint’s halo, light from the opening streamed around him. It found gold in his dampened hair and sparked on the metal of his sword’s hilt where the weapon’s handle thrust up over his shoulder. His wet skin gleamed. Elianne blinked. He wore nothing but the loincloth men affected to cover their most private parts.
She shook her head. This had to be some sort of a dream. It wasn’t possible that Josce might find her here. Outside of Coneytrop, no one knew of this cave’s existence.
“What are you doing here when you should be hiding safely behind walls?” the father of her child chided, his tone proprietary. “I chased you across the hills for at least a mile. What if I’d been your sire?”
As he spoke, Josce joined her in this tiny chamber. Dumbstruck, Elianne could only stare at him. They were so close that his arm brushed hers as he shrugged his sword from his shoulder. Clad in its leather sheath, the weapon thudded dully against stone as he set it on the floor.
He dropped his bundled clothing atop her own, then turned to face her. Her dream put his arms around her. She caught her breath. There was nothing insubstantial about him. His skin was warm and damp where he touched her. Elianne’s hands came to rest against the powerful planes of his chest. He lowered his head to touch his mouth to hers. It was a gentle, quiet kiss.
Then his mouth moved atop hers just a little. Seductive heat flickered to life within her. Yet too stunned to stage any sort of resistance, she relaxed against him. She stroked her palms against his chest. The very feel of his skin against hers woke that wondrous pleasure he made in her. It stirred with enough strength that she shivered.
Her reaction was his. With
a gasp he tore his lips from hers, then pressed kisses to her cheek, her brow, then the tip of her nose. Releasing her, he caught her face in his hands.
“Oh Lord, but kissing you is far better than I remembered,” he said, his voice hushed as if in awe. “You cannot know how badly I’ve craved you since we parted. Not one day passed that you weren’t in my thoughts, ‘Lianne.”
His words stabbed through the sensations holding Elianne in thrall. Aye, he craved her, no less than she craved him. And what had this craving of theirs bought her save her ultimate destruction? Nor did it matter to her body that what they’d done between them had ruined her. All she wanted was more of him.
That even her body might betray her, just as everyone and everything else had, shattered Elianne’s control. A sob broke from her. Another followed. She fell against him, trembling as the torment of these past days poured from her.
“Hey now,” her lover crooned quietly, pulling her closer still.
He let her cry, rocking her gently in his embrace, his chin resting on her bent head. At last she had no tears left. Utterly empty and shuddering in hopelessness, Elianne could only lie against him.
Once more he stroked a hand down her back. “Tears weren’t quite the greeting I expected from you,” he said, a touch of amusement in his low voice.
How could he laugh when she was destroyed?! She shoved back from him with enough force that breath gusted from him and he released her. Elianne started to push past him. Josce shifted, catching her by the upper arms.
Even in the cave’s dimness there was no mistaking the confusion that marked his face. “What are you doing, ‘Lianne?”
“Leaving you,” she retorted. Once more she put her hands upon his chest, this time to force him back from her. Although she shoved, he moved not a whit. “Let me go.”
“I won’t,” he said, his eyes narrowed and his jaw tensed, “not until you tell me what upsets you.” This was no request, but a command.
Days of Beatrice, her vehemence and demands, fed the flames within Elianne. “What arrogance Haydon breeds,” she snapped. There was enough shrillness to her voice to make some part of her wonder if she was as hysterical as her noble guest. “What makes you think you own the right to command me to anything? Why should I be at your beck and call, when on the morrow you intend to murder my father, then abandon me to claim your new inheritance? You’ll leave me with no home, a ruined name, no future”—she caught a broken breath—“and your bastard growing in my belly.”
She meant to fling her words at him—instead, as they left her mouth, anger shattered into panic. “God help me, what am I going to do?” she finished at a horrified whisper, then hung her head.
No sound followed this, save that of falling water. In the quiet Josce slipped his hands down on her arms to cup her elbows. His thumbs stroked the bend of her arms. Despite the dark emotions tangled in Elianne, his caress sent little sparks of sensation rushing through her.
“Are you certain?” he asked at last.
Elianne’s heart crumbled at his flat tone. It was as she feared and just as her father promised. A man who set his seed in a woman other than his wife didn’t offer his whore aid or comfort. Nay, he denied the child and left the woman to bear the scorn she had so rightly earned by giving up her purity.
“I keep hoping I’m mistaken,” she managed, her voice trembling, her gaze yet aimed at her folded hands. As if prayer could help her now! “But my time is now seven days overdue when it’s never before been late.”
Again silence followed her words, the quiet stretching far longer than was comfortable. That panicked part of her screamed that she must hold onto Josce. He couldn’t be allowed to desert her and his child. Elianne’s spine stiffened. Not even to save herself would she beg. If he didn’t freely offer her aid, then she and their child would die with their pride intact.
Josce made a quiet sound. It grew into a deep, rich laugh. Startled, Elianne raised her head to look at him.
Even in the cave’s dimness his smile glowed. He caught his arms around her so tightly that her breath whooshed from her. Her feet left the cave floor.
“Shame on me!” he cried out, his voice fair thundering in the small room. “My friends always warned me that I put too much trust in my ability to control myself, that one day passion would overwhelm me and I’d forget my caution. And so I’ve now done, seducing an innocent maiden and putting a babe in her belly. Now, I must do as my father taught by example and accept my responsibility. I fear I’ll have to wed the poor, abused lass and make a legitimate heir of my child.”
“What?!” Elianne struggled free of Josce’s embrace. When her feet once more touched the ground, she shook her head, certain she’d misheard him. “You can’t be serious. I have no dowry. You’ll be a laughingstock if you marry me.”
“Well now, I should have thought of that before I got a babe on you, shouldn’t I?” Josce retorted cheerfully. “I’ve left myself no choice, no choice at all.”
As he grinned at her Elianne’s knees weakened. It was the first time she’d seen his smile untainted by grief. The bend of his mouth was beautiful, just like him. Still, she shied away from all that marriage to Josce meant.
“On the morrow you’ll kill my sire. Wed me after that and there’s no one who won’t believe I betrayed my father to have you. You’ll be tainted by what they see as my dishonor.” The thought that she might become nothing more to Josce save a hated millstone around his neck made Elianne’s heart twist painfully in her chest. Better that he kept her as his mistress.
A frown appeared on Josce’s brow as if he were considering her protest. He nodded slowly a moment later. Elianne’s spirits sank to her toes as she damned her sense of honor. Why hadn’t she simply told him aye? Because she couldn’t let him be destroyed for her sake. All that remained to be done now was for him to rescind his proposal.
“Your point is well taken,” he said, then again smiled at her. “And just as easily dispatched. To spare your repute and our marriage I won’t kill your sire.”
Elianne gaped at him. “But you’ve threatened”—she began.
Josce pressed a finger to her lips to still her protest. “Aye, so I did, but it was only a threat, rising out of my grief and spewed with careless disregard for my own life as well as the responsibilities my sire’s death laid upon my shoulders. To kill your father is to court my own demise, and that I cannot afford to do, not in the face of my father’s trust in me, or now that I know I’d leave behind a babe. How can I abandon you after that?”
A whole new panic washed over Elianne. “What if there is no babe? What if next week proves me mistaken?”
Josce’s laugh was low and deep. “Too late to back out now, ‘Lianne. You’ve ruined me for all time. Knowing what it is to be bastard-born, I took great care never to spill my seed where it might take root. Until I met you.” His face softened. “Now that I’ve had a taste of your passion I find I cannot live without it. Wed with me, ‘Lianne. Say the words,” he demanded softly. “I need to hear them come from your tongue. I need to know you want to marry me as mightily as I want you as my wife.”
An emotion so huge that it brought tears to Elianne’s eyes filled her. Their potential babe was but an excuse. He wanted her regardless of her poverty or what her father may have done, or that he ought to despise her because she’d given herself before their vows were said.
“I will marry you,” she whispered.
“Perfect,” he murmured, then lowered his mouth to take hers.
This time his lips moved across hers with all the passion Elianne’s wayward body craved. Whatever resistance remained now collapsed as swiftly as her desire for him grew. Her arms slipped around him as she pulled herself closer. As her breasts flattened against his chest, he groaned against her mouth, then his lips slashed across hers. His hands came to rest against her hips. His fingers moved. Elianne gasped as she realized he was gathering up the fabric of her chemise, steadily lifting its hem.
�
�What are you doing?” she whispered against his mouth, even though she knew very well what he intended.
She felt his smile against her mouth. “Making certain that I really have planted a babe in your womb,” he whispered in reply.
A moment later and he’d stripped her garment from her. Once again his hands came to rest at her hips, his fingers wondrous warm against her bare skin. Elianne melted, heat and wetness seeping from her. One of his hands slid downward, seeking out her nether lips. When he found what he sought, Elianne gasped, her hips shifting with his caress.
Josce made a noise, the sound raw with want for her. His desire was no less than hers. Elianne lowered her hand to the cord that belted his loincloth, following it to the knot that closed it. As her fingers traced across the flat of his abdomen Josce laughed against her mouth, the sound of his amusement as heady and wild as Elianne felt.
After his braies fell away she trailed her fingers across his belly once again, winning a shudder from him. In retribution for her taunt, he moved his finger. The sensation was so wondrous that Elianne cried out. At the same instant she closed a hand about his shaft.
His kiss deepened until Elianne’s head spun. No thought remained save her need for his passion. Yet twined together, he lowered her to the cave’s floor. In some distant place in her mind Elianne knew surprise when her shoulders and head came to rest against something other than stone.
Before she could consider this, Josce’s mouth closed atop her breast. He suckled. Pleasure crashed over her. She cried out and writhed against it.
He persisted in this glorious torment until need was a fire in Elianne’s belly, and holding him within her all that mattered. Clasping her arms about him, she lifted her hips to his in invitation. With a quiet gasp he accepted, shifting so his shaft slipped between her thighs. Elianne gave him no chance to retreat. She thrust upward and took all of him into her. He groaned.
The Warrior's Maiden (The Warriors Series Book 2) Page 22
