There she was, all too ready to discuss it, and yet he was still embroiled in conversation with Sir Roger. Should she knock or wait?
In spite of her tenuous situation, hope such as she had never known before burned within her. Sir Christian’s dark looks had made it clear he knew who she was. Yet he hadn’t mocked her. Nor had he publicly exposed her. Perhaps all her worries had been for naught.
The door of the solar opened suddenly and Sir Roger stepped through it, stopping just short of plowing her down. “Ah!” he exclaimed. “I was just coming to fetch you ... Clarisse du Boise.”
At the purposeful mention of her name, she drew a quick breath while searching his face for condemnation. His expression struck her as taut. The smile that hovered perpetually at one comer of his mouth had fled, but he did not seem to hate her.
“Please,” she begged, laying a hand on his sleeve as he held the door for her, “I never wanted to deceive you. Please understand that I had a very good reason.”
“Go in,” he said, ignoring her plea, though his tone mellowed. He ran what she took to be a pitying gaze over her.
Wondering at the reason for his look, Clarisse inched through the portal, her hopes fluttering like a fledgling fresh out of the nest. Her gaze fastened on the Slayer, whom she found seated at his writing table. With the torch behind him and only a single tallow lamp on the opposite side of the room, shadows pooled in the hollows of his face, concealing his expression.
She looked pleadingly back at the knight, but he shut the door between them, leaving her and Christian de la Croix alone together.
Rain tapped against the closed shutters. The room seemed full of menacing gloom, not the least of which was the Slayer himself, dressed in the black tunic he had worn to dinner.
“Simon sleeps?” His low inquiry broke the taut silence.
The menacing edge to his voice made her stomach cramp. “Aye, with Nell watching over him,” she replied.
He propped his elbows on the writing desk. As he leaned forward, the glow of the tallow lamp kissed his cheekbones, illuminating the scar on his cheek. “You owe me an explanation,” he demanded very softly.
To give herself courage, she thought of how he’d come by that scar. “My lord, I will tell you the truth,” she promised him. “I only beg that you ask yourself what you would have done in my stead.”
“Fair enough.” His shadowed gaze never wavered.
She clasped her hands together for courage. “A year and three months past Angus Ferguson appeared at our gates, a traveler with just a band of men. He begged my father’s hospitality and we gave it, never suspecting how we would be repaid.” She took a breath to steady the tremor in her voice.
“That night Ferguson sprinkled poison in my father’s drink—he hides his powders in his brooch rings.” The memory replayed itself, and the words came more easily. “My father fell from the dais, stricken with pains. Our 'guests' jumped up, catching our knights unawares. They pulled daggers from their boots and killed every man that dwelled in Heathersgill.” She paused, seeing it once more in her mind’s eye. Wishing she could erase the horrific image, she intoned, “Then Ferguson took his axe and severed my father’s head from his body.”
A thundercloud seemed to descend upon the Slayer’s brow. His look of outrage encouraged her as she sought to convey the depth of her horror. “Ferguson dragged my mother to the upper chambers. She had just seen her husband beheaded, and now she was being forced ...” She put her hands to her ears, hearing the awful screams again. “I could not stop him from raping her!” she said forcefully, wishing not for the first time that she’d been an able-bodied knight. She dropped her hands helplessly and fought to keep her composure.
The Slayer surged to his feet and rounded the table. To her surprise, he took her first by the shoulders as Ethelred had done, and then pulled her gently against him. His unexpected comfort snapped the thread of her self-control. With a muffled sob, she sagged against him.
“Forgive me,” she begged, ashamed to display such weakness.
“Hush.” With no advanced warning, he bent and scooped her off her feet, carrying her like a babe to the high bed. She knew not what he would do next. Yet he merely sat on the edge of his mattress, keeping her securely in his lap.
Tears blurred her vision as she regarded him quizzically. In the curtained enclosure, only his eyes remained visible.
“Cry,” he ordered. “You are safe now.”
Weeping was a luxury she had never allowed herself—not with her mother and sisters to comfort and care for. Grief flooded her unexpectedly. She hid her crumpling face against the Slayer’s tunic as memories of her gentle father suddenly besieged her—how she missed him! The plight of her poor mother and sisters tormented her thoughts. No matter how determined she was to help them, she was ultimately helpless without a champion.
When the last tear dried on her cheek and she’d managed to breathe without shuddering, she lifted her nose from the crook of Christian’s neck, where the scent of juniper and musky maleness had filled her senses. They gazed at each other, their faces mere inches apart. She yearned suddenly to feel his warm lips upon hers. But she realized she had yet to confess everything.
“Why didn’t you tell the truth from the start?” he demanded with a scowl. “Why did you say you hailed from Glenmyre? You pretended to be a freed serf and then Monteign’s leman.” His eyes flashed. “Why so many lies?”
She tried to clamber off his lap, but he held her fast making that impossible. “I lied because Ferguson sent me here. Aye!” she added, as his eyes widened in surprise. “He sent me to poison you, just as he had poisoned my father.”
The Slayer let go of her arm, only to seize the locket that still dangled from her neck. “Poison me?” he growled. “With this? Did you carry the poison in here?”
“I did once,” she admitted, meeting his accusing glare with what courage she could muster. “He said if you weren't dead in one month, then he would hang my mother and sisters.”
The horror of that ultimatum left him temporarily speechless. “Where is the poison now?” he asked more gently.
“I poured it out”
“Out?” He frowned slightly. “Where?”
“Out of my chamber window, into the air. ’Tis gone,” she added. “I couldn’t poison you.”
He let the locket fall from his grasp and tipped his head back to regard her. “Why not?”
Why not? She focused her gaze on the scar he’d received because he was once so devout. “Because you are not evil,” she told him simply. “I saw so for myself, almost immediately.”
Her words clearly caught him by surprise. Thoughts ebbed and flowed in his pale eyes as he regarded her a moment longer. Then he released her, all but thrusting her off his lap.
As she staggered to keep her balance, he prowled to the far side of the solar. She backed toward the wall, uncertain of his actions. Should she flee to her room and let him decide her fate? Nay, it would serve her purposes better to stand her ground and answer his questions. He needed time to digest the truth that she’d been sent to kill him—and yet she hadn’t.
Locking her trembling knees, she awaited the Slayer’s judgment. Her thudding heart kept time to the sound of his footsteps as he paced the length of his solar, casting her disbelieving glances, and shaking his head.
Her gaze fell to his hands, clenching and unclenching as he stalked in and out of the candlelight. She became aware of a rising sense of sympathy for him. He had just come from salvaging Glenmyre. How must he feel to discover that she too had been sent to undermine him?
“’Twill be all right, my lord,” she heard herself soothe. “No harm will come to Simon or to you, I swear it.”
He swiveled suddenly and glared at her. “Were you in league with the minstrel?” he demanded in a chilling voice.
She shook her head. “Nay, never. Ferguson sent him to assure that I arrived at Helmsley and that I fulfilled my appointed task, but I had nothing to do wit
h his pilfering. He said there were others who would gladly see you ousted. Someone else helped him steal.”
Christian made a sound of disgust and stalked to the window to thrust open the shutters. Despite the rain that spattered the windowsill, he stuck his head outside, sucking in fresh air as though needing its purity to cleanse his brooding thoughts. Rain wet his dark head, dripping off the waves of his shorter hair as he drew back inside.
“My lord, there is something more I need to tell you,” Clarisse admitted.
He swiveled around with a look of suspicion.
Now that she was being honest with him, she desired no more secrets between them. They would start anew and be guided by honesty as Ethelred had suggested.
“’Twill anger you,” she admitted, quailing at his look but determined to go on. “But I never had a child out of wedlock.”
His face became a mask, concealing any reaction to her news.
“In the beginning, I had no milk to give Simon. I was feeding him goat’s milk, which I procured at first for myself and then got from the nannies in the pen. And then Simon sickened because one night I gave him milk from a pail someone had left out.”
The Slayer’s expression grew thunderous. He seemed to grow larger before her eyes. “You nearly killed my son!” he accused in a voice that turned her blood cold.
“But then something amazing happened,” she hurried to confess before he thought to strangle her with his bare hands. “My own body made milk for Simon. God gave me a means to feed him all on my own!”
“I don’t believe you,” he snarled.
“’Tis the truth, I swear it.”
“Show me!” he demanded, stalking up to her suddenly. Reaching for the stays that kept her bodice closed, he began to yank at them.
“How dare you!” She knocked his hands away.
He went stock still, apparently realized what he was doing, and took a healthy step back.
Relief mingled with the realization that he was all bark and no bite. Confidence rose in her anew. “I will show you myself,” she offered, lifting her hands to her stays and tugging them free.
He held stock still as she loosed the two halves of her bodice. Battling her modesty, she shrugged a shoulder out of one sleeve, revealing her shift, which barely concealed her full breast and nipple.
His indrawn breath could not be mistaken for anything but appreciation.
“See you this,” she said. Rubbing the full globe of flesh beneath the straining fabric to stimulate production, she experienced immediate release, as if Simon himself were tugging at her nipple, which puckered. She gave it a pinch, and her milk leaked out, soddening the soft cotton fabric.
“God’s blood,” the Slayer rasped in a voice hoarse with amazement. “May I taste it?” he asked with reverence.
She gasped, imagining his dark head bowed to her breast. She could not speak, could scarce breathe. Stunned, she watched as he reached out his hand, hooking firm, long fingers into the neckline of the fabric, slowly drawing it down. She was helpless to stop him, even if she’d wanted to—and she found she did not want to. As if she were frozen, Clarisse watched this implausible event unfold.
He cupped her breast almost deferentially, brushing only his thumb against the peaked bud of her nipple; milk pearled immediately on the tip and in the light of the tallow lamp trembled like a dewdrop beneath his touch. Bending from his enormous height, he lapped up the droplet with a flick of his tongue, giving a rumble of approval.
She nearly sunk her hands into his hair, but clenched them instead at her sides, waiting for this pleasurable assault to end. However, the Slayer didn’t immediately straighten. Instead, he covered the whole tip of her breast in his open mouth and suckled her.
She gasped loudly in the silence, feeling her knees weaken and then nearly buckle as his tongue lapped at her in a way that flooded her with warmth.
“My lord, you mustn’t,” she whispered, pushing him weakly away and seeking to cover herself again, though she could not as easily stop the throbbing pulse that had begun to beat between her legs.
Straightening, he raked her with a heavy-lidded stare. “It is a miracle,” he concurred.
She cast him a smile and nodded. “Aye, it is. God must love you after all.”
He said nothing to that, though his frown conveyed doubt. “Are you certain you never bore a babe out of wedlock?” he asked her.
She pinched her lips together as she yanked on her stays. “My lord, I am yet a virgin. Of course I am certain!”
“Yet you were betrothed to Alec Monteign, were you not?”
“Aye, so what? I never did more than kiss him.”
The Slayer made a thoughtful sound in his throat. “I suppose you expect me to help you now,” he said, his tone emotionless.
Her fingers froze over the stays she was tying. “What do you mean?” she asked. Was he volunteering to be her champion? Had she wasted all this time hiding the truth from him when she’d only needed to ask for his help?
“I suppose you want me to take up arms for you,” he conjectured, his eyes like a hawk’s as he scrutinized her face.
She sensed a trap. Perhaps it was the predatory gleam in his steady gaze. “You would do that?” she asked, her heart beating unevenly. “Challenge Ferguson for me?” Hope rose like a bubble before the realist in her squashed it down. “In exchange for what?” she demanded.
He hesitated, his gaze dropping once more to her now-concealed breasts. “In exchange for a kiss.”
His answer shot an arrow of awareness through her. He stepped closer, his shoulders blocking the light of the torch completely. His evergreen scent filled her head, making her suddenly dizzy.
“A ... a kiss?” she stammered, thinking vaguely that such an exchange was more than fair. In truth, if he didn’t kiss her now, she would be sorely disappointed. “Very well, if you so desire.”
He slipped a hand around the back of her neck, caught it gently, and pulled her closer. Then he ducked his head and covered her mouth with his. The taste and texture of him pleased her wondrously. Ever since their first kiss, she’d imagined him kissing her again, in that same plundering way that weakened her knees and brought a moan rising from the depths of her feminine soul.
With his kiss came the glorious realization that she had found a champion at last! The enormous burden she had carried was no longer hers to bear alone. With gratefulness, she parted her lips to him, offering him the deepest recesses of her mouth and not protesting when he pulled her deeper into his embrace, his arms like giant manacles, holding her against him.
Without warning, he lifted her off her feet and dumped her on the bed. Alarm bells tolled in Clarisse’s head, but he stifled her protest with his lips.
Without severing their mouths, he pressed her slowly back, crawling up and over her. His body, heavy and hard, caused excitement to shimmer through her as he sank slowly onto her softness. If there were any place dangerous for a maiden to lie, it was there beneath this man of brawn, steel, and determination.
With his knee, he nudged her legs apart. His thigh settled in the valley between hers, causing her to gasp at the intimate intrusion. She tried to speak, but once again, he headed off her protest with a profoundly stimulating kiss.
He tasted of wine and darkness, and soon she was lost to the dizzying pleasure of his kiss. He had begun to move against her, his thigh rocking so subtly against her womanhood that she didn’t notice it at first. It was the prodding length of his manhood against her hip that roused her to reality.
It dawned on Clarisse that Christian de la Croix would not be content with a single kiss, as he had led her to believe. He intended for her to give him everything—her body in exchange for his sword arm!
The realization sent panic streaking through her. She pushed at his shoulders and found him impossible to budge. “Stop!” she cried. “This isn’t what you said at all!”
“Shhh,” he soothed, “I won’t force you, you have my word of honor.” He lowe
red his mouth and kissed her again, gently, persuasively.
She believed him to be an honorable man. If he swore not to force her, then her virtue was safe, wasn’t it? She had difficulty answering the question, for she could scarcely think with the dark, insidious pleasure of his kisses stealing over her again.
His thigh, pressing firmly against her woman’s mound further splintered her thoughts.
When the heat of his hand covered her ribs, she did not protest, for he had touched her there before. His palm inched higher, and soon he was cupping her other breast and squeezing it gently. Her nipples stiffened in expectation. He brushed his thumb over a rigid peak, and a jolt of pleasure stabbed straight to her womb. Her insides melted like wax beneath a flame. She wondered, ashamedly, if he could feel the moisture between her legs where his thigh pressed against her.
She would have a champion! she marveled anew. Ferguson could never defeat the Slayer. Her hands strayed up his arms to feel the rock-hard muscles bulging there. What a beautiful warrior’s body he had, she thought, clinging now to his immense shoulders. The tension inside her tightened another notch. A restlessness consumed her. She could not pull him close enough to satisfy her. Her skin grew flushed and heated, so that it came as a relief to feel the stays of her dress slip apart a second time. Cool air wafted over her breasts.
“Let me suckle you,” the Slayer begged, sliding his mouth downward.
His words left her quivering with longing. She lacked the will to resist him. Of their own accord, her fingers tangled in his shorter locks and she all but guided his lips to her left breast, moaning as he stroked her nipple between the ridge of his tongue and the roof of his mouth.
She had to gasp for air. The tension in her was becoming unbearable. She needed relief, a place to focus the overwhelming sensations. By the time she realized he had worked a hand beneath her skirts, his palm was resting on her thigh, squeezing and molding her sleek muscle.
The Slayer's Redemption Page 18
