Margaret Moore - [Maiden & Her Knight 03]

by All My Desire

She pushed him away, then backed up until she hit the side of the hole in the wall. She was not Allis. She was Isabelle—and he was the son of Rennick DeFrouchette. He had abducted her. She was his prisoner still. He was her jailer, her guard, the man responsible for her captivity and she must not forget that.

  No matter what her heart desired, and even if she never again felt such intense, burning passion for another man, this could not be. She was Lady Isabelle of Montclair, and he was the son of their enemy.

  She could not love him. She must not love him. She was wrong to love him and to be in his arms like this.

  The cold, wet air brought her more to her senses, and she saw his tunic damp where she had pressed her shameless body against it as if she were one of the whores in the hall below. “What are you doing?”

  He blinked, like a man dazed in brilliant sunlight after coming out of a dark building.

  “Get out.”

  Lightning flashed, and she saw his face fully. He was shocked and uncertain, taken aback by her action and her words.

  The thunder rolled up in the hills as he took a step toward her. “No.”

  She must and would conquer her traitorous body, her traitorous heart, and him. “You took advantage of my weakness.”

  “I would never call you weak.”

  “I nearly fell and was grateful that you saved me.”

  “So your response was mere gratitude—or was your embrace another attempt to win my assistance? Perhaps you will now ask me to find you a stouter rope.”

  Her hands splayed against the walls, she inched away from him. “No! I told you, I was overcome.”

  “As was I. Obviously.”

  With quick, agitated movements he gathered up what was left of her rope and untied the knot holding it to the bedpost. “My heart nearly stopped when I entered this room and saw that hole. I was sure you had plunged to your death, until I realized the bed had been moved and saw this. You are a very clever woman, but this would never have held your weight.”

  He surveyed the stones she had taken out of the wall and piled on the floor. “You are even stronger than I thought.” He crouched down and pinched some dust on the side of one of them, then rubbed it between his fingers. “I should have guessed. This mortar was poorly mixed. This wall could have fallen in at any time, if the wind was very strong.”

  He straightened and dusted off his hands. “You gave me your word that you would not try to escape again. You could have broken your skull had you fallen onto the wall walk.”

  He came to stand in front of her. “There was no need for this desperate act, my lady,” he said, his intense gaze searching her face, her eyes, as if he was trying to penetrate her mind. “Your husband will pay and you will be returned to him. Or is there some reason you think your husband may not pay the ransom?”

  “Of course he will. He loves me.”

  Alexander took hold of her shoulders. “Say that again.”

  “That Connor loves me? Of course he does.”

  He shook his head. “No, he does not. You know it as well as I, for I hear your doubt in your voice. Your husband may have loved you once, but no longer. There is something between your sister and your husband, something far too intimate to be the love between a man and his sister-in-law. I saw it when I was there.”

  She had to maintain the ruse. Who could say what he might do if she told him the truth now? “He does love me!”

  Alexander’s lips jerked up in a sardonic smile as another bolt of lightning flashed. “I lived with a woman who deluded herself for too long not to recognize that same delusion in another. I thought you were an intelligent woman, but I see now you are all the same—blinded by love and devotion to men who do not deserve it.”

  “Of course there is nothing improper between them.” She fled to the center of the room.

  “Oh, yes, there is, my lady,” he said, following her, his tread as soft and deliberate as a barn cat stalking a mouse. “So, this is the end of your great passion. This is the kind of man the wonderful, the marvelous Sir Connor turns out to be. Why, your husband is no better than Osburn. You would have done better, perhaps, to marry my father, after all.”

  “You know nothing of what is between Connor and my sister and me.”

  “So you trust him to ransom you?”

  “Yes, I do!” she cried. “He loves me!”

  “Then why did you embrace me with so much passion?” He circled her like a ship caught in a slow whirlpool, and she was the center. “Your marriage is a sham, and that is why there is such heat and desire in your lips when they meet mine. That’s why you allowed me to pleasure you. How long has it been since he made you limp with release, my lady? How long since he heard you gasp like that? Perhaps he never has and that is why you were so eager for me to pleasure you. Perhaps you would like me to do it again.”

  “No!”

  He halted in front of her, tall and powerful and certain. “I don’t believe you.”

  “I hate you!”

  His voice a purr, he ran his hand up her arm. “Do you, when this man you claim to love betrays you for another, and that your own sister? Does he desire you still, the great Sir Connor? Or does he come to your bed out of duty?”

  His light touch stirred her as much as his kiss, and it must not—but she could not tell him to stop. He was right; she didn’t love Connor, although he did not know the real reason why. She never had entertained more than a girlish admiration for her brother-in-law that was nothing like her feelings for Alexander DeFrouchette.

  Still stroking her, he sidled closer. She closed her eyes, and she could feel his breath warm on her cheek.

  Tell him to stop. Make him go.

  I cannot. I want him too much.

  So she stayed silent, while every part of her body tingled and quivered and waited … waited … waited.

  “Perhaps he does not even visit your bedchamber at all anymore,” he murmured. His hips brushed against hers, and her whole body wanted to melt against him. “Is that why there have been no children?”

  His left arm encircled her waist and pulled her hard against him, while his right cupped the back of her head. His mouth captured hers, his lips moving with sure deliberation, demanding that she respond.

  She did, her body firing like dry tinder to an open flame. Her blood sang and every muscle tensed, aching for the release only he, with his lips and hands and magnificent body, could give. “Allis, my Allis, you want me as much as I want you.”

  Allis. Not Isabelle. A reminder that no matter what she felt, this must not be.

  “You don’t know me! You don’t know what I want!” she cried, pushing him away.

  More lightning flashed, and she saw an expression that would haunt her forever—eyes full of accusation, of sorrow, of loss and pain, as if a trusted friend had stabbed him in the back.

  Tell him the truth. Tell him who you are.

  The thunder rolled, another bolt brightened the room, and in that short space, his sorrow had departed, replaced by something dead and cold in the blue depths of his eyes, which became as Rennick DeFrouchette’s eyes had always been.

  “Put back those stones, or Osburn may decide that cell is the only place that will hold you,” he commanded as he picked up her rope and marched to the door. He whirled around to face her before he departed. “I hope you are happy in your delusion, my lady, and that your husband will pay.”

  “If you do not stop, you are going to wear away that blade until it is nothing more than a dagger,” Denis noted the next morning as he warily watched his friend rub his sword blade with hard, brisk strokes of the sharpening stone.

  Alexander’s only response was to frown more deeply and keep polishing, even if his friend’s remark was not without merit. But he had to do something other than think about last night and remember her passion. Her embrace. Her denials of what he knew was true.

  His confusion. His pain. His soul-searing realization that he had deluded himself into thinking she was different from ot
her women.

  And most disturbing of all, the stunning, horrible conclusion that he had been in a dream as pleasant—and false—as the one his mother had harbored.

  All love was a kind of delusion, he snarled to himself, a dream based on hope and desire. He had learned that hard lesson once and for all.

  “You look exhausted, too,” Denis noted. “Perhaps you should stop sleeping outside her door. The Brabancons are too afraid of you to go near her anyway.”

  Even after their confrontation last night, and although he was rightfully and furiously angry with her, he had still slept outside the lady’s door. Despite what had happened, he wasn’t willing to risk that some Brabancon or Osburn would try to rape her—and he wanted to be certain she put the stones back in place.

  He had listened to her do it, the sounds like those that had first aroused his suspicion, the noises familiar from his days as a mason’s helper. Many a time he had helped slowly push stones into place.

  She would probably be as tired as he was this morning—a small punishment for what she had attempted to do.

  Denis began to fold his blanket. “Well, it is dry there, at least. I tell you, I thought I was going to wake up drowned from the storm. Thank God it has passed.”

  Alexander nodded. The courtyard had been full of puddles in the dawn’s light, and there were still clouds, but the sun would soon burn the moisture away.

  “Are you going to eat this morning, my friend? If you don’t go soon, there may be nothing left.”

  Alexander picked up a cloth and wiped down his blade, finished for now. He would find something else to do, and he wasn’t hungry. “Later.”

  “She’s probably eaten long ago and is back in her chamber.”

  “Who?” He did not want to talk about Sir Connor’s wife, or admit that he was upset about her, or even thinking of her.

  Denis put his blanket down on his pile of straw. “The lady—who else?”

  Alexander sheathed his sword, stood up and stretched. “I don’t care if she’s eaten or not.”

  “Non, of course not. How silly of me to suggest that you care about anything the lady does.” Denis sat down on his folded blanket and regarded Alexander gravely. “Before you run away from me—”

  “I’m not running.” To show that he was not, Alexander sat down again.

  “Very well, you are not. Alexander, my friend, when we leave this place, I want to ask Kiera to come with us.”

  Alexander nearly groaned out loud. He had hoped he was wrong about Denis’s growing affection, seeing emotions that were merely the inward reflection of his own for Lady Allis.

  Perhaps he should have spoken of this sooner, to spare his friend the pain of the inevitable. “She won’t. She’ll stay with Osburn to the end, whatever it is.”

  From his expression, Denis obviously did not agree. “You cannot judge all women by your mother, Alexander. At present she may feel trapped, and as if she has no choice. If she is given one, I think she will come.”

  “If she persists in thinking that he loves her, she won’t.”

  “I do not know if she believes that, or not.”

  Alexander studied his friend. He wasn’t sure how to proceed without hurting Denis, but if Denis must be hurt, better he should do it fast and clean, like the cut from a sharp weapon compared to the tear of a dull one. “Denis, do you think she feels any affection for you in return?”

  His friend flushed and did not meet his gaze. Instead, he picked at the frayed edge of his blanket. “The important thing is to get her away from that brute.”

  “I don’t disagree,” Alexander replied. “I just don’t want you to get your hopes up, only to see them dashed if she doesn’t care for you that way.”

  Denis stopped fiddling with the thread. “I know you mean well, my friend, but I cannot help how I feel any more than you can. If I am not successful, we can console one another, eh?”

  Alexander got to his feet. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  With lithe speed, Denis was at the door before Alexander, who couldn’t believe the intent look on his friend’s face. “If I have a hopeless passion, I am not the only one. You can lie to yourself all you want, Alexander, but I know that you care for that woman.”

  Angry at Denis for guessing his innermost feelings, and angrier at himself for still having them, Alexander shoved Denis, sending him staggering back. “What does it matter what I feel? She has to go back to her husband, and that’s the end of it!”

  As Alexander strode out of the tower, he heard the Brabancons crying out a challenge to a party on the road beyond the castle. He came to an abrupt halt.

  Was it friend, or foe? Had Sir Connor hunted them down, after all?

  He prepared to draw his sword, then he heard the answer to the guard’s challenge. It was the voice that had talked him into this disastrous affair—that of the traitorous and deceitful Lord Oswald himself.

  Alexander’s blood burned with anger. At first he had been so thrilled to meet this man, who had offered him a form of justice; now Alexander wished he had never seen him. He wished he had commanded Oswald to take himself off the moment the man had spoken of his father.

  A party of at least twenty soldiers heavily armed and clad in chain mail entered the courtyard through the large wooden gate. At the head of them, riding a fine mare that seemed a delicate creature to carry one of his girth, rode Lord Oswald.

  One of the serving wenches who had been watching by the well rushed into the hall, no doubt to alert Osburn and the others that they had visitors. The Brabancons who had been lounging around the courtyard in the sun recognized a man of power and position, even if they might not know exactly who he was, and snapped to attention or tried to look busy. Some disappeared inside the closest building. The men on the wall walk suddenly peered out beyond the castle as if an attack were imminent and they were seeking the first sign of enemies moving closer.

  Lord Oswald wore a cloak against the damp sea air. As his escort reined in their horses, he threw it over his beefy shoulder prior to dismounting. His men also dismounted, and the noise of the jingling bridles and mail filled the yard.

  Ignoring the commotion, Oswald’s gaze scanned the courtyard and lighted on Alexander. “Alexander, my friend!”

  The man was here and that could not be helped, but Alexander was not pleased to see him, and he would not pretend otherwise. However, a summons was a summons, so Alexander went toward the former nobleman. As he did, he saw that Oswald’s clothes, which had once been very fine, were showing definite signs of hard wear. The bright green cloak was mud stained, and the fur lining had come away in some places. His boots were scuffed, and his long tunic was frayed at the hem.

  Perhaps Oswald needed the ransom money as much as he did, or even more. Alexander, after all, was used to living frugally.

  He inclined his head. “My lord.”

  “You have the lady?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Oswald’s broad face, which was thinner than Alexander remembered, beamed with delight, while his eyes brightened with a greed that was very like his son’s.

  To think he had once believed Osburn to be a better man than his father.

  “I hope she has not given you too much trouble,” Oswald said, regarding Alexander as if he were truly concerned.

  “It would have been beneficial if we had been told of her courage and spirit,” Alexander replied. “She tried to escape more than once.”

  “Well, I knew you would be a match for her.” Oswald clapped a plump hand on Alexander’s shoulder, making him wince, and not with pain. He didn’t want the man touching him, or even standing that close. When Oswald steered Alexander toward the hall, Alexander wordlessly pulled away.

  “Your father would have been a match for her, too,” Oswald said, “if he hadn’t been so besotted by her. Where is she now?”

  “In her chamber in the tower.”

  The man slid him a sly, yet searching, glance. “I trust y
ou have been immune to her considerable charms.”

  “Yes.”

  “And my son?”

  “He has other amusements to keep him occupied.”

  Oswald’s chortle rumbled out of his barrel chest. “I daresay he does! But I am glad to hear it nonetheless. Lady Allis could probably charm Richard into making her his queen, if she wished it—and if Richard liked women.” Oswald looked around the battlements, and not simply to see the gulls wheeling overhead. His beady-eyed gaze was far too shrewd for that. He was surely checking the fortifications as well as the men guarding them, as the lady had.

  “Osburn should come out to greet me,” he noted after a moment.

  “It is early in the day, my lord,” Alexander answered. “Perhaps he is not yet out of bed.”

  Oswald laughed again, but this time, beneath the apparently jovial acceptance, Alexander heard disgust. “He’s probably drunk again. It’s always wine and women with him.”

  “You might have warned me about that, too, my lord.”

  Oswald didn’t seem to hear as they reached the door to the hall. He waited expectantly until Alexander opened it for him, then he led the way like a conquering hero, leaving Alexander to follow like a faithful acolyte.

  Alexander had never been more tempted to stab a man in the back in his life.

  Surprisingly, not a single Brabancon or serving wench was in sight, until Kiera peered around the screen. Her face was still bruised, and her cut lip looked sore.

  Without a word, she ducked behind it again.

  “Osburn!” Oswald shouted, and this time, there was nothing at all jovial in his tone.

  His son came stumbling around the screen, and Alexander smirked at the sight of Osburn’s cheek bruised by his blow. It was no more than Osburn deserved for his treatment of both Kiera and Lady Allis, and even considerably less. Still, it was some measure of retribution.

  He watched with undisguised scorn as Osburn came to a tottering halt before his father, straightening and pulling down his tunic. Alexander suspected the only reason he was dressed at all was because of Kiera’s efforts, for it was clear the man was still too dazed from sleep and drink to do much for himself.