Leila knew he was awake. His breathing was irregular, and she sensed a taut alertness in him, as if he was thinking about something that would not let him sleep.
So was she. After the worst of the storm had passed, she had given a great deal of thought to what Guy had told her about Roger and why he had said nothing to her mother. She had to admit his angry outburst had convinced her he meant her no harm. He wanted to be rid of her. He had made that quite clear.
And she wanted to be rid of him.
Doubly so, now that there was this other thing between them, this troubling attraction she did not understand and did not want to contemplate. It was bad enough that his words still echoed in her ears … I want you, I want you. The memory of how his eyes had ravaged her in that moment was something she would not soon forget, and with him lying so close to her, the warmth radiating from his body was an all-too-potent reminder of his embrace.
Leila drew in her breath as a shiver raced through her, almost as if he was still holding her against his heart. With great effort she forced her mind back to another matter.
She simply could not stop wondering about what might have caused the permanent rift between Guy and her brother. What little Guy had told her just didn’t make sense.
If they had been such good friends and for so long, surely the fact that they had chosen opposite sides in a rebellion couldn’t have brought on this hatred, especially since Roger eventually had been pardoned by the king. If King Henry had been willing to forgive an errant knight for a lapse in judgment, why not Guy de Warenne?
Leila chewed her lower lip, debating whether to voice her query. Did she dare? Probably it would only provide another argument, as almost every discussion did. There seemed to be no middle ground between them.
After another few minutes, she could stand it no longer. Inhaling softly to bolster her courage, she raised herself up on an elbow, still taking great care not to touch him. “Lord de Warenne? Are you asleep?”
Leila’s soft query was like a jolt of lightning searing through Guy.
Splendor of God. Was she daft? Of course he wasn’t asleep. How could he sleep when she was lying only a heartbeat away from him, her slightest movement causing him intense physical pain?
To hold her through much of the storm had been the cruelest torture, his desire for her mounting with the screaming wind. It had been almost a relief when she had abruptly pushed away from him and retreated to the wall, but not the impassioned relief he would have far preferred. Damn if his vow wasn’t becoming an impossible weight around his neck!
“No,” Guy grated tightly, rising suddenly from the bed. Now that he knew she was awake, he did not trust himself to remain so close to her and not touch her. If she wanted to talk, better it be on opposite sides of the room. He dragged a chair to a far wall and sat down heavily, rubbing his hands over his face as he asked, “What is troubling you, my lady?”
At his impatient tone, Leila almost lost heart. He sounded angry, irritated. Why had he practically vaulted from the bed? Perhaps it was better she didn’t ask him anything. Why did she care anyway? It was none of her business
“You asked if I was asleep, and you can see that I am not,” he said in a low, husky voice, cutting into her thoughts. “What is on your mind, Leila? Out with it.”
Leila nervously wet her lips, deciding it was best to blurt out her plaguing question just as he said. If he didn’t wish to answer, he wouldn’t.
“Why do you hate my brother so, Lord de Warenne?”
He swore vehemently under his breath, and she winced, suspecting she should have kept her curiosity to herself. She was stunned when he answered at all.
“He wrongfully chose to follow the battle cry of a traitor, Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, who led the barons’ rebellion against the crown.”
“Barons?” she asked, confused.
“The great landowners who govern directly beneath the king.”
“Are you a baron?”
“No, a Marcher lord. My cousin, John de Warenne, earl of Surrey, is a baron and my overlord. Warenne Castle, where I make my home, and the surrounding land on the Welsh frontier belong to me, as well as a large estate I inherited in Surrey. But in war I fight under the earl’s banner.”
“And is my brother a baron?”
“No. He is also a Marcher lord, though he claims no overlord but the king. It was the same with your father, William. Both stubbornly independent men … clearly a trait that runs in your family.” Guy exhaled with irritation. “Enough vexing questions! Go to sleep.”
Unsatisfied, Leila pressed him further. “Surely this barons’ rebellion could not have caused such hatred between you and Roger … not if he was pardoned by the king. Yet you seek vengeance against him. Why?”
Leila sensed she had struck at the heart of the matter when she heard another graphic curse. She could feel his eyes riveted upon her in the darkness, a most unsettling sensation.
“You know little of men, my lady,” Guy said harshly, a tight pressure gripping his chest. His breathing was coming harder, faster, as terrible memories filled his mind. God in heaven, why was she goading him? He felt himself being drawn closer and closer to that hellish abyss, and it was all he could do to answer steadily, “Conflicting ideals and opinions about king and country can shatter the best of friendships, leaving only bitter enemies. It is easy to hate in time of war when everything you believe in is at stake.” He slammed his fist on the armrest. “No more, Leila—”
“But the rebellion was over years ago, yes?” she persisted as if she had not heard him. “And the king’s forces proved the victors. You said yourself Roger was banished for a time, his lands forfeited. He was justly punished, but still you thirst for revenge. I don’t understand—”
“It took over a year before the royalists finally won their victory!” Guy thundered, something snapping deep inside him. The cabin was so dark, his memories so real! He could feel the walls closing around him, and in a raw panic, words he had rarely spoken to anyone tumbled from his month.
“And do you know where I spent that year? In a dungeon cell so black I could have been blind, a cell so small the ceiling was barely high enough for a man to kneel upright, let alone stand!” He clenched his fists, cold sweat breaking out on his forehead. “And I wasn’t alone. Oh, no! A friend shared this cell with me until he died hideously from his battle wounds. The corpse was left to rot on the dirt floor” —Guy shook his head, his throat so tight he could scarcely breathe, the stench so real he thought he might retch— “until it was gnawed down to the bone by rats. Only then did the guards drag out what little remained, the bastards! Damn them to hell’s fire! They gave me so little food I was forced to eat those same rats just to stay alive—”
“Stop!” Leila cried, sickened to her very core. How she abhorred anything to do with rats! “Please stop! I don’t want to hear any more! I don’t know why you’re telling me this gruesome story. This has nothing to do with Roger!”
“It has everything to do with Roger!” Guy exclaimed, her outburst wrenching him back to reality. He hauled himself so abruptly from the chair that it toppled with a crash to the floor. He began to pace the room in a fury. “That was my life for eleven long months, and I have no one to thank for it but your brother! It was Roger Gervais and his knights who hunted me down after the king’s forces lost the Battle of Lewes, capturing me when I could have gone safely into exile. It was Roger Gervais who personally escorted me to the dungeon in Kenilworth Castle. It was Roger Gervais who shoved me into that cell with a fellow knight, leaving us both to die.”
“No …” Leila whispered, shaking tier head in horror. “I cannot believe it. How could anyone be so cruel?”
“Ah, but there’s more, my lady. You asked and I shall tell you … everything. Roger didn’t stop there. Fueled by his greed and certain that I would never again see the light of day, he seized my lands in Wales and Surrey with de Montfort’s blessing, claiming them as his own. Many of his kni
ghts went to live in Warenne Castle, and one of them, Baldwin d’Eyvill, became my wife’s lover. He remained so secretly, long after I escaped from Kenilworth and recovered what was mine.”
“But you said you had no wife.”
“True. She’s dead now. Five years ago, Christine threw herself from a tower window when she heard a false rumor that Baldwin had been killed in a tournament. She left our one-year-old son, Nicholas, without a mother.”
“You have a son?”
“Yes,” Guy answered, stopping his relentless pacing to stand near the bed. “At least I know that he is mine. Baldwin is swarthy while Nicholas is fair. As soon as I saw the child bawling in the midwife’s bloodied arms, I knew he was my son.” His breathing was ragged. “Tragedy upon tragedy, though I cannot blame Roger for Christine’s death. For that I blame myself. I should never have agreed to the marriage. It caused her only pain, for love never grew between us. She died in my arms, cursing me for the unhappiness she had known as my wife.”
Stunned by all he was revealing to her, Leila waited a moment before asking, “Was your marriage arranged, then? “
She held her breath as she felt him sit heavily on the bed. With his back turned to her, she had to strain to catch his low-spoken words.
“No, but it was thrust upon me in such a way that I felt I could not refuse. Her father, Ranulf de Lusignan, trained me from a lad to be a knight. It is a common thing for a son born into nobility to serve his apprenticeship in another lord’s household. Ranulf was also a great friend of your father’s, and Roger became his page when your parents left for the Holy Land. He treated us as his own sons, for he had none, only a daughter by his first wife. It is a good thing he died before he saw our friendship turn to dust.”
“What happened to him?” Leila asked, unconsciously inching across the bed.
“An accident at a tournament. Ranulf tumbled from his saddle, catching his foot in the stirrup. His destrier dragged him across the field, and he was fatally injured before anyone could rescue him.
“How terrible!”
“Yes, hardly a fitting end for one of England’s bravest knights,” Guy said dully. “As he lay dying he lamented that Christine was not yet married. No doubt he feared for her because she had no other family. Ranulf was twice a widower. Then he claimed it had always been his fervent hope that I inherit what had been his, the manor and castle in Surrey, and his daughter. Choking on his own blood, he demanded I swear to take Christine for my wife.”
The cabin grew very quiet, the only rustling sounds made by Leila as she slid even closer. “So you swore?” she asked, seeking to nudge Guy from his brooding silence.
“God forgive me, yes, but it wasn’t for her rich dower. I had already inherited land enough from my father. I owed Ranulf so much. He had saved my life several times during my hotheaded youth. I could not refuse him.” Guy drew a slow, deep breath. “It was the strangest thing …”
“What? “
“Ranulf choosing me instead of Roger. He had never before favored one of us over the other, and he had long known Roger was enamored of Christine. Yet he made me swear, not Roger.”
Leila’s intuition was pricked by this latest revelation. “How long was it after Ranulf’s death that your friendship with Roger faltered?”
“A year, maybe less. Christine and I wed almost immediately and she seemed content until the turmoil brewing in the land began causing constant separations between us. I think she sensed my heart was not in the match, though she told me often that she believed I would grow to love her. Sadly, she was wrong. I tried, but it could not be forced. I swore when she died that I would never marry again except for love.”
Leila felt a flush of warmth at his last words. Marrying for love. What a curious notion.
A pointed question flew to her lips, one she would never have been able to ask him if not for the enveloping darkness which lent a strange intimacy to their exchange. “Is this a common practice in your country … to marry for love?” She heard him turn in the darkness and knew he was looking right at her, making her heart pound.
“No. Most marriages among the noble class are arranged. But I have learned from experience that tradition does not always serve one well. I will not make that same mistake twice.” He fell silent, as if thinking, then asked quietly yet with a tinge of tension, “Tell me, Leila. Was your proposed marriage to that infidel Al-Aziz an arranged match, as your mother claimed, or one of choice … and love?”
Leila was so startled she almost forgot to breathe. For some reason she did not want to admit her marriage was arranged, nor that she looked forward to wedding Jamal for any number of selfish reasons other than love. Instead she swiftly changed the unsettling topic.
“Lord de Warenne, you said your friendship with my brother faltered less than a year after your marriage,” she stated in a nervous rush. “Did it never occur to you that your differences might have taken root at Ranulf’s death? Perhaps you do not know men’s hearts as well as you say you do.”
Guy exhaled with exasperation before answering, “No, it is not possible. Roger was always outspoken, yet he never objected to the marriage. And it was not he who became Christine’s lover when I was in Kenilworth but one of his knights.”
“Maybe by then Roger no longer wanted what you had first taken,” she said, her theory making such perfect sense to her that she was amazed Guy could not see it. “Though the way he treated you after the Battle of Lewes seems to suggest some sort of revenge, yes? Perhaps it was enough for him to throw you in prison and seize your lands, as well as the estate in Surrey which might have been his if Ranulf—”
Leila gasped in surprise as Guy suddenly rose to his feet and caught the hem of her nightrail, dragging her toward him until he could grab her around the waist. In the next instant she was so locked in his embrace that she felt molded to his powerful body.
“What—what are you doing?” she stammered, her heart thumping with fear. She could feel his hard sinewed muscles pressing into her flesh as if there was no clothing between them. “Let me go!”
“I should have known you would side with the bastard,” he grated angrily, his breath hot on her cheek. “Blood is thick, even though you have never met your beloved brother.”
“I’ve taken no sides!” Leila objected, wriggling futilely in his arms. “Release me … I cannot breathe!”
She thought he might when he slightly eased his hold upon her, then he seemed to change his mind and drew her even closer, his embrace no longer cruel but overwhelmingly possessive. It frightened her all the more.
“Ah, Leila, Leila, what spell have you cast over me?” he whispered, his eyes glittering in the hazy moonlight spreading like a pale shadow across the window. “I have never shared my soul with any woman as I have with you this night.”
Too shocked to speak, Leila balled her fists and pushed against his chest, but to no avail. The heat of his body scorched her breasts, her belly, and that secret place between her thighs that had never felt the thrust of a man until now as he moved his hips seductively against hers.
She gasped at the rigid swelling pressing there. She knew what it was, having learned of its power in the harem, and she thought desperately to pull away even as her hips met his instinctively, her mind and body at total odds.
Guy groaned at her movement and buried his face in her neck, his lips like hot brands upon her skin. His hands slid down her back and he lifted her thin nightrail, cupping her bare bottom to pull her even harder against him.
“Woman, you have bewitched me,” he said thickly, kissing her throat. “Bewitched me …”
Leila trembled at the primal sensations sweeping her from head to toe, at the forbidden desire racing through her veins and warming her skin like wildfire. Her mind screamed to resist what his touch was doing to her while her body sought to meld with him, pressing even closer. The incredible yearning building inside her was so much more than anything she had ever created herself, infinitely wilder, hotter, sw
eeter …
His lips claimed hers, and all coherent thought fled. Leila eagerly opened her mouth to his carnal kiss, their panting breaths meeting and tongues entwining. As he devoured her hungrily, her arms slid around his neck. Giddy excitement swept her when his hand crept between their bodies and caressed her belly. Then his splayed fingers slid even lower, lower, one thrusting slowly into her moist softness. She arched against his hand, whimpering deep in her throat as she dug her nails into his shoulder blades.
Guy tensed, his voice no more than a ragged whisper. “Oh God, Leila, how I want you … Damn this vow! It has become my curse!”
Suddenly she felt him pull away from her and she was shoved back against the mattress, his hoarse cry ringing in her ears. She watched in total astonishment as he strode from the cabin, so stunned she almost burst into tears.
“Damn you, de Warenne!” she shouted after him, dazed and shaking with thwarted desire. As she yanked her nightrail over her exposed body, she gasped for breath and fought back her inexplicable urge to cry. “What are you doing to me?” she whispered brokenly. “Damn you, what are you doing to me?”
She seized a pillow, punching it again and again with her clenched fists until the feathers were flying … hating herself for surrendering so easily, but even more, hating him for making her want to surrender.
Chapter 12
It was late afternoon four days later when the galley docked in Marseilles. One precious day had been lost to the storm, and Guy was more than anxious to disembark and be on their way.
He had every intention of hiring a wagon and journeying to Avignon that very night, where they would catch a boat in the morning that would take them up the Rhone to Lyons. It would be a hard pace for Leila, just as he had promised, but he would fix her a pallet in the back of the wagon where she could rest if she grew tired.
Guy glanced down at her, somber and silent as she walked beside him across the sun-washed deck. For the hundredth time he cursed his wretched behavior of a few nights ago.
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