by Jackie Ivie
And the world about them erupted, spewing streamers of light and color that blinded. Averill slammed her eyes shut and reacted to every breath of his with one of her own. His hands went to her waist, pulling her roughly to him before reaching behind her, his arms molding her to him. Lifting and holding, and when he fell back, he took her with him.
Averill’s legs separated, using some heretofore unknown instinct. It made a well of space for him to fit into. His groan deepened as he rolled atop her, pinning her between the pallets as they separated. And he was making lunges with his hips against hers. Over and over. Creating all kinds of sensations with every move. Averill arched her back, connecting more of her to more of him. Her arms were wrapped about his shoulders, gathering him close. She’d never felt such a thing. A wellspring of shivers started up, sending rivulets from her core in an outward motion, until she wasn’t remotely cold. Anywhere.
And then something changed. Him. Every portion of him went taut. Hard. And incredibly heavy.
“I’ve…got to get the light.” He pulled his mouth away.
“But—”
“Let me dim the light!”
Averill kept still as he stretched out, the move shoving more weight onto her. She had a very good view up his arm as he twisted the lamp wick into the oil. Then, it was done. And his body collapsed atop hers.
“Don’t move for a moment,” he whispered.
Move? She couldn’t breathe.
“Cap...tain?” She pushed her body against his. Nothing moved.
“It’s probably not a good idea to do that right now, Averill.” His voice didn’t sound like him. It sounded guttural. Harsh. “Please. Stop. I am not immune. I’m doing the best I can to ignore—! Be a good girl and cease that! We’ve given a display even Harvey can’t fault. I won’t have any further trouble over it, but I can’t stay atop you without some sort of penalty. Don’t move, damn it!”
“I...cannot breathe,” she managed to whisper.
“Oh.”
He lifted onto his forearms, allowing her great, gulping gasps of air. Averill sucked them in, over and over again, feeling the wonder recede, only to be replaced by reason and sanity. Display? She played his words over in her mind. That was the reason for the light? And his embrace? They had been creating a display?
“You kiss with too much of yourself involved, Averill. That’s how I could tell.”
Averill was so grateful for the pitch-black of the interior she nearly gave vent to it. She only hoped the gasp she gave wasn’t as loud as it sounded to her own ears.
“You’ll make a terrible courtesan, should you decide on that occupation.”
“Courtesan?” Averill’s eyes were so wide, the air hurt.
“Yes, a courtesan. Harvey thinks it an appropriate solution to my problem. I don’t. Please don’t move like that. I already mentioned it.”
Averill had swiveled onto one hip, the better to take his weight. She stopped mid-movement. “Problem?” she asked, in what voice she still possessed as she settled back onto her back. “What problem?”
“What to do with you, once this is over.”
“I can take care of myself,” Averill replied, stiffly.
“You’ll be attacked and violated the moment you show that face of yours. Trust me.”
“I hid well enough...before,” she answered.
“Before? You were among inbred mules with little eyesight. If Sergeant Miggs had gotten a good look at you, he’d have done much worse than a strapping. Believe me.”
“Will you...move now?”
“I don’t know if I can. I don’t want to frighten you.”
“I think you’re...too late,” she replied.
She received a snort of amusement for that statement, and a hard dig into her hip from somewhere on his body. Averill caught her breath at the same moment he did.
“This is not working.”
He groaned, and then he was leaning on one arm, using the other to trail his fingers along her arm, slowing at her inner elbow, before sliding down to her hand, and then back up. Averill caught her breath at every juncture.
“Averill?” he whispered when he reached her shoulder again.
“Yes?”
“You are not safe with me. Not tonight.”
“Not...safe?” she repeated, barely above a whisper.
“I am a gentleman, but I’m also a man. A gentleman would be able to keep you safe, and find...uh, other venues for his lust. I can’t. I’m too far from...that sort of thing, just as my men are. That’s why I started this, actually.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Men are lustful creatures, love. When they lust for what they cannot have, it creates trouble. I had to make certain that doesn’t happen. I just didn’t think through the consequences. Or, if I did, I neglected a very large one.”
He called me love!
Averill was probably aglow with how it felt to hear it. She reached a hand toward him. All she touched was air. He was already leaving.
“I’m going now. I’m going to slide like a sneak-thief, out the opening. I’m not coming back. Sleep well. Forget this happened.”
“How am I supposed...to do that?”
“Think of how repulsive I am.”
“You’re not repulsive,” she answered, sitting up and clasping her arms about her knees.
“Think of how damning this is, then,”
“You kissed me. Was that…damning?” And why did she have to sound so young as she asked it?
He sighed heavily. “I very nearly seduced you, Averill. I’m fully capable of staying and finishing it, too. I don’t like that about myself. I already said so.”
“It wouldn’t...have been seduction,” she whispered.
Shocked silence followed her announcement, and most of it belonged to Averill. She couldn’t believe she had actually said it, either.
“With someone like you, it would be. I would have been damned, and powerless to stop it. I’m leaving now. Don’t say another bloody word.”
His voice was as brutal-sounding as the words. Averill caught the agony of his rejection before it made sound. She knew what he referred to now. She was beneath contemplation even as a mistress, despite how he wanted her.
She had forgotten.
She heard the whisper of cloth, saw the star-flecked sky for a moment through the opening and then he was gone.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Captain Tennison had referred often enough to saving Averill from her own destiny that she should have it memorized. Averill looked up the long chain of horses and camels in front of her to where the captain sat, and glared at him with every bit of disdain she could, using grit-filled and tired eyes. He wasn’t responsible for her! He never needed to feel such.
His plan had worked, though. Not one of the other men even looked her way, let alone asked if she needed anything.
“And it’s a very good thing that I don’t,” she said aloud, earning herself a snort from Pegasus. “I’m self-sufficient, self-employed, and self-motivated. Why, if I wished it, I could work for any number of people. I could paint all day, if I liked! I don’t need him! I don’t need any man.”
Voicing it got her the exact same reaction as thinking it throughout the night. Tears. Averill wiped at them and cursed the weakness that caused them. She hated crying. Tears were for the weak and impotent, and women with nothing in their future.
Captain Tennison hadn’t been anywhere in sight when camp broke. No one had come to awaken Averill, but it hadn’t been necessary. As soon as she heard the first grunts of soldiers and their horses, she’d been up, wrapped in her cloak, and sitting cross-legged on her pallet in the empty, and very lonely, little half-tent.
Averill put both hands to her eyes, pushed with her fingers, and forced every tear back to where they came from.
When she moved her hands, she had to use the cloak edge to finish mopping at her face. If she cried, it was her own misery. No one else had to know. It was the least she cou
ld do for herself. Pegasus seemed to understand, for his gait slowed.
“You’re not keeping up.”
Averill’s heart dropped to join the stone-weight in her belly at the voice giving her the information.
“You are atop the end camel. You can’t lag behind. It’s disruptive. It isn’t a good thing if I have to come back here and make certain of it.”
“I am keeping up,” Averill replied, amazed that her voice sounded normal.
“I have my orders to see carried out, a band of well-trained men to lead, and a cargo to exchange. I don’t have time to arrest everything if I see you lagging behind.”
Averill sat up straighter. The caravan was moving exactly as it had been, and she wasn’t but two steps behind the camel before Pegasus. Precisely where she’d always been. She turned her head and looked across at the captain. There wasn’t a tear anywhere in existence.
“You waste effort with your words. I am not behind, nor am I in danger of it.”
“If I chose to speak with you, why would it be a waste?”
“Because you are the leader, and I am at the end, as you have already pointed out.” The longer she spoke, the easier it became.
“You think I should just let you wander off as you may?”
“I am in no danger of wandering, Captain, nor would I do so. Where would I go?”
He sighed. “As long as it was away from me...probably anywhere.”
Averill didn’t say anything for several moments. She couldn’t believe what she’d heard. “Why would I do such a thing?” she asked, finally.
“Because I am a bore and a brute and attacked without provocation.”
“And who was it you attacked?”
His gaze narrowed. “You wish a repeat?”
“I did not wish a first,” she said, and watched him flush.
“It will not happen again. On my honor. You have my word.”
Her belly-full of stone moved, making Averill physically ill. She swallowed viciously against it. “I...understand,” she said finally, and said a swift prayer when he failed to notice how the words shook.
“Good. Then, you have no reason to fear me, and none for avoiding me by lagging behind.”
Averill closed her eyes, waited for Pegasus to sway four times to each side, and then she reopened her eyes. Captain Tennison hadn’t moved. She wasn’t surprised.
“If you are apologizing, Captain, I accept. You may return to your position now.”
“A Tennison never apologizes, remember?”
Averill’s lips quirked as he said it. “It is a good thing they believe nothing they do warrants one, isn’t it?” she asked.
He sighed, hugely this time. “Very well, Averill. I apologize yet again.”
“Truly? For what this time?”
“Disrupting your self-sufficient lifestyle in Cairo. What else?”
Averill’s lips straightened. “You are being missed, Captain,” she replied.
The caravan was still moving. None of the men had turned back. Averill watched the captain as he looked over the line and then back at her.
“You’re wondering why I’m back here, bothering you, aren’t you?”
“No.”
“You don’t think it strange that I come and speak with you?”
“I am yours to speak with, Captain, any time you wish to.”
He frowned at that. Averill quickly glanced back down.
“You’re also mine to command, then?”
“That was our arrangement, wasn’t it?”
“What if I want it changed?”
Averill’s eyebrows drew together. The stone weight was shifting in her belly, making it difficult to think beyond that. “Why would you do that? I don’t understand.”
He didn’t answer her and she slid her eyes to see why. He wasn’t watching her. He was watching his own hands on the reins. Then, he looked over, surprising her. Averill barely had time to pretend her indifference again.
“Did you sleep well?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“You don’t look it.”
She reached down to pat Pegasus’ neck. Her hood fell forward, shielding her flush. If the instant thought of his looking at her caused this reaction, her ruse would never work. She straightened back up and turned to him. She tried to meet his eyes, but only managed the top of his mouth.
“I already know why you are here, Captain.”
“I know you do.”
She met his eyes and shied away. Locking gazes was too dangerous. “It’s because I’m posing as your property and you are making certain your men believe this and stay away. It is the same reason I received your…caress last eve. I do not need it explained to me.”
He didn’t say anything for so long, that she turned her head to see why. He smiled.
“You don’t paint?”
“I haven’t any talent today, I’m afraid.”
“You always have the talent. You proved that much. I can’t believe my eyes about your painting of Apamea Palace. I can’t even draw a straight line. But I don’t need to convince you about talent. You know you have it.”
She moved her gaze to the landscape beyond his shoulder, watching the heat waves pulse across the sand. It was safer. She narrowed her eyes on the glare.
“You just need to find out where your inspiration has gone, I think.”
“There’s no need for further words, Captain. Your men have made note of your time here. They won’t bother me.”
“You wish I’d leave?”
She swallowed before answering. She toyed briefly with nodding her head, but decided it wouldn’t be confident enough. “I didn’t ask you to come,” she said quietly.
She felt, rather than saw, the captain stiffen. When he spoke again, it wasn’t with any warmth. Averill felt the loss immediately, and chided herself. That’s what I want, isn’t it?
“This should be welcome news, then. You have to suffer only one more night beside me. Tomorrow night, we’ll be guests of his highness, Sheik Al-Hassen. After that, there will no longer be any need.”
Averill turned to question him, but he was already riding away. She watched his burnoose wave and knew the emotion flooding her, and making the stone grow in her belly, was fear.
Only one more night? Did he plan on giving her to the sheik for his harem? Is that what he meant?
Her fear lent itself to her brush. She quickly seized crimson, charcoal and yellow ocher. If he left her with the sheik, or with anyone else, it would be like never-ending night in her life.
Strokes filled the edges of the canvas. The color was reddish-black with pain, and fading toward the center. She added clouds in the sky, but they weren’t fluffy white. They were dark and contained storms filled with flooding rain and destructive force.
The yellow shades she mixed started to create a shape near the center. It wasn’t until the camel under her quickened its pace, making her brush skitter, that Averill glanced up again.
She’d painted the knight of her dreams at the center. His raised sword was imbued with yellowish light. He looked like he was at the center of the vortex of pain, stirring the mists to fill them with it. She almost wished she could destroy it before anyone saw it.
Movement alone the line made her hold the painting to the far side of Pegasus, where it dangled from her fingers. Captain Tennison was riding back again. She didn’t want him to see the picture. She could scarcely look at it herself.
“I saw you working.” He smiled as he rode up, making it worse as her mouth dried and her hands trembled. “Let me see.”
She shook her head and nearly dropped the canvas to the sand.
“Why?”
“You’ll think it...ugly.” She stammered the word and couldn’t meet his eye. The stone was back and it was even heavier than before.
“Nothing you do would be ugly. You don’t have it in you.”
She slowly handed him the picture. He stared at it intently for a long time, then at her. Averill s
hied away from the question in his eyes.
“What caused you such pain?” he asked. “Was it what I said?”
She didn’t answer. There wasn’t any correct one.
“I look at this and I see what you hide. I see futile existence, painful time spent. I wonder what emotion you aren’t capable of painting. I’m impressed. May I keep it?”
“It should be destroyed,” she whispered as she looked at him.
“We must talk.”
She saw his mouth move, but didn’t hear his words. She watched him leave. She was still watching as he called a halt while her mind hammered with his last words. Her hands on the saddle shook as she commanded Pegasus to kneel.
He wants to talk.
He was waiting for her in Pegasus’ spot. Averill watched the sand at his feet. It was safer.
“Come along, Averill.”
He stepped close. Then he put his arm around her, holding her close all the way to his tent. Like something precious. Once there, he waited for her to enter. Sit. Remove her cloak. Fold it. And then he spoke.
“You may communicate, Averill, but it’s not the real you. You keep that part hidden, don’t you? But then you are betrayed. By your own talent. Your paintings speak for you. And I am finally listening.”
She looked down at her paint-smudged cloak. She was so drained the stone-weight wasn’t even bothering her. She felt it there, but it didn’t seem to matter anymore. She’d been laid bare and she knew it. She wondered what he’d do. Perhaps that was why their time was over. He didn’t want the problem of her anymore and had come to his decision.
“Averill, look at me.”
Her entire body rebelled. It took an act of will not to get up and run. It was some time before she dared let her eyes follow the line of his robes to his throat. From there, she saw the full curve of his lips and forced herself to look up to his gaze. Strange things happened to her breathing, her pulse, and even the stone-weight shifted when she met his eyes.
“I…have something to tell you, Averill,” he whispered.
Her eyes widened and her mouth opened.
