“And did your wizard fight the evil baron for you?” Rayne asked in tight control.
She poured juice into a glass and carried it toward the table. “I could not allow that, for his counsel is irreplaceable. He should never have expected it.”
The words carried a soft note that touched Rayne’s heart like the stroking of gentle fingertips. Never in this life would his princess have allowed him to hear it if she had guessed his identity. No, not ever.
Mara sat down opposite from him and picked up her fork. Turning it in her hand for a doubtful moment, she reached with it to poke at her egg, and then proceeded to cut off a bite and pick it up to transfer it to her mouth. She was quick, he had to give her that; she caught the knack of the unfamiliar implement at once.
It was good to see her tuck into the food, regardless of the measures he had used to arrange it. It had been his fault, those few minutes of fraught confrontation. He should have chosen a better ploy to demonstrate his so-called power. He wondered if she would ever forgive him.
As casually as he was able, he said, “Too bad you didn’t have a rifle or two there at your castle. They would have made short work of this siege.”
“You are speaking of the weapon I saw you using earlier?”
He tipped his head in assent.
“Tell me, will its projectile pierce armor?”
“Like paper, at least the kind of armor you’re talking about.”
“Formidable. It also seemed effective at a great distance.”
“A trained soldier could stand on the highest tower of your castle and pick off the attackers, even this baron himself. He would never know what hit him.”
Her eyes were dark as she gazed somewhere beyond his shoulder. Abruptly she focused on his face. “Have you ever met a man in a contest of honor with such a weapon?”
Rayne’s heart thudded in his chest as he began to suspect the direction of her thoughts. Trying for a careless air, he said, “The method of settling fights you’re talking about died out long ago—at least in theory. The problem is that rifles and most other modern weapons are too lethal. Honor becomes a moot point when both combatants are all too likely to be killed.”
“I see,” she said on a sigh. “As you say, it is too bad.”
As she turned her attention to her meal again, she appeared to notice she had failed to supply herself with bread. Rising, she moved to retrieve the loaf that lay on the cabinet in its wrapper.
As he watched her, Rayne realized that though she did not recognize him, she had gained an appreciation for his strength. It was possible she thought he might have a chance on the field of honor. Then again, it could well be that she simply did not care whether a chance-met woodsman lived or died.
She had valued her wizard, at least enough to keep him from danger by denying him the right to face the baron. He had that consolation.
Or was that it? Could it be possible she knew who he was, but he had forfeited the right to her regard? Perhaps she was no longer concerned for her wizard’s wellbeing since she had met him face to face. Possibly she was even anxious to send him out onto the field. If he defeated the baron, she would be reinstated in her proper place. If he lost, he would receive what he deserved for daring to abduct her and show such blatant disregard for her person.
He had to know which theory was right. He must test her somehow.
As she returned with her bread, he swung around in his chair and stretched out his long legs so they blocked her path. “I believe I’ll have a cup of coffee to keep you company while you eat.”
“As you please,” she said, and lifted her skirts in one hand as though she intended to step over him.
“I meant for you to bring it,” he said in lazy suggestion as he shifted to prevent her passage.
“Did you?” she said pleasantly. “I can’t imagine why.”
“I thought we had settled this issue.”
“You were wrong. We settled that I would fend for myself in the matter of my own food preparation. Nothing was said about acting the servant for you.”
“We settled that I am able to command you,” he corrected her before allowing his voice to soften. “Still, you might, if you wished, do it to please me.”
Her gaze was defiant. “And why should I feel any desire to do that?”
He smiled and deliberately tilted his head. “You know why.”
He saw her eyes narrow slightly, and felt a tingle of alarm along his spine. Then her lips curved in a slow smile. Reaching over him to put her bread on her plate, she swung away and moved to where the coffee pot sat on its warmer.
Rayne watched her find a coffee mug and fill it, leaving the brew black and unsweetened, as he had taken it earlier. Gaze lowered, she turned and walked toward him with it, moving with slow care so as not to spill a drop.
He should have known. He might have, had he not been so gratified by her ready compliance with his wishes, so puffed up with conceit that she had noted and remembered his preference for black coffee. He didn’t notice the grim set of her mouth, didn’t see the tremor in her fingers—not until she reached across him at the table, until the cup was poised over his lap.
The cup tilted. Hot brown liquid poured out, streaming, steaming as it cascaded downward.
Rayne cursed as he flung away from it, overturning his chair behind him. Mara danced away from him and the falling chair, but slipped in the coffee splashing across the floor. The cup flew out of her hand as she fell. He grabbed for her, but became entangled in her skirts. Taking her with him, he twisted with her as he landed on his side, absorbing the brunt of the crashing fall.
He lay for a winded instant before heaving over, dragging her under him, placing her on her back with her wrists captured in his hard fingers. Drenched in coffee, breathing hard, he settled a portion of his weight upon her.
His right thigh burned from hip to ankle, though his body against her soft, warm wetness grew hotter still. Mara, protected by her layers of skirts, appeared to have taken no injury.
She recovered first. She braced, and then arched her back in a frantic effort to throw him off. Shifting, he used his weight to hold her immobile. She heaved this way and that, struggling while he pressed her down until his body felt welded to her every curve and hollow, until he could feel her panting breaths in the very center of his being. He shifted a fraction, and the heated hardness of his arousal nudged against the softness between her thighs. Her writhing under him pressed her more firmly against it.
Abruptly, she ceased struggling to lie perfectly still.
“Let me go!” she demanded in tight rage. “Did you think that I would obey you, all meek and mild, for the sake of a single kiss?”
“I never said it was for a kiss.” His voice was less than even as he sought to control the urges that boiled in his blood and mounted, distilled to their essence, to his brain.
“What, then? There is nothing else between us that comes anywhere near affection.”
That wasn’t true. Still, if she did not know it then holding her helpless was only exacting revenge for her defiance. That made him no better than the baron.
Rayne breathed hard and deep, trying to think, to decide how to bring some good from this situation he had created. It was impossible while his every instinct screamed for him to take the woman in his arms. He wanted her now—this moment—before it was too late.
Soon, soon, he must reverse this precarious spell and take them both back to Carreg Cennen. If he did not, they would be trapped here in this future time where everything was strange and new, and there was nothing between Princess Mara and himself except anger and fear and the kind of rampant lust that, if satisfied, must inevitably turn to hate.
Rayne closed his eyes and gave his head a quick shake to dislodge his raging inclinations. Releasing Mara, he pushed away from her and surged to one knee. Reaching to take her hands, he drew her up beside him.
She came, but there was a frown between her eyes. Curling her fingers around his,
she clung to him when he would have let her go. In a strained voice, she said, “What is it? What is wrong?”
“If you value your virtue,” he said with contained force, “you will take yourself well away from me.”
Her lips parted on a soft sound that might have been surprise or distress. Wide-eyed, she searched his face, studying every feature in turn until her gaze caught and held his own.
Her pupils were dark and reflective, the surrounding gray irises silver-edged and shimmering with some inner light. Her face was flushed, her features were composed—if she despised him now, she hid it well.
She was everything that was good and fine, bright and beautiful and unobtainable. She was proud, but then she had nothing for which to be humble. She could be autocratic but was never unfair. If she was arrogant on occasion, it was for self-protection. Also because there were those who would deny her worth, being without value within themselves.
She was his princess and his only love, and if he could not save her as he’d planned, he could still serve her. If she would permit it.
“Forgive me,” he said, lowering his eyes, inclining his head as he had been so strictly taught by his father. “I meant you no harm.”
She drew a short, sudden breath. For long seconds, there was not another sound. The sunshine falling through the window caught the spilled coffee with a bronze gleam and threw its reflection upon their faces in dazzling lozenges of light.
Then she reached to touch his cheek, trailing her fingers down it, along the turn of his jaw, and over his lips to their center as if memorizing the lines. “It is possible,” she said quietly, “that I will obey you in that…if you will kiss me a second time.”
He did not breathe, could not even blink. “If I should dare,” he answered in a constricted whisper, “I may not be able to stop.”
She hesitated. He saw also the glimmer of tears along her lashes, also the slight upward tilt of her chin as she made her decision. Her voice was soft, so soft it could barely be heard, as she replied. “Then don’t, I pray you.”
She knew him. She must, for how else could his princess come so near to offering herself to him? She would never extend that grace to a stranger, one who had done nothing except thwart her and attempt to dominate her. She was intelligent beyond most; she knew what he was doing, knew why and accepted it. He had done what he had intended when he swept them from Carreg Cennen. He had won.
They would go from here soon. Then he would fight for her. He would fight because he must—because surrender or defeat were both unthinkable. She would return to her rightful place, and so would he; it was inevitable. These next few hours would be all they could ever have as mere man and woman.
Yet how could he take advantage of the power he had used to bring Mara to this point? It would not be right or honorable. Moreover, she might not be inclined to forgive that betrayal so easily when they regained their proper stations.
On the other hand how could he refuse? To injure her pride by spurning her invitation would be just as unforgivable.
He wondered with grim honesty if this last was merely an excuse that would allow him to obey the clamor of his blood. Was he searching for a reason to reach out and take hold of a secret dream before it slipped away, before the ceaseless passage of time left him with only regret?
No. The answer was there before him. Had she seen it, too? Did she know it was the only course? Did she recognize that as long as they could each pretend she did not know who he was then this moment could be taken, whole and clear, from their past and their present? It would be theirs, without apologies or consequences, something to preserve in timeless amber and keep against the long, cold years that lay ahead.
And if all else failed, he thought in despair, it was within his power to insure that she did not remember this short time to come, would never recall that he had loved her.
Yes, it could be better that way.
Being a wizard was good for that much, if nothing else.
Chapter Four
Mara had known he would not fail her. He never had and never would.
As Rayne reached out to take her into the strong circle of his arms, she moved to meet him, pressing close against the hard strength of him, then closer still. She wanted him, needed him, could not bear in that moment to be denied the comfort and solace of him.
He was her wizard, her support, the other half of her heart and mind. She had known it well for long years, though she had lacked the courage to acknowledge it.
She knew it now, just as she knew him beyond doubting. No one else could bend his head to her with such a precise degree of consideration and deference that yet lacked even the shadow of humility. No one else had ever sought so diligently to protect her—even when it was from himself. If he had revealed to her the hard edge of his nature, it was for a purpose. If she was surprised, the fault was her own, for she had known there was steel inside him but never ventured to test the tempered strength of it.
In his wisdom and power, Rayne had taken her prisoner to show her how intolerable being at the command of the baron would be to her, how much she would hate being mere chattel won in war. He had thought to make her see that submitting under force to the will of another person would be an endless humiliation fit to shrivel the spirit and bring death to joy and pride. In this, he had succeeded.
But he had also erred, for he had shown her how it would be to surrender to his will. He had, whether he intended it or not, shown her the face of love.
“Come,” he said, and lifted her in his arms. She turned her face into his neck, brushing her lips against the pulse which throbbed there, as he carried her along the hall and into his sleeping chamber. She was placed on the great, low bed with its silken-smooth sheets of celestial blue.
Or was she?
As he settled beside her, he pressed his lips to her eyelids, first one and then the other, to close them. Suddenly, she was in a bluebell wood with the fresh scent of May around her and the warm sun on her skin. She was blissfully naked, and the cool blossoms and stems of bluebells tickled and caressed and cushioned her. His hands were as delicate as the grass, brushing over her, leaving the shivering, beaded skin of gooseflesh in their wake.
A soft breeze stirred her hair, lifting a strand so it made a satin curtain over her breast. He leaned to find the taut rose nipple through the tresses, laving it with his tongue, taking it delicately between his teeth, then gently, gently into his mouth. All the while, he stroked her thighs, the slender turn of her waist, and smoothed in questing circles over the flat, white surface of her abdomen.
Languor, rich and sweet, rose inside her. She lifted her hand to clasp his shoulder and found the skin firm and sun-warmed, with the muscles underneath as unyielding as a statue of bronze. She pressed her palms to him, as if she could feel more fully that way, and followed the ridges and planes of his body. Diligently memorizing, she skimmed over his chest, sensing his heart beating under his ribs and the strong lift of his breathing. She brushed over the inflexible, heated surface of his belly, and then trailed her fingertips to where the firm length of his maleness sprang. Turgid, expectant, it stirred under her fingers, fitted into her hand.
He was naked also. She might have been embarrassed had it not seemed no natural, and so wondrous. Where had their clothes gone, and how? Oh, but what did it matter? She drew a long, slow breath of infinite pleasure.
“Magic,” she whispered, and felt him stiffen as if in he were surprised she could sense it. Abruptly, there was only a room and a bed with turned back sheets, and too many confining pieces of fabric covering their bodies once more. Disappointment touched her and she made a soft sound of loss.
The sweet vision flooded back with even greater intensity. She could smell bluebells and eglantine roses mixed with woodbine, honeysuckle, and warm, warm clover. The sunlight gilded their skins, flooding them with its heat.
“Disregard whatever you don’t care for, and it will fade from your sight,” he said in quiet explanation.
“Embrace what gives you pleasure, and it will be yours.”
Laughing a little in wonder and wild exuberance, she rolled against him, twining her legs with his while she flicked her tongue over the hollow at the base of his throat. Never had she felt so free or so alive. Here, no duty awaited her; there was no position to maintain, no dignity to preserve. For this brief interval, she could be truly herself.
There was glory in that realization, and also an undercurrent of pain for the knowledge that it could not last. She knew a deep need to share the miracle of it, as Rayne had shared with her the warm beauty of his fantasy.
“Shall I embrace you then?” Still smiling, she lifted her lips for his kiss.
He gave it, molding his mouth to hers, and sliding his tongue around hers in sinuous play. She took the silken strokes, letting them fuel her languid delight, and returned them with half-shy, half-bold explorations of her own. The swell of his chest against her was her reward—that and the delicate touch of his hand between her thighs. His eased a finger into her, gently teasing, stretching, while his palm closed over the center of her being in firm possession.
A ripple moved over her, like the billowing of a curtain in a soft wind. Abruptly, she felt voluptuous, abandoned—while the purest sensual glory flowed molten in her veins. In the same instant, she recognized the lap of warm water around her, sensed the nudging drift of rose petals like a thousand tiny kisses upon every inch of her exposed skin.
Slick—her body was slick with warm, rose-scented oil. She was immersed in a shallow pool lined with marble and filled with aqua-blue water from which drifted pale white wraiths of steam. Overhead arched a great corbelled roof set with thick panes of glass against which rain spattered in a drowsy cadence.
Rayne, his skin burnished to bronze magnificence by oil and water, trailed a line of kisses from her lips to the point of her chin and down the smooth white line of her throat. He brushed his face against the gentle curves of her breasts and tasted their crests with his tongue. Marking the path with the heat of his mouth, he continued lower. He licked across the wetness of her abdomen and threaded through the soft, golden-brown down adorning the juncture of her thighs, then sought delectable rose-scented petals of flesh.
Besieged Heart (No Ordinary Lovers Collection) Page 5
