The world seemed to fall away. Shana could hardly drag in enough air to breathe. His fingers traced slowly around the throbbing peaks of her breasts, as if he feared she might stop him. But Shana's only fear was that he would stop, and she might lose this fiery sweetness that spread ail through her. Her hands uncurled, splaying across his naked chest. She thrilled to the pleasantly abrasive feel of her fingertips burrowed in the dark forest on his chest, the binding tightness of sinew and muscle beneath. His mouth returned to hers, and all at once she could taste the hunger in his kiss.
A strange, dark thrill ran through her. She dimly registered the insistent, straining pressure of his manhood pressing hot and hard against her belly. She knew now what that hardness meant, and though a shiver of reaction tore through her, it struck her that she was neither fearful nor repelled by it. Indeed, an answering surge of longing unfurled low in her belly, an empty ache centered deep in that secret, womanly part of her that no other man had possessed. No other man ... save Thorne.
Then even that thought disintegrated as he eased her back to the mattress, his mouth never leaving hers. Helplessly she twined her arms around his neck. She knew what he wanted. And sweet Jesus, she wanted it, too ...
"Milord!" Someone banged on the door.
Shana's eyes flicked open. She stared directly into the harsh masculine beauty of his face.
His head lowered. "Pay no heed," he muttered. 'They will—"
"Milord!" The banging was louder this time. "You must come quickly! The Welsh prisoners have escaped, milord—they have escaped!"
Chapter 15
Escaped ...
Surely her ears had played her false. Surely she was mistaken. One glimpse of Thorne's twisted features and she knew she was not.
With a vile curse his feet hit the floor, like the clap of a thunderbolt. He turned burning eyes toward the slight figure in the bed. "By God," he gnashed his teeth together in impotent fury, "I could kill you for this!"
Shana did not understand. She clutched the sheet to her naked breasts and sat up, pushing her heavy hair from her face. "What!" she cried. "Thorne, why—" The question died in her throat. She almost cried out as his starkly masculine features dissolved into a mask of sheer ice. It didn't seem possible that those hard lips had supped so tenderly at her own but a moment past. The seductive lover was gone ...
She twisted around and began to search for her shift. She found it next to the bed and pulled it over her head, rising quickly. She was just about to step into her gown when he seized her arm roughly.
"Were I you," he spit out from between clenched teeth, "I'd do my best to stay out of my sight." He pushed her rudely toward the bed. "Do not leave this room, Shana, or by God, I'll not be responsible!"
She fell back upon the bed, shaken by the seething fury she saw in him. He grabbed his armor, helmet, and sword, spun around, and strode from the chamber. The door slammed with a ferocity that surely shook the very heavens and beyond. Shana was stunned to realize she was trembling from head to toe. Pain like a clamp seized her heart. She curled into a tight little ball and damned the stupid, foolish tears that threatened to overflow.
She shivered, envisioning anew the condemnation that blazed from his eyes, sliced by it as cleanly as if he were there before her. She slipped back into bed, her mind churning. She could understand his anger over the prisoners escaping, she did not understand why he was so angry with her. it was none of her doing, she thought indignantly. Yet he acted as if it were.
She caught her breath, then released it in an unsteady trickle. Lord, she thought numbly. Surely he didn't think that she was responsible for their escape ... or did he?
Thorne did not return. It wasn't long before she heard the thunder of hoofbeats outside in the bailey. Peering out the window she saw torchlights glowing in the darkness. A group of horsemen raced through the gatehouse. She lay back down and eventually fell into an exhausted sleep.
A tepid sunlight trickling through the shutters roused her near dawn, that and a prickly tingle of unease. Her lids flew open and she gave a strangled gasp. Her husband leaned over her, his countenance so fierce and forbidding she shrank back against the pillows.
He sat, trapping the covers beneath him. Very deliberately he placed both hands alongside her head. Lean and powerful, she knew he could crush the life from her in the blink of an eye. Her breath came hard and fast, for never had he seemed so cold and so ruthless!
A slow smile crept along his lips. "You were very sweet and obliging last night, once you cast aside your token resistance. Ah, but your lips clung so sweetly to mine ... I admit, I was almost duped, for it did not occur to me that you overcame your aversion to me much too easily. Would you be as soft and willing now, I wonder?" She stiffened when a calloused fingertip drifted back and forth along her collarbone.
"No? I thought not." His smile grew brittle. "That's a woman's trick, you see, and one I've seen before. Aye, a woman will gladly yield all when she thinks she may gain from it. So tell me, princess. Did you think to keep me so pleasurably occupied with your body that your countrymen might put more distance between themselves and their prison cells? Or did you think if I was well satisfied with your flesh I'd be more inclined to lenience?"
She drew a deep, jagged breath. "You make no sense, milord."
"Ah, but I should have known the reason for your sudden change of heart! Why else would you play the soft, willing maiden?" His tone was mild, his smile utterly deceptive—and thoroughly unnerving. He hauled her from the bed with a force that rent the breath from her lungs. His grip on her shoulders was merciless. He shook her so hard she feared her neck might snap.
"There will be no more pretense, Shana. I will have the truth. And I will have it now!"
She clutched at his arms for balance. "I swear I don't know what you mean! I—I don't know why you're so angry! Is it the prisoners?"
"The prisoners!" he exclaimed. "Well, now that you mention it, their escape seems to have been quite successful."
She gaped. "You found none of them?" He shook his head. Shana did not know whether to weep in joy or despair. While a part of her was elated the prisoners had not been recaptured, she was terrified of the barely leashed tension she felt in him.
"I find I am most curious, princess. Exactly how did you manage to orchestrate their escape?"
Her lips parted. Oh, but she should have known … she had known! "You think I did it! Why, I was in the hall with you—"
"Except for the time you left the hall for our chamber."
She blanched; he smiled tightly.
"I admit, 'tis unlikely you had time to release the prisoners. Yet when I think about it, 'twould not be impossible, especially if you had help. And we both know you are not without another pair of hands available to you." He laughed harshly when she gleaned his meaning. "Oh, yes, milady, methinks Sir Gryffen would do just about anything
for his lady."
"But nothing so bold as freeing the prisoners on his own He—he grows old, and he—he would have come to me first and ... and he did not, I swear it'"
Thorne's gaze pierced her as surely as a lance. "You think him incapable of such treachery? In your own words, mistress, 'he is a knight, well trained in the arts of war.' And both the gatekeeper and the jailer were knocked unconscious. My only question is this—did Gryffen act alone or with your blessing, and guidance?"
"Oh, but you are a fool! What you call treachery is merely loyalty—"
"You admit it then?"
"I admit nothing, for I have done nothing. You demand the truth and then you refuse to listen!" she flared. "I had nothing to do with it nor did Gryffen. You seek to cast the blame where no blame lies. If you wish to blame anyone, milord, look to yourself and your own folly for not catching them sooner. Your men were too busy watching the little maid flaunt her wares to heed their duties—and you are just as guilty!" She was thoroughly incensed now.
"You are the one who is a fool, mistress. Who among these troops gathere
d here would wish to see the Welsh prisoners freed? Why, surely 'tis obvious even to you why you and your knight come to mind. Indeed you are the only ones to come to mind." He grabbed her gown from the end of the bed and flung it at her.
"Get dressed," he ordered curtly. "And be quick about it, princess, for it's time you bore witness to the fruit of your nights efforts."
Numbly she obeyed, though her hands were trembling so she could scarcely do up the buttons of her gown. She dragged a comb through her hair and hurriedly plaited it down her back. Thorne surveyed her all the while, not once relieving her of his thin-lipped stare. Anger had given way to fear and dread, coiled heavy on her breast. All at once she was frightened of the unyielding intent she sensed in him.
Hard fingers curled around her elbow the instant she was ready. Without a word he pulled her from the chamber. He kept her in tow all the way down the stairs and through the great hall. By the time they entered the bailey she was gasping and winded.
Her own plight was quickly forgotten. Though the bailey was filled with the usual throng of knights and men-at-arms, an eerie silence prevailed, oppressive and threatening as a shroud of doom. At their entrance, nearly every eye turned to where they stood at the bottom of the stair. Shana faltered and nearly stumbled, stung to the core as wave after wave of hostility poured over her
Don't look at me like that! she wanted to cry. I've done nothing to harm you, nothing! Her gaze swept the crowd, once and then again, in mute appeal— she encountered naught but frigid condemnation. It was on the second pass that her gaze glanced off the post in the center of the bailey ... then cut sharply back.
Coiled on the post was a sleek, deadly-looking whip. A grim-visaged knight stepped up to the post and beckoned to another.
In shock she saw Sir Gryffen being led forward. First one arm was strung high onto a loop in the post, then the other.
The world seemed to blacken. Dizzying comprehension tumbled through Shana's mind. She turned to stare at Thorne, her face bloodless.
"No," she said faintly, and then again: "No," The cry wrenched from deep inside her was part despair, part horror ... pure anguish. "You cannot have him whipped. Dear God, he is an old man!"
"Old, mayhap. But hardly feeble." His features might have been etched in stone, so remote and impassive was he.
"You—you do not understand!" she cried wildly. She latched onto the front of his tunic, her desperation mirrored in her eyes. "Gryffen did nothing, do you hear? He had no part in it! 'Twas all my doing. I struck both the gatekeeper and the jailer in the back of the head with a stone, then released the prisoners."
"Indeed," he drawled. "I find it interesting, princess, that both you and Gryffen fiercely proclaimed your innocence—until the question of collaboration with the other was raised. Then both of you quickly changed your minds and took the burden of guilt squarely upon yourselves. Such loyalty is commendable but does little to ease my plight, for once again I know not when you speak the truth and when you lie. Since you both claim to be guilty, you shall both be punished—Gryffen by ten lashes and you by standing here at my side and watching."
Her hands fell away from his tunic. She gave a choked cry. "Nay! Put me under the lash, not Gryffen!"
His gaze iced over. He turned her bodily toward the post. "Methinks this is a far greater punishment, princess."
And indeed it was. Her hands locked convulsively before her to still their trembling. He felt her body jolt with every crack of the lash but she spoke not a word, nor was there any sound from Gryffen. Bile rose in Thorne's throat as he witnessed the old man's stoic posture. He'd been foolishly tolerant of the old man, and now he cursed himself for allowing his feelings for the knight to get in the way of his duty. Had he kept Gryffen in the dungeon as he should have, he'd not be suffering this unreasoning feeling of betrayal.
The lash fell for the eighth time. Nine ... then it was over. He signaled for Gryffen to be cut down. The old man staggered and lurched forward onto his knees. His back was crisscrossed with swelling welts and oozing trails of blood.
Shana made as if to dart forward. He caught her about the waist and whirled her around to face him. Her face was blotched and pale, her cheeks streaked with tears.
"Hold!" he said sharply. "What do you think you're about?"
"Let me pass," she cried.
His lips twisted. Her contempt for him was clearly writ in those beautiful silver eyes. He wondered what she would say if she knew Gryffen would have been screaming and writhing in agony had he not ordered that the old man be spared the full fury of the whip.
Time stood still while their eyes met and clashed endlessly. A clawing pain ripped at his insides. He wondered what it was about the old man—aye, and the boy Will—that she would take them to her bosom and champion their cause as if it were her own.
"Thorne, please! Let me tend to him!"
Still he held her firm. His expression had gone rigid. There was no outward sign of the violent struggle even now being waged within him. But there was anguish embedded in the sound of his name, a world of it, and though he longed to ignore it, he could not. She pounded at his chest, and it was as if she landed a blow at the very center of his heart. Guilt forged a searing hole in his gut. He despised himself thoroughly, as if he were the vilest of beings.
She gave a dry sob, a heartbreaking sound that cut like a spear, clear inside him. Suddenly that was how he felt, raw and broken and bleeding inside. And he hated her for bringing about such weakness ...
His hands fell away from her shoulders. "Go," he said roughly His mouth compressed when she remained where she was, clearly stunned by his command. "You heard me," he said almost savagely "Just ... go, dammit!"
She backed away, as if he were naught but some evil scourge. Indeed, he reflected bitterly, that was how she saw him—the scourge of the English. Then she whirled and raced toward Gryffen as if the hounds of hell nipped at her heels. A moment later she was on her knees beside the old man, a gentle hand upon his brow, a telling gesture if ever there was one.
Thorne scowled and tore his gaze away. Yet even as he thrust the pair from his mind, he damned his lovely wife for caring so much about the grizzled old knight ... and caring so little about him.
Sir Gryffen occupied quarters in the building next to the barracks. Two guards carried him inside and dumped him on a narrow pallet pushed up against the wall. They offered no further assistance, so it was left to Shana to fetch a basin of water and cloths to clean his bloodied back.
Gryffen stiffened as she bent to the task. He angled his head to the side that he might see her better. He groaned on seeing the rebellious compression of her lips. "You must not hold this against him, Shana." His raspy voice was weak and thin.
Shana said nothing, merely set her lips more tightly still.
"I mean it, girl. I'll not be the cause of more strife between the two of you."
It was on the tip of her tongue to retort that she did not foresee how their situation could possibly be any worse. She did not, because she had glimpsed the ripe anxiety in Gryffen's faded blue eyes.
"I understand why he had me punished—'twas a matter of honor and respect. Had I been in his place, I'd have done the same."
Shana said nothing. Later, perhaps, she might admit Gryffen was right—the knight's code of honor would demand discipline be meted out swiftly and severely. But she was not inclined to be generous towards her husband, not when Gryffen lay hurt and bloodied beneath her.
The tension constricting her muscles slowly eased as she dabbed at the bloodied furrows in his back. Gryffen would be sore and bruised for a few days, she suspected. But the strips left by the lash were neither deep nor wide.
From the door came the shuffle of footsteps. Shana glanced up to see Will standing there, holding a cup. He held it toward her.
"Milady, the earl bade me bring this to you. He said 'twill ease the pain. And here is a healing salve."
Shana was sorely tempted to snap that she wanted nothing f
rom the earl, not even this! She did not, for she knew Gryffen was surely in pain though he had yet to cry out or even moan. She beckoned to Will. With the boy's help, they lifted the cup to Gryffen's lips so he could drink. It wasn't long before his breathing grew deep and even His lashes fell shut and he slept. Will sat on his haunches beside her as she began to smooth the greasy salve onto his torn flesh.
"Milady—" the boy's voice was barely audible, "he won't die, will he?"
Shana glanced at him sharply. Her heart twisted as she spied his anxious fear.
An unexpected friendship had cropped up between Gryffen and the boy, despite the vast difference in their ages. It had pleased Shana to no end that despite Gryffen's Welsh heritage, Will was not blind to the good in him. Now she gave a hearty prayer of thanksgiving that the day's events had not besmirched the boy's affection for Sir Gryffen.
"He'll be fine, Will," she said softly, wiping her hands on a rag. "I promise you, Gryffen will be here for a good many years to come." She leaned over and pressed her lips against his forehead. She felt him start in surprise, but he didn't pull away. Indeed, he blushed fiercely, but the next moment his eyes were dark once more.
Shana frowned. "What is it, Will?"
He hesitated. "Milady," he said slowly, "I do not think Gryffen freed the prisoners. He slept long before I, and I think I would have awoken had he left."
But would he have? Perhaps. Then again, perhaps not. Shana experienced a pinprick of guilt. Gryffen was certainly the guilty party, for Thorne was right. Who but the two of them would have wished the Welsh prisoners freed? But she knew she dared not admit such, lest more trouble brew.
She shook her head. "Alas, Will, we may never know who is responsible."
The troubled frown did not leave his brow, but he said nothing more. Shana rose to her feet a short time later since Will promised to stay with Gryffen in case he awoke.
The sun glittered brilliantly when she reentered the bailey. Raising a slender hand, she shielded her eyes against the glare. She was vastly irritated when she beheld Thorne striding toward her.
My Rebellious Heart Page 22
