“It’s not over. Not yet.”
“Can you not let it go? Has revenge brought you any peace?”
“No. None. You’re the only thing that brings me peace.” He kissed the top of her head and gave her a warm hug.
“But I still hear a woman weeping in my sleep. I failed her once. I won’t do so again. The thing is almost finished. Maybe after Harris I—”
“Robert, you didn’t fail her. You showed great courage as a boy. You charged five armed soldiers and slew one. You tried to rescue her against impossible odds. She knew it. She saw it. She called out for you to go. That was the last thing she wanted. The last thing she asked of you. She loved you. Did you ever think that seeing you leave let her feel you were safe and let her die in peace?”
“Then why do I still hear her weeping? Why does she invade my dreams? Why won’t she leave me alone? I told you I don’t believe in ghosts, only memories, but at times I feel her presence here. Late at night. In the gardens. Walking the halls. Real or memory she is restless. She plagues me unmercifully. She has for years.”
Hope shuddered. She, too, had heard similar cries at night, but he had hushed her and told her it was only night owls.
“There are times I almost hate her.”
“Oh, Robert, no!” Her heart was breaking for both of them, the brave young lad valiantly trying to do the impossible, to save his sister from five cruel and hardened soldiers, and the lovely golden-haired child who would never grow up, never have children, never marry or grow old. She struggled to contain her tears and to find words to sooth and comfort.
“It is not the sweet sister that you played with in the garden that plagues you. You torture yourself. She sought to save you just as you sought to save her. I can’t believe she wanted you to be unhappy or to spend your life in mourning or seeking revenge. You are trapped in a prison of your own making, my love. Perhaps it is you who refuses to let her go.
His startled gaze caught hers. She pressed on, not knowing if he would ever allow her this close again. “If she is here in more than memory, perhaps you keep her here. Perhaps she blames herself for your sorrow and grief. Perhaps she cries for you. You must give her leave to go, Robert. If you allow her death to be your life, the only thing about her you remember, then it’s you who destroys every good and beautiful thing about her. To think of her should make you smile, not be something you dread. No wonder you’ve been so unhappy.”
“Is that what you did with your mother?” His words were harsh, but he didn’t resist when she cuddled close.
“I didn’t have any good memories of her so I made some up. I told you I gave her a lovely service to strike back at those who would mock me, but it was really to thumb my nose at those who mocked her. I arranged a luxurious funeral procession with torches burning brandy, liveried servants—and free beer for all who came to see her on her way. She would have loved it. And now I have a happy memory when I think back on her. I know without a doubt I made her laugh and it makes me laugh, too. I had to make my own, Robert. You loved your sister and were very close. You must have many good memories. Can you not share some with me?”
He answered her with silence. To think of Caroline was to invite a jagged soul-wrenching pain. Why did she think he avoided it unless forced? If that was the price for her trust…it was too high.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“I’m sorry if I’ve intruded where I oughtn’t go, Robert,” Hope said as if reading his thoughts. “You said you were tired of being alone with it and I…I wanted to know you. The dark as well as the light. You cannot know how much your acceptance has meant to me. I want to help but I don’t know how.” His big body was cold, and she curled herself around him, passing him her warmth. “But what I want most is to have you right here, next to me. And I do know you. I know you’re a good man. A part of me has known and trusted this from the first moment we met. I love you, Robert Nichols, and I don’t need to know anything more than that. I’ll stop asking questions if that’s what you want.”
They lay in silence side by side, in a place halfway between his world and hers. He reached out and took her hand. It touched him deeply that she could say those words after all he’d told her. He wished he could find words of his own. He hoped the necklace gave her some idea. But he wanted to offer something more. “I remember…” He released his breath on a deep sigh. “I remember how we used to play. We made a grand kite painted orange and black that resembled a butterfly. It almost lifted her off the ground. We clung to it together and had to let it go when it almost toppled us into the river.” He wrapped an arm around her waist and rested his head against her breast and her fingers stroked the back of his neck as he spoke.
“I remember, when the rains came heavy, too fierce to venture outdoors, we would go to the little study and make a castle with furniture and blankets. She would say it was Nottingham and she was Robin Hood. She wanted me to be the evil sheriff.” He chuckled to himself. “But I was always Richard the Lionheart, of course. She had a merry laugh, you know. It rang through the corridors. ’Tis that I miss the most.” His voice was rough with emotion and she kissed his cheek.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“For what,” he murmured from a far-away place he’d been avoiding for years.
“For your pain.” She cupped his jaw in both her hands and drew his mouth to hers, bringing him back with a gentle brush of her lips.
“Hope?”
“Yes?”
“You have come to mean so much to me. I don’t know how or why, but almost from the beginning I have felt an ease and comfort with you I feel with none other. When I am with you, I feel I’m home.”
She pressed her forehead to his. “I feel the same. In some ways you have always felt familiar to me.” She grinned and lay atop him, her hands folded over his chest.
“When I saw you standing in my home towering over the crowd, my heart almost stopped. It was as if you’d stepped straight from a childhood fantasy. My fierce protector and shining knight. I thought I had met him once before.”
“Did you? You didn’t tell me that.”
“It all seems so silly now. A childish fancy.”
His hand skimmed her shoulder and arm. “Tell me.”
“Well....” She wiggled a bit to get more comfortable. “I used to have a corner room. Something like a tower. At least to a child. I would pretend it was a castle and daydream of a handsome prince, a golden-haired knight who climbed its walls to claim me. One September day I woke to ringing bells. Cromwell’s army was returning and everyone was hurrying to find a place to watch. I found a spot and spied him straight away. He looked just like my imaginary own true love. A dashing knight, tall and handsome, but I couldn’t see his eyes because of his hat.
“Now…as you know I am a fumble-heels. I leaned out as far as I might and over I went, right into the street and the path of the oncoming cavalry. I felt sure I would be trampled. I ought to have been. None of them would stop, and then he, the very man I’d been watching, rescued me, scooping me up and into his saddle. I rode the rest of the parade route in his arms. I tried desperately to find something profound to say but all I could do was bleat a thank you. When he dropped me off to safety I didn’t know his name and still had seen only half his face, but I didn’t worry.”
She chuckled to herself, remembering. “I was certain he was my own true love, my hero come to my rescue. I knew we were destined to meet again and there would be another chance. But later that day, my mother sold me and I knew that I was wrong. My childhood ended in one instant, just like yours did, and I put such silly dreams away. He was just a nice young man who cared enough to help someone in trouble, but he couldn’t save me from my life. I realized I was never going to see him again and if I wanted to be rescued I’d best do it for myself.”
The silence dragged on for several moments before she became aware of it, still caught up in the one shining memory from her childhood. It was then she noticed his hand had stilled. Per
haps she shouldn’t have told him. Even the best of men were prickly about some things. “Robert?”
“And did you buy some new shoes? With the half crown he gave you?”
“No. My friends descended upon me before I was halfway home and we stuffed ourselves with meat pies and tarts. I hid what remained and— But how do you know about that?”
“I was there.” His voice sounded amazed. “I…be damned! I should have known you by those violet eyes. It was all I could see of you, other than bare feet and mud.”
“That was you?” She felt as though the wind had been knocked out of her.
Her hands traced his features and she regarded him with bemusement but she could see it now. The strong jaw, the smile that had so captivated her. “It was you! I should have known you by your smile. I so wanted to see your eyes. It was the same when I saw you standing with the king. I wanted to know what color they were. It seemed so important. Oh, Robert. How can this be? What does it mean? It was you! ” Laughing and crying she covered his face in frantic kisses. She had been right all along. Here, beside her, was her own true love.
“It means you are right where you are meant to be,” he said with a broad grin. “It seems I am, too. I caught you and you’re mine. Beyond that I neither know nor care.”
He loosed her gown, drawing back its folds so he might see her. Skimming her length, he paused to cup her rose-tipped breasts, feeling the rise and fall of breath, the steady pulse of life, and letting it feed his hunger. His hands, calloused and rough from years of swordplay, thrilled her with their gently rasping touch. His palm slid down, warming the soft swell of her hip, then pressed the downy thatch between her legs. She tossed her head, her body flushed, moving restlessly beneath him.
His lips claimed hers in a lush kiss. She savored the taste of him. She savored his strength and the feel of him, real, alive, with her, not some fantasy consigned to the past but a hot-blooded hard-muscled man, hot against her skin. She arched into his hand like a stroked cat, her body purring. Her hands roamed his sleek form, enjoying the play of taut muscle, marking every part of him. They spoke through sighs and moans, kissing wildly as they both scrambled frantically to loosen his clothing, fingers brushing and working together until he sprang free.
“God...I want you, love.” His voice was a caress. Painfully engorged, he settled his arousal between her thighs. His lips bruised hers. His bristled jaw rasped her chin and the soft skin of her breasts. He ground against her, whispering endearments in a dance of hands and mouth, thrusting hips and sweet sensation, and then he took her, not as a courtier took his lover, but as a warrior claimed his woman, spreading her, lifting her, holding her, finding her slick heat and plunging inside. Stroking her with hands and tongue and pulsing organ, he lifted her legs above his shoulders and pumped and writhed, harder and harder in a frenzied passionate ride.
He took her higher and higher, approaching peaks of sensation she’d never felt before, and then, just at the brink of exquisite release, he slowed, almost stopped, his smoldering eyes watching hers. She almost cursed him. She twisted and writhed, thrusting against him. Raging with wanting, she raked his shoulders and fisted her hands in his hair. “Do it, Robert. Now. Please.”
His teeth grazed her shoulder, her hands gripped her waist and he thrust inside her again and again. An incredible star-burst of white-hot pleasure spread from her center and rippled through her body in blissful waves. Her tight muscles squeezed and held him, owning him, claiming him as she cried out his name and a slow, deep, beautiful, eruption surged from within him, joining them both in a lovers’ embrace that was wild celebration, blissful comfort, homecoming and welcome—joy and release.
Spent, they lay in each other’s arms, hearts still pounding. “Dear God. I feel as if I have just visited heaven. Each time with you is such a wonder. It was incredible, you beautiful man!” She threw her arms around his neck and gave him a ferocious hug.
He grinned and ruffled her hair. “I think you’re beautiful, too.”
“Can it be real? Am I dreaming?”
“If you’re dreaming than I am too,” He nuzzled the tender skin beneath her ear.
“You really told me about your sister?”
“Yes, love.” He felt a familiar pain and a part of him flinched, but it was not quite as sharp as he remembered.
“And it really was you? In London?”
“Unless there was some other grubby shoeless urchin who rode with me that day. Ow! What did you pinch me for?”
“I was just checking,” she said with a happy grin. “Making sure you are real.”
“I believe the accepted practice is to pinch oneself,” he grumbled, settling her against his length.
They were both exhausted, mentally, physically, emotionally, in every way a person could be, yet Hope fought to stop the languorous drift toward slumber. She was content where she was right now, safe in the arms of the man she loved, knowing they were meant to be and everything would be all right. Yet a part of her feared what might lie on the other side. What if this was a dream, and to sleep would be to wake? What if he…what if…a wave of fatigue pulled her under, and a jumble of thoughts followed her down.
Her sleep was crowded with vivid dreams. She dreamt of Robert as a little boy, a toddler still unsteady on his feet. Laughing, full of joy, he ran on chubby legs, green eyes flashing with excitement and delight. He chased a gold-hued leaf, chortling as he bent to pick it up and the wind plucked it from his fingers. A blond-haired girl ran with him, her dress tucked between her knees. The sky grew dark and stormy, tugging at their hair and clothes as though trying to capture them and carry them away. She shouted and shouted, her heart pinched with fear, but they couldn’t hear her and continued blithely on, into the storm.
She dreamt he rode toward her on a gold-caparisoned horse, the sun glinting off his sword and armor, hand outstretched, come to take her home, and then they were walking, hand in hand, laughing and talking companionably as a child danced in front of them, excited by discoveries of oddly shaped stones and colorful shells. The last thing she dreamt was the sound of his voice, faint and fading. I love you, elf. When she woke, she was alone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
A brief moment of panic overtook Hope and her hand flew to her chest. Her fingers touched the cool pebbled strands of her necklace and she breathed a sigh of relief. It was real. All of it. Last night he had given her the kind of gift a husband gave a beloved wife. Last night he had given her the gift of trust, confiding in her regarding his haunted past. And last night she had discovered that the man she had grown to love so quickly and completely was the same man she had dreamt of. The one who had saved her life and she had been so certain she would see again, so many Septembers ago.
She lay back in bed, kicking her heels in giddy delight, no longer worried he wasn’t beside her. He was a late sleeper and early riser, and often went off to practice just before dawn. It was a habit she meant to cure him of. He’d be back soon. Hungry for food, hungry for her, and she would give him lessons in the joys of spending a morning lazing in bed. She grinned and stretched, savoring the ache in her muscles, and then went to stand in front of the mirror now gracing the paneled wall.
Her fingers caressed the string of pearls that had once belonged to his mother, and her heart swelled. One day I shall pass these to my daughter. The simple necklace represented something that made the rest of her jewelry seem tawdry by comparison. She wanted no gifts touching her skin unless they came from her husband. Turning in a slow circle she smiled in contentment to see where his lovemaking had marked her. The slight imprint of impassioned fingers marked her upper arm and thighs. Here and there…reddened skin where unshaven jaw had rasped tender skin, and along her collarbone and the base of her throat another necklace where deep kisses had left their claim as if to say ‘This woman is mine.’
I have claimed him, too. I’ll wager he’ll not practice shirtless this morning with Oakes, she thought with a mischievous grin, for she kne
w she’d marked him tooth and nail. If one had little appetite, sex, like food, held little pleasure. But when you hungered, she was learning, it could be sublime. She’d never hungered for a man the way she did for him. He had the power to make her forget herself completely and now she understood why. He was her mate. The one man on earth meant for her.
She’d been given a brief glimpse of him years ago but it hadn’t yet been their time. Now it was. He was what she’d been missing all these years. He was what she had been waiting for. It made her believe in magic, as if she were a child again. And if finding him again wasn’t magic enough, what he did to her with his touch certainly was. And his heart? Have I marked that, too? She sobered at the thought. He had shared a part of himself she knew he kept hidden from everyone, opened a door into his soul, and what she saw there made her weep. I don’t want to be alone with it, he’d said. And now he wasn’t.
Rose interrupted her musings, entering the room surrounded by the delicious smell of coffee. She carried with her a note on a silver tray. “A messenger has brought his for you, my lady. Mrs. Overton says it looks important and I best bring it to you straight away.”
Hope nodded absently. “Put it on my desk. I’ll see to it later. Have you seen the captain, Rose? I was hoping he’d join me for coffee.”
Rose looked at her in surprise. “Does he know that, my lady? Last I saw he was with Mr. Oakes and looked to be fixing for a ride.”
Hope felt a moment’s unease but brushed it aside. Things had changed between them last night. They had talked of his haunted past. They had discovered the connection that bound them to each other. It was still hard to believe. I would have died in the street that day if not for him. I am where I am supposed to be and he is where he is meant to be. He had said so himself. Surely he wouldn’t leave her now to return to the same dark path he’d feared her knowing. Doubtless he was going for a ride as he did every morning. Perhaps he would enjoy some company.
Soldier of Fortune: The King's Courtesan (Rakes and Rogues of the Retoration Book 2) Page 24
