by Speer, Flora
“Thank you.” Marjorie beamed a slightly teary smile at Jenia. “And your last reason?”
“I want Roarke to be happy.”
“You love him.”
“Yes.” Jenia met Marjorie’s gaze without embarrassment, knowing that of all the people in the world to whom she might have confessed her feelings, Marjorie would understand.
“I am so glad. You are just the woman to make Roarke happy,” Marjorie said. “Your sense of honor is as strong as his, and after what you did today there can be no doubt that you will keep any promises you make.”
“Thank you.” Jenia reached out both her hands and Marjorie took them. “If we can think of a way to convince Roarke to make peace with his father, then I’m sure Garit will accept your marriage, too. But first, I must finish what I have begun. I must find the person responsible for Chantal’s death and see that person punished.”
“I will help in any way I can,” Marjorie said.
“Thank you for not telling me to leave it to the men,” Jenia exclaimed between laughter and tears.
Chapter 11
The guard posted at Lady Marjorie’s door recognized Roarke and let him pass without question. Roarke didn’t bother to knock; he just opened the door and walked into the room on silent feet.
He found Jenia sitting on the bed in a close embrace with Marjorie. The two of them were in tears. Roarke stared, not quite believing the scene before him.
“What’s going on here?” he demanded, his harsh voice immediately separating the women.
“Do come in,” Marjorie said with a giggle that ended abruptly when she saw his expression. She rose to face him, hands stiff at her sides and her chin high in a pose he had once known well. Marjorie had stood in exactly the same way six years ago while she told him she had married his father.
“Roarke.” Jenia scrambled off the bed and bent to locate her shoes. Her unbound hair swung around her upper body like a silken, red-brown veil.
Only then did Roarke notice that under a tightly wrapped shawl she was wearing her shift and nothing else. He was treated to a glimpse of her rounded hips and thighs beneath the fine linen. The sight was a tempting reminder of the day when he’d found her. As Jenia pulled up the shift to scuffle her feet into her green silk court shoes, he saw her slender calves and ankles. He had not forgotten how nicely made Jenia was and this fresh view of her sweetly curved legs sent a lightning bolt of heat into his heart. Not to mention, into more obvious parts of his body.
Aware that Marjorie was watching him with her eyebrows raised in amusement, he folded his arms across his chest and frowned, hoping thus to divert her attention from where it was presently resting.
“I wish to speak with Lady Jenia,” he announced.
“Here she is,” Marjorie told him with a wave of one hand in Jenia’s direction, as if he wasn’t already painfully aware of her.
“Alone,” Roarke said, deepening his frown.
“Roarke, don’t be rude,” Jenia admonished. “Marjorie has been most kind to me. I have rested and eaten, and I feel greatly refreshed. In fact, I was about to go in search of you. We need to make plans.”
“Do we?”
“Yes. And I need to speak with Garit. Do you know where he is?”
“Garit has just received a packet of letters from Kantia. He will be busy for some time, reading them and dictating any urgent replies to his secretary.”
“How is my brother?” Marjorie asked. “I know today was difficult for him.”
“I wasn’t aware that you cared,” Roarke began, putting heavy sarcasm into the words. Abruptly, he broke off what else he was going to say.
He was experiencing a very odd reaction to Marjorie. He had resisted coming to her chamber because he didn’t want to be assaulted with emotions and memories best left in the past. Certainly, her familiar posture had jolted his memory. Yet when he looked into Marjorie’s face, the same face he had once adored, he felt neither affection nor anger. Marjorie was twenty-two years old now, a mature woman and a mother. In her light blue eyes and the wisps of sandy hair escaping from her golden hairnet, Roarke could discern few traces of the laughing, carefree girl who had been his youthful love.
He looked from Marjorie to Jenia, with her vivid red-brown hair and her ever-changing amber eyes, and it occurred to him that in Marjorie he had loved a pale dream. His affection for Marjorie had gone from his heart as silently as a dream vanishes upon wakening. And he had been so consumed with the insult she had dealt to his male pride that he’d never even noticed when his love for her had disappeared.
Jenia – courageous, honorable, stubborn, and above all loyal – was his reality. Roarke wanted her with a need that threatened to bring him to his knees before her, to grovel there and plead with her to desire him with equal fervor.
“I’m sure you will not believe me,” Marjorie said, “but I do care about Garit. I even care about you, Roarke. The search for Chantal cannot have been easy for you, either.”
“Garit and I can do without your caring,” he snarled, more out of his long habit of anger against her than from any genuine emotion. She bowed her head and made no response. Judging by his own lack of reaction to her silent humility, Roarke knew the old hurts didn’t matter any longer. He wouldn’t tell her, though. Marjorie had thoughtlessly broken his youthful heart and wounded her brother’s affection for her. Let her make her own peace with Garit. He sought refuge in courtly formality. “I beg your pardon, my lady. I have been rude, after you were kind enough to take Jenia in and care for her. However, I would like to speak with Jenia in private.”
“Of course. I’ll be in the next room.” Marjorie started for the connecting door.
“Mama!” A small boy raced through the door, rushing toward Marjorie. When he spotted Roarke, the boy halted abruptly, his eyes growing large and round. He raised his right hand and hastily inserted two fingers into his mouth, as if fingers could provide reassurance in the presence of strangers. With his left hand he clutched Marjorie’s skirts.
“This is my son,” Marjorie said to Roarke. She caressed the boy’s fair hair with gentle fingers. “Lan, this is your big brother, Roarke.”
“Don’t you dare-!” Roarke bit off his irritated response to Marjorie’s manipulation before he could finish the sentence. The boy was not to blame for what his parents had done. Roarke squatted to bring his face closer to the child’s height, then held out his hand. “Hello, Lan. I am pleased to meet you.”
“Shake hands, Lan,” Marjorie urged.
Lan slowly withdrew his fingers from his mouth and reached toward Roarke. The wet, little hand disappeared into Roarke’s much larger one. The instant Roarke released him, Lan stuck his fingers back into his mouth and turned his face into his mother’s gown.
“He is rather shy,” Marjorie said, her hand on Lan’s shoulder.
“He will outgrow that,” Roarke told her, sounding as if he knew all about children. “He’s a handsome lad, Marjorie. He will make you proud.”
“He already does. Thank you, Roarke. Come along, Lan,” Marjorie said, unwinding her son’s hand from her skirt. “It’s time for your evening bread and milk. Let’s see if Nurse has brought an apple for you, too.”
The door closed behind them, leaving Roarke and Jenia alone.
“That was well done, Roarke,” Jenia said. “Lan is a sweet child.”
Roarke tried to glare at her and discovered that he could not. From the expression on her lovely face he knew she understood how difficult meeting the boy who might have been his own son had been for him. He regarded her with a new appreciation for her indomitable character. Then he looked more closely.
Jenia’s hair was in sore need of combing and her cheeks were flushed. Her shift was wrinkled. Obviously, she was only recently wakened from a nap that Roarke was certain she had sorely needed. He fought the urge to take her into his arms and muss her more thoroughly.
She was not Chantal, not Garit’s love. The knowledge sang in his veins as it h
ad done ever since her astonishing admission in the royal audience chamber. Lady Matilda Jenia of Gildeley belonged to no man. Even Walderon’s neglectful guardianship of her would likely soon be terminated.
Roarke wanted her with all the masculine ardor he had ruthlessly repressed for six cold years. He’d taken women to bed during those years, but not as many as he could have had, and each of them, whether lady or whore, had been no more than a release for his physical needs. He’d been kind to every one of them, and he’d paid the whores well. Not one of those women had left any imprint on his heart.
“Well, after this morning you know all of my secrets,” Jenia said.
“Do I?” Roarke wondered if he’d ever plumb all of her secret depths. No, he concluded, not in a lifetime of trying. He watched her pull the shawl closer about her shoulders. She lifted her head and looked directly into his eyes. He found that he was unable to read her thoughts in her cautious glance. He tried the first subject that came to him.
“You mentioned making plans,” he reminded her. “What plans?”
“First, I need to speak with Garit. How strange this all is,” she said with a tremulous smile and a little shake of her head. “I have been so frightened, so certain that the moment I accused King Henryk of ordering Chantal’s murder, he would consign me to his executioner for what I said against him. Or, at the very least, that he’d send me to the castle dungeon. I didn’t think I could bear another dungeon. I would almost rather be beheaded at once.”
“You don’t know Henryk, if you thought he’d ever treat a woman so cruelly,” Roarke told her.
“You are right, of course. I don’t know him. I never even spoke to him before today. The last time I was in Calean City, I was pretending to be Chantal’s attendant, so I was far removed from his royal notice.”
She paused, a slight frown wrinkling her brow. Roarke assumed she was thinking, working out what to say next, as he sometimes did, so he kept quiet and waited until she chose to speak again.
“The thing is, Roarke, until King Henryk dismissed me to come here to Marjorie’s room, I didn’t believe I would have a future beyond today. Now that I am faced with one, I can see that my quest isn’t finished. I wakened from my nap knowing one, single fact beyond any question or doubt. I still need to see to the matter of justice for Chantal’s death.”
“Is that why you want to speak with Garit?” Roarke asked. “He is convinced that Lord Walderon is behind Chantal’s abduction, and yours.”
“He did mention that belief several times before we reached Auremont, but I was so sure King Henryk was solely to blame that I dismissed Garit’s suspicions without considering them. Now, I think he may be right. Roarke, I must find and confront my uncle. I have to discover the truth. I cannot turn away from my duty just because I was wrong about King Henryk. Chantal deserves better from me.”
“What an admirable woman you are. Your sense of honor is stronger than that of many men.” Roarke was so profoundly moved that the words caught in his throat. Still, he was compelled to say them. “If you were any other lady, I would try my best to dissuade you. I would tell you that tracking down Walderon and forcing him to talk is a man’s work, and likely to be dangerous. But I won’t dream of telling you so, for I don’t believe you’d listen.”
“No, I would not,” she said, looking back at him with shining eyes and a slight smile. “I swore myself to this quest and, by heaven, I intend to complete it.”
“Oh, Jenia.” He caught her shoulders, pulling her toward him. Then she was in his arms, lifting her face to his, and Roarke could no longer fight the desire that had lacerated his heart for too many days and nights. He was filled with a sense of joyous freedom. Jenia was not Garit’s love and, after meeting Marjorie again, Roarke was released from the old, dark resentment that her betrayal had once held over his mind and heart.
“Jenia.” He brought his mouth down on hers in a searing kiss, claiming her, branding her as his own. Suddenly, his blood was pounding in his ears.
Jenia allowed the kiss. He could tell she wanted it. Her hands were in his hair, her lips parted on a sigh. As Roarke’s tongue entered the sweet moistness of her mouth she hesitated in what he perceived as virginal confusion until, with a whimper, she surrendered and let her tongue slide along his. Roarke’s hand caressed her hips and slid upward along her flanks until his palms rested on the sides of her breasts. She did not object. Indeed, she moved so she fit even closer into his hands.
Nearly lost in a blaze of happiness, Roarke realized he could have her right there, on the bed that sat so conveniently near – Marjorie’s bed, where Marjorie had doubtless lain many times with Roarke’s father.
Knowing he could not make love to Jenia on the bed that belonged to his first love, who was now his stepmother, Roarke began to disengage from the embrace. And just in time, too.
“Ahem.”
The soft, little cough brought him back to his rightful senses. Roarke lifted his head to find Lord Oliver standing just inside the doorway that connected the two chambers.
“What do you want?” Roarke demanded, all warmth and passion gone at the sight of his father.
“My dear boy, this is my apartment,” Oliver replied in a quiet voice that Roarke suspected was meant to calm his irritation. His father had used that same voice to him many times during his early childhood.
Oliver was not a man to discipline anyone by the rod or his fists. Roarke hadn’t known how unusual his attitude was until after he left home to begin his training as a page. He’d still been very young then – the path to knighthood was long – and he’d been shocked to discover that other noblemen did believe in physical discipline, sometimes for the smallest infractions. As a young man he’d been grateful for his father’s remarkable forbearance and had tried to emulate him.
The swift plunge from soaring, mounting passion to dismay at his father’s unexpected appearance, to a youthful memory that had long been buried left Roarke so disturbed he barely noticed when Jenia removed her arms and stepped away from him. He noticed the instant she was gone, though. The warmth and the light she bestowed on him shimmered at a distance; the happiness flickered like an oil lamp caught in a blast of bitter wind. He longed to catch her and pull her closer before the light disappeared altogether and he was left alone in darkness again.
“My lord Oliver.” Jenia curtsied with as much dignity as if she was still clad in her heavy court gown. “Thank you for allowing me the use of this room. Lady Marjorie has been so kind to me. My spirits are thoroughly restored.”
“I am glad to hear it.” Oliver smiled at her.
To Roarke’s great relief his father made no move to take Jenia’s hand. Roarke thought if he had, he’d have laid his hands around his own father’s throat and strangled the man. Oliver, after all, could not be trusted to act honorably toward any woman for whom Roarke cared.
“Marjorie has arranged for a light evening meal to be brought to the other room,” Oliver said to Jenia. “I interrupted you only to ask if you would join us? Roarke, too, of course.”
“I don’t want-” Roarke began.
“How very thoughtful of Lady Marjorie, and of you.” Jenia spoke right over Roarke’s words. “After this morning’s display before so many courtiers, I would much prefer a private meal to one eaten in the great hall. I’ve had only a mouthful or two of food all day long, so I am hungry. Perhaps, Roarke, you could visit with your father while I dress. I promise, I won’t take long.”
The last thing Roarke wanted was to visit with his father and stepmother. He was about to say so, and to ask what Jenia was thinking to suggest such a meeting, when young Lan made another appearance.
“Papa?” The boy looked up at Oliver with wide eyes that clearly expressed worship for his tall, silver-haired parent. Oliver bent and lifted his son, holding him against one shoulder with Lan’s small arms around his neck.
Roarke swallowed hard, forcing back the rude words he wanted to say. An argument would only upset the sh
y child.
“Have you met your brother?” Oliver asked his older son.
“Yes. Earlier.” Roarke clamped his mouth shut on those two words.
“He is an adorable boy,” Jenia said into the silence that lay between the two men. “My lord Oliver, Roarke, if you would excuse me for a few moments?”
“Of course. Come along, Roarke.” Oliver headed for the other room in the same way he had done so often during Roarke’s childhood, clearly expecting his son to follow him with no argument.
“Go on, Roarke.” Jenia was looking at him as if she understood his tumultuous emotions – and as if she was certain he would comport himself well in her absence. “We will eat with your family, which will allow Garit enough time to complete his work on those documents from Kantia. Then we will seek him out and make our plans.”
To his own surprise, Roarke nodded his agreement with her and stepped into the other room.
The simple meal was not quite as awkward as Jenia had feared it might be. While she and Marjorie chatted as if they were old friends, with Marjorie leading a thoroughly frivolous discussion of the latest court gossip and the newest styles, Roarke and Oliver behaved with scrupulously polite formality. Jenia supposed that was all she and Marjorie dared hope for at first from men who had hurt each other so deeply. At least father and son were talking and not circling each other with drawn knives. And despite their long-standing quarrel they were breaking bread together. Jenia considered that a great improvement.
The second chamber of Lord Oliver’s apartment was even smaller than the bedroom, and it was far more crowded. A child’s bed was pushed against one wall, with the pallet on which Lan’s nurse apparently slept rolled up neatly next to it. A few wooden blocks and a tiny wooden horse with a small knight riding it lay near the bed. In another corner a baby slept in a cradle, while a second nurse tended to a tiny girl who could barely walk.
