Her Dark Knight

by Sharon Cullen

  “I am not with child,” she said softly, looking down at her folded hands in shame.

  Christien drew back, his hand dropped to his side and Madelaine ached for its comforting presence. “Pardonnez-moi?”

  She took a fortifying breath and looked up at the full moon. “My husband. He will be angry to discover once again I am not with child.” She didn’t tell him how shattered she was to discover the same thing. Even though it was selfish, she so desperately wanted a child to love, who would love her in return. Someone to hold and care for. Something bright in the dismal dark of her existence. Yet month after month, even this pleasure was denied her.

  Christien slid off the bench and knelt before her, one knee raised, his elbow resting on it as he stared up into her face. “What will he do when he discovers this?”

  She blinked away another tear and shrugged. ’Twas hard to tell what mood he would be in and how he would react to this news. He very much wanted an heir to carry on his name and ’twas forever her failing not to give him the one thing he so desired. He would be furious to be sure. He might take his anger out on her or he might not. She never knew.

  Christien took her hands in his and squeezed. “Madelaine—” He stiffened, his head snapping to look over his shoulder.

  Madelaine went still. Faintly she heard female laughter and a male voice—her husband’s voice. She bolted to her feet, her terrified gaze darting around the darkness, searching for escape. Her heart thundered in her chest, making it hard to breathe.

  Christien rose silently, placing a staying hand on her arm. He pressed a finger to her lips in a bid to remain silent. Slowly, with his body, he moved her toward the deeper shadows of the garden, beneath an archway nearly covered in clinging vines.

  The voices drew closer.

  Madelaine’s heart beat so heavily she was positive her husband would hear it.

  In the shadowed recess of the covered arch, Christien stood with his front pressed against hers, his back to the garden. He wore all black and with his black hair it would be almost impossible to see him.

  “Breathe, Madelaine,” he whispered into her ear.

  His warm breath caressed her, causing shivers to erupt down her spine and pucker her skin. Suddenly she was hot all over, her body straining toward his in a wantonness she’d never expected. She clutched his arms, needing to anchor herself. He steadied her, leaned closer until their bodies touched from the tips of their toes to her shoulders. To her mortification her nipples hardened into tiny points.

  “Madelaine,” he whispered.

  Oh, this was wrong.

  His lips brushed against her cheek and she closed her eyes.

  Suddenly the voice was behind Christien. Madelaine stiffened, the need to run so strong she moved her feet. Christien’s grasp on her tightened in warning. But like a rabbit caught in the sights of a prey, she knew she wouldn’t be able to remain still for long. The urge to run was too keen.

  “Well, well, well,” her husband’s voice said. “What have we here?”

  Chapter Seven

  Present Day

  Christien looked down at Madelaine fast asleep on his couch. Her knees were curled to her chest and a hand was tucked beneath her cheek.

  His knees buckled and he sank to the floor beside her. Who was playing such a cruel joke on him? Who knew of the one person who could breach his defenses and leave him powerless?

  Slowly he uncurled his fingers and pushed a strand of hair off her cheek. Her lids fluttered but did not open, and his heart turned over.

  The warrior in him told him to let her go. To take her home and expel her from his life. Her appearance did not bode well for him or for the treasure he was sworn to protect. At best she was a distraction. At worst she was the catalyst that could start the war to end civilization. He shook his head at the thought. All these centuries he’d wondered when it would begin, when evil would make its move on good. Never in all that time had he imagined his Madelaine would come back to life and be caught in the middle of it. He closed his eyes, the pain too great to bear. But bear it he must. He had to look on her as his enemy until he could prove otherwise.

  She sighed, drawing his gaze back to her. The key around her neck caught his attention. ’Twas no more than two inches long but beautifully made, wrought in silver with small diamonds surrounding the bow. He sat back on his heels, his mind suddenly racing.

  “Only the key will open it.”

  His gaze returned to the necklace. Coincidence that she was wearing a key about her neck? Christien didn’t believe in coincidences.

  His jaw clenched in indecision. How had Lucheux found her?

  His eyes narrowed. If Madelaine had approached Lucheux with this plan that meant she had prior knowledge of the treasure and what she meant to Christien. Theirs had been a great love and even though he was cynical by nature he could not imagine her using their love against him. Which made him wonder if someone else had conceived of the notion to cross Madelaine’s path with Lucheux’s.

  He stood swiftly, frustrated by the questions piling up and the lack of answers.

  He scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the guest bedroom. Keep your friends close but your enemies closer. He wouldn’t take her home tonight. He would keep her close and when she awoke in the morning he would get the answers he needed.

  At least that was what he told himself. Yet when he laid her on the bed his heart beat a little harder, the blood rushed through his veins a little hotter and his mind wasn’t thinking of her as an enemy, but as the woman he loved long ago.

  She blinked and looked up at him with sleepy eyes. “Christien.”

  “Yes, my love?”

  She sighed and her eyes drifted closed. “Just Christien.”

  His heart turned over and he knew if he discovered she was consciously using him to get to the treasure it would destroy him.

  Madelaine cried out, ripping Christien from a sound sleep. He rolled from his bed, instinctively reaching for a sword that hadn’t been at his side for several hundred years. He was down the hall before he realized where he was and in her room before the sleep cleared from his brain.

  She was standing in the middle of the room, her eyes wild with fright, her body shaking so hard it made her teeth chatter.

  “He’ll find us.” She turned wide, blank eyes to him.

  She was in the grip of a nightmare.

  He rounded the bed, cautiously advancing on her. “Who will find us?”

  She put her hands on his chest and pushed. The action didn’t budge him. “You must go,” she whispered desperately.

  He froze, belatedly realizing she was speaking Norman French. The breath rushed out of him and for a moment he didn’t move. He hadn’t heard his native tongue in many, many years. Hearing it now plunged his mind into the past so fast it made him dizzy and his pulse beat harder.

  She spoke the language fluently, with no hesitation. At first he wondered if Lucheux had coached her in it, but her fluency convinced him otherwise. She wouldn’t speak a newly learned language while immersed in a nightmare.

  Automatically he answered in the same language, the words he hadn’t used in centuries rolling off his tongue as if he spoke it every day. “Why must I go, chérie?”

  She muttered under her breath, a disjointed prayer spoken in Latin. He’d heard her murmur this same prayer one other time. A night etched in his memory of a garden and a woman sobbing over a child that was not to be.

  Her head whipped around as if something behind her had startled her.

  “Madelaine.”

  She shrieked, jumped and tried to push him out the door. He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her against his body. She desperately squirmed to get free, her feeble attempt ineffectual against his hold. She was so small and so soft he was afraid of hurting her.

  “Madelaine, stop this.”

  She looked up at him with terror-filled eyes, not seeing him. Her pupils were dilated, her breathing rapid. She twisted, slipping o
ut of his hold. He made a grab for her, but she stepped away.

  “You must go, before he finds you here. Oh, please, leave!”

  Christien closed his eyes. An invisible hand squeezed his heart, tearing at the barely healed scars. ’Twas as if he were reenacting that fateful night all over again. How could she know of it? What was she seeing?

  “Mon amour, you are dreaming. We are safe. Trust me, Madelaine. We are safe.”

  He pulled her against his chest and cradled her head to his shoulder. Sobs racked her body until he shook with them. He pressed his lips into her hair, closing his eyes tight to keep his own tears from falling.

  He absorbed her tremors while his mind went back to that night in the garden. When they stood this close. When he felt for the first time her body against his and realized they were made for each other. Two halves of a whole—exactly the way it felt now which made his pain even more acute.

  She is real.

  His heart squeezed. He desperately wanted to believe she was the real thing, but he couldn’t afford to follow his heart. Until proven otherwise, he had to believe she was his enemy.

  Her body went rigid and her breathing hitched, but he continued to hold her.

  He began to fall in love with her that night in the garden as she sat on the bench and cried. She had been such an innocent in the harshness of Castle Flandres, such a ray of sunlight when it seemed he’d forever been deprived of sunlight. He’d been drawn to her, inexplicably. Certainly unadvisedly.

  Theirs had been a romance doomed for failure, but when they were together, it was simply right.

  Just like it felt right holding her like this. When she was in his arms he couldn’t believe she wasn’t a miracle, a dream come true, a prayer answered. She had to be. Anything else was inconceivable.

  He tore himself away from her, leaving her swaying in the middle of the room, a look of confusion on her face. ’Twas dangerous to think that way, to let his heart rule his mind. Whatever nightmare she was having had nothing to do with that night in the garden.

  He stepped away, schooling his features, pushing the memories from his mind to become the guardian he was meant to be. “Do you feel better?”

  She nodded, head bent, her fall of mink hair hiding her face. He checked the urge to push the hair away and see into her eyes.

  Finally she looked at him, a quick glance before she looked away but enough to tell him how scared and confused she was.

  He held his hand out to her. “Come. Let us eat breakfast.”

  She hesitated, her gaze flying to him before she tentatively wrapped her fingers around his. He led her to his kitchen where a wide variety of breakfast food awaited. Before retiring for the morning he’d instructed his chef to have food sent up in the hope she’d still be here, but even he was surprised at the abundance.

  Madelaine stared blankly at the spread. Her hair was in disarray, as if she’d been well loved. The nightmare he’d woken her from still had its claws in her.

  She sat at the breakfast bar, her movements wooden, automatic. Christien poured them each a tall mug of steaming coffee from a carafe, nudging hers closer when she didn’t immediately take it.

  He waited until she took a few sips, and forced himself to wait until she took a few more. She was looking a little more awake and was eyeing the food hungrily. She slathered a bagel with cream cheese and took a big bite. His gaze followed the movement of the tip of her tongue as it licked the cheese from the corner of her mouth, his body responding with a ferocity he hadn’t felt in a long time.

  In fact he remembered the last time he’d felt this type of intense need. ’Twas his last night with Madelaine.

  He shoved the thought away because it brought too much pain and heartache. Their entire relationship had been nothing but pain and heartache if he was truthful. They’d been foolish. Stupid, would be a more accurate term. They had no business conversing let alone becoming so well acquainted, yet he wouldn’t trade those times for anything.

  “Tell me about the dream,” he said after she finished her bagel.

  Her gaze slid away. His anger resurfaced, nearly consuming him. He pushed off his stool to refill his coffee, surprised to see his hand tremble from fury. Damn her. And damn him for wanting to believe in her. She was nothing but a conniving liar. A fake. Suddenly he hated her. Hated her for who she looked like and the memories she’d dragged out of him. Hated her for distracting him at a time when he could ill afford distractions.

  But most of all he hated her for making him feel again. And just as quickly as the hate came, it disappeared, leaving him empty and confused.

  “Who did you want me to run from?” He took a sip of coffee, swallowing the hot brew quickly and feeling the burn all the way to his gut.

  Her face paled and her lips thinned into a tight line. He wanted to shake the answer out of her, but knew that would only scare her and regardless of his anger, he didn’t want to frighten her any more than she already was.

  “Don’t you think after all that has happened you can trust me?”

  “I trust you.”

  He wanted to laugh at her outrageous lie. “Do you?”

  She hopped off the stool. Her face went from pale to red in a heartbeat, surprising him. “I’m trying,” she said between clenched teeth. “Can’t you see I’m trying? I don’t know who to trust.” She ran a hand through her mussed hair and stormed out of the room.

  He followed slowly, giving her time, intrigued by her display of anger. I don’t know who to trust. What an interesting choice of words.

  He found her in the living room staring up at the sword hanging on the wall above the fireplace. At one time it had been an extension of himself. He’d carried it everywhere and even slept with it. Many an enemy’s blood had dripped with it. Nowadays he barely looked at it, but looking now he realized he missed the weight of it in his hand, the way it sang through the air toward an enemy’s head. A lot could be said for modern times, but ’twas medieval times he was born to and medieval times he yearned for. Especially when justice was called for.

  “Tell me about the dream,” he said casually, taking a sip of coffee.

  “Which dream?”

  He looked at her sharply. “There’s been more than one?”

  She huffed out a shaky laugh and looked at him with haunted eyes. “Oh, yes. Many more than one.” She nodded toward the sword. “That was in my dream.”

  He looked up at the sword as if he’d never seen it before. She dreamt of his sword? It’s not surprising. She was intrigued by it last night so she incorporated it into her dream.

  “I dreamt of it before I came here.”

  He opened his mouth, but no words came out. His brain went blank and he could do nothing but wait for what she had to say next.

  “I dream of you, too.”

  The fine hairs on his arms rose. Slowly he put his mug down on the nearest table. The unexpected turn of the conversation left him floundering. A sensation he was unaccustomed to and didn’t like.

  “Tell me,” he said softly.

  Her eyes filled with tears and her defenses broke under the flood. ’Twas as if he were seeing the real Madelaine Alexander for the first time without pretenses or lies on her lips.

  “I saw her,” she whispered. “I saw her in the hall. With a dark-haired knight that looked like you. I was there, yet I wasn’t. I was watching, yet I was inside her, feeling her excitement at speaking to you and her fear of being discovered by her husband. She…” Her breath hitched. Tears raced down her cheeks. “She was drawn to you. Attracted. She knew she shouldn’t be. She knew she’d be punished if her attraction was discovered.”

  Christien closed his eyes and bit back a groan of torture. She was describing the night they first met. Mon Dieu. What was happening here? Where did these memories of hers come from?

  Lucheux?

  Had Lucheux planted them in her mind?

  “She had no love in her life,” she was saying. “No happiness. No laughter. She miss
ed that the most. The laughter.”

  Christien made a low sound. Memories came pouring out. Emotions he’d buried when he buried the treasure and made a pledge to protect it for the rest of eternity. He felt his Madelaine’s pain from so long ago. He’d tried to shield her from it, to give her laughter and happiness, but his visits were sporadic and his attempts had to be covert.

  He could do little save whisking her away. But where would he have taken her? He was a landless knight, paid by the Knights Templar and the money he was earning would have disappeared if he’d taken her from the powerful influence of Count Flandres. Not to mention she was cousin to King Philip. Christien would have lost his head if he’d been caught and where would that have left her?

  “Her husband found them talking.” She was breathing too fast. “She knew she was going to be punished, but she didn’t regret talking to the kind knight.” A long, low moan escaped her and she pressed a fist to her mouth, her eyes huge, unseeing. Or seeing too much.

  “Madelaine. Arrête. Stop. Please.”

  Her breath was wheezing out of her. The tears came faster. “H-he… He… Oh, God, Christien.”

  “Enough, ma belle.” He couldn’t do this anymore, couldn’t force her to say the words. Her body was trembling, tears racing down her cheeks. She could barely breathe through the sobs. Whether she was the real Madelaine or not, this was tearing her apart and he couldn’t bear to watch it happen.

  “He raped her.”

  Christien closed his eyes. He wanted to scream in agony, wanted to find the bastard who’d done this and kill him with his bare hands, but he was already dead.

  “Shhh, little one. Quiet.” He took her in his arms, unable to stand by while she grieved and needing her next to him before his own memories overtook him.

  “What’s happening to me, Christien? Why am I suddenly having dreams of this woman?”

  He stilled, her words piercing him. The emotion was too real to be forced. Could it be she truly didn’t know what was happening? Ah, God. He wished he knew.