Her Dark Knight

by Sharon Cullen

Looking for what? Proof of what he tried to tell her? There wasn’t any better proof than her own gown. But would it be enough?

  He closed the lid and stood, suddenly needing to see her, to touch her, to know she lived, that she was real and not a figment of his imagination.

  He made his way to her bedroom and knelt beside the bed. Her face was beyond pale with dark circles beneath her eyes and a bruise on her chin. Her cheeks were wet with tears. Behind closed lids, her eyes moved back and forth. Once again she was immersed in her dreams. Silently he cursed. As much as he wanted her to remember, sometimes he thought it best if she remembered nothing at all. This trickle of memories was tearing her apart and in turn tearing him apart.

  “Ah, Madelaine,” he whispered, tortured to see her crying in her sleep yet afraid to bring her out of it. Would it be best to let her remember through her dreams or wake her before the memory was complete?

  She cried out softly. At first Christien thought she was in pain but quickly realized it wasn’t the physical kind. What was she remembering? What painful memory had her mind dredged up? There were so many bad memories and so few good ones. He wished it had been the other way around.

  He stood, kicked off his shoes and stripped to his boxers. He lifted the covers and carefully crawled into bed. Immediately Madelaine curled her warm body around his, snaked her arm across his chest and laid her head on his shoulder. He put his arm around her and squeezed his eyes shut, but knew the sleep he desperately needed wouldn’t come. That the memories Madelaine was experiencing and the memories released when he opened the trunk would haunt him until he slipped from her bed in the early morning dawn before she awoke.

  “What are you doing?”

  Lainie jumped and twirled around, her hand going to her suddenly racing heart. “Christien. You scared me to death.”

  He glanced at the folded clothes on the bed. “What are you doing?”

  “Getting my clothes together.”

  “Why?”

  She hesitated, distracted by the way he was leaning against the doorframe, a frown marring his brow. Christien in a designer suit was magnificent. In well-worn jeans molding his perfectly formed thighs and a black T-shirt stretching across an impressively muscled chest, he was…scrumptious. She had to squash the urge to run her hand through his mussed hair and across cheeks shadowed by a day’s worth of beard. What this man did to her should be illegal.

  This reaction scared her the most, the intense relief when she saw him after being away from him for even the smallest amount of time. It wasn’t natural to feel that way for a person you barely knew.

  “Why what?” she asked, stalling.

  He scowled and crossed his arms, not stepping any farther into her room. Since coming to his home five days ago he’d been like this, remote, yet attentive. Seeing to her every need, but keeping his distance. She was hurt by his attitude, yet understood it because she felt the same way. Words were left unspoken, conversations avoided that needed to be said, but neither of them had the guts to broach the subject. Things between them were up in the air and both were left wondering what the next step should be.

  If this were a normal relationship, Lainie would demand they sit down and talk, but this was far from normal and she had no idea how to proceed. The conversation from the night in her hospital room went round and round in her head and the more she stewed on it, the more confused she became. He knew things no other person knew. Things she dreamt of. He claimed they were lovers in a past life, but how was that possible? Did things like that happen? Was there more than heaven and hell at the end of it all?

  Did God really give people a do-over?

  They should talk, yet she shied away from broaching any discussion. He ran a popular nightclub and conducted business throughout the world. He was gone more often than not. The opportunity for discussion was limited.

  She purposely didn’t mention the dress she’d found in the trunk. How do you broach something like that?

  By the way, Christien, I was snooping through your things the other day and found a trunk with very old clothes in them. What’s that all about?

  Not hardly.

  Yet she couldn’t stop thinking of the clothing. She’d even gone so far as to use his computer to research the garments and discovered the design of the dress was from the early fourteenth century.

  The same time period her dreams took place.

  She also learned the sword hanging above the fireplace was from the fourteenth century, as well. Was it the same sword hanging at her dream man’s side? Was this yet more proof he was right? That maybe they did know each other in a different time?

  “Madelaine?”

  She sighed and looked him in the eye, refusing to lie to him. “I can’t stay here forever.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  “No, Christien, I can’t. I have a life to get back to. I have a job I can’t lose.”

  His scowl deepened. “Lucheux said—”

  “I know what Mr. Lucheux said, but I can’t take advantage of him. At some point I need to go back.”

  He uncrossed his arms. His jaw flexed. “When are you leaving?”

  “Tonight.”

  “So soon.”

  “You had to have known.”

  He looked away. “I don’t like you going back out there when someone tried to hurt you.”

  She didn’t either, but she refused to cower. “I can’t stay locked away forever.”

  His look told her he thought hiding away forever was a very good idea.

  “The police are looking into it,” she added.

  He scoffed.

  “You can’t protect me from everything. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe someone bumped into me and being a klutz I lost my balance.”

  “You said you were pushed.”

  Lainie ran her hands through her hair in exasperation. She’d thought a lot about that moment on the curb. She had believed she was pushed, but what if she was wrong?

  “The police talked to all the witnesses. No one saw anyone push me nor did they see the blond guy. What are you going to do, keep me here forever?”

  His gaze snapped back to hers, and she realized in his long look that he’d considered the option.

  “I can’t live my life in fear and I can’t stay up here hiding from the rest of the world.”

  What she didn’t tell him was she needed room to think. It was so hard to think in his home, with his presence all around her and with her ears attuned to his every movement. The dreams were becoming more and more disturbing, haunting her in the middle of the night. Almost every morning she woke to a wet pillow where she’d cried in her sleep, desperately afraid for Madelaine’s safety. The people in her dreams were as real to her as the people she saw on the streets and it worried her. She was losing touch with reality. Returning to work, to her apartment and bills and obligations, would bring her back to reality faster than anything else.

  She needed to leave to keep her sanity.

  “Stay one more night.”

  “Christien.” She sighed his name, frustrated.

  “Spend the night with me.”

  She froze. The bottom dropped out of her stomach and she blinked several times. “What do you mean?”

  “I think you know.”

  “I don’t know.” She was afraid to hope. Afraid she was reading too much into this.

  “I want you to stay the night with me. To be with me.”

  She wanted to stay so badly she ached with it, but still she held back. Why now? Why did he come to her now, as she was getting ready to leave when for the past four nights he’d carefully kept his distance? Her old fears resurfaced. Doubts, misgivings. Things they needed to discuss before they took such an important step.

  “Does this have anything to do with the other Madelaine? The one in my dreams?” When he didn’t answer she had to look away, the pain nearly unbearable. “I see.”

  “I don’t think you do.”

  She pressed her lips together to keep
her chin from trembling. He didn’t want her, Madelaine Alexander from a small farming town in Wisconsin. He wanted Madelaine, the Countess of Flandres.

  “When you look at me, Christien, what do you see?”

  She’d purposely worded her question the same way the other Madelaine had to test him, to see if he really did know the details of her dreams. He flinched as if she’d slapped him and his face paled. He knew. More proof. It was as if the final puzzle piece fell into place. Her last question had been answered. No way could he have known about their conversation in her dream unless he truly was the knight in her dreams. She put her hand on the bedpost to steady her trembling legs.

  The gown she’d discovered in his room, the details of dreams she’d never told him, the sword. The dreams themselves. Everything pointed to the same thing.

  Christien took a step forward, his shock turning to concern. “Madelaine?”

  “It’s true, isn’t it?”

  His brows came together. “What’s true?”

  She swallowed a lump in her throat, her mind moving so fast she couldn’t keep up with her thoughts. “You and I. We did know each other all those centuries ago.”

  She clutched the post tighter as the world narrowed to Christien. Everything else became unfocused, unnecessary.

  “Yes.” He watched her closely, a worried frown creasing his brow.

  Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. This isn’t happening. For a brief moment she wished she’d never accepted Giselle’s job offer and never met Christien. But the thought quickly passed, leaving guilt in its place. Would she have wanted to live the rest of her life without knowing him?

  No. Emphatically, definitely, absolutely no. He frustrated her and bewildered her, but deep in her heart she knew she’d been searching for him her entire life. Maybe even longer.

  If God had given her a do-over, she would gladly do it all over.

  “Do you…” She licked her lips. “Do you dream of her?”

  A pained look crossed his face. “Constantly.”

  “When did you realize I was…” She couldn’t even finish the sentence because it was still so strange that she shared a past with another woman. But it wasn’t another woman, was it? It was her.

  “Since the moment I saw that cretin pawing you on my dance floor.” His voice had a hard edge to it and his face became like stone. He’d been angry that night, but she’d assumed it was because the man was harassing a guest.

  His reaction to her in his office made sense now, as well. He must have been reeling upon seeing her standing there.

  “When did your dreams start?” she asked.

  He approached her slowly until he was standing in front of her, a look of wonder and awe on his face. He’d had the same look the next day when she returned for the papers. He touched her cheek with the back of his hand. “You have always been in my mind, Madelaine. Always.”

  She swallowed, her insides trembling at the fierce love glowing from his eyes. Yet she was still uncertain. Was his love for a woman he’d been dreaming of or for her? Was his offer to make love for Lainie or for a woman he’d never met in this lifetime?

  And what of her feelings? They were so intricately tied to the couple in her dreams she didn’t even know where her true feelings for Christien began and where her feelings for the man in the dream ended. The two were the same, yet different.

  He certainly looked like the Christien in her dreams and he acted like him, as well. But he wasn’t the same as the dark-haired knight. The man in her dreams had been filled with idealism and a hunger for adventure. He believed he was invincible and could save the world.

  The man before her was cynical, weary, guarded. Lonely.

  “When you look at me, do you see her?” she asked. “Or do you see me?”

  “Don’t do this, ma chérie.”

  “I have to,” she whispered. “I have to know.”

  “Does it matter?”

  Did it matter? She felt the same emotions Madelaine of Flandres felt. She lived Madelaine’s life, her terror, her joy when Christien appeared and her anger at the circumstances beyond her control. Like the two Christiens, the two Madelaines were the same, yet different. Lainie had been forged in modern times, taught to fend for herself, to fight for what was right. Madelaine was a victim of the brutal times she lived in and those circumstances made them vastly different people.

  Did it matter that Christien came to her but saw the other Madelaine?

  “At first I was drawn to you because you looked like her,” he said. “I thought God, or someone, was playing a cruel trick on me and I was angry. For so long you had been in my mind then suddenly you were in front of me. Flesh and blood. And you didn’t know. That’s what hurt the most. You had no idea what we had been to each other.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  His hand reached out to her then dropped to his side. “You look like her. So much that it stops my breath every time I see you, but there is a strength in you that Madelaine lacked. I loved her.” His tone was so heavy with sadness it made her insides clench. “I grieve for her every day, but ’tis you I want, Lainie.”

  Tears pushed against the back of her eyes. She couldn’t blink fast enough to keep them at bay. They rolled down her cheeks and soaked into her shirt. She wanted to believe him. Oh, how she wanted to believe him. The desolation in his expression, the grief and despair physically hurt her.

  “Do you not want me, Lainie?”

  A sob caught in her throat and she swallowed. Yes, she wanted him. More than she’d wanted anything in her life.

  “Do you believe I am the man in your dreams?”

  “I think it’s more complicated than that.” Christien possessed depths she couldn’t even begin to touch. Layers that held secrets. She sensed much more to the story of Christien Chevalier. More than a man who dreamt of a woman and fell in love with her. Why did he have clothes dating from that time period? And what about the books on his shelves?

  “Who are you really?”

  He held his arms out to his sides. “I am but a man who has lived long and seen much. I’ve known joy and despair, love and heartache, peace and war. I’ve been to hell and back and lived to tell about it. I can’t promise that when I look at you I don’t see her. I can promise that if you allow me I will protect you with all the resources at hand. I will cherish you, respect you and honor you.”

  Her tears came faster, but through them she managed to laugh. “You better watch it. Those almost sound like wedding vows.”

  His expression never wavered. “They are vows. Mayhap not wedding vows, but vows nonetheless.” He peeled her hand from the bedpost and took it in his. “When I am away from you, I despair and when I am near you I am happy. Stay with me.”

  How could she deny him when he’d already given her so much? And did she want to deny him? Did she want to deny herself? Something between them went far deeper than a past life. She had a feeling they were meant to be together in this life. Maybe to finish what they started. Or maybe it was something else.

  “I don’t know why we were brought together again, Christien. All I know is that what is between us is important. But you need to understand I am not that Madelaine. I have my own life and serious responsibilities. I have a job I need to keep so I can pay my father’s medical expenses.” She touched his cheek, feathering her fingers over the rough stubble of his jaw. “I can’t stay here forever, locked away from the real world. I have to go back to my life.”

  Something flashed in his eyes, quickly gone before she could decide what it was. “What are you trying to say? Speak plainly.”

  She smiled at her warrior, a man more prone to action than words though the words that came from him were beautiful. “I’m saying I would be honored to spend the night with you, but I’m still going back to work tomorrow.”

  He kissed her knuckles. “You can’t get any plainer than that.” For the first time in days, he smiled and it stole Lainie’s breath. He was such a beautiful man. A good man. Could s
he really be so lucky to have known him in two lives? “But I have a few provisions.”

  “Uh oh.”

  He smiled again.

  She wanted to keep him smiling. To make him laugh because she feared he didn’t laugh often enough.

  “I understand your need to return to work even though I don’t agree with it.”

  She opened her mouth but he put a finger over her lips.

  “Let me finish, mon couer.”

  She pressed her lips together and he withdrew his finger, but not before he brushed the pad of it along her lip, causing her stomach to clench.

  “I’m still concerned for your safety, so I am putting a guard on you.”

  “That is so unnecessary. This is the twenty-first century, Christien. I’ll be fine.”

  “I lost you once, Madelaine, I won’t lose you again. Humor me. You won’t see him, I promise.”

  She pictured the bouncer who wouldn’t let her in the first night glued to her side. That would go over real well with Giselle.

  “No one will see him?”

  “Non. He will be very discreet.”

  “He can’t go into my office building.”

  When he opened his mouth to object, Lainie put her finger over it, mirroring his actions. “That’s nonnegotiable.” She pulled her finger away, but not before she caressed his soft lips. His eyes darkened to a stormy gray.

  He captured her trailing hand and kissed the tips of her fingers, his tongue flicking out to pull her finger in his mouth. Those silver eyes, now churning with desire, studied her as he sucked her finger, his mouth closing around it, surrounding it in his heat. She pulled in a breath, her insides turning to liquid, warmth pooling between her legs. She closed her eyes, concentrating on the scrape of his tongue against her skin. A low moan vibrated through her hand.

  She whispered his name, a benediction, a plea. Good thing she was sitting down because her legs wouldn’t be able to hold her.

  The more he sucked on her finger, the weaker she got.

  She swallowed, amazed at what he did with just her finger. She could only imagine what would happen if she let him loose on her whole body.