“It is her,” he insisted quietly. “It is Frances. Do you smell her?”
Kurtis smelled flowers and something earthy, along with the warm smell of human flesh. He looked at his brother, wondering how to tell the man that he was following a crazy woman’s fantasy. He sighed heavily.
“Keir, get hold of yourself,” he told his brother. “You smell the soap we purchased this afternoon and nothing more.”
Chloë looked at Kurtis, the voice of dissention, and suddenly realized how idiotic she must appear. Keir understood but Kurtis did not. Even Cassandra, awakened by her sister’s screams, was standing next to her and looking at her as if she had lost her mind. Chloë was normally an intensely private person and the attention, as she came to her senses, was not something she was willing to insist upon. She didn’t want to make Keir look like an idiot because she knew, as she gazed into his shaken face, that he would believe her. Perhaps he missed his family so badly that he would believe anything.
Lowering her hands, Chloë turned back for the bedchamber but Keir grabbed her. “Hold, lady,” he murmured. “Where are you going?”
She looked at the three curious faces gazing back at her as she labored to recover her composure. “I… it must have been a dream,” she said, backing into the room. “Keir, I am sorry. I have had dreams since I was here and I did not mean to… I apologize for making a mockery of your child. I did not mean to but the… the dreams are very vivid.”
Keir had his hands on her, not wanting her to get away. “You have not made a mockery of anything.” He lifted her hands, smelling them again. His pale blue eyes glowed. “I smell her. This is my daughter.”
Chloë could see over his shoulder that Kurtis’ expression was darkening by the second. Fearful of the man’s reaction, or perhaps how he would view his brother, she shook her head. “Nay,” she insisted. “I… I apologize. I had a nightmare, ’tis all. You only smell soap.”
Keir’s brow furrowed in disbelief, perhaps some anguish, as Kurtis grasped him by the arm. “You heard her,” he said quietly though firmly. “It was simply a figment of her imagination. Let her go back to bed.”
“Are you saying my sister is mad?” Cassandra chimed in, her fire focused on Kurtis. “My sister is as levelheaded and sensible as any woman who has walked this earth. If she said a little girl came to her, then she did. She would not lie and she is not insane.”
Kurtis looked at the woman, a very pretty spitfire of a woman, and his square jaw ticked impatiently.
“I did not call her mad,” he pointed out. “I merely said she imagined it and now she has my brother imagining it as well.”
Cassandra would not let him go so easily. “How do you know what is truth and what is not?” she fired back. “It is possible that my sister dreamt of Keir’s daughter.”
Kurtis wasn’t going to fight with the lovely blond, although he wasn’t particularly fond of outspoken women. This one was certainly outspoken. He grasped his brother by the arms and tried to turn him back to the stairs.
“Come along,” he instructed quietly. “Let the women return to bed.”
Keir wouldn’t go with his brother, shrugging him off. “Take Lady Cassandra back to her chamber,” he told him. “I will stay with Chloë awhile.”
Kurtis didn’t like that idea at all. He shook his head. “Keir….”
But Keir cut him off, lifting his eyebrows for emphasis. “Go,” he told his brother kindly, firmly. “Please, Kurt. I will see you on the morrow.”
Jaw ticking, Kurtis did as he was told although he made it very clear that he was unhappy about it. He had noticed from the onset that afternoon that the lovely and luscious Lady Chloë had some kind of hold over his brother, something he had never seen before. His brother was obviously enraptured with the woman and Kurtis didn’t think it was healthy for him in the least.
Even now, she spoke of crazy dreams involving Keir’s children and the man believed her. But Kurtis knew his brother well enough to know that all the arguing in the world could not dissuade him. If Keir wanted to stay with the woman, then he would. Frustrated, Kurtis reached out to politely take Cassandra’s arm but she balked.
“I can find my own chamber, thank you,” she snapped, looking at her sister with a softened expression. “Are you sure you are well, sweetheart?”
Chloë nodded. “I am,” she said. “I am sorry to have awoken you.”
“Why not sleep in my chamber with me? You might sleep better.”
Chloë shook her head. “I cannot sleep with you and you know it. Your snoring keeps me awake. But I thank you for the offer.”
Cassandra appeared defensive as well as embarrassed. “I do not snore,” she insisted, purely for the benefit of the knights. She frowned at her ungracious sister. “If you change your mind, you know where I am.”
Chloë smiled at her sister, not oblivious to the fact that she had embarrassed her, as the woman moved down the stairs. Kurtis silently followed.
When the landing was still and quiet but for the two of them, Chloë turned to Keir. Her smile faded and her brown eyes grew serious as she gazed up at him.
“She did come to me, twice,” she whispered. “You said I was dreaming the first time. Now, do you believe me? Can you really smell her on me?”
Keir’s eyes were riveted to her. Reaching out an enormous hand, he fingered her hair, the luxurious red strands that fell in a great thick mane to her knees. He brought a handful of hair to his nose, inhaling deeply.
“I can,” he murmured.
Chloë felt the heat from his gaze, thrilling and unnerving her. She was not particularly accustomed to men and their charms, as her father had focused most suitors on Cassandra while he hid her well away.
The problem was that when men saw Chloë, they forgot about all else, including Cassandra. The younger sister with the glorious red hair had been the true de Geld prize as legend of her beauty spread. Chloë had therefore had little exposure to the ways of men but with Keir, everything seemed to flow on instinct. It was as if the two of them were gradually becoming symbiotic.
He was still holding her hair when she turned away and went into her chamber. Keir followed, his eyes darting around the dark chamber, sniffing the air to see if he could smell the same scent that was on Chloë. But there was nothing in the air other than smoke and the scent of cold, damp stone, so he moved to the hearth and threw a few hunks of peat on it, stoking it. By the time he turned to Chloë, she was sitting on the bed.
She was watching him feed the fire, the firelight flickering off her glorious hair. Keir stood up, looking at her expectantly, waiting for her to speak. It was apparent that she was wrought with much on her mind. He could just tell by her expression.
“May I ask you a question, my lord?” she asked softly.
He nodded faintly. “Please,” he said, “you will call me Keir.”
“Keir,” she whispered. “Will you… will you please tell me what happened to your children? Why is this little girl appearing to me and asking for her brother?”
He drew in a long, thoughtful breath, lowering himself onto the bed beside her. He was pensive, calm, his elbows resting on his knees as he clasped his big hands.
“I had been away for a few days when I received word from a panicked soldier that Pendragon was under siege,” he said softly. “I had the bulk of my army with me, almost eight hundred men, so I knew the castle was undermanned. However, Pendragon is so fortified with moats, walls and causeways that I was not particularly concerned. At least, I was not particularly concerned until I returned home and found the castle breached.”
Chloë could see that speaking of it was painful. She reached out to comfort him, laying her hand over his clasped fingers. He took her hand and held it tightly, warmly, between his two big palms before continuing.
“I did not know the keep had been breached until we managed to fight our way into the bailey,” he told her. “Then I saw smoke and fire everywhere, pouring from the windows of the keep. Knowing
my wife and children were inside, I made all due haste to reach the keep and almost got myself killed in the process. Michael somehow made it into the keep before me and found my wife and daughter. He begged me not to go to them but I refused. I think I even hit him in the face at some point. I found them… Madeleine and Frances were in the master’s chamber and the attackers had burned what they had not looted, including my wife and daughter.”
Chloë’s eyes widened. “She was… burned?”
He nodded weakly, gazing at his hands as they held her small, soft one. “Mostly,” he whispered. “We buried Madeleine and Frances together.”
“And Merritt?”
He lifted his shoulders, struggling against the horrific memories of his wife and daughter’s deaths. He had never spoken of them, not to anyone, but Chloë had somehow eased him enough to discuss it. It was as if telling her brought him a certain amount of consolation, odd as it was. Somehow, he just didn’t feel the pain he used to, the stabbing grief that ate at him. As he looked into her beautiful eyes, he could see comfort and kindness there. It helped him a great deal.
“We never found him,” he muttered. “We searched this castle from top to bottom but he was never found. I thought perhaps Lord Stain, the man who destroyed my castle and killed my wife and daughter, had somehow taken him to ransom but that was not the case. Coverdale spent months negotiating with the man and was convinced he did not have my son. So I have spent three years looking for him, searching, making contacts and hoping somehow I would discover his whereabouts, but no one could help me. It is as if he has simply vanished.”
Although Chloë had already heard the gist of the story from her father, to hear it from Keir’s lips was truly agonizing. She felt a great deal of pity for the man. She slipped from the bed to the floor at his feet, clutching both of his hands as she gazed up at him.
“God bless you for the horror you have endured,” she declared earnestly. “I cannot imagine your suffering. I cannot imagine what it would be like to lose my entire family.”
He gazed into her sweet face, the most beautiful he had ever seen. Aye, it was true. Madeleine had been beautiful in a sweet sort of way, but Chloë’s beauty was the stuff of legends. She was magnificent, in every way. Ingilby called her the goddess and he was absolutely right. The name suited her perfectly. Keir cupped her face with a big hand and bent down, kissing her sweetly on the cheek.
“If God is merciful, you will never have to,” he muttered, his lips still against her face. “But I thank you for your words of comfort. It has done my heart good to come to know you, Chloë de Geld. You remind me that there is still kindness and beauty in the world. It is something I had forgotten.”
She could feel him breathing against her cheek and her heart began to race. “I have come to see you as a good and true man, Keir St. Héver. Perhaps God will take pity on you and bless you someday with greater riches than you have ever known. You have earned it.”
Keir’s lips were still against her cheek, his nose inhaling the scent of her skin, of that magnificent red hair. The hand that cupped her cheek began to caress it, feeling her silken flesh against his fingers. It had been years since he’d tasted a woman and the feel of her, the scent of her, was overwhelming him. His other hand came up, cupping her entire head between his two enormous hands as his lips began to move along her jaw line.
Chloë felt his hot, gentle kisses and her body began to tremble. His touch had an intoxicating effect on her and she could feel herself collapsing, surrendering, as his mouth moved across her chin. He was close to her lips but he didn’t kiss her mouth, instead continuing across her jaw to the other cheek. It was erotic, gentle and wholly passionate as his kisses gained strength and moved across one eye and then the other. Chloë shivered, gasped, feeling every kiss like a thousand pinpricks of light, filling her and illuminating her, waiting for the magic moment when he would claim her mouth.
Keir was moving in that direction and the taste of her, the feel of her, dissolved his control. She was warm and sweet and delicious, better and more than he had ever tasted in his life. He didn’t realize until he touched her how starved he was for her. He slanted his mouth hungrily over her lips, his hands moving into her hair, holding her head against him as his mouth ravaged hers.
In his grip, Chloë whimpered softly at the delight of his touch, her first experience with a man and his magic, and she was not disappointed. In fact, she was wildly aroused by it. The beautiful, sheltered and proper young woman was coming out of her shell. It felt like the most natural of things, his lips against hers, his hands in her hair. She knew she could learn to love it. Her arms wound up around his neck and she pulled him close.
Keir felt her respond to him and it fed his lust. He removed his hands from her hair and wrapped his big arms around her body, pulling her up against him. His tongue licked at her lips, begging for admittance, and she timidly opened her mouth because he was. He invaded her with his tongue, tasting her sweetness and losing himself completely. He’d spent so much of his time fighting his feelings for the woman that now the dam had burst and everything was gushing forward.
Chloë held on to him tightly as he flipped her onto her back, laying her on the mattress and covering her with his enormous body. His mouth was a wicked thing, sucking every thought from her head as he tasted her passionately. His arms, massive strong things, were around her but she could feel his hands moving, caressing her, exploring her back and her torso.
She was enjoying his closeness, her first foray into the world of passion, when his hand began to move across her belly, up towards her breasts. She could feel it getting closer and closer, finally stroking the underside of her right breast. As exciting and titillating as it was, she also knew it wasn’t proper. She did not want to be groped by the man, no matter how attracted she was to him. When he moved to enclose her breast in his palm, she put up a hand and stopped him.
“Nay,” she breathed, tearing her mouth away from his. “Please… you must not.”
Keir had been far gone with passion, only aware of his strong reaction to Chloë and her sweet body. But as she spoke, stopping his onslaught, he came to his senses enough to realize he was moving for intimate places. He further realized that he fully intended to bed the woman. There was no question in his mind. But as he pulled back and gazed into her gorgeous, somewhat fearful face, his ardor cooled.
“Forgive me,” he whispered. “I should not have taken such liberties but… Chloë, I cannot explain what I feel for you, only that I do. I have not felt anything in three years, not since I found the smoldering body of my wife and child and swore I would never feel anything again. But the first time I saw you, even as you were gouging at my eyes and fighting me, something inside me reawakened.”
Chloë listened, wide-eyed. “You… you feel something for me?”
He nodded, pushing himself off of her and refusing to look at her. He sat on the edge of the bed, looking rather stiff and ill. Chloë sat up next to him, studying his powerful profile.
“What do you feel?” she whispered.
He shook his head, hanging it. “I do not know,” he muttered. “I can only tell you that it is soft and warm, and it consumes me. It is like nothing I have ever felt before and it scares me to death.”
Bewildered, Chloë sat next to him, trying to decipher his feelings as well as her own. She had feelings, too. It was not fair for him to be the only one forced into a confession.
“I have lived a very protected and privileged existence,” she murmured. “Although Cassandra dreams of marrying a man she loves, I have never had such dreams. My parents exist in marriage but do not love one another. Love or emotion does not enter into their bargain, as it was arranged by their parents. My father explained to me many a time that marriage is a contract and nothing more, and that is how I understand it. But you… you have changed that perspective for me. What a wonderful thing it must be to be married to someone you adore.”
He did look at her then, his gaze
moving over her spectacular face. He shook his head in wonder.
“Do you have any concept of how beautiful you are?” he breathed. “You are like an angel descended from Heaven, the most perfect woman God has ever created delivered right into our midst. You said Ingilby calls you the goddess and, God’s Beard, the man is completely right in his assessment. You are a goddess beyond my wildest dreams.”
She smiled faintly, a soft blush mottling her cheeks. “You flatter me, my lord.”
He shook his head emphatically. “It is not idle praise, I swear it. I mean every word. Every man that looks upon you thinks the same thing but I have been given the honor of coming to know you beyond your physical beauty and I will tell you again that you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, inside and out. The man who marries you will be the most fortunate man in England, with God as my witness.”
Her smile grew, thinking he was leading up to something very hopeful. “Would it be bold of me to ask if it is your intention to be that fortunate man?”
He stared at her, looking rather staggered by her question. He rose from the bed, pacing towards the lancet window as he ran his fingers through his cropped hair. There was nervousness to his movements. When he finally turned to look at her, there was great sorrow in his eyes.
“I do not know,” he said hoarsely. “I truthfully do not know if it can be me. All I know is that my feelings for you are very powerful but I do not know if I am strong enough to manage them.”
Her smile faded as she watched his tense body language. “What does that mean?”
“It means that no matter what I feel for you, I do not know if there can be anything between us,” he said, shaking his head and averting his gaze. “I should not have kissed you but I could not help myself. You are overwhelmingly sweet, Chloë. Perhaps… perhaps I simply wanted to taste you. Perhaps I wanted to satisfy my curiosity. Perhaps I wanted to know what I could never have.”
She was crushed, starting to tear up. “Why can you never have me?”
England's Greatest Knights: A Medieval Romance Collection Page 134
