Lion’s Bride

Chapter Eight

“MY LORD WISHES to speak with you,” Jasmine said. “You must come to the Great Hall at once.”

Thea glanced up at her before pouring more water at the base of the tree. “When I’m gone, you must be careful not to give these trees too much water. Too much is worse than not enough.”

“Have you told Allah this secret so that he can ration his rain?” Jasmine asked dryly.

“We can do nothing about God, but we can do all we can ourselves.”

“My lord wants you.”

There was no use putting it off any longer. She had been avoiding Ware all day, but she would have to face him sometime. “I’m coming.” She rose to her feet, dusted the earth from her skirt, and started back toward the castle. “I was finished here anyway.”

Jasmine fell into step with her. “He set me searching all over the castle for you. You are angry with him?”

“No.”

“He is angry with you?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps.” She changed the subject. “Have you practiced that loop stitch I showed you yesterday?”

Jasmine nodded. “But I’m still very clumsy.”

“The skill will come.”

“I showed it to Tasza. She did it better than I did.”

“You’re teaching Tasza to embroider? I thought she had no interest in learning it.”

“This is a good thing. Tasza will do as I tell her.”

Thea shook her head. “No, Jasmine. She must do it because it is her wish, or it will become slavery for her. I will not have that happen.”

Jasmine frowned. “Sometimes she doesn’t know what is good for her. I must tell her.” She paused. “I think she is afraid.”

“Afraid?”

“To fail. Everyone must take pride in something. Tasza may be a whore, but she is a very good whore. Through all the cruelties heaped upon her, she could hold to that. Now she must start at the beginning and it frightens her.” Her lips tightened. “But I’ll not permit her to stop. I could not save her when she went on the streets, but this is another chance. So do not tell me not to teach her.”

How could she remonstrate with Jasmine? She was not even sure she wanted to do so. Both these women had suffered and sacrificed for each other. It was not for her to interfere with a bond of such strength. “If I can help, call on me.”

“You can help us by staying. We need your teaching.”

She should have known Jasmine would ask that of her. “I cannot stay. As soon as Selene arrives, I must go to Damascus and make a life for us. You can understand how I want the best for her. You feel the same about your Tasza. I’ll teach you all I can before I leave.”

“It may not be enough.”

“Perhaps someday both of you can come and work with me. You are free women. It’s best now that you stay with Lord Ware, since I cannot offer you a place. But once I have my own house, I’ll send for you.”

Jasmine turned and stared directly into her eyes. “You promise me?”

“I promise you.”

Jasmine slowly nodded. “Then all will be well.”

Thea wished she were as confident. Those first few years were going to be a hard struggle for both her and Selene. “You may have to be patient.”

“I have patience.” She fixed Thea with a stern glance. “But you must work very hard, you understand?”

Thea smothered a smile and nodded meekly. “Every hour of the day.”

“Perhaps not every hour,” Jasmine said grimly. “But many hours of the day. And don’t wait until you can make a place for us. We’ll make a place for ourselves when you open your house. Soon you’ll find you won’t be able to do without us.”

What had she got herself into by that offer? she wondered ruefully. Jasmine and Tasza were both extremely strong-willed. If she wasn’t careful, they would be giving her orders in her own house. The thought brought no unease. It would be good to have about her people she knew and trusted when she ventured forth into the world of trade.

They had reached the castle and Jasmine opened the door. “You’ll teach me another stitch today?”

Thea nodded. “As soon as I leave Lord Ware. Come to my chamber.”

“I’ll try to bring Tasza.” She started toward the servants’ quarters. “It would be easier for her to learn from you than me.”

That was all she needed, Thea thought wearily—a difficult confrontation with Ware and then a lesson with a sulky, rebellious Tasza.

She braced herself, then strode quickly down the long corridor toward the Great Hall. She had deliberately kept herself from thinking about Ware or the words he had spoken last night. They brought a twisting pain that filled her with too much confusion and sadness. She must not think now. She must just reiterate her refusal and leave him.

He turned away from the window when he heard her steps. “It took you long enough. Where were you hiding?”

“I wasn’t hiding. I was tending the trees.”

“All day?”

She brushed the question aside. “What do you wish of me?”

“I told you what I wished.” He lifted his hand as she opened her lips to speak. “Don’t worry, I’m no longer out of my senses. I’ve no intention of either coupling with you or getting you with child.” He smiled sardonically as he added, “Today. I don’t speak for tomorrow. I woke this morning full of guilt and torment, but I can’t be sure it will last.”

She felt oddly deflated. After bracing herself to resist him, he had changed again and made resistance unnecessary. “Such conduct was most selfish of you.”

“I’m a selfish man. You should know that by now.”

A truly selfish man would not be tormented by guilt at taking what he wanted most in the world. By the saints, she was making excuses for him again, she realized with exasperation. “You can be very selfish…on occasion.”

He waved away her words. “But that’s not why I asked Jasmine to find you. I wanted to tell you that I’m going to Acre tomorrow. I’m leaving Abdul here to watch over you, but you’re not to leave the castle. Do you understand?”

“Acre?” she asked, startled. “Why?”

“To seek word of Kadar.”

“You said that it wasn’t unusual for him to take this long.”

“It’s not unusual.”

“Then why are you going?”

“It will do no harm to give Kadar and your sister safe escort back to Dundragon.”

“You didn’t think Kadar needed an escort when he left here. Why should it be necessary now?”

“Because I wish to go,” he snapped. “Stop questioning me. I’d think you’d like to see the last of me for a while.”

The last of him. Sudden fear iced through her. Every time he left the castle, there was a possibility it might be his last. “Not when you ride foolishly into danger for no reason.”

“I’m taking a small force.”

“And will that be enough if you’re attacked?”

“Of course it will. Do you think I’d let anything happen to my men?”

“No, you’d probably tell them to leave you and let yourself be cut down.” She tried to steady her voice. “It’s stupid for you to go when it’s not necessary.”

“It is necessary.”

“Why? When you said—”

“Dammit, because it will happen again.” His eyes were suddenly blazing down at her. “I have to get away from you. Some night I’ll drink too much and I’ll come to your bed. I want it too much. I want you too much.”

“So you would die for lust? You’d die for a child who doesn’t exist?” She wanted to shake him. “You said you were back in your senses, but I see no sign of it.”

“I’m not going out to die. I’m going to Acre to escort Kadar and your sister to Dundragon.”

“And risk your life doing it. You’re a stupid, stupid man.”

“Not only selfish but stupid.” He started for the door. “I’d best go before I become more of a monster than I am already.”

He was leaving her. Tomorrow he was leaving Dundragon. “Wait!”

He stopped and looked at her.

“This is madness,” she whispered. “Don’t go.”

“I can do nothing else,” he said haltingly. “I’ve hurt too many people already. I find…I cannot hurt you, too.”

She was shaking, she realized, as she watched him leave the room. She was cold and shaking with a knot twisting in the pit of her stomach. She wanted to strike out at him. She wanted to yell and scream.

She wanted to hold and comfort him.

It was the same emotion that had nearly overwhelmed her last night, but now it was stronger, much stronger. She turned and stared out at the mountains. Death could be waiting for him when he rode out tomorrow. The enigma that was Vaden could strike him down. Why would he not listen to her?

She knew why he would not listen. She understood him now, and she wished with her whole heart that she did not. She should not have allowed herself to come this close, but she could not hold at a distance someone she had embraced in friendship. It was not possible.

Any more than it was possible for her to let him ride out of Dundragon tomorrow into danger.

Her hand was trembling on the candlestick as she moved down the dark corridor. Her shadow looked small and fragile in the light cast on the stone walls. Mother of God, what was she doing? She wanted to run back to her own chamber and jump into bed and pull the covers over her head. He might not even be alone. She had purposely waited until the middle of the night, but Ware’s lust was great, and he might still be engaged in coupling.

Well, she could not help it if he was. She paused outside his chamber, drew a deep breath, and then threw open the door. “Wake up. I must talk to you.”

“I wasn’t asleep.” Ware sat up in bed and watched her impassively as she came into the chamber and closed the door. “But I have no desire to talk. We’ve said what we had to say.”

There was no woman in his bed, she saw with relief. “You are alone?”

“Obviously.”

“Will she be back?”

“Who?” Then he smiled crookedly as he understood. “No, I sent for no woman tonight.”

“Why not?”

“Perhaps I’ve decided to embrace once again a monk’s abstinence.”

She grunted with derision.

“And it’s none of your concern what my reasons were.”

“It’s my concern if she comes back while I’m here. It’s bad enough that I must do this, I refuse to share your bed.”

He went still. “Share?”

She glanced away from him as she set the candlestick on the table by the bed. Her chest was constricted and she was finding it hard to breathe. Get it over. It would be better when all was settled. She took off her sandals, then pulled her gown over her head and dropped it onto the floor. “Move over.”

He didn’t move. “What is this?” he asked hoarsely.

“It would appear evident to anyone who is not a monk, and you are certainly not that.” Since he had not made room for her, she went around to the other side of the bed and slipped beneath the cover. “I’ll not have your blood on my hands. I have other things to do with my life than sit and brood and wonder if I could have stopped this nonsense. I will stop it.”

“Get out of my bed.”

“Touch me.”

Every muscle of his body appeared rigid and locked in place. “I told you that I’d changed my mind.”

“And in the next breath that you were leaving to avoid temptation. If you yield to temptation, there will be no reason for you to leave.” He still did not move, and she didn’t think she could bear the tension much longer.

“ Touch me.”

“I won’t have you sacrificing your life for—”

“I’m sacrificing nothing. I won’t let anyone deprive me of one thing that I value. Not my life, or my freedom, or anything else. I do this because I choose to do it. You wish my body? Take it. I’m not like my mother. I’ll be the same after the coupling is over.”

“You may not be the same.” He muttered, “I’ll probably do my best to make sure that you’re not.”

“A child?” She shrugged. “I’ll leave it in God’s hands. I like children, and I’d find a way to protect myself and my babe.”

“Not from the Templars.”

“They are only men.”

“You’re wrong, they’re not like—” He inhaled sharply as she rolled against him. “Get away,” he said through his teeth.

His flesh was hot and burning against her own, but his muscles were still locked and knotted. He had to break. She could not stand this. “Besides, you may not find me so easy to get with child. Nicholas used my mother for three years before she bore me. I’ll be here only a few more weeks.”

He turned his head and looked at her. He said thickly, “If I touch you now, I may not leave your body until you ride out those gates.”

Heat coursed through her, and for a moment she couldn’t speak. She moistened her lips. “Don’t be foolish. We both know coupling does not take long. I’ll be back in my chamber by dawn.”

“Will you?” He took her hand and placed it on his chest. “I think not.”

The hair on his chest prickled her palm and sent another spasm of heat through her. She could feel his heart drumming fast and hard beneath her touch, and his chest was moving rapidly. She had done this to him. She had stirred him, made his huge body respond. The knowledge brought her a strange sense of power. For the first time she could understand Tasza’s pride in her ability to arouse and please.

Tasza. The memory of the girl brought a twisting pang. She didn’t want to think of Tasza bringing Ware this pleasure. She reached down and began to stroke his abdomen.

He groaned and his eyes closed. His cheeks were darkly flushed, and his expression was one of unutterable sensual pleasure. So simple. She had not dreamed men could be controlled by a mere touch. In the House of Nicholas it had always been the women who were subjugated.

“I warn you. I cannot hold on.” His voice was guttural. “If you leave now, I think I can let you go, but you must—” He broke off with a low cry as her hand closed around him.

Warm and big and weapon hard. She squeezed slowly and watched his face. Pleasure. She squeezed again. His teeth bit into his lower lip as he tried to suppress another groan. She shoved aside the cover to study him.

“What—are you doing?”

She looked up to see that his eyes had opened. “I just wanted to see if it looked any different. Your response was…interesting.”

“For me also.” He looked down at her hand. “But I think you should let me go if you don’t want an even more interesting response.”

She was reluctant to relinquish that sense of power, but she obediently released him.

“And stop looking at me. It has the same effect as your stroking me.” He reached out and outlined her mouth with his forefinger. He murmured, “Christ, you have a lovely mouth.”

Her gaze flew to his face as she remembered Tasza’s lips kissing his thigh and then moving up to caress…Did he mean for her to do that?

He shook his head as he read her thoughts. “Not now. That’s not where I want my seed.” He reached down and cupped his hand between her thighs. “Here. You’ll take me here.” He began to rub her slowly, pressing and releasing. “Later we can find other—What’s wrong? Why are you shaking?”

Only now did she realize that she was shuddering with every movement of his hand. “I’m not certain. I feel…” Empty. Helpless. Hot. Tingling. Was this what she had made him feel? It was as if she were tottering on a precipice. “I think—you should stop.”

His gaze was narrowed on her face. “I don’t agree. I like to see you like this.” His thumb searched and found. He began to press and rotate.

She cried out and arched upward as an unbelievable sensation spasmed through her. “Take down your hair,” he muttered as he widened her legs. “I want to see it around you when I come into you.”

She gasped as his finger slid within her.

He went deeper. “Take it down.”

What was he saying? she wondered dazedly. Her hair?

Another finger entered her, and he began to move in and out while his thumb still pressed and rotated.

She bit her lip to keep from screaming. Her hips lifted from the bed. With difficulty he slipped another finger within her. “Do it.”

She dazedly lifted her hands and loosened her braid. His fingers…

“Run your fingers through it. Bring it over your breasts.”

She obeyed, barely aware of what she was doing. She was making little whimpering noises deep in her throat.

“That’s right.” He took away his hands and moved over her. His lips were curled back from his teeth as if he were in pain as he positioned himself. “I want to feel it against me.” He began petting the curls surrounding her womanhood. “I want to feel all of you stroking me while I—No, don’t move. I have to get in and I don’t want to hurt you.”

He was in and she felt pinned, unable to move. She lay there, panting, gazing helplessly up at him.

“Stop looking at me,” he said roughly. “I can’t let you go now. It’s not my fault that you’re a virgin. You’re the one who came to me: It will be over in a minute.”

“I didn’t ask you to let me go.”

“No, you just lie there so tight that I know I’ll hurt you if I so much as breathe.” He glared down at her. “I told you to leave me. Now all I can do is get it over quickly and then—” His hips plunged forward.

Pain. Invasion. Fullness.

“I told you.” He moved again, in, out. The pain was receding, and she was beginning to feel that tingling heat she had known before. “Why do you never listen to me?”

“Be silent,” she whispered. There was something here…more than lust…She felt part of something more than his body. It was most strange. “Something’s happening. Do you not feel it?”

He went still and looked down at her. A multitude of emotions flickered over his face before it became impassive. “No.” He brought her hair between them so that it would touch him with every movement. He began to move slowly, deeply. “This is the only thing I feel. This is all that matters.” He reached beneath her and cupped her buttocks, bringing her up to meet each thrust. “Isn’t it?”

She gasped as he touched the quick. She reached out blindly and grasped his shoulders. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think.

Tension.

Thrusting.

Building.

She wanted to scream but she had no voice.

He was the voice.

He was motion and passion and…everything.

“It will be over soon,” he muttered.

Was that supposed to comfort her? She didn’t want it to be over. Yes, she did. She could not bear this tension.

He was moving faster, deeper.

Release.

She lunged upward as the waves of tension shattered.

He was still moving, she realized dimly. Didn’t he know the world had just ended? She tried to tell him, but she was too weary and shaken.

He cried out, his arms tightening around her.

Never mind, he had found out for himself.

“You should not have come to my chamber.” He stroked her hair. “It was foolish.”

How curious that his awkward touch could be both rough and infinitely gentle, she thought drowsily. “I couldn’t stop you any other way.” She nestled closer. “You’re very large, aren’t you? I feel very small lying next to you like this….”

“You still shouldn’t have come here. Now it’s too late. I may have killed you.”

“I feel very much alive.” It was an understatement. She had never felt more gloriously, joyously alive in all her life. How odd that a simple animal act could bring boundless happiness. “And if you’ve killed me, it was with pleasure.”

“You shouldn’t have come.”

He was not about to relinquish the thought, she realized. He would gnaw at it until he devoured all this wonderful contentment. She would not have it. She raised herself on one elbow and looked down at him. “And you’ll brood and mutter until you drive me mad. I came because I feel a fondness for you and did not want to see you dead. It was my decision and you are free of guilt.” She grimaced. “Though I know that you will not believe me. You seem to prefer being tied down by guilt. Well, I’ll not be one of the burdens tethered to you. I’ve no liking for chains of any sort.”

“A child can be a chain.”

“True, but it’s a bond that I’d welcome just as I welcome my bond with Selene. I’ve no desire to be alone in this world. The difference between a slave and a free woman is that a free woman has choice. There’s no more precious gift on this earth.”

“Such passion.”

“And I’ll not listen to your mockery.”

“It’s not mockery. I envy you. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt passion for anything.”

“Sweet Mary, what is it you’ve just shown me? You do everything with passion. Now, if you cannot speak cheerfully, be silent.” She glimpsed his expression of astonishment before she lay back down and put her head in the hollow of his shoulder.

“I am guilty. You cannot change that by—ouch! You bit me.”

“I said, be silent.”

He was silent and then began stroking her hair again. “Silence doesn’t alter truth.” He stiffened warily, then relaxed when she made no motion to bury her teeth in him again. “A man must admit his sins and seek to correct them.”

“I’ve not seen any sign that you wish to right this sin with other women.”

“I spilled my seed in you. I tried to stop, but I could not—” He buried his face in her hair. His voice was muffled. “And I’ll do it again and again. For I will not send you away from my bed.”

“Then accept it.” She yawned. “As I have.”

“You accept it because you don’t know what—”

Her patience was at an end. She reached down and grabbed him, tight. “Accept it or I’ll—”

“I’ll accept it,” he said, alarmed.

Her grasp loosened.

He drew a sigh of relief. “You’re a woman with neither shyness nor delicacy. A lady should not touch that part of a man without invitation and certainly not with roughness.”

“You’re a stubborn brute, and delicacy would not have stopped you.”

He chuckled. “True enough. You certainly got my attention.” He drew her close. “But don’t do it again.”

She did not answer. She had no intention of consenting to behave in a manner foreign to her nature, but she was in no mood for conflict.

He did not speak for a long time. “We…fit.”

“I didn’t think you would at first.”

“No, I mean…” He released her and turned on his side away from her. “I don’t know what I mean. Nothing, I suppose. Go to sleep.”

She wanted him to hold her again. She didn’t move for a moment and then rolled closer and slid her arms about his middle, pressing her breasts to his back. That was better, not as good as before, but better.

“What are you doing?”

“I like this, and since you already know I have no delicacy…” She rubbed her cheek back and forth along his shoulder blade as if to soften the edge. “But don’t roll over. You’ll crush me.”

“Nothing could crush you.” He hesitated, then turned around again and drew her back into his arms. “Now will you go to sleep?”

“Yes.” She was already half-asleep as she curled closer to him. “I feel safer now…I don’t like being alone.”

I feel safer now.

But she was not safe. She would never be safe again, and he knew it was his fault. He had taken what she offered with only token resistance, and now she was more at risk than before.

Christ, what else could he have done? He had wanted her from the beginning. But he had put lust behind him a hundred times in the last weeks. He could have done it one more time. He could have picked her up and carried her to her own chamber and locked the door. She was only a woman, with a woman’s strength. He forgot that truth sometimes when she matched him word for word and will for will. Now, sleeping in his arms, she seemed as small and fragile as a child.

But it had been a woman he had taken earlier. She had been full of lust, vigorous passion stronger than any he had known before.

He wanted it again. He could feel himself harden as he remembered the way she had met him thrust for thrust, her cries as he had—

He deliberately blanked out the memory. Not now. Let her rest. She had been a virgin and—

Jesus, he had not treated her as a virgin. She had deserved better than to be glared at and blamed with rough words. What did he know of virgins? It was her fault. She should have stayed away from him.

He was blaming her again, he realized. Blaming her because it was too painful to blame himself for taking what he wanted.

It might not be too late. It could be she was not with child. He could behave with knightly honor and tell her he would stay safely at Dundragon and she need no longer come to his bed.

But it would be a lie, he thought bitterly. It seemed he had no honor at all where she was concerned. Only desire and obsession and the compulsion to seize every moment he could before she was taken away from him. Oh, no, there was no question he would couple with her as frequently as she would let him.

But there must be some way of protecting her. She was his now. She must live, even if he did not. He would find a way to make her safe.

Thea stirred and murmured something beneath her breath. Was she dreaming? He prayed the dreams were good and not the nightmares he endured each night. He drew her possessively closer.

She must live.