Awaken My Fire (28 page)

The time to leave was long past.

Roshelle nodded numbly, stupidly, and turned to exit.

She started past the dais. Yet, with one hand on the table, Vincent lifted himself agilely over, startling her as he landed less than a hand's length from her person.

Stopping short, Cisely nearly fell into Roshelle. For some reason she caught Wilhelm's eye. He winked. She started to smile back, abruptly realized the gravity of it and looked quickly away. Wilhelm only chuckled; for no reason he understood, the pretty lady's timorous nature appealed to him...

Roshelle had looked up at Vincent with a gasp. His eyes were laughing, and in that moment she saw many things about him: his ever-present amusement even now as he threatened her, his restless energy and impatience with a world that moved far too slowly for him and, more than anything, the stunning force of his will. It scared her senseless. "Beware the perfect cleft." Had Papillion foreseen this man, Vincent de la Eresman, in her future? Had he been warning her of him?

"Milady," Vincent began. "This lamentable curse of yours. I wonder..." The words were spoken slowly, as if with careful deliberation, before his gaze lowered just as slowly to her hand. Suddenly no one else was in the room. She hardly knew what he was saying or trying to say as her senses filled with the pleasant assault of his nearness: there was a sumptuous promise of warmth and a clean, rich scent. She was breathing deeply all of a sudden, and even more deeply as he took her hand into his and seemed to study it.

His large bronze hand enveloped her small cold one with sudden warmth. Her blue eyes widened. She swallowed, remembering the torment he had brought this very same hand. As If scourged, she wanted to snatch her hand way, but couldn't. His gaze had found hers again, and with Papillion's own gift of mesmerizing, he held her still and transfixed. Like a tiny bird caught by a snake, her heart hammered with alarm and fear, yet she could neither move nor turn away.

He brought the small trapped hand up, slowly turning it around palm side up to expose the sensitive skin of her small wrist. His thumb lightly grazed the spot before closing his eyes, and as he had done once before, he drank deeply of the sweet perfume of her skin.

Then he brought her wrist to his lips.

Tiny hot shivers leaped from the spot; her breath was released in a gasp. Which seemed to please him. "I wonder," he continued obliquely, and at last came to the question. "At what point exactly . . . does a man die?"

The laughter of his men sounded distant and far away, but it made her see his own racing amusement in that light of his eyes. Fury immediately greeted his laughter. She snatched her hand away. One reproachful look at his men subdued their rancorous amusement before she turned back to Vincent. "No bolder beast ever walked the earth! And, my Grace"—she spat the title—"I dearly pray you—unlike your doomed brother—have the good sense never to discover the answer. And not because I would mourn your death!"

With a lift of her skirts, she fled the room, chased by the sound of his laughter. No bolder beast ever walked the earth indeed!

"Ah, you lecherous bastard!" Wilhelm scolded Vincent as soon as Roshelle and Cisely were gone. "Need I ask what no-good thoughts run through your head? You who have always preferred the well-traveled path with all other women! You who once said forging a path where no one hath been before is like owning-a piece of the holy cross: its cost is great, if not prohibitive, while its rewards exist only in the imagination of fools."

"Aye, that is true, my friend." Vincent smiled back. "Or was true until this night, when it seems the heavens themselves offered the challenge, one I could no more refuse than my next breath."

"Do reflect, your Grace!" Bogo exclaimed with a wicked light in his eyes, too. "What if it's true? Have you no fear of hubris, offering this mortal challenge to the gods? Death be not far indeed—"

"Aye." Vincent laughed. "But never has a death seemed so sweet."

Yet all of the laughter and the jesting disappeared beneath a nightmare that played in his sleep that night. It was a terrible dream wherein Roshelle called to him from far away, atop a great high tower made of white stone. A surge of desperation filled him, desperation to take her away in his arms and carry her back to the solid earth of the world, to hold her slim softness to him and press his lips to hers one last time. He began climbing and climbing and climbing. Climbing until his muscles ached and perspiration drenched him, until he felt his next breath would be his last, and just as he felt his fingers slipping over the smooth cold stone, he reached the top and saw her there.

She looked more beautiful than ever: shrouded in white cloth from head to toe. A gold band fit around the cloth that covered her head. She was shaking her head. A haunting sadness clouded her lovely blue eyes and that sadness struck his heart and filled him with fear, even before she said, " "Twasn't meant to be in this lifetime. Forever, I love you forever. Hold my love in thine heart, to cherish in memory…"

"Nay, Roshelle!"

Yet his fingers slipped and he was falling . . .

*****

Chapter 7

“
So what say you?"

Vincent hardly heard Wilhelm's question as they returned to the keep from the stables. He was thinking of roses. The faintest trace of the blossoms' scent lingered in the still night air. He inhaled it deeply. Of course, it was impossible—a month or two too early for blossoms. He must be imagining the scent, and the thought made him smile. "I was told the girl is planting a rose garden over there, outside the wall where the moat was—that she—was heard saying it was the only concession she'd make to me. I was told she loves roses."

Wilhelm shot a critical glance at Vincent. "Vince," he warned, his hand shooting out to stop him where he stood, "Tis not like you to lose your mind like this. Here I am talking about the threat to your life—your life!—and your mind goes traveling to the girl! Again!"

Vincent did not deny this. "Aye, again and again. Tis not enough that she fills my dreams, but now she begins to steal my every waking thought..."

Wilhelm shook his head impatiently. "Listen to me: we must do something first. You know the knights have heard it said 'twas he, this grand Duke of Burgundy, who set that band of mercenaries upon the hapless Count Valentine, and all for a parcel of land one hundredth the size of Suffolk. And these merry men cut the poor fool into little pieces, which were sent in a bag to his widow—"

"Ah, in time, Wilhelm. I will know what to do in time."

"Oh, aye, 'tis just like you to ignore—" Wilhelm stopped suddenly, motioning to Vincent for quiet. Crickets hummed in the still and quiet night. In the far distance came the sound of a card game from the ranks outside the walls, and closer still, the scrape of hot iron from the armorer and that man's call for more wood. The whispered sound came again. Wilhelm's gaze swept the battlements. He pointed to a lone guard who slept in the shadows beneath a torch lit battlement.

Vincent issued a short, high whistle.

Footsteps sounded. Another guard emerged from the darkness, rushing to where they stood. "Milord?"

Vincent motioned for silence. The guard looked around in confusion as Wilhelm tossed a coin and Vincent called it. "Curse you, Wilhelm—I begin to think your coins are crooked."

"Poor loser, you." Wilhelm took the bow from the guard, drew an arrow from his pouch and set it to the string. The sound of the arrow flying through the air was shrill, and it hit the slumbering guard's bonnet with a loud ping. The man woke with a start and jumped to his feet, gasping and looking frightened before Wilhelm's laughter drew his gaze down to the courtyard below.

Wilhelm returned the bow and, still laughing, turned toward the hall entrance. Only to realize Vincent had not followed. Vincent was staring up at the light pouring out from a window above, a mischievous grin on his face.

Wilhelm knew that grin.

Though Vincent was kept informed of Roshelle's activities, he had not seen her for a week. The girl took extraordinary measures to avoid him. For good reason, especially if his dreams were a measure of his intention. "Perhaps I'll join you later, Wilhelm."

"Aye. And if ye die before ye wake, at least 'twill save the duke the trouble of killing you. I'll make the lady pay the burial fees."

They parted laughing.

The chamber doors were ajar. Soft light from a dozen candles streamed through the door, and inhaling the sweet fragrance of her rooms, Vincent knocked gently. The enticing scent acted like an aphrodisiac, which was the last thing he needed with the girl. A whispered voice came from inside. He knocked again. Still no one answered.

Most men would mind her privacy and, before stepping inside, grace her with the announcement of their presence. Yet no one had ever accused Vincent of slavish observation of propriety. And he was definitely not one to resist the temptation of catching Roshelle unawares. Anticipating the treat, he stepped quietly inside.

As always, the girl surpassed his wildest expectations and he drank in the sight of her with a sharp gasp, his eyes darkening with pleasure. Hard, hot desire shot through him. Gripped by it, he clenched his fists and leaned back against the door as if for support. For a long moment he could not move, as he tried to temper the sudden race of his pulse.

With her side to the door, Roshelle spent several long minutes trying to convince the cat sitting on the shelf above her to taste a concoction. "Last time was a mistake! By the saints, I swear this will not be as bitter. Just taste! Molasses, sugared ergot, a splash of nectar and cumin butter…"

The girl's comeliness played an alluring melody on his mind, and at times the song seemed to shepherd his every thought and move. Yet never more than now. Bathed in candlelight, she wore only a thin cotton nightdress that left her thin arms and long legs bare to his gaze, while its transparency hinted at the slender figure beneath. The outline of her high lovely breasts was enough to arouse him, more than enough as he imagined slipping the straps from her shoulders and cupping the softness of her full breasts and touching his lips to her mouth-

Watching a hand and the small spoon coming at him, the cat reared in an arch before settling back down, swinging his tail neatly around his paws. "Ah, Moonshine, you are no good to me tonight." She shook her head. "And where might Joan be, I wonder? 'Tis not like her to dally ... If only I had some roybra left!" She poured a mixture into a wooden cup, smelling its aroma and then searching the shelves above, her long unbound hair swinging over her hips as she did so. "But if I mix a smidgen of rotted pumpkin with olieribus, I think 'twill provide the same outcome. Severn, the candle maker, has a pumpkin growing in his vineyard—"

Noisy screeches came from the window as Greyman suddenly made an appearance after a night of hunting. He swooped inside, circling the room to approach his mistress from the right side. Roshelle turned to the bird with a smile just as Moonshine rose with an alarmed, frightened hiss. "Stop, Greyman--"

Too late. The mean bird dove at the cat for fun. The cat leaped into the shelve, knocking the concoction off the ledge. Roshelle cried out as the sweet mixture splattered over her face and chest.

An angry melody of French swearing filled the room. Roshelle swung at her bird, who flew back just out of reach. With a pleased screech, Greyman settled happily on his perch.

"You beast! 'Tis brutish to frighten poor underlings for sport, it is! You no-good barbaric—Why, look! Just look at what you've done—"

Vincent bit his lip hard to stop his laughter from sounding, his amusement dying the instant Roshelle moved to the dressing water. The straps fell off her shoulders. The chemise gathered at her small waist as she wrung out a cloth. The cool moist cloth came to her face first, then to the slender arch of her neck, before circling her round, full breasts.

"Roshelle . . ." A husky voice whispered her name. "You would not be needing my assistance with that, would you?"

All movement came to an abrupt, instant halt. 'Twas not really him. She was dreaming, that was all. Aye, she must be losing her wits, collapsing under the pressure of her grief and the disillusionment of the failed rebellion, a burden weighted now with the dangerous teasing light in those remarkable dark eyes. She had begun imagining his voice in her solar chambers—

Boots sounded softly against the stone floor.

The wet cloth dropped from her hands. She swung around and gasped. Instinctively she crossed her arms over her naked breasts. A blush suffused her cheeks as her blue eyes widened.

"Might I help you, Roshelle?"

The rich timbre of his voice passed through her like a caress. She swallowed, slowly shaking her head as each step he took brought him closer to her. The ridiculous question mattered not at all, for she could barely comprehend the words, let alone discern the meaning—he might have just asked her to describe Plato's philosophy in half the length of an hour. All she knew was the danger of her situation.