Awaken My Fire (36 page)

And he was kissing her again.

Chills rushed between her legs, alternating with the slow explosions made of her blood, and as her passion rose, sparked, flared, so did the fear, the idea that at any minute something unspeakable would happen. She didn't realize she was whispering "No" over and over until his mouth covered hers and he was kissing her again.

The kiss was feather-light at first. Until he caught her mouth in a hard, exploring kiss as he let her feel his weight. The brush of their bodies brought another rush between her thighs, a growing heat there, and suddenly, without realizing it, she was kissing him back, her lips clinging to his of their own volition, burning and aching as he broke away.

Like a brush with fire, his lips left her mouth to travel to the arch of her throat. She gasped again with this play of his lips, the tiny spark like shivers he left there, but his lips moved lower still until she felt them on her breast.

His lips moved softly back and forth over a nipple. A helpless whimper escaped her as his tongue swept around the tightening bud, stroking' the secret wellspring of her desire and making her heart pound in the deepest part of herself. A feather-light hand replaced his lips as he managed, "My God, you are so soft . . ." His voice trailed off as he dragged his lips to her other breast. "God, Roshelle, I want you so badly. I fear—"

A feverish love cry interrupted him and he forgot what he was saying, indeed that he was even speaking, as he moved his lips over her nipple, again and again, drawing first softly there, then not, her soft, shocked gasps of pleasure answering him when she could not, and somewhere beneath the scattered fragments of her consciousness formed the pressing question-Why did God mean to torment her like this first?

She knew the answer. To punish her for taking his life. The curse, the weapon she used to alter the course of history and free France, came with a heavy price. A heavy price indeed, as she now knew what she would never have in this life. The idea brought a pained cry to her throat, disappearing as he called her name in an impassioned whisper. She felt his hand come to her other breast, drawing small circles around it, as if to encompass the maddening sensations before sliding over her side, pausing above the tuft of dark hair on the tempting point of her thighs. Heat gathered beneath the tease of his fingertips before they slipped over the velvet moistness of a place where no one and nothing had been before.

A great, voluminous burst of warmth overcame her as he slowly fanned those flames. She cried softly as the sensations washed through her, and arched her back, as if offering herself to him, the movement rewarded with a deeper probe, another burst of voluptuous warmth, carrying her farther and farther until she heard his name on her lips, again and again. She felt that she stood on a great high cliff...

The pleasure of his possession seized the whole of him; he was mad with it, with her, the taste and scent and feel of the small body beneath him, the welcoming moist heat of her sex, the pleasure that was changing her beauty, and he neared his end. His mind filled with the heady anticipation of the feel of her hot, tight sheath around him...

She shook her head weakly, until she felt his mouth return to hers with a kiss of savage sweetness. Yet her dazed consciousness rippled with alarm as she felt the smooth, hot pressure of him slide back and forth over her sex. He broke the kiss and lifted partially up to stare into the terrified pools of her eyes, and he said, "Your curse, Roshelle. Say it never was . . ."

"Nooo… You should be dead !"

She shut her eyes tight and suddenly fate spun the vision, the certainty of his hot blood spilling over her naked skin. She screamed, loud and long. He was staring at the terrifying shape of her madness and it shocked him. Before the chills on his back stopped, before he drew his next breath, a violent wrench tore her slim figure from him. Instinctively, but slowed by the race of his blood, his arm snaked out to catch her. Too late by many meaningful seconds.

Through the candlelit darkness he stared at the comer of the room where she curled herself into a tight ball. Her eyes shone like a cat's in the dark, and he gasped upon seeing the fear and confusion in those bright, terrified eyes.

Dear Lord, did she want him dead that badly?

His desire was still hot and strong and consuming, a kind of madness that made him consider carrying her kicking and screaming back to the bed, and yet as he considered that scene, all he could see was the terror shining in the bright blue eyes.

He cursed viciously.

Cursed himself for letting it matter. For it did matter. In that moment he confronted the idea, the knowledge, the certainty of how very much it did matter. He closed his eyes in a desperate effort to control his changing desire, and unexpectedly, the image of Roshelle standing in the white tower swam dizzily through his mind. The terrible sadness in her eyes was there as he felt the scrape of his fingers and he fell away from her...

At first so terribly amusing, the curse had seemed like a great gift of the gods, and indeed, as the man Papillion had surely intended, it had kept her safe until he came into her life.

Yet now the charade had gone too far, much too far.

All the wealth and warmth of his desire had not dissipated but rather changed, transformed to violence. He would not let her know that. It took him several long minutes to control his emotion enough to lay hands on her safely. Then he pulled on his breeches and found her fallen gown before approaching the place where she knelt.

She felt her heart pound fast, then much too slow, and her pulse still ran hot and thick with the lingering heat of his pleasure, while her senses felt strained, saturated with previously unknown lethargy. She tried to pull herself above it long enough to think. To think anything past the physical pain, a pain so deep, so strong, that her dazed mind could not recognize it as disappointment.

All she knew was it could not be so, and yet he was standing there, still very much alive! Thoughts spun fast and furiously around the idea that the whole of her curse and her life was little more than a ruse, a trick, Papillion's jest to the world in an effort only to keep her safe. She could not believe it. It could not be true! The whole of the French army waited for the duke's death, and she had thought, she had been certain, God Himself had ordained the deed—

"You should be dead!" she cried in sudden desperation. "I do not know why you are not dead!''

"God curse you, girl!"

His voiced thundered above her, jerking her into a trembling wave of confusion and fear, and she cried out as his arm snaked around her, lifting her to her feet. "Come, Roshelle," he said as the cool folds of her gown came over her head to cover her nakedness, and she felt his hand pull the heavy weight of her hair out from beneath. "Let me tumble this castle of cards once and for all and show you the full extent of the fabrication and farce in your life."

*****

Chapter 10

When her knees collapsed, he cursed again and lifted her into his arms. Quickly he carried her through the darkened waiting room and into the torch lit hall. He leaped down the spiral staircase and through the halls and corridors until finally they were in the courtyard. Confused and frightened and not knowing what he meant, she saw suddenly that he headed for the stables. "The stables? I do-"

"I want you to meet someone."

The doors were open. Torches lit the inside. A number of guards of Suffolk stood around a small barrel, turned upside down to support cups and cards. A few of the men rose upon seeing the Lord of Suffolk carrying Lady Roshelle, others did not, but all watched with interest.

Vincent carried her over to a man, chained and bound to the wall. He was asleep. The duke set her on her feet and, still clasping her upper arm, kicked the man hard with his bare foot. He woke with a start.

"This is the sorry man who brought you a message today." Then he addressed the frightened man. "Tell the lady the name of thy master."

The man looked up, his gaze riveted on the tall, princely figure of the duke, and in a pained, raspy voice, knowing he was doomed in any case, he produced a name that made Roshelle regret her next breath.

"My master's name be the Duke of Burgundy."

The name spun through her mind. The Duke of Burgundy, dear Lord. A hand went to her pale forehead; she felt her knees buckling with the magnitude and meaning of the name. But the seal—

A trick, another in a long list of his wicked tricks. He must have killed the seal keeper or tricked him somehow. There was no French army, no brave French knights, no sword risen from Charles's hand. 'Twas all his jest, his wicked jest. The image of the Duke of Burgundy's face contorted with amusement at the idea of her offering her virginity to Vincent de la Eresman—

"He was trying to kill you, and I, I was his agent.”

Violence strained Vincent's muscles; he felt a murderous rage and he struggled hard to control it. "Aye!" His gaze came to the man's smirk, and as if he were swatting a fly, his bare foot landed against the man's jaw. There was a sickening crack and Roshelle screamed as the man dropped forward like a puppet without a string.

Wilhelm stepped through the doors, and hearing this, he motioned for the guards to disband. In a sudden rush of movement, they rose and moved quickly through the doors. The last men out shut the doors, letting Cisely slip inside at the last minute, pinching her nose until she saw. She took one look at Roshelle's abject distress and rushed to her, but Wilhelm caught her arm, stopping her.

Vincent turned back to Roshelle. He towered over her, his eyes filled with fury, and she dropped to her knees and lowered her eyes.

"And do you know why he wants me dead?"

She shook her head, afraid, just afraid.

"Because he sired a bastard with that whore who married Edward! His bastard and whore stand to inherit my duchy. My life, Roshelle! And believe! He will not rest until I am dead."

She looked up at him, shocked.

"And the only reason I am still alive is because he is so foolish, so utterly idiotic as to be struck by this peculiar French madness, this belief that your precious virginity has the awesome power to kill men." Crushing hands came over her thin arms as he lifted her to her feet, stopping just short of shaking her senseless. "And, curse you, girl, when I think of the megalomaniacal arrogance necessary for you to think you were killing me tonight, 'tis all I can do not to knock you to the ground and part your thighs so you can feel the merciless hard stab of a bit of a man's flesh, and with it, a woman's humility—"

"Vince!"

The urgency with which Wilhelm uttered his name cut through his fury and made him absorb the stark terror in her eyes, terror mixing with shame and tears. His hands lightened their grip on her arms, and then he released her altogether as Cisely suddenly surrounded Roshelle, dropping to her knees.

Vincent swore softly. Wilhelm made use of the wine left by the guards and handed him a cask. He drank a mouthful, spat it out, then brought the cask to his mouth again and swallowed the bitter taste, knowing of course it would have no discernible effect. Not tonight. Thank God for Wilhelm, though; his presence would at least keep her safe from his fury.

Roshelle heard the intake of his breath as he finished at last, then felt the return of his cruel appraisal. A horse neighed in the background, restlessly shifting its feet, interrupting the still and quiet night of the stables. She tried to focus on the sound of the crickets laid against the quiet of the dark, desperate to still the emotional rage in her breast, but it swelled, cresting, as if the weight of these past terrible years were crashing down upon her.

The Duke of Burgundy existed only to torment her. She had lived through four years of his torture, nothing but the trials and tribulations of his endless persecutions and now the curse, the curse that had always kept her safe and separated her from all others, now this, too, was gone. Or was it?

She did not understand what was happening.

Vincent tried hard to ignore her tears; he would use this to make her see at last. "So, my dear young Countess, you are nothing more than his pawn in this little chess game to get me killed."

Almost the exact words she herself had once said to Louis, the day it all started. She wished to God that were true, but it wasn't. She meant so much more to him. Papillion, when will it end?

"He will try to kill me again. And soon. He is my enemy, Roshelle. The lines are drawn. You must choose your sides and choose carefully."

Kneeling still, she looked up at him. In desperation, she pleaded, and it was a lie. "I do not know what you want from me."

"I need to know about him. Everything about him."