Beast (12 page)

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be polite to you. What on earth is happening here, Johanna?” Philipe sat up, as though he would leave her, and she wanted him to. She wanted him to stand up and walk out, and leave her alone with her misery.

But she could not let him. Yet, there was nothing she would allow herself to say to keep him there. “I thought, perhaps foolishly…please, I am too tired to make much sense. I will greatly appreciate the help that may arrive. Though I only prepare meals for you and your council, you must remember I am used to cooking for a much smaller table.”

“It’s all right.” He accepted her apology uncertainly, while she prayed that he would simply let it be.

She picked up the harp once more and plucked out a simple tune, her stiff fingers tripping over patterns that would once have flowed like water from her hands. And Philipe stayed, his eyes on her all the while, making her feel flushed and hot from embarrassment and other, more complicated feelings. She remembered this too well, pretending that she did not see how he watched her, while behind her mask of calm her brain worked feverishly. What did he think? Was he pleased with her? Did he wish she would say or do something she was not doing? Could he feel how the very air seemed alive with the tension between them?

The song ended. It was not very long, a simple beginner’s tune she’d learned when she was but a child. His hand covered hers on the strings.

When she forced herself to look at him, she knew all hope was lost. She would be heartsick and broken all over, and she did not care. He leaned forward, his lips brushed hers through her veil, and he pushed the harp away to fall on the bed between them. His hand cupped her jaw, and he kissed her again, once, sweetly, the veil still, maddeningly, between them.

Leaning into him, she was surprised when he drew back. Did he not want her? Had it been only pity, and he was still repulsed by her?

Prepared for her confusion, he smiled at her. “I may have promised your brother…ah, I’ve said and done too much already.”

“Oh, what did you promise him, Philipe? We are not children.” She had no patience for courtly games. Not when her heart hung precariously in the balance.

“I told your brother I would not…pursue old feelings.” He rose, and went to the door, leaving her bewildered. He paused and gestured to the harp. “You have leave to keep it for the night. Make good use of it.”

“Thank you.” She almost let him go, but she had insisted he speak honestly, and she should do the same. She called after him, “And new feelings, did you promise him anything in regards to those?”

Philipe did not answer her, but smiled, the same smile that had made her weak for him when they were young, and it was not the harp she wanted to set her hands to.

Chapter Nine

“Your army is surpassing even that of the Bravian king’s, Your Highness,” Wilhelm said, putting down his spyglass. “I must admit to some surprise.”

“Today Chevudon, tomorrow Bravia, I suppose.” Philipe took a deep, fortifying breath of cold mountain air. It did not calm his nerves. Now that his army stretched out across the valley, it seemed the die had been cast. “I received a letter from my sister’s husband, yesterday.”

“Oh?” Wilhelm rested his forearms against the new, gleaming stone. The first duty they had set the hired masons to was to rebuild the sentry posts that had been hewn from the mountain side. The first one, the one upon which they stood surveying the valley, had already been completed. “Anything of import?”

“Jacqueline is delivered of a healthy daughter. Both of them are doing splendidly. But they will not send support.” Philipe had not expected them to. They had been installed in their new home for less than a year, and last he knew, they had not rounded out their retinue of servants and guards. They could spare no one, especially with the kingdom on the brink of war. “And my father is very ill. Wilhelm, do you think we might postpone our attack? If we wait until my father dies—”

“Then you can take your crown without bloodshed. I have thought on that, myself.” Wilhelm lifted his spyglass again. “Our scouts have noted the movements of your father’s troops as close as the peaks of the three bears. Once they cross those hills, you will have nowhere to run. They may have already closed the gap. You are cornered, Your Highness.”

“Do not call me that when we are alone. It troubles me.” Philipe pushed his fingers into his hair, then scrubbed the stubble on his jaw. Not really stubble now, more of a beard. He made a face at the pain in his shoulder. “I am not in form for fighting. My arm is not yet healed.”

“You worry needlessly. Your father has been in many battles where he’s never raised his sword. No, the regent remains on his mount at the very edge of the fighting. He does not ride into the fray.”

“That isn’t how I want to win my crown.” Philipe squinted against the morning light. “I never wanted to win it. I just thought it would be…handed to me. I just had to wait for father to die.”

“If it was handed to you, you would not deserve it.” Wilhelm gestured to the sprawling camp below. “These men did not come to hand you a crown. And they did not come to wait for an old man to die. They came to fight for you. Because of that, they will be far more loyal than they ever would have if you’d simply sat behind the palace walls, waiting to become king.”

He was right, Philipe knew. Though he was a prince, and never seriously prepared for battle, Philipe knew enough of the hearts and minds of fighting men. They would see his hesitation for cravenness and then he would be in the same position his father had been in with the north. They would not trust him, and they would not follow him.

“It won’t take long,” Wilhelm said with a grin, slapping Philipe’s good arm. “When it’s over, you can go back to the palace and your bevy of women looking to snare a king for a husband.”

Philipe did not want to think of leaving Hazelhurn, and Johanna, behind. He certainly did not want to think of taking a woman who wasn’t Johanna to wife, but the ice that had frozen over Wilhelm had only just begun to thaw. So Philipe laughed with him in agreement.

“Ah, Johanna. Where have you been this morning?”

A Wilhelm’s words, Philipe’s heart seized. He turned, and there she stood, draped in her dour black. He saw the glint of her eyes behind the veil, focused on him, in the split second before she turned and ran.

“I wonder what’s gotten into her,” Wilhelm said with bewildered, brotherly concern.

Philipe did not bother to explain, leaving Wilhelm to stand, even more bewildered, as Philipe chased after his sister.

* * * *

At the top of the stairs, Johanna slammed the door and fell back on her bed, her chest heaving sharply, crushing the breath out of her. He had followed her, she knew he had followed her, and she would have to face him. She scrubbed at her face with her palms to erase the tears that would hang wetly upon every furl of her burned flesh. How could she be so stupid? How could she have fallen in love with him, after he’d abandoned her? For what, a borrowed harp and a few flattering words?

Did you honestly think a man, any man, could love you?
Her hand turned to a gnarled fist, and she pounded her thigh, a long, thin cry stretching into an anguished wail.

Only his tread on the stairs silenced her, the sound of his voice speaking her name, and she swallowed her unspent pain. “Leave me. I am not well.”

“Open the door, Johanna,” he ordered, not Philipe anymore, no, His Royal Highness Philipe of Chevudon. In his tone it was clear he did not ask her as a friend, but as her future king.

She unlatched the door and quickly turned away, pulling down her veil. She couldn’t stand before him without that barrier.

“What happened?” The future king was gone, replaced by the bewildered boy.

“I heard what you said to my brother.” Her anger was enough to overcome her embarrassment. She turned, hoping she could impart to him all her hurt through her gaze. “You don’t plan to return here. And you’re so looking forward to a fine, pretty wife.”

He ran his hand across his forehead and looked away. Whatever he said next would be a lie, she knew him too well to think anything different. “Johanna, that was just teasing.”

“I am not a child! Do not think to placate me with empty words.” She took a breath and it lodged behind her ribs. “I understand that you will be king, and that certain things will be expected of you. Marriage, sons, heirs to your throne, I understand it all. But must you hurt me so? Must you come here and behave as though all can be forgiven between us, when you have done nothing to earn that forgiveness?”

“Done nothing? I have apologized—”

“You have apologized with empty words and flattery. Then you treat me with kindness and you kissed me. You kissed me, as though you still might want me, after all these years and all of this.” She waved her hand before her face. “It might not have mattered to you, you’re likely used to women swooning for your lips, but it mattered to me. I was alone, Philipe! All I wanted in the whole world was to marry you and be your good wife. I wanted to bear your sons! It wouldn’t have mattered if you were a prince or a beggar, I would have taken you as you were, and you rejected me. The pain of the fire was nothing compared to the pain of waiting for you to come and tell me that you still wanted me, and you never came. And now—”

Her traitorous chest heaved with a thick sob she could not disguise, and tears she had struggled to hold back broke over the dams of her lids. She let it come, the weeping anguish she had not thought to feel again after the last time she’d cried over him, ten years before. Then, she had gone to the stables after yet another servant had fled. She had hidden herself away, too ugly and shy to face anyone, and she’d cried until her throat was raw and her eyes sore. She’d told herself then it would be the last time. She’d mourned Philipe for five years, and she had resolved she would waste no more tears.

Now look at her. Blubbering like a fool before a man who couldn’t love her, likely could not love anyone, no matter his flowery declarations. She would have endured the fire a second time, if only it would have made him love her.

She’d never seen Philipe look so uncomfortable. That gave her a small measure of satisfaction. She was familiar with this cycle, hating him so she would not love him, then hating him in earnest when it did not work to heal her. He took a step forward, arm outstretched. Of course, he thought to touch her, to soothe her like a damned frightened horse. She stepped out of his reach. “Do not touch me!”

Anger darkened his eyes and hardened his features. The spoiled prince would not be denied. He closed the distance between them in two long strides, before she could decide whether to flee or stand her ground. When he caught her by the wrist and jerked her against him, she wished she had fled. Would he strike her? Spit in her face and mock her? Throw her to the ground with cruel words?
How could you ever think a man like him could love you, you ugly, useless thing?

He ripped the veil from her head and tossed it to the ground. With it went the last of her protection and she watched it fall, like a defeated army’s banner, until he gripped her chin and forced her face up. His arms slipped around her back, and his mouth descended on hers. It was not the gentle kiss of the night before, through the black gossamer of her veil. His lips on hers reminded her keenly that she had felt this all before, years ago, the first time he’d caught her up in his arms and spun her around beneath the bright blue sky.

There was a newness now, an urgency and an anger. His tongue swept into her mouth, stroking against hers and raising long-dead awareness buried beneath the scarred layers of her skin. She brought her arms around his head and moaned, remembering every time they’d been like this, lying in the grass or hidden in some secret alcove. A hot flush swept through her, seeming almost as deadly as real fire. She remembered that, too, the terrifying loss of control, the willingness to give him everything when she knew she must not.

He tore his mouth from hers, but still held her, looking down at her face as though he were angrier than he’d been before. “I have never stopped loving you. I would have you as my wife, if I thought you’d ever forgive me. I was prepared to walk away from here and continue to pay for my long-ago folly, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to walk away now, with you hating me again.”

Head still reeling from the feel of his lips on hers and the overwhelming closeness of him, she could not think of a scathing reply. She could not think of anything but the hope his words held, and for the first time she would not entertain the notion that this would all lead to inevitable hurt. “I want to believe you—”

“Then believe me.” He kissed her again, hard and fierce, stealing her breath. His hands fisted in the skirt of her gown, then smoothed down, over her buttocks, pressing her against him through their clothes. If she’d drunk a bucket of ale, she would not have been so intoxicated as when his mouth roved over the unscarred skin of her chin, down her throat, over patches of slick, pink that yielded no sensation and pale white that set her entire body aflame. He fell to his knees before her, arms wrapped around her thighs as he nibbled at her stomach through her gown. She startled at that, at how odd a thing it was for him to be doing, and how very little he had changed, in some ways, from the boy he’d been. Then, he raised his eyes to meet hers and said, “Johanna, could you? Be my wife?”

Her knees gave way beneath her, and she tumbled down beside him. It was stupid, the most stupid thing in the world, but she let those words unlock a door she’d thought long ago shut, and her bittersweet memories all stumbled out, gilded with new feeling. The pain of fifteen years did not vanish, but she let herself believe it was inconsequential. Even as the feeble voice in her mind warned her against it, she took his face between her hands and attacked him with kisses.