Betrayed (18 page)

He should lift her skirts and push his throbbing erection into her hot passage and stop this nonsense.

Yet another tear rolled down her cheek, thrusting a sword of doubt clear through his gut. Groaning a curse that would chase the devil from his hell, Krayne threw his hands up and rolled off his wife.

He’d given his word.

The bed shifted as she scooted away. He didn’t trust himself to look at what she was doing or where she was going. He certainly wasn’t moving anytime soon.

Damn all the saints from here ta Normandy and back. How had he landed himself in this position?

The days could not pass swift enough for Amber. Her husband was an impossible man to elude.

She buried her face in the pillows so that she wouldn’t have to watch the shadows through the doorway as he prowled about his bedchamber. Her shoulders jerked at the sudden clatter from next door.

What was it this time?

Another clay pitcher?

Every night was the same. When he eventually fell into bed, he rolled restlessly and grunted curses in his sleep. And every night she listened, fearing what the silence might mean, insanely grateful that once again he hadn’t gone to Gayle’s bed for the favours his wife would not grant him.

When she awoke in the morning, unaware of when she’d stopped listening and fallen asleep, her eyes immediately went to the doorway. Krayne was there, as always, watching with a brooding expression, putting on a quick smile once he saw that she was awake.

“Good morrow,” Amber said, returning a sleepy smile, then instantly alert as her arms started to open, calling him to her, to her bed. She clamped her fingers into the bedcovers and remembered something else. “You’re leaving today.”

Krayne came inside. “I’ve postponed my trip another two days.”

“Oh.” She tried to keep her smile in place, but it was impossible. This second delay would make it a full sennight since he was originally supposed to set sail. “Bad weather?”

He shrugged as he came up to the bed and sat beside her. When she struggled upright, pulling the covers with her, he reached out to take her hands, slowly compelling her fingers to release with the gentlest pressure. His burning gaze slid down her throat, breasts and waist as the covers fell away.

Exposed to his raw desire, Amber felt the heat of longing sweep through her veins and sting her cheeks. She held her breath for what came next.

Every morning the same…Every morning he did this to her. Passion’s teeth, she could not take this for another two days.

He brought the pad of his thumb to her mouth, outlining the swell of her lower lip as his gaze lifted to meet her eyes. “Did ye sleep well?”

“Aye,” she lied, “and you?”

He didn’t answer.

He never did.

The heaviness in his eyes spoke for him.

Every night they went through their own form of tortured separation, and each morning he came to her like this, leaving the beast of darkness behind in the night to which it belonged.

His thumb moved down the curve of her throat, then to her collarbone and further along to cup the rounded joint of her shoulder. His stroke left a tingling trail through the thin cotton of her shift.

“Ye have the body of an angel, the eyes of a witch and the lips of a siren,” he murmured, bringing his left hand up to cup her other shoulder, turning her toward him as he lowered his mouth on hers.

As soon as their lips met, Amber pulled away. “Krayne, please, I cannot…I’m not ready.”

He sighed deeply, not believing, not trusting, and she couldn’t blame him. Not when her breaths were fast and shallow. Not when her cheeks were flushed with the heat coursing through her veins. Not when she could barely keep her eyes open from wanting to fall back and surrender.

She had no choice but to make him believe. “The memories are too fresh. Too terrible. I want to, Krayne, but I-I don’t know how to. Not yet, not like this. I-I’m terrified.”

His hands moved to her cheeks, holding her head up to him. “Was that night truly so abhorrent that ye cannot abide my touch?”

Amber shuddered, not from his touch but from her lies that seemed to feed off each other and grow.

“A little while longer,” she pleaded, lowering her lids to shade the guilt in her eyes. “The memories will fade, with time.”

He pushed to his feet, folding his arms across the slab of his chest, his grin of resignation merging into a smile as he gazed down on her. “I thought I’d give ye a tour of the castle today. I’ll wait fer ye downstairs and we can break our fast together.”

Amber sank down beneath the covers once he’d left and closed her eyes. She knew how this day would go. He’d tease and cajole in this game of seduction and every day she lost a little more ground. He entertained her at every meal with that lopsided grin and quirky titbits of Wamphray Castle and its people. Yesterday had been that horrendously futile sword lesson. Today he was devoting his time to show her around the castle.

He’d be gentle, taking care to give her only smiles and laughter, shrugging a good-natured shoulder when she turned from his kisses or pushed a roving hand from her thigh. But black frustration rode Krayne’s every waking moment and settled down in bed with him at night. She’d overheard more than one whispered conversation in the castle—that their laird was growing more like a rabid bull every day, that if he didna ram inta something verra soon the whole of Wamphray would go up in black smoke. She knew what drove his dark temper when he thought she couldn’t hear or see, for that same hunger made her snap and crackle for no apparent reason.

And yet, if she hadn’t been aware of his rampant prowling late into the night or heard the castle talk, she’d never know that aught was amiss with her charming husband.

She loved him all the more for it.

At first she’d thought that this feeling inside was naught more than accumulated lust. The swelling of her heart when he teased and cajoled, or gave her that warm, dimpled smile. The sadness clutching her gut as time ran out. The spears that sliced through her whenever she was forced to turn Krayne aside.

And now he’d delayed his ships in the Solway for a further two days, and she knew he’d use each and every moment to tear down her defences and build her trust with gentle seduction and sincere devotion. ’Twas no wonder she’d tumbled head over heels in all the reconstruction.

“I am such a silly, idiotic fool,” she muttered angrily, tossing back the covers and leaping from the bed, only to face Mary’s quizzical expression as she hurried into the inner chamber. “You should have taken a stick to me when I was small enough and beaten some sense into me,” Amber added darkly.

“Your parents didn’t hold with beatings and neither do I,” Mary muttered, but her eyes were filled with concern as she took her charge’s hand and led her to the stool by the window. She fetched the pearl comb from the outer chamber, then returned to comb Amber’s hair in smoothing motions, starting at the crown and following through to the very tips. “What is the matter, child? Surely you can tell me?”

“Nothing!” Amber snapped, at once contrite at her waspish behaviour. “Forgive me, Mary. Truly, ’tis naught of concern.”

Two days later, the scene repeated and this time Mary wouldn’t take her usual answer. “Why not tell me what’s truly on your mind?” she suggested in a crooning tone. “There’s more afoot to these fits of temper that never plagued you a day afore coming to this place and how am I supposed to help when you will not speak?”

“This is no fit,” Amber retorted.

Her body was hot and feverish from yet another night spent listening to Krayne toss and turn. Her mind was snapping at the tower of lies she added to each time she pushed him so desperately away.

If only she’d admitted everything the day after her wedding and taken whatever dire punishment she surely deserved. The time for confession had long passed her by. She’d painted a picture of such tortuous suffering in Krayne’s head, ’twould take much more than a summer of daily whippings before he could even begin to erase it.

But even that did not keep her quiet.

’Twas something else she feared far more.

She loved Krayne with bitter agony that threatened to tear her apart at the seams God had sewn with such paternal care and, to her present frame of mind, should never have bothered Himself with.

Krayne would hate her.

If he ever learnt of how her little seed of defence had taken root and soared to heights that could compete for the skies with Nodding Ned on a still day, he would never again look at her with anything other than contempt and twisted hate. Each day would be a cruel labour that would continue on into eternity. For he would never, ever forgive, not even after they were both long departed from this world.

Krayne was a man of too much honour.

No matter how much he yearned, he’d not come to her bed and claim his husbandly rights. Instead he attempted to win her over with romantic moods and soft smiles. She knew that Krayne was a man made hard by the land, that he did not love her, that all he did was in the name of duty. He’d taken her to wife, and he was determined to make their marriage work. He was not naturally given to charm and seduction, and she imagined that he’d never before bothered with such things. And she loved him all the more for the slightly rough, passionate, fiercely loyal, blunt man he was, and the sympathetic, charming husband he was trying to be.

He’d already claimed her heart.

Soon she would crumble and give up her body.

And then…

“I cannot take this anymore,” Amber cried out. “Why does he not leave? What man idles about his home when there are ships of wool to be sailed and exotic lands to be explored?”

“I’ve not seen our laird in a single idle moment, child, and his duties are never far from his mind.”

Amber swung about again. “
Our
laird? What happened to
that horrid Scotsman?
”

“Is an old woman not permitted to change her mind?”

“No.”

“Och, now, calm yourself and—”

“
Och?
Since when do you speak with a Scotsman’s tongue?”

Mary had the grace to blush. In fact, Amber noted with dubious pleasure, her cheeks had filled these last few days and her eyes were no longer a pale, watered-down blue but sparkling like a busy burn.

“Never mind me, child. ’Tis I that find myself with idle hands and too much time to converse with the likes of Brayan and Isla.”

Amber shut her eyes tight, and vowed to explode in a flash of lightning if naught had changed when she opened them once more. “Isla? Dour, miserable Isla who’d as soon scratch your eyes out than look into them?”

“I
do
share a room behind the kitchens with the woman.” Mary tutted and turned her charge forward yet again. “Isla lost a father and two brothers to Jardin swords. Have you no compassion?”

“I have plenty compassion, yet I don’t recall swinging any broadsword in this or any past life. And by the by, I don’t see why you continually refuse to share my chamber.”

“Your husband would not appreciate that intrusion.”

Amber snorted. “I’m mistress of this castle and have some sway in the matter.”

Mary gave one last tug with the comb, then moved away. “’Tis foolhardy to underestimate that man.”

“I won’t have you sharing with Isla and that’s that.” Amber jumped up to confront her, hands on her hips.

And that was how Krayne came upon his lady wife, the woman who thwarted him both day and night until he felt fit to tear every last strand of hair from his head. As they became aware of him, Mary shrunk back and Amber’s hands dropped to her sides.

“Leave us,” he told her woman.

Mary scuttled past him and through the master chamber to the passage beyond.

“Ye’re angry,” Krayne said, wondering what had stirred her ire now. He was at his wits end. He’d tried all manner of behaviour to win his wife over. Never in his life had he failed so many times in quick succession at one simple task.

“’Tis naught but a silly argument.” She smiled at him with those rose-brushed lips. “Was there something you wanted?”

There was plenty he wanted.

Throwing his wife’s tantalising figure on the bed and slaking his semi-permanent erection was just a start. Then he’d explore each area of her body with hungry attention to detail while whispering love words at her ear.

I’m acting like a silly, besotted fool.

Aye, and I deserve this hell-hole I carved fer myself.

Yet, there had to come an end, and he was fast approaching his. “I’ve come ta say goodbye.”

“You’ve finally decided to set sail?”

“Finally,” he growled, displeased at her choice of words. “I hope ta make Annan afore sundown.”

“Then you must leave at once.”

He nodded. And waited. Her lack of initiative decided his mind. “I’d have a parting kiss from my wife, Amber.”

She hesitated only a moment before closing her eyes and offering her lips, making him come to her.

He almost didn’t, but found he could not ignore the tempting picture she cut. He swooped upon her, lifting her into his arms and hard against his constant readiness.

Her eyes flickered wide on him.

His mouth came down, swallowing her surprise and demanding a thorough taste that would have to last him through the next two weeks. He wasn’t going to Byzantine anymore. He wasn’t going any further than Bordeaux, and when he returned, they would be man and wife in more than name.

He set Amber on her feet and chucked her chin, keeping it high and absorbing the green fire in her gaze. “When I return, sweet wife, we’ll see this through.”

Many of the variations of her habitual protest came to mind, but Amber wisely refrained. Something was different. Krayne had made more than one resolution along with his decision to sail. That much was evident in the possessive kiss she still reeled from.

His hand dropped from her chin and, with one last nod, he turned and walked from the room.

Amber reminded herself, as she watched broad shoulders and the fine form his britches moulded from behind, she wouldn’t be here to greet his return. The moment she’d waited seven long days for had come.

Her bones itched and her muscles strained. Suddenly she was running, skidding over the wooden boards of the master chamber and into the dim passage. Thudding boots clunked the echo of his departure on the stairway.

“Krayne.” She rounded the bend and almost met the first step with her bottom. “Wait.”

The clunking stopped.

Lifting her skirts high, Amber tripped down the stairs as fast as she dared. At the bend on the next landing, she bounded into her husband’s solid chest.

“Hush, sweeting.” Strong arms held her back so he could look her in the eye. “What is it?”