Claire Delacroix (31 page)

There is a force between Evangeline and I, a desire that pulls us closer just as the North Star pulls the lodestone. It cannot be denied, nor can it be ignored. I have never felt the like of it, and each time I step into her presence, I am shocked by its vigor.

I cannot dismiss it, and I suspect that she too finds its allure undeniable. I will never forget its power.

Indeed, when I kissed her, the fire raged between us as always it did and I could feel her pulse matching mine. I might have continued longer, but Evangeline abruptly broke our kiss.

She planted both hands upon my chest and pushed me away, despite the fact that her lips were swollen and reddened by my kiss, despite the glimmer of desire in her eyes. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair disheveled in a most fetching way.

“It is the eve of my nuptials,” she said, her words endearingly husky. “I beg you, leave me.”

“You are wrong about Niall,” I said, sounding like a grumpy man who foretells doom for all who spurn his advice.

Evangeline shook her head. “You do not know Niall as I do.” She turned her back upon me, so still that I knew she was yet aware of my proximity.

I wished then, with uncommon ferocity, that I was not the man I was. Evangeline awakened this urge in me, though I knew not what to do with its demand. My heart in my throat, I lifted her circlet from her veil and put it aside.

The lady swallowed but did not step away. I slipped my hand beneath her sheer veil and eased it aside, baring her neck to my gaze.

She averted her face and closed her eyes, her dark lashes fanning against her fair flesh. I could see the ripple of her pulse at her neck. I landed a fingertip upon her nape, where the dark tendrils of hair has escaped her braid, and traced the line of her spine.

She shivered in a most promising fashion and her protest was breathless. “You had best be gone. None will be kind if you are found within these walls again - know that it has been decided that you killed Fergus.”

“But I did not.”

“I know. Go, all the same. You have been banished from Inverfyre and any soul has the right to kill you on sight, so long as he brings your head to the laird himself.”

I ignored her counsel, so pleased was I that she feared for my survival, so desperate was I for more of a taste before I left. I touched my lips to her flesh. She caught her breath and tipped back her head. I removed one of the pins that held her braids coiled against her head. She raised a hand to deter me.

I smiled, catching her hand in mine and pressing a kiss to her palm. She shivered, as I had hoped she would, but parted her lips to protest.

I laid a fingertip upon her lips and her eyes widened at my caress. “I apologize for my vulgar speech when last we were together,” I said softly, no doubt surprising both of us.

“Breasts like pomegranates,” she said with unnecessary precision.

“I feared that you came to care for me,” I admitted.

Her gaze brightened, then her lips slowly curved with what might have been affection. “Did you truly intend to protect me from a knave like yourself?”

I felt the back of my neck heat and could not summon a word to my lips. This is the difficulty with gallantry - it leaves a man with little coherent to say. “I know what I am,” I said, more harshly than I am wont to speak. “And I suspect that I know the manner of woman you are.”

Evangeline’s smile broadened and her eyes began to twinkle. “I too know the ilk of man you are,” she said softly. “But I like you, all the same, Gawain Lammergeier.”

* * *

I was ridiculously pleased by this claim. Indeed, a tightness seized my chest and a foolish smile touched my lips. “How improbable.”

“Indeed it is.”

I am base enough to be encouraged by a lady’s smile. “You have no maid. I would aid you that we might linger for a few moments. You said yourself that you had need of your slumber this night and I would not keep you overlong from your bed.”

She swallowed, her questioning gaze fixed upon mine. The chamber seemed to heat, even more so when she whispered my name. I lifted her veil away, letting it drift to the floor like a gossamer web. Her breathing became quicker than it should have been, her breasts rising before my very hands.

The flame of the lantern gilded her features, making her look younger and softer than I knew she was. She was wrought of steel, my Evangeline, as steadfast as a warrior and as true as a finely honed steel blade. An unexpected tenderness squeezed my heart and nigh stole my breath.

This would be the last time we were together.

I drank in the sight of her, flooding my mind with fodder for memories. I removed the pins that held her coiled braids against her head. The braided hair fell heavily unto her shoulders, coiling around her neck like a lover.

“I can manage the rest,” she said with unseemly haste. “Begone, Gawain, I beg of you.”

“Indulge me,” I whispered, my voice husky. “But once more, my Evangeline, indulge me.” I bent, inhaled of her beguiling scent, then kissed the sweet flesh beneath her ear.

Her breath caught and she closed her eyes. “You know that I cannot resist your touch, though on this night of nights, I must do so.” Her smile was sad. “And I fear that I am weak enough that I would not be able to halt at a mere kiss. I have to survive through my nuptials, Gawain, and the investiture of Niall as laird if I am to survive at all. If you are found here - worse, found in my bed - neither of us will see the morning sun.”

My very presence put her in peril yet I was still loathe to leave. We stared at each other, the chamber filled with the heat between us and the thunder of our heartbeats.

Perhaps I feared overmuch. Perhaps Evangeline did know her people better than I did. Perhaps her way would triumph - indeed, I had seen before that she was a skillful strategist and she had the will to force many matters to her way.

I had no right to endanger her further with my presence.

* * *

I stole one last kiss, a kiss that would have to warm me all the way to Sicily’s sun. It was salty with the lady’s tears and I knew that our hearts were as one, even if neither of us dared to say the words.

That kiss, and those we had already shared, would have to be enough. I pivoted and lay a hand upon the rope I had knotted over the sill. Rope is easily found in a town occupied by falconers, and not missed when those falconers do not climb to the high nests any longer.

“Untie the rope when I am gone and let it drop,” I counseled Evangeline. “I shall gather it from below. There will be no accusations made against you for my deeds.”

The lady nodded and a tear splashed again upon her cheek. “Go,” she said, her voice catching on the word. “Go while yet you can. I could not bear if you were caught here this night, if you suffered for coming to warn me.”

My heart clenched, as it had so oft of late.

I leapt over the sill then and climbed down into the protective darkness of the forest. The rope fell not long after I reached the forest floor, tumbling like a great snake from the height of the lady’s window.

The tie between us was severed for all time.

And I, I was bereft.

I glanced up as Evangeline was briefly silhouetted in the window. She raised a hand in farewell, though she could not have seen me, then shuttered the window against the night.

I closed my eyes, saving my last sight of her, trying to ensure that I would remember the sound of her voice. My heart felt as a stone in my chest, cold and weighty.

I should have turned and walked away then. I should have accepted the lady’s assurances and put Inverfyre behind me. I should have agreed that her fate was not my concern.

But I could not compel myself to go.

* * *

It was a mercy that I had never cared for any soul before, for the deed certainly addles one’s wits. I could only hope this madness was as fleeting an affliction as lust oft was.

I feared that it would not.

I watched a hawk circle high above me, its cry sending a thrill through me. It landed upon some high eyrie, folding its wings as it settled. The sky was streaked with the hues of the sunset and I had a sudden impulse to seek out the bird’s nest.

It was not so ridiculous a notion as that - such a perch would be high and remote, thus beyond the sight of bloodthirsty locals anxious to collect the bounty on my head. I could not journey sufficiently far this night to matter - thus, I found a reason to do precisely what I desired to do.

Perhaps I would attend Evangeline’s nuptials on the morrow, to ensure that Niall’s intent was true. Perhaps I would be able to leave once I knew her to be safe and well pleased with her circumstance.

I doubted it, but I climbed the cliff beneath the bird’s resting place all the same. Darkness and cold wrapped their embrace around me. I had the sense once again - it was increasingly familiar in this haunted land - that I entered another realm than the one with which I was familiar, a place wrought of dreams in which any deed might happen.

I glanced back to find the valley below me filling with mist, the heights of the peak above me lost in the low clouds. The air was moist with impending rain, as cool as a balm. I peered up the cliff face as the way became less clear, then down into the shrouded abyss below.

I might not survive the climb, or if I did, the bird on the precipice above might take my liver as her toll. But I could not remain still, and I could not leave Inverfyre. Indeed, in a curious sense, I welcomed the challenge of scaling this rock.

It might well be conquerable, unlike a certain woman who had tied my heart in knots.

* * *

You should understand that I would not normally have undertaken such a climb. That I did so seems to have been a symptom of my sense that I dreamed with my eyes open. In dreams, the impossible oft is easily done. In dreams, one can fly, or scale cliffs, or change form so readily that it seems unremarkable.

In waking life, I am leery of unhewn cliffs, although I do not think twice about scaling an edifice wrought by men. Walls are smooth and straight, embellished with useful cornices and nooks. There is always some saint or cherub which one can seize. There is always a rationality to what is wrought by men, and few surprises for any soul who considers his path with care. Even Inverfyre’s steep walls I had scaled without too much difficulty. A hook and a rope are all a thinking man needs.

Cliffs, on the other hand, are unpredictable, irregular, ridden with crumbling ledges or as smooth as glass. There is no guarantee of a summit, or even of a ledge for a respite, no certainty that a hook will hold its mooring. The structure of cliffs is not solid and eternal; it shifts constantly, even as one climbs.

I find them troubling.

As troubling, perhaps, as standing alone in the forest surrounded by falling snow. Perhaps it is quietude of these places, and the invitation that silence extends to thoughts I would prefer not to think.

I should not have been surprised when I heard the haunting voice again. I grit my teeth as a young boy called my name, seemingly from high above me. I knew that I was tired and hungry, thirsty and in a distraught state that might leave me prone to visions, just as I had suspected that I would not endure this climb without such visitation.

Michel had loved to climb, after all. He had been at ease when he climbed, no matter what he scaled. And he had mocked me for my uncertainties with a boy’s confidence.

“Gawain!” The phantom boy cried again, and this time I noted the change in his voice. His voice was filled with laughter, not with anguish. I looked up, but there was no one above me.

“Gawain.” Again my name, again that familiar, teasing voice.

I halted, and therein lay my error. By stopping, I lost my rhythm and then could not spy a handhold above me. I clutched the rock face and peered above me, seeking a grip that eluded me. My heart was pounding, more from the spectral cry than a fear of heights.

Which said something.

My heart seized when the small rock ledge began to give beneath the weight of my boot. I desperately shoved my toe deeper into the cliff face, scrabbling for a better grip with my hands.

Suddenly, a considerable chunk of stone broke away and fell far beneath me, leaving me with one leg swinging in the air.

I managed to get my boot onto a gnarled tree root. Relief flooded through me and sweat trickled down my spine. I was panting like a dog in the summer’s heat.

I swallowed at how long it took the stone to crash through the leaves of the trees and finally hit the earth with a dull thud. I had come far, perhaps too far. I might have wiped the sweat from my brow, but I would have had to relinquish my grip to do so.

I clung there, panting.

I licked my lips and glanced down at the canopy of leaves. Indeed, I could not spy the forest floor. I was too high to jump without killing myself in the deed. The cliff below me was arrayed with jutting tree roots and crumbling stones, of small plants clinging desperately to small precipices.