Conquer the Night (11 page)

She rolled away from him, aware that tears were seeping from her eyes, ready to fall down her cheeks. Her back to him, she whispered, “What difference does it make? You wanted to hurt me, didn't you?”

He was quiet for a very long moment—so long that she was almost tempted to look back at him again.

He rose and walked away from her. He seemed as restless as a tiger, sleek and powerful in his every movement, and still … caged. And yet he was the one who had made himself master here. He paused at the mantel and was still, staring at the flames.

“I felt … obliged to take everything that was Darrow's—including you. Did I want to inflict pain? No, not really!” he said very softly at last. “What I have wanted is to stop the anguish in myself, my dreams, the hauntings….” he said, and added bitterly, “Nay, what I really want is to kill Kinsey Darrow. I want him to die slowly—by flames.”

There was a tremor in the very deep cadence of his voice. She winced, shivering, her back still to him. “I know that perhaps you can't believe me,” she whispered. “But I'm sorry about your wife. So very sorry.”

“My lady, I have just violated you. You need not apologize regarding the fate of another woman at this moment.” He was quiet again; then he must have seen her shaking, for he rose and reached for her.

“No, I—”

“I am taking you to the bed, nothing more—to the warmth of the furs.”

Despite her instant and instinctive protest, he lifted her and carried her to the bed. She was so very sore, wounded to the core. She couldn't have fought him then; she hadn't the will. Her arms curved around his neck. His eyes held hers; she trembled still harder, suddenly aware now as she hadn't been before of his great, sword-yielding strength, the perfect honing of his body, the way that he moved—against her, touching her. He was the enemy who had come to her house and invaded; and she should have been fighting still, slamming against him, protesting even his lightest touch with the last breath in her body.

Her body remained in too much anguish.

He ripped away the furs that covered the bed and slid her onto the smooth cool sheets before covering her in the furs once again. Shivering, teeth chattering, she drew the furs tightly to her chin.

He studied her. She watched him in return, trying to keep her eyes glued to his and not let them fall to the portion of his anatomy that had so tormented her just moments ago. Then he slid into the bed beside her. She clutched the furs more tightly, ever guarded. But he kept his distance, lying back, lacing his fingers behind his head as he stared without really seeing up toward the ceiling.

“It is strangely hollow,” he said at last. “Kinsey Darrow stole everything from me. And here I lie in the handsome chamber he would have made his own, with the wealthy and titled heiress he would have had as his wife! But nothing has changed; the pain has not eased!”

He looked at her suddenly, sharply, eyes narrowed. “Ah, but there is something of a victory in this; I have taken something that will not be his.”

“You think that you will hurt Kinsey through me?” she whispered.

He turned away from her again. “He loves you so that it will not matter? Well, lady, God help you both then, for I cannot stop until I have ridden him down and to death at last. Would that he had seized Alesandra—and nothing more. If he'd kept her at his side for a year, she'd have still been my wife, and love would have been far stronger than any damage he would have tried to cast upon my pride. But he killed her! The bastard killed her!”

She held her silence then, wincing. She realized his rage, and felt the anguish that tore at him, and began trembling again.

Perhaps it was amazing that he did not seek to slay her in return.

She moistened her lips. If she were to tell him the truth, he would surely never believe her. “If I were to die now, I'm afraid that Kinsey would not too deeply mourn—I believe that the king would grant him my estates.” She didn't add that the king had arranged the marriage to reward Kinsey Darrow and that she'd been allowed no argument in the matter. In fact, she'd been told quite simply that she'd marry Kinsey on her own two feet, or bound and gagged and held bodily before a priest so that she could be forced to nod at the appropriate moments.

He glanced at her sharply; then the smallest curve of a smile molded his lips. “My lady, I don't think that you will die now. I intend to try very hard not to kill you. But upon occasion, I'm afraid you tempt one to throttle you.”

“And what did you expect? That because a woman had been left in charge of her own father's holdings that I would surrender meekly like a mouse and forget all thoughts of freedom myself?” Tears were suddenly stinging her eyes again.
How foolish
. It was a violent world; she knew it. King Edward of England believed himself supreme—it didn't matter in the least that he destroyed lives with a word or the wave of his hand. Why should it matter when he was ready to kill at any given moment?

“I had not expected … you,” Arryn told her, and turning toward her suddenly he said, “I'm sorry that I hurt you.”

“But that was the intent.”

“The intent was to take what was Darrow's.”

“An interesting concept, for anything can be taken from any man at the whim of a king.”

He shook his head, staring at her. “I don't think you, and certainly not your betrothed, begin to understand the swell of rebellion that has begun.”

“If you speak about the outlaw Wallace.”

He laughed interrupting her. “I do speak of Wallace.”

“He is an outlaw, a brigand.”

“And why is that?” he asked harshly. His eyes were narrowed on hers. She inched back as the passion of his anger caused him to raise up on an elbow and stare at her. “He is an outlaw! Because he protested his father's murder? His father refused to sign the oath years ago, you know, and amazingly, he was killed. And then what befell … Marion … well, perhaps what he suffers is even worse than the dreams that haunt my sleep, because he feels his guilt is even greater.”

“I have heard the minstrels. I know it is rumored that the woman he loved was killed, but I have heard as well that the story is nothing but the outlaw's defense because your William Wallace murdered the king's agent Heselrig—”

“That was no rumor!” he snapped angrily. “My cousin John was there that day, with William. They had skirmished with soldiers, and disappeared through Marion's house. Heselrig retaliated by killing Marion—a very sharp blow to the head, sent her way in anger, ended her life. And now, can you imagine? Her house was burned to the ground as well.”

“Wallace is not a man known for his mercy!” she protested. “He has burned men to death as well.”

“Once!” Arryn said his features constricted as he stared at her. “And I know that occasion, for I was there myself. The English tricked several hundred Scotsmen, calling them to a meeting at Ayr. Each man was hanged as he arrived. Our party was forewarned, and the tables were turned, and aye, when we arrived, he was in a rare fury, and the murderers were locked in—and the barn that hosted both the living and the dead became a funeral pyre for both.”

She bit her lip, staring at him, shaking her head. “Still!” she said softly. “It is a band of outlaws! I'm sure that your estates are forfeit after this attack on Darrow, and the seizure of a castle King Edward would claim. Scotsmen still continue to side with the king. Robert the Bruce and others with claims to the Scottish throne side with Edward. Men with wealth and power side with the king. You would fight a war against a mighty power with rocks and sticks!”

“I would fight a war with the hearts and souls of men. But it's not just Wallace here in the south—Andrew de Moray, a rich baron, has tumbled the English in the north. He has taken a number of castles in his ancestral lands. The country will rise; nay, lady, the country is rising.”

“Yet if Edward came here, you could not hold this fortress!”

“Edward is fighting in France.”

“If the king were to send an army—”

“The king will send an army. Mark my words,” he told her.

She closed her eyes, turning away from him, feeling a sense of pain and loss again, and damning herself for arguing politics on such a wretched night as this. “Aye,” she said, her back to him. “The king will send an army. And you will be killed and captured. And Edward is brutal with men he calls traitors. You will be hanged, disemboweled, castrated, and drawn and quartered.”

“He can call me traitor all he likes, but I cannot betray a man to whom I swore no allegiance. John Balliol may be a sad puppet who has abdicated his crown, but by law he was declared king. We ride to his banner—and to the flag of the lion triumphant. Robert the Bruce—the young Robert the Bruce—grandson of the competitor, is the hope of his family. He would sign a pact with the devil to be king. Maybe the day will come when he rises to claim the throne, but he cannot be king of the Scottish people and lackey of Edward. Aye, lady!” She was startled when his hand suddenly fell on her shoulder, and she lay very still. “Wallace is an outlaw and a brigand. He has nothing at stake. No great lands or titles in England to make him vulnerable to an English king. He wants nothing, no riches, no gain—just freedom for his country. He is a man with nothing to lose, and that makes him very dangerous indeed.”

“Wallace will be killed or captured, hanged, drawn and quartered—”

“My lady, do you ever shut up?” he demanded, his voice suddenly harsh, his grip upon her shoulder suddenly relentless as he forced her back around to face him.

“I would gladly keep silent!” she assured him, “were I to be left in peace.”

“I am trying to make you understand what is happening in this country.”

“You are trying to excuse your behavior to me.”

“I owe you no excuses!”

“Then why did you apologize?”

“I still owe you nothing! You played the role of the talented whore, my lady, assuring me you'd slept with half the castle.”

“Had I slept with every man and beast in the castle, sir, it did not mean I was willing to sleep with you!”

“Willing?” he inquired. My lady, this is not a courtly masque or other entertainment. We have taken the castle. This is a war. I have taken the castle and I have taken you.”

“To be used and abused and discarded in a very tarnished manner—so that Kinsey can take for his bride a woman who was yours first! You are just like him!”

He stared at her, his eyes cold as ice. “You should thank God, madam, that I am not just like him. But tell me! What does your Lord Kinsey say to your ceaseless conversation?”

She inhaled, gritting her teeth, taken by surprise. She looked away. Could he even begin to imagine that she had been praying for escape from Kinsey when he had come upon her? Could he begin to understand how she despised the man to whom the king had said she must be married? Aye, Kinsey was just the warrior Edward needed for Scotland. He was vile and cruel, and though he had said that he'd never touched Graham's wife, she knew him, and she had known that he had molested the woman….

Before he killed her.

Only the fact that Kyra was sworn to him as wife, though the ceremony had not yet taken place, had kept him showing a pretense of courtesy for her. What had he thought of her words? He had hated them; he had nearly struck her upon many occasions for telling him that he could not practice such heinous cruelty upon a people he meant to subjugate. Eventually a man would rise and strike back, and if Kinsey ever fell, God help him. But he had told her that the Scots were beasts, animals, barbarians. No matter that her mother had been among them.

“I will not discuss Kinsey with you!” she said, afraid that he would read her thoughts. “Nor will I argue the fate of Scotland. You're a fool, and you'll die a fool's death, and I will dance at your funeral, sir, for what you have done here. That is the way of it, right?
Willing
means nothing, and women are just things, and men have only won when they have taken the most
things
from their enemies. You have taken the castle; you have taken me. And so, when the king takes you, it will be the justice of your outlaw war, will it not?”

“You know what Kinsey Darrow did. That we've taken Seacairn is justice.”

“Justice, sir, is a matter of opinion.”

They might have argued it all endlessly, except that they heard a pounding at the door. Alarmed at her state of undress, Kyra clutched the covers to her and leapt from the bed, backing away from the door.

Arryn watched her with narrowed eyes.

“Aye!” he called loudly.

They heard Jay's voice. “Arryn! Your cousin has come.”

She knew from the frown that knitted Arryn's brow that he had not expected the arrival of his kin. He leaned back, studying the door.

“Do you hear me, Arryn?”

“Aye, Jay. I'll be down.”

He stood and walked to Kyra. She swallowed, staring at him, the fur clutched to her breast. It didn't cover much; it exposed more.

“What in God's name is the matter with you?” he inquired.

“I was startled, that is all,” she murmured, aware of the way he stood there, aware of her own nakedness, so barely covered by the fur. Suddenly she felt a strange burning, as if the whole of her body heated, as if he were too close, as if she couldn't bear the heat. As if he would touch her again. She couldn't stand it if he did. Yet she could see his hand, large, strong, slashed with a few scars. His chest, his eyes … she was shaking, aware of him, his being, his touch, her own.

He'd hurt her! He'd attacked this castle, told her his intentions, and carried them out! And strangely …

She didn't hate him as she should. He was striking and compelling; the tone of his voice was deep; his arguments were solid and intelligent.