Heart of the Flame (27 page)

She could not resist his lips; she leaned over and gave him a tender kiss. "Thank you. This is lovely."

"I am pleased you approve, my lady." He reached into the basket for one of the honeyed tarts. "Try this."

He fed the sugary confection to her from his fingers, watching her eat it and smiling when she could not contain her moan of enjoyment. They shared much of the breakfast in companionable silence, reclining in each other's arms, content to be together in the tranquility of the garden.

Her stomach happy, her heart squeezed with joy, Haven reached up to stroke Kenrick's face. "This is bliss," she said, curling into his arms on the blanket and watching as a hawk sailed high above. "I don't think I've ever known this much happiness."

Kenrick caught her fingers in his and brought her palm to lips for a chaste kiss. "Nor I, lady. In truth, I did not think it possible."

Haven smiled up at him. "Mayhap we're dreaming. This could all be a fanciful imagining--our picnic amongst the flowers, the beauty of the sky above us...the warmth of your arms around me. All of it seems too rich to be reality."

"You have been like a dream in my bed, sweet witch." He gave her a lazy grin, but the spark of masculine interest in his eyes was anything but indolent. "Whatever spell you've cast, lady, you have cast it well."

He bent forward to kiss her parted lips, but the sound of approaching footsteps cut short the tender meeting of their mouths.

"Ahem," murmured one of the keep's young squires. He dropped his head in an apologetic bow, his downy cheeks sweeping red over his untimely intrusion. "Begging pardon, my lord. Lady Haven."

Kenrick cleared his throat as Haven hastily extricated herself from her sprawl across his lap. "What is it, Alfred?"

"Your mount is saddled and awaiting you in the stables, my lord."

He was leaving again? Haven's joy dissipated a fraction at this news.

"Thank you, Alfred," Kenrick replied, his gaze slanting toward Haven as she drew back on the blanket in a bit of a sulk. "I'll be along in a short while."

The youth nodded agreeably, his cheeks yet filled with color. His downcast eyes went furtively to his lord and the woman whom most of the keep regarded as Kenrick's leman. Not far from the truth, she admitted with chagrin.

When Alfred was gone, Kenrick moved closer to Haven on the blanket.

"Even my servants are under your spell, beauty. Poor Alfred could hardly keep his eyes from straying to you despite my presence."

He teased her nose with a curling end of her unbound hair, but she refused to let him win a smile that easily.

"They are sheepish around me because they know."

Kenrick lazily arched a brow. "What do they know?"

"That their lord has taken a common girl to his bed."

"I have done no such thing."

Haven frowned at him in question.

"You are the most
uncommon
girl I've ever known. And who I choose to take to my bed is hardly the business of the folk of Clairmont."

"You are too clever to believe that, I think." Haven huffed out her breath, only halfway mocking exasperation. "I am but another of their lord's odd interests. It is all they speak of lately, although they are careful to do so in hushed voices and behind shielding hands."

"Ah." Kenrick seemed to consider the matter at length. "And this makes you uncomfortable."

"A little, yes," she admitted.

"Then I shall assemble the keep in the hall tomorrow and speak with them about it."

"Nay!" she said, then laughed when she spied the teasing gleam in his eyes. "Do you seek to mortify me even more by calling attention to our...indiscretion?"

"Not at all," he answered, and suddenly his expression was all soberness and something tender underlying the serious tilt of his mouth. "The very last thing I wish is to make you uncomfortable, my lady."

"And I thank you for that, my lord."

He stroked his thumb along the line of her brow, then down the slope of her cheek. "I should think the gossip would end, were I to cease making you my mistress."

Haven went still, thinking at once how empty she would feel without Kenrick's touch, without the sheltering warmth of his embrace or the stirring sensuality of his body next to hers. She could suffer a thousand whispering gossips, but now that Kenrick had shown her the fire of passion, she wondered how she would endure a single night without him.

But she had presented him with a problem, and true to form, Kenrick meant to solve it.

"In truth," he said at last, his fingers pausing in their gentle play about her face and throat, "in truth, I have been giving the matter some thought. I had hoped I might discuss it with you upon my return later today, but now is likely as good a time as any."

"As you wish," Haven murmured, fearful of what was to come.

"It has been becoming apparent that I cannot let things go on between us like they have been. As pleasant as they may be."

Pleasant.

The word grated on her like a shard of glass. Could it be that what she had thought to be nothing short of paradise was, to him, merely a pleasant diversion? Could she have been so foolish to think she meant something to him--that she might have reached through to the heart and soul of him?

Kenrick's deep, thoughtful voice carried a note of finality. "Decisions need to be made, Haven. I wager the sooner, the better."

"Of course," Haven replied, or mayhap she merely thought the words. She was finding it hard to swallow past the knot that was rising in her throat, so she could not trust that she might have command of her voice.

She blinked up at him, awaiting his judgment.

Dreading it.

"I have important issues to attend here--life and death issues. I cannot afford to be distracted by the petty whisperings of my folk. Nor the whims of a mistress. Do you understand?"

Haven nodded, but only barely. She wanted to pull herself out of his loose embrace and run until her legs would carry her no farther. But she had no will to leave him, not even when he was sitting there, telling her he no longer wanted her.

"I have business in town, but in a few days I plan to travel to Cornwall and the village where you lived before the attack on Greycliff. I mean to look for answers about your past, and where you truly belong. I cannot continue on like this, waiting for your memory to return."

"I see." She closed her eyes to absorb the weight of his words, and felt his fingers beneath her chin. He lifted her face up, compelling her to look at him.

"I need to know that you understand, Haven. I cannot keep you as my lover any longer...I want you as my wife."

Haven was holding her breath, unaware of that fact until it rushed out of her in that next instant. "Your wife?"

"If it pleases you."

It did please her, immensely. But she could not help but notice that Kenrick spoke only of practicalities and logical solutions--nothing of his feelings for her. Nothing of love.

"I do not know what to say."

"Customarily, a woman either says yea or nay."

"Of course," she said, half laughing at her own fluster.

"Of course you will, or of course you won't?"

She met his intense stare and stifled a further giggle of emotion. "Yes, Kenrick. I will happily be your wife."

His smile warmed her thoroughly, though not more than his kiss. For long moments, they held each other in the peaceful Eden of the garden. Haven's heart was still soaring when Kenrick finally led her back into the castle so he could prepare for the trip that would take him away from Clairmont for several hours.

Ariana and Braedon were coming out of the solar together at the same time Kenrick and Haven strode into the keep hand in hand.

"Good morrow," Kenrick's sister said, her bright gaze lighting on the pair with keen interest. "You two are up and about early this morn."

"We just broke our fast in the garden," Haven replied, no doubt beaming her joy. "Kenrick surprised me with a picnic...and something else."

Ariana turned a wide-eyed look on her brother, but before she could question him, Kenrick announced their plans.

"I have asked Haven to remain here at Clairmont...as my bride."

"Oh, Haven!" Ariana threw her arms around her in a tight hug. "That's wonderful!"

Braedon extended his hand to Kenrick, then offered his congratulations to Haven as well. "This calls for celebration."

"Yes, it does," Ariana agreed. "It happens that we have two things to celebrate: your happy news, and ours. Braedon and I will be welcoming the arrival of a babe later this year."

"Congratulations," Haven replied, thrilled for her friend and the dark knight who glowed his pride as he beheld his pretty wife.

"My best as well," Kenrick added with marked approval.

"Nothing pleases me more than to see the both of you happy," Ariana said. "We shall have a grand feast this evening to mark the occasion. Come with me, Haven. There is much we'll need to do."

Haven found herself easily swept up into Ariana's excitement. Before she was led away in hand by her sister-to-be, Kenrick caught her in a quick embrace. "I will see you upon my return later today."

"Aye, my lord," she whispered, melting with pure ecstatic wonder as he kissed her. "I will see you soon."

Chapter 21

The morning passed quickly enough in Kenrick's absence, for Ariana presented Haven with a list of things that must be done in preparation for the feast that evening, including a jaunt to a nearby village market.

With Braedon and a Clairmont guard overseeing their excursion, Haven and Ariana walked from one vendor's stall to another, perusing the wares and discussing the splendid meal Ariana was planning for that evening. By her rapt descriptions, it was to be a feast as grand as any Clairmont had ever seen.

"We have much to celebrate, after all," she said, hooking her arm through Haven's as she led her toward a table heaped with fine fabrics and lace.

The market was a churning hive of patrons and gawkers, the entire area abuzz with chattering, haggling, and general good cheer.

"Stay close," Braedon advised in his brooding way. "There are too many people here this morn. Too much opportunity for trouble."

"My husband worries overmuch," Ariana said, slanting him a teasing look. "Especially now that he knows I carry our child. Suddenly I am made of glass, isn't that right, husband?"

"I've not known glass to be so stubborn," he groused, but could not hide his gentle regard. He playfully drummed his finger on her pate. "Nay, this pretty head is not glass at all, but hard, impervious steel."

Ariana gasped in mock affront. "For that remark, sirrah, you will come with me and help me choose a goose for tonight's sup. Or perhaps we should truss a disagreeable gander instead. Will you pardon us, Haven?"

Haven nodded, warmed by the affection so clearly shared between Ariana and her husband. She could only hope she and Kenrick might share the same bond in their marriage.

Marriage.

The word had meant little to her until Kenrick had said it that morning. He wanted her to be his bride! For all the murkiness and uncertainty of her past, her future at least seemed bright with promise.

Hope bloomed within her, as colorful as the silks that spread out before her on the vendor's table. Giddy with thoughts of her life to come, Haven picked up a length of wispy red sendal and held it out before her to watch it catch the light. The sun was blazing high in the noontide sky; through the swatch of rich cloth, it glowed like gemstone fire, dazzling her vision.

"'Tis a beautiful bit of fluff," said a low voice that was tinged with a queer sense of familiarity.

Haven lowered her arms, feeling a knot of cold dread form in her stomach.

A man stood next to her at the vendor's stall, his longish black hair gleaming like polished jet, his smile deadly cool in his profanely handsome face. He wore a dark cloak that could not quite hide the dragon that snarled in rampant pose on the breast of his tunic. He was a menacing figure, clearly graced with the devil's own arrogance.

Although she did not know him--prayed she did not--Haven sensed at once that he was dangerous. He hung back with obvious deliberateness, standing in the shade of the canopy with no wish to call attention to himself. In reflex, Haven threw an anxious glance over her shoulder to see who might spy them together.

"Lady Ariana has her husband's full attention in another stall," the cunning stranger informed her. "Your guard is out of earshot. He will take no notice unless you give him cause to come over here, Haven."

Faith.

He knew her name.

"I had heard you might have found your way inside Clairmont's own keep, but I scarce could credit it until I saw you with my own eyes."

"Who are you?" she whispered, needing to know what he was about even while she waited in dread of the answer. "How do you know me?"