Lady of Conquest (11 page)

“She was not in the game but she is now,” shouted a man, raising his goblet in a sloshing toast.

Nimbus groaned and Gelina caught a glimpse of Sheela’s pout as Conn drew her into the circle.

“At last, I’ve captured a beauty,” Conn cried in triumph.

Her body stiffened as his hands closed on her shoulders. She considered fainting but knew she would be unmasked or worse if she slid to the floor. The crowd cheered as Conn cupped her face and leaned forward. He paused as if he sensed something deeper than reticence in her tense posture. Gelina closed her eyes as his warm, dry lips brushed hers, lingering with a paralyzing sweetness that drew the breath from her trembling body.

She would have fled when he drew away if his hands had not dropped to her shoulders and tightened their grip.

“Name her, Conn,” shouted a soldier. “Have you tasted her before?”

“Name her and taste her again,” came another cry.

“Who are you?” Conn breathed so softly that only she heard his words.

“Name her or free her, Conn. Them’s the rules.”

Gelina sagged in Conn’s arms as she recognized Nimbus’s voice. Conn’s hands cupped her elbows to steady her and she jerked away, dodging the hands that reached for her. She darted through the crowd, knowing that by the time Conn unworked his blindfold, she would be gone. She heard the patter of running feet and glanced down to find Nimbus at her side. They spilled out of the fortress into the warm summer night.

Bonfires sprang up around the courtyard, whipped into chaotic flame by the warm winds racing in from the plains. Leaping shadows cavorted around the fires to the sultry beat of a drum.

Gelina pressed herself to the wall, trying to steady her breathing and cool her burning cheeks.

“Forgive me, Gelina, I meant to put ye in no peril,” Nimbus said, collapsing beside her.

She shook her head with a shaky laugh. “ ‘Twasn’t your fault, Nimbus. The games of the Fianna have always proved too dangerous for me.”

Nimbus jerked his head toward the door. “They may pursue us. Follow me.”

Gelina followed him along the bushes, unable to pull her eyes away from the leering masks and flapping capes of the dancers. She started as a full-throated moan sounded from the darkness of the rustling bushes. An imploring whimper followed and the sound of scuffling grew in the night. A woman’s sharp scream was silenced as quickly as it came. Gelina stood staring at the bushes until Nimbus’s hand protruded from the sheet to catch her cloak. He cleared his throat in an exact imitation of Conn and set her feet in guilty motion.

“I cannot believe I let ye talk me into this,” Nimbus muttered. “Conn will have me head if he knows what ye’ve seen and done tonight.”

“I’ve seen nothing, and anything I've done was his fault,” Gelina protested, unable to hide the trace of disappointment in her voice as she followed Nimbus’s merrily bouncing horns.

She longed to throw back the smothering hood and let the warm winds tear through her curls. Her heart beat in time with the drum, forcing curious, young blood through every channel of her body. The suffocating weight of the velvet skirts wrapped around her legs.

“Don’t take me back to my chamber now, Nimbus. I shan’t be any more trouble. I promise.” She stopped and tugged the corner of her cloak out of his hand.

He whirled on her, his one visible eye narrowed. “Ye’ve never seen Conn truly angry or ye would not dare risk it again.”

His words gave her pause. She fell into step behind him, biting back a mutinous pout.

She stumbled into his back as he came to an abrupt halt with a muttered curse. Dancers swarmed around them in a buzz of laughter and drunken snatches of song. Gelina watched helplessly as Nimbus was lifted between the shoulders of two men and swept away.

“. . . to yer chamber,” came his voice before it was lost in the squeals of the women and roaring laughter of the men.

But the soldier who lurched out of the bushes still tying the leather strings of his jerkin had other thoughts. He gave her forlorn figure a stumbling bow; a golden mask painted with dragon’s eyes loomed in her vision.

“Deserted so early, my love?”

Gelina drew back as the sour smell of ale slapped her in the face.

“I am a bit weary at the moment,” he said, his speech slurred, “but if you give me time to recoup my strength, I will prove myself an ample comfort in your solitude.”

Gelina drew herself up to her full height. “I do believe your comfort is spent for the night, sir.”

“Nonsense. I’ve enough comfort for more than one lass on such a hot Midsummer’s Eve.”

His hand closed around her wrist with alarming strength. He tugged her toward the shadows of the bushes. From the corner of her mask Gelina caught a glimpse of leaping flames and wildly gyrating couples driven by the drumbeat into a nightmarish caricature of passion. Her eyes went by instinct to the soldier’s waist to find he wore no sword. She drew back her fist and drove it into his stomach with all of her strength.

He doubled over with a howl. She whirled to run and was so intent on peering over her shoulder to see if he would pursue her that she did not see the man who stepped in front of her until she slammed into his chest with enough force to stun her. She raised her eyes to stare at lion’s whiskers she had painted with her own hand.

She turned around, stepping on his toes and smoothing her hood forward. Her heart pounded in her ears, drowning out the rhythm of the drum. The soldier staggered toward them, rubbing his belly.

Firm hands rested on her shoulders; his voice was a deep and gentle whisper at her ear. “Does he trouble you, my lost beauty?”

Gelina nodded, not daring to speak or flee lest he follow and unmask her.

The soldier stopped short as he saw the man standing behind her. His mouth fell open.

“There are surely enough willing women to go around tonight, Liam. There is no need to prey on the unwilling. We are not savages.”

The soldier ran a sheepish hand through his hair. “I was just having some sport. I would not have harmed her.”

“I shall feel more assured of that when you are safe in your bed . . . soon.”

“Yes, sire. Forgive me.” The soldier yawned loudly and backed into the night. “ ‘Tis late. I am weary of the celebration, as I was just telling the young lass. I do believe I will . . .” His voice faded in the darkness.

Conn chuckled. Gelina could feel the heat of his hands on her shoulders through the velvet cloak and dress. His grip changed subtly; his fingers slid along her collarbone with strength and tenderness. She breathed a silent prayer of thanks for the darkness, knowing it would hide the color of her hair as he eased the hood back. A shiver ran through her as his broad thumbs stroked the smooth column of her throat, coming to rest against the pulse that beat wildly there. His warm breath stirred the curls at her ear.

“Your heart beats like a captive bird. Now that we are rid of him, beauty, will you come with me?”

He mistook her silence for surrender, and she had no choice but to follow him as he folded her hand in his and pulled her toward a door well hidden by a swinging curtain of ivy. She jerked the hood over her hair with a desperate hand as they ducked inside a long corridor. A crowd of laughing men and women rounded the corner. Before Gelina dared to protest, Conn slid aside a secret panel and pulled her into a deserted tunnel away from the prying eyes of the crowd. The tunnel curved far ahead of them like the belly of some great beast. A single torch sputtered low in its sconce.

Gelina balked as Conn pulled her inexorably toward the flickering light. She pressed herself to the wall, knowing he could see the curve of her flaming cheek in the half light. He leaned forward, his hands supporting his weight on either side of her. There was a deliberate grace to his movements that warned her he had drunk his share of ale on this Midsummer’s Eve.

His hand cupped her face but she resisted his gentle effort to tilt her face to the light.

“So shy and sweet,” he murmured. “You must not fear me.”

“I heard the soldier address you. I know you are . . . the king,” she said softly, not trusting herself to say his name.

“Today I was a king. Tonight I am only a man.”

His lips brushed hers. Her lips parted in a gasp, and his mouth closed on hers with gentle insistence, the taste of ale warm and sweet and dark against her tongue.

His mouth moved against hers. “I was afraid I’d never find you and the sweetness of your kiss would haunt me forever.”

His hand cradled her chin. His fingers coaxed her shy lips farther apart. His lips molded and tugged with teasing expertise until she was open and vulnerable to the full ardor of his kiss. His other hand slid down her arm and gently cupped her breast. Hot blood flooded her cheeks. The velvet that separated his thumb from the tingling peak of her breast melted to a shimmering conductor of his heat and will. The burning blood deserted her cheeks and rushed through her body in a dizzying current. She could feel the taking, entering motions of his mouth and hand on every inch of her flushed skin.

Her head reeled as he bore her against the wall with the strength of his kiss and his warm hands on her shoulders beneath the cloak. He pressed the hard length of his body to hers in a caress he would have never given an innocent girl.

He drew back and she struggled for breath, the faint light of the tunnel going dim before her panicked eyes. Only his arms kept her from falling.

“So you know who I am,” he whispered. “ ‘Tis only fair for me to know who you are. I cannot bear to lose you again.”

Before she could speak, both of her wrists were gently caught in one of his hands. He reached up to unmask her. Gelina did not have time to think of the consequences. She pressed her lips to his in a trembling kiss, feeling them part in surprise at the apparent fervor of her passion. With a muffled groan Conn forgot the mask and wrapped his arms around her, lifting her off the floor until every curve of her body was fitted to his. Gelina went weak as a tide of feeling as terrifying as it was exhilarating swept through her, danger and need a double-edged sword in the expertise of Conn’s hands.

She opened her eyes to true darkness and the faint tinkling of bells at the curve of the tunnel.

“The torch,” she breathed.

“To hell with the torch,” Conn said, his voice strained with a hoarseness Gelina did not recognize. “I need only the darkness and you.” He bore her toward the floor with gentle persistence.

Her hands clutched his tunic; she buried her burning face in his familiar shoulder. “Please . . . Conn.”

She would never know if it was the whispered plea of his name on her lips or the renewed vigor of the jingling in the darkness, but Conn loosed her with a sigh.

His lips brushed her temple. “Stay here. I shall return.”

He melted into the darkness, leaving Gelina to sink against the wall, feeling oddly lost. The secret panel slid aside. A small hand beckoned frantically. Gelina caught the hand and dove through the widening opening. Nimbus slammed the panel shut, ignoring Conn’s muffled cry of dismay. They sprinted down the corridor, hand in hand, Nimbus’s knees pumping to match her long strides.

He tripped over a moaning shepherd stretched across the entrance to the great hall and went sprawling. Without slowing, Gelina hauled him across the peasant’s mound of stomach—thump, thump, thump—and to his feet. The peasant rolled to his side with a gurgling snore.

Two more strides and their path was blocked by a masked woman on the arm of a stumbling soldier. Gelina stared mesmerized as the man sprawled in a grimy pile of hay and pulled the woman on top of him. They rolled over, his grunts mingling with her squeals until he sat astride her. With a flourish he threw her skirts over her face to reveal plump, squirming thighs and fell upon her with a cry of triumph and wildly gyrating hips.

With a definite lack of gentleness Nimbus grasped the hood of Gelina’s cloak and jerked her toward the stairs. They took the stairs two at a time, fear and relief escaping in breathless laughter. The door of her chamber slammed behind them. Nimbus turned the key in the lock with a flourish. They leapt onto the bed and collapsed in a giggling heap amidst the feather pillows. Gelina rolled over and propped herself on her elbows, hurling the mask into the ashes on the hearth.

“Did ye think I had deserted ye?” Nimbus asked, casting the sheet aside and running a hand through his wispy hair.

“I had my qualms. I thought I was lost when Conn pulled me into that tunnel.”

“I fear ‘twas my fault. He saw me in the crowd that approached and knew there’d be no mercy from me if I saw him hauling a nubile young lass around. Gave me quite a fright when I saw who it was. Ye’re certain he had no inkling it was ye?”

She did not reply. Nimbus stared at the abrupt change in her demeanor. A flush of rose touched the cheeks she held cupped in her hands. Her lips parted in a half smile.

He passed a hand in front of her misty eyes. She did not blink.

“He didn’t know it was ye, did he?” Nimbus repeated. “I’m doomed for the dungeons if he did.”

Gelina’s head snapped up.
“
Of course he didn’t know it was me. I was masked so he mistook me for someone beautiful. Someone a man might want.”