Linda Barlow (40 page)

He wondered for the first time what might have happened if he had not left Whitcombe at fourteen. Suppose he'd stayed, growing to manhood beside her, watching her slowly come to maturity herself. She would never have reached the age of nineteen with her maidenhead intact if he'd been there when she began to feel youthful curiosity and desire for the pleasures of the flesh. He had been undisciplined then. He would have taken her without thought for the consequences. There would have been trouble then, for she had been betrothed to Will. There was going to be trouble now.

As if she sensed his turmoil, Alexandra lifted her head and met his eyes in the gloom, sending him a warm smile. The child reached out in its sleep with one small hand and touched her cheek. She laughed softly and gave it back to its mother, as, watching, Roger felt his heart expand in his chest. He loved her. He wanted to see her thus, holding a different child, a child who'd been conceived from the seed of his own loins. He wanted her for his wife.

Still smiling, she crossed the cold stone floor to Roger's side. He retreated a step, afraid to let her touch him. There was nothing gentle about his love; it was a love of the spirit, yes, but it was equally a love of the body. And it was unconsummated. The sight and sound and scent of her caused his head to whirl and his flesh to burn with the most intense sexual tension he had ever known. It had been bearable before, but now it was not. If she touched him he did not think he would be able to stop himself from flinging her to the floor, tearing away her clothing, and claiming her as his woman, his mate, his one true love until the end of time.

"Are you all right?" she inquired, tilting her head to one side as she examined his expression.

He nodded.

"You look a trifle strange. You're not ill?"

"No."

"Several of these people are, Roger. One or two of them may not be able to travel unless they have a physician's care."

"That is not your concern."

"But it could be. I have remedies, medicines back in my chamber in Westminster. If I went and fetched them—"

"No," he said.

She pulled him into a more secluded area of the cellar. Her fingers on his sleeve tormented him. "I'm not trying to escape. I'm thinking of them, and of you. How are you going to transport the sick? What if more of them take some illness? I can't promise any miracles, but I do have some experience in these matters, and if I left now I could get back before it got too late and—"

"Beloved, believe me, the matter has been attended to."

"By whom?"

"By the surgeon from my ship, if you must know. Tom Comstock comes here daily. He was trained in the East and is very skillful. You need have no fears for these people's health." He cocked one dark brow at her. "Besides, I have other things for you to think about."

Catching the note in his voice, Alexandra once again studied his face. "What other things?"

Roger hesitated as image after image of glorious lovemaking rollicked through his brain. She was here; she was his. She loved him, and now that he'd recognized his love for her, why should there be any further need for restraint?

God! He'd held back long enough. Now, today, he would take her up to his bedchamber and tenderly strip away her clothes, leaving a candle alight so he could see her rosy-tipped breasts, her firm, white belly, her long legs, stronger and more muscular than many women's and yet so soft-skinned, so shapely. And her face—how he would love watching every expression as he caressed her body into pleasure.
 
How he would treasure each laugh, each sigh, each gasp as the crisis of love approached. He would be careful with her, since she was still a maid. He would make certain her initiation was slow and gentle and free of pain.

"Roger?"

He heard her but he couldn't stop fantasizing. He would marry her, he decided. As soon as it could be arranged and consecrated. Husband and wife, they would stand together in the peace and harmony their souls jointly yearned for. Her contract with the heir to the barony of Whitcombe would be honored after all.

Her brow was furrowed as she stared at him. "Your mind is teeming with some sort of mischief, isn't it? You're not deciding that since I'm now your prisoner, I’m to be used like the proverbial female captive?" When he looked startled, she added, "No. That's not the way it's going to be. You've had ample opportunities and wasted them. Now 'tis I who will reject you."

He grinned. "You think you can read my mind so well, poppy-top?"

She nodded vigorously. "I've seen that look often enough now to recognize it."

"I don't think you'd reject me if I applied myself with all due persistence to your seduction."

"Well, Alan might have something to say about it, and so, no doubt, would Francis Lacklin."

He frowned. She had a point, unfortunately. Privacy was something they were not likely to be blessed with today. And even if it had been, there was work to be done.

"Besides," she went on severely, "I have more self-respect than you might suppose. I don't deserve the way you have treated me—warm one minute, harsh and cold the next." She gestured to the cellar full of heretics. "You, for all your noble-minded motives, are a traitor and my enemy. I’ll never stop loving you, but perhaps you've been right all along in insisting that we are sadly mismatched."

She was reminding him of facts he could not deny. It was by no means clear that he and Francis would be able to pull off this exodus of a ragtag bunch of religious dissidents without discovery. His contingency plan, in fact, was to leave England himself aboard the Argo if anything went wrong. It was a hell of a time to fall in love with Alix. Twenty-four hours from now he might be either exiled or dead.

And what would happen to her if his plans went awry? Suppose she were discovered in his cellars? If he were arrested, she would be suspected of collusion.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of footsteps descending the stairs. The light of another torch cast a shadow into the cellar as Alan appeared, his expression tight and challenging.

"You said you would keep her ten minutes. And you made no mention of bringing her down here. I demand to know what villainy you intend now. 'Tis growing dark, and Alix will be missed."

"That is true," she confirmed. "If I am not found in my bed tonight, a search will be conducted."

"I thought you said you'd pleaded illness and been excused from the queen's service?" Roger's voice was sharp.

"Only for the afternoon. I had no permission to leave the court. They will expect me to be languishing in bed. And since I share a bedchamber with several other ladies—"

"Damnation," Roger muttered.

"—my father will be notified. And where do you suppose is the first place he will look for me?"

"No one knows of these cellars. He will not find you."

"You mean to hold her, then?" Alan didn’t sound happy about the prospect.

"Until after the refugees are safely out of the country, yes," he said, but not quite as insistently as before.

"They won't get safely out of the country if my father suspects you of virgin-snatching again. You know how violently opposed he is to any intercourse between us. He acts as though death would be a finer fate for me than union with you. At any rate, if I am found to be missing, he'll probably have you detained. Your ship may even be impounded. You must release me." She stared into his eyes. "You'll simply have to trust me."

To hell with Francis' concern about security. The fact was, he trusted her as much as he loved her. She would never betray them. "I think," he said with a trace of a smile, "you may be right."

* * *

Night was falling as Roger covered Alexandra's red hair with her cloak, pulling it well down over her forehead before taking her by the arm and leading her out into the street.

"You're coming too?" she asked.

"Only as far as the horses." He nodded at Alan waiting by with Alix’s horse and the groom who had accompanied her to his house. There was a second horse for Alan, and one of Roger’s men-at-arms was waiting also. "You'll be pretending to take him to a place of entertainment; he'll see that you get safely back to Westminster."

"I'm glad you're giving him something responsible to do. When he went to live with you, I thought you might be patronizing."

He laughed low, his breath near her ear. "'Tis you who are patronizing, Mistress Busybody. Not so graceful. You've just spent a lusty afternoon with one of the most notorious reprobates in the kingdom. Swing your hips, please, with a little more abandon."

She giggled, allowing the sound to carry. "You sound like a coarser version of my dancing master. There's my father's agent. Behind the post."

"I see him. I'll be heading off for an errand in the opposite direction. He'll follow me, as he's paid to do. You shouldn't have any problems getting home."

They had reached the horses. Roger pulled her against him and inflicted a long, sensuous kiss upon her, then pushed her—rather abruptly, she thought—into Alan's arms, saying loudly, "Amuse the lad for me, wench, and send him back sober in the morning. Here's extra for your pains." He flipped her a gold coin, which she expertly caught, then delivered a vigorous slap to her backside. "That," he whispered, "was for the trouble you've caused me tonight." Not to mention the anguish it causes me to have to send you away, he added silently. Then he turned his back on her and resolutely walked away.

Alan helped her up into the saddle and then mounted his own horse. As they slowly set off, they both watched to see what would happen to the man behind the post. Sure enough, he melted into the shadows in Roger's wake. Alexandra leaning back, smiling at Alan. "It worked."

"Aye," he said, letting out what sounded like a relieved sigh. They walked their horses side by side, remaining close enough to talk quietly. "Thank God we talked him into releasing you. I saw the way he was looking at you, I thought he was going to drag you up to his bedchamber and have his way with you."

Alexandra felt a needle of irritation. She'd seen the way Roger had been looking at her too, and found it puzzling. The old excitement that always seemed to beat between them was there, yes; but so was a certain tenderness, an odd limning of affection that was new. Could it be that his feelings for her were growing? Perhaps there was hope. After all, she was no longer the artless, unsophisticated urchin she'd been last summer. Was he finally coming to see that there were so many ways in which they were attuned and compatible?

"It was madness for you to come here tonight," Alan went on, oblivious. "Lacklin will be furious when he finds out that Roger let you go. You won't tell your father, will you? Or the queen?"

"That question doesn't merit an answer. You think I'd turn you, Roger, and thirty helpless refugees over to the courts to be condemned and executed?"

"No, of course not. It's just that, well, it's astonishing the way he seems to trust you. Francis told me that Roger doesn’t trust many people. Apparently he was stabbed in the back so many times in the Mediterranean that betrayal is what he's come to expect out of life."

"I'm not surprised, considering the way he grew up, with your father beating him all the time, and your mother jumping off a cliff."

"You still defend him, no matter what." Alan's voice sounded petulant. "You didn't seem dismayed at the prospect of being forced to spend a night in his house. Are you blind to the designs he has upon you?"

"You're in with him now, Alan—up to your neck, in fact—yet you're still speaking against him. Forgive me if I find that a trifle odd."

"I don't speak against him except in this."

"Last summer at Whitcombe you couldn't find anything good to say about him."

"I was wrong about a lot of things. When I overheard them planning these rescue missions last summer, I was angry because I thought it was treasonous and heretical, but now that I've witnessed the evils produced by the queen's policies, I see matters differently."

"It was his character, not his politics, that you seemed to find offensive."

"Well, perhaps I was envious," Alan said with the forthrightness he and she had always shared. "He came along and bedazzled everybody, being kind or cruel as the mood took him, and we all sat back and allowed him to become the center of our world. He's courageous and charismatic and devilishly smart. All the things I know I'll never be." Alan frowned. "You're right. Sometimes I'm jealous still."

Something he had said a moment ago was niggling at her. "You say you overheard them planning to smuggle heretics out of the country last summer? Is that why you suspected it that day we went to the docks to see the Argo?"

"Aye. I came upon him and Lacklin together in the forest one day. They were discussing some of their plans. It was the morning you had me out chasing that poor halfwit fellow who hanged himself—remember? Roger caught me; I thought he'd have my head for it. We had words, and I fled, knocking myself off my horse in my haste and breaking my leg."

"Are you sure it was that day? But..." Something was bothering her, and in a flash she knew what it was. "Francis Lacklin had already left for London, hadn't he? I was ill, but I remember being told he'd left several days before."

Alan shrugged. "I was surprised to see him too. He had certainly left Whitcombe Castle, but he must have stayed in the area, because he was there, I assure you, in the woods with Roger."