Linda Barlow (47 page)

"Roger?" Her eyes were huge. "Will you listen to me now?"

He crossed the tiny cabin in two strides. Laying his hands upon her, he sank his fingers into the red flames of her hair. "No. No excuses."

She spoke anyway: "I am heartsick about my part in this tragedy. But you are not my judge."

"As master of this vessel, I am everybody’s judge. And you, my traitorous love, are guilty. All that remains is your punishment, which I am here to administer."

Chapter 26

Alexandra made no answer. All the words she'd planned to say to him were sticking in her throat. He looked, she thought, like a scourge sent from hell to torment her. Standing over her in the dim glow of the single lamp she had clumsily managed to light a little while before, he filled the small cabin with his dark energy. His clothes were shining with seawater and rain, his face was sculpted hard and expressionless. Only his eyes gave his emotions away, and they caused her more disquiet than anything else; she could never remember seeing them so black with anger, pain, and cruel determination.

She closed her own eyes. Ever since she'd woken from a restless sleep to find herself still alone and imprisoned, she'd tried to plan what she would say to him when this moment arrived. Not even the storm had claimed her attention, although at times the tossing and plunging of the ship had been so severe that she thought they must surely founder. The tempest in Roger disturbed her far more deeply than the tempest outside.

And now that the time had come, she knew there was nothing she could say, nothing he would believe. To a certain extent, she was guilty of the things he believed she had done. Through her meddling, his plans had become known, through her foolishness, his friends had died. If it hadn’t actually been she who had broken down and revealed the details of the plan to Geoffrey, that was only because the Frenchman had been clever enough to question Alan. Either one of them, she thought, might have resisted the rack alone, but who could bear to see a dear friend tortured if there was a way to stop it?

As for Roger's belief that she had shared a bed with Geoffrey, that too was true, even though the act had not reached a conclusion. If he wanted a woman whose body had never known the touch of another man, she was no longer that woman. If he could not forgive her for something that had been done to her against her will—and many men would not, she knew—there was nothing there, either, to be said.

She watched him throw his cloak to the floor beside the berth, splashing tiny droplets of seawater on her. His doublet was next. She heard the creaking sound of thick fabric being roughly pulled apart. What was he doing? Was he going to rape her? Was that the punishment he intended? She had feared it once, and then felt the heaviness of her folly for believing him capable of such cruelty. Now, though, that they were in this hellish place, almost anything seemed possible. Was the love she had dreamed of consummating with him about to be sullied in such a manner?

"Roger?" She wasn't sure exactly what was behind her impulse to speak his name. To reassure herself, perhaps, that this dark avenging angel was really the man she loved?

"Be still." His boots came off and he bent to work the points of his hose. "I don't wish to hear a single word from you. You didn't know how to keep your mouth shut last night; tonight, I promise you, you will learn."

She ignored this; talking was her only defense. "Shall I undress or would you prefer to rip this garment off me?"

Something flashed in his eyes, and for a moment she thought he might strike her. But he did not. He seemed more in command of himself than he had been the previous night on the strand.

"And here I'd been thinking you'd lost your spirit when you gracefully fainted in front of my entire crew. That, too, I suppose, was an act?"

"'Twas real, as your physician will surely attest."

"Oh, he's been attesting right and left. But he's been celibate for so long he can't tell the rotten apples from the sound. He's a former monk, and still a godly man. He once worked with the Hospitalers of St. John."

"I love you," she said, apropos of nothing.

There was a distinct sucking sound as Roger caught his breath. The anger in his eyes flared up, and then he gave a cruel, contemptuous laugh. "That's the last one of your lies I want to hear tonight."

"It's not a lie."

"Everything you say is a lie. You are a lie, and I am a fool." His next words were curses as the knots binding his hose stuck. He tore them away and finished stripping in a series of short, impatient motions. "How amusing you must have found my quaint reluctance to dishonor you. All this time you've been a duplicitous bitch."

He tossed away the last garment and turned to her, his naked skin gleaming in the light from the lamp. He was hard and lean, and appealing in all the ways that Geoffrey de Montreau had not been. Broad shoulders, smooth well-defined muscles, a flat belly, trim buttocks, and long well-shaped legs. Her eyes were drawn to the glossy crinkles of hair that extended in a narrow ribbon down over his ribs and navel to thicken between his thighs. Less fearful than fascinated, she stared at the spear of flesh and muscle nestled in that thicket of hair. He was not particularly aroused, she noted. That was a good thing, surely? Mayhap he didn’t like this situation any more than she did.

But as he bent over the bed, the light glinted off something metallic in his hand. The dagger from his sword belt. She was afraid then. A pit of dark unreason seemed to open beneath her feet, and she was back in the cave at the top of Thorncroft Overhang where he had come at her with a naked sword.

"No!" she gasped, putting up her bound
 
arms to resist him as he put one knee on the bed and seized her.

"Defending your virtue?" he mocked.

"I have no care for my virtue, and besides, you'll know your mistake soon enough. But I will fight for my life."

His lips curved in an unpleasant smile. "Trembling? Where's your famous courage?" Settling down on the bunk beside her, he captured her flailing hands and wrenched her closer. The knife blade flashed as he slid it between her wrists. "It's to cut your bonds, not your throat." As the cord fell away, his fingers chafed her flesh to soothe the spots, but when he caught himself doing so, he stopped. Although her skin was lightly scored, there were no rope burns; she had not been cruelly tied.

"I would have sworn you'd prefer to have me bound and helpless."

"On the contrary, I want your hands free. I'm going to make you show me all the clever tricks you've learned to do with them." He used the knife to slice through the laces of the shirt. She grabbed at the edges as the fabric gaped, revealing the curve of her breasts.

"Slip it off your shoulders. Slowly. Artfully. You've had the practice, I'm sure. I want to look at you. I want to see exactly what I'm getting."

She neither answered nor obeyed.

Almost casually he touched the edge of the blade to her throat. There was a scratch there already, and he was startled to realize that he must be responsible for it. He lowered the knife, but kept his voice hard: "There's one small detail about seafaring life you still seem to be ignorant of. I repeat: I am this ship's master, which means I have absolute authority over everyone on board. My orders are obeyed without question or hesitation. Anyone foolish enough to rebel is disciplined harshly. Am I making myself clear?"

"I am not a member of your crew. I don't recognize your authority."

There was a moment of silence between them, broken only by the creaking of the timbers and the roaring of the sea. Then Roger pushed her down on her back beneath him. He let the dagger slip through his fingers to the floor. "Defiant as ever. So be it." He took her lips in a ferocious kiss, thrusting his tongue into her mouth. She arched in protest, then slackened beneath him, becoming surprisingly passive. He had expected her to struggle. Indeed, he'd been looking forward to it.

Her body was sweet, warm, and strangely magical in its power over him. Tenderness rushed through him, surprising him still further. He marveled at the softness of her skin and the suppleness of her muscles. There was something very calming about the tangling of her limbs with his. He wanted to make love to her slowly, gently, with loving consideration. He didn't want to hurt her, no matter what she'd done.

He forced himself to remember the horrors of last night. His hand dropped to explore the curve of her throat, the swell of her breasts. Still she didn't protest. Pushing himself up on his knees, he straddled her, his fingers moving down to fumble with the shirt she was still wearing. He felt unsteady, clumsy, and she stayed rigid, making it difficult to undress her. He wished he hadn't dropped the knife; he wanted to slice the cloth from her body and see her naked and helpless beneath him.

Alexandra sensed the confusion of violence and tenderness he was feeling. All her instincts warned her not to fight. She had seen the bloody results of his fury on the strand last night, and she knew that it would take very little to drive him over the line into mindless, tragic rage. She could bear whatever he did to her, as long as they survived to forgive one another. Rape would hurt and humiliate her, but it would not break her spirit.

And if she could only make herself relax, perhaps it would not be rape. So far, despite his harsh words, he had not been overly rough. He had not hurt her. She told herself that this was Roger, the man she had yearned to give herself to for nearly a year; Roger, who could arouse her to passion with a look, a finger-brushing touch. And yet she felt no passion now.

Why? Always before she had warmed to his caresses, but not this time, not on the night he would finally take her. Had Geoffrey's assault done something to cripple her natural desires? The Frenchman's touch had filled her with revulsion, and as Roger duplicated those unwelcome caresses, fondling her breasts, pressing his legs between hers to part them, the revulsion and the shame she'd experienced last night in Geoffrey's arms began to well up from the place where she'd hidden it, buried it, slammed the door on it.

Quite suddenly she began to squirm, arching her body against his in an effort to free herself. Her struggles brought her pelvis tight against Roger's cock, arousing him. He hadn’t really been aroused until now, he realized. Usually it took no more than the sight of her, the sound of her voice, the sweet, beguiling scent of her to bring him to a state of full, aching desire. Now he wasn’t sure what he felt. His emotions were all a-muddle. He had told himself that he had come to punish her, but that wasn’t it, not really. He was here to lose himself in her. Sex with Alix was all-consuming. Sex would transport him, take him out of this world to a place where of peace and safety where there were no torn bodies lying on a bloodstained riverbank. Sex would stop the screaming in his head.

 
He finally succeeded in tearing away the tattered shirt, leaving nothing but her exquisitely smooth flesh, straining now against him, kicking and writhing as he anchored her firmly with his knees, his thighs, his chest, his arms.

"No!" she cried as he dragged her fists away from his chest. "Roger, stop."

He closed his heart to her protests. He pinioned her arms against the mattress, bringing her wrists together over her head so he could grip them in one hand. The berth dipped and rolled with the sea, pressing his loins into hers. Breathing hard, rigid now with lust, he stared at her slender body. Levering himself up a bit, he slid one hand over her silken skin, between her small but perfect breasts and down until he found the thatch of burnished curls, and beneath it, the soft petals of her sex. God, she was sweet. Gently, he touched her, parted her. His cock throbbed. From the moment he had first seen her again last summer, he had been hungering to do this—to stroke her, possess her, drive himself inside her. But, unlike the last time he had caressed her intimately, there was no moistness, no arousal. It shouldn't matter; he wasn't doing this for her pleasure. But it disturbed him nonetheless, and he withdrew his hand. It felt wrong to touch her this way when she clearly didn’t desire it. He had never taken a woman by force. His lovers were always as ready and eager as he.

His head spun. What the bloody hell am I doing? He looked down into her face. Her eyes were wide, wild. She was trembling.

"How can you do this to me?" she whispered. "I
love
you."

He had never seen her look so hurt, so outraged, not even that afternoon in the cave on Thorncroft Overhang when she'd thought he meant to murder her. The image jogged something in his memory: "I made a terrible mistake today because I followed my brain instead of my heart," she had admitted. She had been wrong about him. What if he was wrong about her?