Scoundrel's Kiss (14 page)

"You're staring, novice," she
said.

He lifted the torch and took a step
closer. Flames cast quick contrasts of dark and light across the fine lines of
her face, making her lips appear fuller and her eyes wider. A trick of shadow,
nothing more, but desire pushed past his defenses. They had shared much, too
much, in that little room.

He cleared his throat. "How do you
feel?"

"Better." Like heat lightning
across the plateau, a look of contrition covered her face. One he almost
believed. Pale pink dyed her cheeks and spread down her throat. She dipped her
head and kneaded restless fingers together. "I—I wanted... to
apologize for the trouble I've been. These last few nights— I have
memories of what I did and said. I am... I'm ashamed?'

He did not move for long moments,
watching the burden of this woman's care become more arduous with every
tortured word. Witch, addict, harlot—he could cope with any such
incarnation. Barely. But like her tears, her humility threatened a deeper part
of him, one without ready defenses. He tried to breathe evenly, but no amount
of concentration ebbed the twin delights of her appreciation and her mangled
apology.

"Quiet now," he said.
"There is no shame in fighting free."

Tears gathered at the corners of her
eyes. She started to speak but stopped, sniffing back the obvious surge of
emotion. She made a marble column of her spine, straight and rigid, and darted
her eyes away. Tendons stretched taut beneath the skin of her neck.

Not only did he have to remain vigilant
about her addiction, he had to be wary of this new, clear-minded woman. He had
chastised himself for thinking of her as his enemy, but the designation was
more accurate than ever.

"This way," Blanca said,
passing through a wide entryway. "You won't be safe in the open.
Los
guardias
might think to look for us here."

Gavriel picked up the bundle of their
belongings and hoisted them onto his back, only to find Ada standing before
him, hands out. "Let me carry my things," she said. "You have
borne too many burdens for me already."

He shook his head. "I think not. I
foresee you and your possessions on horseback returning to Toledo."

"Which would leave you stuck with
Blanca, poor thing. Can't have that"

"No."

"Then let me carry something of
yours," she said, her expression surprisingly bright and open. "I
insist"

He had no idea how to interpret this
new woman. Not an hour before he had carried her. Now she was volunteering to
share the weight Fair and exotic, this mystery from England— would she
taste different from other women?

"Here." He shoved a light
leather satchel into her arms and nodded for her to follow their guide.
"I'll not have you walking behind me either."

She offered a smile. "All of these
rules, Gavriel. Are they by your design or a product of the Order's
training?"

"Mine. Now go."

Chapter 10

"La Senora is not the first to use
these facilities for secret meetings," Blanca said. "She inherited
the knowledge of their existence from the woman who trained her."

Ada smiled and looked around the small
enclosure they entered below the main rooms of the bathhouse. While sparsely
furnished and a little drafty, it seemed just the place for an illicit meeting.
Perhaps with the advent of a fire, or heated by the danger of such a tryst, the
otherwise cramped and barren rooms might feel more inviting.

"Covigeras
have
apprenticeships?" she asked.

Blanca shrugged and sat on a low wooden
chair. "Convincing a married woman to accept the suit of a man who is not
her husband takes skill and patience, as with any trade."

Gavriel snorted and dropped Ada's
bundle. "That is no trade."

"She earns a living providing a
service," Blanca said. "I know of no other definition."

"She's a criminal" he said.
"She makes a living destroying good women and ruining marriages."

Ada shook her head. "Do you adhere
to every
fuera
a city invents? Beware your own hypocrisy, Gavriel."

"And you mind your tongue.
Remember where you were not a week ago before we talk about good
behavior."

His glower pushed at her to step away,
but she held firm. "What happened to 'no shame,' novice? Or are you planning
to hold these last few days over my head?"

He pinched his brows together, the look
of a man in pain. "Forget I said anything. We should sleep through the day
and leave for Ucles tomorrow afternoon, before the guards close the town
gates."

She exchanged a quick glance with
Blanca, as well as an almost identical shrug. Ada shivered, seeing her sister
in the young woman's poised movements and calm expression.

Meg rarely had cause to become angry,
but when she did, silence was her weapon of choice. Marble and iron held more
warmth and showed more emotion than did Meg when she became cross. Except there
at the last, during that final, fateful argument before Ada had left for Spain.
Meg had laid bare every feeling, from fear and love to disbelief and pain. And
why not? After what Ada had demanded—making Meg choose between her sister
and her husband—she deserved no less than a tirade the size and fury of a
thunderstorm.

Suddenly breathless from the surge of
guilt, she looked toward the door. "Are there baths down here, in
secret?"

"Yes," Blanca said.
"Along this same corridor and to the right. We're closer to the source of
the spring, so the water can be quite hot."

Ada rifled through her satchel, past a
bundle of scrolls and the chess set, and found her tortoiseshell hair comb and
a small cake of lemon and olive oil soap wrapped in waxed linen. Jacob had
remembered all she would need, and that shiver of guilt increased.

Gavriel caught her arm. He stood tall
and powerful—chest out, head up—his posture unlike any mincing
clergyman. "You cannot go by yourself," he said.

She flicked an appreciative look down
his body and smiled. The rich brown color of his closely shorn hair, very dark,
complimented the deep tan of his skin. "I didn't know you wanted to watch,
or I would've extended you an invitation."

He tugged hard on her upper arm until
they stood together, hips almost touching. That same look of outrage darkened
his sharp features, but something more primal lurked behind his eyes. "I
merely want to guarantee you'll stay here."

She looked at her gown. Fine
embroidered linen of a dark red hue had been stained with all manner of
questionable refuse, reminding her of the terrible ordeal of her withdrawal.

"I want a bath," she said,
hitching the satchel over her shoulder. "Nothing more. Let me wash away
the filth of these last few days."

He did not look at her shabby clothing,
only at her eyes. "But I will be outside the corridor the entire time.
You'll not try to leave."

"And why would I try to leave when
I have such charming company?"

Gavriel paced the scant length of the
secret underground corridor. Every time he passed the closed door that shielded
his eyes from Ada and her bath, he glared at the solid oak. The very idea of
her naked body stretched beneath the warm and enveloping waters of the bath
threatened to send him to his knees. He could hack it open. He could bust it
down. Or he could keep glaring until the wood caught fire.

But no. He continued pacing. The litany
of reasons why he had to remain in the dank and cramped corridor pounded
against his brain like the strike of a hammer. It would be wrong and dangerous,
a knife to cut down the last of his vows.

Physical torture—he had known
those terrible pains. But the torture of having guided Ada through the worst of
her sickness, tending her every need and walking the narrow path between caring
and distance, gnawed on his control. He deserved something. He was no saint.
This test, this terrible test was more than he could endure. Any deity that
claimed otherwise would never understand the failings of mortal man.

He trudged to a stop in front of the
door.

How long had she been in there? Blanc a
had warned her about the high temperature of the spring water. But had Ada
taken heed? The picture of her naked, water-bound body had been an erotic
vision moments before; now he imagined only danger. She was still fatigued and
out of sorts—boiled alive and none the wiser.

"Inglesa? Inglesa,
answer
me!" He pressed his ear to the door and held his breath, to no avail.
After a few thundering whacks, he listened again. Nothing. "Ada, you're
worrying me. Answer!"

Indecision briefly paralyzed his limbs.
He found himself staring at a knot of wood in the door, still waiting for the
answering call that refused to come.

Then vows and pride and modesty be
damned, he yanked on the wrought iron latch and rattled it. Locked.

"Ada! Open this door!"

He sped back to the private room.
Blanca lay asleep on the floor, curled into herself like a human wheel. He
grabbed her key and drew Ada's jeweled dagger from its sheath at his waist,
determined to make do when a battle ax would have better served his purposes.

But Blanca's key opened the door to the
bathing chamber. He prayed for a gasp or a scream of outrage. He hoped that a
cake of soap would smack him between the eyes, hurled by a woman who valued her
privacy.

No such reaction greeted him.

She had washed her deep red gown and
kirtle. The wet garments decorated the stone floor between the door and a
shallow well filled with steaming spring water. A softened cake of soap lay at
the well's rim, clouded by popping bubbles.

And Ada reclined there—entirely
nude, hair wet, eyes closed, head back.

Gavriel was by her side and on his
knees before his next intake of breath. He cradled her brightly flushed face in
his hands and patted her cheeks.
"Inglesa,
wake up. Do you hear
me?"

She moaned, lolling her head toward his
thighs. "Wha—? Where am—oh!"

She sat up in the shallow bath, arms
crisscrossed over her bare chest. Water splashed the stones around the basin
and dotted his hands.
Scalding
water.

"You need out of this bam right
now," he said. "How could you be so careless as to fall asleep? Do
you want to be cooked like a chicken?"

Dazed at first, her eyes regained
focus. "Hand me that cloth for drying."

He lowered his eyes and tried to keep
them averted, no matter the tantalizing pull of her bared flesh. But gone was
the milky white luster of her skin, replaced by an unnatural redness. He
retrieved the length of linen cloth and handed it to her. Mostly covered, she
used his arm to support her exit from the bath, her breath coming in
accelerated bursts.

"Now come," he said, leading
her to sit on a stone bench carved from the subterranean walls. "Let me
see your legs."

"I've never known you to be so
forward."

"Crazy woman! What would have
happened had I not come in?"

She flinched and tightened the linen
across her chest. "What you want from me?"

"I want gratitude!"

He hung his head. Failure pressed on
him from all sides, mashing any idea of the man he thought he was becoming.

"And this is your charity,"
she said. "Do you understand what this has been like for me? Gramercy for
staying with me over these last days. Gramercy for pulling me clear of the
bath. But if I have to swallow my pride and thank you one more time, my head
will melt."

"Better your head than your
skin."

He watched as his hands reached toward
the supple muscle of her calf where it poked from beneath the cloth. That
vicious pink looked all the more unnatural against the pale, sun-bleached
linen. His dark skin offered yet another contrast. And then he was touching
her.

For the first time he found a reason to
be genuinely grateful for his monastic life. Had he still been a warrior, his
hands would have been covered with calluses born of swordplay and horsemanship.
Instead, his hands were smooth and able to appreciate the fine texture and resilience
of her leg with such clarity as to steal his breath.

He looked up and found Ada watching
him, her blue eyes darkened in the shadowed half-light. Her lips parted. She
did not flinch or pull away, and neither did she appear to breathe with the
strained effort he did. He wanted her to feel the same mindless pull toward
temptation.

He wanted
her.

"Is it badly burned?" she
asked.

"I—shall I?"

The smallest grin tilted her lips. She
glanced meaningfully at where his hands cradled the curve of her calf. "If
you insist."

Breathing deeply through his nose, he
looked down at her leg. To his relief, he found no evidence of severe burns.
The skin was puffed, and that unnatural shade of pink glowed in the mild
torchlight, but Gavriel could find no blisters. He nudged the cloth aside and
found the other calf and both knees in sound condition.