Snow in July (21 page)

“Very much.” His sigh warmed her neck. “I shall not make you break your vow, Kendra. I give you my solemn word as a knight of Normandy and a member of two kings’ courts.”

“Two kings?” She twisted, wishing she could see his face better. “William and—who else? Surely not Harold?” The implications of such a suspicious pairing of associations made her mind reel.

“I spent my early years in King Edward’s court before joining William’s cause.”

“It still seems strange.”

“My mother was a Saxon noblewoman and a member of Edward’s London court, but my father was a Norman lord.”

She chewed her oatcake as she chewed on his admission. Only half Norman, then…so very tempting, but half Norman was still Norman. And she couldn’t recant her vow even though her heart pleaded otherwise.

After washing the cake down with another mouthful of wine, she asked, “What does your mother think of your newest allegiance?”

“She doesn’t know.” His shoulders shifted in a sigh. “Or perhaps she does somehow. She died many years ago,” he whispered.

“Oh, Alain.” She slipped her arm around his waist and leaned her cheek against his shoulder. “I am sorry. I meant no disrespect.”

“I know.” His fingers found her chin. “But you haven’t answered my question.”

“My vow to never marry a Norman was my idea. My brother—” Her voice caught, and she swallowed hard. “With his final breath, he made me promise to seek happiness. I hold that vow just as sacred as the other.” It was her turn to sigh, overwhelmed by the anguish of memories. “For a moment, in your embrace, I—I was…” Her words collapsed within the trembling of her chin.

“Kendra,
mon amour
, nothing would please me more than to make you happy.”

His lips met hers tenderly. She welcomed his touch, nestling her body closer to his. He kissed her harder, and his tongue thrust deeper. While one hand cupped her cheek, the other skimmed toward her breasts, exploring, caressing, arousing…

With a supreme effort of will, she stopped him.

She sucked in a breath, suspecting he would not like what she had to say next.

“I cannot bed a man I cannot wed.”

“Sir Robert won’t—”

She stood and whirled to face him. “Won’t what? Won’t find out? Hah. Some friend you must be if you believe him to be that stupid.” She felt her eyebrows lower as another idea occurred. “Or do you mean that he won’t mind if you opened me up for him? Is that the mission he sent you to accomplish? What do you two take me for, a tavern whore to go spreading my legs for any handsome face to look my way?”

“No, no.” The whisper sounded no louder than a breeze whiffling through a meadow. “Good Lord, no.”

The abjectness of his tone lanced her anger. Bending, she reached for his face but encountered the backs of his hands. She traced the strong fingers, knuckles, and tendons, awe welling within her. These hands had fought—and killed—for her to keep her safe. And pure.

With little effort, she pried them from his face. “You men aren’t the only ones who cleave to honor,” she said quietly but firmly. “But if you know of other ways to make me happy…”

He took her hand, turned it over, and kissed the palm, sending a tingle up her arm. “I do.” He pushed up her sleeve, and his lips brushed the tender flesh from wrist to elbow. Waves of delight coursed through her.

“Show me.” The huskiness of her voice betrayed her primal need. An exquisite throbbing assaulted her nethers, and an onslaught of wet warmth battered her sense of honor. “Please.”

HER QUIET plea woke a mindless, ravening hunger that took all his will to control. God in heaven, he wanted her so damned much! But not if she believed that “Sir Alain” would make a whore of her. He stood, grasping her hands.

“There is something I must—”

“Hush.” She freed her hands and reached up to pull his face to hers. In the next breath she kissed him, hard, arching her body against his, delivering a silent invitation he couldn’t refuse.

He loosened the laces of her bodice. As his fingers worked beneath the neckline of her underdress and tugged it toward her shoulders, he reveled in the softness of her skin.

Forgive me, Father, for I am about to…

About to—what? Sin? How could it be a sin to bring enjoyment to another person? A person who had saved his life? A person who had revived feelings that he’d believed to be long dead? A person for whom he would sacrifice his final breath?

She finished unlacing her bodice and pulled it off. Her belt followed it. He kissed her throat, and she uttered a breathy gasp. Delighted and incited by the sound, he planted more kisses on her neck and the bare ridges of her shoulders. Her breath started coming in slow, soft pants. She wriggled her arms free of all their layers of fabric. The dress and underdress slipped to her waist, and she untied her cloth breastband.

He cradled the delicate flesh and tested her nipples first with his thumbs, then his lips and tongue. Her breathing quickened and she began to sway against him; she seemed as ready as he felt.

But he had to be certain.

He eased to his knees, leaving a trail of kisses down her abdomen and working her dress and underdress past her hips. The fabric slid the rest of the way off and mounded at her feet, leaving only the cloth that bound her loins. His lips continued toward their goal. Her fingers tangled in his hair and kneaded his scalp in time with her hips’ shifting. He reached for the knot of her loincloth.

She tensed. Her hands gripped his like a vise.

Though he suspected the answer, he had to ask, “What’s wrong?”

She shivered and shook her head. Sighing, she let him go and stooped to retrieve her breastband. “I can’t. I’m sorry, but I—I just can’t.” She wound the cloth around herself, tied it in place, and picked up the underdress.

“Because of Sir Robert.” He shifted off his knees and sat, sighing. The rock floor’s chill doused the heat she had ignited within him. “I must confess that I—”

“Not him. Dragon. When his men brought me to him, he insisted on making sure they hadn’t harmed me. That insistence…”

“Took a form you didn’t like.” A wave of battle fury shuddered through his body. He clenched his fists to keep it under control.

“Not exactly. I mean, I did not like it at the time; I was his prisoner and terrified of what he would do next. But you—what you were doing just now made me realize…I did enjoy it a little.” She poked her head and arms through the holes in the underdress and settled it about her with abrupt, angry tugs. “First Dragon, now you. Won’t Sir Robert be pleased to have such a whore as me.” Sighing harshly, she sat on the cavern’s floor, hugged her knees, and bowed her head.

“Kendra, I am Sir Robert,” he whispered.

The silence stretched so long that he began to believe she hadn’t heard him. As he opened his mouth to repeat his confession, she tipped her head back and loosed a peal of laughter that echoed throughout the chamber.

“A tempting fantasy…but no. You are Sir Lancelot, and I am the faithless whore Guinevere. It shall end as badly for us as it did for them, I think.” She pivoted toward him and laid her hand on his cheek. “But I do thank you for making me feel loved. Cherished. And happy, even if only for the briefest while.”

Alain drew a deep breath and held it as he pondered how to respond. But protesting was pointless as long as he bore no proof of his identity to show her. Expelling his breath through pursed lips, he wrapped his arms around her. She leaned into his embrace. In moments her breathing softened and slowed, and her limbs felt leaden against him. He gently moved her onto the makeshift bed, hating that he had no right to join her there.

In two languages he cursed himself for the fool he was. As he rose and groped toward the cavern’s entrance, he resolved to see Kendra safely home and prove his identity to her.

And to accept whatever consequences befell him as a result.

Chapter 11

G
RUNTING AND SWEATING, the next morning, Alain heaved the chest into place atop the others and stepped back to survey his idea.

“Will it work?” Raw desperation darkened Kendra’s tone.

Gazing at her tense face and disheveled hair and garments, he grieved to see the toll her ordeal had taken upon her angelic beauty. He swept an errant golden lock from her cheek, and she leaned into his touch. “I hope so.”

He climbed to the top of the stack, which put him chest high with the hole he’d chosen to attack. With the seax he poked into the crevices around the hole and pried loose a few fist-size rocks. Not a bad start, but even if he managed to enlarge it downward, the much shorter Kendra would still need help to reach it.

Concentrate on overcoming one obstacle at a time, he reminded himself as he set to work.

They fell into a routine, with him dislodging rocks and her catching and stacking them, working as silently as possible to reduce the risk of being overheard.

Minutes blended into hours with the mind-numbing repetition. He looked down at the pile and felt a surge of satisfaction at how large it had grown. Testing the hole’s width with his hands, he judged it a tight squeeze for him, though she ought to make it easily. He motioned for her to come up.

To his surprise, she held up a hand, retrieved the near-empty food sack, and scurried from the chamber. Shrugging, Alain set about digging out a few more chunks. She returned with the hound in tow, using the sack twisted into a lead. At the gallery’s entrance, the dog braced its feet, whining.

“Come on, you silly beast,” she coaxed. “Don’t you see we mean to free you?”

She opened her hand to display the last strip of dried beef and waved it before the dog’s nose. When it stretched to take the food, she stepped back a pace, murmuring words of encouragement. The dog whined again, but Kendra remained insistent.

When hunger overcame fear, the hound entered the chamber. Kendra kept backing up, and the dog kept pursuing, until she reached the stack of chests. The dog sat before her as she tore off a piece and offered it in the palm of her hand. With another piece, she encouraged the hound to stand with his paws braced on a chest in the stack.

Realizing her intent, Alain grasped the dog to haul it up, feeling a rush of panic as the chests shifted and his balance faltered. But the dog must have sensed its opportunity and found purchase for its paws, scrabbling to the top. Alain boosted the animal into the hole and watched it wriggle to freedom.

Frowning, he turned an ear toward the hole, trying to discern whether the dog was barking at intruders or expressing its joy in being released. He decided on the latter and signaled Kendra to ascend.

Her smile could have lit the cavern.

Upon tucking her skirts into her belt, she followed the hound’s path. Alain thrust out his hand to help her up the rest of the way, which she accepted with obvious gratitude.

His hands settled on her waist in preparation for lifting her to the hole, and he paused. Once they left this cave, he would have to make good on his vow to free her from the king’s command to marry Sir Robert de Bellencombre.

It was the last thing on earth he wanted to do, and yet after having failed to fulfill promises to those he loved, failing in this task was not an option.

He made the mistake of gazing too deeply into her alluring eyes, and a wave of longing crested and broke within his heart. Heedless of propriety, he sampled her sweet lips one last time, a kiss she returned with more passion than he deserved.

As she broke contact, unmistakable pain flashed across her face—pain he had caused her by being too bold, too male, and, ultimately, too Norman.

To say nothing of his being too deceptive and too downright stupid. Claws of self-loathing rent his soul.

“Alain? What have I done?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

I have wronged you, dearest Kendra, by deceiving you and loving you and wanting you so much that I ache to even look at you.
But he couldn’t voice that confession, not here, not now; not ever.

After turning her to face the rock, he gripped her waist and lifted her into the world where they never could be anything beyond polite acquaintances.

If giving her up was the right choice to make, he mused wretchedly as he watched her crawl through the hole, then why did he feel as if he had committed an unpardonable sin?