The Rose and The Warrior (19 page)

She stared at the scarlet-and-black wool draped over the smooth rise of his hip. His plaid was lying high upon the thickly muscled length of his thigh. It would not take more than a small, feathery tug to ease the fabric up and bare his buttock for her examination. His sleep seemed genuinely deep, so surely such a swift, whispering sensation would not rouse him. After all, he had probably imbibed generously of the ale that had flowed that night, thereby dulling his senses. And as a warrior accustomed to sleeping on the hard ground with the wind whipping over him, it seemed unlikely he would be awakened by something so trivial as the slight shifting of his own plaid. Just one quick glance to assure herself that his wound was not festering. Then she would immediately cover him again and he would never know.

She moved in silence behind him, then tentatively grasped a fold of fabric. The wool was heated through by Roarke's body, and felt pleasantly warm against her chilled fingertips. She hesitated a moment, debating the merits of slowly skimming the cloth up as opposed to a swift pull. As she considered this Roarke shifted, inadvertently moving his plaid without any effort from her at all. Encouraged that her task was now even simpler, Melantha eased the plaid up, slowly unveiling the hard, sinewy curves of Roarke's backside.

“Good evening, milady. Was there something you wanted?”

She gasped with horror and whipped his plaid down.

“Thank you,” said Roarke. “It was getting drafty in here.”

“I only wanted to see your wound!” Melantha blurted out, stepping guiltily away from him.

He raised a skeptical brow.

“I wanted to be sure it wasn't festering,” she explained.

He said nothing, but regarded her with an infuriatingly amused look.

“It seems to be—healing well,” she finished helplessly. Her cheeks scalding with mortification, she hurried toward the door.

“Was that the only reason for your visit, milady?” enquired Roarke mildly.

Her hand gripping the latch, Melantha hesitated. It was not possible to stay and thank him for saving Matthew—not when he had caught her in the act of looking up his plaid. But it was far worse to flee and have him think she had slipped into his prison for the sole purpose of clandestinely examining his buttocks.

“I wanted to speak with you,” she admitted, trying to piece together the tatters of her dignity.

Myles sleepily cracked open an eye. “What's happening?”

“Melantha has come down to visit us,” explained Roarke cheerfully.

“At this hour?” muttered Donald, not bothering to lift his lids.

Eric groaned and forced himself to raise his head. “Is something amiss?”

Melantha cast Roarke a pleading look. If he told his men he had caught her lifting his plaid, she would surely die.

“Everything is fine,” Roarke assured them. “Go back to sleep.”

Their heads still pounding from the effects of too much drink, they happily complied.

“Now, then, milady,” said Roarke, propping himself up comfortably on his elbow, “what was it you wanted to discuss?”

Again, she hesitated. She could not thank him here, not with his men half listening and him lounging on his bed. The chamber suddenly seemed insufferably small, the atmosphere taut and unnaturally silent.

“I would prefer to speak to you in private,” she said, attempting to assert a modicum of control over the situation. Not waiting for his response, she quit the chamber.

“You should speak to Gelfrid about sleeping on his watch,” advised Roarke, studying his snoring guard as he entered the hallway.

Melantha locked the door to his cell and slipped the key into her boot. “Everyone is unusually tired this evening,” she murmured. “We will move farther down the passage, so we do not waken him.”

She moved swiftly along the dimly lit corridor, then rounded a corner, leading him deeper into the cool silence of the lower level. She walked with her back to him and her weapons sheathed, acutely aware that he could overpower her at any moment and steal the key to the storeroom, and absolutely certain that he would not.

When they reached a final sputtering torch, she stopped.

Roarke regarded her with curiosity. There was no mockery to his expression now, perhaps because he sensed her unease and had no desire to intensify it. His manner was admirably relaxed, as if there were nothing peculiar about her rousing him in the middle of the night and leading him into the very bowels of the castle.

Melantha dropped her gaze to the earthen floor, suddenly uncertain. All day and into the evening she had thanked God for saving Matthew. Over and over she had silently prayed as she bathed her brother's cuts and soothed them with healing ointment. She had thanked God for saving Matthew as her brother lay staring at her with huge, frightened eyes, and she had thanked God even more when the lad finally fell asleep, his hands clutching his blankets as if he feared falling from his pallet. She had refused to leave him even for a moment, telling herself he might waken and need her, but knowing deep within her soul that she also needed to be with him. She needed to skim her fingers soothingly over his bruised brow and cheek, to clasp his small, scraped hand tight within hers, to adjust the thin plaid covering his too-slender frame for the hundredth time. And when her three brothers lay peacefully slumbering, their smooth faces as innocent and serene as angels, she had thanked God again, for bringing her brothers into her life, and for always keeping them safe.

Her life had not been long, but she had already learned the harsh lessons of loss. If not for Daniel, Matthew, and Patrick, she did not think she would have been able to survive. Children had a way of piling layers over even the most excruciating anguish, she reflected with tender sadness. There were those endlessly exhausting layers of constant need, for food and clothing and beds and attention. And there were layers of wonderfully simple pleasures, like lying together on the sun-warmed grass watching the sky drift by, or seeing who could hold their breath the longest, or turning over a rock and watching the scurrying village of bugs beneath. And then there were those exquisite layers of pure, overwhelming love, which arose every time she watched her brothers sleeping, or heard them laugh, or dried their tears.

As she had guarded them tonight, feeling her love wrap protectively around her small charges, she had realized that if not for Roarke, the very foundation of her deeply injured life might well have been destroyed that day. She was a strong woman and capable of enduring much, but the limits of her fortitude did not extend to her brothers. They were her strength, her happiness, her life. And that life could not suffer any more losses.

If Matthew had died, she would not have been able to bear it.

“Melantha?”

Roarke's voice was low and rough with concern, as if he could feel her despair. She swallowed thickly and blinked, fighting the hot tears threatening to spill from her eyes. This was not how she wanted to appear before him.

“What's wrong?” he demanded softly, resisting the impulse to reach out and caress her pale cheek with the back of his fingers.

“Nothing is wrong.” She inhaled a ragged breath, steadying her emotions. “Matthew is a little scraped and frightened, but he sleeps soundly now and will be fine.”

He waited.

“He could have died today,” she finally murmured, the words small and strained. “He could have slipped from the parapet and been broken on the ground below in but a few seconds. It happens, you know,” she insisted, as if she thought he were about to argue the point. “Children fall all the time. They climb trees, or scramble up rocks, or foolishly balance themselves atop a wall. And most of the time they get down and they are perfectly fine, and their parents don't ever know about it. But sometimes they fall and are killed. And their parents are left to suffer in hell for the rest of their lives, thinking they will go mad from the agony of it.”

She wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly cold.

“He didn't fall, Melantha.”

“No, he didn't,” she agreed, her voice quivering. “Or at least he didn't fall far. Because you were there to grab him. A MacTier.” She shook her head in bewilderment, unable to comprehend the irony of it. “You were there to fling yourself over the parapet and bring him back to safety. You risked yourself to save his life. Why?” she whispered, raising her gaze to his. “What was one more life, when your clan has already destroyed so many?”

“That was battle, Melantha,” he told her simply. “A battle in which I was not a participant.” It seemed important to remind her of that, even though she had already told him his absence didn't matter. Perhaps he also needed to remind himself. “And even if I had been, it would not have changed what I did today.”

“You are an enemy here,” she protested, desperate to keep the lines between them clean and deeply cut. “A MacTier.”

“That is true,” he agreed, moving toward her.

“You came to crush my band, and if you'd been able, you would have killed me that day we fought in the woods,” she continued, backing away from him. The cool stones of the wall pressed into her, arresting her retreat.

“You were every bit as determined to kill me.” He reached out and gently brushed a dark strand of her hair away from her face. “Remember?”

His fingers were warm against her skin, warm and filled with gentle strength. It was wrong to stand there and endure his touch, and yet she found she couldn't move, could scarcely even draw a breath as he held her steady with nothing more than the raw desire emanating from him.

“Why?” she whispered. A single, anguished tear trickled down the pale softness of her cheek. “Why did you save my brother, knowing you might die yourself?”

He captured the tear with his thumb, then brushed a tender kiss on her cheek where he had found it. “I did it for Matthew,” he murmured, his voice rough. “And I did it for you,” he added, grazing his lips across her other tearstained cheek. “And believe it or not, Melantha, I did it for me. Because somewhere deep inside this weary warrior's soul of mine, I like to believe I still know the difference between right and wrong.” He held her by her shoulders and searched the glimmering depths of her eyes, knowing he had exposed a fragment of his soul to her, yet wanting to have this moment of honesty between them. “Do you find that so impossible to believe?”

His gaze was pleading, even tormented. The air hung frozen between them as he waited for her response. Yesterday it would have been easy for her to answer his question, for she had believed she knew exactly who and what he was. But that was before he had bravely dangled fifty feet above the ground, his body straining as he lunged toward the earth and pulled her beloved brother from certain death. In that moment he had shown himself for what he really was. A warrior who would risk everything for a child he barely knew.

Because he had a compassionate heart.

Her tears began to fall in hot, pain-filled streams. She bowed her head, vainly trying to hide her anguish from him.

Her distress cut him to the bone. He could only imagine the depths of her suffering, although he knew what it was to lose those one loved. But he had tried to escape the ruins of his domestic life, while Melantha had been forced to stay and assume responsibility for those left behind. Not only for her brothers but for everyone in her clan, whom she desperately tried to feed and clothe with every scrap of cloth and morsel of food she procured as the Falcon. It was an awesome, daunting task, and one that she performed with steely courage and uncomplaining resolve. He was suddenly filled with a desire to tell her how fine she was, how brave and strong and rare. But he feared the words would sound meager and hollow coming from him. After all, he was a MacTier. If not for the actions of his clan, she would never have suffered the atrocities she and her people had endured. But for his people, her father would still be alive, her clan would be well fed and well clothed, and she would not bear the jagged scars of fear and deprivation and hatred. He had not been part of that fateful raid on her clan, but it did not matter, he realized harshly. He had lived his life as a warrior, and had raided and ruined countless lives as his legacy.

Self-loathing poured through him, making him feel sick.

“I'm sorry, Melantha,” he murmured, releasing his hands from her shoulders. “Forgive me.” He began to turn away.

Melantha thought she was falling, so acute was the sudden void swirling around her. She did not understand the emotions gripping her, except that she suddenly felt tiny and fragile and alone, and she couldn't bear it. She threw her arms around the solid expanse of Roarke's shoulders and buried her face into his chest, letting a sob escape her throat.
Stay,
she pleaded silently, feeling as if she were being crushed from within.
Please stay.

Roarke froze, uncertain.

And then he closed his arms around her and ground his lips savagely against hers.

She did not fight him, but pushed herself even farther into his embrace, as if she wanted to be completely enveloped by his heat and strength. Roarke groaned and deepened his kiss, tasting the honey-sweet darkness of her mouth, inhaling the clean, sun-washed scent of her skin, feeling the willowy lean softness of her pressing against him. He tore his lips away to rain a trail of kisses upon her silky cheek, the delicate curve of her jaw, the cool column of her pale neck. His fingers found the laces at the top of her linen shirt and swiftly bared the creamy skin of her throat. A slender silver chain lay draped around her neck, bearing a small silver orb with a shimmering stone of deepest emerald. It surprised him to see that she secretly wore a pendant of such beauty, for it was not like Melantha to indulge in something so frivolous. He nuzzled his way beneath it, thinking it could not be of any value, for if it had she would certainly have sold it for food or blankets or weapons. His tongue drew hot, wet circles across the smooth silk of her while he opened her shirt even farther, until finally the pale swells of her breasts were released into his hands. He grazed his rough jaw against their incredibly fine softness, reveling in the feel of something so lush against his weathered skin. Taking one coral-tipped bud into his mouth, he began to suckle.