Reckless (Age of Conquest #5) - Tamara Leigh Page 0,60

her head, rose to her knees, and seeing his face before hers, eyes shot with the blood of raging and mourning, set her hands on his shoulders and pressed her mouth to his.

A hundred times a fool Vitalis named himself for letting happen what happened, and yet when he should have set her back, apologized for touching what was untouchable in Norman-ruled England, and left her to her own regrets, he did not.

He pulled her nearer, angled his head, and opened his mouth on hers. He knew she had some experience with men, at least Bjorn, but her little gasps of surprise and flexing and splaying hands on his shoulders asking what part they were to play, revealed innocence whose layers still numbered many. And that stopped him ahead of other considerations—and there were several that would have done so had he pushed past this.

He lifted his head and set her back. There should have been no need for words, but when she opened her eyes, she also opened her mouth and spoke what he had wished to hear from only one woman.

“I love you. I know I should not, but my heart says it is so.”

Now he named himself a thousand times a fool—and cruel for encouraging what was merely infatuation. Aye, this was the fault of one ten years older, and the only way he could think to set it right was with further cruelty.

He stood and, meeting her wide-eyed gaze, said, “Should I, of low race, be flattered by that declaration?”

Her brow grooved. “I do not understand.”

“I speak of your sacrifice—that you, a Norman lady, think to aid in breeding the Saxon out of me.”

She gasped. “I am not the same as that foul De Warenne, and certainly I did not offer that of my body. I would not! I but spoke what is true—what I feel for you.” She pushed upright. “Do you not feel the same or…something?”

He eased his jaw and switched to her language to better impress his words upon her. “I am not in the habit of lying to women to gain their favors. There was satisfaction in tasting your mouth, and your eagerness to taste mine fed this man’s pride, but I do not feel what you profess to feel.”

She swallowed loudly. “Mayhap not now, but in time…”

“Never, Nicola. It is not possible as you ought to know since your brother, Guarin, knows it well.”

Her frown deepened. “What does he know?”

“My first love is my last love—Lady Hawisa.”

Her gaze wavered, lips pressed and parted. “I heard rumor of such, but she is another man’s wife and loves him as he loves her.”

He raised his eyebrows. “I accept she is out of my reach, and I wish them a good life. However, acceptance does not render dead feelings for her that allow no room for others—especially infatuation that believes itself love ere it flits to the next man who excites by awakening a woman who seeks to become a wife.”

Cruel Vitalis, he condemned himself as moistening eyes moved from disbelief to hurt to shame, then toward striking back to wound him as he wounded her. And that was what he wanted—the distraction of anger that would make what remained of their days together more uncomfortable but sooner see her withdraw her feelings from him.

She lowered her chin, and he was surprised by how long it took her to lose the struggle against flinging words at him, surely among them Saxon pig. And more surprised—and regretful of his baiting—when the face she raised was absent anger.

“I hope you are right that this is only infatuation which shall pass now you have been considerate in not casting hope on infertile ground.” Her smile was tight. “If it does not, I shall be consoled that just as you survive an unfulfilled heart, so may I. And one day should I stand before a man as you stand before me now, mayhap I will be as wise in quickly putting an end to what I do not want from him.” She breathed deep. “As I learn more from you what shall serve me well in years to come, I thank you.”

When he did not respond, she started past but looked around. “Believe this, Vitalis—did you feel for me what I am wrong in feeling for you…did I seek to be your wife and were it possible you could become my husband, far more the Norman I would wish bred out of me than the Saxon out of