questions about you, however, and I am convinced he thinks I know you only as an outlaw, not as his brother.”
“He … has not touched you … or harmed you in any way?”
Servanne looked up into his eyes, wondering how much longer her legs could support her, trembling as badly as they were. “Would you have cared if he had?”
“Of course I would care.” He caught the gruffness in his voice and forced it behind a flat grin. “I would care for the safety of your neck, my lady.”
“Only my neck?”
His jaw tautened to a ridge of corded sinew and a small blue vein leaped to prominence in his temple. Her hood had slipped back, baring the gleaming gold crown of her hair to the light, and he had a sudden, clear image of it scattered around her naked shoulders, clinging to both their bodies as they lay twined together in the steamy dampness of the grotto.
But it passed in the next instant and a clearer image of a jousting field took shape, and the gold of her hair was replaced by the crimson of spilled blood.
“You should not have come here tonight,” he said again, harshly. “I only agreed because I offered La Seyne as a means of protection if you were hurt or required help in some way. Since you look remarkably healthy, my lady, and if, as you say, everyone has been civil and polite—”
“Your brother,” she interrupted sharply, “shows even less emotion than you—if such a thing is possible.”
She turned her back on him, shielding her outburst behind the cloud of yellow hair that had worked its way free of the braid.
“His expression rarely changes from one hour to the next,” she continued bitterly. “Yet I have seen his mere presence reduce a burly man to a mass of cowering fright. The castle is full of fear; the halls and chambers are thick with it, the air reeks of it. To me, he has been polite, yes, but there is a coldness in him, an underlying evil, sinister and cruel … traits I might not have seen or looked for had you not planted the seeds of suspicion in my mind. Now that you have, how am I to deal with it? How can I be expected to go through with the wedding, or be the smiling, dutiful wife he has contracted? And if he comes into my bed at night and touches me—”
“There will be no wedding, by Christ,” the Wolf exclaimed. “And if he touches you … if he touches you—” he grasped her by the shoulders and spun her around so that the shadows no longer concealed her features. What he saw, glowing in her eyes, caused the grip of his fingers to squeeze hard enough to promise bruising.
Servanne de Briscourt was smiling. Tears studded her lashes like tiny sparkling gemstones, but she was smiling.
“You do care,” she cried happily. “You do. You do!”
His jaw flexed. His hands tightened and the gleam in his eyes flared with anger.
“No,” he snarled. “No, you are wrong.”
“Am I? Then push me away. Tell me you pray God you never need lay eyes on me again, never need touch me again, never need hold me or feel your body moving deep inside me. Tell me you want no part of this heart that beats so strongly within my breast. Tell me all of that, my lord, with your eyes as well as your lips, and I will walk out the door and never look back. It will be no easy task, for I have only just begun to realize my life will be nothing without you. But I will do it. I will obey your every command to wipe your memory from my heart … if it is what you want me to do.”
The years of hardening himself, years of conditioning himself to feel nothing, betray nothing, reveal nothing of his emotions, were slipping away with each warm, shiny tear that escaped her lashes. His hands squeezed until he felt bone, and he started to push her away. He started … even managed to gain an inch or two of freedom before a pent-up breath exploded from his lungs and he dragged her forward, dragged her into his embrace, into the hungry caress of his lips.
Their mouths came eagerly together. Their arms circled one another, clasping each other tightly, desperate to bring their bodies as close as life and breath would allow. He kissed her deeply again