Never If Not Now - Madeline Hunter Page 0,27

would never violate his hospitality thus.”

“You assessed what it would take to gain entry through that solar.”

He opened a heavy oak door. “It is a natural reaction. We all are always thinking about war strategies.”

The door gave out to a garden that stretched from the castle proper to the wall that enclosed it. Bathed now in the evening’s light, gold washed the leaves and rose tinted the stones. A pear tree grew in the center to give shade in the afternoon, and shrubbery lined two paths that crossed, intersecting in the middle. Even in winter this would be a special place.

A fragrance drifted on the light breeze. She ventured down the center path toward the colors visible behind the shrubbery, in the back northern corner. A bed of flowers thrived here, with a cherry tree standing sentry against the wall.

She bent down and stuck her nose to some white roses, gleaming pink now in the setting sun’s last light. Their aroma intoxicated her.

She straightened, heady with the scent. The light had dimmed, and dusk’s gray light spread. “I should return to my camp.”

“No.”

She turned, surprised. Zander stood two arm spans away. He had been watching her revel in the flowers’ fragrance. Now the fading light cast his visage into the angles of a stone sculpture. He might be one, the way he towered there, tall and straight.

Except for his eyes. They were alive and full of lights that reflected his spirit. They now showed deep consideration.

“I should not dally,” she said, thinking that “No” presumptuous.

“He is sleeping off the wine. You can stay longer.”

“It grows dark. Soon the flowers will not be visible anyway.”

“Except one.” He took her hand and led her toward the wall. She did not go willingly but did not resist either. She would see this flower, then have him take her to her tent.

He stopped near the wall. She looked around. “I see no flower here.”

“I do.” He stepped closer. So close, she had to bend her neck to look up at his face.

Such a face it was. She had known him so long that she often forgot his beauty but now it looked down at her, his expression oddly stern and his mouth in a firm line. Stars brightened his eyes, but behind them, she saw a hunger. She understood suddenly what had been meant by Lady Judith being voracious. The men did not speak of ordinary hunger but of desire.

That was what she faced now, so obviously that she knew she should walk away quickly. Instead, his gaze mesmerized her, and enlivening thrills twirled inside her and caused her core to quicken.

It did not surprise her when he embraced her and pulled her close. His head dipped, and he kissed her hard, and she was in a spring garden not a summer one, and allowing the excitement of a young man’s want of her.

All evening, throughout the meal, the devil had worked his dark magic on Zander’s mind. He’d watched that Norse clumsily flatter Elinor, and heard her musical laughter. He noticed how older knights and lords watched her too. She had no dowry but that would matter not to some of them. Whether as wife or leman, there was a good chance she would be claimed before the week was out. Her beauty was so distinctive it caused men to look twice, and to wonder what removing her gown would reveal.

He could not stop that. Her father would take any settlement offered, in order to see her secure. Hugo might demand nothing at all for himself. The notion, once planted in Zander’s head, maddened his thoughts and left him angry and raw because there was one man her father would never countenance in any way, and that was Sir Alexander de Mandeville.

As soon as Sir Hugo issued his challenge, she would not have him either. A woman does not kiss the knight who might kill her father.

Claim her while you can. Bury yourself in her body so you are each a part of the other forever, and she never forgets you.

It was not a thought worthy of a knight. He didn’t care. His desire had only grown since he first saw her in that tent while he studied the woman’s things near the one pallet, and realized she was at the tournament. She plagued his dreams now, and he had already taken her, many times, in his mind. It was tonight or never, as he saw it, and never was unacceptable.

He pulled her