Elizabeth Elliott (43 page)

The sight alone drew him forward, the request for help
no more than an added incentive. His hands went to the laces that trailed from the gown’s waist, but he did not tighten them. “First tell me why you will not talk to me.”

“I am talking to you now,” she said, in an overly bright tone.

He pushed her braid aside, then trailed his fingers down the length of her spine, pleased to feel her shiver. “You know what I mean.”

“And you surely know how ill the poison made me.” Her voice sounded unsteady, and he continued to brush his fingertips over her velvety skin in light, erotic strokes. “I was very tired from the ordeal.”

Her soft sigh made him smile. For the past few days he had started to wonder if her brother had poisoned more than her body, if Dante’s words had somehow hardened her heart against him. The realization that his touch still had the same effect on her eased his worries considerably. He leaned down and pressed a kiss along the slender column of her neck. “I am glad to find you so recovered, for we have much to discuss.”

“I know.” She sounded defeated. He wrapped his arms around her waist and held her close, careful of her injured shoulder. She leaned her head against his shoulder and released another sigh, but there was nothing sensual about the sound. It was the sound of sadness.

His cheek came to rest against her hair. “Everything will work itself out, Claudia. I will not let Dante take you away from me.”

She stiffened in his arms and tried to step away, but he held her fast. “I cannot stay with you, Guy. What you want was never meant to be. I see that now.”

Guy drew a deep, shuddering breath. “Is there no hope that you will forgive me?”

She spoke in such a hushed voice that he had to lean closer to hear her. “I forgave you two days ago.”

“Sweet saints, I worried that it would take you much longer.” He felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted
from his shoulders, and closed his eyes for a silent prayer of thanks. He brushed his fingers over the soft velvet of her cheek, and knew she felt none of the relief that coursed through him. “What is it, love? Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

She held his hand to her cheek, and tilted her head until it rested in his palm. “Because nothing will change the fact that I cannot marry you.”

“Aye, you can and you will.” He wanted nothing more than to hold her tight against him. He settled for a small but passionate kiss behind her ear.

Her grip on his hand tightened. “Please, Guy. If you have any care for me, do not force a marriage between us. I–I could not live with myself if you or my brother died because of me. If we marry, one of you is sure to die. Dante vowed as much.”

“I intend to change his mind on that score.”

“You do not know him,” she said, a frantic edge to her voice. “
I
do not know him anymore. He will not listen to anything I try to tell him. You are a Montague. That alone is reason enough to make him hate you. His promise to the king protects you now, but he will only goad you into another challenge. Failing that, he will make certain some illness or accident befalls you in such a way that all may suspect him, but none can prove him responsible for the deed.” She gave him a knowing look over one shoulder. “Your brothers will know who to blame, and soon enough we will all find ourselves dead.”

He wanted to shake her for such morbid thoughts, and knew well enough who put them there. He should have pushed Dante into the river when he had his chance. “My brothers will never make the same mistake they made at Montague,” he assured her. “They know now that you would give your life to spare mine. Already they have pledged any support I need to make you my wife. As for Dante, I will see that he does not interfere with our marriage.” The way she stiffened in his arms made him scowl. “Much as he might tempt me otherwise, your brother will not die at my hands. If
he does not show sense soon and agree to our marriage, I will make his life as miserable as he would make yours.”

That did nothing to relax her tensed body. “What will you do to him?”

He pictured Dante chained to the wall of his dungeon, then on one of his ships, also in chains, with the ends of the earth as its destination. For Claudia’s sake, he hoped Dante chose Italy, where he could slake his need for vengeance on Lorenzo. “Several ideas come to mind, but I have not yet decided. Until I can work out the details, he will remain my prisoner.”

“You expect me to agree with this plan?”

“ ’Tis only a plan that Dante will enact if he refuses my latest offer,” he told her. “Your brother holds the key to his own freedom.”

“And when he refuses your offer?”

“I expect you will disagree with anything I decide upon until you recall that Dante would prefer that you be imprisoned in a convent for the rest of your life, that he would do his best to make you a widow and very possibly carry out his blind vindictiveness on any child I might give you.” His fingers caught a stray wisp of hair near her temple, and he rubbed the silky lock between his fingers. He took a deep breath to savor the scent of roses. “Given time, I believe your anger over my decision will fade to pity for your brother. You will grieve for him, but you will know that he left me no other choice.”

“I have tried everything I know to make him realize you will not be swayed from your decision, yet he is as stubborn as you, my lord.”

“Aye, that he is,” Guy admitted. “Over the past five days I have tried every reasonable tactic and a few truly desperate ones to settle this matter in some manner that would allow you to see him on occasion. So far, Dante refuses to consider a truce, and he seems determined to make an enemy of me. If he does not change his mind on that score, he will pay the price.”

“Am I to have no choice in this matter?” she asked. “Just as Dante would give me no control over my future, now you will decide my fate?”

His harsh expression dissolved. He turned her in his arms to look into her eyes. “Do you really want the choice of which man’s life to ruin? Do you want to bear the burden of deciding your brother’s fate, or would you rather decide mine? You are my heart, Claudia. I might live without you, but I would never be whole.”

A sudden gust of wind ruffled the walls of the tent, as if the earth itself sighed to see her look so sad. Tears shimmered in her eyes as she lifted her hand to stroke his cheek. “How can such beautiful words sound so cruel?”

“The truth is seldom kind, my love.” He cupped her face in his hands and brushed away her tears with his thumbs. “I know you love your brother, flawed as he is, and I think you love me as well. In my mind it would be cruder to make you decide between us than to make the decision for you.”

He sensed her lingering indecision, and knew he was deliberately tearing her heart in two. He had already laid his own heart bare to her. If he was wrong about her love, he had just handed her the weapons to destroy him. There was no other way. The merchant in him had tried to bargain with the devil. The warrior had brought an army to show the force behind his words. If she were not injured, he would use all the sensual skills of a lover to seduce her into his arms. Yet he wanted to possess not only her body, but her very soul. He wanted her to know that he would use every means known to win those treasures. Most of all, he wanted her trust.

“If I thought Dante might have any reasonable amount of concern for your safety and welfare, I would not do this,” he went on. “Yet I know what your life would be like in his care, the dangers he would expose you to through his enemies. You do not deserve to pay for the mistakes he made in his life, nor do I. You have my promise that I will be as lenient with Dante as possible under the circumstances, but I must
be certain that he will never again be in a position to interfere with our lives.”

She lowered her lashes, and her thoughts were concealed from him. He held his breath and waited. If she insisted on the matter, he would put the choice in her hands. He could not force her to stay with him. Not if he wanted her love. And he wanted that very badly. He had an awful feeling she would choose that miserable cur of a brother out of some misguided sense of loyalty. If Dante refused his latest bait, how could he possibly let her go?

“What about the king? What will Edward do when he learns you hold Dante prisoner?”

He simply stared at her, trying to absorb the fact that she would let him decide her fate. She trusted him. She did love him, and nothing her brother said or did had changed that fact. He wanted to shout his relief, to crush her to his chest and hold her there always, to—

“The king?” she prompted.

“Oh. Aye, well …” He cleared his throat and tried to concentrate on her question. He would much rather hear that she loved him. “Your brother thinks his connection to the king will protect him, but he does not comprehend my own. Edward will object to my plans for Dante, but in the same breath he will list a reason or two why I am due a favor. Thus Edward will let me know which debts he considers paid, and in exchange he will turn a blind eye to the matter.”

“The king owes you money? I thought him a wealthy man.”

“The king is very wealthy,” he agreed, “but most wealthy men owe debts of some sort or another, and even kings have their price.”

“You bought a
king?
”

“You miss my meaning,” he said, chuckling at the idea. “I did not give the king a sack of gold and say, ‘You now owe me five hundred florins, your majesty.’ A king’s debts are incurred with much more subtlety. In the course of my trade, I travel to the courts of many kings and noblemen, as do the
men who represent me. On occasion I am privy to information of interest to Edward that he would not learn from another; a king with designs on Edward’s holdings in Normandy, a nobleman with designs on his daughter, a cousin with designs on his throne. It is my duty to inform my sovereign and liege lord of any threat, and a wise lord does not let a vassal’s duty go unrewarded. There are also debts incurred of a more monetary nature, but a king needs the eyes and ears of a faithful subject far more often than he needs gold.”

“No wonder you believe anyone can be bought.”

She did not sound the least awed by the power he held. That was another reason he loved her. He had legions of men in his hire who would follow his orders without question, people who would agree with anything he said simply to gain his favor, or cower before him to appease his anger. Claudia would always stand proudly, even defiantly, at his side. His equal in all things. He looked into the gemlike brilliance of her eyes, and knew that he had found his match.

“You are the only one in this world who is priceless to me.”

“You made some mention of your heart,” she said. The beginnings of a shy smile touched her lips. “ ’Tis a fine treasure you give me. Do you think my own heart will be fair compensation?”

“Aye,” he murmured, as he lowered his head. He captured her lips for a long, satisfying kiss. “ ’Tis more than a fair trade.”

“I love you, Guy.”

It seemed he had waited a lifetime to hear those words, and held very still as they washed over him like a gentle balm. His throat constricted, and he could not return the words of love that welled up inside him. She seemed to sense his distress, and she twined her good arm around his neck, then she pulled him closer to offer another taste of her sweetness. He accepted the offer without hesitation, as a starved man would enter a feast. His hands moved of their own accord,
encircling her waist, then drifting lower to explore the enticing shape of her hips. Somehow he managed to resist the urge to enfold her in his arms, to feel her soft body pressed against the hard contours of his own. The sling around her left arm reminded him that he would hurt her if he gave in to those urges. The sensual things she did to his mouth made it hard to hold onto that thought. She ravished him with her kisses, and he let her, knowing that her frantic urgency had as much to do with desire as the need to reassure herself that he wasn’t going anywhere, that he would be with her always. He returned her kisses with the same urgency.

His resolve weakened, and he made himself picture what her shoulder had looked like just a few short days ago, the image that would be branded forever into his memory just as surely as she would forever wear the brand of Dante’s knife. After all the upheaval in her life of late, she needed gentle comforting, to be held for no reason but quiet companionship. She felt very companionable in his arms, all warm, womanly curves. He delighted in the seductive caresses along his neck, the provocative way she rubbed her hand across his chest, then he panicked when her hand charted a steady course downward. She was deliberately trying to seduce him.

She was about to succeed.

He grabbed her hand and dragged it back to his chest. “Nay, love. Not this time.”

“I need you.” Her voice was a husky whisper, the measured kisses along his neck blatantly carnal, yet somehow sweet and innocent at the same time. They drove him mad. “Make love to me, Guy. Please. Make me forget everything but what I feel when I am in your arms.”

Guy heard himself groan. “You would feel a great deal of pain as well, vixen. I will do nothing that will hurt you.”

“Then kiss me,” she said, as she worked her way toward his mouth. “Just one more kiss. Or two.”

Or three, as it turned out. Guy tried to recall what it was like to have a will of his own, how he could resist the charms of any other woman, only to succumb so easily to the one in
his arms. Already his mind raced to think of ways he could make love to her without touching her shoulder or putting any pressure on her wound. He was perverse even to consider the notion. Her kisses turned his blood to liquid fire. A voice from the opening of the tent turned it to ice.

“Your mauling does my sister’s injury no good, Montague.”

Claudia gasped and whirled to face her brother. She made a small, squeaking sound, then grasped the forgotten laces of her gown and dangled them toward Guy. “ ’Tis not what it seems, Dante. I could not lace my gown alone, and asked Guy for his help. Then, well, one thing led to another, and I asked him to kiss me.”