Fragments of Grace (Prequel to the Dragonblade Trilogy) (14 page)

Chloë felt his hot, gentle kisses
and her body began to tremble. His touch had an intoxicating effect on her and
she could feel herself collapsing, surrendering, as his mouth moved across her
chin.  He was close to her lips but he didn’t kiss her mouth, instead
continuing across her jaw to the other cheek. It was erotic, gentle and wholly
passionate as his kisses gained strength and moved across one eye and then the
other.  Chloë shivered, gasped, feeling every kiss like a thousand pinpricks of
light, filling her and illuminating her, waiting for the magic moment when he
would claim her mouth.

Keir was moving in that direction
and the taste of her, the feel of her, dissolved his control. She was warm and
sweet and delicious, better and more than he had ever tasted in his life. He
didn’t realize until he touched her how starved he was for her. He slanted his
mouth hungrily over her lips, his hands moving into her hair, holding her head
against him as his mouth ravaged hers. 

In his grip, Chloë whimpered softly
at the delight of his touch, her first experience with a man and his magic, and
she was not disappointed. In fact, she was wildly aroused by it.  The
beautiful, sheltered and proper young woman was coming out of her shell.  It
felt like the most natural of things, his lips against hers, his hands in her
hair. She knew she could learn to love it.  Her arms wound up around his neck
and she pulled him close.

Keir felt her respond to him and
it fed his lust.  He removed his hands from her hair and wrapped her big arms
around her body, pulling her up against him. His tongue licked at her lips,
begging for admittance, and she timidly opened her mouth because he was.  He
invaded her with his tongue, tasting her sweetness and losing himself
completely.  He’d spent so much of his time fighting his feelings for the woman
that now the dam had burst and everything was gushing forward.

Chloë held on to him tightly as
he flipped her onto her back, laying her on the mattress and covering her with
his enormous body.  His mouth was a wicked thing, sucking every thought from
her head as he tasted her passionately. His arms, massive strong things, were
around her but she could feel his hands moving, caressing her, exploring her
back and her torso.

She was enjoying his closeness,
her first foray into the world of passion, when his hand began to move across
her belly, up towards her breasts.  She could feel it getting closer and
closer, finally stroking the underside of her right breast.  As exciting and
titillating as it was, she also knew it wasn’t proper.  She did not want to be
groped by the man, no matter how attracted she was to him.  When he moved to
enclose her breast in his palm, she put up a hand and stopped him.

“Nay,” she breathed, tearing her
mouth away from his. “Please… you must not.”

Keir had been far gone with
passion, only aware of his strong reaction to Chloë and her sweet body. But as
she spoke, stopping his onslaught, he came to his senses enough to realize he
was moving for intimate places. He further realized that he fully intended to
bed the woman. There was no question in his mind. But as he pulled back and
gazed into her gorgeous, somewhat fearful face, his ardor cooled.

“Forgive me,” he whispered. “I
should not have taken such liberties but… Chloë, I cannot explain what I feel
for you, only that I do. I have not felt anything in three years, not since I
found the smoldering body of my wife and child and swore I would never feel
anything again.  But the first time I saw you, even as you were gouging at my eyes
and fighting me, something inside me reawakened.”

Chloë listened, wide-eyed. “You…
you
feel
something for me?”

He nodded, pushing himself off of
her and refusing to look at her.  He sat on the edge of the bed, looking rather
stiff and ill. Chloë sat up next to him, studying his powerful profile

 “What do you feel?” she
whispered.

He shook his head, hanging it. “I
do not know,” he muttered. “I can only tell you that it is soft and warm, and
it consumes me.  It is like nothing I have ever felt before and it scares me to
death.”

Bewildered, Chloë sat next to
him, trying to decipher his feelings as well as her own.  She had feelings,
too. It was not fair for him to be the only one forced into a confession.

“I have lived a very protected
and privileged existence,” she murmured. “Although Cassandra dreams of marrying
a man she loves, I have never had such dreams. My parents exist in marriage but
do not love one another. Love or emotion does not enter in to their bargain, as
it was arranged by their parents. My father explained to me many a time that
marriage is a contract and nothing more, and that is how I understand it.  But
you… you have changed that perspective for me. What a wonderful thing it must
be to be married to someone you adore.”

He did look at her, then, his
gaze moving over her spectacular face.  He shook his head in wonder.

“Do you have any concept of how
beautiful you are?” he breathed. “You are like an angel descended, the most
perfect woman God has ever created delivered right into our midst. You said Ingilby
calls you the goddess and, God’s Beard, the man is completely right in his
assessment. You are a goddess beyond my wildest dreams.”

She smiled faintly, a soft blush
mottling her cheeks. “You flatter me, my lord.”

He shook his head emphatically.
“It is not idle praise, I swear it. I mean every word. Every man that looks
upon you thinks the same thing but I have been given the honor of coming to
know you beyond your physical beauty and I will tell you again that you are the
most beautiful woman I have ever seen, inside and out.  The man who marries you
will be the most fortunate man in England, with God as my witness.”

Her smile grew, thinking he was
leading up to something very hopeful. “Would it be bold of me to ask if it is
your intention to be that fortunate man?”

He stared at her, looking rather
staggered by her question.  He rose from the bed, pacing towards the lancet
window as he ran his fingers through his cropped hair. There was nervousness to
his movements.  When he finally turned to look at her, there was great sorrow
in his eyes.

“I do not know,” he said
hoarsely. “I truthfully do not know if it can be me. All I know is that my
feelings for you are very powerful but I do not know if I am strong enough to
manage them.”

Her smile faded as she watched
his tense body language. “What does that mean?”

“It means that no matter what I
feel for you, I do not know if there can be anything between us,” he said,
shaking his head and averting his gaze. “I should not have kissed you but I
could not help myself. You are overwhelmingly sweet, Chloë. Perhaps… perhaps I
simply wanted to taste you. Perhaps I wanted to satisfy my curiosity. Perhaps I
wanted to know what I could never have.”

She was crushed, starting to tear
up. “Why can you never have me?”

He looked sharply at her, seeing
that she was growing upset.  He silently cursed himself for his tactless words
as he made his way back over to her. He was a truthful man but not always
diplomatic. He went to his knees before her, his big hands on her arms.

“Chloë, love, listen to me,” he
begged softly. “My wife and I loved each other. I had a glorious life with her
and my children. When she died, something in me died also, but the past few
days with you have seen a resurgence of those warm, wonderful feelings I once
knew, even greater than I ever experienced with Madeleine. It is true that I
loved the woman but when I look at you… God, I know I could love you so much
that it would rip my heart and body and soul to pieces to even be away from you
for a single minute.  You already consume me as Madeleine never did, not ever.
I cannot stomach to think of you with another man yet it scares me to death to
think of you with me. You would consume everything about me, Chloë. You would
become my all for living. But the fear of losing you as I lost my wife and
children terrifies me more than you can possibly comprehend. I survived the
loss of Madeleine and my children and by God’s good grace stand here before you
a sane man. But if something were to happen to you… I would explode into a
million pieces of heartbreak. There would be no recovery. My fear of that has
the better of me right now.”

Chloë stared at him, fat tears
rolling down her porcelain cheeks.  Her lower lip trembled and Keir clucked
softly, sympathetically, and gently wiped the tears away.  He pulled her into
his arms, kissing her cheeks gently.

“Do not cry, love,” he whispered
as she sobbed softly against him. “Please do not cry. I cannot bear it.”

Chloë sobbed deeply and threw her
arms around his neck, holding him fast.  “I want to go home,” she wept.

He held her tightly, rocking her
gently in the darkness of the night. “Your home is destroyed, sweetheart,” he
murmured. “You must stay here for now.”

She shook her head, suddenly
pulling away from him.  Her glorious hair was snagged on his mail and he tried
to pull it out even as she stood up, ripping strands from her head.

“Then send me to Aysgarth,” she
sobbed. “I cannot stay here with you. I cannot be with you… around you every
day and know there is no hope between us. I was so happy to come here with you
because I had hoped… oh, they were such foolish hopes but hopes nonetheless. I
hoped I could make you want me, that perhaps we could be happy together. All I
have known in my life are insufferable fools and old men who want to marry me
but you are everything I could ever dream of and more. I see something in you
that I want very much.”

Keir watched her, feeling
heartbroken and shaken. “As I see in you,” he insisted softly. “Perhaps… you
must give me time to understand this fear and reconcile it.  Perhaps in time….”

She shook her head, turning away
from him angrily. “I will return to Aysgarth tomorrow and marry Ingilby and be
done with it,” she wept furiously. “You are the only man I have ever felt anything
for, Keir, but if you do not want me, then I must leave here and never look
back. I cannot stay.”

Keir stiffened at the mention of Ingilby.
He was on her in three big strides, grabbing her by the arms and spinning her
around to face him.

“Listen to me and listen well,”
he growled. “You are not going to marry Ingilby, not ever. Do you understand
me?”

She struggled to break free from
his grip. “You cannot dictate whom I shall marry,” she snapped. “At least Ingilby
wants me.”

He wouldn’t let her get away. “I
never said that I did not want you,” he shook her, gently, in the hope she
would focus on him and stop struggling. “I want you in the worst way but I am
scared to death. I simply do not know what to do. If you cannot understand
that, I am not sure how I can explain it any better.”

She ripped her arms free of his
grasp and stumbled away from him, turning her back to him. “Go away,” she wept,
feeling weak and sorrowful more than angry.  She buried her face in her hands.
“Get out and leave me alone.”

Keir stood there, watching her
heaving shoulders and feeling as bad as he could possibly feel.  He didn’t want
to leave her, not like this, but he suspected they had moved past the point of
rational conversation for now. She was upset and exhausted, and he was confused
as hell. But he just couldn’t let her go.

Slowly, silently, he walked up
behind her.  He didn’t want to put his hands on her and risk another physical
struggle so he bent down, slowly, and gently shoved his face into the left side
of her head.  Chloë weakly tried to move her head away from him but she didn’t
go far; Keir pressed his face against her hair, his nose inhaling her sweet,
musky fragrance.

“Please do not hate me,” he
murmured. “I want to love you, Chloë, I swear it. I just need… time….”

She burst into a new round of
sobs, tears streaming down her face.  Keir threw his arms around her and she
didn’t resist. He rocked her gently, feeling the sobs wrack her body, wishing
he hadn’t upset her so. But he had been truthful.

After several minutes of holding
her close, he swept her into his arms and carried her back to the bed, laying
her gently upon the mattress.  He pulled the covers up over her, tucked her in
tightly, and then lay next to her on top of the coverlet.  Putting his big arms
around her, he pulled her close against his chest and buried his face in the
back of her head.

Chloë didn’t resist.  More tears
ensued as she reckoned it would be the closest she was able to get to the man,
right here, right now, in this little bed in the spooky, shadowed chamber.  She
would take what she could get, if even for a stolen moment.  Her hand came up,
reaching up to touch his cheek as he buried himself in her head.  He kissed her
hand repeatedly, his big fingers coming up to intertwine in her small, soft
fingers.  He hand her hand to his lips, holding her tightly in the darkness,
until she fell asleep.

Keir stayed awake all night. He
didn’t want to miss a minute of having the woman in his arms.  He wondered, if
he held her long enough, if his fear would go away. 

Unfortunately, it only grew
worse.