Heart of the Flame (30 page)

He soon followed her over the edge of a shuddering climax, thrusting hard, his hands gripping her pelvis in a bruising frenzy. At the last moment, when she would have done anything to hold him there, he withdrew from her on a coarse shout, denying her the heated spill of his seed.

When the cool air of the chamber fanned her naked backside, she realized he had turned away from her entirely. She pivoted from her prone position over the chair to find him hitching up his breeches. He glanced at her only briefly, coolly, she thought, then focused his attention on finishing getting dressed.

Haven eased her rucked skirts down in a state of uncertainty. A sudden emptiness pressed down on her, worsened by the impersonal look in Kenrick's eyes as he poured himself the last of the wine and downed it in a single gulp.

"Kenrick," she began, more worried now than when she had first come there. "This had not been my intention--"

"Nor mine, I assure you," he agreed, his voice devoid of all feeling.

Her nerves jangled with alarm to see him go from furious passion to chilling remoteness. He set the empty cup down on the table, then casually walked to his desk across the solar and seated himself behind it. The large piece of heavy, carved wood stood between them like a portcullis dropped on the castle courtyard.

"I had hoped we might talk..."

At her trailing voice, he lifted his head, frowning. "I have much that requires my attention, Haven. We'll talk after the sup tonight."

She stood there for a moment, stunned that he was shutting her out so coldly. Aloof as ever, stoically detached, he was once more the unreachable lord. The same forbidding man she had first encountered upon awaking in this unfamiliar place.

"Kenrick--"

"Tonight, Haven," he said again, then picked up a goose quill and began writing on a square of parchment as if she had already left the room.

Chapter 23

"Oh, my. I knew the gown would suit you." Ariana beamed at Haven, stepping back to allow her room to swish the flowing skirts of the iridescent green kirtle. With a smile dancing in her eyes and a gentle hand at Haven's elbow, she turned her to face the tall looking glass stand. "'Tis a perfect fit. Lovely beyond words."

Haven gazed into the unfamiliar reflection and saw an image of dazzling unreality standing before her.

"I take it you approve?" Ariana asked, coming up to stand at Haven's shoulder and meeting her gaze in the smooth pane of glass.

"Yes, of course I approve. It is beautiful."

"Then it's yours."

"Mine?" Haven turned to look at her, astonished at the generosity Ariana continued to show her. "I...I don't know what to say. This is...an extraordinary gift. You have given me so much already. I don't think I should accept--"

"Nonsense." Kenrick's sister gave her a stern look that held more humor than fire. Her delicate hands came to rest on the small rise of her belly. "'Twill be close to a year before I am able to wear the gown, so there is no point in letting the moths get it in the meanwhile."

"Ariana," Haven said, shaking her head. "You are very generous to offer, so thoughtful, but I--"

"No more protests, I insist. The gown is my gift to you, Haven." She reached out and squeezed her hand. "Accept it as my friend...and my sister-to-be."

Unable to keep from admiring the stunning kirtle with its gold-shot embroidery and liquid, elegant skirts, she spun once more to the looking glass. Not even Anavrin magic could conjure the feeling of euphoria she felt wearing such an exquisite garment.

As she pivoted and posed, permitting herself a moment of childlike giddiness, Ariana brought a brush and began combing through the unbound tangle of Haven's hair. "Shall we put it up tonight?" she asked, lifting the mass of auburn waves into an improvised crown atop Haven's head.

It might have been a good idea, were it not for the necklace of bruises that still ringed her throat. They had faded in the time she'd been at Clairmont, but even in the dim light of the ladies' chamber, the marks were unmistakable. Some of Haven's joy evaporated at the sight of them. It was almost easy to forget they were there, to deny where they had come from...and why.

Very gently, Ariana let the glossy tresses fall back down around Haven's shoulders. She arranged one long strand so that it curled around the front of her neck, artfully masking one of the darkest of the remaining bruises. "'Twill be pretty no matter how you wear it. And I have a pendant that will look stunning against your creamy skin."

Smiling over the kindness Ariana had bestowed on her, now and for the whole of her stay at Clairmont Castle, Haven reached up and clutched the lady's slender fingers with heartfelt affection.

Although she had come into this keep innocently enough, everything now was drastically changed. The knowledge of what she was seemed a burden Haven could hardly bear. The thought that she might lose her dear friend and Kenrick as well, put a bleak hurt in her very soul. She had never known such warm acceptance. How she regretted that her past was rising up to steal it all away.

"Thank you, Ariana. For everything."

"You're welcome." She set the brush down on a side table. "I'll go fetch the necklace."

"Ariana," Haven asked as she turned to cross the room to the door. Uncertain suddenly, she smoothed the long silk skirts, her palms oddly moist and trembling. "Do you...do you think he will like it?"

"Like it?" Ariana laughed. "You outshine the sun and stars together in that gown, Haven. Trust me, once he sees you, my brother will have trouble looking at aught else tonight."

"I want to look nice for him," she admitted, shy despite the warmth--the bone-deep excitement--she felt just to think of Kenrick, despite the unsettling encounter they shared in his chamber that afternoon. "I hope he favors the color."

"He will adore it," Ariana assured her. "As much as he adores the woman in it."

Was it true?
Haven wondered as Kenrick's sister departed the chamber to retrieve her promised bauble.
Did he adore her?

Could Kenrick possibly feel any measure of the affection she held for him?

Not a couple short days ago, she might have hoped so, but now she couldn't be certain how he might truly regard her. She dared not presume such a miracle could in fact be real. Particularly after his strange behavior that afternoon. His coolness after such a heated encounter made Haven fear that she had misread his affection for her.

But hearing Ariana state it with such surety caused a flutter of hope in Haven's heart. It no longer frightened her, the queer trembling of her soul, the heady rush of feeling that bloomed within her each time she thought of her handsome lover.

Kenrick.

Her beloved
, she admitted, if only to herself--and to Ariana, who had come to hold many of her secrets in trusted confidence.

Save the most damning one.

The weight of what Draec le Nantres had told her was unbearable. Her unwitting duplicity pressed more heavily on her with each passing hour, making her mad with the torment of carrying so black a secret. If Kenrick had seemed the least bit accepting when they'd met in his chamber today, she might have told him then. She should have, but faith preserve her, she'd been too afraid of his rejection.

If only she could go back to the day she first met Kenrick. To the moment he found her near Greycliff manor and rescued her from the fever that had robbed her memory, and the death that would have claimed her. If only she had never met him, never known what awaited her at Clairmont.

The kindness.

The kinship.

The love.

There was still time to end her masquerade. She was in over her head, to be sure, but she could right this before disaster swallowed her whole. And so she would, she vowed to the wide-eyed, frightened-looking reflection staring back at her in the glass. She owed it to Kenrick. To Ariana, and even Braedon, who had been willing to embrace his wife's newfound friend despite any of his own misgivings. She owed the truth to everyone at Clairmont, for there was not a soul in the demesne who had not touched her in some way, however small.

And because of her, they were all at terrible risk.

All the more, now that she--shifter born--had forbiddenly permitted these Outsiders into her heart.

"Here it is," Ariana brightly announced as she returned to the chamber, pendant in hand.

The necklace sparkled with the rich jeweled hues of verdant emerald, honeyed topaz, and dazzling crystal. Each stone was cut into a teardrop shape of graduating sizes, the smallest one nearly the length and width of her thumbnail.

"This belonged to my mother, and several previous ladies of our line. According to family lore, it was once worn to London court and nearly lost the same evening, when Queen Eleanor herself enviously remarked upon its beauty."

Haven could not offer praise enough for the precious heirloom that was draped about her neck by Ariana's nimble fingers and suddenly bobbing suspended between Haven's breasts.

"Perfect," Ariana pronounced, standing back to admire the crowning touch. In the mirror, her pleased expression suddenly changed to one of concern. "Haven? What is it?"

"Nothing," she replied, finding it difficult to form words when her tongue was suddenly so thick. Moisture seemed to spring from out of nowhere to mist her eyes, blurring everything in the room.

Ariana's spontaneous embrace did little to help the matter. Haven's vision swam. She swiped at the wet tracks that coursed down her cheeks. "I don't...I don't know what's happening to me," she murmured, unable to stanch the flow.

"Hush now," Ariana whispered, her voice sounding oddly constricted too. "You mustn't cry. If you keep this up, you will have me crying, too!"

She gave a strangled little laugh, and suddenly both women were sniffling and wiping at their tears.

"Enough of this foolishness. Enough!" Ariana ordered, although she seemed equally hard-pressed to recover herself. "We'll be gathering for supper in a short while and it simply will not do for you to make your stunning arrival with puffy, red-rimmed eyes."

She reached out and took Haven by the hand, steering her toward the wardrobe. "Come and help me decide what I should wear. I am plotting a seduction of my husband for this evening, and I need to find something suitably irresistible."

Haven returned her friend's impish smile, more than content to put her troubling thoughts aside for a while and play along.

* * *

"Damnation!"

Kenrick fumed at his carelessness, watching a stain of black ink begin to spread across the page of his open journal. His tunic sleeve had tipped the small well of ink before he could stop the error.

He blotted at the seeping pool as it ran across the page, but it was useless. His last two hours of work were wasted. The calculations and drawings he had been attempting to transcribe into his journal were now rendered illegible by the widening edges of the black mark that soaked into the parchment like so much spilled blood.

With a roar that went deeper than any irritation at a ruined set of figures, Kenrick picked up the journal and heaved it against the adjacent wall of the chamber. The leather-bound book cracked apart on impact, pages fluttering as it dropped like a dead weight to the floor.

"Focus," he chastised himself, vaulting out of his chair and raking his fingers over his scalp in abject frustration.

He had been thinking about her.

Haven had left his solar chamber several hours ago, shut out by his deliberately cool demeanor and the thick oak door that sealed him off from the rest of the keep, yet her presence lingered.

After what he had learned about her from Rand, Kenrick did not want to think about Haven any more. He did not want to see her. God knew, he did not want to crave her as he had when he'd found her in this very room earlier that day.

He had ravished her like a beast, slaking his passion and his anger on her body, but still he burned for her.

In his mind, she was his enemy. She was a shifter spy and a cold liar. If what Rand had told him were true, then Haven's heart was as black and evil as death itself.

He could scarcely believe she might be in league with Silas de Mortaine. Knowing her as he did, it seemed impossible to reconcile so heinous a truth.

Haven had seemed so genuine and kind. She had become so much a part of Clairmont in the short time she was there recuperating from her injury and the loss of memory that kept her from knowing who--and what--she truly was. Kenrick could hardly deny that she had become a part of his life as well.

Had it all been a cruel mistake of fate, or merely part of a shifter game contrived to aid her in a bigger plan?

His mind worked hard to reject the idea...or perhaps it was his heart that struggled to accept he could have been so blind.

If all he heard were true, Haven would be the worst sort of betrayer, a fact he meant to prove out that night at the feast.

Kenrick had not let Ariana or Braedon know about Rand's arrival at Clairmont, or the damning information his friend had delivered. The servants knew only that there would be a guest at the supper that evening; Rand had been given a private chamber in the keep where he was bathing and resting after the weeks spent living on the run. If Greycliff saw Haven before Kenrick was prepared, he knew his old friend would stop at nothing to finish her on the spot.