Lady Gallant (43 page)

As she spoke, Nora saw Christian's expression harden. Contrition vanished, and he coolly examined her from head to foot.

"Who has taken my place?"

"What mean you?" She backed away as he began to stalk her.

"Did you seek comfort from some other man?"

Christian asked the question calmly, but his chest rose and fell heavily, as if he couldn't get enough air in his lungs. Nora kept backing away, and he kept coming.

"I think your wits have turned to mud," she said as she tried to avoid him.

"No one else will ever touch you."

"I want no one else."

"Ah!"

He swooped at her. She jumped back only to fall against a tree, and he was on her in a moment. He braced his arms on either side of her and pressed her between his body and the tree.

"There is hope if you want no one but me," he said.

She stomped on his foot. He grunted, and she smiled her satisfaction. "I didn't say that. I said I didn't want anyone."

"Else. You said you didn't want anyone else."

"Quibbler." She shoved at the velvet-covered chest that pressed against her own. "Get away from me, sirrah."

He nuzzled her cheek and whispered in her ear. "Too late. You're caught, my chuck, trapped between my body and a tree, and just pushing against you has made me as hard as this trunk. Don't you feel anything?"

He was doing it again, Nora thought. Trying to cozen her with his body. Moving it in that lascivious fashion that had once driven her frantic with desire. She gasped as he fitted his hips to hers and thrust. Feelings she'd thought impossible to resurrect burst to life again, and with them came the memory of her wedding night.

Fear clawed at her, the fear of being humiliated and hurt again, but this time Nora refused to give in to it. She wouldn't let him use her again. Wrath burgeoned, searing through her desire and her fear. It gave her the urge and the will to free one of her hands as Christian kissed her neck.

Reaching behind him, she grabbed a fistful of his hair and tried to tear it from his head. His upper body jerked back as he cried out, and she slid from beneath him while keeping her hold on his hair. She pulled hard, and Christian overbalanced, falling onto his back. Nora ran.

Too soon she heard him behind her. Casting a glance over her shoulder, she saw him leap, his face contorted with anger. She sprang forward, but he caught her anyway. They crashed to the ground, but Christian twisted at the last moment so that they landed side by side. Before she could recover, he rolled so that she was beneath him.

"By God, don't you ever do that again." He glared at her. She glared right back, and he blinked. "Beshrew me if you aren't more dragon than mouse now." He paused and wet his lips. "I've a craving for dragons."

He closed his eyes and thrust his groin between her legs. "God, Nora, I know you wanted me once. I can give you pleasure again."

Lowering his head, he pressed his open mouth upon her lips. Nora had thought herself incapable of greater anger, but she was wrong. As Christian succumbed to lust and cast aside his penitence, she writhed with fury. When he covered her mouth, she bit his lower lip. He cried out and pulled free. Grasping her shoulders, he shook her until her head wobbled.

"You—little—harpy!" he shouted. "You'll pay for that, damn you."

He stopped shaking her, but Nora's head still spun. Sharp pains arced up and down her neck, and her gorge rose. Falling limp, she would have hit her head if Christian hadn't supported her. Weak and disoriented, she kept her eyes closed, for the world whirled around her if she didn't. Suddenly Christian wrapped her in his arms, and the world stopped its dance. When he pressed her cheek against his chest and murmured an endearment, her nausea subsided.

"I've done it again," he said. "I'm sorry. But you must give me time to accustom myself to your defiance. After all, I was much enamored of Nora the mouse."

She spoke against the soft material of his doublet. "Let me go."

"Don't ask me that again."

Belying his words, he released her and got up. He pulled her to her feet, then swept them out from under her and lifted her into his arms. She kicked, but he clamped an arm tight around her thighs. As she began to struggle, he squeezed until she gave a cry of pain.

"Be still. You can't win, and I don't want to hurt you anymore."

"What are you going to do?" The fear was back.

"I told you. We will begin again. This is a week for beginning over, for I must win you back and find the true culprit, the engineer of my near destruction."

"Go look for your traitor and leave me alone."

He didn't answer. Nora wriggled ineffectively as he crossed the bridge to the sally port. She was still struggling when he dumped her in his bed in the master's chambers.

The bed was her undoing. She hissed a denial and scrambled to her hands and knees while he stood glaring down at her. His tension, the set hardness of his face all spoke of one intent.

"No," she said.

He nodded, not speaking, then put one knee on the bed. When his gaze strayed to her breast, she sprang at him. Taking advantage of his surprise, she yanked at his belt and swung off the bed in one movement, coming away with his dagger. As the hilt fit into her hand palm, an exultant sense of power flooded her, and she smiled. Turning on her husband, she gloried in watching his lust ebb, but a condescending smile soon curled his lips.

"Now, chuck, you don't want to play with that."

"I'm not playing."

He slipped off the bed and began to circle, and she moved with him. He stopped, surprised that she matched his pace. Then he started again, this time using a fighter's crouched stance. Nora bent at the waist and held her weapon level. Understanding came over Christian's features, and he whistled.

"You're making me drunk with enticement."

His arm shot out to snatch the dagger. Nora dodged and brought her free arm around to knock his hand away. Keeping her distance, she worked her way toward the door.

"Very good," Christian said.

He came at her again, forcing her to circle away from the door. She adjusted by putting her back to the windows and making him face the light that streamed through them.

"It was Sybille who taught you this, wasn't it?"

"Yes."

"I'll have to turn her over my knee for it."

"What have you done with her?"

"When I caught her, I tossed her aside. I don't think she stayed any longer. She knows how I repay ill favors." He stopped and shaded his eyes against the window light. "Come, enough of this dancing about. You wanted me once."

"I don't want you anymore."

Smirking, he lowered his voice and caressed her with his eyes. "Oh, sweeting, if I made you want me once, I can do it again. And when I've delved between your thighs and taken my pleasure, you'll forget my trespass. I'll thrust it from your mind as I thrust my seed into your body."

Fury burned in Nora's heart, making her slow to react when Christian dropped, rolled, and struck her arm with his foot. It was a light blow, tempered by his consideration, and she remembered her instruction. Giving in to the force of the impact, she allowed her dagger arm to swing back, her body following in a circle. She avoided Christian's leap at her and faced him again.

He laughed at her cleverness, and that laugh shoved her over the edge. With a strength born of weeks of humiliation, she lashed out, cutting through the velvet and silk of his doublet. She felt the material rip, feel the blade slice through flesh. The shock of penetration stayed her hand, and she cried out, withdrawing the weapon from his shoulder even as he pulled away. Nora sprang back, panting and shivering as her husband clutched at the wound high on his shoulder. It hadn't been a deep cut, but it was her first, and she recoiled from the experience.

Expecting Christian's wrath, she raced for the door. He was there before her, hand still pressing against his wound. She backed away from him, dagger held at ready. Her jaw dropped when he began to chuckle.

"So this is what I get for pestering you to be brave," he said.

"It's what you get for presuming that all you have to do to make me fall at your feet is—is tup me."

"It is."

She tossed her head and gave him a look of scorn. "If what you say were true, I would be lying on that bed this moment. Shall I explain again, my lord?" She raised her voice to a shout that had the full force of her lungs behind it. "I don't love you. Do you hear me? I don't love you." She paused, then lowered her voice while her fury drained away. "In truth, my lord, I find that I don't even like you. But most of all, I cannot summon enough interest in you to find you worthy of my hate."

Silence filled the room as Christian took in her words. He grimaced once, then concealed his reaction behind a blank stare. They regarded each other warily while he held his wound and blood trickled between his fingers. Finally, he spoke.

"It seems we're to have a contest of wills. Take heed, my chuck, for mine is the greater, the stronger. God made woman to submit, and after all I am a loving master."

"You're not fit to be a dog's master."

He opened the door. "Since you've changed so much, I'll remind you of the words in the Bible. He quoted to her in latin, and the passage was well known to her, so she had no difficulty translating. 'Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the savior of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.' " He grinned at her. "So you see, I'm the savior of your body."

"Somehow, my lord, I don't think God had you in mind when he inspired Paul to write those words." Nora sprang at him, shoved him out the door, and slammed it shut.

Folding her arms over her chest, she scowled at the panel. She heard a a click as Christian turned a key in the lock.

"Monster!"

She could barely hear his chuckle through the door. She shrieked, launched herself away from the door, then turned and hurled the dagger. It stabbed into the oak and remained there, quivering, as she sank to her knees. She was hot and cold at the same time, and weak. She could hardly understand herself anymore.

She wasn't a termagant, a brawler, yet she'd bitten and kicked her husband and given him a taste of steel. She'd actually made him dizzy with her aggression. Was he right? Had she changed so much?

Nora sat on the floor and contemplated her own temerity. She had stood up to the frightening and beautiful and vicious creature she'd married. The question was, what was he going to do about it?