Linda Needham (20 page)

And then he kissed her again, right there in
front of everyone. Hardly chaste, not for public display, but he didn’t seem to be considering anything but the two of them, though lots of people had gathered around them.

And then he pulled away again sharply, huge and powerful in all his fury, a new dusting of mortar on his cheek and across his broad chest. “Stay right here, madam; I don’t want you in there again, do you hear?”

“Yes, Alex.” She felt meek and obedient, stunned at the change in the man. His smile looked a bit crazed, wild and reckless.

“Giddrey, come with me,” he said, speeding off toward the tower.

There came a warrior’s shout and a half dozen others followed Alex, as though they were off to do battle against some terrible foe.

“What happened, my lady?” Leod whispered, as Quigley handed her a damp rag.

“Overeagerness, Leod,” she said, weeping as she wiped her face of the dust, watching the tower door for Alex to come roaring out with his accusations. “We’re on the brink.”

Jasper appeared at her side. “The other tower looks sturdy enough, my lady. No other cave-ins.”

“Not till it’s time.”

“When, then?” Quigley asked, picking a chunk of plaster out of her hair.

“In the next few days. Unless Alex realizes before then what we’ve been doing and tosses me
into the dungeon.” Which seemed a perfect place at the moment, dark and isolated. “I just need to keep him from seeing the extent of the excavation for himself.”

Jasper brushed at his hair, raising a cloud of dust. “I’ll go see if I can explain away the cave-in to His Lordship, my lady. And anything else he might find.”

Like his entire castle ready to fall.

“And while you do, Jasper, I’ll try to think of a reasonable excuse that will get everyone safely out of the castle before we set her afire.” What a ghastly calamity it had all become. “Please tell Alex that I’ve gone to clean up. That I’ll see him at supper.”

If I’d lost you, Talia…

Oh, Alex, but you
have
lost me. I’m afraid we lost each other long ago.

But the man wasn’t at supper, or in his chamber afterward, or in the guardhouse. Not anywhere.

And that could only mean that he’d found out and now was so angry with her that he couldn’t even look at her. She’d waited all day for his sergeants to come arrest her, but nothing seemed amiss—they were ever the gentlemen.

And as she finally climbed the stairs to her own chamber, a guilty coldness clung to her shoulders, stained the air and made her ache all over.

It wasn’t that she was secretly tearing down her
castle, piece by piece; indeed, that was a covenant between her and the people she loved.

The coldness came from the undeniable fact that Alex was the most honorable man she’d ever met. Stone-headed and stubborn, and no sense of just how good a man he was.

Which left Talia feeling empty and grieving for the fullness of the life they could have had together had things been different.

She slipped into her nearly dark chamber and stumbled her way toward the table, wondering how Alex’s scent had gotten in here, the sharp bay and cinnamon of him. Sifting through the drapes and the tapestries, caught up in the counterpane like a dear memory.

She sighed and sniffed back her misery then picked up a fat candle and started toward the red glow of the brazier.

A voice rumbled toward her from the shadows, reached out and stopped her. “So, my dear lady, what did you think of Fitz Warren?”

“Alex!” Her heart went skidding wildly off its course with a crazy kind of relief, of a great tragedy postponed for a brief moment.

“Well, madam?” He was lounging long-legged in a chair in the near darkness beyond the brazier, an engulfing power that enfolded her, that shimmered against her skin and slipped through her veins. “What did you think?”

“Of Conrad?” she asked as she lit the candle,
trying to steady her hand and read his mood, the curious ease of it, wondering why he hadn’t confronted her immediately with the cave-in, with her betrayal.

The whole foundation of the castle—his fortune and his future—was on the brink of sliding into the bay. He must have noticed.

“Was he everything you expected in a potential husband, Talia?” The chair creaked as he rose, his darkness filling the rafters as he stepped just into the candlelight.

This wasn’t the fiercely impassioned man she’d last seen in the courtyard. Or the one who ought to be ranting. Something was wrong.

And right and simple. His eyes clear and piercing, haunting. Devastatingly handsome in his hip-short tunic and a pair of long braes. His work clothes, clean and smelling of cedar shavings.

“Alex, where have you been?”

He paused and considered her before he said, “Seeing to things.”

“What things, Alex?” Trying to sound unconcerned, Talia wedged the candle into its stick on the table, then stood back from him to more carefully examine this uncommon mood of his. He looked…artful, as though he was holding back a secret from her.

Doubtless a dark secret.

“Why?” One of his brows made a wry arch. “Were you worried about me, Talia?”

“Just…” She swallowed, bewitched by the low roughness of his voice, the intimacy it conjured. “Just that you disappeared completely after”—she felt guilty even saying it—“after the cave-in.”

He smiled sideways at her, charming, sly, smelling of soap and leather as he stepped toward her, caught her fingers in his and whispered, “I like that.”

“What?” Though she liked this breathtaking connection between them, fingers laced, his rough thumb rubbing lightly against her palm.

“I like that you worried about me, Talia. I could get used to that.”

Nothing he was saying made any sense. Nothing in the way he tilted his head and gazed at her through wickedly smiling eyes that said everything but
you betrayed me, Talia.

Those same dark eyes became quite serious suddenly, and then a little cocky. “I told him, Talia.”

More puzzles. “Told who what, Alex?”

He dropped onto the bench in front of her and looked her squarely in the eye, a challenge, a promise. “I told Kyle that we…that he and I are brothers.”

Happy beyond measure, Talia knelt between his spread thighs. She took his hands between hers, her throat closing over. “You really did? I’m so glad.”

He gave a short laugh. “Hell, the lad could have told me himself.”

“What do you mean?”

“He already knew.”

“What? Oh, Alex, no. Poor Kyle must have been devastated to know—”

“He wasn’t, Talia.” He brought their clasped hands to his lips and set a kiss between her fingers as he thought, one finger then the next, his gaze fastened fiercely to hers. “He’s a wiser lad than I was at his age.”

“And far luckier. To have you.”

He sliced her a self-directed indictment, then stood up and paced toward the casement window.

“You haven’t answered my question, Talia.” His voice had roughened, filled with a longing.

“About…what?” She’d forgotten everything but the thrilling sound of him, his scent. Nothing else seemed to matter.

He wasn’t acting anything like she’d expected. Wasn’t shouting or threatening or demanding. He was simply gazing at her mouth as though he’d been without food and water for a lifetime.

But her question seemed to bemuse him, to pull him back to her. He caught both her hands and drew her to her feet. And then he was lifting her against the length of him, embracing her against all that hardness, his chest, his thighs, and that wonderfully thick rigidness that fit so perfectly against her belly.

“Ask me again, Alex.”

He was making soft, nuzzling noises, had cocooned her nearly completely against the table, resting his hands against her hips at the edge of the table. He bent his head and whispered against her ear, “Fitz Warren.”

“What about him again?”

He made a dizzying, deeply satisfied sound in his throat, as breathtaking as the brush of his tongue along the ridge of her ear. “How did I do?”

“Do? Oh, Alex—” He was doing so marvelously well that she couldn’t catch her breath. She grabbed a fistful of the front of his tunic, offering more of her ear to him, her mouth, and her sigh, taking in his breath with her own, as he brushed at the edge of her lips.

“Tell me, beautiful Talia…” He tilted her chin with his thumb, a beguiling smile lifting the corners of his eyes. He spoke against her temple, the heat of his words sending shivers dancing across her shoulders. Said something about last night. Their guest.

“About Conrad.” She remembered now, but only barely. “He was…”

He loosened his embrace enough to study her, his eyes intent upon hers when he asked, “He was what?”

She caught her lower lip, because she couldn’t quite remember this Conrad fellow, not with Alex framing and filling her world.

I love you, Alex.

Oh, no! Not that!

Her eyes stung, welled inexplicably with hot tears. “He was…well—”

He would do.

“He was what, Talia?”

“Blond…” Then her blasted tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks, and a hiccoughing sound came coursing out of her. Because it didn’t matter if Conrad’s hair was brown or green or if he was bald.

Alex stepped away, still holding her hand, as though he wanted to see her more fully, his face a range of keen edges and devilishly dark orange. “And?”

Her heart stalled at the sudden change in him. He was Alex again, and the blackguard had been plying her, deliberately setting her off-balance with his seduction.

Well, let him believe that he’d succeeded. Because he had so thoroughly.

“Well, he was nearly as tall as you.” She put the brazier between them, adding wood to the embers. “But you already knew that.”

He was looking at her from beneath an ever-darkening brow. “And what else?”

“He has sisters.”

“Did you talk of marriage?”

“Well…we…he…” How could she possibly answer clearly when he had started toward
her again, relentlessly, rounding the brazier, his eyes fixed on hers, making her pulse thunder against her throat?

“Did you?”

“Some, yes.”

A frown flickered across his brow, tightened his mouth briefly. “What does that mean?”

“Uhm, well…” She backed away from him, stubbing the heel of her slipper against the table leg. “We talked about my wardship, certainly.”

He kept coming, and she kept backing away, thoroughly confused by his interrogation, the seduction of it. “What about your wardship, Talia?”

“Well, about the castle—” Oh, Lord, here it comes: his pronouncement against her. That she would dare to scuttle the sale of Carrisford by destroying it.

“What about the castle, Talia?”

What the devil did the man want from her? “Its history, of course. Did you know that the Conqueror slept here on his way to Bristol? Though it was merely a mote and bailey at the time…but you don’t want to know that.”

“No.”

“Well, then what, Alex? You’ve confused me completely.” She was beginning to think that he hadn’t come here to accuse her of treason against him. Maybe he didn’t know.

“Aye, Talia, I was confused, too. Before.”

Before.
And then what? Enlightenment? She
was suddenly exhausted. “Alex, maybe this should wait until the morning. It’s been a long day and we’re both…”

He shook his head sternly. “This isn’t something that can wait a day between us, Talia. Or even an hour. I doubt even another minute should pass.”

“Well then, just tell me, Alex. Stop this dallying, because I can’t bear any more of it.”

He grinned, made a delicious yummm sort of sound way deep in his throat. “That’s part of my plan, Talia. Dallying with you of an evening.”

God, he looked wonderful, solid and pliable. His smile so crookedly grand she could stand here and look at him forever. “Dally with me? On purpose?”

“Oh, yes, madam.”

“Isn’t that cruel?”

He actually stopped in his slow, sinuous pursuit of her and thought about it. “Mmmm, not entirely cruel, I think. But a kind of torment.”

“You’d actually do that to me, Alex? Torment me?”

Again with that distracting smile, alive with his secrets. “In my way.”

His way? She swallowed hard, wondering what that would be, putting herself safely behind the chair, though she could imagine all sorts of ways he might torment her. “After all we’ve meant to each other?”

“What have we meant, Talia?”

That stopped her short, because he’d meant so many remarkable things to her—rainbows and the tide and the apple harvest. But she could hardly confess that, so she shrugged. “Well…you know.”

“I do, Talia, at long last. A recently discovered truth. But do
you
know, I wonder? As I continue to wonder what happened last night between you and Fitz Warren.”

She laughed because this whole horrid mess had become so absurd, and all about Conrad, it seemed. “Nothing happened between us, Alex.”

He scrunched up a thoroughly disgusted frown. “He didn’t kiss you?”

“Never once. Didn’t even try.”

“Ha! The fool.” It was a prideful, possessive laugh that made her feel beautiful, cherished. And then he leveled an eye at her. “So you didn’t take a fancy to him?”

“A fancy to Conrad? Good Lord, no.”

“Not your ideal bridegroom?”

Foolish man. She was looking at her ideal. The sort of perfection that wasn’t allowed in this world. “Not even close, Alex.”

“That’s good. Because I wasn’t going to let you marry him anyway.”

What an awful, pride-leveling game he was playing. “But he’ll do after all, Alex.”

His brow furrowed. “Do?”

He’s not you, Alex.
“After all, he seems thoughtful and intelligent, and I can’t truthfully think of a single reason why I should refuse him and risk another monster like Rufus. A perfectly reasonable choice.” Wasn’t that what he wanted from her? “So, I accept him, Alex. I approve of Conrad.”

He just stood there for a moment, a mystery caught up in the rise and fall of his chest.

“Do you approve of…me, Talia?”