Secret Heart (2 page)

Perhaps
she feared the future because she wasn’t supposed to have one. That
wild, not entirely unreasonable thought occurred when the man
before her pushed back the edge of his cloak, allowing her a
clearer look at his broadsword and his knife. She assumed the
movement was intended as intimidation.

She
refused to swoon, or to show him how frightened she was. Drawing
herself up to her full height, which was a good half a head shorter
than Sir Roarke, she faced him boldly, though she was increasingly
aware of her unclothed state, and of his piercing dark eyes that
seemed to see all of her secrets. She wished he’d stop looking at
her in that intense, searching way. She wondered if he was a bully,
cruel and violent. If he was, she knew only one way to deal with
such a man.

“
What do
you want of me?” she demanded with all the hauteur she could
command while unclothed and in her bare feet, with what little
magical ability she possessed unusable because of her physical
weakness.

“
Only to
help you.” His gaze on her face seemed to her to become even
sharper before he asked her, “Will you tell me your
name?”

“
My
name?” She caught her breath, understanding the danger that lay in
the simple question and knowing she dared provide only one answer.
“I – I don’t know.”

“
Do you
mean you cannot remember?”

“
No.”
Please, dear Lord of the Blue Heaven, Great God Sebazious, let him
not believe he recognized her.

“
Did you
hit your head?” he asked. “I’ve known men who were injured in
battle, who couldn’t recall their own names or what day it was
until they recovered from a head injury.”

“
My head
does hurt,” she said, clutching at the excuse. In fact, she did
have a headache, though she was sure it was from lack of food,
rather than from any serious injury. So far as she could tell, the
only physical hurts she’d taken during her reckless escape were
broken fingernails and a few scratches on her hands and knees, and
they would soon heal. The damage inflicted upon her heart and soul
did not show, though the scars would last forever.

“
From
your appearance,” Sir Roarke told her, still inspecting her with
shrewd eyes, “I conclude that you were washed ashore during last
night’s storm. How did you come to be in the sea? Did you fall
overboard?”

“
I don’t
know,” she said again, though she did remember throwing herself
from a ship, then fighting huge waves as she struggled to stay
alive.

Despite
her deliberate plunge to an almost certain watery death, she wanted
to live. She wanted justice – and a very personal revenge. The
desire burned deep in what was left of her once-tender heart. But
she wasn’t going to tell Sir Roarke about the unquenchable need
that kept her upright in defiance of her growing
lightheadedness.

The man
was a stranger to her. She couldn’t be sure he was sincere about
wanting to help her, and she didn’t know where his loyalties lay.
Let him believe she knew nothing, remembered nothing of her recent
past. If she asserted a complete lack of memory whenever he asked a
question, she might achieve a modicum of safety that would last
until her head stopped aching, so she could think more clearly and
decide what she ought to do first and where she ought to
go.

What she
intended, the quest that drove her, was nearly impossible for a
woman to accomplish. Yet, surely, there was someone she could
trust, to whom she could appeal for help. Perhaps, a priest of
Sebazious, or a mage? But no; a priest would want gold, which she
didn’t have, and a mage would only use his Power to probe the
dangerous memories she wanted to keep hidden until her quest was
complete.

Her
somewhat confused attempt to decide upon her next move was
interrupted by the sound of a man’s shout. The voice came from the
direction of the dune where Sir Roarke had perched when she first
saw him. She wondered how many men were with him. Possibly, a whole
troop of men-at-arms. Noblemen seldom went anywhere
alone.

“
Hallooo!
Roarke, where are you?”

“
Here, on
the beach,” he called back. His hands were working at the clasp of
his long cloak. In a swift movement he swung the heavy wool off his
shoulders and around the woman before she could protest. “You will
want to be covered,” he said.

“
Thank
you.” She stood unmoving, refusing to be affected by his masculine
nearness while he refastened the silver clasp at her throat and
then tugged the edges of the cloak close around her so she was
completely enveloped in the dark folds. When she drew in her breath
a tangy, spicy scent assailed her nose, telling her that Sir
Roarke’s clothing was routinely stored with keshan shavings and
dried, sweet gallinum to keep the moths away.

One long-fingered hand rested on her shoulder
for an instant, and his dark eyes met hers. A slight frown creased
his brow. She thought he was going to speak, perhaps to issue a
warning of some kind, but the man who had called from the sand dune
joined them.

He was
almost as tall as Sir Roarke, though more heavily built, with sandy
hair and bright blue eyes that at the moment were filled with
disbelief. The fine wool of his blue tunic and the quality of his
sword and knife all proclaimed him a knight, and a wealthy one,
too. But she didn’t need his clothing and weapons to tell her so.
She recognized him at once.

“
Dear
Heavenly Blue Sky above us!” he exclaimed, gaping at her. “Chantal,
is it really you? How thin and pale you are. Have you been ill? Is
that why you did not search for me, as I have been searching for
you?”

“
Let the
questions wait, Garit,” Sir Roarke said firmly. “The lady is
somewhat confused. I found her staggering along the
beach.”

“
But –
but—” The newcomer put out one hand, then withdrew it as if he
feared to touch her. “Chantal, my dearest lady, don’t you know
me?”

“
She
claims that she cannot recall her own name,” Sir Roarke
explained.

“
What?”
Garit cried. “No, that’s impossible. Chantal, my love—”

“
Look at
her,” Sir Roarke commanded. “She has obviously been in the sea. She
says her head aches. I would guess she was shipwrecked and washed
ashore.”

“
Chantal,
where have you been all these months?” Garit asked.

His
latest repetition of that name was not so disturbing to her as his
first exclamation had been. A spurt of bitter amusement cut through
her thoughts, banishing the last of her lingering confusion and
reminding her just how dangerous her every word and action was
going to be until she reached her final goals of revenge and
justice. She was amazed that she had survived her long ordeal and
then her immersion in the sea. She hadn’t expected to survive.
Telling herself she could not fail, for if she was still alive
then, surely, she was destined to complete her perilous quest, she
looked into Garit’s eyes.

The
warmth with which he was regarding her told her that he was the
very person she needed to help her fulfill her heart’s most secret
desire. Using him would be risky, but it could be done if she was
very careful.

She was not at all certain about Sir Roarke,
though, for he was regarding her with a mixture of perplexity and
suspicion. Clearly, he was not as tenderhearted about Lady Chantal
of Thury as was his friend.

“
The name
Chantal means nothing to me,” she said. She frowned, pretending to
be thinking deeply, and she dared to hope that both men would
assume she was wending her way through a slowly returning memory.
“But that name does conjure up another:
Jenia.
It seems oddly familiar to me.
In fact, it is so familiar that I think it must be my name. Do you
recognize it? Or me?”

She
waited for Garit to respond, hoping he’d not recall the name. She
had never in her life spoken to Garit of Kinath before the present
hour, though she knew very well who he was. Half Sapaudian, half
Kantian, he was a private emissary from Audemar, king of Kantia, to
King Henryk of Sapaudia. Garit ought to be in Calean City,
attending King Henryk at the royal court. She didn’t think it was
wise to inquire what he was doing on the very same beach where she
had washed ashore, but all of her senses were by now fully
alert.

“
Who?
Who?” As if to punctuate her concerns, a large white owl flew low
over them, its cry and shape out of place in the hours before
nightfall. Within the next heartbeat the bird was gone, leaving the
sky empty once more.

“
You look
so much like Chantal,” Garit said.

“
How can
you be sure?” It was a terrible question to ask a lover. She
decided to try humor to soften the pain he must be feeling. She did
know how he felt; she understood his grief as few others could. How
she wished she could tell him so. She offered a weak smile in place
of the truth he deserved. “I think it’s far more likely that I look
like a half-drowned cat, rather than your Lady Chantal,” she
said.

“
Garit is
correct, you know.” Roarke had remained silent, his gaze fixed on
Jenia’s face during his friend’s eager assertions and Jenia’s
denial. He spoke slowly, as if he was working through a murky, yet
tantalizing puzzle. “Your hair is the same reddish-brown color as
Lady Chantal’s. Your nose, the oval shape of your face, even your
height are all identical to hers.”

“
I am
sorry to disappoint you,” Jenia said, “but I don’t think I’m Lady
Chantal. I’m certain I’d know if I were.”

“
Not if
you hit your head somehow,” Garit insisted. “Not if you are
confused after being shipwrecked.”

She’d
been worse than shipwrecked, but she wasn’t going to tell him so –
at least, not until she could be absolutely certain that telling
him would aid her cause and not harm it.

“
I am
desperately thirsty, and hungry, and very tired,” she said,
allowing herself to sway. “I long for a cup of water that’s not
salty.”

“
Of
course you do,” Roarke agreed. “Fresh water we can easily provide.
Come along, then.”

He reached for her and this time she did not
flinch from his outstretched hand. Perhaps foolishly, she was
beginning to trust him. Or perhaps her Power was returning.
Whatever the cause, she let him take her elbow to guide her off the
beach and over a sand dune to the swath of rough grass that ran
behind the dunes. When she winced as her bare feet crushed the
stiff, autumn-dry stalks, and Roarke swept her up into his arms,
she made no protest at all. Instead, she wound an arm around his
neck and let him take her wherever he would.

She really was a bit lightheaded, though her
continuing weakness could have been in part the effect of being so
close to a man who was making no attempt to hurt her or to dominate
her. He must have shaved that morning, for no trace of stubble
showed on his lightly tanned face. His mouth was firm but not hard,
not cruel, just manly. All in all, he was physically very different
from the unwashed, sour-smelling males she had dealt with recently.
Whether he was unlike them in mind and heart remained to be seen,
she thought, struck by a resurgence of the distrust that had kept
her alive so far.

Roarke did not set her down until he reached
the clump of trees and bushes for which she had been heading when
he found her. Two horses waited nearby, their reins looped over one
of the bushes to prevent them from wandering. A Sapaudian lance was
fastened next to the saddle of one horse. Jenia shuddered to see
it. Years ago, just such a lance had killed her father in battle –
or had been used to murder him in a way that appeared to be a
battle death.

“
Sit
here,” Roarke suggested.

As she had guessed, a tiny stream meandered
past the clump of trees. It was little more than a trickle of
water, but it was enough to allow her to rinse her mouth and then
to drink from the wooden cup that Roarke pulled out of his
saddlebag. She splashed more water onto her face, trying to remove
the caked-on salt and sand.

“
Are you
feeling better now?” Roarke asked, squatting beside her. He offered
her a chunk of bread. “This isn’t much, but I think you ought not
to eat a large meal at first. You will want to keep down whatever
you eat or drink.”

“
Thank
you.” She took the bread. It was hard, probably more than a day
old, but she didn’t care. Her stomach was so hollow that she knew
what he’d said was true. She’d be wise to eat slowly, in small
amounts, until she had grown accustomed to the kind of meals that
were served outside dungeon walls.

“
Have you
no squires, Sir Roarke?” she asked in an effort to divert him from
his concentration on her.

“
Garit
and I are traveling alone at present.”

His narrowed eyes and renewed scrutiny warned
Jenia that she had made a mistake in revealing her familiarity with
the habits of knights and nobles, who usually traveled with squires
and servants. She would have to be more careful in future.

Roarke was still squatting next to her,
watching her much too closely, when Garit approached with his
outstretched hands cupped together.

“
Here,”
he said, offering a mound of autumn berries. “The bushes are full
of them.”