The Loyal Heart (40 page)

She rolled her eyes. “He isn’t the man we thought he was. He’s quite charming.”

Geoffrey stepped closer and lowered his voice. “Never trust a charming man.”

She stared at him. “What, like Ethan?”

He shook his head at her the same way he did when they were young and she challenged his authority. “Stay out of it. I want you as far away from Prince John as possible. Ethan ….” He stopped himself on the verge of saying more. Prickles of anxiety raced down Aubrey’s spine. “Just stay away.”

He turned to go, but Aubrey grabbed his arm. “Geoffrey, I know you mean well, but now is not the time to get involved in politics.” She stared at him and he dropped his eyes. “Promise me you will not get involved.”

When he raised his face to her it was filled with love and regret and as much as admitted he was already involved. “Only if you will promise the same, little sister, for I fear we may find ourselves on opposite sides.”

She dropped her arms and watched him go. He hobbled across the room, knocking into a table and earning a shout from the inebriated patron. She turned away and picked up his discarded blotting paper. It was impossible to read the crisscross of words he had blotted from his letter. She crumpled the paper and threw it against the wall before turning and storming out.

Geoffrey was breathing heavily by the time he reached the blacksmith’s shop near the city gate. The rain may have stopped, but sloppy puddles had made his progress from the inn tedious. He sank against one of the posts supporting the roof over the steaming forge and pressed his hand to his pounding heart and the letter concealed under his tunic.

He had spent the better part of the last two days avoiding Aubrey for just this reason. She was too quick for her own good. If she knew something was about to happen then Huntingdon knew too, and if Huntingdon knew Buxton knew. He fumbled for the letter, struggling to balance himself and his crutches as he did.

“What are you doing?” Ethan’s voice froze his blood. He whipped to face his friend so violently that he lost his balance. Ethan jumped to catch him and set him upright.

“Ethan!” Geoffrey panted. He clutched at his friend’s worn cloak, eyes wide and ragged. “What are you doing here?”

“Saving England.” Ethan’s boyish grin taunted him. “Same as you.”

“Be serious!”

“I am being serious.” He removed his hands from Geoffrey’s shoulders and glanced around to make sure they weren’t overheard. The only people nearby were the blacksmith absorbed in his work and the menacing young man who shadowed Ethan like a specter.

There was no time to waste. “You need to give up your plan. Now.” He leaned as close to Ethan as he could without losing his balance. “Aubrey is on to you. And if Aubrey knows-”

“I don’t care about Aubrey.” It was the most blatant lie Geoffrey had ever heard.

He settled back against the post with a noisy sigh. “You take too many risks.” He shook his head. “Just like Aubrey.”

“What about Aubrey?”

“She’s gotten herself into a mess of trouble again.” Every muscle in Ethan’s body tensed. “She’s been challenged to a human chess match by Pennington.”

“Leave it to Aubrey to play deadly games.”

“It’s not real fighting, or so they tell me.” The glint of a new idea sinking into Ethan’s eyes made Geoffrey numb. “If it was I would never allow her to participate.”

“It will be real fighting if I have anything to say about it.” He shared a wicked grin with the boy beside him.

“Ethan, no!” Geoffrey fumbled his weight over top of his crutches so that he could move towards his friend. “It’s too dangerous. It isn’t worth it!”

Ethan’s grin dropped. Geoffrey felt a wall slam between them. “Thank you for your help.” He pulled the hood of his cloak over his head.

“Well do you want this map of the castle or not?”

“I won’t need it now.” He thumped Geoffrey’s shoulder. “I told you I would make it up to you, and after all this is over I swear that I will.”

“Stop!” he ordered and was ignored.

Ethan rushed away without a backward glance and ducked around the corner with his boy in tow. Geoffrey cursed, his back crawling with irritation at being unable to hit or kick something without falling over. He crushed the useless map in his hand and maneuvered his crutches to start back to the inn.

He hadn’t gone more than two houses up when a mail-covered hand clapped on his shoulder. “What do we have here?”

He turned to stare up into the helmeted face of one of Buxton’s guards.

“Unhand me!”

“I don’t think so.” The sleek voice of Buxton himself made his stomach go cold. “You’re under arrest.”

“Under what charge?” Panic coursed through him but Geoffrey held his back straight and looked Buxton in the eye.

“Mmm, treason?” A malevolent grin spread across Buxton’s pale face. His eyes had dark circles under them but burned with a dangerous glow. Geoffrey opened his mouth to protest the charge but Buxton crushed his hand over the one that held the map and wrenched it out of his grasp. The motion destabilized his crutch and sent him tumbling to the muddy road. The guards with Buxton laughed. Buxton’s face was stark and serious as he studied the map and its annotations.

He swallowed hard and glanced from the gloating guards to the increasing fury in Buxton’s eyes. It was pointless to defend himself. There was no defense against the contents of the parchment in Buxton’s hands. The map all but spelled out Ethan’s plan to kidnap the prince and his own part in it.

“That proves nothing,” he scrambled to defend himself. “It was never even delivered. It was just a fancy.”

“Oh?” Buxton tilted his head and widened his eyes in mock innocence. “Well, that makes all the difference then.” Any suggestion of innocent melted into hatred. “Take him to the castle and throw him in the dungeon.” He issued his order while staring deep into Geoffrey’s eyes.

Aubrey couldn’t sleep. She lay in bed tucked against Crispin’s side, arms around him to chase away the frustration of her encounter with Geoffrey, the revulsion of her encounters with Pennington, and the bald fear of Buxton’s wrath. Although he was silent Crispin was awake as well. He stroked her hair as he stared up at the ceiling. She knew his mind was on the negotiations in the morning. Only he, Buxton, Prince John, and Pennington would be in the locked and guarded War Room. At least they would find out what the prince’s visit was really about.

“I want to go home,” she spoke her thoughts aloud.

“So do I,” Crispin sighed.

She lifted herself on one arm so that she looked down on him, hair spilling in a curtain over her shoulder and onto his chest. She weighed the words that had hovered on her lips for days before speaking them. “Can we run?”

He brushed her hair back and lay a hand on the side of her face. The low light of the dying fire made everything soft except for the steel in his eyes. “He would never let me walk away.”

Her heart twisted for him. Crispin was a strong man, a good leader. She drew in a trembling breath, frightened of her own thoughts. “Do you remember the promise that you made to me on our wedding day?”

“Aubrey.” He spoke her name as a warning.

“You said ‘unless your life or my life was in danger’.” His hand slipped from her face, spreading goose-bumps across her arm. “I think our lives might be in danger.”

“Aubrey-”

“What if I asked you to break that promise?”

“It’s too dangerous.” He sat up, taking her in his arms. She could feel the rapid beat of his heart through her skin.

She circled her arms around him, rested her head on his shoulder. “He won’t stop. Not until we’re-”

“I know.” He silenced her with a kiss so deep it pulled tears to her eyes. “But murder, even justified, carries too big of a risk. Believe me. I know.”

This was not murder, it was justice. It would save countless lives to take one. “The chess match.” Ideas flew to her faster than she could process them. “There will be dozens of people in the room, dozens of weapons.”

“Practice weapons.”

She shook her head. “I have no intention of walking onto that board with nothing but a practice lathe.”

He cupped her face in his hands. “Neither do I. And neither will Pennington.”

She splayed her hands across his warm chest, struggling to push her fear aside. “With Prince John here anything could happen. If there were some sort of threat on his life, if Ethan….” She paused and her eyes fluttered down for a moment. The wave of remorse she expected to feel never materialized. She glanced up to him, eyes deadly serious.

His face was a mask of swirling emotions tugging at her heart. It was true, he did owe his position to Buxton. Buxton had raised him to the heights he was at now. But he had also used him. She had as little remorse for the thought of the man’s death as she had for Ethan’s stupidity if he tried to assert himself.

Crispin raised his eyes to hers. “I will do what I need to do. For you.”

She let out the breath she was holding and smiled. For one beautiful moment she could see their life together, free from Buxton, happy. She didn’t care what risks she took, what sins she committed to have that life. She would be the sword in Crispin’s hands if she had to be. She circled her arms around him and leaned against him, capturing his mouth in a possessive kiss. When he responded eagerly she tried to push him against the bed, to throw her leg over his hips.

He caught her intention and forced her to her back. Her breath hitched as he pinned her wrists above her head with one hand, thwarting her efforts to take control. He lowered his mouth to hers, parting her lips with the demand of his own. She tried to free her arms from his hold only to have him tighten her prison. His free hand traced agonizing circles of pleasure along the tender skin inside her arm, across her shoulder and along the swell of her breast, cupping it and teasing her tender nipple with his thumb. A whimper escaped before she could stop herself. His mouth continued the sweet assault on the tight nub as his hand ventured across the flat of her belly. She jerked to release herself from his hold again.

“Don’t,” he warned her, his voice so deep and commanding that she felt it in the throbbing core between her legs.

He nudged her legs apart with his knees, wedging them wider than she thought they could go and keeping them there. His hand travelled over her abdomen, fingers teasing her with languid strokes as they played through her curls and slid across the hot, slick folds of her flesh. She groaned at the heady sensations but tried to close her legs. She couldn’t budge. As he rubbed crazy circles around the hard, pulsing nub of her sex she tried to wrestle her hands free. She couldn’t move. He had her pinned and splayed, helpless under his pleasure, completely out of her own control.

He slid his middle finger deep inside of her as his thumb continued to stimulate her and she tightened around him with a gasp. When her thighs strained to close he pressed with his knees, opening her further.

“Crispin, I-” Fear sharper than any she’d known coiled with the pleasure he was giving her. And he knew it. His smoldering blue eyes met hers with a loving dominance that sent her body shuddering over the edge in time to the ministrations of his fingers stroking in and out of her body. The climax he brought her to was more powerful than any in the handful of times they had made love and she continued to tremble with desire even after it ebbed.

Still he wouldn’t let her go. He slid his sweat slicked body over top of hers, tracing his hand over her stomach and breast and up her arm as he brought his hard erection to her still twitching entrance, paused, then buried himself inside of her. He groaned as he filled her but stopped as her thighs clamped his and gazed into her eyes.

“Aubrey, you have to trust me.” He ground the words out against her ear, lips grazing her cheek.

“I do trust you,” she gasped, senses overloaded as he invaded her body and soul. She tried again to yank her hands free.

He tightened his grip on her wrists and ground himself further inside of her until she cried out in bliss. “You have to trust me,” he repeated, lips tasting her eyelid, tongue tracing the bridge of her nose and delving into her open mouth.

She could feel her resistance crumbling. She attempted to press her hips against him to prompt him to move inside of her but when he caught on he managed to hold her lower body immobile. She squeezed her muscles around the length of him inside of her and they both moaned at the explosion of sensation. But his hand still held her wrists stretched out above her head, his mouth still devoured hers, telling her when she could breathe.

Never in her life had she submitted to any man’s rule. She had always taken care of herself. She had always been in control. He pulled his mouth away from hers, tracing her bottom lip with his tongue as he allowed her a breath and stared into her eyes.
Trust me
. He was demanding submission. Her eyes blazed with independence. He pulled out of her then plunged back in with strength that made her sigh and arch into him in spite of herself.

The tension between them was unbearable.
Trust me
. She had fended for herself for years, chosen her own fate. Her life had been a struggle for respect. Now, with her body stretched helplessly below and around him, she realized that if she just gave in she could have so much more. Crispin offered her strength, he offered her power. He offered her love.