To Tempt a Knight (21 page)

With a fatherly smile he said, “There are many sacraments in this world. Service as a lay monk, to your faith, as a Templar, is only one of those sacraments. Love and marriage are another expression of the sacrament made flesh.”

William paused, considering his brother’s words. He placed a hand on Brother Kenneth’s shoulder. “What a wise man you are. My thanks.”

He nodded his head toward the door. “Go to her, with my blessing.”

William didn’t hesitate. He hastened for the door, then down the hallway. At Siobhan’s door he tapped softly. The
door eased open. He pushed it farther. Siobhan was nowhere inside the small chamber.

His heart stumbled, until he reminded himself she was safe within the walls of the monastery. Making his way through the refectory first, he proceeded outside. He found her in the garden, sitting upon a bench, staring off into the darkness.

“When you weren’t in your chamber, I knew I would find you here.” A midnight breeze brought with it the scent of heather from the hills beyond.

Siobhan had found and donned an unattended cloak on her way out and now wrapped it closer about her body as he sat down beside her. She stared at him uncertainly. “I couldn’t sleep.”

He nodded and passed her one of the two apples he’d picked up on his way through the refectory.

“My thanks.” She bit into the sweet, crisp flesh. He did the same. When they finished, he brought a finger up to her lips to wipe a wayward drop of juice from the corner of her mouth.

Her eyes drifted closed. She leaned into his touch. He pulled her into his arms as naturally as if he’d done it a thousand times before. He nestled against her, drowning in the feel of her warmth, the sweet scent of her hair, her skin.

He pulled back. Their eyes met. “I asked you to come to me if you needed me,
ma chère.
But I find it is I who needs you.”

Siobhan couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t look away from William’s eyes. In their depths she saw a vulnerable man who had survived a hellish childhood and the horrors of war. He had emerged strong and vital, yet remained on his guard about risking his heart to any further damage.

“Siobhan?” He stroked her cheek, tracing a line down to her throat.

A primal shudder went through her. She raised both arms and curled them around his neck, then brought her lips to his, pressing her breasts against his chest.

Desire flared in his eyes as he returned her kiss with a passion that engulfed them both. He lifted her in his arms, then stood, carrying her toward the stable. Inside the door he set her down. With hands far steadier than her own, he saddled Phantom. When he was done, he lifted her into the saddle and mounted behind her. With a flick of the reins, they left the stable and rode through the monastery gates.

A nearly full moon cast a silvery glow across the land, casting the world around them in shades of black and gray. The shrubs that had looked friendly in the daylight were now stark and menacing. Yet Siobhan did not feel unease, not with William’s arms around her. “Where are we going?” she asked, leaning back against William’s chest.

“A special place, where we’ll be free to do as we desire.”

They rode in silence for a distance until he brought Phantom to a halt at a copse of trees. William dismounted and tied his horse’s reins loosely to a bush. He plucked her out of the saddle and carried her across a grassy area to a small stone cottage with a thatched roof. He kicked the door aside and carried her into the single room.

The musty smell of dust greeted them, and cobwebs hung from every corner. He batted them away and proceeded across the room to a small wooden bed. He set her gently down on the dusty quilted bed linens. “I apologize for the chill, and the state of dilapidation. I haven’t been here in quite a while.”

“You said this was a special place. Why?”

“I used to come here when I needed to escape the rigidity of the monastery. Brother Kenneth knew about it. He encouraged me to come, to discover who I was truly meant to be.”

“Did you?” She reached up and stroked the length of his arm, pausing as she came to the cuts left behind by the whip.

“I thought I’d found myself. Now, I am not so certain.”

“What is it that you want?” Siobhan asked.

He stared down at her, the line of his cheeks hollow with tension. “I won’t lie to you. In my head, I’m still confused as to what I want. But in my heart I know. I want to experience your sweetness, to take you into myself, to lay beside you in this bed.”

“Bed of cushions or bed of leaves, it matters not to me.” She offered him a smile that faded a moment later. Before they went any further, she had to ask him the question that burned inside her. “Have you truly forgiven me, William?” Tears blurred her vision, and there was a thick twisted knot in her throat. “I betrayed you.”

William said nothing as he studied her face.

Siobhan felt the thudding of her heart. The sound pounded in her ears like the hammering of a nail into wood.
Please forgive me…
The formless prayer circled through her brain with dizzying repetition as she waited for some sign that he would, someday.

A heartbeat later he scooped her into his arms and held her close against his chest. “I forgive you—for the Spear and for every other misunderstanding that may happen between us in the future.”

“Truly?” She pulled back, memorizing every detail, every nuance, every line of the face before her—a face she loved. A man she loved.

“Truly.” He kissed her then, a slow, gentle, loving kiss that set her heart and soul afire.

When he released her lips, she opened her mouth to speak, but he silenced her with a finger to her lips. “No more talk. Let me show you how much I forgive you.” His hands fumbled with the fabric of her cloak, with the linen sheeting she’d wrapped around her body, until she lay naked before him.

It took him only a moment to disrobe. Then he too was naked, and boldly aroused.

She opened her arms. He came into them, pressing her naked breasts hard against the coarse hair of his chest. He rubbed against her, making low, groaning sounds deep in his throat.

He rolled so he was beneath her, settling her atop his thighs. She could feel his pulsing manhood against her own apex, but he did not penetrate. Instead, he first took one, then the other of her nipples into his mouth, teasing each straining peak.

Heat flashed through her. The muscles of her stomach clenched. She arched her head back and cried out as
his teeth closed gently on the small nub, nibbled, then pulled. She cried out as sensation after sensation burned through her.

Her fingers stroked his chest, gently, as she could feel the cuts in his flesh beneath her fingertips. The healing waters had worked their magic on him as well, but it would be several days more before he fully recovered.

His muscles bunched and relaxed as she moved her fingers across his chest. Again, she marveled at her power, at the way she could please him with a simple touch. She stroked each of his nipples, gaining a deep-throated groan for her efforts. She brought her hand lower, down the ripples of his abdomen, to where his rigid manhood pressed against her.

“Please, William,” she pleaded, hoping he understood what she needed. His hands moved from her ribs to her waist. He lifted her and guided her slowly down on him. Heat engulfed her as he filled her. She clutched desperately at the bed linens. Holding her hips, he moved her up and down, the tempo wild, exciting.

“Only like this can two people take up the same space and become one,” he said in a strained tone. “We are one, you and I, in this moment.” He lifted her up and then lowered her until she took all of him inside her.

“We are one.” Siobhan gave a low cry of wild satisfaction.

He stopped, gazing up at her with eyes that glittered with primitive pleasure. “I’ve never felt like this before.”

“I never imagined it could feel so good,” she replied, her heart beating so rapidly she could scarcely breathe.

With a low growl, he flipped her onto her back. His hands delved beneath her body to cup her buttocks, to pull her against him as he thrust into her with frantic urgency.

She moved against him, trying to meet his passion.

He thrust desperately, wildly, beyond control, as she slipped over the edge of the abyss. She climaxed, the tension exploding with a force that sent a fiery release through every muscle in her body. She opened herself to him until his life force pulsed and throbbed deep into her very soul.

A heartbeat later she could feel William spasm again and again within her, shuddering with the force of his release. He collapsed on top of her, his heart racing in his chest, his breathing ragged. As they lay there, contentment seeped into all the places his passion had touched.

Finally, when their breathing slowed, he lay back, pulling her against his side as though yet unwilling to release their bond. He had said they were one. In that moment they had been.

His breathing slowed, and he drifted off to sleep with an arm tucked securely about her. Siobhan smiled as she felt herself slipping into utter contentment wrapped in his warmth.

“Why is my nephew not yet dead?” Alasdair Keith growled as he strode through the great hall toward where de la Roche waited. His dark eyes glittered in the candlelight.

De la Roche narrowed his gaze on the tall and imperious older man. How dare the Scottish bastard talk to him in that way! He was master of the Spear, ruler of the world, an unstoppable force.

His lips tightened as Keith, dressed in black breeches and a plain linen shirt and tunic, came to join him on the dais at the front of the chamber. The bastard didn’t bow to him, merely stared into his face as though expecting an answer to his ridiculous question.

De la Roche held his tongue. If he’d been able, he would have delivered William Keith’s head on a platter when he’d arrived here. But the Templar had outmaneuvered
him at the broch. And de la Roche now needed Alasdair’s troops if he was to succeed in massacring the Templars—William Keith included. “Soon you’ll have what you desire,” he said.

“’Tis not soon enough,” Keith said coldly with a thin, contemptuous smile.

De la Roche’s gut twisted in anger and he gripped the Spear tighter. If he didn’t need the man’s troops so much, he would take great pride in skewering him through the heart right now. His fingers itched, but he forced himself to hold back.

The doors to the great hall flew open. The ranks of his own and Alasdair Keith’s men filed into the chamber until nearly two hundred men stood before him. A rush of excitement replaced his earlier anger.

It was time to put the Spear to the test. Informants had sent him word that Templars traveled from all areas of Britain toward Crosswick Priory.

De la Roche intended to capture all those men before they could get that far, crippling William Keith and annihilating the Templars once and for all. “Hear me out, men. Hear me out,” he shouted above the din of voices.

One by one the voices in the chamber fell silent, and the earnest faces turned toward him. “I need four groups of twenty-five soldiers to head north, south, east and west. Your mission is to capture any armed men you come across. They are our enemy. Treat them as such. The rest of you, prepare for an attack on the castle.”

De la Roche smiled as he thought of how angry William Keith would be when he discovered his men had been slaughtered like sheep.

Everything that he wanted would come to him without effort and with great efficiency—all because of the Spear. With the Spear he would triumph over anyone and anything. With the Spear he was a god.

“How much longer will I have to wait for you to hold up your end of this bargain?” Alasdair Keith’s grating voice cut into his thoughts.

De la Roche muttered an obscenity as fury filled him. How dare the bastard interrupt his thoughts? The tip of the Spear edged in the older man’s direction. A heartbeat later, de la Roche forced his arm to stop, his anger once again in control.

Even so, something had become abundantly clear to him this day. Once he’d wrung all he needed from the irritating Scotsman, the man would have to die.

The thought was all that comforted him as he sent his troops out to do his bidding.

Siobhan drifted back from a dreamless slumber sometime later. Faint pink light filtered into the room through the cracks in the shutters and from beneath the door. She and William were still curled together. She drew a deep, contented sigh.

“Siobhan?” His voice was steady, as though he’d been awake for some time, waiting for her to open her eyes.

“Yes.”

His hands played with her breasts, stroking, cupping them in his callused palms. His fingers moved lower to stroke her belly. “Do you think I’ve given you a child?”

She came instantly awake. “A child?”

“Had you not thought of a child? There is a possibility—”

“No, it couldn’t be.” She sat up, her mind spinning. She should have started her flux a couple of days ago. Yet she hadn’t. In all the chaos, she hadn’t even considered it. Panic thrummed within her. Sweet Mary! How could she have not considered a child?

His hand came to rest upon her belly once more. “More than anything else in the world, I want my child
to be within you, here.” His voice was tight. He shifted his body to gaze into her face. The fierceness that usually existed there faded to tenderness. “I don’t know what it is I feel for you, Siobhan. But every time I think about life without you, I feel empty and confused.”

Siobhan stared at the man beside her. Heaviness consumed her. A child? Why had she never considered such a fate? God would never be so cruel. Would He?

He smiled. “Why do you say nothing?”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Say you’ll marry me.”

She stared at him, stunned. “What about the Templars? The treasure? Your vows?”

His face became shuttered. “I have work to do there still. But know this, my desire for you is honest.”

“I have no doubts about your honesty or your desire, but you are not free to ask me such a question.” She dropped her gaze to her hands. “You belong to the Templars, just as my father still does. Even though he wanted to be free from them, look what happened. He never managed to sever the ties. Would it be the same for you?”

“I don’t know.”

“I lived in absolute isolation with my father. It was my choice to remain, I realized in the later years. But I don’t want that for my children. I want any child of mine to have experiences, to know the world. To be free, not fearing discovery of some Templar secret or that someone like de la Roche might someday take their father away. As a Templar, you can’t be committed to me or a baby.”

Siobhan reached for the linen that had served as her gown and pulled it over her breasts, no longer comfortable with her nakedness.

“You are refusing me?” He frowned.

“I’ve never spent much time thinking about marriage,
although I knew the possibility might exist someday soon.”

“That someday can be with me. I’ve realized over the past several days that my vows are to the Lord, not necessarily to the Templars. I could never separate the two before, but I can now. The Lord has led me in a different direction. Once I leave the Templars, I will reclaim all that I have in the way of worldly possessions. I’m a very wealthy man, Siobhan. You’ll never want for anything.”

“You’re not free of the Templars, William. Until then…”

With a finger beneath her chin, he brought her gaze back to his. “You’re right. I’m not free to ask you to share my life. But I shall be soon. I’ve served out my purpose with the Templars. A new calling beckons.” His voice vibrated with emotion. “Then I’ll have you, Siobhan. I’ll persuade you to my way of thinking.”

“So much remains to be done,” she said, not knowing how else to respond to his words.

The gentleness she had witnessed earlier returned to his eyes. “Aye, it does.” He bent down to brush his lips sweetly, tenderly against hers. The kiss had just begun when he moved away, leaving her longing for more. She drew a sharp breath. That was exactly as he’d planned. He wanted her to crave his taste, to yearn for his touch so that when the time came, she would surrender herself freely.