Claire Delacroix (16 page)

“Now, what were those terms?” He pursed his lips, as if struggling to remember, though I had no doubt my words were in the forefront of his thoughts.

He looked as devilish as I once remembered him being, and the sight was not the only reason my heart raced.

“Your aid by day in exchange for my favors abed at night, I believe it was. Is that not right,
chère
?”

“Merlyn, no.”

He arched a dark brow. “And why not? It was your own suggestion and one most amenable to me.” His lips quirked and his warm gaze slipped over me. “Do you fear that you could not be persuaded? I cannot imagine that you would be so reticent.” He smiled. “And I cannot imagine that I would find the burden of persuading you so onerous as that.”

I closed my eyes as his kiss feathered across my brow. I feared precisely the opposite - that Merlyn’s fiery touch would persuade me to abandon the last vestige of my sense. I heard myself sigh as his lips touched my temple.

Merlyn’s heat melted my resistance, his touch gave me far less than I desired, his gentle kisses dissolved my determination to fight him. He knew that force would make rejection easy, so he teased and tempted, he seduced. His lips touched my brow, my temple, my ear, the corner of my mouth. I felt myself hungering for his touch, burning for the pleasure that I knew he could grant, aching for the fire we two could light between us.

I turned my face abruptly away, though the feat took an unholy effort. “I cannot aid you without more knowledge, Merlyn,” I said and barely recognized the husky words as my own. “You ask too much of me.”

“Then, you will assist me?”

I turned and met his gaze steadily. “I cannot make such a choice, not without the details. And surely, Merlyn, a person is more likely to cleave to an agreement made willingly than one which has been beguiled from their lips.”

He smiled, then leaned his weight upon his elbow. “Do I beguile you,
chère
?”

The last thing the man needed was a boost to his confidence. I gathered the furs high, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of my seeking a chemise, then granted him my most bored glance. “Of course not. Say what you must and be done with it.”

But Merlyn neither moved nor spoke. He studied me for so long that my flesh prickled with awareness of him. His gaze slid over my face, my hair, my bare shoulder, my tight pose, then returned to my face again.

“You have changed,” he said softly, as if surprised.

“I have not changed save that I am older. As we all are.” I knew, of course, that I had changed, but I did not intend to explain my choices to Merlyn.

“No, it is more than that.” The shadows made him look mysterious and alluring. He leaned closer, stretching his legs out on the mattress beside me, and studied me with care.

“And I say you are wrong.” I yawned elaborately, hoping to disguise my awareness that my husband was again in my bed and that I warmed to his very presence. It was all to easy to recall the wondrous things we had done to each other here. “How fascinating, Merlyn. We have found another matter upon which we can disagree.”

He touched my shoulder with a warm fingertip that stopped my heart, then slid his touch down the length of my arm. I struggled to hide my shiver. “You are more inclined to speak your thoughts than you were even then,” he said with quiet certitude. “You are harsher than once you were, more judgmental, more severe. You are more tough than the maiden I knew.”

His perceptiveness alarmed me and sharpened my tongue. “Had you ever tended chickens, Merlyn, you would know that the tender do not survive and that the oldest hens oft have the toughest meat.”

My bold words were effectively undermined when he slipped his hand beneath the furs and cupped the weight of my breast in his hand. His eyes sparkled when I caught my breath.

Merlyn slid his thumb across my nipple, encouraging it to bead, and I know he delighted in how readily I responded. “Surely you do not call yourself an old hen,
chère
? This flesh seems most soft.”

I fixed him with a challenging stare. “Tell me more or leave.”

Merlyn’s hand slipped away, and I was not entirely glad to lose his touch. He got to his feet, and I feared that he would leave.

Then he glanced back to me, his expression almost contrite. “You are suspicious, as well. Is this my legacy to you?”

I lifted my chin, hating that I could soften toward him so readily. “Perhaps so, Merlyn. You certainly taught me that matters are not always as they appear, nor even as a man might insist they are.”

Merlyn’s voice hardened. “Give me one example of a deed I have done to earn your bitterness. Not one recounted by Gawain or any other, but one that you yourself witnessed.”

I knew a perfect example well enough. “That is an easy task, Merlyn. Your reply to my request for an annulment will suffice.”

“How so?” He was wary, despite his query, as if he guessed himself guilty. “You sent a missive and I replied. Where is the crime in that?”

“You knew that I would not be able to read your reply!” This was an old wound and the recounting of it heated my words. “You knew I would have to have it read for me, and that the only place to have that done is in the market! You knew that the entire village would hear the contents of your missive.”

If I longed for a rebuttal, an explanation that would prove him innocent, I was not to have it.

Merlyn’s features set to stone. “Indeed I did.”

I gasped. “You shamed me apurpose!”

“I ensured that the relationship between us was made clear, for the benefit of all parties.”

“Benefit?” Outrage rose hot in my throat. “If you believe that what you wrote was for my benefit, then you are more a fool than I ever imagined, Merlyn Lammergeier.”

“And what is that to mean?” he demanded. “You asked for an annulment, and I explained why it was not possible.”

“You made me look a fool!”

“I did no such thing.”

“I beg your pardon, my lord Merlyn, but I remember the matter somewhat differently.”

“Do tell.” Merlyn watched me, his gaze snapping.

It is somewhat difficult to make a regal argument reclined nude in one’s bed, but I did my best. “You regretted to inform me that a marriage could only be annulled for three reasons.”

“Indeed.”

“The first -” I held up my thumb “- if the bride was unwilling. As I had accepted you of my own volition, you knew this was not so.”

“And so I still do.”

“The second -” I held up my index finger “- if the bride and groom are related within unacceptable degrees of consanguinity, which you also knew to not be so.”

Merlyn nodded, his expression grim and unrepentant.

I faltered, but then I saw the gleam in his eyes and knew that he knew what had infuriated me so.

But still, he made me tell him.

Cur!

Angered anew, I held up my next finger. “The third - if the match has not been consummated.”

“Ah, yes,” Merlyn murmured. “Do you find fault with my understanding of ecclesiastical law?”

I had the definite sense that he laughed at me, though his expression remained sober.

“No, not that. I find fault with your assurance that you recalled the consummation of our wedding night with greatest pleasure...”

“As I still do.”

“And you offered that if my recollection was lacking, you would be delighted to return to Kinfairlie and refresh my memory.”

Merlyn grinned. “It is true. But my recounting of the truth annoyed you?”

“You knew I could not read your missive myself!” I shouted, furious that he still did not see the issue. “You knew that I would have to take it to the scribe in the market and you knew that he would read it aloud.”

Merlyn paused, watching me carefully.

I shook a finger at him. “It was an entire month before I dared show my face in the village market. To this day, boys will follow me, snickering while they insist that they have a missive for me from my spouse, then grabbing at themselves in case their meaning is not clear.”

Merlyn frowned. “
Chère
, I meant no disrespect...”

“But you granted it to me all the same! Do you know nothing of village life? Do you know nothing of how vicious people can be? I was already mocked, as you might have guessed, for having been spurned by the Laird of Ravensmuir.”

He straightened. “I did not spurn you.”

“I let them believe what they wished to believe and that was the conclusion they made. I was not about to confess the wicked deeds of my spouse.”

“You protected me...”

“I did not choose to confide in the gossips of Kinfairlie!” I declared, interrupting him before he could think overmuch along such lines. “We had long been accused of holding ourselves above others, and that was a chance for malice to reign.”

“Your mother certainly never comported herself as a peasant.”

“She was no peasant! She was a noblewoman’s handmaid, orphaned and sent to serve in the household of a former ally of her father. And she insisted that we speak properly, as she had been taught to do, rather than mutter and growl like those common born.”

“Which fed resentment, no doubt.” Merlyn’s eyes glittered. “Your return to Kinfairlie provided all the fuel necessary for malice.”

“Oh yes. Clearly, we were not so fine as we believed. Clearly, you regretted your hasty courtship. Clearly, you regretted an unfortunate choice of bride. The gossips were proven right a hundredfold. But Merlyn, with your missive, you made the matter ten times worse!”

I closed my eyes, snared in that horrible afternoon, dozens of leering faces savoring my discomfiture. “I remember the heat of my shame, I remember how my face burned, I remember how they mocked me even as I stood there. I dare not let myself be cornered alone even to this day, lest they choose to deliver their missive and outnumber me so that I cannot halt them.” I swallowed. “You know that there is no law in Kinfairlie, Merlyn, for there is no laird. Do you know what it is to taste terror when you hear footsteps behind you?”

“You could have left the village.”

“To go where?” My tears rose hot again, as they had on that long ago day, but I could not halt. “Have you ever tasted despair, Merlyn? I was not well, my mother was very ill, we had no coin to speak of, no income, no patron, and yet a child would be born in our household within the year. We were trapped in Kinfairlie, as surely as if the gates were barred against us, and you stole what few options we had.”

“Surely not!”

“I could not marry again, to see us secure, for I was still wedded. I could not gain a license to brew as a single woman, and could not have one as a married woman for there was no spouse to guarantee my pledge. You neither claimed me nor released me. You left me trapped in poverty, Merlyn, powerless by your choice.”

He spared me a simmering glance. “You could have returned here.”

“To the man who lied to me? To the man who mocked me? I think not!”

Merlyn’s expression turned conciliatory. “Ysabella...”

“Those words meant nothing to you, Merlyn, yet everything to me. I hated you that day with every fiber of my being.”

He stared at me, something in my tone having given him pause. We eyed each other for a long moment and I did not temper the fury I still felt.

The truth was that I had hated Merlyn that day as one can only hate what one has loved.

Once vented, my anger was spent. The wind left my sails and I felt smaller than I had just moments past. It is a curious thing about bitterness and anger - they fester solely in the dark shadows of our hearts and, once exposed to even fitful moonlight, disperse like wraiths. I folded my arms about myself, feeling more naked without the burden of my resentment. In hindsight, I was ashamed that I had confessed so much so readily.

“I am sorry,
chère
. I never thought...” Merlyn’s voice faltered uncharacteristically.

I peeked through my lashes when to find him looking most troubled. He shoved a hand through his hair and swore. He crossed the chamber and caught my hand in his, giving me no chance to snatch it away.

He appealed to me, his eyes telling me much that his hoarse words did not. “It is true that I knew that you could not read, and that I anticipated that you would have the missive read in the marketplace.”

He paused for a long moment while I wrestled with my disappointment that he was guilty again of the charges I made against him.

“I thought matters would be simpler for you if people knew that your spouse was not disinterested in your fate.” He took a deep breath, and he lifted my chin with a fingertip as if he would will me to believe him. “I thought my name might protect you,
chère
, or the fear of my name, even if you would not allow me to do so. My sole intent was to put the terror of the Lammergeier into those who might otherwise have tormented you.” He smiled at me and I knew he would make a light jest. “Clearly, I underestimated our wicked repute.”

I was within a hair of believing him. I wanted to be persuaded that he had tried to protect me. I wanted to forgive him, but the anguish of that day was still too sharp within me.

I turned away, pulling my hand from his grip. “How curious then, if you were so concerned for my welfare, that you never once sought me out.”

Merlyn met my gaze, his eyes a stormy blue. “I did, just days past, and you did not welcome me.”

I had no argument for that.

“You fled my home without explanation. You asked for an annulment. A man could readily conclude from those choices that his attentions were unwelcome.”

I froze at the hurt underlying his words.

Had I wounded Merlyn by leaving him? The possibility was stunning. I faced him anew and found it telling that he averted his gaze from mine.

Or was this yet another facet of his game to win my aid?

“You do not fool me, Merlyn,” I said with low heat. “You speak loftily of trust between us, but the sole thing you desire is my trust of you, granted preferably without restraint, without your making the effort of behaving in a trustworthy manner. Indeed, I believe the true mark of the Lammergeier is a refusal to trust any person not of their own brood.”