Claire Delacroix (18 page)

Finally, he lifted his head and regarded her. She smiled shyly at him, her eyes sparkling with pleasure. “Tell me something of yourself,” she urged in a whisper. “Tell me something I have not heard from others.”

The Hawk chuckled. So snared was he in his wife’s allure that he confessed something he had never intended to confess. “There is a kernel of truth in your challenge of last evening. I know more of these visions than I implied.”

The lady’s eyes lit with a pleasure that made his heart sing.

“When first I came to Inverfyre,” he continued quietly, “I met an old crone, a woman name of Adaira who lived in these woods.”

“Adaira,” Aileen whispered, then nodded approval.

The Hawk refused to give much weight to her acceptance of this name, for she could not have known it. He slid his hand beneath her nape, cradling her against his heat as his other hand slid beneath her skirts. He eased beneath the hem of her chemise, felt the warmth of her knee beneath his hand. The softness of her bare flesh nigh made him forget what he had intended to tell her.

“You knew her?”

“I but met her the once. It was said that she lived in this hut. She, too, spoke of visions,” he said, leaving his own memories of the tale aside. “So, you are not the first to have such notions at Inverfyre.”

“What happened to her?”

“She died,” he said simply, thinking the details unworthy of her attention.

“I envisioned that I was her and she was me,” Aileen whispered, apparently more excited by his words than his caress. “Just as you and Magnus are one and the same.”

The Hawk frowned, not having intended to divert her attention so fully from their lovemaking. He felt the passion cool between them and fought to recapture what had promised to be a pleasurable interval afore it was fully lost.

“I think such thoughts do not deserve our consideration, particularly in this moment.” The Hawk stroked the soft curve of her breast and though she shivered, his lady still was too concerned with whimsy for his preference.

“I disagree.” Aileen placed her hands upon his shoulders, compelling him to look into her eyes. Their fathomless blue reminded him of the maiden who had haunted him, the maiden who had been awakened by Adaira’s kiss, and the Hawk felt a certain uneasiness. “There is an old curse at work at Inverfyre, one that governs much...”

He interrupted her sharply. “No, there is not.”

“Yes, there is,” she insisted. She tapped his chest with a fingertip. “And it commands the fates of both you and I. It serves nothing to deny this truth...”

“No such folly commands me.”

Aileen studied him, then her lips set stubbornly. “Heed what I am telling you, for it is of import: there is a spell cast upon you and I...”

The Hawk slid his thumb across Aileen’s nipple, his patience with this tale exhausted. Her words faltered and fell silent, her eyes widened, but she did not pull away. He moved his hand down over her stomach, feeling the skin become softer and softer, knowing the target he sought.

The lady did not seem to. His fingers slipped between her thighs and she gasped, even as she arched her back toward him.

“Let us see what the spell makes of this,” he murmured before he claimed her lips anew.

* * *

The Hawk found it bewitching that Aileen responded so keenly to his kisses. Passion was all new to her, that much was evident, and he was not surprised that a laird’s sole daughter should have been kept chaste.

He was surprised at the protectiveness that her innocence roused in him, no less by his own urge to coax her passion to a flame, to savor it himself. He kissed her because he could not have denied himself the sweet softness of her lips, the tiny gasps she uttered when his touch surprised her, the astonishment and pleasure in her wide blue gaze.

He was shocked when she welcomed him so readily, astonished when her hands closed over his shoulders. He was enflamed when she parted her lips beneath his, shocked and delighted when her tongue tentatively touched his, astounded when she shyly parted her thighs to his questing fingers. There was naught but Aileen for the Hawk, naught but the fire they roused between them.

Though he had intended solely to awaken her, her passionate response meant that he could no longer cease his caress. Her own ardor dismissed his chivalry. He touched her more boldly when she knotted her fingers into his hair and urged him onward.

Her kiss grew more demanding, her hips began to move, at first slowly then with greater vigor. He knew only the taste of her kiss, the smell of her arousal. He wanted to sample every morsel of her flesh. She was wet and restless with her desire, she moaned into his kiss, she writhed beneath him with an urgency that bode well indeed for the marital bed.

When Aileen reached the summit of her pleasure beneath his hand, the Hawk felt nigh as triumphant as she looked. She shuddered from head to toe and flushed scarlet as she gasped, her fist knotted with painful vigor in his hair. He did not care. Her eyes opened wide, their hue a violent sapphire and he found himself grinning at her amazement.

His courtship proceeded well, to his thinking.

Then the lady spoke.

* * *

“Your old falconer, the one who was training peregrines this morn,” Aileen whispered, licking her lips in dismay.

The Hawk’s victorious mood was shattered so surely that it might never have been. He pulled away slightly. This was not the moment, in his opinion, for his lady to speak of those men pledged to serve him. “You must mean Tarsuinn.”

“Tarsuinn,” she murmured, as if she tried the name upon her tongue. She closed her eyes and murmured it again, her manner most strange.

The Hawk felt a strange prickling, the sense of someone walking on his grave. He would not have this moment soiled! He bent to kiss his bride again but she averted her face, a frown puckering her brow.

“Tarsuinn. He has a wound upon his shoulder, a scar from an old wound that was stitched closed.” She touched her own right shoulder and met the Hawk’s gaze.

“How could you know such a thing?” he demanded, fearing suddenly that some hook had been baited with this tempting maiden. Already there was one spy in his dungeon, a spy captured at a cursedly important time. The Hawk got to his feet, his manner turning cold. “Did your father have spies within my hall?”

“No!”

“Then how can you know of a mark on the flesh of my falconer? You have never been to Inverfyre and you cannot know Tarsuinn, who left it before you were born.”

“I saw it...”

“No.” The Hawk dismissed this explanation as unworthy of consideration. He paced the small hut, thinking furiously, even as his innards turned cold.

“Nissa,” he concluded with certainty. “She gives much credence to these old tales. Indeed, she gathers them. Did she tell of this?”

“No, no, she did not.” Aileen shook her head with vigor. “I saw it in my vision.” She met his gaze steadily. “I swear it to you that this is so.”

To his own dismay, the Hawk was tempted to believe his wife.

Perhaps he simply fell prey to his wife’s charms too readily.

“Then, how? Explain yourself, and know that I do not take kindly to deception.”

“I do not deceive you!” Aileen was outraged or feigned it well. She bounded to her feet in turn and shook a finger at him. As irked as he was with her insistence upon this foolery, the Hawk had to admire that the lady was unafraid to challenge him. “It was your kiss that first poured this poison into my thoughts!”

“So you say.”

“So, I know. We must decipher the meaning of these visions and solve the riddle to put it to rest.”

The Hawk shook his head. “I refuse to believe such nonsense. There are no visions.”

“And I refuse to suffer your obstinacy,” his wife retorted, glaring at him. “We shall resolve this matter together or I shall leave.”

Fear clutched the Hawk’s heart. In his determination to assert his claim over her, he chose the wrong words to soften her stance. “You cannot leave. We are wedded. That pledge is eternal before man and God.”

She held his gaze stubbornly. “If my visions are not valid, if they are not to be acknowledged, then I will be said to be mad.” Her eyes glinted and he thought of the rumors Blanche had muttered about Aileen’s mother. “I refuse to surrender my wits to marriage. No man is worth madness.”

“You will surrender more if you venture away from here without my protection,” the Hawk retorted. “You are clever enough to know that the world has no place for you if you leave my side. You will have to beg, or whore yourself, or steal.”

“Having my wits and my reputation might be compense enough!” She flung out a hand in frustration. “And I would not have to travel far to earn coin as a whore. Your own hall abounds with whores!”

“Men have need of gratification.” The Hawk dismissed this concern with a gesture. “Ours is a company of warriors and these women abide here by their own choice.”

Aileen snorted. “My mother never was compelled to suffer whores within Abernye’s hall. Their presence challenges your assertion that you mean to make a marriage in truth. Would you have whores play nursemaid to your children?”

The Hawk was appalled. “No!”

“No decent women will serve in your hall in its current state. No vassals will entrust their daughters to my training.” Aileen shook a finger at him. “My mother always said that distance cools a man’s ardor, and fewer bastards in the hall keeps coin in the laird’s treasury. You could do me the courtesy of dispatching the whores to the village.”

The Hawk did not care to be threatened, though there was merit in her request. He folded his arms across his chest and regarded his lady wife, taking no trouble to hide his anger. “Do you threaten me, if I do not comply? I forbid you to leave Inverfyre without my accompaniment or permission.”

Aileen glared at him, a rebellious light in her eyes that should have made him cautious.

Instead, he spoke more foolery, so fearful was he of losing her.

He stepped forward until they stood toe to toe, and gathered her untied chemise in his fist. He lifted to her toes, though she did not so much as blink. “Leave,” he threatened softly, “and you need not return. I shall spurn you forever.”

“You need not make the prospect so tempting,” she said, her teeth gritted in her anger. “Indeed, I cannot imagine why I would desire to remain with a man who thought so little of my counsel, especially when I tell him what he knows to be right!”

They glared at each other for a charged moment, and the Hawk considered shaking her until her very bones rattled. How vexing this woman could be! She was right, though he was sufficiently irked that he could not admit as much.

Then, to his astonishment, Aileen took a deep breath and glanced down at his fist in her chemise. “We have made this error afore,” she said quietly and he knew immediately that it was true.

She laid her hand atop his, and lifted his fingers away, unafraid of him or his anger. “We gain nothing in this battle, and could lose much. Our strength will be in unison, not conflict.” Her gentleness disarmed him, her change of mood dissolved his own annoyance.

She looked up at him, her gaze clear. “Understand that I saw this vision, whether that fact pleases you or not,” she whispered. “I saw Tarsuinn’s wound.”

He shook his head. “No, you cannot have done.”

“And what explanation do you offer instead?” Aileen’s expression turned gloriously defiant. “I am not mad. I am not whimsical. I am not a sorceress. I am not the pawn of some traitor in your hall. I saw Tarsuinn’s scar.”

The Hawk could not summon a word to his lips.

“Do you call me a liar?”

He shook his head, uncertain what to think.

“I would rather that you were right in this,” she asserted to his relief. “These visions are not welcome to me, but they come all the same.” A tear glistened on Aileen’s lashes, though she blinked it away with impatience. “Understand, my lord, that I am more afraid than ever I have been.” She appealed to him, her doubts evident in her gaze, as she whispered. “What if this is madness? I must make sense of what is happening to me here, if I am not to share my mother’s fate. I must find the source of these visions, if I am to keep my wits.”

Her unexpected confession pierced his heart and he felt a strange commonality with her. Had he not been frightened when Adaira had seemed to spice his own thoughts? There was but one way to dismiss this whimsy for all time. There was but one way to protect his lady from her fears.

He had to prove her to be mistaken.

“Come.” The Hawk lifted Aileen’s hand in his. “Let us find Tarsuinn with all haste and prove this to be the nonsense that it is.”

* * *

The Hawk and his bride found Tarsuinn in the moulting house. There must have been a dozen boys working beneath the falconer’s command. Peregrines were being bathed, stroked and fed, and several boys were singing softly to their restless charges. Though it was evening, there was still labor to be done.

Tarsuinn moved from one to the next, his advice kindly but firm. His face was red from his exertions this day, for he had grown plumper on Inverfyre’s fare. He secured a peregrine’s tether with care, talking gently to the creature all the while. The apprentice beside him watched with keen eyes.

It was not yet time to take young birds from their parents’ nests, and these were eyasses claimed at least the year before. Tarsuinn’s skill was legendary, and he never relinquished a bird for sale until he was convinced that her training was flawless. The Hawk could see the admiration the boys felt for their master as they watched him. They learned a valuable trade beneath Tarsuinn’s hand and learned it from one of the greatest falconers in Christendom.

It was soothing here, for the birds were all hooded and Tarsuinn would not tolerate a disturbance that might frighten his charges. Several fidgeted on their perches, and the bells affixed to their ankles rang quietly as they moved.

“Tarsuinn, might we trouble you for a moment?” The Hawk had known the falconer all of his life and his loyalty was beyond question. As a result, there is such respect between the two men that the laird refused to command Tarsuinn away from his labor on a mere whim.