Claire Delacroix (123 page)

But Gavin smiled slowly. His eyes glinted and there was a knowingness in his smile that quickened her blood. “Ah, Margaux, I always recalled the fire in your eyes. ’Tis good to see that has not changed.”

Margaux backed away hastily, afraid he would touch her, then regretted showing such weakness when he obviously noted the gesture. “You are not worthy of me, you never were.”

“But you wed me all the same.” He knocked on her father’s tomb again, as if he would awaken that man. “Tell me, Margaux, how much did your choice have to do with me—and how much with him?”

He was too perceptive by half. ’Twas one of the things she had always loathed about Gavin.

That and his need to utter whatever words came to his lips. Oh, he was rough and crude, a barbarian unworthy even to kiss her slippers.

Margaux recalled him kissing her slippers once when she had made such a charge, and all that had ensued. She felt her cheeks heat. “You dare overmuch!”

He chuckled, not in the least bit insulted. “ ’Tis why we are two of a kind.”

Margaux gasped in outrage, appalled that he should compare them favorably. “We have
naught
in common,” she snapped. “I wed you because I wanted one thing of you and one thing alone. Even that, you were knave enough to steal from me.”

“That,” Gavin echoed, enunciating the word clearly. “No doubt our son Burke would be pleased to know that he was but a trinket you desired above all else.” He took a step forward. “Does he know that you loved him only for his prick, for his future as the next Lord de Montvieux?”

Margaux folded her arms across her chest. “Get out.”

But Gavin raised a finger, feigning recollection. “Oh, he
does
know, does he not? Is that not why he declined to accept suzerainty of Montvieux? The only son you ever wanted and he refused the legacy you had so carefully saved for him.” He folded his arms across his chest in turn and clicked his tongue, surveying her with far too much satisfaction in his gaze.

“He spurned you first!”

Gavin inclined his head. “Aye, that he did. In the end, we have even more in common.”

“You poisoned his thinking!” Margaux cried. “You turned
my boy
against me! You stole my son from me.”

“You have more than one son, Margaux.”

“Not with the blood of Montvieux in his veins. Luc is
your
son by your first wife and Rowan is
your
bastard.”

“You raised Rowan.”

“The crime of the parents is not the burden of the son. ’Twas not his fault he was born of a whore and cur.”

Gavin chuckled to himself. “Ah, your tongue is still as sharp as a viper’s kiss. I always did love that about you.”

“Liar! You loved naught in me!”

He sobered and watched her carefully. “You do me disservice.”

“As you did me!” Margaux settled her weight on her cane and let her anger loose. “You twisted Burke to your view, you tried to make a mercenary of him that he might follow in your lead and be damned to hell fast behind you!”

“Nay, Margaux.” Gavin shook his head. “I might have tried,” he admitted softly, his gaze searching hers. “But in the end, there was too much of you in his blood.”

The unexpected words hung between them. “Why are you here?” Margaux demanded, turning hastily away. She saw his shrug from the periphery of her vision.

“I did not know where else to go,” Gavin admitted, his uncharacteristic thoughtfulness making Margaux glance again his way. He frowned at his finger, tapping it against the cold stone. “ ’Tis unsettling to have the purpose of one’s days and nights snatched away.” He looked up suddenly, his gaze snaring hers, and Margaux turned away that he might not see how affected she was by his mood. “It makes a man wonder whether he was wrong.”

But Margaux had no reassurance for her mercenary spouse. “They have tempted even Rowan to leave me, with some fool wager,” she declared instead, her words heated. “Now there is not even laughter to be found in this hall—nor will there ever be, if he does not return.”

Gavin was clearly unsurprised by this tale. “Rowan will return.” He smiled. “He loves the scraps that fall from your hand too much.”

“Rowan may not have a choice,” Margaux snapped. “You know what a fool that boy is when he believes he can win a challenge. Naught stands in his way!”

“You fret for him.” The amusement lurking in his words did naught to appease her.

Margaux shot a lethal glance his way. “I fret for no man.”

Gavin chuckled and leaned a hip against the stone. “I knew you cared for Rowan. Were Rowan your own fruit, I daresay you would love him best of all.”

Margaux was appalled by the very suggestion. “Lineage is not the point! Rowan will die and I shall never see him again!”

“The boy has more wits than that.” Gavin shrugged. “You might even approve of his bride. You do have a fondness for heiresses.”

’Twas galling that he could simply appear and know as much as she did of matters. Margaux averted her face. “I suppose you have heard all the news, then.”

Gavin shrugged. “I paused in the village and bought a round of ale.”

But there was one thing he did not know, could not know from there. “Did they tell you that Burke’s Alys is with child?”

His surprise was obvious and satisfactory. “Nay. When?”

“In the spring.”

“They spoke of it already? ’Tis only past midsummer.”

“They did not speak of it,” Margaux said bitterly. “They did not need to. I know Burke, I know him as a woman knows her son, and I saw it in his manner to his wife.” She cast Gavin a dark glance. “Do you know what this means?”

He lifted one brow. “That you will be a grandmother?”

She exhaled in frustration. “Use your wits, Gavin! It means that Burke will
never
return to Montvieux.”

And the cur laughed. “Margaux! Surely you already knew as much?” Gavin held Margaux’s gaze when she glanced up. “The boy took from both of us and grew to become his own man, to make a life of his own choices.”

Margaux snorted. “So now you are a philosopher.” She sneered. “You who can read naught and cannot make a sum or even sign your own name.” She paced across the low vault. “I am not only a failure in my father’s eyes, but blind to the truth in the eyes of my unlettered oaf of a spouse.”

Gavin snorted in turn, the sound so feeding Margaux’s annoyance that she crossed the room to stand before him.

“A failure! Do you understand the import of that? I have proven my father perfectly aright in this. I have not proven to be as good as a
son
!” She flung out her hand. “A son. ’Twas the only thing he wanted and the only thing I could not be. This legacy will crumble to dust when I die and ’tis all my fault!”

Gavin clicked his tongue. “So, an education does not necessarily ensure one cannot become a fool.”

His implication angered Margaux as naught else could have done. Fury fired through her like quicksilver, for he had never understood anything of merit.

Her palm cracked loudly against his cheek, the sound echoing loud in the stone room. Gavin turned his head from the force of the blow, he blinked, he opened his mouth and closed it again.

Margaux’s hand shook as it fell back to her side. She had never struck another, she had certainly never struck
this
man, and she feared belatedly what he would do.

But she would not back down.

To her surprise, when Gavin met her gaze, a slow smile eased across his lips. He had a roguish charm, a rough allure that Margaux had never been able to deny. Indeed, he was like an animal in his passions, wild and untamed, oblivious to everything but what he wanted in that moment.

She saw in his eyes that he wanted
her.

A part of Margaux admired his bold desire. Even now, after all these years, that glint in his eye awakened a flicker of white heat that reminded her what it had been like to be young.

With Gavin.

“I invite you, my lady wife, to vent your anger upon me. You know full well that I can answer to your passion as none other.”

“Knave!”

Gavin stepped closer and Margaux realized suddenly that he was clean. Aye, her nose told no lie. He had washed to meet with her, a fact not without portent.

Had he returned to Montvieux to court her anew?

She stared into his eyes, incredulous, as his smile broadened. “I should even hold you, if you should cry beneath the burden of the old bastard’s expectations.” He touched his finger to his lips. “And I should tell none of what I witnessed.”

She could not summon a protest to her lips. Just the clean smell of his skin was enough to remind her of their bodies tangled together, of the way they had nearly devoured each other in their desire, of the feel of his tongue upon her flesh. He would do anything for pleasure, he would anything to please her.

He had agreed, many years ago, to wash before he came to her bed. When he lifted his fingertip from his own lips and touched it to hers, her knees weakened at the rough edge against her lips.

Aye, she
remembered.

“Why are you here?” she demanded, her voice more breathless than was her wont.

Gavin’s smile widened. “I wanted to see you,” he said with quiet heat. “I needed to know whether you took Burke’s choice better than I.” He swallowed. “But mostly, I needed to know whether there was still fire in Margaux de Montvieux’s eyes.”

“You came to steal Montvieux,” she charged.

But he laughed beneath his breath. “Nay, Margaux. Though ’tis true I once thought to seize the prize of Montvieux by wedding you, I know now that Montvieux will never be mine. It matters naught.”

“You came to die in comfort, to live out your days here at Montvieux.”

Gavin shook his head. “Nay. I will not stay.”

Margaux could not comprehend the softening in him. Was it truly as he declared? “You lust for Montvieux alone,” she charged, only half certain that was the truth. “I knew your intent when we were wed and I know it now.”

“And you wanted naught but a son from me.” Gavin arched a brow. “Ours was not a match wrought of love or even of dynastic alliance, Margaux, and we are each as guilty as the other in that. At least we were equals, as few others can say.”

Margaux looked away, because there was no argument she could make to the truth.

“But in the end, despite all that has passed between us and all the women I have lain with, ’tis the memory of you that haunts me.”

Margaux tried to be skeptical. “And all the riches you left behind, no doubt.”

“Aye,” Gavin agreed with startling ease. “And you were
the richest of them all, though I realized the truth too late.” With that, he took a quick step to close the distance between them, framed her face in his hands, and kissed her.

’Twas not an embrace born of finesse, nor was his manner filled with grace. ’Twas not his way. But there was a hunger there, a hunger Margaux well recalled, a hunger she had never been able to deny or to resist.

Because that same hunger burned within herself. In that, he was right—they both accepted no compromise abed. They both were greedy for pleasure. And when they touched, some alchemy made them insatiable for each other, driven to grant and seize as much pleasure as could be wrung from the moment. Margaux leaned against Gavin, closed her eyes, and abandoned herself to sensation, admitting only to herself that she had missed this.

She had missed
him.

If he did not intend to stay, she had best make the moment count. When Gavin finally lifted his head, her lips felt bruised from his devouring kiss. His eyes had darkened, as always they did in desire, and Margaux felt younger than she had in weeks. Perhaps years.

“Take me to your bed, Margaux,” he said quietly. “For all we had, and all we never had.”

Margaux laughed, the weight of failure and years shed by that single kiss. “Nay,” she said, savoring her spouse’s surprise. “I would not wait so long as that.”

“Here?” he demanded, incredulous.

“You have a fine wool cloak and I see ’tis lined with fur.” Margaux permitted herself to smile. “And ’tis time that I did something to shock him once again.” She rapped her cane on the sarcophagus to make her point.

Gavin began to laugh. Margaux stepped into his embrace and ensured he had naught to laugh about for a long time.

’Twas just before the dawn the next morn when Gavin Fitzgerald rose from his wife’s bed. They had indeed ended up there, when joints and old bones complained overmuch of the hard flagstones, despite the luxury of that fur-lined cloak.

He shook his head as he stared down at Margaux, her strength of will formidable even in sleep. Her hair had turned from ebony to silver, her once-smooth flesh was lined, her lips had thinned. But she was still the beauty he once had glimpsed and then had wanted so badly that he ached.

He had never met a woman like her.

He knew he never would again.

Yet she believed she was a failure. That was enough to break even his hardened old heart. He could not tell her that he saw the old bastard in the steel of her spine, in the glint in her eye, in her determination to see her will done at all costs.