Claire Delacroix (70 page)

Alys glanced to the silvery quarter moon, to the stars filling the sky, to the man waiting hopefully for her response. ’Twas a night made for dreaming, and Alys could not deny herself this one moment.

Would it harm anything if she had a walk in the moonlight to recall for all her days and nights?

“I shall come.” Alys shook a finger at the knight below when he grinned to so readily win his request. “But you shall not steal kisses, nor will you regale me with nonsensical compliments.”

Burke blew her a gallant kiss as his response, and Alys knew better than to trust him in this.

But for this one night, she did not care. Indeed, her fingers trembled as she fastened her kirtle. She crept past Edana and fled down the stairs on silent feet, telling herself that her haste was only to ensure that none heard her passing.

But even Alys knew that was a lie.

Burke could not believe his good fortune when Alys appeared in the shadows of the kitchen portal. He had not expected her to join him, he certainly had not expected her to laugh at his jests.

He captured her hand in his, savoring the way she shivered when he kissed her knuckles. Alys glanced back over her shoulder in trepidation, but Burke touched one fingertip to her lips.

“They all sleep,” he whispered. “And none will know what we do. Believe me, Alys, I will not permit your aunt to raise her hand against you again.”

There was such hope in her lovely eyes that Burke was sorely tempted to sweep the lady away this very night, but he knew he had to win her agreement first. He smiled, but she shook her head and pulled her hand from his.

“You will not be able to stop her, once you have left Kiltorren,” Alys said flatly. She brushed past Burke and walked toward the sea wall.

Burke quickly matched his steps to hers. “ ’Twill not be an issue when you come with me.”

Alys cast a glance his way. “I pledged long ago to not repeat my mother’s error, Burke, so do not try to change my thinking.”

Here was a key to his lady’s secrets, Burke was certain. “What error was that?”

Alys smiled. “She trusted a man, probably a charming one, and to her own detriment. I have inherited much from her, according to Aunt, but I do not want to repeat such a mistake.”

“Tell me of her.”

But Alys shook her head. “You did not summon me out here to hear the tale of my mother.”

“Perhaps I should have. ’Twas you who insisted I should know more of you.”

Alys turned to face him then, her expression indulgent. “Oh, Burke, you are the most cursedly determined man that I have ever met. Do you ever take nay for an answer?”

Burke grinned. “Not when the stakes are of such import as this.”

Alys studied him for a long moment, her gaze searching. Burke hid naught from her, though he did not know what precisely would reassure her doubts. The wind came in gusts from the sea, ruffling his chemise and lifting the lady’s hair; the moonlight painted her features in ethereal silver.

“How is your new chamber?” he asked.

“Most fine,” Alys admitted with a smile, her eyes twinkling
with mischief. “I suppose you would demand a token of appreciation?”

Burke grinned. “ ’Twould not be unwelcome.”

The dimple he adored made a fleeting appearance, then Alys leaned closer. She placed one hand on his chest as if to restrain him from demanding more than she offered, then brushed her lips across his jaw. “I thank you,” she murmured.

Burke closed his eyes, stunned by the heat that flooded through him from that one featherlight touch. ’Twas the first time Alys had ever kissed him of her own volition, and the realization made his heart pound.

He felt her move away, and his eyes flew open in time to note the pale splendor of her feet flashing as she hoisted her skirts. She climbed the rubble remaining of the seaward curtain wall. Burke stood transfixed for a long moment, both by her kiss and her fine ankles.

Alys fired a glance back Burke’s way when she reached the low summit of the wall. “What ails you?” she asked. “You look to have been struck to stone.”

Burke grinned and decided not to confide that a part of him had indeed turned as hard as stone.

“There is mischief in your eyes,” the lady accused with a smile.

Burke laughed. He leapt to the top of the wall, caught Alys in his embrace, and kissed her fully while he yet had surprise upon his side. Alys parted her lips beneath his own, the sweetness of her kiss nearly undoing Burke’s resolve. He caught her close and kissed her deeply, loving how she leaned against him, how her arms slowly crept around his neck.

It seemed the moonlight had unfettered his lady’s soul.

Finally Burke lifted his lips from hers, knowing that soon he would not be able to stop his embrace. He swung Alys into his arms and leapt to the sea side of the wall. Then he strode
toward the smooth darkness of the sandy beach, certain that all would shortly be put to rights between them.

“Put me down!” the lady insisted.

“You will injure your feet upon these stones,” Burke said evenly. “ ’Twould be most unchivalrous of me to abandon you to such a fate.”

“Again you cite chivalry as your justification. Burke, how can you not see that ’tis my situation alone that attracts you?”

“I love you, and ’tis
that
which sends me in your pursuit.”

“You
desire
me,” Alys corrected. She squirmed as they reached the wet stretch of sand, proving that assertion so true that Burke set her reluctantly on her feet.

“But ’tis not enough, Burke,” she insisted, her voice low and imbued with no small measure of determination. “Not nearly enough.” Alys held his gaze tellingly, then stepped past him, walking down the beach.

Burke stared after the lady for a long moment. She insisted he did not know enough of her, that his ardor must be measured by deeds. Now he would learn more of the lady. He cast his mind over all she had said, then strode after her, disregarding the likely damage to his boots as he stepped into the surf. They walked side by side, until finally Alys looked his way.

“I accept your challenge to learn more of the lady who holds my heart,” Burke said, over the steady pounding of the surf. “Tell me a tale of yourself, Alys.”

The lady was somewhat less than cooperative. “There is naught to tell.”

“Nay? What of your mother’s error?”

Alys’s lips thinned. “ ’Tis what made me a bastard.”

“You told me this already.” Burke arched a brow. “Do not imagine that this fact troubles me.”

“My father may have been a common serf.”

“Do you know his identity?”

Alys shook her head.

“Then he might just as well have been a king.” Burke grinned. “You could have been stolen away by pirates when you were a babe, as Nicolette was.”

Alys halted and stared at him. “You know that tale?”

“Of course. Though you sang it more beautifully than I have ever heard before.” Burke smiled. “You have a fine voice, Alys.”

The lady flushed and did not seem to know what to do.

“What happened to your mother?”

Alys sighed and frowned across the endless sea. “She died just after my birth. Aunt insists ’twas of shame, though Heloise said ’twas of a broken heart.”

“Your mother’s error was to love?”

The lady glanced up, her bright gaze impaling Burke. “My mother’s error was to love a man who served her false.”

Her head bowed with the weight of this inheritance and she might have turned away, but Burke caught at her shoulders.

Here indeed was the key to the puzzle, the reason why she did not intend to trust him. Burke was not about to lose the chance to learn it, and he was certainly not prepared to let Alys’s mother’s error stand in the path of his courtship. He touched one finger to Alys’s chin and compelled her to meet his gaze once more.

“Tell me, Alys,” he entreated. “Entrust me with this tale.”

Alys bowed her head. Burke’s hands were warm and reassuring on her shoulders. She felt her defenses crumble beneath his patient silence and knew that on this moonlit night, her resistance to him was dissolving like salt in the sea.

This was a tale Alys had never shared before, a whispered secret she had learned at Heloise’s knee. “If I tell you this tale, will you be satisfied this night?”

Burke’s smile flashed like quicksilver. “Nay, I will not be
satisfied until your hand is securely within mine, and that for all time,” he declared, then offered Alys his hand.

She considered his outstretched palm for only a moment before putting her hand upon his. Alys felt for the first time since Heloise fell ill that there was another she could rely upon, if only for this one night. They turned as one away from Kiltorren’s keep and Alys cleared her throat.

“My mother was the elder of two daughters born to my grandparents, the first Lord and Lady of Kiltorren. She was named Isibeal, her younger sister is my Aunt Deirdre. ’Twas my grandfather who built Kiltorren, and ’tis said that he was a man of rare diligence and determination.”

“Did you know him?”

Burke’s thumb moved across the back of Alys’s hand in a leisurely caress. With Kiltorren behind them, ’twas easy to imagine that they two were alone upon this coast. It seemed the night could last forever, and Alys half wished that it would.

“I was young when he died.” Alys smiled softly. “I recall that he bounced me on his knee and sang Norse ditties to me.”

“He was not of Ireland?”

“Nay, he was a Norseman. There is a tale that he came raiding on this coast with a shipload of his countrymen and, with one glance of my grandmother, he was smitten.”

“Ah, then you come by your allure honestly.”

Alys flushed. “Whatever the truth, my grandfather never returned to his homeland. He labored for the local king and won the approval of my grandmother’s family. Finally he earned the right to build a holding and he chose this place.”

“Why? ’Twould not have been the first choice of many.”

Alys smiled. “ ’Tis said he could not bear to be out of sight of the sea. Indeed, he was a man that seemed to fill any space he occupied, a man that should be outside in the wind. I can still hear the way he bellowed and the way he laughed, and recall that he had an enormous silver beard.”

Alys glanced to her companion to find a similar smile gracing his firm lips. “He sounds the perfect grandfather.”

She shrugged. “Perhaps I have created him in my memories, I am not certain.” She sobered. “But it seems to me that the hall rang often with laughter in those days. Perhaps I was merely too young to notice otherwise.”

“Hmm. My mother has been known to declare that we are oft overly quick to dismiss the recollections of children, or indeed their understanding of all around them.”

’Twas a surprisingly sombre comment, and Alys found herself glancing at Burke.

He smiled crookedly. “Do not look so astonished that I have a mother, or even that she has a wisdom about her.”

Alys smiled. “You have never mentioned her.”

Burke sobered and looked away. “She is …
formidable
.” Then he glanced at her again with an affectionate glint in his eye. Alys wondered whether ’twas for her or his daunting mother. “But, please, continue with your tale of your own mother.”

“You are not bored?”

“Far from it. I am intrigued to learn of the woman who brought you into this world.”

Burke’s gaze was so warm that Alys had to look away in her turn. “Well, here there is a parting of the tale, for Heloise told of it one way while Aunt tells almost the perfect opposite.”

“I would hear the version of Heloise,” Burke said quickly.

“ ’Tis far prettier.”

“And undoubtedly closer to the truth.”

There was little to argue with that. Alys frowned at the waves sliding before her and retreating again. She considered the distant silhouette of Kiltorren, only now realizing how far they had walked.

’Twas stunning to realize how much she did not want to go back. All the same, Alys knew there was little choice. She
turned deliberately and strolled toward the keep, welcoming Burke’s presence beside her.

“Heloise maintained that my mother was beauteous beyond all. She declared that Isibeal was as fair as a flower, her hair like gilded sunlight. She said my mother’s laugh could coax a smile from the most dour guest and that my grandfather adored his eldest above all else.”