Fairest Of Them All (24 page)

His hands shook as he lifted the heavy bolt from its iron brackets. He had no idea what he might find. Each time Winifred had dolefully displayed an untouched tray for his inspection, he had hardened his heart to images of Holly’s vibrant flesh wasting from her bones.

The door creaked open beneath the coaxing of his hand. A cobweb drifted across his face; he swiped it away, fighting a shudder. The chamber was bathed in the gathering shadows of dusk. Fading light drifted through the open window.

There was no sign of Holly. A chill of dread caressed Austyn’s spine as the abrupt cessation of song took on a more sinister cast He stood transfixed by the gaping maw of that window. The window Carey had begged him to fix an iron grate over. The window overlooking the enclosed courtyard he had forbade anyone to enter. The one man fool enough to scale the wall and try to steal a glimpse of his captive bride had been exiled from Caer Gavenmore with naught but the tunic on his back.

Austyn took a hesitant step. Then he was hurling himself toward the void, leaning out just as a honeyed voice behind him said, “I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction.”

Sparrows twittered and hopped on the cobblestones below, mocking him with their serenity. Austyn slowly turned as a woman brushed aside a veil of webs and emerged from the shadows around the bed.

“Sorry to disappoint you so sorely,” she said, “but I’ve not made a widower of you yet.”

He folded his arms over his chest, much as he had done the first time they met. “A pity. I thought perhaps you had sang yourself to death.”

The lit taper Holly carried cast a flickering halo around her, giving Austyn his first true look at her since she’d stood trembling and debased by his brutal perusal in the river.

She was slender, aye, but hardly wasted. Her breasts swelled against the brocaded bodice of her cotehardie as if seeking to overflow it Her skin had lost its sun-burnished hue, but its translucence only made her look more fragile, more alluring. He fought the urge, but his gaze drifted to her face of its own volition.

If she’d thought to ruin her appearance by cropping her hair, she’d sorely miscalculated. The dark cap of curls framing her face only enhanced its heart-shaped purity. The missed meals had sculpted beguiling hollows beneath her cheekbones. If anything, she was more beautiful than she’d been in the garden at Tewksbury. She’d been naught but a shallow girl then. Now her violet eyes sparkled with the complex depths of a woman.

Austyn narrowed his eyes, seeking any hint of the awkward, charming girl he had called wife for a few idyllic weeks. He found nothing of her in the exotic creature standing before him. Twas her loss that both wounded and enraged him beyond bearing.

“Why?” he asked hoarsely. “Did you and your father think it a fine jest to play upon an ignorant Welshman?”

She rested the taper on a stone corbel jutting from the wall, but lingered near enough to remain bathed in its lambent light “ Twas never meant as a jest at all. My father sought to wed me to a stranger. I believed I had no other choice than to try and stop him. Have you never felt powerless?”

Powerless to resist you, Austyn thought, but he would have died before uttering the words. “Powerless? With your father’s wealth at your disposal? Your own beauty a sword to drive into any man’s heart?”

“You see where beauty has gotten me. It has been naught but a curse since the day I was born.” She widened her eyes in mock innocence. “And you, of all men, should understand curses.”

Austyn scowled at her, admiring her boldness against his will.

“I sought only to repel my suitors,” she continued. “How was I to know you’d be so pigheaded as to pursue me despite my ugliness? Or so greedy, I might add?”

“Greedy?”

She tilted her delicate chin to a defiant angle. “Aye, greedy! You dare to cast shadows on my own motives while yours were none too pure. You sought not a wife, but a fat purse to swell your coffers. As I see it, sir, you are no better than I.”

Twas all Holly could do to stand her ground when Austyn came swaggering toward her. She had spent the lonely days and interminable nights plotting schemes to summon him to her, not what to do with him once he arrived. As he entered the spill of candlelight, she bit back an involuntary gasp.

He was dressed all in black with the shadow of a new beard darkening his cheeks. He looked younger, more gaunt, yet somehow larger and infinitely less manageable.

He circled her like a wary raptor, his eyes narrowed to frosty slits. “You’ve had ample time to concoct such a cunning tale. Why should I believe you? How do I know your father didn’t seek to marry you off to some unsuspecting jape because you’d been ruined?” His gaze flicked to her taut belly, then back to her eyes. “How do I know that even as we speak your womb doesn’t thicken with another man’s babe?”

Holly choked back her outrage and managed a sneer of her own. “And I suppose you believe this imaginary lover of mine followed me here to Gaven-more in the guise of a priest?”

At the murderous flare of his eyes, Holly feared her sarcasm might cost both she and Nathanael their heads. But Austyn swung away from her, flexing his fingers as if to keep them from curling around her throat

Mustering her courage, Holly moved to stand within his view. If her beauty was his only weakness, then she would exploit it to her full advantage.

“Since you’re determined to believe me a harlot, regardless of the truth,” she said softly, “what will you do with me, Austyn? Will you beat me?” Taking a terrible chance, she reached for his hand. He flinched at her touch, but did not pull away. She cradled his knuckles in the cup of her palm, gently folding each finger until they formed a mighty fist “ Tis well within your rights as my husband. Or will you burn me at the stake, laughing as my tender flesh melts in the flames?”

She surrendered his hand to splay her palms against his chest with reckless abandon, whispering over the erratic thunder of his heart. “Or will you simply turn around and leave me here? Walk away and bolt the door behind you as your grandfather did. Forget you ever saw my face, heard my voice, kissed my lips ...”

His ravenous gaze caressed her face. Holly moistened her lips, nearly breathless with hope.

Austyn tore away from her with a harsh laugh. “Is that what Winifred told you? She always did have a gift for glossing over the more sordid aspects of the family history.”

Holly’s confidence faltered. “What do you mean?”

With one fleet step, he jumped up on the pedestal supporting the bed. Holly would not have recognized the cynical quirk of his lips as a smile were it not accompanied by a diabolical flash of his dimple.

“Oh, my grandfather did imprison my grandmother in this tower for ten years. But he never forgot her. On the contrary, legend has it that he returned to rape her nightly. With unflagging enthusiasm.” Austyn reached out to finger one of the frayed ribbons still attached to the bedpost, shooting her a naughty glance from beneath his dark lashes. “ Tis whispered he was quite imaginative in his ... punishments.” The ribbon slipped through Austyn’s deft fingers. ‘Twas only after he bored of the sport and sought solace in the arms of another that she hurled herself to her death.”

A shiver of shameful anticipation coursed down Holly’s spine as Austyn stepped off the pedestal. She took an involuntary step backward, wondering too late what manner of predator she had engaged.

He strode right past her, making for the door.

“Austyn?” she said.

He turned, the sensual curves of his mouth robbed of any hint of humor.

“I’m innocent”

He sketched her a mocking bow. “That, my lady, remains to be seen.”

As the bolt thudded into place, Holly groped blindly for the nearest stool. Even as she pressed her fingertips to her lips to still their trembling, she felt a spark of triumph. For she had seen the indisputable truth in her husband’s eyes. He would return to her.

One night passed. Then three more. By the end of a sennight, Holly’s hopes were beginning to wane. Perhaps, she feared, her goading had only driven Austyn further from her embrace. Perhaps he, like his grandfather, had chosen to seek his pleasures in the arms of another.

Her eyes clouded at the image, her throat tightening with a sense of loss as keen and poignant as anything she had endured since her mother’s death. She tried to sing, but found the melodies would not come. Even the most soulful of ballads failed to convey the depth of her yearning.

As a sennight melted into a fortnight, she ceased to don the elaborate cottes each day, ceased struggling to arrange her unruly curls into some semblance of elegance.

Late one night, she curled up on the window seat in her chemise and watched a summer storm batter its way across the sky. The far horizon vanished as black clouds billowed toward the castle. Thunder rumbled and jagged forks of lightning crackled over the roiling cauldron of the river. Holly hugged her knees, paralyzed by the inevitability of the approaching maelstrom. Twas a kindred spirit, prowling the sky with a hunger as wild and restless as her own.

Twas only when the wind began to drive sheets of rain against her skin that she rose to latch the shutters, unable to bear the elusive scent of freedom. She paced the tower, lighting every taper to cast a fragile pall of brightness over the gloom.

The wind hammered the shutters with angry fists. Holly curled up on the bed and struggled to focus her torn attentions on an illuminated manuscript detailing the spiritual ecstasies of Mechtild of Magdeburg, bride of Christ Perhaps Austyn had sent it so that she might prepare her own wicked soul for its future in die nunnery, she thought bitterly.

Between one sullen growl of thunder and the next, the door crashed open and Holly jerked up her head to meet the smoldering eyes of her earthly husband.

Auslyn had envisioned Holly in many guises in the past fortnight: haughty lady sneering down at her patrician nose at him; malicious harpy berating him for his greed; bewitching temptress taunting him with a flutter of her burgeoning lashes and a flick of her moist, pink tongue. But as he gazed at her curled on the bed of sable like a small, contented cat, he realized each of those women were only illusions contrived to distract him from who she really was.

His wife.

The thin chemise had puddled around her hips, baring her slender legs. Twas impossible for a man to look upon such legs and not envision them wrapped around his waist As if Holly had divined his thoughts, she tugged the chemise down to shield them from his gaze. Her modesty pricked his conscience, stirring his conflicting desires to protect and possess.

He tore down the veil of webs that separated them with a savage swipe. “Rather enjoying playing the captive princess, aren’t you, sweeting? Would you like me to fan you with peacock feathers or pop grapes in your mouth?” His sarcasm betrayed him, battering him with images of Holly’s succulent lips parting to receive whatever he would give her.

Holly moved to a sitting position, warily eyeing the savage stranger she had once called “husband.” His hair was unkempt, his eyes red-rimmed and wild, as if he hadn’t slept since their last encounter. He’d been seething with icy anger then, but now an edge of desperation sharpened his expression. Holly longed to reach out to him, but did not dare. She knew with a conviction beyond faith that if she drove him to abandon her this night, he would never return.

She hid her distress behind a mask of scorn. “If you think I take any pleasure in my captivity, then you’re sorely mistaken. I’d gladly trade my lavish cell to lay in a meadow of fresh cut hay or feel the cool rain beat on my face. But I suppose you wouldn’t understand that, being the sort of man who locks up a lady and allows a murderer free roam of his castle.”

Austyn’s faint flinch told her she had struck well and deep. “You, my lady, committed your treachery willfully. My father had no choice.”

Had Holly not been convinced that Austyn believed every word he was saying, she would have given vent to the hysterical laugh that welled in her throat “Ah, the dreaded curse of the Gavenmores! Refresh my memory. Was it cast by a temperamental mermaid offended by some clumsy fisherman?” She wiggled her graceful fingers at him. “Or some fat little Booka infuriated because one of your ancestors stepped on his toadstool?”

A becoming flush crawled up Austyn’s throat Holly doubted that anyone had ever dared to question the veracity of the Gavenmore curse. At least not to his face. “ Twas neither,” he strangled out. “ Twas the faerie queen Rhiannon, a cruel and heartless witch.”

“A heartless witch falsely accused of infidelity.” Holly twined a curl around her finger, pursing her lips in a thoughtful pout. “If a man refuses to trust a woman he claims to love, then tell me, husband, who between them is the faithless one? Has it never occurred to you that your father might be cursed with nothing more than a savage temper? Perhaps ‘twas his own wretched jealousy that drove your mother into the arms of another man.”

“Enough!” Austyn roared. “You know naught of what you speak. Perhaps you seek only to justify your own infidelity.”

Holly sat up on her knees, eager for any opportunity to defend herself. “If you believed that, Nathanael would be dead instead of rotting away in your dungeon. You are a knight sir. Twas I who wronged you; therefore, honor should demand that you free him.”

Austyn’s caustic smile never reached his eyes. “See how prettily she pleads for her lover’s freedom.”

“He is not my lover!” Holly yelled, pushed beyond endurance by her husband’s stubbornness. “I am innocent!”

Austyn’s voice softened to a velvety rasp. “There’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?”

A fearful hope quickened in Holly’s heart If her husband required proof of her innocence, then she was only too willing to provide it As he stalked toward the bed pedestal, she scrambled off the other side, provoking him to pursue her with deliberate insolence.

“Did you think Nathanael my only lover? How naive of you! There were scores of others. Dozens! Hundreds!” She ran to the window and wrenched open the shutters. A violent gust of wind and rain extinguished every taper, whipped the webs into a dancing frenzy. Holly refused to cower from Austyn’s inevitable approach. “They visit me here in my bed every night” She gave her riotous curls a shake. “I just lower my hair and up they climb!”