Authors: Diana J. Cosby
His Captive (15 page)
“You are but teasing me.”
He shook his head. “She was a wondrous woman. It is that I am surprised you have sensed her presence. I would not have believed you would.”
“Being an Englishwoman, you mean?”
“Part of the reason,” he admitted, not wanting to acknowledge that she had felt his grandmother’s presence in the room or the magic. Neither made sense.
She turned away, but not before he saw the hurt on her face. He should have remained quiet, allowed his silence to put much needed distance between them.
“I had not meant my words as a barb,” he said, his heart overruling common sense.
She shrugged. “Does it matter how you meant it?”
It shouldn’t. But it did, because Nichola mattered.
“The sight?” Nichola asked, breaking into his unsettling thoughts. “She could foretell the future?”
“Bits, pieces, an event here or there.”
“How?”
“Sometimes through a dream, other times by touching someone’s hand. Often, she would walk through the forests where she claimed the fairies spoke to her.” He remembered how his grandmother’s eyes had glittered with mischief, the delight of spinning a yarn rich on her face as she told of her exploits, or the event she said the fairies had foretold.
“And the colored stones in her room?”
He tensed. “Why do you ask?”
“It is just when I touched them I felt . . .” She hesitated as if not daring to admit what she felt for sounding foolish.
“A power?” he finished with a grudging acceptance.
She nodded.
And why should he be surprised? She’d sensed his grandmother in the room along with the magic, something only possible for he and his brothers. Until now. It was logical she would feel the energy of the stones.
“And warmth as well.” A rosy hue warmed her cheeks. “It sounds daft to speak of such things.”
It was ludicrous to continue his torment of being with her and not touching her. It was ludicrous to talk of family matters with her. It was ludicrous that all the reasons he shouldn’t be around her didn’t matter when she was near.
This closeness she inspired was dangerous indeed. He and Nichola could never be together. He exhaled a long sigh. “No, it does not sound strange.”
Relief swept her face. “It does not?”
Alexander swore he heard the faint strands of his grandmother’s amused chuckle and wondered if her spirit had sided with the fairies.
“No,” he replied. “The stones she kept within her chamber hold different energies for the healing of a body or the spirit.”
“I have never heard of such a thing.”
Which only added to Alexander’s mounting frustration. An innocent in the healing arts, no way could she have known about the purpose or potency of the stones.
Nichola brushed away a tendril of hair that fluttered across her lips. “In the bowl, one of the stones is halved and has what appears to be moss within. The outside is rough and the color of crushed gold.”
“That would be the moss agate.” He remembered he’d had the same impression when he’d first viewed the unusual stone. “It holds the ability to makes warriors powerful and shield them from those who would bring them harm. Seathan wears the other half around his neck. A gift to him from our grandmother when he was knighted.”
Intrigue sparked in her eyes. “When you were knighted, did your grandmother gift you with something as well?”
From a finely crafted chain he wore around his neck, Alexander withdrew his grandmother’s gift from the day he received his knighthood; the half of a dark, greenish blue stone mixed with swirls of a lighter green like a core of a cut tree staggered toward the center. He lifted it over his head and handed it to her.
She held it suspended from its chain. It twirled before her in the morning sun. “It is beautiful. I have never seen anything like this before.”
An ache built in his throat as he watched her, her face innocent in its pure joy. “It is azurite. It is said to aid in control over your emotions and reactions, and to give the wearer greater insight.”
Gray eyes lifted to his. “And does it?”
His mouth grew dry as the need for her shifted to something dangerous. “Usually.” Except with Nichola. Whatever existed between them held its own force. One neither the powers of the stone nor common sense could overrule.
She handed his amulet back.
Shaken to realize that the anger he’d nurtured for the last four days had somehow fled, he lifted the draping chain from her palm and ensured their hands didn’t touch.
“Your other two brothers have similar gifts as well?” she asked, her voice unsteady, the awareness in her eyes making his blood heat.
“Patrik was given malachite, which promotes inner peace. My grandmother gifted Duncan with a sapphire, known for its powers of prophecy and wisdom. Sapphire is also called the stone of destiny, because of its ability to aid the wearer in clarity of mind for those who seek the truth.”
“The gifts are so unique. So personal. She must have been an incredible woman.”
A yearning crept into her eyes, and an emptiness so intense that Alexander fought the need to reach out and embrace her. “She was at that. And what of your family?”
Pain lanced through her eyes. She looked away, and he immediately regretted asking. “Never mind.” He stepped closer until he was but a hand’s breadth away. “Your family will be worried.”
“No,” she said on a rough whisper. “They will not.”
At the sullen hopelessness of her response, he frowned. “Your brother—”
“My brother,” she interrupted, her voice weary. She nodded. “Griffin indeed will be most concerned over my disappearance. I am tired and my thoughts are tangled.”
Except her half-hearted reply left him far from convinced. “You are very close then?”
Nichola hesitated. “Yes. He is the only person I have trusted since my parents’ deaths.”
But the sense that she was withholding something nagged at him. Their informant within Rothfield Castle confirmed her words that the brother and sister were close. Alexander dismissed any concern on that front.
So what was she hiding?
Or was there another person to whom she gave her trust?
Jealousy raked through him at the thought of another man touching her, awakening her passion. Why wouldn’t men seek to court her? Besides being wealthy, she was intriguing, intelligent, and beautiful.
As if he hadn’t already added enough risks for the rebels by abducting her instead of her brother? With the days passing and the absence of the baron leading a charge against the castle, ’twould seem they’d avoided inviting her brother’s wrath. Mayhap the Baron of Monceaux had decided to pay the ransom and avoid a confrontation. Or perhaps he’d sent away too many of his knights to support King Edward’s bid to claim Scotland for retribution. Whatever his reason not to attack, Alexander gave silent thanks.
“At six, it must have been difficult for you as a child.” God’s teeth, why had he said that? He already knew the answer; and her past, future, and whom she chose to make romantic liaisons with, was of no consequence to him.
“It was.”
His heart reached out to her. “I am sorry you endured such.”
She shrugged, but he saw the sadness she couldn’t hide. “Tragedy is a lesson of life we must all deal with.”
The pain of his father’s death still overwhelmed him, and he was a man full and grown. “But your grief is great.” Their time together had taught him that Nichola was a woman of deep emotions. A fact that appealed to him overmuch.
Nichola brushed away tendrils of auburn hair fluttering across her cheek. “We were close.”
He easily pictured the shattered youth, her struggle to cling to the fragile bond of unity with her sibling. From the grief lingering in her eyes, she’d never fully recovered from her loss. And now he’d stolen her from her home.
Guilt ate at him, but he couldn’t change the way of things now. If given the same circumstance and awareness of her past, would he have left her until her brother’s return? Caught between the loyalties to his country and his feelings toward her, at the moment he wasn’t sure.
“Walk with me, Nichola,” he said, torn by the turmoil, wanting to heal the emotional wounds of the child that had grown into a woman. Those scars he’d added to by her abduction.
“Why?”
“Because I want to be with you.” That was the truth. And as much as he dared admit to her.
Irritation sparked on her face. The anger he’d come to know and in a perverse fashion, enjoy. “As simple as that?”
He arched a brow. “Aye.”
“It may be easy for you to dismiss the circumstances that surround us, but I cannot.”
“Cannot or will not?”
“What do you want from me, Alexander? Since our arrival, you have kept me locked within the chamber for four days. With each rising sun, you have denied my every request to see you, to allow me any time away from my room. Now you grace me with your presence and expect me to accompany you without protest. As if you truly care?”
Heavy silence hung between them.
She tilted her chin at an angle of defiance. “The only reason you are with me now is that I am a challenge. Or that for whatever reason, you have decided now is a time to discover if I am a challenge you can overcome.”
He moved to touch her, but she stepped back.
“Do not. Not unless you truly want me.” Her face paled as if horrified by what she’d revealed. “Not then, either. Forgive me, I spoke in a senseless haste.”
But he’d already heard the words. And her confession of several nights before echoed too clearly in his mind. “And if I truly cared for you?” By God’s eyes! Why was he even continuing this foolery? But however ludicrous, a part of him needed to know.
Her gaze grew frantic. “It would be a lie.” She whirled and fled.
Alexander ran after her.
When she reached the cleared slope, she veered off between the thick limbs of a line of firs and disappeared into the forest.
Cursing himself, he pushed away blocking limbs. He’d meant a calming talk. Not an intimate discussion. He caught sight of her racing around the edge of a large rock. She was weak and might injure herself.
Alexander found her a short distance ahead on her knees, her hand pressed against the wall of stone, and her breaths coming out in sharp rasps. He hunkered down beside her, angry at himself for having pushed her to this reckless point.
“Keep away from me,” she gasped between breaths.
Instead he scooped her up in his arms and held her against his chest, wanting only to heal, to protect. Her resistance lasted but a few seconds.
Her body sagged against him. “Why can you not leave me alone?”
Her whispered plea almost broke his heart. He laid his chin atop her head as he scanned their surroundings. If he were wise, he’d return her to her chamber and depart. ’Twas unwise to be alone with the lass, especially hidden in this private cove of trees and rock, more so when his feeling toward her was far from saintly.
And if her voice held only anger, maybe he could have. Mixed within the regret, he’d heard the wanting. A need that kindled his own.
She looked at him, her eyes a reflection of the grief and desire she worked so hard to shield. “It does not matter. It cannot.”
“No, it cannot.” But it did. Alexander gave into the recklessness of the moment, lowered his head and claimed her mouth. As her taste filled him, he could no longer deny the truth. He wanted her, with his every breath, with every passing second of the day. And he’d fought to bank his desire until he ached.
Until now.
He skimmed kisses over her face, savoring the taste of her skin, the silken smoothness that beckoned him.
“Alexander,” she rasped, “we cannot continue. I—”
With confidence he deepened the kiss, her greedy acceptance betraying her words of denial. He combed his fingers through her auburn hair, then wrapped the strands around his hand to angle her head.
Her breathy moans had him laying her back against the soft bed of leaves and moss, but her passion-filled whimpers had him covering her body with his.
“You are beautiful,” he murmured against her mouth. “Everything a man could ever want.” He skimmed his hand along the curve of her neck, down the fluid angle of her supple body to slide over her breast.
Her eyes darkened. “Alexander, I . . .” She moaned as his fingers slipped beneath the soft linen to tease her nipple, arching against his hand as he stroked it to a hard peak.
“I want to taste you,” he whispered.
She rolled her head back and forth. “I do not want, ca—cannot let you . . .” Her hands began to roam his chest in a furious desperation. “It would not be proper.” She dragged his mouth back to hers.
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