Rexanne Becnel (20 page)

With a strangled cry of dismay she jerked the blanket over her head. Dear God, dear God! She was truly lost now! For the most wicked shiver snaked through her at that memory, and her heart began madly to pound.

Oh, forgive me,
she tried to pray.
I repent. I accept the guilt and beg
—

The prayer broke off despite the depths of her desperation. Try as she might, Joanna could not honestly plead for forgiveness. Not when her body yet quivered with remembered desire.

“Sweet Mother, help me,” she murmured over and over again. “Sweet Mother of God, please help me.”

At her whispered words, Rylan’s footsteps sounded on the floor. The sharp screech of moving furniture was followed by the unexpected slam of the door against the frame. In the silence that followed, Joanna could hardly bring herself to peek beyond the limits of the bed.

He was gone. The fire burned brightly, her clothes yet hung on the makeshift line, but he was gone. For a moment she was once more overwhelmed by the most inappropriate feelings of disappointment, but she determinedly beat them back. She should thank her good fortune for this chance to cover her nakedness with clothing. It mattered less than nothing whether he regretted what had passed between them. Indeed, she should be well pleased with his disgruntled reaction, for it only verified what she already knew. Her value as a wife had been lost in that one act, and he had been thwarted.

On that firm note she rose from the bed, clutching the blanket to her chest. Her legs shook as she stood. The muscles of her thighs—and elsewhere—quivered from their unusual exertions, but she tried hard to ignore that. She searched hastily for her kirtle, but when she found it on the bed and snatched it up, her eyes met a sight much harder to ignore. There on the sheet was the proof of her sin—the fresh streak of her virgin’s blood.

With a sharp intake of breath she whirled away from the sight. It didn’t matter, she told herself. It didn’t matter at all. But as she pulled the kirtle on with stiff, jerky movements, she knew in her heart that it mattered very much. She had lost her innocence to this man. She was a woman at his hands and she was forever changed. No matter his manipulations or her own scheme, she was forever changed.

She sighed desolately, unable to pretend any longer to a triumph she did not feel. Consumed with weariness, she pulled her gray gown from the line and slowly donned it. She had neither shoes nor hose, nor even a
couvrechef
to restrain her riot of curls. Forlorn and more uncertain than ever, she approached the door and opened it to the new morning light.

Outside all was wet and beaten down. Leaves and broken branches from the birch trees littered the yard before the cottage. Beyond her, near a small shed a tall elm had been uprooted and lay at a crooked angle, caught in the fork of a sturdy oak. The island had taken a severe lashing from the storm, yet now as the sky brightened and the sun pierced the high clouds that trailed the storm, Joanna knew it would recover. The wind had fled; the sea would subside. Soon no sign of the storm’s impact would remain.

Only
she
was forever changed by yesterday’s storm.

As she pondered that indisputable fact, Joanna saw a movement at the shed. Rylan appeared, leading his much calmer horse, then loosened the rope halter so that the animal might feed. Joanna watched the two from the shadows of the cottage doorway, unwilling to face him just yet. With the distance between them she was better able to be objective in her study of him.

He was in many ways a most remarkable man. He was tall, well formed, and had all his teeth. Any woman would be attracted to his distinctively virile aura. He was also ruthless and unswerving in his goals, and if his temper was any indication, he was no doubt possessed of a violent streak. Yet he had in his unique fashion shown her more tenderness than she’d ever experienced before.

She frowned at that aberrant thought and forced herself to recall his selfishness and his arrogance instead. And what of his taunting jibes, and the way he’d forced himself upon her—

Joanna broke off at that. Although he
had
forced himself upon her at first—that kiss in the woods, and then later in the cottage—it was nonetheless she who had pushed him further. She’d goaded him to it and then urged him on when he would have halted.

A violent shiver shook her and she abruptly whirled away from the sight of him. But the inside of the cottage provided her no solace, for the disheveled bed seemed to taunt her with her own wickedness. With a small cry of despair she turned once more and fled both cottage and man. There was no escape from the feelings that plagued her, but she ran just the same.

It was the sea that stopped her. She’d run between the thick-growing birches, through the slippery grasses onto the sandy beach. Now she stood there as gentle waves lapped at her ankles and stared east to the rising sun. The sea was calm—almost eerily so considering how violently it had heaved just hours before. Now it lay in lavender and gold swells, its deep green a canvas for the sun’s brilliant colors. The sky was an unearthly hue—mauve and coral with streaks of aqua as well. The wind was gentle on her face and beyond the shore seabirds dipped and flew, their cries at once both eager and mournful.

She pushed her hair behind her shoulders and lifted her face into the crisp morning breeze. Somewhere beyond the endless stretch of the German Sea were the Danes and the Vikings—all the northern invaders she’d heard tales of. Yet those bloodthirsty marauders did not frighten her nearly so much as did facing the man who must soon seek her out.

The wind pressed her skirt against her legs and lifted her hair lightly about her face once more. Sighing in resignation, Joanna turned back toward the island. She stopped abruptly, however, when she spied Rylan. He was standing just beyond the narrow strip of beach, watching her silently with his hands thrust into the band of his leather girdle.

For a long unbearable moment their eyes met and clung. Only when Joanna turned her face away from his probing stare did he speak.

“The tide recedes. We shall shortly cross to the mainland.”

There was a pause, then Joanna lifted her eyes to him once more. “Then what? Shall you return me to St. Theresa’s now that your plan is undone?”

It was his turn to look away. “We ride to Blaecston, as before. Nothing has changed.”

“Nothing has changed?” Joanna looked at him incredulously. “How can you say nothing has changed?” She started across the beach, intending, in her fury and hurt, to pass him and make her way to the causeway to wait for the tide to change. But he anticipated her move and stopped her with one hand.

“Much has changed, Joanna. I’ll grant you that. However, we still make our way to my castle.”

“To what end?” she cried, trying unsuccessfully to shake off his disturbing touch.

“So that I may determine how best to deal with you!” he snapped in sudden anger. He grabbed her other arm and gave her an abrupt shake. “Do not test my patience today, woman. Do not goad me or suffer me your interminable arguments. We go to Blaecston and there is no more to be said!”

He released her then and stalked away in a fury. Joanna was too disconcerted to reply or react at all. Between his unexpected pronouncement and his unwarranted anger, she did not know what to think. Her arms curved around herself, and her hands found the places where he had grasped her so tightly. Though she wished to despise him anew for his callous disregard of her wishes, at that moment all she felt was complete loneliness.

T
HE SUN BEAT DOWN
on Joanna’s bare head. On the lee side of the island there was no breeze whatsoever, and her skin soon grew damp with the summer heat. But she remained where she was, perched upon a rock that jutted up from the sand, unwilling to seek relief in the shade as she stared blindly across to the English mainland.

She could swim the distance, she knew, for the sea was exceedingly calm. Yet that would be pointless, for her black-hearted captor kept a wary eye upon her. His horse was now saddled for the ride, and though the animal rolled its eyes at the gently lapping water, Joanna had no doubt its master would force it to cross if need be. Rylan Kempe was most adept at forcing others to do as he willed.

She heard the animal stamp once, and the swish of its long tail. Then came Rylan’s voice, low and reassuring, and her nerve endings seemed to buzz in response. Her lips tightened as memories of their shared passion threatened to overwhelm her.
Don’t be a fool!
she silently rebuked herself. The horse he gentled now meant far more to him than she did. She was only a means to an end for him, and she’d best keep that in mind. When he was hungry, he ate. When thirsty, he drank. When he was weary, he slept. And when he longed for a woman, he took one.

Yet that was not entirely true, and Joanna’s innate honesty would not allow her to find comfort in such anger. She’d consciously enticed him, hoping—knowing—where it would lead. Her bare toes dug into the fine-grained sand and she shifted on the uncomfortable rock. He would have stopped had she but let him. Her fall from grace was by her own choice. She could not blame him for that.

But she could blame him for everything else, she decided spitefully as she caught his movement from the side of her eye. As he approached her, leaving his horse tethered to a fallen tree, she kept her eyes turned firmly toward the sea.

“We shall cross shortly,” he began matter-of-factly. When she did not reply, his feet shifted slightly, making a scratchy sound in the wet sand. “You can ride in front of me as before.”

“I’d rather walk,” she spit out through clenched teeth.

“No doubt you would at the moment. But Blaecston is near ten leagues distance, and I would make haste—”

“And I would rather
not
make haste,” she interrupted, turning an icily polite face toward him. “Of course, I do not expect you to consider my wishes. You have not done so up to now.”

His face was stony. “Not your wishes, no. But I have ever had your well-being uppermost in my mind.”

“Indeed. And how is my well-being served by what has happened? I am rudely severed from the life I want, to be thrust into a dreaded union with a man I do not know—nor care to know—” Her voice shook with sudden emotion. “And now I am ruined,” she finished in a whisper.

Joanna stared once more toward the sea, blinking back the unwelcome tears that stung her eyes. Beside her she heard Rylan shift once more.

“All is not lost,” he finally said rather gruffly. “If you would only—”

Joanna stood up, unable to listen to any more of his selfish reasoning. “All
is
lost, only you are too single-minded to recognize it. I am no longer the virgin your bridegroom seeks.” She lifted her chin and took a deep breath, but still she could not look at him. “The causeway is nearly cleared. Shall we depart and see your game played out to its end?”

The silence that followed nearly broke her resolve to remain aloof and uncowed by him. She was trembling so hard she thought she might collapse when he let out a muttered oath.

“By the cross but I wish—” The rest was lost to her as he strode angrily to fetch his horse. She did not follow his progress with her eyes, but she was conscious of his every move.

When the horse and rider moved back to her side, she marched nearer the sea, gathering her skirts up in her arms as the gentle waves lapped at her ankles.

“You shall ride with me,” he ordered, clearly impatient with her determined obstinance. When she only waded farther out on the shallow causeway, his temper snapped.

“Christ and bedamned, but I am truly accursed!” Then before she could evade him, he was beside her. With one easy movement, he snatched her up and planted her forcibly in front of him.

Joanna recognized the futility of struggle. But she was wholly unable to make things easier for him. With a furious cry she twisted about in his arms, kicking and flailing until his horse half reared in fright and she nearly fell backward over his arm.

“Be still, woman!” he roared, clasping her tight with one arm as he fought to control his skittish destrier with the other. Then, before she could gain her balance to renew her fight, he kicked the high-strung animal into a full gallop across the watery passage to the far shore.

Joanna was certain she would fall and be trampled by the plunging beast. Through knee-deep water the animal charged as she clung frantically to Rylan’s arm. When he jerked her hard against him she did not protest, and when his two arms finally circled her she leaned back against the security of his broad chest. One of his hands snaked around her waist, settling her bottom between his thighs. His harsh breath came in her ear.

“Gentleness holds no sway with you, does it, my little dove?” he muttered, turning his attention back to her now that he had mastered his horse. “You must be forced at every turn. Forced to acquiesce.” His lips found her ear and he bit at the tip of her lobe almost painfully. “Forced to kiss before you relent.”

Joanna’s stomach tightened and her heart’s pace doubled at his taunting words. In truth, she’d not had to be forced very hard. Even now her entire being leaped at his clever caress. She leaned forward to escape the seductive play of his mouth, but he leaned forward as well, and the horse responded by increasing its speed. She clung to the horse’s mane as Rylan clung to her. Beneath her thighs she felt the mighty strength of the horse. But elsewhere was the heated press of Rylan’s body. At her back, along her legs. Against her derriere. Tears stung her eyes and her hair flew behind them both like a pennant in the wind. But there was no escaping his touch nor the truth of his words. He pushed and she resisted. He pressed on and she fought back. But let him only force her a little further and she surrendered, and in her surrender found a form of glory.

Oh, but it was not glory. No, never that. What she had found in his arms had been a sin. The pleasure had been there, she could not deny it. But it was nonetheless sinful so long as it occurred outside the vows of marriage. Since she did not wish to marry anyone—and he clearly did not intend to marry
her
—the sin was more blatant than ever.