The Crimson Lady (10 page)

They ducked inside, the dimness dispelled by the sputtering tallow candle Joan lit with a twig she’d brought from the fire. Quickly, the woman moved a few steps to the trunk, which, though not overly large, seemed massive in this small space filled with bedding and provisions. After a moment of jiggling the clasp, she threw open the lid, then straightened and turned back toward the entrance.

“You’ll find a goodly selection, I think, lady,” Joan murmured, looking almost shy as she flushed, then ducked out into the clearing again.

Fiona’s bemusement lasted but a moment; she’d never dreamed that her lively brother would choose such a timid future mate. Shaking her head, she bent to the task of choosing her garments, directing her thoughts to the pleasure of the bath that would soon be hers.

Soon, she was ready, with a plain but finely made linen smock thrown over her arm, along with a simple green bliaud that looked as though it would fit her well enough with the matching belt pulled tight. It would have to do until her own gowns arrived.

Taking, as an afterthought, a plain square of worsted to use for drying, she left the tree shelter and headed toward the short path that Will had pointed out, leading to the pond. As she made her way through
the encampment, she noticed that Braedan was still seated at the fireside where she’d left him, motionless and not speaking to anyone around him. She tried not to think about him or the disquieting effect he had on her, instead looking forward, gritting her teeth, and trudging ahead.

Soon enough she found the place; it was an idyllic spot, surrounded by fragrant pines and waving ferns. She stood at the water’s edge for a moment, soaking up the waning rays of the sun and breathing deep, schooling her mind to the necessary blankness she’d perfected when she’d been under Draven’s power. It had always helped to calm her, this emptying of her thoughts, helped to give her a sense of control over her own being, no matter what was happening to her body or what she might be made to do.

It had been the only way she’d managed to survive those years.

This ability continued to serve her well now, and, with another deep breath, she pushed away all the lingering hurts and worries that had been assailing her, listening to naught but the sounds of nature all around her. Her breathing mingled with the soft birdcalls and gentle sound of the breeze flirting with leafy branches; her skin felt it pass by, barely perceptible, like a lover’s caress. Opening her eyes, she looked around her, the peace of the setting illuminated by fingers of sun winking through the trees. She was ready.

She set her bundle of garments and worsted cloth on a mossy patch nearby and quickly unraveled the side laces of her sleeveless overdress, kicking off her slippers as she lifted the garment over her head. Her belted, long-sleeved smock followed it soon after, along with the
sheathed dagger she kept strapped above her wrist. Finally, she reached up and removed the circlet from her brow, pulling the single, thick plait of her hair over her shoulder to unwind the bit of fabric securing its end. As she ran her fingers through to loosen the braid, the unbound fall of hair swept across her naked back and buttocks, leaving in its wake a pleasurable little trail of gooseflesh. But she didn’t linger over the sensation, instead gulping a deep breath and taking a few running steps before diving headfirst into the pond.

In the next instant she burst to the surface, water sluicing over her face and into her mouth as she gasped and uttered a little laughing shriek. It was cold. Even colder than she’d expected. But it was so good to feel its clean sensation on her skin. Smiling, she stretched her arm above her and then to the side, her body following in a graceful arc as she moved her legs back and forth beneath the water.

She spent a few minutes swishing her arms and legs and twirling herself around, lamenting the fact that her pots of scented soap were all still in her delayed trunk. She’d have to remind herself to show one of the women—perhaps even Joan, if she could keep her from running off, she thought with a smile—how to make the soft concoction. It would be good for them to have on hand anyway. Her own supply was beginning to wane, and some of the people back at camp looked and smelled as if they could use a good scrubbing.

After floating on her back for a little while, she thought that perhaps she’d better consider getting out soon. She readied herself for it, starting to squeeze out her hair, when she realized she wasn’t alone. Stiffening, she swiveled her head to stare at the intruder standing on
the bank of the pond. Her gaze locked with Braedan’s, and she startled at the heat simmering in his eyes; he shifted them for an instant to her pile of clothing, assessing her state of undress with a slight lift of his brow.

“What are you doing here?” Fiona asked, careful to keep her face as smooth and expressionless as it was before he came.

“I’m watching you.”

“That is quite obvious.” She kept her jaw tight to help conceal the fact that she was beginning to shiver, though she was loath to get out of the water with him standing there, staring at her. “Why?”

“A husband is expected to protect his wife in such situations. It is my duty to watch you bathe—as well as my right,” he added, his eyes still dark with that dangerous, smoldering combination of anger and wanting.

Fiona steadied her gaze on him, wondering what kind of game he was playing, since he had no audience to impress with the sham of their marriage. Beneath the surface of the water, she crossed her arms over her chest. “I need no such protection, having fended for myself quite capably for these many years, as well you know.”

“Perhaps I was thinking of bathing myself, then, and was just checking to see what shade of blue your lips had turned before I committed myself to the act.”

Fiona shrugged in a way that she hoped seemed nonchalant, not believing for one second that he would even consider the possibility. “In truth I find it refreshing. A bit cold, but not overly so. To a warrior of your experience and prowess, it will likely seem as tepid as bathwater.”

“Likely.”

“What are you doing?” she asked in alarm, her eyes widening as he began to peel off his tunic, then his shirt, pulling them over his head. It was only then that she saw the small, folded pile of garments that he must have brought with him, resting on the ground nearby.

“I’m coming in.”

“But you can’t!”

“I can, and I will. I’ve decided that a swim, cold as it might be, would be most invigorating.”

“Well, I’m getting out.”

“As you wish,” he said, standing for a moment with his hands on his hips, his hair tousled boyishly, and his very adult male body by now naked before her.

Before she could muster a word against it, he flashed her a devilish look, took a few steps, and dived with a splash into the water. In less than a second he broke to the surface with a shout, following it with a stream of curses.

“Christ in heaven, woman, this isn’t just cold—it might as well be thick with ice!” He swiped his eyes to clear the water from them. She was still crouching below the pond’s surface, but Braedan stood up now, tipping his head back and lifting both arms to push back his wet hair from his face. The water came to just below his taut belly, his sudden movement making little waves lap teasingly at the dark hairs that formed a dusky path from his navel to some lower part concealed beneath the surface.

Fiona frowned at the sight he presented, affected in some way she couldn’t quite name. In her days as the Crimson Lady, she’d seen many men, some of them very strong and attractive men, without their clothing. Even Draven, as much as she’d despised him, had pos
sessed a body that many would have called perfection.

But Braedan was different, somehow. Standing here before her, with steam rising from him at the collision of his body’s heat with the frigid water, he looked like some primal force of nature, dangerous, imposing, and utterly masculine. His chest and arms rippled with muscle, his skin scattered over with battle scars and the partially healed cuts she’d dressed for him back at the inn. And then, when he lowered his face to meet her gaze again…

She felt as if something had sucked every bit of air from her. That smoky glint in his eyes had intensified, if it was possible. The devastating expression was fixed solely on her, making her instincts rise and sweeping a shiver up her spine that had nothing to do with the temperature of the pond. She felt herself moving backward a step, unsettled by him in a way she’d never felt before. In a way that was almost pleasant.

It couldn’t be tolerated.

“If you’re through bullying your way into my private bathing time, I would appreciate you turning around so that I can get out of the water now to dress.”

“Turn around?” he echoed quietly. “If I didn’t know better, my dear
Giselle
, I’d think you were suffering from some sort of regrettable memory lapse—a condition that seems to make you keep overlooking one important detail. We are supposed to be a married pair. Such connection implies a certain intimacy…and the husband you have made of me sees no need to turn around while you leave the water. Go ahead,
wife
, and do as you’d planned. I wish to watch you dress.”

Another achy feeling shot through her, this one not nearly so pleasurable as the first.
God, didn’t he know
what he was doing to her with this mocking of their feigned marriage?
Some unfettered part deep inside screamed out in the agony of it, mourning anew all that she’d long-ago given up hope of having for her own. All she’d been made to forsake. Braedan was dangling her long-ago dreams of husband and home before her like a perverse child in the act of dismembering a new plaything. He was bleeding her drop by drop, as ruthlessly as a torturer who relishes prolonging his victim’s suffering.

As mercilessly as Draven had toyed with her before he tried to make her his own, body and soul.

Something stony clicked back into place then, blocking out the pain and burying without pity the miserably few tender parts that remained. Damn Braedan de Cantor. If he wanted to revel in the fantasy that was the Crimson Lady, then she would let him—but it would be on
her
terms, by God, not his.

Without uttering a word, Fiona released her hands from her shoulders, letting her arms float down to her sides. Then she straightened her legs, rising up and facing him with her back tall so that the water trickled over her bare breasts and slid down the flat of her stomach. She left only one tendril of hair in front of her, using it to cover the scar Draven had left.

Keeping her head high, she ignored the blatant hunger that filled Braedan’s expression, the deepening flare of desire she saw in his eyes as she slowly made her way up and onto the bank again. She gave him a good view of her rounded curves and delicately shadowed parts as she bent to take up the square of worsted she’d left folded near her borrowed clothes, moving with an unhurried grace that she knew, even as she hated herself
for the instinctive wisdom, was the perfect choice for the man standing so boldly in the water behind her.

Though she didn’t face him, she felt the burning weight of his gaze on her the whole time she dried herself, felt his stare as hot on her flesh as if he was running his hands over every inch of her body. But it was a heat that skimmed the surface, just as always before with every man who’d ever lusted for her, never delving deeper to the true woman beneath. Squeezing her eyes shut against that truth, she lifted up the clean linen shift to pull it over her head, as if the fabric might warm the chill invading her body from both the pond’s water and Braedan’s merciless treatment of her.

But before she could also don the long-sleeved over-gown she’d brought, he was behind her as well, rising onto the bank with a trickling splash to retrieve the cloth of worsted she’d discarded. From the side of her gaze she saw him wrap it around his waist—though why he would bother to cover himself now eluded her. It was all too clear what he intended to happen between them next; she’d seen that look on too many men’s faces to mistake it. The only difference here rested in the fact that, during her years with Draven, his elaborate plan with its sedating herbs and strange unguents had protected her from actually bedding any of the countless men who thought they’d purchased her favors for the night.

With Braedan no such safeguard would exist.

She swiveled to face him, uncertain about how they would progress to the physical joining he sought, knowing only that it would happen, and that she would let it. She was tired, so very tired of it all, sick unto death of the insinuations, the glances, the words that cut like
shards of glass into flesh that had somehow lost its brittle, protective covering in the years since she’d abandoned her life as the Crimson Lady. Reckless anger flooded her, a feeling that drove her to tempt and entice Braedan in spite of herself.

It was almost laughable, remembering how she’d wondered for a few brief moments if he might be different, if he might be the one man out of ten thousand who would see beneath the mask. But he wasn’t; she knew that now. Because it always came down to this. This lusting, and the never-ending hurt that came from being viewed as naught but an object for someone else’s pleasure.

Braedan had gone still and silent before her, she noticed, his expression conflicted, his chest rising and falling swiftly with the force of whatever was happening inside him. It was as if he warred against something, and his struggles were all that kept him from reaching out at this very moment and dragging her to the grass beneath him.

She faced him, challenging him with her eyes even as she kept her overall expression cool, calm, and just a touch vulnerable—the perfect facade of the elegantly seductive Crimson Lady. They stood close enough that she could have touched him had she reached out her arm at full length. But it wasn’t she who made that overture first. Wordlessly, Braedan lifted his hand and gently brushed the backs of his fingers down the bared expanse of her arm, from shoulder to wrist. The warmth of his touch against her chilled flesh almost made her shiver.