The Dark Knight (17 page)

Instead some strange new beast inside of her took hold and lifted her chin, offering herself to him. The way he took the bait so easily sent a thrill of shock and feminine power through her. He lowered his head until their lips were only a breath apart and then he halted. She knew he was trying to defy the invisible force that drew them together, but she was already secure within its grasp. His breath felt warm against her mouth, small puffs of air that made her aware of how sensitive her lips were to his touch. The reasons for resisting what felt so right began to fade away.

The restraint she sensed in him would soon break, of that she was certain. She wondered if he would be gentle, or if he would claim her lips with all the rough, urgent passion that she had sometimes glimpsed between lovers. One could stumble upon couples engaged in illicit trysts in almost every corner of Coleway, and she had sometimes laughed at the way they seemed oblivious to everything and everyone around them. Now she was beginning to understand that madness.

“Avalene,” he whispered, and her name sounded like a benediction. Their lips touched a moment later as his mouth brushed across hers in a caress that put scarcely more pressure on her parted lips than his breath. Once, twice, then again he stroked her lips, as if he could learn the shape of her mouth by touch alone.

Finally he fitted his lips to hers in a kiss so gentle, so filled with reverence that she felt tears come to her eyes. Like everything else about Sir Percival, his kiss was perfect. It was a kiss that a knight bestowed upon his ladylove, a kiss that spoke of the yearning he suffered for a lady who was forever beyond his reach. It was a kiss that sealed fates.

She kept her eyes closed; and something inside her changed in that moment. Something that had slumbered
deep within her awakened and rose toward the light. If she had known that kissing could be this pleasurable she would have tried it long before now, but some instinct told her it would not be the same with any other man, the same instinct that told her she had just met her fate. “Avalene?”

“Percival,” she breathed, delighting in the taste of his name on her tongue. Her lashes fluttered open and she smiled.

He spoke a low yet fluent curse. “Do not look at me that way.”

The quiet voice that knew this was madness became quieter. She tilted her head back, offering herself to him again, craving a deeper taste of desire. She watched him hesitate, but at last he lowered his head once more to kiss her.

The tip of his tongue traced the seam of her lips before she shuddered and opened up to him, reveling in both her surrender and his, secure in the knowledge that he was caught in the same sensual spell. His taste was intoxicating, an elixir that became suddenly vital while his kisses commanded her surrender. Gentleness gave way to need as his hand moved to the back of her neck and then to her head as he held her in place, her head tilted back, his mouth feeding upon hers. She pressed herself closer to his chest and at the same moment felt something in him change. He was suddenly very still.

“Gesù,”
he groaned, as he tore his mouth away from hers. His voice took on the hard edge of anger. “You must stop tempting me this way.”

His gaze scarcely touched her face as he lifted his head, and his hands quickly returned to the reins. He stared straight ahead at the road. The haze of desire drifted into confusion as she realized that he was ignoring her. Indeed, he acted as if nothing momentous had
just happened. His jaw was set but otherwise he looked unaffected, while her whole world had just come undone.

Or maybe it hadn’t.

“You are …” She shook her head, certain she had to be mistaken in what she’d heard, yet just as certain that she was not. “You are blaming me for that kiss?”

“I must stay alert to any signs of trouble and be able to act upon a moment’s notice,” he said in a rough voice. He leaned away from her. “I cannot do that if you are intent upon seducing me at every turn.”

“I am seducing you?” she sputtered. Was it possible? She had no experience in seduction, had no idea that she would have any talent at it. Apparently she did.

“Protest your innocence all you want,” he said, “but you know exactly what I am talking about. You are a lady, Avalene. You had best remember how to act like one.”

Her hand flashed out to slap him before the thought fully formed in her mind. At least, she tried to slap him. He caught her wrist before it came anywhere near his cheek, and forced it back to her side.

“You cannot tell me that I am the first victim of your charms,” he said, a clear note of anger in his voice. “I suppose there was little harm in teasing and tempting the men at Coleway, but we are no longer safe within the walls of a castle and this is not a game. Our very survival could depend upon my ability to stay on guard, to sense danger around us.”

She felt as if someone had just dumped a bucket of cold water over her head. Oh, how she longed to say something clever and biting. Unfortunately, humiliation robbed her wit. “Put me down.”

“Stop
squirming
,” he bit out. “You will stay exactly where you are. This is not the first or the last time we
will be in close quarters on this journey. We must both accustom ourselves to the … inconvenience.”

Oh, this was much worse than the other rejections. He had just reduced the most wonderful moments of her life to an
inconvenience
.

“I warned you at Coleway that you must be ready to follow my orders without question,” he said. “You cannot ply me with kisses and then expect to control me with a crook of your finger. I am not some callow boy you can bend to your will. Nor am I a man as spineless as the steward, whose fixation with you will be the death of him yet. Whatever love games you played in the past to get your way with men will not work with me. And I said to cease that squirming!”

You deserve this
, her staid, sensible voice said. The kisses that had meant everything to her meant nothing to him. Worse, they had made him angry. The pain of rejection washed through her along with irrational anger. She kept her tone as level as she could manage. “Put me down or I swear I will scream. I will kick your horse, I will—”

Percival reined in his horse, but he would not let her slide to the ground. His chest rose and fell as he took deep breaths, as if he had just exerted himself at some difficult task or was about to face one. That left little doubt in her mind that
she
was the difficult task.

“This is not the time to act like a child, Avalene. You have my apology if I hurt your feelings, but—”

“Enough!” she snapped. “I agreed to obey you without question, but I did not agree to sit silent while you all but accuse me of being the village whore. I am not some Delilah bent on seducing every male in my path. I have never played ‘love games’ in my life, and I do not bend men to my will by promising—” She took a cleansing breath, unwilling to even speak the foul words. “If
you must know, you are the only man I have ever kissed. Now, you will unhand me at once, you odious man!”

He simply stared at her until she began to wriggle around again, trying to free herself from his grasp. His hold on her tightened. “You acted as if … That is, you seemed very knowledgeable. I am hard pressed to believe you are a complete innocent.”

“Is that supposed to be an apology?”

“That was supposed to be an observation.” He rubbed a hand across his face. “However, it seems I do owe you an apology.”

“Fine,” she snapped. “I will hear your apology when I am mounted again on my own horse.”

He shook his head, even as he spurred his horse forward. “You must ride with me. This is one of the orders I would expect you to follow without question under different circumstances, but I have insulted you and I suppose you deserve an explanation.”

“I deserve an apology and to be allowed on my own horse again.”

He looked down at her and seemed to lose his train of thought. “Truly, you have never been kissed before?”

Should she be flattered that he thought her an experienced kisser, or insulted? Her thoughts felt as if they were drenched in syrup, struggling to make connections that should be obvious. Rather than stare at him in befuddled silence, she folded her arms across her chest and looked away. “I want my horse back.”

He shook his head. “You are not hardened for a long ride the way Oliver and I are. You are angry now, but that will fade and you will start to lag behind. We need to keep moving, and we need to move as quickly as possible.”

“We should have stopped in the last village,” she said. “If we had stopped, I would not have had to ride with
you and there would be no reason to blame me for anything.”

He made a sound of impatience. “Your uncle’s steward is so infatuated with you that I would not be surprised if he is searching for you even now.”

“He is not infatuated with me,” she argued, struggling to keep up with this turn in the conversation. Why was he so focused on Coleway’s steward? John took delight in tormenting everyone, and cared for no one so much as himself. Infatuation was hardly the word she would use to describe their relationship. “The only reason he wants to marry me is to strengthen his ties to my aunt and uncle, and to gain my dowry. John’s feelings for me do not extend beyond his ambitions.”

“I know an obsessed man when I see one,” he retorted. “He will not easily let go of all his schemes to win you. He will pursue us until there is no hope of recovering you, and a full moon will only aid their search. Eventually someone will find our trail, or someone who noticed that we took the path to the London road will give our direction to the search parties. We must plan for the worst case, that a search party is no more than an hour or two behind us. That means we keep riding.”

She tightened her arms across her chest and looked away from him. He truly intended to ignore what had happened between them.

“When you are finished being stubborn you should try to rest,” he said in a softer voice. “We will ride as hard the next four or five days as we rode today. My men will have extra horses so we can have fresh mounts and change horses as they tire, but we will not rest long in any one place.”

“I am still waiting for your apology,” she said. He had already dismissed their kisses as inconsequential and seemed content to pretend they hadn’t happened. Her
wisest course was to seal up the shame and anger in a distant part of her mind, and pretend the same. Why couldn’t she let it go? “You have admitted that I am due an apology, but I have yet to hear it.”

“Ah, yes,” he said slowly. He pursed his lips. “I was wrong to think you were purposely trying to seduce me, or that you were a practiced seductress. Apparently I was also mistaken in my belief that you wanted me to kiss you. I do humbly apologize for taking any unwelcome liberties.”

She
had
wanted him to kiss her. She had kissed him back. He was letting her know that he was well aware of those facts, which was almost as insulting as being accused of seducing him in the first place. It was one of the worst apologies she had ever heard.

“I agree that this is the wrong place and time for such indulgences,” she said. “Indeed, there is no place or time that would be right for us to … to have any type of … romantic relationship. You are my father’s knight. I am promised to another. We must not allow this to happen again.”

He made a noncommittal sound and they rode on in silence. Well, that was that. Reason prevailed. She should not find it depressing that he found her logic so easy to follow.

“I suppose you are right,” he said at last, sounding in better humor than she could muster. “These are unusual circumstances. We were both carried away. You have my word that I will do my best to resist such temptation in the future.”

She studied his face, suspicious that he was making fun of her, but his expression remained stoic. Still, the humiliation of his rejection would not fade. “The task would be made much easier if you would allow me to keep my horse.”

“I already answered that particular request several times,” he said. “Accept the fact that you will never be beyond my sight before we reach London. Even then we will be in close quarters in the city and later on the ship. However, I feel certain we can control our baser urges if we put our minds to it.”

Was he mocking her? She could not entirely dismiss the notion. Perhaps a dose of guilt would make him understand the seriousness of the situation. “My honor is as important to me as yours is to you, Sir Percival. ’Tis acceptable for a lady to give her favor to a knight, or even reward her knight with a chaste kiss for some heroic deed, but what we did was wrong. My father entrusted you with my care and I would not … I would not want to tempt you into breaking that trust. We both have our reputations to consider.”

He gave her a pointed look. “Have you not yet realized that your honor is already lost?”

She blinked once, very slowly, stunned by the unexpected cruelty. Why would he say such a horrible thing? She shook her head, as much to deny the words as to stem a rising tide of dread. Unfortunately, he kept talking.

“You will be in my company for many weeks without the benefit of a chaperone. Most will assume we exchanged much more than a chaste kiss or two. We left your innocence at the gates of Coleway.”

“We must hire a companion for me immediately!” How could she have overlooked such an obvious flaw in her plan? She had been so focused on escape that she hadn’t thought about a chaperone, not once during their long ride. Instead her head had been filled with daydreams about the man who had ruined her. Now, when it was too late, she realized the full, awful truth of his words. The honor of any unmarried noblewoman who
traveled in the company of men without a family member or respectable female companion would be questioned, no matter her protestations of innocence. Worse, the damage could never be completely undone. Innocent or not, she would be considered a fallen woman. “You must find someone and explain what has happened—and what has not happened, and then she can vouchsafe my reputation for the remainder of this journey.”

“And where do you propose I find such a woman?” he asked. “What you are asking for is a woman who is willing to leave her home to go with strangers at a moment’s notice, a woman who herself has a spotless reputation, a woman who knows how to handle a horse, which means she must be more than a mere servant. Even if we stumbled across such a paragon tomorrow, I doubt she would be willing to travel all the way to London at our pace, and then on to Wales. If two men and a woman rode up to Coleway as strangers and told our same story, would you allow any of the gentlewomen at Coleway to leave with us?”