The Spymaster's Protection (19 page)

For a long while, they simply held one another. Lucien stroked
soothing circles over her back, pressing his cheek to her head, while Gabrielle
clung to him like the lifeline he was.

When her trembling finally subsided, he lifted her to her feet
and guided her to a chair in the well-appointed room. He was lighting several
tapers, when the count and his family, along with Brother Giles, came rushing
into the room through the door connecting Lucien’s room with hers. It was the
same door he had come through earlier. The one that led to the hall was still
locked.

Lady Eschiva and Count Raymond were both outraged that an
assassin had breached the security of their home. The count stationed two
heavily armed guards at her door for the night, then dispatched a small army of
men to search the grounds, with adamant instructions to leave no building or
hidey-hole unchecked.

Lucien went with them, along with Brother Giles and the
count’s sons. After the lady of the house and her two daughters-in-law
departed, Gabrielle was left with a maid to assist her and stay with her until
she fell asleep. The guards outside her door made her feel a bit safer, and she
finally released the young serving girl to seek her own bed.

But sleep eluded her. Clutching the necklace her mother had
given her before her death, Gabrielle sat upon the edge of the big bed in her
chamber and tried to shut out the terrible images of the black-clad intruder
who had very nearly slit her throat. Damn Reynald! Damn him to hell, she cursed
silently. Could he not simply wait for the pope’s annulment? Surely, it would
be granted since the patriarch himself requested it in her name.

Finally deciding that she must at least try to get some rest,
she slipped out of the robe Lady Eschiva had lent her and climbed beneath the
linen and silk bed coverings. As her head fell back onto the pillows, she again
touched the pendant around her neck. It felt cool and reassuring between her
naked breasts, reminding her of her loving, but troubled mother. Even after all
these years, Gabrielle still mourned her loss. Tears filled her eyes as she
tried to remember her smile. There had been too few of them, of course. Yet in
spite of her unhappy life, her mother had done her best to protect and love
her, right up to the day of her tragic and dubious suicide.

+++

Stripped down to his leggings and linen undertunic, Lucien
grabbed a wool blanket and a small tubular pillow off his bed, then headed into
Gabrielle’s room. He and the count’s guards had spent the past two hours
checking the inside of the keep and the grounds around it, including each and
every outbuilding. There was no sign of how the assassin had entered, and there
were definitely no others.

But tonight, he would post himself in the lady’s room to ensure
that she would suffer no further threats.

Thank God for the adjoining door between their rooms! He’d
been at the end of the landing earlier when he’d heard her screams. On first
instinct, he had tried to charge through the hallway door. Only it had been
locked, as he’d instructed her to do. He’d wasted precious seconds going around
to his room, seconds during which he had prayed frantically to reach her in
time. The bedroom had been dark, but he would never forget the sight of the
assassin’s blade at her throat! By all the fires of hell! If he didn’t murder
Reynald de Châtillon before this was over, it would be a damned miracle. God
help him if he came with the delegation from the king!

This time when he entered Gabrielle’s room, he found it softly
illuminated by the candles he’d lit earlier. It quickly became obvious that she
had gone to go to bed with them all burning. It didn’t surprise him. He looked
toward the bed. The heavy draperies were still drawn back, tied at each post.
Gabrielle was sitting up in the middle of the mattress, her legs drawn up to
her chest, her forehead pressed to her knees. She seemed not to hear him as he
moved toward her.

She was crying, silently, but not motionlessly. Her shoulders
were quaking, and they were quite bare. She did not appear to be wearing a bed
gown, a common enough practice among secular lords and ladies.

The candlelight was sufficient to allow him to see the tragic
crisscross of faded scars that ran in evil patterns across her naked back. Lash
marks! Against her petal-soft golden skin they were a travesty that made him
want to do the same to the man who dared do this to her.

God's bones! What was the matter with men like Reynald de
Châtillon and Armand Chaumont?

Burying his fury for the day of reckoning he promised to have
with her husband and father, he reached out and gently touched her bare
shoulder. "Lady, I am here to sit with you… to keep you safe for the rest
of the night," he informed her in a hushed voice. "Be at ease. There
are no more assassins. I am sure of this after searching every inch of this
place."

Gabrielle was in too much pain to be shocked or surprised by
his offer to stay in her room for the night. She had awoken after a
particularly terrible nightmare, and combined with the terrifying events of the
night, she had fallen apart completely.

She tried to stop shivering and crying, and choked back a sob,
sniffing loudly. "Tonight was so close! I can still feel that blade
against my throat. I was so frightened! In another moment, he would have….” The
tears burning down her cheeks muffled her voice, making it nearly inaudible.
"I hate Reynald! And my father, too! How could they do this to me? I am
giving him the annulment he wanted." Bringing her arms up to curl around
her bent head, she gave vent to another wave of tears and all the heartache of
being unloved and mistreated most of her life.

“Aw, Gabrielle, cry, if it helps. I am here now and will not
leave you again tonight.” He had sunk onto the edge of the mattress and reached
out to enfold her in his arms. Her tears dampened his thin linen undershirt and
cut him to the quick.

It took a long while for her to stop crying, and even longer
before she stopped trembling.

When she finally seemed spent, Lucien eased away and tilted
her chin up to look into her wet, tear-blotched face. "Lady, do you have a
bed gown?" he inquired softly. He could not sit here and think of her
unclothed all night, nor God forbid, have her accidentally present him with a
nude frontal view. When she failed to answer him, he curled his fingers gently
around her upper arm, then drug them down to her elbow, hoping to make her more
fully aware. Her skin was as soft as it had looked, but much too cold.

“Gabrielle… "

“What is it Lucien?”

He could not pull his gaze from the watery blue depths of her
eyes. They were so beautiful, but so full of fear and pain. "There is no
danger. I will make sure you are at peace tonight, but you must get
clothed."

“Oh!” She finally understood and pulled the fur coverlet up to
her chin.

Her eyes were still glazed with anxiety and grief, but he dare
not take her in his arms! Not with her unclothed and him wanting her so much.
Through it all, he had not forgotten their kiss earlier. But she did not need
his physical hunger tonight, and he could not stand the temptation of her warm
and naked in his arms another time.

“Lady, tell me where you gown is,” he urged her yet again.

"I forgot my sleeping gown at the convent."

Lucien cursed silently, but was not ready to give up. Without
further comment, he went to her chest at the foot of the bed and rummaged
through it for something she could put on. When he returned to her side, he
held an undergarment of some kind. To him, it looked suitable for sleeping in.
It was lightweight and loose. It also had a large opening in the neckline that
allowed him to slip it over her head. Tilting her face up, he did exactly that.

“I am going to sleep in here tonight, mi’lady. Please finish
putting this on.”

Gabrielle heard the desperation in his voice and a tiny laugh
managed its way through her distress. "Oh, frère, I have a robe. Lady
Eschiva lent me one. It is in a chair near the door." When he turned to
peer through the darkness, she stopped him from going after it. "This
chemise is fine, though. I should have thought of it myself. It’s just I am not
used to sleeping….”

"That all right," Lucien quickly interrupted,
unwilling to hear about the way she slept. "I will turn my back so you can
finish putting it on."

Gabrielle smiled in the dark, bemused by such a man. When she was
decently covered, she let him know. “You can turn back around now, frère.”

He winced, though he did not think she could see it in the
dark. “Lady de Châtillon, please do not call me
brother
anymore. Just
Lucien.”

“Is that acceptable?”

“It is to me.” He stared down at her as she scooted up against
her pillows.

“Then you must no longer call me Lady de Châtillon. I hate the
name. Just Lady Gabrielle, or better still, simply Gabrielle.”

“Or maybe Gabi?” he asked with a smile that carried just a
hint of uncertainty and a wealth of warmth.

Gabrielle felt her heart tug. "My mother used to call me
that. No one has used it since she died. It sounds nice to hear it again. It
makes me feel… new."

It was Lucien’s turn to feel a hard tug on his heart.
"You will be new again. And do not get me wrong. I think Gabrielle is a
beautiful French name. I would still like to use it, but Gabi can be my special
name for you."

"I would dearly like that." The tender concern in
his expression began to erase the final remnants of her nightmare and the
trauma she had suffered. “Where are you sleeping, Lucien?”

“In the chair.” He turned to indicate it. “There.”

“Oh nay! It will be much too uncomfortable. Lie here… beside
me,” she suggested. “You may lie on top of the covers, with your blanket over
you for warmth. I have been so haunted by terrible dreams. It would help
immensely if I could get just one good night’s sleep. And you will not awake
with a sore back and stiff neck.” She lifted her hand and reached out to catch
his hand as it lay on the bedcovers. “Please.”

Lucien looked at her and knew he would be tested to the full
extent of his discipline tonight if he did as she asked. She was so beautiful
sitting before him in the candlelight, her shoulders now clad in white linen,
her hair in glorious disarray around her, falling freely to the mattress. By
the Holy Cross, what he wanted to do was crawl between the coverings with her,
strip them both, and make love to her until she forgot her terrors and he
forgot his commitments!

"Scoot over to the far side and do not touch me," he
advised her more harshly than he intended.

She looked immediately stung by his sharp tone. "It was
wrong of me to ask you to do this."

He moved onto the bed and felt the over-stuffed mattress shift
her toward him. He reached for her. She stiffened and tried to pull away. He
stopped her with a firm grip and an apology.

"My rudeness was uncalled for. Forgive me, Gabi."
His husky use of her special childhood name stilled her resistance. "It is
no great hardship to comfort you and help you find a few hours peace in which
to sleep,”' he lied convincingly. "Settle yourself."

When she did, sinking down beneath the covers and onto her
pillow, she hesitantly asked for another favor. “Will you talk to me? I may go
to sleep as I listen to your voice, but it would be so nice not to think of
assassins and death for awhile.”

"Certainly," he agreed as he too got settled against
the multitude of soft pillows. He stayed atop the coverlet and pulled his wool
blanket over his legs and hips. It was not for warmth, but for the purpose of
hiding his rising reaction to the intimacy of being in the same bed with her.
To guarantee that she not see his stubbornly lingering erection, he shifted
sideways a bit and bent one leg at the knee. "What shall I talk
about?" he asked as he dared to reach a hand out to stroke her gloriously
soft hair.

Gabrielle sighed with contentment and turned toward him.
"Tell me about your homeland and your parents."

Lucien had not said much before he looked down and saw that
she had fallen back against her pillows, fast asleep. He finished his thought,
then laid his head back fully into the feather pillows and closed his eyes.

Dawn light was creeping into the shuttered window in her room
when he opened them next. For years he had risen well before dawn. This
morning, the sun had awakened him. He turned to look down at the lady beside
him. She was turned toward him, and he was still sitting up in her bed. In all
of his twenty-eight years, he had never slept with a woman, not all night. To
share a bed for the night with another was a singularly foreign experience. But
to share it with someone who smelled so good and was so fetching to wake up to
was indisputably a heavenly experience.

He sat there for a few minutes thinking about the kiss he had
given her last night before her attack. It had been the sweetest thing he had
ever experienced. He could tell she had not been kissed much, if ever. He had
not kissed a woman in many years, but he knew enough to recognize a woman
inexperienced to kisses. Reynald probably never shared such gentle intimacies
with her. He had obviously been a brutal mate. God! He dared not dwell on her
treatment at de Châtillon's hands. Every time he did, it twisted him with a
murderous rage.

Better to think upon the next time he and she would share time
like this, alone together. Because they would. And he was almost nearly as
certain that they would eventually become lovers. They were moving inevitably
in that direction. He could feel it in his soul. Somewhere along the line, she
had become vitally important to him, and there was no turning back. He would
not give her over to her husband or leave her alone and vulnerable. She needed
him, and miraculously, he was beginning to need her more than he had ever
imagined possible!