The Warrior Poet (24 page)

With a bold wink,
he resumed his quill and precisely scratched out several more letters.
Gaithlin, however, was still propped up on one elbow, watching his movements
closely. He was concentrating so directly on his words that he barely heard her
sultry, sensual voice as it wafted upon the warm, musty air.

"You didn't abduct
me from St. Esk."

He stopped
mid-letter, her statement instantly sinking deep. Slowly, his ice-blue eyes
came up to meet those of the deepest, most glorious blue.

"What?"
he was barely audible.

Slowly, ever so
easily, she lay back down to the dank wool and cold rushes. Her cat-like eyes
glittered at him with a torrential tide of unleashed emotion.
 
"You didn't abduct me," she
repeated, softly. Gathering his cloak tightly about her shoulders, she turned
onto her side, away from him. "I came willingly."

He continued to
stare at her, watching her torso heave gently as she attempted to find sleep.
Quill still poised above the yellowed parchment, he couldn't seem to refocus
his eyes or his attention to the vellum in his lap. All he was capable of
feeling, hearing or seeing at the moment was Gaithlin's overwhelming presence.

The parchment was
forgotten.

"How can you
say that?" he whispered, uncertain if he were seeking a literal answer or
not. "Since the moment I abducted you, you have known nothing but fear and
cold and humiliation. I have shown you nothing but my supremacy in size and
arrogance and pure might. And I have done nothing but force you to submit to my
will."

"You have
shown me a good deal more," her voice was barely audible as her wide eyes
gazed at the darkened wall. "You have shown me a measure of life I never
knew existed, Christian. And I thank you."

His eyebrows rose
slowly in astonishment. Laying the quill aside, he carefully set the diary to
the dirt and crept on his knees towards the lanky, supine figure.

"Look at me,
Gaithlin," he said, placing his hand on her arm in a weak attempt to roll
her onto her back. "Why would you thank me for showing you such brutality
and hardship?"

The gentle tugging
nonetheless accomplished his goal; Gaithlin rolled onto her back, gazing up at
Christian in the dim firelight. A soft smile gently creased her ripe lips,
drawing him deeper into her aura. As she had done so ably the very first time
he had ever set eyes upon her, he found himself sucked into the vortex of the
water nymph's magic, unable to break free.

"This is not
brutality and hardship," her voice was a whisper. "It is freedom,
Christian, like I have never experienced it."

His expression was
soft as he drank in her delectable features, seeing a depth to her character he
hadn't noticed before.
A genuine appreciation of the simplest
matters, willing to overlook the harshness in lieu of the positive.
The
emotion, the infant love he had so willingly given in to, filled him like the
most potent narcotics and he found himself succumbing to her overwhelming
spirit.
.

Suddenly, he was
lying beside her, his massive thigh draped over her hips as his arms enclosed
her torso. Their faces, inches apart, basked in expressions of awe and
wonderment and discovery.

"Tell me what
else you have experienced," he whispered, wanting to hear her thoughts.

She smiled,
touching his beautiful face. "Truthfully, I am not sure," she replied
huskily. "All I know is that I have been happier in the few days I have
spent with you than I have ever been in my life."

He smiled faintly,
kissing her fingers as they drifted close to his lips. "Is that so?
Even if I am the Demon of Eden?"

She returned his
smile, a bit sheepishly. "You're not so fearsome. I have beaten you once
in a fight already."

She giggled as he
frowned. "You were given an unfair advantage. I did not expect to be
blindsided in an abbey."

"And I did not
expect to be abducted within the protection of sanctuary."

He cocked an
eyebrow. "You just finished telling me that I did not abduct you, that you
were indeed a willing party."

Her smile broadened
as she snuggled up to him, closing her eyes against the reverent lips so
sensually caressing her forehead. After a moment, her eyes opened, gazing into
the dancing shadows of the room.

"I think I
could be happy here forever, Christian," she murmured.

His chin against
her forehead, he kissed her again. "There is a good deal of peace and
primitive charm," he agreed. "But we shall have our own manse.
Somewhere beautiful and serene."

Her brow furrowed
slightly. "Why would we have our own manse when you shall inherit Eden and
I shall inherent Winding Cross? We only need one place to live."

Christian grunted.
"I fear my father shall live forever, so great is his dedication to the
St. John cause. Moreover, I doubt your father will be entirely joyous for the
Demon of Eden to inherit his keep. Most likely, he'll burn it to the ground on
his deathbed and laugh in my face for doing so."

Gaithlin giggled,
caught up in his sarcastic humor. Fatigue and tenderness comprised her thoughts
at the moment and she simply wasn't thinking when she formed her
characteristically truthful reply. No matter how badly she wanted to preserve
the de Gare mysteries, her foolish lips had other ideals.

"Impossible, Christian,”
she snorted. “He has been dead for...."

With a jolting
surge of horror, she caught herself before any more of the carefully-protected
truth could come spilling from her lips.
 
But the damage had been done; one word,
blended into two, stirred into four... the gravity of her error was obvious.

Christian wasn’t a
fool; he understood the gist of her sleepily-uttered statement before it had
broken free of her giddy lips. He felt her stiffen; or mayhap, it was him who
had tensed with shock. Whatever the case, he comprehended her words more deeply
than he had ever understood anything in his life; an overwhelming astonishment
that wrestled for his emotions and sanity. For a brief instant, he was torn
between absolute disbelief and utter, mounting, all-consuming fury. His fury
won over.

Before Gaithlin
could draw another breath, Christian had her by both arms, his ice-blue eyes
cutting her to shreds with their searing intensity. She could feel the agony as
sharply as if he had driven a dagger into her very soul.

"He's been
what?"

Filled with terror,
Gaithlin's wide blue eyes met his blazing stare. Weakly, her head bobbed back
and forth, struggling to control a situation that was rapidly reeling out of
control. "I... he's..."

"Dead?"

"I didn't
mean..!"

"Gaithlin,
he's
dead?"

She cried out; his
grip was so harsh on her upper arms that he had bruised her tender flesh.
Instantly, he relaxed his grasp but continued to hold her tightly. Beyond a
rational fear, Gaithlin's eyes filled with tears and she instinctively turned
away.

But he would have
no part of her denial; roughly, he shook her, attempting to force her to meet
his infuriated stare. "Answer me,” he snarled. “How long has he been
dead?"

Bordering on panic
and devastated by her own stupidity, a weak sob escaped her lips. Certainly,
there was no use in denying what she had already confessed. He well understood
the meaning of her stupidly uttered words and to refute their truth would only
serve to perjure herself further.

Tears fell from her
cheeks to the woolen below. "Ten years."

"Ten
years!" Christian roared, leaping to his knees. "Good Christ, are you
telling me that Alex de Gare has been dead for ten years?"

Released from
Christian's grip, Gaithlin rolled into a fetal position, sobbing pitifully.
Christian stared at her, his expression laced with more disbelief and horror
than he could scarcely begin to comprehend. White-lipped and white-knuckled, he
struggled with every ounce of self-employed control to prevent himself from
raging unchecked.

"Who
have we been fighting, Gaithlin?
Who has been behind Winding Cross' defenses?" his
voice was inherently low, quaking with emotion.
"An
uncle?
A brother we were unaware of?"

Hand over her mouth
in an attempt to stifle her sobs, Gaithlin could only gasp with the struggle to
bring forth a reply. Christian's ashen face stared at her, unwilling to yield
to his patience.

"Answer me,”
he said. “Who have we been fighting all of these years if your father is
dead?"

His demand was met
with muffled sobs, piercing the still night air like the most powerful of
daggers. Slicing, cutting, destroying all they touched. Christian's heart was
already smashed with the knowledge of secrets and humiliation or else the
violent sobs would have destroyed that as well.

"Nay,"
she finally gasped. "No brother. No man."

"No man?"
Christian was struggling against every emotion he had ever experienced, now
muddle by the confusion of her statement. "What do you mean no man?"

 
She swallowed. There was nothing left for her
to say. No excuse left to give. The secret was about to be released.

 
"My... my mother."

Christian didn't
believe it was possible for him to feel any further astonishment; he was wrong.
All of the amazement that saturated his soul with her honest reply settled
deep, cleaving his torrential fury. He seemed to be incapable of feeling
anything other than pure, simple, overwhelming shock.

His instinct was to
quit the shelter, only to return when, and if, his calm was restored. But
gazing at Gaithlin's shaking
body,
he couldn't seem to
accomplish the necessary actions. She had confessed Winding Cross' darkest
secret, a slip though it might have been, and was understandably ashamed.
Ashamed that she had been unable to contain the truth until she
desired to use it against him.

A cold, calculating
blanket of doom settled about Christian's shoulders. It was an aching stench so
powerful, so heady, that it nauseated him.
Sickening him to
the realization that Lady Gaithlin de Gare might not have been as naive as she
appeared.
A realization that, mayhap, she had been using him all along,
playing to his sympathies so that he might forget his true directive in life -to
quash the de Gares.

Good Christ, he had
almost forgotten his motive. He
wanted
to forget his motive in lieu of a
delicious future within his captive's arms. She knew his wants.

God, he felt like a
fool.

"Is there
anything else you have neglected to tell me?" his voice was hoarse with
emotion. "Tell me now, or God help me, you will not be pleased with my
reaction should I discover it on my own."

Sobbing abating,
Gaithlin listened to the low rumble of his voice, never more terrified of
anything in her life. Wiping at her face, she forced herself to calm; he had
every right to be angry with her. Certainly, he had every right to feel the humiliation
of the St. Johns as they discovered themselves to be matched against a woman.

Realizing there was
nothing left for her to do but be completely honest about all else she had
attempted to hide and pray the Demon's mercy was a giving entity, she sat up on
the rushes, turning to face him.

"I have no
dowry," she said, her sultry voice scratchy and faint. "Winding Cross
has no money to speak of. We haven't for years. The St. John blockades have
managed to cut off the majority of our supply lines and we have hovered in the
bowels of poverty since before I was born." Taking a breath for courage
and strength, she continued; she couldn't bear to look at him. "All that
is left of a once-powerful army are fifty men-at-arms and two knights; my
mother took up arms ten years ago when my father was killed by a St. John arrow
and has fought in his stead ever since."

Christian watched
her, feeling more confusion and grief than he ever imagined possible. A small
army, led by a woman, had managed to hold off hordes of St. John soldiers for
years. Had the situation not been so terribly shameful from a St. John
standpoint, it would have been a most admirable feat. But it wasn't so much the
fact that a woman had routed Jean St. John and his mighty son; it was more the fact
that Gaithlin had kept the information from him.

But in the same
breath, he was fully cognizant that the Gaithlin de Gare he had come to know
over the course of the past few days was a remarkably strong woman, full of
bravery and wit and inner strength. Even in the face of her fear and
humiliation, she had shown amazing fortitude. And she had always, always, been
brutally honest in every sense of the word.
Even when he did
not want to know the truth.

Gazing into her
beautiful, tense face, he could not honestly bring himself to believe that she
had been keeping Alex's death from him as some sort of secret weapon, a private
joke she intended to enjoy alone. In faith, the disclosure of his death could
only serve to weaken her cause and as he reflected on that thought, he came to
realize that she had most likely withheld the information for that very reason.