Two
It appeared as if the sun itself flew, blazing, leaping in fiery splendor, high against the sky.
But then the huge stone—rolled in linen and soaked with oil and set to bum—fell, and screams of shrieking agony rose from beyond the stone walls and cliff barriers of Edenby Castle.
Tristan’s cannon thundered and roared. But the stone walls were so thick that the ball had little effect, and soon the hastily constructed catapult loomed into action again. There was pandemonium. Between the fires arising and the gunpowder that blackened the air around them, it was difficult to tell who men were, or whom they followed. It was difficult even to make out their red rose crests, proclaiming the House of Lancaster.
Tristan de la Tere was seated upon his massive warhorse, in helmet and armor, bearing the emblem of the red rose on his mantle. All that could be seen of Tristan’s face were his eyes, which were as dark as the night. His eyes narrowed as he sat there in silence. Not even his well-trained mount stirred.
Then he suddenly swore with an incredulous fury. “God damn them! Haven’t they the sense to surrender? I’d have no more of this senseless bloodshed!”
At his side, Jon, his second in command now, dared to speak. “I’m afraid, Tristan, that they do not honor the Lancaster heir as we do. Nor, does it seem, that the Lord of Edenby is eager to hand over his castle.” Like Tristan, he prayed that the bloodshed would end. Yet it was impossible not to admire a worthy foe, and even—in this particular battle—understand his position.
“Edgar of Edenby must understand that this is war.”
“Umm,” Jon murmured, wincing silently for a moment as a horse went down, slain not by the enemy, but by the faulty firing of a cannon, which set ablaze the area not a hundred yards from where they stood to direct the battle. “You were ordered to take this place as a conquered domain. By a king who does not yet sit upon a throne.”
“But will do so,” Tristan said quietly and grimly. He shrugged. “Jon, I tried everything. Now I have been ordered to give no mercy, but still I will try to do so. Yet if this keeps up, the men will be like lunatics when they go in.” He fell silent for a moment. “I will feel like a madman when I go in myself, yearning to destroy.”
“Looting, rape, and thievery! What a task we are set to!” Jon mused. “I’ve a mind for some fine silver plate myself. And once this ends,” he paused, shrugging with a weary grin, “the pleasure of fine wine, women, and song!”
Tristan grunted out an answer and spun about in his saddle, lifting a gauntleted hand. “Damn the castle! And Edenby’s pride! He had only to swear his loyalty.” He turned back to the scene before him: the fire, blazing high against the wintry blue sky. The ramparts, where men could be seen racing along—awkward in their mail and helmets—and desperate to elude the flames and quench them. The castle sat on a bluff, a wall of sheer stone that rose from the sea at the left and protected the front. They had penetrated the fortress with their catapult, but there was still no hint that Edenby would capitulate.
Tristan grimly contemplated his own men—tired, filthy, and ragged. Blackened by soot, laden down by their shafts and arrows and spears and archers’ armor and swords.
Fury soared in his heart again. By God, Edenby! he thought. Surrender! I have no wish to debase you, yet you give me no choice! I will win, Edenby! I will see that Henry Tudor ascends to his throne.
Tristan had become Henry’s man himself, fiercely so. He could not forgive Richard. Perhaps Richard had not officially ordered murder, but he had made it clear that he was displeased with Tristan. Murder had ensued: the death of everything Tristan had loved. The King’s displeasure had exacted a penalty that Tristan would never forgive; two years later, the wounds were still deep. The past was like a relentless knife in his heart, an agony that would not fade.
Henry Tudor—son of Owen and heir through his mother’s branch of the family—was a man of stern and uncompromising judgment, but he was also determined to see the terror and bloodshed come to an end. Richard still claimed the throne, but Tristan believed fiercely that it was only a matter of time. The country was rising against his treachery and deceit.
Henry was, for some unfathomable reason, furious with Edgar Llewellyn. A curious fact, since he had known that few of the nobility would join the fight for the Crown this time. Neutrality not only was a wise course, but for many families it was the only way to survive.
But once Edgar had refused shelter to Henry’s men, Henry had ordered the castle taken, Edgar demoralized. Perhaps it was Edgar’s Welsh inheritance, but more likely it was personal between Henry and Edgar.
“I will get Edenby to surrender,” Tristan had assured Henry; but the Lancastrian had laughed bitterly. Edgar had been proclaiming stalwartly for the Yorkists for the past thirty years. “He called me the ‘Mad Bastard’ once,” Henry told Tristan “He has not changed, and he will not surrender—not until every stone is overturned.” Henry frowned darkly. “Go back, Tristan, and crush Edenby.” And Henry had eyed Tristan with the shrewdness that was one of his greatest assets. “Give no quarter. Take Edenby, and Edenby is yours. Don’t forget the heinous cruelties perpetrated on your family by the House of York.”
Tristan had not forgotten. But despite Henry’s words, Tristan knew that the man who would be king did not want endless fields of dead. Henry might bear a personal grudge against Edgar, but he possessed a certain avarice; he would want living subjects, men to till the fields and lords of the manors who were able to pay their taxes.
If Edgar only had honored their first request for food and hospitality! Tristan would never have sought Henry’s advice, never received the severe and irrevocable answer. “Damn them!” Tristan swore again furiously. When they did take the castle, he would not be able, in fairness, to deny his men any sort of plunder. You could not drag knights over a harsh, barren countryside and deny them the spoils of war. He could only pray for a minimum of bloodshed.
“So be it!” he muttered heatedly, and he lifted a hand to Tibald at the brace of a catapult. His hand fell; once again a soaring, flame-gold ball of death took flight.
The anguished screams rose from Edenby, loud and shrill. Smoke filled the air; people raced about, scurrying for cover, shrieking and gasping for water.
Tristan’s eyes narrowed once again as he peered through the smoke and flame. The ramparts were empty now—his archers were assuring that those who dared to remain in sight would not do so for long. But then Tristan saw a lone figure, curiously tall and proud and apparently oblivious to the fire and cacophony. He blinked; the smoke was like a swirling fog, rising and misting. It seemed that the screams grew faint as he stared through the shield of smoke, almost as if he had entered another place and time.
It was a woman who stood there. Decked in white, in some snowy fabric that caught the breeze and floated and surrounded her. Reaching through the smoke-filled gray of the sky, the sunlight touched her long hair, which glittered like gold, curling in golden waves below her knees.
Her hands were on the walls; it seemed that she stared straight down at him. He could not see her face, and yet he sensed that she was not afraid, that she scorned their efforts completely. She stood so defiantly that he was shaken by her appearance.
What was she doing there? Where was her father, her husband, her brother, that they allowed her to stand there so! Defying danger . . .
Poor Lisette had begged for mercy, and found none. This woman stood there, daring death, and no harm came her way. Something simmered and scalded and roiled deep within Tristan’s heart; he wanted to wrench her from that height and shake her and yell until she had some sense of danger.
“Milord Tristan!”
He started, and saw that Tibald was calling to him. “What order?”
“Do we give them another volley then?” Jon queried.
“Nay—we wait,” Tristan said. He stared back to the ramparts; she was gone. “We leave them to ponder on our strength—and we send them another condition of surrender.”
Suddenly, flying down from the ramparts, came a fluid stream of burning arrows. Screams rose again—this time from Tristan’s men as they fell to the ground, beat at the flames, bled, and died. “Hold your shields!” Tristan commanded, his voice rising like thunder above the din about him. He did not move his position, but raised his shield—embossed with an intertwined hawk and tiger—high against the death rain. His men, in turn, did not panic, but raised their own shields, and those larger, wooden ones twined together for the siege so that they might drag away the wounded. The rain of arrows at last ceased. Furious, with his lips compressed grimly, Tristan spoke to Tibald. “They seek battle, and they shall receive battle! Another volley!”
Tibald nodded to the warrior with the fire taper; the flame was lit—and a burning ball sprang high to the heavens once again. Tristan did not hear the screams from beyond the wall. He was too busy commanding his own men to pull back the wounded. Even his great mount was prancing at the upheaval around them now; horses were down, and their agonized and eerie cries tore at the smoke-filled air.
At last Tristan looked back at the castle. Flames rose high, and smoke filled the sky. But no banner was raised to offer surrender.
Tristan ordered that they pull back to the tents. The same bluff that shielded the castle had offered them a buffered camp in easy reach.
As litters were dragged along behind them with the giant catapult, Tristan rode grim-faced. When they reached camp and Tristan dismounted, not even Jon sought to talk to him. Tristan, who wore no beard, had harsh features to start with: a high forehead with winged, mocking brows, a long nose, cheekbones that rose high and stern, and a jawline that appeared sculpted of rock. His rich abundance of sable dark hair touched the collar of his tunic and fell almost to his brows in front, but was usually swept aside. His flesh was bronzed from many days spent outdoors. Although he had once smiled easily, Tristan rarely bore the look of amusement that had been so charming. For the last two years his wide mouth had been compressed with a severity that could cause the stoutest man to quake. His eyes were changeable and deep; they could rage with fire and threaten like the pits of hell. He could, by his mere presence, accomplish more with a word than many a man with a sword.
He rose high above other men, trim but with broad muscled shoulders that had been hardened by heavy practice with the weapons of war. He was a young man, not yet thirty, but the older barons never thought to question his command. He was always first beneath the fire; it seemed he could deny death.
He has become so hard, Jon thought, watching his friend.
Jon followed Tristan into his tent, and stood behind while he stripped away his helmet and mail, and washed his face furiously in cool water. “Call for Alaric,” Tristan ordered shortly, and Jon moved to obey the summons.
Moments later the scribe, Alaric, was there. He was an old man, but one who had served Tristan’s father faithfully. Tristan clasped his hands behind his back and paced the room. Alaric looked at Tristan calmly, awaiting the biting speech that would follow. Tristan’s anger was evident in his carriage, in the smoldering flame of his eyes. His voice was calm, he was not shouting—and was therefore at his most dangerous stage.
“Tell them,” Tristan said at last, pausing, “tell them no quarter. That we shall ram the gates tomorrow, and that they should pray for God to have mercy, for I—Tristan de la Tere, Earl and Lord in the service of Henry Tudor—shall have none.”
He paused again. He closed his eyes, and he could see his men, burning, shrieking, dying in agony in the streak of arrows. His was the stronger force; he would win.
Tristan opened his eyes and looked at the scribe. “That is it, Alaric. See that it is brought to the gates under the proper banner. And see that it is understood. No mercy.”
Alaric nodded, bobbed, and left the tent. Tristan then turned calmly to Jon. “Is there a meal that can be sent? I believe we’ve still a cache of Bordeaux. See to it, will you, Jon—and ask Tibald that I be given a report on the wounded.”
Not long after, they sat down to their meal. Tristan described the assault they would make in the morning. “Before dawn, or just as the dawn arises,” he said. And then he frowned, for Alaric burst in upon them. “There was a reply to your message, milord. An urgent summons that you meet with the lord of the castle, this evening, alone, at a point that is too distant from the castle to be in range. A certain place upon the bluff.”
“Don’t do it, Tristan!” Jon declared warily. “ ’Tis surely a trick, and nothing more.”
“The request came out in the ‘name of Christ’s mercy.’ ”
Tristan hesitated, drinking his cherished Bordeaux thoughtfully. “Nay, I will go prepared for a trick. Solemn oath will be taken on both sides that there will be no interference.”
“Aye—that has been promised by the Yorkists.”
“And ’tis no better than the promise of dogs!” Jon spat out.
Tristan clanked his goblet to the table. “God’s whit! But I’ve lost enough men! I will meet with this lord, and the surrender will be upon my terms, I swear it!”
Not an hour later, he was again mounted. He wore no helmet or mail, nor did he carry his sword. But he did have his knife in a sheath at his calf, ready to be drawn.
Jon accompanied Tristan to the bluff. Once there, he dismounted and gazed up at the maze of rock. He knew the appointed cove; he had been there when they had first started the siege.
“Go carefully, Tristan,” Jon warned.
“I always move carefully,” Tristan replied. He turned to the rock, and planted his boots against it to climb to the first plateau. Tossing his mantle over his shoulder, he continued along the harsh trail of boulders, a taper of fire high in his hand.
He approved the meeting place. No one could hide upon the windswept rock—the cove afforded the only privacy. Yet he moved cautiously, for he would never trust these Yorkists.
“Edenby!” He shouted when he reached the appointed cove. “Show yourself!”
There was a sound behind him and he turned, ever at the ready to draw his knife and strike. But he paused, startled. There was no man there—just the woman he had seen upon the ramparts. She was in white again, or was it the same white—somehow untouched by the smoke? Beneath the glow of the moon, her hair still seemed to hold sunlight. It was a rich and golden color, vivid and deep, and it framed a face that was finely sculpted, pale and rose, beautiful and young. The eyes that beheld him were silver with the moon, and as proudly defiant as her stance. She, too, held a taper; its blaze touched her eyes and set the sheen of pure gold to her hair.
Suddenly he found himself furious at her appearance—more furious still that she had stood like a fool upon the ramparts while the arrows flew, “Who are you?” he demanded harshly. “I came to meet the lord of the castle—not a girl.”
She seemed to stiffen, then rich lashes fell over her eyes, and a disdainful smile curled the corners of her lips.
“The lord of the castle is quite dead, and has been since he was murdered on the fourth day of battle.”
Tristan found a crevice in which to stash his torch. He walked slowly around her, hands on his hips. “So,” he said at last, “the lord of the castle is dead. Where then, is his son, his brother, his cousin, or the man to take his place?”
There was such a calm about her that he longed to slap her, yet refrained. “I, sir, am the ‘lord’ of the castle.”
“Then it is you who has caused these further days of needless and futile suffering and death!” Tristan spat out to her.
“I?” She raised a honey-colored brow. “Nay, sir, I did not set out to attack, to divest others of their home, to rape and pillage and murder. I have sought only to keep what is mine.”
“I sought no pillage, no rape, no murder,” Tristan muttered, “but my God, lady, now it shall be.”
Her lashes lowered, and her head dipped just slightly. “Then there is no chance that I—might seek honorable surrender now?”
“You are late in asking, lady,” Tristan said bitterly. “And there is nothing for me to gain. You seek to call my men animals—that is what you have made them.”
She raised her head. “I asked you, milord, if there was no hope of mercy?” Her voice was soft, like velvet, drifting along his spine. He heard in it a plea, and more. Something that twisted inside of him, something that made him ache . . . burn . . .
Desire.
It was sudden, startling, stark, and painful. Love had died and been buried with Lisette and their child. But in the two years that had passed since then, Tristan had discovered that love and need were not the same. He had wanted many women since; he had easily had what he wanted. But this desire was unlike anything he had known.
It was like a fire burning, filling him. She was exquisite. Her hair . . . he could imagine it entangled about him, against him like silk. Skeins of gold. She was so fair. Her eyes were the most unusual color and shape he had ever seen. She had a strange power; she made a man want her with a shattering, reckless hunger; she made him burn, and throb, and long to take her on any level. She made him ache to forget all else, to reach for her, to strip her finery from her, and know right there, right then, upon the dirt and the rock, what mystery lay within her eyes, what passion shimmered there.
Yet as equally as he was drawn, she repelled him. She was cold and proud and stubborn. She held her head high; her eyes bore no light of pleading. Yet how had Lisette looked that night, meeting her butchers? Pleading for her life. Begging. Beseeching any small mercy. But finding none.
Tristan laughed harshly. He was the wrong man to be taken by any woman, no matter how fair. “Lady, just what is it you can offer?”
“Myself,” she said simply.
“Yourself?” he queried, taking a few steps. Amusement twisted the hard line of his jaw; he stopped to face her again. “Lady, tomorrow we shall ram your gates, and take then what we wish.”
He thought he saw a gleam as sharp as his sword in her eyes, but her lashes lowered quickly, and he was startled as she drew in a deep, shaky breath. A little sob escaped her. “There is nothing else I have to offer—except to end the bloodshed. And for tomorrow, milord, there is a portent for rivers of blood. You will come in to ravage, and so we will again be forced to fight. To the death. Yet if you were to take me as your wife, the castle would be yours in the eyes of all my men.”
“Take you to wife, milady?” he queried incredulously, and he almost spat on the ground. She was a Yorkist. Smug, insolent little Yorkist, convinced of her own beauty and allure! Not to mention deadly. So she had carried on the battle! He could not forget the cries of his dying men. “I’ve no desire for a wife.”
She did not raise her head, so he did not see the glint of fury that touched her eyes.
“I am the Lady of Edenby,” she said coolly. “Nothing can change that—”
“I beg to differ,” Tristan interrupted politely. “When the Tudor sits upon his throne, he shall do so with a stroke of a quill.”
“Nay, only my head upon a block can do such a thing. Would your Tudor King dare go so far? Is he then determined to murder all who oppose him? The axmen and hangsmen of England will be busy, for a certainty!”
Tristan smiled slightly, crossing his arms over his chest. “This is war, my lady. I am but a soldier of the King—who will attaint your property and title. You are—no one, milady.” He offered the last mockingly.
“You serve a pretender! Richard is King!”
“Have it as you will, my lady. We are remote here; there will be no clerics of the court to argue for you, no one left when it is over to come to your defense. I care not if you hold half of England; I will take this castle, and I will be its lord.” He spoke lightly, then his voice deepened with a startling fury. “And I will take no woman as a wife, madam, no matter how rich, no matter how fine and fair. So barter yourself no further!”
Genevieve’s head lowered quickly; about her the night seemed to seethe with friction. She appeared ready to pounce upon him, hawklike, with her nails for talons. As she waited the air was alive with a fascinating tension.
At last she spoke—but not with the venom he had expected.
“Then not as wife,” she said softly. “As mistress, concubine, or whore.” She stared at him, her smile as sweet as a summer rose. “You are the conquerors, are you not?”
Tristan arched a brow high, musing on this ploy of hers. What in God’s name was she after? She feigned humility; there was none, in truth, about her. She was proud, yet she lowered her eyes from his. Ah, lady! he thought, were you but a tavern strumpet, I’d take your offer swift and sweet, for never have I known so quick and urgent and fierce a longing! It was as if the sight of her were a drug, a potent invader of the blood and soul. He would have to have her to ever forget her.
Yet she was the enemy, he reminded himself, and one whom he could not trust.
“Lady,” he spoke harshly. “I’m not sure I want you. Perhaps there is someone more . . . alluring within the castle to be offered?”
“What?” she burst out. Her eyes were slivers of diamond-bright fury. Had they been lances, they’d have pierced his heart a thousand times.
“I don’t find you particularly appealing.”
“I find you loath—” she began, but she cut herself off, looking to the ground again. “Lord de la Tere, we talk of peace. We talk of men who will defy you every step of the way unless they believe that I have determined for peace! Another fight within the walls, and Edenby will be nothing but a sea of blood! Are you dim-witted? Don’t you see why I have come here tonight?”
“Magnanimous, aren’t you?” he murmured. “The great lady—so quick to shed the sanctity of marriage for the honorless position of whore.”
She didn’t flinch; she stared at him with the moon’s silver glitter in her eyes and allowed herself the pleasure of a cool, scathing retort. “Lord Tristan, were circumstances different, I would not sully my family lineage in marriage to you!”
He laughed, for his family name was a fine one, and the superior claim of the lady of Edenby was rather amusing, under the circumstances.
“That works out well then, does it not? You’d not wish to sully your name. I’ve no wish to ever call a woman wife—especially not an arrogant, foolish girl who cannot admit defeat. But yet, I pray, explain why you would come to me offering yourself even as a concubine, for surely such a thing must be an abomination to your good name, too.”
She paused slightly and raised a hand. She had dressed to entrance him, he realized. The white garment moved with her, flowing, and-displaying a hint of the mounds of her breasts, and the deep valley between them. The fabric clung to her, and displayed all that was beautifully young and beautifully female about her form.
Her hand fluttered back to her side. “I am desperate,” she said simply. It was, Tristan thought, the first honest statement that she had given him.
He sighed. “To tell the truth, milady, I’ve little taste for murder or plunder—or rape. I prefer my women willing and tender. Passionate in their desire for me, as I for them. Obviously you are aware of your beauty—else you would not think to barter so. Yet, to me, it would mean little. There are many beautiful women in the world. And among them are those who who do not think of ‘duty,’ or of ‘sacrifice,’ but of pleasure to be shared in the arms of a man.”
At last, it seemed, he had drawn a flush from her. Scarlet color stained her breast and cheeks. Yet, if she were angry, she did not display it. She gave him another smile, hesitant but full of sensual beauty.
“I’ve—I’ve watched you, Lord Tristan. From the ramparts. I’m quite certain that I can—be all that you wish.”
“And not a despised enemy?” he queried skeptically.
“Not.”
He turned from her suddenly, flicking his mantle past his shoulder and staring out at the bluffs far below to the night-dark sea. Then he spun back to her.
“Keep yourself, lady. If peace can be arranged, it shall come to pass. Your coffers shall go to my men, and the castle will be mine, but no more will die. And I will hold my men in check. Your ladies will be pleased; your whores will be rich.” He started down the bluff, and was stunned to hear her call him back. “Lord Tristan!”
He turned to her cry. She was following him, anxiety now in her eyes. Her breasts heaved with no thought of enticement; she touched his arm, then stared at her hand upon it and quickly drew away, panting slightly as she spoke.
“I—I—”
“What?” He demanded curtly. Damn you, leave me! he thought. Go away! You will quickly become an obsession with me. Something that I must have, even while I hate you and all that you stand for. Aye, hate even the fever, the feeling you create . . .
“It—it will not do! Not as you say! My people will protest if I am thrown from the castle. Please, for the love of God! I must greet you, and you—you must come to me! We ... you and I ... we must appear as friends. As more than friends.”
He cocked his head, querying her. “Milady, spell it out. Clearly. What are you saying?”
“I beg you . . . to come to me.”
“Clearer,” he taunted her.
“As a lover!”
“I am the conqueror—but you’d have me be your lover—in what was your own castle?”
“Aye!”
For a moment he closed his eyes; he thought of his wife, so beautiful, so sweet, so loving.
Everything about him tensed in a fire-torn agony. He’d taken women since! Where was the difference here? Ah, but he had no interest in martyred virgins! Yet the sight of her had touched him fiercely; for all her golden beauty and cool elegance, there was also something raw and exciting about her. Something that hinted of a deep sensuality and a seething passion and spirit. He shrugged. Maybe she was no innocent virgin, maybe she had known numerous lovers. She was the strangest cross between angelic innocence, golden purity, and throbbing allure. If one were to touch her, she would come alive in tempest, great and startling in comparison to the restraint she feigned now.
The greatest ladies had been known to bed their own grooms. Perhaps it was easy for her to come to him because she was already well versed in the ways of the bedchamber.
Tristan felt the heat again, soaring. She did that. She beckoned, she seduced, on a level that was primal, where the body was scorched and no thought could take hold in the mind. She had invaded his senses. He could, perhaps, forget that she was a Yorkist. Whores, he had learned, were alike in the dark. “Please?” she whispered fervently, and again her tone entered him, and brought him to feel pity.
She made no sense. She must be watched, carefully and warily. Yet how could he, a man who still heard the echoes of screams for mercy in his dreams, refuse to grant a request that could lead to a peaceful negotiation? To ... mercy.
And then there was the desire. The haunting desire that she created. He wanted no part of it! It was there, nonetheless.
He threw up his hands. “Lady, this is lunacy.”
She did not reply.
“Did you hear?” he demanded harshly.
“I heard.”
“I granted you mercy with no thought of barter!”
“Don’t you understand? It would not be enough! Yet if they saw us together, they would know that I have surrendered completely, and thus they would surrender, too.”
“Lady, then have it as you would! One whore is the same as another.”
She surveyed him, regal and calm. He sighed.
“None will be harmed, no vengeance taken.” His voice went suddenly ragged. “But I mean it—I do not want a wife! Nor will the cost be any less great to you; the castle is in my hands—gold and jewels and foodstuffs and land will be divided among my men.”
“When will you come?” she asked him. She was relieved, he noted. Liar, witch—what are you planning? he wondered.
“At noon. And my men are hungry. If you would be the chatelaine, have a feast waiting—wine and food.”
She nodded. “We will be waiting, Lord Tristan.”
He started down the bluff again, but felt her watching him. He turned. The moon had caught her hair, and her eyes. A glitter, silver like that orb in the sky, touched them in a misted beauty. And yet he didn’t trust her—he had caught her unaware, and he knew that she despised him with a vengeance.
No matter. She was welcome to despise him to his dying day.
“What is your name?” he called to her.
“Genevieve,” she told him, “Lord Tristan.”
It was that last retort which stopped him. Now, with her plea granted, her voice became so scathing and sarcastic that he thought at first he must have imagined the rich force of contempt that chilled its sweetness.
Anger raced through him, deep and dark and compelling. She played a dangerous game—and he knew it well.
And still . . . he wanted her. Despite it all, despite logic and sense, he wanted her. Knowing that she was treacherous, knowing that she was a lie.
He was suddenly back beside her, as contemptuous as she, and determined to shake her.
She did not fall back, though he thought that she longed to. He stood right before her, close enough to see those mauve and silver eyes in the moonlight, to feel her, the rush of her breath, the beat of her heart. And as she stared up at him he smiled, for he saw the furious pulse that strummed rampantly against the creamy length of her throat. He kept that smile in place, pleasant, easy, while cold and brutal anger held him.
She knew no humility, she would receive mercy when she did not know how to ask it. She played upon emotions and desires while . . .
Lisette had died.
Was it all anger? Was it something else? His heart felt frozen, his body ached and yearned. He was his own man, stronger than she. Stronger than the silken web she tried to weave about him. He would break her, break her web, and find the truth, he promised himself.
And so his mocking smile spread.
“I’ve never purchased without sampling the merchandise.”
And then he seized her, holding her in anger, in pain; he was on fire and as cold as ice. He tilted her chin and seared her lips with his own.
He heard a sound deep in her throat, he felt her body stiffen, felt panic surge through her. Her heart took flight like a bird, her breath all but halted.
Her lips were as sweet as wine, but they hardened instinctively against his assault. No hungry lover here, he surmised, yet he gave no quarter, ignoring protest. Against his force her lips parted, and his tongue swept and ravaged and plundered the whole of her mouth with a blatant, searing intimacy.
She fought his touch. His hand was now cupped about her breast, and he could feel her panicked heartbeat. Further . . . he sampled and explored. And shuddered, heat coiling and sizzling inside of him. Her breast was full and firm, and she was beautifully formed, slim and curved, her waist a man’s handspan, her hips seductive beneath.
A strangled cry escaped her at last. She stirred and tensed rigidly, as if she would spring on him, scratching, seething.
She did not. She remained rigid, but did not fight. The hand that moved to force his away fluttered and fell.
He pushed her away from him to prove her lie, to save his own soul. She trembled visibly; her eyes were glazed and her lips damp and swollen. She stared at him, totally shaken.
“Second thoughts, milady?” He forced a chill into his voice.
She rallied quickly. “Nay, none at all, milord.”
Still that pulse at her throat throbbed. Her fingers, laced before her, shook. Her eyes fell.
He stared at her for a moment in the moonlight, forcing himself to observe her with cold objectivity. Her hair was such a stunning, crowning glory, a cloak like a golden sunrise against the night. Yet if it were clipped away . . .
She would still possess an uncanny beauty. Her skin was unmarred, soft and fragrant as rose petals. Her features were delicate but majestic. Her mouth was finely shaped and defined, with a hint of fullness. And her eyes ... They could not be described as blue or as gray. At times they had appeared the softest mauve; at times they had gleamed with the silver glint of a sword.
“Well, then . . . I suppose you shall do—as well as any.”
Such a tremor rattled through her that he almost laughed. The lady was definitely outraged. But if she was outraged, he was afire.
He turned from her, convinced that at least for now she had no intent to stab him in the back.
“Good evening, Lady Genevieve,” he said. Fifteen feet from her he stopped and turned around, unable to resist one final taunt.
“Milady?”
“Milord?”
“Your attitude . . . it isn’t quite what I had in mind.”
Even in the darkness he could see her furious blush.
“It will improve?” he asked mockingly.
She hesitated, then spoke softly. Like a whisper of silk on the breeze. Seductive. Her voice rising against him and inside of him.
Like an obsession.
“I promise, Lord Tristan,” she returned with a whisper of husky silk, “that I will ... please you.”
She lifted a hand, then blended back into the night.
He watched her disappear and vowed silently that he would be both cautious and wary.
And that she would keep her promise—at all costs.