Heart of the Flame Read online

  Kenrick stepped farther into the room and turned to the maid. "Allow me, if you will."

  "Milord?" Mary blurted, gaping at him as if he had just announced he meant to take up embroidery.

  "I wish to make amends for the bad manners of my livestock," he said as he took the damp cloth from the girl's slack fingers. He saw Haven's slight smile and offered a further apology. "Perhaps I wish to make up for some of my own bad manners as well."

  "Thank you, Mary," Haven said as the girl made a hasty and thoroughly befuddled exit.

  "I trust you are not too shaken from what happened outside today."

  She shrugged in dismissal. "I'm fine. Just a few scrapes, nothing more."

  "Good." He strode to the basin and dipped the swatch of linen into the warm water. "You may have your revenge tonight at supper. I've told the cook to add one surly hen to his famed dressed capons."

  Haven laughed, a rare sound that warmed Kenrick as fire itself. It drew him nearer as he wrung out the cloth. To his regret, her humor faded a bit as he hunkered down beside her, one knee on the floor. She gave him a look somewhere between humiliation and disdain. "This is not necessary, truly."

  "On the contrary," he told her with mock sternness. "'Tis entirely necessary."

  Brooking no argument, he carefully reached out and took her hand in his.

  Her skin was warm and soft as feather down against the sun-browned roughness of his fingers. He turned her palm over and rested it in the cradle of his hand as he gingerly swabbed at the angry red scratches crisscrossing the inside of her forearm.

  "Your servants will think you mad when Mary tells them their noble lord is in here mopping up my scant abrasions."

  Kenrick wiped away a thin smudge of dried blood and grinned up at her. "The servants already think me mad. Have you not heard them whispering about my strange habits? The odd hours I keep? About how I am known to disappear into my chambers for days--even a sennight at a time--to scribble in my journals and ledgers?" He shrugged, looking back down at the ivory elegance of the hand ensconced in his. "This--ah, lady, this is easily the least mad thing they've ever seen me do."

  "So, is it true, my lord?" she asked after a long moment. "Are you bedeviled?"

  Kenrick smoothed the swatch of linen across her delicate wrist, scarcely able to resist placing his lips against the fluttering pulse that beat there. Her abrasions were cleansed, but yet he held her hand, unwilling to release her. He glanced up and met her uncertain emerald gaze.

  "Am I bedeviled?" he said, so low it might have been a growl. "Aye, my lady. Lately more and more."

  He spread his fingers and wove them between hers, catching her more firmly. She did not try to pull away. Nay, she held him as he did her, their hands joined and locked, her thumb idly stroking his.

  "Whether you are in or out of my sight, Haven, you affect me deeply."

  He drew her closer, nearly edging her off the chair.

  "Kenrick." She looked down at their joined hands and gave a small shake of her head. "We should not. This would be..."

  He rose up on his knees before her. The slightest flex of his arm brought her to the very edge of the chair. With only the barest guidance, he lifted her hand and pressed his mouth to the soft skin of her knuckles. Haven's lips parted on a thready wisp of a sigh.

  "What would this be?" he murmured against her velvety fingers. Heaven, he thought, permitting his tongue to taste the sensual cleavage between her thumb and forefinger.

  "Oh, faith," she whispered. "'Twould be a mistake...if we...if we--"

  It was a weak protest when her lip was now caught between her teeth, her eyes gone as dark and dusky as a twilight meadow.

  He pulled her easily into his arms and silenced her with a kiss.

  Where he had expected a virginal tentativeness, a reluctant hesitance, he instead found melting, heated fire. He filled his hands with the delicacy of her face and neck, splaying his fingers through the heavy mass of her hair. The light perfume of the herbal water mingled with the warm, womanly scent of her skin.

  Kenrick breathed her in, feasting on the headiness of her allure like a drunkard gone too long without wine. It was an apt comparison, for long had he denied himself such an indulgence. Too long, if a mere kiss could render him so lost.

  But it was not as simple as that. He could not blame this feeling on deprivation or basic physical need.

  Haven was his intoxication.

  He needed only see her to be intrigued. Her strange beauty, her sharp wit and fiery manner--all of it conspired to bewitch him. She challenged him on many levels, her uncommon frankness as engaging as her secrets and the murkiness of her past. She was mystery and contradiction, and she was seducing him with her very presence under his roof.

  Even now, she stirred him to his core.

  This simple kiss--naught more than a beardless youth might steal from a dairy maid--had caused a swift conflagration in his veins. His blood pounded with want of her, beating an almost audible tattoo in his temples and reverberating further down his body. Like a jolt of lightning, fever shot through to his very bones, searing him as sure as fire itself.

  She slipped her hand around his neck, granting him further access as he dragged her closer, widening his thighs to settled her deeper into his embrace. His arousal surged tightly in his breeches, straining for her.

  He broke their kiss to trace his mouth along the slender line of her jaw, and down, to the warm hollow of her throat. Haven dropped her head back, moaning softly as he nipped the tender skin. She trembled in his arms.

  "Something is happening to me," she gasped, her breathless whisper sounding ragged beside his ear. "Something is...happening."

  God's blood, but he felt it, too.

  Pleasure, like a living physical thing, flowed between them. The heat of her body poured out from everywhere they touched--fingertips, mouths, skin that ached to be rid of the barrier of clothing. Her hands skated over his back in trails of pulsing fire. Her skin where he tasted her seared his tongue like a fever. The hairs on his arms rose as though drawn by gooseflesh.

  This was not mere desire, but something deeper. Something unfathomable. The sensation licked at him from within and without, building until he could hardly bear it.

  And with the sensation came need. Pure, unbridled need. Kenrick shook with the fierceness of it. He felt an animal need rise in him, a stunning need to have her--right there on the floor of her chamber if she would permit him.

  For one mindless instant, he thought she might.

  She moaned and writhed in his arms, but then he realized she was pushing him away.

  "N-no, please." She broke out of his embrace, a troubled look on her face. "No."

  "What is it?"

  She glanced down, averting her eyes when he tried to reach for her. She crossed her arms protectively over her breasts and flinched more than shrugged. "My shoulder," she said quietly, as though the excuse sounded feeble, even to her own ears. "It pains me."

  He sat back on his heels, some of his fever cooled by the knowledge that he might have been hurting her.

  "I'm sorry," he said, searching for some measure of logic when his blood was yet thrumming with desire. "Is there anything that you--can I get you anything for the pain?"

  "No." She would not look at him. "I think...I think you should leave now."

  Her cheeks were flushed pink, her lips tinged dark as berries from the passionate kiss they had shared. There was a tortured look in her eyes, apparent to him even though she seemed determined to avoid looking at him now. And he could not help noticing the way she rubbed her palms over her forearms as though to wipe his touch from her skin.

  Did she find him so distasteful, then? Could he have so grossly misinterpreted her reaction to his embrace, his kiss?

  Kenrick rose without saying a word.

  Perhaps it was good that this incident had occurred. Better that he learn her feelings now than later. He had not planned a seduction when he arrived at her door--God k
new he did not need the distraction from his work--but he was not fool enough to believe he would not have taken the opportunity. He still wanted her, a fact that angered him as much as it bemused him.

  He strode across the room, willing himself toward a state of reason and calm.

  Yes, better that he put Haven out of his mind now--before she had the chance to sap any more of his questionable self-control.

  "My apologies," he said as he lifted the latch on the door and stepped into the hall. "This will not happen again."

  He pulled the door closed behind him, and swore to himself that his words were nothing less than cool, rigid truth.

  * * *

  Haven sat on the floor near the fireplace for long moments after Kenrick had shut the door and departed. She could not move, did not trust her legs to hold her.

  "Oh, faith," she whispered into the empty chamber. "What does this mean?"

  She held herself in a loose grip, her palms moving quickly up and down her arms, trying to dispel the queer feeling that had overcome her. Her limbs felt as if they were being faintly pricked by scores of pins and needles. Her head was spinning, her ears humming with the oddest tickle of sound, as though a thousand bees swarmed inside her mind.

  Indeed, her entire body seemed alive and quickening with the odd shimmer of sensation.

  It had startled her, how quickly the feeling had come upon her. Once it started, she had been unable to think--been scarcely able to breathe. Even now, alone in the chamber, she could not comprehend how deeply her kiss with Kenrick had stirred her.

  She had wanted to feel his mouth on hers, despite her hesitation. She had wanted his arms around her, had wanted his gentle touch.

  Truth to tell, she wanted him still.

  But this overriding feeling that held her in its grasp went beyond anything she knew--surpassing any notions of simple human desire.

  This feeling was a dangerous one.

  It was powerful, and it carried an unfathomable allure.

  She looked down at her arms, to where the scant dusting of fine golden hairs had risen as her body had begun to stir at Kenrick's touch. Those scattered, gossamer fibers were still standing on end. Her skin seemed luminous and pale beneath the scratches left from the hen's sharp talons, the delicate webbing of her veins more sharply defined across her opalescent wrists.

  And there was more, she realized.

  Something that she had found curious before and now made all the more unsettling.

  She untied the laces of her gown and slid the garment over her shoulder. The bandage that covered her wound became visible as the bodice dipped low on her chest. Haven looked down at the pristine white linen, contemplating what she might find.

  She had to know.

  She reached over and lifted one edge of the bandage.

  It came away easily, not even the slightest tug on the healing skin beneath the binding that Haven herself had applied that morning. Mary had wanted to help, but Haven had turned the maid away, preferring to do it on her own now that she was feeling stronger.

  In truth she had not wanted the girl to see what lay beneath the bandage. She would not have understood. Haven herself was not quite sure what to make of it. Now she had to know.

  With trembling fingers, she pulled back the square of undyed linen.

  It came off the wound as clean as it had gone on that morning, not so much as the faintest stain to mar it.

  There was no stain...because the wound that had been raging and nearly lethal just a few short days ago, was all but healed.

  Chapter 15

  Morning was slow to arrive that next day, and Kenrick greeted the dawn in a rare foul mood. He had gotten little rest the night before. That fact alone would have been unremarkable, save that his inability to sleep was due less to his obsession with the puzzle of the Dragon Chalice and more with a mystery of another kind.

  That of the spell a certain flame-haired witch was weaving over him.

  She had occupied his thoughts from the first he had seen her, but after yesterday's kiss--after the embrace that had seared him as certainly as a live flame--Haven lingered in all of his senses. She drew him like no other, in spite of his intention to maintain his distance. A man would need be dead to resist her.

  Either dead, or a saint.

  Saint indeed, he thought wryly, scoffing at his old nickname. Never had it seemed more a jest.

  His feelings toward Haven were anything but saintly, and the vow he had given her the day before may have sounded noble at the time, but it felt as flimsy as vapor to him now, when it would take little convincing to turn down the corridor that led to her closed chamber door. With an oath, he took the stairs instead, his stride long and purposeful as he quit the keep and headed for the bailey courtyard.

  He was glad for the day's business that would take him away from Clairmont for several hours, despite that the task would be an unpleasant one. When Braedon and he had been out the day before, they had heard word of a band of riders spotted in a village in Devon. The group of outlaws had harassed a church and ransacked a nearby abbey.

  Senseless destruction, unless one knew what these brigands sought.

  And Kenrick knew all too well.

  From the descriptions he and Braedon had received, the mercenaries could be no other than the ruthless minions of Silas de Mortaine.

  A retinue of twenty Clairmont knights stood assembled in the wide yard of the inner bailey. A precaution, should things turn ugly on the sortie to Devon. The men's mounts were saddled and waiting, as was Kenrick's white destrier and Braedon's black. The knights greeted their lord's arrival with serious faces and a ready gleam in their eyes, for they knew they stood a good chance of riding into battle today.

  God willing, they would have that battle.

  Kenrick prayed they would be met and challenged, for until all four pieces of the Dragon Chalice were in his grasp--a feat that he might never accomplish--the only way to be assured the security of Clairmont and his loved ones was through his sword.

  He mounted up just as Braedon strode out of the keep. Ariana was with him, and Kenrick could see from the shadows lingering beneath her eyes, the trace lines edging her mouth that she too was aware of the day's goal. She paused just outside the door and embraced her husband for a long moment, then nodded silently as he pressed his forehead to hers and whispered private words. They kissed, and parted. As Braedon descended the short steps into the bailey, Ariana lifted her hand to wave somberly to her brother.

  "Godspeed," she mouthed.

  Kenrick tilted his chin in reply, then donned his helm and took the reins from an attending squire. With a look to Braedon as the dark warrior mounted his charger, Kenrick gave the signal for the retinue to head out. The score of soldiers fell in line behind the two men who rode side by side under the portcullis gate of the barbican.

  As the clop of horses' hooves sounded in the shaded arch, Braedon drew alongside Kenrick and said in a conversational tone, "The incident in the chicken yard yesterday must have given your guest quite a scare."

  "Haven?" Kenrick said with a shrug. "She did not seem overly shaken. A few scratches was all she suffered, nothing more."

  "Hmm," Braedon grunted. "I wondered, as she seems intent on hiding in her chamber today. Perhaps something else has upset her."

  "Who could know what the woman is about?" Kenrick scoffed, unwilling to look at the smirking knight at his side. Sunlight beat down upon them as they cleared the gate and put their mounts onto the road leading away from Clairmont Castle. "There is no logic in her at all, from what I've seen."

  "Mayhap you have not looked close enough. Women have their own logic, I'll grant you. And what a sweet reasoning for the man who endeavors to understand his lady."

  "I have no time to understand Haven. There are more pressing matters at stake here. She is but one piece of a puzzle I aim to solve--that of the attack on Greycliff, and nothing more."

  "'Tis a smart tack to take. Logical, certainly." Braedon g
ave a sage nod of his head. "But try telling that to your heart. Tell it to hers, for that matter."

  Kenrick let out a bark of laughter. "I'd no idea my sister had wed such a romantic. I assure you, Lady Haven's heart concerns me no more than I wager mine concerns her."

  "Truly?" There was an edge of amusement in Braedon's voice. "Is that why she watches our departure from the tower window?"

  Kenrick turned a swift, questioning glance on him, searching for signs of jest. There was no mockery, but there was a glint of smugness in the dark knight's eyes, and in the smile that tightened his facial scar into a silvery line against the swarthiness of his left cheek.

  "Look for yourself, do you not credit me. I'd venture she has been haunting her chamber window since the moment you strode into the bailey this morn."

  Scowling, Kenrick pivoted to gaze behind him, to the steep tower that rose up behind Clairmont's protective walls. There, high in the keep, Haven's chamber window stood open onto the bailey below. There was a rush of movement from within the darkened room, a hasty blur of pale silk as a slender arm quickly closed one of the shutters.

  Kenrick turned back toward the ribbon of dusty road that lay before him. "She despises me."

  "More illogic to your mind, I take it?"

  "Nay. It is rightly due. I wager I earned her scorn and then some after last evening."

  "Oh? What did you do, intimidate the poor girl with more interrogation?"

  "Worse. I kissed her."

  Braedon let out a chortle of laughter that drew the stares of several accompanying knights. "You kissed her."

  "I did more than that, if you must know."

  "God's blood," Braedon said, leaning in close for none to overhear. "You didn't force her--"

  "Christ!" Kenrick replied, aghast. "I am not so long deprived--or depraved--that I would resort to that. Or so I like to think. When it comes to this lady, too often I know not what I am capable of. She does things to my head, that one."

  "She is exasperating," Braedon supplied.

  "Yes."

  "Frustrating."