Chapter 4 #2
“There comes a time,” Sir Patrik said, “when we must look back if we are to heal.”
“Why?” she asked, stunned that after everything he had endured, the rebel would offer such advice, but also intrigued. Never had she expected such depth from the brutal man Sir Cressingham had described.
Doubts of Sir Cressingham’s claims that Sir Patrik was a cold-blooded killer swept through her. As if she should be surprised the Scottish treasurer would lie to achieve his goal? Sir Patrik was no murderer, but a man haunted, an intelligent man who yearned to be whole.
“Why must we look back?” Sir Patrik asked, dragging her from her thoughts. “Because hatred kills one’s soul, denies one the healing time offers.”
“Healing?” Anger crept into her words. “When broken, does one’s heart ever truly heal?”
“I believe it is possible.”
“Then you are better than I. Never will I forget, nor let go of the hate.” He sighed, a long, lonely sound, but Emma held firm. In this she would give him truth. If he turned away from her, so be it. Already he made her feel more than was wise.
“And what has hate served you?” Sir Patrik asked.
“The ability to live, to go on each day.”
“And what of happiness?”
“Happiness? Our country is ravaged by war, those we love butchered beneath the Englishman’s blade, and you dare ask me of happiness?” Emma paused. “Tell me, are you happy? Is anyone?”
Sadness flickered in his eyes. “My questions were asked to guide you from your grief.”
“I want not your help.”
But Patrik caught Cristina’s tremble, and the hint of need that never quite left her eyes. She was afraid. God knew what she’d endured during her time as an orphan, or since her husband’s murder. The English knights’ attack was only the latest of the atrocities she’d survived.
They shared a battered past, each given a second chance. He, the MacGruders who’d adopted him and raised him as their own. She, a husband to heal her soul.
And both had lost the people they loved.
He took in the web of darkness within the cavern, his heart aching. He was nae the person to guide the lass from her misery while his own was still so raw.
“What are you thinking of ?”
The gentleness of her voice lured him to reply but he’d reveal no more. He’d known the lass but hours. Well he understood the dangers of giving trust. What he’d exposed about his personal life disturbed him. Never had he shared such intimacies with a woman.
“We both need to be finding our pallets,” Patrik said. “Dawn and the leagues we must travel will come soon enough.”
She hesitated. “Will you be able to sleep?”
“A question I should be asking you.”
A faint smile touched Cristina’s mouth, and he found he liked knowing he’d put it there. As he watched her, her eyes softened.
The moment shifted.
The blackness surrounding the meager flicker of flame seemed to embrace them, to heighten the fact they were very alone.
The golden shimmers of light caressed her face, lured him to trace her skin, to sample the lush fullness of her mouth and discover whether it would fulfill its silent promise.
He could all but taste her, a potent sensuality that beckoned him for more.
Unsettled by his musings, Patrik stepped back. “Rest, I will be nearby.” He strode off, damning his amorous thoughts.
As Sir Patrik’s figure faded in the darkness, Emma exhaled. What had just happened between them? Nothing. Everything. She’d witnessed his desire, an emotion the warrior stirred within her as well.
God help her, she’d wanted him to kiss her. Since her rape at twelve summers, never had she yearned for a man’s touch. But something about the Scot made the horrific memories fade, left her wanting.
Go to sleep. Leave him be. ’Twas safe.
Yet, he was hurting, tormented by a past he, too, had weathered. A past he believed her ignorant of. Emma stood, needing to talk to him, to help him. Not because of her mission, but because he was a man who under different circumstances she might have called friend.
Friend? Laughable truly. She made not friends, only contacts.
Or enemies.
She turned from the candle toward where Sir Patrik had faded into the gloom. Gathering her courage, she walked into the darkness. Her eyes slowly adjusted. Within the faint spill of candlelight, she caught hints of shapes within the cavern.
A soft splash echoed in the distance.
She caught the rebel’s faint outline. He sat upon a boulder, his feet dangling in the water.
Loneliness. It radiated from him as if a man sentenced. A feeling she knew too well. A feeling her harsh comments had inspired.
In silence, she walked over and sat.
He stared straight ahead. “You should be asleep.”
“I should.” Emma removed her slippers, set them aside, and then slid her feet into the warmth of the water. “I am amazed at how the distant candlelight still plays upon the columns of stone.”
“Why did you come?”
The roughness of his question alerted her that he battled against his wanting her. Warmth flooded Emma. “You asked me questions, questions I struggle with. My frustration made me lash out when you were but trying to guide me from my grief.”
“You were honest.”
“I was, but it does not make my curt manner right.”
“Right?” Sir Patrik asked. “Is there such a thing?”
“I do not know.” A sad smile touched her mouth. “Do not think too deeply; you will sound like me.”
Within the wisps of candlelight, a hint of humor touched his face, and then fell away. “Aye, a sad lot we are.”
She trailed her foot through the water. “So where does that leave us?”
“To go on, to believe our lives can be better.”
“Is that what you have done?”
Sir Patrik drew a circle in the water. “I am trying.”
“How can you be so positive?”
He looked at her then, his face a play of shadows and determination. “To be otherwise is to give up hope.”
Was that what she had done? Given up hope to avoid hurt? It made sense, but never had she considered her withdrawal as anything but avoidance of pain.
The heaviness of her thoughts overwhelmed her. “I was wrong to come.” Emma made to stand, but the rebel caught her wrist.
“Stay. Sit for a while. With me.” The soft pad of his thumb skimmed the sensitive skin at her inner wrist. “It would please me greatly.”
Heat spilled through her at his touch. “Sir Patrik, I—”
“Patrik.”
“What?”
“Call me by my given name.”
She swallowed hard, fought to feel nothing. Failed. “’Tis unseemly.”
His thumb stilled. “’Tis my wish.”
“Patrik,” Emma breathed, testing the familiar use of his name on her tongue as if to taste the forbidden.
In a gentle move, he drew her against him, brought her head against his chest and slowly began to stroke her hair.
She gave a shaky exhale. “I thought you were going to kiss me.”
“I would be wanting to, but right now, ’tis not what you need.”
At his thoughtfulness, tears burned her eyes. No, she couldn’t feel this much for him. For Dubh Duer. It mattered not that for this moment her task was but a blur within her mind, that right now it was only him and her struggling against the sorrows of life.
“Is that why you left the pallets,” she asked, “because you wanted to kiss me?”
His fingers paused within her hair, then he slowly continued to stroke the unbound length. “Aye. A thought I am not proud to admit. You have known enough anguish.”
“As have you.” She snuggled closer, savoring the sense of protection, humbled by his honor, traits absent from her life since Father Lawrenz.
Except the priest’s thoughts were of God, of educating her and helping her find a path to stability and faith.
Patrik was dedicated to war, but a warrior who wanted her as a man did. “Thank you.”
In answer he pressed a chaste kiss upon her brow. “We should both get some rest.”
“We should.” But she lay against him saddened that this fragile moment, like her excursion into normalcy, would all too soon end.
The soft pad of footsteps upon dirt echoed in the silence as Emma followed Patrik down the tunnel, his candle held high. Since they’d departed the cavern this morning, he’d said little, which suited her fine.
Better than last eve when she’d made an error in dredging up the emotions of her past. Yes, they lent credibility to her supposed near rape yesterday, and had earned Patrik’s protection, but they’d unleashed horrific dreams throughout the night.
She must gain Patrik’s trust, but other ways existed besides exposing her weaknesses, emotions the Scot might use against her. Had her years as a mercenary taught her naught?
Thank God he’d not tried to kiss her as they’d sat beside the pool. Had he reached for her . . . No, ’twas better not to ponder how his mouth would feel upon her own. Except, her body warmed at the thought, her mind welcoming the intimacy of his embrace.
Ahead, a faint wisp of light fractured the blackness.
Hope ignited. “Have we reached the other side?”
“Aye,” Patrik replied.
Her relief to be free of this godforsaken complex of tunnels fell away. How close were they to his friends? She needed to discover who was the traitor to King Edward before they arrived.
As they neared the exit, sunlight scraped the uneven walls, exposing translucent spiderwebs woven within crevices above. Fresh air, infused with a hint of flowers and earth, blended with stale.
Emma exhaled. Mired in darkness for so many hours, she reveled within the sanity of light.
At the hewn opening, Patrik blew out the candle, stowed it within a carved hole in the wall, then peered through the shield of leaves and branches. “I see no one.”
She nodded, studying the meticulous weave of limb and leaf shielding the tunnel. With the entry so well hidden, it would prove difficult to find for the untrained eye.
“We have two days of travel before we reach my friends.”
That answered the question of how long she had to complete her task.
Patrik pushed aside a limb and stepped into the sunlight. “Though I see no one about, we must travel with caution. English knights could be nearby.” He strode forward.