Chapter 5 #3
Her hand flew to her mouth, stifling a gasp at the sight.
He had taken off his elegant over-tunic before he’d fallen asleep, unlacing the linen shirt beneath as well, as the evening had been warm.
When he’d lifted his arm it had fallen open, exposing scars on his torso that could only have come from painful lacerations or burns.
They spread upward in an almost methodical pattern—along his ribs and across his chest until they were hidden from her sight.
He moved again, his arm coming back down as he rolled completely on his side, facing her, and the edge of his shirt fell to conceal the marks once more.
Sweet Mother of God. When had this happened—and from what cause?
The Inquisition. His torture.
The voice echoed its dark message through Alissende’s mind, and her throat felt as if it was closing.
She reached out once more, gently stroking his brow and murmuring words of comfort to try to ease the throes of his nightmare.
It was difficult enough to consider such horrible suffering when the injury was from accident or even the results of battle.
But to think of being restrained and helpless while others purposely inflicted the kinds of wounds that had left these scars…
She could not think on it without becoming sick.
Damien made another sound, less anguished this time.
It pulled her, thankfully, from her tormented thoughts, and she slowed the gentle stroking of her hand on his brow and hair, though she continued to speak softly to him.
In response he quieted even more until the tension seemed to ebb from him, and he stopped twitching and shifting altogether, looking peaceful, except for the way his brow furrowed.
Suddenly, he breathed in sharply—once, then again—before exhaling on a long and deep sigh.
“Alissende…”
She stiffened in surprise.
Her name had been released on that breath, laced with a note of longing that made her go still, made sweet warmth unfurl inside of her before she was able to fortify herself against it.
“My Alissende…”
At the same time that he murmured those words, he reached out, gripping the hand that had been stroking his brow, and she gasped—loudly—her own surprise throwing her off-balance as she tried to push herself up from her knees to back away.
It was too late. Anchored by his grasp, she toppled forward onto him.
Before she could draw in her breath, he’d tugged her halfway up his prostrate form, his hands cupping her buttocks to ease her into a position that caused her legs to slide open, her knees touching the floor on either side of his hips.
It was a decadent pose, bringing her into direct and stunning contact with the heat of his masculine length, covered by naught but a thin piece of cloth.
He shifted against her, and her moan came out as a half gasp.
But the sound was lost to a muffled sigh as he threaded his fingers into the hair at her nape, curling himself up toward her and guiding her mouth to his in a kiss that seemed to sear her from the inside out.
The sheet she had wrapped around herself upon leaving bed had long since come undone, and she felt the muscles of his abdomen contract against her naked belly with the movement…
felt the hard contours of his chest press into her breasts in a way that was startlingly erotic, even as he began to rock his hips up, rubbing against her.
Oh, God…
It felt so good…so good that she couldn’t bring herself to stop him, though it was surely wrong to enjoy such sinful pleasure with a man who was both half-asleep and bound to forswear her by reason of the darkness that had taken up residence in his soul.
She should stop this. Sweet heaven, she should. She must, lest he awake to find her compliant—nay, yearning—to complete the intimate teasing he had provoked with his position.
With supreme effort, Alissende planted her hands on his chest and pushed, trying to lift herself up and break off their kiss. She made a sound in her throat as she managed to pull free, almost regretting her action as she uttered his name in a hoarse, demanding whisper.
The combined movement and noise was at last enough, apparently, to rouse him. His eyes snapped open, and he moved so suddenly that she fell in a rather ungraceful heap next to him.
“What are you doing?” he snapped, and she looked up from her awkward position on the floor to see that he was scowling down at her.
“I?” she echoed, her still-pulsing desire, the edge of panic, and pure exasperation all battling for supremacy in her voice. She struggled to sit up, scrambling to cover herself with the sheet again. “I am doing nothing, sir. It is you who caused this circumstance, I can assure you!”
He did not speak again right away, but rather sat up as well before leaning back against the wall, rubbing his hand over his eyes and brow as if attempting to bring himself to full awareness and regain his bearings.
When he looked at her again, it was clear that his body retained a clear memory of what they had just been doing, even if his mind did not.
His gaze burned over her, lighting on her bare feet, the contours of her legs, hips, and breasts outlined by the thin sheet, her naked arms half-covered by long tendrils of her dark hair, before making its way up again to her face.
She felt another tiny thrill at his expression, at the flaming heat in his eyes.
But then he scowled even more deeply, looking like a thundercloud readying to burst.
“Why did you get out of bed?”
“I thought you were ill,” she heard herself explaining. “I got up to see if you had a fever, but I…I…stumbled, and I lost my balance just as I realized that you were only suffering a nightmare.”
Her cheeks burned with the falsehood, but she would not give him the satisfaction of knowing she had yearned to comfort him in his troubled sleep; she was his estranged lover, not his wife in any real sense.
Yet even now, though she tried not to stare, she could not help glancing again at the scars that were visible once more through his open shirt.
She wasn’t quick enough. He caught her glance and looked down to where it had strayed, terrible awareness spreading over his expression as the full import of what she had seen sank in.
He did not move for the space of several breaths, except for the muscle that jumped at the side of his jaw, but when he raised his face again, his eyes burned with a depth of remembered pain that tore at her heart.
A swell of sympathy and anger over all he’d endured rose up in her, and she found herself murmuring, “I am sorry, Damien, that you suffered so.”
He remained silent, his barren expression revealing that what had happened to him was too much to think on, much less speak about. At last he pushed himself to his feet, being careful to hold the edges of his shirt together as he did. Half-turning away, he refastened it.
It wasn’t until he completed that action that he responded quietly, “Aye, well, it is over and done with now.” He stared out the window, dragging one hand through his hair as he added, “And thanks be to heaven, it is almost dawn. Late enough that none should find cause to think it suspicious that I’ve left the wedding chamber. ”
“Morning mass will be in little more than an hour,” she reminded him softly as she stood also. “Will you not wait until then?”
“Nay.” He looked back to her, his expression still careful and composed, and it sent a twinge through her.
She studied him for a moment in silence, deciding that if the next six months were to pass in any kind of acceptable manner, it would be in her best interest to know all she could about this stranger who had once held her heart in his hands.
“I could not help noticing yesterday that you did not genuflect when we entered the chapel,” she said evenly. “Or kneel in prayer at any point during our time there.”
He met her stare with his own, unyielding. “You are correct; I did not.”
“Why?”
The directness of her question seemed to startle him. Some dark emotion shadowed his face before he mastered himself again in an impressive show of strength—making her feel almost intrusive to have asked at all. But it was too important to let pass without knowing the answer.
“In our time together, I never knew you to enter a church without praying,” she persisted. “Did you refuse to do so yestereve because you did not wish to appear to sanction our agreement, even in that way?”
A bitter smile glanced across his mouth. “Nay—though that seems as good a reason as any, if it suits you.”
Alissende flushed, irritated that he was making light of her question. “I would not find it so strange had you not also been living previous to this under the rule of an order that observed strict hours of prayer numerous times a day.”
When he did not speak, she paused for a beat, giving him a look that, along with what she was about to say, could not help but goad him into responding. “Of course, perhaps I am mistaken, and what I have heard about the decline of Templar morality is true.”
Damien glowered at her then, his jaw set in a mutinous line.
“Templar laws never altered,” he answered at last, his voice harsh and his tone deliberate.
“The order is a noble one, and I acknowledged all precepts upon my initiation, striving to obey every rule without fault, even that which commanded me to give my life in protection of the Brotherhood if called upon to do so.”
He paused, glancing away, and when he looked back at her, her breath caught at the stark pain in his eyes, even more wrenching than what she had seen there before.
“You remember my brother Alexander, do you not?” he asked.
There was no possibility that she could have forgotten.
Her memory of Damien’s brother and of the time they had all lived together at court—of the scandal involving Alexander and the Earl of Welton’s daughter, Lady Margaret, and what had come afterward, which had cost herself and Damien so much—still burned after all this time.
But she did not let Damien see it. She could not.
Instead, she settled for nodding and answering softly, “Of course I remember. He was sent away to become a Templar shortly before you left for the same purpose.”
“Aye. We served together for five years, until the night of the arrests, when we were both taken in France. After a time, I was separated from Alex in our imprisonment, and part of my torment came in not knowing how he fared. My captors used it against me. In their efforts to make me refute the Brotherhood, they were only too eager to tell me of the agonies my brother suffered. And eventually, they took great pleasure in relating how and when he paid the ultimate price of our Templar vows.”
Damien’s voice was hollow when he finished, “He died alone, Alissende. Abandoned, as was every Templar in captivity, cast away to hell by the very people for whom we had fought and bled.”
Alissende blinked back the stinging in her eyes, and a swell of emotion filled her so that she could not speak.
“Alex died for a cause I once believed was God’s will made evident on earth,” Damien continued. “I survived, only with a bone-deep realization that the Templar Order is lost to me forever, as is—”
He stopped himself short, seeming to reconsider how he wished to phrase the rest; he was frowning, grief still masking his expression. “As is much else.” He looked away for an instant before meeting her gaze again. “That is why I did not pray yestereve.”
“I see.”
“Nay, you do not,” he countered quietly. “Not the full of it. And yet what you have heard is all I can offer right now. Or perhaps ever.”
He exhaled, jabbing his fingers through his hair again, as if in a visible effort to redirect his thoughts.
“However, you need not fear for my actions in public. I will keep proper appearances during these six months and attend mass with you each morning, following all the rites of worship as would be expected, with the exception of partaking in Communion.”
That brought her up short. His captivity and torture had scarred him in many ways, it was true, and yet for a man with his history, even the hint of dissent against the governing power of the Holy Mother Church could prove dangerous.
“Such an omission is sure to be noticed, Damien,” she chided gently. “How will you explain it?”
His eyes glittered in the dull gray light of morn that seeped through the window.
“I will not explain it,” he said. “If necessary, your cousin can ensure that those who must know are told it is tied to a penance assessed when I received the Writ of Absolution from the Church that you were so considerate to obtain for me.”
Before she could say anything further, he shook his head and jerked into motion, leaning down to pick up his embroidered over-tunic, then crossing to the tall chestnut wardrobe that took up half the wall near the door.
As he opened it and retrieved fresh garments, he said, “I am going to bathe and then make my way to the stables, where I will check my mount and meet with more of the men who are under my command. And in an hour, I will take my place at your side in the chapel.”
Finding herself unable to respond in any meaningful way, she simply nodded.
After another moment of silence, Damien gave her a curt nod as well, took up a leather satchel of some sort that he had brought with him to Glenheim, and turned to the door.
And then he was gone, leaving her standing alone in the stillness of their bedchamber to contemplate all that had transpired…trying to make sense of what she was discovering about this enigmatic, tormented man who had once been as familiar to her as her own soul.