Chapter 9 #2
She rubbed her fingers over her brow, trying not to think about it overmuch, as she knew by experience that it would do naught but make her feel worse.
It was the same wall of unalterable, cold truth that thrust itself before her every time she attempted to see her way around it, and it hurt too much to keep confronting it.
“Nay, he has been too much changed by his experiences to go back to any of the feelings we may have shared before.”
“You might be surprised, ma fille. What is in a man’s heart is not always apparent on the surface—or sometimes even fully known to himself.”
Alissende sank back again into her chair in response, and Lady Blanche crossed her arms with a sense of determination that sent a tingle of warning up Alissende’s neck.
“Ah, well,” her mother murmured, looking down in thought.
“That part of it is neither here nor there. We must deal with what we know to be true right now.” She met Alissende’s gaze again.
“You care for this man who has taken on the temporary role of your husband. Above and beyond the terms he himself set for your behavior in front of others as a married pair, he has begun to dally with you in ways that you are finding…unsettling, yes?”
Mute in her misery, Alissende simply nodded, but Lady Blanche was not content to let her get by with only that.
Covering the space between them in a few steps, she sat and took her daughter’s hand in a grip of feminine encouragement and alliance.
“Nay, Alissende,” she chided gently, “that is not the strong and capable daughter I raised. It is time to show some spirit, amie, for a woman gains naught in this world by sitting and wringing her hands when confronted by a difficult problem or a stubborn male. The question that begs answering now is the same one I asked you but a few moments ago. Sir Damien has issued you a challenge, of sorts, in the liberties he is taking during these training sessions he has instigated with you.”
Her kind eyes glinted as she smiled, raising her brow in an expression that was both fierce and mischievously wicked. “Now what do you intend to do about it?”
He had been playing with fire, and he knew it.
Damien brooded on that truth as he slipped into the cool darkness of the village chapel, grateful for the chance to be alone for a few moments as he tried to pull himself into some semblance of self-control.
His estrangement from God notwithstanding, this was the most peaceful and private place that he had been able to think of when the urge to retreat had come upon him.
Between masses it was generally deserted, and so he sat at the front, in one of the pews that stretched beneath the Madonna statue on the Epistle side of the altar.
And then he tried to think.
He was rapidly losing command of the situation with Alissende.
For four days now the raw, erotic heat had been building between them until it had reached an almost unbearable pitch, tormenting him whenever he was in her company—and still he kept stoking the flames with a touch here, a whispered word there, a stolen kiss…
By God, he’d been able to think of little else these last days, it seemed, except for lavishing such caresses upon her body.
Her naked body.
He almost groaned aloud now as the thoughts, the sweet, hot images, swept over him anew, giving him no rest. In a short time he was due to meet with her again for another of the infernal training sessions he’d so foolishly initiated with her, and he knew without a doubt that no matter how much he told himself he would behave and maintain a certain distance as they worked together, he would end up abandoning all noble intentions when presented with the first good opportunity to taste her lips or to brush his hand over her delicate curves.
Curves normally reserved for true husbands or lovers.
That she seemed to respond in such delightful ways when he stole those caresses only added to the thrill of them for him. Her cheeks would flush, or the sweep of his palm across her breast would cause her nipple to tighten into a tantalizing bud beneath the fabric of her gown.
And just yesterday, before she’d caught herself and pulled away, blushing more deeply than he had seen her do before, she’d instinctively pressed back against him, molding her body to his in that way he remembered from long ago.
He’d almost carried her from the yard and into their bedchamber at that moment, to bring their teasing to sweet, satisfying completion.
But of course he hadn’t. He couldn’t, no matter how badly he wanted her.
She was a forbidden fruit to him, not only by right of the agreement they had struck or the trust broken between them long before that but also because he had nothing meaningful to offer her.
Not anymore. He could give her less now as a man than he might have five years ago, for now he was but a shell of his former self, forsaken by God, the scars on his body only a hint of the damaged soul that slept within. He could not forget that.
Ah, but you need not restrict your passion to only customary practice, a sly voice inside him asserted.
There are other ways of appeasing desire.
Ways that would allow you to touch Alissende…
to taste and enjoy her and she you, without actual consummation.
Ways that you once both delighted in with each other…
Growling in frustration, Damien curled forward, burying his head in his hands and trying to force the thoughts from his mind.
Sweet mercy, this wasn’t helping. He was supposed to be strengthening his self-control, damn it, not giving in to all kinds of fantasies about the woman who tempted him beyond all imagining.
“Is the act of praying still so painful for you, then?”
The kind voice drifted to Damien from across the sanctuary, and he looked up to see Ben—good, steadfast Ben—approaching him.
“That is not the dilemma I struggle with this day, friend,” Damien admitted as Ben came close enough to ease down beside him in the pew with a groaning sigh, “though, aye, the peace of it still eludes me.”
Nodding with a half smile at the grimace Ben made while stretching back against the rigid wood of the pew, Damien added, “And what is this? Working so late illuminating a text for Father Michael again that you fell asleep on the table and earned a stiff neck?”
“Nay, Damien, this discomfort is your fault.”
“How so?”
“It is the result of that infernal training you have had me assist you in giving the men.” Ben rubbed at his neck, softening his criticism with a smile as he added, “I am not the youth I once was, I’ll grant you.
But I am also no warrior, and the repetition of those blade sequences is going to do me in long before an enemy’s weapon, I think.
As a man of the cloth, I’m far more suited to tasks involving vellum and ink than sword and shield. ”
“I don’t know about that,” Damien said in a sly tone that pulled Ben’s gaze to him, just in time for him to crown his comment with its intended jest. “You do quite well, I’d say, for an old man.”
That earned him a response that was half shove and half punch, and he laughingly fended Ben off before sitting forward with a sigh to rest his forearms on his knees.
His smile lessened, and he gazed up at the altar, not really focusing on anything, as he said, “In truth, friend, you should count your blessings that the men are all you need concern yourself with in the area of training.”
A beat of silence passed.
“You refer to the rather unusual instruction you have been providing to Lady Alissende, I take it?” Ben asked, in a tone that should have warned Damien then and there to let this drop. But he was too wrapped in his own misery to heed his instincts.
“Aye,” he replied, still staring into the sanctuary. “Curse my eyes for having conceived the practice to begin with.”
Another pause ensued, though it was charged with a kind of tension that was impossible to ignore—a feeling strong enough to make Damien swing his head to the side to look at Ben. He caught his friend studying him, as if trying to discern something of importance.
“What?” Damien asked.
Ben shrugged, trying to look innocent. “I was only going to say that I happened to be passing by the courtyard yestermorn when you were engaged in Lady Alissende’s instruction, and what I saw seemed very…interesting.”
“Is that so?”
“Aye.”
Damien’s lips tightened, and he knew that he should simply change the topic. Or come right out and tell Ben he wasn’t going to talk about it. Or leave.
But he suddenly realized that perhaps he’d come to the chapel for a reason. Perhaps he needed to talk about what was happening, to someone who might listen without judging him too harshly. The way Alex used to do.
A wash of grief swept over him unawares, and his breath caught. Though he and his brother had not always seen eye to eye on many issues, they had always shared an understanding and a sense of solidarity that Damien hadn’t realized he’d been missing so strongly until just now.
Keeping his gaze steady on Ben, Damien decided to give it a try. “Would you care to expound upon what you deemed so interesting?”
“I thought you would never ask.” His friend leaned back, clearly making himself comfortable. “But now that you have—”
Damien shot him a look that warned him to get on with it before he changed his mind.
“—I must say that the first impression I took from what I saw was that I was watching two people very adept at putting on a performance. Either that, or I was witnessing the amorous sport between a man and woman truly in love with each other.”
The silence was so thick in the moments following that unbelievable comment that Damien felt choked by it…though the thought crossed his mind that his inability to draw in breath likely had more to do with the statement Ben had made than suffocating quiet.