Chapter 11 #2
He lay still for a moment, then his hand touched her hair. “I’m sorry, but I told you I was not kind.”
“I don’t think it’s your nature. Why are you so . . . so bitter?”
She’d asked the basic question, and as silence ran, she thought he wouldn’t answer.
“I had a shock,” he said at last. “It made me angry.”
It told her little, but was a tremendous admission on his part. She caressed his chest. “I’m sorry for your pain.”
“Pain? Yes, I suppose that describes it.”
“A death?” she asked, risking a probing question.
She wanted him to tell her the root of his bitterness. Perhaps he had never spoken of it to anyone. She knew her brothers, particularly Bryght and Rothgar, found it hard to talk of their strongest emotions.
“Clever Lisette. Yes, a death.”
He fell silent again and she waited, not sure how far she could push him.
“My father.”
Elf tried not to react. It had taken so long for those two words to come out that she knew it had been hard for him.
“It can be very painful to lose a parent,” she said. “My father died when I was young.”
“How young?”
How much did he know of the Mallorens? Just in case, she added a couple of years. “I was nine.”
“Almost too young to remember.”
“Yes. I wish we had more of him. More pictures. More letters. He dictated letters to us all as he lay dying, but they’re rather severe. Advice. Admonitions. I’m told he was a fun-loving man.”
“I suppose death is a sobering experience. So, you have brothers and sisters?”
“Yes. And you, my lord?”
“You must call me Fort, you know, or I’ll never tell you my secrets.”
The teasing note made her smile. It also told her that she’d broken through, that he would talk to her. Her qualms returned, but she pushed them away. It would do him good to talk. “Fort, then.”
“I have two sisters and one brother.”
“And your mother? Is she still alive?”
“She died when I was quite young.”
“But at least you have your brother and sisters.”
“We are not very close.”
Elf wanted to protest. Chastity loved Fort, as did the other sister, Verity. They would support him and assist him in anything, but he hardly seemed to realize it. Just because he thought he had failed them, he thought they could not love him.
“That’s sad,” she said.
“So, you are close to your family?”
“Yes, very close.”
“You’re fortunate.”
“I think so, though it means they all feel entitled to interfere in my life.”
“Really? I had the impression that you were inadequately supervised.”
Elf knew she was drifting too close to the whirlpool of truth, but she couldn’t resist being as honest as she could. “It’s just that I am away from them at the moment.”
“Ah, yes. And staying with your agreeable friend.”
“You’re not to sneer at her. She is not in favor of my actions.”
“Then she should stop them.”
“Perhaps I am unstoppable.”
“Certainly I have found you so. To my delight.” He held her a little closer. “It would please me immensely, Lisette, if you would become my mistress. I like you, and I certainly seem to have no complications about my honest lust for your body.”
“I wish I could,” Elf said. “But once my family found out they would object.”
“You misled me then.” He sounded a little annoyed, as well he might. “Have you thought what they will do if you’re with child? It’s not inevitable, but it’s possible.”
Elf had thought. Indeed she had. “They would be upset, but they’d help me. I’d bear the child discreetly, and it would be raised by suitable foster parents. It is not an unusual situation.”
“What a cool head you have. I hope your family is as understanding as you say.”
So did Elf, and cool didn’t exactly describe her feelings. The thought of being pregnant alarmed her. The notion of giving a baby, Fort’s baby, up to strangers horrified her. Why hadn’t she realized before how impossible that would be?
His voice distracted her. “Promise me something.”
“What?”
“If you bear a child, let me know. I have two bastards that I know of, and I keep an eye on them. I don’t think such children benefit from knowing too soon that they are born of a noble family, but I will make sure they have a good start in life.”
She framed his face and found his lips with a kiss, able to feel in their relaxation his gentle mood, almost able to see his features softened by trust and good humor. “I told you you were a kind man.”
“Is it kindness? They might be of use to me one day.” But she felt his lips move in a smile.
“Why do you try so hard to appear heartless?”
“You are a romantic. I am merely trying to be honest.”
“You have a false mirror. Tell me, then, how you see the Earl of Walgrave.”
He shifted her suddenly, rubbing his erection along her cleft. “Rampant with lust.”
Desire stirred in Elf, too, but she asked, “Why do you keep trying to distract me?”
“Because you keep probing at my wounds.”
“What wounds?”
He groaned and silenced her with a kiss. She enjoyed it immensely, and never for a moment forgot the hot invader between her thighs, but when he stopped, she asked, “What wounds?”
“Shut up.” He rolled her under him, spread her thighs, and thrust into her. She stiffened with shock and pain.
He froze, then pulled out of her, shuddering. “You see what I’m like. Even with you.”
She gripped his hair before he could disappear into the dark. “You see what I’m like? Like a terrier, whether I’m after truth or a man.”
Ruthlessly, she pulled him down and straddled him.
“I want you.” Fumbling in the dark, she found his erection, and despite a muttered protest that didn’t sound sincere, eased herself carefully around him, loving taking the rigid fullness deep inside, even where she was so sensitive. “Am I doing this right?” she whispered.
A wild laugh ran through him like a wave. “Perfectly. Are you comfortable?”
Elf shifted a bit more, full of him, hips stretched wide over him. “What an extraordinary question. I’m not in pain.”
She moved to try to improve her balance and felt the response in him, tense between her thighs. She remembered their lovemaking when he’d made her talk.
“What wounds?” she asked, gently rocking her hips.
“What?” She didn’t need vision to tell his mind was not on practicalities at all.
She bit her lip on a giggle. “What wounds? Tell me some wounds and I’ll move some more.”
“That’s whoring of the lowest kind.”
“You won’t deflect me that way. What wounds?”
“Don’t. Don’t . . .”
“Tell me. Wounds need to be opened to heal.” In time to her rocking motion, she chanted, “Tell me, tell me, tell me—”
He seized her, rolled her, pinned her brutally beneath him. “I killed my father,” he said, before using her body for oblivion.
Shaken by his words, ravaged by his wild rhythm, Elf could only move with him helplessly until he collapsed over her, quivering still. She raised a trembling hand to stroke his back, which ran with chilling sweat.
What to say, what to say? He’d killed his father. He, not one of her brothers, had fired that shot.
Then she realized he was crying. Helplessly, wracked with it, he wept in her comforting arms, but all the while, she silently cried her own tears. Oh, don’t do this. How will you feel when you know who I am? How will you bear it? Don’t do this . . .
And yet she had caused it. She had broken down every barrier, never thinking how she would handle what lay caged within.
She thought back again to that terrible night at Rothgar Abbey. Her brothers had all been armed. She was sure one of them could have killed the old earl. Instead, they’d forced him—Rothgar had forced him—into that most heinous crime, patricide.
For the first time she was ashamed of something her family had done.
He lay silent now, surely at a loss. So was she. What could anyone say in this situation? What would Lisette say? Elf assumed a firm and saucy tone. “I’m sure your father deserved to die, then.”
He laughed, very shakily. “Oh, indeed. But so do many. It is not condoned.” He still sprawled between her thighs.
“Clearly no one knows of your crime or you would have been punished.”
“Some know. It will not come out. You are not shocked?”
“No.” She knew the dangers now, but she had to push a little more to try to fix what she had broken. “Why does it pain you so much?”
“Why?” He seemed limp from sex and grief and was half-smothering her with his big body, but she could bear it. “God knows. Perhaps because he’s the only man I’ve killed. That has to leave a mark.”
She let the silence run, hoping for more.
“Probably because I hated him.” He spoke so quietly she could hardly hear.
“I hated, loathed, and feared him, and had all my life. I could tell myself I killed him because he was about to kill others. That’s what my sisters said.
But I killed him because I hated him, because I’d wanted to kill him since I was a young child, and I finally had the chance. ”
He raised up on his forearms and the words poured out of him.
“As a child, I wanted to kill him out of powerless terror. It wasn’t just the beatings, it was his impossible standards.
Nothing I did was good enough. Every fault was picked out and waved in front of me, and in front of servants.
When he whipped me, he would summon the servants to watch.
He said it would break my pride. He, the proudest man in creation.
“But when I was a man, I was free of him. He didn’t seek me out, and I avoided him as if he carried the plague.
It was blatant cowardice. I did nothing to help my sisters.
Nothing to stop his cruelty to servants and tenants.
I was too terrified to interfere with him. And so, in the end, I killed him.”
Shaken herself by these revelations, Elf stroked his damp arms. “He sounds like a monster.”
“He was. But I should have killed him face to face.”
“No, no. You could never do that. Yes, perhaps you should have tried to help those in his power. But perhaps you didn’t know the depth of his cruelty.”