Chapter Eight #2
He was fairly upset about it, as well.
“I want you to listen to me and listen closely,” he said.
“You are a de Lohr, but more than that, you are an agent for William Marshal. I have seen you kill with more bravery than I have ever seen from a woman and you did it without fear. You are stronger than every woman I have ever known, Susanna de Dere included, because you have an innate sense of courage, justice, and determination. All of this without formal training. When I told you to stay away from the king, I meant it. But he has seen you now, so you must adjust your plans accordingly. If The Marshal will not protect you, then know that I will. I swear to you that I will not let John harm you.”
Christin was watching him with a mixture of awe and confusion.
He’d said so many nice things in that brief declaration that thoughts of the king were being pushed aside.
All she could focus on was his chivalrous affirmation.
It was part of the flattery he’d been liberal with since Ramsbury.
But this time, there was something more behind it.
She felt something more.
“You think I am stronger than Susanna?” she said. “But she is Blackchurch-trained.”
He lifted his shoulders. “As I said, if you’d been born male, you would have made a magnificent knight.”
“If I was born male, we would not have this situation on our hands,” she said. “And I suspect you would not be so concerned for me.”
“Of course I would. You are a comrade.”
“I am also a woman, one you have called beautiful more than once.” She watched his dark eyes shift, as if her implications were rolling through his mind, and emboldened, she stepped towards him.
“Mayhap I am speaking out of turn, but there is something I must say. Since leaving London, you have shown me attention that, if I were the suspicious or romantic type, I would have taken as your interest in me. Personally, I mean. Alexander, I have known of you for at least a year or two, ever since I started along this path with The Marshal. Both my father and my brother speak of you as if you are some kind of legend and that is what I know of you – that you are legendary. A man who is merely concerned for a comrade does not swear to protect her in the face of a lustful king, especially when doing it would more than likely ruin him.”
He was looking at her, guarded. He always had such a glimmer of warmth to his gaze that to see him looking at her as if he were wary or even defensive was quite different. In fact, he couldn’t seem to look her in the eyes so he turned away.
“I have done many things in my life that are risky or questionable,” he said quietly. “This would be nothing new or different.”
“Then you would do this for any woman?”
“Nay.”
“Why me?”
He sighed heavily. “What do you want me to tell you?”
“The truth, Sherry. Tell me the truth.”
He was staring off towards the garden, mulling over her words. After a moment, he simply shook his head. “I have no right to,” he finally said. “Forgive me if I was too bold or too forward. You are a de Lohr and beyond my reach. It will not happen again.”
“And you are a legend and beyond mine.”
He looked at her, then. “Is that what you think? That I am elite?”
She took another step towards him, now standing fairly close. She studied his face a moment. “Aye,” she said. “But you told me once that you were not afraid of my father and if you wanted something, you would get it.”
“That is true.”
“Did you mean me?”
He held her gaze but it was difficult. The question hung between them and for a normally emotionless man, there were emotions rippling all across his face – longing, doubt, fear, interest – wordlessly, he was shouting them out to her, speaking of his dilemma. He was a man torn.
But he was also a man cornered.
The time had come for him to take a stand.
“Although I am not worthy of you, aye, I meant you,” he murmured.
“I am twice your age, Cissy. I have nothing to offer you but myself and that is not good enough for a woman like you. You deserve the most prestigious husband of the highest order, not an assassin with a past of unsavory things, a man who has wandered for the majority of his life. But you make me want to stop wandering and that is something I’ve never felt before. ”
Those were, perhaps, the most beautiful words a man had ever said to a woman. At least, Christin thought so. Her heart swelled so in her chest that she thought it was going to burst forth and as she looked at him, all she could feel was joy.
Pure, unadulterated joy.
She could hardly believe it.
“You honor me,” she whispered. “You have no idea how much you honor me, Sherry. If you want to stop wandering… I will give you a reason to.”
He looked at her, his eyes widening. “You will?”
With a smile, she reached up, cupping his bearded face with the hand that wasn’t holding the satchel. It was the first moment of genuine affection between them, of her flesh against his, and it was not lost on either of them. At that moment, they ceased to become merely comrades.
At that moment, the relationship between them deepened.
“I do not care about your past,” she said.
“You are a man to be admired in spite of what you think, and since we have come to know one another, I have seen a man of compassion and thoughtfulness and caring. That is the man I want to know more of. Buried beneath that assassin’s cloak, you have a tender heart, for I have seen a glimpse. ”
Her hand on his face was like heaven. Alexander gazed into her eyes, hardly believing what he was hearing. He’d been doubtful, and confused, but these past few precious moments had cleared all of that up. He knew what he wanted and he wanted Christin de Lohr.
There was no doubt in his mind.
“No one has seen that but you,” he said, an embarrassed grin on his face. “I would like to keep it that way, so do not tell anyone.”
“Your secret is safe.”
Alexander continued to stare at her, feeling emotions he’d never felt before. It was so unexpected, but so incredibly beautiful. Usually an eloquent man, he was having difficulty finding the words.
“My life has always been one of duty,” he finally said.
“I was the eldest son, raised to take my father’s place when the time came and raised to set an example for my brothers.
They were twins – Adam and Andrew. Everything about my upbringing was so cold, so duty-driven.
I fostered at six years of age and my master was a hard man.
There was no warmth, no praise, only the message that there was always more to achieve.
When I went with King Richard to The Levant, my brothers went with me.
Like starry-eyed squires, they only thought of the greatness they would be achieving.
They only wanted the glory. We departed with Richard in April, arrived in The Levant in September, and by June the following year, my brothers were both dead.
Killed in the same battle. I have not been home since. I could not face my father.”
Christin could hear the sorrow in his voice as he spoke of his brothers more in detail. The man had a tortured past that she could not have imagined.
“That was many years ago,” she said. “Does your father know you survived?”
Alexander nodded. “He knows,” he said. “I sent him word in the same missive I told him of Adam and Andrew’s deaths.
That’s when… that’s when I ended up serving Richard directly.
If there was a dirty mission to be carried out, an assassination to accomplish, I was his man.
Me and Maxton and Kress and Achilles, among others.
Maxton and Kress and Achilles traveled in a trio, but me…
I preferred to work alone. It is better that way. ”
Christin wasn’t appalled by the talk. She’d heard it from her father, too, as he had been in The Levant. Unsavory things happened during war and she understood that. But in Alexander’s case, she could see the agony behind his actions.
He had a deeper reason.
“Why are you telling me this?” she asked softly. “None of it matters to me.”
“So you know the kind of man I am.”
“I know the kind of man you are. My father and my brother would not respect you so if you were not a man of character.”
He looked at her as if she’d just said something outlandish. Then, he shook his head. “Sometimes, I wonder if that is true,” he said. “I am a man with a stained past.”
“Are you trying to scare me away? It will not work, you know. I am not easily frightened.”
One moment, Alexander was looking into her lovely face.
In the next, she was in his arms. He didn’t know how it happened, only that it had.
She was warm and soft in his embrace, something he hadn’t experienced in years, and certainly not like this.
Never with someone he was coming to care about.
It had been an impulsive move on his part, but not a surprising one.
He looked at her, into those big, gray eyes, and knew there was nothing on this earth that could ever force him to let her go.
Ever.
“Cissy,” he said softly, “look at me. Really look at me. You must decide if I am what you truly want, for I will not accept a whim. Mayhap you are infatuated with the rumors you have heard and not the man I truly am. Only you can decide. But if you decide I am the man you want, nothing will stand in my way to make you mine. Not even your father. Will you go against him if he does not approve?”
She was torn between the thrill of being held by him and the truth of his words. “Of course he will approve,” she said. “He has no reason not to.”
“You did not answer my question.”