Chapter 8 #2
Kassandra moved slowly to the balustrade, her hand sliding along the smooth polished marble as she walked to the edge of the terrace.
She hesitated for a moment at the top of the stairs, wavering uncertainly.
She relished the idea of a walk in the garden, but it seemed so dark beyond the sputtering torchlight.
Yet her only other alternative was to return to the stuffy ballroom.
That dreadful thought gave Kassandra the impetus she needed.
She walked quickly down the stairs and onto a wide graveled path flanked by tall, manicured hedges.
As she moved farther away from the lighted windows of the palace and her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she found that she could see quite well in the moon’s veiled glow.
To her surprise, there were quite a few guests in the garden.
Some strolled in thoughtful solitude, while others were seated on marble benches beside classical Greek statues that shone an eerie white in the moonlight.
And then there were the pairs of lovers embracing fervently in secluded alcoves or walking arm in arm, their heads close together as they whispered in passionate conspiracy.
Kassandra walked quietly along the path, content to be alone. She did not stop until she had reached a far corner of the garden, then she leaned against a gnarled tree beside the entrance to a vine-covered alcove and gazed up at the night sky. It was all so peaceful, she thought dreamily…
“Oh…!” A ragged moan, breathless and panting, suddenly carried to her from deep within the alcove behind her, breaking the enchanted silence. Kassandra froze, her hands pressing painfully into the rough bark of the tree, scarcely daring to breathe.
“Ah, love me…love me,” a woman’s sultry voice, laden with the impassioned heat of approaching ecstasy, called out into the night, her cry lost to the sighing wind.
God in heaven, what had she stumbled into? Kassandra thought wildly.
Suddenly the woman gasped aloud, “Stef—” But her moans of delight were quickly stifled, and again all was quiet in the dark corner of the garden.
Kassandra’s face flushed with heat. She had unwittingly eavesdropped on a lovers’ tryst!
She gripped the tree, afraid to move even one step lest she be heard and found out.
Then she stiffened in surprise as a man’s voice, deep, and edged with roughness, spoke from within the alcove, cutting through her like a knife and twisting into her mind with awful familiarity.
“Would you…flaunt your infidelity…to the world…?” the man queried, his labored breathing melding with the woman’s husky laughter and whispered reply.
Kassandra blanched, her nails digging into her clenched hands.
Could it be possible? She felt rooted to the ground, though every instinct cried out for her to flee.
She barely heard the rustling of silken skirts and a sword belt being buckled for the thunderous pounding of blood in her ears. Surely she had imagined that voice!
“It is time you returned to the reception,” the man murmured. “No doubt your husband has need of you.”
“His needs are none of my concern!” the woman snapped petulantly. “It is your needs that interest me, my love…yours alone—”
“And you have seen to them very well this night, as always,” the man interrupted her, somewhat impatiently. “But go now. We have tarried overlong. I will follow in a few moments.”
“Oh, very well. Kiss me again…for good measure.”
Kassandra held her breath during the long silence that ensued, exhaling only when the woman spoke again.
“If I did not know better, my lord, I would say your mind has been elsewhere this night, but at least your lovemaking has not been lacking. You are, how shall I say? As magnificent as ever.”
Kassandra peeked from behind the tree, relief surging through her when the woman stepped from the alcove, though she could not see her face in the dark.
The woman paused and smoothed her rippling silk gown, then she set off down the path toward the palace without a backward glance, her skirts swaying provocatively, her fading laughter low and throaty.
Kassandra watched breathlessly as the man, too, left the cover of the alcove and stood with his back to her, his tall silhouette etched against the moonlit sky. He had said he would follow in a few moments…
Her heart sank when the man lingered, apparently in no hurry. She closed her eyes and leaned against the tree, waiting…waiting, her body taut and tingling with tension.
Suddenly a twig snapped on the other side of the tree, only a few feet away.
“Oh!” Kassandra gasped, her eyes flying open as she fairly jumped through her skin. She clapped her hand over her mouth, but it was too late. She heard heavy footfalls, slow, deliberate…like a lithe, stalking animal, moving ever closer, around the massive gnarled trunk… Oh, God, toward her!
Kassandra waited no longer. In one swift movement she lifted her skirts and darted onto the path, straight into the man’s open arms.
“Let me go!” she railed, struggling to free herself from his grip. She kept her head down, a terrible fear, an awful premonition, preventing her from looking at his face. Yet he held her fast, his arms tightening around her like muscled bands of iron, astonishingly powerful.
“It seems I have found a spy in this garden…perhaps a beautiful one,” he murmured huskily. Holding her easily with one arm, he brought his other hand under her chin and forced her to meet his gaze.
Kassandra’s eyes widened in shock, her throat constricting painfully as she stared up at the man she had thought she would never see again. His piercing gaze seemed to devour her in its gray depths, and she flushed with sudden warmth, her limbs strangely weak.
Perhaps he wouldn’t recognize her. He had been drunk, hadn’t he? Perhaps he had no recollection of what had happened between them…
Kassandra’s agonized thoughts tumbled over themselves like nightmare phantoms, her desperate plea that he not remember her like a silent scream upon her lips.
Stunned, Stefan gazed into the flashing amethyst pools that had haunted his every moment since he had first seen them the day before.
Damn! He could hardly believe it! His eyes raked over the length of her, from the elegant coif of her fire-gold hair, the dazzling beauty of her features, the shimmering silver gown that accentuated the lushness of her form, to her slippered feet.
A far cry indeed from the disheveled waif in the tavern, he thought incredulously.
Yet he could swear she was the same woman.
He had not consumed so much drink that he would forget such exquisite beauty.
And now, just when he had been tormented by thoughts of her, wondering if he would ever find her, suddenly she was in his arms!
He had been looking for her since he had awoken in the tavern to find her gone, along with his money.
It was not the loss of his gold that had fueled his vow to scour the streets of Vienna until he found her.
Never before had he met a woman who so fired his blood, who had so disrupted his life. She had become his obsession…
No, not even his wanton Sophia so perfectly matched him in passion, Stefan thought wryly. He knew that now, especially after their garden tryst. All the while he had been thinking of the flame-haired beauty that had filled his senses with a raging tempest of desire.
Yet he had almost despaired of finding her.
No one had ever seen her before in the tavern, and no one had noticed her leave except a drunken woman and her sailor friend.
All they could tell him was that a fiery-haired wench had dashed down the back stairs as if the Devil was on her heels.
When he had rushed into the street, she was nowhere to be seen.
It was as if the earth had swallowed her whole, without a trace.