—from TRUTH TELLER
It took over a week to return to Castle Greaves. A week in which Helen and Alistair shared one tiny inn room after another with the children. She wouldn’t let them out of her sight, and he would’ve thought less of her if she had. Which was perhaps why, the very moment the clock struck nine on the night they returned, he was out of his room and pacing toward hers.
There was an urgency to his step not entirely explained by delayed lust. He wanted, needed, to reestablish his relationship with Helen. To make sure that all was the same as before the children had been stolen. He needed her on some basic level, and he didn’t want their time together to be over yet. He admitted this weakness to himself, and it only sped his steps.
Then, too, he was aware that she no longer had an external reason to stay with him at Castle Greaves. She had no need of employment, at least for the foreseeable future. Not with the cache of jewels she’d shown him one night in an inn. Lister, the bastard, had provided enough pearls and gold to last her a lifetime if she were frugal. And with Lister’s guns spiked, she need no longer hide from him, either.
Which begged the question, When would she leave him?
Alistair shook the depressing thought away, halting at Helen’s door. He gave the door a faint scratch. In a moment, it opened and she stood there in her chemise.
He stared at her mutely and held out his hand, his palm uppermost.
She glanced behind her and then took his hand, stepping into the hallway and shutting the door. He clutched her hand, probably too tightly, and led her quickly back to his rooms. He was already monstrously erect and aching with the need to claim her. He seemed to have lost whatever vestiges of civilization he’d ever had.
He’d barely closed his own door behind them when he swung her into his arms and brought his mouth to hers. Tasting her. Consuming her. Helen. She was soft on the surface, but underneath he could feel the strength of her muscles and bones, the strength of her core.
He thrust his tongue into her mouth, demanding satisfaction, and she complied, sweetly sucking. Yielding to him, though he knew it was an illusion. He ran his hands over her shoulders, down her gently curving back to her hips. He filled his palms with her rounded buttocks and squeezed.
She broke the kiss, gasping, and looked at him with wide eyes. “Alistair—”
“Shh.”
He picked her up, her weight solid in his arms, and he was glad to play the conqueror. In his arms she was helpless to escape.
“But we need to talk,” she said, her face solemn.
He swallowed. “Not yet. Just let me…”
He lowered her gently to his big bed, and her golden hair spread over his dark coverlet, an offering any god would be pleased with. He was no god; he didn’t deserve her, but he’d take what he could for as long as he could.
He stripped off his banyan and crawled, naked, over her form. With those harebell-blue eyes, she watched him come up over her. Wide and impossibly innocent. Dark now and a little sad. She raised her hand and brushed it carefully, tenderly, over his scarred cheek. She didn’t speak anymore, but her eyes, her expression, the very gentleness of her touch sent ice into his veins.
He leaned down and kissed her so he wouldn’t have to look into those eyes anymore. He drew her chemise up over her legs, feeling them shift restlessly beneath him, feeling the brush of her bush against his belly. He lifted his head briefly to draw her chemise over her head and throw it aside, and then he lowered his nude body to her nude body and kissed her once more.
Men talked of an afterlife filled with heavenly bliss, but this was the only bliss he wanted, in this life or the next: to feel Helen’s bare skin beneath his own. To delight in the soft cushions of her thighs cradling his. To press his hard cock into the velvet of her belly. To smell her intimate, womanly scent mingled with the scent of lemons, and to feel the warmth of her skin. Oh, God, if ever there was a chance of paradise for him, he’d relinquish it, and gladly, to stay right here in Helen’s arms.
He traced the faint bumps of her ribs, the indent of her waist, the curve of her hip, until he came to the center of her. She was wet, her curls drenched already, and he gave thanks because he wasn’t sure he could stand a moment longer outside of her. He grasped his cock and guided himself to her warmth, to her softness.
To home.
She was tight, despite her wetness. He clenched his jaw and thrust into her in small shoves, parting her folds, burying himself deep. She held him and he closed his eyes to keep from spilling too soon. He felt her arms slide around him, and she pulled his face down to hers. She kissed him with a moist, open mouth and spread her legs, wrapping her calves over his hips. He moved then—it was that or die. Sliding, grinding, pushing his flesh into hers. Making love to her. She continued to kiss him without any haste, her mouth accepting his tongue as her body accepted his cock.
This was all he wanted. This was heaven.
But his body had to speed up, the imperative to plant his seed overtaking the luxury of a slow coupling. He raised himself on his arms to intensify his thrusts. He watched as her heavy eyelids drifted closed, her face flushing a deep pink. Her breath was coming short, but she’d not yet crested. He held his weight on one hand and with the other searched for that small bit of feminine flesh that would send her over the edge. He found it, hiding in her slippery folds, and he gently pressed, slowly circled. Her arms fell from his shoulders, and she flung them over her head, grasping the pillow with both fists. He watched her, diddling her pearl and humping her hard, and when he saw her toss back her head, he felt it, too. The churning explosive start of his orgasm.
He pulled out just in time, spilling on her thighs. His heart was pounding, his breath coming short. He rolled to the side so he wouldn’t crush her and just lay there a moment, his arm over his head, exhausted. He was drifting into sleep, in fact, when she moved, nestling against him and running her fingers over his chest.
“I love you,” she whispered.
His eye snapped open, and he stared sightlessly at the ceiling of his bedroom. He knew what he should say, of course, but the words wouldn’t come. He seemed struck mute. And now it was too late. Too late. Their time together was over. “Helen—”
She sat up next to him. “I love you with all my heart, Alistair, but I cannot stay with you like this.”
SHE’D THOUGHT HERSELF in love before, when she’d been young and very naive. That had been the infatuation of a girl overawed by a man’s rank and worldly possessions. This love she felt for Alistair was entirely different. She knew his faults, knew his bad temper and cynicism, but she also gloried in the best parts of him. His love of nature, the gentleness he hid from most of the world, his uncompromising loyalty.
She saw both the worst and the best, and she saw all the complicated parts in between. She even knew that there were pieces of him that he still kept hidden from her, pieces she wished she had the time to discover. She knew all this, and she loved him despite or because of it. This was a mature woman’s love. A love that was aware of both his human foibles and his nobility.
And she also knew, deep in her heart, that this love, however wonderful, wasn’t enough for her.
He’d gone still beside her, his great chest damp with the sweat from their lovemaking. He hadn’t said a word when she confessed her love, and that fact nearly made her break down. In the end, though, whether or not he admitted loving her was beside the point.
“Stay with me,” he rasped. His expression was stern, but in his eye was desperation.
It nearly broke her heart.
“I can’t live like this again,” she said. “I fled Lister because I realized that I was more than a man’s convenient plaything. I have to be more—for myself and for my children. And although I love you a thousand times more than I ever loved Lister, I will not repeat my mistake.”
His beautiful eye closed, and he turned his face away from her. His hands clenched into fists above his head. She waited, but he did no more, n
either speaking nor moving. He might as well have turned to stone.
At last she rose from the bed and picked up her chemise from the floor. She put it on and went to the door. She glanced back one last time, but he still hadn’t moved. So she opened the door and slipped from the room, leaving him—and her heart—behind.
ALISTAIR RETREATED TO his tower the next morning, but nothing was the same. The treatise on badger behavior that had interested him before was now patently ridiculous. His sketches, his specimens, his journals and notes, everything in the room seemed pointless and useless. Worst of all, the tower windows overlooked the stable yard, and he could see Helen supervising the loading of her bags into the dogcart. Why had he even bothered rising this morning?
His brooding thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the tower door. He scowled at the door, debated ignoring the knock, and eventually yelled, “Come!”
The door opened and Abigail poked her head in.
Alistair straightened. “Oh, it’s you.”
“We wanted to say good-bye,” she said, her voice exceedingly serious for a child of nine.
He nodded.
She came in, and he saw that Jamie was behind her, holding a squirming Puddles in his arms.
Abigail clasped her hands in front of her, reminding him very much of her mother. “We wanted to thank you for coming to London to rescue us.”
Alistair started to wave this aside, but apparently she wasn’t finished.
“And for teaching us to fish and letting us dine with you and showing us where the badgers live.” She paused, looking at him with her mother’s eyes.
“Quite all right.” Alistair pinched the bridge of his nose between forefinger and thumb. “Your mother loves you, you know.”
Her eyes, so like Helen’s, widened as she stared at him mutely.
“She loves you”—he had to stop and clear his throat—“just the way you are.”
“Oh.” Abigail looked down at the toes of her shoes and frowned fiercely as if to keep from weeping. “We also wanted to thank you for letting us name your dog.”
He raised his brows.
“We’ve decided on Badger,” she explained gravely, “because he went with us to the badger sett. Besides, we can’t call him Puddles forever. It’s a baby name, really.”
“Badger is a very good name.” He looked down at the toes of his boots. “Mind you walk him every day and see that he isn’t fed too much rich food.”
“But he isn’t ours,” she said.
Alistair shook his head. “I know I said that Badger was my dog, but I really got him for you.”
She gazed at him with the same damned determined eyes that her mother had used on him the night before. “No. He isn’t ours.”
She gave a little push to Jamie, who was looking quite miserable. The boy came forward with the puppy and held him out to Alistair. “Here. He’s yours. Abby says you need Badger more than us.”
Alistair took the squirming, warm little body, completely nonplussed. “But—”
Abigail marched right up to him and yanked on his arm until he bent. Then she wrapped her skinny little arms around his neck and half strangled him. “Thank you, Sir Alistair. Thank you.”
She whirled and caught her startled brother’s hand and dragged him from the room before Alistair could think of a reply.
“Dammit.” He stared down at the puppy, and Badger licked his thumb. “What am I to do with you now?”
He strode to the window and looked down in time to see Helen help the children into the dogcart. Abigail glanced up once, he thought in his direction, but she hastily looked away again, so perhaps he was wrong. Then Helen climbed in, and the footman driving the cart gave the reins a shake. They all rolled away, out of the stable yard, out of his life, and Helen never once looked back.
His body urged him to run after her, but his mind chained him where he was. Keeping her would just delay the inevitable.
Now or tomorrow, he’d always known that Helen would leave him.
Chapter Twenty
The sorcerer opened his doors to Princess Sympathy readily enough, but when she told him what she’d come for, he laughed. He led her to the yew knot garden and pointed to where Truth Teller stood, immobile and cold.
“There is your knight,” the sorcerer said. “You may work what little magic you know to save him, but be forewarned: I give you only this day. If he is still a man of stone when the sun sets, I will make you his stone bride and together you both shall stand in my garden for all eternity.”
The princess consented to this poor bargain, for she had no other choice if she were to make Truth Teller a man of flesh and blood again. All the hours of that day she performed the spells and incantations that she had brought with her, but when the sun’s rays began to fade, Truth Teller was still stone. . . .
—from TRUTH TELLER
Three days later, Alistair was woken by a commotion downstairs. Someone was shouting and carrying on. He groaned and shoved his head beneath his pillow. Rising early was no longer a priority in his life. In fact, he had no priorities at all. Might as well stay abed.
But the commotion grew louder and closer, like an advancing midsummer’s storm until—ominously—it was right outside his bedroom door. He’d just flung the covers from his head when his sister crashed into his room.
“Alistair Michael Munroe, have you lost your mind?” Sophia blasted at him.
He clutched the bedsheets to his bare chest like a startled maiden and scowled at his sister. “To what do I owe the honor of this visit, dear sister?”
“To your own stupidity,” Sophia said promptly. “Do you know I met Mrs. Halifax on Castlehill in Edinburgh just yesterday morn, and she said that you and she had parted company?”
“No,” Alistair sighed. Badger had woken with the commotion of course, and the puppy came bumbling over the bed to lick his fingers. “Did she tell you that her name isn’t really Halifax?”
Sophia, who’d been pacing the room, stopped, her expression alarmed. “She’s not a widow?”
“No. She’s the former mistress of the Duke of Lister.”
Sophia blinked, and then scowled. “I thought she might still be married. If she’s left Lister, who she was before hardly matters.” She dismissed Helen’s scandalous past with an impatient wave of the hand. “What matters is that you dress at once and go to Edinburgh and apologize to that woman for whatever boneheaded thing you’ve said or done.”
Alistair eyed his sister, now vigorously drawing the curtains. “I’m appreciative of the fact that you assume the rift is my fault.”
She only snorted at that.
“But what,” he continued, “do you think I should do once I apologize? The woman won’t live here.”
She turned to face him and pursed her lips. “You asked her to marry you?”
Alistair looked away. “No.”
“And why not?”
“Don’t be a fool, Sophia.” His head was aching, and he just wanted to go back to sleep—perhaps forever. “She’s been the mistress to one of the richest men in England. She’s lived in London or near the capital all of her life. You should’ve seen the jewels and gold Lister gave her. Perhaps you hadn’t noticed, but I’m a disgustingly scarred, one-eyed man who is nearing his fourth decade and living in a dirty old castle in the middle of nowhere. Why the hell would she want to marry me?”
“Because she loves you!” Sophia nearly shouted.
He shook his head. “She might say she loves me—”
“She admitted it to you and you did nothing?” Sophia looked scandalized.
“Let me finish,” Alistair growled. His head was pounding, his mouth tasted of the ale he’d drunk the night before, and he hadn’t shaved since Helen left. He just wanted to get this over with and go back to bed.
His sister pressed her lips together and waved a hand impatiently for him to continue.
He inhaled. “She might think she loves me now, but what future would she have here wit
h me? What future would I have if she grew tired of me and left?”
“What future do you have now?” Sophia retorted.
He raised his head slowly and looked at her. Her expression was fierce, but her eyes were sad behind their round spectacles.
“Are you looking forward so much to spending the rest of your life alone?” Sophia asked quietly. “Childless, friendless, without a lover or helpmeet to even talk to in the evenings? What life is this that you’re protecting so desperately from Helen’s defection? Alistair, you must have faith.”
“How can I?” he whispered. “How can I when at any moment everything might change? When I might lose everything?” He traced his scars. “I can no longer believe in happy futures, in good luck, in faith itself. I lost my face, Sophia.”
“Then you’re a coward,” his sister said, and it was like a slap.
“Sophia—”
“No.” She shook her head and held out her hands to him. “I know it will be harder for you than most. I know you have no illusions left about happiness, but goddamn it, Alistair, if you let Helen go, you might as well kill yourself now. You’ll be giving up, acknowledging not that happiness is capricious, but that you have no hope of happiness.”
He drew in a painful breath. His chest felt as if shards of glass were buried there, breaking, shifting, cutting into his heart. Making him bleed.
“You can no more change your face than she can change her past,” Sophia said. “They’re both there; they’ll always be there. You must simply learn to live with your scars as Helen has learned to live with her past.”
“I have learned to live with my face. It’s her I’m worried about.” He closed his eye. “I don’t know if she can live with me. I don’t know if I could bear it if she couldn’t.”
“I do.” He heard her walk closer. “You can bear anything, Alistair. You already have. I once told Helen that you were the bravest man I’ve ever known. And you are. You’ve had the worst happen to you, and you view life with no illusions. I can’t even imagine the courage it takes for you to live day to day, but I’m asking you now to find an even greater courage.”