Читать книгу Temptation & Twilight - Charlotte Featherstone - Страница 8

I NO LONGER want you.

Was there a more painful phrase in the English-speaking world? Iain didn’t think so. He’d been hurt, his heart smashed open, bleeding, upon hearing those words. Now, hours later, he still bled, the severed vessels opening every time he heard that hated sentiment repeated in his turbulent thoughts. Even closing his eyes, he heard her, and saw her, too—the way she had stood up to him, back straight, regal chin tilted at the perfect angle to relay feminine hauteur. She had not been playing coy when she had told him that. She had been speaking the truth, a truth born deep in her soul. And hours later, the bleeding continued, and the pain of that reality shattered whatever illusion and pitiful hope he had been desperately clinging to.

Most horrible, for him, was the realization that he had not even known he’d been clinging to anything, much less hope. But comprehension had dawned the minute Georgiana had challenged him about regrets. It had been then that he realized he harboured the sentimental emotion.

For the first time in his life he had not run from the knowledge, from the feeling that made its presence known. He’d accepted it, and by the time he had arrived at the Sumners’ musicale, he had actually claimed it, welcomed it. But with that revelation, so foreign to him, and yes, terrifying to admit, had come the heartache of knowing that Elizabeth had washed her hands of him.

She didn’t want him. And he had never stopped wanting her.

“Miserable existence,” he muttered as he lifted the bottle to his mouth and drank heartily of the Scotch. He deserved no less, he knew. But somewhere inside him he had always believed that Elizabeth York understood him. Knew deep down the extent of his flaws and the defects of his personality. He had always thought that she accepted that about him, and had forgiven him his trespasses all those years ago, like the angel he not only thought her to be, but knew her to be.

But his angel had teeth—and claws—that had effectively eviscerated him tonight. By God, what had he been about, doing what he had? Demanding such things? He knew better than to let the years of hunger for her get the best of him. And they had.

He’d been in a murderous, incredulous rage when he’d first glimpsed Elizabeth standing beside the earl. A living, breathing darkness had blanketed him, and while he wished he could feign ignorance as to its cause, he knew better. The carpet had been torn from beneath his feet, and landing flat on the ground had winded him. A sort of red mist had gathered and clouded his sight: rage stemming from the shattered hope that one day he might find his way back to her.

It had always been a comfort to him—a perverse comfort, because he was a capricious man who took pleasure in such selfish thoughts as the one he had long clung to. In his mind, there was still time, still a chance that she might one day be his. Elizabeth did not go out in Society. She did not accept men’s arms and stroll about salons with them. In essence, there was no other man in her life. No golden male to rival Iain’s black soul. And the knowledge had always comforted him.

Selfishly, he wanted her to stay free of courtships and such. It gave him hope. And tonight, when he had been feeling strangely melancholy and … alone, he had needed Elizabeth. Needed for them to find their way to one another again. And that … Well, that had been all dashed to the farthest regions of hell.

Seeing her with Sheldon—the smile, that was not forced nor feigned—had ignited in Iain something unholy. Some damned monster that gnashed and snarled and struck out with huge, clawed hands.

She had been happy, and he had been more than unhappy to see her that way. Misery, the old saying went, loves company. Iain had believed that Elizabeth and he shared the same misery, the same unrequited longing. A love denied, but that would not die despite the cloying darkness that threatened its light.

But tonight had made clear that she did not share his misery. He’d been confronted with the fact that he was a fool. That he had taken the one thing in the world that had ever meant anything to him and tossed it away like a child’s toy, only to be outraged when another had come by to pluck it from the sand.

Iain had toyed with Elizabeth, cast her aside and left her to find her own way in the world. Sheldon, that bastard, had been the one to find her, to pick her up and marvel at the treasure she presented.

Love unrequited. Love denied—and spurned. Iain felt the stab of pain where his heart should be. Pressing his eyes shut, he sought to banish the sensation from his awareness.

If he were any sort of gentleman, hell, any sort of decent human being, he’d slink away with his tail between his legs and never look back. But he wasn’t decent. He had the pride of a marquis and a bloody Highlander. Everything inside him screamed to take what he thought rightfully belonged to him, honourable or no.

It’s only fair, you bastard, a taunting voice inside him jeered. You’re getting a taste of your own medicine.

And it was a damn bitter pill to swallow. One best diluted with a good single-malt Scotch.

“God save us, you’re foxed!”

Iain held up the crystal decanter as he studied Black entering his carriage. He didn’t have the patience for the earl, not tonight. Friends or no, he couldn’t stomach the earl’s happiness, which seemed to radiate from his every pore. “Good and drunk,” he replied in a slurred voice. “Thought I’d give that fat, pompous Larabie a bit of an edge tonight. Lord knows he’ll need one.”

“You cannot meet him like this. I doubt you can even walk.”

“I can, too,” he drawled, before taking another sip. Black snatched the decanter, spilling some of the amber liquid over Iain’s greatcoat, which was open, revealing his kilt and sporran. Black’s dark brows rose in question, and Iain gave a foul hand gesture that should have made him feel better, but only made him realize he was verging on pathetic.

Christ, he hoped he’d die tonight and save himself the mortification of living another day to lock eyes with Elizabeth York, the haughty spinster of Sussex. The angel of your very sinful dreams …

The Sussex Angel, she had been called then, the year of her come-out. She had been, too. From the first moment he’d laid eyes on her, he’d wanted her. Part of him wished to bask in her goodness, her innocence. The other part had wanted to corrupt her, to drag her from the light and immerse her in sin.

She was still a damned angel, even approaching thirty. How could she still possess those beautiful, artless grey eyes and that pure, pale flesh? She was fair and perfect. He was black and corrupted. And damn him, every thought in his head kept coming back to her tonight, and the realization that he had finally allowed himself to admit to something that she spurned. That she no longer desired. That would not fucking die!

“What the devil are you doing here, besides irritating me?” he demanded in a churlish tone. “Thought you’d be ensconced in your chambers, enjoying the virtue of your marriage bed with your lovely wife.”

“Don’t,” Black growled, “mock what I have with my wife. You will never understand the sanctity to be found in bed with a woman who is the other half of your soul.”

He wanted another drink, and to tell the pompous Black to go to hell, but he sneered instead. “No, in fact, I will not. I don’t have a soul, ergo there is no other half wandering about, waiting for me to get into bed. No arms waiting to hold me when I arrive home.”

“And whose fault is that?” his friend demanded.

“I’m done with this conversation. Why are you here, and not Sussex?”

Folding his arms across his chest, Black watched him through the dim shadows of the carriage’s interior. “Sussex sent a missive around. It was terse and to the point. He stated he couldn’t make it, and requested that I come to be your second.”

With Lucy Ashton. That’s where His Grace was tonight. Trying to get a hand up the beauty’s skirt. Thrown over for a woman and a toss, Iain thought, and grunted in amusement. Although he couldn’t reasonably think such a thing. Sussex wanted the lovely Lucy Ashton with a blind, consuming need. It left a bad taste in Iain’s mouth, knowing the determined duke would one day have her, and he himself would be forced to sit amongst those two couples and watch them, their sickening love cloying the air with an unfashionable and most disagreeable completeness. Especially when he knew he’d still be tupping whores, and longing for Elizabeth in the darkest, loneliest hours of the night.

“As your second,” Black continued, allowing his gaze to rove across Iain’s drunken form, “I must make it clear that you are in no shape whatsoever to meet Lord Larabie on the field of honour.”

“Honour?” he snorted, aware how disgust dripped like venom in his voice. “There is no honour in this match. I slept with his wife in the attempt to find out information about our enemy. There is no honour in bedding another man’s wife.”

“And yet you do it with alarming frequency.”

“I never pursue them,” Iain growled, focusing his gaze outside the window. “They come to me.”

“And that makes it all right?”

He shrugged. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

Leaning back, Black settled himself on the bench, stretching his long legs out before him. “I know why you do it.”

That caught Iain’s attention, as did the conviction he heard. “Like hell,” he growled, but Black only shrugged, then met his gaze through the moonlit shadows.

“You want to punish them. The wives, for pursuing you, for so readily forsaking their vows. And you want to hurt the cuckolded husbands by showing them how poor their choice in wife was. In a way, it’s a sense of honour for you, an absolution, if you will. Those that participate with you in the carnal act, in your opinion, deserve what they get, because they have been so dishonourable as to break their marriage vows in the first place. In your own way, you have a code of honour, and while you would never admit to it, you hold the vows of marriage as something sacred. I am correct, aren’t I?”

“You just said I would never admit it, so why bother to ask?” he grunted.

His friend grinned, making Alynwick want to plant his fist in his face.

“This bargain you have with Larabie’s wife is eating at your soul.”

“I know what I’m doing.”

“I don’t doubt it, but I do doubt that you realize what the cost of this endeavour will be.”

“I suppose my mortal soul and all that rot. God, Black, you’ve become an irritating pontificate since your short marriage. Sod off, and pass me my Scotch and the pistol.”

“You don’t have to do this.”

“If you don’t hand me that blasted duelling pistol, I’ll put the bullet in you!”

With a sigh of reluctance, Black reached for the wooden case. Iain couldn’t help but notice his friend had not agreed to the other request. The decanter remained out of reach, unless Iain was inclined to spring from the bench and sprawl overtop Black to reach for it. He’d rather be hung naked in the middle of Piccadilly than lower himself before his friend and fellow Brethren Guardian.

Grunting, he accepted the pistol. “It’s not loaded.”

“I know. I have visions of you tripping down the carriage steps, falling to the ground and triggering the blasted thing before we can get you to walk your paces.”

Iain glared at him. “I do believe I would have done better with some scoundrel from the East End as a second.”

“Then you should have procured one. As it’s one minute before the designated meeting time, I will have to do.”

“Bloody hell,” he growled as he stood to leave the coach, “what could make this night worse?”

The carriage door suddenly flew open, to reveal the glinting end of a pistol and a set of dark eyes blazing with hatred. Both were aimed at him.

“Oh, good evening, Larabie,” Iain drawled. “I see your wife is correct. You do have a habit of firing off early.”

Behind him, Black groaned. Alynwick grinned. If he was going to die, then damn it, he was going out with a bang, not as a self-pitying weakling.

“You think you are so amusing, Alynwick,” Larabie snarled, “but I will make you regret what you have done to me. I will take great delight in blowing you away.”

Alynwick flashed a wicked smile. “Now you really do sound like your wife. She said the very same thing to me last night.”

“NOW, THEN, YOU’VE GOT wind in those sails.”

Elizabeth paused on the landing of the curved staircase, her hand on her companion’s arm. Her fingers were trembling, and Lizzie knew it was not from exertion—she was bloody quaking with fury. “And what does that mean, Maggie?” she enquired coolly, which only made her longtime friend laugh.

“Oh, you’ve got his bluster, all right. Your father used to storm around like a ship in a hurricane. You look just like him, I vow.”

“Oh.” She hadn’t meant to be in such a foul mood upon entering the house. She thought she’d rid herself of the insolence and anger that had ruled her on the carriage ride home. Poor Lucy had been forced to sit in the carriage in complete silence while Lizzy brooded and her brother tackled his own thoughts.

And they both had the Marquis of Alynwick to thank for that.

“Come now, let’s go on up and you can tell me all about it. It can’t be that bad.”

Yes, it could. And it would only get worse, because Elizabeth knew she could not confide in Maggie. This was her secret. Her own scandal to bear.

All those years ago she could have confided in her companion, but hadn’t; she’d been too embarrassed at being so easily taken in by the marquis. So she had chosen to hide her shame, and to not think of how foolish she’d been.

In the ensuing years, she had been rather successful at forgetting her stupidity, her gullibility. But that had changed tonight, when Alynwick had cornered her, towered over her and turned her into a melting pot of heated flesh.

So much for the mature, controlled woman she had always believed herself to be!

“Now, then, what’s got you blustering?”

“Nothing,” she murmured as Maggie ushered her into her bedchamber. “I am just not used to Society, that is all.”

“Was it a trial, then?”

“That would be too banal a description. I felt …” Elizabeth struggled for the right word. “An outsider, I guess.”

“It will come,” Maggie said as she pulled the pins from Elizabeth’s heavy hair. “You’ve been gone from it too long, is all.”

“Apparently not long enough,” she found herself muttering, thinking of her run-in with the marquis.

“Perhaps if you shared your worries, that might help soothe them.”

Lizzy laughed despite herself. “Believe me, Maggie, there is nothing anyone could say to make me feel better. I never want to think on the matter again.”

“Well, then, there is no sense brooding over something you don’t wish to share. I can’t help you if you don’t want it. Now step out of that gown if you please, the buttons are already undone.”

Practical, strong Maggie. She knew how to get what she wanted from her charge, and it was not with cajoling. Normally, Lizzy might have indulged her companion’s curiosity, and even solicited her sage advice. But not in this. This matter must never come to light.

Stepping out of the gown, which pooled around her legs, Elizabeth reached for the bedpost she knew was directly before her, and held on. She was growing calm, as she always did in her room, where everything was as it should be. Where she could move about with freedom, knowing she would not trip over something and hurt herself, or worse, destroy some priceless family relic. In her room, she was not disabled. She was not an invalid. She was just plain Elizabeth York.

A thumping sound followed by a little whimper greeted her, and she smiled, closed her eyes and allowed the warm tongue awaiting her to brush against her cheek.

“Little mouse,” she whispered as she buried her face in her spaniel’s soft fur. “Still up?”

Rosie, her pregnant springer spaniel, whimpered as Elizabeth spoke nonsense into her long floppy ears. Adrian had bred her with another springer in the hopes that her offspring might prove as useful as Rosie herself. It was amazing, but true, that Rosie very often acted as Elizabeth’s eyes, guiding her away from furniture and objects in the way. It was Adrian’s hope that he could train the pups to help others like Elizabeth.

“That dog has been waiting for you on the bed for hours now,” Maggie said as she unlaced Elizabeth’s corset. “Poor lamb, she’s as big as a house and couldn’t manage the jump up by herself.”

“So you helped her, even though you think it’s sacrilege for an animal to be on a bed.”

“Or the settees, or that grand leather chair of His Grace’s,” Maggie reminded her. “Aye, I helped her. I couldn’t resist when she looked at me with those sad eyes of hers.”

“She is the most adorable and loving creature, isn’t she?” Elizabeth murmured as she released her hold on the bedpost and snuggled against her beloved pet. “Yes,” she murmured, “I love you, too, sweet.”

“I wouldn’t let her lick my face,” Maggie muttered, and Elizabeth could almost see her lips curled in distaste.

“Well, they’re the only kisses I am liable to receive, so I shall take them,” she teased, but Maggie merely grunted as she pulled the corset from Elizabeth’s breasts and tossed the silk-and-steel garment onto the bed. Her companion liked to claim that Rosie was a nuisance, but Lizzy knew she had a soft spot for the dog, regardless of what she wanted people to believe. Maggie might give the impression of being a commander, but inside, she had a very kind heart and a rather romantic soul. But she’d given it all up to stay and live with Lizzy. More than her lady’s maid and her eyes, she had been a substitute mother, a nurse and was now a treasured friend. Lizzy could not have gained any measure of independence if it had not been for her. People thought it a testament to Lizzy’s own courage and drive that she had accomplished so much despite her blindness, but really, it was because of Maggie’s strength, her untiring nature and unrelenting belief that Lizzy could succeed. She owed much of what she was to her companion, who had been with her since Lizzy was fifteen and Maggie barely eighteen. They could have been sisters, and despite the difference in their social status, got on as if they were family. At some point, Lizzy was going to have to once more bring up the topic of her friend living her own life. The trouble was, Maggie was every bit as stubborn as she, and would hear none of it.

“Now, then, you’re down to your chemise. Why don’t you sit at the dressing table and I’ll brush out your hair?”

With one last nuzzle, Elizabeth left the dog and turned, making her way across the room without assistance. She found her way to the table and slowly lowered herself onto the waiting chair.

“I met a gentleman tonight,” she said, trying to keep her thoughts away from Alynwick and what had transpired between them at the musicale.

“Did you now? Must be a handsome gent for just the mention of him put those roses in your cheeks.”

Smiling, Elizabeth flicked her hair over her shoulders. “I’ve blushed more tonight than I did when it was actually acceptable for me to blush.”

“Nonsense, ‘tis a woman’s right to blush whenever the spirit moves her. Nothing to do with age or steadfast sensibilities.”

“I allow it was rather nice,” she said, recalling how it felt to walk beside a man who was not her brother, or her brother’s friends. “Lady Lucy assures me that he is most handsome—and tanned.”

“Tanned?” Maggie mumbled. She had hairpins in her mouth again, Lizzy could tell. “What proper English gentleman allows his flesh to get tanned?”

“A perfectly improper one, I think,” Elizabeth answered, chuckling when Maggie gasped in surprise.

“And you, an innocent speaking like a coquette!”

How she wished she could see Maggie’s expression. In her heart she knew her companion was not shocked by her frank speaking, but was actually smiling. Maggie was not an old matron. She was in the prime of her life, and must occasionally think of the opposite sex.

“I am nearly thirty, Maggie. Coquettes are young women who flirt and flit about. I am the furthest thing from one.”

“What would you know of improper gentlemen?” Maggie asked, and Elizabeth lowered her sightless gaze to her hands, folded neatly in her lap. Quite a bit, actually, was her first response, but she bit it back, knowing Maggie would be standing behind her, watching her face in the dressing-table mirror.

“Nothing, other than they can be rather enticing, don’t you think?”

“I cannot say,” Maggie scoffed. “Myself, I think I would prefer a nice gentleman to a rogue that made me blush.”

Elizabeth laughed. “You’re a terrible liar, Miss Maggie Farley. You’d throw over a nice ‘gennleman’ any day for a rogue. Do not bother to deny it. I can hear the excitement in your voice. You’re enticed by the very image.”

Maggie tsked. “This is proper talk for two respectable ladies?”

“No, it isn’t, is it? But just once I think it might be all right to be completely unrespectable, don’t you?”

“Indeed, I do not.”

“Oh, Maggie, you will not give an inch, will you?”

“Only an inch, mind,” she allowed as she pulled the brush through Elizabeth’s long, thick hair. “I will admit I hope you invited him to call. I would like to get a glimpse of this tanned improper gentleman. And I shall give you a good accounting of him. Not that I doubt for a second that the mischievous Lady Lucy did not do so!”

Lizzy smiled at the memory of Lucy’s hushed descriptions. “She did indeed. But I would like to see him through your eyes.”

“I confess I am eager to relate my accounting.”

“And you shall. I expect him to call any day.”

The brush was replaced on the table and Maggie’s strong hand gently wrapped around Elizabeth’s upper arm. “Well, then, to bed, Beauty, if your prince is calling.”

“I didn’t say it would be tomorrow.”

“He’d be a fool to let any length of time pass till he next saw you. You are much too beautiful to risk losing. Why, there might have been other gentlemen present who desire to call upon you.”

Just one, and he was the most improper man of all. Alynwick took no notice of the rules of their world. He cared about nothing, no one, other than himself. Elizabeth would not fool herself into believing that the scoundrel wished to call upon her. He observed none of the proprieties. No, what Alynwick had been about was ruining her evening with Lord Sheldon. For what reason, she could not fathom, other than he had always enjoyed making sport of her. And she had allowed it—for a time. What Alynwick did not realize was that she would no longer tolerate his interference in her life, her friendships or indeed, any possible courtships.

He could go hang for all she cared.

“‘Night, miss,” Maggie murmured as Elizabeth settled back against the fluffed-up pillows.

“Maggie,” she found herself whispering, “what is the time?”

“Nearly two, miss.”

“And dawn?” she asked quietly as she turned to face the window she could not see out of. “What time does it arrive, now that we are in the midst of November?”

“Thinking of your gentleman caller, by chance?” her companion teased.

“Perhaps.” But she wasn’t. For some ungodly reason she was thinking of a mist-shrouded field and tendrils of early morning light flickering off gunmetal.

“Dawn will arrive by six. There is no need to fret. I will wake you with plenty of time to help you prepare.”

Maggie’s departure was silent, with only the click of the closing door alerting Elizabeth to the fact her companion had departed. Gathering Rosie close to her, she ran her hands through the spaniel’s long, silky coat.

“I won’t sleep tonight,” she whispered to the dog. “Damn him, he’s robbed me of another perfectly decent night’s sleep.”

Rosie made a little growling sound as she struggled to get comfortable. Despite the blackness that shrouded her, Lizzy turned to face her bedroom window. Beyond the glass, she could see in her mind’s eye the black, sooty grime of London. The town houses and the spire of churches and the dome of Saint Paul’s—all memories from when she’d possessed sight.

She saw a field covered with a thick white blanket of frost, and tendrils of mist hovering over the ground. In the breeze, wool greatcoats flapped, and she heard pistols fire, the shots cracking through the silent air, leaving grey smoke twirling upwards from the barrels.

She imagined the scene a hundred different times in those long hours she lay silently in bed, but it was always the same. The colour of blood had swum before her eyes, and the prone body of a man was revealed with the parting of the crimson.

It was Alynwick. And despite her attempts to deny it, her heart ached at the very thought.

Unable to withstand the images she saw in her head, she felt around her nightstand, searching for the drawer pull. Finding it, she opened the drawer and lifted out the little leather journal that lay hidden inside.

Opening the cover, she allowed her fingers to trace over the brittle vellum page. She had found the diary of her notorious ancestor Sinjin York years ago, while playing in the attic of her family’s country house. She hadn’t understood what it was until she was older.

Once she discovered that it was a very detailed account of Sinjin’s illicit affair with an unknown woman whom he called “My Veiled Lady,” Elizabeth had been on a quest to discover the woman’s identity.

She had lost her sight before she could, and now she was left with only the memories of passages she could no longer read.

But tonight, for some reason, she took comfort in the feel of the familiar brittle pages, which she knew held Sinjin’s flowing script. And words that had captured not only her imagination, but aroused her womanly needs—needs she had always imagined sharing with one person.

4th May, 1147—Carpathians.

I have taken up the cross for my kingdom in the fight to protect Jerusalem and all of Christendom. My army is amassed, and a truce, however tenuous, has been reached between myself and the French king, Louis VII, whose army has joined with mine. We will march to Bucharest, where we will meet with the German emperor. Then on to Byzantium, where I pray we will be allowed a peaceful crossing. I have received a missive from the Byzantine emperor, Manuel I Comnenus, who will guarantee our safe passage.

We leave on the morn, the 6th of May, the feast day of Saint George. The priest that travels with me will not hear of crossing the woods and mountains on the eve of Saint George. For at nightfall on this day it is believed that all things evil have full sway. The priest is old and superstitious, but I relent for the peace of my men, who are swayed by the tales of village peasants and gypsies, who fill their minds with talk of unnatural creatures that roam unseen around us.

I must remind myself that the Carpathians are a wild and untamed place, far removed from my beloved England. If I close my eyes I can still see the rocky coastline of Yorkshire, smell the brine of the North Sea and taste the salt on my tongue.

My memory turns to Isolde, whom I treasure above all things on earth. She was fearful of my leaving; however I allayed my lover’s fears by telling her to remember me—my voice—for it will comfort her in the months ahead when she is alone. I assured my beloved Isolde that God will not forsake me on the field of glory, for which I fight for in His name. I shall return to her, the Crusades won, my heart still beating for her. I cannot help but wonder what she is doing, if she is sitting beneath the night sky thinking of me, as I am thinking of her….

Elizabeth had memorized that passage, just as she had all the other thrilling pages that followed. At first she had thought the diary merely an account of Sinjin’s travels from England to Jerusalem, and the events of the Crusades. And perhaps in the beginning that was the intention. But she had no sooner turned the page and read the next entry, than she’d been drawn into Sinjin’s private world of love, lust, obsession and sin….

17th May, 1147

Entered Constantinople. Reached an amicable arrangement with the Seljuk Turks. The men are nervous, fearing an attack from the Seljuks, who have been known to make alliances with the infidels. Spirits are low, especially now that it seems our priest has gone mad, possessed by some unseen thing, rambling about an unholy aura that follows us. He claims he sees that aura hovering over me—a warning, he claims, of temptation and sin. The man is mad, and I have dispatched him with four men to Sighisoara, where he will embark on a journey back to England.

The men believe the priest’s ramblings, and it is more and more difficult, what with the constant fatigue and heat and very great thirst, to appeal to their rational minds.

Tomorrow we leave for Edessa, where we will rest for a few days and regain our strength. Then I shall follow my Templar brothers, who will bring us to the Holy City and our fate—the fight to keep Jerusalem in Christian hands.

—Addendum; early dawn. I dreamed of a woman. Not Isolde, but a temptress, covered in jewels and a veil. She whispered to me, beckoned to me in my sleep to a land of exotic pleasures. I awoke with the memory of the priest’s wild eyes as he gave his dire warnings to me. Some sinful temptation was following me, and it would be my ruination.

My brethren must never find out about Isolde, nor must they ever discover my dreams of the woman, for I have taken my Templar vows of chastity. But I am only a man. Man was not made to be celibate. The Dukes of Sussex were born to love women, to pleasure them with bodies honed by fighting. And I have my fair share of desires. Even now, my body is hard and aching, with images clouding my judgement. Not images of beautiful Isolde, but the mysterious woman of my dreams.

I cannot help but think that this journey to the Holy City will change everything I have ever known—everything I am. I suspect it will not be the war we wage that does so, but instead, the woman of my dreams, whom I know awaits me in Jerusalem. Perhaps I am cursed as the mad priest claims, but no curse could prevent me from moving heaven and hell to find her.

No power on earth to prevent him from moving heaven and hell to find his beloved … Elizabeth wished she could find a man who felt that way about her. Silly, naïve dream, she thought as she clutched the diary to her breasts and allowed herself to slip into sleep. She owed it to Sinjin to discover this Veiled Lady. To reward his passion and devotion by learning their story, and perhaps one day recounting it to her nieces and nephews. For she did not dare think of her own children. She would not have a story like Sinjin and his lover. She had long ago given up that dream.

Move heaven and hell … She thought of that, heard it whispered in a dark, velvety, caressing voice, and saw the eyes of the devil himself. If only he had thought that way all those years ago.