Читать книгу Royal Weddings - Joan Elliott Pickart, Christine Rimmer - Страница 17

Chapter Eleven

Elli.

It was the first time, ever, that he’d called her by her given name alone. Her chest felt too small, suddenly, to hold her hungry heart.

The light from the room behind her spilled in across the bed. The blankets covered him to the waist.

He was… so beautiful and savage to her civilized eyes, with his broad smooth chest and the lightning-bolt tattoo slashing across it through a thicket of vines and dragons and swords. And his eyes… Oh, they were the saddest, loneliest eyes she’d ever seen.

‘‘Hauk, is it all right if I come in?’’ Even now, after he’d at last dared to call her Elli, she more or less expected him to send her away.

But what she dreaded didn’t happen. Instead, he flicked on the lamp beside him and held out his hand.

With a glad cry, she ran for the bed and scrambled up onto it, aiming straight for his arms. He wrapped them around her with an eagerness that warmed her to her soul. He stretched out on his back and she settled against him, cuddling close, with only his blankets and her big shirt between them now. She laid her head against his heart and noted with a surge of slightly silly joy that it seemed to beat right in time with hers.

She felt his lips brush the crown of her head. And she snuggled even closer with a long, happy sigh.

‘‘Maybe I’ll never move,’’ she threatened tenderly. ‘‘I’ll just lie here, forever, holding on to you….’’

Hauk made a low sound in his throat and kissed her hair again. Most important, he kept those warm strong arms around her. How absolutely lovely. To rest in his embrace, to feel his kiss in her hair, his heart beating a little fast like her own, but steady and true, too, under her ear.

She spoke dreamily, without lifting her head. ‘‘Hauk, you probably won’t believe this, but I came in here to talk to you.’’

‘‘Ah,’’ he said. ‘‘To talk. Always a danger, when you want to talk.’’

She faked an outraged cry and lightly punched his arm.

He stroked her hair. ‘‘Go ahead then. Say what you came to say.’’

She lifted her head. ‘‘I want to suggest something to you. And I want you to really think about it before you tell me it’s not possible….’’ He was looking at her. And she was looking back at him. And suddenly what she’d intended to say was the last thing on her mind. ‘‘Oh, Hauk…’’

He said her name again, ‘‘Elli…’’ The sound thrilled her.

With a hungry cry, she scooted up the glorious terrain of his big body to claim those beautiful lips.

Lightning flashed and thunder rolled as her mouth touched his. Elli didn’t know or care which storm—the one outside or the sweeter, hotter one between them—had caused the bright pulsing behind her eyelids, the lovely, echoing, booming crash that seemed to shake her to the core. She kissed him harder, longer, deeper.

And he didn’t hold back. He kissed her tenderly, passionately. He made her stomach hollow out and all her thoughts melt away to nothing but joy and a longing to be his. She rubbed herself against him, shamelessly eager, and she felt his response to her, knew that he was ready, so ready, to be hers.

But then he was capturing her chin, making her look at him. ‘‘We are foolish, worse than foolish.’’

She couldn’t argue fast enough. ‘‘Oh, no. That’s not so. Everything will work out. Just you wait and see.’’

His fine mouth curved upward. ‘‘You are, truly, an American.’’

She was so delighted to see his expression, she forgot to be irked at his superior tone. ‘‘Oh, Hauk. Look at that. I swear that’s a smile you’ve got on your mouth.’’

‘‘What man wouldn’t smile after kissing you?’’

She touched his lips, so soft when the rest of him was anything but. So soft and so perfectly designed for kissing…

‘‘Oh, Hauk…’’ Her eyes drifted closed and she lifted her mouth to him.

But just before her lips touched his and all rational thought could fly away, she remembered that she had something important to tell him. Her eyes popped open. ‘‘Wait.’’

He actually chuckled. ‘‘What?’’

She kissed the ridge of a crescent-shaped scar on his chin, because she couldn’t resist the temptation. But then she did pull back enough to say, ‘‘I was lying in that big, lonely bed in the other room, thinking…’’

He raised his huge arms, laced his fingers behind his head and lifted one eyebrow. ‘‘About?’’

She canted up on an elbow and laid a hand on his smooth chest, right in the center, where the lightning bolt zagged and a dragon reared, breathing fire. ‘‘My father.’’

He didn’t move. That one eyebrow was still arched, yet it seemed to her that his rare lighthearted mood had vanished as swiftly as the sun sliding behind a dark cloud. Lightning flared again, a blinding glare through the room, and somewhere out in the storm-dark sky, thunder boomed and rolled away.

‘‘Just listen to what I have to say.’’ She touched the hard line of his jaw. ‘‘Please.’’

‘‘I’m listening.’’

‘‘Everyone—my mother, my sisters, Hildy, Aunt Nanna and you, too—you all seem to think my father has something else planned for me. That there’s more going on here than a father’s desire to meet a daughter he’s never really known.’’

‘‘I never said—’’

‘‘Bear with me. Please?’’

He gave her a curt nod.

She spoke briskly. ‘‘So, then, what could it be, this other reason he’s sent for me?’’

‘‘We’ve spoken of this.’’ His gaze slid away. ‘‘I’ve told you I don’t know.’’

She reached up again, this time to touch his cheek. ‘‘Don’t look away….’’

He unlaced his fingers and dropped one hand at his side. The other hand he rested in the curve of her back—but very lightly, as if he didn’t plan on keeping it there for long. ‘‘All right.’’ He was frowning. ‘‘I’ll say it once more. I can’t tell you what His Majesty has planned for you, if anything, beyond what we already know—a time to speak with you, to see your face, to know the splendid young woman his infant daughter has become.’’

‘‘Splendid, huh? I like the sound of that.’’

‘‘It’s only the truth.’’

She trailed her hand down, so tenderly, and rested it once more against the dragon’s heart. ‘‘I think you do suspect his plans, Hauk.’’

‘‘It is not my place to—’’

‘‘Don’t say it.’’ She put her fingers to his lips. ‘‘I don’t need to hear it again. I sincerely do not.’’

He moved his head, to free his mouth from her shushing hand. ‘‘What do you wish me to say?’’

‘‘Nothing. Just listen.’’

He gazed at her coolly now. She wondered if this conversation would cost her the precious night to come.

No. She wouldn’t think that way. Once he heard what she had to tell him, he would cradle her close and kiss her, again and again. They’d hold back the dawn together.

And morning would find them all wrapped up in each other’s arms.

‘‘Hauk, I think my father has plans for me—wedding plans. I think you think so, too, and—’’ She cut herself off with a tiny cry of distress. ‘‘Oh, don’t do that, don’t… get that hard and distant look.’’

‘‘Why say such a thing?’’ His voice was ragged. ‘‘Why say it now, except to remind me that I betray my king—and that you and I have nothing beyond this moment, this moment that shouldn’t even be?’’

‘‘No. No, you don’t understand. You have to let me finish.’’

‘‘What do you want from me?’’ He dragged himself up against the padded headboard, took her by the shoulders and pushed her carefully away from him.

‘‘I said, let me finish.’’ Elli had gathered her legs beneath her. She knelt beside him, her hands folded tightly on her thighs. He didn’t want her to touch him right then, that was painfully evident in every line of his face, every tense muscle in his beautiful body. Clasping her hands together was the only way she could make them behave.

‘‘All right, then,’’ he said way too quietly. ‘‘Finish.’’

‘‘Oh, don’t you see? Why would he send you here, why would he force us to be together every minute? Unless he’s hoping I’ll see just what I see in you, unless it’s you he’s hoping I’ll learn to love and want to marry?’’

When she said that, Hauk’s hurt and anger melted away like the snowfields over Drakveden Fjord in the spring.

He almost smiled again. No matter that this woman was his king’s daughter, in her heart she was American. American to the core. She saw what she wanted to see. She made the world over to fit her own idea of it.

Those deep-blue eyes of hers were shining. By all the roots of the guardian tree, he hadn’t the will or the heart to remind her of the facts. Somewhere in that sharp mind of hers, she had to know the truth. That he’d first been sent to take her quickly and bring her straight to his king. That it was she, with her insistence on speaking to her father, on striking a bargain, who had made it necessary for Hauk to assume the role of round-the-clock guard.

Why point out the obvious when she so clearly didn’t want to see it? Why be wise now, when for once in his life, all he wanted was a chance to play the fool?

The mighty Thor, her family’s namesake, most beloved of all the gods, had given him this night of driving rain and rolling thunder, had forced her father’s ship out of the sky. Sometimes, the whims of the gods might favor a man.

For an hour. Or a night.

A man might, however briefly, hold in his arms his greatest desire.

In the morning, there would be time for wisdom, for acceptance.

For regret and for anger.

And for shame, as well.

She whispered, ‘‘Are you going to send me away?’’

It was the moment to tell her, to make her understand that her wild, bright American dreams would not change what was. If her father did have plans for her to marry a Gullandrian, it wouldn’t be his low-jarl bastard warrior he intended for her. It would be the man King Osrik thought most likely to be king himself someday. That way the Thorson bloodline would continue to hold the throne. That way, even if His Majesty had lost his sons, the day might come when his grandson would rule.

‘‘Oh, Hauk…’’ Those eyes of hers begged him to see what she saw—the two of them, united, His Majesty, her father, blessing the match.

He knew he should make the truth clear, that he should tell her what would really happen if they shared this stormy night and His Majesty found out.

At the very least, Hauk would lose his position, be stripped of all honors. He could be banished or even sent to Tarngalla, the tower prison where murderers and those who committed crimes against the state were kept. It was highly unlikely that what they were doing might cost him his life—not in this modern day and age. But anything could happen when the most trusted of soldiers dared to betray his king.

He knew if he told her all that, she would scoff. She would call it impossible, barbaric, medieval. She would say it was wrong and unfair and an outrage.

And then she’d return to her own room. Even if she didn’t want to believe him, she wouldn’t let him take the risk.

Hauk cared nothing for the risk. She was here. She wished to stay. And he was through battling. The war inside him was over—at least for this night. For the brief, lightning-struck hours to come, he would hold this woman in his arms.

She sat there, on her knees, her fine face flushed and hopeful—those slender hands clasped. ‘‘Hauk, I…’’

‘‘Yes? Tell me.’’

‘‘If you let me stay…’’

‘‘Yes?’’

‘‘Well, if you do, then I confess…’’

She seemed to need more urging. He gave it. ‘‘You confess…’’

‘‘Since this morning, when you kissed me and then sent me to my room to pack, I have… thought of this. Hoped for this. Prepared for this.’’

‘‘Prepared?’’

The blush on her cheeks flooded outward, suffusing her entire sweet face with color. ‘‘You said you’d never have children until you had a wife.’’

By the breath of the dragon, he’d said exactly that—and meant it. He’d also taken a blood oath to give undying loyalty to his king. But look at him now.

‘‘I’m a responsible woman.’’ She was earnest now, enchantingly so. ‘‘I’d never ask you to go against your beliefs. I have contraception.’’ Contraception. Of course. American to the core.

She looked so very sincere about this. And so beautiful.

He told her simply, ‘‘That’s wise.’’ There were other things he might have said. But anything else would have brought questions he saw no need to answer right then.

He wasn’t a total thief. He’d only take the taste of her, her deep, warm sighs, the touch of her skin to his. There’d be no risk he’d put a bastard in her belly. She’d understand that, soon enough. They didn’t need to talk it over now.

She slid up his chest again and pressed her sweet mouth to his—quickly, this time. And firmly. ‘‘I’ll go then. I’ll… get them.’’ She pretended to glare. ‘‘You stay right here.’’

‘‘Your wish is my command.’’

She jumped from the bed and hurried to the door, pausing there briefly to send him a tender look. Then she was gone. He lay back, thinking that he loved the lightning. It had always pleased him. And it seemed all the brighter the dimmer the room. He switched off the lamp.

A moment later, she returned, a small box in her hand.

She set the box by the bed.

He whispered, ‘‘You don’t need that big pink shirt. Not now. Not for the rest of the night.’’

She hesitated, hovering there beside the bed, the wedge of light from the open door behind her casting her face into shadow, making a halo around her golden hair.

Lightning flared. He saw her face clearly—uncertain and sweetly shy. The light went out. Thunder boomed.

She took the bottom of the shirt, whipped it up and over her head. And tossed it away.