Page 91 of The Knight Who Loved Me
She shook her head and he saw another tear roll down her cheek.
“Please, Angel, I don’t want to hurt you. If my hand doesn’t bother you, then what does?”
“I’ll never be like the other women you’ve wanted as your wife,” she whispered, trembling. “I don’t know what to do or say or?—”
James hushed her and started to rock slowly, cradling her in his arms. She took a shuddery breath, sighed, then slowly relaxed against him. He was stunned to realize that most of his problems with Isabel were not about their families or his hand, but her own insecurities as a woman. And he’d done his damnedest to make her feel worse. It shamed him down to his soul, how he’d made his naive wife suffer.
With sudden clarity, he realized he’d fallen in love with her sometime between their first sword fight and their last. She had more strength and determination that he’d seen in most men. She never believed that she couldn’t accomplish whatever she meant to, regardless of what people thought.
And he was hurting her. He was afraid if he told her he loved her, she wouldn’t believe him. Why should she, after the way he’d behaved? And he wasn’t even sure she could lovehim.But he wanted to spend an evening with her, not arguing, not trying to outdo each other. He wanted to know what it was like to have peace between them.
James smoothed her hair away from her face. “Would you come outside with me this night? ’Tis All Hallow’s Eve. There will be bonfires dotting the hillsides.”
She sighed. “Why do they do this?”
He tried not to let the shock show on his face. Were not even such old, sacred rituals allowed at Castle Mansfield? “We light fires to aid the souls of the dead on their journey to heaven. This is the day the spirits are amongst us—or so say the very superstitious. Would you like to walk the hills tonight, and see the bonfires?”
She tilted her head and looked up into his face. “Why do you wish to take me?”
He stared into her dark, mysterious eyes, glanced at the lips he longed to kiss. “I want to be alone with you.”
And then his warrior wife blushed. “Very well.”
~oOo~
In the deepest part of the evening, James, carrying a torch, led Isabel to the back of the castle, where the land sloped down towards the curtain wall. She knew this area well, for the dungeons were nearby. He grinned at her, as if he were thinking the same thing. She arched a brow and tried not to smile.
She didn’t understand what he was doing. He hadn’t said a thing about her confession, but he’d held her more tenderly than she’d imagined a man could. He’d kissed her, said he wanted to make love to her. And it was enough for now. She would see what the rest of the evening brought.
A rusted iron door was cut into the curtain wall. James took a handful of keys from a pouch at his waist and tried them all until he found the correct one.
“This door leads outside?” she asked in an appalled voice.
“I had it cut some years ago for a safe exit.”
“Safe? But surely you could easily be taken by?—”
She broke off as he swung open the door. She saw by moonlight the rocky, narrow ledge that seemed to fall away into darkness. She went forward to investigate, but James held her back.
“The cliff rises alongside the river. Quite difficult to reach except by single file. Stay near the wall as we walk.”
He led the way along the curtain wall, holding the torch slightly behind him so she could see. The path finally left the cliff and they entered the forest. It reminded Isabel eerily of her last night as the Black Angel, when James had defeated her by sword beneath a clear moon. It had only been a few weeks ago, but she’d been another person then, vengeful, bitter, convinced that she was in the right. Now all her beliefs had crashed to the ground one by one, all because of James, her husband.
Had her father begun all of this? she thought as she followed the bobbing torch down a narrow woodcutter’s path. How would her life have turned out if her father hadn’t used her against his enemy?
“Are we going to join the villagers?” Isabel asked softly. The dark forest made her feel like she couldn’t speak too loudly. She heard owls calling to one another, and the flapping of wings.
“No, I have a different destination in mind. You’ll like it, I promise.”
Less than an hour later, she felt the ground begin to slope upward at a gentle angle. Soon they broke through the trees to find a grassy hillside beneath the dark night sky. The moon shone down on them peacefully.
She kept climbing until she stood just beneath the summit, almost level with the treetops. She would have gone higher, but there was already a pile of branches in the center for a bonfire. James’s work, she thought. She arched her neck and spread her arms wide to the black sky, with its pinpricks of light winking above her. She felt his gaze upon her, and she finally lowered her arms and looked down at him. He stood at the base of the hill, by the last of the trees, the torch flaming in his raised hand.
When he spoke, his husky, deep voice carried like it was part of the night wind. “You look like you’re from another time up there, Angel. Pagan, primitive.”
She began to shiver, and it wasn’t from the cold. Her cloak protected her well, but nothing protected her from knowing that he watched her, that he wanted her, that maybe he cared.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
