Midnight Eyes Page 13

  He grunted and closed his eyes. In moments he was asleep.

  She snuggled her cheek against the side of his head where it was buried in her hair. She hadn’t told him anything because years of harsh lessons had warned her against trust. Yet she couldn’t stop reliving the thrill she had felt as he had pledged to protect her always. If he spoke true, she’d never again be alone in the dark unable to defend herself.

  Strange, she thought drowsily, she believed his pledge.

  And that sounded an awful lot like trust to her.

  Chapter Eight

  Robert winced when he saw that people were beginning to fill the courtyard as the sound of Dagger’s hooves on the compressed earth rang out through the early-morning silence. “So much for sneaking in before dawn,” he murmured softly into Imogen’s ear.

  She smiled lazily. In his arms she found nothing to fear at the sounds of the growing crowd. “Apparently you’re not supposed to sneak in on a horse.”

  Robert’s laughter rumbled through her. “I’d rather fail at a sneak on a horse when I have miles to cover, than to succeed on my feet.”

  “Amen!” Imogen said with a ferventness that made Robert laugh again as he swung down from Dagger’s back.

  After giving the openly gossiping crowd a stern look, daring them to comment, he turned and clasped his hands around Imogen’s waist, lifting her to the ground. He felt the by-now-familiar sliver of desire knife through him as he held her close, but with a resigned sigh he forced himself to step away from her.

  “Are you ready to face the hordes, Little One?” he murmured softly, and she drew a deep, steadying breath before nodding her head slowly. Robert gave her a reassuring squeeze as he drew her nearer to his side. He turned to face the crowd. A frown wrinkled his brow a little as he watched Gareth push his way to the front.

  “We were just arguing over who was going to get the Keep if you two were eaten by wolves,” Gareth said with a broad smile, all of last night’s strange tension now absent, though when he clapped Robert on the back it was a little too hard to be entirely friendly. “So, just where did you two get to?”

  Robert didn’t even try to hide the smugness of his smile. “Into the tower.”

  Gareth’s eyebrows rose. “What, in the doorless tower our garrison has been laughing so hard about all morning?”

  “Not entirely doorless,” Imogen said abstractly.

  Gareth cast her a puzzled look, then shrugged his shoulders. “It matters not, so long as you’re home.”

  Home? Robert looked over the motley hoard in the dawn light, the Keep’s inhabitants mixing freely with his knights, and felt strangely as if the missing part of a puzzle had fallen into place. Home.

  There was an unexpected satisfaction to be found in that realization, but his smile of pleasure soon changed to a frown of consternation as he noticed that his knights scarcely wasted a glance at him. No, they were all too busy gawking at the Lady of the Keep for the first time.

  The plain jealousy that flared, fierce and intense, staggered him. His hand flexed into a fist as he fought the urge to snatch Imogen away from them and barricade her in the tower. With him.

  “Lady Imogen’s tired,” he said tersely, and began hustling her through the crowd, trying to escape before he did something to embarrass them both. He ignored the startled look on her face. He might explain it to her later, if he could ever find the words to explain the emotions roiling inside him. Perhaps. All that mattered now was removing her from the other men’s gaze. Once he reached their chamber, he slammed the door loudly behind him and leaned on it with relief. Of course, now he would have to face his very irate wife, and he wasn’t at all surprised to hear the indignation in her voice.

  “Just what was that all about?”

  He moved to the fire and started stoking it back into life, relieved that she couldn’t see the smug smile on his face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he murmured neutrally.

  “I’m talking about your mad dash to this chamber as if you were being chased by a pack of hounds,” she said through clenched teeth. “I’m talking about my nonexistent tiredness; I’m talking about this sudden impulse you seem to have developed to hide me away.” Robert looked up in surprise at the sound of raw emotion in her voice. “For God’s sake, if you’re ashamed of me, just say so. I can hide away. I’m good at it and I can almost accept it, if it must be so. But not this. You can’t be kind and considerate one minute, then brisk and rude the next when you can’t stand people seeing your blind…wife.”

  Robert let out a tortured groan as he quickly stood. He pulled her into his arms and buried her face in his chest, holding her tightly to his heart. “Oh, Imogen it wasn’t that! It was…I can’t explain it.”

  “Try,” she said in a defiant, if muffled, voice.

  He sighed and rubbed his chin along her hair, bathing his senses in the scent. “The men were looking at you like they liked what they saw,” he said lamely, rolling his eyes at how feeble it was. It sounded even worse out loud, he realized with a feeling of resignation.

  He waited for the explosion that such an asinine announcement deserved but when nothing happened, he risked a glance at her face. If his jealousy hadn’t still been hot inside him and riding him hard, he might have openly laughed at the incredulous look on Imogen’s face.

  “You were jealous of men looking at me?”

  “Maybe,” he muttered grudgingly.

  Her eyes widened, a slow smile curling into life on her face. The smile turned into a delighted laugh and she held her sides as they began to ache. “You can’t mean it?” she spluttered. “You can’t actually be jealous of your men looking at Lady Deformed.” Just saying it set her off into another peel of laughter.

  “Imogen…” he said warningly.

  She raised her hands in supplication, and gasped for breath. “Sorry, sorry. I forgot about not being able to say that, but you have got to admit, it is a little ludicrous, being jealousy of Lady De…me.”

  “You will also notice that I’m not laughing,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “I had.” She smiled, trying to get control of herself. She very nearly succeeded. “But you will understand if I find it amusing. I mean, who would have thought that it was even possible that you would feel jealousy? What are the chances of it happening?” She held herself for a second, then broke into unholy laughter.

  Robert pulled her ruthlessly to him and smothered her laughter with his lips.

  He ran his tongue along her delightfully full bottom lip, and Imogen immediately opened her mouth, drawing Robert deeper. He buried his hands in her hair, trying to draw her closer yet, trying to brand her indelibly with the heat of his moist breath.

  Amusement had turned to desire and as Robert steered her to the bed Imogen tried to remove his clothes. They fell onto the covers in a tangle of limbs and unfulfilled passions.

  Panting, Robert lifted his head and looked into Imogen’s flushed face. She was caught up in the web of desire he’d spun relentlessly around her, but it wasn’t enough, he thought grimily. He wanted her need for him so hot that the world ceased to exist for her.

  He began mercilessly to seduce her body.

  His hand moved over her soft skin, lingering here, tantalizing there, and tormenting everywhere. Where his hand went his mouth followed, drawing whimpers from her as her hands grabbed the furs, helpless.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  He brought her closer and closer to the edge, drawing her higher and higher. He relentlessly pursued his torment of her till her body was a taut bowstring under his calloused hands, her head tossing helplessly on the pillow, an inarticulate jumble of frenzied pleadings escaping her lips. When his mouth found the center of her need amongst her moist curls he tormented her with his knowing tongue.

  And still it wasn’t enough.

  He pushed his way deep into her slick, welcoming body, reveling in the heat and moisture that greeted him as he began to mercilessly drive them both
into a frenzy.

  Imogen’s body clenched around him as she came, wave after wave of the fathomless desire crashing over her senses. And yet her pleasure didn’t stop. With each powerful thrust, her body convulsed around his shaft with increasing frenzy. It was beyond her control. She could do nothing other than wrap her legs tightly about his slim hips and give herself over to the rule of Robert’s body in hers.

  Only when he felt her absolute surrender did Robert let his body lose control, roaring with the sheer power of it. For a moment his body was a rigid mass, then it turned to water, and he feared that he might never be able to move again. Not that it seemed such a bad fate when his face was buried in the waves of her hair, and his softening manhood was buried deep inside her. It seemed an eternity before he could find the strength to roll off her and gather her into his arms, holding her tightly to his pounding heart.

  And still it wasn’t enough.

  His jealousy continued to eat at him. Logically he knew that he couldn’t justify it, but a primitive part of him longed to be able to hang any man who dared to look at Imogen. But if he did that, it would mean that Shadowsend would be left without any male inhabitants fairly soon, he thought ruefully. That it was his own men he was fantasizing about destroying only made it worse. After years of implicit trust, could he not now trust them to even look upon his wife without him going mad with jealousy and lust?

  He really was going insane.

  He was more than a little unnerved by the sheer force of the emotions Imogen inspired in him. He ran a gentle hand through her hair and pressed her head close to him and knew with a sinking certainty that without her, he had no life.

  She had somehow managed to burrow herself so far under his skin that no amount of scratching would ever remove her. Not that he wanted to dislodge her, he realized with a grimace of disgust. He could scarcely conceive of a life without her now, much less a time when he might long for her to be gone.

  That was why his jealousy burned so fiercely and doubt plagued him. How could he find peace when he knew she was under his skin but he wasn’t so sure that he was under hers?

  What if she could all too easily conceive of a life without him? He could hold her body as close as he liked, make love to her till they were both too exhausted to stand, but it all amounted to nothing if she could leave him without a backward glance.

  Her spirit was like a mirage. He had only to get too close to it and it disappeared on him again, leaving him holding a hollow nothing and it was that nothingness that frightened him to his core. He buried his face into Imogen’s hair, trying to banish cold fear in the warm realities of his Imogen.

  She reached out a hand and ran it over the morning stubble on his jaw, feeling the way his muscles clenched under her gentle caress. To Robert, it felt almost as if she knew he was drowning in fear and jealousy and was trying to comfort him even though she was the cause of his tumult.

  It served only to confuse him all the more. He had never before associated gentle touches with the animal passions that were easily satisfied. Never before had there been any tenderness in lovemaking, and he couldn’t honestly say that he had ever marked its absence before. Yet Imogen was unable to be with him and not touch him, and he couldn’t imagine now how he had ever lived without it.

  “I’ve been thinking,” she whispered, flinching a little at the sound of her voice in the silence that surrounded them.

  He lifted his face out of the mind-easing softness of her hair and leaned up on his elbow. He looked down into her face, and found his breath caught once more at the beauty of her. He felt just as he had the first time he had beheld her in the glare of the winter sun.

  But what amazed him more was the fact that it wasn’t her beautiful face that ultimately held him so ruthlessly to her side. No, it was the fragile strength of her blossoming spirit that had him so entranced that he no longer had any desire to be without her.

  “Should I be worried about you thinking while I make love to you?” he asked lightly, deliberately keeping his confused emotions from her.

  Her smile was wicked. “Perhaps you will have to practice more to make sure we get it right,” she purred. She lifted her hand to him again, grazing the gentle smile on his lips with the tips of her fingers. He couldn’t resist giving them a nipping kiss and she gave a small squeak in protest, but left them there for him to sooth with his velvety tongue.

  A small shudder went through her body. “Actually, if we get this any more right, I might expire. When you touch me, there is never a thought in my head beyond that touch,” she breathed.

  “I must remember that,” he murmured.

  “By all means,” she said as she snuggled a little closer to him, “but you should also remember that afterwards my thoughts come back louder than before. Hence the, ‘I’ve been thinking.’ And what I’ve been thinking is…that I’m all out of excuses, aren’t I?” Her smile turned rueful. “I’ve scuttled my own boat, so to speak. How can I now hide away in my room when I’ve rather neatly proved that, with a little help, I’m more than capable of navigating the big bad world?”

  He gathered her close and kissed the top of her head, expressing silently the compassionate understanding that he couldn’t speak of out loud.

  “I suppose I should start with the evening meal?” she said tentatively.

  He watched as her teeth bit down on her bottom lip and began to worry it as she concentrated on the conundrum.

  “If you helped me with the food, I might be able to stop myself from making a complete fool of myself.”

  “Of course I’d like to help, but perhaps it is not the best of ideas.” His lips curved at the look of embarrassed dismay that flushed her face and he ran a soothing hand up over her naked back. “If you remember the last time I tried to help you eat I was so overcome by lust that I nearly ravished you on the main table,” he said gravely.

  Her blush was swift but she smiled wickedly at the same time. “Actually, as I recall, it wasn’t lust that overcame you but a severe outbreak of tyrannical behavior. And you didn’t ravish me. You settled for telling me what to do for a bit, then, and I think this is important, ended up bedding down in the chair. So much for lust,” she finished tartly.

  Smiling, he leaned down and nipped her bare shoulder in punishment for doubting his lust for even a second. “Actually, if we are going to be one hundred percent honest, I ended that night in this bed,” he whispered huskily against her skin. “Remember?”

  “A mere detail.” She grinned even as she shivered with the delightful feel of his words against her shoulder. “I’m sure you can help me eat dinner without suffering from too much lechery. Besides, I don’t want to be fed like a child. I was thinking you could help more with the food navigation. I can always find my own mouth…”

  “So can I,” he murmured, and was unable to resist demonstrating that skill by finding it with his mouth. By the time he lifted his lips from hers, they were both struggling for air.

  “Well, so you can,” she said with a tremulous smile, and he couldn’t stop himself from bending down to catch that smile as well. She forestalled his predatory move this time, placing her small hands on his chest and giving it a shove, but she couldn’t stop herself from tangling her fingers in the soft hair, enjoying the small contact a little too much to give it up. “Be that as it may, what I was saying before I was rudely interrupted…”

  “My lady, I can really show you rude if you like,” he growled, but she ignored him, intent on her plans.

  “…is that I have no real problem with the eating. It’s the food that often goes rogue on me. Mind you, I have improved. I nearly starved in the first six months, but I managed to subsist off the stains on my clothes till I got better at it.” Her tone was light, but Robert felt the pain that hid behind her levity. “And it has gotten better, but…” She shrugged as her other hand began fiddling with the edge of the blanket. “If you helped, perhaps—”

  “What do you mean ‘if’? Of course I’m hel
ping. As if you had to ask,” he scolded gently. “What kind of husband would I be if I let some bad table manners stop me?”

  He spent nearly two whole days proving just what kind of husband he was.

  They closeted themselves in their chamber. Surrounded by congealing food, they tried to devise a way to solve what Robert had jokingly come to call her nourishment annoyance. Imogen had laughed at that and so much else besides. It surprised her just how much laughter filled those days. Something Imogen had thought of as a torture had become an occasion for open joy.

  Not that it had started out being quite that easy.

  She had felt Robert’s intent gaze on her like a physical touch and it had made her nervous. Instead of things getting better, the nervousness made it all that much harder.

  By noon on the first day she had almost been crying with frustration but instead of giving in to tears, she had thrown her spoon across the room. Some part of her had hoped desperately that the childish display might drive Robert away from her once and for all, leaving her alone with her mortifying incompetence.

  That was what it should have done anyway.

  Instead, he knelt in front of her and ran a gentle hand down over her cheek. “What is it, Imogen?”

  “I think it is called blindness,” she said snidely.

  “That display had nothing to do with blindness. It was a temper tantrum, plain and simple, and I think you will find that the sighted also have them every so often.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “And your point is?”

  He made a frustrated sound in the back of his throat and stood up, leaving Imogen obtusely bereft. “You’re right, Imogen, I don’t have a point. I was just trying to work out what was wrong with you. Sorry, I shan’t do it again.”

  She hung her head, ashamed by her behavior. “You’re looking at me,” she muttered grudgingly.

  “What?”

  She threw her hand in the air and stood up. “What’s wrong is that I can feel you looking at me, and when you look at me I can’t seem to function,” she all but shouted.