He would not be dissuaded, and she was too weary to argue with him at the moment. He had said it was not his custom; perhaps it was only a whim, and he would grow bored after tonight. She tried to relax her stiff muscles.
The room was silent, the darkness comforting. She was beginning to grow drowsy again when he asked in a low voice, “Was I brutal to you?”
“What?”
“I… wanted to be gentle,” he said haltingly. “I was afraid I’d remind you of what happened to your mother.”
He meant that horrible night and the beasts who had raped and tortured Mama. Strange, she had not even connected the two acts. Her need had been so great, if there had been violence, it was she who had provoked it. “You weren’t like them.”
“Did you see it?”
“No, when the soldiers came, she made me take Alex out the back door and run to the forest. She said it was my duty to take care of him, and I mustn’t come back until after the soldiers left.” She swallowed to ease the tightness in her throat. Why was she telling him this? She didn’t want to remember that night. Yet the words kept coming, tumbling out into the darkness. “I didn’t see them, but I heard them. I stayed close because I wanted to find a way, any way, to help her. I couldn’t leave Alex. She made me promise. I had to listen… I couldn’t leave Alex.”
“Christ.”
He drew her closer, and her tears rained down on the warm flesh of his shoulder. “I kept my promise and didn’t come back until they left. They had hurt her… terribly. They thought she was dead, but she wasn’t. She didn’t die until the next morning.” She closed her eyes. “I couldn’t stay. I had promised her- I went to the priest and left a note on his doorstep to tell him what they’d done to Mama. I don’t even know where she’s buried. I asked them to bury her next to Papa. Do you suppose they did?”
“I’m sure they did.”
“I don’t guess it matters. She wasn’t there anyway. I stayed there and held her hand, but she wasn’t there anymore. She had gone somewhere else.”
“She was very brave.”
“Yes.” She was silent a moment. “I’ve never spoken about that night. It… hurts to even think of it. I don’t know why I-”
“Perhaps because it was time to make peace with it.”
“Peace?”
“Guilt. You had to choose between Alex and your mother and the promise you had given her. You loved her, you wanted to help her, and you stood by and let her die.” He said roughly, “It was a choice no one should have been forced to make, dammit. No one should carry a burden like that.”
She had never allowed herself to consider that it was guilt that kept that painful memory from healing. Yet now she could not see how she had ever been able to ignore it. “There should have been something I could do.”
“Against a troop of soldiers? You would have died, Alex would have died, and your mother would still have died. You did the only thing possible.”
“She shouldn’t have died. There should have been something I could do.”
“Hush.” His hand pressed her face into the hollow of his shoulder. “It’s done, and you have no blame. Believe me.”
She drew a shaky breath. “Why should I believe you? Are you a priest to grant me absolution?”
“A priest? Good God, you should know better than that after the last week.” He suddenly chuckled. “But after years of having Gregor try to pound the iniquities out of me and a conscience into me, I’ve become something of an expert on guilt.” His lips brushed her nose. “And you don’t have a particle.”
She didn’t quite believe him but was aware of a slight easing of the pain from the wound that had never closed. Perhaps there was some truth in what Jordan said. She had already acknowledged his cleverness, and no one could deny his experience in the infinite facets of wickedness.
“Now please have the goodness to go to sleep, and I shall do the same.” He kissed her temple. “You’ve completely exhausted me both physically and mentally. I never imagined I’d be called upon to do anything tonight but service you as a good stallion should. You never cease to surprise me, Marianna.”
And he never ceased to surprise her, she thought as she closed her eyes. Seducer, scoundrel, a man who had relentlessly undermined her will and taken her body, and yet, when she least expected it, he gave her gifts…
She was sleeping deeply, like an exhausted child.
What the devil was he doing in her bed? Jordan wondered. His decision to stay in her bed had been an impulse, and he was not given to impulses. Except in the act itself he preferred to maintain a certain distance. Yet he had cared enough to argue with her to remain here.
Jordan shifted away from her, staring into the darkness.
After three years the battle was over, and he had won. Not that there had been any doubt of the outcome. He had deliberately set out on a course of seduction, and he was too skilled not to succeed with an innocent like Marianna. She had been fighting herself as well as him, and it had only been a matter of time before she capitulated.
He had won. Why did he feel so little satisfaction?
Lust? He had wanted her again almost immediately after he had left her, but it was was not only lust.
He moved to the edge of the bed, sat up, and swung his legs to the floor. He would ignore this reluctance to leave her and go to his own room. By tomorrow he would have regained his objectivity and realize this unrest was only a temporary madness. Now that his body had been sated, his mind would be clear and he could concentrate on trying to persuade her to give him the Jedalar.
He was crossing the room toward the door when he noticed the dying embers in the fireplace. It would do no harm to lay wood on the fire so that she would not wake to a cold room. He knelt, built up the fire, and stoked the blaze until it flared brightly.
Always before, after he had succeeded with a woman, he had felt a sense of triumph and then almost immediately the stirrings of boredom and discontent. None of those emotions were present now, and he was uneasy about identifying what he was feeling.
He glanced over his shoulder at the woman in the bed.
No, not just a woman. Marianna.
He slowly stood up and moved to look down at her. Her golden hair was a silky cloud on the pillow, and her mouth was soft and vulnerable. God, he did not want this. All he had wanted was release from passion. He wanted to regard her as a woman to take or discard. He had never thought he would be caught in the trap he feared most.
Possession.
CHAPTER 10
She woke to see him standing naked at the window, staring out at the dawn sky.
Shock rippled through her, jarring her to wakefulness. She had studied the paintings of great artists, but she had never seen a nude man before. She found him far more pleasing than even the men created by Michelangelo. To her eyes they had seemed pale and overly brawny, while Jordan was tanned, sinewy, full of power and elegance. Tight buttocks flowed into lean, strong legs, and his shoulders were corded, not bulging, with sleek muscle.
She must have made some sound, because he turned and looked at her. “Good morning.”
He was perfectly at ease in his nakedness. She wished she could be as composed. “Good morning,” she whispered.
He stared at her without expression, and she had the uneasy feeling he was angry with her. That impression lasted only an instant before he smiled, once more drawing charm about him like a glittering cloak. “You’re looking at me as if I were about to devour you. Do I appear so formidable?”
