There was a long moment before Dagobert continued.“He made me swear that I would take up the cause.’Twas then I realized that he would die.There on the field, far from home.I realized that my mother would not have even the bittersweet moment of parting that I did.”
Silence reigned again in the shadowy cell, Alienor’s thoughts spinning with the implications of what Dagobert had told her.
“Why the unicorn?”she asked.
Dagobert’s lips tightened.“We had need of a tale,” he confessed with a frown.“’Twas time that I came out of hiding, but there were plans to make, alliances to guarantee before I could fully reveal my presence, much less declare my intent.We had need of time.There have always been stories of mysterious doings at Montsalvat whispered in the area and shape-shifters are common in them.”He shrugged, as if dissatisfied with the explanation himself.“The unicorn has long been not only the emblem our line but our guardian.When this goat was born with only one horn, it seemed a divine sign.”He fell silent and Alienor reached up to touch his face.“We believed it a portent that victory was to be ours.”His voice had fallen so low as to be barely audible.
“You could not have foreseen its fate,” Alienor whispered, wishing there was some way she could make matters turn right for him.She knew that she could not.
Dagobert shook his head and spared her a sad smile.“Nay, I could not,” he admitted heavily.“But ’twas on that morning that the shadow was cast over my heart.It can be no good omen for a man to find his talisman slaughtered within his own keep.”He swallowed and cleared his throat, staring at the flickering play of light on the ceiling.
Alienor gave him a moment to make peace with his thoughts.She wanted to ask one more question but was unwilling to press him overmuch.
Even if it might be their last chance to speak thus.
“There are no others?”she asked finally and he shook his head.
“I am the last.”
Alienor heard his despair.Without hesitation, she placed his hand once more upon her belly, surprised when he caught her close in a compulsive embrace.
“They must knownaughtof the child,” he whispered fiercely.Alienor pulled back to see that his eyes glittered with either anger or fear.“I will not have your life forfeit because you bear my babe.”
She felt chilled to her marrow.Of course.The child in her womb would continue Dagobert’s bloodline, and so long as she was pregnant with that child, her own life might be in peril.
“Do they not mean to kill us both?”
“I shall claim you know naught,” Dagobert vowed.
A greater weight settled on Alienor’s heart at his pledge.His passion was only for the babe, for the survival of his line and the continuance of his quest after he was gone.She had been a fool to hope he possessed some tender feelings for her.
As if sensing her change of mood, he drew her ever closer, unbraiding her hair with gentle fingers and spreading it loose over her shoulders.He combed his fingers through its thickness, lifting the ebony tresses away from her face, but still she sat with downcast eyes.
“You can trust Eustache with your life,” he told her quietly, apparently thinking that she was concerned for her own safety in his absence.“And Iolande will aid you with the babe.”
Alienor nodded against his chest and he tipped her chin up with one finger, pressing a gentle kiss to her lips.A tear trickled from the corner of her eye and he kissed it away, framing her face between his hands as he bent to taste her lips once more.
“I would love you in the light,” he murmured against her mouth.His eyes darkened to slate even as Alienor chilled at the unspoken reason for his words.The jailer had promised them this one night, but who could tell what the morrow would bring?
Naught good, by Alienor’s wager.
How could she deny him?She nodded and blinked back her tears, standing to remove herpelisson.Her fingers became clumsy when she heard Dagobert’s boots strike the floor and she bit her lip, suddenly uncertain.A rustle of cloth and she struggled to focus on her task, striving to avoid even imagining her husband’s bare broad chest.
Silence behind her and a gentle breath on her neck alerted Alienor to his presence, her skin tingling as he lifted a lock of her hair.Her fear melted when she felt his warm fingers caress her nape, his touch sending tingles along her skin.
Dagobert’s hands slipped around Alienor’s neck and unfastened her kirtle, his fingers sliding beneath the wool and easing it over her shoulders.With nary a word, he unlaced her sleeves, pulling the cloth from one arm, then the other, while she resolutely kept her gaze on the flickering lamp.The laces at her sides were undone quickly and he paused only to cup the fullness of her breasts in his hands for a moment before coaxing the cloth to fall to the ground.
Her chemise was cast aside with similar speed, and Alienor felt the tickle of Dagobert’s chest hair against her back the moment the sheer cloth cleared her shoulders.She felt the dampness of anticipation gathering between her thighs and the quickening of her blood though he had yet to touch her intimately.
When her garments lay in a puddle at her feet, Dagobert picked her up and settled her back against him, his arms wrapping securely around her waist.The hard rod of his arousal impressed itself on her buttocks and she arched back, all else forgotten when he licked the tip of her earlobe with deliberation.The whisper of his breath fanned across her throat and she was glad beyond all else to have this one night.
They would make it one to remember.
“Dagobert,” she breathed, then found herself lying atop the softness of his fur-lined cloak, her husband bending over her with gleaming eyes.
“Alienor,” he murmured in response.She reached for him, framing his face in her hands and staring deeply into his eyes, then she kissed him, surrendered her all to him this one last time.
Dagobert was awedby his lady wife.He was unable to believe that this splendid creature would let him love her, much less that she had let him love her night after night already.The firelight played over her golden skin and Dagobert savored the chance to survey his bride for the first time, marveling that she was more lovely than he had dared to imagine.
