“I hated her. I had heard from Lord Henry that she was asking after me, as if what we had done to my father was gone and forgotten! As if she believed I could touch her again without feeling sick to my stomach.” He took a sharp breath and held it, steadying himself. Lily reached out to touch the back of his hand, and he turned it so that his fingers could tangle with hers. His grip hurt.
“I could see, after she sent her dress for you to wear, that she would not leave me alone. I had to make her see once and for all how I felt about her. That was why I agreed to her meeting at the chapel. And she came. She said that she had never forgotten me, that no one was like me. I told her that I wished to God I could forget her! She thought I didn’t mean it. ‘I couldn’t live if I believed that,’ she said. So I told her I hated her and that she had made my life unbearable, and that I lived constantly with the memories of what we had done to my father and that his dying words were probably a curse upon us both. This scar reminds me every day, even if I could forget.”
Radulf’s eyes were black hell in a face white and pinched with a pain and anger so deep, they went far beyond a priest’s healing.
“She was his wife!” he burst out, and seemed to hover a moment on the brink of some dark abyss.
Slowly, visibly, he pulled himself back. “I was his son,” he went on, a little more calmly. “We betrayed him. There is no forgiveness, but she could not see that. So I told her that if she spoke to me or wrote to me or came close to me again, I would kill her and be glad of it.”
“And that is why she tried to kill you?”
“Aye.” He shuddered and was silent.
After a time, Lily said, “There is evil in the world, but that does not mean we should stop living.”
Radulf gave a bitter, shaky laugh. “Aye, my sweet simpleton, but neither does it mean we should purposely seek that evil out.”
“You have been scarred in more than your flesh, Radulf, but not every woman is an Anna.”
He knew that—in his heart he knew that, but there were other factors to consider. His father’s willing blindness, his doting, foolish love that made others laugh at him behind his back. There had been times since when Radulf wondered whether his father had known of their affair from the first, and had chosen not to see. Until the proof was pushed under his nose and he could no longer pretend.
How could a man cling to such a woman’s love and be willing to give up his pride, his honor? It horrified Radulf. He was forever on the watch for similar traits in himself. And now he feared that in Lily, he had found his nemesis. Because he wanted her so much that he was willing to forgive and forget just about anything to keep her.
“You were young and hot-blooded,” Lily was saying with cool good sense, rising up on her elbow so that she could gaze down into his face.
“She was experienced in such matters, and did not care what harm she caused. She has shown that again tonight. You are grown now, Radulf, and wiser. Maybe your father did hate you then. Maybe he hated and loathed himself for loving such a wicked woman. But Radulf, I know he would be proud of the man you have become. You are a man to make any father proud.”
Touched by her generosity, Radulf reached up and stroked her cheek. There were dark shadows under his eyes; his tale had drained him. Lily kissed his dry lips, a chaste kiss, and was surprised when his manhood twitched against her thigh. He reached out to grasp her head in his big hand, holding for longer, deeper kisses that were not so chaste.
“Radulf, your shoulder,” she gasped, but he ignored her, reaching down to clasp her bottom and bring her sprawling over his hips. She wanted to protest more, but he had found the place between her thighs and knew she was ready for him. He smiled up at her with simple male pride.
“I can bear it if you can, mignonne. ”
Lily gasped softly as he thrust up into her, his body turned slightly to the side to protect his shoulder. They moved slowly, the need that drove them as intense as ever and yet subdued because of his shoulder and the story he had told. Lily arched in pleasure, feeling his hands on her breasts, her tangled hair a curtain about them.
Only a fine, strong man could rise from such a beginning without becoming twisted and weak.
Like Vorgen, like Hew. Like Anna. Any woman would be proud to call such a man husband. To desire such a man, to love such a man . . .
I love you. The realization filled Lily with wonder.
I love you for who you are, and for what you are. Radulf was the man she had dreamed of all her life.
The tremors pulsed through her body from the place where they joined, rippling upward and outward. Lily’s senses were sharper, more attuned than ever before, as if the realization of her love had changed her in some fundamental way.
The world she had known until now was spinning away from her, and there was only Radulf to cling to, and his hold upon her was strong and sure.
Somehow as she collapsed, Lily remembered to mind his shoulder and slide to his other side, a boneless tangle of hair and limbs.
Radulf slept almost immediately, and while he slept, Lily listened to him breathe. He didn’t love Anna. The words formed a song in her mind, a lively jig for drum and whistle. It seemed frivolous to be so happy when he had told her a tale so sad. She had been warned that Radulf did not trust, and now she knew why. What man could believe in the basic goodness and honesty of women when he had been so callously betrayed by the first woman he’d ever loved?
He was a strong-willed man, but perhaps that will would work against his ever properly healing. He would hold a part of himself back, stop himself from trusting and loving completely, in case he, like his father, was betrayed.
It came to Lily then that, although he had opened himself up to her tonight, she might never win all of his trust. She and Radulf had come together in a hot flood of desire, and then he had learned that she was not who she said she was.
She had tricked him, lied to him, although her reasons had been sound. But the similarities between Radulf and Anna, and Radulf and Lily, were there: the passionate beginning, the—in Radulf’s eyes—betrayal . . .
Lily recalled his fury at Trier when he saw the hawk ring and established who she was. Then the forced marriage. The fact that she was no Anna, that she loved him, would make no difference. Oh, Radulf enjoyed her body, but that was all he would ever give her—his skill and his lust.
