He exhaled, jabbing his fingers through his hair again, as if in a visible effort to redirect his thoughts. “However, you need not fear for my actions in public. I will keep proper appearances during these six months and attend mass with you each morning, following all the rites of worship as would be expected, with the exception of partaking in Communion.”
That brought her up short. His captivity and torture had scarred him in many ways, it was true, and yet for a man with his history, even the hint of dissent against the governing power of the Holy Mother Church could prove dangerous.
“Such an omission is sure to be noticed, Damien,” she chided gently. “How will you explain it?”
His eyes glittered in the dull gray light of morn that seeped through the window. “I will not explain it,” he said. “If necessary, your cousin can ensure that those who must know are told it is tied to a penance assessed when I received the Writ of Absolution from the Church that you were so considerate to obtain for me.”
Before she could say anything further, he shook his head and jerked into motion, leaning down to pick up his embroidered over-tunic, then crossing to the tall chestnut wardrobe that took up half the wall near the door. As he opened it and retrieved fresh garments, he said, “I am going to bathe and then make my way to the stables, where I will check my mount and meet with more of the men who are under my command. And in an hour, I will take my place at your side in the chapel.”
Finding herself unable to respond in any meaningful way, she simply nodded.
After another moment of silence, Damien gave her a curt nod as well, took up a leather satchel of some sort that he had brought with him to Glenheim, and turned to the door.
And then he was gone, leaving her standing alone in the stillness of their bedchamber to contemplate all that had transpired…trying to make sense of what she was discovering about this enigmatic, tormented man who had once been as familiar to her as her own soul.
Chapter 6
The pain of training for seventy times seventy hours in the baking sun of Cyprus would have been preferable, Damien had decided, to the experience he had endured these past two weeks as lord of Glenheim Castle. Frustration had become as familiar to him as breathing, and he had been pushed to his limit in ways he’d felt woefully unprepared to face.
He could not deny, however, that some of what he had accomplished had been of worth. He had settled into a semblance of daily routine and had begun trying to forge a working relationship with Fitzgibbon, the captain of the castle guard. He had met with more of the men under his command, the rest of the servants, and many of the remaining tradesmen and women from the village. And after putting it off for as long as he could in all good conscience, he had finally sat down with Edgar Charmand, the quiet, educated man who served as the castle steward.
Damien had dreaded that meeting almost most of all, aware that it would require him to look over the holding’s accounts…knowing that, as acting lord, he would be called upon to make assessments and give direction for what was to be bought and sold, not to mention the role he would be taking, soon, in listening to disputes between people of this demesne and dispensing rulings of justice at the manorial court.
But while his years as a high-ranking Templar Knight had ensured that he could take charge and make important decisions if called upon to do so, the same could not be said of some of the finer skills that would have made working with the knowledgeable steward more tolerable. They were skills reserved, generally, for titled noblemen and senior clergy—because as was true of most men from the knightly class, Damien had never learned to read or write.
Edgar had been patient, however, and Damien was stronger in his aptitude for numbers, managing to redeem himself in that area; but in all, his first real encounter with the steward had been humbling, to say the least.
And yet that had not been the most challenging aspect of this past fortnight. Nay, not by far. That distinction belonged to Alissende.
It had taken less than a day to realize that being so near to her was going to be a sensual torment the likes of which he’d never known. Her very presence in the chamber could drive him to distraction. Her graceful movements and her delicate scent—even the gentle resonance of her voice when she spoke—set him ablaze with desire.
And nighttime was even worse.
Aye, night brought with it its own special tests and trials. Evening had always been more difficult, even when he’d served with the Brotherhood; the veil of dark had somehow invited hidden thoughts he’d been able to control better in the light of day. But what he was enduring now at Glenheim surpassed by a thousandfold anything he’d known back then.
He had conceded to sharing the bed with Alissende once he’d realized that resting on the hard floor would prove far more likely to encourage the violent nightmares and memories of the Inquisition that often tormented his sleep. Yet when he was stretched out beside her he was like a man parched with thirst, denied all but the merest drop of water on his lips—a man who felt the licking heat of flame but who could not pull away from the fire. He felt consumed by longings and yearnings that teased him, with images that would not let him rest. His cursed body played the fool, even when his logical mind knew better than to soften in any way toward the very same woman who had cast him away so bluntly five years ago.
Always, it would begin innocently enough. He would keep very still and quiet, trying to avoid touching Alissende as she slept, when suddenly a vision would slip into his mind…a fragment of dream, almost, of stroking his palm down the smooth, naked expanse of her back. He would feel a twinge of delicious wanting in the imagining of it, but like the besotted fool he was, he would not heed the warning.
Nay, he would allow his mind to drift further into the fantasy, to think of slipping his fingers through her soft hair, of tasting the delicate place just beneath the lobe of her ear. Of kissing the fullness of her mouth. He would imagine brushing his hand along the smooth path of her arm and then across her belly…and further still, up to her pink-tipped breasts, before sweeping down to the sweet apex of her thighs…
And then he would be lost, swept up in heated, tortured memories that consumed him and left him lying there in aching, rigid need.
His only saving grace had been his refusal to sleep unclothed, regardless of custom or the warmth in the chamber. He did not trust himself to do so. Nay, at least when wearing garments, he could sometimes force his mind away from the seductive images and half-convince himself that he was sleeping alone.
But at best it was a temporary delusion.
The truth was that none of his former methods of pushing thoughts of Alissende from his mind, practiced so oft during his time with the Brotherhood—prayer, fasting, the shock of icy cold water, or immersing himself in weapons training until he ran with sweat—seemed to be working any longer. He was certain that he was slowly driving himself to the brink of insanity with his constant, unsatisfied yearning for her.
It was a desire for her body he reminded himself, nothing more. Nay, she was not to be trusted with anything more meaningful than that. He had learned that lesson too well. But the fierce and sharp need for physical completion with her bit at him nonetheless.
Desperate to find some distraction from it, he had decided to convene his first group training session in the yard today, calling upon Fitzgibbon to assemble a score of his best men to participate. Ben had agreed to assist at the beginning, at least, to run through some of the exercises they had perfected together during the months spent training while Damien had healed; Damien hoped that the example they could provide together would speed the men’s process of mastering the techniques, which would allow them all to delve into the kind of hot and sweaty weapons-work that could not help but keep him focused on something other than the woman who seemed to occupy his every waking thought and sinful dream.
First, however, he had to gain the men’s trust. It was the primary rule of command: Earn the respect of your men, and all else would follow. But somehow he sensed that task was not going to be easy. He’d felt a vague animosity simmering beneath the surface whenever he’d made visit to the quarters of the castle guard, and he knew he’d have to put that to rest before anything else could happen.
“I cannot believe that I let you talk me into this.”
Damien turned to the sound of the voice, grinning at its owner, who strode toward him from across the yard. Ben had exchanged his Franciscan habit for the same kind of sturdy, serviceable leggings and shirt he’d made use of during their exercises in Dover—all except for the new sword he had buckled at his waist. Theenormousnew sword.
