“Whydid you come, Emllyn?” he asked again.
She could feel his fingers brushing against the side of her buttocks now. “Nay… please..!”
“Tell me now.”
She yelped as he pinched the flesh of her hip, but the message was obvious. “I wanted to come because…” She swallowed hard, struggling to keep her wits. “Because Trevor was on the ship. I… I wanted to surprise him. I wanted to be with him.”
“Trevor?” he repeated. “Who is Trevor?”
“The man I love.”
“Are you betrothed?”
She shook her head. “Nay,” she breathed. “I was hoping… hoping to show him what a worthy wife I would be.”
“And your brother has no knowledge of you coming with his fleet?”
“Nay.”
“You followed a man you hoped to become betrothed to?”
“Aye.”
“That was foolish. Stupid and foolish.”
Her eyes lolled open, red-rimmed, to look at him. “I took the risk,” she whispered, the defiance back in her tone. “I had no way of knowing that the Irish would be waiting for the fleet to destroy it.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Perhaps he should not have tried to invade,” he said. “The sons of Eire are stronger than the English. ’Tis time they realized that.”
“Did you have to kill them all?”
“I did.”
Surprisingly, she didn’t dissolve into more tears. Her gaze was steady. “I heard that man say that I was your gift for a decisive victory,” she said. “You led the battle. You must be the one they call Black Sword.”
“Your brother has lost two things dear to him this night,” he muttered. “His sailing fleet and his sister.”
She grunted as that hand on the side of her buttocks grew bolder, although she had to admit that it was not an entirely unpleasant sensation. In spite of their tense situation, it was almost… gentle.
“Areyou Black Sword?” she asked.
His eyes glimmered in the dark room. “I am the Lord of Black Castle,” he said softly. “My name is Devlin de Bermingham. If that name means nothing to you now, it soon will.”
She turned away from him, feeling his hand as it began to caress her hip and buttock. It was so large that his fingers could reach down her thigh. Whatever he intended to do, she knew she couldn’t stop him.
That was perhaps the most painful realization of all.
“It does not matter,” she whispered, closing her eyes as the tears started to come again. “After this night, Trevor will not want me even if he has survived the battle. No one will want me. Do what you must and get on with it.”
He gazed down at her, struggling against any pity he might be feeling. For the moment, all he could see was the most desirable woman he had ever known, her soft body and exquisite face the most potent aphrodisiac he had ever experienced. He was torn between finishing what he had started and walking away, although he did not know why he was so indecisive. He should not have been.
His night of dominance over the English was not finished, not in the least, and this moment would finally seal his hatred against the Earl of Kildare, the man grossly despised by his people for the inequities and injustice he had spread among them. By pure luck, he had the earl’s sister and he intended to take advantage of it. His mercy, at the moment, did not include her.
At least, he hadn’t thought so.
Now, he wasn’t so sure.
He should have been coiling his buttocks and ramming into her tender body. Every stroke would have been for Irish freedom, something he lived and breathed every day against the hated English. It would have been better for her had she lied and told him she was Scots or French. Perhaps he would have let her go.
