Love Thine Enemy Read online

  "Think on this as you dwell behind cloistered walls, Rochelle. Because of your treachery, many you know and love will die in the battles over DuBois and Moreau, for Gaston will seek retribution and reclamation, and I will never relinquish what is mine."

  She pushed for freedom, but he shackled her against his body with his arms. Too weak to fight, she rested her forehead on his chest as hard as his stone-like heart. "I didn't release Gaston."

  "Then who?"

  "Perhaps one of his men."

  "In skirts?"

  "Mayhap one of their doxies. Many women are foolish enough to do a man's bidding despite the idiocy of the command."

  "My point exactly. Especially if she is desperate."

  "I may be desperate, but not dull-witted."

  She lifted her chin and her heart faltered. He seemed as an invincible Roman god. The moon's rays sculpted his down-tilted face, casting his eyes in shadow, bathing his forehead, cheekbones, and the Romanesque line of his nose in silver glow.

  "If you would have me believe you, Lady Rochelle, then prove your honesty. Tell me why, out of all the caves on the land, you ran here."

  He tested her. Did he know of the secret passageway? And yet, he might not. Her gaze flicked to the entrance, then away. "I love the view."

  "How foolish of me. I should have realized the vista is of primary importance when fleeing from your enemy." He shook his head as if disappointed. "'Tis but truth hidden within truth. A female trait of which you are a master."

  She wrenched from his hold. "If 'tis a female trait, then shall I give you a gown to don? You hide the truth beneath so many mysteries you could qualify as one of the hated English. Open your soul, knight. Reveal your secrets."

  Becket stilled as if caught off-guard. Then he curved a false grin. "I also love the view."

  He gestured to indicate their surroundings. "In truth, I consider this location a symbol of womankind." He roamed a slow gaze to the wet hem of her gown, then up to her ripped bodice. "The evil and the good as one enticing whole."

  She clutched at the open edges of her gown, but as if to verify his power he clamped his hands over hers, fire over ice.

  "The rows of vines, her tresses. The rim we stand upon, her breasts."

  He stroked his callused thumbs over the indecent swell of her partially exposed bosom in another of his unusual tortures. The peculiar heat she had felt before seeped into the core of her fear. She stepped back. He pulled her forward.

  "The Pyrenees foothills, her arms that embrace the castle like her beloved child."

  She shoved against his grip, but he forced apart her hands and seared his focus on her widening bodice. The newly-birthed heat sank a frightening path to her womanhood. He had too much effect on her feelings. She must escape his touch, escape him.

  He ran his tongue over the silvered fullness of his lower lip as if remembering his decadent torment of her but moments ago. "The cave, the dark mysteries of her heart that lure a man to brave the dangers of discovery and then learns too late he is forever lost."

  Torn between the urge to kiss him and the urge to run, she twisted for freedom, but he pressured her arms to her sides and captured her with his dark gaze as potent as his strength.

  "Non, 'tis as with the land, Lady Rochelle. Man's mission is not to be tamed by woman, but to tame, to control."

  He squeezed her hands as though to prove his power, then released her, rubbing his palms on his pourpoint as if to cleanse the feel of her from his skin.

  "The world through a man's eyes." Cursing her voice as unsteady as her legs, she crossed her arms over her chest and lifted her attention to the stability of the vista, determined to behave as though unaffected. "I have always seen the land as the giver of life."

  "And are they not the same? She is capable of giving birth, and death. The stream that flows is sustenance from her breast to feed the land."

  "Or the flow of her tears. And yet, her cave-like heart is not so mysterious. With persistence, a man might find the pathway to a secret treasure and find himself home, at last."

  "Or in a grave."

  "So little faith in the fairer sex, Sire Becket. Scorned by a woman?"

  She glanced over her shoulder and saw that he studied the entrance as if he watched for someone. He met her gaze, then turned away from her without acknowledging her question. Another secret, this of a past love. And yet she must worry about Pierre, not possible wrongs against her adversary.

  Moonlight lingered on Becket like a devoted lover as he picked something dark from the ground, then draped a cloak around her shoulders. Stunned with the realization that he had not only arrived at the bluff before her, but had stopped for a mantel on the way, she crossed the fabric over her breasts, thankful for the warmth, the coverage.

  He quirked a smug grin. "Your veiled truths are like that cloak. I know what lies beneath."

  He knew she had come to that cave because of the secret passageway. But she must be certain. If she escaped into the labyrinth and braved the dangers to reach Pierre, Becket might secure the hidden door and the cave entrance, entombing her to a slow death.

  "So, knight, beyond refuge, what is my supposed purpose here?"

  "You meet Gaston to plot my overthrow."

  "I told you---"

  "Lies."

  "That still doesn't answer why this cave, knight. Be more specific with your flawed surmisal."

  His silence screamed the truth. He knew of the secret tunnel. She must find another way to rescue Pierre. Or even better, convince him to allow her to stay. She studied the valley, a reminder of her dreadful loss should she fail.

  "Sire Becket, I request the rights of a hermit to dwell in a cave on the boundaries of DuBois. You will never see me or be bothered by me again. I only request one person to stay with me. He---"

  Becket grabbed her arm and she stifled a scream. His eyes blazed his fury. "You dare request a lover after you know my feelings on the matter? Now I understand why your frantic desperation not to wed me. You had already chosen another. You play me for a fool with your act of innocence. Who has stolen from me what is mine to take?"

  "You misunderstand."

  "Who is your love, Lady Rochelle? Gaston? Is he slow in coming to your rescue?"

  She jerked against the iron band of his hold. "Leave me be!"

  "Who?" His eyes narrowed. "The third conspirator? Curse you to perdition." Her head jerked as he shook her. "His name."

  "I but speak of a child---not mine---but he is someone I can hold when I am lonely and with whom I can share my life."

  Relief tangled with suspicion within his dark eyes and he relaxed his clamp. "You speak of Pierre? What is this odd attachment you have with that servant lad?"

  She attempted a dry swallow as she searched her mind for a safe answer. "I rescued him during the plague when he slipped from his barely-dead mother’s womb. I brought him here to the keep. He survived, but he is frail and needs my care."

  "Hah. As frail as a young goat eager to butt heads."

  "'Tis an illusion. Most times he is well, then of a sudden, he falls to the earth and writhes, and I know not how to help him. The other women believe him bewitched and refuse to aid him, so I am his only hope. But he's someone I can love, and who will love me in return."

  "Do you truly believe I would leave you in the wilderness, available to any lust-driven male who sniffs you out? Never. You go to the convent." He released her and stepped back.

  Tears welled and blurred his image. She turned her face toward the view, determined to hide her weakness. "I don't understand why King Jean has allowed you to do this to one of his loyal supporters. My father fought beside his uncle, King Phillip, at Crécy. Did you?"

  He didn't answer for a moment, then he cleared his throat. "I fought in the blood-bath."

  "How unfortunate you weren't one of the thousands of French soldiers slain that day. 'Tis rumored the English used a sorcerer to win."

  "'Twas not sorcery but much like your failur
e upon this bluff: abysmal planning, the poorest of battle sites, disastrous leadership."

  "Your concept of me is no surprise, but you criticize the crown?"

  "I criticize the ineptness. Did you know that while ten thousand French soldiers died that day, the English lost less than a hundred? 'Tis undeniable---King Edward won a great victory at Crécy. 'Twas a military revolution, a triumph of firepower over armor."

  Rochelle stared at him, stunned by his support for the enemy.

  "Don't look at me, thus, Lady Rochelle. I but admire that which is well executed, no matter which faction."

  Nausea roiled her stomach. "Do you also admire their well-executed chèvauchèes? Their murderous raids through the French countryside?"

  He shrugged. "'Tis unpleasant, for certain. But 'tis the custom of warfare to wreak as much damage as possible on both towns and country in order to weaken the enemy government. War is ugly, Lady Rochelle, no matter which side of the bloody battle-line one stands."

  "Unpleasant. And where were you during the unpleasant English chèvauchèe in '36?"

  He stilled as if uncertain how to answer.

  "Surely not in Cotentin, for only the cowardly English knights were present, striking at the innocent. July 14, the celebration of my eleventh birthday. The day the English taught me hatred."

  Becket hissed a breath. "You were there?"

  "I was more than there, knight. I fought, I feared, I screamed, I ran. I survived. The horrors I witnessed on the defenseless brewed a hatred so deep I vowed if I ever again saw an English knight, I would do all within my power to take his life in retribution for those who were massacred."

  A muscle in his jaw twitched. "And yet, you escaped."

  "By swallowing bile, biting my tongue, and slipping from shadow to shadow. I know you have fought in war, but you can't imagine the desecration of one of these raids. The entire village where we had stopped for the night went up in flames, every house looted, then torched. They burned mills and barns, fields and orchards, leaving behind a blackened land unable to support life for years afterward. Not even the abbeys, churches, or hospitals were spared. Anyone caught was killed---even children, nuns and priests. Men were tortured to reveal hidden valuables, then their throats were cut along with the throats of their livestock. Women suffered multiple rapes, sexual mutilation, and those pregnant . . . " She shuddered with violent memories, unable to speak the unspeakable.

  "I regret you had to experience such atrocity, Lady Rochelle, but terror is an indispensable accompaniment to every chèvauchèe and King Edward wreaked the maximum 'dampnum"---the total war which strikes at an enemy king through his subjects. The English use the tactic in hopes of making the French sick of war, and thus, surrender."

  "Your loyalties seem not to lie with France, knight, but England. Whose cause do you fight?"

  Becket turned from her scrutiny. "I fight my own cause. In the deepest part of me I am Languedoc, the nationality that existed before the French crushed this Southern region by lies and inquisitions. But enough of battles long past."

  He faced her, and the revenge in his moon-bathed eyes chilled her blood to ice.

  "Another war claims my interest, Lady Rochelle. Ours."

  She backed for protection between two large boulders into her favorite hiding place, then realized her error. The two stone-like walls angled outward to the bluff creating what once she had imagined as her triangular tower room, and now had become her prison, with Becket guarding the narrowed entrance.

  One corner of his mouth lifted in a sardonic grin. "How apropos. As a child this was my castle. All I needed was a fair lady in distress"

  He leaned against the boulder at his back, propping one foot on the stone that angled behind her, entrapping her between him and a leap to her death. Or a shove. Not ready to die, she pressed her hand against the wall, fighting panic.

  He glanced toward the cave entrance beyond her view as if to make certain they were alone, then shifted his hypnotic gaze to her.

  "Now, as to punishment for your betrayal."

  She stiffened with dread, not daring to breathe lest she might shatter.

  "You hate me, Lady Rochelle, yet know that if you have any hope of staying at DuBois, you must seduce me, your enemy. I hate you, but am challenged to prove to you, my enemy, that I will be as much a winner of this lustful battle as I am of DuBois."

  "Surely you but make sport of me."

  "'Tis your goal, and has been since my revelation upon the parapet, has it not? I but give you the opportunity before you are forever banished. The moon wanes along with your time, so I suggest you make haste."

  "But . . . but how can I seduce you when you are aware?"

  "A woman is born knowing such tricks. And 'tis part of the game; ‘tis how a man knows she wants him."

  "I fear the gods omitted me in their beneficence of such gifts. Perhaps 'twas a jest they played, planned for this very moment."

  "Do you think me a fool? You attempt enticement with every tempting breath that lifts your moon-sculpted breasts."

  Embarrassed by her carelessness, she clutched her cloak tighter across her chest.

  "The way you look, Lady Rochelle. The way you behave, move, the way you kiss me in return until I . . . " He paused as if to squelch an admission. "The way you pretend surrender when I taste your appetizing body, all in hopes I will forgo my hatred." As he lowered his foot to the ground and pushed to a stand, the moon ran her hands over the gloss of his midnight hair, over the silk of his pourpoint. His sword flashed as if with excitement. "But in the end, Lady Rochelle, 'tis I who will inflame you without being scorched."

  Fear ripped through her body. "You mean to burn me in revenge for your father?"

  "The flames of passion, my temporary bride. And as much as you'll want to escape the ecstatic torment, your own sensualities with entrap you more than these stone walls. The brilliance of the punishment is that, after this awakening, arousal will continue to taunt you during your nun-like existence. A fitting revenge, is it not? The woman who wants no man, will ache for any man."

  She spun to stare at the valley, the peace so at odds with her torment. She had already felt a stirring from his devilish behavior.

  "You really have no alternative. Unless you choose to accept your fate now and return to your chamber to ready for your departure."

  The moth to his spider.

  "Where is your mettle, Lady Rochelle? Think of DuBois. Think of Pierre. Think nunnery." She could hear the humor in his tone as if he enjoyed her discomfort. "Seduce me."

  She had no choice. But she didn't know how. Heaven help her. He would laugh at her, humiliate her . . . as punishment . . . his intention. And yet, she had borne worse. She surrendered to the urge to rankle.

  "While at the convent, knight, perhaps a passing peddler shall ease my discomfort, or mayhap a visiting male."

  "My armorer already beats the metal to form my new armor. He can as easily construct a chastity belt, and as I claimed before, only my key will fit the lock."

  Determination stiffened her spine. Prayer bolstered her courage. A flicker enlightened her memory of when she had overheard Angelique tempt a knight into her chamber. No, she just couldn't! But the besotted man had practically tripped over his tongue in his haste to lunge past Angelique's doorway.

  Feeling like an incurable fool, Rochelle concentrated on sultry. She parted her lips in a pout and turned toward the enigmatic Becket, one hand on her cocked hip, the other fluttering at her cloaked breast. She released a breathy sigh.

  "Bed me, you incredible man."

  Becket's explosive laughter spread across the valley to tell the world of her failure. Actual tears flowed from his eyes he laughed so hard. She wanted to strangle him, then die herself. She would stomp past him but he barred her way. He wiped his hands across his wet eyes, still laughing.

  "Do you hope to imitate Angelique? Methinks you'd best try another form of enticement."

  Anger flared in her chest. "I'm pleas
ed at least one of us enjoys your insane form of punishment. I would think you'd be bored with this entertainment by now. Have you no other to play court jester for you?"

  He grinned. "But you fit the part so well."

  She closed the distance and flung the cloak at his boots. "Pretend this is a handkerchief and kneel at my feet. Or perhaps I but use the wrong woman for example." She yanked her sleeve down to expose one shoulder. "Perhaps I should drape myself over your side like a cat in heat, run my bare foot up your shin." She grabbed, then clasped his hand to her chest and faked a dismayed sulk. "Mais, mon chere . . ."

  Becket's smirk faded, his attention on their entwined fingers pressed against her breast, his gaze as hot as his touch. She followed his focus, and her knees almost gave way. His knuckles pressed into the softness of one breast partially revealed by her bodice.

  He jerked away as if scorched. "Come, Lady Rochelle. I'll escort you to your chamber." He leaned down to retrieve the dropped cloak.

  She had ruined her last chance! Rochelle darted past him and pressed her hands against the boulders to cease his exit. "You gave me until dawn."

  Becket's attention locked on her bosom as he shook his head. "You have not the talent for this. And I have not the heart."

  "'Tis not your heart that is lacking, knight, but another male part."

  He lifted his affronted gaze to her face. "You question my manhood?"

  "You set the terms, knight. I have until dawn."

  "Lady Rochelle---"

  "You never intended for me to accept your dare. You expected me to quail with maidenly fears and run from you like a frightened rabbit as I have thrice this day. But you know me not." She sauntered toward him, running her fingers over the rough stone until the wall widened past her reach. "Quitting is for failures. I intend to win."

  "Your efforts will be of no avail."

  She stopped in front of him and tilted her head back to study his brooding face. She knew her bodice gaped, that he stared like a man starved, but she would leap off the cliff before she covered herself.