Princess of fire, p.46
Princess of Fire, page 46
It seemed to Fallon that he was calling from a long way away. She opened her eyes, but they fell shut again. He lifted her and held her tight. He looked around and saw that dead men lay everywhere. Falstaff, Rollo, Steven, and Richard were backing carefully toward him, looking warily for some further opponents. More of his men joined them.
A victory cry went up among the men. “Have we any dead?” Alaric asked hoarsely.
“Two, my lord,” someone replied. Two of his young knights had fallen. Alaric ordered them buried quickly, and he held his wife tightly against him.
Richard stood anxiously before him. “The Lady Fallon . . .”
“She lives, Richard. She lives. Take her while I mount, then hand her up to me, so that we may start for home.”
So it was that when Fallon opened her eyes again, Alaric’s arms were around her and he held her tight, and the moon was high above them. He stared down at her gravely, and she tried to reach for him, but her hand fell.
“Alaric!” she whispered brokenly. “Alaric—”
“Hush.”
“But I must tell you—”
“Hush.”
“Nay, Alaric. Whether you believe me or not, I must tell you. I love you. You came and you conquered, and I swear, Alaric, I had given up the fight!”
He smiled very tenderly. “Nay, Fallon, you have conquered. I did not know how to love or how to trust. You fought me with honor, and you gave me peace with honor. I was almost fool enough to lose it all. I was afraid that you could not love me enough to hold the peace between us. But that little scamp”—he nodded toward Richard—“told me then that I must love you—or let you go. I could not let you go.”
“Oh, Alaric! I do love you, so much. I have been trying to tell you.”
He drew up on Satan’s reins. The party moved ahead of them with silent understanding, and beneath the moon, he kissed her with tenderness and hunger—and the promise of all his love. Then he brought her hand to his lips and kissed the palm.
“Love, believe me,” he said, “you have conquered this heart and this soul. I am ever your most ardent slave.”
A smile tugged upon her lips, and she found herself able to giggle even after the horror of the night.
“Don’t laugh at me, Saxon wench!”
“Princess,” she reminded him sweetly.
“Countess,” he corrected her.
“Whichever, my lord husband, I do find it hard to imagine you anyone’s slave.”
“Well . . . perhaps,” he admitted arrogantly. But then he added in a deep and husky whisper, “Still, Fallon, I shall love you. Most gladly and freely for all of my life. God knows that the world we live in will be hard for us, yet I swear, come what may, lady, I love you with all of my heart.”
She touched his cheek. “Come what may.”
Alaric nudged Satan, and they started off again. Fallon stared up at her husband’s handsome features and fine gray eyes, and she sighed in sudden contentment.
“Father Damien says that this is how peace begins. War may plague the country, but peace comes between men and women.”
He looked down at her again and smiled. “Aye, love. For where we live, there will be peace. We will reside in Fallon’s world, and we will let no horror or bloodshed enter. We will make our world strong; we will work at it.”
“Aye, love!” she agreed, and she cuddled against him. “Alaric!”
“Aye?”
“You must see that Richard is knighted. He saved my life tonight, too. He slew a berserker with his little hunting knife.”
He kissed her. “He will be knighted, lady. Now, tell me, do you request that honor yourself?”
She laughed again. “Nay, my lord! My sword is laid at your feet, husband, I swear it.”
“And my heart, lady, is laid at yours. I swear it.”
It was near dawn when they returned to Haselford. The hall was still alive with people who most eagerly awaited their return. Edith cried out her joy, Mildred anxiously hugged Fallon, and even Heath came, with his wife at his side, to welcome her back with a relieved smile.
Fallon looked at her mother eagerly. “Where is Robin?”
“In the arms of our guest,” Edith said happily.
“What?”
She looked by the fire, and then she cried out gladly, for a tall figure in the dark robes had stood and turned to her, her sleeping babe in his arms. “Father Damien!”
“God’s blood!” Alaric swore, coming forward. “Damien! What do you do here? I thought you were in Normandy!”
The priest shrugged. “I knew to come, though I did not know the danger. I was too late, and yet now that I am here, I am content.”
Alaric arched a brow at him. A silent question passed between the two, but Fallon scarce noticed it as she eagerly took her son, and quickly excused herself to feed him.
It was full morning, and as Fallon returned Robin to his crib there was a knock on the door. Answering it, Fallon smiled to see Father Damien there.
“This time, Father, I have the second sight. I knew you were there.”
He stepped inside and silently blessed her sleeping son. “I am leaving. I came to say good-bye.”
She cried out softly in protest. “You have just come—”
“But William is not aware that I left him. I, too, am a Saxon, Fallon. I, too, must work to earn his trust.”
She smiled at him and gave him a quick hug. “I don’t understand anything about you, Father. But you cared for my father, and you care for Alaric, Robin, and me. I am grateful.”
“Aye, Fallon.”
“Am I at peace yet, Father?”
He smiled at her gravely. “Aye, Fallon, you have found peace within your heart, and that is all that any man or woman may seek.”
“We fought, and we lost. They conquered.”
He shook his head. “Nay, Fallon, though it may seem so. Your father fought a glorious battle. He was valiant and brave. But believe me, Fallon; he sits in a higher court, and he, too, knows peace now. This generation will not know it, and perhaps not even the next or the next. But we have won, Fallon. We, the English. Time will tell the tale. We will be a greater people for it, for the Normans bring us much. In the end, we shall conquer. We shall remain English to the heart, to the soul, to the very core. In time, the conquerors will speak our language. They will even claim to be English. And they will be.”
He kissed her cheek, and when she would have spoken, he pressed his fingers against her lips.
Then he bowed and left her.
Fallon sat down and gazed at her sleeping son. Fervently she thanked God for her life, and for her son. And for Alaric’s life. For when she thought that she had lost him, she felt that she had lost her reason to live.
She heard the door open and close. And then she felt his hands fall gently upon her shoulders, and she touched them reverently with her own. “Father Damien was here,” she murmured.
“I know.”
“He said we have come through very well.”
“Aye, I believe that,” Alaric agreed softly.
She turned and buried her head against his hard belly, and he moved his fingers gently through her hair.
“I do love you so very much!” she whispered. “I thought they had killed you, and I—”
“Hush, love.”
“I did not want to live myself.”
He lifted her chin and smiled tenderly into her eyes. “Fate has stolen much from you, Fallon. But she has given to us richly, too. Let us question no more. I am alive, and you are here, safe with me. Our son sleeps sweetly, and will grow healthy and strong. We have come through the savage tempest, and what is left is our ever-conquering love. We must believe in that.”
She rose against him and kissed him sweetly. Her arms curled around his neck and she smiled radiantly for him, warmed by the tenderness in his gray eyes, secure in the sweet possessive strength of his arms.
“Then come, my lord, and hold me, and fill me with that all-conquering love, as I would fill you.”
“Aye, my wife, and gladly,” he said softly, and sweeping her from her feet, and with a beautiful new dawn bursting through the windows, he proceeded to do so.
Don’t miss Heather Graham’s
BLUE HEAVEN, BLACK NIGHT,
coming from Zebra Books this summer!
THE DREAM
The living image of a knight’s dream,
Elise conceals a shocking secret:
she is the illegitimate daughter of Henry II.
THE BLACK KNIGHT
A fierce and magnificent warrior,
Sir Bryan Stede follows no law but his own . . .
until he beholds the exquisite Elise.
Duty keeps her his reluctant prisoner.
Fate will transform her into his cherished bride.
Despite everything between heaven and hell
that will come between them . . .
Heather Graham, Princess of Fire
