My Beloved by Karen Ranney Page B

should be there, not here.
    If he opened the door and went inside, it would be an intrusion as invasive as the visit to the oriel. Yet, he pushed open her door, wondering as he did so if Grazide slept within the chamber. He stood on the threshold, listening, his senses attuned to darkness as if he were a creature of night. There was only the soft sounds of breathing, a hand sliding across a sheet in sleep. But Grazide was not there.
    The room was shaded blue from a cloud-covered moon and smelled of roses.
    Sebastian stood at the end of the bed, his gaze upon Juliana.
    Her hair was a black stain across her pillow. She was curled on her side. A fist rested against her lips,her other hand splayed open upon the sheet. As he watched, her breath seemed to hitch and release, as if she gasped in her sleep.
    He’d had no choice but to summon her. He had been excused the delay in claiming his bride by the simple fact he’d been on crusade, and had subsequently been captured and imprisoned. But after he’d returned home to Langlinais, it would have incited suspicion not to have sent for her. As it was, almost a year had elapsed before he’d done so.
    She had no idea how vital her role as his wife was, how important her decision to stay had been to him.
    She had smiled. In the oriel. A small, sad smile such as one who grieved might wear. That smile had twisted something inside him, something buried and long dead. Or at least he had thought. Her smile, merely an upturn of lips, had sparked it to life again. Urged it to fruition, to completion.
    Longing.
    They should not have released her from the convent, not an innocent such as she. She nearly had her newborn down upon her cheeks, so naive, so tenderly young she was. It hurt to witness such purity, to be in the same room with it.
    If he could pay the remainder of his ransom, then Langlinais would safely be in her hands. One day in the future he would simply remove himself from the world. Juliana’s presence would be his safeguard. While they could take Langlinais from him, they could not wrest it from her.
    He had given no thought to the woman he would use as his pawn. Yet, now he regretted that he had not considered her. Juliana was too young to be used in this game, too innocent to mingle with players who had long since lost their naïveté and their kindness.
    She had trembled before him. Yet, she had stood her ground. An intriguing woman. In another time. Or another place. Perhaps only in his dreams, where his passion was given full rein.
    What manner of woman makes ink at dawn? Who looks eager when speaking of rust and wine? Who walked with a jaunty step and bore ink stains upon her fingers. Who smelled of roses and asked if he was Death in a voice that quivered. Who touched him in his mind in his sleeping hours.
    He wished he had never brought her here.
    Â 
    Juliana waited until the door closed again and only then did she breathe deeply. She’d slept heavily all her life, but had done so among the company of other girls. Night was not so much a quiet time as it was one of muted sounds. Sister Etherida’s snores, the dreamy murmurs of a sleeper, the movement of a body upon a mattress stuffed with hay, a sound of disgust as an old, flat pillow mimicking a brick in softness was pounded into shape.
    Nights at Langlinais were filled with silence, as if the great hall and the family chambers were muted beneath a soundless cloud. For this reason, she stirred often and rested less well.
    She had known it was him immediately. He did not blend into the shadows as much as he commanded them. Was it just the effect of the monk’s robe he wore, or was he truly as large as he appeared?
    Her heart still beat wildly, a rhythmic boom no less loud than the sweep of ocean to the shore. She’d seen it on the journey to the convent so many years before, had been transfixed with the crash of waves upon the rocks, and the thundering sound of thepower of the sea.