CHAPTER FOURTEEN
‘If you knew how much I’ve longed for this
day you might have got here sooner,’ Eve heard a deep voice grumble when Ranulf
Daubenay got over the impact of her landing in his arms like a ripe plum off a
tree. ‘Welcome, laggard lady,’ he added with all sorts of ideas about making up
lost time in his bold gaze.
She felt mature strength in his honed body
against hers this time and she wondered what battles he’d fought while she was
away.
‘How long have I been gone?’
‘Far too long,’ he murmured. There was
such a heady longing in his brilliantly blue eyes, she felt sinfully tempted to
give up her quest and stay right here.
‘I’m serious this time, Ranulf, how long
is it since we met?’ she demanded, wriggling in his arms to remind herself
Sebastian was her reality, not a magnificent buccaneer from another time.
‘Five long years, my lady. Half a decade
of yearning for this...’
He lowered his head and his mouth teased a
whisper above hers before taking a hungry kiss she wanted to fall into and
never think again. She felt goose-bumps slide along her spine as he nuzzled her
mouth to test her lips with a lick that made her shiver with wanting more. He
let the slick satin of her dress slide her down his vigorous body until she was
on her feet again and she gasped at the emphatic message that body sent her
about how strongly he’d yearned and still did. Ranulf kept his eyes open and
all his wicked intentions to seduce and daze her until she couldn’t leave were
there in his blazing blue gaze. He nipped at her mouth as she slicked it and tasted
him on her tongue. All they could never share twisted and fought against the
desire to forget any other Daubenays existed in his arms.
‘You’ve been fighting?’ she murmured as
her exploring fingers felt scars and welts on his upper arms and torso and her
heart raced at the thought of him risking his body against sword and dagger.
‘Only restlessness and boredom today, my
lovely lady, but treason and war plague this realm and I must fight for my
Queen and country,’ he said soberly. ‘Would there was a better way to settle an
argument than this senseless slaughter of fathers and sons on both sides.’
‘Aye, would there was,’ Eve echoed as she
saw the true depth and breadth of this man’s humanity under the rogue’s charm
he used to hide it from the wider world.
‘You’re leaving me?’ he asked with a depth
of sadness it hurt her to inflict even as she nodded regretfully.
‘I have to.’
‘No, you don’t have to go, any more than
Phillip of Spain had to send half the ships in Europe to overwhelm our little
island because our stubborn Bess won’t marry him or bend to his will. You’re
only leaving me because you don’t want to stay.’
‘Ah but I do,’ she argued and the ache for
him was hot and heavy in her belly and even heavier in her heart, for he was a
warrior and a man she could have been proud to love. ‘I have to take the dagger
back and find the emeralds. You must forget me and choose a lady as bold and
brave as you are, Ranulf. If you don’t, my love can’t exist in the time and
place where I belong with your many times future heir.’
‘You twist and turn words better than a
poet or a playwright.’
‘No, if I did I might be able to make you
understand why it’s so important that I get back to him.’
‘I know about my own loneliness, Lady in
Green, and will soon learn more, but here, take this with you,’ he offered and
held out the jewelled dagger sheathed on his belt.
Instead of taking it, Eve watched in
horror as her own hand seemed to waver and fade as she reached out to grasp it.
‘I can’t,’ she protested as she lost the
reassurance of Ranulf, as solid and completely a man as any she had ever met,
even as he morphed into the brasher Sir Ranulf she first met earlier tonight,
or whatever time it was in this mess of then and now she was caught up in.
‘At least this must be yours, Lady,’ the
younger and even bolder Ranulf said with his wicked grin, ‘remember me whenever
you look on it, my Emerald Queen,’ he urged and spun a brilliant cut emerald
towards her that looked oddly familiar.
It felt warm from his proximity and she
marvelled at the weight and fineness of the stone even as she felt herself torn
out of Ranulf’s time as if she was being wrenched from someone precious. She
sighed, for yet another might have been, as she slipped one of the Meryngham
Emeralds into the wisp of an evening purse still wrapped securely round her
wrist and wondered where on earth she might land next.
English author Elizabeth Beacon is delighted to take part in Eve's surprising journey and had enormous fun throwing a new challenge at the poor girl. Eve promises to be a match for any rascally ancestor of Sebastian's she meets on her path to true love. Visit Elizabeth's website at: www.elizabethbeacon.co.uk
* * *
Elizabeth Beacon's Seaborne Trilogy continues with:
The Scarred Earl, Harlequin
Historical, May 2013
The Black Sheep's Return, Harlequin Historical, August 2013
The Black Sheep's Return, Harlequin Historical, August 2013
