The Warrior Poet by Kathryn Le Veque Page B

me, force your hated enemy to bow to your superior
strength and will so you could return to Eden and boast of your conquest over
the de Gare heiress? Is that what you intended, Demon?"
    He sighed,
annoyance joining his other emotions. "If my goal was to humiliate or
degrade you, I would have done so by now," the flicker of an armored
gauntlet amongst the leaves caught his attention and he bent down, retrieving
his hastily-discarded gloves. "And as for returning to Eden, I do not
expect to return home for some time."
    Her gaze cooled,
her eyes smoking with curiosity. She had asked him at the onset what he
intended to do with her and he had rebuffed her request. Suddenly, she saw an
opportunity to seek her answer.
    "Why
not?"
    "Because
I will be with you."
    "You are not
taking me to Eden?"
    "Nay."
    "Then where
are we going?"
    He glanced at her
as he secured his left gauntlet. "Does it matter?"
    She nodded, slowly,
trying to keep her manner calm. She was not so naive that she did not notice he
responded more easily to her when she was rational and collected. "It
does. I should like to know where I am to spend the remainder of my life."
    He cocked an
eyebrow. "Who is to say you are going to spend the rest of your life a
captive?"
    She held his gaze a
moment before looking away, wandering to a rotted stump amongst the overgrowth.
The moment she planted her damp bottom upon the wood, she realized her fatigue
was great and her shoulders sagged with resignation and sorrow.
    "Henri St.
John captured my grandfather twenty years ago and held him captive," her
voice was faint. "We never saw him again."
    Christian well remembered
the capture of Glenn de Gare. Although he had been fostering at Ludlow at the
time, being a lad of eleven, he would never forget the triumphant missive he
received from his father announcing the capture of their greatest de Gare
enemy. A man who had been sentenced to the vault of Eden and
who had died in the nauseating hole less than a year later.
    His rotted corpse
was still chained to the walls of the lower level, a grisly trophy for the St.
Johns to savor. In fact, his father still spoke to the cadaver now and again to
announce St. John victories. But gazing at Gaithlin's lowered head, Christian
was unwilling to divulge the fate of her grandfather. As a loyal St. John, he
should have been pleased to announce the fact; but as the heir to Eden, weary
of a foolish ancestral war, he was reluctant to be a party to her pain.
    "Surely you
are not old enough to remember your grandfather," he said quietly, hoping
to divert the subject.
    She shrugged,
rubbing her arms for warmth as the rain in the canopy increased. "I was
two years old when he was captured. I remember images of the man, his gentle
voice, but naught else."
    Christian cocked an
eyebrow. "You are twenty years and two? Good Christ, wench; how is it that
you are so old and unmarried?"
    Sharply, her head
came up and he saw a flash of fury in the beautiful blue depths. "No one
wants to marry a woman whose only dowry is a seventy-year-old feud and a
battered fortress."
    Abruptly, she
averted her gaze, hoping he would allow the subject to rest. She didn't like
speaking on her married state, knowing she was far too old and too poor to be
considered a viable marriage prospect. The seventy-year war with Eden had not
only left the de Gares laced with hatred and bitterness, but it had left them
poverty-bound as well. No one wanted a destitute heiress.
    Depressed with her
gloomy thoughts, she could feel his stare against her back. An inquisitive,
piercing stare that annoyed and unnerved at the same
time. Emotions on the surface as a result of their exchange, she found herself
lingering on a particular issue that had seen well to vex her from the start. A
degrading mention he continued to utilize, a term she considered offensive.
Strange how above all her other concerns, one particular subject would come
into focus.
    Moving away from
the topic of her dowry and marriage