Her big, beautiful, green eyes welled withtears and her lips quivered.She tried to smile, but her facecrumpled and she threw her arms around Roark’s neck and buried herface into his neck.“I want to go home so badly,” she sniffed.“ButI don’t want to leave you.Ever.”
Roark hugged her close and ran a hand throughher hair.“I know, love,” he whispered in her ear, ridiculouslyclose to tears himself.“I know.”
She lifted her head and met his gaze.“Comewith me,” she said, her eyes pleading with him.“Please.”
Aware of the others in the room, none of whomwere even pretending not to watch and listen, Roark took her facein his hands.“I wish I could,” he told her.“I want to, you know Ido.”
“But you won’t.”
“No,” he said, “I won’t.”He touched hisforehead to hers.“I love you, Ali girl, so verra much.But Icannot.I will not leave my family and so many others to suffer theconsequences of my actions.”
She sniffed and nodded her forehead againsthis and laid her palm on his cheek.“You wouldn’t be the man I loveif you did.”She rolled her forehead against his.“Which leaves uswhere we’ve been since the day we met.”
Roark kissed her forehead and stared intoeyes as bright and green and dewy as new grass after a spring rain.“I wouldn’t trade a single moment of our time together for all themoments to come, my lady owl.”
“Nor would I, sir stag,” she whispered, hercheeks rising.“I will treasure them dearly until I have no moremoments left in this life.”
A loud sniff and a cough brought Roark’s headup.Six pairs of eyes watched them intently as Lady Siusan swipedat her cheeks and Agnes dabbed at hers with her sleeve.Owencleared his throat while Gavin coughed and snorted, and Niels andGrant looked at Roark with expressions of pity and envy.
Roark took a shaky breath in and blew it out.“Now you know how it is between Princess Alina and me.”
Owen coughed and cleared his throat.“I wouldsay so,” he said with a low chuckle.“However…”
“However,” Roark finished for him.“We aredetermined nobody outside of this room will.”It wouldn’t changethe gist of their story if anybody did, but it would certainlycomplicate things.
“Aye, well, we’ll see how that goes,” Owensaid good-naturedly enough.“Well then, unless anybody else has anyquestions or declarations to make?No?”He stood and offered hiswife his arm.“We shall retire for the night and see you all in themorning.”
Roark would have preferred to stay in theroom alone with Alina, but Niels stood at the door while everyoneelse filed out, and by the look on his face, he was waiting forthem to leave.Roark offered Alina his arm and escorted her pastthe taciturn greybeard and the few remaining people in the commonroom and up the stairs.
“I’m going to miss you tonight,” he told heras they hovered outside her door, putting off the inevitable.
“I only seem able to sleep with you by myside or wrapped around me,” she said with a shy and seductivesmile.“Maybe you could come to my room later?”
“It’s probably not the smartest thing to doour first night here,” he said.
“Probably not,” she agreed.
“It would be our first time together in areal bed.”
Alina grinned, more seductive than shy,pecked him on the cheek and opened her door, peeking out at himbefore shutting it.“I won’t throw my bolt.”
Roark went to his room, undressed, andflopped onto his big, soft, lonely bed, where he tossed and turnedso much he had to get up to untangle the bed linens from around hislegs.
Once up, he gave up trying to sleep and pacedaround the room several times before taking the spyglass andlooking out the window.He focused on the face of the waning moonas it rose over the tree line of chestnuts bordering the easternedge of the keep’s yard, yet all he could see was a pair of springgreen eyes, heavy-lidded and dark with passion, staring dreamilyinto his.
He tried to focus on the trees when a darkshadow flew across his sight.He followed it to a fence post, wherean owl lit and perched, twisting and turning its head this way andthat, searching for prey.The owl went still, and Roark followedthe direction of its gaze to where an eight-point stag stood at thetree’s edge, its head erect and ears twitching.
“Damnation.”
Roark set the spyglass on the bed, pulled ona pair of breeches and a tunic, cracked open his door, peeredaround the quiet, empty hallway, and padded barefoot over toAlina’s door.He considered knocking, and then pushed open theunlocked door.He stepped in and glanced at the bed, which wasmussed and empty.There was movement at the open window and Roarkheld his arms out.Alina flew into them.“Damn, Alina,” he rasped,burying his nose in her hair, inhaling the sweet perfume of cherryblossoms.“What are we going to do?”
“We’re going to make love,” she said, kissingand nipping her way up his throat to his jaw.“We’re going to makelove and love each other as much and as often as we can until wecan’t anymore.”
Roark hooked his finger under her chin andlifted her gaze to his.“I will never not love you, my ladyowl.”
Her eyes glistened.“I know, sir stag,” shesaid, smiling through her welling tears.“Somehow I’ve alwaysknown.Now kiss me.Kiss me and make love to me and take me to ourown special world.”
CHAPTER 13
