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“Because you’re risking your life.” She stared at the ground as she spoke.
“I could not allow you to think me dead or assume my love had died.”
“It would be better if I did,” she said.
“No, Charlotte. There are ways to bring us together.”
He spoke with such certainty, but she didn’t feel it in herself. “Impossible.”
“You’re here now, unwatched.”
She shook her head, and taking a deep breath sought to make some sense of this event. “That is not true. Everyone watches. Everyone is Mountbane’s spy. We’ll be lucky if you’re not suddenly discovered in your hideaway and I’m not sent back to the tower.”
“Can you leave the castle in the night?” he asked.
“I would not attempt it. Especially because it would lead to you. I will not put you in danger, Tristan. I shouldn’t even say your name.”
“I appreciate your faithfulness, woman, but I will take care of myself. I intend to have you. If not now, then soon. The scheme is in the works.”
“No, no schemes, love. I don’t want you dead.” She spoke as adamantly as she could and still keep her voice hushed.
“Tonight.”
“Not tonight, never!”
“Take a moonlit walk and meet with me on the dark side of the castle.”
“Anywhere is dangerous.”
“But less so there.”
“I cannot have you sexually,” she added with tears starting to burn in her eyes, as she finally looked his way. “He’s bound me in a chastity belt—forever.”
“Forever has no meaning now, milady.”
“In this world it does.”
“You are too dour. Meet with me tonight. It will be safe or we’ll die together. And then, what does it matter?”
d
There were passionate embraces and a thousand kisses, but no sex. There were promises from Tristan and a strangeness about him that Charlotte had never seen before. Gaining entry into his former world was a challenge the man relished, as though nurturing his power to execute this grand deception gave the nobleman a special satisfaction.
He came to warn his Charlotte—to love her and remind her that life was not as hopeless as she feared. He wouldn’t rescue her, not yet. It would be far too dangerous for Tristan to travel through this climate with a woman, but he would effect her rescue—soon. He had come to give her hope.
Much to Charlotte’s dismay, however, Sir Tristan’s visit only made her more melancholy. Worse yet, his appearance ignited her sexual passions at a moment when she believed they’d finally disappeared forever.
Once he was gone, there was no way to pacify her body. Every night was misery, every day an endless memory of his touch, and the aroma of his body, and the look of darkness in his bold, black eyes. Her body ached with such passion that reckless thoughts and senseless schemes began to ferment in her now demented mind. They seemed to drive her mad until, impulsively, several weeks after the auspicious meeting she was driven to Lord Mountbane.
“I give up, milord,” Charlotte came to her husband in the morning, after the last of a dozen restless nights. “I plead with you, my husband. Give me back my life.”
Mountbane found her presence in his chambers bothersome. “I made my decree six months ago. I will never change my mind. Now get out of here.”
The night whores in his bed were waking from their long night disgruntled by this woman’s talk.
“No, sir, please, I implore you. Anything, anything to have my body back.”
“Ooo, Mountbane, come here,” one sensuously slumbering woman rose on the bed to draw him back.
