The Shielded Heart Read online

  He released the breath on a groan when Anna leaned toward him and her breasts, covered only by her thin shift, brushed against his bare arm.

  She moved away from him as quickly as he did from her. “Wait—I’ll give you my tunic,” he said, hoping she’d attribute the strangled sound of his voice to the fact that he was pulling the tunic over his head.

  His breathing ragged, Swen thrust the tunic at her and tried to be glad she’d be decently covered once more, not that it made any difference in his mind.

  Anna reached for him and wrapped her arms about him, then laid her head against his chest. God in Heaven! The mass of her hair slid forward, covering most of his torso and sending a bolt of sheer lust straight to his already aching groin.

  Swen squeezed his eyes shut and prayed for control, a respite from this torture—anything to keep him from grabbing what wasn’t his to take.

  But evidently God was in no mood to listen to the pleas of a sinner such as he. Anna snuggled close, drew him into the web of scent and touch she wove so innocently about him and broke through the shield around his heart.

  Anna lowered her cheek against Swen’s chest, nuzzling the tickling curls and savoring the warm strength of his heart pounding beneath her ear. His pulse beat faster, and he groaned when she drew her curtain of her hair to cover him with whatever she had at hand.

  “Anna,” he whispered, his voice rough, his accent stronger than she’d ever heard it. “Unless you’re ready to give up your gift—and your innocence—you’d better get off me now.” His hands closed about her arms and moved her to sit beside him. He sat up too, from the sound of it. “I gave my word I would not take it—take you—but…” His hand found hers in the darkness, closed about it and held tight. “I’m not strong enough to resist you, my heart. I cannot, unless you help me.”

  “If I decide that my innocence is mine to give, what then?” she asked, her own heart beating wildly at her boldness—and at the enormity of what she suggested. “Would you accept my gift to you?”

  He pressed her hand against his chest, over his heart, the warm pulsing of his lifeblood beneath her palm a reassurance. “Anna.” He sighed. “I don’t know if you understand what you’re offering. ‘Tis not only your body—though I desire you, body and soul, more than I ever imagined possible. What if the abbot is right? If I make love with you and you lose your gift, what then?” He pressed his lips to her knuckles, then settled her hand on his chest again. “I would gladly care for you all your days, make you my wife, gift or no gift. My heart you have already. Nothing would please me more than to give you the rest of my body as well.” She could hear a smile in his voice at that, though his poignant words made tears well in her eyes.

  “You humble me.” She brought her other hand to his face and cupped his cheek. “And honor me more than I deserve.”

  “If you lost your talent, what then? I would grieve for your loss for your sake, though it wouldn’t affect my feelings for you. But your art has been your life, Anna. I don’t know if you’re willing to risk losing it. It’s not a decision to be made in the heat of the moment, while sitting beside a half-naked man who wants you.”

  “What of the woman who wants you, Swen Siwardson?” Anna couldn’t believe her bold words, or know how far she intended to go with them, but she refused to sit there like a lump after he’d given her so beautiful a gift as the words he’d said to her. “Because I do. I may not know everything lovemaking involves, but I know that I want to be near you always, that I ache for your touch.” She slid her fingers over his stubble-covered cheek to caress his lips, glorying in the kiss he pressed upon them. “I yearn to give you joy—” she rose on her knees and framed his face with her hands “—and to bring you pleasure.”

  Lowering her mouth to his, Anna tasted the softness of his lips, the hair-roughened flesh of his chin, before settling her lips over his, drinking in his sigh and giving it back to him. He sat motionless, not touching her, challenging her by his silence to do everything within her power to provoke a reaction from him.

  The weight of Swen’s tunic seemed to mold itself over her sensitized flesh, pressing down upon her breasts in their thin covering, making them ache for his touch. She needed to be closer to him, so she bunched up the hem of the tunic enough to swing about and sit in his lap.

  Though his hands remained by his sides, Swen’s indrawn breath as she settled her weight on him was encouragement enough that she’d found the right path. His flesh radiated heat everywhere she touched, as she smoothed her hands with slow deliberation down his throat, measured the breadth of his shoulders, buried her fingers in the cloud of curls covering his chest.

  All the while she spread dainty kisses over his face, nipped at his chin, nuzzled a place behind his ear that brought a quiet moan from his lips. “Do you yield, milord?” she whispered in his ear as her hands stroked his tightly muscled stomach above the waist of his braes.

  A near-silent growl rumbling from his chest, Swen caught her about the waist and lifted her, shifting her legs until she straddled him. His arms protected her back and supported her head as he laid her back on her discarded cloak and rose above her on his knees.

  “You do tempt me, my heart,” he murmured against her lips. He slowly pressed his lower body into the cradle of her thighs as he captured her lips, teasing her with his tongue until she opened for him.

  Now she was the one to sigh…and moan.

  She met the thrust of his tongue with her own, wanting to give him the same pleasure she felt with each new touch, new sensation. Burrowing her hands in his hair, she let the warm silken strands slide through her fingers. From the way he leaned into the caress, she could tell he liked it.

  He countered by placing his hand above her bare knee, his fingers curled around her thigh as they traced slow torment up the outside of her leg, then drew her leg up higher about his waist.

  Where their lower bodies touched, Anna wondered they didn’t burst into flames. Any questions she’d had about the precise details of lovemaking seemed to have disappeared with the feel of his manhood pressed to her most sensitive flesh, the rhythm of his body against hers; she knew now what she wanted, knew she could not wait much longer…

  She tore her mouth from his. “Swen, please,” she gasped. Frantic to touch him, to make him feel as she felt now, she slid her hands over his back and slipped them into the waist of his braes.

  “No!” he cried. His body shuddered, and he moved away from her.

  How she wished she could see his face, his eyes—to touch him with her gaze, if nothing else. She wrapped her arms about her middle and curled on her side, empty—bereft. The darkness, so welcome when she was cradled in his embrace, kept him from her now.

  “Anna, we cannot keep doing this,” he said from a spot in front of the door. His voice sounded as frantic as she felt. “Taunting and teasing each other…’tis no game. My body is on fire for you—even now, knowing ‘tis wrong for many reasons—I want nothing more than to come back to you, to make you mine body and soul. Do you understand now how difficult it is to resist the lure of desire? The next time we play at tempting each other, what if we cannot stop?”

  “What if I don’t want to stop?” she asked quietly. “Would you return to my arms, finish what we started and make me yours?” A bone-deep weariness settled over her, made her wonder at his resistance in the face of her eager acceptance of his touch.

  Did preserving her gift matter so much to him? He’d given his word to the abbot to guard her purity, aye, but he could be absolved of that promise. Or was there something more that kept him from taking what she had so freely offered?

  She sat up and drew the cloak around her shoulders; though she no longer felt the cold, she couldn’t stop shivering.

  “I will not take your innocence, Anna. I am not worthy of so valuable a gift.” He sounded defeated, his voice flat—not the Swen she’d come to know.

  “How can you say that?” she cried, wishing she could see him. “You are th
e finest man I’ve ever met.”

  He gave a mirthless laugh. “You haven’t many to compare me with, my heart. And you only know the man I’ve permitted you to see.” She heard him move closer to her. “What if I was a murderer, a man with the blood of his own kin staining his hands? A coward who does naught but run from life’s turmoil, who cannot bear to stay where he’s made a life for himself, for fear he’ll learn more than he wants to know about those he loves.” He found her hand in the darkness, his touch fleeting. “That’s the man you would give yourself to, Anna. He is not worthy of your gift—of you.” His voice shaking, he added, “I would not have you sell yourself so cheap.”

  A seam of gray light showed where he’d pulled aside the cloak covering the door. “Think on that before you offer yourself to me again,” he said as he stood and left.

  Did he truly expect her to believe those things of him?

  Did he believe that about himself?

  And how dare he toss those lies about himself at her like so many flaming arrows, then leave before tending to the fires he’d started?

  Anna scrambled out of the cloak and dragged it with her as she crawled to the door. Legs shaking, she surged to her feet and wrapped the cloak about her, then shoved the door out of her way. She staggered out into the blinding snow, the cold momentarily stealing the breath from her lungs.

  Gasping, she shouted into the swirling cloud. “Swen Siwardson, get back here! I’m not through with you yet.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Swen sat on the rocky ground outside the cavern, huddled in a ball, letting the wind and snow cool his blood. He’d come so close—too close, he knew—to taking Anna and making her his.

  He’d tried to resist her touch, her kisses, but he’d been right when he told her he didn’t have enough strength to do it. To him, Anna de Limoges was temptation personified, everything he hadn’t known he wanted in a woman. The more he learned of her, the more he came to care for her—to love her—the more he realized how little he deserved her.

  That knowledge couldn’t prevent his heart from aching, however, at the knowledge that she could never be his.

  He burrowed his face against his knees and felt as close to tears as he’d been since his long-ago childhood. Nothing that had happened to him before or since had caused this sense of loss.

  Anna limped out the door behind him, shouting, and tripped over him in the darkness. He caught her as she fell, then stood and set her on her feet.

  She pressed her hand to his chest. “Your skin is like ice! Please come back inside,” she pleaded. “I didn’t mean to drive you away.” She grabbed his hand and tugged him toward the cavern. “I’ll leave you alone, if you wish. I swear I won’t touch you unless you ask me to.” To his relief, she let go of him before he gave in to the urge to wrap her in his arms and let her warm him. “You cannot stay out here like this. I don’t care how cold it gets in Norway, you’ll never make me believe you run around half-naked in the snow.”

  Despite his dark mood, he nearly laughed. If she only knew…He’d yet to tell her about taking a steam bath, then running out into the snow or the icy water of the fjord.

  But the snow had done its work; his body had cooled, though his mind…His mind still seethed with conflicting thoughts and emotions.

  He grew weary of keeping his secrets, especially from Anna. Perhaps if he told her the truth about himself, she’d have nothing more to do with him.

  That might be for the best.

  It would certainly resolve this aspect of his life.

  He pushed aside the cloak covering the entrance to the cavern. “I pose no threat to you now. Come back inside with me,” he invited, allowing her to precede him.

  He waited until she’d seated herself near the wall before he spoke again. “Are you warm enough, or did going outside chill you?”

  She sighed. “I’m fine, Swen. What of you? You may take my cloak, if you like. Your tunic is warm enough—and it covers more of me than it does of you.”

  He shook his head, then realized she couldn’t see him. “No, I thank you. I don’t need it.” The faint chill permeating the cavern would serve to keep him alert—and to cool his passions, should they threaten to overtake him again.

  “Swen, I don’t understand why you allow me to get close to you, then push me away. Is it something about me?” Anna asked, her voice small and tentative—and very unlike her usual intrepid manner.

  Had he done this to her, destroyed her confidence with his erratic behavior?

  “No, Anna—the fault lies with me alone.” He shifted his back against the rough stone wall, seeking a more comfortable position, anything to delay revealing himself to her.

  The tale would only become harder to tell the longer he waited.

  “Your gift—” he hesitated. “Have you always had it?”

  “For as long as I can remember,” she said. “It’s a part of who I am. I am tall, I have brown eyes, I see images in my mind that I can translate into pictures to share. Everyone has their own abilities, strengths. Mine are simply different.”

  Her easy acceptance humbled him, made his own fears seem so petty in comparison.

  It also gave him hope that she might accept that part of himself that he kept hidden away.

  “Mine are different, too,” he said.

  She reached for him through the darkness, clinging to his arm when she found it. Her touch brought a comfort he hadn’t realized he needed.

  Anna clutched Swen’s arm, her worry for him easing somewhat as she felt the warmth of his skin. No wonder he’d accepted the truth of her gift so easily, if he had one of his own! Could his be the same? “Different like mine?” she asked.

  “Different from yours—or any others I’ve heard of. In my dreams…” He cleared his throat. “In my dreams I see other people’s lives. Usually the bad things—their shame, their losses, deaths, danger…Sometimes the things I see have already happened, although I can’t always tell. Or they could be far in the future.” She felt the pulse in his arm beat faster. “I knew there would be trouble when Lily gave birth. From what I saw, I thought she and the babe would die.” He inhaled sharply. “’Tis why I left Gwal Draig. I couldn’t bear to stay and watch it happen. Before I left, I found myself nigh hovering over her, to the point where I think Lord Ian believed I desired his wife. ’Twas nothing like that,” he added, sounding perplexed that anyone could believe that of him. “I only sought to protect her, though I had no idea what I was protecting her from.”

  Dear God, no wonder he’d been so shocked at Lord Rannulf’s news, for it made what he’d feared real, gave it truth.

  But that still didn’t explain why he’d refused to go back to Gwal Draig—or why he’d left in the first place. “Why did you leave?”

  “I told you—I knew something terrible would happen. I couldn’t warn them. That never helps,” he added flatly. “Believe me, it only causes more problems. I thought that this time, I could stay somewhere, make a new life for myself. But as always happens, once I’d been there a few months—once I came to know the people of Gwal Draig, to care about some of them—it seemed my past had come back to haunt me again.” He touched her hand where it still lay on his arm. “I imagine it’s only a matter of time before I’m forced to leave Murat, although perhaps this time the dreams won’t come.” His laugh sounded bitter to her ears, mocking. “Nay, this time I’ve already had them.”

  “You dreamed of Murat? You haven’t been here long.” Did he know more about the threat to them than he’d revealed? She refused to believe that, for Swen would never allow the danger to continue when he could prevent it.

  He laced his fingers with hers. “No, Anna, I haven’t dreamed about Murat since I came here. I dreamed of you before we ever met.”

  She almost feared to ask him. Did he know her fate? Did he know something about her future to account for his refusal to deepen his involvement with her?

  Mayhap he knew that if she gave herself to him, her gift would
be gone forever.

  She wished she could see him, watch his face as he spoke, measure the truth of what he told her in his eyes. But even as these thoughts entered her mind, she discounted them.

  She trusted Swen Siwardson with her life. She could trust him in this.

  “I gather you didn’t learn anything useful from these dreams,” she said lightly. “’Tis a pity. It would be nice to know the source of the threat to Murat.”

  “Don’t you wish to know what I dreamed?” He sounded surprised that she hadn’t asked.

  “Only if you wish to tell me,” she said. “Truly—dreams, be they real or imagination—are private. You need not tell me unless you want to share them with me.”

  “I’d tell you if I thought they meant anything we could understand, but I remember little of them, snippets of images, more of a sense of threat than anything else. That hasn’t changed since I’ve come to know you. Since I didn’t recognize you before, I thought they were simply dreams of a beautiful woman conjured up by my imagination.”

  He sounded embarrassed. Anna was intrigued. “Perhaps you should share these dreams with me after all,” she suggested.

  “I don’t remember much about them.”

  Perhaps there was hope for them yet.

  “Only that I knew someone meant you harm. We know that now clear enough.” Of a sudden, he let go of her hand with unseemly haste.

  They sat in silence for a time. Anna mulled over what Swen had told her; while she understood after a fashion why he’d left Gwal Draig, she knew there had to be more that he hadn’t told her. They’d likely never have a better time than this; once they left this place, they might never speak of these things again. The darkness provided the perfect mask, hiding them from each other, condensing what they said to the essence of their words and how they spoke them.

  And there was an intimacy here, sitting close together, sharing their warmth and their secrets as they awaited the dawn.

  She reached out to locate Swen, then sidled over to him. “When I agreed to be your friend, I meant it through good times and bad.” She touched his cheek lightly with her fingers. “I don’t think you’ve told me the bad—or only part of it. I can accept your gift, Swen, but I don’t believe you can. Will you share it with me—all of it—and let me help you?” She smoothed her fingertip over the furrow in his brow. “Please?”