Meredith is a hot mess’s Reviews > This Ravished Rose > Status Update

Whatever the burden he bore she meant to discover it this night and the brandy was potent. She knew with a strange intuition that James was fleeing from himself. She knew clearly that he loved her as much as she loved him and this gave her the courage to fight for him. Whatever the night might bring it would be well worth the battle joined.

In this autumnal time of waiting, Katherine knew herself at last. She had come to the end of attempts to wrest from life that which she could not have. She would beg the crumbs of love from no man’s table. Her destiny would be her own. What form it would take she did not know, but she would be ready.

Ruefully, she thought that now she was a combination comrade and solacer, a foil for the sardonic give and take that still characterized their relationship, a wench to be bedded, and now a compatriot in treason. It did not really matter; he was the center of her life though she was but a corner of his.

His warm breath tickled her cheek and his hand rested on her breasts as he said, “Are you then with me, Katherine?”
“Aye, my dear lord, to the death.”
His low laugh made her realize what she had said. “It will not come to that.” Then his ardent hands lifted her to their mutual will.
Outside in the streets the time that was to shake all England had already begun.

Later in the reaches of the night, lying in the curve of his arm, too relaxed and slaked for any other passion, Katherine was able to tell him of Frances and her words, and of the gypsy. She did not yet trust the warmth between them enough to tell the full horror of her kidnapping. When the time was ready, she would speak.

The gypsy’s words fell like rocks into the pooled silence. “I cannot speak fair words. The beast mark is on you and you go into deadly peril before one more powerful than I. Watch and beware. Bear your love for the bright shrouded one before you as a talisman for there is your salvation if there is to be any for either of you. The power pushes me back, I can say no more.”

...The path curved and dipped as it seemed to grow smaller. Katherine felt restored; she had not realized how very much she needed to be alone at times. All that was missing here were the still waters of the Psalmist’s song. A branch dipped down in the wind and was tossed up again. Peace came to her as she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply of the freshness that surrounded her.

She could not see the flowers but the earth scents of the greenwood soon lured her deep into it. A bird burst into song over her head and abruptly stopped....

“He is a man torn.” She whispered the words and, as she did so, she pictured the tenderness and anger with which he made love.

Katherine was a realist, or perhaps women saw these things more clearly than men. She said, “How should that mark him so even until still?”
“His ideals were shattered, lady, and all his caring mocked. I think his kind truly love but once.”