“Just like unfaithfulness is most unappealing in a husband!”
She suddenly blushed and bit her lip, looking mortified that she had said that.
He quirked an eyebrow at her. “You find my behavior disturbing? You said before that you do not care.”
“I don’t,” she said quickly. “It’s—it’s your thinking that I find disturbing. You seem to believe that men should be allowed to do whatever they please. You really think men are superior to women, don’t you?”
“In all the ways that matter,” he said honestly. “But I suppose that you would disagree?”
“Yes! Being bigger and stronger and taking territory and ... and making conquests are not all there is to life. Women at least think before they act, especially when it comes to ... to ...”
“Lovemaking?” he finished for her with a mocking grin. “Do you mean to say that women do not get aroused with passion as men do?”
“Not the way you think. Women don’t just ... just throw themselves at everything that moves. Maybe tavern wenches are different, but most women need to be in love before they make love.”
He laughed. “My inexperienced lady, you must be as innocent as you claim if you still believe in so childish an idea as love.”
She gazed at him blankly, her expression filled with genuine amazement. “You don’t believe in love?”
“It is a woman’s word, not a warrior’s,” he said dismissively. “It is not something a man can claim with his sword or hold in his hand or own. It is not something solid, like land and walls, to build a future upon. My brother thought it real, and he is dead.”
He regretted letting that slip as soon as the words had passed his lips.
A gleam of feminine understanding came into her eyes. “Your brother fell in love with someone ... and died because of her?”
“He allowed himself to be softened by a female,” Gaston said tightly. “I’ll not make his mistake, ever.”
To his irritation, she would not let the subject drop.
“But haven’t you ever felt love?” she whispered incredulously. “For anyone? Not for your mother and father? Or your brother—”
“My mother died soon after I was born. My father and brother held my respect for their honor and skill as warriors.”
“So you ... grew up without love?” Sadness clouded her blue-gray eyes. “And you’ve never known anyone who truly loved someone else?”
Gaston clamped his lips into a thin line. He thought of Gerard and Avril, who had paid far too high a price for what they had called “love.”
And he thought of his friend Sir Connor of Glenshiel and his wife, Lady Laurien. They had been married for five years now, had two sons and a daughter. In letters, they, too, spoke of love.
But mayhap it was merely an extreme form of passion between them, one that a noble, honorable knight such as Connor could indulge in, without the weakness it brought to lesser men.
But that could never be true for him.
“Love is naught but a word. A false word some men use to entice gullible females into bed,” Gaston said with a steely edge to his voice. “I prefer more honesty in my dealings. I do not use falsehoods, nor do I need them. Pleasure is what is real. Pleasure is enough.”
That comment made her eyes fill until they were shining with such deep pain that it was almost more than he could bear—and worst of all, he could tell she was feeling that pain for him, not for herself. She did not argue with him, only shook her head, speechless.
“Save your pity, ma dame,” he snapped. “Love is the last thing I would want from a woman. It is a tether women use to keep their men close to hearth and home—and I have no wish to be tethered. Or so weakened that I am rendered useless.”
“But that’s not—”
“I do not wish to discuss it further.”
“But love isn’t a tether! It doesn’t restrict you, it frees you. It isn’t just something to build a future on,” she insisted with the unshakable faith of a believer, “it’s the only thing.”
“You are wrong,” he said simply. “Someday, when you have greater experience, you will understand that.”
“Never. I’ll never understand that. And you don’t ever have to worry about me trying to seduce you, because I would never make love with a man I didn’t love.”
“Truly, milady?” he said with soft mockery. Her stubborn, unyielding insistence ignited a need in him to prove her wrong. “Do you believe that you have such control over your passions? Are you made of ice?” He lowered his head to hers. “Have you forgotten so quickly how you responded to this?”