Kathleen E. Woodiwiss(176)

Shanna met his glare and hurled a fierce reply. “You took my heart and set your fingers firm around it, then, no doubt delighted at your success, you rent it with unfaithfulness.”

“Unfaithfulness is only from a husband. You play the same to me and yet do say I am no spouse.”

“You plead you are my husband true and spite the suitors come to woo me.”

“Yea!” Ruark raged. “Your suitors flock about your skirts in heated lust, and you yield them more than me.”

Shanna paused before him, rage etched upon her face. “You’re a churlish cad!”

“They fondle you boldly and you set not their hands away from you.”

“A knavish blackguard!”

“You are a married woman!”

“I am a widow!”

“You are my wife!” Ruark shouted to be heard over the rising wind outside.

“I am not your wife!”

“You are!”

“Not!”

There they stood with but a yard’s length between them yet an ocean’s breadth apart, each firmly set in conviction, neither bent to yield, and anger writhing on each face until each seemed the visage of some twisted evil sprite. They gave no heed to the mounting fury that closed its grip upon the island; instead a thousand words rushed to their lips. Of epithets, a score or more were ready. For each it was a cause too righteous to be surrendered. But the raging night without had heard enough of petty threats and pleas.

A bolt of lightning flashed, bringing the room to a stark white and black for the sizzling space of a full breath. Long before the lightning died, the chamber was filled with a stunning crash of thunder that held its pealing voice until the stones of the walls seemed to tremble. It was still echoing when another bolt rent the air outside, and, in its deathly light, Shanna’s face showed suddenly stark with fear, her mouth frozen in a soundless scream of terror. The thunder came again and seemed to fling her toward Ruark, and suddenly her arms were choking tightly about his neck, her face buried against his throat. A pitiful, keening cry threaded thinly from her lips as she mindlessly sought whatever shelter he would offer. His ire forgotten, Ruark wrapped her in his arms and tried to still the quaking of her body as she clung to him. A gust of wind struck the inn and flung the inner shutters wide, sending gusts of rain and wind to lash the room and touch the candles out.

Ruark stood the shaking Shanna near the bed and closed and bolted the shutters against the violent blasts. The night was assaulted with an endless flash of lightning that seemed to touch the low island everywhere. The thunder followed in bellowing rolls and nerve-shattering crashes. The whole island was whipped and stirred into a hellish brew by the winds, which shrieked around the eaves and cornices to pelt any unwary fool who might venture in its path. Rain rattled like leaden shot against the shutters, now bowed and strained with the unrelenting fury of a hurricane.

Shanna cowered in the dark. The flickers of light showed Ruark her face, and his heart was wrenched by what he saw. Her eyes were wide, and tears streamed down her cheeks. She crouched as if she sought some den or lair away from the storm. As he took her into his arms, she clawed at his chest and mewled:

“Love me, Ruark.”

“I do, my love, I do,” he whispered softly in relenting pity.

The room flashed white, and he saw Shanna’s head roll from side to side. Her eyes were tightly closed, though tears still crept between the lids, and her face was twisted in a grimace of fright. She pressed her fists against her ears to shut out the beat of thunder that washed over them like a crashing breaker on the beach.

“No! No!” she shrieked against the din and caught his arm. “Take me! Take me now!” Anything to shut out and release her from this flood of fear that assaulted her from every side, even, it seemed, from within.

Shanna fell back upon the bed, pulling Ruark down with her. In another flash he saw the intent eagerness of her face as she pressed against him. His blood warmed, and he forgot all else of the moment.

The storm could have been contained in the room and they would have given it no heed. There was between them that storm of passion that blinded as surely as the greatest stroke of lightning and deafened their ears as completely as a crashing roll of thunder close about. Each touch was fire, each word was bliss, each movement in their union     a rhapsody of passion that rose and built until it seemed that every instrument in all the world combined to bring the music of their souls into a consuming crescendo that left them still and quiet, warm like the softly glowing after-coals of a universal holocaust. Shanna lay limp and drowsy on his arm, her cheeks still flushed with the gentle blush of pleasure, her breath softly stirring the furriness on his chest. Had the world beat at their door, Ruark doubted that he could have lifted a finger for their defense. With stupendous effort he turned his head and buried his face in her hair, savoring the fragrance of it.