“Do you want his love or his life? Would you rather sing over his grave or know he is alive but in another woman’s arms?”
“I’m new to this idea of love, but right now the idea of another woman touching him makes me prefer his death.”
Joss tried to keep from smiling. “Is that what you truly want?”
“No,” she said softly. “I want him alive, but I also want him with me.”
“You must choose one.”
“And you believe the only way to get him to stay is to . . . to bed someone else?”
“I can think of nothing else.”
Her eyes widened. “But what of you, Joss? Raine would be very angry with you.”
“I daresay he will.”
“What will you do? Your life here could be hell.”
Joss cleared his throat. “If I want to keep my life, I think I should leave also. I wouldn’t like to indulge in a duel with Raine after making love to his woman.”
“Oh, Joss,” she sighed. “I would be ruining your life as well as mine. You’re wanted for murder. What if someone recognizes you?”
She didn’t see Joss start at her words. He had no idea she knew his history.
“I’ll grow a beard and you, as a boy, will not be known. We’ll sing together, play, and we’ll be able to earn our keep.”
Pagnell was her first thought, but she brushed it away. For the first time in her life she wasn’t going to think of herself first. “Raine has had so much tragedy in his life. His sister’s death was so recent, and now . . .”
“Make up your mind, Alyx, and get your clothes off. If I’m right, Raine is coming this way now.”
“Now?” she gasped. “I need time to think.”
“Choose,” he said, close to her. “Dead and yours or alive and someone else’s?”
The image of Raine quiet, forever silent, made her throw her arms about Jocelin’s neck, her lips seeking his.
For many years, Jocelin had been an expert at removing women’s clothes, and it was something he had not forgotten. Even if Alyx did wear boy’s clothes, it was amazing how quickly Joss’s skillful fingers rid her of them. Before she could come up for air, both of them were nude from the waist up, bare flesh against skin.
Jocelin entwined his hands in Alyx’s hair and pulled her head back and kissed her hungrily as her eyes flew open in alarm.
She did not have a second to consider Joss’s kiss because Raine’s powerful hands pulled them apart, sending both of them flying across the stream bank.
“I will kill you,” Raine said under his breath, his eyes boring into Jocelin’s.
Alyx, dazed from the flight Raine’s hands had sent her on, thrust her arms into her shirt as she saw Raine drawing his sword and bellowed, “No!” loud enough to make the trees drop their nighttime dew. Give me strength, she prayed as she stood.
She placed her body before Joss’s. “I will give my life for this man,” she said with feeling. As she saw the looks on Raine’s face changing from bewilderment to hurt, to anger, to coldness, she felt them in her heart.
“Have I been a fool?” he asked quietly.
“Men are like music,” she said as lightly as she could manage. “I cannot exist on a diet of love songs or alone on dirges. I need it all. I must have variety in men as well as in my songs. You, ah, you are a song of fury, of cymbals and drums, while Joss”—she fluttered her lashes—“Joss is a melody of flutes and harps.”
For a moment, she thought perhaps Raine was going to tear her head from her body, and instead of feeling fear she was almost welcoming him. Her soul was praying that he wouldn’t believe her. Could he truly believe that music meant more to her than he did?
“Go from my sight,” he whispered from deep inside himself. “Let . . . your friend care for you from now on. Leave tonight. I do not want to see you again.”
With that he turned to leave, and Alyx was several steps toward him before Joss grabbed her arm. “What can you say to him now except the truth?” he asked. “Leave him alone. Break the tie now. Wait here and I will return in a short while. Do you have any other clothes or other possessions?”