A Passionate Magic (3 page)

“There goes the rudest man I have ever seen
or heard,” gasped Hawise, who had been Emma’s personal maid for so
long that she sometimes forgot her place in favor of defending her
beloved mistress. “Nor can his mother be well mannered, if she
absented herself from Penruan during the very weeks when she must
have known you would arrive. If my lord Gavin were here—”

“But he is not here,” Emma interrupted her
loyal companion. “Let us make the best of our situation. It seems
to me we have no other choice, for we are very far from home.”

“It’s a good thing it’s you who came to
Penruan and not Lady Alys,” Hawise said. “If little Alys were here,
she’d have been weeping half an hour ago. But you will stand up to
him, my lady. You will see to it that he treats us as we ought to
be treated. And if he continues to be rude, you will use your magic
on him.”

“Hush,” Emma cautioned, laying a finger on
Ha-wise’s lips. “We agreed not to say anything about my magical
abilities until after I have decided the time is right for me to
speak to my lord Dain on the subject.”

She found herself wondering if it was going
to be possible for her to talk to Dain in a rational way on any
subject. When he learned she could work magic, what would his
reaction be? The chill that went up her spine at the thought had
nothing to do with the lack of a fire in the great hall or with the
absence of a charcoal brazier when she and Hawise finally reached
the lord’s chamber.

“How cold it is,” Hawise said, looking around
the lord’s chamber. “How bare and gloomy.”

Emma did not say so aloud, but she agreed
with Hawise. They had been conducted to a bedchamber well suited to
a lord who lived near the end of the world on a cliff at the edge
of the sea. It was a room very different from the lord’s chamber at
Wroxley. Here, there were no tapestries to warm and brighten the
bare gray stone walls, no rug on the floor, no chair made
comfortable with thick, bright cushions.

True, the room was large and well
proportioned, and perhaps it was a more cheerful place when the sun
was shining. On this day of rain and wind the shutters were
securely latched over the unglazed double window that was set into
a niche in the thick wall. With the shutters closed the room was a
place of deep shadows made even more gloomy by the lack of
comforts. Stone benches were built into each side of the window
niche, where ladies might sit together to ply their needles in the
light, but there were no cushions to ease the chill of the stone.
Only two pieces of furniture graced the room. The head of a large
bed with plain, dark brown hangings was pushed against the inner
wall, and an oblong wooden clothes chest rested at the foot of the
bed.

“My lady, you will freeze in here,” Hawise
protested, looking around at the chilly emptiness.

“Lord Dain did tell me to order what I
wanted,” Emma said, and proceeded to list for Hawise everything she
would require. While Hawise carried her orders to the castle
servants, Emma made a quick search of the other two rooms on the
same level of the tower keep. The first room, which opened directly
onto the staircase, held a supply of arrows and assorted other
arms, all arranged close to the arrow slits, so they would be
readily at hand in case of attack.

The second, smaller room also opened onto the
tower steps, and in addition it had a door connecting it to the
lord’s chamber. Since it was empty, and since the window that
looked out over the edge of the cliff was slightly larger than an
arrow slit, Emma decided the room would serve well as a place for
Hawise to sleep and as a storeroom for the belongings brought from
Wroxley until they could all be unpacked.

When Hawise returned to the lord’s chamber
Emma set her to work changing the bed linens. Soon the scent of the
lavender in which the sheets had been packed at Wroxley filled the
room. Two of the servants whom Hawise had commandeered arrived, one
carrying a brazier, the other with a scuttle full of charcoal.
Immediately afterward a boy about twelve years old by the look of
him, who was evidently a page, rushed in bearing a candlestick as
tall as he was and an armful of fat candles that looked as if they
had come from the chapel.

“Father Maynard sent them,” the boy said,
confirming Emma’s guess.

“I’m Blake, my lady,” the boy continued, “and
I am very glad to have a nice lady at Penruan. Father Maynard says
you are nice. Not that Lady Richenda isn’t nice,” he added hastily.
“She is a very good woman, and extremely devout, but she isn’t much
fun.”

“Please take my thanks for the candles to
Father Maynard,” Emma told the boy. She knew better than to comment
on his opinion of Lady Richenda.

An hour later Emma was feeling greatly
refreshed, having eaten a meal of cold meat, bread, and cheese,
washed down by fresh cider. She had also enjoyed the hot bath she
so much wanted. Preferring her companion to be as clean as she was,
Emma offered the still-warm bathwater to Hawise to use, so she
could also wash away the grime and chill of travel. The emptied tub
was being carried out and Hawise, shiny faced with cleanliness and
grateful to her thoughtful mistress, had retreated to her own small
room to find fresh clothes for herself, when Dain stalked into the
lord’s chamber.

He stopped short, a startled expression
spreading across his face as he looked from the freshly made bed
with Emma’s bright green quilt from Wroxley spread atop the snowy
sheets to the candle burning beside the bed, to the wide, round
brazier onto which Emma was sprinkling aromatic herbs. He took a
breath, preparing to speak, then stopped with a frown and a slight
cough.

“What are you doing?” Dain asked, wrinkling
his nose at the fragrance.

“Juniper and rosemary will freshen the air,”
Emma answered. She stayed where she was, with the brazier standing
like a sentinel between her and her husband. She told herself the
trembling that suddenly threatened to overcome her was foolish.
There was nothing for her to fear. Dain was a man like any other
man, and she had the king’s will and her father’s stalwart strength
to protect her. Women had for centuries gone to the beds of men
they did not know, brought there by the contracts made by parents
or guardians or rulers. It was the way marriages were arranged
between nobles.

At least she was not part of the spoils of
some dreadful battle. She discounted Dain’s remarks about having
friends who would attack Wroxley on his order. So long as she
carried out her part of the agreement, she believed no harm would
be visited upon Wroxley, and all of her beloved family would be
safe.

She reminded herself that she came willingly
to this marriage, to a husband who was handsome, apparently
healthy, and reasonably clean. She would grant him her innocence in
order to seal the peace between him and Gavin, and she would do
everything she could to give him pleasure. Mirielle had made
certain that Emma was well informed about what would happen in the
marriage bed, and for her stepmother’s wise advice Emma was
grateful.

Still, her actual experience with men was
limited to a few hasty, stolen kisses during Christmas or May Day
celebrations. She did not know how it would feel to be completely
possessed by a man. Emma sensed that Dain, known as a formidable
opponent in battle, was most likely a passionate lover once he was
aroused. Possibly he was a violent lover. Suddenly, she recalled
Hawise’s whispered gossip in the previous year about the harm done
to a serving maid by one of the men-at-arms at Wroxley, and how
Gavin, upon learning the story, had imprisoned the man and later
sent him away to a distant island monastery where there were no
women for him to attack. Surely Dain would not treat his wife so
brutally. Would he?

Emma took a long breath to calm her thoughts
and her trembling limbs. She scattered the last of the herbs over
the hot coals, then let her hands fall to her sides and stood
there, in the circle of heat from the brazier, and waited.

Dain approached her, skirting the brazier,
and Emma turned a little to face him. Her hair was loose and still
a bit damp from washing it. Dain’s long fingers stroked the smooth
tresses from brow to ear to shoulder, a sensitive, almost gentle
touch that gave rise to tender hope on Emma’s part. Perhaps he
would not be rough with her. Perhaps, when they were together in
his bed, Dain would lay aside the hatred he bore toward her father
and treat her with kindness.

His hand came to rest on her shoulder, and
the brilliant eyes that had been searching every aspect of her face
fell to her throat. Suddenly, Emma was painfully aware of being
clad only in a loose linen shift, covered by the woolen shawl she
had snatched up and wrapped about her shoulders for modesty’s sake
while the servants carried out the buckets of bathwater and the
tub. The shift was ankle-length and the long, straight sleeves
reached to her wrists, yet Emma felt as if she was wearing nothing
at all. The garment had a wide neckline, and one of Dain’s fingers
slipped beneath the edge of the fabric. His fingertip caressed her
collarbone. He tugged at the linen, pulling it across her shoulder,
and then he bent his head and put his mouth on her bare skin.

Emma went perfectly still, transfixed by the
sensation of warm, soft lips on her shoulder and of a hot, moist
tongue licking at her skin.

Dain kept his mouth where it was, but his
hands were busy, pulling the shawl out of her numbed grasp,
dropping it on the floor.

Still Emma could not move. Dain slowly
trailed his lips along her shoulder to a spot just below her ear.
Again his mouth and his tongue worked their singular magic, and
Emma discovered that her ear-lobe and the area around it were both
wonderfully receptive to Dain’s calculated touch.

For what he was doing was carefully
calculated. It could not be otherwise; Dain did not love her, he
did not know her, and after his rude reception of his bride she
believed he did not even like her, yet they must lie down together
and consummate this marriage between strangers, and try to conceive
a child whose existence would be the surety of lasting peace
between their families.

Emma believed her only hope for a reasonably
contented life at Penruan lay in pleasing her husband. And so she
rested her hands on his arms to steady herself, and when Dain’s
mouth seared across her cheek she offered up her lips and let her
hands slide up the sleeves of his tunic, noticing with her
fingertips, if not with her preoccupied mind, the hard muscles of
his upper arms and shoulders.

When his arms suddenly clasped her about the
waist and pulled her close against him, and one of his hands
splayed down over her buttocks to push her closer still, and his
lips seized hers in a kiss that rocked her to her very soul, she
knew he was not going to be a gentle lover. Dain was going to
plunder her body and take everything she had to offer.

She wanted him to take her. She wanted to
belong to him completely, utterly, and she knew in her heart it was
what she had wanted from the first moment she had seen him. In the
single, shattering instant when his mouth claimed hers, Emma
recognized in Dain her predestined mate.

The magical recognition left her defenseless
against him, for while she was eager to give him both her body and
the love she had stored in her heart for her eighteen years of
life, along with all her hopes and dreams for their future
together, Dain wanted only her body. And revenge.

She was lost in his kiss, in the wild, heated
sensation of his hands on her back, on her shoulders, and on her
breasts. His kiss deepened. Dain’s mouth forced her lips open and
his tongue plunged into her, tangling with her tongue as if in a
mysterious, passionate dance. Emma gasped.

With his lips still on hers, Dain loosened
his grip on her a little. Emma was aware of his hand stroking down
her thigh, of her shift being drawn upward, and his hand warm on
the soft skin of her upper leg. His fingers skimmed across her
thigh and into her warm, moist, most private place – and stayed
there, even when she moaned and tried to pull her mouth away from
his. He ignored her protest, instead thrusting a finger farther
still, touching – touching -

An exquisite, piercing sweetness enveloped
Emma, and she found herself pushing back against the pressure of
his hand. Finally, Dain lifted his head, releasing her mouth from
his.

With one arm still supporting her, for she
was by now quite incapable of standing by herself, he used his
other hand to wreck havoc upon all her senses until she was at the
brink of a marvelous discovery. Longing to share her wonder with
him, Emma opened her eyes.

Dain was watching her, and there was cold
triumph in his beautiful, blue-green gaze. Watching her!
Disinterested, coolly judging her reaction to his lovemaking that
was not lovemaking at all. His hand stayed where it was, between
her thighs, and to her horror Emma realized she wanted him to
continue what he was doing to her. Worse, she wanted him to carry
her to the bed, for she knew she was unable to walk even those few
steps, and in his bed she wanted him to complete what he had
started.

Dain smiled at her – a superior, knowing
smile – and let his finger sink a little deeper into her. Seeing
his smile, Emma rebelled at last.

“No!” She pushed hard against his chest,
shoving him away from her at the same time that she lurched
backward.

She almost fell into the brazier. Its edge
burned her arm, and the pain of the injury returned her to her
proper senses.

She was shaking so violently that she knew
she could not stand for more than a moment or two without some
source of support. The bed – no, that was the last place she wanted
to be. The only other furniture was Dain’s clothes chest. She could
sit on it, but it was large – large enough for him to push her down
on it and –