Lady of Magick (45 page)

“I am not sure I understand you,” she said carefully.

To her dismay, rather than explaining further, Gwendolen flushed crimson and turned her face away, twisting nearly out of her chair in her attempt to escape. Joanna clutched at her knee, at her elbow, feeling obscurely that they ought not to be so far apart; Gwendolen subsided, but kept her eyes averted.

“Please,” said Joanna, half ashamed of the urgency in her voice. “I daresay you think me very stupid, but—”

She could go no farther, however, because Gwen was kissing her.

*   *   *

For a long moment, Joanna sat frozen, with incoherent questions bubbling up in her mind like soapsuds from a washtub. Then the warm lips on hers withdrew fractionally, and without conscious thought she tilted her head and rose on her knees, chasing them.

Gwen's breath huffed out warm against Joanna's skin, a soft
Oh
;
Gwen's hands came up to cradle Joanna's flushed cheeks, her uptilted head. When they broke apart again, a long and breathless moment later, her eyes were wide and soft, and a dazed, delighted smile—an entirely new smile, such as Joanna had never before seen—lit her face.

“Oh,” said Joanna, stunned almost speechless. “I—oh.”

She reached out blindly; Gwendolen caught hold of her hand.

“Yes,” she said.

They beamed at one another, holding tight.

*   *   *

In the end, having packed Joanna and Gwendolen very firmly into the ambassadorial coach with Mr. Powell—from whom they had extracted a promise to personally deliver his passengers to Lady Kergabet at Carrington-street and no one else—Sophie and Gray ascended into Donald MacNeill's carriage with Lucia MacNeill, Ciaran Barra MacNeill, and a shaken and chastened Catriona MacCrimmon, who had hardly spoken a word since going aboard ship.

“Are you quite sure you wish to stay,
cariad
?” Gray had asked Sophie that morning, tenderly cradling her bruised left wrist in his right hand, and examining a livid bruise on her temple.

“The spring term is scarcely begun,” said Sophie stoutly, though in truth she was rather leery of what sort of climate they might find in Din Edin upon their return. “I have no intention of leaving my year's work half done.”

And Gray had grinned at her, and clapped her carefully on the shoulder; and for the first time since his departure from Quarry Close, she found herself inspired to grin
back.

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