Lust (5 page)

“And these Dark Fey, they're coming?” he asked in a strangled whisper.

Crom smiled, a show of cruel mirth. “Even now one approaches. I'll leave you to settle your business with him. I suggest you put an end to your dealings with him. After that, you will depart for London.”

Nodding, Lennox fell back against the leather squabs of his chair. His bloody greed was catching up with him now. He had no alternative but to tuck in his tail and run. Perhaps the faery queen would protect his daughters from the damnable bargain he had made three years ago.

Crom vanished, his figure only to be replaced by that of Salisbury. “Your Grace, a Prince Rinion is here. He claims to be well-known to you.”

Indeed he was. “Send him in, Salisbury.”

The tall, imposing Dark Fey sauntered into the study. His eyes were a startling shade of blue, and his long dark brown hair was worn loose, down to his impressive shoulders. With a smug smile he looked about the room. “How very nicely appointed this library is, Lennox. Much more comfortable than the last time I saw it. I am so glad to see you are enjoying my little gift.”

He couldn't speak. God help him, his normally calculating mind was blank. What if this Dark Fey discovered his deceit?

“Do you recall that night we struck our bargain? Riches beyond belief, all in return for the hand of your firstborn daughter.”

Lennox swallowed thickly. “Aye. I remember.” Three years ago the wretch had presented himself in the back garden, appearing like a fabled magus as he rose from a vapor of fog. His daughters had been dining alfresco beneath a tree, and the beast had not been able to take his eyes off Mary. Darling Mary.

They had been approaching that tender age, when a come-out season and balls were most important. They were already well past the age that most young ladies made their debut, but he hadn't the blunt to provide a season for them. He had wanted to, but he was so heavily in debt. And to give all four of them a season at once was beyond what his pocketbook could allow.

The wretched faery had known his weak spot. His daughters. And coin.

“'Tis Beltane, Lennox. Your daughter is now three and twenty. I want my bride.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” he murmured as he tried to put aside the memory of their meeting, and the fact that despite his love, he had given one of his daughters away for coin. Of course, he hadn't known what Rinion was then. He'd thought him one of those kind, benevolent faeries, not a member of the Unseelie Court. He'd never have made the bargain if he'd known the bastard was a Dark Fey.

“Tonight. At the end of the Great Hunt. I will claim her then. She is to wear this,” he said, waving his hand
toward the settee beneath the window. Magically, a sheer gown made of white faery silk and trimmed in silver appeared. Atop it, a silver and crystal mask glittered in the sunlight. “Make certain she is ready to become my bride.”

Lennox found himself nodding like a fool. Thankfully the arrogant bastard took no notice of his agitated state before leaving the room.

“Midnight, Lennox,” the fey reminded him as he departed, “or I will be forced to come after you.”

The library door shut, and Lennox dropped his head into his hands. Christ, what a mess he was in. But there was nothing to be changed now. He'd been crafty in his dealing with the fey, and once the bastard discovered the truth of their bargain, there would be hell to pay.

His mind, which had been blank, suddenly began calculating and figuring. He thought of a way out of this debacle, and knew it would work, for at least as long as it would take him to remove his family to the capital.

“Salisbury!” he roared as he slammed shut a drawer in his desk. “We're leaving for London.”

“London, Your Grace?”

“Yes. Within half an hour. Inform my daughters' maids that the girls are to be ready. And take this.” He thrust a folded missive into the butler's white gloves. “Have a footman bring this and the clothing on the settee to the seamstress in the village.”

God help him, he thought as he gazed out the window, if he and his girls were not long departed before the Dark Fey discovered his deceit.

 

“I don't know why Papa was in such a hurry to leave Glastonbury,” Prue muttered, her mouth pursed with distaste. “It's most unseemly. People will talk. And poor Mama—” she sighed “—she was fit to be tied.”

“Hmm, he did act as though the devil were on his heels, didn't he?” Mary said as she looked around the crowded ballroom, watching the masked dancers glide through a minuet. “But Mama is a forgiving soul, she has doubtless forgotten all about it by now. Look…” Mary nodded to the corner where her mother was busily chatting with friends. “She seems rather happy, don't you think?”

“I was worried the coachman was going to kill the horses,” Mercy added. “I don't think we've ever made it to London so quickly.”

“It all seems very indecorous,” Prue admonished. “Poor Robert and his wife were astonished to find the entire family standing on their doorstep, hours before their ball. It sent the whole house into a flurry.”

“Robert didn't mind,” Mercy murmured. “He loves us and was quite happy to see us in the threshold, rumpled from our hasty journey.”

With one ear to the conversation, Chastity listened to her sisters chatter on as they stood beside the table housing the punch bowl and champagne. She caught Mary smiling at a masked stranger who had caught her eye. A delicate pink blush painted Mary's already lovely cheeks.

Quizzically, Chastity wondered what it was that caused
such a reaction in her sister. Certainly the stranger was handsome, but nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing that would make
her
blush.

“What do you think?” Mary whispered to her. “He's fascinating, isn't he?”

With a delicate shrug, Chastity studied the man who had started to make his way most diligently to where she and her sisters stood. “How can you tell? His face is covered with a mask. In fact,” she said, looking around at the opulent setting of the ballroom, “everyone is masked.”

“Yes,” Mary said, her voice breathy. “It makes it that much more exciting, does it not? Can you not feel it, Chastity, the excitement heating your blood when your gaze locks on a man?”

Chastity studied the pearl trim on the lace cuff of her sleeve. “No, I cannot.”

Her voice was intended to be firm, censoring, but instead Chastity detected a note of bitterness. No, she felt nothing when her gaze skated over the numerous gentlemen who were at the ball. She did not feel warm, or excited, or—

“Look for someone,” Mary instructed, “when you find a man that is pleasing to your eye, let your gaze linger. Imagine pulling the mask from his face, slowly revealing his identity. Imagine that you are the only two in the room. Two strangers, eyes locked, skin burning to be touched, lips aching to be kissed.”

Mary's voice had dropped to a seductive purr, clearly entranced by the provocative words she used to paint her sensual image. Yet, Chastity had not fallen victim to
any warmth or feeling, most especially the awakening of anything amorous.

“Imagine, sister, what it would be like to sample a forbidden taste of sin.”

Frowning, Chastity had always believed that sin would taste rather bitter, not the sweet delight Mary made it out to be.

“My lady, will you do me the honor?”

The stranger was reaching for Mary's hand. In her other hand, Mary slowly waved her fan, allowing the lace edge to whisper over her exposed skin, making her heavy perfume rise up and linger between them. The man inhaled delicately, his dark eyes closing behind his mask for the briefest second.

“I would be delighted,” Mary said in a sultry voice before snapping her fan closed, allowing the masked gentleman to lead her to the floor.

Prue and Mercy had retreated to the wall, where they were talking with Ruth, their new sister-in-law. Chastity chose to stay where she was, unable to take her eyes off her sister and the man she was dancing with.

Mary's color was high, her lips parted in a coy little smile that Chastity had never perfected—had never bothered to try. The mask she wore gave her some measure of privacy, and she used it to study the couples dancing before her. The wine and champagne was flowing freely, and the hour had grown late. There was a certain lack of inhibition growing amongst the crowd. She could feel it now, like a seductive fog hovering low on the floor before slowly rising and wrapping around them.

She smelled it, the desire in the air. It was thick, drugging in its mixture of sweetness and spice. It clouded her head, drew her in, made her feel languid and sleepy and immensely relaxed.

Through the eye slits of her mask, she looked around the room, waving her lace fan delicately back and forth, stirring the air in an attempt to clear her head of the luscious scent that seemed to be floating through the air. Straight ahead, the French doors were inched open, and Chastity made her way to them. She needed the air, which would be fresh and mind clearing.

Checking over her shoulder before she slipped through the doors, she saw that no one had noticed her, nor would they notice her exit. It would only be a short reprieve from the dance, but a most welcome one.

QUICKLY, CHASTITY SLIPPED THROUGH THE PARTED
doors and stepped out onto the balcony, which was shrouded in darkness. To the left of the balustrade was a boxwood maze, shadowed by the height of looming oaks and willow trees. Inside the maze there was a bench where she could sit and rest feet that ached from her delicate dance slippers. She knew she should not be out here, alone, in the dark, but her head still remained cloudy, and the lure of a rest in solitude was too great. The exotic scent still lingered, but her head would begin to clear when the fresh night air swept over her while she rested in peace and quiet.

What a queer sensation that had been. She had never experienced anything like it. It had warmed her body as nothing ever had, not even champagne. The lingering heat and the languorous feeling still seemed wrapped around her, giving her the fanciful taste of what the
enduring effects of sensuality must feel like. Despite the fact she had never experienced any sensual feeling before, Chastity knew that what she had experienced was some unexplained erotic charge in the air. Unsullied or not, she was not a simpleton.

Taking a few calming breaths, she stared up at the sky, watching as the sliver of silver moonlight appeared behind a black cloud. It was the Eve of Beltane, she reminded herself. The night of the Great Hunt, the union between the god and the goddess. Of course there was a carnal element to the evening. Everyone was anticipating the hour of midnight when it would be Beltane, and the frivolities and promiscuous activities of the spring and May Day would be welcomed with eager arms.

Back home in Glastonbury, the Great Hunt would just be beginning, and the bonfire on the village green would be blazing high into the sky. In the woods, men would chase maidens, and beneath the very same sliver of moonlight they would celebrate the rites of spring.

The Great Hunt and all Beltane's festivities were steeped in pagan belief and the old way of the Celts. With the mystery of the tor and its prominent setting in the village it was not hard to feel rather pagan most of the year, but on evenings such as this, everyone threw aside propriety and Christianity to participate in the ideals of growth, sexuality and fecundity, for those three things had long represented the spring.

For centuries, Glastonbury, which had always been known as the Land of the Summer People, had been at the center of Beltane. As a child, her father, who had
been raised in the little village, celebrated this very night every year. Every year except this one.

For some reason, her father, who had never been averse to accompanying them to the village on the Eve of Beltane, had acted as though the villagers and the festival were anathema. This year, after promising her and her sisters that they were old enough to witness the Great Hunt, after they had allowed themselves to grow excited about the prospect, he'd denied them.

“You're not going to such a hedonistic display. It's archaic,” he had grumbled as he waited for them to cram themselves into the town coach. After the carriage had lurched down the drive, he had refused to speak anymore of it, telling them only what they already knew, that they were off to London, to her brother's ball, and then back to the Lennox town house in Grosvenor Square to spend at least a fortnight.

It all seemed so very strange, especially since her father had always striven to keep them very far removed from the capital. “Nothing but rakes and dowry thieves in London,” he had always claimed. So why now had he had a change of heart?

It seemed that their whole life their father had prevented them from being tainted by the sights and sounds—and smells—of London, only to turn around that very morning and all but force them to embrace the city.

Something wasn't right. She sensed it. And that something had to do with her father and his perplexing behavior. Thinking it through, Chastity found herself at a loss to explain it. Perhaps, she thought, taking a deep
breath, she couldn't make heads or tails of his behavior because her mind was still clouded by the lingering scent of…of whatever that had been back in the ballroom.

Glancing back at the beckoning maze, Chastity glided to the stairs, the hooped silk skirts of her gown making a soft brushing whisper against the stone. She would find privacy and quiet there in the maze to reflect upon the puzzling events of the day.

Descending the stairs, she trailed her gloved hand along the stone banister, noticing the sparkling moonbeam that widened over the quartz cut stone. The moonbeam became less filtered light, and more like a fine swath of iridescent wetness. Like mist, but it radiated such a dazzling brilliance that Chastity watched it, hypnotized by its beauty, as it seemed to dance in and around the banister as though it were alive.

What folly, she chastened herself. It was a reflection of the rock quartz in the moonlight, nothing else.
And the scent?
her mind whispered to her.
What of that?

It was back, that lush, exotic blend that reminded her of a faraway place, a spice island, or India perhaps. It was heavy, evocative, almost drugging, yet it made her feel as light as a feather. As if
she
were the one floating, and not the mist particles that glimmered in the moonlight.

Ceo Side,
something whispered to her. Faery Mist.

She had heard of it before, the ability of the faeries to come as rain, mist, fog and shadow.

Now she heard it murmured on the wind as her slippers sank into the damp grass. Were the
Daoine Side
—the fairy people—here in the back gardens of her brother's
London estate? But why here? Why now? For her whole life, her father had talked to her and her sisters about the fey, yet she had never seen them, never perceived that they were somehow truly a part of her life. So why now was she obsessed with the idea of them? Perhaps it really was the champagne making her head fuzzy, and nothing more.

Head heavy, limbs warm, Chastity moved deeper into the darkness of the ten-foot-tall maze. She was breathing heavy, she realized. The lace that held her cameo secure around her throat felt suffocating. Her stays were tight, pushing her breasts higher, making it difficult to get air into her constricted lungs. Her fan dropped to the deep, damp grass as the air grew thicker, began to wrap around her, where it worked its way under her skirt to caress her calves, then thighs. She felt strange, as though she was disembodied. Her mind, always sharp and clear, would not work, and her lungs did not seem able to provide her body with adequate air.

With a gasp, she felt heat slide over her waist, then up to her breasts and, unable to bear it, she tore the lace choker off, flinging it to the ground, gasping to breathe. She was being smothered, but by what or whom, she could not fathom. She was utterly alone—and yet she wasn't.

“A beautiful woman such as you should not be out in the dark, unaccompanied by a gentleman.”

Whirling around, Chastity startled when she heard the deep voice behind her. The man's identity was cleverly concealed by an intricate mask made of gold and wire,
designed to look like foliage. With his height, and the breadth of his shoulders outlined by the moon, and his long black hair whispering in the slight breeze, he looked like the fabled Oak King come to ravish her.

Unsteadily, she took a step back, coming up against a large birch tree that marked the entrance to the maze. She did not know this man, yet there was something about him that called to her—his voice, perhaps, or maybe the way he stood, so proud, so masculine, so…certain of himself.

“I have frightened you.” His accent was thick and alluring as he spoke to her, his voice musical, yet deep and intensely male. “I would not have it so.”

“I didn't hear you approach, sir,” she said, noticing how the mist had not evaporated, but seemed to draw to him, like a moth to a flame. It was almost as if he was shrouded in it, shimmering in the glow. Chastity stared, frozen, fascinated by the magic of it, lured by the beauty of him.

“Forgive me.” He stepped closer to her, the vapor glinting and shifting around him. The scent that made her feel so strange earlier became stronger, heavier. It was a delicious smell, one that made her body tingle with a warmth she could not define.

“Have we met, sir?” she inquired, taking a step back as he approached her. He was now bathed in a shaft of moonlight, the effect quite breathtaking. She saw, even despite the mask he wore, that he studied her from beneath a thick veil of black lashes. His hair was as dark as a raven's feathers, heavy and glistening like spilled ink
in the moonlight as it grazed the shoulders of his velvet jacket. A frock coat that Chastity was quite certain required no extra padding.

He let her study him and she half wondered as their gazes met if the man was not fully aware of what his face and his figure must do to the opposite sex. Any sane woman would find this man unavoidably compelling and sensual. Any woman would wish to find herself in his arms, being kissed by his lips and ravished by his elegant, yet extremely masculine, hands.

She was not just any woman. Yet this outsider seemed to have a most disturbing effect on her. He possessed a beauty, a mysterious strangeness that seduced her even as her brain warned her to run, to leave the maze as quickly as she could. But she could not move. Her dance slippers were fixed firmly upon the ground as if they had been glued there.

Do I not tempt you? Are you not thinking, at this very moment, what my body would feel like upon yours?

The words came from nowhere—
no, from him
—despite the fact he had not moved his lips. Did not even smile. Just stood before her, silently allowing her perusal.

Your gaze lingers on my fingers as though you hunger to have them caress you, to slowly pull the tapes of your stays and reveal what has been so meticulously hidden beneath that gown. Despite the mask, I see in your eyes that desire, the burning deep inside to have my hands upon your flesh.

His voice again, beautiful, lyrical. His words luring. Enticing. But still his masculine lips did not move. Her
own thoughts, then? she wondered. Was she even capable of conjuring up such base imaginings?

It frightened her to think so. It was impossible to believe that she, an innocent who had never been touched, could consider such things, yet Chastity could not dispel the fact that the stranger had not spoken aloud. Regardless, she heard his deep voice as though the words had been whispered intimately in her ear.

Reaching for her hand, he wrapped his ungloved fingers around her delicate ones, the warmth sending a delightful frisson along her spine.

“You are far too bold, sir,” she gasped, flustered when he looked up at her with piercing blue eyes that only seemed to glow as the gold of his mask glinted in the moonlight.

“Is it?” The deepness of his voice caused flutterings in her stomach. “Then let us begin again,” he suggested silkily. “An introduction in a private garden while bathed in moonlight is an auspicious event. One must ensure that it is perfect and unforgettable.”

Somehow Chastity knew that she would never forget one moment of this meeting.

The mist glittered in the moonlight, outlining his broad shoulders, moving with him as he stepped closer to her. He was otherworldly, breathtaking in his beauty. She would be recalling this moment, the feel of her body tingling and awakening, when she was an old woman sitting by the fire.

“The moonlight becomes you,” he said in a voice that was rich and smooth, that seemed to wrap around her.
He reached out and Chastity saw how the glistening mist crystals glittered on his fingers, then wafted over her to her shoulder, where he caught a loose tendril of hair. “You were made to be seen in the dark. You are a perfect angel by sunlight, a tempting goddess by moonlight.”

She could hardly think. Was it the scent that surrounded her? The strangeness of the glittering mist and the masked stranger? Or was it that she was breathing too fast? Whatever it was, it was playing havoc with her mind. Had she heard him correctly, that he had seen her in the sunlight? Impossible.

“I don't believe,” she said, then licked her lips to moisten them, “that you know who I am. Perhaps you have mistaken me for someone else?”

“No, there is no mistake.” The tendril of hair wrapped around his finger and he used it to pull her closer to him. “You call to me. I could find you anywhere, even in the largest crush of people or in the shadows of the Dark Walk in Covent Garden. There isn't a place where you could hide from me.”

She should have been terrified by such a statement, yet she was horrified for another reason altogether—her body's quivering response to such knowledge.

“You don't realize it, but your body cries out, and my own answers it. We are destined to be together. Each to complete the other.”

His voice dropped to a seductive whisper as his eyes held her transfixed. This conversation was much too intimate for any innocent, let alone a virtue. He had
obviously mistaken her for someone of experience and worldliness.

“I must beg you, sir, to release me. You are not known to me, and I am certain that you have mistaken me for your midnight rendezvous.”

“Lady Chastity,” he purred, drawing out the end of her name. The sound gave her goose bumps and she shivered, her fingers trembling in his.

“Sir?” she murmured, trying unsuccessfully to look away from his mesmerizing beauty. “How…” She licked her lips. “How do you know who I am? We've never met.”

“Haven't we?” Turning her palm up, he bared her wrist and traced the delicate blue veins with the tips of his fingers. Together, they watched his graceful fingertips skate across her smooth skin, and Chastity, unable to control the sensations his touch evoked, whimpered with the need to feel his caress all over her. His lashes lowered and he closed his eyes as if he knew that her whimper was one of desire, not fear.

“What is your title, sir?” He was too richly garbed, and too well-spoken, to be anything other than an aristocrat. But his voice held a slight accent, an exotic-sounding one that was luring and seductive.