Mirror Sight (62 page)

He nodded. “Celibacy. It—it is not a requirement, as I had thought. However, marriage is not permitted until retirement. Abstaining is an individual choice. Some Weapons are very strict in practice, others are not.”

“And what is your preference on the matter?”

His answer was to sit beside her and take her into his arms and kiss her, a long, sound kiss that left no room for misinterpretation.

For her, it was as though everything that had held them apart—propriety, immediate danger, her illness—was finally melting away. There were now no barriers between them, and Karigan, who had so assiduously set aside her feelings for others and denied her own needs so often, found that she was hungry, hungry for the touch of another, and not just anyone, but Cade.

Cade, however, was apparently still struggling between desire and propriety, for he pulled away. “I—I am not being a gentleman. It is not acceptable for me to—”

“I do not want a gentleman. I want Cade.”

“But—”

She laid her fingers across his lips and smiled. The cottage darkened as dusk settled in. Neither of them moved to light a lamp. “I can’t help but think,” she said, lowering her hand to twine her fingers with Cade’s, “that it was no mistake we met and have been brought together through time. What are the chances?”

“Fate?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Fate, destiny, the gods? Take your pick. Maybe it’s pure coincidence. I do not know. What I do know is that you are here, and so am I. It seems to me that between all that has happened and all that is to come, it would be wise to make the best use of our time.”

“Are you sure?” Cade asked.

“Let me show you,” she replied.

K
arigan was determined to show Cade all she had set aside.
No more holding back.
She shook with suppressed excitement as she kissed him.

Cade, perhaps surprised by her ardor, responded a heartbeat behind her, but quickly adjusted, drawing her close into his arms. Her hands fell upon the muscles of his chest, and she was filled with the desire to get under his shirt.

As she attempted to do just that, amid a flurry of kissing and nervous laughter, they rolled right off the bed and hit the floor with a thunk. Barely distracted, they rose up, still kissing and touching, and entangled in Cade’s suspenders. Karigan growled in frustration, wishing she had a knife on hand to cut them away, and his trousers, too. In retrospect, she guessed Cade would have been alarmed by her using a knife near that region of his body. Her persistence paid off, however, and soon his suspenders, along with his trousers, lay crumpled on the floor beside their bed. What she had once seen of him in threes while in the grip of the morphia, she discovered was just as impressive singularly.

Cade was more patient than she, opening her shirt one button at a time at a leisurely pace, kissing her exposed flesh as he went, his lips lingering. The wait was excruciating, and she wanted to tear her shirt off for him, but in the end, when it did finally fall away, the wait proved worthwhile as his mouth and hands found her breasts. She blazed within.

He paused, pulled away from her just the slightest bit, but it felt like a gulf as wide as the ocean.

“Don’t stop,” Karigan said.

“But . . .” He blushed. It was interesting to observe that not only his face reddened, but so did parts of his body usually concealed by his clothes. “I have never . . . I never, um . . .”

“Me either, but I’m sure we’ll figure it out.”

“This is your . . . first, too?”

“Yes.”

“Oh! Maybe we shouldn’t—”

“Are you afraid I will sully your honor?” Karigan asked, eyebrow raised.

“What? No! But you . . . Yours . . .”

“I thought we’d settled this.”

“That was before I knew—”

“That I was some chaste maiden with her virtue at stake?” Karigan smiled, amused by Cade’s renewed blushing and that he hadn’t realized it was her first time, too. “Look, Cade, I love that you are concerned. I know it’s because you care about me, but this is my life, my body. I am of age to choose what I do with both. At this moment, I choose this. With you.”

“You are certain?”

She kissed him deeply enough to show him how certain she was. As her hands and mouth traversed his body on new adventures, he did not ask any more questions.

They were awkward at times, shyly hesitant, but they learned by experimentation how to give pleasure to one another, their touches quickly growing more confident. Karigan delighted in the myriad textures that were Cade, the hairs of his chest, the sleekness of long muscles. She inhaled his musky scent spiced with a bouquet of sweet hay, sawdust, and horse. His hands brushing over her skin made her shiver.

Their breaths and heartbeats quickened, his complementing hers, their warm flesh pressed together, hands clasped. As the cottage fell into the dark of full night, Karigan was finally able to reveal herself wholly. For once she did not have to be someone else, not a Green Rider, not Miss Goodgrave, nor a merchant’s daughter. She came to him as herself, unmasked, and thinking only of him as she did so. She met him as he met her, open and joyful, and discovering a peace she had not known before.

In their joining, it did not matter where she was or when. The world and its layers, with all its problems, became unimportant and vanished from thought.

 • • • 

They slept entwined, in the aftermath of their lovemaking, or at least Cade did, his deep breaths warm on the back of her neck. Karigan rested in a state of contentment she could not recall experiencing before. She marveled over how it felt to be enfolded by him. Their bodies fit together so very perfectly as if one had been made especially to match the other. She did not want this moment to end. If only it could be captured for all time, but that made her think of a picture made by image trapping, and it was a disturbing notion when all else had been so wonderful. She’d rather think about Cade coming home with her so every night could be this way. Except, of course, when she was away on message errands. But he’d be there when she returned. She sighed.

She felt unchanged, yet not the same, as though she’d finally crossed a threshold she’d long hovered over. Had her being with Cade this night finally made her a true adult? No. Many other situations had forced her into adulthood before now. She’d grown up abruptly, irretrievably, the first time she had killed a man. There’d been no going back after that. Even so, she could not help feeling she’d taken another long stride away from childhood. It did not sadden her. On the contrary, she felt alive and excited for the future. She hoped it was the same for Cade.

The moon glimmered through the window and across the floorboards, outlining the shapes of chairs, the footboard of their bed, and the fine hairs of Cade’s arm, which was wrapped around her. There was a flutter of movement beside the bed, and at first she thought it was a speck of dust reflecting the moonlight, or the wings of a moth, but gradually a figure resolved in her vision. She took a sharp breath and quivered. Cade, who even in sleep must have been so attuned to her, murmured into her hair and held onto her more snugly.

A ghostly Yates looked down at her. His sketchbook was closed for a change and tucked beneath his arm. A forelock of hair, like filaments of moonlight, spilled across his brow. At first his expression remained impassive as always, so unlike Yates in life, his eyes blank as though he did not see her at all. Then there was the slightest upturn to his mouth and a wink.

Now
that
was Yates.

He turned away and strode across the room on silent feet and paused by the window. He blended into the moonlight. Then stepped through the wall.

As much as Karigan did not wish to leave Cade’s warmth, she disentangled herself from him, and taking a blanket from the other bed, wrapped it around herself and crossed over to the window. She peered out and saw Yates there in the inn’s yard, gazing back at her. He raised his sketchbook and fanned the pages. He faded away, laughing, until there was nothing but the night. What drawings did his sketchbook contain? Perhaps she would never find out, but why would he keep appearing to her with it in his hands?

She heard the creak of floorboards behind her, and realized her absence in bed had roused Cade. He crossed over to her, and she admired how the moonlight limned the contours of his body. He glanced out the window.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

She shook her head.

He caressed her hair away from her face and gave her the whisper of a kiss, then he gathered her into his arms and carried her back to bed. She did not protest the carrying, and when once more they made love, it was with no awkwardness or hesitation, only lingering delight in the glow of the moon.

 • • • 

In the morning, Karigan felt weightless, that if unanchored she’d drift among the clouds. Yes, there was a certain soreness from the night’s activity, but it was a minor distraction. It had not been easy for her and Cade to part and ready themselves for the day and the ordinary world beyond their little cottage. Cade was solicitous, pulling a chair out for her at breakfast, gazing at her with longing. She must look much the same. She could not help but gaze back at him. They needed few words, only fingers entwined together on the table and knees touching beneath.

Later, Karigan waited beside the wagon with the mules and Gallant while Cade fetched Raven from the stable. She tried to slouch against the wagon to look sick, but she could only guess she was radiating the complete opposite. Repeatedly she had to wipe a silly grin off her face.

When Cade returned without Raven and there was a troubled expression on his face, Karigan straightened up. “What’s wrong?”

“Your horse almost took a hunk out of my arm.” He showed her his ripped sleeve. Immediately she was at his side, examining him for a wound, but thankfully found none. “He smells you on me,” Cade said in a low voice. “I’m sure of it. I think you should try to get him.”

She nodded and, adjusting her cap, set off for the stable. Fortunately no one else was about, so she would have no audience. Raven gave a high-pitched whinny when he saw her, then lifted his nose into the air, curling back his lip to take in her scent. This was followed by a round of more whinnies, kicking at his stall, and his making a general ruckus. Karigan approached ever more cautiously.

Cade, she saw, had managed to attach a lead rope to the stallion’s halter. Raven whipped it around as he tossed his head and circled.

“Calm down,” she said. “You might hurt yourself.”

This was answered by another ear-splitting whinny and a half-rear.

“Stop.”

He did not. She waited for him to settle down before she attempted to approach him again. When she opened the stall door, he lunged at her. She backed out swiftly and slammed the door shut.

“Listen,” she told the stallion in low, heated tones, “you are a horse. I am not. So whatever possessive nonsense you are feeling has got to stop. It has got to stop, or I am leaving you here.”

Her words were followed by another whinny and a crack at the wall from a hoof. Karigan turned her back on him. She
would
leave him behind if she had to. Their mission was too imperative. She noted silence behind her. When she started to walk away, there was another whinny, but this one was quieter, held a querying note to it.

She paused and turned. Raven stared at her over the stall door, ears attentive.

“Are you going to behave?” she asked.

His ears flicked as he received her words. He blew through his nose. She approached again, and when he did not act up, she reached in to stroke his neck.

“Go easy on Cade,” she told the horse. “He’s a good man and, well, I love him and you should, too.” She almost choked when she realized what she’d just said. Did she truly love Cade? Some words had flowed out during their coupling, but she had thought it was just a result of being in the moment. As she stood there considering it all, she decided there was a very good chance that she in fact really did love him. It left her giddy and off balance.

Raven nuzzled her belly, seeking attention, and she gave it to him, stroking him and running a brush over his hide. She checked his hooves, and after giving him a hug around his neck, she led him from the stable.

Cade and Luke stood waiting as she entered the courtyard. Cade’s face shone with relief as she led the now well-behaved stallion to the wagon and hitched him to it. Then she joined Cade up on the driver’s bench. Luke, now astride Gallant, looked them over closely.

He muttered something under his breath, then said aloud, “Try not to be so obvious. Not decent for a pair of lads.”

Karigan and Cade exchanged glances. Then burst out laughing. He could tell.

“Two lads in—” she started to say, reaching for Cade’s hand. Before she realized what was happening, Luke’s whip ripped through the space between them and slashed the back of her hand.

“Ow! Damnation!” Karigan retracted her hand and held it close. Cade stood, crackling like the manifestation of a storm.

“Sit down,” Luke commanded, his voice harsh. Cade did not. “You must not even joke about it. You, Cade, as well as anyone, know why.”

A tense moment passed before Cade nodded and sat. He left a large space between him and Karigan. It felt like a hundred miles. Luke grunted and reined Gallant around, and rode out of the courtyard. Cade didn’t follow.

“Let me see your hand,” he said.

Karigan, who had been too stunned to react, held her hand out. The flesh had been torn open and bled. It stung fiercely. Cade took a clean handkerchief from his pocket and bound it around her hand.

“Luke is right,” he said quietly. “We cannot forget where we are. We cannot joke about such things.”

“But—”

His voice dropped even more. “I do not know how it is in your time, but men loving one another is not tolerated here. They are publicly stoned to death.”

“But that’s monstrous,” Karigan said, thinking of family friends back home, and of a Green Rider or two.

Cade nodded. “It’s the empire.” After he finished bandaging her hand, he squeezed her wrist, but that was the only affection he dared show her.

Karigan held her stinging hand protectively to her once again. What hate, she wondered, had Amberhill held for Sacoridia and its people that he’d gone to such extremes? He had never struck her as so destructive, so monstrous. She’d known him as an annoying aristocrat too full of himself and his own good looks, yes, but she’d never have guessed to what extent he’d go to attain power and keep it. There was more to him than she could ever have supposed.

Her thoughts did not linger long on Amberhill, however. It was terribly distracting to sit next to Cade like this and not be allowed to touch him. She recalled moments from their night together, and when she realized she was smiling so hard, she cleared her throat and did her best not to smile. Maybe passersby would assume the wine merchant’s servant boy was simple, but she preferred not to invite speculation of any kind.