ROOK AND RAVEN: The Celtic Kingdom Trilogy Book One (8 page)

“What Jessy, leave you to muck up what bits I didn’t ruin?  I don’t know entirely what is going on with you, but this is not the way to live your life.”  

It was too much; having him back here in London, involving himself in her life.  She felt on the edge of tears and something that made her even angrier.  She wanted nothing more than to throw herself into his arms, even more than she wanted to punch him in the nose.  It scared her to the marrow.  It didn’t help that he was right either.  On this course she
was
going to muck up the life she had built.

She swung around to leave, but his words stopped her.

“I’ve made enormous mistakes Jessy.  I want to make it right.”

For a moment she couldn’t breathe, the despair and anger threatened to totally swamp her.

“You have no idea what it would take to make it right Sebastian.  Just
please
leave me alone. I’ve taken care of myself just fine all these years and will continue to manage without you!”

“What if I say I can’t?  There was a lot I didn’t know, but I’d wager there’s a lot you don’t and didn’t know about me either.  I need a chance to explain,” he didn’t know yet what that meant since he couldn’t be entirely truthful with her but, maybe at least he could convince Jessy he hadn’t wanted to leave her.

“I know you for selfish, I know you for weak and I know you for cruel.  What more do I need to know?” And with that she turned once more to leave but a hand reached out and swung her about.

“Know this,” he said as he captured her against him.  The world went dark as his tall body shut out the candle and firelight.  She was engulfed in darkness and then she drowned.  His scent, his taste, his strength surrounded her and flooded her.  It was a complete assault and one she could not fight against.  She could never fight him this way, not with her body or her heart.  Only her head knew she must, but her body would not obey.  The pleasure of that long and clever mouth against hers and the feel of the strong, warm hands through the silk of her gown set her blood bubbling like champagne about to burst from its bottle.  His hands had easily slipped their way beneath the domino.

She smelled and tasted no different and the heady scent, not of perfume but of her, set him reeling.  Her name whispered over and over in his mind. 

Her skin, so fair and delicate radiated enough heat to burn and he wanted to devour her, lose himself in her.  The black mask was ridiculously sexy and made her eyes glitter emerald and mysterious through the cat eye shaped slits.  His lips trailed down the sweet curve of her neck as he gathered her even closer, one hand burying itself in her hair.  He vaguely heard her hair pins as they fell to the carpet.  That lovely length of red gold silk fell across his arm, warm and heavy.  His lips found the pulse throbbing in her throat, beating as wildly as the wings of a small bird.

They arched even closer and she felt him lift her slightly as his lips once more found hers.  One strong thigh slid between her legs, easily gliding against the thin silk.  She shamelessly wanted to rub herself against him, against the need that hadn’t built, but rather roared to life within her.  His tongue plundered and danced with her own, the rhythm so familiar and so effortless.  Her arms twined about him, desperate fingers dragging through his thick black hair.  How she had missed this, needed this.  Here was the hollow place she couldn’t fill with masques and card parties, with callow flirtations, or good and solid men of worth.  She knew herself doomed even as her heart whispered
yes, yes
in answer to the hands and lips that demanded more.  She wanted to give more and she hungrily wanted to take more.

They tumbled to the soft couch by the fire and touch grew even more frantic.  She felt the glow of the fire against her closed eyelids, turning all to a rich red.  The flames and his lips left a scorching trail across her now bare
shoulders as the domino had fallen to the floor.  Warm hands moved across the silk covering her breasts and her entire body sang out in response, every inch of skin tightening, her breast seeming to swell against his touch.  Her hands couldn’t touch enough of him. 

Her dress had ridden up across his lap as they had fallen and Sebastian felt the smooth length of her leg above the thin silk of her stockings.  Every sensation heightened so intensely for him it was an agony and an ecstasy of pleasure.  It had never been quite like this with anyone else.  No other woman had this power to inflame him, to so completely overwhelm every sense until nothing and no one else existed.  She was the heart of the sun and he felt a powerful surge of pure joy that she had not been extinguished.  She was a ray of light that pulsed between his hands.  His ray of light.  He’d be damned if another man, even Tamworth, would have her. 
Mine
the word growled silently through him, as intent and territorial as a tiger.  

“Ah Jess,” his rich voice murmured and the sound of her name on those lips in this situation had the power to cut right through her haze of desire.  It was real what she was doing, what she was allowing to happen.  God in heaven she was insane. She opened her eyes to see her pale hands stroking his chest and had no memory of getting his shirt unbuttoned. This couldn’t happen for so many reasons.  It had to stop.  She had no right to indulge herself this way and he certainly had earned no right to have her.  It didn’t matter how much
she wanted him or needed him she wasn’t going to have him; was she? No, no, no she couldn’t even think it was open to question.

She wrenched herself away on a gasp.  Stumbling away she leaned on a small table to support herself, her heart kicking like a wild horse.  She struggled to control herself and shakily bent to retrieve her hair pins.

“Jessy,” that dark voice said softly.

“No, no I-I can’t,” she would not look at him.

“Look at me Jessy.”

She slowly turned and found herself nearly lost again in those amber eyes.  She felt them looking down into the depths of her and she felt exposed as if every secret were laid bare.  Some secrets could not be allowed to be seen by those eyes and so she closed hers.

“No, look at me.  I’m not going away this time Jessy.”

She opened her eyes and looking at him knew she wanted it to be the truth.  She wanted to tell herself it was the same old lie of their youth but something would not let her, even as he looked like a dark angel in the firelight.  The shadows cast behind him were arching wings ready to enfold her if she would let them. Oh she wanted desperately to let him in but couldn’t, not now and maybe never again.  Trust was imperative and she had no reason to trust him an inch.

“It doesn’t matter,” she whispered. “I can’t deal with this right now Sebastian.  Just leave me alone!” she hated the almost pleading tone of her voice.  “I don’t know why you came back but you can’t just expect I shall just forget and forgive with a snap of your fingers,” or a kiss of your lips, or the feel of your body she thought silently.

“That’s not the way it’s meant to be. Some people are meant for each other, made for each other.”

“So we used to say, but right now this is the way it has to be,” she said and pulling the dark hood of the domino she had retrieved from the floor over her bright head she walked from the room.  She didn’t look back.

He needed brandy and probably a lot of it.  For a man with a reputation with women, he had managed to thoroughly foul things up twice in one night.  He was better off just going home and getting drunk.  He hadn’t even gotten the chance to explain himself or properly apologize, damn the combination of lust and temper! His hands still burned with the feel of her skin and somehow the room had grown cold with her absence, even though the fire in the hearth still blazed.  

He had messed everything up from the time they were children until this very moment.  For some mad reason he couldn’t seem to get his thoughts, his life, or his actions together when it came to this woman.  All he knew now was that he had misjudged her, against his own instincts and if he could just finish this mission he would do
anything
in his power to get her back.  He had a bad feeling that just getting her to listen to him in the first place would be a huge hurdle to overcome.  To talk they had to manage to keep their hands off each other and that was proving a challenge.  So far he was living down to his very bad reputation, and while Bishop would applaud him preserving his cover as nothing more than a lecherous nobleman given to too much drink, it would get him nowhere with Jess.

His work for Celtica had to come before his own wants, he had people relying on him, who had invested their time and trust in him.  He hated to think what she would think when, despite what he had said, he would have to leave again.  Whether at that point he would have been able to explain the truth, he didn’t know; he would have to trust Bishop’s guidance on that.  He reached for more brandy and prepared to try and blot out thought and feeling without obliterating all his senses.  If he was ambushed on the way out of here by one of the priests of the Gooar Odin, the king’s most deadly enemies on Celtica, it would do him no good to get killed before he could either complete his mission or make his spirited and willful Jessamy his own.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Miles away from that room in Bridge House, where Sebastian still sat staring into a half empty glass of brandy, two men on horseback pounded down the night drenched road to the sea.  A ship had arrived and the Duke of Tamworth would meet it long before the dawn broke.  He had hours before daylight and would have to return to London by sun up to preclude any further suspicions of where he had been. The future of a nation could be decided by the news and the man waiting on the beach toward which he raced. 

It had taken the ship nearly a week to sail from Celtica to England and he had waited impatiently for news of the arrival.  He had to pretend he had nothing better to do than escort Jessamy Powers to a ball he had no interest in attending.  His own acting skills were not too bad considering how on edge he had been. All the years of treacherous political intrigue, delicate maneuvering and deeply held secrets would all soon come to an end.  He had worked too hard not to come out on the winning side; unlike his father who had supported this cause and paid for it with his life.

The one question that haunted him was whether the war would be long and would they have what was required to succeed this time? His heart had nearly stopped when he had finally been taken into the Foreign Office’s confidence and learned that King Conal still lived.  He had a feeling the shockwave from that news would leave not just Celtica reeling.  All of Europe,
not to mention London beginning its Season, would be titillated beyond measure to find this particular king alive.  The coup that had put most of Celtica into the hands of the Black Axes and the Gooar Odin had been seen as nearly horrific as the revolution in France.   

Back in London Jessy opened her front door with a feeling of utter relief.  Home was a place where masks could be removed along with one’s shoes.  It had for years now been her sanctuary in a demanding world.  That world had now become even more of an exhausting challenge and she wanted nothing more than to fall face down on her bed and into oblivion.  She didn’t remember ever being this exhausted.  The day had brought too much emotional excess and that was something she was no longer used to experiencing.  She hadn’t felt such highs, lows and everything in between since Sebastian had left her.  

She slowly made her way up the stairs of her small, but comfortable house and walked into her bedroom.  Nanny Bird was, of course, waiting up for her.  She had an uncomfortable sixth sense regarding any changes in the winds of Jessy’s life.  To think she would have gone to bed, instead standing there tapping her toe, would have been completely improbable.

“You are home early my chick,” she bustled over and removed Jessy’s domino with a frown.  Jessy knew that look.  Nanny most decidedly did not approve of her “antics” as she referred to Jessy’s less proper outings.

“Let’s get you into your night dress and then sit you down.  You can tell me all about it while I brush and braid your hair.”

As she had as long as she could remember, except for those desperate months when she had ran away, Nanny Bird had tended to her.  Nanny and David had always held fast in her life, twin anchors from her past, and she loved and appreciated them both more than she could ever put into words.  

But for her bright and shrewd eyes, nothing else was at all birdlike about Nanny.  She was stout of figure, nearly as tall as most men, hair the color of iron and of steel will.  She had come with Jessy’s mother when her first charge had married and stayed for the second chick she had raised.  Fearsomely devoted to both mother and daughter, she had fretted herself nearly sick with worry when Jessy had disappeared.  She had made a vow to herself that never again would she fail in what she saw as her nearly divine mission to protect her girl.  Her motherless lamb needed her and she’d take on anyone, with her bare fists if need be, to protect her.

She set Jessy down with a tsk of disapproval at the state of her hair, and began to brush it with long sure strokes.  It was obvious to her what had happened to Jessy’s coiffure and she wasn’t deaf or blind.  She knew quite well who was back in town after cavorting in foreign parts with other women.  Sebastian St. Just had put that worried and lost look on her girl’s face or she wasn’t Bridget Bird.