Teresa Medeiros - [FairyTale 02] (14 page)

He was, but he hadn’t known it until that very moment. His gaze flicked back to her lips, a denial dying in his throat. He’d already done the Dragon’s ferocious reputation enough harm for one night. Perhaps a sacrifice of his own scruples was in order.

“ Far be it from me to cast aspersions upon your friend or her mother,” he murmured, closing his eyes and leaning down with every intent of stealing a kiss.

When his lips met only air, he opened his eyes to find Kitty scampering away from him.

“Where are you going?” he cried out.

She spun around, looking more like a fairy than a wood sprite beneath the gossamer caress of mist and moonbeams. “I have to tell Glynnis and Nessa that Gwennie is alive and that I’ve met the Dragon! Do you know how jealous they’re going to be? Glynnis is always playing ‘lady of the manor’ because she’s had two husbands and I’ve had none and Nessa is always mocking me because she has all the juiciest tales. Now I’ve one of my own to tell!”

Envisioning the wrath of the real Dragon when he discovered Tupper’s foolishness, Tupper cast about in desperation for some way to stop her. “Wouldn’t it be better to have a secret than a tale? A secret that can remain just between the two of us? “

She cocked her head to the side, plainly intrigued by his proposal.

“Just think of it, Kitty,” he said, moving toward her. “You’re the only one in Ballybliss who knows my true identity. Can’t I coax you into keeping that secret for just a little while longer? Surely the responsibility of guarding such a treasure would lift you in your own esteem, if not your sisters’.”

She poked at the ground with her toe, a petulant cast to her lips. “Gwennie always said I couldn’t keep a secret. She says I blather too much.”

Tupper smiled. “A friend once said the same thing about me. But perhaps you’ve just never had one worthy of keeping. Come now, be a good lass and promise not to tell.”

She slanted him a provocative look. “I might be able to do it. But only if you’ll make me a promise of your own.”

Tupper swallowed, hoping she wasn’t about to ask him to show her his wings, breathe fire, or deliver Gwendolyn to her doorstep. “Very well.”

“Meet me,” she boldly demanded. “In this very meadow. Tomorrow night after the moon rises.”

Tupper slowly nodded, convinced he was getting the sweeter end of this bargain. “Until then, dear lady, you must remember that you hold my fate in your gentle hands.” He brought one of those hands to his lips, a gesture he’d watched the real Dragon use to great effect on any number of women.

When she responded with a gratifying shiver, he
drew off his cloak and wrapped it around her shoulders. She tipped her head back, her eyes drifting shut and her lips parting in invitation. Shaking his head ruefully, Tupper leaned down and brushed her brow with a chaste kiss.

When Kitty opened her eyes, she was alone in the meadow. She gazed up at the moon, utterly bewildered by the Dragon’s desertion. Most of the lads of her acquaintance, including Niall, would have had their hands up her skirt a dozen times over by now, yet this Dragon fellow hadn’t even tried to stick his tongue in her mouth.

But he had kissed her hand, called her a lady, and wrapped her in his cloak.

Kitty hugged the warm folds of the garment around her, wondering if she would ever see him again.

F
OR
THE
NEXT
FEW
DAYS after Gwendolyn’s miserably botched escape attempt, the Dragon was nowhere to be found. Yet his presence was as inescapable as the muffled roar of the sea.

Although she would awaken from a dream-tossed sleep and search the shadows only to find herself alone, each day Tupper would deliver some new treasure from the Dragon’s magical and seemingly inexhaustible trove—a gilt hairbrush and comb inlaid with mother-of-pearl, a first edition of René de Reaumur’s
History of the Insects
bound in calfskin, a round wooden tub filled with scented bathwater.

The village, her sisters, even her beloved papa were all beginning to pale in the Dragon’s shadow, like ghosts from another lifetime. It was as if she had existed not for days, but for centuries as his pampered thrall.

Her only company consisted of Tupper and Toby, and neither of them was very forthcoming about her
mysterious captor. Tupper entertained her with stories about his spirited great-aunt Taffy and entertained himself by coaxing her to reveal some of Nessa’s tamer amorous adventures and Glynnis’s schemes to catch a new husband. He grew especially attentive whenever Kitty’s name was mentioned, although he always seemed to stammer some excuse to leave whenever Gwendolyn brought up Niall, the freckled rogue who had stolen her sister’s innocence. Toby simply rolled himself into a massive ball of fur at the foot of her bed and napped the long hours away.

Gwendolyn envied him his indolence. She found herself restlessly pacing the chamber for hours on end. Although Tupper continued to bring her delicious meals prepared from the finest offerings the village could provide, more often than not she found herself without an appetite, pushing the food from one side of her plate to the other.

One morning Tupper shoved his way through the panel door, staggering beneath the weight of a tall, sheet-wrapped burden. Gwendolyn jumped out of the bed, unable to disguise her childlike anticipation, an anticipation she hadn’t felt since the Christmas morning before her mother had died. All that was visible of this new treasure was a pair of gilded feet that looked like the talons of a dragon curved around twin balls of gold. Tupper rested it next to the table with a grunt of relief, then fished a folded piece of stationery from his waistcoat pocket and handed it to Gwendolyn.

While Tupper mopped the sweat from his brow, she
slid her fingernail beneath the drop of bloodred wax sealing the stationery. A single sentence was scrawled across the creamy vellum:
I wish only that you might see yourself as I do.

“Shall I?” Tupper beamed as he prepared to whisk away the sheet.

“No!” Gwendolyn cried, suddenly guessing what lay beneath it.

Although Tupper appeared baffled by her refusal to unveil the Dragon’s gift, he was tactful enough to make no further mention of it. Late that evening, long after he had delivered her supper and gone, Gwendolyn tossed down her book, disgusted with herself for rereading the same paragraph for the eighth time. It was impossible to concentrate when her thoughts kept wandering back to the Dragon’s last visit and her gaze kept being drawn to his latest gift.

She couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t eat. She couldn’t read. If it hadn’t been so absurd, she’d have thought she was suffering from lovesickness. Heaven knows she’d seen the signs of it often enough in Nessa: the fitful mooning, the listless appetite, the desolate sighs.

But how could she be falling in love with a man whose face she’d never seen? A man who was nothing to her but a smoky voice, a seductive touch, a ravishing kiss?

She brushed a finger against her lips, plagued by an old fear. Perhaps she was as vulnerable to the temptations of the flesh as Nessa was. She’d always fancied herself immune to such enticements, yet it had taken
no more than one kiss from the Dragon’s lips to melt her will and make her yearn for his touch.

She shifted her gaze from the Dragon’s gift to the plate she’d left abandoned on the table, feeling the familiar urge to down what was left of her supper in a single swallow.

Instead, Gwendolyn slowly rose from the bed and approached the Dragon’s shrouded offering. Before she could lose her courage, she reached up and snatched away the sheet.

A full-length mirror of pure hammered silver stood before her, cradled in a frame of ornately carved mahogany. Gwendolyn might have paused to admire its beauty had she not been captivated by the woman reflected in its polished sheen. Candlelight glinted off the golden tumble of her hair. A dressing gown of pure Oriental silk draped her lavish curves. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes luminous, her lips moist and parted. She didn’t look like the plump, square-jawed sister of three legendary beauties. She didn’t look like the captive of a ruthless madman. She looked like a woman waiting for her lover.

Her hands shaking, Gwendolyn tossed the sheet back over the mirror, convinced that it must be as enchanted as the man who had given it to her. Not only was she aching for the touch of a stranger, but she was in danger of becoming a stranger to herself as well.

Later that night, Gwendolyn sat upright in the bed, unable to say what had awakened her. There was no need for her to search the shadows for the Dragon on this night. The light of a full moon streamed through the grate, bathing the deserted chamber in spectral brightness. She sniffed the air, but failed to detect so much as a lingering whiff of cheroot smoke.

She cocked her head to listen, but all she could hear was the muffled roar of the sea. She rose and padded toward the window, drawn by its siren chant.

The Dragon might have ordered the grate replaced, robbing her of any hope of freedom, but by climbing up on the table and standing on tiptoe, she could still gaze out over the spectacular vista of moonlight and water and drink the salty air into her parched lungs.

Gwendolyn’s breath caught in her throat. A sailing ship was cutting through the whitecapped waves, heading straight for the castle. With its billowing sails glowing alabaster in the moonlight, it looked no more substantial than a ghost ship laden with the spirits of the dead.

She blinked in wonder, half expecting the vessel to vanish before her eyes. “Drop anchor, lads!”

The very mortal cry was followed by a mighty splash and the sight of a longboat being lowered into the water.

“Hey!” Gwendolyn shouted, curling her fingers through the grate. “Help! I’m up here! Somebody please help me! I’m being held prisoner!”

As she continued to shout, bouncing up and down
on her toes in her desperation to be heard, the shadowy figures manning the longboat began rowing toward the caves carved into the cliffs below the castle, leaving a shimmering trail of silver in their wake. Gwendolyn craned her neck to watch the boat until it drew out of sight, then collapsed into a kneeling position on the table.

She could shout herself silly, but it wouldn’t bring deliverance. Because they were
his
men. And that was
his
ship.

The ship explained how he had claimed Castle Weyrcraig for his own without a soul in Ballybliss being any the wiser. It explained how he had managed to smuggle all of his decadent luxuries into the castle—the ornate bed, the feather-stuffed tick, the wax candles… perhaps even the mirror that reflected only what he wanted her to see. And it explained how he would make his escape once he’d milked the village of the last of its gold and its pride.

Gwendolyn had once dreamed of just such a ship. A ship that would carry her far away from Ballybliss to a world where musty old libraries held vast troves of leather-bound treasures. A world where tapestry-draped drawing rooms rang with witty conversation and daring ideas. A world where a man might look at a woman in appreciation for more than just her heart-shaped face or the dainty size of her waist.

And suddenly she knew whose world it was. It was
his
world. The Dragon’s world.

Gwendolyn jumped down from the table and began to pace the chamber, blind to everything but her growing
fury. He might not even bother to free her before he went. The villagers already believed her dead. What difference would it make to them if she was eaten by a dragon or moldered away in this lavishly appointed prison? He might just leave her here to rot in the gown of one of his discarded mistresses, while he returned to that elegant world of balls and drawing rooms—a world she would never know.

Her hands shaking with reaction, Gwendolyn found the tinderbox and lit each of the candles in turn. She was angry with her faceless captor, but she was even more furious with herself for being fool enough to fall beneath his spell.

She looked around the tower. Thanks to her host’s lavish generosity, there was no lack of objects with which she might bash him over the head the next time he swaggered through that panel door. But he seemed to be avoiding her company as studiously as he’d once sought it.