The Fire's Center (28 page)

Finally Lucien moved sleepily to one side, and nestled his head against her shoulder. Riona moved her arm to put it around Lucien, and with her other hand she tugged the covers up over them to protect them from the now much cooler night air.

"Are you all right?" Lucien whispered.

"Mmm, fine," Riona replied tenderly, as she stroked his lush black hair back from his forehead.

Lucien, also savoring the moment, enjoyed the chance of stroking her bare flesh, running his hands up and down her slender legs, her narrow but shapely hips, her hard flat stomach, up to her firm round breasts.

"Like a goddess," he murmured, before kissing her on the lips, an unspoken demand which she answered by turning onto her side and wrapping one leg around his hip.

Lucien pressed inside her again, and in the dim lamplight they made love all over again, this time with more tenderness, less urgency, and with the joy of two explorers who after a long journey had finally discovered a new-found land.

Riona knew Lucien was not a man to show his feelings, and his rigid sense of propriety prevented him from showing his need for affection or passion. Everyone always said he was married to his work.

In her arms she could see he was a flesh and blood man who imposed upon himself the most rigid restraints. Riona knew any sign of fear or reluctance on her part would break the spell. In any case she felt no fear, only a warmth and tenderness, and burning desire for Lucien she had never dared admit to herself fully.

I love him,
she thought as she stroked his brows, his lashes, and then his eyelids, his forehead tenderly.
I want him. I think I always have, from
the moment we met.

Riona fondled and petted him until he sent her whole world reeling again. Then she wondered if she had not been the recipient of all the love and tenderness, so treasured and adored did she feel.

Amid all the delights, Riona was sure that this wasn’t simply lust, but a meeting of minds and hearts. As they explored each other, they laughed and giggled, enjoying each other’s company.

Even after their third climax they continued to cling to each other, all passion spent for the moment, but with Riona and Lucien still wanting to revel in every moment of being together.

"Did I hurt you?" Riona asked in alarm at one point when she had allowed her questing hands to explore him ever more intimately.

Lucien trembled, struggling for control. "Not at all, I’m just astonished. I had no idea that could bring such pleasure."

Riona, with a sense of her own power, rose up to straddle him then. With his hand over hers to help guide him, they joined once again. Riona truly felt she at last knew the meaning of the wedding service when it talked of married couples being one flesh.

Lucien watched, fascinated, as she rose and fell above him. Though he tried to hold back, as Riona caressed his thighs he climaxed so violently she nearly flew off the bed.

But Lucien clung onto her hips, and Riona was filled with joys she had only ever dreamt existed as he filled her to the brim with delight, and she could feel the power as he reached his own pinnacle of pleasure.

At last Riona fell onto Lucien’s chest, soaked with perspiration. He pulled the covers over her and rolled them both onto their sides. Their breaths mingled as their panting grew less urgent, and soon both were sound asleep.

"I love you, Lucien," Riona murmured as she drifted off into a dreamless slumber in the arms of her incredible lover, already asleep himself.

Chapter Twenty

Riona was awakened much later by the footsteps of the maid on the stairs. Riona opened her eyes blearily, and saw that she and Lucien had forgotten to close the shutters of the medical room study. The first red streaks of dawn were already lighting up the early morning sky.

Riona took in the sleeping form bedside her, and smiled fondly for a moment. Then she realised with a start that Niamh would soon be coming into the room to tidy it and lay the fire.

She gently managed to disentangle herself from Lucien’s questing embrace. She yanked her chemise over her head, before tugging on her dress and hastily doing up the front. She grabbed her underthings and stockings and rolled them into a ball, and then picked up Lucien’s things and draped them tidily over a chair by the day bed.

Then she pulled the covers right up to Lucien’s chin, and planted one last kiss upon his forehead. Checking the room once more to make sure nothing of hers was left behind, Riona picked up her bundle and her boots, and opening the door a crack, peered out into the foyer to see if anyone was about.

She could dimly hear the clink of a coal bucket in the dining room, and so hurried out and took the stairs two at a time.

Once in the privacy of her own room upstairs, Riona stripped off her clothes once again, and hastily scrubbed herself with some freezing water from the basin. She fancied he could still smell Lucien on her, and she looked at herself critically in the mirror.

A fallen woman,
Riona laughed to herself. She wondered why she didn’t appear any different. And yet, as the sun began to stream in though her window, she could see in truth that she
was
different, almost radiant.
Like a woman in love,
she thought with a happy smile.

Though she couldn’t wait to see Lucien again, she knew it would be hours before he was awake, since they had both got so little sleep the night before.

But despite the lack of rest, she felt completely alive for the first time in a long time. For the first time since the Famine had started so long ago and ripped her family apart, she recalled with a pang.

Riona decided she was too keyed up to sleep, so she put her hair into some semblance of order, tugging at it with a comb and brush until she finally managed to untangle it. Then she piled it high on her head in imitation of one of the more stylish fashions she had seen since coming to Dublin.

Next she selected clean underthings, and tugged on her stockings almost reverently, recalling her lover’s touches from the night before.

Then she went over to her small wardrobe, and dressed in the royal blue linen gown Lucien had bought her when they had first met, but which she had thus far considered too fine to wear.

Dresses were meant to be enjoyed, not kept for special occasions which might never arise, Lucien had said. So Riona donned the gown and looked in the mirror.

She was pleased with the effect, but she knew if she were going to the clinic, she would have to dress a bit more practically. She took out a brand new clean apron from her bottom drawer, and throwing her cloak over her shoulders, she tucked the apron under her arm, along with a small parcel of herbs Mrs. Kinsella had managed to get for her at the market, and crept down the stairs.

She let herself out the front door without anyone hearing her, and enjoyed the brisk walk to the clinic, admiring Dublin for the first time without having to worry about anyone thinking she was odd, or an unsophisticated country bumpkin.

Riona breezed past Sean the night porter, standing in the doorway, bleary eyed from sleep, with an airy good morning, but dropped her bundle as she saw sheer chaos in the ward.

One man, obviously drunk, was shouting and smashing bottles, while two women had begun fighting each other in the middle of the floor, and were tearing each other’s hair out in handfuls.

Dr. Kennedy was trying to calm them down, while Dr. O’Carroll was busy in the small side ward with what appeared, from the amount of bloody linens and the horrendous screams, to be a very difficult birth.

Breda, who was meant to be doing the breakfasts for all the patients Lucien had newly admitted the evening before, had had her kitchen raided in the middle of the night by three of the hungrier patients, so that there was nothing left to eat for the others.

Angela the night nurse was complaining that someone had smashed open the drug cabinet, and had stolen most of what was inside.

Whisking off her cloak, Riona first went to the medicine cabinet, where she prepared a small opium and brandy tincture for the drunken man.

"Here you are, Tom, have a proper drink. That’s some of Dr. Woulfe’s best brandy," Riona offered with a winning smile.

Old Tom’s hands were shaking so badly he spilt half of the concoction, but the other half went down his throat, and within seconds she had him back in his bed, and tied his hands and feet to the metal bed posts.

As for the fighting women, Riona separated the two of them by offering to let them help her make the breakfast, and saying they would get double portions if only they stopped quarrelling.

Then she ran to sleepy old Sean, scolded him for letting things get so out of hand, and sent him to the nearby market for bread, butter, oats, and honey.

"And don’t forget to get some more milk," Riona said, indicating the empty bottles on the doorstep. "They’ve even gone and drunk all of that!"

Then she had a quick look in the larder, where there were at least some oats, and got the quarrelsome women to help draw water for the porridge, tea and washing for the morning.

Soon enough their meagre strength gave out, and Breda had the kitchen back to herself again.

"Sean has gone for some more food," Riona told her. "We will be running late this morning, but they’ll all get fed in the end. In the meantime, while you wait, you can tidy up this place a bit. It looks like you’ve had a war in here."

Breda nodded, relieved that Riona was there to give them some sound advice.

Then Riona went over to where Angela was sitting shaking her head.

"The doctor will kill us."

"Never mind him. Let’s just hope whoever stole that medicine doesn’t kill anyone himself! Now, I want you to get everyone up out of their beds for a wash as soon as the water is boiled, and then Sean can search everywhere for the bottles that were taken."

"But to wash them all? We’ll be at it all day!" Angela exclaimed.

"Let’s face it, some of them will be leaving soon enough anyway, and this is possibly the last chance they’ll get for a decent bath before they do. See what gowns and men’s clothes you can find. We certainly can’t put them back in the rags they arrived in," Riona instructed. "I don’t know what you were thinking of, letting them keep their own clothes on!"

"Ursula was the one who helped admit them, not me," she bristled defensively. "And all the clothes you laid in were stolen as well while she was on duty."

"It doesn’t matter whose fault all this is," Riona pointed out sharply. "The point is, will you help now?"

Angela nodded reluctantly, for she could see the wisdom of Riona’s ideas