The Lady of the Storm - 2 (28 page)

Even the gravel path that Cecily walked squished wetly, and time and again she trod over small bridges where streams bubbled along underneath. Off in the distance, geysers of white water split the air and enormous fountains sprayed sparkling mist with the glitter of tiny jewels.

Power flowed through Cecily. She breathed in the humid air and reveled in the feel of it. If her father hadn’t hated her, she might have felt as if she’d come home.

She caught a whiff of the rank odor of the stables, then the breeze shifted and brought the perfume of the nobles along with it. And then the scent of honest sweat as the wind shifted yet again.

If the breeze hadn’t also brought the song of his devil-blade to her ears, she might never have known he was here.

She could not mistake the sound of that sword.

Cecily turned. And froze. Neither could she mistake the grace of the man as he fought. He had stripped to his breeches and boots, and his tanned chest gleamed in the morning light, shining with a layer of moisture from his exertions. He slashed and parried while his blade hummed, against several other men as the rest watched with mingled looks of disbelief and fascination.

Only Cecily suspected that he fought more to keep his blade from delivering a killing blow than he did against the pathetic maneuvers of the other fighters.

“Giles,” she breathed.

The wind tore off her hood and set her cape to billowing about her, but she barely noticed. The sound of clashing steel rang in her ears. The distant laughter of the nobles sprang up now and again.

Why was he here? Surely it could not be a coincidence. Or had he joined Breden of Dewhame’s army with the rest of the villagers, then? Hoping to make a new life amongst old friends?

No. He had come to protect her. She knew it as surely as she knew the feel of water within her hands. He would deny their love, deny the right to marry her, but he could not stop himself from keeping his vow to protect her.

Perhaps it had become a habit he could not break.

Cecily smiled. For the first time since leaving London she felt fully alive, the sight of Giles’s flowing white hair, the muscles in his forearms bunching as he swung his sword… she could suddenly see with a clarity of vision that she thought she had lost. Every fiber of her being tingled with newfound awareness—

“Does the sight make you long for a man, Lucy?”

Her pulse jumped. She turned to face the general, his faceted blue eyes—so like her own except for their coldness—fixed upon her face.

“It’s why the ladies like to break their fast so close to the practice yard.” He stepped closer and leaned down until she could feel the heat of his breath on her cheeks. “They enjoy the sight of half-naked, powerful men. What a delight to discover the prudish little Lucy does as well.”

“I do not—”

“Oh, come now. Your secret is safe with me. Indeed, I long to share many secrets with you.”

Cecily could hear the calls and whistles of his friends within the shelter of the pavilion. Had she become a challenge? Were his advances so rarely refused that she’d become an embarrassment to him?

He grabbed her roughly up in his arms and kissed her.

Cecily tried not to retch. She fought against his hold, but despite her elven strength, he appeared to match hers and she could not free herself.

Giles. If he had recognized her… If he saw this bastard assaulting her…

Cecily gathered the power to her fingertips and called to the water swirling along the path. She snaked tendrils up the general’s legs, beneath his coat and around his neck. She gave the liquid more strength by chilling it to near-ice.

She learned quickly.

Owen Fletcher suddenly realized he couldn’t breathe.

He released her and Cecily staggered a bit, horribly aware that she could no longer hear the sound of clashing blades. She turned and saw Giles come to an abrupt halt at the edge of the muddy yard.

She met his gaze for a timeless moment, those delightfully human green eyes speaking to her more clearly than words ever could.

Giles wanted to run Fletcher through with his sword. He controlled himself only because the general had shown enough good sense to let her go. But he barely kept the urge under control, for his devil-sword hummed for Fletcher’s blood.

Cecily knew the power of Giles’s blade, suspected the strength of the general’s power, and did not want to find out if Giles would survive the battle.

She spun, and fled. Catcalls rang out from the pavilion, but she did not spare a glance for the nobles. Instead she turned once to look for Giles. He had returned to the yard, to the center of another mock-battle. Cecily nearly shook with relief as she slid behind the garden wall.

Thank heavens she’d had the presence of mind to keep her magical defense against Fletcher unobtrusive. She doubted that anyone else besides Giles knew how she’d escaped from the general’s embrace. Except the general, himself. She shivered at the look of shock, and then cold calculation, that had been on his face. She must avoid him now more than ever.

She did not remember Ellen until she returned to Longhurst’s rooms and found the girl already there, collapsed upon the velvet settee.

“Lady Longhurst?” panted Cecily.

The girl waved a weary hand. “Gone to meet with the court gossip.”

“His lordship?”

“Off to his own business, whatever that may be.”

“Capital.” Cecily collapsed on the sofa beside her. “You have a piece of hay in your hair.”

Ellen giggled. “That’s not the only place, I’m sure. Why are ye breathing so hard?”

“I was running.”

“From what?”

“The champion. General Fletcher.”

Ellen sat up, her face becoming serious. “Ach, that’s a man to avoid, Lucy.”

“I know. But Ellen…”

The girl’s reddish brows rose.

“There’s someone else.”

Ellen snorted.

“What I mean to say is… where would a girl meet a man? Privately. With a guarantee that no one else might… overhear them?”

“That’s the way of it, then?” Ellen sighed. “Ye have to be careful, Lucy. A man can be slippery when ye are tryin’ to catch him.”

She was one to talk. Cecily waited.

“Are ye sure?”

Cecily nodded. Enthusiastically.

“Well, unless he works in the stables, I don’t recommend it for a tryst. That straw pokes ye in places ye don’t want poked.”

Cecily frowned. “Where, then?”

“I know of several places where the nobles go. There’s always some love affair or another going on. ’Tis like a game to them, methinks.”

“I don’t want to risk being seen by anyone at court.”

“Not if Fletcher is after ye.” Ellen firmed her mouth. “All right then, best to get ye another man and the general might leave ye alone. I’m only telling this to protect ye, mind.” With her conscience apparently clear, Ellen brightened again. “We servants have our own trysting places. There’s a cave behind the big waterfall—the one near the north gardens. Do ye know where it is?”

Cecily nodded. She would find it.

“Climb up to the second boulder, and then under the falls. It’s dry near the back of the cave and yer fellow servants have probably left a blanket or two in there. Oh, and there’s a black rock near the entrance. Don’t forget to put it on the top of the boulder if ye don’t want to be disturbed.”

Cecily admired the efficiency of the method. “Thank you, Ellen. Truly.” And she clasped the other girl’s hands within hers and gave them a squeeze, then went to Lady Longhurst’s writing desk and withdrew a piece of paper, dipping the quill in the inkpot only a few times to scratch out her message.

She sealed the note with a drop of wax and turned and held it out. “Here, Jimson.”

Ellen started and glanced around the room suspiciously.

The lad materialized from his mist. “How do ye
do
that? Most of the nobles can’t even tell when I’m around.”

Cecily ignored his question. “Can you deliver this message for me?”

Jimson scowled, glaring at the missive. “To the man with the ugly mark on his face?”

Heavens. He’d been following her for longer than she’d thought. And saw much more than the average person. Lord Longhurst had done well in hiring the lad. “Indeed.”

He gazed up at her with questions in his eyes, and she glanced warningly at Ellen, then shook her head.

“All right, then,” he finally said. “But I’m tellin’ his lordship about it.”

“You certainly will not,” snapped Ellen. “This is a private matter, Jimson.”

He looked mutinous until Cecily nodded. “Do what you think his lordship would wish.”

He smiled in relief and dashed off, and Cecily went to start her sewing, and then prepare for her midnight rendezvous.

Thirteen

Cecily crept out of the palace using a passage she hadn’t explored before. It branched several times. One way presumably led to the great hall, and the other to a conservatory, but since neither room was remotely close to the elven lord’s, she hadn’t bothered with the tunnel.

Until now.

She doused her lantern before she slipped through the hidden door in the palace wall. The moonlight provided adequate light for her elven sight, and so she left her lantern outside to mark the location of the entrance and pushed the door closed, the opening disappearing beneath the continuous fall of water that slithered down the outer walls. With her hood now plastered wetly atop her head, she made her way across the palace grounds and through the gardens, the rest of her cloak soon becoming equally damp.

Cecily kept to the shadows cast by the full moon, using Jimson’s trick of hiding within a mist to avoid the notice of the palace guards. She’d never thought to use her magic in that way, and after the dreadful knowledge she’d learned of how her gift could be perverted, she felt grateful to Jimson for showing her such a benign new skill.

As she neared the waterfall, she wondered how Giles might manage to sneak away to meet her. Jimson had said he’d delivered her missive, but the man had taken it with nary a word in reply.

Her heart sank as she gazed around the enormous fall of water. Surely Giles would come. He would have questions for her about her mission, for he would need to know what she’d discovered in order to plan on how to protect her.

Although Cecily had no intention of talking to him right away. She had already tried words and they had not worked.

She made her way to the side of the falls, near a tree that surely could not be native to England, for it sported massive fan-like branches that fell to the ground like the fall of the back of Lady Longhurst’s new sacque dress. Cecily stepped across the leaves, staring up at the large boulder Ellen had spoken of. With her elven sight, she could see quite clearly by the moonlight, but she doubted Giles would have such an advantage with his human eyes.

A hand closed over her arm and pulled her backward beneath the fans of the tree, Cecily stifling her yelp of surprise.

Familiar warm arms enfolded her. “Do you think this was wise?”

Cecily placed her hand over his mouth. “It’s not safe here. Come.”

He hesitated but a moment before he released her and then followed, up to the second boulder, raising one dark brow as she placed the black rock behind them. But he took her hand when she held it out to him and followed her as she plunged through the thin cascade of water at the sides of the main waterfall.

The stone shook beneath her shoes, the massive torrent tumbling down in a roar that pounded at her ears and sprayed a chill mist within the cavern behind it. Cecily could see that the cave extended far back into the mountain of crystal, probably deadening the sound of the falls and ending in a cozy chamber as Ellen had promised. But she did not head in that direction.

Cecily stopped near a smooth boulder and turned to face Giles, the stone at her back and the water pounding at her front, just behind him. The moonlight penetrated the chamber enough to outline his full lips, to allow her to see that he shaped words. But she could hear nothing against the crashing might of the falls.

Cecily smiled. Used her elven speed to undress faster than she had ever managed to accomplish that feat in the past, her sodden cloak falling heavily at her feet, her girdle unbuckling with nary a touch, her loose gown flying from her shoulders, the purposely loose ties of her stays leaping out of their holes, her petticoat dropping down her hips with ease, her chemise following. Until she stood in nothing but her stockings and shoes.

She stepped lightly out of the shoes.

His eyes stared at her blindly, and he probably assumed that she could see little as well. That his blemish was hidden to her sight.

Cecily reached up and stroked the shadow on his face, which glowed an eerie green even in the darkness. Giles jerked backward toward the fall of water, his mouth moving in some muted protest.

Cecily continued to smile as she called her magic, creating tendrils from the water and using the strength already existing in the falls to gently nudge him back toward her. She had him at a disadvantage and intended to make full use of it. How long had it been since he’d last touched her? Surely he must long for her as much as she did for him.

She reached up again and stroked his cheek, his jaw. He responded by fisting his hands at his sides, by locking his muscles. Cecily brushed the hair away from his face, gloried in the feel of the thick silkiness of it. She rose to her tiptoes and put her mouth against his, trembling as that touch raced an excitement through her veins.

He did not try to push her away. But he did not relax his defenses, his muscles now clenched to shivering tautness.

“So strong,” she breathed, her words as easily muffled by the roar as his own had been. Her fingers slid down his neck to his hard shoulder. She reached out her other hand and slid off his soldier’s coat, the cheap wool scratchy against her palms. “You have taught me well, Giles. I am no longer the hesitant innocent who traveled with you to Firehame. I have learned your desires and I know that you love me.”

She shed his plain waistcoat just as easily, despite his refusal to help her, his arms still fisted at his sides. The buttons of his shirt proved difficult, slippery with the spray that surrounded them, but unlike her own clothing, she took her time, and managed to strip his chest bare. “Will tonight make you see how foolish you’re being?”

His bare flesh prickled as she slid her hands over the curve of his muscles, down the ridges of his belly. Sleek skin. Hard muscle beneath. Cecily’s breath quickened.

She unbuttoned the flap of his breeches. Felt his sword tremble in its sheath. But the stubborn man refused to respond.

“So that’s to be the way of it, then?” Cecily rather enjoyed speaking without him able to hear. She reached up and untied the handkerchief knotted around his throat. “I must play dirty?”

He swallowed. She grinned.

“The skin at the side of your neck is sensitive, is it not?” Cecily leaned forward and kissed him just beneath his ear, traced a path with her tongue slightly toward the back of his neck until she reached the spot that she knew would drive him mad. She opened her mouth and sucked, the salty-sweet taste of his skin so very delectable.

Giles broke.

A shudder ran through him and his arms closed around her. His hands swept down her back and quickly to her bottom when he felt nothing but bare skin. She could not hear his groan but she felt it, from his chest to hers as he flattened her body against his.

His large hand grasped the back of her head and pulled her mouth away from his skin with a tug, his lips finding hers unerringly, his mouth hot and demanding, his tongue a tender weapon against her own. Cecily wrapped her arms around his neck for support. Her feet had left the stone floor. “Giles.”

He must have felt the vibration of her voice for she felt his answering growl. Cecily’s legs rose seemingly of their own accord, wrapped around his waist, until she could feel the soft heat of his skin, the hard muscles of his belly, against the most private part of her.

A distant part of Cecily’s awareness knew he held on to her with one hand, while the other yanked down his breeches. But she could focus on nothing but the feel of his mouth so demanding against hers, the glorious rise of joy that blossomed with the knowledge that, try as he might, he could not resist loving her.

Words had not worked with Giles. But surely he understood what she told him with her body?

She loosened her legs slightly and slid down atop the hard length of him.

She focused on that heat, rubbed back and forward across the base of it until his tongue began to mimic the rhythm.

He blindly took a step forward, then another, until the curve of the boulder against her back brought him up short. His arm cushioned her from the chill of it. Giles trapped her between his hard heat and the unyielding stone, braced his arm against that solid surface and cradled her bottom with the other.

He tore his mouth from hers and buried his face in her breasts, feasting on them like a man who had been denied sustenance for far too long.

Cecily moaned. Arched against him. Buried her fingers in his hair, every touch conveying her love for him. Her want of him.

Shivering heat raced from her breasts to her core, making her squirm atop his large hand.

Giles did not hesitate. In one smooth movement he pulled her up and lowered her onto his shaft, entering her with a swiftness that stole her breath. That filled her until she thought she might die from the sheer pleasure of it. He slid out, then penetrated her again and again, until she felt a scream well up in the back of her throat.

“More!”

Surely he could not hear her cry, but he understood the sense of it, his thrusts more powerful, slamming into her until she clutched his shoulders with a fierceness that almost frightened her.

Almost.

Cecily lifted her face up to the water that flowed over them, the sweet liquid flowing into her open mouth and crashing over Giles’s bent head. Lud, when had she called up her magic? For a portion of the waterfall now curved in an unnatural angle into the chamber, to tumble down their joined bodies, to cover them with a slick layer that allowed their skin to slide easily across the other’s.

Giles raised his head, staring blindly at her, a sudden smile lifting his lips. He said something, and then his mouth descended on hers, sucking at the water on her lips, pulling away to let the water flow across them before repeating the pleasure.

And pushed himself even more deeply inside of her. Until the rhythm he set seemed to echo the pounding rush of the falls. Until the water that had come to Cecily’s call spun about their entwined bodies with a motion that tugged her hair from her coiffure and swirled it around her head, raced across her skin with a cool heat that made her body tingle.

Giles flung back his head, shouting something as his entire body shook with pleasure. And then Cecily succumbed as well, her eyes closing as wave after wave of sheer delight controlled her body.

They clung to each other for a long moment, joined as one being. Until Cecily’s magic faded away, the water flowing down their bodies to pool on the stone floor, to slowly join the larger rush of the falls.

Giles gently lowered her to the ground, his arm still about her, kissing her softly on the top of her head. Cecily hesitated to end this moment, but he did not have her affinity for the water, and already she could feel the chill of his skin.

She loosed him and gathered up their clothing while he stood blindly, trusting her to take the lead. Cecily caught up his hand, shed the water from their bodies and their clothing, and led him into the cave at the back of the falls. The passage curved, blanketing the sound of the waterfall, and they entered a small chamber that held not only the blankets Ellen had predicted but a small chest besides.

Cecily could barely make out the simple shapes in the gloom of this chamber. When her hand explored the top of the chest and found a flint box and several candles, she quickly used them.

Giles blinked in the sudden brilliance, those heavenly eyes gazing about the mossy stone walls of the chamber before returning to her face, a smile spreading across his full lips. The old smile that Cecily had missed for so long.

And then his eyes hardened and he lowered his head, his thick hair falling to hide the mark on his face, and busied himself with buttoning up his breeches, checking his belt, which had gone wildly askew during their lovemaking.

Cecily’s heart fell. She pulled on her chemise, suddenly feeling a bit vulnerable. She held up her stays. “Will you help me with this?”

Giles glanced up and that grin returned. Although not as easily as it once had. He closed the distance between them and wrapped the garment around her, lacing it up with deft fingers. “This damn thing is the bane of any man’s existence.”

“I have missed you.”

He ignored her words. “Tell me,
Lucy
. How goes your mission?”

She smiled at the use of the name. “You know the details, then?”

Giles frowned. “As much as you were told before you left. I followed you at a safe distance, but I don’t know everything that has happened to you since you entered the palace.” He tied the ends of her laces. “Although I have learned enough to know how you fare.”

Cecily backed away from him, stepped into her petticoats, and wrapped her gown about her, taking a seat upon one of the blankets. Being clothed allowed her to feel a bit more confident. A bit more protected against his pretended indifference.

Giles remained standing in the shadows.

She carefully arranged her skirts about her. “So you did not come to Dewhame to join Breden’s army and find glory on the battlefield?”

He shifted his feet, boots swooshing on the stone floor. “Of course not, as much as my devil-blade might like the idea.”

“Then… I cannot believe Sir Robert allowed you to follow me. Or does he know where you are?”

“He knows. Although he’s not happy about it.”