The Magic Between Us (Faerie) (20 page)

“Can I touch them?” he asked.

“You can do anything you want to them,” she said, laughing. She pushed her bottom back toward him. “I wish you’d do it while you’re inside me, though.”

She didn’t have to ask him twice. He straddled her thighs, looking down at the rosy softness between her legs. A drop of moisture seeped from her channel, and he caught it with his finger, lifting it to his lips. “My God,” he groaned. She looked back at him over her shoulder.

“Please, Marcus,” she said. She arched her bottom toward him. Marcus took his length in his hand, and straddling her bottom, he slid inside her. “Oh!” she cried out as he slid home. He settled deeply inside her.

She felt tighter this way, and he wasn’t certain how long he could last like this. So, he pushed her thighs apart with his knee and shoved one leg higher. Then he pushed into her slowly. “I don’t think there’s much more of me left for you to take,” she moaned into the counterpane, right beside where her fingers gripped it tightly.

“I want all of you,” he said, as he pushed home. He spread the cheeks of her ass, lifting her leg higher, as he thrust quick and shallow. Her breaths were tiny pants, and her eyes were closed tightly.

“That’s hitting some spot inside me, Marcus,” she warned.

He slowed down. “Am I hurting you?” he asked.

“Please don’t stop,” she begged. She arched her back, pushing her bottom toward him.

Marcus dragged a finger along the edge of her wing, and she went crazy beneath him. “They’re so beautiful,” he breathed, thrusting shallowly within her.

“You can play with them later,” she warned. “Finish this, Marcus,” she pleaded. Her voice was husky and she was so wet that her heat wrapped around them both. “Please,” she begged.

Marcus picked her up and flipped her over, careful of her wings. He laid her down and slipped one leg between hers, but didn’t sink inside her. Not yet. He looked into her face. His arms shook on either side of her head. “Give me all of it,” he said.

“You have all of me,” she said, her breaths broken as she squeezed her eyes shut.

“Give me your magic,” he said. “Please.” He wasn’t above begging.

“You give me yours,” she taunted. But she smiled. God, she could undo him with that smile. She spread her thighs, wrapping her legs around his waist.

He sought her heat in gentle jabs. “Not until you give it to me.”

She closed her eyes and shoved his shoulder, rolling him to his back. Then she climbed on top of him, her thighs straddling his. “Stop playing with me, Marcus.”

He took her face in his hands and looked into her eyes. “I’m not playing.”

She froze on top of him. “Why do you want it?”

“For the same reason I want you,” he said.

Cecelia nodded. She sank down on the head of him, taking him slowly inside her.

“Please, Cece,” he begged.

“All right,” she breathed. She balanced herself on her hands, her palms pressed tightly to his chest. Then she began to rise and fall on him. Her broken little breaths brushed his forehead as he leaned forward to tongue her nipple. His hand sank down to her curls.

“Give me your magic, Marcus,” she whispered against his hair. He lay back and looked up at her. She was glorious with her hair hanging about her shoulders, her eyes closed with abandon, rising and falling on his manhood. Liquid heat slid from inside her to coat him and made him slippery. He arched his hips to meet her, urging her to go faster. His hand stroked across the nub that was her center, rubbing quickly in circles, just the way he knew she liked it. She cried out, her mouth open in surprise.

Magic rose from her and mingled with his. “Let me have it all,” he whispered. His magic joined with hers, shooting like sparks in the air, swirling around them, taking them higher and higher, until all the magic in the room combusted along with them. It went off like fireworks at Vauxhall Gardens. The air sizzled as her inner walls trembled around him. She stilled when she came, encasing him in quivering, raw heat. He gave all his magic to her, and she took all that he had to give her.

The room quaked around them as she came, and the bed shook as he followed, pouring himself into her. She trembled in his arms, coming apart, and their magic put her back together as she fell to his chest. She cried out, her sheath still milking him, even as she fell limply against his chest.

“Are you all right?” he asked, brushing her sweaty hair from her neck. His hands slid up and down the damp skin of her back.

“Ask me in a few minutes,” she said, yawning as she rested on top of him. He stayed inside her until he grew soft, and then he pulled out. She complained. “Don’t go,” she said weakly.

“We have a lifetime to do that,” he said, stroking her cheekbone.

“I’ll move in a moment,” she said. “I’m too tired right now.”

He liked having her wrapped around him. Her wings covered them both, wrapping around his shoulders like her arm might, and he held her there. He didn’t ever want to move.

“We’re late,” Cecelia scolded as they rushed up the steps of Robinsworth’s palatial home.

“If you hadn’t thrown me down on the bed and tried to have your way with me again, we wouldn’t be late.”

She blushed, but she was smiling. “I didn’t try to have my way with you. I
did
have my way with you.”

He remembered. He remembered it well. She’d rolled from on top of him and then bent her head to place it in his lap. Then it was all over within minutes. They’d only used magic the one time, and then they’d been so exhausted they slept. She’d curled into him as though she was right where she always should have been.

Marcus smacked her bottom as they walked through the front doors. “Good evening, Wilkins,” Marcus said to the old butler as the man took Cecelia’s wrap. “Where is my family?”

“They are all over the place,” the butler said, looking out over the crowd. “Shall I announce you?”

Marcus looked at Cecelia and she arched a brow. “Yes, please,” he said.

This was nothing like the last ball he’d attended. He hadn’t wanted anyone to know he was there because nothing was right without her in his life. Nothing was as it should have been that day. But everything was right now. His life was the way he wanted it.

“Mr. and Mrs. Marcus Thorne,” Wilkins said loudly and clearly. The crowd stopped, turning toward them as they cheered. They clapped hands and clinked their glasses and yelled salutations. Marcus linked his hands with Cecelia and held them high in the air.

The ocean of people parted and Cecelia walked into the throng with Marcus. They accepted well wishes, but then the quartet began to play a waltz.

“Come and dance with me, Mrs. Thorne,” he said, tugging her toward the dance floor. The floor cleared until it was just the two of them. He pulled Cecelia into his arms and looked down at her as he swept her around and around. She was beautiful in an emerald green gown, her hair piled high on her head and falling into ringlets to tickle her neck. He could look at her forever. And a day.

Eventually, others filed onto the floor and Marcus had to look up from the pool of her eyes to survey the floor.

“Mayden is here,” he warned her.

She looked around without being obvious. “Where is he?”

“To your left with the blonde,” Marcus said quietly.

“Will he come to me to give me his salutations?” she asked. Her brow was knit with worry.

“Since the celebration is for us, probably.” He jostled her in his arms so she’d look up at him. “Don’t worry. I’ll be with you the whole time.”

She nodded.

“Promise you won’t do or say anything dangerous,” he said. He couldn’t lose her now. He’d just gotten her.

“What could possibly happen that’s dangerous?” she asked.

She had no idea what Mayden was capable of. The music stopped and everyone clapped. Marcus led his new wife off the dance floor and walked toward his family. “What did we miss?” he asked of his father.

“He came in as though nothing had ever happened,” his father said. “It was odd. And eerie. And not at all what I expected. He bowed over your mother’s hand and introduced his wife.”

Marcus looked over at him. “The blonde?”

“Yes, the American. A very sweet girl.”

“She won’t be for long,” Marcus warned. Mayden had a way of breaking a woman’s spirit.

Lord Phineas looked like he wanted to run across the room and thrash the man to within an inch of his life.

“Did he speak to you? Or to Claire?” Marcus asked.

Lord Phineas shook his head. “Not yet.”

“Let’s try the direct approach, shall we?” Marcus’s father asked.

“Meaning?” Marcus tried.

“I’d like to talk with him. We all would. I’ll invite him to my study in ten minutes.”

“Do you think he’ll go?”

“Only one way to find out,” his father said. He adjusted the fit of his coat, shrugged his shoulders, and walked away.

His father walked to the edge of the dance floor and put his hand on Mayden’s shoulder as he moved to walk past him. Mayden looked Marcus’s father in the eye, and he smiled. Marcus could read his lips from there. “Of course,” the man said. “Ten minutes. I’ll see you there.”

Then Mayden stepped forward and bowed before Claire. “Mrs. Trimble,” he said. “Would it be possible to claim a dance with you?” he asked. His eyes skittered across her face, not landing in any one place.

“I am not feeling very well. I believe I’ll have to decline,” Claire said. Her hand shook on Lord Phineas’s arm. Cecelia wanted to reach out and hug her, because Claire was the one person who knew exactly what the Earl of Mayden was like on the inside.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Mayden said smoothly. “Perhaps later?”

“Perhaps,” she said, noncommittally.

He turned to Cecelia. “Mrs. Thorne,” he said, his tone jovial and light. “May I claim the next dance?”

***

Marcus moved to step forward, but she pushed him back with a glance. “I’d be honored,” she said.

Mayden was tall and thin. His hair was dark as night, and his eyes were tiny pinpricks in a sea of nothingness.

He smiled and took her hand into the crook of his arm. A reel began, so she didn’t have to waltz about clasped in his arms, at least. She breathed a sigh of relief.

They came together for a moment, and Mayden said, “It was stupid of me to come here.”

Cecelia startled. She hadn’t expected that. Not at all. “I wouldn’t say that,” she tried.

He snorted. “Quite bacon-brained of me,” he admitted. “I’d hoped to let bygones be bygones. But I see that’s not possible.”

They stepped apart and then came back together. “You did some terrible things.”

“I belonged in Bedlam,” he explained. His eyes were troubled.

“Are you still mad?” she asked. She searched his face for the truth but couldn’t find any. Perhaps there was none left.

“I am thinking much more clearly now than I have in a long time. A man can become desperate when he’s faced with losing everything.” He stepped back, and then they switched partners with the people beside them.

She could see that happening. Her father had gone a bit mad when he’d lost her mother. Yet Mayden was speaking of material things. Not a love or a life. Not a soul. He spoke of his wealth. His home. His livelihood, perhaps.

“Your wife is lovely,” Cecelia said.

“She’s a twit,” he snarled.

Cecelia startled. “Beg your pardon.”

“She’s a treat,” he said, correcting himself.

“Oh,” Cecelia breathed.

The dance ended and Mayden escorted her back to Marcus, and he went to stand beside his wife on the edge of the room.

After a few minutes, Mayden walked toward the corridor that led to Robinsworth’s study. He stepped out of view, and Marcus, his father, Lord Phineas, and the duke all filed out behind him.

Cecelia took a deep breath and walked to stand beside Claire and Sophia. “I don’t have a good feeling about this,” Claire said.

“Nor do I,” Sophia agreed. She raised a finger to her lips and began to nibble a nail.

“What’s the worst that could happen?” Cecelia asked. “Certainly he wouldn’t do anything terrible with this many people looking on.”

“You don’t know him,” Claire scolded.

A clatter at the refreshment table drew their attention. Marcus’s mother rushed from the dance floor when a table holding three large ice sculptures overturned.

“Oh, dear,” Claire said, startled.

“Mother,” Sophia said, and both the girls rushed forward to help her.

Everyone in the room was looking in the direction of the clatter. Cecelia noted absently that the American girl who’d married Mayden was in the middle of the throng screaming at the top of her lungs. What the devil?

But just then, an arm snaked around Cecelia’s waist and pulled her toward a corridor at the back of the room. “Don’t say a word,” Mayden hissed in her ear. “If you do, I will have no choice but to shoot blindly into the crowd.” Mayden was supposed to be in Robinsworth’s study. He must have never gone to meet them after all.

He had a gun. Had he had it all along? It was in his hand, and she heard the click of the lever being pulled back. “I’ll go with you,” Cecelia said. “You don’t have to force me. I wanted to talk with you anyway.”

Cecelia worked to adopt the placating tone she’d used with her father when he was drunk.

“Why did you want to talk to me?” Mayden asked as he led her toward a long corridor. He walked quickly down it, his hand at her elbow, gently but forcefully pushing her forward.

“Where are we going?” she asked, rather than answering him.

“Somewhere that we can talk privately,” he said. He pushed through a set of doors and then led her up a set of stairs. They circled around and around and around and around, and by the time they got to the top, she was winded.

“Can we slow down just a little?” she asked.

Mayden brushed cobwebs from the entryway of a large stone room. Cecelia walked to the edge and looked through a stone opening. Through the hole, she could see the ground below. “Where are we?” she asked.

“The turrets,” he said as he began to pace.

“This is where you killed the first Duchess of Robinsworth,” Cecelia said. She struggled to remain calm. But it was difficult.

His mouth fell open, and he stopped pacing to glare at her. “I didn’t kill her,” he said.

“You didn’t?”

“Oh, my God,” he breathed. “All this time they thought I killed her?”

Cecelia didn’t say a word. She just looked at him. His gaze was clear and steady. Not at all like she’d imagined. He was truly shocked at the revelation.

“I didn’t kill her,” he said. He laid a hand on his chest and pleaded with her with his eyes. “You must believe me. I didn’t kill her. I needed her.” He began to pace again.

“Did she love you, too?” Cecelia asked.

He shook his head. “She wanted to make her husband jealous. Nothing more. She was mad.”

“And you’re not?” Cecelia asked.

“Not right now,” he said, laughing.

“Why did you take me? And not one of the others?” Cecelia asked.

“The duchess and her ladyship were rushing forward to help their mother.” He looked at Cecelia as though she were the one bound for Bedlam. “You were the only one left. And you are more likely to listen to me.”

Cecelia cocked her head to the side as she edged toward the door. “What did you have to say to me?”

“Stop moving,” he yelled. He ran a frustrated hand through his hair.

“I’ll stay right here,” Cecelia said, holding up her hands as though surrendering.

“Tell me what my sins are,” the earl said. He made a forward motion with his hands. “Let me hear them. What else do they think I did?”

“They think you killed the late duchess,” Cecelia said.

“I didn’t. She jumped.” He made another forward motion with his hand.

“What happened that day?” Cecelia asked.

“We were up here talking. And she jumped. She just jumped. She said His Grace knew about us and that he was angry. And she couldn’t bear her life anymore. I tried to stop her. I tried to stop her.”

He didn’t look upset by this at all. If anything, he looked irked that he had to stop to explain it.

“Did you love her?”

He waved a breezy hand through the air. “She was a means to an end.”

“A means to what end?” Cecelia asked.

He shrugged, pacing again. “I needed funds for my estate. His Grace is good with investments. But she ruined me.”

“And she made you angry when she ruined you. So, you shoved her from the turrets. She fell to her death.”

“I would never have pushed her.” He laughed, but it was a sound with no mirth. “I thought about it many times. But her daughter was with us that day. She walked in looking for her mother. Her mother didn’t want her to see me. So, she tried to rush her from the room. But I think the girl could smell her mother’s desperation.” He laid a hand on his chest. “I would never have shoved her from the tower with the little girl there. I’m not a monster.” He looked shocked.

“I didn’t know Lady Anne was there,” Cecelia said.

“What are my other sins?” He motioned for her to continue.

“You tried to shoot Claire and Lord Phineas.”

“Yes, I did do that,” he admitted. “But I hadn’t slept for days. Do you think they would accept my apology?”

Cecelia bit back a snort. It was difficult, but she did. “We could try. Shall I go and get them?”

He motioned with his gun, jabbing it toward her. She flinched every time he moved it. “No, no. That’s no good. I need your help. Tell me what to say to them. Tell me what will fix it.”

Cecelia certainly doubted that anything could fix this man. Particularly not while he was alone with her with a gun. Marcus would find her soon. She was sure of it. He would come. He always did.

“I’m not a bad person,” the earl said, clasping the sides of his head between the gun and his flattened palm. “She always said I was a bad person. But I’m not.”

“Who said you were a bad person?” Cecelia asked. She sat down on the low stone wall that surrounded the turrets.

“She did.” Mayden sat down on the other side of the stone room and began to rock slowly back and forth, back and forth.

“Who is ‘she’?” Cecelia asked, keeping her voice low and soft, although all she wanted to do was scream and run.

“Her. My mother. The late countess.” His rocking became faster and faster. He clutched himself with his arms.

“What did she say to you?”

“I can’t repeat it. It’s too vile.”

Cecelia could help him. She knew she could. “Will you let me help you?” she asked. She leaned toward him. He was leaving her in his mind, she could tell.

“I need for someone to help me,” he said. A tear rolled slowly down his cheek.

Cecelia’s heart broke for him. “I’m going to reach into my reticule and then I’m going to show something to you,” she said slowly. “Will that be all right?”

He looked at her, focusing only slightly, and he nodded.

“I have magic dust, and I’m going to blow it into the air. I want to see the truth. Will you be all right with the truth?”

“The truth about me?” He pressed a hand against his chest. “You can see the truth about me? That’s all I’ve ever wanted anyone to see. I want someone to see the truth.”