Uncertain Magic (20 page)

He tugged lightly on her ankle. "Come here. Your muttonheaded husband wants his cape back."

"Cretin," she said scathingly. "Numbskull. Lackbrain. Clodpole. Let go of my foot."

He did not. He only looked at her with that quiver around the corners of his mouth.

"
Bastard, "
she hissed, which took care of the quiver. His blue eyes narrowed.

"Goose," he said, and gave a hard pull which brought her toppling down in a tangle of cloak and legs. Before her shriek had died away, he had pinned her beneath him on the floor. "Greenhorn," he said, very close to her face. "Has no one ever told you not to call a spade a spade when he's got hold of your foot?"

She pressed her lips together in frustration, but Faelan ignored her wriggling attempts to escape. Instead he cradled her face between his hands and ran his thumbs over her cheekbones. "Roddy," he said. "Listen to me. Listen to me now, for I'll only say this once, my love." He waited, watching her until she had stilled, and then bent to brush her mouth with his lips. "You weren't a virgin on our wedding night," he said softly.

She froze. "
What
?"

Instead of accusation, there was apology in his voice. "Not that I could tell." He kissed her again, his mouth moving gently on her parted lips. "Forgive me, little love," he whispered. "I'm a bastard indeed, for doubting you."

Roddy stared up at him and drew in a savage breath. "You… are…
impossible
!" she said between her teeth.

"No," he murmured, exploring the corner of her mouth and cheek with light kisses.

She tried to push him away. "Get off me."

He said, "No," again, this time to her temple and her hair.

She threw her head back. "I shall go stark, staring mad," she groaned.

"Then we'll be a pair."

"Yes," she whispered, thinking in despair that if he changed again so swiftly she would be fit for Bedlam. "We'll be a pair."

He pulled the cloak around her and took her with him as he rolled onto his back. With his hands on her shoulders, he held her above him. "Make love to me," he commanded, and then arched his head back and moved against her hips. "Please."

Roddy closed her eyes. That one word was magic.
Please
. It made her want to hold him and hug him and melt into wax. It did not even matter that he still wore his boots and his traveling clothes while the dark warmth beckoned and flamed through her limbs. She worked just enough buttons to reach him, and shivered to his groan of pleasure as she sank down on his waiting hardness.

The way his exposed throat tightened and his eyes slid closed in response sent a surge of excitement through her. She leaned over, spreading her fingers across his chest, gathering fine linen into her fists. She feathered kisses down the line of his jaw, running her tongue over the faint, scratchy stubble and then the soft skin beneath his ear. He turned his head, giving her access, and raised his bare hand to cup her breast. When he ran his thumb over the sensitive tip, her whole body tautened around him.

"Ah… God—Roddy." His voice was hoarse. He gripped her waist, holding her down as he rose within her. Roddy welcomed him, reveling in the way her slightest flexing sent pleasure or agony or something like both chasing across his fire-lit features. Between her thighs, the soft doeskin breeches radiated his heat as if it were his own skin she touched. She held his face between her hands and kissed him the way that he did her: hard and deep and fierce, as if she could reach his hot center and drink the fire.

He moved strongly beneath her. His hands slid down and grasped her buttocks. He tore his mouth away and drove upward, breathing hard, pulling her down again and again to meet him. When Roddy spread her legs to accept him more fully, he groaned her name, twice and then three times, as if he were dying and she could save him.

She arched her back and leaned over, basking in her power to bring him to this. Her mouth curved into a wicked smile.

"Not Roddy," she whispered. "
Cailin sidhe
."

He answered, a shuddering moan that turned into a cry as his fingers dug into her skin and his body stiffened and burst into hers. His harsh sound of ecstasy filled the room, mocking the French tables and gilded chairs: a wild primitive music in the civilized hall.

Roddy rested on his chest, feeling the dampness of sweat through his linen shirt. The sound of his heart and his ragged breath were all she could hear as she lay against him. Without raising her head, she reached up and traced his jaw, following the firm curve of it blind, down to his chin and up across his lips.

He kissed her fingers, his breath warm and heavy on her skin. She smiled ruefully into the darkness.

Fit for Bedlam.

Or wherever else he might care to lead her.

From somewhere, Minshall had found flowers. Red anemones, purple-veined tulips, and white narcissi, forced in some nurseryman's succession houses, lay scattered over papers on a polished table in the blue withdrawing room. Roddy placed another tulip in the tall Florentine vase she was rilling, and watched with resignation as the flower drooped awkwardly and then fell out of the vase, taking two anemones along.

She wasn't very good at flowers.

Unfortunately, though Minshall had brought her the floral offering with a gloomy face, underneath his surface expression had been every expectation of pleasure and praise. Roddy hadn't had the heart to suggest that any maid in the house could do a better job of arranging. She picked up a spray of narcissus and gave it a dubious frown.

"Lovely," came Faelan's low voice from the open doorway.

Roddy half turned, and smiled at him over her shoulder. "You're too gallant, sir," she said. She glanced back at the sagging cluster in the half-filled vase. "Or you have a good imagination."

His boots made no noise on the carpet as he came toward her. He caught her shoulders and pulled her back against his chest, twisting her chin up for a hard, lingering kiss. "I have an excellent imagination,
cailin sidhe
," he murmured, sliding his hands down from her waist to her hips. "My memory isn't wanting, either."

The forgotten narcissus dangled and fell from fingers that grew too weak to hold its weight. Roddy leaned against him, feeling his shape all down her spine and along her thighs. It was as well, she thought hazily, that she knew all the servants were busy at distant tasks. When he touched her like this, all sense of shame and decency vanished.

It was then, while he caressed her bare shoulder with his lips and molded her body to his, that she felt the intrusion.

The mental touch was peculiar. Unfamiliar. She tensed, and in another moment Faelan had realized her resistance. His head came up in question just as the unmistakable sounds of arrival filled the courtyard outside.

His blue eyes narrowed beneath their thick brush of lashes. He bent and kissed her earlobe. "Later," he whispered. "Later."

He was standing behind her with one hand on her arm—the always-possessive touch—when the front doors thundered open. The sound of a feminine voice echoed through the hallway and into the drawing room.

Faelan let go of Roddy.

"Faelan, my love!" the woman cried, sweeping into the room with a footman in her wake. "You can't guess where I've been these two months! And who is this child? Ah, I do despise this miserable house." She let the servant take her rich cloak without a break in her flow of words. "The drafts, I declare, nothing could be worse. With the exception of Iveragh, of course.
Nothing
could be worse than Iveragh. I have been to the Lakes, my dearest boy. Who did you say this young person was?" Her vivid blue eyes rested for a split second on Roddy and then passed over. "Ah, Keswick—you would adore it! I have bought a house, the most precious cottage; you must pack and return with me on the instant. Your Uncle Adam insists. Of course, I knew he would; he dotes on you, Faelan dear…"

The stream of words flowed on without a pause. Roddy stood, nonplussed, staring at this slender, olive-skinned matron with shadowed eyes as blue as Faelan's. Her movements were quick and jerky as she pulled off her gloves and moved about the room, examining each table and chair, picking up figurines and turning them over in her hands as she talked without ceasing. The words obscured her thoughts from Roddy, obscured even her identity. In her restless circuit of the room she came to where Faelan stood and raised her hand to be kissed. There was a momentary pause in her monologue, and he bowed over her fingers.

She smiled up at him coyly. "Not even a hug, my only son? But no, you would ruin my hair, and Tilly worked for an hour—
two
hours—to dress it." She looked at Roddy. "What do you think? Too much height, I told her. Make it
au naturel
, I said. Like yours, my dear. How pretty and unusual you are. But no, my Tilly says, it's not for you, ma'am. I must have height, she says. Well, so it will be. What
is
your name, my dear?"

Roddy kept her eyes downcast. "Roderica," she said hesitantly.

"I knew a Roderica once. No, I did not. That was the name of Clara Walters' great-aunt. Or was it her spaniel? My lamentable recollection. Have we met? I declare, I cannot recall your surname, child."

"Savigar," Faelan said in a still voice. "The Countess of Iveragh."

"The Countess of Iveragh." She turned toward her son. "You must be married, then. My congratulations. My warmest regards." She turned back to Roddy and gave her a perfunctory embrace. "When did this happy event take place? I see that I've rusticated far too long. And Adam must be told, of course. He'll be delighted, I assure you. But why did you forget us, you naughty boy? Do ring to have my room prepared. I must have a nap."

"Your room is ready, m'lady." Minshall appeared in the doorway, not showing a hint of the haste with which he had rushed to the drawing room when he heard his mistress had arrived.

"You are a treasure, Minshall. I shall retire directly. Send Tilly up. Has the fog been so horrid all week? I declare, it wants to hang in the very drawing room. I shall not stay above a fortnight, I dare swear; I won't be able to abide it. But you don't think she's a trifle young for you, Faelan? I suppose it's all the crack just now—child brides…"

She left the room still talking. Roddy could hear her voice echoing as it drifted away up the stairs.

Silence hung in the study, thick as the dowager countess' fog. Faelan had a strange look—too neutral; his dark features set in unnatural calm.

"Allow me to present my mother," he said at length. "I'm sure she's honored to meet you."

Roddy stood in silence. She could think of nothing to say. Above her the dowager countess' presence whirled, a giddy torrent of nonsense, unsettling in its very banality. It was as if the marriage of her son and the drafts in the house occupied equal importance in her mind, and neither of them very much.

After a long moment, Roddy managed to say, "She seems an excellent person."

His mouth drew taut in a humorless smile. "Do you think so indeed?"

They sat at opposite ends of the polished table, Faelan and his mother, with Roddy at a place in between. The huge room sent back every little chink of silver in echo and made the few words spoken sound hollow and strange.