“Now, Splendor!” her father shouted. “Go now!”
She needed no further urging. Stars twinkling all around her, she swept out of the forest and skimmed over the meadow, her long hair flowing behind her like copper flames. Wanting the Trinity’s first sight of her to be a perfect picture of charm and elegance, she flew in the most graceful manner she knew, one arm stretched out before her and the other held softly out to the side.
But a strong breeze upset her winsome pose, hurling her frail form through the air with mighty force.
In the next second she saw the source of her trouble. Delicious sailed at her feet. His powerful white wings stirred up a wind her slight frame could not withstand, thrusting her forward so violently that she knew she would soon be blown away. Her hair whipping around her, she began to flail her arms and kick her legs in a vain effort to regain control.
“Delicious, nay!” she shouted.
The swan seemed not to hear her. On the contrary, he stretched out his long neck and began to flap his wings with quicker, stronger strokes.
Just as she feared, Splendor blew over the meadow like a puffball in a tornado. A keen sense of helplessness overwhelming her, she closed her eyes tightly, hoped for the best…
…and crashed directly into Jourdian Trinity Amberville.
Chapter Three
Jourdian saw a burst of silver light, then a flash of white before Magnus shied, bucked, and reared.
Unprepared for his horse’s sudden panic, Jourdian fell off the frightened stallion and toppled to the cold ground. Pain surged through his head; his thoughts swayed dizzily through his mind. He felt displaced, as if he wasn’t really there but was only watching what was happening from another place.
He shut his eyes.
Stars danced before him. Not unusual, considering the hard fall he’d taken. But why did he think he smelled spring wildflowers? The fresh fragrance was so real, it was almost as if he were lying amidst a bed of the fragile blossoms.
May flowers in November? God, his fall must have been worse than he’d realized.
He lay motionless, still watching stars twinkle. A moment later, he felt as though something pressed against his chest. It didn’t weigh much, but it was there, just like the scent of wildflowers that lingered around him.
He opened his eyes and saw other eyes. Violet eyes, and they gazed at him with a combination of curiosity and pleasure. Full of sparkle and fringed with long, thick lashes, they were the sweetest, most mesmerizing eyes Jourdian had ever beheld, and he felt powerless to look away from them.
The owner of the pretty lavender eyes lay fully upon him, and it wasn’t at all difficult to discern her sex. The only thing she was wearing was the cloak of her copper hair, the alluring perfume of spring wildflowers…
And stars. The tiny lights shimmered all over her.
She looked like an angel.
Disbelief slammed into him. “Am—am I dead?”
She shook her head.
An angel wouldn’t lie, Jourdian decided. He wasn’t dead. Closing his eyes again, he strove for a plausible explanation.
Maybe he’d been knocked unconscious. Perhaps the naked, sweetly scented girl was but a dream, a figment of his senseless state. A real person wouldn’t go strolling through fields without clothes on—especially on a chilly November day. A dream would also explain her slight weight. After all, she was composed of nothing but his imagination and a myriad of silver stars.
But he didn’t feel asleep. Indeed, he was fully aware of every sight, scent, and sound around him.
What the bloody hell was happening to him?
He opened his eyes, looked at the girl, and again saw the sparkles swirling around her. Either she was a fantasy or a constellation had fallen from the sky into his arms. And since a fantasy was more believable, Jourdian realized then that he was definitely in the throes of a dream, the most realistic he’d ever experienced.
“Hello,” she said.
The fragile dream spoke, and Jourdian decided her voice was softer than the stirring of a bird’s wing. Her breath wafted across his chin, warm like a sunbeam, and her pale pink lips curved into a shy, lovely smile that wrinkled her small nose in a most enchanting manner.
“Your scent is supremely pleasant,” she told him. “’Tis the sort one might come upon while meandering through the woods in the winter.”
Ordinarily, Jourdian would not have returned a smile given him by a naked stranger lying on top of him, but since he was obviously out cold he felt perfectly free to participate in and enjoy his dream to the fullest. Not only did he smile back at her but he also lifted his hands from the ground and gently clasped her tiny, bare waist.
She was warm and soft, and her scent of wildflowers flowed through his senses like petals drifting on a gentle breeze.
“Oh,” Splendor whispered when he touched her. Strength began to trickle through her limbs. Gradually the energy she’d lost during her chaotic flight across the meadow returned to her, and it was with great relief that she realized she would not be forced to shrink to fairy size to regain what little vigor she possessed.
She shifted, lifting her head from the Trinity’s broad shoulder and trailing her fingers lightly across his temple. His pulse thumped beneath the tips of her fingers. A strong and steady beat, it reminded her anew of the power locked within his massive frame, and she understood then that the strength she felt flowing through her was not her own, but his.
Excitement rushed through her. Her great-grandfather and father had been right! Just being close to a human bolstered a fairy’s vitality.
“You’ve wonderful eyes,” she told him, her gaze locked with his. “There are some who believe rain has no color, but I will tell you now that they are wrong. Rain is silver and iridescent, like the wing dust of certain butterflies and moths. When you rub those wings, the dust glistens on your fingertip. ’Tis a lovely thing to see. Your eyes are such a silver, like rain and the glistening wing dust, and I do not think staring into them for hour upon hour would be a difficult task.”
Jourdian thought about what she’d said. No woman had ever commented on the color of his eyes before.
“And your lips…” Splendor said. “Full and soft and slightly parted, and I have a glimpse of your teeth, which are as white as the water lilies that float in the pond where I bathe. You have no hair on your face. I am glad for that, for if you wore a beard I would nay have discovered the mole on your right cheek. ’Tis a mark I find quite dashing.”
“You chatter,” he said, grinning.
“Aye. I cannot help it. I have tried to help it, but there are so many, many things that occur to me that I fear I would burst if I could not somehow release them. Sometimes, however, I am as quiet as the flailing of a snowflake. Many believe me ill when I am so quiet, but I have only been ill once in my life. A cat scratched me. He was a black cat with eyes as green as poison. My skin is sensitive, and the cat scratch caused me such torment that I took to my bed and did not rise for a full fortnight. The cat would have eaten me alive, and I’m sure that there can be no death more horrible. I do not like cats. Not at all. I am fond of hens and rabbits, however, because they don’t chase me as cats do.”
“Rabbits,” he echoed, his mind spinning with all the things she’d told him. “Cats chase you?”
“Aye, but rabbits and hens do not.”
He smiled again. He simply couldn’t help it. There was something so sweet, so good about her. “Sprite,” he said softly, touching one of her shimmering red curls.
She frowned slightly. Did he already know of her Faerie origins? “Why do you call me so?”
“Sprite? You remind me of one.”
“You have seen sprites?”
He smiled indulgently. “No, but I’m sure they look like you. Delicate. And shimmery, with impish smiles and whimsical ways about them.”
He didn’t know what she was, she realized. Sprite was only a pet name. “I am supremely certain,” she said, “that you are th
e most beautiful creature ever to draw breath.” Her gaze caressing his face once more, she grinned at him.
And no power on earth could have kept Jourdian from kissing that dreamy, dazzling smile. Drawn to her ethereal beauty and intrinsic goodness, he gently pressed his lips to hers and knew he had never encountered such sweetness. She tasted like warm honey—literally—as if she had just partaken of the luscious substance and it yet clung to her lips.
“What—what is this you do?” Splendor whispered, her mouth still touching his.
Jourdian ended the kiss and saw true bewilderment floating within her luminous eyes. Well, she was only an illusion, he reminded himself. A beautiful and innocent chimera who had no way of knowing what a kiss was.
Far be it from him to allow her to end before he’d tutored her in the art of sensuality.
“It’s called a kiss, and we were kissing.”
She thought about that for a moment, but could make no sense of it. “Why do you do it?”
“You didn’t like it?”
She looked at his lips again. “It didn’t repulse me in the slightest.”
Her answer rankled. This was his fantasy, damn it all, and he would dream it the way he wanted, with her writhing in his arms.
He clutched her slight shoulders and touched his lips to hers once more. A low moan escaped him as he drove his tongue into her mouth, seeking and finding more of her delectable sweetness.
Surprised though she was by his strange actions, Splendor felt filled with such incredible strength that she was certain she could fly around the world. At the very least she felt she could remain human sized for several days without having to shrink.
“Now how do you feel?” Jourdian asked smugly.
“Strong! Why, I have never been this strong! ’Tis magnificent this kissing!”
Strong? Jourdian repeated mentally. He’d rather hoped that his kiss would make her weak with desire.
Slowly, he slid his hands up the sides of her body, then moved them over her chest. Her breasts barely filled his palms, but their size didn’t disappoint him in the least, for they were two handfuls of exquisite softness.
And the sudden stiffening of her rosy nipples assured him he was making sensual progress. Gliding his hands downward again, he moved her hips so that they fit into the cradle of his.
Splendor felt his loins pressing into her. Confused, fascinated, and curious, she rotated her hips over the thick, turgid feel of him. “You have become hard and hot, like sunbaked stone. And you grow in size. The way you have changed… ’Tis as if by magic.”
“Magic?” He smiled. “No, sprite. It’s your beauty that brings about such changes.”
His statement made her forget to take her next breath.
“You say I’m beautiful,” she whispered. “That can only mean that you have succumbed. You will now admit to your enchantment with me.”
At her bold demand and imperious tone of voice Jourdian raised a brow. No one but the queen and a dream would dare to speak to him thus.
“I am waiting,” Splendor said.
He decided to indulge her. She was, after all, only a fantasy. “Very well, I am enchanted, miss,” he complied, smoothing his hands over the pale swells of her bottom. “Exceedingly so. But I hardly think that being enchanted with a dream will serve much purpose other than allowing me a small time of enjoyment before I wake up.”
Splendor raised her head from his shoulder, her action spilling her thick hair over the side of his face. He thought her a dream? Sweet everlasting, how was she to convince him she was real?
Delicious solved the problem for her. The graceful swan descended from the sky, landed next to Jourdian’s head and, with one quick motion bestowed a stinging peck upon His Grace’s ear.
“Bloody hell!” Jourdian shouted.
“One cannot feel pain in a dream, can one?” Splendor asked, sliding her finger down the length of the great bird’s neck. “This is Delicious. I’m sure he gave you a love bite when he nipped at your ear, but I shall nay know for certain until I have a word with him later.”
Jourdian’s ear stung viciously, and it came to him then that his head continued to throb, though only slightly now.
He felt pain.
This was not a dream! The naked girl was real, and he’d touched her breasts and derrière. He, the duke of Heathcourte, had lain in a field pawing a girl whose name he did not even know.
“Arise so that I may do the same,” he commanded.
Splendor rose to her feet.
Jourdian began to stand as well, but stopped in mid-action, completely unable to take his eyes off her. He’d realized her hair was long, but he hadn’t known those rich, red tresses fell to her ankles. Shining against her alabaster skin, they looked like russet flames ablaze upon freshly fallen snow. Never had he seen such glorious hair!
“You’re angry now?” Splendor asked, disturbed by the way he’d ordered her to rise. “I don’t understand how one can become so angry without just cause. Do you have cause that is unknown to me? If that is so, you will tell me the reasons for your anger so that I may soothe them, for I assure you nothing would give me more pleasure.”
Her quicksilver chatter floating through his thoughts, Jourdian remained silent. But his gaze continued to roam down the length of her body. One pert breast was clearly visible, as was one pale, slender thigh.
Absurd though his situation was, he could not dismiss his desire.
“Will you nay answer me?” Splendor pressed.
He couldn’t for the life of him remember what she’d asked him, and the loss of his wits promptly pricked his anger again. “It has never been my habit to converse with naked women while stretched out in the middle of a blasted meadow, for God’s sake. Indeed, this is quite the most preposterous thing that has ever happened to me!”
He swiftly gained his feet. “Listen, and listen well,” he said, his voice as low and threatening as distant thunder. “When I fell off my horse, my first thought was that I was dead. Then I decided I’d been knocked unconscious. I believed you to be a dream, and that is the only reason I touched you the way I—”
“But I am nay a dream. I am—”
“I am aware of that, and you will not interrupt me again!”
His harsh command flustered her tender feelings. No one had ever spoken to her thus. As princess royal of Pillywiggin, she was afforded the highest respect and courtesy from all her father’s subjects.
She saw the first twinkles of her mist appear around her, but realized she could not dissolve right in front of the Trinity’s eyes.
She wept instead.
Jourdian watched her tears fall down her cheeks and splash to the ground. The droplets resembled tiny diamonds, and he knew a moment of guilt for yelling at her.
His remorse, however quickly it had come and gone, further piqued him. He’d never felt contrite over anything in his life, had no cause to feel a jot of guilt now, and could not comprehend why he did. “You will stop that sniveling and give me your name.”
In an instant, her sorrow lifted. She felt calm again until noticing the Trinity’s eyes had changed from the color of silver rain to the color of hard gray iron.
Iron. The metal had the power to divest a fairy of her powers, and every member of Faerie possessed a profound fear of the evil substance.
She stepped away.
“Stop backing away from me and give me your name!”
She stopped. And swallowed. And stared.
And for one fraction of a second she saw again the boy he’d once been. The boy so filled with yearning.
The boy who believed in wishing.
And then he was gone, replaced by the grim, no-nonsense man he’d become.
The Trinity needed joy, she reminded herself. He needed all his wishes granted.
“For the last time, who are you?” Jourdian flared.
“Who am I?” she answered absently, still concentrating on her memories of him.
“Very well, Miss N
o Name, perhaps you can tell me why you are not wearing clothing?”
“What?”
What the bloody hell was wrong with the girl? Jourdian wondered. She acted as though she was in some kind of daze. “Why aren’t you wearing any clothes?”
Splendor looked down at herself, suddenly understanding how strange it was for him to see a woman without clothing. All the humans she’d ever seen wore some form of apparel, while the fairies of Pillywiggin did not possess a stitch.
“Clothing,” she whispered, wondering why someone in Pillywiggin hadn’t thought to suggest she don garments. “I… Oh, sweet, sweet everlasting!”
At her obvious distress, Jourdian knew a vague sense of alarm. Something was very wrong. He fought to remember what had happened before he’d discovered her lying on top of him, but all that came to mind was a burst of silver light and a flash of white. “What were you doing in this meadow?”
She almost answered that she’d been flying, but caught herself immediately. “I… Well, you see, I was…” Unable to think of an answer that would seem logical to a human, she bowed her head and twisted her hair around her slender fingers.
Her lack of a response deepened Jourdian’s uneasiness. The girl didn’t know her name, couldn’t explain why she was naked, and had no idea what she’d been doing in the field. It occurred to him then that she might have had some sort of accident, one that had perhaps erased her memory.
But what could have happened to her?
He stiffened when a sudden suspicion came to him. He’d been riding through the meadow, he recalled, so angry and frustrated over his lack of a duchess that he’d not paid the slightest heed to his stallion’s pace or path. In fact, he’d given the horse free rein. The burst of silver light and the flash of light… Obviously a bolt of lightning.
But there was not a cloud in the sky, and he couldn’t remember hearing a bit of thunder. Hadn’t felt a single raindrop either.
Just one sudden and inexplicable streak of lightning that had caused Magnus to shy.
Jourdian clenched his teeth. Dear God, he must have run straight into this girl! It was the only conclusion that would explain why he’d found the lass lying on top of him after his spill from Magnus’s back. Why she was naked, he couldn’t fathom, but he felt certain that he was to blame for her apparent head injury.
A Basket of Wishes Page 4