Merely Magic

by Patricia Rice

  With an avid hunger he couldn’t deny, Drogo sought the high curves of her breasts, the hard points pushing at the frail lawn of her gown, then drew his gaze downward, to the definite curve of her abdomen between rounded hips. With the fecundity of the statues of Druidic earth goddesses he’d seen in museums, she burgeoned with new life—his child.

  In five months time, he would hold a child of his own in his arms.

  He couldn’t separate the thrill and terror of that knowledge from the thrill of pure lust. Primitive instinct warred with civilized protectiveness. A woman in her condition should be cosseted, not ravished.

  A golden-haired witch demanded ravishing.

  He stepped into the circle of moonlight, and she danced into his arms as if she were the part of him that was missing, returning home.

  “The child is mine,” he said gruffly, not knowing whether he asked or commanded as her lips parted beneath his. He stroked the hard protruding curve of her belly, and something very like joy pried its way into the shriveled remains of his heart. He had planted his seed and unbeknownst to him, she had nourished it. Both humbled and terrified, he didn’t know how to behave. This was a situation far beyond his control.

  Her tongue stroked his, distracting his decidedly muddled thoughts. Her soft fingers parted his robe and flattened against his chest, nipping at sensitive points until he groaned against her mouth and forgot the child.

  “Yours and mine and God’s,” she agreed, rubbing against him like a cat.

  He could swear he heard her purr as he filled his palms with her breasts and pressed his kiss deeper. The damned cat must be in here. It didn’t matter. He needed her too much to hesitate now that she’d given him direction. He untied her ribbons and pulled the bodice down until her bare flesh rubbed his own. He crushed her aroused nipples against his chest and bit at her lips until she parted them again. He had been starving for this for four long months.

  Right now, possessing this elusive female seemed more important than anything else on earth.

  He inhaled her breath and sampled her tongue and lifted her from the floor. “You’ll not deny me now.” He stated it as a matter of fact, a line read from the book of knowledge. She was wild and free and not wholly of this earth, but she was his now.

  She carried his child. Elation swelled within him, as if he’d conquered the sun.

  “I cannot deny you,” she answered simply. “The bonds are too strong.”

  He didn’t know what she was talking about. He’d question her in the morning. Right now, he only knew his arms were full of delectable woman, sweet-smelling, soft, and wholly desirable, and he had gone four months wanting her. He tugged her gown past her feet and dropped it to the floor as he carried her to the bed.

  “Tonight, and every night,” he vowed, to her, to himself, to the powers that be. He wouldn’t lose this woman as his father had lost his. He wouldn’t have his life split asunder ever again. Maybe she could teach him to be whole.

  “Every night until I return to Wystan,” she promised carefully.

  He ignored her amendment. They had no need to return to Wystan any time soon, and he wouldn’t let her go without him. He laid her half across the high bed and spread her legs so he could stand between them.

  She looked up at him as if he were all the gods in the world. Aroused to the point of bursting by the power she granted him, Drogo offered her pleasure before he sought his, suckling her breasts until she writhed with need, stroking her when she arched into his hand, easing her past the first peak with his fingers until she convulsed with the pressure.

  Only then did he open his robe and claim the exquisite pleasure of entering her.

  Ninian cried out with the sudden strain. Her muscles constricted against his invasion, then melted beneath the liquid fire of penetration. Her body was no longer her own, but his, contracting upon his command, parting with his thrust, lifting spasmodically with his rhythm until she no longer was herself, but part of him. She felt not only the male part which possessed her, but all of him, the soul he hid from her, the heart that beat through his blood, the passion that drove him. Her soul sang with happiness at this mating, at this coming home, and she followed him to the highest peak and over without a qualm.

  The free-fall sensation as she floated back to earth scared her, but Drogo held her close, wrapping her legs around his hips and straining to stay with her until she landed. He remained lodged within her, stirring again even as he leaned over to brush her cheek with kisses and tease her breasts with wanting.

  “I think I’ll keep you close, moonchild,” he whispered so softly she almost didn’t hear. “I will want you every hour of the day.”

  That sounded exceedingly pleasant. Too languorous to argue, she slid her arms around his neck. “Good thing we can make only one child at a time,” she murmured as his magic hands created ripples of sensation from her breasts to her womb.

  “Then I suppose we must make love instead. Tell our child to move over, I’m coming in.”

  And he did, with a swiftness that left her gasping and ready for more.

  Later, she lay within his arms and wondered anew at what she had done. Once upon a time, she had been a free woman, innocent of anyone’s dominion. Then she had experimented with temptation and fallen into this man’s bonds, silken though they might be. Now she carried his child and agreed to carry his name. That was the natural way of things, she supposed, but she didn’t understand his hold on her. Why was it that he need only touch her and she surrendered to his wishes? It seemed more magic than natural. She had not been jesting earlier, she could not deny him. It did not bode well for her escape should he forbid her to return home.

  “I brought you a wedding gift,” he murmured against her ear, his hand waking to tenderly stroke the place where their child grew.

  “So I see,” she replied lightly, moving against his growing arousal.

  He chuckled, a strange sound she heard seldom. She liked the way it rumbled in his chest and throat.

  “That’s not what I meant, although you’re welcome to it.” He lifted himself on one elbow and reached for the night table. “It’s not the same as jewels, but I thought you might like it more.”

  In surprise, she accepted a heavy, musty-smelling leather tome. She sneezed and wondered if her husband was as odd as the rest of his family as she rippled the page edges in the darkness.

  “It’s the diary of a Malcolm lady,” he explained. “I found it on the shelves in the library the other day. The language is old and may need translating.”

  “I can read old English and Latin and Norman French,” she answered, reverently stroking the binding now that she knew what it was. “Malcolms do not surrender their books lightly, and Grandmother taught me to read the few we have.”

  He was silent for a moment, then caught her by surprise again. “You are much more intelligent than you allow people to know. Why do you insist on believing in superstitious nonsense?”

  She shrugged. “Sometimes, I do not. Other times… It’s who I am. Without my gifts, I am no one and worth nothing.”

  “You will be my wife, Countess of Ives, mother of my child. Isn’t that enough?”

  “No. That’s the same as saying I’m your table and chair. Being possessed is meaningless. I must be who I am, and I am the Malcolm healer, if naught else. If you cannot accept this, you had best reconsider our marriage before it is too late.”

  “It’s already too late. Call yourself what you wish, but others will call you countess. It’s not an easy position to fill.” He removed the book and set it aside. “I’ll do what I can to help, but as I’ve said, I wasn’t prepared for a wife. We’ll learn together.”

  As he kissed her into surrender one more time, Ninian remembered why she had fallen into this man’s bondage. He not only possessed the temptations of the devil, but he possessed an open mind that did not exclude h
er as so many others did. She could accept that, for now, just as her body accepted his.

  ***

  In the carriage seat across from Ninian, her husband-to-be scowled at the small crowd forming at the foot of the church steps. Her bridegroom was not a handsome man, nor even what one might call dashing. She thought those words too close to “pretty” to describe the Earl of Ives. Drogo was much more striking and definitely more aristocratic than pretty, and his scowl was fierce enough to frighten the ravens from the Tower. It no longer had the power to cast her into terror, however. What she was about to do had already accomplished that.

  “They’re all here,” he complained. “I never thought to see the entire lot of them under one roof.”

  “They’re not exactly under a roof yet.” Ninian leaned over to look out the window. The street seemed lined with carriages. Weddings weren’t precisely fashionable. They were just legal procedures necessary to bind the complicated entanglements of families and fortunes. They’d sent announcements, but they hadn’t anticipated this kind of audience. Several of the carriages had crests painted on the doors. Her aunts. “Would you care to postpone this to another day?” she asked nervously.

  He shot her his infamous scowl. “Not under penalty of death. Let’s get this over, and then they’ll leave us in peace.”

  Ninian had serious doubts about that as the footman opened the carriage door, and Drogo climbed down to help her out. The morning fog had scarcely lifted beneath the September sun, and a cool breeze tugged at her cloak. Her aunts and cousins had no doubt taken refuge inside the church.

  “Perhaps I should warn you,” she started to say, before a barrage of emotions slammed into her so forcefully, she almost staggered. That was one of the inconveniences of the city she hadn’t learned to handle, but the tumult she suffered now was more potent than the scattered feelings of passersby. This was directed at her as much as anyone.

  Clinging to Drogo’s arm, she glanced up to meet the dark eyes of a man taller and older than Drogo. She’d not met him before. He nodded curtly at her look. At the back of the crowd, he merely stepped inside the church and disappeared once he’d seen her. With his brothers all shouting for his attention at once, Drogo probably hadn’t noticed.

  “To the devil with you!” Drogo shouted, swiping hands off his crushed coat sleeve. “Are you afraid to face the women and so stay out here? Go inside where you belong.”

  “Have you seen those women?” one of them asked. “They’re all fair as your bride, with their noses stuck halfway to the ceiling.”

  Ninian giggled. She thought the one speaking was Drogo’s youngest half brother, Paul. He couldn’t be much more than sixteen and newly down from school. His head swiveled at the sight of any female. Her cousins would have him spinning in circles.

  “Have you seen what they’ve done to the church?” Joseph shouted above the rest, his eyes dancing with curiosity and merriment. “They have trees!”

  Ninian winced as all those dark eyes turned questioningly to her. She cleared her throat. “Malcolms usually marry in forests. My aunts have adapted for changing times.”

  “Is there aught else I should know before we go in there?” Drogo asked with that dispassionate tone she knew too well.

  She probably should have warned him sooner, but they seldom spent much time talking. After last night, she assumed her place was in his bed and no more. He certainly didn’t place much value on anything she said. Still, she felt a little guilty at not explaining her family more thoroughly.

  “Is there anything that would change your mind about going through with this?” she asked with more cynicism than anxiety.

  He didn’t think about it for long. Keeping an eye on his brothers as they pushed and shoved their way into the church, he glanced back to where her simple white gown still disguised her growing belly. “No, I cannot think there is.”

  “Then there is little point in delaying the proceedings.” Determinedly, she took the first step.

  “Why are you the only one here who isn’t terrified?” he muttered, gripping her arm tighter as they proceeded upward.

  “Your brothers aren’t terrified,” she replied as she watched her new family race inside for the best seats. “They’re angry and uncertain, a bit jealous, and all of them are excited, probably more by my cousins than our nuptials. Who was that tall man who stood in back?”

  She met Drogo's completely blank gaze. For once, she thought he wasn’t hiding from her. He really didn’t know. “He was an Ives,” she insisted. “He looks more like you than any of the others.”

  “Poor sod,” Drogo muttered. “Hope he has lots of blunt to balance things out. Come on, let’s get this over.”

  “This is all your idea,” she reminded him as they continued upward. “I warned you. My grandmother said Ives and Malcolm never mix. You have no idea what kind of disaster we’re creating.”

  “Your foolish ghost claims a Malcolm should live in Malcolm Castle,” he countered. “I can match superstition for superstition as well as any other.”

  Ninian searched the shadows of the church as they entered, but blinded by the sun outside, she could only see restless figures divided by the aisle. On her side of the church, a flower garden of colorful silks and blond heads and powdered coifs abounded. On Drogo’s side, a sea of dark faces, somber coats, and knowing dark eyes turned to stare.

  Drogo choked, and diverted, Ninian glanced worriedly at him. He nodded to two stiff feminine backs on his side, both in the front pew, on far ends.

  “My mother and stepmother, in the same room. Lightning will strike us next.”

  “Well,” she said prosaically, “at least my uncles and their sons aren’t here. They apparently consider this a purely Malcolm event, not worthy of their exalted attention.” She wrinkled her nose. “But I do believe that is my father talking with the lady on the near end of the pew.”

  “My mother.” Drogo clutched her hand tighter as a cluster of women wearing white cloaks bore down on them. “Your father and my mother. I don’t want to even think of it. Let’s get this done before all hell breaks loose.”

  Considering the rampant emotions bombarding her as they waited for her attendants, Ninian could see his point. They ran the scale from joy and satisfaction to dark fury and disappointment. She tried to concentrate on the happy ones, as her grandmother had taught her, but the anger blotted out all else like a black cloud hiding the sun.

  Drogo was making someone very unhappy with his marriage. She was afraid to find out who. Or why.

  Nineteen

  Drogo watched impassively as Ninian’s cousins—he assumed they were cousins by the fairness of their hair—cloaked her in a white satin cape and settled a circlet of what appeared to be twigs on her unpowdered hair. The twigs were wound with purple and white flowers, although he couldn’t have named them had he tried, which he didn’t. He had little patience with ceremony of any sort. He just wanted this over before his brothers figured out how to swing from the enormous medieval chandelier overhead.

  He scowled as one of the older women approached him with a dark cape to match Ninian’s. Glancing up from watching the girls fasten a golden chain to the cloth, Ninian caught his look.

  “They’re symbols,” she whispered. “They’re all just symbols. Don’t worry about it.” Despite her words, she frowned at the gold band closing around her neck.

  Over her shoulder, Drogo watched a sea of dark heads turning to watch and whisper. He’d never live this nonsense down. He tried to find the man Ninian had warned him about, but the chandelier wasn’t lit and the foggy morning light didn’t penetrate the church’s gloom.

  Whispers echoed loudly in the Gothic acoustics of the cathedral, but actual words weren’t discernible. Stoically, Drogo accepted the cloak, ignoring the woman fastening the gold band. All Ninian’s relatives seemed to be blond and fair. No wonder his brothers were all
atwitter.

  “Be thankful they won’t make us jump the broom,” she whispered as two young girls emerged from the shadows carrying baskets of flower petals.

  Broom? What the hell kind of pagan ceremonies did these women attend? Since the flower girls seemed to indicate the proceedings had begun, Drogo didn’t inquire. He frowned in puzzlement as they led the way down the right side of the church instead of the center aisle, but Ninian held his arm and followed them as if it were perfectly natural to approach the altar in a circle instead of a straight line.

  Ninian. Drogo permitted himself the luxury of a feeling of well-being as he remembered the open welcome he’d found in her bed last night. Glancing down at her golden head with its circlet of flowers, he relaxed even more. She had taken him with as much pleasure as he’d received from her, and in so doing, she had taken his seed and nourished it as she nourished the plants around her. She would make a good mother, and an exciting bed partner. What more could a man ask of a wife?

  As they approached the altar from the side, Ninian’s graceful cousins in their flowing white capes formed a half circle at the center aisle, and Drogo could see the trees his brothers talked about. They’d imported a potted oak and what appeared to be a rowan. The clergyman didn’t seem to mind. Garbed in the traditional robes of a good Church of England bishop, he waited calmly for the procession’s end.

  If that was all the ceremony involved, Drogo could handle it. The gold band at his throat was a nuisance, the cloak a ridiculous affectation, but so was all this churchly ceremony. Marriage could be reduced to a few lines on a sheet of paper, and he’d be content. But women, for whatever reason, needed appropriate pomp.

  Counting heads, wondering if he’d provided enough champagne for the breakfast, and hoping he could spirit Ninian back to his chambers immediately after the toasts, Drogo didn’t pay much attention to the prayers. He kneeled when Ninian did, stood when called upon, and admired the innocent translucence of his bride’s complexion as the light from the rose window fell upon her.