Her mother had not seen her leave. One of the servants had, and smiled so knowingly it had made Virginie want to strike it off her face. So much for respect. That servant would be leaving. In fact, she had plans to replace most of them. She found them far too loyal to their previous mistress, and when this business was done, she would go about making this house her own. Or another, and leave the dowager here, but she liked this one and preferred to keep it.
Entering the forge, she stood by the open door. She watched her husband, holding a finger to her lips to hush the boy who stood by a bucket of water, ready to do his master’s bidding.
Desire licked at her. Not in the frantic way it had before. But in a way that gave her time to appreciate the man she had married and fallen in love with. They might not have that desperate desire as before, but nothing said that they had to keep all their amusements to the bedroom. And she wanted some lightness in her life, something to remind her that not everything was bad.
He wore coarse woollen breeches and shoes. That was all. His bare chest gleamed with sweat, enhancing the heavy slabs of muscle that flexed with powerful ease as he hammered a piece of iron on the anvil. He worked to a rhythm so steady that Bach could have written a fugue to it and incorporated it into one of his elaborate counterpointed pieces.
The breeches were dark, singe marks their only adornment, and they were well-worn. Harry could be any blacksmith, busy at his trade. Except that he was the blacksmith, Vulcan. The piece of iron he was working must have started at nail-thickness, but he’d worked it to an impossible thinness. Only he could have achieved that without adding a tempering metal, to make the iron more flexible. But only the night before he’d told her he was making the net from pure iron. It would have no contaminants, because that way it would be as strong as he could make it.
In the confines of the stone building, heat roared around them. Virginie let it encompass her, adjusted her breathing and her movements to it, and then forgot the thick miasma. She would need to do that in order to harness her deity’s powers.
Taking a breath, ignoring the heat threatening to sear her lungs, she stepped forward. His attention caught, he rested his hammer on the anvil and looked up at her. More heat flamed in his eyes. Without looking away, he jerked his head at the boy, who glanced at them both and left.
“My lady,” he said low.
“My lord.” She stepped closer. “Are you nearly done?”
He nodded. “I’ve twisted and soldered the net together as I’ve worked, and I’m on the last part. It should be complete tomorrow.”
“Good. I need to do something to it.”
His thick, dark brows went up. “What would that be?” He still held the massive hammer, gripped in both hands, the head balanced on the anvil. He used a traditionally shaped anvil, the kind blacksmiths favoured, with a curved spike at one end for shaping. The square block at the centre was scarred with grooves, shiny with use, but not a bright shine. The kind of shine gained by honest toil, uneven and gleaming.
“I can add my own enchantment to the trap. Did you forget my attributes? Eros is not the only person who can add a love spell. I can put a deep enchantment into the fabric of the net to weaken anyone it encompasses. If I am present when the deed is done, I can force the person inside to undying love and devotion to someone, or something. It is not a power I use very often.”
Or at all, if truth be told. Too cruel, far worse than Eros’s arrows. She could make a person die for love. “I can force truth through love. It will add to your enchantments and provide another trap, from a different direction. Your power is to do with strength and the elements, is it not?” His whole attention set on her, he nodded. “Mine is the power of love.”
He watched her now, not as a lover or a husband, but one god to another, one possessor of power to someone with equal power. Straightening, he kept one hand on his hammer, and spread the other one wide.
“You’re right.” His voice rumbled through the room, making the stones quiver. He’d harnessed all the power of his god for this task and the building could hardly contain it.
She stepped forward into his arms and turned, so her back was to his front. Then she touched the hammer.
He made room for her as she clasped the wooden haft with both hands. Finally he brought his free hand back, nudging her until she made room for it between her palms. His heat was almost unbearable, his heart pounding so that it throbbed against her. When she settled back, she wasn’t surprised to find his cock was erect, pressing against her. Not for her, but because of his power, essentially masculine. In the ancient world, for which no records remained, the power of the phallus exceeded everything except the power of the vagina. Accordingly, her cleft plumped, and wetness touched the tops of her thighs as her feminine deity came into full, strong force.
“Deirdre caused our deities to come to the fore so she could destroy us. Now we will use them to trap her.”
She paused. “Stretton is here. The trap is set. We need to spring it as soon as we can.”
“Tomorrow, then. Ready?”
If she were a cat, she’d purr. Surrounded by her husband, her god, she lifted the hammer as he did so. In this form she could do it, but as a mortal, she would find the task impossible.
Together they brought the hammer down, and she wove her spell. Opening herself to the elements, she felt the hair-thin strands under the pounding metal. She absorbed them into her being and caressed them, gave them life. In her mind’s eye she saw them, hot and glowing. She pushed her own blue light of love into them, gave them passion’s centre, and imposed her will on the element.
Vulcan reinforced her intent, sealed it in the driving force of his power. He wound his protective enchantment around it, so it could twine with his own. That gave unimaginable strength to the fine wires, making them unbreakable by anyone they chose to encompass.
Half a dozen blows and they had achieved it. If she closed her eyes, she could visualise her spell twining its way through the fine, continuous threads that formed the net. The completed part lay on the floor.
Eventually she opened her eyes and leaned back against him. “It is done.”
“I’ll complete the net tonight.”
It lay to one side, the completed part—a miracle of fine wires twisted and sealed, the rough ends of the open part ready to be finished. Only a part of one side remained to be done, and then it would surround a person, even one as big as Harry. He was taking no chances. Deirdre wouldn’t escape.
And she would tell the truth.
Harry accepted Virginie’s weight when she leaned against him. He stretched over to drop the hammer into the bucket of water and it subsided with a hiss. Telling that he could hold the instrument few other men could even lift with one hand. The thud when it fell reverberated through the stone floor, up through her feet. The splash it made wet one side of her gown, a welcome burst of coolness in the stifling atmosphere.
Harry kissed the side of her neck. “I want you.”
“Yes.”
Their deities subsided once more, but desire still remained.
They needed no careful foreplay for this act. This was a joining of the most basic and powerful kind. Both knew, without having to articulate it, that to do this would add extra power to the enchantment they had created. The forces of their combined bodies would blend the two spells and make the net irresistible to anyone, man or god.
Not that she was thinking all that clearly right now, because Virginie wanted Harry with a force that weakened her.
With sure hands he unfastened his breeches and then lifted her skirt. Apart from her petticoat and shift, she was bare beneath. He urged her forward and she touched the anvil experimentally. It was cool enough for her to rest her hands on it. The hard iron pushed into her palms as he touched her. Then he brought his cock into contact with her and pushed it inside without further preliminaries.
Deeper and deeper, until she held his shaft completely inside her. Then he began to pump.
He blended his with hers, at first overwhelming, then, as her dulcet seductive strength grew more apparent, with acceptance and joining. Spirals of smoke scurried around the floor, growing stronger as he pounded into her body. Blue and red sparks lit the air, spinning around them like the most ravishing fireworks.
Virginie moaned his name, both deity and mortal, first “Vulcan,” and then, stronger, “Harry!”
“Yes, my love, my goddess, the reason for my existence,” he murmured, his breath scorching her ear. “My Venus, my own Virginie.”
She braced herself against the anvil. He leaned over her and placed his hands either side of hers for the final three thrusts, hammering into her, until he exploded, jetting into her. Her channel convulsed, tightened, accepting what he was giving her and greedily pulling in everything.
He took her weight as she leaned back against him and folded his hands protectively over hers when she lifted them and pressed them against her pounding heart. “I think we may have made a child.”
“It was inevitable,” she murmured.
He kissed her. “Are you sorry?”
She laughed. “I’m happier than I can express. With you, I want this. I want to know the pleasure of raising a son and watching his growth.”
“It’s a boy, then?”
She half turned her head, lifting her face to his. “I don’t have the faintest idea. I don’t care. I won’t make any effort to discover it. If this one is a girl, then we have the pleasure of trying again.”
“Then I shall pray for a girl.”
“Oh, don’t do that, my love. We will try again anyway.”
He carried her all the way back to the house. Ignoring his mother’s scandalised cries when she saw them on the stairs, he took her up to their bedroom. There he undressed them both and made love to her again. This time with a tenderness that brought tears to her eyes.
Leaving her sated and happy, he returned to the forge to complete his task.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Dinner that night was convivial. “I had some business with Harry, so d’Argento’s visit proved convenient.” That sounded good enough to fool the two mothers.
Virginie found Lord Stretton a lively and interesting companion. Blaize was as devoted to his wife, Aurelia, as Harry was to Virginie. Aurelia harnessed Blaize’s more reckless side, and since he held the gifts of Bacchus, god of wine and madness, that was a considerable task. Or it would be, were he not so enamoured of her.
He explained that he was anxious to return to her. “She swears she feels a deal better, or I would not have come, whatever the reason. But I hate to leave her alone.”
The meal would have been more enjoyable had not the knowledge of what they were about to do hung over them all. Except for the two older ladies, who they had to keep oblivious to their plans. Accordingly, Harry and Blaize spent much time discussing estates and contracts. They drove d’Argento to declare that if they wished, he could give them chapter and verse on the success of the Pantheon club.
“It has, fortunately, survived the scandal and come out even stronger,” he said. “People came to witness the scene of the non-crime and stayed for the wine and the company. I fear it may be a bigger success than I had bargained for.”
Meant as a meeting place for the gods, somewhere for them to come to be sure of contacting others, the club was now also a place of the fashionable to congregate. “White’s is half-furious, half-delighted. We are creating an ambience for others to follow. St. James’ may become a centre for clubs, if our example is followed.”
That night, Virginie and Harry fell into an exhausted sleep. Harry had finished the net, and early the next day he set out to collect it from the forge.
Since Fenton was not now under suspicion, Virginie relaxed into her maid’s capable hands. She let her dress her how she would, in compensation for her absence for the past few days. Nearly a week, if their visit to the Lake District was taken into consideration. Fenton’s exquisite taste came to the fore. She arrayed her mistress in her favourite blue. The light overskirt was held away from her body by a small hoop, lending coolness to what threatened to become a hot day.
There was no escaping the tyranny of stays, though. But Fenton produced a new pair, fashioned in white cotton. Virginie found them most comfortable and instructed Fenton not to fasten them too tight. She stood, hands on hips, legs wide apart while her maid pulled the fresh laces through the eyelets at the back. The swishing sound made a familiar accompaniment to her day.
The morning had brought confirmation of her pregnancy. Would women ever have the felicity of knowing the day after conception that their husbands’ seed had taken? Virginie could, and because of her attributes, could tell when other women were in the same state. Although not the goddess of fecundity, her attributes necessarily included pregnancy and conception. Releasing her power yesterday had meant the risk. But she had seen that as a bonus, not a burden. Now, feeling the tiny extra being begin to form inside her, she rejoiced.
Fenton would enjoy arraying her mistress in her new state. Fenton rose to any challenge.
After she was dressed, her hair fastened in a loose knot at the back of her head, Virginie declared herself pleased with the outcome and picked up her fan.
“It’s time,” her husband said to her, mind to mind. “We are in the morning parlour. Come as soon as you can.”
The morning parlour was at the back of the house, facing the gardens. A relatively small, comfortably appointed room, it would be far enough away from most everyday activities not to alarm the servants if they made more noise than usual.
The two older ladies were there, and so were Stretton and d’Argento.
Harry carried a parcel, and as she entered, he laid it on the table and unwrapped it. “Mama, I thought you were to visit Lady Jamieson this morning?”
His mother sighed. “Unfortunately, dear, I had to send my regrets. The door is fastened securely.” When her son stopped his movements to stare at her, she shrugged. “You think I didn’t realise what you were about? Perhaps not the details, but I knew this was coming.”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“Yes, I should.”
Deirdre stuck her needle into the handkerchief she was hemming and looked up. “What is this? Should I leave?”
“No.” When he wanted, Harry could move very quietly. He was standing just behind his mother’s high-backed wing chair, the net coiled between his hands. It gleamed passively in his grasp.
Blaize stood before the door, and Amidei had stationed himself by the window. The dowager occupied the seat opposite to Deirdre’s and Virginie stood in the centre of the floor, in front of the sofa. With a wave of his hand, Blaize locked the door, the metallic snick clearly audible.
“Deirdre, we have a few questions to ask you,” Amidei said. “It’s about your daughter and her birth. Also a few other matters we need clearing up. What happened to Rhea Simpson?”
Deirdre clasped her hands together and sighed. “Such a sad affair! The poor lady found her disgrace too much to bear. I did my best to help her, but she must have fallen into despair.”
“I see.” Amidei sounded resigned, but not for the reasons Deirdre probably supposed. When she tried to enter her mother’s mind, Virginie found it closed. Completely shuttered. Alarm streaked through her. Only a deity could do that.
Or a Titan.
Deirdre rose to her feet, and around her glowed a ring of red. “I have been forced to keep my identity secret. So many people would misunderstand. And it made matters much more simple. Can you imagine if I tackled Boscobel and his minions by myself? But I had to keep my daughter safe. I sacrificed everything for her. Unfortunately, I cannot hide any longer.”
With a speed that defied the actions of all but one person in the room, sh
e sent a streak of red lightning, a bolt of sheer power, towards Amidei.
Virginie picked up the nearest object and threw it, not at her mother or Amidei, but at the bolt. The silver salver broke the flow, deflected it into smaller pinpoints of power, ones that the others deflected easily.
At the same time, Harry flicked the net, so it fell in a dull blur over the woman who had shown her true colours.
As it tumbled over her, she laughed, and pushed fingers into a cell and tugged, with the obvious intent of tearing it apart.
It tore into her fingers instead. Blood dripped, but it was the clear blood of the gods, ichor. If they’d needed proof, that was it. After a second the clear, crystalline liquid turned red, but that brief glance was enough.
Then the wound healed as if it had never existed.
Deirdre snarled.
“Who are you?” Harry asked.
She whirled around to him. He pulled the heavy chair out of the way as if it weighed nothing. “Dione.” She seemed surprised at the word coming out of her mouth, and lifted her hand, the net forming a honeycomb pattern over it.
Dione, a Titan.
Harry folded his arms. “How did you come to bear the goddess Venus?”
“That fool, Boscobel, thought he was invincible. Kronos, he was, the chief amongst us. I chose to appear as a humble mortal housekeeper, but we were already lovers. He made me pregnant, but I told him it was not so, that I was unfortunately not affected.” She clapped a hand over her mouth, but spoke through it. “After the explosion, I felt the goddess enter me, and I knew I had to get away. I refused to work for him. I refused to let him control what I did, and now I had my weapon.” She dropped her hand.
She glanced towards Virginie, no vestige of affection on her features, only contempt. Dropping her hand to her side, she appeared as Virginie had never seen her. As a goddess, straight and tall. She even seemed younger, the grey in her hair fading as they watched her.
“Why did you hide as a housekeeper?” Harry rapped out.
Forged by Love: Even Gods Fall in Love, Book 4 Page 24