A Passionate Magic

by Flora Speer

  “Remove it,” he commanded, his voice muffled because his face was pressed against her throat. “My hose, too. In the name of heaven, Emma, I must have you now, at once.”

  She quickly got rid of his belt and lifted his tunic to fumble at his hose. It was difficult to keep her thoughts on what she was trying to do while Dain was sucking on one of her breasts through her linen shift and teasing at her other breast with his hand until she wanted to scream. She did succeed in pushing his hose down as far as his knees before she succumbed to the urge to hold him in her hands and drive him as mad as he was driving her.

  “Ah!” he groaned, pushing himself against her caressing fingers. “Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop.”

  Emma heard a tearing sound and felt the fabric of her shift give way as Dain ripped it from throat to hem. He was still wearing his tunic and the wool rubbed against her sensitive skin. She didn’t mind a bit, for his lips were on hers, his tongue was plunging into her mouth, and she had both her hands around him, drawing him closer to the hot, aching place where she wanted him to be.

  He raised his head in bemused surprise when she pulled him forward and opened her thighs to receive him.

  “I want you,” she said, lifting her hips to push her eager, yielding flesh against his hardness. “As I belong to you, so you belong to me.”

  He slid into her easily, two halves joining to make one whole, held together by the tightness of her stretched body. Dain was still staring at her as if he couldn’t believe she had acted to bring about their joining before he could.

  “Have you a complaint, my lord?” she asked in a throaty tone quite unlike her usual clear voice.

  “No complaint at all, my lady. I shall endeavor to give you what you so plainly want,” he responded with a knowing smile.

  His sharp gaze became clouded then, as if he was looking inside himself instead of at her. Emma understood, for she was losing her ability to think as all of her own senses focused on Dain’s huge masculinity deeply embedded inside her, stretching her, tormenting her with his overheated presence. When he began to move, she moved with him, wrapping her arms and legs around him, giving her mouth up to his searing kisses.

  The fiery, soul-rending climax came upon both of them in the same moment. Emma felt Dain’s heat pouring into her and screamed aloud with the joy of it, even as his shout rang in her ears.

  “Never leave me,” she heard him gasp in the next heartbeat. “I could not bear to live without you.”

  “I am curious,” Dain said, much later.

  He was sitting at the foot of the bed, at the very bottom of all the disarray of rumpled sheets and tumbled quilt and pillows left in the wake of their lovemaking, while he retied his hose. Emma was on her knees at the other side of the room, searching through her clothes chest for a shift.

  “Curious about what?” she asked, rising with a new shift in her hands.

  “According to the sentry, he last saw you on the ridge just as the fog was moving inland. That’s some distance from the castle. How did you find your way back without becoming lost? I doubt if I could have done it through such a thick fog, and I’ve lived here all my life.”

  “Actually, I did become lost for a short time.” She decided to take a chance and tell him part of the truth. Perhaps his response would provide a hint as to whether she dared reveal her deepest secret. They were in such tender accord and he had been so disturbed at the possibility of losing her that she couldn’t believe he would hate or reject her when he learned about her magic. To give herself a moment in which to choose her next words, she pulled on her clean shift. Then she continued, watching closely for his reaction to what she said. “I wasn’t entirely alone. While I was searching for the way home I met the lady in white who haunts the moors. I met Vivienne.”

  Dain went absolutely still. After a moment he frowned and rubbed his forehead as if it ached. Then he began to rub the back of his neck with the other hand.

  “Are you in pain?” Emma asked.

  “No.” He stood, holding up one hand to prevent her from moving closer. “It’s something I can’t remember, something teasing at the back of my mind. The woman told you her name?”

  “Yes. As I said, it’s Vivienne.”

  Dain’s lips moved, though he made no sound. As he tried, he began to look more and more distressed.

  “I cannot say it,” he told Emma. “I cannot make the word come out of my mouth.”

  “What word? Dain, are you ill?”

  “The woman’s name, damn it!” he shouted at her.

  ”Vivienne,” she said again.

  ‘V-V-’’ Horror filled his eyes. “What’s wrong with me?”

  “Sit down again,” she suggested. “Perhaps you ought to lie down. Does your head ache?”

  “I’m not sick, I tell you! There’s a hole in my memory. Why can’t I remember?”

  “Has it something to do with warfare?” she asked, frantically seeking a way to help him. “Sometimes when men-at-arms see dreadful scenes, or when a young man is forced to kill for the first time, the hour that’s too horrid to remember is blanked out as if it never happened. I recall two of my father’s men who suffered such memory loss. Could that be what’s happened to you?”

  “No,” he answered, speaking more calmly. “It has nothing to do with fear.”

  “Horror and fear are not the same thing.” To Emma’s relief, Dain let her touch him, allowing her to catch the hand he was still rubbing across his forehead and move it away from his face. “Can you recall anything important that happened immediately before or just after the blank spot?”

  “Not very well,” he said. “I was a boy, no more than five or six years old. Something terrible – unbearable -” He broke off on a groan that sounded suspiciously like a repressed sob.

  Emma’s heart twisted upon hearing such a noise made by a man who kept his emotions well hidden. She could only guess at the anguish Dain was suffering and wanted desperately to relieve his pain.

  “Five years old. Wouldn’t that be about the time your father died?” she asked. “Surely the death of a beloved parent would be unbearable to a little boy. Perhaps that’s it.”

  “I did not love my father,” he stated coldly. “I respected and feared him. We were never close. Anyway, I remember the day he died perfectly well. It was afterward – how long afterward? Dear God, what happened?”

  Dain stared out the window, though Emma was sure he wasn’t looking at the fog or listening to the crash of waves on the rocks far below. His eyes were as bleak and empty as the space inside his mind. At last he shook himself and looked at Emma again.

  ”We were discussing your foolhardy venture onto the moors,” he said.

  ”Yes, and I was telling you of my meeting with Vivienne.” Emma spoke the name deliberately, to discover what kind of response it would evoke this time. Dain merely shook his head, so she asked. “Have you ever met her?”

  ”I have only seen the lady from afar,” he said.

  “After the first time I saw her,” Emma said, “I asked Sloan and Todd and some of the other men about her. No one seems to know who she is or where she lives. The men claim she’s a ghost. Perhaps she told her name to me in hope I’d mention it to you.”

  “Why would she do that?” Dain asked.

  “I don’t know. She knows your name, and she recognized your voice when you called to me.”

  “Most people in this part of Cornwall know me by sight,” he said, shrugging off the subject of the mysterious lady as if she were unimportant and ignoring the fact that Vivienne hadn’t seen him at all. The fog had been too thick for them to see each other, except by using the means Emma had employed to see the path. Emma didn’t believe Vivienne was unimportant, so she revealed what else she had learned about the lady in white.

  “Dain, Vivienne is a magician. And she fears your mother with an abject terror.”

  “Now, that makes sense,” he said, “though little else about the woman does. I’m sure you’ve hea
rd my mother’s opinion on magic. Agatha will have told you, when you discussed herbs and medicines with her. No doubt Agatha has warned the mysterious woman, whoever she is, to keep her distance from Penruan.” He fell silent for a moment, thinking, though apparently his thoughts weren’t on Vivienne, for he changed the subject.

  “Emma,” he said, casting a puzzled look at her, “is my mother the reason you fled the castle today? The sentry did say you left in haste. Now that I’m no longer concerned for your safety or upset over your carelessness, I can see it wasn’t like you to behave so irresponsibly. Why did you leave?”

  “It scarcely matters now, does it?” Emma responded, not wanting to criticize his mother to him. Nor, it seemed, could she tell him about her magic. Not just yet, not while he was afflicted with a memory lapse in addition to a mother who held a fanatical hatred of magic and medicine. Emma’s truth was going to have to wait a little longer to be revealed.

  “Answer me.” Dain’s strong hands clasped her shoulders. “Did my mother insult you before you left, as well as after you returned? I saw how she was in the great hall waiting for you, primed like a befouled pump with accusations of wrongdoing.”

  “One of the medicines I gave her when she was sick contained diluted poppy syrup. It loosened her tongue, so she rambled on about the feud and about her life. I imagine she regrets everything she said to me during those hours. I don’t regret listening to her, for I understand her a little better now. She’s a lonely soul who sees her power waning and her life drawing to its close, and here’s a younger woman ready to step into her place. I might wish her disposition were sweeter, but I can sympathize with her feelings of helplessness and anger. Please don’t scold her on my account.”

  “You are far too generous,” Dain said. “Even when she was still young and strong, my mother was difficult to deal with.”

  “So can Agatha be difficult,” Emma said with a smile. “I had words with her over the herbs she put into your wine. Then Hermit mentioned something that made me suspect Agatha as the source of the strange little gifts I keep finding on your pillow. When I said so, Hermit laughed at me and told me I was all wrong in my suppositions, but he wouldn’t answer my questions. So, after all of that, and after having listened to your mother’s story with considerable patience, when she upbraided me earlier today and ordered me out of her bedchamber I wanted nothing so much as a quiet, uninterrupted hour to myself. That’s why I left the castle, and I am truly sorry my absence alarmed you.”

  “You could have discussed your concerns with me,” he said.

  “You are a busy man and these are women’s matters.”

  “Anything that happens in or around the castle is my concern,” he said. “In the future, if you are worried or upset or frightened, don’t run away. Speak to me, instead. I will have your promise on this, Emma.” He sounded stern, yet the look in his eyes was warm.

  “I promise. I will speak to you first and then, if the matter is too difficult and the demons are too persistent, perhaps we can run away together.” She ended on a soft laugh, thinking of Lady Richenda’s bitter tongue and unforgiving attitude. She sobered quickly upon hearing Dain’s response.

  “My life has taught me that the best way to fight demons is not to run away, but to stand and face them.”

  “In that case, we’ll fight them together,” she said.

  “We will, if only I can remember what my demons are. I have to fill in that empty spot in my memory.”

  “I’ll help you, Dain.”

  “I know you will.” He bent and kissed her lightly. “I have duties awaiting me now, but we’ll talk about this again later.” With his gaze still on her face, he crossed to the door and flung it open.

  Blanche nearly fell into the room.

  “Were you looking for me?” Dain asked, eyebrows raised in surprise. “Or is it my lady you seek?”

  “I – I – my lord – my mistress – Lady Richenda.” Blanche stuttered to an embarrassed halt.

  “Yes, I know who my mother is,” Dain said coldly.

  ”Well, Lady Richenda would like to speak to you as soon as possible. In her room, my lord.”

  “You may tell my mother I will wait upon her when I am free of my present duties,” Dain said. He stood impassively in the doorway while Blanche curtsied and stammered an excuse and then fled down the steps.

  “Her ear was pressed hard against the door,” Emma said. “Which is why she was caught off balance when you opened it so suddenly.”

  “She is my mother’s ears,” Dain said, “and my mother’s eyes. This has passed beyond a woman’s concern. It’s my problem; I will deal with it. Until I do, I suggest you avoid my mother.”

  “I think I will order a bath prepared,” Emma responded with what she hoped was an enticing smile, “and I’ll ask Hawise to bring me a tray of food and some wine. Would you care to join me?”

  “Later in the evening, I will.”

  The warmth of his gaze delighted Emma. But she realized the next clash with Lady Richenda had only been postponed, for she couldn’t believe her mother-in-law was going to be swayed in her opinions by Dain, however firmly he stated his objections to his mother’s treatment of Emma, or to Blanche’s eavesdropping. More than ever she longed to tell him about her inborn magic, so there would be no secrets left between them.

  Dain did come to her later that night, as he had promised. He made love to her with a long, slow tenderness that bound her to him even more closely. In the morning, after he was gone, Emma discovered on his pillow a golden crescent no larger than her thumbnail.

  She found Dain atop the castle wall, where he was supervising the masons who were making repairs to the merlons, where some of the mortar was crumbling. At first he seemed irritated by her presence among the busy workers, until he paused to regard her serious expression.

  ”Walk with me, Emma. What has happened?” he asked when they were well away from the masons and the sentries.

  “I found this on your pillow.” She opened her fist to show him the golden crescent. “You did require me to discuss my concerns with you.”

  “So I did.” He took the crescent, holding it up between two fingers to look at it more closely. “It’s good, solid gold, and finely made. See the raised border and the tiny hole in each point, as if it’s meant to be sewn onto a piece of clothing, for decoration?”

  “Or fastened to a larger piece of jewelry,” Emma suggested.

  ”When did you find this?” Dain asked. “I only left you an hour ago, and you’ve taken time to dress completely and braid your hair, which means you rose soon after I departed the lord’s chamber.”

  “I heard the door latch click when you went out,” Emma said. “When I opened my eyes there it was, on your pillow.”

  “I didn’t pull the door tightly shut. I didn’t want to wake you. The latch did not click behind me. I took care that it didn’t.”

  “Then the sound I heard was the person who left the gift closing the door.”

  ”A stranger in the lord’s chamber while you were asleep,” he muttered. “I cannot allow it to happen again. We must discover who it is, and without arousing suspicion until I have the person responsible safely in my custody. You said yesterday that Agatha denies all knowledge of these incidents.”

  “She does. So does Hermit. In fact, he took the subject as a joke. As far as I know, he has never been inside the castle walls, so it can’t be him. It surely isn’t Lady Richenda who’s leaving little gifts for me, nor Blanche, either. I can’t believe Blake would creep into our room without permission. Certainly it’s not Sloan or Todd, but I don’t know the other castle inhabitants well enough to be sure of them. Can you think of anyone it might be?”

  “No one at all,” Dain said. “There are a couple of secret ways into Penruan, intended for use during warfare. Only I, my mother, and Sloan know of them, so I’m sorry to say I must conclude that someone who lives inside the castle is leaving the trinkets. But who? And why?

  �
��I’m going to post an extra guard to watch the entrance to the lord’s chamber and report to me who goes up and down the stairs. Todd is trustworthy, and I notice he’s been coughing a lot lately. I’ll provide a chance for him to stay indoors for a few days and keep warm and dry while still having a legitimate duty to perform. We will soon have our gift-giver, and then we’ll learn what is the purpose of this peculiar assortment of tokens. They certainly make no sense to me.” Dain dropped the crescent back into Emma’s hand.

  “Thank you for your help, my lord.” Emma wasn’t sure the unseen visitor to her room would be caught as easily as Dain seemed to think. At one time she had suspected Agatha of transporting the gifts to Dain’s pillow by magic. She believed Agatha’s denial, but there was another person in the vicinity of Penruan who was capable of magic, and that person knew Dain well enough to recognize his voice in a thick fog.

  “I thought today I’d search along the beach for seaweed, and try to locate more samphire in the rock crevices,” she said. “I’m telling you so you will know where to find me.”

  “Take someone with you,” Dain ordered.

  “Hawise doesn’t like heights. She’d be terrified of the path down the cliff,” Emma said, “and Lady Richenda is keeping Blake busy, running errands for her. I know you said he’s to be my page now, but I don’t want to start a fresh quarrel with your mother. The beach is safe enough. The only people I’ve ever seen there are Agatha and Hermit, and neither of them will harm me. I won’t need a guard.” She wanted to go to the beach alone because she was hoping to find Agatha and question her privately about Vivienne. Surely Agatha would know whether Vivienne had a reason to send gifts to Dain’s pillow by magic.

  “You may be safer outside the castle than in it,” Dain said, gently caressing the hand in which Emma held the crescent.

  As it happened, Emma never left the castle that day. When she descended from the battlements to the bailey after talking with Dain, she found Hawise waiting for her.

  “I’m worried about Todd,’ Hawise said. “His wife tells me he has been coughing up phlegm all night, though like most men, he refuses to admit he’s ill. The wife wanted to know if you have a medicine that will help.”