Touch of Desire

by Susan Spencer Paul

  “I am six and twenty years of age, my lord,” she said coldly. “I have managed my own life full well for most of those years, and my family will tell you the same. I grant you that they’ve had moments of despair on my account, but if I had listened to their dire predictions of doom I never should have had the courage to put pen to paper. Please tell Rhys that I have absolved you of the promise you gave him. I do not think it wise that we should be in company any longer this evening. Or morning, rather. If you will give me the loan of a horse, Lord Graymar, I shall have it returned to you come daylight. If not, I shall walk back to the village.”

  Malachi’s eyebrows rose. She clearly meant what she said, and he had no doubt that her current temper had her within but minutes of striding out of the castle and onto the road that led toward the gates. What a remarkable female she was, despite being so troublesome.

  “You know very well that I’d not let you, or any woman, make such a journey in either the wind or the darkness, certainly not alone. I shall have Enoch saddled and—”

  But she was already moving toward the door. Malachi was so surprised that he neglected to make it impossible for her to open, and the next moment she was out of the room entirely. Muttering a curse, Malachi followed.

  “Miss Tamony,” he said, catching up to her in the hall. “I really cannot let you … Miss Tamony, please stop. There’s no need for such behavior.”

  She ignored him, deftly retracing their earlier path toward the castle’s entry. A footman appeared at the end of the hall and looked at his master inquiringly. Malachi waved him away.

  “Miss Tamony, will you please stop and allow me to—”

  She whirled about, the motion causing her already-precarious hair arrangement to become partly undone.

  Several auburn curls slipped from the top of her head past her shoulder and almost to her waist. Malachi was so enchanted by the sight that he nearly missed the heated glare she had set upon him.

  “Allow you to do what, my lord?” she demanded. “Insult me once more? I may have trespassed uninvited upon your lands and forced myself into your company, but at least I have not been discourteous. I suppose I cannot be entirely surprised by your behavior, for you did warn me that you are not always a proper gentleman.” Lifting a finger, she poked him in the chest. “You may take some comfort, my lord, in the knowledge that you’re at least honest.” Turning on her heel, she walked away again.

  Malachi followed. “Insulted you?” he repeated with some affront. “By speaking the truth?” It occurred to him that she’d been more offended by his remark about needing a man’s firm hand than by his earlier, far more outrageously improper behavior. Women could be so confoundedly bewildering. “Is this how you writers behave when matters don’t fall your way? If so, it’s a miracle that anything ever gets written.”

  She cast him a gaze so filled with scorn that Malachi was surprised it didn’t burn a hole in his head.

  “I’ll write my book,” she said hotly. “And I don’t need any man telling me how or why or whether I should do it.” They had reached the vestibule, and she began searching for her things.

  “Rhys is coming with your belongings,” Malachi told her. “Be still a moment, Miss Tamony, and collect yourself.” To Rhys, who appeared a moment later bearing Miss Tamony’s coat, hat, gloves, and knapsack, he said, “I told you to go to bed.”

  “Yes, my lord, and so you did.” Rhys walked past him to help Miss Tamony with her garments. “I hope you found the refreshments to your liking, Miss Tamony.”

  “Oh dear,” she said as she took the cap from the older man. “I only managed a sip of the wine, and had none of the tarts. They did look delicious, and the wine was excellent. I’m afraid my discussion with His Lordship made eating impossible.”

  Rhys cast a disapproving look at his master. “Yes, miss,” he said. “I fear that’s all too common. I do hope you’ll come again, when we can welcome you more properly.”

  “You are very kind, thank you,” she said, taking his hands in both of hers and squeezing them. “But I’ll not be coming to Glain Tarran again. Perhaps I shall see you in London? I’ll be giving a lecture at the Society for the Study of the Mystical and Supernatural, and I should be gratified if you’d come.”

  Malachi couldn’t stop the groan that escaped his lips, which earned him glares from both Miss Tamony and Rhys.

  “Thank you, miss,” the butler said with clear pleasure. “I shall indeed come and hear you, if His Lordship will allow.”

  “Oh, does he believe you require a firm hand, as well?” she asked. “I’m so sorry.”

  “His Lordship won’t be required to have any kind of hand,” Malachi said, “for you’ll not be giving any such speech. I have already warned you, Miss Tamony, that I shall put a stop to—”

  “Yes, yes, I know,” she put in angrily, tugging a glove onto one hand. “You’ll not allow me to write my book or expose your family or do anything that you don’t want me to do. I am not deaf, my lord. I heard every word you said.” The other glove was on, and the hat as well. Taking up her knapsack, she slung it over her shoulder. “Good-bye, Rhys,” she said. “It was wonderful meeting you, and thank you for the lovely things you said about my books. I hope that you and your grandchildren will enjoy the next one. It will be published sometime next year.”

  Rhys looked from Miss Tamony to Malachi and back to Miss Tamony again. “Thank you, miss; I’m sure I shall. But surely you don’t mean to go out without His Lordship?”

  “Of course she doesn’t,” Malachi stated flatly. “Fetch my coat, Rhys, and have Enoch made ready. I’ll be escorting Miss Tamony back to the village.”

  “No, he won’t,” she said. “Little though you may credit it, I am perfectly capable of walking five miles. And I am well armed for any kind of attack, be it from man or beast. But you know that, do you not, my lord? You knew what I carried in my pack from the moment you found me.”

  He did, Malachi admitted. She had packed a number of useful powders and potions in her knapsack. Sorsha’s mixtures were among the best and most powerful to be had. Miss Tamony would be able to blind, confound, or paralyze anyone who attempted to touch her … save magic mortals, who would be immune.

  “My coat, Rhys,” he repeated. “Miss Tamony is eager to be away.”

  Rhys obediently turned, and in the same moment Sarah Tamony strode to the great castle doors and, with an effort, pulled one open. The howling wind made the task more difficult, but she managed to get out, shutting the door firmly behind her.

  Both Malachi and Rhys stared at the door in astonishment.

  “But why did you not stop her, my lord?” the servant asked. “Why did you not make the door hold fast?”

  “I did,” Malachi murmured faintly, disbelieving what he had seen. “I willed it not to open, but she …” He looked at Rhys. “It didn’t stop her.”

  “But you can’t have,” Rhys said. “You must be mistaken. The doors of Glain Tarran cannot be opened if you do not wish them to.”

  “I willed them not to,” Malachi repeated, much stunned. He was the most powerful sorcerer in all of Europe. Not even those who possessed great magic could avoid being affected by his spells. No mortal had ever done so. “I locked the doors before she touched them. They must be locked.”

  Rhys hurried forward and tested each door, pulling hard. They were locked tight. He turned, and the two men stared in stunned silence. It was magic, as the whispers had warned. A strong and terrible magic that was wrapped about Miss Sarah Tamony. It had held Malachi spellbound when they were in the study and somehow made her immune to his powers. The implication filled him with dread.

  “Fetch my coat,” he said again. “Quickly, Rhys.”

  “And Enoch?”

  Malachi gave a shake of his head. “She’ll be halfway to Glain Tarran’s boundaries by the time he’s ready. I shall have to take her the other way.”

  “Oh dear,” said Rhys, “I cannot think that wise, my lord. Miss Tamony seems
full angry with you.”

  Malachi cast him a wry smile. “She is a woman who needs a firm hand, Rhys,” he said. “I’ll be more than happy to oblige.”

  Chapter Seven

  “A firm hand,” Sarah muttered as she strode along, her long legs eating up the road. “A man’s firm hand,” she went on, pulling her cap down more tightly as the wind threatened to whip it off. She stuffed several loose strands of hair up beneath the hat, wishing that her arrangement hadn’t come undone. Her hair was far too thick and long to stay up without being pinned, and she didn’t have the time just now to deal with it properly.

  “I need a husband to manage me, do I?” she asked no one in particular, pushing her spectacles up with one finger. “I suppose he thinks I researched and wrote my books by the merest chance. Perhaps he thinks that my father actually wrote them, or my brother, and that they let me put my name to the work as a gift. Ha!”

  He would be coming after her, of course. Not because he was a gentleman, but because he was a man, with a man’s misguided sense of what a woman needed—which at the moment was a man to take charge and make her decisions for her. Sarah wanted to walk off as much of her fury as possible before he arrived. If she’d thought there was any chance of outdistancing him or avoiding his discovery, she might have been tempted to veer off-course and into the trees. But he was not a mere mortal, nor limited by a mere mortal’s senses. And she wouldn’t be able to make him go away and let her walk to the village in freezing peace, for he was bigger and stronger and at least as stubborn as she was. He would throw her on his magnificent horse and carry her home and see that she was safely deposited in the village. Then he would ride away with a “good riddance” and very likely pray that he never set eyes on her again. Sarah would sneak back into her room, make herself ready for sleep, and lie in her bed and cry until the sun came up.

  It would be foolish to pretend that she wouldn’t cry, because she knew very well that she would, and if there was one thing that Sarah was, it was honest. Especially with herself.

  But it was all right. A good cry was just what she needed, especially after being in company with the Earl of Graymar for the past hour. He had completely upended her emotions, had made Sarah feel things that no man had ever done before, had even made her imagine things—God help her, such things—that would stay in her thoughts forever.

  She was six and twenty and not ignorant of what passed between men and women. Indeed, she’d been held and groped and kissed and even fondled before—not always because she wished to be, either, though some of those embraces had been rather pleasant. She had especially fond memories of the handsome, magical stranger who had rescued her in Florence, who had parted from her with a kiss that still had the power, after three years, to make her skin tingle.

  But men, she had discovered, could often be quite insistent when aroused, and she’d been obliged to deal forcefully with particularly determined males in the past. A knee here, a slap there, an elbow in the stomach. She’d learned how to deal with unruly admirers.

  But never before had she been the unruly one. Never before had it been her desire that had driven Sarah to want a man to do things to her that were surely, surely sinful. Just thinking on the visions that had come to her mind when Malachi Seymour touched her made Sarah hot with embarrassment. Where had such ideas come from? She’d seen them in her mind’s eye, herself and Lord Graymar in a bed, completely unclothed and … oh, heavens, doing such things. And then, when he’d told her that she was beautiful, that her skin was warm and soft, Sarah had felt something deep within her that had been frightening. Her body had become infused with an ardent, intense, desperate need. If Lord Graymar had led her to the couch and laid her down upon it, she would have gladly gone and done whatever he wished.

  And then … then he’d done the most enchanting thing that any man had ever done for her. Or, rather, that any man who was not her father had done.

  He’d told her a story, a wonderful story about the supernatural, one she’d not yet heard, and had made it so delightfully real. It had been a precious gift, far more valuable to her than any other kind of present could be, though Sarah suspected the Earl of Graymar didn’t realize that. Her father had often teased that none of her many suitors would be able to win Sarah’s heart until one of them had mastered the ability to enchant her with a good tale. The man who could do that would be the man Sarah could love.

  “He’s a wretched, ignorant brute,” she muttered, trying to push away the memory of Malachi Seymour’s handsome face, so near her own, as he’d gazed down at the amulet, and the sound of his voice, so perfectly measured, as he’d told its tale.

  It had all been a trick. It must have been. Another attempt to make her heart vulnerable so that he might wreak vengeance. For just as her heart had indeed begun to soften, he’d changed again, becoming cold and hard and implacable. And insulting. She might have deserved all the rest for coming to Glain Tarran uninvited, but not the last.

  And the thought hurt. Badly. He had captured a tiny piece of her heart with his storytelling, and Sarah wasn’t at all certain whether she’d ever have it back again. After all these years, after being so careful with the men she’d met, after telling herself that she wasn’t vulnerable to masculine wiles and tricks, not even those of wizards, because she understood them so well … Sarah had fallen prey to the simplest possible ploy. A story. God help her. A mere story had let him sneak past all her defenses.

  “I suppose I should be grateful that he didn’t regale me with his entire family history,” she muttered, pulling her cap down tighter upon her lowered head during a particularly strong gust of wind. “There’d be nothing left of me after that. He’d have devoured me whole, and I probably never would have even realized what—oh!”

  She thought for a moment, as her feet lost their balance, that she’d accidentally run into a tree. But trees, she realized at once, didn’t emanate warmth or wear heavy wool.

  “If I had wished to devour you, Miss Tamony,” said the Earl of Graymar above the wind’s roar, “I would have done so.” With strong, deft movements he righted Sarah and steadied her. “For a woman so determined to have her own way,” he went on, “you certainly have a knack for importuning others.”

  She looked up at him from beneath the rim of her cap. He looked just as aggravated as he sounded, which from what she’d seen thus far appeared to be the Earl of Graymar’s most common state of mind. He had come after her in a hurry, for although he wore his heavy cloak he had taken no hat, with the result that his lengthy blond hair was flying in every direction. He looked like a windswept Viking lord at the helm of his ship.

  “I am no longer importuning you, my lord,” she told him with matching displeasure. “If you will move aside, I shall shortly be off your land and then we can be done with each other. You have my permission to treat me as a complete stranger in London, and if we do have the misfortune to be introduced, I give my solemn oath that I shall make the acquaintance as distant as possible at every event that we both happen to attend.”

  She tried to move around him; he stepped in front of her.

  “My lord,” she began between gritted teeth.

  “Be quiet a moment,” he commanded, setting a steely hand on her arm to keep her still. “I can scarce make sense of what you’re saying over all this noise.” Lifting a hand, he shouted, “Peidio!” and the wind, as it had done earlier, began to quiet. “That’s better,” he said, and with a gloved finger tilted Sarah’s gaze up to meet his own. “Now, Miss Tamony, listen well, for we’ve not much time left in which to safely return you to the inn, and I would rather not be forced to use magic on any of the villagers—all of whom know me well—or your family. This means that we must travel quickly, and do not have the luxury of arguing any further this night.”

  “I—”

  “Please,” he cut her off firmly. “I should not have spoken to you as I did about requiring a man to guide you. You clearly found the words to be particularly insulting,
in part, I should imagine, because of the independent life you’ve been encouraged by your free-minded parents to live. And I do not,” he added quickly when Sarah opened her mouth once more, “mean any insult to your good family by making such a statement. I simply meant that you have been raised with the notion that you do not need a man to have a successful life. It is an odd idea, which I’m sure you would acknowledge, but it is yours, and I must therefore respect it. In any event, I apologize, fully and sincerely.”

  “That,” Sarah replied, pulling free of his touch, “was the most graceless apology I have ever heard. I should think a nobleman of your rank and breeding could do far better with even a small amount of effort. I suppose you would not be insulted if I were to tell you that you needed a woman to manage you? Or be quite thrilled if I then apologized by saying that your thought of self-sufficiency was merely a ‘notion’ bred into you by parents who, though you may call them ‘free-minded,’ you truthfully believe to be eccentric?”

  “Miss Tamony,” he said, sighing. “If you were to tell me that I require a woman’s managing, I would agree wholeheartedly and then proceed to inform you that there are no women in existence who would be willing to take on the task. As to your parents, they are decidedly eccentric, else they’d not have a daughter who makes a habit of roaming about the countryside in the wee hours of the morning, trespassing on the lands of strangers and exposing herself to any and every manner of danger. As to my parents, I would also readily agree that they were just as odd, probably more so, but they, at least, had the excuse of not being mere mortals. All of my people are strange from birth, and there is nothing that can be done to change them. I can only assume that you are strange because of your upbringing. Now, can we please make peace and tend to the matter of getting you back to the village?”

  Sarah’s temper was scarcely mollified by his words, but she had to admit that, sparing that bit about no woman on earth being willing to take him on, he had spoken honestly and openly. Apart from that, why should she be so angry that he thought her odd when it was what so many others believed, too?