“But of course you are, Lady Penelope,” the viscount murmured. “It must be the moon. The full moon is said to bring madness to those under its spell. It certainly seems to have done so here tonight.” He drew her close again. How strong his warm arms were. The muscles rippling in his biceps and chest beneath the superfine frock coat riveted her alarmingly. “I will have that kiss, though,” he whispered seductively, “...just one under that bewitching moon. It would be such a pity to waste it, and then I shall see you home, my lady, since none here are suited to the task...”
“No! No kiss!” Tatiana shrilled, attempting to force herself between them. Grunting and groaning, she tugged at the viscount’s broad shoulders.
“Stop that, I say!” Penelope cried, shoving Tatiana away. “Who are you?”
“I am a man you have bewitched,” the viscount crooned, evidently assuming she’d spoken to him. It was beyond bizarre.
Cupping Penelope’s chin in his hand, he took her lips ever so gently at first. She stiffened as he deepened the kiss. His evocative male scent threaded through her nostrils, mixed with the ghost of his citrus shaving paste, and the claret he’d drunk, with odd top notes of...what was that...wild pansy of all things? It foxed her as if she’d drunk the wine herself, for she tasted it on his tongue as it probed deeper still. Warm and welcoming, it drew her nearer, and she melted against him, a captive of the enchantment that held them both enthralled.
Waves of enlightenment ignited Penelope’s senses, as if she was seeing the viscount for the first time, viewing his attributes and failings as though through a kaleidoscope and loving him for—and in spite of—what she saw. It was as if she had come home. Crowding close in those strong arms was pure enchantment. Shocking though the strange sensations welling up at the epicenter of her existence were, she wanted more—wanted everything this man’s volatile embrace promised.
It was a kiss like no other, not only a joining of the body, but of the soul, so all consuming a thing it diminished Tatiana’s shrill banshee wail, as she spun waving her fists in the air, and finally spiraled off in the shimmering moonlight.
***
“There! You see?” Puck said. “I told you all would be well.”
“Harumph!” Oberon snorted, waving a wild arm toward the two enchanted lovers in the midst of chaos in the Dowager Lady Raintree’s sculptured gardens. “You call that ‘well’? I haven’t seen Tatiana hare off like that since I...ahem, well, never mind! Believe me this is far from over. That stuff doesn’t wear off, remember? The heart’s ease enchantment is forever.”
Puck gave a start. “Unless we work a spell to counter it,” he said, discovery lifting his voice. “Oh! Let me!” Dancing about on the townhouse terrace, he leaped into the air and clicked his cloven hooves together. “You know spells are what I do best.”
Oberon’s winged eyebrow lifted. “I thought that was ‘plans’.”
“Oh, those, too, but spells. Now there’s a noble calling for a nature spirit.” He snapped his fingers calling his pan pipes to appear, and began to play a lively tune while tripping lightly about the terrace for one of such cumbersome proportions, Oberon thought.
“We don’t have time for that!” the King of the Faeries snapped, snatching the flute. “I seem to recall Nero using his musical talents, at your encouragement, mind, while Rome went up in flames. Let us see if this occasion can be dealt with, with less inflammatory results, um?”
***
Tatiana resumed her natural diminutive state and made herself invisible for the ride through the all but empty streets of Mayfair, as the viscount’s brougham tooled over the cobblestones in the moonlit darkness. Everything else having failed, it was best now that she work her wiles upon him unseen.
He was taking Lady Penelope home. Then, once shot of the competition, he would be hers. None were able to resist her charms—human or fey—when she set her mind to a conquest. She blasphemed under her breath. If she hadn’t tasted that deuced concoction, she could resolve the situation in a trice—a snap of her fingers—a blink of her eye. Her magic was inscrutable and infallible. It simply was, or would have been if she hadn’t drunk that claret. One drop and now look! That’s all it took to render her practically powerless. What was she thinking? Everyone knew the spells of the fey turned back upon them could have disastrous results; a peapod pixy knew that, and she was Queen of the Fey! The deuced blue moon—that’s what it was, and the meddling efforts of that goat-like little hairy-legged flute playing pain in the wings, Puck!
She perched upon the viscount’s shoulder, what she could grab onto, since Lady Penelope was hogging it. The silly chit was hanging on like a dryad clinging to an oak branch in a stiff wind. Didn’t she know the viscount was hers? She’d seen him first after tasting that punch. There was absolutely no honor in humans.
The isinglass coach window was rolled down letting in a breath of the sultry night air. Were those two going to sit there tangled together with their lips locked the whole distance to the girl’s residence? Tatiana climbed over Lady Penelope’s arm on the viscount’s shoulder and grabbed onto a lock of mahogany hair curling about his earlobe. Resisting the urge to snarl that thick, wavy hair, as faeries are wont to do, she swung on it instead, meanwhile crooning one of the irresistibly haunting fey melodies known to turn even the most hard-hearted males to putty in a faery’s hands. At least she hadn’t lost that talent... But did he hear her? Evidently not! All at once, he flicked her away—right out through the open coach window with the back of his hand, as the coach rolled to a stop beside a stately townhouse across from the park.
“Eeeeeeeee!” Tatiana squealed as she sailed through the air, her opalescent crown of cobweb silk and dew pearls flying off her head.
“What was that?” Penelope said, breaking lip contact with the viscount at last.
He shrugged. “’Twas nothing,” he returned, “merely a mosquito or some such bug buzzing in my ear. It’s gone now.”
Tatiana stood fuming on the cobblestone lane, her tiny hands balled into fists. “Bug? Did the clumsy lout say bug? I will show him ‘bug’!”
The driver had set the steps and the viscount exited first. Handing Lady Penelope down, he led her along the well manicured walk to the front steps of the house and took her in his arms again. Now what were they doing? Did he just put his hand on her breast? What’s more, did she just let him?
“What about my breast?” Tatiana shrilled at the moon—the deuced blue moon! “I saw you first, you bufflehead!”
Rubbing her behind, for that’s what she had landed on, she limped along the path, but too late. Large feet all but kicked her to the curb.
“Until tomorrow, then,” the viscount called over his shoulder sprinting down the walk, “...when I can begin to court you properly, my lady...”
Lady Penelope twittered a gushing ‘goodnight’ and disappeared inside the townhouse. Finally! Still too stunned to fly, Tatiana watched the coach tool out of sight. It wasn’t over. He’d be coming back tomorrow, like he’d said, and she would be waiting for him. The sun didn’t rise upon the day Tatiana, Queen of the Fey, couldn’t outsmart a mortal man. Still soothing her dignity, and her bottom, she limped toward the little park across the way; as good a place as any to pass the night, and the perfect vantage to watch for the viscount’s return.
***
“Did you hear that?” Oberon said.
“Hear what?” Puck asked looking up from the book of spells he’d conjured as he had done the flute he was still piping on with his free hand.
“Give me that!” Oberon snapped at him, snatching the Pan pipes again. “You aren’t getting this back until you set this nightmare to rights, Robin Goodfellow, you misnamed little imp! Be still! I thought I heard Tatiana scream.”
Both faeries peeked around the edge of the carriage boot, where they’d been hiding having hitched a ride, in time to see Tatiana staggering toward the townhouse.
“Now what do we do?” Oberon said, jumping down from the coach.
“Not to worry,” Puck tittered, hopping down alongside. “I have a plan, and you know plans are what I do best.”
“Ummm,” Oberon grunted. “Plans—spells, make up your mind! And what of those two lovers?”
Puck shrugged. “Oh, they’re done. Their courtship has just begun. No worries there.”
“And Tatiana?” Oberon waved his arm. “Look at her. She is positively enthralled! We will never get her through the portal like that!”
“Will you relax?” Puck drawled. “I think I’ve found the perfect spell... I just need something—” he searched the cobblestones “—that belongs to her...”
“What’s this?” Oberon said, dislodging something sparkly of indeterminable origin that had come to rest against the carriage wheel.
Puck pounced upon it. “That’s it!” he warbled, snatching the object off the cobblestones. “Tatiana’s crown, somewhat out of round, but just the thing nonetheless.” He raised it to his nose. “Ummm, primrose!” he crooned. “Her very essence still lingers—smell.”
Oberon waved the crumpled crown away as Puck shoved it under his nose. “Enough! You’d best do whatever it is you’re going to do, and be quick about it. She’s coming back!”
Grabbing Puck’s pointed ear, like the obstreperous child he was, Oberon blinked them into the little park not a minute too soon. If Tatiana hadn’t been favoring her bruised body after the fall, they would have run right into each other, since they were heading in the same direction.
Squatting in a bed of flowering pinks, with the book of spells propped upon one shaggy knee, Puck leafed through the pages. Oberon looked on, his anxious eyes oscillating between the exasperating nature spirit at his side, and Tatiana, who had climbed up into the self-same willow he’d evicted the dryad from what seemed an eon ago for everything that had happened since.
“Will you hurry up?” he grumbled. “There are nettles in this stuff, and pinks make me sneeze!”
“Patience,” Puck drawled. “Ah! Here it is!” He shoved the tome in Oberon’s face. “We have to make a circle...”
“...out of what?” Oberon queried.
Puck stared at him with such an incredulous look, Oberon backed away. “It doesn’t matter,” Puck said, “as long as we create one, stay inside it, and either keep Tatiana, or one of her belongings inside it until the spell is cast.” He waved the dented crown. “This will do nicely... Now for the ring...”
They both glanced about, but nothing met their eyes except the flowering pinks they squatted in.
“Here—” Puck plucked a handful of the tiny pink blossoms—“grab some and do as I do. And don’t sneeze! Cloak yourself. Who knows how many of her powers she still commands. We’d best be invisible for this.”
Oberon did as Puck bade him. Sneezing, however, was inevitable, but if she could hear him, at least she couldn’t see him as he helped Puck distribute the flowers.
“Now what?” Oberon asked once the ring was drawn.
“We dance, old friend, while I play my pipes, since we don’t have a drum. Do you think you can manage that?”
“That is all?”
“That is much,” Puck said with a wink. “We mark five places along the curve of the ring, and at these five spots, we dance and invite any fey that might be about and are brave enough to join us. When all five dances have been performed, we, with any and all who answer the call, dance randomly until dawn, at which time I evoke the incantation to break the spell, and she remembers nothing after she tasted that doctored claret...if we’re lucky...”
“And if we are not?” Oberon persisted. Somebody had to think with a level head.
“Then I do believe she stays as she is!” Puck said, dismissing the spell book with flourish. “You really need to have more faith in me you know, Oberon,” he said pouting. “But if you believe you can do better...”
“No, no—Syl, no! Please get on with it. Is there anything else I need know about before we begin this madness?”
“No—yes!” Puck quickly amended. “The dancing must be done widdershins, that is to say against the movements of the clock. ‘Tis deosil, or with the clock, to cause an attraction, and widdershins to break the spell...”
“You lead,” Oberon said. “You are by far the better dancer.”
Wasting no more time, Robin Goodfellow, and Oberon, King of the Fey, began their counterclockwise revolutions, pausing at each of the five designated points to invite any others who might be near to come and join the dance, five being a magical number amongst the fey. Where they all came from, Oberon would never know, but come they did in droves—nymphs and dryads, brown men and pixies, red caps and gnomes to rally ‘round their queen. And so it went until dawn, when the celebrants disappeared in the morning mist winding its lazy way through the little park—everyone except himself and Puck. Then they collapsed, exhausted to wait for Tatiana to wake and see if the spell had worked.
The sun had nearly reached the zenith when they stirred. Movement in the uppermost branches of the willow tree made Oberon’s heart race.
He elbowed Puck, and pointed. “She wakes. Now we’ll see,” he whispered, suppressing a sneeze.
“Indeed we shall,” Puck returned, nodding toward a familiar brougham rolling to a stop across the lane.
The viscount climbed down and strode up the walk with a definite spring in his step, thought Oberon, just as Tatiana yawned and stretched and flitted to the ground.
“Steady on,” Puck said. Snatching up her crumpled crown, he dusted it off, and quit the circle of flowering pinks, with Oberon on his heels.
At first sighting, Tatiana snapped off a green willow branch from the tree she’d just vacated, and marched straight for them, loosing a string of oaths that disbursed the mist in her path like fleeing wraiths.
“Uh-oh!” Puck said, hiding behind Oberon’s flowing redingote. The switch still beaned him nonetheless.
“And you,” she said to Oberon, crowning him with the branch as well. “Could you not handle one simple request—to unite two lost soulmates at a foolish human ball? What have you two been up to? Do not presume to lie. Guilt is written all over your faces—both of you! Look at yourselves! You’re castaway on human wine!”
Oberon opened his mouth to answer, but across the way, the viscount and his lady came tripping down the Abbot’s townhouse walking arm in arm.
“Now, we’ll see,” Puck whispered in Oberon’s pointed ear.
The lover’s laughter turned Tatiana’s head. “Where are we?” she said. “This isn’t the townhouse I arrived at. Who are those shameless creatures, pawing and petting in the street at midday? And mortals say we are lustful creatures.”
“You do not recognize them, your majesty?” Puck said, giving the willow switch a wide berth.
Tatiana studied the pair climbing into the brougham. “Now that you mention it, I think I do. The girl at least; we spoke, I think, not him, though. Syl, but mortal men are ugly.” She spun back toward them. “Well? Did you accomplish your task?” she snapped.
“Y-yes, your majesty,” they replied in unison.
“Good!” Tatiana said, prodding them with the willow branch. “Now, march! I’ll deal with you back in the forest. Something untoward has gone on here, I can feel it in my bones; they’re positively aching. You haven’t fooled me, Oberon. You’ve been up to something, and you can bet it will be another blue moon before I let you share my bed and bower again. I said, march!”
The coach tooled off down the lane, as Tatiana herded them in the opposite direction with the switch.
“I told you, you worry too much,” Puck whispered to Oberon as they hurried on, prodded by the willow branch. “I can’t imagine why, when you know happy endings are what I do best.”
If you’d like to read more of Puck’s and Oberon’s exploits, we invite you to read
Belle of the Blue Moon Ball
in Highland Press Publishing’s Blue Moon Magic Anthology
Visit the late Dawn Thompson’s website
http://www.dawnthompson.com
The Anti-Kissing League
Leanne Burroughs
1909 Georgia
The bell over the door rang, signaling someone entered the store. Millicent Baker shook her head and sighed. She’d just climbed to the top of the ladder to restock the upper shelves and now someone had to come in. Typical.
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw a man tall and lean, his sandy hair the color of his plaid shirt, then stretched taut over broad shoulders and well-muscled arms as he reached up to take a large bag of flour from the shelf. He turned then and sauntered over and placed the sack cloth bag atop the counter. Her gaze took in the length of him, noted the firm thighs beneath what appeared to be new blue jeans. No one ever came to Napierville on purpose. Who was he? Why was he in her father’s store?
Taking a deep, steadying breath, Millie climbed down the steps and turned to face the stranger, coming face to face with the most amazing pair of blue eyes. That he had one of the most handsome faces she’d ever seen didn’t escape her notice either.
Then he smiled. Millie couldn’t breathe.
She couldn’t stop herself. Her eye swept over him from the tips of his shiny black shoes back up to his face. His lips were tipped in an amused smile–one light brown brow arched in speculation. Her hand flew to her cheek in embarrassment. Mercy! She’d been staring! A lady never stared. Well, all right, they did, but one certainly wasn’t supposed to get caught doing it.
Warmth of a blush crept up her face. Why did she always have to do that? He’d think her a silly twit.
Regaining her manners, Millie approached the counter. “Hello. I haven’t seen you here before. Are you new in town?”
What a stupid question to ask. It was obvious he was, because she knew everyone who lived in Napierville. The unexpected warmth that crept up her face had more to do with the handsome stranger than her obvious ‘stupid’ question. Didn’t it?
Blue Moon Enchantment (Once In A Blue Moon Series) Page 2