by Sandra Heath
He was loathing the voyage because he didn’t like Valentin, whose name day this was, but who did not even begin to understand the meaning of love. Paul’s odious nephew knew how to paw a woman and how to bed her with almost military precision, but he certainly knew nothing of the lovers over whom his patron saint kept watch.
Valentin liked to pass the time in idle debauchery and had brought two women along for this purpose. One was a curvaceous, sloe-eyed girl from a village by the Black Sea; the other was a willowy creature with flaxen hair worn in a single braid curled on top of her head. Both dressed in flowing robes of such transparency that their nakedness beneath was plain to see, so it was as well for them that Valentin liked the stove in the state cabin to be kept as hot as possible. Tonight things had become particularly embarrassing, and Athan had taken the first opportunity to come up here on deck.
He’d been alone for quite some time, just enjoying the night sky, when he heard a familiar step. His heart sank as Valentin spoke. “You must have whistled, Lord Griffin.”
“Whistled? What do you mean?” Athan turned reluctantly.
“Simply that it is said you must whistle to bring the lights to you, and clap your hands to drive them away again.”
Athan looked up again at the fluttering draperies of color, and Valentin came to rest his elbows on the rail. He was still dressed in his Semeonovsky Regiment uniform, which he didn’t remove even between the sheets. “It is also said,” he continued, “that if blood red appears among the colors, there will be war.”
“There is always war,” Athan pointed out, “and there always will be while Bonaparte lives and breathes.” He spoke deliberately, by now having more than gathered that the Russian was a fervent Francophile.
Valentin looked at him with dislike, then dissembled behind a smile. “The Finns call such a sky as this fox fire,” he said on a new note, “because they believe the arctic fox starts it by brushing the snow into the air with its tail. What do you call it in Britain?”
“Apart from the aurora borealis?” Athan shrugged. “The northern lights or the Merry Dancers.”
“The Merry Dancers? That is a good name. I like it. Now then, you told me earlier today that if we were in England now, it would be my saint’s day. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“If you see the Merry Dancers in the heavens on St. Valentine’s Day, does it augur well for affairs of the heart?”
Athan gave a short laugh. “I really have no idea.”
“You are not in love, Lord Griffin?”
The sweet face of Ellie Rutherford seemed to appear before Athan.
Valentin straightened from the rail to look at him. “You do not answer, and yet I believe there is a future Lady Griffin. A lady named Fleur?”
“Maybe.” Athan knew he was being less than fair to Fleur, to whom he had proposed, and who had accepted him. So Valentin was right, there was indeed a future Lady Griffin, but all Lord Griffin could think about was Ellie Rutherford! Then something struck Athan and he turned curiously. “How did you know I was betrothed?”
“You told me, of course.” Valentin laughed.
“No, I didn’t.”
Valentin shrugged. “You must have done, for how else would I know?”
How else indeed, because Athan knew he hadn’t mentioned Fleur. A feeling of unease had beset him ever since his first meeting with Prince Paul Dalmatsky and his nephew, and now it surfaced strongly again. Something was very wrong about this whole business, and the more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that there was much more to it than a damned soup tureen.
Valentin cleared his throat. “I think I have had enough fresh air. Come back to my private apartments, and we will drink a little more vodka and toast the health of St. Valentine.”
“Er, no, thank you, I rather think I’ve had enough vodka tonight.” Go back into that decadent hothouse? Athan would rather freeze!
“The British have no stomach, Lord Griffin, for you have but sipped at it.”
“Nevertheless, I’ll stay out here a little longer.”
“As you wish.” Valentin’s eyes met his for a moment, and the moving light from the heavens was sufficient to reveal rather more in their expression than he might have wished, for Athan saw ... hatred. Yes, that was it, hatred of all things British.
Athan waited on deck until the sound of rather kittenish female laughter once again drifted from the direction of the state cabin, signifying Valentin’s resumption of carnal pleasures. The fellow was insatiable, Athan thought as he returned to his own cabin, which was very comfortably fitted, with a canopied bed, an array of cupboards, a table and chair, and a washstand.
There was a stove that made it as warm as July, except that on the other side of the window there hung icicles as white as snow. But it was to the washstand that Athan’s startled eyes were drawn, for there, on the polished wooden surface in front of the oval mirror, was a posy of fresh snowdrops.
Astonished, he went a little closer, for it was as if someone had left him a valentine. The flowers had clearly just been plucked, yet no one had left the yacht in days, and even if they had, he did not somehow think snowdrops such as these would be in bloom yet on Bornholm. So where had they come from? Who had put them there?
But as he reached out to the crisp white flowers, they slowly faded from view, and his fingers touched only the gleaming wood. Yet he felt sure he could smell the gentle, fresh, rather poignant fragrance of one of spring’s daintiest, most fragile flowers.
A beguiling atmosphere moved around him as he raised his eyes to look into the mirror. It was an atmosphere that brought echoes of Wales, echoes as old as the mountains and as magical as the ancient myths. The image of his face in the glass seemed to be transparent, and through it he could see another face, gentle and feminine, framed with light brown curls, and with wistful bluebell eyes that seemed to penetrate his heart like one of Cupid’s arrows. Her lips moved as she said his name, although he did not hear her voice. “Athan?”
He replied as if it was the most natural thing in the world, but his voice too was mute. “Ellie?” Once again he reached out, this time toward the glass itself, and his fingers sank through as if into water....
* * *
When Athan had gone up on to the deck a little earlier, far away in Nantgarth everyone had sat down to a rather convivial supper of Welsh cider, oaten cakes, and slices of good ham that had been cured by Mrs. Lewis herself. The kitchen was firelit, and there were no northern lights outside, but the sky was brilliant with stars and the moon was red, promising a hard frost before morning. An owl hooted in the holly tree, and somewhere in the woods a vixen screamed.
The reason for the little celebration was that John had satisfactorily completed the first stage of decorating the tureens and was so pleased with his progress that he’d insisted the housekeeper and her son join Ellie and him at the table. Not that anyone had been permitted to view the tureens’ progress, for he had a rather superstitious fear of letting anyone see his work once the painting had commenced. It was therefore a matter of some concern to him that he would probably have to show them in their unfinished state when the czar’s representative called at Nantgarth.
By the time Athan finished speaking with Valentin on the Troitskoe, Mrs. Lewis had cleared away the tablecloth, poured the last measures of cider, and then joined in the general conversation, which had begun to turn upon whether or not there was really such a thing as magic.
“Come now, Mrs. Lewis,” John declared challengingly, “you don’t really expect me to believe in magic, do you? Oh, I know that Gwilym has some power or other over horses—”
“—and doors and clocks,” Ellie added.
“And doors and clocks,” he conceded, “but—I—”
“—and eels,” she interrupted again. Sherry before the meal, followed by cider during it, had a great deal to answer for.
“Eels?” Her uncle looked blankly at her.
Mrs. Lewis and h
er son exchanged glances, but said nothing.
“Oh, take no notice of me,” Ellie said quickly, her already flushed cheeks going a little more pink. She wore a deep golden velvet gown that probably looked ridiculously formal for such a friendly little supper, but she had not been able to resist the temptation to dress as she would have done had she still been at Rutherford Park.
In a way, the gown was also another gesture of defiance at Fleur, whose threats and warnings she had elected to ignore. Well, which she seemed outwardly to ignore, but which inwardly worried her so much that she often felt quite sick. The letter to Athan, if it existed, was by now well on its way to St. Petersburg, and she could only wait to see what transpired.
She hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell her uncle what might happen, and didn’t know whether her silence was due to cowardice or her desire not to worry him. Perhaps it was a little of both. Whatever the truth of it, her continuing state of apprehension was the reason for this evening’s little overindulgence in sherry and cider.
The housekeeper looked at John. “Tea leaves can show one’s dreams, Mr. Bailey, but there are other things that can close the miles, things that only Gwilym can do.”
“What things?” John inquired, looking from mother to son.
“Gwilym will show you, but you must promise not to speak. Not a single word must you utter, or it will be ruined.”
“As you wish,” John replied.
Mrs. Lewis nodded at Gwilym. “Show them, there’s a good boy.”
“I can only show one of them, Mam,” he reminded her.
She smiled again. “Then you know which one it must be.”
His chair scraped and he limped outside. The door opened and closed for him, and the clock stopped and then restarted. Ellie was surprised at how swiftly such strange occurrences had begun to seem almost normal. Nothing seemed impossible in this place. On his return, Gwilym put a little posy of snowdrops on the table in front of her, then brought a small looking glass that he arranged so Ellie’s face and the flowers were both reflected. Then Gwilym resumed his seat at the table, closed his eyes, and began to rock very slightly.
As Athan entered his cabin on the Troitskoe and observed the snowdrops on the washstand, Mrs. Lewis looked intently at Ellie. “No one else, not even Gwilym, will see what you see, Miss Ellie. Look deep into the glass, and forget everything else.”
Ellie felt lightheaded. She was floating away; drifting up into the icy night sky, where the moon was so red, and the stars were like diamonds upon moving veils of colored gauze. There was light everywhere, swirling and swaying, crackling softly, as if a thunderstorm were imminent.
Somehow the looking glass was still before her, and the posy of snowdrops. The perfume of the flowers seemed to be part of her, and she could see through her reflection in the glass, to another face beyond. It was Athan, her love. “Athan?” Her lips said his name, but her voice was silent as she reached out toward him.
“Ellie?” He reached toward her at the same time. The glass resembled warm water and was drenched in moving lights of every color of the rainbow. Their fingers touched, then linked together, and she felt him pulling her into the glass. It was impossible, yet she slipped through as easily as if it were a door. It was a phantasm, she told herself, because she was actually seated in the kitchen at Nantgarth; yet it felt so real.
His fingers grew more firm, clasping hers, flesh to flesh. She was no longer in the kitchen, but in a room built of wood, with a glazed window that faced over ... an almost frozen sea. Oh, such a sea, so many colors turning to ice beneath a sky that blazed like a fiery rainbow. Her lips met his, and she heard his breath escape on the softest groan as he held her tightly to him. For these uncanny moments they were free to do as they wished. Nothing else mattered.
Fleur might never have existed, or his first wife Caroline, or indeed the Unicorn Bank; there wasn’t anything to stand between Ellie Rutherford and this man whom she loved as much as life itself. They were a single entity—one heart, one soul—forged together in a kiss that did not bow to reason or propriety.
And when the kiss ended, as end it had to, there was so much they wished to say, but they were both too spellbound. They spoke with their eyes, their bodies, and their emotions. They knew they were meant to be together, but that in the true world to which they must both return there were things that could only keep them apart. She leaned back in his arms with a sigh as he bent his head to kiss her naked shoulder. Erotic sensations tingled over her skin, then gathered voluptuously inside her. She ached with desire, and all thought of resistance was banished to the dazzling skies outside.
He drew her toward the canopied bed, and she went willingly, eagerly ... wantonly. There was no ring on her finger, but she did not care; besides, she had only to remind herself that none of this was real, but remained a wonderful, beguiling chimera through which she was granted the man she craved. There was no restraint upon her senses, no thought that this was wrong, just the sheer joy of being intimate with the man who’d dominated her thoughts and life since that day at the Crown Inn. She sank onto the bed, her light brown hair catching on the pillow, her cheeks flushed, her blue eyes dark with emotion.
Athan lay with her. There was no obstacle now, nothing to prevent them from consummating their fierce desires. Arousal pounded through him as he undid his breeches before leaning over her to draw up the folds of her golden velvet skirts and rest his hand gently upon her naked thigh. Her breath caught with anticipation. Now, please, take me now....
“Damn it all, Mrs. Lewis, when is something going to happen?” exclaimed her uncle’s impatient voice.
The phantasm was shattered. Everything began to slip away—the cabin, the radiant northern sky, the desire ... Athan.... Ellie tried to cling to him, tried to defy the inexorable force that suddenly dragged her back through the looking glass. She was falling through the night sky, between the stars, and past the red moon. Someone was screaming, and she realized it was she herself. Suddenly she was in the firelit kitchen again, not on her chair, but on the floor, where she lay sobbing and distraught.
The other chairs scraped. She heard her uncle’s appalled cry, “Dear God, what’s happened, what’s happened?”
Then Mrs. Lewis was kneeling beside her, gentle hands on her shoulders. “It’s all right, Miss Ellie. You’re safe now.”
The housekeeper’s voice was soothing amid the utter chaos that still seemed to be revolving around Ellie. Nothing was steady, the kitchen floor seemed to be swaying, and her senses were torn and scattered. “Athan?” she whispered.
“Hush now, no names,” Mrs. Lewis breathed quickly, mindful of John coming to look anxiously down at his niece.
“Ellie? Are you all right, my dear?” he inquired, his face pale with shock. “One moment you were sitting there, the next you fainted.”
Gwilym looked reproachfully at him. “Because you spoke, Mr. Bailey.”
“Well, nothing was happening,” John answered defensively. “She just sat there in complete silence, staring at the looking glass.”
Mrs. Lewis helped Ellie to sit up, and managed to whisper warningly to her without John hearing. “Sh, not a word out of place, Miss Ellie, for his lordship is betrothed to another.”
Ellie looked swiftly at her. “You know? You saw?”
The housekeeper shook her head. “You said his name,” she explained, then turned brightly to John. “There, she’s beginning to be herself again. I fear our Welsh cider is a little more potent than was realized.”
“Cider?” John looked at her. “I thought we were supposed to be experimenting with magic.”
“Well, it doesn’t always work.”
“Are you sure you’re all right now, my dear?” John asked Ellie as she was helped to her feet.
Ellie managed to smile at him. “I just fainted, that’s all. Mrs. Lewis is right, I’ve had a little too much cider, especially after the sherry I had before supper.”
Mrs. Lewis tried to make her sit at
the table again. “Come, my dear, I will heat some milk for you. That will do you more good than cider.”
“I ... I think it’s best if I go to bed,” Ellie answered.
“Oh, but—”
“No, truly,” Ellie insisted, then went to kiss her uncle on the cheek. “I’ll be perfectly well again by the morning, and must remember in future to avoid cider.”
She made good her exit, but once in the entrance passage, where the longcase clock ticked relentlessly, closed her eyes and paused. “Oh, Athan,” she whispered, “Athan, I do love you so....”
On the Troitskoe, Athan had struggled to keep Ellie with him. His fingers had gripped so tightly that he knew he was hurting her, but even so she slipped from him. She became more indistinct, seeming to blend with the looking glass; then suddenly it was all over. There was just the cabin, the Merry Dancers ... and the faint scent of snowdrops.
He was so shaken that he could only stand there, gazing at the mirror as if at a ghost. Was he losing his sanity? But no, his lips were still bruised from shared kisses, his body was still responding, and he knew that he really had been with her. He also knew that she loved him, as he loved her.
Chapter Fifteen
The events of St. Valentine’s Night seemed very far behind when the Troitskoe entered the Norfolk port of Lowestoft, and Athan traveled reluctantly on to London with Valentin. Once in the capital, he saw to it that Valentin was installed at his Berkeley Square house, while he himself took up temporary residence at his club.
If Valentin thought this odd or discourteous, he did not say, and Athan had the feeling that the arrangement more than suited him. If only the Russian intended to remain in London to conduct some unspecified business or other, but unfortunately he still meant to travel on to Castle Griffin in order to consult with John Bailey. When this visitation could be expected was not quite clear, but as far as Athan was concerned, it was bound to be too soon.