He thought he must be truly mad, to listen to light and shadow speak and think it proved his sanity. But he clung to the words, to the hope that it was truth. “Drugged,” he said harshly. “Have I been such a fool as that?”
“A fool, aye. A man convinced of his own guilt. A man who feared to look into his own mind. The answer was easy, if you had but questioned.” She smiled, a sharp, slim figure of mischief and dreams. “But I gave you another gift, my friend. Have you not guessed it yet?”
He had guessed. He looked at last where he’d not had the strength to look before—at his wife, who was storm light made into sweet reality, who had haunted his waking and his sleep, as bright and golden and elusive as the one who stood beside her.
But real. Flesh and blood.
He smiled then, because Roddy would not return his look—a slow, sensuous smile as he thought of her body beneath his, warm as sunlight on the earth. “Little girl,” he said huskily. “Come here.” He wanted to hold her and make love to her and lose them both in it forever…the way she felt, the shape of her, the warmth and scent and softness…
Roddy obeyed him, finding her cheek pressed hard against a solid chest. His arms were around her, his breath blew harsh against her ear and throat and temple, his lips seeking, defining, as if by brute contact he could hold her and make her real.
She turned her face into his body. She could not look at him. It was still too new, this clear touch of her husband’s mind. Still too raw. To know the way he wanted her—spur to his memory, the force that had battered down the wall…
There had been no skill in that, none of Fionn’s elegance or Senach’s wisdom. If Roddy was one of them, she was sadly lacking in their mystic grace.
But she had done it.
He was open to her now.
Tentatively, she lifted her eyes. His hands sought her cheeks and helped her—forced her—until she looked directly up at him.
The intensity hurt. It made her throat ache. The fortress of pride and defiance lay in ruins. He was not the Devil Earl—he was only a man, and he needed her. Wanted her. Let her look at him and see his soul laid bare and still loved her, with a fierceness that made her want to laugh and cry at once. The way he saw her…she never would have guessed: her strangeness he thought beautiful; her obstinance he called courage; her childish whims were joy and laughter to him, who had never known innocent laughter before.
Wind and mist gathered, made a voice that murmured, “Is this your choice, then, little sister?”
Roddy turned her face, still leaning in Faelan’s arms. Fionn sat the brown steed with her long hair mingling in its silver mane. There was a sadness about her bright figure, a gentle dimming of her light.
“Fionn,” Roddy whispered.
“Shall we let you stay?”
Roddy felt her husband’s body, firm and real against her. She bowed her head and said, “Yes.”
“It is not a gift. There is a price.”
“What price?” Faelan’s voice was gruff, his hands tightening around Roddy in suspicion.
Fionn looked at him. “My friend, it matters not to you what price. For you there is a debt, not a payment.” She gestured toward the dowager countess, still huddled in blank misery on the steps between them. “Tell me that first, then—how is justice to be done?”
“I care nothing for your justice,” he said harshly. “Leave my mother be.”
Fionn smiled, heartless and sly and shining. “A fit punishment. As she is, so she will be. A frightened child for her lifetime.”
“Curse you—”
“Do not curse me, Faelan Savigar. We stand fair and even now.”
Roddy felt him take a deep breath, but he held back the oath that blossomed in his throat.
Fionn said softly, “Lassar, little sister—have you guessed the price of staying?”
Roddy nodded and blinked, seeing only a shimmer of light through sudden tears. “You’ll not come back,” she whispered. “I’ll not see you again.”
“Does that trouble you most?” One of last summer’s leaves skirled across the ancient steps. “You give up other things as well.”
Roddy shook her head. She could not speak. No farewell would come through the ache in her throat.
Wistful laughter blew on the failing breeze. “You will not see me, little sister. But perhaps I will be there.”
“Fionn,” she said brokenly.
“Is it what you wish for…” Fionn’s voice was fading. “Do you give back all our gifts?”
Faelan’s grip shifted and found Roddy’s hands, closing hard, a silent plea. But she knew the answer. She had always known it. She twined her fingers gladly with his, choosing Faelan, choosing love, over any other magic. “Yes,” she whispered.
“’Tis done. The gifts returned.” Sunlight broke through the vanishing clouds, making transparency of Fionn’s lithe figure. Then suddenly she smiled, still mischievous even in her passing. “I leave you—with one more.”
Roddy opened her mouth to speak. But farewell was too late. Fionn was already gone. A gust of wind took the flowers, lifting bright petals in a whirling cloud that made MacLassar sneeze and Senach shake his weathered head, and streamed like snow across the dowager countess in her huddled place on the stairs.
The white mist drifted out across the wild hills and the empty fields and the fire-blackened pastures. It spread down to the sea and up to the mountains and over all that Roddy could see of Iveragh.
And wherever the mist settled, its radiance sparked and then faded, and the land turned to living green.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Laura Kinsale Page 40