Mystic Rider

by Patricia Rice

  Chantal waited expectantly.

  Ian appeared to be considering the vow. “He means to keep the chalice when we find it, but you cannot force a man to go against his nature or his conscience, and I suspect forcing him to give up his goals would be asking too much. Perhaps have him promise to protect you and cause no harm. Let’s see how far he’s been corrupted.”

  “Damn you, Ian! I am not corrupt! I won’t hurt your charming amacara and her family. There is no reason for me to. All I ask is that you leave me alone, go home where you belong, and let the chalice do as it pleases.”

  Chantal’s father put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it gently. “I see Monsieur d’Olympe exploits your talents already. Be very careful that you do only as you want to do, ma petite. He has a manner of twisting people to think as he does.”

  “How do you know this?” she asked, puzzled. She’d sensed before that her father and Ian knew each other in some manner, although neither man had said as much.

  Her father hesitated for the first time in her memory. With a sigh, he admitted, “I know his family. They are cut from the same cloth.”

  Ian rubbed his shoulder and protested, “If she speaks with her heart, I twist nothing, and I would never harm Chantal.”

  “You already have,” her father replied angrily.

  Chantal rubbed her temples, attempting to straighten out the nuances in their voices. There was more her father would say, but he seemed restrained from adding it.

  Murdoch unexpectedly burst his bonds and began rubbing his wrists. He winced at the disturbance to his upper arm but otherwise looked relieved. “Madame Deveau, I can send word that you were visiting sick relatives and had no part in the king’s escape. Go home. Stay out of Ian’s clutches.”

  Chantal watched Ian stiffen and grow wary. Murdoch’s offer caught her by surprise. On top of her astonishment that he had actually capitulated to Ian’s request — if the capitulation had not been something planned between them — she didn’t know how to respond. How had Murdoch so conveniently broken free immediately after swearing he would not escape?

  She felt as if she’d not only left her safe world behind, but entered one on the moon where she did not know the customs.

  Murdoch offered to give her back her home. He dangled temptation…

  “He has a better chance of escaping if you are not with me,” Ian said. “That is why he is being so agreeable about sending you home. But it is your choice. Paris is no longer possible, but I can arrange for you to proceed to Le Havre. If Pauline wishes to follow her brother, I can help.”

  Ian might as well be offering her the choice between the devil she knew or a step off the brink of the unknown into the valley of the unseen. She was torn in two, her sensible half demanding that she pack up and go home where all was safe and comfortable and predictable.

  But she’d lost her blinders and knew Paris was no such thing any longer.

  The buried half of her — the one that had trusted Ian from the first, taken him to her bed, and caused her to throw caution to the winds and do appalling things like sweet-talk a uniformed officer into a bargain against his will — clamored to continue on this wild adventure. That a strong man like Ian needed her…

  Perhaps she did not want to be parted from him just yet.

  She looked up at her father, who looked sad and vaguely disoriented. He’d not been telling her the whole truth any more than Ian had. These two knew each other in some way that she did not understand.

  “Let us see what Pauline wishes to do,” she said decisively. “I go where the children go.”

  Twenty-four

  “I want to go with Pierre,” Pauline whispered wearily. “I want to go to Le Havre and my parents. I want the madness to end.”

  Chantal directed a challenging look at the two large men now restlessly roaming the small room. “Can you take us safely there without fear of arrest?”

  Even now the revolutionary militia in their crude striped trousers strutted defiantly down the street, playing fife and drum in the face of the king’s boot-and-breeches-clad mercenaries. No doubt the Assembly’s National Guard or spies blocked the roads. She could not imagine how they could escape, but obviously, her imagination was lacking. She certainly couldn’t have imagined influencing a surly rogue like Murdoch to do anything against his will, yet he did not immediately slay everyone in sight and flee.

  For all that mattered, she wasn’t entirely certain how he’d been bound. It wasn’t as if drying vines were a deterrent to a man of his evident strength, even when wounded. And why would the king’s men follow Murdoch? So many odd things had happened since Ian had walked into her life that she wasn’t certain what was normal anymore. She, who had woven her home into a secure nest of peace, now teetered on the brink of falling into thin air.

  “To Le Havre?” Ian asked, directing the question at Murdoch. “West of here?”

  “On the coast,” Murdoch agreed with a snarl as he paced the floor like a caged beast. “Not near Trystan,” he added, inexplicably.

  Pauline caught Chantal’s hand and whispered in her ear. “Are we all talking about the same thing, or is this some riddle I do not understand?”

  “I believe we are talking different things with the same outcome,” Chantal concluded. “Pierre has their chalice. Pierre goes to Le Havre. We wish to go to Le Havre. They want the chalice. Alors, to Le Havre we go.”

  “How do they know where Pierre is?” Pauline asked sensibly.

  “Magic,” Chantal decided. “Who cares as long as we get what we want?”

  Her father had returned to his chair and poured a large goblet of wine. Swirling it in agitation, he scowled at the room at large. Chantal felt his gaze become thoughtful as it fell on her, but she was too rattled to understand what was happening.

  Her voice could not possibly have persuaded a desperate man to reason — or brought him to his knees with her shouts. That was not credible.

  And yet, she had nearly caused a riot by screaming over a chicken.

  She needed her piano to sort all this out, but she did not even have the bell…the chalice…to calm her. By dropping the valuable chalice instead of holding it, as Ian had requested, she’d allowed Pierre to succumb to temptation. This was all her fault.

  Why? Why must she be the only one who could guard the chalice? Ian was bigger. Her father was smarter. Pauline was prettier and more deceptive.

  She was simply a musician.

  Ian stopped his pacing to lift her chin and kiss her nose. “All will be clear soon, I promise. Will you trust me?”

  “Do I have a choice?” But when he looked at her like that, his deep soulful eyes full of mystery and admiration, she would promise him anything. She had grown up with Jean and adored him like a brother, but he had never stirred deep sensual longings in her with just a look.

  She yearned for the privacy of a chamber alone with Ian. He smiled hungrily as if he wished the same and pressed his mouth to her lips. She shivered in expectation, aroused by this simple caress.

  “You always have choices,” he murmured, “except in how we feel about each other. That is granted by the gods.”

  “I doubt my God has any interest in carnal appetites,” she said dryly. “You must have more primitive ones.”

  “Let us say, more practical ones.”

  He released her and strode over to confront Murdoch. “We have agreed to try not to kill each other until we have found the chalice, correct?”

  “Reluctantly,” Murdoch growled. “It would have been simpler if one of us had hacked off the other’s head as your amacara so pleasantly suggested. You do realize that I cannot order a dozen mercenaries to traipse across half the country for no reward? The king has been caught. Their goal now is survival, and that lies across the border.”

  Pauline gasped and dug her fingers into Chantal’s arm. “I thought Louis merely lost the hussars. He may have met the other soldiers. How could you know that he did not escape?”

  Mur
doch performed a stiff bow. “I never lie. I served in his troops until I understood that the rabble are right — leadership without knowledge and understanding is no leadership at all. I am sorry, madame, but all the king’s troops failed. The rebels have discovered him.”

  Pauline sagged against Chantal’s arm, and grief hung heavily in the room. It did not take a Gypsy to predict the end of an old regime. Wrapping an arm around her sister-in-law’s shoulders, Chantal gestured at the children. “Come along, ma petites, let us take your maman for a nap. While you sleep, I will find those prizes I promised you.”

  The children cheered and raced each other to the door, oblivious to adult concerns and sorrows. Chantal threw a glance to the men they left behind. “I assume we leave tonight?”

  “The carriage is too slow,” Murdoch said scornfully. “You have an entire herd of swift beasts out there who could catch up to the thief before he reaches the coast.”

  Chantal shot him an unsympathetic look and replied with the disdain Ian seemed convinced reduced argumentative men to tatters. “If you think we are slow, you should see Pierre ride. Pauline and I wish to go to the coast. We will take the carriage.”

  To her pleasure, Murdoch winced at her tone and seemed to acquiesce. Ian grinned. Normal men tended to scowl at her attitudes, but she liked thinking that after a lifetime of feeling small and helpless, she could actually affect two great beasts like these.

  Hugging Pauline’s shoulders, she did her best to flounce out of the room with her friend, though her old gown lacked sufficient petticoats to be effective.

  * * *

  “She has always twisted people around her little fingers,” Alain Orateur complained as the women and children departed. “Encouraging her will produce a monster.” He glowered at the other two men in the room. “Just like the two of you.”

  “Another rebel in the Olympian court,” Murdoch murmured sarcastically. “But I doubt we will convince the crown prince that his mother is as ineffective as French royalty.”

  “I’m not a prince, and my mother is not royalty,” Ian replied without hostility. “If we did not fulfill our duties, the Council would remove us.”

  “In favor of Lissandra.” Murdoch laughed. “No wonder you seek so eagerly after a chalice that can only be caught if it wishes to be. Lissy as Oracle would drive half the island to emigrate. And I cannot imagine your amacara would be any more acceptable to Aelynners.”

  “Those are not our concerns now.” Ian discarded his own unease on the subject in favor of the present. “If you cannot bribe your troops to escort us to the coast, what will you do with them?”

  Murdoch attempted to shrug, winced at the pain from his shoulder, then walked to the window and stared down. “The king’s troops have two choices, to follow and fight for their king, or to slip away while they can. A few down there are more loyal to me than to their pockets. I can order those few to do as I wish. The others, I must release to find their own way.”

  Ian recalled the bloody images he’d seen in the stars and tried not to picture Murdoch leading trained soldiers into riot-torn Paris, but the image persisted.

  “Do you see yourself as king in this land?” he asked, masking his horror that an Aelynner would interfere in such a manner.

  Orateur looked equally horrified. And very tired.

  “Someone must lead this country out of the dark ages,” Murdoch said without inflection. “If not me, then someone equally strong. Anarchy cannot exist forever. Usually, the most corrupt with the willingness to kill without qualm will win out. I, at least, have some scruples and a greater than average ability to lead. I don’t expect you to see that.”

  Ian shook his head. He’d experienced Murdoch’s arrogance and ambition firsthand. In some ways, he understood them, but that did not mean he approved. “It is not an argument either of us can win. My duty is to return you and the chalice to Aelynn. We will seek the chalice first. The gods will decide who wins in the end.”

  Still watching out the window, Murdoch crossed his arms and leaned his uninjured shoulder against the frame. “For old times’ sake, then, we will see who is the better prognosticator. Perhaps you’ll see sense by the time we reach the coast. I’ll send two of my men ahead to find the trail of your runaway, and we’ll keep two guards with us.”

  “You retain your capacity to guide men’s thoughts?” Ian asked warily.

  Murdoch shrugged. “As in everything, it’s erratic. It was never my area of expertise.”

  “Monsters,” Alain muttered. “Monsters who play with the minds of men.”

  “No more so than you with your persuasive oratory or Chantal with her enchanted voice,” Ian corrected. “With our gifts come responsibilities.”

  “I’ll take Chantal to America,” Alain grumbled.

  “If anything happens to me, you’ll take her to Aelynn,” Ian said, doing his best to think calmly. Chantal belonged to Aelynn, to the chalice, and to him. Any other outcome caused a buzz of rage in him that defied rational thought. “She deserves the explanation I promised her. She’s made her vows, so Aelynn will accept her if she is accompanied by you or me. Trystan, our current Guardian, lives in Brittany and will help you, if need be.”

  Alain looked even more gray at that pronouncement. “If anything happens to you, there is no one to force me to do anything against my will.”

  “Besides Murdoch, you mean?” Ian said, doing his best not to offend his amacara’s father. “Besides the reality that your heart is failing and needs more healing than I can provide, we have other means of influence. Trystan is Guardian these days. His wife is a Crossbreed who has dominion over the sea’s depths and speaks with the fish. How long do you think it will be before Kiernan the Finder comes looking for my amacara?”

  Murdoch lifted his surly glare from the window to Ian. “The whole world’s your oyster, isn’t it? I don’t suppose that you have questioned why the gods do not grant you an heir?”

  Because the gods were waiting for Ian to bring Chantal to them, was Ian’s belief. But his personal life was of no concern to others. Without explanation, he opened the bedroom door. “I leave you to sort out your men. I will see to the horses.”

  * * *

  Chantal did not protest when Ian sought her out in Pauline’s room and quietly led her into the hall. She was exhausted beyond measure, and the idea of the long ride ahead did not fill her with joy. But Ian’s presence did.

  He did not say a word, yet she understood his desperate desire and need for time to themselves. Lust that she had not thought possible in her weary state immediately made its presence known.

  “You cannot be serious,” she murmured as he drew her inexorably down the hall.

  “Test me,” he replied, opening the third door.

  Inside, he discarded his robe, and she glanced down to his breeches placket. Testing was not necessary. Heat formed in her womb just from imagining her fingers releasing his buttons.

  “Exactly,” he said, as if she’d answered him.

  Swiftly shutting the door behind them, he pulled her into his arms and pressed her back against the wooden panels. “I need to have you to myself all night and day, but this will have to suffice for now.”

  Ian’s mouth clamped down hard against hers. Chantal grabbed his arms to thrust him away, but she fell under his spell too quickly. Parting her lips, she offered him entrance, and clung to his iron strength when his tongue invaded and possessed like a conquering warrior, emulating the invasion he would impose on her sex if she did not stop him.

  She didn’t wish to stop him. She pressed her breasts into his chest, then, remembering his injured shoulder, tried to pull back against the door. With no patience for coddling, Ian crushed her against the wooden panels and unfastened the hooks holding her bodice in place. She gasped against his mouth as his hands shoved aside fabric to find her flesh. With a persuasive tease of her nipples, he had her melting in his arms.

  “I want to see all of you,” he said roughly when they came u
p for breath.

  Before she could argue, he dropped to his knees and lifted her skirt and lone petticoat.

  “Ian!” Little light seeped through the room’s shuttered windows, but still… She was self-conscious of her less-than-flawless skin. She grabbed his shoulders and tried to push him away, but she may as well have tried pushing mountains.

  His bare hands grasped her buttocks, separating them as he leaned in to kiss between her legs. Unprepared, Chantal lost the use of her knees. She slid down the door and collapsed in a puddle of skirts on the floor to frantically tear at his buttons.

  Without hesitation, Ian helped her, then lifted her so he could bring her down on his straining sex. He muffled her cries with his mouth as they came together, and she tasted herself on his lips. She shuddered and clenched him tighter.

  “It’s not enough,” he muttered against her mouth, while his sex filled hers. “I need more time.”

  More time? She could scarcely think as primal need exploded in her brain, and she rose and fell with the plunge of his thick staff inside her. She choked back a moan as her climax broke and rolled over her, and she fell limp in his arms.

  Still engorged and in place, Ian lifted her and carried her to the edge of the bed, where he tugged her skirts completely to her waist and ran his hand over her belly and thighs. “I know somewhere you bear a mark….”

  She lifted her hips, forcing his attention back to where it belonged. To her satisfaction, he threw back his head and groaned, and there was no more discussion of marks or time or anything so humdrum. He drove home, rekindling her desire with thrusts as measured as a good melody, and as one, their bodies sang a beautiful chorus. Replete, they clutched each other.

  A pounding on the door prevented any further investigation of singing bodies. Ian cursed and leaned over to suckle gently at her neglected breasts. Chantal could almost feel the milk form, so primitive was the hunger between them.

  “In my home,” he said. “We will create a child there.”

  With that odd promise, he pulled up her bodice to cover her breasts and, buttoning his breeches, reluctantly returned to his duties.