Spellbound

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by Claire Delacroix


  “Did I?”

  “I’m sure you must have,” she said, the wind blowing against her hair, teasing a few strands loose. She pushed them back with her hand, a thoughtless gesture. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes from her. She knew because she couldn’t take her eyes from him.

  “I must have,” he said, looking at the night sky, the wind blowing against his back. “Are you chilled? You must tell me if you feel chilled. I noticed earlier that you, well, I’m sorry to be indelicate, that you seemed quite uncomfortably cold.”

  “I was, and my sisters were certain I was ill. But I feel fine, truly. I was just unaccountably cold.”

  “But you’re not cold now? You must tell me if you are,” he said.

  He wanted to touch her, to hold her, to envelop her in his arms. She could feel the urge in him, could almost feel an answering desire in herself. It was beyond shocking. She was not a wanton! The furthest thing from one.

  “No, I’m not cold, Lord Blackwater,” she said. “I feel . . . wonderful.”

  Wonderful? She had to tell him she felt wonderful?

  Yes, but she did. She felt amazingly wonderful. She wanted to throw herself into his wonderful arms and be captured in his wonderful embrace and be swept into a wonderful swoon.

  She had lost her mind. But she was not cold.

  “Kiss her.” Nell whispered, her eyes closed in concentration. “Only touch her and you will be lost.”

  Nell hovered far above the pair, far enough away to keep the cold away, close enough to see them, close enough to feel the longing they felt. And to feed the longing they felt.

  “Never was a man so slow to act when a beautiful woman stood so near,” she murmured, shaking her head in disgust. “This new breed of man is a terrifying thing to behold.”

  Roland laughed behind her and she whirled to face him. “Men are not as different as you may think.”

  “I should have known,” she said, her long hair billowing out behind her, her eyes narrowed. “If you would only leave them alone, they would fall in love and all would be well.”

  “If you would only leave them alone, he would ride his stallion, train his dog, and be gone from this foul place.”

  “You are stopping him,” she said.

  “Stopping him? How? He has good sense, and a healthy dose of self-preservation. I only watch and applaud that he can keep his wit when two women are in pursuit of him. He is no babe to be snatched from the comfort of his life into the turmoil of marriage.”

  “You know nothing of marriage.”

  “I knew enough to stay free of it,” he said, smirking.

  He was colorless, lifeless, and yet he was still a handsome man and she still remembered how he had made her blood rush and her loins pulse. And, in an echo of life, did still.

  “Had you lived just a few months longer, I do not think you could make that claim,” she said, gliding up to him and laying her hands on the sides of his face. She smiled at him, her hair enclosing them in a web of flying strands. “Can you have forgotten how we loved, Roland? Can you have forgotten the days we spent in bed, eating only when we could spare the time?”

  “Fighting no matter the time,” he said.

  “Reconciling,” she whispered, kissing his throat. “Laughing, teasing, giggling under the sheets.”

  “I never giggled,” he said, lifting his chin so that she could better reach his jaw for kissing.

  “Didn’t you?” she said. “Perhaps you did not. Perhaps you only sighed.”

  “And you screamed,” he said, taking her face in his hands and kissing her boldly upon the mouth. “And screamed,” he breathed against her lips.

  Below them, far below them, Morgan Hambly looked up into Hal Mort’s eyes and said, “I’m . . . I’m afraid I don’t quite know . . . ” Her hand lifted to his cheek, barely touched his face, and he was so warm, the texture of his skin so rough where his dark beard lay buried beneath his dark skin, so tantalizing. She could see the pulse point in his neck throb and she wanted to put her mouth there, to feel the rush of his blood beneath her lips. “Do forgive me, Lord Blackwater. I cannot seem to stop myself.”

  “Lady,” he breathed, laying his hand over hers, “do not stop.”

  He leaned down and kissed her, a bare brushing of his lips over hers, a hesitant kiss, a polite kiss in the most intimate of settings, a kiss wrong-headed and right-feeling. If she were the right kind of girl from the right sort of home, and she was, or had been, then she should slap his face and have her father bar him from the castle. Yet she wanted to do not one bit of that.

  The kiss, this first kiss in her whole long life, expanded and exploded. His mouth softened and her mouth widened and then he was inside her and molten heat flared inside of her, upward, downward, outward. She felt possessed.

  “You are not cold?” he asked, lifting his face to study hers.

  “No. Not at all,” she said. “I am not myself, surely,” she added, her voice breaking on a sigh, “but I am not cold. Why is that important?”

  He did not answer her directly. He held her in a soft, gentle embrace and looked up at the sky.

  “I dare not say,” he said. “I have taken liberties, Lady Morgan. I fear I must--”

  “No,” she said, pushing out of his arms. “No fear and no must. There is nothing you must do. Nothing you need fear.”

  “I did not mean--”

  “I know what you meant, Lord Blackwater,” she said. “If you owe me an apology, then I owe one to you. I am not in the practice of kissing men I have just met. Or of kissing men I know well!” she said, appalled. This kissing business did confuse one so. “I think this episode is best forgotten. Would you agree? Please?”

  Blackwater nodded curtly, bowing crisply. He cast one last glance into the night sky and then offered her his arm and escorted her back across the terrace and into the house.

  Nell, still kissing Roland, was delighted.

  Roland, still kissing Nell, was delighted.

  She had inspired the pair to kiss.

  He had inspired the pair to avoid the marriage contract.

  The battle between them still raged, to their mutual enjoyment.

  Chapter 5

  Tuesday, October 29, dawned cloudy. Dark clouds of rich gray and umber raced across the skies, snatches of brilliant blue quickly subdued, overcome, lost.

  Hal did not notice the weather except to note that it wasn’t unseasonably cold, or cold in spots, or cold only for particular people. He did not look for Morgan to determine if she was cold or not. He called that progress.

  He should never have kissed her. He had no firm idea of why he had but he had an ugly suspicion of why he had, and why she had.

  Ghosts.

  Ghosts were playing Cupid with them both. It seemed a very unlikely thing for ghosts to do. Of course, since he didn’t believe in ghosts, he had to admit that he’d never given one moment’s thought to what ghosts (which did not exist) did or didn’t do. He supposed that he should give it some thought now.

  They had been played with. Morgan Hambly, lovely, pleasant, the absolute standard in pretty, virginal young things from good family, had behaved most inappropriately. So had he, but she had started it.

  It was entirely appropriate that he marry her. He had begun to make the offer.

  It was entirely kind of her to decline his offer. He had to admit, that put her above the rank of the average pretty, young thing. The girl had style, and grace, and dignity, now that he considered it. Quite a list for such an innocent miss.

  Then again, it was possible that she simply did not want to marry, under any circumstances.

  Impossible. She was a girl from a good family. She had been reared properly and would do the proper thing, which was to marry and to marry well.

  Logic forced him to conclude that she simply did not think that marrying him was marrying well.

  Impossible. Or was it?

  He was a viscount, yet his estate was in Ireland. Some people did not relish
the thought of living in Ireland. He knew those people were ill-informed. She was likely one of the many ill-informed. His estate, while large, was in want of funds. He needed to drain a bog and replace a tenant who had emigrated to America and build a water mill. Keystone and the foals he would sire was the cornerstone of that cash infusion. He would race him, win, mate him for stud fees and then sell the yearlings. Perhaps that sort of long-range planning and work required too much foresight and planning for the average pretty girl from a good English family.

  Morgan Hambly’s face, her pretty face with her stalwart blue eyes, that delicate mouth declaring that she did not require an offer of marriage from him and they should both just please forget the kiss had ever happened, rose in his mind’s eye.

  She did not seem the sort of girl who would balk at bogs, mills, and stud fees.

  Then again, what did he know of her?

  As much as any man knew about any girl of good family before he made an offer of marriage. His parents had known nothing more than that and theirs had been a perfectly fine marriage. They had gotten along together quite nicely, seeing each other at dinner each evening, on the evenings his father had been at home. His mother had breakfast in bed, saw no point in serving tea when no one came to call, and dressed for dinner even when she dined alone. His father’s schedule was somewhat irregular; he could pop up at home with scarcely a breath of notice. Hal had, upon reaching his majority, wondered if his father popped up at home like a rabbit out of a hole to catch his wife at some indiscretion. Hal had also wondered, upon meeting a few women in London in the off season, if his mother had kept her indecorous moments sequestered within the hours of teatime.

  As they were his parents, he had not given the matter much thought as such mental meanderings struck him as highly impolite. As they were both now deceased, his father having departed this earthly realm just a bit more than a year ago, dying after his wife by more than five years, Hal had given the matter no more consideration at all. Let the dead die with their secrets intact.

  Though, if ghosts did exist (they did not), was it highly indelicate of him to now ask his father if he had quite trusted his wife?

  He did not want to think ill of his mother, and he did not, but that popping up that had been his father’s practice did make a man pause when considering taking a wife of his own.

  Yet, how absurd. He was not in any position to take a wife. No, nor had he any desire to. He would make his fortune on his own and not rely upon his wife’s father to do it for him. He had held this position for most of his life, and had been roundly ridiculed for it by his schoolmates. They had blamed his Irish roots. They might have had a point.

  Hal clasped his hands behind his back and strode from the ordered paths of the garden and struck off into the wild growth beyond the castle proper. It looked to rain and he was not wearing his greatcoat. Such was his mood that he almost welcomed a bit of rain, coat or not.

  Morgan, finally, was not cold. She only hoped the condition lasted. She blamed her fleeting, frigid moments on the inexplicable kiss she had shared, perhaps even instigated, with Viscount Blackwater. She could think of no other explanation. She had never kissed a man before and she had no reason to kiss that man at that time.

  Morgan was certain he thought terribly ill of her, naming her a wanton, a schemer, a witch. Though he had not treated her as if he thought of her that way. Then again, she had refused his offer of marriage. He must be jumping rainbows in delight at having escaped the noose.

  Morgan put down her embroidery with a huff. Witches, nooses, wantons . . . when had she ever before thought in those terms? This place was playing the devil with her---and she’d just done it again! The devil?

  She shoved the embroidery needle into the fabric, almost pricking her finger and ruining the canvas, and shoved the whole mess into the basket at her feet. Enough small work for now. She had to get out and get her legs moving, her heart thumping, a healthy blush to her cheeks. She had to escape.

  And she was not going to apologize for using the word escape. It was entirely the correct word. Entirely.

  Morgan waited long enough for her maid to fetch her favorite shawl, a lovely paisley wool in shades of rose and gold, and then she burst out of the castle and through the garden and into the wilderness that surrounded Bocka Morrow. She felt as close to flying as a person could, her feet skimming the ground, getting swift distance from buildings and pathways and man-made things that held her in and tied her down.

  A small part of her mind wondered that she sought an escape from walls and warm coal fires and graveled paths, and then that small part was silenced by the wild roaring to be free, to be out, to be away, and even, even to be wild.

  She was certainly not herself, and that was saying it simply.

  She knew not where she was bound, did not recognize the route, yet run she did, her hair coming loose to fall in a tumble down her back. She grinned as she ran. She smiled as she ran her way into the wood, the trees taller and thicker as she gained distance from Bocka Morrow, the sky clouded over, protecting the earth in a thick pearly white blanket.

  A giant beech was just in front of her and she ran straight to it, the wind rising in a howl, a roar, Nature unleashed and unmuzzled, grabbing her shawl from her shoulders and sending it rising, rising into the air like a great soaring bird. She watched it rise and land upon the very tip of a very high branch, looking almost satisfied to have escaped the bounds of earth and soil.

  Morgan gasped for breath, one hand on her ribs, staring up at her shawl. It was lost to her now. And was there not another shawl also caught in this beech? Lower down than her shawl yet still a mighty way up that massive trunk. The lowest branch was six or seven feet off the ground, as if that made a difference.

  “Shall I fetch them both?”

  She looked beyond the beech and saw Hal walking toward her, his long legs striding, his hair blown back from his brow, his arms swinging with each step. He looked as much of this wild wood as any satyr.

  Any words she thought to say were stuck in her throat.

  “Take my coat. Stay warm,” he said, removing his coat of darkest blue superfine and placing it about her shoulders. The feel of his hands through the coat, on her, sent a shiver down her spine.

  He jumped and gripped the first branch, hanging there but a moment before climbing up and up, legs and arms in constant motion, higher and higher into the beech. She knew she should call for him to stop. She knew that her shawl was not worth such a risk. She knew that she was behaving irresponsibly and that she was somehow encouraging recklessness in him, yet she could not open her mouth to stop him. She was thrilled by the sight of him climbing up and up, and she was dazzled by his daring.

  His shirt came untucked from his trousers, his waistcoat was open, his cravat was a bedraggled thing, and he dazzled her.

  Reaching the mystery shawl, he grabbed it, smiled down at her and dropped it. It fluttered to the base of the tree.

  “No higher!” she called to him. She forced herself to say it. In fact, she wanted him to climb to the stars, to scale mountains and fight dragons, and she wanted to watch him do it, knowing he was doing it all for her.

  “I must go on!” he shouted down to her, the wind blowing his dark hair about his face. “I cannot fail in my quest!” He turned and climbed higher upon another branch. Leaves and twigs fell to the ground, a small cascade of broken nature to testify to his endeavor.

  A quest? Was it a quest and why was he upon it? Why did she want him to quest on her behalf?

  Such thoughts, too logical, were an intrusion and she smothered them. Her eyes were filled with the bravery of his climb. Her heart was filled with . . . something she had never felt before this moment.

  Higher and higher, the limbs were thin now, narrow things that could not support his weight. He was such a big man, so tall and heavily muscled through the shoulders. The beech could not support him up so high.

  Her shawl moved lightly in the wind, fluttering entic
ingly, beckoning, almost.

  “‘Tis too high!” she called.

  He did not answer her, did not turn from his task to look down, so very far down at her. She was just as glad he did not.

  His arm wrapped around the branch where it joined the trunk, he reached out to touch, just barely, the edge of her shawl. The shawl escaped him, fluttering free, taunting him. He adjusted his position and reached again, leaning, leaning, touching the fringed edge with his fingertips and then the shawl moved toward him. Just a bit, the smallest inch or so, and he had it in his grasp and he pulled it to his chest, wrapping it around his throat a time or two and then he came down and down until he jumped the final few feet to the ground. He turned and faced her, his dark eyes gleaming with pride and manly joy, her shawl his prize and the evidence of his victory.

  “You did it,” she said. Her voice came out in something quite close to a gasp.

  “I did it,” he said, smiling. “For you.”

  “Yes,” she said, smiling back at him. “You did, didn’t you?”

  “I did,” he said, his eyes losing their shine, becoming nearly suspicious.

  “The shawl seemed to fold itself into your hand, at the end,” she said.

  “That it did,” he said. “How did it get up there?”

  “The wind,” she said.

  “A cold wind?”

  “A seasonable wind,” she said, losing her smile.

  He looked up at the tree, studying it. The branches moved slightly in a light and erratic wind. The clouds were gray and billowed, running with the wind across a pearly sky.

  “I have not climbed a tree since I was a lad,” he said. “I dare not think why I did so now.”

  “It was a daring climb, Lord Blackwater. I would never have asked it of you,” she said, “yet it is a favored shawl and I shall never forget the gallantry of your act.”

  “Will you not?” he said, turning his dark blue eyes upon her. He was a very handsome man, darkly seductive, masculine in a nearly primal fashion. “I did but climb a tree.”

 

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