by Rigel, LK
One by one, he removed the other material insults to her form and tossed them on the floor in a pile. The sad imitation of glimmermist covering her legs had none of its powers. Cissa wouldn’t be interested. On the pile.
The last two bits were improvements on instruments of torture which passed for human female undergarments these days, but no fairy would touch them. He unhooked the top piece and freed her breasts then slipped the final garment down over her hips and off, both to the pile.
Where her clothes had been too tight, he kissed the indentations in her skin and watched them smooth out and disappear. He glided his hands over her belly and hips and down her backside to send warmth and relaxation through her body. He kissed the skin between her breasts and breathed in her fragrance, relieved that the off-putting scent had belonged to her wretched clothing.
She wrapped her legs around his waist and gently squeezed his upper arms as she kissed his forehead. When she ran her fingers over his shoulders, he shivered. He wanted to taste every part of her. He closed his mouth over a nipple which hardened as he teased it with his tongue, and she pressed against him. Encouraged by her moans, he cupped the breast and sucked.
“Hello!” Goldenrod came through the door bearing two winesacks. “Is Glory—oh, dear. A thousand pardons!”
Dandelion took in several deep breaths to calm himself down and stepped away from Beverly, suspended in the air with her eyes closed.
“Need any help?” Goldy smiled wickedly at Beverly and back to Dandelion. “Either way? No?”
“You have the worst timing, Goldy.”
“Yes, my prince.” Goldenrod clucked his tongue and went to the hutch to put away the winesacks.
Dandelion tossed dust over Beverly and said, “Something comfortable—and lovely.”
Before the sparkly dust settled, she was dressed in a sheath of green and white lace. Her feet were caressed by soft leather sandals, and her toenails and fingernails glittered with green and gold. Her ornaments were simple pearl earrings and two dandelion flowers in her hair.
Dandelion lowered her to the ground, confused. He wanted her—that much was straightforward, ignoring the pun. But something more than desire aroused him. Curiosity. The sexual contact had been brief—too brief—but it was a revelation. He’d felt her desire to please him as much as take pleasure from him.
He felt vulnerable—and strangely happy.
Goldy returned. “Now that’s what I call gorgeous.”
Beverly opened her eyes—then paled. “It’s you!” She looked from Goldy to Dandelion, her lower lip trembling and her eyes huge. “I’m not dreaming, am I?”
“No,” he admitted. “You’re not dreaming.”
“Then I’m dead,” she said—and fainted.
In the Temple of Joy and Wonder
DONALL LOST CHARLES AND the ladies in the rhododendrons. A few minutes later he heard Lydia’s far off laughter muffled by the hedge maze. “Lydia!” Charles called out. He was in there with her. “Gwen, have you found one?”
Bugger. They’d all gone into the maze. Gwen and Charles would panic, but not Lydia. Lydia would relish the challenge though it would likely take an hour to find the way out, even for her.
Lovely, clever, sensible Lydia. Exactly what a man hopes for in his wife. That is, if Donall could win her before Charles Sarumen got there. At this very moment Charles was most likely evading poor Gwen in his scheme to become “lost” in the maze with Lydia.
Bugger it all. Still, Donall wasn’t going to chase after her like a pathetic puppy.
Nearby a twig snapped, and he paused to listen. Something skittered by through the brush. The sound led him back to the abandoned picnic spread out beside the lake. The unhitched horses grazed in the distance while the carriage driver and footman ate their meal on a stone bench beyond the maze.
Donall went down to the shore to search for a good skipping rock to pass the time. While searching through the reeds, a fish leapt out of the water after a bug. He jumped then laughed at himself. He’d forgotten how much he loved this little lake. He hadn’t been here in years.
Damned shame too. The park was his great grandmama’s grand achievement, and the family never used it. Dashed insult to the old girl’s memory, if one thought about it. When his guests had gone, he’d bring the mater and Sophia and Caroline out for a look-see. The governor too, if the old man was home from London and fancied an outing.
He skipped a nice flat piece of gray and white elvan across the lake surface. As he counted the bounces, a woman’s laugh echoed back to him, sending his heart into his throat. He knew that laugh, and it wasn’t Lydia’s or Gwen’s. He was suddenly as light as the elvan stone dancing over the water.
“Morning Glory?” He half called, half whispered. He didn’t want the others to know about his special fairy.
For that’s how he thought of her.
It all came back to him. He could see her spinning in the night sky, the flat full moon above her head, her long pale hair flying wild. He remembered the womanly shape she’d purposely flaunted and celebrated with her sheer, skin-tight costume, more daring than anything a circus acrobat ever did wear.
Morning Glory was the convincing argument—outside the fairy cup—that it was all real. His paltry imagination could never invent someone as wonderful, as marvelous, as fantastical as the sensually delightful Morning Glory.
Fly away! Her last words played in his mind at least once a day.
There, he saw it. A bubble of light bounced through the reeds on the far shore. The light danced toward the Sacred Temple of Joy and Wonder—his sister Sophia’s name for the Greek-style rotunda. The temple’s marble was now covered in winter roses, a climbing carpet of red and white that evoked lethal Lamia more than heroic Antigone.
Another glittering movement. Could he hope…fairy wings? He followed along the shore to the other side of the lake and dashed up the hard marble steps, breathing hard by the time he got to the top.
She was standing at the most interior pillar with her back to him. Her wings—wings!—were stunning. Like giant dragonfly wings, pale, shimmering. A pastel rainbow, the colors of a soap bubble. They folded and retracted into openings just below her shoulder blades, an oddly mechanical process for a living being. His stomach went a little queasy.
She wore a sleeveless belted tunic that covered only the top of her thighs. Her bare legs and feet stirred his most ungentlemanly thoughts.
“Were you hurt on Mischief Night?” he asked. “When that angry fairy knocked against you, you cried out in such pain.”
He gave her no greeting, no words of welcome or delight. Seeing her drove all courtesy from his consciousness. She didn't seem to mind. She smiled as if he was the one person she’d waited a lifetime for. It knocked him back a step.
Her green eyes flashed like emeralds under candlelight. “You noticed.” She was suddenly close enough to touch him. “I knew you were a considerate man.”
“Of course I noticed,” he said. The way she said man made him feel…manly. “I wanted to punch the bounder.”
“You’re sweet.” She laughed again and spun on one toe. So delightful. “It wasn’t Dandelion’s fault.”
“The inebriated fairy? I didn’t think so,” Donall said. “It was that straw-haired fellow with the fancy choker was up to no good. Plots and schemes afoot with that one.”
“Aubrey,” Morning Glory said. “He’s King Idris’s right-hand man.”
“He was different,” Donall said. “There was something…unfairylike about him.”
“Aubrey fell in love,” she said, as if that explained everything. “With a human. Worse, with Frona.”
“Frona?”
She frowned and tilted her head. Darling. “The most famous wyrder ever? The Great Wyrding?”
No idea who or what she was talking about.
“Frona changed Dumnos iron, made it harmless,” she said.
“That sounds…like a good thing,” Donall said. “Why must Aubrey not love
her?”
“Because she was a wyrding woman. The wyrding woman. The king’s oracle, when there was a human king.”
“William IV?” Donall said. Morning Glory bounced on the marble floor, and Donall sensed her impatience with his ignorance. Her toenails sparkled. Extraordinary.
“Frona and Aubrey’s daughter Elyse is the wyrding woman of Glimmer Cottage.”
“Ah, Glimmer Cottage.” This he knew about. “The governor often speaks of razing the crumbling old place to build a modern cottage there, but he never does anything about it. It’s been abandoned as long as anyone can remember.”
“That’s what she wants people to think,” Morning Glory said. “Elyse is the worst. She’s more powerful than Frona ever was, but she’s bitter.” She touched his face indulgently, as if he couldn’t be expected to understand such things—which was a relief. “It doesn’t matter.”
She was as perfect as porcelain. He pressed her hand to his cheek, expecting it to feel cold to the touch, her fingers hard like fine china. But she was warm. Soft. He kissed her palm. “I’ve thought of you every day since Mischief Night. Why haven’t you come to see me at Faeview?”
“King Idris has forbidden it,” she said.
“A fairy king,” he said. “Imagine that.” That Dandelion fairy had chanted something about becoming king. “Fairy politics and intrigue too.”
“Do not mock us, Lord Tintagos.” She withdrew her hand, and the green of her eyes darkened. A thrill of fear stabbed his heart. She was so darling he wanted to kiss her pouty lips, but he had sense enough to tread carefully.
“Morning Glory,” he changed the subject. “Can you tell me what this means?” He repeated Dandelion’s last words:
“If this cup does shatter or crack,
Bausiney’s line will meet its lack.”
“Prince Dandelion was angry when he laid that curse,” Morning Glory said.
“Curse?” Uh-oh. That couldn’t be good.
“The cup is sacred to the Dumnos fae. You never should have gained its possession, but you did. Dandelion cursed your line, the house of Bausiney, should the cup ever come to harm while in your care.”
“Bausiney’s line will meet its lack. You mean there will be no sons, no heirs?”
“Exactly.”
“What if someone else, not a Bausiney, shatters or cracks it?”
“I’m sure you’re safe.”
“That’s not exactly reassuring, Morning Glory.”
“As long as you keep the cup safe, you will be safe.” She looked at him sideways. “Or you could give it back, but I doubt you have the strength.”
Give it back! The very thought was repellant. Impossible. She might as well ask him to stop breathing. She laughed at his consternation, and he felt his face go hot.
“I’m a bounder, I know, but I…” He could never let the beautiful object go.
“Don’t trouble yourself. Prince Dandelion will retrieve the cup, no matter how long it takes. You’ll be all right,” she said. “I heard you tell the others it’s locked up in a glass case with a Dumnos steel frame. Keep it there. Don’t let anyone touch it.”
“But won’t the fae break in and take it?”
“Faeview is a fortress against us.”
“But you danced on the roof.”
“On the roof, yes. But all the mansion’s openings are lined with cold iron. No fairy can enter.”
“Cold iron?”
“Steel made with iron from outside Dumnos. We call it cold iron.”
“Imagine that.” How puffed up Nanny would be to learn her remedies against fairies were effective.
“Cold iron is the only thing that can kill a fairy, if you know how to use it.” Her hand flew to her heart protectively. So beautiful, even when she pouted. Especially when she pouted.
He said, “I’d rather not talk about fairy politics.”
“Good.” She brightened and kissed him, and the world slipped away. He tingled at every place she touched. He couldn’t stop smiling, even as his urgency for her kept building. He had to have her—and oh, the wonder and the joy of it, she wanted him. She loosened his cravat and tossed it aside, kissing his neck and throat and ears. Somehow she removed his waistcoat, his shirt—everything.
She was everywhere with her fingers, her lips, her tongue. His legs, his belly, the back of his neck. Everything was hers to taste and kiss and caress. This was what it was like to be wanted by a woman. Worshipped. Adored. Desired. She gave him everything, and she took from him until he had nothing left.
“I have a present for you, Donall.”
He was sitting on the marble floor, leaning against the pillar, fully dressed, his cravat neatly arranged in a fantastic configuration.
Morning Glory withdrew something from one a leather pouch on her belt, a clear bottle with a crystal stopper. She reached for his hand and placed it on his open palm. “Give this potion to your lady love.”
He held it up to the light. The liquid inside was pomegranate seed red.
“After she drinks it and gazes upon your face,” Morning Glory said, “she’ll love you utterly and beyond anything.”
Donall considered the prospect. He tried to imagine Lydia showing the kind of desire for him Morning Glory had. “I…I don’t think I could bear that.” He hated to be ungracious about the gift, but he couldn’t lie, not to Morning Glory.
Her face fell. “I don’t understand. You liked being with me just now. You can have that passion every day with the woman you marry.”
“I don’t think I could take it,” he said. The very idea was—not appalling. That wasn’t the right word. Overwhelming. “I wouldn’t be able to do anything but adore her. Like opium, I suppose. Once I had that kind of passion, I’d spend every moment worrying for more. That kind of love…it would ruin me.”
The fairy shook her head slowly, and her brows crunched together. “You want to marry Lydia though you know she doesn’t love you?”
“She respects me.” He shrugged. “She likes me well enough. She’ll never bring shame on the Bausiney name. And she’ll never break my heart.”
“She’ll never make your heart soar either!”
“But that’s quite all right, Morning Glory. Don’t you see?”
Donall’s eye caught the fresco painted on the ceiling of the Sacred Temple of Joy and Wonder. It depicted a satyr ravishing a nymph from behind. His hands groped her breasts and his mouth clamped on her neck. It should be repulsive, but it made Donall ironically philosophical.
“You have made my heart soar. I’ll carry this feeling to my grave. I know exactly how it will be. This day will live in me all the days of my life. The memory will be a talisman against all sorrow, all pain. Nothing will violate that memory. Today is and ever will be perfect. Nothing can tarnish it.”
Something shifted inside him. Every word he’d just said was the immutable truth. And like a charm, speaking the words had freed him of Lydia’s power.
Morning Glory touched his cheek and smiled. “And I feared you might not be the romantic I first took you for.” She closed his fingers around the vial. “Keep it anyway. My gift to you. You might find another purpose for it.”
“Will I see you again?” He knew he wouldn’t.
“I don’t know.” She extended her wings and lifted off the floor. She was indeed the most exquisite creature he had ever seen.
“My heart is breaking right now, Morning Glory. I want you to love me forever, and I know it’s impossible.” He stared at the marble floor. He’d never felt more alone. “I’ll be safe with Lydia. I could never break my heart over a woman who doesn’t love me. She presents no danger.”
When he looked up again Morning Glory was gone, and Lydia Pengrith was ascending the temple steps with all the self-confidence Donall had admired in her. And still did. Charles and Gwen followed behind, but it was as if they didn’t exist.
Lydia had changed too. The shift was invisible but powerful. Before, she’d fixed on Charles as her object
. Now, Donall held the favored position. Or rather the cup did. The fairy cup had turned her. As Morning Glory might say, it didn’t matter. Donall let Lydia’s smile wash over him, and he returned one equally sincere. He extended his arm to her, and she took it.
“You’ve redone your cravat, my lord,” she said. “How very clever of you.”
We’re No Angels
BEING DEAD FELT LIKE BEING alive but with elements of the sublime juxtaposed on the mundane.
The yew wood rocking chair was impossibly comfortable, as if the person who made it had Beverly’s frame in mind through every step of its construction. In the fireplace the bright-cut grate and chimney crane reflected the flames like marcasite jewelry. Bare roots hung like stalactites from the ceiling, and there were two crystal candelabra. Luxurious rugs covered the dirt floor. The soothing aroma of peppermint tea permeated the air and made the place homey.
It wasn’t heaven. It was a mud hut. But parts of it were heavenly.
“She’s awake,” her guardian angel said from across the room. He sat on a tall chest of drawers, his bare legs crossed, drinking from a porcelain tea cup.
“Welcome back, Beverly.” The dark-haired angel handed her a cup of tea, the eggshell-thin porcelain a contrast to his powerful bearing. He was thoughtful as well as intriguing and mysterious and sexy. Lovely qualities in a man.
But could she call an angel a man? This steaming mix of highlander, Celtic warrior, and rock star had retractable wings. His arms were bare. He wore a black leather vest embossed with dandelions and closed by toggles of silver and leather. His dark eyebrows and lashes framed unearthly green eyes. His straight thick hair, a dark cherry wood color, fell to his mid back, secured from his face by an elaborate silver clasp and picks.
She remembered his hands on her skin, his warm insistent mouth on…everything. I am not in love…. The song from the pub came back to her. But I’m open to persuasion.
There was something very wrong with this picture.
She was drinking tea by a cozy fire in a dirt-floor hut with window boxes on the inside, attended by two virile, decidedly unangelic angels—a scenario described in no guide to the afterlife she knew of. This was far beyond any New Age promise of what-your-mind-can-conceive-you-can-achieve hot tub nirvana.