She gestured toward the ornate writing desk at the window. “See if there is any notepaper in the drawers. If there is no pen and ink there, we may find them in the library.”
He slid a thin accounting ledger from his inside coat pocket. “I have paper. What do you intend to do?”
“Send a note to the baroness. I can’t use accounting sheets.” She knew she sounded petulant, but she was having some difficulty concentrating.
He removed the gilt-edged flyleaf. “Will this suit?”
“Excellent, yes.” Rising slowly, she carried the lamp over to examine the desk’s contents. “There is ink here, but it may be too dry. Can you sharpen the pen nib?”
He produced a small knife from his sword belt and took the quill. Mariel refrained from raising her eyebrows at the assortment of weaponry he carried on his person. These were perilous times, and Trystan was no fool. He carried a pouch of gold worth more than everything her family had ever possessed. He wouldn’t carry it so confidently if he couldn’t protect it.
She moistened the tip of her finger with her tongue and rubbed it on the sharpened quill, then dipped it into the dry ink and swirled it about. The note would have to be very brief.
It is most urgent that I speak with you about the chalice. Follow the footman to my room. Mariel.
It was not at all the type of thing she would have written had she time and ink, or if her brain wasn’t so weary. But perhaps it would raise enough curiosity to do the trick.
“Now, we need find a footman to deliver the note and direct her here.” Just the thought of hunting down a footman to do her bidding exhausted her.
Trystan took the note and tucked it into his pocket. “I will find a footman. You will stay here. It might be best if the baroness sees you alone. There is a niche just down the hall where I can wait, unobserved. You may call for me after you’ve explained.”
This sounded such an excellent plan that she returned to perch on the edge of the bed and agreed with a nod. It was marvelous having someone with whom to share the burden of duty. She could almost weep with the relief, but then she’d know she was delirious. “You will let me know if she is delayed?”
“If I can. I will impress the urgency upon the servant, though.” He hesitated, then took a long stride across the narrow room, bringing him within arm’s reach. He pressed a finger under her chin and lifted it. “I will be back,” he promised.
Before Mariel could say a word, or even think one, Trystan leaned over and covered her mouth with his.
His lips tasted of honey and wine and the faint tingle of salt. Weak already, Mariel did not even attempt to fight the flaring need that sprang through her midsection, seared her heart, and caused her to clasp the silk of his coat with eagerness as he parted her lips. She took him in and drank deeply of all he offered, finding strength in the desire flowing through his lips and touch and urgency. The possession of his tongue spoke of darker needs and desires and filled her with a longing she had known since she’d first opened her eyes and seen him standing at her feet.
Reluctantly, he pulled back, running his fingers over her cheek. “Soon, we will be together soon.”
His rough vow spoke to the emptiness inside her, and she nearly cried when he walked out the door.
She truly must be ill to cry over a man who could never be more than a passing stranger.
Sixteen
Trystan tipped a footman to carry the message to the baroness, then lingered in a doorway to watch her suite. At the rate he handed out coins, he would be fortunate to have enough left to pay the chalice’s original purchase price, much less any extra that might be demanded.
He hated leaving Mariel upstairs alone. She seemed to have become a shadow of herself over these last days. A woman who could swim to Aelynn shouldn’t be so weak from a slight journey in a pony cart.
A warning niggled at the back of Trystan’s mind, but he didn’t have time to fret over what he could not change. In due time, he would be able to take care of Mariel in the manner any mistress of his deserved. He was actually considering ways of introducing Mariel to the pleasures of his home that would convince her to stay.
But right now, all his concentration rested on the door of the suite. He had no way of knowing if the chevalier was inside.
To his immense relief, the bewigged and liveried footman he’d sent emerged from the suite with a lady on his arm. Trystan had to assume it was the baroness. She wasn’t overly tall, but her powdered and puffed headdress towered higher than the servant’s head. Unlike Mariel’s, her skirts billowed out and swung gracefully about her ankles. Trystan realized his mistake in purchasing the pretty gown—he hadn’t bought the proper undergarments or shoes to go with it. He had much to learn of women’s clothing.
He’d told the footman what room to go to. He hoped he’d been understood.
“My little cousin is here? In the castle? How very amazing that is,” the baroness chattered as she passed by Trystan on the way to the stairs.
So, Mariel was truly the lady’s cousin? He’d thought it another of her lies.
“Mariel never leaves Pouchay.” The baroness’s voice carried down the stairs.
Trystan lingered in the shadows at the bottom until she turned down the corridor, then he dashed up the marble steps to stop again in an unlit niche of the hall.
“I cannot imagine her leaving her sister. I hope nothing is wrong at home.”
Trystan rolled his eyes and thanked the gods that Mariel was not such a chatterbox. Lady Beloit would drive him mad within minutes.
And Mariel would drive him mad with just her existence if he did not bed her soon. He was a cautious man not given to impulse. But that moment at the temple, learning he had a physical match in this world, had altered his brain until his every thought was reduced to getting her into his bed. He hadn’t walked around in a constant state of arousal since adolescence, and he didn’t appreciate it now. He adjusted his tight breeches and hoped the gods were having a good laugh over his predicament.
The footman knocked at the correct door. The baroness chattered meaninglessly, waiting for a response from inside.
None came.
Trystan straightened, his hand instinctively resting on his sword hilt.
The footman knocked again. The baroness called a greeting.
No one answered.
The footman tried the latch. The door hit against the bar.
Still, no one inside spoke.
“Oh, dear,” the baroness murmured. “She said it was most urgent. Do you think anything could be wrong?”
The footman stood stoically, waiting for orders instead of dithering.
“Mariel, Mariel, dear,” the baroness called a little louder. When there was still no reply, she turned back to the footman. “Could you, umm, try to break open the door?”
Praying Mariel had just fallen into a sound sleep—although the lady’s chattering ought to wake the dead—Trystan slipped from his niche with the noise of the footman ramming his shoulder against the heavy door. He’d break down the damned door himself if Mariel didn’t open it soon. If the door was barred, she had to be inside. Pretending he’d just run up the stairs, he strode briskly down the hall.
“May I be of assistance, my lady?
The baroness eyed him with interest. “Yes, I believe you may.”
Since he was twice the footman’s size, Trystan assumed she was thinking in terms of a battering ram. He didn’t intend to cause damage if he could avoid it though.
“My cousin must have fallen asleep in this room, and we cannot open the door. Could you help us?”
“I am Trystan d’Aelynn, Mariel’s betrothed. I left her sleeping there just a short time ago. If I may?” Removing his knife from its sheathe, he slid it through the crack in the door and forced the bar upward.
“Mariel’s betrothed? She did not mention you to me,” the lady was saying as the bar clattered to the floor.
“We had not yet told her sister.” Trystan shoved t
he door open, praying for Mariel’s welcoming smile. If she had not heard the noise he’d just made—
In the dying light of the lantern he’d lit, he could see the lavender silk of her skirt falling motionless down the side of the curtained bed, and his throat closed in fear. Mariel was never so still, even in sleep.
He crossed the room in a stride, tossing back the curtain. On the linen sheets of the newly made-up bed, Mariel lay as pale and unmoving as one dead.
Had he killed her? If so, he did not know how, but Trystan didn’t doubt that he was to blame.
“She looks so pale. Is she ill?” the baroness whispered, jarring him back to the present.
Praying frantically, Trystan covered her brow with his cold hand. “She’s not felt well since we set out on this journey.” Watching her chest rise slightly, he realized she breathed, but relief did not come to him while she lay so still. “She does not seem feverish.”
Guilt crawled into his belly and gnawed.
“Tell my maid to bring my smelling salts,” the baroness commanded the footman, suddenly assuming the authority of her title.
Ignoring the lady, Trystan sat down beside Mariel and lifted her into his arms. To his relief, her eyelids fluttered.
“I don’t believe the child has ever left home.” Lady Beloit rubbed Mariel’s wrist. “Perhaps the travel has exhausted her.”
“Mariel,” he murmured, lifting her head so it rested like a doll’s upon his shoulder. “Mariel, your sister needs you.”
That got a response. Her head jerked, and her lashes lifted. Seeing him, she produced a smile so heartbreaking that if he were a crying man, he would have wept. Her eyes were the bright green of spring leaves before her lids closed over them again, and she lay limp as death in his arms. Terror ripped through him in the same way a knife slices flesh.
A young girl in a maid’s apron hurried in with a silver cylinder. The baroness flourished it under Mariel’s nose.
Mariel inhaled sharply, then coughed. She coughed so harshly that Trystan waved the cylinder away. Her cough grew weaker, but she didn’t regain consciousness.
Lady Beloit gestured the servants into the hall and closed the door. “What was the urgent matter that brought you here?” she demanded. “She looks as if she’s half starved, yet I know she bought every grain of wheat in the entire region.”
“I have kept her fed. She is not starved. She was fine when we left Pouchay.” Trystan caressed her face and kissed her brow, praying for some response.
“Then what was so urgent that she must see me on the eve of my marriage? Marc is not a patient man. At my age, I cannot risk losing him over some frivolous notion.”
Trystan glanced at the lady. He’d not bothered studying her earlier since the baroness looked like every other aristocratic female in France, covered in useless powder and silk and frills. He saw the lines around her eyes now, the sharpness of her nose, the thin stripe of her rouged lips. Despite the cosmetics, there was intelligence in her sharp gaze and crispness in her command.
“Mariel did not know that the chalice she sold you was a holy vessel stolen from a church. I have come to buy it back from you, with a little extra for your troubles. She was extremely upset that she had done such a thing and refused to stay home when I said I would come after you.”
“Stolen? From a church?” The lady looked shocked. “How dreadful. Who would do such a sacrilegious thing?”
Trystan invented the first explanation that came to mind. “Radicals, I fear. Those who would tear down the church and the aristocracy.”
He was proving to be as adept at lying as Mariel.
The lady gasped in horror. “I did not know the insurgents would go so far! That is beyond monstrous. Of course, you must have it back. I thought only to give Mariel coins so she might feed her friends, but once the jeweler cleaned it up, I could see it was of great value. Marc loves it, but I’m sure he’ll agree that it must be returned.”
Trystan silently praised the heavens that Mariel’s relation was more sensible than she looked. The triumph and relief he’d expected at attaining his goal did not follow, though.
He had once thought that reclaiming the Chalice of Plenty would be worth any price, but no more. He bowed his head in acceptance that he could no longer wish Mariel out of his life.
She might be impulsive and disobedient, but she had a generosity larger than the sea. She was quick-witted enough to meet him as an equal without being foolish enough to compete with him. A woman like that was worth her weight in pearls.
And he was in danger of losing this mate the gods had chosen for him. “I think we must send for a physician.”
“I’ll have the footman look for one, and send my maid for water to bathe her forehead.” Briskly, the baroness opened the chamber door and sent her servants on their errands.
“Water,” Mariel murmured, as if echoing her cousin’s words.
Trystan froze, some instinctive part of his brain waking under the pressure of panic. “We will bring water,” he assured her, cradling her like a child in his arms. He nodded at the silver cylinder the lady held. “Is that really salt?”
Lady Beloit looked at the smelling salts as if she’d forgotten she held them. “No, I don’t think so. It smells like ammonia.”
Knowing he sounded as if he’d taken leave of his mind, Trystan asked, “Could we find a cellar of salt?”
“I’m sure we can.” She looked at Mariel uncertainly. “But salt cannot be good for her if she is thirsty already.”
“We will try just water first,” he assured her. “But Mariel loves the sea. I have taken her far from her home. I know it sounds implausible…”
The baroness looked at him shrewdly, then nodded without argument. “I will send someone with salt.”
Within minutes, servants carried in pitchers of water and cellars of salt.
“Drink, mi ama, we have found water for you.” Trystan pressed a glass to her mouth.
Her lips moved. Lady Beloit shooed the servants from the room while Trystan patiently trickled water past Mariel’s parted lips.
She moaned and stirred slightly, but still, she did not wake.
“They’ve not found a physician yet,” the baroness murmured. “Not a sober one, at least.” She hesitated, then offered, “You cannot get much water into her like this. I can send for a bath. Perhaps she can soak it up through her skin. Would that help?”
Trystan looked up in relief. “It can’t hurt.”
She rustled to the door and gave more orders while Trystan shook salt into the glass he was holding. He sprinkled a few drops of salty water between her lips, and Mariel’s tongue licked eagerly at them.
Hope rising, he held her head up and tipped the crystal more, so that a steady dribble seeped between her lips. She swallowed eagerly and drank more.
“Amazing,” the baroness whispered. “You must be a genius.”
No, merely a man who knew the limitations of his kind. Every strength had a weakness, but his ring of silence prevented any temptation to say as much to Mariel’s Other World cousin. “It is an old home remedy,” he assured her. “I think she will be fine by morning.”
He had wanted to grab the chalice and go, but he could not take Mariel into the cold night while she was weak like this. His ability to act independently had been severed, even without the ritual of binding.
“If you are staying, you must join the wedding party,” Lady Beloit said as footmen carried in a small tub and maids brought pitchers of water. “It will be a very festive occasion.”
Trystan didn’t wish to say anything of the rebel plans for the morrow in front of servants. Gossip ran loose even in Aelynn. He could imagine what the whispers must be like in a place torn by strife. He dribbled water into Mariel, more aware than ever of the cushion of her breasts pressed into his chest, the slightness of her waist in his arms. Perhaps the gods meant for him to learn the value of the precious gift they’d given him.
Perhaps they intended for him t
o share his strength with her. Immediately. The bonding ceremony would do that, but he was not on Aelynn, and he was no priest. Would it work here?
He would have to take her as his amacara and find out.
“Should I have my maid bathe her?” the lady asked when all the servants had departed.
Troubled, and needing time to think, Trystan shook his head. “She is too weak to sit. I must hold her. We are married in my church. Do not concern yourself with the proprieties.”
With the servants gone, he offered his gratitude by warning Mariel’s cousin. “I am in your debt for your promise to return the chalice. I cannot repay you easily except in coin.”
He sought the diplomatic means of telling the lady what he knew. “But I would warn you about the morrow. There are…radicals…in town who would protest your festivities. I do not know what they have planned, but they have weapons, and the alehouse has promised cheap liquor. I don’t know your guests, but if they are drunk—”
“And they will be,” the baroness nodded curtly. “It will be a horrendous brawl and people could die. I take your point. Marc wanted to show his joy by giving me a party, but perhaps this was not the best of times. I thank you for the warning, but I don’t know how we can stop the festivities.”
Trystan recalled Mariel’s wise words of earlier and offered them now. “Perhaps riots could be prevented should the poor eat as well as the rich.” He glanced down and thought Mariel’s cheeks might be gaining more color. He needed to immerse her in the bath.
The lady hummed in interest. “If I have aught to say about it at all, I will have no fighting at my wedding. I’ll leave Adele outside should you need anything else. I have some new arrangements to make. Have Adele come to me if my cousin awakes.”
The lady strode out like a soldier off to war. Although there was no physical resemblance between Mariel and her cousin, Trystan thought he saw the family resemblance in their attitude. The St. Justs were not to be taken lightly.
And neither were Aelynners. He accepted the gods’ decision. They’d given him an amacara to carry the child that would be the island’s future guardian. As much as he’d hoped Lissandra would be both wife and mate, it seemed unimportant now. He could not sacrifice Mariel or the island’s future for his own desires. He would not!
Mystic Guardian Page 15