He had far too much advantage over her with his greater experience. He brought her to the brink of release and gently pushed her over. As the tremors exploded within her, her bones turned to jelly, and she almost slid down the wall before he caught her.
Trystan wrapped her tightly in his embrace as if he would never let her go, and she felt the bulge of his arousal against her belly. She had done that to him. The knot that tied her to him worked as tightly in the other direction. Knowing the suffering of unrequited desire, she reached to take him in her hands. He let her caress his length through his tight breeches, but pushed back when she fumbled with the buttons.
“The sheath is for whores. I threw it away, mi ama. We will wait.” Proving his character was stronger than hers, Trystan caught her firmly by the waist and swung her out into the crowd, letting her full skirts hide what she had done to him.
He meant to take no more whores. The confidence of his claim thundered between them.
“You must be made of stone,” she whispered as he twirled her about the floor in the decadent dance the Austrian queen had introduced at court. She would trip over her feet except her slippers scarcely touched the floor. In his heeled boots, Trystan towered over her. She was vaguely aware of the stares they attracted, but she could not take her eyes from her golden partner.
“I am likely to petrify like this if we don’t reach Aelynn soon,” he agreed with muffled mirth. “But the result will be worth it. Is there privacy on barges? If so, I will teach you how to relieve my dilemma.”
Mariel felt as if she had imbibed a flask of wine, so heady was the music and the dancing and Trystan’s arms about her. She was still light-headed from what he’d done to her. He could do that without using his masculine weapon on her? Why had she not known?
What could she do for him in return? His words had her head spinning with curiosity. It was almost enough to drive the chalice out of her mind. Almost. “How can you take this…this thing between us so lightly?”
“Our joining?” He shrugged his broad shoulders and whisked her in faster, more seductive circles as the tempo increased. “I do not take it lightly. I am terrified, if you must know. But I put my trust in Aelynn. It is a pity you have no similar custom. It is both reassuring and humbling to know that between us, we have the capacity to produce progeny who will duplicate our traits.”
“That is so insanely arrogant as to be almost laughable.” And the very last thing she wished to do—produce another misfit like herself. What a cruel thing to do to her own child!
Gasping for breath, Mariel said no more until the dance ended, and Trystan set her on her feet again. Clinging to his shoulder, with his arm supporting her waist, she let him lead her away from the throng around the tables. “I did not inherit my mother’s traits,” she argued with his proud conviction. “I cannot imagine she was anything like her father or she would have said so. Are you an exact replica of your father?”
He set her on a velvet bench along the wall so she could catch her breath. “I doubt that your grandmother shared vows with your grandfather, and she certainly didn’t visit Aelynn and the altar or I would have heard. It is possible that she was a Crossbreed herself. That increases the chances of children having some of Aelynn’s traits, although not necessarily desired ones. There are Crossbreeds scattered across seven continents, but it is unlikely for an amacara match like ours to be formed anywhere outside Aelynn’s borders.”
Trystan snatched a glass of champagne from a passing servant and handed it to her. “Drink this, and I will be on my way.”
She didn’t want him to go without her, but he had to go inland, and she couldn’t. She sipped carefully to delay while she considered the problem. “Why have you not made a match on your precious island?”
“Amacara matches are infrequent,” he explained. “And because of my gift with language, I traveled far and was seldom home, so I never discovered if any maid there was destined for me.”
“I thought Lissandra was your destiny,” Mariel said with a hint of bitterness. She’d only had a sip of the champagne, but her tongue was already loose.
He didn’t want her for wife. Just breeding stock for his children. She really should slap his face, but the tie between them was too physical to pretend it didn’t exist. His test to call her to him had proven that beyond any doubt. She ought to be terrified, but the connection with this awesome man was far too exhilarating.
She would simply have to hope the bond did not work over the distance of the sea or she would exhaust herself going to him, or waiting for him to return to her.
Her breath stalled in her throat. Had she really accepted the bond between them?
“Sometimes it happens that a wife is also made an ama,” Trystan said with a casual shrug, diverting her thoughts. “It might have happened had I not met you. Lissandra and I both possess powerful traits that Aelynn must pass on. But it cannot happen now. Lissandra will only have half a mate, if she will take me at all.” He seemed quite stoic about that fact.
“You could always kill me,” Mariel reminded him, still staggered by all the implications of their bond. He probably should. Then he could return home and pick up his life as if she had not unwittingly interrupted it.
Laughter crinkled the corners of Trystan’s eyes. “Aye, there is that. But it’s much more fun to make you come, in all senses of the word.”
He was doing it again. He appeared so charming and affable when he laughed like that… She could almost adore a man who looked at her with understanding and affection. She simply had to remember the ruthless swordsman thought he was better than she.
Yet still she tingled with need when he wanted her. Even now, his desire poured like molten honey through her, heating her as much as the golden look of lust he bestowed upon her. At least she knew she didn’t suffer alone. She threw back a large swallow of the wine.
“It is too close to Francine’s time,” she protested in an effort to keep her feet on the ground. “I cannot leave her again until Eduard returns. Unless you find some way to turn off this…” She gestured. “Whatever this is between us, we will both endure many a sleepless night.”
“Too late,” he said, swallowing a lusty gulp of his own wine. “It is done. We will find some way of dealing with it. I am not averse to having a beautiful woman at my beck and call.”
She narrowed her eyes at his rudeness. “Your goats may come when called, but not I.”
Chuckling, Trystan set aside the empty glass. “Nick must be gone by now. Shall I find somewhere private with a large tub where you can wait for my return?”
She would suffer the torment of the damned no matter what she did, Mariel reflected as he drew her from the bench.
A loud pounding erupted at the door, followed by shouts that vibrated the old wood.
The musicians halted, startled by the racket. Mariel grasped Trystan’s hand tighter, although she could not say if it was to tug him to safety or keep from being parted from him.
The drunken crowd stumbled in their dancing and glanced about in bewilderment.
“There’s a mob forming at the gates!” a voice shouted.
Into the fearful silence, the baroness called, “Those are my guests! The guards have been ordered to let them in.”
Muttering a foreign curse, Trystan grabbed his sword with one hand and Mariel’s elbow with the other.
“You will await the chalice’s return somewhere less…anarchic,” he said, dragging her backward toward the nearest doorway.
Desire replaced by anger, Mariel jerked her arm away and lifted her skirts. “You may go, if you wish, but there are people outside starving. If my cousin wishes to feed them, then I shall bide my time here by helping her to do so.”
Without a single look back, she hurried to join the baroness.
Twenty-one
The resplendently garbed guards rushed toward the front of the hall at the threat of rabble entering, but Lady de Berrier née Beloit had already ordered several servants t
o slide open the bar on the towering oak doors that led to the courtyard.
Apparently having already passed the outside gates, the mob surged into the interior, led by the radicals from the tavern. At her cousin’s side, Mariel was lost to Trystan in the swirl of humanity.
Trystan was under no illusion that this situation could turn out well. Cursing the gods, headstrong women, and anarchic peasants, he sought the best course for protecting his mate.
In two steps he leapt from a chair to the buffet table, heedless of the marzipan he crushed beneath his boots. Tumbling ice sculptures into soup tureens, he took the open path of the table top to reach Mariel before guards could engage the surging mob. Sliding through jellified vegetables and sending a basket of hard rolls tumbling, he grabbed the knot of her lovely hair and yanked her still.
He bounded from table to chair to the floor again before she ripped the hair out of her head trying to escape, refusing to let her look of shock distract his purpose. “Stay here,” he ordered, “or more people than you will be hurt.” He shoved her under the floor-length tablecloth.
He didn’t know if she understood his admonition. There wasn’t time to explain how the bond between them could cause him to react instinctively to any threat to her. Or to repeat that he was not her golden savior, but foresworn by Aelynn’s law against swinging his swift sword in the Outside World for any reason except the defense of his mate or fellow countrymen.
The baroness’s cries of outrage indicated her benevolent plans had gone awry.
Trystan wrapped his hand around his sword hilt as he returned to his preferred path of the table top. Despite the laws of Aelynn, he could not let the baroness come to harm for many and varied reasons—the chalice not being the least of them.
Around the great hall, women screamed in excitement and men argued among themselves, but few of the aristocrats seemed to take the mob seriously enough to lift a hand to defend the hall from the intruders. The guards, after all, had weapons and uniforms and were thus superior to the motley rabble.
As they shoved past the doors, the mob outnumbered not only the guards, but the noble guests. Trystan feared the clash to come would not be pretty.
While the baroness used a broken fan to swat the overwhelmed guard attempting to protect her from her guests, men with shabby frock coats over neatly pressed, if threadbare linen, and women in stiff, starched aprons over their faded homespun paraded through the doors, bobbing their courtesies to the baroness before heading hungrily for the immense banquet tables.
“They’re my guests,” the baroness shouted over the commotion as several of the aristocratic company finally reached for swords to hold off the newcomers crowding around them, crushing silks and laces in their eagerness to reach the tables. “I invited them!”
Trystan almost sympathized with the chevalier, who watched in resignation while men in leather jerkins lifted bottles of champagne and drank as if it were water. Two shabbily-dressed women reached for the remains of the same chicken carcass and started squabbling, while others stuffed their apron pockets with sweets for their children. The radical bourgeois leaders from the tavern shook the chevalier’s hand, apparently congratulating him on his nuptials.
The baroness had meant well with her invitation. Most of the mob had come politely garbed in their best finery, intending no harm, but wealth and poverty combined in one place unleashed the whirlwind of resentment and bitterness, even when not goaded by the rabble-rousers certain to be found in every crowd. Trystan was starting to believe that was the purpose of the chalice after all, to cause mayhem and anarchy when set free upon the unsuspecting world.
Imagining Mariel someday creating a similar scene in his orderly home, he contemplated hanging himself from the crystal chandeliers.
The guards slammed the doors closed and held them with brute force in order to lock out the remaining “guests.” Nearly blinding her lone captor with her broken fan, the baroness escaped and joined several of the radicals in attempting to open the doors again.
Unable to resist the temptation to command as he’d been taught to do since birth, Trystan strode down the table, rapier in hand. While the captain of the guard struggled to regain control of the furious bride, Trystan tapped the man on his shoulder with his blade, perhaps a little harder than was absolutely necessary, just to assure his attention.
At the mustached captain’s scowl in his direction, Trystan jabbed his rapier tip on the man’s nose. “Release the lady,” he said pleasantly. “You serve no purpose in holding her back.”
“This is the holding of a duc,” the man protested. “We do not open the gates for peasants!”
“The lady invited friends to her nuptials,” Trystan replied, restraining himself quite admirably, in his opinion. Some of the guests were thin as rails and more ragged than scarecrows. “What will you charge her with? Obstructing starvation?”
Finding Trystan to be a target they could fight, more guards closed in. Muskets waved ominously. Trystan continued holding his rapier point to the captain’s bulbous nose.
“Madame Mariel! Monsieur Trystan! There are soldiers coming!”
Nick burst through the crowd still pushing and shoving at the doors. He jumped up and down to be seen and shouted at the top of his lungs. “King’s soldiers!”
Trystan cursed. Did nothing in this bedeviled world go as he planned? The boy should be safely on his way to the coast, not in the middle of an army who thought him a murderer.
He didn’t care to examine what disaster Nick’s arrival portended, but Trystan’s duty was clear. He had to remove Mariel to safety before violence broke out. While the captain’s attention was diverted by Nick’s shouts, Trystan pricked the arm holding the baroness. As expected, the man shook it with annoyance, and the lady broke free.
“Most gallant of you, monsieur,” she called, dancing in the direction of her husband. “A riot on our wedding day would have been such a bad omen, wouldn’t it, dear?” she called. “Isn’t this much more entertaining?”
Trystan rolled his eyes as the besotted groom nodded his agreement. If Mariel’s theory was correct, and the chalice was responsible for turning this sensible man into a sentimental fool, it had much to account for.
The impoverished crowd made room for Nick to shove through. Most continued to devour the buffet. Trystan parried the angry captain’s sword, then flipped the weapon from the guard’s hand without effort. Outsider swordsmen were far too slow to be a challenge.
But he’d never tried dodging musket balls, and tempers were fraying. Frustrated by the guards’ inability to control the ragtag crowd, the drunken nobility were congregating in one corner. Equally irritated, the guards were torn between keeping more people from entering the hall and keeping the ones there from spreading through the castle corridors.
Preferring not to set himself up as an overlarge target for all that simmering anger, Trystan jumped down from the table just in time to see Mariel emerge almost beneath his boots. He glared at her defiance. He’d left her safely under the tables where she could escape beneath them into the castle corridors should the mob grow unruly.
“Do you ever listen?” he growled, catching her arm and dragging her toward Nick. As long as they were both this close to the front gates, he saw no purpose in lingering. He’d done what he could for the baroness. She was on her own now.
“I listen,” she replied pertly, hurrying to keep up with him. “I just choose whether or not to obey. And I wasn’t in an obedient mood.”
“Are you ever?” He jerked her faster, nearly carrying her toward the door.
“I doubt you’ll have time to find out.” She swore at the chevalier’s shout for the guards.
The groom had spotted Nick.
Trystan wrestled with the exasperating knowledge that Mariel still thought she could escape the bonds between them, but there was little he could do to correct her thinking now. He could reach Nick faster without Mariel holding him back, but he could not leave her in this dangerous
crush. Circling her waist as if they were dancing, he lifted her from her feet and pushed forward, past a farmer sucking a chicken bone clean and an old lady shoving an entire chocolate petit four into her mouth, looking as if she’d died and passed on to heaven.
Mariel gasped at her abrupt flight but didn’t have time to form a protest before they reached Nick. Unfortunately, in his attempt to meet them, the boy darted straight into a guardsman’s grip. Lifting Nick by the back of his coat, the soldier held him at arm’s length to avoid flailing feet and signaled for his companions to open a path through the melee.
Weapon in hand, Trystan pushed Mariel behind him. He lunged forward to slice off the guardsman’s pretty gold buttons, sending them spinning into the mob. Instantly, half a dozen ragged people dropped to their knees to search for the valuables, preventing Nick’s captor from going anywhere. “Unhand the boy,” Trystan shouted over the tumult.
“Not likely. We’re paid well to catch poachers,” the guard scoffed.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, he’s just a scared little boy.” Unfazed by either mob or uniformed guards, Mariel slipped around Trystan to come between him and his target. “Put him down,” she ordered. “You’re terrifying the lad.”
He sighed in vexation when the man behaved as anticipated and sneered at being confronted by a mere woman. Trystan might not understand a great deal about women, but he understood enough to respect Mariel’s choices. Trystan stepped back, giving his mate the freedom to act as she saw fit.
Undeterred by musket or authority, Mariel smacked the sneer from the guard’s face with enough strength to startle him into dropping Nick. The boy ducked into the crowd and disappeared. In frustration, the man lifted his newly-empty arm threateningly.
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