And on lovely nights like this, long after Giles had lurched off her unresisting body and lay snoring beside her, she would rise from her bed and stand silently at her window, as she was standing at this parapet now. She would look out through the trees at the great standing stone they called the Blind Fiddler. And hear ancient music strumming through the night, calling to her as her own wild blood sang. And ancient laughter mocking her for having gone so docilely to her prosaic destiny.
A small sob rose in Imogene’s rebellious white throat at this stark assessment of her future and was immediately choked back.
Till June, she told herself fiercely. She had until June. She was her own woman until then and she must make the most of it.
Almost as a reflex gesture of defiance she tossed the sheer white lawn whisk she was holding over the parapet, watched it float away, gossamer white in the moonlight, on its slow descent to the dry moat below.
She should certainly have gone back to bed then, but she did not.
Instead she turned and ran back on light feet the way she had come, avoiding her own doorway and following the great Jacobean stairway down. Quietly she made her way out of the sleeping castle and on soft slippers reached the dry moat and looked around her.
Everything was perfectly quiet. The petrels and cormorants and auks and great black-backed gulls that screamed and wheeled over the islands in the daytime were still. Nearby, the moonlight picked out yellow lichen on the gray stones, and at her feet was a mass of bluebells and other wild flowers scenting the warm night air.
Imogene took a deep breath. From the silence, it seemed indeed that all the world had gone to bed.
She felt a sharp prickle of disappointment.
He was not here.
Well then, she would try to find her whisk and go back to bed.
She walked about, staring down at the grasses and wild flowers that luxuriated in the dry moat, stirring them with her foot. The whisk should have fallen about here. It was white and would be hard to miss.
Suddenly, from out of the shadow of the castle walls a man’s arm shot out, a man’s hand seized her wrist.
Imogene choked back a scream.
A low laugh followed the hand, then a smiling face, and then a body was thrust out of the darkness. The moonlight beamed down into a pair of reckless turquoise eyes.
“So you vowed you wouldn’t, but you came anyway.” Stephen’s voice was triumphant.
Still tingling from her sudden fright, Imogene tossed her head and her bright curls rippled in the moonlight. “I came but to look for my whisk,” she said airily.
“The first? Or the second that came sailing over the castle wall just minutes ago? I found them both.”
So he’d been watching after all. . . . “You should be home in bed,” she mocked. “For that terrible swordsman, Tom Mowbrey, is like to run you through tomorrow.”
“Is he a good blade, then?” A genial grin spread across Stephen’s face. “Faith, I’m glad to hear it. ’Twill make the event more sporting.’’
She laughed up at him. “No, Tom’s no blade at all. I’m sure he’d never have challenged you had he not felt pushed into it because everyone was looking. You—”she frowned—“you must not kill him, Stephen.”
“Why? Because his father’s the Lord Constable?”
“No. Because he’s a fool and not worthy of your steel.”
“A better reason.” Caressingly. “And doubly a fool for insulting you.”
She sighed. “I do not know that I’ve been insulted.”
“A taste of the blade will make him watch his tongue in future.”
She leaned forward. “Tom Mowbrey is spiteful because I scratched his face once!”
“And how did you come to do that?” wondered Stephen. “Come, let us walk down to the sea while you tell me.”
“First you must tell me what he said.”
“ ’Tis not for your ears.”
“Of course it is! It was about me, wasn’t it?”
“He said, Mistress Imogene—”
“Oh, call me Imogene. You might as well, you’re fighting a duel over me in the morning!”
“He said, Imogene—’’Stephen had taken her elbow and was guiding her footsteps over the rocks—“that ye’d gone swimming with him in your altogether. I bade him take back the lie and he refused. I bloodied his teeth a bit for that.”
“I was not in my altogether!” she flashed.
He gave her a sharp look. “Then it was partly true?”
“Yes, part of it’s true,” she admitted gloomily.
Stephen frowned. He’d not have called Tom a liar if he’d known he was telling the truth. “What part?”
“I did go swimming with him in my chemise and petticoat—on a dare. But my wet skirts wrapped around my legs and near drowned me and Tom was hard put to pull me in to shore. When I lay on the beach, coughing water, he thought to revive me by taking off my clothes.”
“I could see he might.” Ironically.
“But I was in no mood to let him do it, half-drowned or no, and when he tore my bodice, I clawed his face. ’Tis the clawing he resents, for I left a mark on his cheek he was hard put to explain.”
“And I’ll leave my mark on him, also,” said Stephen blithely. “To remind Master Tom not to trifle with you again.” They had reached the ocean now, a black mirror reflecting the dark sky and the big white floating moon and the scattered diamonds that were the stars.
“You shouldn’t be fighting for me, Stephen,” Imogene said, troubled. “Giles is right, if anyone fights for me, he should be the one.”
“And you think he would fight for you?”
“Probably not,” sighed Imogene. “It would be too—enervating. He’d make it up with Tom some other way.”
“Then it grieves me to deny you, my lady,” Stephen said softly. “But young Mowbrey is intent on having a lesson in self-defense.”
Her white teeth bit into her soft lower lip, for she felt suddenly to blame for everything. She had taunted Tom, hadn’t she? She had brought it all on herself. And this duel tomorrow . . . “Will nothing dissuade you?” she asked wistfully. "Is your mind so made up?”
“It is, my lady.” He was standing so close his breath brushed her cheek. “And with your permission I will wear one of these two whisks I found as a favor upon my sleeve.”
Giles, she told herself, even had he succeeded in supplanting Stephen in tomorrow’s duel, would never have thought of anything so gallant. “Of course you may wear it,” she said with a little catch in her voice, for she was all too aware of his heady masculine presence only a breath away. “And I’ll tie it about your wrist myself!” she added vigorously, taking the proffered whisk.
She moved to do it and felt a shakiness start in her fingers and move through her whole body as she touched him, a heady giddiness as if her knees might buckle. It was hard to meet his eyes, whose intent gaze seemed suddenly more brilliant than the stars.
“There,” she said breathlessly, giving the whisk a little pat. “ ’Tis done.”
He looked down upon her work, smiling, and then at her face, now turned slightly away from him as if she could not bear to look at him. With a gentle finger, he turned her face back to him.
“And would ye take that dip in the sea with me, my lady, that Giles turned down?” His voice was rich, caressing; it went through her like the strum of a viola string.
“No, I—no, I must not.” She moved uneasily as if to ward him off.
“I had hoped ...” His voice was melancholy. “Hoped that since I might well die on your behalf in the morning that ye’d grant me this small favor.”
“ ‘Die’?” Her gaze flew to him, saw that his eyes, perhaps laughing, were shadowed now. She choked back a rich laugh. “Poor Tom is like to turn and run!”
“And yet . . .’’He reached forward to touch experimentally a tendril of her fair hair. “I’m told a peer of England was once killed in a duel with the king’s fool—and the fool n
o higher than a man’s knee. ’Twas a lucky arrow shot.”
“I take your meaning.” A man could slip, a lucky thrust could breach his defenses, even the finest of swordsmen were cut down in the end. .. . This duel, which had seemed at first but a joke, had suddenly assumed alarming proportions in her mind. Her cheeks had grown hot and now she looked away from him, out past the white beach and the piled-up black rocks through which the surf poured, out across the open ocean.
Then abruptly she seated herself upon a large flat rock, lifted her skirts and reached for her slipper. “Turn your back,” she ordered crisply. “For I’ve no mind to risk drowning with my legs caught in a twisted-up chemise!” And then, to that stalwart back, “I’ll call when I’m ready.”
That call came moments later from the surf. Stephen turned to see Imogene’s white arm waving to him from the dark water. And on the rocks nearby lay, neatly arranged, all her clothing.
His lady was swimming naked!
Eyes alight, Stephen shucked off his clothes, taking especial care with the whisk her gentle fingers had knotted so carefully around his wrist. Sweeping plumed hat, russet velvet doublet and trousers, flowing shirt, boots and stockings and smallclothes, all were left in a pile beside the blue linen kirtle and doublet and the dainty white chemise and slippers. Tossing back his copper hair, he ran barefoot lightly down into the surf to join her, his lean, muscled body gleaming pale in the moonlight.
She had the grace to turn her head until he was in the water up to his waist. Then she turned a smiling face and unexpectedly drove a great splash of water into his face with her open hand.
Laughing as Stephen ducked and choked, Imogene knifed into the waves like a dolphin, to come up farther away from him with a tantalizing wave of her hand, for she had swum some distance underwater.
Delighted with his playful mermaid, Stephen leaped forward and with strong strokes swam out to her. “Ye did not tell me ye were such a swimmer!” he approved.
She laughed, tossing back her wet hair as she faced him, treading water. “Tom Mowbrey thought I could not swim— ’twas he near drowned me. Left alone I’d have wriggled out of my tangled skirts and made it back to shore.”
“How did ye learn to swim so well?” he wondered, for swimming was an unusual accomplishment for a young lady of fashion.
“I used to slip out of the house at night and swim alone along the beach—and then return before morning and be heavyeyed and sleepy at breakfast.” Her laughter rippled. “My guardian, Lord Elston, decided I was coming down with something and had his doctor try to give me a tonic—woodlice steeped in wine. I spat it at the doctor!”
“ ‘Woodlice’!” Stephen grimaced. “Faith, I’d have spat it at him, too!” But he wondered . . . how often had Imogene slipped out and been gone all night? And had she always been alone? “I take it ye’re not afraid of the dark?”
The wet fair head tossed again. “I’m afraid of nothing!” Contemptuously. But that wasn’t quite true. She was afraid of the dream.
In the water his hands clasped about her naked waist. “And did you always swim alone?” He had to know.
Her eyes seemed to darken. She shoved a hand against his shoulder, brought a bare foot up against his thigh, and with a sudden jerk that submerged them both, broke free. When they came up, she gasped, “I gave you no leave to touch me!”
But he had felt the tremor that went through her at his touch and that encouraged him.
“I’m going ashore now,” she said in a shaken voice and Stephen matched his stroke to hers as they swam leisurely back together, following the moon’s path over the dark gleaming water.
She had not answered him as to whether she’d always swum alone. Perhaps there’d been others for whom she’d shed her chemise and plunged into the dark water? Perhaps dashing Imogene was no longer a virgin? The thought both tormented and tantalized him.
“Turn your back and stay in the water till I call you,” she ordered peremptorily over her shoulder and grasped one of the big rocks, used it to steady herself, for underfoot the sand was shifting, trying to pull her back into the water. She was half out of the water when his fingers closed, gently but urgently, upon her shoulder. The wet face she turned to him in the moonlight was young, vulnerable, the eyes alight and lustrous; it was a face of surrender and he knew it.
“I’d dance with ye, my lady, in a way I could not at the castle ball,” he murmured, and put an arm around her, lifted her up, wet and dripping, and carried her to the smooth, flat rock where their clothes lay. With a careless gesture, he brushed them off to the sand, then stood her very carefully upon her feet. She stood before him, glowing, trembling like a young colt not yet broken to the saddle, and his warm smile gave her confidence.
Together, naked and barefoot, they danced atop that broad, flat-topped rock. Danced to a music that throbbed only in their own ears, their wet bodies touching, vibrating to a shared and tantalizing rhythm.
Laughing, exultant, Stephen clasped two strong hands about her waist and swung her up above his head. Laughing, she threw her arms about his neck in wild abandon as he swung her down again and felt her breasts crush softly, lovingly, against his hard-muscled chest. As her body slid down his, rasping like watered silk, she was no longer laughing. Her lips were parted, her eyes were wide and luminous, and she collapsed against him with a little moan.
He picked her up then and carried her back into the surf, and there, lying in the sand with the lacy foam breaking over them, he made love to her. Imogene had no will to resist him. It was the softness of the night, she told herself wildly. The dark glitter of the water had worked some alchemy in her head. She felt herself borne along by large forces, irresistible, strong . . . strong as the moontide, washing in toward them.
And suddenly she faced reality—and what it was she wanted. She wanted this man—Stephen Linnington. Not Giles Avery with all his wealth or silent Hal Duveen—though she had fancied Hal’s mighty muscles for a season until he had turned out to be both stupid and prudish—she wanted Stephen.
And if she did not let him take her now, the chance might never come again. Stephen might be hurt in tomorrow’s duel—there was always the chance of that—he might leave the island; her guardian was old, he might take sick and send for her suddenly and she would have to hover about his bedside until the copper-haired man from Devon left the Scillies forever.
No, it was now—or perhaps never.
Reckless Imogene, acting on impulse—and perhaps the pressure of destiny—sighed luxuriously in Stephen’s arms. And stopped struggling.
The change in him was immediate. A tremor went through his strong frame and for a moment his lean body tensed as his senses twanged like a bowstring.
Her new attitude toward him, the yielding way she fitted her body to his, spoke to him clearly. Take me, her body told him, for I am yours.
Never one to hesitate, Stephen caressed this new pliant creature in his arms, whispered in her ears words that could scarce be heard above the roar of the surf, for the moonswept tide was coming in. And Imogene clung to him, whispering unheard words in return.
To Imogene, giving herself to a man for the first time, this was a wedding night, for on this night she gave her heart as truly as any bride to Stephen Linnington. Through a crack in the black rocks, the surf foamed white, incoming with the tide. Like a bridal veil, it spilled over her pale wet hair spread out around her like a fan, poured over her shoulders, her gleaming breasts. It foamed over her narrow feet like white satin bridal slippers and spilled over her long white legs like lustrous stockings. Pouring through that crack in the rocks, the water caressed her feverish body like cool silken undergarments and found secret places to gurgle and ripple and flow. It caressed her white form in the moonlight—as Stephen’s questing hands and eager lips caressed her. Together they lay on the sand in the roiling incoming surf, rocked and lifted with each incoming surge as if they lay upon the ocean’s great throbbing breast—merman and mermaid, creatures of some long lo
st time when there was only the sea and the rocks and the sand.
To Imogene the pain that rent her suddenly and left her gasping was a small price to pay for the wild emotions that surged through her, triumphant, joyful, and she responded to Stephen’s lovemaking with an ardor that thrilled and surprised him.
He had shattered all her defenses and Imogene was content to lie in his arms and let him do as he would with her. And in those arms she learned, learned fervently and gloriously, what it was to be loved by a strong, vigorous man in his prime.
To Stephen she was a miracle, a dream come true.
Her skin was smooth and wet to his touch. His fingers slid along it as if it were watered silk. His own body had the sheen and feel of heavy satin, and above her lissome, yielding body that clung to him so confidently, so luxuriously, his own form rose and fell in an ancient rhythm. His passion mounted as their foam-washed bodies tangled, surged, blended. A bird flew dark across the moon and what he saw below him must have seemed like two long graceful silvery fish beached in the surf and writhing—or a mermaid and a merman mating against the backdrop of the black primordial rocks.
As the bird swooped low over them—curious perhaps—Stephen lifted his head, alerted by the sudden shadow that swept across the sand—and caught his breath at the sight of her eyes closed and lips parted, the moon shining magically across her wet gleaming breasts, silvering her gleaming knees that rose convulsively to slide along his pale gleaming thighs.
With a low yearning sound in his throat he fell back upon her and their bodies surged and pressed and retreated to a rhythm as old and as splendid and as engulfing as the ocean’s rhythmic boom against the rocks.
And when they lay still at last, motionless, exhausted by the splendor that had claimed them, their ardor spent, their passion fled like retreating surf—lay like enchanted beings, resting before stealing back to the world from which they had come—they were silent with the wonder of it all, for they both knew in their secret hearts that this night had changed them for all time.
For better or for worse, after tonight neither of them would ever be the same.
Bold Breathless Love Page 6