Love Potion #9

by Claire Delacroix

  But the time for hugging all her secrets to herself was passed. She could share a few.

  “Generalizations, really. Young women often consult a fortune-teller about love. Either they have an affection for someone they know casually, or they want to know what the future will bring in terms of love or marriage. Older married women often come because they believe their husband is unfaithful and they don’t know who else to ask for advice.”

  “In case they’re wrong,” Mitch contributed. “In a small community, that kind of accusation could have made a lot of trouble.”

  “Exactly. One wants to be certain, or reassured that such suspicions are foolish.” Lilith shrugged. “Married women also come because they haven’t conceived children, or sons.”

  “And men?”

  “Younger men can come for much the same reason as younger women, or they may be concerned about their trade and financial future. Older men, particularly established ones, only come to fortune-tellers when they have a secret.”

  “A mistress?”

  “Or shady business dealings, or something from the past that they fear could return to jeopardize their position in the community. An illegitimate child, a forsaken fiancée, a deal made in the shadows. There must be a good deal at stake for a man of influence and prestige to risk being seen visiting a fortune-teller.”

  “Sounds like a study of human nature.”

  “I suppose it is in a way.” Lilith shrugged. “And there are the obvious signs, of course, Missing wedding bands that have left their mark indicated unfaithfulness. People who play nervously with their wedding band have come about marital problems. That sort of thing.” Lilith smiled at Mitch. “It’s become much more complicated in these days than once it was.”

  “You make it sound so innocuous.”

  “It is! These observations don’t change what I see – they just confirm which part of what I see the seeker most wants to know about.” Lilith flicked a playful glance at her companion. “I guess they’d call it target marketing now.”

  Mitch shook his head. They sipped sangria in silence and she watched him, loving the play of shadows on his features. He glanced up suddenly, and their gazes collided and held. The warmth of an unstated compliment shone in his eyes and made Lilith’s heart pound.

  She felt admired and respected beneath his gaze, feminine yet appreciated for far more than her appearance. He really listened to her. He had become so much more over the time they’d been apart.

  Lilith loved Mitch’s protectiveness; she loved his sense of duty; she loved that he did what was right regardless of the price. She loved how he adored his kids; she loved how he talked and listened to her; she loved he frowned when he was reasoning things through.

  Lilith realized that she loved Mitch with an intensity that she had never felt when she loved him as Sebastian. She decided right then and there that Mitch’s ideas about “all that old-fashioned stuff” sounded like the perfect way to spend the rest of her life. In fact, she would give anything to begin as soon as possible.

  Remarkably enough, her Gift gave her no inkling of how much Mitch would ask from her in a moment’s time. He would ask for no less than the tale of the most painful night of her life.

  And Lilith would give it to him, willingly paying the postage due on that glorious future. She wouldn’t consider how it might shred her heart to step into that abyss, to explore painful memories that she had declared off-limits for nearly six centuries.

  She would do as he asked quite simply because she loved him.

  * * *

  8

  Justice

  She was doing it to him again.

  But this time, Lilith wasn’t seducing Mitch with her eyes or her perfume or even her kisses. It was her clear thinking, her understanding of human nature, the flash of compassion in her eyes when she spoke of troubled people coming for advice that prompted his admiration. Her low voice with its exotic accent made him want to listen to her all night long.

  She could lull him to sleep with that voice, dispatch him on a journey from which he would never return. It was so low and musical, so rich and evocative. When she lingered over a word, or saw humor in some small thing, Mitch had to fight the sense that she truly had experienced the better part of six centuries.

  Lilith was unlike anyone he had ever known.

  And the fact that she made good sense was no small thing to a man who prized reason as Mitch did. The acknowledgement that there were other factors at play besides her so-called gift for seeing the future was an interesting one. That Lilith clung tenaciously to a faith in her ability, even conceding as much as she had, was doubly intriguing.

  On this night, when the conversation flowed so readily between them, Mitch could smell the truth he sought, lingering just out of reach.

  “So what happened that summer in 1420?” he invited conversationally as he topped up their sangria. “Remind me.”

  Lilith froze.

  Then she carefully set down her glass and took a deep breath. “I’ve never spoken of the end,” she said so evenly that Mitch knew she was trying to veil her feelings. “I don’t even think about it, as a rule.”

  If she had wanted to prompt Mitch’s curiosity, Lilith had just done a really good job. “Why not?”

  She glanced across the yard, frowned, then shook her head. “I suppose, like all tales, there is good and bad in it,” she murmured. “It is the extremes that make it so painful.”

  And then she fell silent so long that Mitch was sure he had crossed an invisible line.

  “I don’t mean to pry,” he said quietly. “Let’s talk about something else.”

  “No.” Lilith shook her head with unexpected resolve. She turned to meet his gaze and studied him for a moment. “You really don’t remember that night?”

  Mitch shook his head.

  “Then you have a right to know,” she concluded crisply.

  Lilith turned away before Mitch could say anything. “My first glimpse of you wasn’t the last, by any means.” She smiled with sudden mischievousness and shook a finger at Mitch. “You surprised me quite often, in fact, and you gadjo types shouldn’t be able to do that.”

  “Maybe I was a sorcerer myself.” Mitch grinned. She had spooked him for a minute there, but this didn’t sound so bad. The edge of skepticism in his next words was surprisingly slight. “Or was it just another sign of destiny?”

  “Destiny,” Lilith said with conviction. “We knew each other from first sight and your actions showed that our minds were as one. I’d find flowers on the path in front of me in the forest - flowers obviously left for me - and no sign of anyone until I heard your whistling in the distance. And there were ribbons left in pretty bundles on the path I took to town, always in colors that I particularly liked. You knew instinctively how to woo me because we were destined to be soulmates.”

  Lilith smiled and wrapped her arms around her knees again. Her delighted expression and pose made her look young and trusting. Mitch relaxed against the post and enjoyed the luxury of watching her. “There was a great sense of anticipation in me that summer, that something wonderful was about to happen, and each gift made it feel closer and closer. It was very romantic of you.”

  Lilith cast a smile at Mitch, but he anticipated her move and examined the bottom of his glass instead of holding her gaze. He felt a funny pang of jealousy, hearing how terrific this Sebastian guy had been, how deliberate he had been about cultivating Lilith’s attention.

  It must just be his conscience tweaking him. After all, it was one thing for Mitch to let Lilith think he was some other guy, at least for the purpose of seeing Andrea safe, but quite another to accept credit for anything that guy had done.

  To his relief, Lilith seemed to take his silence as a sign of modesty, for she soon continued on. “At any rate, one August twilight, you came to have your fortune read.” Her eyes shone as though they were filled with stardust. “I can still see you stepping into our camp, so proud and strong, so determi
ned that only I could read for you. Our gazes met and held across the fire - in that moment, it was as though there was a tangible realization of all the great forces that linked us together.”

  Mitch didn’t have the heart to question her assertion. It would have interrupted the flow of her story, after all, and he knew how irritating it was when people did that to him.

  “A cord snapped tight between us,” Lilith whispered, her ripe lips curved in a smile of recollection. “I know the others felt it too. I couldn’t have stayed away from you. There was nowhere else to be but by your side. I remember coming to you and taking your hand, I remember leading you to my tent without a single word, pulling back the flap and secreting we two inside.”

  Mitch had a sudden definite sense that he really didn’t want to know what had happened. He didn’t want to think about Lilith pouncing on another guy, even if she thought that guy was him, even if she thought it had all happened some six hundred years ago.

  Lilith leaned closer, her fingertips landed on his arm and Mitch opened his mouth to confess his deception right that minute.

  But Lilith’s intent whisper cut off whatever he might have said. “Do you remember anything of that evening? Do you remember the shadows, that clung like velvet to the corners inside the tent?”

  Her hand slid up his arm, her fingertips danced along the line of his jaw like butterflies. She was so close, her eyes flashed with a thousand recollections, her perfume surrounded him.

  She was making him forget everything else in the world except her. Again. Lilith traced the line of his lips with one fingertip and Mitch didn’t even think he could feel any other part of his body.

  Well, maybe one.

  He stared into her dark, dark eyes, he thought about love antidotes, he thought about love spells, and he wondered.

  “Do you remember the flickering gold of the oil lamp, the distant singing of the kumpania, the wind whistling through the trees overhead?” Lilith whispered, her lips a fingers-breadth from his own. Mitch was transfixed. He couldn’t have moved away to save his life. “I swore the very starlight shone through the roof of the tent as we sat together, I thought your flesh glowed with its own light.”

  Mitch stared. Lilith was so persuasive. She couldn’t be pretending this, no one could act this well. He looked again into those eyes, but there wasn’t a glimmer of doubt in their magnificent depths. Lilith was clearly convinced that everything she told him not only had happened, but that it had happened to her.

  And to him.

  In the blink of an eye, Mitch’s entire universe did a one-eighty. Her conviction was the key to the solution. Mitch felt as though he’d been hit in the head with a two-by-four. Lilith believed this mumbo jumbo with all her heart and soul.

  Which explained everything.

  He’d been bothered since dinner over that creed she had told Jason she followed. Because harming no one didn’t mesh very well with running cons as a business. Mitch couldn’t imagine that a woman who believed cicadas shouldn’t die in mayonnaise jars could really hurt anything or anyone. Which hadn’t made a lick of sense until this very minute, because Mitch had already noticed that Lilith was nothing if not consistent.

  But Lilith could reconcile her creed of hurting no one with her profession if she wasn’t a con artist.

  It was so simple that Mitch wanted to smack himself. Lilith wasn’t a crook - she was just a flake who believed she could see the future and remember the distant past.

  It was a bit scary how very reassuring Mitch found that particular conclusion.

  Because he did. The surge of relief that rolled through him had the irresistible force of a tsunami. He didn’t have to brace himself against Lilith’s allure. Andrea wasn’t at any kind of risk. Mitch didn’t have to protect his family from her, he didn’t have to deny his instinctive attraction to her.

  Mitch had been wrong. And for once, he was very, very glad about that. In the wake of that realization, the barriers he had hastily erected against Lilith tumbled like dominos. The most intriguing woman who had ever waltzed through Mitch’s life might be a little bit muddled up, but she was very much available.

  And Mitch was delighted at the news.

  Lilith seemed markedly less delighted. In fact, she seemed quite concerned. Belatedly, Mitch realized that he hadn’t been following everything she said.

  She looked upset.

  Lilith’s voice quivered slightly as she reached up and framed his face in her hands. Mitch’s heart started to two-step at the press of her fingertips against his skin. She was close enough that he could see each thick eyelash, close enough to kiss.

  “Do you remember shuffling the cards?” she asked, her voice wavering slightly.

  He couldn’t lie to her.

  Especially now. Mitch shook his head.

  Disappointment flitted across her brow. Lilith glanced down, giving Mitch the chance to study her elegant profile as she dropped her hand and traced the length of his fingers with her fingertip. Her hair spilled over his arm and Mitch felt heat spread over his skin from her touch.

  “The cards looked so fragile in your hands,” she murmured. “I can still see how nimbly you shuffled them although you said you had never done the like. I can still see you separating the Fool from the deck like a conjuror, still hear your laughter, still see you shake your head.” She swallowed. “It is as though it happened only moments ago, not hundreds of years ago.”

  Lilith looked up at Mitch with wide eyes. She was very serious. His mouth went dry as he wondered where this story was going - obviously it was very important to her, whether it was true or not.

  “And I have never forgotten what you said.” Lilith paused, then whispered something in a foreign tongue.

  Mitch shook his head in incomprehension. “What does it mean?”

  Lilith held his gaze. “I came for love,” she murmured, “but had hoped for a different answer than this.”

  Love. That was at the root of all of this.

  Maybe Lilith’s worst crime was convincing those who came to visit her that they were lovable, that there was a lovematch out there somewhere for each and every one of them. Maybe Lilith’s faith was all they needed to have the confidence to not only find love but to believe in it themselves.

  As flaws went, that wasn’t a bad one.

  Maybe it was time that Mitch believed a little bit more in love than he had for the last couple of years.

  “I asked you not to go,” Lilith confessed in a heated whisper. “You asked why you should stay. Do you remember my response?”

  Mitch shook his head slowly, glad he could be honest about that.

  Lilith licked her lips, she edged closer, she lifted one hand to his jaw. Mitch couldn’t find it within himself to move away, to remove her hand, to tell her that he really wasn’t this Sebastian guy.

  “There was only one answer I could give,” she murmured. Her gaze flicked to his, Mitch’s heart skipped a beat in anticipation, then Lilith reached to brush her lips across his.

  It was a tentative and cautious embrace, as sweet as a young girl’s first offering, as different as the first kiss Lilith had given Mitch as night and day. Mitch tasted Lilith’s vulnerability, and knew he couldn’t take advantage of her dismay.

  Obviously, the telling this story was not easy for her, even if Mitch wasn’t sure why. He tipped Lilith’s chin with gentle fingers and kissed her lightly, wanting only to ease her distress. Mitch savored the sangria-tinged taste of her lips for the barest moment, then lifted his mouth slowly from hers.

  Lilith’s breathing was rapid, her eyes were luminous. Her lips were slightly reddened from Mitch’s kiss, her hand rested against his chest. She looked puzzled, despite the flame in her eyes. “Why did you stop? You didn’t then.”

  If nothing else, she was honest about her desire.

  Mitch’s certainty that Lilith wanted him - again - was all he needed to be ready to repeat their first meeting, with ease. But Mitch didn’t want to do that.

/>   There was something too precious at stake.

  Mitch caught Lilith’s hand in his and ran his thumb across her palm as he watched its course. He wondered how he could explain to her that he wouldn’t surrender his self-control again.

  The task might kill him, but Mitch was not an impulsive kind of guy. He wasn’t like Kurt, he didn’t love ‘em and leave ‘em, he deeply believed that lovemaking was an expression of commitment between two people.

  If he and Lilith ever made love again - and Mitch was starting to think it was a serious possibility - it wasn’t going to be on impulse. It wasn’t going to be one night fling or a one time deal, it was going to be for all the right reasons. It was going to be for good. If Mitch ventured back onto the field of love, he was going to get it right.

  Lilith deserved as much.

  He wanted to know her, he wanted to love her, he wanted to believe as ardently as she did that they were destined to be together.

  It was kind of a weird certainty she had, and an illogical one, but now that he knew it was harmless, it was starting to grow on Mitch. He smiled down at her. “Because you didn’t finish the story. What happened?”

  To Mitch’s surprise, Lilith’s eyes clouded and she bit her lip. He frowned, having expected roses and sunshine from this point forward.

  “We made love,” Lilith admitted softly, her voice breaking over the words. “All the night long.”

  She traced a little circle on Mitch’s T-shirt with her fingertip and he watched her tears inexplicably well up, even though he couldn’t imagine what had made her so sad.

  “One of my uncles saw you leaving my tent in the morning. He demanded the truth and I didn’t lie.” Lilith swallowed. “He went to the town to demand a bride price.”

  That sounded pretty medieval. “A bride price?”

  Lilith lifted her chin. “You had taken my virginity. I had given it to you willingly, and I refused to lie about it. I didn’t care who knew we loved each other. My uncle declared that you owed compensation to the kumpania, whether you wed me or not.” Lilith inhaled sharply and Mitch was surprised by the obvious strength of her feelings. “I knew that you would marry me, because you had pledged to return to my side.”