Once Upon a Time

by Marylyle Rogers

  Again, as so often before, Amy couldn't turn eyes gone smoky with desire away from this fascinating male. Comlan's slow, bone-melting smile held no hint of mockery. Instead its slight curve was both a lure and a promise of wicked delights. It stole Amy's breath even before his mouth returned to brush achingly across hers once, twice, and then once more. Clinging to broad shoulders and trembling beneath the sweet onslaught of wild sensations robbing her of strength, with a hungry sigh she helplessly arched nearer.

  Wielding the full power of his charm, Comlan easily held the naive colleen in his thrall while he dispensed with the net restraining her hair. His fingers buried themselves in thick, ebony satin to gently urge Amy's head back and lay her long, elegant throat vulnerable to his lips. Following its tempting path, he savored her skin, drank in the heady spring-fresh fragrance.

  "No." Comlan pulled back. Much as he wished it otherwise, Miss Amethyst Danton was not fair game for the experienced hunter he was! The near loss of control blinding him to that fact left Comlan feeling as shamed as if he'd cornered a tame doe. "This must never be!"

  Comlan's arms dropped and he fell one step back while his earnest wish to comfort her every woe, protect her from any harm, and ever share the gentle pleasures of her company delivered a deeper, more frightening shock. He wanted above all things to be always with this winsome human female. It was impossible! The very nature of his kind urged a flaunting of rules, but a penalty would be demanded for breaking those governing contact with humankind.

  "Why?" Hurt replaced passion in Amy's gaze.

  She was devastated by his rejection and wondered if in her inexperience she had done something wrong. Or was the problem as basic as her hopeless inadequacy compared to the doubtless exceptional females he'd known among his own kind?

  "The cost would be too dear." As Comlan spoke, he recognized the words for an unpleasant truth. Even if he succeeded in proving to Amy that the joys of impulsive adventure were greater than the satisfaction of logical reasoning, it wouldn't be enough to reconcile her to his realm. Her love of family, however unworthy, held her tightly in the human world's web.

  In the rough texture of Comlan's voice Amy recognized unspoken facts he plainly found as disturbing as she. As a king Comlan couldn't abandon his people to tarry with her while she couldn't blithely desert her loved ones to live in his realm.

  Weighted down by the burden of all the could-have-beens that would-never-be, a mournful Amy turned to literally walk back to her great-aunt's cozy cottage… and figuratively toward a bleak future.

  "Amy?" Daffy softly called at the sound of an opening door.

  "Yes." Amy was prompt to answer, striving to sound cheerful despite a chill freezing her from the inside out. "I'm here."

  "Come, join me again in the parlor. We hardly had time for a good natter before you left my cottage last time." After setting the necessities for a simple meal to heat on her old black stove and lighting oil lamps, Daffy resumed a comfortable position atop her favorite chintz-covered chair.

  "I would hear all about the Season's festivities. And tell me how are your brother and his sweet Lovey getting along?"

  Amy obediently settled at one end of an old-fashioned and well-worn sofa, striving to close her thoughts to the unhappy parting just past by giving the older woman her full attention. But her great-aunt's questions were all too quickly answered. And that fact opened the way for others Amy would far rather have avoided.

  "How was Comlan received in London?" Daffy would like to have asked this first but had recognized the need to indirectly approach the matter.

  The answer was so obvious that Amy turned it into another question. "A handsome, wealthy, unwed lord?"

  "An Irish lord?" Daffy was just as prompt to return the challenge in Amy's quickly tossed query. In her day, that term would've been a demand for proof of a substantial share of good English blood to balance the taint of the other.

  "Lord Comlan almost immediately became the London Season's most sought-after bachelor." At the remembered image of her mother's reluctant concurrence, Amy faintly smiled. "I know of only one man who dared question Comlan's background. But then, when Lord Palmerston greeted Comlan as friend, there was nothing Orville could do."

  "Orville?" Daffy leaned forward, head tilting to one side in wordless inquiry. "Isn't he the suitor your parents have chosen for you to wed?"

  Amy grimaced but nodded.

  "Ah, well…" Daffy leaned back again. "No doubt he was jealous."

  Although Amy said nothing, her skeptical glance spoke volumes.

  "Now don't you be telling me Orville had no reason." Daffy's penetrating eyes bored into Amy. "It's true that I'm so old I can't walk without my cane—but I'm not blind. I saw the way you looked at Comlan."

  Biting her lip hard and staring determinedly down at the random pattern of a home-worked carpet, Amy was furious with herself for having so clearly betrayed her feelings. Had she been that obvious in London, too?

  "Tell me, Amy. Tell me truthfully, what do you know of Comlan beyond the fact that he is the hereditary Lord of Doncaully?"

  Amy helplessly met her great-aunt's steady gaze and realized that it was time to confess all. At least Daffy was unlikely to be as skeptical as Beattie had been… and probably still was.

  "We met before the ball."

  Having suspected this from the first, Daffy nodded but did not speak.

  Drawing a deep breath, Amy continued. "Despite your warnings, I drew your picture of the castle ruins from the center of the fairy ring."

  "I thought as much." Instead of the rueful rebuke Amy more than half-expected, Daffy grinned. " 'Tis the only place from which you could've captured that particular view."

  "Then I fell asleep." Carefully watching the older woman for the first hint of skepticism, Amy nodded tentatively. "And I thought myself dreaming when I woke to find Comlan kneeling beside me."

  "What happened then?" Rather than disbelief, Daffy's eyes glowed with anticipation.

  A gentle smile of remembered beauty curled Amy's soft lips. "Comlan offered to take me to his home—the castle standing where had been the ruins I sketched for you."

  Daffy's hands came together in a gleeful clap, and she began rapidly asking a great many questions. To these Amy willingly responded, glad—nay, relieved—to share the incredible experience with someone who would believe what she said.

  "But tell me, Great-aunt Daffy, how is it that you know Comlan?" Amy felt that after answering so many questions herself, she'd earned the right to ask a few. "And for how long?"

  "Seems forever." Daffy's gaze seemed to focus on some invisible point beyond the walls of her cottage. "He was a dear friend of my Patrick's. But when my beloved first told me about his friendship with the king of the Tuatha De Danann, I thought he'd had a dram too many of his favorite whisky." With the confession Daffy sent her grand-niece a bright grin. "That's when Patrick insisted on leading me up the hill and into that magical ring of ever-blooming flowers."

  Amy's brows furrowed into a slight frown. How could Comlan, who seemed in the prime of life, have been a friend to Daffy and her husband so long ago?

  "Amy-girl, I advise you not to focus on the issue of time." Daffy reached out and took Amy's hand, gently forcing the girl to meet her gaze. "In the Faerie Realm the measure of its passing is vastly different than any method applied in our world. They are magical beings possessing powers beyond our understanding and outside the rigid demands of human logic. For them nothing is either static or predictable."

  What Amy had seen and been told during her fairy ring dream and experienced since in Comlan's company supported Daffy's statement. But after the ending to their scene on the cobbled walkway, this further talk of the radical differences between Comlan's realm and her world was disheartening.

  Anxious to tutor her beloved grand-niece in all the incredible things she'd learned about the Tuatha De, Daffy failed to perceive the girl's distress. "The Tuatha De can move with ease both forward and back
ward in the parade of human years, although not through their own."

  While the logic of Amy's well-trained mind tried to make sense of this seemingly illogical claim, Daffy continued sharing other secret rules governing the Faerie Realm.

  "I hope you've learned by now that Comlan cannot reveal to you, or any human, what he knows or senses through his mystical powers—unless specifically asked."

  "You mean," Amy asked, meeting Daffy's direct gaze, "if I ask Comlan a question—any question— he'll give me a true response."

  Silver hair reflected the oil lamp's mellow light as Daffy solemnly nodded. "If Comlan knows the answer, he'll give it. Far more importantly, it's only if asked that he can help you cross any impasse or solve any riddle to safely reach your goals."

  Despite her initial skepticism, Amy accepted this claim without a moment's hesitation. Her only question was why Daffy hadn't already requested Comlan's help to see her protected against threatening danger. And apparently she hadn't. To Amy this fact seemed both an undeniable sign that the elderly woman truly didn't believe herself at risk and crystal clear proof that the guarding of Great-aunt Daphenia was up to her. Beyond a tense nibbling of her lower lip, Amy willingly accepted the responsibility, certain Comlan would lend his aid.

  However, seeing no good to be gained by forcing her companion to see danger when clearly she chose to close her mind to the ominous sight, Amy pursued another area of curiosity.

  "How did your husband meet Comlan in the first instance?"

  "Ah, now thereon lies a fine story." Daffy slid into the comfort of a thick brogue. " 'Tis one which me Patrick was over fond of repeatin' to all who'd listen. And there's a goodly number who'd a grand likin' for his treasure trove of tales 'bout the Tuatha De—though only a pitiful few honestly believed."

  Amy leaned forward, impatient to hear every word.

  "Unfortunately"—Daffy leaned back with a ruesmile but amusement glittering in her eyes— " 'tis no' mine to tell."

  "What?" Amy demanded, "You must tell me. You can't tease me with that tantalizing prelude and then abruptly stop!"

  As if she'd gone conveniently deaf, Daffy rose. Relying heavily on the support of her sturdy hazel wood cane, she hobbled toward her tiny kitchen.

  "Come, Amy-girl, me stew has been a'simmerin' too long."

  Amy was disconcerted by her great-aunt's ability to change subjects as easily as she slipped into and out of a thick Irish brogue. Almost she could believe that by long acquaintance Daffy had come to share the Tuatha De's unpredictable nature.

  Night was full upon them by the time their meal was done. And yet, between its beginning and the moment Daffy suggested that the visitor who'd spent a previous, nearly sleepless night on the train should seek her bed, Daffy deftly saw to it that neither Comlan nor anything pertaining to his realm was mentioned.

  Despite her many questions, Amy yielded to her great-aunt's will and followed Daffy to a narrow stairway. There was comfort in remembering that as her stay had only just begun there'd be time enough to later probe for further answers. She climbed to where her small, triangular bedroom was situated at the cottage's top, just under a steeply pitched, thatched roof.

  Amy lost little time changing into a thin night rail before gladly stretching out on a goose-down mattress and pulling a thick counterpane up to her chin. Staring up into the gloom where two sharply tilted walls met as the roof over her bed, she feared that either the question of who was behind Daffy's danger or the pain of Comlan's rejection, intensified by the dark, would keep her awake. But once cuddled between cloud-soft mattress and comforter, peaceful sleep too long denied soon drifted gently over Amy.

  Hours passed and darkness deepened while only creatures of the night moved stealthily around trees, through hedges or across thick blades of grass… the humble vole, hedgehog, fox, badger, and, most fearsome of all, a two-footed predator—man.

  Chapter 13

  Crash! Abrupt, discordant, the loud sound of splintering glass shattered Amy's peaceful dream and rudely thrust her into full, heart-thundering wakefulness. Delayed only by the fight to win free of suddenly unwelcome, entangling covers, Amy rushed down the steep stairway anxious to catch their intruder before further harm was done.

  Like a ghost frozen by moonlight, a dazed Daffy stood amidst the shards of her parlor's broken window, desperately clutching the hazelwood cane.

  "Are you all right?" With more haste than prudent caution, Amy darted through hazardously scattered pieces of glass to wrap a comforting arm about the thin, trembling woman looking impossibly fragile and every day of her more than eighty years. "What happened?"

  When her great-aunt's only response was to gaze back blankly, a worried Amy carefully shepherded the elderly woman safely across the floor perilous to bare feet.

  "Don't sleep as well as once I did." Daffy finally began to speak as Amy eased her down into a favorite chair. "I came downstairs to fetch a drink of water. Then thought I heard my Banshee and came in here to see what mischief she'd gotten into."

  Amy smiled. This fond mention of Daffy's big, black and inordinately curious cat briefly eased the moment's stress—but only briefly.

  "It wasn't Banshee I saw but an alarming figure hesitating in the shadows right there." Daffy motioned toward a dark corner several steps to one side of the window where no moonlight fell. "He saw me and jumped through the window." She shook her head in confusion. "Just jumped right through as if it had no pane."

  "Who? Who jumped?" Amy knelt at the frightened woman's side and rubbed her abnormally chilled fingers.

  "Couldn't see." Again slowly shaking her head, Daffy mournfully asked, "What could he have wanted of me?"

  Startled by the question, Amy rocked back on her heels. Surely her great-aunt was too intelligent not to know its obvious answer.

  "Patience, Patrick, me—we've all warned you about this danger." Amy feared Daffy would find her explanation feeble considering how unpersuasive this concern had proven before.

  "Hah!" Eyes again snapping with their usual fire, Daffy gave her grand-niece a long-suffering look. "You all needlessly worry too much about the fools who simply will search for my treasure no matter what I do or say."

  Amy would have argued but her great-aunt continued without pause.

  "Can't stop them." Making it plain her patience was severely tried, Daffy waved her hands as if these insignificant details were pesky flies to be shooed away. "And see no reason to waste my time trying when I've got the whole safely tucked away where no one will find it."

  Amy was relieved to see her great-aunt's bright spirit restored and admired her unwavering confidence in the security of her hiding place. But despite her own genteel upbringing, Amy couldn't help but imagine the fearful depths to which ruffians might descend in their attempts to force the elderly woman into giving it over.

  "You told me last night that if I ask Comlan for help, he'll give it… if he can."

  Quite back to her normal self, Daffy's head tilted curiously to one side as she slowly nodded.

  Amy softly posed what seemed an obvious solution, the one she'd intended to take. "Why then don't you ask for his help against this danger?"

  Impish grin returning, Daffy responded. "No need for me to do that."

  "But—" Amy immediately started to argue.

  "No need," Daffy overrode her grand-niece. "My Patrick already did, and Comlan already gave his word to watch over me for all my days."

  "Then how could this—"

  "A fine question!"

  Still on her knees, Amy glanced over one shoulder to find that the subject of their conversation had suddenly appeared although she'd heard no door, no footsteps, no…

  "But first," Comlan demanded in a cool tone at odds with the intense heat in green-fire eyes focusing on the beauty in an enticing state of dishabille. "Tell me precisely what did happen here?"

  Startled by Comlan's inexplicable arrival, Amy was uncomfortably aware of her immodest apparel and awkwardly rose to face hi
m. Feeling vulnerable, she blushed vividly beneath his steady appraisal. Her gaze dropped to the bare toes peeking from a delicately embroidered hem while nervously shoving back a rich mass of free-flowing, dusky curls.

  Then Daffy diverted Comlan's attention by succinctly relating the pertinent facts of the scene just past while Amy desperately tugged and pulled in a vain attempt to rearrange her flimsy, nearly transparent night rail into modest folds.

  "Your intruder jumped out of the cottage from here?" For the sake of a plainly embarrassed Amy, Comlan subdued his natural urge to laugh. Instead he held his face completely devoid of expression and motioned toward the glass-littered floor in front Of a shattered window.

  Amy misinterpreted her rarely solemn fantasy hero's emotionless face and cold words as an accusation blaming her for Great-aunt Daffy's current trouble. Still, she joined the older woman in nodding to confirm his observation.

  "How is it, then…" A penetrating emerald gaze moved between one female and the other. "… That the windowpane landed inside this room rather than in the garden beyond its sill?"

  That was an excellent question. One for which Amy earnestly wished she had a logical answer… or any answer. She didn't. Feeling truly the complete fool that this man had shown such a talent for exposing in someone who'd once prided herself on clever, methodical thinking, Amy instead made an offer that would also provide a fine excuse for escaping.

  "I'll make tea. Surely we could all do with a bit of its steadying powers."

  Daffy nodded her approval but added a personal request. "Amy-girl, would you be a darlin' and fetch the thick lap robe I spent so many hours knitting last winter? With the fire banked for the night, it's chilly down here."

  While Amy gladly fled up the stairs Comlan bent to stir glowing coals to renewed life.

  Again in the cozy bedroom at the very top of the cottage, Amy quickly rinsed her face in what tepid water remained in the basin placed atop a chest at bedtime each night. She meant to don the first gown pulled from her hastily packed satchel and was relieved, even pleased by the one she drew out. This dress she would happily wear even though it was several years out of style, made of thin wool in a deep shade of mulberry, and intended for the autumn season.