Flames of Desire

by Vanessa Royall

  A person defines himself by choices that are free. Father had said. Everything was moving too fast. Selena was not entirely sure of his meaning, though, now that she found herself in such a situation. Did it mean that she had to choose among alternatives? If so, what were the alternatives? Royce had said nothing but, “Come with me.”

  “But why were you going to marry Veronica?” she asked in a small, hesitant voice. “When, so easily, you are…”

  “Dropping the idea?” He laughed. “I believed we would have suited each other, she and I. Before I met you. Then, when it seemed that, one way or another, you and I were not destined to meet again—well, I thought, all right. Why not? It would have been as much an alliance as a marriage, because that is how Veronica is. She is like—and she appeals to—what some have called the cynical part of me…”

  And I to the other part, which I’ve just seen? Selena wondered. Or to both parts? If I want to hold him, must I appeal to both?

  She hoped not. Was it her father’s lingering influence? But no, that colder part of Royce’s nature seemed reprehensible to her. All the more so because Veronica Blakemore found it desirable. She probably enhanced it, too, the haughty bitch…

  Selena smiled sweetly.

  “…and it is simplest to live that way, really. Very direct. Seek what you want and take it. Complications are eliminated. Shadings don’t exist. The game is in the taking, and if you think only of the pursuit, the rest doesn’t matter.”

  Selena thought of her father, and his long years in politics, and Sean, who had struggled for a peerage against great odds, and had almost attained it. Had that goal not been taken from him, he would, like her father, have tried to serve a long and worthwhile life for his country.

  “There’s more to life than just…than just chasing money and glory,” she said, trying not to lecture too much.

  “Is there?” He kissed her gently on the cheek. “Well, I could almost believe that, from you.”

  “You certainly don’t need the money.”

  “Money means nothing.”

  “Until you haven’t any,” she said, thinking of her plight. Then she remembered something. “Tell me, the first time we saw each other, at the ball. Did you wink at me?”

  “Did I?” he grinned. “I don’t recall.”

  “Yes, you do. Come now and tell me. What did you mean?”

  “I just thought we might be sharing a little joke,”.he said. “A joke about the ball itself, and the excessive pageantry, and the pretenses of the nobility. But you really shared those beliefs, didn’t you?”

  It was true, she had. Perhaps she still did. But she had changed, and Royce knew it.

  “As I have said,” he told her, his voice low and intimate, “I knew that you were a woman I would not be able to forget, once we had been together. And now, after what you have endured, you are far stronger, and even more beautiful…”

  His kiss was a promise that he would never go away again, but a kiss cannot go on forever.

  “Tell me,” he asked a bit later, “what did they do to Bloodwell?”

  Sean appeared within her mind, strong and direct as he had always been. His association with the MacPhersons had cost him everything.

  “They took away his money and lands. He went into the Colonial Service.”

  “Royally ordered divestiture?” Royce exclaimed, surprised at the severity of the punishment. “They’ve taken my lands, but I’m an outright rebel. Sean wasn’t even a Rob Roy. Those stupid British. The King giveth and the King taketh away. Arrogant fools! They’ll be getting all that’s coming to them, one of these years, and I intend to give them my piece of the gift.”

  The prospect of Royce visiting his wrath upon the British was exciting to Selena.

  “I believe in anything and everything that will play hell with Britain and King George…”

  Royce laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Your transformation from princess to rebel did not require much time, did it? Or perhaps the one is the best training for the other that we could find in this world.”

  “The last four months have been my training,” Selena said with passion.

  “Veronica was a little afraid of you,” Royce said. “Ah, she would never admit it outright, she’s not one to do that, but she was wary, all right…”

  Selena was grimly pleased, and then she softened. Royce’s sharing of this confidence with her seemed to mean that it was definitely the two of them together, and icy Blakemore on the outside. Where she ought to be!

  “…because she knows what she wants, too. People who are like that have extremely sensitive antennae. It is they first thing they perceive in their brothers and sisters of the soul. But I don’t think she would have survived what you have gone through.”

  He waited a beat, while she glowed with the implicit admiration, and then added, without malice, “But then she would never in her life have maneuvered herself into such a predicament.”

  There was admiration in his voice that time, as well. She had to face it.

  “And why is that?” Selena demanded.

  “Because she doesn’t believe in anything enough to jeopardize herself,” Royce observed. “She attains whatever she wants, and plays it safe at the same time.”

  “Everything she wants except you,” Selena amended.

  His laugh was low and conspiratorial, and he moved her hand to caress him. “It seems that way,” he said.

  His words bothered her, though.

  “In Liverpool, it was said that you are now fighting with the American rebels, and that’s why you’ve been made an outlaw.”

  “Don’t believe a word of it. I’m an outlaw because Fligh and I have plundered every British freighter we could find. In fact, Fligh thinks I’m shirking. As for this American thing, I ran some guns for them, but it was strictly for cash…”

  Like taking Sean’s money to carry us across the Firth of Forth, she thought. It was maddening. Somewhere behind his exotic, mesmerizing eyes, locked in whatever part of his beautiful body held such things, was a man capable of showing the world a range and depth of feeling such as he had shown her when their bodies were locked together. But when she sought that part of him in words, it always seemed to slip away.

  “Do the Americans have any chance? Of humbling Great Britain?”

  “Not a prayer,” he concluded. “They protest a lot and shout in the streets, and there are many hotheads with proclamations, but it will be a cold day in hell if they ever pull together; They are much too fractious.”

  “But if they would have a chance to succeed, would you support their cause in your heart?”

  “But they won’t succeed. I told you once before, I do not shrink from risk, but it is for the risk alone. I do not cherish lost causes.”

  She realized that he did not mention the Rob Roys by name, to spare her further hurt, and she was appreciative of that even as his words disturbed her.

  “But in the end you must believe in something,” she cried, frustrated.

  “I do. Danger. The sea. Adventure. Pleasure…”

  “No. Something more. An idea. A cause.”

  “And you? Having lost everything—something I would not permit to happen to me—what do you retain to believe in?”

  “Coldstream,” she said, without hesitation.

  “Ah, Selena, Selena,” he said sadly, after a moment of silence, “don’t you see that such an idea will only torture you, like a self-inflicted obsession? You’ll never go back. You can’t go back, not anymore, not ever…”

  “Don’t you dare say that!” she cried, taking her hand away, sitting up rigidly. The candle flickered in the cabin, fell upon the strong planes of his face, and was reflected in his eyes. He seemed to want to comfort her. Finally, he spoke: “I do love you, Selena, and that is one thing in which you must never fear to believe. And if you wish to believe in the other, in Coldstream, then do so. I am capable of respecting that which I cannot understand. Perh
aps those are the kinds of things we ought to respect the most, even if we do not ourselves believe in them.”

  He drew her back down to him, and she simmered, hurt, remembering inconsistencies in his words, his actions. Wondering whether he ought truly to be trusted, after all.

  “So why did you say, that time, ‘a piece is just a piece’?” she demanded brusquely. “Because if that’s all I am…”

  “Yes,” he said, remembering. “I believe I was under attack by your tongue at the time, and it seemed to be what you wished to think of me, wished to hear me say. So I obliged you.”

  “You’re ever so obliging, aren’t you?” Selena pouted. “Did you learn such manners in your Highlands?”

  Royce smiled. “I learned things of which you cannot dream. In our region, the measure of a man is the amount of trouble he can stir up and then resolve. Obviously, there is still more than a bit of that impulse in my nature. When such an impulse is encouraged—even demanded—in one’s youth, the effects are permanent. You, growing up in the south, were exposed to more refinements, I daresay. That is why your manners are genteel. But I suspect your nature has been strong enough to resist such superficial training.”

  There was a glint of mockery in his eyes.

  Selena was angry. “What you say is unfair. I’ve changed because I had to, yet I am still who I was, and Coldstream is still there…”

  Royce feigned no amusement this time.

  “You had castles and balls and gentility,” he snapped. “Do you want to know how I was molded? Do you want to know what I was made to do at six years of age? What I wanted then to do with all my heart, and begged to do, and am prouder of than anything?”

  His turn to be accusatory, this time. Mutely, she nodded.

  “It happens in the spring,” he began, “as it will as long as there are memories of Campbells. In the spring, too, it came to me in my turn, as it has to every Campbell manchild since first our plaid was fashioned and lifted on a pole. There is a vow appertaining to this thing as well, which stipulates that never shall a Campbell reveal to an outlander what it is that we do there near Loch Nan Clar when the ice breaks and the wind rises and the rivers start to flow…”

  “But I’m a Scot! I’m no outlander!”

  Royce smiled, teeth glittering in the candlelight.

  “That’s not what I meant. Everyone not a Campbell is an outlander, but you are with me now, and we have been one. Perhaps that will be sufficient to appease whatever gods watch over the keeping of vows.”

  Selena felt a tremor of hovering dread. There were, she believed, consequences to promises and oaths. They were not lightly made, and must be faithfully kept. Currents of dark power moved by night, if one’s word went unkept, if blessing or curse remained unconsummated.

  “If it would be best that you not tell me…”

  “I thought you wanted to know.”

  “I do. I want to know everything about you, but…”

  “Surely you’re not superstitious!”

  “It’s…it’s not that. But there are things…”

  “You even believe in God, don’t you?”

  “Sometimes,” Selena said, after a moment, thinking of the devastation wreaked upon the MacPhersons during the last months.

  “Well, you can do that,” Royce told her, with a lazy, indulgent kiss. “That’s allowed. Because I met Him, and there are no longer any obligations attending a vow in His name.”

  “What do you mean? You met…”

  “God,” Royce said simply, and nodded. “It was my time, in the spring. The sun was falling that day, and I was readied in the usual manner. First, I was stripped naked and my skin was greased from crown to sole with bear oil, for symbolic strength and to protect me from the cold. It was in our hunting lodge near Loch Nan Clar, and the torches were already lit. I will remember forever the way my shadow loomed against the stone walls, and when I saw the shadow, the way the light had thrown my image upon the stone, I knew there would never be need of fear again. Selena, it was an exultation I cannot describe. I knew, at that very instant, that nothing could touch me. Not then, that night, nor ever…”

  Please, God, Selena hoped, barely breathing.

  “…Then, after the oiling, they girded me in the tanned hides of wolves, strong with the scent of the wolf, with boots and gloves and hat of fur, against the night and other things…”

  “Who dressed you?”

  “My father. Two older brothers, who had already met the challenge. Several uncles. It was all very sober, and quite impressive. The mere practice of ritual contains its own power. It was as if I were a knight of some kind, which I was, in truth. Third, we knelt, all of us, before the fire. We formed the shape of the letter C. And we touched.”

  “Holding hands?” she asked, thinking of Father and Brian and herself in the cave in the Sidlaw Hills.

  “Nay!” he laughed. “That is what the women do when a hailstorm is coming. Nay, we touched the tips of daggers. You see, I was going out into the Highlands for my rendezvous. I was on the attack. It was my time. God could only wait.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Let me tell it. After we rose from the fire, I sheathed my dagger, and was given a leather pouch. Inside was a little whiskey for the cold, but no food. I also had rope and some wire, but that was all. The great door was opened. I went out into the darkness. The door was closed. I was alone.”

  “Were you afraid then?”

  “No. Excited. Overjoyed would be an even better word. Because, you see, this was my time. I could be a man in one night. I set out for the Highlands above the loch. It was a night with no moon, which is a traditional part of the ritual. If one is meant to succeed, it will be with the help of a vision greater than eyes can provide. Midnight came and fled, and I skirted the northern shore of the loch and began to climb toward the caves of Ben Kilbreck Mountain. I stopped for a time, and had a bit of the whiskey, and then I had to hurry because the time was running. If I did not choose my cave before dawn, it would be too late.”

  He noted her still-mystified expression, and continued. “At that time of the year, you see, the wolves of Sutherland Province have their pups…”

  “You were hunting wolves? A six-year-old boy?”

  He smiled wryly. “Not quite. Listen. Wolves, like man and woman, mate and live together, quite as a family even in the larger body of the pack. The male hunts food and carries it back to the den during the period that the mother is nursing the pups. He leaves the den at dawn, to prey upon smaller animals, and returns when he has made his kill. I waited for that moment.”

  “You killed the father?”

  “No. I entered the cave, the den, after he had gone, dressed in the skin of wolf, smelling like a wolf. My first task was to suckle from the she-wolf herself, then to kill her, then to skin her and remove the dugs themselves, to take them home as proof of my suckling.”

  Selena gasped, and almost cried out. A boy with a dagger, crawling upon hands and knees into the reeking stink of the den. That boy had become the man beside her, whose naked skin was warm against her own. Together they exuded an essence of their own commingled bodies, the den smell of a man and a woman, love or lust or heat.

  “I did this,” he was saying. “My smell was foreign to the she-wolf, and she came at me. It was quite simple, and it might have been worse…”

  “You might have been killed.”

  “No. I knew that would not be. I knew it from the time I saw my giant’s shadow wavering against the stone. No, I braced for her rush, and caught her beneath the jaw, deep in the throat. I drank her bitter milk while the blood poured from her, while the litter of pups squealed and yelped. Their cries of loss and terror would summon the father, of course, as was expected, and in moments I could hear him scrambling on the rocks outside the cave. But I was ready when I saw him, a dark, howling shape in the mouth of the cave, illuminated by a crescent of rising sun. The puppies, emboldened by his presence, were yapping and nipping at
me now. I threw them off as the father charged. There is nothing to match the rage of an animal whose young are threatened, and nothing as dangerous as the wolf in such an instance…”

  “But why did you have to do this? Why did they make you do it?”

  “No one made me. I wanted to. It is the way things are, because we Campbells believe that the only thing one must fear is God…”

  “…and you said that you met…”

  “…and that God exists only at the instant when man is poised upon the thin line between life and death. So…”

  “…God, and He was…”

  “…for me, that father wolf, charging, fangs bared, out of the sun, with his whelps gnawing at my fur. I dropped him with a dagger to the heart. He died with his teeth at my throat. Then I cut his throat where the skin is soft, and bent my mouth to it. And on that dawn I drank the blood of God.”

  Selena, who had been unconsciously holding her breath, now let it out, an exhalation of wonder, terror. All Scotland knew that the Campbells were a different breed, and now she thought they might even belong to a different race, half-man and half-animal. Or perhaps they were simply closer to what man had once been, still in touch with the raw power of impulse, the heartbeat of a feral universe. Hesitantly, she reached out to touch his body, as if afraid that some alien force would be transmitted from his body to her own. A conduit of trembling fingertips to touch a vessel of throbbing power.

  “I skinned the wolves,” he was saying, “and killed the pups, save one. I carried the hides home with me, and the one living child. The other one had died that night.”

  “What other one?”

  “Myself. I was a child no more.”

  “And when you reached the lodge? There must have been a great celebration.”

  “No, there was nothing.”

  “Nothing? Not even…?”

  “No. You see, why should there have been? My return was expected, as it had been expected that I would succeed in the task. We don’t applaud a river simply because it flows to the sea, or a wind because it howls in the trees…”

  And then she understood completely. Royce had been raised to be like a natural force. He was meant not only to survive but to prevail. Softness—which included an affection for lost causes, poetic idealism—had been bred out of him. It was dangerous to cherish illusion in a hard world, and yet he was so very tender with her… That was not artifice, she decided. It was a natural part of love, as elemental to him as ruthlessness was, as revenge was, as savage exultation was.