The Firebird

by Susanna Kearsley

  Mrs. Lacy looked delighted as he crossed the drawing room toward the harpsichord. “And will you sing it for us, Edmund? We have not heard you sing since Christmas.”

  He did sing it, standing next to Mrs. Lacy while she played, with Anna sitting just beside her. She had guessed that, from the deepness of his speaking voice, he would not be a tenor when he sang, so she was not surprised to hear the richer timbre of a baritone, nor was she much surprised that he sang well, for singing seemed, in truth, to run within the blood of many Irishmen.

  The song surprised her, though. Where “The Wandering Maiden” was weeping and sad, this song spoke of a man who’d been pushed to the brink of frustration by what he perceived was the torturous treatment the woman he loved had been giving him, and to that end he addressed his song, not to some wide and uncaring world, but directly to his ladylove.

  Edmund, singing in the role of the young man, aimed all his words in turn toward the women in the room, so that he seemed to be accusing Mrs. Lacy at the first of being beautiful and cruel, before his gaze moved on to Anna with the lines,

  Sometimes your eyes doth me invite,

  But when I enter, you kill me quite,

  and the more increase my fire.

  His gaze did seem to hold a dark and languid heat as it held hers a moment longer than it needed to before it moved to Mary, making her the object of the Young Man’s next reproach, then Nan, till all the others in the room were well amused.

  ’Tis thee alone can kill or cure

  he sang to Anna next.

  Send me one gentle smile.

  But she could not, although the others did. She could not smile; she could but sit there silently and feel the words and wish that she did not, because it seemed as though he sang for her alone, when at the end his gaze returned full force to hers.

  If I may not enjoy the bliss,

  Bestow on me a parting kiss,

  I’ll wander all my days.

  The sound of clapping jarred her back into reality, reminding her that there were others with them in the room. She blinked, and roused herself enough to pull her gaze away from Edmund, to find Mary Gordon watching her with undisguised surprise, and a small, knowing smile that Anna looked away from, too.

  But Mary would not let her escape with such ease. Later on, when they’d all gathered into the lobby to say their farewells, Mary caught Anna’s elbow and drew her aside and said, low and delighted, “But I thought you hated him.”

  “Hated who?”

  Mary just gave her a look that would not be fooled, and with a kiss and embrace said, “You must tell me all, the next time I come visit.”

  To be so discovered by Mary, who knew her so well and could read her expressions, was not unexpected, but Anna still felt thrown off balance; and when Mr. Taylor was saying good-bye to her and she saw Edmund himself looking on with a frown, Anna could not remove herself quickly enough from the lobby, relieved that the general had, at the last minute, called Edmund aside for a private talk, so she would not have to wait to farewell him.

  The air in the yard was much warmer than that in the stone-walled house, but there was light and the feeling of freedom that washed through her troubling thoughts like a tonic. At least, for the minutes she spent there alone.

  When she heard the door open and close, she instinctively straightened her back, her arms folding as both a defense and a means of protection. Not waiting for him to approach, she turned round.

  “Was there something you wanted, then, Mr. O’Connor?”

  “A great many things, Mistress Jamieson. But for the moment, my purpose was only to find you.”

  “And why would you go to such trouble?”

  He said, “’Twas no trouble at all, for I knew where to look.” With a glance round the yard and a faint upward lift of his chin to the clouds he remarked, “This is your bit of sky, is it not? Where you’d fly, had your wings not been clipped.”

  “You talk nonsense.”

  His own arms crossed over the width of his chest. “Mr. Taylor will do more than clip those wings for you. He’ll tie them.”

  “You’ve no right—”

  “I need no right,” he cut her off, his voice gone hard, “to tell you what a fool could see, and what you seem determined not to.”

  Anna stood her ground in all defiance, though she hugged herself more tightly. “Do you seek to provoke me, sir?”

  “Aye, Mistress Jamieson. That is exactly what I seek to do.” Edmund took a step closer. “For it’s when you’re provoked that you show your true nature, the one you would hide from the world and your tame Mr. Taylor.”

  “He is not—” She cut herself off, that time, taking care to calm her temper. “He is not mine.”

  “Not yet, but he would like to be. And you encourage him, allowing him to call on you and be your escort.”

  “This is a small community,” she told him, “and it would soon be talked about were I to snub him. You have been my escort also. Do you claim I then encourage you?”

  His mouth curved faintly. “Never that.”

  “Good, for in truth I only act as any other lady would, in the same circumstances.”

  Edmund took another step, his eyes fixed on her face. “You are no lady.”

  Anna felt the sting of that as though she had been slapped. Incredulous, she stared at him a moment before striking back. “And you, sir, are no gentleman.”

  His own impatience briefly flared as he continued his approach, his gaze increasingly intense. “You think I meant that as an insult? Faith, it was a compliment.”

  “To say I’m not a lady?”

  “Aye.” He was too close, and well he knew it, pushing her as always, stopping just beyond her bounds of comfort. With his dark head tilted down so he could look at her, he said, “You are more rare than that. You are a fighter, like myself.”

  She was not sure which she found most unsettling—having him so near, or knowing he could see so clearly to her core.

  She somehow found her voice. “Well, if I am, it is for naught. A woman cannot be a soldier.”

  “Not a soldier. No, you are not that. A soldier fights by someone else’s orders, but a fighter,” Edmund told her, “answers only to his passions, and his heart. And you have both in great abundance, Mistress Jamieson. I saw it clearly, so I did, the day you took on Captain Deane. You told me I should watch his face, remember? But I watched your own, instead.”

  “Oh, aye? And what did it reveal to you?”

  The corners of his mouth turned upward once again, if briefly, at the surge of her defensiveness. “I do believe,” he told her, “had you been a man that day, and in possession of a sword, you would have run the captain through.”

  She could not argue that, and so she simply stood with her face tilted up to his, and gave no answer.

  In the silence Edmund grew more sober. “Do you honestly believe he’ll make you happy? Christ, you cannot even be yourself when he is here. You barely spoke three words together all this afternoon.”

  He was looking at her now with all the heat that had been in his eyes when he had sung those verses of the song to her; when he’d sung that she could either kill or cure him, and it stirred an answering emotion deep inside her that felt very much the opposite of anger. Lowering her gaze, she told the buttons of his waistcoat: “It was not because of Mr. Taylor that I did not feel like speaking.”

  “Was it not?”

  She might have better planned her next words, she thought later, but they tumbled out before she could restrain them. “When did you intend to tell me, sir, that you were leaving?”

  Anna knew, as those words dropped between them, that she had revealed too much. She was not surprised when Edmund turned her face up to his own once more, so he could search her eyes and try to judge the thoughts behind them. But she did not guess that he would kiss her till his mouth was on her own.

  She’d recently imagined what a kiss would feel like, Edmund’s in particular. She’d thought
it would be fierce, as he was fierce, and just a little unforgiving, but to Anna’s great surprise it was not hard at all, but gentle. Careful, even. Stealing her own breath until she doubted she’d have still been standing, had he not been holding her. His hands were on her upper arms, and she had the impression he was holding her away from him as much as doing anything, as though he did not wish to have her cross some unseen line between their bodies.

  In the end, it was herself who crossed it, putting her own hands against his chest in search of something steady. When his coat seemed in the way, her hands slipped underneath it to his waistcoat, seeking out the shoulders that felt warm through the thin linen of his shirt.

  His own hands moved then. One spread wide against her back to bring her hard into his body while the other traveled up her neck to tangle in her hair, and for some minutes after that she felt the fierceness that she’d felt in all of her imaginings since they had danced the minuet together in the Summer Garden.

  Groaning in his throat, he broke the kiss and took her hands and set her back from him, his breathing out of rhythm as his fingers, for a moment, closed round hers. And then he let her go.

  “Forgive me, Mistress Jamieson,” he told her in a voice she did not recognize. His dark eyes briefly touched her own, their fire banked but burning still. And then, more low, he said, “Forgive me, Anna.”

  Turning, he strode back across the yard toward the house, his shoulders set and squared as though he were determined not to look behind. He was retreating, nobly and with honor, so that she could keep her own.

  And had she truly been a fighter, Anna knew, she’d have gone after him.

  ***

  Something felt different, this time, when I came back out into the present. I couldn’t quite place it at first, but it felt unfamiliar enough that I stood for a moment, both hands in my pockets, and tried to decide what it was. Then it struck me. Both hands. In my pockets. Not holding to anything.

  Turning, astonished, I looked round for Rob. He was standing some distance off, under a streetlamp, his collar turned up to ward off the night wind. When his head lifted, I couldn’t see his expression but I sensed his smile, and the current that rippled between us was rich with the boyishly satisfied air of a man who’s done mischief.

  But… how? I had trouble collecting my thoughts. How long…?

  Nearly the whole time. He stayed in the light as I crossed through the shadows to meet him, his smile clearly visible now I was nearer.

  I asked him again, not believing it, How?

  I let go of your hand.

  But you kept on controlling it, right? I mean, that was still you, doing all of that… wasn’t it?

  Slowly, he shook his head, watching what I knew must be a wide play of emotions cross my face as I absorbed this.

  But… how did you know I’d be able to do it?

  I didn’t. His answer, as always, was honest. That’s why I let go.

  And what if I hadn’t been able to—

  Rob’s calm logic cut across my worries. Everyone’s afraid to fall, but sometimes you just have to take the stabilizers off your bike and try to ride on two wheels.

  I was left to ponder that while we walked back to the hotel, and for those minutes I knew something of what Anna must have felt, with Edmund pushing her and prodding her and battering away the careful shields she had constructed. And like Anna, tonight I felt all in a knot with my feelings.

  I blamed it on what I’d just witnessed—the depth of emotion in that final scene between Anna and Edmund; the way they had argued, the way they had kissed. If I felt more aware of Rob now it was largely because of that, and because, in the same way Anna stood to lose Edmund when he left St. Petersburg, I knew that I would lose Rob the day after tomorrow, when we flew back home. He’d be heading north, and I’d be stepping back into my regular life. Only I wasn’t sure I could ever go back, now, to how things had been.

  If I’d loved him two years ago, I was falling in love with him now in a way that I’d never experienced, ever, with anyone. Something had shifted between us, beyond my control, and it had me so twisted inside that, when we finally came to the corridor outside my room and Rob turned round to tell me good night, I could say nothing back to him. All I could do was nod silently, struggling inside to know what to do, how to tell him I didn’t yet have all the answers, but I couldn’t seem to stop asking the questions.

  He gave me a brotherly kiss on the cheek before turning away.

  I stood miserably, holding my room key. If I’d been less of a coward, I thought, I’d have asked him to stay. Another man might have stayed anyway, whether I’d asked him or not. But not Rob.

  Rob was always a gentleman.

  Five paces off, he stopped dead in the corridor, still with his back to me.

  Then, as it had on that first night in Eyemouth, when I’d seen him coming to shore on the lifeboat, his dark head turned slightly, as though he’d just heard something. I heard the heavy exhale of his breath.

  And in one sudden motion he turned and came back, and the force of his forward momentum swept me up along with it, bringing me up hard against the closed door of the room at my back. With his hands on my shoulders, his face filling all of my vision, his eyes locked with mine, Rob said softly, “Not always.”

  And lowered his mouth to my own.

  Chapter 43

  He was right. He didn’t kiss me like a gentleman.

  He kissed me like a man who had been taken to his limit and beyond it, with a wordless, urgent passion that made anything but breathing seem impossible; and even breathing wasn’t all that easy.

  I had no remembrance whatsoever of how we got through that door, or how it locked behind us, but I had a vague awareness of us being in the room now, in the semidarkness, with my back pressed up against a wall and not the door.

  I did remember Rob’s shirt coming off, because the sleeves had stubbornly got stuck around his biceps and I’d heard the tearing sound as he had yanked the fabric free, before his hands had roughly pushed the jacket from my shoulders, found the buttons of my own shirt; dealt with that, as well.

  It tore a little, too, but at that point I didn’t care. And then he leaned in once again and settled onto me more carefully, his skin against my own, his forearms braced against the wall beside my shoulders, both hands buried in my hair as though he sought to hold me there and never let me go.

  This kiss was gentle, deep, and left no walls to hide behind. His thoughts lay fully open to me, but they had no form—they were pure feeling, crashing into mine and over them and through them till I couldn’t tell which one of us was thinking what, or feeling what, or whose sensations made it seem as though I were no longer held by gravity, but spinning in a void.

  Rob’s voice, that calm and sane and quiet voice, became a thing of heat and want and desperate need, and I did what it asked of me.

  We didn’t even make it to the bed.

  Our thoughts were the last things that we untangled, in the aftermath, and even then we did it with reluctance. Rob’s head slowly tilted forward till his forehead rested heavy on my shoulder, and I slid my own hand upward from his neck to grasp his dampened hair and hold him close.

  I guessed that he was having the same difficulty I was having sorting out my thoughts from his, because he used his spoken voice to tell me, thickly, “Sorry.”

  My voice wasn’t working all that well yet, either. “Don’t be.”

  “Not exactly how I planned it.”

  If I turned my head a fraction, I discovered, I could brush my lips against his shoulder. Doing this, I answered him, “I thought I was the planner. You’re meant to be the spontaneous one.”

  “No.” His head changed its angle, his voice rumbling low down the sensitive skin of my neck. “No, for this, I had plans.”

  “Did you?”

  “Aye.” I could feel that faint smile, and my fingers curled into his hair as his one hand slid slowly the length of my side. “Very definite plans.”
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  Then he dragged his mouth back to my own and his smile disappeared in another deep kiss as he wrapped both arms strongly around me and lifted me up, and we crossed the few feet to the bed, where he set me down gently and followed me into the blankets. And showed me.

  ***

  “I’ll be putting on weight,” Rob accused me, “with you and your ice cream for breakfast.”

  “You’re not the type to put on weight. You’re far too fit.”

  He slid his arm along the back rail of the painted white bench, slanting a look down at me. “You’re blushing, now.”

  “I’m not.”

  He only grinned and looked away again, his level blue gaze settling on the gold glint of the church spire showing in between the curve of trees above the fortress walls along the river’s edge.

  “Anyway,” I said, “it’s more like brunch. It’s gone eleven.”

  “And what time is your reception?”

  “Not till three o’clock. We’ve loads of time.” Contentedly, I leaned against Rob’s side and let my head rest back against his arm as he adjusted it to cradle round my shoulders.

  Looking down, he said, “I have to say, you’re being very calm about it.”

  “About what? Telling Wendy Van Hoek that her painting’s a forgery?”

  “Aye, that,” he acknowledged, “and telling her, too, how ye ken it.”

  “Well, she doesn’t have to know that, does she? I mean,” I explained, “it is a forgery. The evidence of that is already physically there, in the painting. I only have to say I have my doubts about it, and let Yuri’s experts do the rest and run the tests to prove it. No one ever has to know that… what?” I asked, as I felt Rob go motionless beside me.

  He lifted his arm from my shoulders, and then from the back of the bench altogether as, shifting, he straightened away from me.