A Passionate Magic (23 page)

“No.” Vivienne’s lips curved into a
mysterious smile and her whisper softened into tenderness on the
next word she spoke. “Hermit.”

“The man who lives in the sea cave? I know
him, too. At first I thought he was Merlin, till I realized he owns
no magical ability.”

“Hermit fears magic. Rightly so,” said
Vivienne. “As for Merlin, he’s not in the outer cave. It requires
magic more powerful than mine to find the great wizard. Perhaps no
one ever will. Agatha thinks not.”

“Vivienne, where do you live? How can we meet
again?”

Before Vivienne could answer there was a
swirling movement in the fog, an eddy that warned Emma someone was
approaching. She heard muffled hoofbeats and a familiar masculine
voice.

“Emma! Emma, where are you?”

“Dain!” Vivienne’s whisper suddenly conveyed
an urgent fear. “He must not see me. It is forbidden. Lady
Richenda—”

“Lady Richenda is ill and in her bed,” Emma
said. “I do understand your concern. She is unalterably opposed to
the use of magic, or even of medicine, though she hasn’t refused my
herbal help while she’s ill. By the way, Vivienne, I haven’t told
Dain about my ability. I’m afraid he won’t understand that someone
who can work magic is not necessarily evil. Please, don’t tell
him.”

“Tell him?” whispered Vivienne. “I dare not
allow him to set eyes on me. How could I tell him anything at all?
Ah, Dain, how I wish -” She broke off on a sob.

“Emma!” Dain’s shout was louder, a sign he
was drawing near. “If you can hear me, answer.”

“I’m here,” Emma called, “on the path, not
far from you.” In a lower voice she begged, “Vivienne, please
stay.”

But when Emma turned her companion was gone,
vanished into the mist, along with the magical rock that had been
her hiding place. And Dain appeared, riding out of the fog on his
big stallion.

“What in the name of heaven do you think you
are doing?” he yelled at her. “How could you be so foolish as to
wander off without a companion on a day when a fog bank was
hovering offshore and was clearly about to move inland?”

“There’s no need for you to be angry,” she
said quite calmly. “I know exactly where I am and I am on my way
home. I do hope you haven’t sent any of your men out to search for
me. They could easily become lost.”

“It’s you who might become lost,” he said,
reining in beside her. “You don’t know this countryside.”

“I have a wonderful sense of direction,” she
told him, “as you can see for yourself. I am not lost.” She said it
with firm conviction, and with more than the obvious meaning. Using
her magic had restored her self-confidence, which had been slowly
ebbing away ever since her arrival at Penruan. The meeting with
Vivienne had strengthened her even more. Emma felt capable of
overcoming any obstacle.

When Dain reached down his hand she gave him
a brilliant smile, accepting the offer, and lightly sprang upward
to seat herself behind him on the horse’s back. She wrapped her
arms around her husband’s waist and rested her cheek on his
shoulder.

“Though I wasn’t lost, I am very glad to see
you,” she murmured, rubbing her cheek against the blue wool of his
tunic. “I have missed you, Dain.”

He said nothing, though for a moment he did
place his big hand over her interlocked fingers at his belt. Then
they were trotting over the drawbridge and Dain took his hand away.
He did not speak again until they were both in the great hall, with
the stallion given over to a groom to stable and curry.

Awaiting them in the hall was Lady Richenda,
fully dressed in her black robes and white linen wimple. Her face
was pale except for a bright spot of red in each cheek, and her
eyes, so like Dain’s in color, were cold and hard as twin stones
when they regarded Emma. Blanche hovered behind her mistress,
looking thoroughly frightened.

“So,” Lady Richenda said, skirts flaring as
she stalked toward Emma, “you left the castle without permission.
Were you meeting a lover on the moor?”

“I require no one’s permission to leave
Penruan,” Emma said. “I told the sentry on duty where I was going.
And I have no lover. How dare you suggest that I have?”

“I know you,” Lady Richenda snarled, “spawn
of a coward, of a cheat, of a thief.”

“Your husband’s feud with my grandfather has
nothing to do with my walk on the moor today,” Emma told her. “My
lady, you have been seriously ill. You ought not to be out of bed
yet. I am surprised to see you standing, and amazed that you were
able to negotiate the steps from your room to the hall.”

“Are you suggesting that I am not in my right
mind?” Lady Richenda screeched, fists clenched, face thrust forward
as if to intimidate her adversary.

“I am suggesting that you are still weak,”
Emma said quietly. “If you continue to exert yourself beyond your
strength, you may well have to be carried back to your bed, an
indignity I am certain you would rather not endure.”

“Dain!” Lady Richenda cried, turning to her
son, “will you allow this slut to dismiss me from my own hall?”

”What I will not allow,” Dain said, “is for
anyone, even you, to insult my wife. Emma is a virtuous woman. And,
incidentally, this is my hall, not yours. You’d do well to remember
it.”

“The wench has bewitched you!”

“I will not tolerate bickering between my
wife and my mother!” Dain shouted. “Emma, go to your room!”

“Dain?” Emma put out protesting hands, a
gesture intended to ward off his anger. “Don’t treat me like a
naughty child. I did not begin the quarrel.”

“To your room, at once!” he roared at her. In
a quieter tone, he said, “I will speak with you later, in private.
For now, do as I say.”

The servants were staring, fascinated by the
open dispute between the two ladies of the castle, and Emma was
sure they’d soon be gossiping freely about what was happening, and
very likely carrying the tale to Trevanan village. She saw the plea
in Dain’s eyes and, in the interest of curtailing the gossip as
much as possible, she meekly assented to his command. She headed
for the stairs.

“If Emma has no lover among the brigands on
the moors,” declared Lady Richenda, speaking loudly enough for
everyone in the hall to hear, “then she does have a lover on the
beach, a disreputable creature who lies with her in a cave beneath
the cliffs.”

Emma halted on the third step to look back at
her accuser. For one dreadful instant she was sorely tempted to use
her newly roused magic on Lady Richenda, to bind up her
mother-in-law’s vicious tongue and silence her. From the guilty
expression on Blanche’s face Emma guessed she had been carrying
gossip to her mistress. Emma’s visits to the beach to gather herbs
were no secret, and just about everyone in the castle knew of
Hermit’s arrival. But of all the folk in Penruan Castle only Lady
Richenda possessed a mind capable of turning simple facts and an
innocent friendship into a sordid affair.

Out of jealousy
, Hermit had said.
It’s the reason for everything she does
.

Recalling Hermit’s remarks, Emma used her
knowledge to transmute angry magic into icy-cold scorn.

“If you are speaking of my friend, Hermit,”
she said to Lady Richenda, “he is a penniless old man, a homeless
wanderer with a scarred face and a ruined limb. How could you
possibly imagine I’d prefer him to Dain? My lady, I implore you,
credit me with better judgment.”

While Lady Richenda glared at her, struck
speechless by her cool words and icy composure, Emma perceived a
faint spark of amusement in Dain’s gaze. It was quickly repressed,
and he glanced pointedly at the upper level of the stairs. Emma
nodded once in his direction and set her foot upon the next
step.

In complete silence, keeping her head up and
her backbone perfectly straight while servants, men-at-arms,
squires, Blake, Lady Richenda – and Dain – all stared at her, she
mounted the stairs to the lord’s chamber.

“You have been warned often enough about
wandering alone on the moors,’ Dain said, confronting Emma in the
lord’s chamber an hour after the scene in the great hall. “You
ought to know better than to be so foolish.”

“You are completely in the right,” Emma
agreed. “I shouldn’t have gone out alone.”

“Why did you?” he demanded.

“Emma?” he prompted when she didn’t answer
immediately. “You do realize you put yourself into danger? You
could have been captured by outlaws or fallen into one of the bogs.
I might never have known what happened to you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? Never do that again!”

He caught her wrists, forcing her hands
against his chest, holding them there in an unbreakable grip. His
blue-green eyes blazed into hers until Emma feared she’d faint from
the intensity of his gaze. Before she could determine whether he’d
been truly concerned for her welfare or was just angry because she
had disobeyed his orders, he raised her hands to his lips and
kissed them. Never taking his eyes from hers, he released her
wrists and took her face between his palms.

“Don’t ever run away from me,” he whispered
harshly, just before his mouth covered hers.

There was anger in his kiss, yet Emma
detected fear, too. He had been afraid for her sake. That meant he
did care about her. Her response to the realization was
instantaneous. Desire flared in her like dry tinder touched by a
blazing torch. Dain was the torch and he was already ablaze, his
hard body thrusting against hers when her arms encircled his waist
and she moved closer.

“I cannot lose you,” he muttered, tearing at
her clothes. “I will not.”

“I’m here. You haven’t lost me.” She yearned
to promise he would never lose her, but her mind was on fire and
Dain didn’t give her the chance to say anything more, not with his
renewed kisses effectively stopping her mouth. He separated his
lips from hers only long enough to pull her gown over her head with
a rough gesture and fling it aside. Then he picked her up and put
her onto the bed.

“Your belt buckle is scratching me,” she
protested when he came down on top of her.

“Remove it,” he commanded, his voice muffled
because his face was pressed against her throat. “My hose, too. In
the name of heaven, Emma, I must have you now, at once.”

She quickly got rid of his belt and lifted
his tunic to fumble at his hose. It was difficult to keep her
thoughts on what she was trying to do while Dain was sucking on one
of her breasts through her linen shift and teasing at her other
breast with his hand until she wanted to scream. She did succeed in
pushing his hose down as far as his knees before she succumbed to
the urge to hold him in her hands and drive him as mad as he was
driving her.

“Ah!” he groaned, pushing himself against her
caressing fingers. “Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop.”

Emma heard a tearing sound and felt the
fabric of her shift give way as Dain ripped it from throat to hem.
He was still wearing his tunic and the wool rubbed against her
sensitive skin. She didn’t mind a bit, for his lips were on hers,
his tongue was plunging into her mouth, and she had both her hands
around him, drawing him closer to the hot, aching place where she
wanted him to be.

He raised his head in bemused surprise when
she pulled him forward and opened her thighs to receive him.

“I want you,” she said, lifting her hips to
push her eager, yielding flesh against his hardness. “As I belong
to you, so you belong to me.”

He slid into her easily, two halves joining
to make one whole, held together by the tightness of her stretched
body. Dain was still staring at her as if he couldn’t believe she
had acted to bring about their joining before he could.

“Have you a complaint, my lord?” she asked in
a throaty tone quite unlike her usual clear voice.

“No complaint at all, my lady. I shall
endeavor to give you what you so plainly want,” he responded with a
knowing smile.

His sharp gaze became clouded then, as if he
was looking inside himself instead of at her. Emma understood, for
she was losing her ability to think as all of her own senses
focused on Dain’s huge masculinity deeply embedded inside her,
stretching her, tormenting her with his overheated presence. When
he began to move, she moved with him, wrapping her arms and legs
around him, giving her mouth up to his searing kisses.

The fiery, soul-rending climax came upon both
of them in the same moment. Emma felt Dain’s heat pouring into her
and screamed aloud with the joy of it, even as his shout rang in
her ears.

“Never leave me,” she heard him gasp in the
next heartbeat. “I could not bear to live without you.”

“I am curious,” Dain said, much later.

He was sitting at the foot of the bed, at the
very bottom of all the disarray of rumpled sheets and tumbled quilt
and pillows left in the wake of their lovemaking, while he retied
his hose. Emma was on her knees at the other side of the room,
searching through her clothes chest for a shift.

“Curious about what?” she asked, rising with
a new shift in her hands.

“According to the sentry, he last saw you on
the ridge just as the fog was moving inland. That’s some distance
from the castle. How did you find your way back without becoming
lost? I doubt if I could have done it through such a thick fog, and
I’ve lived here all my life.”

“Actually, I did become lost for a short
time.” She decided to take a chance and tell him part of the truth.
Perhaps his response would provide a hint as to whether she dared
reveal her deepest secret. They were in such tender accord and he
had been so disturbed at the possibility of losing her that she
couldn’t believe he would hate or reject her when he learned about
her magic. To give herself a moment in which to choose her next
words, she pulled on her clean shift. Then she continued, watching
closely for his reaction to what she said. “I wasn’t entirely
alone. While I was searching for the way home I met the lady in
white who haunts the moors. I met Vivienne.”