Bride Enchanted (15 page)

“My land didn't make the poor ladies any happier, not for long. Even if one isn't vain, it's not a joyful thing to grow old while those about one
stay forever young. Then, when my wives died of advanced years, each time, after a decent absence from human sight, I returned to your land again, impersonating my own son. Those who had known me before remarked on how much I resembled my father. But they were usually too old themselves, and their vision too fogged, to note that I hadn't changed at all, except for my hair and eye color. For some reason, coloring always deceives mortals.

“For what it's worth,” he said bleakly, turning to Eve again, “I respected each of my wives, but I never loved. I'm not sure that I can. Not in the way you mean. But with you, I try, and sometimes, I think I know what it is.”

“Ah!” she said. Her hands were clenched. “And so, the last question. Arianna was right. I never asked it correctly. Why did you marry me? And by that I mean, what do you want of me? I think it was what you wanted of the others as well. Good lord! You have me repeating that nonsense. Never mind that. If you didn't marry me for love, then what is it that you want of me?”

“We are a small nation and we grow smaller each year,” he said bluntly. “We need children. We stopped producing them centuries ago. When we were young, we stole yours. They aged more slowly with us, but they aged and eventually died,
to our great sorrow. We haven't had a new child of our own kind since my own birth.”

“And you want one from me? But why? I'm not of your kind.”

“Your great-grandmother's mother's mother mated with one of our kind. Though she had children, none were of our kind. Nevertheless there is more in your blood than you know.”

Eve arose. “And you knew her, I suppose? Of course. Enough. Have done. Yes, this is, I think, an elaborate trick. Or I have run mad, or you have. It may be that you and your sister are toying with me. Or Sherry has thought up a new game. And I think very badly of you, Aubrey, for taking part in it. Everything you say makes sense and no sense.”

She hugged herself against a chill, though the room was warm. “You're toying with me, and that's unlike you. Or maybe it is like you. We haven't known each other that long, have we? I should never have married in haste. But I don't intend to repent at leisure. Whatever it is, this is either so cruel I can't grasp it, or so bizarre it's true. I can't tell truth from lies anymore. One thing I do know: I can't believe it of you. Obviously, I don't
know
you. I want to go home.” She raised her head, turned on her heel, and left the room.

He stood there, watching her leave. He couldn't
follow. She had to come to him. She believed and disbelieved. He'd seen it before. He'd wait. She would or would not believe him. Too bad Arianna hadn't given her a fourth question, because he was bound to answer all she asked.

Eve had already conceived. And the babe was as much his as hers. She'd know that soon enough. In the meanwhile, she wouldn't leave him yet, she'd think about it, and take her time deciding. He was sorry he'd hurt her, sorrier still that he'd had to tell her so soon. Whatever happened, he was her husband. He'd stay with her. After she thought it over, she would stay with him.

Divorce was rare, scandalous, and shameful, as well as a long tedious process. She wouldn't risk it. She might be embarrassed to repeat his story to anyone else anyway. But even if she did, he was a charming and fabulously wealthy gentleman. They'd say he was an eccentric, and eccentrics were well known to
Society.
At a time when ladies and gentlemen of the
ton
cultivated eccentricities as their ancestors used to propagate exotic flowers, when the King of England himself walked about his palace in his nightshirt curtsying to ghosts, and the prince squandered state money during a war to erect a vast Chinese palace for his seaside pleasures, peculiarities were well tolerated.

But she mightn't talk to him again.

Still, he wouldn't leave her, not until he looked into the eyes of the child and saw if he'd accomplished what he'd set out to do all those many long and lonely years ago. He had to know if he'd succeeded, if he'd saved his troop and his clan. If he had, he'd take the child to it's proper home. If not, he'd try again. And at the last, he'd have to see if he could save her love for him. Because he realized that for the first time, that it mattered too.

E
ve didn't know what to say, or if she should say anything at all, but she hated silence. When Aubrey came into their bedchamber much later that night, she put a trembling finger in the book to mark the place where she'd pretended to be reading and looked up with hope. “You've thought better of it? It was a distemper of the spirit, wasn't it?” she asked him. “Too much wine?”

“No,” he said wearily.

“And so,” she asked carefully, “You have always believed this? Or was it something that just came to you suddenly in a blinding flash and you knew it was right?”

“Always. It wasn't a brain spasm or seizure.”

“And have you told anyone else?” she asked. She sat up in their bed, but had never looked less sleepy. She wore a robe over her nightshift, and hadn't even undone her hair. She'd been reading,
but now she held the book in a white knuckled grasp, as though it anchored her.

He paused. “I told my past wives, in turn. Everyone who has worked at this house for more than thirty years knows the truth, or aspects of it, and many others suspect it.”

“You told your wives at once?” she asked, “Or only when you thought you could no longer avoid it?”

“Only then,” he said.

She stared at him. “So where are the pointed ears? The wings and the wand and the like? There's no way you could dance under a toadstool in the moonlight.”

“Of course not,” he said. “We never looked different from your people. That's folklore. We're not immortal either. We do live for longer than you do, much longer. But when our time comes, we do cease to be. We can be killed before times, as well. When we die in natural course of things, we simply become less solid. We stretch out on the wind and flow away. I hear it's not painful, but only very sad. We aren't human, but we can become much more mortal if we stay with you too long. The longer we stay, the less we become, and if we stayed all our lives we would lose our lives quickly, or at least as quickly as you mortals do. Our own land gives us substance and years.”

She nodded. “So that's why you're leaving me?”

“Leaving you?”

“Well, one sort of announcement such as you have made usually precedes another,” she said with an attempt at her usual tone of voice. “And if a person's husband comes to his wife with a wild tale it's either because he's run mad, or he's trying to lightly but firmly let her think he has, so he can leave her, or be left alone.”

Aubrey sat on the side of the bed. “I told you the truth. It takes some getting used to, but it is so. That is what I am. Many things in your world are fantastical but true, Eve,” he said gently, his expression gentled and sympathetic. “Who would think spring could rise from cold dead earth every year if they hadn't seen it and gotten used to it? The ancients didn't believe it. They sacrificed their own blood to ensure the marvel kept happening. Only when spring came without their sacrifice did they believe it wasn't a miracle and began to take it as a matter of course.

“But think of the other fantastic things you take for granted: birds flying through the air, an ugly worm weaving a crypt for itself and emerging as a beautiful butterfly, fish popping out of eggs: it's all fantastical. Life itself is fantastic. Two humans make love. They either give each other pleasure,
or one is bored, or one is terrified, it makes no difference. If the time is right, another human comes into being from the act. Is that not magical? And oysters and whelks and cold creatures from beneath the seas need not even meet another of their kind to produce young. Which is more fantastic?

“There are many more kinds of life on this earth than you know of, Eve,” he said softly, reaching out to touch a lock of her hair. “You've read the old legends, heard the stories, even seen the pictures the ancients drew and carved. Those depict real things too.”

“Dragons and mermaids?” she asked. “Brownies and ogres and trolls? Giants, and dwarfs with pots of gold? Werewolves and great worms rising out of Scottish lochs? All the creatures from fairy stories I heard as a girl? I suppose I could believe that there was once some foundation for those tales. Deformed humans and animals could have been seen as strange and new creatures. Tales told around a fire with wolves prowling outside the light take on lives of their own, just as fire shadows from the hearth seem to do. Primitive people are afraid of the dark, and they see enemies everywhere.”

“Possibly because they have them,” he murmured.

“Well, I suppose,” she said. “But elves? An old
race still living and weaving magics today, and I married one of them? And he's one of the last of his kind and only here because he wants an elf child from me? No,” she shook her head sadly. “That, Aubrey, I can't believe.”

“Others still live here,” he said. “Not everyone went away. Many more visit.”

She gazed at him long and hard. “Aubrey,” she finally said with infinite sadness, “I can't help loving you. Although it feels like my heart is breaking, it's made of sterner stuff. It would take a great deal more to make me stop loving you. But that love has changed. You'll have to give me days, weeks, months, I don't know, perhaps years to absorb all this. And I don't know if I'll ever believe it. In the meanwhile, if we go to London, will you go to see a physician, and tell him all this too?”

He nodded. “Dr. Frost in Marble Arch, or Dr. Jennings in Harley Street? They already know, because they have their own powers and reasons for being here. We aren't the only race to live in secret, as I said. But that is their story to tell.”

“I see,” she said slowly. “Aubrey, I don't want to leave you, but I don't know what else to do. For now, this seems to me to be for the best.” Her eyes filled with sudden hot tears. It had all been too wonderful to be true. She should have known.
She
had
known but he'd denied it, and if there was magic, it was in his convincing her he was marrying her because she was so wonderful to him.

They were speaking of fairy tales. How could she have believed, for a moment, that a man like Aubrey would have fallen in love with someone like her, and on first sight? Though his story about his old race was bizarre, it made more sense than the romantic dreams about their marriage that she'd woven for herself.

He sat beside her now, outlined by lamplight, as perfectly beautiful as a dream that came to a maiden lady in the depths of night. Commanding as the mature Apollo, as lithe and languidly beautiful as a statue she'd seen of the young Perseus: supple and easy and certain in his masculinity. He radiated warmth and desire, and he was knowing, knowledgeable, and kind. And he was mad, utterly mad, from a mad family. And he was her husband.

She bowed her head and wept.

“Ah, no,” he said, gathering her in his arms.

She clung to him, absorbing the heat of the strong firm body next to hers, wondering how she could take comfort from the one who had so grievously wounded her. He wore a soft linen shirt, and she heard his heart beating against her
ear. He was the most wonderful man she'd ever met, and he believed he was a creature out of a fairy story.

“Do the people of your race have hearts as we do?” she asked softly.

“Yes,” he said.

“And those hearts beat red blood throughout your veins? Or is it green, or blue?”

“Red,” he said, with laughter in his voice.

“And your women bear children as we do?”

“They used to,” he said with sorrow.

“Had you not known my great-great however great grandmother, would you have loved me?” she asked very quietly, and waited for the count of three heartbeats before he answered her.

“I didn't know her,” he said. “I heard of her. I saw her once too. And I don't know because I wouldn't have sought you had I not known about her, and had our situation not grown so desperate. But once having found you, I would love you as I do…insofar as I am capable of doing.”

“Ah,” she said.

“Please don't weep,” he said, his lips on her hair. “I am what I say I am, and all the tears in the universe can't change that. But for what it's worth, however long I've lived, I've never before felt as I feel for you, not for any other being in the universe. And remember, I've never lied to you.”

“Yes,” she said, lifting her tearstained face and looking into his. “You've always told me only what I asked of you,
if
I knew how to ask it. You break my heart, Aubrey, that you truly do.”

He stayed still. “What else can I tell you?”

“But why do I feel this way? Tell me honestly, Aubrey. Do you believe you can enchant mortal women? Do I feel this way because you've bespelled me?”

“You've asked me that before. No, or only the once as I told you. Never again. Because I wanted you to want me as only free will could make you do.”

She sat quietly, her tears subsiding, feeling desperate, feeling alone, and needing him although she no longer knew who he was. “Aubrey?” she said. “Can you show me? Nothing mad or strange, but can you do something to show me that you are what you say?”

His arms tightened around her. “What would you of me?” he asked. “I can't show you how to weave straw into gold. I can't make myself vanish, or walk into the air. Not here. I can at my true home, but while my jealous sister hunts for a mate it's not yet time to take you there. Here our magics are subtle things: spells and seemings, all of it. Shall I make you love me, Eve? But you say you already do.”

“I do,” she said, looking up into his eyes as best she could through the mist in her own eyes. “So then, can you make love to me now, and cast a spell as you said you did once before so I wouldn't feel pain? Can you make me forget all this and only revel in you, as though I never knew any doubt or fear or regret? Can you enchant me, Aubrey?”

His eyes narrowed. “You want me to cast a spell on you, to make you enjoy my lovemaking?”

“No, I do that already. I want to know if a spell would make a difference.” There, she thought. I didn't ask for any great feat of magic that would belittle him, just something I would notice, and not anything to shame him. “I just want to know the difference between what is,” she said carefully, “and what you can make me feel, without my knowing it.”

His smile was sad. But he stripped off his jacket and his shirt, and cast off his other clothing. Then he came into bed with her and held her in his arms. He bent his head to kiss her.

She hesitated. “Don't you have to wave your arms, or whisper an incantation or something?” she asked in a small voice.

“That's a magician,” he breathed in her ear. “That's a conjurer. Or a wizard. They try to make magic. I
am
magic.”

Then he kissed her. His lips were warm, so
sweet and warm that her senses heated, and she struggled to remove her nightshift because she couldn't bear to have a thing stand between him and herself. When she'd cast it off, she came back to him, and clung to him. This time his kiss was sweet as a sigh and hot as the sun, and the touch of his tongue on hers made her tingle and splinter and soar until she almost couldn't bear the thrill of it.

She felt streamers of electricity through her; she felt scalding chills. She shook and shivered, wanting more of the delicious freezing heat. She closed her eyes and saw motes of light sparkling and shifting, as she floated in a sensual haze, and yet at the same time every sensitive bit of her body was jangling. She smelled flowers and amber and everywhere her body puckered and pouted and yearned.

But something was missing, something vital, something was wrong. In the midst of all this incredible bliss, she was utterly alone. Where was he? “No!” she said.

She opened her eyes and saw his eyes clear and cool and measuring on her. She pulled away from him with great effort. He opened his arms to let her go, and the further away she got, the easier it became for her to leave his embrace.

She sat up. “No,” she said breathlessly, holding
up a trembling hand. “If that's what you mean by casting a spell over me, then no.”

“Why not?” he asked, frowning.

“Because once we began I couldn't feel
you
anymore. Not your reaction or your presence. I couldn't feel your lips, your tongue; I couldn't even feel the strength in you.” She took some deep breaths, and then moved closer, and leaned against him. She kissed his neck. “Your skin tastes salty, did you know?” she murmured. “Sun warmed and salty, always. You make sounds when you make love. I love it because it means I'm giving you satisfaction and that makes me feel powerful. You smell of ferns but also like a man.”

She lowered her voice and her head and spoke against his heart, “I love how I feel when we join. But just now, whatever you did before, I felt that I was alone. If that's enchantment, I don't want it. Be Aubrey, just Aubrey, for me, please.”

He looked surprised.

“It was interesting,” she said, “and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't nice. But it wasn't you. I want you.”

He smiled, bent his head, and kissed her. She felt his lips, warm and questing, against her own; his hands, gentle and coaxing, on her body. She relaxed. He made love to her with his usual fire,
but also with the tempered gentility she had come to expect from him, and with the desire that she always loved. When he came to her at last, she arched her back to help him, and when he came to his moment, she reveled in it before she felt herself shiver and shatter in release as well.

They lay still a while.

“Better?” he finally asked.

“Yes,” she breathed. “Before, all I felt was my own pleasure. Nice, but lonely. I don't know if that was enchantment, but if it was, I think it lacks something. Lovemaking is meant for two people.”

He lay back on his pillow, put a hand on his stomach, and laughed. “You don't like enchantment?” he asked.