Dair Devil (40 page)

She had unpacked most of the crockery and cutlery from the
nécessaire
before Dair reappeared from the temple. He had been gone a good five minutes or more, and there was a look on his face, hard to read, that made Rory wonder what there was here to unsettle him. Before she could ask he said quietly,

“I’m an unthinking ass. I should have helped you. And you’re thirsty. Where can I fetch water?”

She pointed beyond the steps at the front of the temple.

“See the bathing pool. It fills with water from a spring. But the freshest water is to be had from the water fountains—from the lions’ mouths. It is also the coolest. You can’t see them from here. See those large vases atop two pedestals either side of the steps? The fountains face into the bathing pool, so the water gushes from their mouths and into the pool. The pool isn’t deep, and has a tiled floor, so you could—What—What is the matter?” she asked suddenly. She had been looking towards the bathing pool as she spoke, but when she turned she found him not looking at the bathing pool but staring down at her intently. “You look to have seen a specter.” She blinked and gave a little gasp. “Not—not the ghost of Geoffrey the Hermit?”

“No. No ghosts. I went into the second temple… At what age did you say you first started coming here? Fourteen? Did you go into that second temple when you were fourteen?”

She did not immediately answer the question, saying instead with a smile, “Isn’t it lovely? Such gorgeous tapestries, and the carpet so thick under foot, and the gilding on the wood paneling is exquisite. It is so cozy with a fire in the grate and sun shining through the stained glass oculus.” She frowned in thought. “It must be a trick of the furnishings, because it seems much smaller on the inside than expected; the size of an intimate salon. No doubt it’s the size of the tapestries that run floor to ceiling on three of the walls, which draws the room in… How do you suppose they got those tapestries across to the island? By barge?”

“The same way, I expect, they shifted marble, stone and wood across to construct the temples and the bathing pool. Though I suspect the temples were built before the land around here was flooded to make the lake.”

“Oh, yes! That makes sense. I forgot the lake isn’t a natural feature, though it looks as if it has been here since forever. Bullock teams could have been used to drag the marble across… But the tapestries are not as old as the island. They—”

“Rory, it matters little how they got here. It’s those tapestries—that room—”

“Wait until you see it with the wall sconces lit and a fire. There’s something more intimate and beautiful about it in candlelight.”

“Intimate? Beautiful? Ha!”

“Alisdair, what is it?”

He wiped a hand over his mouth and took a deep breath. He wasn’t sure how to put into words what he wanted to say, so he just blurted it out. Of course, his declaration made him sound angry, angry with her, which he was not. He was embarrassed by what he had seen on the walls of the small temple because she had seen it too, and at a much younger age than his first sexual experience. His reaction had shocked him more than he thought possible.

“Rory—those tapestries—that room—they are not fit for a young girl’s eyes.”

“I thought—I don’t understand… That was to be my surprise for you.”

“Surprise?” he blustered, folding his hands across his bare chest but not meeting her eye. “It was that, and more!”

“You don’t like them?” she asked, disappointed, and got to her feet. “Why? What’s wrong with them?”

He looked at her then and saw only studious enquiry. It only increased his discomfort. He dug a larger metaphorical hole for himself.

“Wrong with them? You want me to say it aloud?”

“Yes. Yes, I do, because it is now obvious to me that the temple, the tapestries, the room itself, has greatly upset you and I do not understand at all why it should. Particularly to a man of your worldly experience.”

He walked away from her, hands through his dark hair, and then returned.

“And in your unworldly opinion, what did you think the naked couples in those tapestries were up to? No! Don’t answer that. The question was asinine, like me!”

“There is only one couple,” she said quietly. “One couple in many different—
situations
.”

“Situations?” he said doubtfully. Rory thought he looked smug. “I was in that room less than five minutes and believe me, I know an-an orgy when I see one.”

“I am sure you do. But you are wrong.”

“Rory, that’s not what I—”

She cut him off.

“You think because I am a virgin I should not look upon those tapestries. You possibly believe all females must be shielded from such expressions of love?”

His black brows contracted over his beak of a nose. “Love?”

“Yes. Love. Just because I have never
made
love does not mean I do not appreciate the joy physical love must bring to a couple who are
in
love. So please do not address me as if you are speaking to an ignorant fool—”

“I was not—”

“I am well aware, despite my lack of tangible experience, that there are those who indulge in venery for its own sake—”

“Aurora!”

“—which is altogether different from making love. And it is the latter which is represented in those tapestries. You cannot persuade me otherwise.” She looked up into his flushed face and stated bluntly, “Making love frightens you.”

When he stared at her, horrified, she knew she had prodded the raw nerve of truth.

“Oh, I know you are a wonderfully considerate lover. I have heard the stories, about your—abilities and your-your—attributes. You would be surprised what women gossip about behind their fans, particularly when they think they cannot be overheard. But those exploits are not what I am talking about, nor do I care to know more about them than I do already. What is of importance to me is this situation we now find ourselves in. It is unique to both of us.”

“It is?”

“You have never made love to the one you love, and neither have I. So in that way, we are both inexperienced and—” she smiled shyly, “—more than a little bit
apprehensive
.”

“I suppose when you put it like that…” His shy smile mirrored hers. “But even you cannot deny my experience puts the onus squarely on my shoulders to make you happy.”

“Oh please do not negate my responsibility, just because I am a virgin,” she responded earnestly. “I want to give you just as much pleasure as you give me, I assure you.”

He gave a deep chuckle and shook his head.

“As God is my witness, Delight, if someone had told me three months ago I would be having such a brutally frank discussion about the marriage bed, with a pretty blonde virgin whom I love and adore, I would have condemned him as a Bedlamite!”

She was momentarily concerned.

“I hope I am not being too brutal?”

“With me? No. Not at all. I like it.”

“Then you won’t mind me saying, if all that is required for you—
for us
—to be completely comfortable with each other is to make love, then what are we waiting for?”

He could not hide his astonishment, or stifle his laughter. But he was not shocked; there was truth in her words. When he had mastery over himself he said,

“I don’t deserve you, but I refuse to give you up. You know just what to say to make me realize I have a head full of unfounded fears and doubts, and only you are capable of banishing them.” He stroked her cheek. “I will never be able to thank you enough for rescuing me from myself.”

She dimpled. “You can but try, by letting me show you those tapestries.”

He pretended offence.

“You want me to go back in there, into that den of iniquity, with you? And here was I thinking love was unconditional.”

“Alisdair James Fitzstuart, you are a prude! For a man who can parade about a painter’s studio in a loin cloth, putting on a show for a gaggle of giggling dancers—”

“Show. It was a
show
. I was acting. I am good at
acting
.”

“Not an excuse I am willing to accept!” She pouted. “Five minutes cursory inspection of that room, you will agree, is as nothing to the hours I have spent—”

“Hours?”

“—studying and admiring those tapestries. They tell a story—”

“A story?”

“—about a marriage, a loving marriage. And because it is a loving marriage, it is quite natural for the couple to make love, many times, and on all three tapestries. Each tapestry represents a different stage in their mar—Oh! You have outwitted me!” she declared when he started to chuckle. “You are being prudish to annoy me! Admit to it.”

“I admit to nothing, only that I adore you all the more, if that is possible, when you talk so ardently on a topic that is of interest to you. I can’t wait to hear all about pineapple cultivation.”

She pouted. “Now you are mocking me.”

“Never! I am sincerely interested in pineapple cultivation.”

“I do not believe for one movement of the second hand of your pocket watch that you have the slightest interest in pineapples! Alisdair!” She squealed with fright when he suddenly scooped her up into his arms. “What—what are you doing?”

“What am I doing?” he repeated, carrying her lightly down the temple steps to the edge of the bathing pool. “It’s time we gave ourselves up to this paradise and went for a dip.
And
, I promised to fetch you a glass of water half an hour ago.”

The surface of the bathing pool shimmered and rippled like a length of white satin caught up by a breeze, water pouring forth from the open mouths of two large lion heads set in enormous pediments either side of a set of broad stairs that descended to the tiled bottom. Dair went down these steps without hesitation, the water refreshingly cool on such a warm sunny day, he and Rory taking a shallow intake of breath as the cold water snapped at their warm skin.

“Let me tell you just how serious I am about pineapple cultivation, wife-to-be. I have engaged Bill Chambers to design a pinery for Fitzstuart Hall.”

“Chambers?
Sir William
Chambers? The Swedish architect? To build a—a
pinery
? At your family home? For-for
me
?”

He waded into the middle of the pool with Rory still in his arms, the water level at its deepest rising to just above his navel.

“Soon to be
our
home,” he corrected. He frowned. “You do want a pinery, don’t you? I thought it would make an excellent wedding present. It may take a year or two to build, but a wedding present it shall be.”

When she clung to him, when she muffled unintelligibly into his neck, he took it as a sign she was pleased with his wedding gift. He tried to unhook her arm so that he could see her face, to reassure her and to kiss her, but she remained fastened to him. So he did the most natural thing in the world, something every good swimmer would do, but something he had not done in a large body of fresh water in many years. He slipped out from her hold on him by ducking under the water. And once underwater, and seeing how clear it was, he swam away to resurface by the steps.

Rory waved to him from the middle of the bathing pool, and he waved back before diving once again under the water and disappearing. She followed his lead and dived underwater, too, knowing they were now engaged in a watery game of cat and mouse. She couldn’t have been happier. Her happiness had nothing to do with his wedding gift of a pinery.

T
WENTY-FIVE

I 
T
WAS
INEVITABLE
they would make love.

Two people deeply in love in a secluded paradise would have required the combined willpower of all the mythical Gods to resist giving in to the overwhelming need to physically communicate such love. All other considerations were unimportant. Custom, family expectations, and societal norms, dictated they wait until they were legally and spiritually one before consummating their union. And their betrothal remained a secret, and had yet to receive the blessing of either family, in particular Dair’s mother, the Countess of Strathsay, and most importantly, the sanction of Lord Shrewsbury, Rory’s grandfather.

These considerations were mere formalities. Blessings and sanctions were a foregone conclusion for two young people from within the same social circle, who were distantly related, as all the nobility were in some form or other, dating back to the Conquest. Their union would surely be seen by all as the epitome of social, political and economic acceptability. But to the happy couple, and in this place, none of that was important.

There was something about the forest clearing, its isolation, even from the rest of the island, with its tall deep curtain of trees, its fanciful temples and its enchanted bathing pool, that rendered the lovers, at that moment in time, invulnerable.

The handful of hours leading up to the couple falling asleep in each other’s arms under a coverlet in the small temple was burned into their collective memory. They made love twice in the very room Dair had railed against, but it wasn’t the first time or the only setting. The consummation of their union occurred under the shade of an ancient elm, on the picnic rug by the bathing pool. Dair had been prepared to wait, whatever his private misgivings, given his parents’ disastrous wedding night, for her sake, because he loved her. Rory had other ideas, though she’d had her heart set on the temple as the perfect setting to give herself to him. But when in the throes of an all-consuming passion, reticence and the best-laid plans are irrelevant. Nothing else mattered except their love for one another, and in this paradise, the shared experience of mutual physical pleasure.

Much later, Dair carried Rory into the small temple, built a fire in the grate and boiled water for tea. While he lit a cheroot she made tea, both silent, words unnecessary to express the joy and relief both felt at discovering they shared a healthy enjoyment of physical pleasure. It went unspoken that the bridal night now held no fears for either of them. They could go forward into their new life together, confident and full of optimism. And while they drank tea on the coverlet spread out over the thick rug in front of the fire, Rory told Dair the story of the couple woven into the three enormous tapestries covering three walls.