Dark Splendor (15 page)

Roman dismounted when he reached the
sparkling sand. While Silvia and her mount forged through the
frothy waves, he stripped off his shirt and tossed it across the
saddle. In the bright sunlight, his bare torso gleamed golden from
his broad shoulders to his narrow waist, and Silvia could not stay
her eyes from the sight of him.

The mare stepped slowly, picking her footing
with caution. Swirling water splashed just below the hem of
Silvia’s riding costume, an occasional wave dampening the lower
part of her skirt. Nickering, Cricket reached the dry sand of the
beach and halted to shake, covering Silvia with a fine spray and
nearly unseating her as well.

She was protesting Cricket’s lapse of
manners when Roman’s strong hands circled her waist and pulled her
effortlessly from the saddle. Her laughter rang out carefree and
gay as he swung her in a slow arc above the silver sand. She felt a
lightness in her heart she hadn’t known in more months than she
dared remember.

“Roman,” she cried out joyfully as he drew
her near and enfolded her within the press of his arms.

He laughed and dropped a quick kiss on her
forehead before her feet had fully touched the ground and she had
caught her balance. Silvia joined his laughter, throwing her head
back in gleeful abandon and wrapping her slender arms around his
neck. They stood for a moment circled in each other’s arms, Silvia
feeling her breasts tighten as they crushed against his bare chest.
She quivered, feeling as if a bit of flint had struck a spark in
her flesh.

Her breath caught softly in her throat. She
could feel each draw of air molding her body closer to his. Her
eyes closed tight, shutting out all but the light that burned
between them. Another moment and she would have no choice but to
yield to the sweet magnetism of his embrace.

Roman, too, felt the spark of a flame within
his flesh. His breathing quickened and deepened. Lest he demand
more than he intended, he sighed and loosened his hold from around
her waist. Suddenly the mood that had held them disappeared for a
time like the rhythmic waves teasing at their feet.

Filling his lungs with a deep breath of sea
air, that it might cool his blood, Roman led Silvia to a low, flat
rock and in a voice hoarse and broken instructed her to slip out of
her footgear. His own boots and stockings lay cast aside like
winter garb on the first spring day. He strolled around her as she
sat, casting his eyes out to sea and bending his will to obey his
thoughts. He would bide his time.

Busying herself with the task of removing
her boots, Silvia tried to stay the longing she felt beginning
inside.

She kept her eyes from Roman’s face but
found them instead straying to firm, bare calves as tanned and
muscular as his torso. Her heart fluttered so in her chest that she
took doubly long to shed her footgear. When it was done she found
him watching her from a few paces away.

“You’ll like the feel of the sand,” Roman
said in a voice deliberately light. He grabbed her boots and placed
them beside his own, safely out of range of the incoming tide.
“Morgan and I used to come here as boys and strip off our clothes
to swim.” His voice had once again become low and smooth. Kicking
up sand as he walked, he returned and took a seat beside her. “Not
that it mattered where we swam. We had the run of the island.” One
side of his mouth pulled up in a smile as he made a sweeping
gesture with his hand. “But here we could imagine pirates coming to
shore at night and hiding their stolen gold.” He laughed heartily.
“We must have dug up half the beach searching for treasure.”

“And did you find it?” She laughed gently,
smiling easily as she began to feel the mystique of the tiny
cove.

Roman’s smile held a special tenderness as
his mellowing gaze met hers. She felt a curious tingling begin in
the pit of her stomach and touched her hand to her abdomen in
consternation. Roman made no response to her question until her
brows raised inquiringly. She found his face occupied with a look
that caused a sudden invisible warmth to settle over her. She knew
instinctively he felt it too, the fine silken web beginning a
delicate lacing between them.

“Did you?” she whispered as his hands
reached the back of her head and loosened her dark coils of hair.
She was conscious of the warm sensuous touch of his fingers on her
skin, soft and lazy and like the touch of the sun, soothing and
warm. With gentle caresses he smoothed her tumbling tresses over
her shoulders, running his fingers slowly through the silken
curls.

There was a depth to his smile she had never
seen, a softening of his features that revealed secrets she could
know only with her heart. Her lips parted softly as his piercing
blue eyes caressed her face like a swathing of satin.

“Not until today.” His voice was a velvety
whisper followed by a moment of silence. Roman’s eyes turned a
smoky blue and fixed to hers as the wind picked up and stirred a
lock of sunlit hair over his temple. “In those days a treasure was
gold.”

A rakish smile curved his lips. Silvia
dropped her eyes as her cheeks warmed and flushed pink beneath his
admiring gaze.

“Now I know a greater prize than gold.” Blue
eyes roamed over her approvingly. She glanced up, and seeing the
intensity of his gaze, once more lowered her head. “Fool I was not
to know its worth from the first.”

Slowly, encouraged by the hidden meaning of
his words, she lifted her eyes to boldly meet his.

“And is this treasure one you could value
more than gold?”

“Aye. One that is priceless and unmatched in
all the world.” He stood and pulled her to her feet. “One I could
not see for my own blindness.”

She was like a fragile budding flower in his
heart, a sweet unfolding blossom where he had expected nettles. The
whispering wind and the golden rays of the sun heightened the
lavender fragrance in her hair. In the sunlight her skin glowed
with the luster of pearls and her eyes glittered with soft amber
lights.

“It is to my own stubborn nature I must set
the blame.” He countered the swell of happiness in his chest. “I
saw what I would and took you to be a worldly woman bought and paid
to provide pleasure.”

Silvia’s skin reddened in a blush that
extended from her face to her feet. So that was what he had thought
her. She caught her breath sharply.

“And what do you see now?” she asked, the
words falling brokenly from her trembling lips.

“I see a woman who has never known the
pleasure of a man’s touch. I see a woman who makes me forget my vow
never to lose my heart.”

He pulled her hands against his chest,
pressed them to his flesh where she could feel the pounding of his
heart.

The gentle sea breeze feathered her tumbling
curls around her face and shoulders as Roman brought her hands to
his lips, kissing each one in turn. Silvia opened out her fingers
to caress his cheeks as he dropped his hands to circle her waist.
The nearness of him nearly drew her breath away and she lowered her
eyes lest he see that his words had freed her heart to know the
truth of her secret yearnings.

A wistful sigh slipped like a whisper from
her parted lips. She was bewitched by a golden Siegfried. She
touched his shoulder, slid her hand over the corded muscles of his
arm. Beneath her hand his skin was hot, heated to a feverish degree
by the rapid pulsing of his blood. His hair had become molten gold
spun into strands that captured the sun. Set in an aureate face
were the blue flames that brought a radiant fire to her eyes.

“And is this treasure one you would keep?”
she whispered.

“Aye. One I would hold and keep and
cherish.”

“And would you possess this treasure?”

“Aye. If I could. That is another lesson I
have learned.” He kissed the palm of her hand. “Treasure is not the
bounty found on pirate ships, nor the gold and jewels buried in
forgotten places in the sand. Treasure is the gold and silver
hidden in the heart of a man and a woman.”

“You speak of love,” she said softly.

“I speak of the wealth a man and woman can
give one to the other.”

“Is that the treasure you would take?”

He brushed the straying hair from his
forehead. “The treasure I speak of cannot be taken. To have value,
it must be given freely.”

His fingers loosened the buttons of her
riding coat and slipped it from her shoulders, letting it drop to
the sand, and as it did, he released the soft bow at the neck of
her blouse.

Nervous now, Silvia trembled beneath his
hands. She tried to halt the surging tide of warmth his nearness
stirred. Did he speak of love or of some other emotion tied to
love? She knew only that he started a reckless longing inside her
that would not be stilled. Had she known it would come to this? Was
it for this end she had followed him like a faithful pet to this
hidden place?

His hands caressed her shoulders, a welcome
weight that cooled her skin beneath his touch. His long fingers
trailed nimbly downward to curve around the fullness of her
breasts. Silvia felt a tingling as the peaks tightened beneath the
rhythmic stroking of his thumbs. A whimpering sigh escaped her as
his hands slipped to her waist, pulling her close. His lips moved
like a hot flame on her throat while he pressed one hand to the
small of her back, bringing her firmly against his loins. The other
he wrapped in the black silk of her hair and gently pulled her head
back. Silvia’s lips trembled with the uncertainty of her choices as
his mouth possessed hers with searing kisses.

Arms about him, she found the curves and
planes of his back beneath her exploring hands. His skin was smooth
and damp and she could only marvel at the strength banked within
the steel muscles.

Is this not a treasure worth having?” he
whispered in her ear as his lips found hers again, parted them and
then devoured them with kisses that drew the breath from her
body.

Trembling, she slipped a hand to his lips,
halting his assault before she lost the last remnant of
resistance.

“Would you take all that I have, Roman?” she
whispered shakily.

His gaze changed and the passion cooled in
his eyes. He sighed, a long drawn-out whistle of breath that seemed
to ease his mood.

“Nay, little flower. I will take only what
you will give, though I think you do not yet know your own mind.”
His hands had not left her body, though his voice had taken on a
patient tone even he could not understand.

No words would come, and she looked at him
pleadingly through eyes as round and golden as a harvest moon.

“Nay,” he whispered, kissing her neck. “‘Tis
you who must seek the treasure and unlock the chest. I will
wait.”

He caught her by the waist and lifted her
like a child, to the top of a rock. A moment later they were
running hand in hand across the sand to explore a small cave across
the cove. When the sun began to fall in the sky and they had
replaced their boots and begun the ride back to Serpent Tree Hall,
his embrace had become a sweet, glowing memory set in her heart as
eternally as the sun hung in the heavens.

Silvia rode beside him, eyeing him
wistfully, longingly. In the innermost cache of her mind she knew
he would have his way. He was a wily, crafty pirate who had set her
aflame, seeking his treasure.

“It’s spiteful,” Martha snapped, pressing her
fingertips to her temples and rubbing small circles. A sheet of
paper bearing the black imprint of the Schlange crest rested on the
table before her. “This, after weeks of refusing to see us, weeks
of not even letting us know the state of his health.”

Her face drawn and lips tight, Martha read
again the few sentences scrawled in her uncle’s unmistakable
hand.

To my nephews and dear niece, Martha:

During my illness I have had time to reflect
on many matters at Serpent Tree Hall which are unsatisfactory to
me. The time has come for us to alter the course of things here.
Put all business aside. On Thursday at the dinner hour I will join
you to make an announcement of supreme importance and to outline
the changes I expect of each of you.

Your uncle and benefactor,

Wilhelm Schlange

Martha hissed. “Benefactor! Ha! He thinks we
are all his minions.” She took the note that had thrown her into a
state of agitation and crumpled it in her hand. The message had
been handed down an hour earlier by Odin as the four of them talked
together in the drawing room. Absently, as her head began to throb,
she released her hold on the paper and it slipped lightly from her
fingers, floating like chaff to the floor beneath the dining-room
table.

Eric smiled and looked at her consolingly.
“Hush, Martha,” he said gently. “It isn’t like you to take on so. I
believe you’ve got one of your headaches coming on.”

Martha’s breath came in a great huff. “Yes.
And it’s no wonder that I do. He has Vivien order me about like a
servant.” She grimaced. “Prepare this dish, Martha. See to the
flowers, Martha. He might have the good grace to tell me himself
and to allow more than two days’ notice for a special dinner.”

“You forget, my dear sister, he has been ill
and inactive for weeks. Uncle is accustomed to keeping an empire
afloat. I think it is a sign he is improving and wants to put a
finger in the pie and stir it,” Eric responded blithely, his hand
comfortingly on Martha’s arm.

“Bah!” Martha whipped up her defiance. “He
has no right. He has had us do his bidding for years, and now he
says things must change.” Tiny blue veins strained against her fair
skin. “It’s preposterous!”

“Martha. Calm yourself.” Roman held the back
of her chair and looked down at the braided ring of gold hair that
crowned her head. Martha tossed her chin up angrily and he could
see how tightly laced her fingers were in her lap. “Eric is right.
Give consideration to his mental state. When he is fully recovered
and able to talk with us, this will come to nothing.”