The Duchess and the Dragon (14 page)

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Authors: Jamie Carie

BOOK: The Duchess and the Dragon
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SERENA’S FATHER TRUSTED him alone with her.
That single thought warred with the intense desire to kiss her. With her face just inches from his, he drank in the creamy skin, the green and brown flecks in her eyes, the golden brows, the soft, pink lips. Just one brush of her lips, he told himself, would quench this growing thirst for her.
He knew it wasn’t true, that one kiss usually led to wanting more and more. But he couldn’t seem to help himself. Every muscle strained to grasp her to him. His imagination replayed what it would look like to see her fiery hair down and around her shoulders, and even though he was supposed to be the one world-wise and self-controlled, he felt as eager as a young man with his first love. He’d never longed for a woman the way he longed for her.
“Serena,” he whispered as he bent toward her. How he loved the sound of her name.
She turned, wide-eyed, but with acquiescence evident in the way she strained toward him.
He lowered his head, keeping his gaze locked to hers, anticipating the rush of her breath when she finally released it. Her lips were soft, hesitant and compliant, wanting to follow and learn. Her breath was sweet. It was heady, teaching such innocence.
He had not known such sweetness existed.
She seemed entirely willing to go where he led her. Her movements matching his, her hands sliding up his chest to rest on his shoulders. He groaned, eyes shut, splitting in half with desire and guilt, trying to hold on to the reasons they must stop.
He broke free from the kiss, but then, instead of backing away as he’d planned, his lips moved to pepper kisses along the side of her neck and throat. Her blouse didn’t have any
buttons . . . ah, the Quakers, maybe they had the right idea after all. He pulled the top bow slowly, unable to think beyond wanting to see more of her in the dusty sunlight.
Suddenly, she reared back, gasping, staring at him wide-eyed. “Thou mustn’t . . .
we
mustn’t!” She dragged in a long breath and stepped away from him. “Please, forgive me.”
Drake’s mind and body rolled with the turmoil so that he didn’t at first comprehend. Was she taking the blame? Shaking his head he looked at the floor. What a fool, trying to make love to a saint. He would burn in the abyss for certain now.
“No, Serena, it’s my fault. I beg your pardon.”
He looked up to see her reaction and caught his breath. She was just so beautiful. He had never seen her blush so thoroughly, but her eyes were steady and remained fixed on his. Such a mix of innocence and passion.
In a rush she turned them to another direction. “Art thou ready for thy button lesson?”
SERENA ESCAPED TO the workroom. With more energy than needed, she stoked the fire with the bellows until it roared, much like the turmoil within her. She took scraps of silver and placed them into the iron skillet and then into the heat of the forge. It was calming to focus on the beautiful silver, watching it become a puddle of liquid metal. It shimmered and shone in the light of the fire, showing all the shades of black and gray and white as it changed. It seemed a living thing and, as always, she was a little mesmerized by it.
She sensed Drake coming up behind her. “Is it not beautiful?”
Drake peered into the fire, a look of perplexity on his face. “I want it to be.”
She could feel his inner turmoil, the confused need to make everything fit. “Thou art not happy here.” It was a simple truth. She turned, searching his face. “Dost thou wish to be back home?”
He started to speak and then stopped, shook his head and looked into the fire. “You could not possibly understand. I am not the man you think me, Serena.”
“I may not understand, but I can try. I want to know—” she put her hand on her heart—“here. I do not know why, but I . . . feel thy anguish.”
“I certainly hope that is not true.”
His tone caused tears to well in her eyes. “Thou thinkest me foolish.”
Drake came to her and took both of her hands in his. “No. No . . . I think you are sweet and lovely and enchanting and . . . very innocent.”
She raised her chin and glared at him through her tears. “I’m not the saint thou thinkest I am.”
He smiled. She doubted even he realized how natural that condescending, patronizing smile was to him. How it made her want to shake her fist in his face. Instead, she reached up on tiptoe and touched her lips to his, wanting more from him, but somehow knowing it would only come this way.
“Not a saint, eh?” He smiled against her mouth, and she pulled back, cheeks aflame. She hadn’t gotten very far away before he caught her and gathered her up close into his arms, his lips claiming hers, the force of his will in the kiss.
She was swept away as before, but this time she felt the thoughts of right or wrong slipping, drowned in their heat. All her reasoning why she could not fall in love with him faded as she lost herself, floating on the sensation of his mouth against hers.
Minutes passed . . . exploring minutes . . . discovering minutes.
Time stood still, and yet it seemed so short when he pulled suddenly away and gasped out, “My God!”
These words were no curse. They were more a prayer.
Suddenly Drake laughed, and Serena’s spirit soared that she had caused him such joy as that sound carried. She had banished the ghosts in his eyes, if only for a little while. He smiled, and it was one Serena had not yet seen—pure and real—not meant to mean anything different than what it was.
“What magic you weave. You always pull me out of the darkness.”
A chill went down her spine. While she reveled in his words, she knew something was not as it should be. She could never be his savior. But how could she say so aloud? How could she break this spell that bound them, even with the truth?
She looked at her hands. “Shall we make buttons?”
“We should most assuredly make buttons.”
They turned back to the silver, and Serena saw that it had become a liquid puddle in the middle of the skillet, the impurities burned away. She focused on the task as she showed Drake how to fill the molds. “Thou madest them too full before, ’tis all.” She compared his earlier work with the perfect ones she’d made, setting them side by side on the worktable and leaning over them.
Looking up at him, a wisp of hair tickling her forehead, escaping her cap, she nodded toward the buttons.
“Thou hast done much greater things than this, I think. Thou mayest learn this art . . . but even if thou never does, I know thou art worthy . . . of so much.” She teared up, not able to keep her convictions buried in her heart where they belonged.
Drake exhaled, looked up to the ceiling of the shop and then back at her. “How did I find you?”
DRAKE DRANK IN her presence, his hand reaching toward her. Her body came flush with his chest, as if a mooring place. He breathed the scent of her hair. He reveled in the feel of her comfort. With her he no longer felt like a worthless man trying to do something he couldn’t. With her in his arms, anything was possible, even a happy life as a silversmith.
Her talent was obvious. He leaned toward her ear, clasping her close. “
You
should be your father’s apprentice. It is obvious you love this work.”
She reared back and smiled up at him. “Were I a man, there would be no question. As it is, I am not able to truly learn the trade, though I spend as much time here as I can. My father is lenient and suffers my company without complaint.”
“He would do better with your company. You are more suited to this work than I.”
“Is it terribly trying to learn? I know my father would not want thee apprenticed to something thou art not able to do.”
“I am not so confident of that,” he murmured. “I think your father has other lessons in mind for me. Besides, I have signed on for the next two years. It is a short term, I know.”
Serena shook her head with a breathtakingly sweet smile. “My father will take very good care of thee.”
“His motives are pure, of that I will agree. Now—” he peered over her shoulder at the molds—“have these hardened sufficiently to let them loose?”
Serena laughed, taking his hand and leading him to the table. “Never hurry the process, dear one. Let us remelt thy buttons and make spoons whilst we wait.”
He doubted she even realized she had used the endearment, but it warmed him like a blaze of light in this pit of darkness where he stood.
Serena. This serene woman. She made him feel . . .
Like he wasn’t alone anymore.
Chapter Ten
It was Sunday again and meeting time. Drake was never asked if he wanted to attend; it was assumed that he did—or at least, he supposed, that he would. And it
was
peaceful. He had adjusted to the long silences, had disciplined his body to sit still and straight on the hard wooden bench for exactly one hour. He was even intrigued by the softly spoken “testimonies” occasionally given. The words always had a ring of truth behind them that resonated with something inside him. But he didn’t understand some of the other aspects of their religion.
And most of all, no matter how welcoming they had been, he never felt like he belonged. He was too strong, too colorful against their plain quietness. Too old and too world-weary for their simple sweetness. He’d eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil too many times to go back and pretend a simplicity he didn’t feel. And yet he felt pursued—not by anyone he could see, but by a feeling that there was someone he couldn’t see in the quiet meeting room with them all. Someone who knew him, knew everything about him, and still wanted him.
Often at night, as he lay in his bed, when his body wasn’t so exhausted by the day’s work that he fell into an immediate sleep, he gave way to the cynicism over the ironic twist God or fate had dealt him. This world he now found himself in could not be more opposite to the one he’d known all his life. Yet it had so much to teach him. He wasn’t always sure what or exactly how . . . but he knew he was changing, like his old skin was being molted off and a new, more tender skin emerging. A skin that felt everything with keen awareness.
The only thing he knew with any certainty was that all his inner wrestling ceased when he was with Serena. With her, he was able to believe that life had meaning. With her, the haunting ghosts dissipated.
The meeting ended and Drake stood and stretched, much as the other men beside him. He had met many of these Quakers and had they been fighting men he would have welcomed any of them at his back, so completely loyal and honest they were. But they were not fighting men, would never raise arms for their country or their brother, which was another of the many mysteries he found himself thinking on.
Today a new fellow he had never seen before had joined them. Tall and lean, with straight white-blond hair that was long and combed back from a broad forehead. His piercing blue eyes had locked onto Drake’s upon meeting. Drake read both intelligence and a questioning assessment in them. Nodding to the man now, Drake turned and followed Josiah into the fellowship hall where they had their weekly pitch-in.
Serena’s laugh startled him, causing him to turn sharply. He had only heard her laugh like that with him, but there she stood, with the man he’d noticed, her hand on his sleeve in an old and familiar way.

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