Uncertain Magic (56 page)

Roddy obeyed him, finding her cheek pressed hard against a solid chest. His arms were around her, his breath blew harsh against her ear and throat and temple, his lips seeking, defining, as if by brute contact he could hold her and make her real.

She turned her face into his body. She could not look at him. It was still too new, this clear touch of her husband's mind. Still too raw. To know the way he wanted her—spur to his memory, the force that had battered down the wall…

There had been no skill in that, none of Fionn's elegance or Senach's wisdom. If Roddy was one of them, she was sadly lacking in their mystic grace.

But she had done it.

He was open to her now.

Tentatively, she lifted her eyes. His hands sought her cheeks and helped her—forced her—until she looked directly up at him.

The intensity hurt. It made her throat ache. The fortress of pride and defiance lay in ruins. He was not the Devil Earl—he was only a man, and he needed her. Wanted her. Let her look at him and see his soul laid bare and still loved her, with a fierceness that made her want to laugh and cry at once. The way he saw her… she never would have guessed: her strangeness he thought beautiful; her obstinance he called courage; her childish whims were joy and laughter to him, who had never known innocent laughter before.

Wind and mist gathered, made a voice that murmured, "Is this your choice, then, little sister?"

Roddy turned her face, still leaning in Faelan's arms. Fionn sat the brown steed with her long hair mingling in its silver mane. There was a sadness about her bright figure, a gentle dimming of her light.

"Fionn," Roddy whispered.

"Shall we let you stay?"

Roddy felt her husband's body, firm and real against her. She bowed her head and said, "Yes."

"It is not a gift. There is a price."

"What price?" Faelan's voice was gruff, his hands tightening around Roddy in suspicion.

Fionn looked at him. "My friend, it matters not to you what price. For you there is a debt, not a payment." She gestured toward the dowager countess, still huddled in blank misery on the steps between them. "Tell me that first, then—how is justice to be done?"

"I care nothing for your justice," he said harshly. "Leave my mother be."

Fionn smiled, heartless and sly and shining. "A fit punishment. As she is, so she will be. A frightened child for her lifetime."

"Curse you—"

"Do not curse me, Faelan Savigar. We stand fair and even now."

Roddy felt him take a deep breath, but he held back the oath that blossomed in his throat.

Fionn said softly, "Lassar, little sister—have you guessed the price of staying?"

Roddy nodded and blinked, seeing only a shimmer of light through sudden tears. "You'll not come back," she whispered. "I'll not see you again."

"Does that trouble you most?" One of last summer's leaves skirled across the ancient steps. "You give up other things as well."

Roddy shook her head. She could not speak. No farewell would come through the ache in her throat.

Wistful laughter blew on the failing breeze. "You will not see me, little sister. But perhaps I will be there."

"Fionn," she said brokenly.

"Is it what you wish for…" Fionn's voice was fading. "Do you give back all our gifts?"

Faelan's grip shifted and found Roddy's hands, closing hard, a silent plea. But she knew the answer. She had always known it. She twined her fingers gladly with his, choosing Faelan, choosing love, over any other magic. "Yes," she whispered.

" 'Tis done. The gifts returned." Sunlight broke through the vanishing clouds, making transparency of Fionn's lithe figure. Then suddenly she smiled, still mischievous even in her passing. "I leave you—with one more."

Roddy opened her mouth to speak. But farewell was too late. Fionn was already gone. A gust of wind took the flowers, lifting bright petals in a whirling cloud that made MacLassar sneeze and Senach shake his weathered head, and streamed like snow across the dowager countess in her huddled place on the stairs.

The white mist drifted out across the wild hills and the empty fields and the fire-blackened pastures. It spread down to the sea and up to the mountains and over all that Roddy could see of Iveragh.

And wherever the mist settled, its radiance sparked and then faded, and the land turned to living green.

"LAURA KINSALE CONTINUES

TO AMAZE AND ASTONISH US."

Romantic Times

Dedicated to the raising of her family's prize thoroughbreds, Roderica Delamore is resigned to living without love—for she is cursed with the ability to hear what those around her are thinking. But one man's thoughts are miraculously closed to her: Faelan Savigar, the Earl of Iveragh, a mysterious Irish rogue whom Roderica has been waiting for her whole life.

They call him "the Devil Earl," an enigmatic impoverished lord, damned by dark rumor and innuendo. But be he liar, swindler, or worse, it is Faelan's secrets that stir Roderica's desires.

And to know the intoxicating ecstasy of his kiss, she will trust the handsome stranger with her life… and her heart.

New York Times
Bestselling Author

LAURA KINSALE

"A TRUE STORYTELLER, LAURA KINSALE HAS

MANAGED TO BREAK ALL THE RULES OF STANDARD

ROMANCE WRITING AND COME AWAY SHINING."

San Diego Union-Tribune

"NO ONE-REPEAT, NO ONE—

WRITES HISTORICAL ROMANCE BETTER."

Mary Jo Putney

ISBN 0-380-75140-2