Prince of Magic

by Anne Stuart

  “That’s what you told me . . .” Her voice disappeared in a squeak when he reached out and cupped her face, pushing her damp hair away from it. He frowned, staring down at her.

  “You’ve hurt yourself,” he said, touching her bruised cheek with infinite gentleness.

  “I fell.” There was no way she could escape from him—the door was at her back, and he was blocking her.

  His hands were as gentle on her as they’d been rough before. “I wish you hadn’t followed me,” he said in a soft voice.

  “I hate you.”

  “No, you don’t.” There was soft certainty in his voice. “Why do you think I want to drive you away from here?”

  “Because I’m an annoying inconvenience.”

  His beautiful mouth quirked up in a smile. “That, too,” he said. “But first and foremost I wanted to get you safely back home. This is a dangerous place—Francis Chilton is quite mad, and there’s no telling what kind of foul things he has planned. I can count on Peter to keep Jane safe, but I wanted you gone so I wouldn’t have to worry about you.”

  “I’m not your responsibility.”

  “You are,” he said flatly. “Whether I like it or not, you matter to me.”

  She didn’t want to hear this. She didn’t want his hands stroking her face. She didn’t want him standing so close, when her knees were weak, and her brain was weak, and she wanted wicked, sinful things.

  “No,” she said, but he went on, inexorable.

  “There’s another reason I want to drive you away, an even stronger reason. Don’t you want to know why?”

  “No.”

  “Because you reach inside my soul and make me want to care. Because I could fall in love with you, and I don’t believe in love. Because you’ve thrown everything I’ve wanted and everything I believe into such a mess that I don’t know my arse from my head, and all I can think about is you.”

  She didn’t move, frozen. It was everything she wanted. It was nothing at all. His thumb grazed her mouth, and she wanted to kiss him, her lips trembling with the effort to keep them still.

  “You’re soaked,” he said, reaching up to unfasten the buttons at her throat. “You need to get out of these wet things.”

  “No,” she said again, sounding less certain.

  He ignored her, and she couldn’t bring herself to stop him. She kept her hands by her side, unable to move.

  “I’m going to make love to you,” he said in a calm, detached voice. “You know that, don’t you? It’s been taken out of my hands. Tomorrow night is Beltane, and if you’re not a virgin, you won’t be any use to them. It’s the least I can do,” he said lightly, pushing the dress from her shoulders.

  “Good of you,” she whispered, “but such a sacrifice is unnecessary.”

  He kissed her collarbone as he exposed it, and she trembled. He kissed the base of her throat, the swell of her breasts above the thin chemise. “The ghosts won’t let us out until I do,” he murmured against her skin.

  “Will they watch?” Her voice was strangled, as his hands unfastened her corset with a deftness no man should possess.

  She could feel him smile against her skin. “They’re holy men,” he said. “They’ll leave us to get on with things.”

  “I won’t . . .” she said, as her gown tumbled to the floor at her wet, bare feet.

  “You will,” he said, and he scooped her up in his arms, holding her against the hot, sleek hide of him as he carried her across the room to the bed.

  He set her down with infinite care, settling her against the furs and velvets, and for a moment she lay still, quiet, waiting. Her father’s sermons echoed in her head, and Old Peg’s warnings as well. The Dark Man stood over her, watching her, and he would take her soul.

  And she would give it, gladly.

  “Do I need to tie you to the bed?” he asked her.

  “Do you want to?”

  He laughed. “Not this time. Maybe later.”

  “Later?” He was tying his long hair back with a leather thong, for all the world as if he were a man about to get down to serious business. Which she supposed he in fact was.

  She wasn’t going to fight him. He was much stronger than she was, and it was a fight he would surely win. He wouldn›t force her, but then, as he’d said, he wouldn›t need to. If she didn›t put up a fuss, maybe he›d just do a cursory job, and her heart wouldn›t be ripped in piece, only in two.

  He knelt on the bed, straddling her, reaching for the hem of her shift. She immediately caught it, holding it down. “Do I have to take this off?”

  “Yes, you have to take it off,” he mimicked her.

  She bit her lip, lay back, and closed her eyes—prepared to endure.

  She quivered when she felt the warm night air touch her skin. Or maybe it was the heat of his gaze. She couldn’t be sure. She’d have to open her eyes to find out, and she wasn’t about to do that. She was going to lie there, still and quiet, and let him do the inevitable, because there was no way out and because she wanted him to. But that didn’t mean she was going to participate.

  He picked up one of her limp hands and placed it on his stomach, on his hot, smooth skin. He rubbed it across his chest, over his stomach, her fingers drinking in the sleek, smooth texture of him, and then he moved her hand down, to the rigid column of flesh beneath the soft material of his breeches.

  She jerked her eyes open in outrage, trying to pull her hand away, but his grip was tighter than she realized, and a faint, triumphant smile lit his dark face as he held her there against that part of him.

  “This is a two-person activity, Lizzie. You’re not going to lie back and sleep through it.” He moved her hand up and down against that hard flesh, and it seemed to grow even larger and harder beneath her hand. “When we’re finished there won’t be a part of your body I haven’t touched. There won’t be a part of me you won’t know as well, or be afraid of. When we’re finished . . .” he paused, looking down at her, his voice raw. “Hell, I don’t think we’ll ever be finished.”

  She could think of only one way to stop him, when she didn’t want him to stop. Her eyes looked up into his. “I’m in love with you,” she said, shocked at the words she hadn’t even dared speak to herself. “If you do this, you’ll never be rid of me.

  “I know,” he said. “I know.” And he leaned forward and kissed her mouth with such tenderness that she wanted to weep.

  His mouth was cool, wet against hers, a shock of teeth and lips and beard stubble. He cradled her face as he kissed her, his long fingers stroking her, holding her, as he set his mouth against hers, wooing, teasing, tasting, taking. He seemed in no hurry to do anything but kiss her, and she slid her arms around his waist as he covered her, kissing him back, her tongue sliding against his in clumsy need.

  He kissed her ears. He kissed her elbows, his mouth an instrument of delight and torture. When he put his head to her breast and sucked at her nipple, hard, she jerked in shocked pleasure, hot and wet and burning in places she tried not to think about.

  She reached up and cradled his head against her, threading her fingers through his long hair, pulling it free of the leather thong and letting it fall around them like a curtain of silk. She moaned in protest when his mouth left her breast, but he cupped her with his hands, his fingers deftly squeezing her hard nipples. She felt a strange little shock go through her, and she cried out in surprise.

  She heard him laugh, a sound of pure, masculine satisfaction, and she wondered vaguely what had pleased him so. He pressed a kiss against her mouth once more, and then, before she realized what he was doing, he›d slid down her body and put his mouth between her legs.

  All rational thought vanished. It didn’t matter that what he was doing was dark, wicked, perverse. He cradled her hips with his hands and used his tongue,
his mouth, his teeth on her most private parts, claiming her in ways she’d never even imagined, and she was past shame and denial in a dark forest of hot, wet need.

  This time the strange shock was stronger, and she jerked against the bed, but he held her still, and he kept on, until she couldn’t breathe. The forest closed around her. Her body arched off the bed in a powerful convulsion, and she cried out.

  He moved over her then, between her legs, pressing against her, his hard male flesh resting against her tenderness, invader against fragility, heat and strength against hot, damp need. He caught her legs and pulled them around his hips, and the shock as he pushed inside her was a strange, needy, frightening sensation.

  She whimpered, but he covered her mouth with his, and pushed deeper, slowly, slowly, but she was so wet there was little resistance, until he stopped, holding himself perfectly still, rigid.

  She could feel the tension rocketing through his body as he fought to control himself. He lifted his head, and his beautiful face was convulsed in a grimace of desperate control. Her fear vanished, and she needed him, all of him. Now.

  She slid her hands around his sweat-slick waist to his flat buttocks, arching against him. “Yes,” she whispered finally. “Please.”

  The pain was fierce, fast, fleeting, and then he filled her, pushing her hard against the mattress as he took her, and she cried out in mingled grief and joy.

  He kissed her then, soft, hurried kisses of comfort and need, and after a moment she kissed him back, ignoring the pain, her mouth clinging to his. It was wonderful and terrible, a strange maelstrom of sensations, as he began to move then. He pulled away from her, and she panicked, afraid he would leave her, that she›d done something wrong, but then he thrust inside her again, filling her, and the pleasure of it devoured the last of her pain. She caught the rhythm of it, lost in a mindless haze of pleasure as he pushed deep inside the very heart of her.

  She felt lost, beyond all rational thought, his tongue in her mouth, his body tight in hers, rocking with a slow, deliberate rhythm that made her want to scream, want to claw and beg and weep.

  She wanted more, needed more, but she had no idea what that need was, only that he could give it to her, that he could touch her as no other man ever could, and he was withholding, waiting for her.

  «Christ,» he whispered hoarsely. «It shouldn›t feel this good.»

  Somehow she managed to find her voice. «It shouldn›t?»

  How strange, that they were talking, even as he moved inside her, shallow and deep, driving her into a state of madness. Her eyes had been closed, but she managed to open them, and the expression on his face was one she›d never seen. One of wonder.

  «No, it shouldn›t,» he said, but he didn›t sound happy about it. Before she could say anything, he covered his mouth with hers again, moving faster, and she was swept along with him, clinging to his sweat damp body, her own skin wet against his in the heat of their lovemaking. She felt the fear come again, from that dark place she didn›t understand, and she wanted to beg him to stop, but no words would come, only please and Gabriel and yes.

  He slid his hand between the bodies, touching her, at the very moment he slammed in deep. “Now,” he said in a tight voice, and Lizzie shattered, the darkness closing around her, as he thrust deep, holding still, rigid, trembling in her arms as she felt his essence flood her, and she convulsed, lost in the midnight blackness.

  It lasted forever, and not long enough. He collapsed against her, his breathing labored, and for a moment she was afraid she was dead. It had felt like death, like a glorious sort of death, and she tried to lift her arms, to put them around him, but she had no strength.

  He rolled over on his back, bringing her with him, still buried deep inside her, his hands clamped to her hips, keeping her still, draped over him. His heart was pounding—so was hers. She wasn’t dead. She should get up, move, say something.

  But she had no strength to push away from him, and no real desire to do so. She simply sprawled across his body and slept.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  SHE LAY CURLED up on top of him, smooth and sleek and utterly exhausted. He couldn’t keep himself from stroking the soft skin of her back, even though he didn’t want to wake her. God knows she hadn’t had much sleep, and very few people could get by with as little as he could. Particularly after a night like that.

  He was hard again, which astonished him. He was like a seventeen-year-old boy, in a constant state of heat, and the more he had of her the more he wanted. He’d kept waking her, arousing her, unable to stop himself, and each time she’d given herself to him completely. He let his fingers play across her skin, forcing himself to let her be—she had to be sore and aching after such a night, and he’d put her through too much as it was. But he couldn’t rid himself of the fear that tonight would be their only night.

  It was no longer night and hadn’t been for a long while. A fitful sunlight was streaming through the narrow window slits, and he imagined it was close to midmorning. Was Jane in a panic, having discovered them missing? Or would Peter jump to the obvious conclusion and set her mind at ease?

  The tower door was ajar. He didn’t know when during the long night it had swung open silently on its massive hinges, and he didn’t particularly care. Once he’d accepted the fact that he was going to have her, nothing could have stopped him. Nothing except Lizzie.

  “Yes,” she’d said in his ear. “Yes,” against his lips. “Yes,” when she took him in her mouth.

  He stifled his instinctive groan. He wasn’t going to take her again. He’d sworn to himself he’d let her have some peace, but her touch, the soft weight of her body draped across his, the even cadence of her breathing was driving him insane.

  He was able to slide from underneath her without waking her. She was so exhausted she could probably sleep for days, he thought, climbing out of bed and stretching with a slow, luxurious stretch.

  He realized he had a stupid, idiotic grin on his face, like some damned monkey. He tried to wipe it off, but it just stuck there. He felt ridiculous—he was half tempted to slam his hand against the stone wall just to stop his stupid smile.

  He looked back at Lizzie, sprawled gracefully in his bed, her flame red hair wrapped around her pale body. He frowned when he saw the bruise on her face, the one that had come when she’d tripped, running out into the rain after him. He felt guilty about that. But not in the slightest bit guilty about the marks on her body that he’d left during their endless night. Any more than she should feel guilty about the bite mark on his shoulder that she’d inflicted without knowing.

  He had to stop thinking about it. About her. He moved to the window. The rain had stopped, but the sky was gloomy and overcast, an ugly, sullen day for the first of May. He could always pray for rain. A steady downpour would ruin Francis’s little celebration quite nicely.

  But he couldn’t count on that. He needed to find Peter, to make sure he kept Jane safe. He’d been muttering something extremely stupid about marrying one of the Twickham girls, but this morning should have brought common sense along with a blinding headache.

  Lizzie would be fine right where she was, and she probably wouldn’t awaken for hours. He had time to make sure Jane was protected, and then get back to her. He wasn’t certain what he could do about Francis’s bizarre plans, but he could deal with that later. There’d be no fires until night—he had time to come up with a way to stop Francis if he needed stopping.

  There were no signs of the ghostly matchmakers when he stepped outside the tower. From a distance he could hear the faint sound of birds, and he felt suddenly hopeful. It had been too long since he’d heard the sounds of animals in these woods. Francis and his little tricks had frightened them into hiding.

  But some of them were becoming brave enough to emerge. It was a good sign.

  JANE WALKED SLOWLY along the r
oad, her head down, her shawl wrapped tightly around her tall body. She heard the carriage in the distance, and for a moment she considered diving into the underbrush, hiding while whoever it was drove past. She couldn’t bear to face one more person on the darkest day of her life.

  Odd, May Day was supposed to be bright and sunny, full of the joy of spring and new life. Today her life, or at least any hope of happiness, had officially ended.

  She glanced over her shoulder on the off chance that she could still manage to hide. She didn’t recognize the carriage—it was a large, closed one, without any identifying crest or pattern. She had no idea whether the coachman had spied her trudging up the narrow road or not, and she didn’t care. Without hesitation she slipped into the woods, sliding down a shallow embankment and ending up against a stand of saplings. It was dark and quiet there, blessedly peaceful, and no one would see as she wept.

  It hadn’t begun that badly. She’d woken up early and immediately gone to the stables to see Penelope and her foal, both of them looking strong and healthy. She cursed herself for the slight pang it gave her, watching the mare’s maternal love. Jane had wanted babies of her own for so long it had almost ceased to hurt. But she didn’t want just any babies. She wanted Peter’s.

  “You shouldn’t be here, Miss,” he’d said, coming up out of nowhere. She turned with a welcoming smile on her face, one that quickly died once she looked at him. He looked sick, pale and sweating, and angry.

  “Are you all right, Peter? You look ill.”

  “I’m fine, Miss. Don’t trouble yourself about the likes of me,” he said, and his Yorkshire accent was very broad, surprisingly so. “I’ll take care of the horses, and you take care of yourself. You should be getting back to the house, now.”

  “But, Peter . . .”

  “You’re to wish me happy,” he said abruptly, in that strange, angry voice. “I’m to be married.”