Stormfire

by Christine Monson

  "Christ," he swore softly. "What are you doing?"

  "If you've seen a ballet, my lord, you're sophisticated enough to accept the necessity of light attire for freedom of movement." Moora's jaw dropped as Catherine stripped to camisole, petticoats, and pantalettes, briskly tied her hair up with a dress lacing, then addressed the goggling lord. "Do you happen to know Mozart's Concerto in G Major?" Vaguely, he nodded.

  Though quite warm, she went through a brief barre to limber her muscles, then nodded to him and began to move airily to the gentle opening passage. Soon her movements acquired quick, hummingbird precision, then again changed to a fluid, dipping, turning waltz, her bare toes pricking out the intricate designs of the more stylized phrases. With her arms taking on the liquid, soaring grace of a winging lark, her fleeting bourrees and piques en tournants skimmed the entire ballroom. Splitting darts seemed to hover breathlessly, impossibly, in space. Ronds de jambe en I'air followed quick, scissoring flicks of the feet. As the music slowed, the control necessary to the technically more difficult pace seemed unnoticeable. With flawless balance, she finished a pirouette en attitude with an extension into arabesque, petticoats falling in a gentle blur of white as she was silhouetted in a deepening penchie against the rain-streaked windows. Liam's fingers almost ceased to move as the living poetry of the dancer absorbed him like a cool, intense flame, blue white in the fading light, incandescent. He would have happily gone on forever, but Catherine sagged to the floor. He quickly went to her. "Are you all right?"

  Wet with perspiration, she looked up at him and panted, "Quite all right! Though I shall regret this in the morning . . . I feel like a wheezy grandame!" He helped her to her feet, and, despite her gasps, she gave him an impish look. "Are you still convinced, my lord, that ballet is a bloomer parade?"

  "You make me feel like a fool; less, an incompetent," he replied penitently. "I've never realized more keenly the limits of my art. When you ceased to move, it seemed my heart ceased to beat. Such elusiveness is sublime agony for me."

  Her mischief faded and she murmured softly, "Yet there is freedom in the loss." She turned to Moora, who sat tensely on' her gilt chair. "What do you think, Moora? Would you like to try?" The girl's eyes, already unaccountably strained, grew desperate and she looked past them at the door. Silently lounging against it with a faint, sardonic smile was Sean Culhane. Slowly, he straightened, turned, and strolled out of the room.

  When Catherine, out of breath and disheveled, entered the Rose Salon, the Irishman regarded her with the same mildly amused, slightly nasty look he had worn in the ballroom.

  "I'm sorry to be late. I lost track of the time," she babbled, hastily dropping into her chair like an errant schoolgirl. She gave her hair, stuck damply to her face, a quick wipe with her sleeve. She looked nothing like the exquisite dancer of moments before.

  "I'm sorry too. I'm hungry. Moora will be sorry too. She'll be up until all hours finishing her work. And Liam . . ." His smile grew a shade nastier. "Liam will be sorry too."

  Instantly, her hackles rose. "It wasn't his fault, or hers! I slipped in to play the pianoforte."

  "And here I thought Liam had radically improved. Tonight was the first time his Mozart didn't sound lead- fingered."

  "You heard him play, and very well, too. He adores music!"

  "And you think it would be nice if he were to adore you. I'm sorry, my pet, but you're already sufficiently appreciated by your current lover. You don't have to prance about in pantalettes to attract another."

  "You . . . hypocrite!" she stormed, stuttering in rage. "You pompous, uncultivated oaf!"

  "You conniving, derriere-waving little show-off!" he roared, his brows meeting in a black scowl.

  "What!" she choked, backing up in her seat.

  "Don't give me that innocent look!" he snarled. "What better way to wrap Liam about your finger than to play the ethereal nymph. He's slavering after you like a hound after a hart!"

  "My dancing was neither lewd nor unseemly! I was not trying to entice him!" Half sobbing, she began to fear he was right in judging his brother's reaction. "Why must you drag everything into the dirt!" As tears seeped from her eyes, Sean saw she had been genuinely unaware of Liam's infatuation. He sighed as she dissolved in tears and dropped her head on her arms.

  Finally he dunked his napkin into his water glass and went to her. Dropping on one knee beside her, he firmly clamped the wet, cold cloth on the back of her neck. She yelped and tried to wrench away. "Stay still. You've made enough of a mess." His voice was gruff, yet oddly gentle. Catherine stilled obediently, shoulders still shaking. Frowning at the hasty snarl of ribbon that missed several loops, Sean began to relace her dress.

  She became silent as he did her up, and when he finished, she said in a muffled voice, not looking up, "You think I behaved like a trollop, don't you?"

  He smiled crookedly. "Both trollop and angel, little one. I can hardly reproach another man's taste in women when it coincides with my own."

  "I don't want him to be in love with me," she sniffled.

  "Look at me, you soggy little witch," he ordered softly. She turned her head and warily peered at him. He offered her a dry napkin. "Who could fall in love with a woman with a runny nose? Blow." He pushed her hair gently out of her face, then returned to his own chair as a servant brought in dinner. When the man retired, Sean quizzically regarded his companion. "Do you have any idea of what you did this afternoon, not only to Liam, but to Moora?" She silently shook her head, her eyes two big, wet, shining stars. "For a lark, and out of a misplaced sense of philanthropy, you gave Moora a glimpse of a world entirely closed to her. You taught her scales—"

  "How long were you listening?" she demanded.

  "The acoustics in this house are peculiar. Sounds from the ballroom sire often audible in the study." He continued placidly as if she had not interrupted. "Will you teach her letters as well?"

  "Yes, why not?"

  "What about words? Like andante, allegro, pizzicato, fortissimo? You will, of course, have time to teach her to read?"

  "I'd like to try . . ."

  "And her court dancing? What will her gentlemanly escort say when she inquires if she danced 'good'? Will he supply her a wardrobe appropriate for her elevated status? What will he ask in return?"

  "You're distorting everything!"

  "And ballet. Where will she dance? The kitchen garden?"

  "She has far more ability than you imagine. And if she has talent for ballet, there's no reason she cannot go to Dublin—"

  "No reason? She's already eighteen. Ballerinas debut at sixteen. And she'll have to find a protector, for she hasn't a shilling. In Catholic Ireland, professional dancers and actresses are considered prostitutes, as she will doubtless become when she's too old to perform." He paused suspiciously. "Dammit, don't cry again!"

  "I'm not!" She glared at him mutinously, her eyes swimming. "You could send her to London."

  He snorted, "With what? Fond wishes and a benevolent smirk?"

  "That Botticelli alone over there would educate and train her ten times over! Theatrical performers have been respected in England for years."

  "Unlike backward Ireland?"

  "Yes! Why shouldn't something alive and beautiful come out of this slaughterhouse? God help you if you ever win your war, for you'll plant your flag of independence upon a heap of carrion!"

  He glowered so ferociously that in spite of her rebellious words, her lips trembled. She wilted, sagging disconsolately. "What's the use? I might as well bay at the moon."

  "Welcome to earth, Diana," Culhane murmured. She looked up, startled. "I may be as idiotic as you," he said slowly, "but I'll send the wench to Dublin. She can live with a friend of mine and be tutored. If she wants to go on the stage, that's up to her. I hope she has some modicum of talent. I'd hate to waste a Botticelli."

  With a whoop of joy, Catherine hurled upon him, nearly toppling his chair.

  "Wait, woman! I have a price."

  She dis
engaged as if she had found herself nose to nose with a wolf. "What is it?"

  "That you never again wheedle me with tears."

  "I didn't wheedle . . ." she began haughtily.

  He ignored her. "I cannot afford them. That last sparkler was prohibitive."

  "You really mean to send her, don't you?" she said softly.

  Sean felt his gut melt. "Aye, but I consider it a ridiculous notion. She'll probably end upon the streets . . ." His voice trailed away. He knew his need was naked in his eyes, but he was unable to shield it. At that moment Catherine seemed to be as truly fey as Merlin's Nimue, for he felt her kiss, yet she had come no nearer. Her face appeared to be lit by interior candlelight as she leaned toward him.

  "Sor!" An insistent knock at the door crashed across their senses.

  "What is it?" Sean asked hoarsely.

  "There's a message in yer study, sor. The signalman said ye'd be wantin' to know."

  Sean looked at his mistress a long moment. "I'm coming." He waved a hand to the untouched dinner. "You may as well eat now. There's no point in both of us starving." He gave her a wry smile and left.

  The message was brief. John Enderly had entered his daughter's stallion, Numidian, in a private race on the 15th of April. The horse, never publicly raced, had been privately run for a select group of Enderly's most influential friends, who intended to bet heavily on him as did the viscount himself. Apparently Enderly needed immediate cash, Sean mused as he scanned the note. He quickly jotted a return message.

  When he entered his room, Catherine was cozily sitting Indian fashion on his bed. Her black hair was loose to her waist, she wore one of his shirts to ward off the drafts. Her nose was buried in a book. She waggled a finger toward the commode. "I saved bread and cheese for you. A decanter of wine is on the desk."

  Sean descended on the folded napkin and grinned happily. Not only had she brought bread and cheese, but meat, fruit, pastries, and several chocolates. "Hardly ethereal fare, Diana," he mumbled between mouthfuls. "There's no substitute for a sensible goddess"—he cocked an eyebrow at her—"though domesticated ones are invariably fat."

  "If you prefer plump domesticity," she retorted without looking up, "perhaps you should invite Ellie to share your bed."

  He popped a chocolate into his mouth. "Even a backward Irishman has the sense to leave pork in the barn."

  "Sean?" Catherine looked up, blue eyes serious. "Have you ever heard of 'phlogiston'?"

  "Good God, are you reading chemistry?" Wandering over to the bed, he glanced at the book's flyleaf. His eyebrows rose slightly, but he made no comment other than, "This book is out-of-date. Have Flynn review and annotate the sections before you study them. You'll ruin your eyes by squinting in candlelight."

  "But that would be a bother to him. I can hardly ask him to take time . . ."

  He scoffed. "Flynn has all the time in the world, barring natural calamity."

  She regarded him thoughtfully. "He seems to be an excellent doctor. Why has he so few patients?"

  Sean leaned against the bedpost, enjoying his view of her.

  "Flynn is a good doctor. Too good. He had a flourishing practice until his wife died, then withdrew into books and became a fanatic about reforming rural medical practices; most of them still dispense a hash of midwifery and veterinary medicine. Unfortunately, fanatics are apt to lose their sense of humor. He alienated his colleagues and his patients. Other doctors began to decry his methods as heartless, dangerous experimentation. Gradually his patients left him, as did his three daughters." At Catherine's surprise, he grimaced. "I'm not surprised he didn't mention them; they're a vain, fleabrained lot. One is married to a doctor who defamed him, another to a nitpicking clerk. The youngest became a prostitute in Dublin; her sisters claim she has 'entered society.' " He grinned. "Actually, it's the other way around."

  "How could they behave so shabbily?" she protested in indignation. "He's the kindest man in the world!"

  He shrugged. "There was little love lost. Still, he gets by. I send him patients from Shelan. The Sisters of St. Therese in Donegal Town send him beggars and derelicts who flee as soon as they become either sober or well enough to realize where they are."

  Catherine's blue eyes acquired an ominous glint and the Irishman quickly straightened. "Oh, no you don't minx! No more taking forlorn chicks under your wing. Flynn is entirely able to look after himself; he won't thank you for meddling."

  She gave him an innocent look. "You overestimate my presumption."

  "Ha!"

  "And you still haven't answered my original question," she added sweetly. "Phlogiston?"

  "Doesn't exist," he replied briefly. "Lavoisier disproved its theory some fifteen years ago." He proceeded to describe the successful experiment that isolated oxygen.

  Her lips curved. "For a backward Irishman, you're informed on a surprising range of subjects. May I ask where you went to school?"

  Wondering how much to tell her, he did not answer for a long moment. "Eton," he said finally.

  Her eyes widened. "Good heavens, whatever for?"

  He smiled faintly. "To teach myself restraint." He began to strip off his shirt. "After two years, my restraint gave way; I killed a man."

  "In . . . self-defense?"

  He folded his shirt with chilling precision. "It was more of an execution."

  The book slipped from her fingers. She felt suddenly cold.

  "What's wrong?" His green eyes bored into hers.

  Forcing herself to meet them, she quietly replied, "I'm wondering when my turn comes."

  "You're so certain I mean to kill you?"

  "You killed Father's foresters without a second thought. I should imagine you're completely unemotional about executions."

  Culhane's hands went to his hips as his handsome face darkened. "Those foresters are as hale and hearty as you and I, if unemployed. The poor beasties you fretted over are happily dining on one another all around Holden."

  She stared at him. "But, why didn't you tell me? You let me think . . ."

  He scowled. "Did you ask? You prefer to think me a murderer." He dropped into his desk chair and impatiently yanked at his boots. "Treating me as a man would be too complicated."

  Moments later the Irishman looked up, wary, as Catherine slipped off the bed and snuffed all but the candles on the bedside table, dimming the room until the two of them were enclosed in a pool of light. Eyes uncertain, she fumbled at her shirt buttons.

  Sean's heart began to thud painfully. He rose slowly to his feet as if drugged. "Kit . . ."

  As the last button came undone, the shirt fell open and she slipped it from her shoulders. When the Irishman made no movement, she approached him, but so slowly she seemed to fear some terrible precipice would open under her bare feet. Her hair, falling in a dark cloud to her waist, drew his hungering gaze from softly curving breasts to the slow Swell of her hips. Then she was within his grasp, but still he remained immobile. Her breasts slid against his bare chest; her breathing quickened to match his own. When she shyly offered her lips, her eyes dark as starlit tropic seas, Sean lost his private war. He pulled her roughly against his hard-muscled length and his mouth came down on hers as if starved for its warmth, lips slanting across their softness. His fingers caught in the silk of her hair, dragging her head back. Unnerved by the brute force of his desire, she moaned like a trapped animal.

  Hearing her defenseless whimper, he groaned and thrust her away so desperately she stumbled and barely caught herself against the bedpost. She shrank against the post as he stared tensely at her nakedness. "Don't," he said hoarsely. "Don't come to me like this."

  "I thought you wanted me," she whispered, almost sobbing with humiliation and confusion.

  "Christ," he cried. "Not like this! Not for a favor! For a price, I can have a slut from a gutter!" She flinched away as if he had struck her, and his voice lowered. "You try me sorely, girl." Then he went on more softly still. "Don't you think I realize you're still afraid? But if you'd
suddenly fought me, I'd have raped you! I'm sick to my soul of taking you by force, but I'll be damned before I settle for a placebo! Moora be damned! Your father be damned! And damn you for the most tender cheat it's been my ill fortune to want." His shoulders sagged, then he jerked his head toward his armoire. "Take my robe and go out onto the terrace to cool your injured pride. Don't worry, the rain has let up."

  Silently, Catherine obeyed, her mind numbed. Hugging the robe about her shoulders, she stood under the sullen sky watching clouds shift across the moon. Culhane was right; the chill night air was like a ducking in ice water. She had been deluded by misplaced gratitude and sympathy, she warned herself with deliberate harshness. He was, after all, no more than her jailer. If he had persuaded himself to check his lust in hopes of rich response, that was his concern. He was nothing to her.

  Her bare toes curled in complaint against the chilly , stone flagging and she turned to go inside, then halted ih shock, fascination, and pity. Sean Culhane lay naked on the bed, his lean, powerful body arching as one hand wrenched at his sex. He thrust desperately against his hand, his face twisted in mysterious, age-old agony, his bronzed hide gleaming with sweat in the candlelight. Suddenly he groaned and his hips strained in a final spasm as his seed spurted into emptiness and fell across his thighs and belly. The taut muscles relaxed and he lay spent and still. His black lashes flickered; slowly he looked into the eyes of the silent girl by the door and felt her pity like a blow. His lips twisted. "Where's your disgust, Diana? The act is crudely known as self-abuse." He watched her, green eyes hard. "Well? Have you lost your tongue? Have you no barbs of condemnation to sink into my degenerate flesh?"

  "Don't you think your own self-laceration is sufficient?" she said quietly. "Is that why you strike at others? Because you demand of yourself more pain than you can bear?"

  Culhane swore at her, sat up, and syrung his legs over the side of the bed. Deliberately, he paraded his nakedness as he went to the commode and seized a towel. Slowly wiping his belly and loins, he surveyed her insolently. "You're a fool," he sneered, "and that bucolic state has little to do with your lack of experience."