ROOK AND RAVEN: The Celtic Kingdom Trilogy Book One

by Julie Harvey Delcourt

  Tonight in her dressing room had proven the fires still raged in her, they just had been dormant. Unfortunately for her, they seemed to ignite for only one man. The one man she truly could not and would not have in her life, the one man who could finally destroy her if she let him close again. She could not survive that kind of pain twice. The idea of letting him get close and then up and disappearing again was enough to make her feel sick. She unconsciously pressed a hand to her stomach.

  The carriage slowed to a stop and the doorman assisted her down. Bridge House was an imposing and elegant resident, bricked and colonnaded with tall windows. Lights glowed into the night and the sound of laughter and the rattle of dice in cups and music greeted her as the doorman took her cloak. It was crowded tonight and the noise, the press of people, the smell of perfume, tobacco and the arrangements of flowers that decorated the low tables assailed her senses. It was elegant and yet unmistakably raffish. Gowns were cut a bit lower, eyes glittered behind silken and velvet masks, smiles were slyer and easier, bodies stood closer to each other with an understood sense of intimacy.

  “Good evening Madam,” a lightly accented French voice addressed her.

  “Your usual drink?”

  She turned and smiled at the slender man who spoke. “Yes indeed Jean-

  Claude, and show me the way to my friends.” She didn’t need to state names, this discreet man knew all the associations and workings of those who came to this house. The fact she had a ‘usual’ drink here should tell her it was time to cut herself off from this venue.

  “Madam, I believe they are in the blue parlor enjoying a little presentation.”

  Presentation? She wondered. What this time? It was not unusual to be offered entertainment for those not playing dice or cards, but the blue parlor was the most private of the salons. She had never been in there before.

  “I believe it is Lord M-‘s birthday and his friends have arranged a little private entertainment,” Jean-Claude elaborated having seen the questioning look on her face. Jean-Claude was always a bit starchy and quiet as befitted his position but something in his tone indicated a reluctance. He hadn’t moved to escort her there.

  “Well lead the way monsieur before I am more than just fashionably late,” her lips curved below the black mask.

  “As you wish,” and he led her on through to the back of the house.

  The wound their way through the press of bodies, heads turning at their passing. Jessy took the glass that appeared in front of her as the door to the Blue Parlor was opened. She took a sip of her favorite wine and then very nearly spit it out. What met her eyes as the door of the blue parlor closed on her shocked even her theater jaded sensibilities.

  Within a circle of sumptuously dressed masked figures, two women, completely unclothed, were engaged in a rather grotesque acrobatic that at first made no sense to her wondering eyes. When she finally followed the pattern of limbs and heads she could feel herself turn green and then flush with mortification. She was not even aware of the door opening behind her until firm hands took her by the shoulders and promptly dragged her from the room.

  Without even a chance to turn around she found herself spirited through another door and into a small empty room where a fire blazed in a marble hearth. She whipped about the moment the hands released their pressure not certain if she had been rescued by a friend or was about to confront an importunate male with nefarious plans. What she saw was Sebastian.

  Her mouth gaped open rather comically and before she could even form a word she found herself being roughly shaken.

  “What the bloody hell do you think you are doing? Is this the kind of company you keep? The way you preserve that precious reputation of yours? This is the last place beside an out and out brothel I would have expected to find you after everything David told me.” His face was pale with fury and the glitter in his eyes was more than a little unsettling. She needed some composure and she needed it now. But two shocks in a row were her undoing. And what the hell (she couldn’t help the unladylike word popping into her head) had David told him? Nerves, anger and embarrassment came out in a violent torrent of words she couldn’t stop.

  “Well I see you here! Isn’t what’s good for the goose also good for the gander my lord? Why the sudden concern for my reputation? Aren’t you the one who this very evening offered to make me your whore? Certainly this place is too tame for you. Shouldn’t you be the one at a brothel?” And she instantly knew she had gone too far. Long strong fingers bit into her shoulders and she knew she would have marks there come tomorrow.

  “What am I doing here you ask? Attempting to save your much vaunted reputation. I thought maybe you didn’t realize where you were going, but after seeing how that eunuch of a French major domo treated you, you are a regular. Much thanks I get for rescuing you from that filth. I suppose I should just return you to the show.” He sneered.

  “Oh don’t be an idiot. That look has never worked on me,” she tossed out. “Of course I don’t want to see that dreadfully ridiculous show. I have never seen anything like that here before. I would have turned around and walked out myself if I hadn’t been so shocked. It’s that fool Lord Marsh. He has the tastes and inclinations of a fourteen year old boy.” She set the wine glass in her hand down with a snap after having taken a good sized gulp of it.

  “What are you doing here Sebastian? And playing knight errant to,” she laughed with a slight sneer of her own. “I would have imagined that while that show wasn’t to my tastes it might be right up your line. Even cut off one has heard things from Celtica over the last years. Your reputation has proceeded you home.”

  “I’ll let the last bit pass other than to say I have never, not since I was fourteen anyway, been that tasteless or juvenile. I am here because of you. I saw you leave the ball after Tamworth and wanted to talk to you. I asked a footman where you were headed and could barely believe his answer. You need a chaperone now and always did. You don’t have any more sense now then you did at sixteen. I don’t know how you have managed in London at all.”

  “Is it any of your business where I go or what I do? You think you can just show back up all these years later and start following me about? Dictating who I have for friends and how I spend my time? Would it be inappropriate for me to be here if I had taken you up on your offer earlier? I think I recognized plenty of mistresses out there this evening. Don’t I fit right in?” She tossed her head and provocatively cocked one hip as she slipped the domino aside with one slim hand. She’d been on the edge of snapping all evening, since seeing him sitting in that box in the theater, and now it was expressing itself in a rage. How dare he? How dare he act like he had a right to tell her how to do anything at all?

  Sebastian eyed her uneasily. It had seemed the right and proper thing to do to follow her, protect her from herself if he had to, but he had forgotten how formidable she was in a temper. If she didn’t get it under control they would make a more obvious scene than the one playing out in that private room. It didn’t help she had just thrown down a gauntlet he was more than tempted to pick up. God she was beautiful in a temper. She was also as noisy as he remembered. Maybe the two of them weren’t so changed after all.

  “Are you just going to stand there like a block of wood? You’ve propositioned me, followed me, manhandled me and insulted my intelligence all in one evening and you have nothing to say for yourself? Seven years! Seven! You waltz back into my life and cause me nothing but grief! I have my own life now and I’d advise you to stay out of it. I’ll live it the way I want to without your interference.” She nearly shouted, her eyes sparking green lightening.

  “What Jessy, leave you to muck up what bits I didn’t ruin? I don’t know entirely what is going on with you, but this is not the way to live your life.”

  It was too much; having him back here in London, involving himself in her life. She felt on the edge of tears and something that made her even angrier. She wanted nothing more than to throw herself into his arms, even
more than she wanted to punch him in the nose. It scared her to the marrow. It didn’t help that he was right either. On this course she was going to muck up the life she had built.

  She swung around to leave, but his words stopped her.

  “I’ve made enormous mistakes Jessy. I want to make it right.”

  For a moment she couldn’t breathe, the despair and anger threatened to totally swamp her.

  “You have no idea what it would take to make it right Sebastian. Just please leave me alone. I’ve taken care of myself just fine all these years and will continue to manage without you!”

  “What if I say I can’t? There was a lot I didn’t know, but I’d wager there’s a lot you don’t and didn’t know about me either. I need a chance to explain,” he didn’t know yet what that meant since he couldn’t be entirely truthful with her but, maybe at least he could convince Jessy he hadn’t wanted to leave her.

  “I know you for selfish, I know you for weak and I know you for cruel. What more do I need to know?” And with that she turned once more to leave but a hand reached out and swung her about.

  “Know this,” he said as he captured her against him. The world went dark as his tall body shut out the candle and firelight. She was engulfed in darkness and then she drowned. His scent, his taste, his strength surrounded her and flooded her. It was a complete assault and one she could not fight against. She could never fight him this way, not with her body or her heart. Only her head knew she must, but her body would not obey. The pleasure of that long and clever mouth against hers and the feel of the strong, warm hands through the silk of her gown set her blood bubbling like champagne about to burst from its bottle. His hands had easily slipped their way beneath the domino.

  She smelled and tasted no different and the heady scent, not of perfume but of her, set him reeling. Her name whispered over and over in his mind.

  Her skin, so fair and delicate radiated enough heat to burn and he wanted to devour her, lose himself in her. The black mask was ridiculously sexy and made her eyes glitter emerald and mysterious through the cat eye shaped slits. His lips trailed down the sweet curve of her neck as he gathered her even closer, one hand burying itself in her hair. He vaguely heard her hair pins as they fell to the carpet. That lovely length of red gold silk fell across his arm, warm and heavy. His lips found the pulse throbbing in her throat, beating as wildly as the wings of a small bird.

  They arched even closer and she felt him lift her slightly as his lips once more found hers. One strong thigh slid between her legs, easily gliding against the thin silk. She shamelessly wanted to rub herself against him, against the need that hadn’t built, but rather roared to life within her. His tongue plundered and danced with her own, the rhythm so familiar and so effortless. Her arms twined about him, desperate fingers dragging through his thick black hair. How she had missed this, needed this. Here was the hollow place she couldn’t fill with masques and card parties, with callow flirtations, or good and solid men of worth. She knew herself doomed even as her heart whispered yes, yes in answer to the hands and lips that demanded more. She wanted to give more and she hungrily wanted to take more.

  They tumbled to the soft couch by the fire and touch grew even more frantic. She felt the glow of the fire against her closed eyelids, turning all to a rich red. The flames and his lips left a scorching trail across her now bare shoulders as the domino had fallen to the floor. Warm hands moved across the silk covering her breasts and her entire body sang out in response, every inch of skin tightening, her breast seeming to swell against his touch. Her hands couldn’t touch enough of him.

  Her dress had ridden up across his lap as they had fallen and Sebastian felt the smooth length of her leg above the thin silk of her stockings. Every sensation heightened so intensely for him it was an agony and an ecstasy of pleasure. It had never been quite like this with anyone else. No other woman had this power to inflame him, to so completely overwhelm every sense until nothing and no one else existed. She was the heart of the sun and he felt a powerful surge of pure joy that she had not been extinguished. She was a ray of light that pulsed between his hands. His ray of light. He’d be damned if another man, even Tamworth, would have her. Mine the word growled silently through him, as intent and territorial as a tiger.

  “Ah Jess,” his rich voice murmured and the sound of her name on those lips in this situation had the power to cut right through her haze of desire. It was real what she was doing, what she was allowing to happen. God in heaven she was insane. She opened her eyes to see her pale hands stroking his chest and had no memory of getting his shirt unbuttoned. This couldn’t happen for so many reasons. It had to stop. She had no right to indulge herself this way and he certainly had earned no right to have her. It didn’t matter how much she wanted him or needed him she wasn’t going to have him; was she? No, no, no she couldn’t even think it was open to question.

  She wrenched herself away on a gasp. Stumbling away she leaned on a small table to support herself, her heart kicking like a wild horse. She struggled to control herself and shakily bent to retrieve her hair pins.

  “Jessy,” that dark voice said softly.

  “No, no I-I can’t,” she would not look at him.

  “Look at me Jessy.”

  She slowly turned and found herself nearly lost again in those amber eyes. She felt them looking down into the depths of her and she felt exposed as if every secret were laid bare. Some secrets could not be allowed to be seen by those eyes and so she closed hers.

  “No, look at me. I’m not going away this time Jessy.”

  She opened her eyes and looking at him knew she wanted it to be the truth. She wanted to tell herself it was the same old lie of their youth but something would not let her, even as he looked like a dark angel in the firelight. The shadows cast behind him were arching wings ready to enfold her if she would let them. Oh she wanted desperately to let him in but couldn’t, not now and maybe never again. Trust was imperative and she had no reason to trust him an inch.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she whispered. “I can’t deal with this right now Sebastian. Just leave me alone!” she hated the almost pleading tone of her voice. “I don’t know why you came back but you can’t just expect I shall just forget and forgive with a snap of your fingers,” or a kiss of your lips, or the feel of your body she thought silently.

  “That’s not the way it’s meant to be. Some people are meant for each other, made for each other.”

  “So we used to say, but right now this is the way it has to be,” she said and pulling the dark hood of the domino she had retrieved from the floor over her bright head she walked from the room. She didn’t look back.

  He needed brandy and probably a lot of it. For a man with a reputation with women, he had managed to thoroughly foul things up twice in one night. He was better off just going home and getting drunk. He hadn’t even gotten the chance to explain himself or properly apologize, damn the combination of lust and temper! His hands still burned with the feel of her skin and somehow the room had grown cold with her absence, even though the fire in the hearth still blazed.

  He had messed everything up from the time they were children until this very moment. For some mad reason he couldn’t seem to get his thoughts, his life, or his actions together when it came to this woman. All he knew now was that he had misjudged her, against his own instincts and if he could just finish this mission he would do anything in his power to get her back. He had a bad feeling that just getting her to listen to him in the first place would be a huge hurdle to overcome. To talk they had to manage to keep their hands off each other and that was proving a challenge. So far he was living down to his very bad reputation, and while Bishop would applaud him preserving his cover as nothing more than a lecherous nobleman given to too much drink, it would get him nowhere with Jess.

  His work for Celtica had to come before his own wants, he had people relying on him, who had invested their time and trust in him. He hated to think what she would thin
k when, despite what he had said, he would have to leave again. Whether at that point he would have been able to explain the truth, he didn’t know; he would have to trust Bishop’s guidance on that. He reached for more brandy and prepared to try and blot out thought and feeling without obliterating all his senses. If he was ambushed on the way out of here by one of the priests of the Gooar Odin, the king’s most deadly enemies on Celtica, it would do him no good to get killed before he could either complete his mission or make his spirited and willful Jessamy his own.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Miles away from that room in Bridge House, where Sebastian still sat staring into a half empty glass of brandy, two men on horseback pounded down the night drenched road to the sea. A ship had arrived and the Duke of Tamworth would meet it long before the dawn broke. He had hours before daylight and would have to return to London by sun up to preclude any further suspicions of where he had been. The future of a nation could be decided by the news and the man waiting on the beach toward which he raced.

  It had taken the ship nearly a week to sail from Celtica to England and he had waited impatiently for news of the arrival. He had to pretend he had nothing better to do than escort Jessamy Powers to a ball he had no interest in attending. His own acting skills were not too bad considering how on edge he had been. All the years of treacherous political intrigue, delicate maneuvering and deeply held secrets would all soon come to an end. He had worked too hard not to come out on the winning side; unlike his father who had supported this cause and paid for it with his life.