ROOK AND RAVEN: The Celtic Kingdom Trilogy Book One

by Julie Harvey Delcourt

  She had never been more aware of him sitting so close in the quiet of the night and the shower of stars lighting the sky above them. To this day she didn’t believe he planned it to be their first time. They had come together without a word and as naturally as wind blows or grass grows. One moment their faces were turned up to the night’s extraordinary light show and the next they were falling into each other. The night around her and the sky above had all blurred into one as their lips met. Without question or even thinking twice they had opened the trap door into the treehouse and climbed down into a playhouse that had seen them through childhood and now beyond.

  She could still remember the way they both shook with desire equally tender and then wild as an unleashed storm. They had neither wanted nor needed words of reassurance or explanations, she had just wanted him and he her. The wanting was all. A simple blanket on a wooden floor had been their bed and without any shyness she had let him undress her as they laughed, for she was trying to undress him at the same time.

  The wind had picked up and sighed along with them, the storm had rolled in as their passion and desperation grew. By the time he had entered her, lightening was crashing so close it could have struck the tree and they wouldn’t have been able to stop. Dear god how they had loved each other, body and soul. All she had wanted was in her, part of her and there was nothing else in the world she could have asked for, nothing more to need or want. She would never erase from memory the sound of his voice when they lay tangled and peaceful together, mine, and forever mine. She had thought them the most miraculous words in the English language. Forever had been painfully finite.

  That was then and she had to think of the now. She had to put it behind her and focus on today. She had nerves over the new play Sean was hinting at producing and the pure pleasure that was her Monday excursion to Chiswick.

  Sebastian would not take center stage again. There was more to her life now. She had best start by rousing herself out of the bed. A light spring rain drizzling against the windows and the cozy warmth of her bed was proving to make motivation difficult.

  A light knock on the door announced the arrival of Mary, her house maid, bearing her morning coffee and followed by Tweenie who went to build the fire. Tweenie, though possibly about sixteen was the size of a twelve year old girl due to years of starvation and neglect on London’s streets. She had a happy and well fed look about her nowadays, but it was unlikely she would grow much taller.

  “Not like you mum to still be abed! Are you ailing then?” Mary asked with concern. She eyed her mistress with worry as she tied back the bed and window curtains with brisk efficiency.

  “No Mary, just feeling a bit lazy this morning. The weather makes me want to just pull the covers over my head.” She had yet to tell anyone, not even Sean or David about the strange dream.

  She rolled over and stretched until she felt her spine nearly snap. Mary started to reach behind her to rearrange the pillows so she could sit up for her tray but Jessy knew she would never want to get up if she didn’t get up now so waved her away. She threw her legs over the side of the bed and felt the cold morning air rush up under her night dress. She grabbed her robe, tossed it on and practically scuttled for the chair before the fireplace. The waves of heat were sheer heaven compared to the damp cold of the rest of the room.

  Tweenie brought her a cup of coffee, sweet and light, and held out a letter. It was reminder from Herriot’s Bank she had an appointment, as if she would forget!

  “Best get moving this morning Miss Jess, Mr. Sean will be here early,” Tweenie informed her firmly. Sean had won the girl over forever by giving her bit parts as children in plays and paying her well. Now nothing would interfere in Sean’s efficient running of the theater if Tweenie had any say. Why she was practically a star in the world of downstairs thanks to Mr. Sean. No one could say a word against him or she would turn into a little spitfire.

  Jessy could have hired a properly trained lady’s maid and had been thinking of it the day she had found Tweenie staring in awe at what was a simple silk dress in the wardrobe. Watching her stroking the fabric lovingly, she had known she had to let the girl give it a go. Birdie was there if she needed her, and when she came home late, but otherwise Birdie was busy and happy ruling the household. Jessy hadn’t regretted her decision for a moment.

  She hadn’t the money for a staff that only did one job or had the rigid hierarchy of a noble house and that suited her fine. No one complained about pitching in and, with the exception of Birdie making it clear who was in charge, there was little formality. Most ladies maids would not be caught dead lighting a fire or helping as needed in the kitchen. Tweenie cheerfully went about helping in any way she could. The income from investing her late husband’s small inheritance in the theater had been a wise decision. While her dowry had bought a home, it was the theater income that kept them afloat.

  When Jessy had turned back up at her childhood home widowed and with a marriage certificate the trustees had no option but to hand over her dowry. Most women would have used the money to catch another husband but Jessy just wanted her own home and independence. She had thrown every shilling into establishing a real home for herself and the odd collection of people who had become her responsibility after Michael’s death. She had added a few of her own over the years, like Tweenie and Tim. She loved them all. She received a great deal of personal satisfaction from knowing she could provide a safety and stability for those with whom she shared a home.

  Before Jess even had finished her first cup, her clothing was laid out, the water brought up and Tweenie giving her a stern look that clearly said “get a move on.” It made Jess hide a small smile. Obviously, it was time to get ready.

  She had barely begun on her toast in the breakfast parlor downstairs when the door burst open and Sean rushed in clutching a fist full of parchment.

  “Done!” he cried dramatically.

  “Really Sean I haven’t even had a piece of toast. It’s barely qualifies as daylight, how can you be full of verve so blasted early?” she grumbled as his tall, golden good looks and obnoxious cheerfulness filled the small room. It held only an Adams side board, an oval dining table for six and a small table between the casement windows that held a vase of mixed spring blooms. She always noticed how the pale blue walls set him his looks off to perfection and wondered if he planned visiting her in this room for precisely that reason.

  Truly, for Sean, all the world was a stage.

  “Now my sweet. Not all of us can soar with the owls and sing with the morning birds like I can,” he dropped a kiss on her head as he passed behind her chair in search of food from the sideboard. He was always hungry just like a growing teenage boy. “I stayed up until nearly dawn finishing the script for your benefit. You are required to love my cheerfulness and feed me as I have written you an absolute masterpiece!”

  She angled her head to read the title off the top of the bundle of manuscript he had tossed with such flair upon the table. Her face went pale.

  “Boadicea? My God Sean! She was a horse riding, chariot driving queen! You are not seriously proposing bringing horses onto the stage are you? You know what happened when the Garden tried that last month!” he studiously avoided eye contact with her and gave her a vague “hmmmm” as he piled eggs on his plate. “Sean! Are you listening to me? No horses!”

  He gave her a truculent smile as he sat down and tapped one long finger against the papers.

  “This my dove is the masterpiece that will see you finally surpass the great, legendary Siddons so don’t talk to me about what the Garden did wrong. Really, they used a thoroughbred they got off of Sir Porsonby-Martin! How inauthentic is that? Thoroughbreds didn’t even exist in medieval times! Have no fear my pet, in the days of the Roman invasion no such high steppers were around. We shall use some perfectly placid hacks and we, unlike some inferior play houses, shall not trample anyone or set the stage on fire.”

  For Sean that seemed to settle it but Jess wasn’t
so sure. She could picture all kinds of things going wrong and in the quest for each play house to outdo the other she knew better than to even suggest they use props for horses. The audience would never forgive them. Every Season the hunger for new and amazing spectacles grew. It was their job to satiate that hunger or find profits dwindle.

  “Besides,” he comfortably reasoned, “the theater will be packed as everyone will be just hoping for such a disaster. We can’t go wrong! This is your annual benefit so I would think that anything that fills the seats would meet with your approval and not negativity,” he aimed a mock glare at her skeptical face. Abandoning his eggs he leaped gracefully up and began pacing the small room looking like a caged lion.

  ‘Picture it darling!” his arms opened up dramatically as if embracing the room, “You, the brave, and tragic queen who chooses death over defeat. The greatest queen of our history in armor behind the reins of a chariot, your hair flowing behind you! You face down the Romans,” Sean paused and acted as if he brandished and shook a spear, “who admire you as much as revile you, they are stunned by your ferocity and blood thirsty beauty! Even the Romans regretted Boadicea’s death. It will be our greatest triumph! I swear,” and here he pulled out and flourished a handkerchief, bringing it to eyes that suddenly sported a bright sheen of tears.

  “There will not be a dry eye in the house. I wouldn’t be surprised if London doesn’t rally a force to march on Rome demanding vengeance!” He whirled toward Jesse and planted his hands on the table, “I am taking you from princess to queen my darling in one night. A queen who shall crush all play house competition. No one will want to see anything else for months!” It was hard to resist Sean when he had such enthusiasm. As he practically leaped and violently and expansively gestured his way across the parlor she really could see it. He was a talented play wright but also his own worst critic. If he was calling it a masterpiece then very likely it was worth chancing a fire or being trampled to death by horses. She sighed inwardly, she hadn’t when embarking on this career that acting could so often require risk to life and limb. She supposed she would find sword and spear masters showing up on her doorstep any day to start her training. She had to admit that would probably be fun.

  “Fine. Make the copies and I will start working on my part. If you say it’s a masterpiece than it must be,” she smiled up at Sean but grabbed his hand as he passed, “We’ll just have a good long talk with Mr. Ferris to do his best not to let anyone get killed during the production.”

  “Why do you think I hired Ferris and pay him so well to be the stage manager? He’s never let anyone die yet!” and with that Sean sat down to polish off his now cold eggs with gusto.

  As Sean enjoyed his breakfast in Jessy’s pretty parlor not too far away another stretched and woke. In one well-appointed home in a fashionable neighborhood a woman slid sensuously under the silk sheets of her large bed. As she slid her hands along her skin she felt the numerous small bruises along breasts and legs as well as one distinct bite mark on the inside of one white thigh. Her lover had shown up near the breaking of dawn and she now felt very well used indeed. Having a husband who spent so many long hours at

  Parliament, often staying at his rooms there, had its distinct advantages.

  Having servants too terrified to talk was even better.

  Her lover, while always vigorous, had been bordering on vicious in the gathering light of the rain soaked morning. When he had slid the sheets off her sleep warmed body and whispered his news her own exultation had risen to meet his own. Soon oh so soon now all their years of work, the planning, their doing the bidding of the Gooar would come to fruition. It had now truly begun and their blood had burned hot at the thoughts of the violence and triumph to come. The promises they whispered to each other paired with pleasurable pain. Together they could achieve anything. All their dreams from birth, their lives spent in pursuit of fulfilling the glorious prophecy, all re affirmed in the pleasure they took from each other.

  Naked she had knelt before him on the floor as he freed himself from his trousers. His hands had grasped her hair and pulled her head back delectably painfully. He dominated her effortlessly, asserting his authority and it never failed to arouse her. She found him magnificent in his cruelty. They had both been trained from birth to know cruelty, to deal it out without mercy. Mercy, gentleness were signs of weakness. He twisted her hair tighter, the pain intensifying as he shoved her face closer to his cock which trembled with eagerness, hard as stone. Her tongue flicked out to touch and taste, her nipples were achingly tight and her breasts swelled with the want of his hands.

  “Soon it will be ours. Soon all will call me by my rightful title,” his eyes burned into hers and he traced one finger along her full lips.

  “Say it! Call me by what is rightfully mine!” he furiously demanded and wrenched her closer to him forcing her to look up at him from her subservient position.

  “You are my konungr of all Vikings, you of the True Blood of Harald. You shall cleanse Celtica once and for all. All foes will fall before you.”

  He abruptly let go of her hair and smiling brilliantly and lethally he lifted her with a finger under her chin.

  “Yes, yes they will at last and that piece of Celtic trash who did not die when he was supposed to shall be the firs. Now that he is drawn out we are close to having the weapon we need to end them all at last,” he ground out as he ripped his breeches the rest of the way off standing before her naked.

  She slowly took the few short steps to bring her body against his, her nipples teased by the heat of his skin, the swell of his large erection silky against her belly. She rubbed herself against him as one hand slipped between his legs to caress him reaching ever further back teasing him and then withdrawing with the light scrape of her nails. Then his mouth swooped down to capture hers, large, strong hands grasped her rounded buttocks and lifted her against his muscular body. She found herself carried and then literally thrown onto the bed and her blood began to pound with excitement.

  He stopped at the edge of the bed and stared at her lush naked body. No other woman gave him the pleasure she did, partly for her beauty but also for the delightful wrongness of having her. It added such spice. No woman had the power to make him so hard and hungry. The Gooar had been right in their choice of partner for him. This hunger was the closest he had ever known to losing control. He eyed the fan of her long fair hair wild across her very large, rounded breasts, the wanton spread of her legs, exposing her sex, and he felt the need to hurt her a little. He wanted to bite her. He wanted to leave his mark on her. She made him truly feel like the Viking he was and not the man he was tired of pretending to be.

  “I need you my king,” she whispered as she touched herself mesmerizing him. “I need you in me. I need you to fill me.” She rose up on the bed kneeling with legs spreading slowly stroking one finger between the nearly dripping wet folds of her sex. She took the finger damp with her lust and licked the liquid off with her tongue.

  And with that he was on her. He grabbed her hips flipping her over, spreading her thighs and drove himself into her hot core. His hands hard and strong, overflowing with her breasts, he relentlessly ground his rock hard cock into her wet heat. She plunged to meet him wildly, gasping and nearly sobbing with the pleasure.

  She kicked him violently off her and turned the tables as he laughed falling onto his back. She straddled him excruciatingly slowly, teasing his cock with the soaking hot entry, little by little allowing him to slide deeper, and then retreating. She saw him reach one hand for the small whip hanging from the rafter of her bed as she continued to tease him, her heavy breasts swaying above him with her rhythm. Her tongue wetted fingers caressed and pulled on her hardened nipples as he held her hip in one tight grip. With the first crack of the small whip across her rounded buttocks and the insane spike of pleasure she drove herself down onto his erection ruthlessly hard, both of them crying out.

  The servants knew to ignore any screams from her bed chamber an
d scream she did. The grunts and roars of satisfaction from the man they knew was in her room were also ignored. They had all learned the hard way to keep their counsel of what went on between the two in that room.

  Yes, she was feeling quite satisfied today and one day they would no longer have to hide. They would rule their birthright together. She imagined how lovely she would look in the crown. She remembered turning sixteen and being brought to basement of their home to find the Gooar waiting. The room had been dark, lit only by two large black candles and a fire brazier. The carved image of Odin had stood at the head of the circle of black robed priests. Her mother had smiled at her proudly but she had no idea what was to occur.

  She had led her to the center of the circle as the priests had intoned blood of Harald, child of Harald over and over until it was a hypnotic hum that filled her veins and raised gooseflesh all over her body. Her mother had stepped back outside the circle and the one she knew must be Olav had stepped forward. His blue tattooed lips had stretched into a smile of appreciation as he looked her over.

  As far as she knew he had never been to England before, this was an honor indeed. Then his spidery white and cold hands had slipped out a black dagger and she had held her breath. But, the dagger had only been used to cut off her gown leaving her naked before the chanting priests whose rhythm had increased as the gown pooled to the floor.

  Olav had looked her over from head to toe and one long hand had reached out to weigh and lift one of her breasts with a nod of satisfaction. Two black tipped pale fingers squeezed her nipple hard and it came erect on her gasp. She didn’t know that at the sight of her and her naked young body he had thought of Freya. The two girls were nearly identical in appearance and it seemed like a sign to him. One girl had been the key into the kingdom and this one would seal it for their own. She had seen the flash of excitement she took for lust in Olav’s eye and began to wonder if he was going to lay with her himself, despite having been told the priests were celibate. Just then the door opened again and a tall figure in a hood and mask walked in, utterly naked otherwise.