Kissed by Starlight

by Cynthia Bailey Pratt

“She’s asleep again now,” he said, and a shudder went through her. Her mother used to say it meant someone was walking over her grave, a morbid thought. “Shall we return to your chamber?’’

  Felicia didn’t want to. Even in the midst of slumber, people were people and possibly a refuge. For she’d begun to feel, slowly and with the utmost reluctance, that Blaic was not “people.” What had he said of himself? “I am of the People,’’ leaving no doubt that he meant with a capital P—whatever that meant.

  “Fairies,” she murmured now.

  “No,” he said. “I told you...”

  “Yes, I remember. Very well, let’s return to my...chamber.”

  She suddenly wished her hair was not streaming over her shoulders and that she was wearing something more suitable than a nightshift and a robe de chambre. Full armor and a helmet would have felt infinitely more secure.

  She was not afraid of him in the way that she had learned this day to fear men. His eyes when he looked on her were lit by no devouring flame. Yet she was afraid, in the same way she was both fascinated by and afraid of the untamed moor that lay beyond the garden. He seemed to bring a tang of wild wind and storm-tossed cloud into the quiet home of her ancestors.

  Though Hamdry Manor stood on the very edge of the heath, it had always seemed to stand against it as a symbol of order. Now it was as if Felicia had invited in the first soldier of an invading army. Though this was her home only on sufferance, she still felt as though she’d betrayed everyone that had come before her.

  It was with this thought in her mind that she faced Blaic.

  “Who are you?”

  “I told you that when first we met, when you freed me from the stone.”

  “I did that?”

  “Didn’t you realize it? Your tears freed me from my long enchantment. I am in your debt.”

  “I didn’t think you were real. After...after that day, I fell ill. I was ill for a week and am only just now recovered.”

  He nodded. “I see it in your eyes. You should be taking your rest like the others. Why do you wear a furrow in your carpet? Are you troubled?’’

  His eyes were of green flecked with amber, outlined by lashes several shades darker than his hair. Though he looked at her with curiosity alone, not sympathy, Felicia had never seen such compelling eyes. They seemed to draw her answers out of her, willing or not.

  “I must leave here and I don’t know how to protect my sister.”

  “That girl in there?”

  “Yes. We share a father.”

  “Does she partake of his ‘honors,’ Felicia? You recall how you told me that you do not.”

  “Her mother is Lady Matilda Stavely, my father’s lawful wife. My mother was... someone else.”

  “Among my People, children are all cherished equally. Each one is what you would call a ‘miracle’ and treated accordingly.” He folded his arms across his broad chest and said, “If she is your father’s heir, then surely you have no need to care for her. Money pays for all in your world, does it not?”

  “Not everything,” Felicia said. A wild idea, worthy of a madwoman, came into her mind. Instantly, she dismissed it. He was a handsome rogue with winning ways, but was she mad enough to believe him?

  “You doubt me?” he said, so apropos of her thought that she stared at him.

  She had often seen Lady Stavely smile without its warming her eyes even by a fraction; now she saw the reverse. Blaic smiled only with his eyes, infusing them with such laughter that it took a review of all Felicia’s doubts for her not to respond in kind.

  “Do you hunger?” he asked.

  “I didn’t eat very—

  Instantly a repast fit for a king and twenty royal guests appeared. Blaic had not so much as snapped his fingers or raised an eyebrow. Yet the table was there, stretched from bedside to window, covered with a pure white cloth. Candles burned in treelike branches that still had a glitter of ice crystals clinging to the bark. Wooden boards and fantastically shaped baskets held every kind of foodstuff, from a terrine of vegetables to dainty meringues piled high with the bursting sweetness of wild dewberries. There was no meat. There were only two chairs, side by side.

  Felicia covered her eyes, rubbing them, yet even with her hands over her face she could smell the potage aux herbes as though it still simmered. When she looked again, Blaic stood beside one chair, holding it out for her.

  “What,” she said frantically, clinging to reality by her fingertips, “no servants?”

  Literally on the instant, two servitors appeared, their expressions as blank as any of the best English trained butlers. They wore silken tunics and hose of pure white, of undoubtedly medieval cut but without any heraldic design or badge. One stepped forward to pour out two glasses of red wine, the glow of the fire reflected a thousandfold in the facets of the crystal.

  “But my lady must be gowned,” Blaic said.

  Without feeling the slightest change, Felicia glanced down and saw herself encased in a gown of equally antique design. The bodice and skirt were of white cut velvet while the reverse of the hanging sleeves was brilliant crimson silk, the same shade as the wine. Her hair, however, was not caught up in any fantastic headdress of twisted horns or golden net. It still poured over her shoulders, as before.

  Feeling a cold weight around her throat, Felicia put up a hand to touch the smooth stones and prongs of a collarlike necklace. Catching sight of the twisting golden vines around each wrist, sparkling with ruby-hearted flowers, she could only guess that her necklace was equally opulent.

  He said conversationally, “The jewels of my People bring no luck with them, yet I believe you will be safe enough if you only borrow.”

  Quite speechless, she seated herself in the chair Blaic held. No change had occurred in him. He still wore leather breeches and an open-throated shirt. Felicia felt like Queen Elizabeth in full panoply entertaining a bandit chieftain. He looked strong enough to wield a vicious length of steel through the longest battle.

  Felicia reached for the wine. The crystal was heavy, the wine cool and intensely flavorful. She drank of it as though it were water, which, she reserved mentally, it might very well be.

  “You are wise to doubt,” Blaic said, seating himself beside her. “So much of life is illusion.”

  “As is this?” she said with a glance that took in all the wonders before her.

  “Possibly. But how pleasant to believe it all.”

  “Certainly. Yet what an ache I will have in the morning if this turns out to be a meal of acorns, husks, and well water.”

  “Your ancestors once lived very comfortably on such meals. They made no complaint.”

  “I find we have grown out of the habit.” She took a bite of a pastry-wrapped entree of vegetables quite unknown to her and found it good.

  “Yes, you eat meat now.” His wine stood untouched before him.

  “I noticed that there is none here at the table you have spread.”

  “We of the People don’t indulge in slaughter for our stomachs’ sake.”

  “My father said that men must eat as men, even as the sheep eat as sheep.”

  “I am neither.” He paused as though debating whether to speak his next thought. Then he said in a deeper, slower tone, “Neither are you.”

  She looked into his eyes. She had meant to say something light, in keeping with this peculiar evening, but the words fled. Had she told herself that there was no desire in his eyes? That only meant she had failed to search deeply enough.

  With her new, unwanted experience, Felicia judged that there was something besides base lust in Blaic’s seeking her out. She’d seen the low hunger of William Beech and the somewhat more dressy variation practiced by Sir Elswith, and this was neither.

  Blaic’s eyes burned with a need that seemed unquenchable, as though he’d devour her, body, soul, and all. It was not the desire of a man for a woman but something darker, something she dared not name.

  “What do you want?” she cried, starting
up and overturning the chair.

  A cold wind seemed to blow past her, whirling away the table, the servants, and her magnificent gown. All the enchantments vanished, except for one.

  Blaic was still there.

  Felicia backed away from him, fear choking her like green seawater. She clutched the throat of her robe tightly. She knocked into the stand of fireplace tools at the edge of the mantelpiece and sought blindly behind her for the poker.

  He said her name and she heard only the hissing of snakes.

  “Don’t come near me,” she said, her voice pleading rather than commanding.

  “I swear on my father’s immortality that I mean you no harm.”

  “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe in you. Go away.”

  “Put down that thing in your hand. My People cannot bear cold iron.”

  “Good, then I—I have a weapon.”

  “You don’t need a weapon.” A hint of exasperation crept into his voice.

  “I’ll hurt you if you touch me.”

  “I have no intention of touching you. Mortals! The men are bad enough, but the women! May the Powers protect me from mortal women!”

  He went out like the flame of a candle in a sudden breeze.

  Was it over, this dream or madman’s fantasy? Felicia searched her room for the slightest sign that would prove the reality of what she had experienced. The heavily laden table had left no marks on the floor, not even divots in her Turkish carpet. Not so much as a crumb had fallen from the white cloth, nor had the servants let spill a single drop of wine—quite the best she’d ever tasted. Even her own candles in their brackets by the mirror seemed not to have burned down at all.

  Yet she could still taste what she’d eaten and feel the warmth of the wine within. Though the jewels were gone, she still felt the touch of their heavy coolness on her skin. “Either,” she said, “I have a much better imagination than I have ever suspected in myself, or ...”

  Firmly, she slammed the door of her thoughts on that “or.” She methodically prepared herself for bed. If she scrubbed her neck and wrists a little more briskly than usual, there was no one to wonder why. Keeping her thoughts solidly fixed on the business at hand—cleaning her teeth, brushing her hair, rubbing away a spot of tallow that had dropped on her black gown—Felicia managed to keep at bay Blaic’s all-too-real image.

  Kneeling, she said her prayers before climbing up two small steps into her bed. Taking her book of devotions from beneath the pillow, she read the day’s thought. Yet a moment after she’d marked the page with a ribbon and slid the book away again, she could not recall what she had read. That was his fault too.

  “Most vexatious,” she said, leaning over to adjust the screen around the candle. The near-darkness was a comfort.

  Ordinarily, she loved her deep, wide bed. The moments just before sleep, when she let her troubles slip away for the night, were the best of the day. She always positioned herself more to the side than in the middle, as the feathers in the center were weak and would leave her floundering if an emergency were ever to arise in the night. How wonderful to pull the curtains close, lay her cheek on the soft caress of the pillow, and drift away.

  The counterpane, turned back in a double bend over her chest, seemed a trifle heavier than usual. She rolled onto her side and felt a definite draft, warm and slightly scented with herbs. Felicia knew before she opened her eyes what she would see. She tried to throw off the counterpane and spring from the bed, but found herself sinking into the middle of the feathers instead. Wallowing feebly, she only sank deeper.

  “Pray don’t scream!” he said quickly.

  “I’ll scream if I want!” she said, and took a deep breath. But she couldn’t. She’d never been able to. Clarice had a piercing shriek which she let go on every occasion from delight at a piece of candy to horror at the prospect of a bath. But Felicia only went rigid when a scream would have been useful.

  “Pray don’t,” Blaic said, and smiled at her. “No one will hear you but me, and my hearing is delicate.”

  He still had his arm draped over her. His head was propped up on his other hand and he stared down with those deep green eyes. Felicia stopped wriggling. “What do you want?”

  “That’s the first time you’ve asked me that. You asked ‘Who are you?’ and ‘What are you?’ But never ‘What do you want?”

  “Are you going to tell me?”

  “I want to help you.”

  “Why?”

  His smile became wider. Felicia discovered that she did not trust him when he smiled. It seemed out of character.

  He said, “I want to prove to you that I am who and what I say I am. You have done me a great service. Do you know how long I was entombed? Not quite six hundred and fifty of your years.”

  “Six hundred ... oh? How interesting ...”

  “Still you don’t believe? I’ve never had so much trouble before.”

  “You used to spend a lot of your time in the twelfth century helping girls?”

  “Very little of it, actually. I’ve never been fond of humans.”

  “You haven’t? And I have the very great good fortune to be the one to change your opinion.” She made a galvanic effort to free herself from the welter of blankets and the weight of his arm. He was as strong as she imagined, and her own strength was sapped by her illness.

  Blaic shook his head in wonder. “I still think you are a singularly foolish race. How much time you waste of your short lives. We of the Living Lands make every instant count, though we have an infinite number of them.”

  “Then losing a mere six hundred and fifty years shouldn’t trouble you. That being so, I absolve you of all feeling of obligation. Kindly go now.”

  In the shadows, she saw him shake his head again. “I still feel an obligation.”

  “Then serve me by removing yourself from my bed. You put me in a most troubling position. If anyone found you ...”

  “Who should? All in this house sleep under my will. When I withdraw it, they shall wake. In the meantime, no one will disturb us.”

  “Surprisingly enough, that thought does not reassure me.”

  Slowly, Blaic withdrew his arm. “You have nothing to fear from me. I won’t touch you.”

  “I didn’t think it,” Felicia said—perhaps too quickly. He had a face that a woman instantly responded to, yet in the near-darkness of her bed it was not his face that made her insides quiver. Something about his nearness, the weight of his arm across her midriff made her feel all breathless... She did not want to explore that feeling any more closely.

  “I can’t touch you,” Blaic said as she rolled out of bed. “Nor must you touch me. If we touch, by our Ancient Law—”

  She interrupted as she struggled into her robe. “You said something about that before, the first time we met. When you carried me up here.”

  “Yes. I must serve you. Any of the People must serve the mortal that touches them.”

  “Why?”

  “It is the Law.”

  She tightened her belt and felt, if not dressed, at least less naked. Now if he would only arise himself. It confused her to see him lying on her bed, though she told herself it was because he still had his boots on.

  He sat up, swinging his feet over the edge nearest to her, exactly as if he’d read her mind. When he stood up, his shadow grew long, as though he were reaching out to her.

  Wary of him, Felicia again took up a position near the fireplace, the poker within ready reach. “It must be difficult to be what you are. No iron, no meat, and this Law.”

  “It has rewards. The Living Lands are—” He seemed to be looking deep within himself, as at memories too precious to be shared. “Take your best day and extend it forever. Surround yourself with those you love and who love you in a landscape of endless wonders and beauty.”

  “What did you do to be shut out of such a heaven?”

  His smile was a bitter twist of his fine mouth. “I loved.”

  “Whom did you love
?”

  “My king’s daughter. She wouldn’t have me; she loved a mortal man. Like a fool, I helped him to reach her when the king had forbidden it. They were happy; I was turned to stone.”

  He seemed to have forgotten that he was speaking to her, a mere mortal. Felicia felt as though he’d revealed a part of his soul. She released her hold on the poker and it fell with a rattle that seemed to recall Blaic to the present.

  She said, “I love someone too. If I could have one thing in all this universe, it would be for her.”

  “You mean, for your sister?”

  “Several years ago, she was as normal as any young girl on the threshold of womanhood. Then, she went riding. She didn’t come back. We searched for her, high and low. My father found her, alive, well, quite happy, but ‘wandered,’ as the country people say. She has never recovered, and I’m afraid if I leave her ...”

  “Yes?”

  Felicia tried to speak fairly, to put her own dislike of Lady Stavely to one side and to tell him no more than the facts. “Her mother is very possessive. Even when Clarice was in her senses, Lady Stavely tried everything she could to keep her from growing up. I think—I think she needs to have Clarice stay a child, dependent on her. But what kind of life is it? Never to love, never to have children of her own, never to have her freedom...”

  “Is it Clarice you speak of? Or yourself?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” But she knew she lied. How could he know so much about her?

  Blaic had crossed his arms while listening. Now he tapped his lip meditatively with a forefinger. “Where was she riding?”

  “Up on the moor. She loved to ride there; I won’t go near the place.” She dropped her gaze so that he wouldn’t see just how frightened she was of that vast emptiness. “I’m not a native of this county as she is.”

  “Your wish is for me to cure her?”

  “No one else can. Lady Stavely has had medical men of every stripe here. She even took Clarice to London, but it didn’t agree with her. Or rather, Lady Stavely said it didn’t agree with her.”

  “Very well.”

  Felicia stared at him with hope in her eyes. “Are you going to help her? Can you help her?”