Faith swallowed. “You were willing to go to Deborah.”
“Not me, sweet. What he planted in me. Every time I entered his mind and thought I was persuading him, I let him in. Do you remember me telling you I couldn’t persuade someone to do anything against their nature?”
Faith nodded and kept her gaze on their joined hands. “I couldn’t bear it.”
“You shouldn’t be asked to. My father changed me. He had thirty years to do it. He never meant me to become anything but a cipher, a means to his ultimate end. Without you, and without Stretton, I would have been completely lost.”
“Why didn’t he just make you his creature and leave it at that?”
“Stretton explained that to me. Throughout history Kronos’s son has always been his downfall. Always. So when he was given a son instead of the daughter he’d planned for, he decided to use me and then kill me.”
He must have felt her shudder, for he pulled on her hand, jerking her forward. Taken off balance, Faith fell into his chest and his arms closed about her. Faith didn’t pull away, didn’t even try. His voice rumbled through her. “But thanks to you I’m here instead and in full possession of all my faculties. Speaking of which…”
Faith felt his hand under her chin, urging her to lift her face. Then his mouth descended on hers.
His mouth caressed her, welcomed her home. She felt his mind pushing at hers, but she couldn’t open. Confusion and fear still remained. Afraid of what she might find, afraid of what he might find. This was a new Gerard, although the old one remained, and Faith wasn’t sure if she would feel the same about the augmented Gerard, or that he would feel the same about her.
He drew back slowly. “Faith, please.”
With his eyes so close, watching her reaction, Faith couldn’t refuse him. Tentatively she opened to him, letting the door remain in her control, ready to slam if she needed to.
They watched each other, and Faith felt him enter. With his arms around her, holding her safe, she let him lead her into the new Gerard.
It was the old Gerard, the one she loved so dearly. Her fears soothed, but not entirely dissipated, Faith explored.
She discovered memories of his mother, a beautiful woman whom he now knew as a wood nymph, a dryad, gentle and shy. Boscobel had taken her, knowing what she was, but had not let her know his identity until too late and she was already expecting the baby who turned out to be Gerard. Gerard remembered her, the songs she sang to him, the love she lavished on him. She taught him how to love, and although Boscobel had deliberately suppressed his memories of her after her death, what she had taught him remained.
At one point in his life Gerard had recognized Deborah as an Ancient, when she fell from her horse and sustained a deep cut. Gerard had seen the blood run clear and become deathly afraid for his sister, but Boscobel had sealed that memory off too. Similar incidents sprinkled his life, all carefully erased. Gerard was to be a sacrifice, nothing more.
As Gerard became more recalcitrant, his father used mind control ruthlessly, cutting off the memories he didn’t want his son to have like a surgeon cauterizing a wound. Every time Gerard had realized he was different, that other people couldn’t do what he did, Boscobel cut it off, made him believe that he was dying instead of craving something that he needed to survive.
Faith tried to soothe his sorrow, the agony that he would not have admitted to another living soul, but he allowed her in. His father had never cared for him.
Faith knew she had two choices. To read what he opened to her, accept it as the truth and love him as she yearned to, or to doubt and live forever with it. Courageously she opened to him fully, mind and body.
This was her Gerard. This was the man she loved, the man who’d drawn her from the first time she’d lifted her gaze to his. The fog had lifted.
“Comfort me another way, my love. Let me prove to you how much I want you, how much I need you.”
He helped her pull her nightgown over her head and then she lay back against the pillows while he disrobed. He was free now. He smiled when he saw her avid interest in his disrobing, a slow burn to set her on fire. He slowed down, deliberately dawdling over the buttons on his breeches. When he pretended to fumble she laughed out loud, and the tension, until now unrelieved, shattered.
After swiftly casting aside his clothes, he came back to the bed to lie next to her, the bedcovers shoved aside and forgotten. Only pausing to ensure she was ready for him, he entered her without preliminary play.
She needed this. Their bodies joined, as their minds now were.
He stilled within her. He penetrated but held still, waiting for her. She could do nothing else but say, “I love you, Gerard. I fell in love with you when we met, and now I’m completely lost.”
He didn’t answer her in words. Cupping her cheek with one hand, he bent his head and kissed her, flooding her, mind and body, with gratitude and love. He began to move, sliding within her in long, smooth strokes, with no beginning and one end.
Faith felt the familiar heat, that peculiar to Gerard, the only man who could satisfy her in this way. He was hers. Even if he lived on, if he took other lovers after she had gone, this would be their unique experience, their way of loving.
When she felt her eyelids closing, Faith deliberately opened them again. She wanted every sense she owned involved in this loving. She smelled the heady perfume of their joining, heard the unmistakable sounds of her wetness, of his body connecting with hers, saw his beloved face above her, staring into her eyes as she stared into his. Everywhere they touched, hands moving over each other’s bodies, smoothing and caressing. When he kissed her, she tasted Gerard, remembered him and welcomed him back.
Then there was that other sense, the joining of minds, past words, deepening and enriching the experience. Through that she felt him and his desire, his need to drive himself inside her. In return she gave him her surrender and her answering drive, the instinctive need to rise to meet him, to make their joining full and deep.
The rhythm became a dance, a movement they had learned, that they needn’t think about, and the warmth rose to sizzling heat. Faith allowed herself to make all the sounds she needed to. She was afraid they might be overheard, but he caught her thought.
“Don’t hold back. I love to hear you, Faith. It makes me want to make you cry out more.”
To encourage him she allowed herself to cry his name and felt his answering response, the erotic urge stronger than before. No longer even trying to control her cries, she let him know in every way she could, how much pleasure he brought her, pleasure so intense it bordered on unbearable.
Faith kept her eyes open, kept staring at his beloved face, now tense with exertion and delight. His eyes were as light as silver, blazing with heat and need, until he suddenly sank down on to her body and rolled so she was on top. With a deep breath Faith lifted up.
He lay under her, beautifully male, every muscle exerted for her pleasure, buried deep within her body. Experimentally Faith moved from side to side and gasped at the renewed delight sparked inside her. He wasn’t long to follow, driving while she moved around him, feeling all of him with sensitive inner muscles.
“Gerard, Gerard!” Faith could only gasp his name helplessly when she felt her muscles contract, unable to stop her response, unwilling to prevent the flood of helpless joy absorbing all of her being, everything she was.
She felt his culmination building, as helpless as she to prevent it, and she joined him, giving him her delight and receiving his in return.
Faith fell on to Gerard’s body, aware that his arms encircled her, and for the first time aware that she was panting, out of breath.
They lay together, entwined, wet with more than sweat, still joined, still one.
He lifted himself off her a little. “Now do you believe me?”
She chuckled. “I can hardly do anything else.” He kissed her, a sweet, closed mouth kiss in vivid contrast to the passion they had just shared, and swung to one side, taking
her with him. The covers wrapped around them, bringing them closer. Faith laid her head against his chest and closed her eyes, utterly exhausted. It had been a long day.
Faith?
I’m here.
Never leave me again.
Never.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“A ride.” Faith woke to her husband’s breath, hot on her ear. When she mumbled and tried to turn over, he laughed and prevented it, holding her down with one hand on her shoulder. “Come on, slugabed. Time to get up. We’re going for a ride.”
“What?” Faith shook the sleep out of her eyes, wondering if Gerard had run completely mad. “Shouldn’t we stay here?”
“Stuck indoors? Certainly not.”
“But your father?”
Gerard slipped a hand under her shoulders to encourage her to sit. “We’re not safe anywhere. So why not be unsafe out in the fresh air?”
Faith sat and leaned against his shoulder. Gerard was already dressed, but only to his shirtsleeves. She smiled at him. “What brought this on?”
He chuckled. “It’s a lovely morning, I have my wife and my health and I want to blow a few cobwebs away before we settle down to make our plans. The chances are that we won’t see the outside of this house for some time once we begin.”
“What about George?”
“He’s sleeping.”
“No, I mean that we said he had the smallpox. You shouldn’t be here.”
He waved his hand carelessly. “We may say we were mistaken. Cowpox is sometimes taken for smallpox in its early stages, and it’s much less serious. He could have caught it from the milk cows in the park” He pulled back the sheets and laughed when she whimpered a protest. “Come, I won’t go without you.”
“Why not?”
He brushed a kiss on her forehead. “You need someone to protect you. I can’t leave you alone, love. Stretton and d’Argento know what I intend to do, and they’ll meet us at the park.”
“It seems I have little choice.” Despite her grumbles Faith couldn’t be unhappy with his decision.
“Dress, sweetheart. I’ll send to the mews for our horses.”
After another kiss he got to his feet and strode purposefully from the room. Faith flung back the covers and went to her dressing room, where Baker waited for her with some food laid out on a tray and her riding habit. It seemed everyone had been up early except for her.
Half an hour later Faith was downstairs, being helped on to the horse she had ridden before and which, it seemed, now belonged to her. With her husband by her side and a groom discreetly following, they travelled the short distance to Hyde Park and passed through the gates.
Despite her early grumbles, Faith relished the morning and the chance to exercise in the open air. She had spent too much time indoors recently, worrying about her brother and her husband. Gerard was right. They both needed this.
Cantering the bridle path, Faith touched her whip to her hat when she saw d’Argento and Stretton waiting. She received a touch in return, and a touch to her mind of greeting, which surprised her at first but seemed a courtesy gesture. Gerard smiled at her when she turned to check he was still by her side. They saw a few riders abroad, but not the crush that would ensue later in the morning and early in the afternoon, when carriages and riders would cram the fashionable park, and horses only had enough room to walk.
This was better. After this she would ask Gerard if they could go into the country. Then they could ride together every day.
By mutual consent they did not open their minds. It was better not to advertise their presence. However, once Faith saw Stretton exchange a sharp glance with d’Argento and realized that they were communicating.
Something was wrong. As they trotted their steeds towards the gate, Faith saw the reason. The Duke of Boscobel approached them, with Deborah by his side.
Gerard would have tipped his hat and ridden on, but Boscobel stopped, clearly expecting Gerard to do so. It would have caused talk had he not, the very thing they were trying to avoid. He drew his great horse effortlessly to a halt, remembering as he did so how difficult every exertion had been before he met Faith. Faith stopped her mount by his side. Stay close.
Very well.
Gerard turned in his saddle to face his father, feeling the fine leather move to accommodate him. Every little thing he did these days, every new sensation reminded him of his new life and of the woman who had helped him achieve it. “Good day, your grace.”
“Good day. I hope I find you well?”
“Tolerably.” The courtesies dispensed with, Gerard tipped his hat to Deborah and leaned back a little. “You wished to speak to me?”
“Not precisely. You, my son, have been my downfall, and my antecedents’, since the dawn of time. Not this time. I presume you will not return home to do your duty?”
“I will not mate with my sister.” The crudity was necessary, Gerard thought. His father was a master of subtlety. Therefore it was necessary to meet it with frankness and plain talk.
Boscobel sighed heavily. “I curse the day I ever allowed Stretton under my roof. In the state you brought him, I thought to control him. I should have known better. He’s unpredictable by his very nature.” He cast a dark look at Faith but did not add the obvious concomitant. Deborah sat upright on her horse. She never took her gaze from Faith. Gerard knew Stretton and d’Argento waited, ready to support him if he needed them.
He was strong now. He trusted his friends to take care of Faith, should he not be able to, but he could take care of himself. More than his father guessed. He wondered if Boscobel realized what Stretton had done to him. He felt a sharp probe, aimed precisely at a spot in his head. It hurt to resist, but he found he could do so without too much trouble. The probe felt needle thin, but sharp, to force a way in so the rest could follow.
“I’m beyond you now.”
“I know ways you haven’t even dreamed of.” Boscobel’s voice came in a low statement, not even sneering, so sure was he.
“I’m sure you have. However, I believe I’m to your weight now.”
Something in Boscobel’s face flickered. Gerard watched impassively as one of the deepest wrinkles in his father’s brow smoothed away as if it had never been. “Are you?” His smile grew all evil.
Gerard shrugged. “I owe you a great deal.” He left the statement deliberately ambiguous. “However, I would appreciate it if you left us alone from now on.”
He heard the jingle of harness as Stretton walked his horse closer. “More than that. You know what you’ve done, old man. You must have your powers removed. Properly this time.”
“And who will remove them? You? You think you’ll have any more success than they did?” Boscobel allowed his lip to curl. “I resisted them and persuaded them that they had succeeded. You young ones have no idea. You are newly in possession of your faculties and have no idea what I can do to you. It takes years to learn the full range of possibilities.”
“Five hundred years?” Stretton said, delicately flicking a piece of fluff from his elegant grey sleeve.
Boscobel’s attention went to him immediately, his eyes widening in alarm. As he did so, d’Argento struck.
With supra-human speed, a sharp, thin streak of light arced from the tip of his outstretched finger into Boscobel’s neck. It seemed real, a blade rather than light, but then faded and dimmed.
Boscobel groaned. A thin stream of clear ichor trickled from the wound.
At once Deborah stirred her horse into action, trying to shield her father from more injury, but this time it was Stretton’s turn. He stared at Boscobel, his gaze boring in, insinuating his consciousness into the older man’s.
Stretton recoiled at the defence. Faith opened her mind, but Gerard was there, warning her. Keep closed to everyone, love. Even to me. Do it.
He heard the door slam in his mind but then saw Faith brush her hand across her eyes and slump forward. Her horse stumbled, but she sat again and drew the reins back. “I’m all
right,” she managed.
Even here, in the eye of the storm, she was safer than she would be on her own. Faith would have to stay. Gerard ached to reach for her, to reassure her, but that would have to come later. If there was a later. He had no idea Boscobel would force a confrontation this morning, would have urged her to stay safe if he’d known but now he realized she was safer with him and his friends.
Stretton spoke, deliberately drawing Boscobel’s attention away from Faith. “When you lent us that castle and blew us up, you missed some people. Surely you didn’t expect to capture everyone?”
“I had intended to. I had people stationed around the house.”
“Some of us use the air.”
Boscobel’s head turned sharply at the sound of d’Argento’s voice. “It was you!”
D’Argento smiled and bowed his head, as if receiving a compliment. “I escaped and took some with me.”
“How many?”
“Fewer than I wanted to.” D’Argento lifted his heavy eyelids and met Boscobel’s stare. “I am your equal, Kronos. Will you defy me?”
“I am not alone,” growled Boscobel, but he no longer appeared as sure as before, his gaze shifting from one to another, as if assessing them anew.
“We know that. Neither are we.”
Gerard’s father was arrogant to a point, always certain he could cope with anything thrown at him. Time to teach him he could not.
Boscobel struck at his son. A bolt of mental energy, aimed straight at a place where he’d entered his son’s mind before, numbing him with familiarity. Without Stretton’s instant support, Gerard doubted he would have survived that first blow, but Stretton’s counterstrike crossed the path and weakened the impact.
Deborah moved again, away from her father, while Stretton moved closer, urging his horse in a straight line towards Boscobel. D’Argento moved in the opposite direction, to cut off Deborah’s escape. Juno, Gerard reminded himself. She was Juno. He opened, calling on all his newfound powers to reach her, distract her from d’Argento’s attack.
“Gerard!” Faith’s scream came too late. A physical blow thumped into his side, the impact hurling him from his mount. Boscobel rode at him, dragging his horse’s reins back to force the animal to rear up painfully. Gerard rolled aside as the deadly hooves struck a bare inch away from the back of his head. Gulping to draw the air back into his lungs he struggled to his feet and felt Faith’s horse strong by his side. She must have moved to protect him. He leaned against the chestnut’s side, getting the respite he needed to return to the fray.
Lightning Unbound: Even Gods Fall in Love, Book 1 Page 29
