She curled her hand against his chest, the drum of his heart pounding beneath her fingertips. What would it be like if Rafe was truly hers? If they came here as husband and wife? The fantasy spun out before her, and she smiled.
He pressed a kiss upon her damp brow. “It was right to come here. There’s something magical about this place.”
Above them, the bare limbs of the trees scraped in the wind. A sad, lonely sound. Reality smashed through her with the force of winter surf. “Goninan means hedge of ash trees,” she murmured. “They say magic runs thick as sap within the heart of the ash.”
Rafe’s hand brushed up her side, sending a shiver of lingering passion teasing through her. “A fitting bower, then, for the Witch of Kerrow.”
Ahh, yes. The extraordinary Witch of Kerrow. That was who she was.
But right now, she would give anything to be anyone else.
Chapter 7
Gwenyth opened her eyes. Through a lattice of tangled branches, the sky grew gray and purple in the growing light. Birds called to each other in the trees and bushes of Goninan’s gardens. Rafe lay beside her, his hands cradling his head, lips lifted in the smallest of smiles.
Her hands stole across the flat planes of her stomach. She knew without doubt that her time with him had failed to yield the child she desired. No flutter of nascent life stirred her womb. Her body remained her own. She’d not even managed to do that right.
Tears pricked the corners of her eyes. She’d been so convinced he could give her what she needed that she’d left no room for failure. He would leave today, and she must begin her search anew. But could she? Could she put aside the vision she’d created for herself of this dream child, this mingling of blood and bone and spirit between Rafe Fleming and herself that seemed now as real as the man asleep next to her?
Her shoulders shook with quiet sobs as if the child she loved had died or wandered away to be lost in the fog. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Only her nightmare ever affected her so. The unborn child became like her lover’s death upon the rocks, a sorrow to be held close to the heart.
“You weep.” Rafe’s eyes were upon her. His hand reached out to take her by the shoulder and gather her closer to him.
His warmth and the touch of his skin lessened the pain. He lowered his lips to hers in a slow, deep kiss that left her breathless. She wanted the taste of him to go on and on.
Pulling away, he smiled. “You aren’t crying over my leaving, are you?”
Was she? Rafe and the child had become so linked within her she wasn’t sure anymore. Searching to buy herself time, she turned her attention to the black-blue tattoo across his shoulder. She leaned up upon her elbows to examine the intricate design curling its way from his neck down along the slope of his shoulder to end over his collarbone.
“I spied this the night you came to me. What is it?” she asked, avoiding his question.
Rafe caught her hand in his own. “I had it done while I was stationed in the West Indies.”
She reached up and traced the line of it, brow furrowed in wonder. “But why a butterfly?” Her eyes met his, a smile upon her lips. “’Tis hardly a masculine image for a hard-bitten sailor.”
He laughed. “Your guess is as good as mine. I remember nothing beyond waking with the mark of it across my skin and a headache that could fell an ox. I was told later by a native of the islands that it symbolizes life and rebirth. Fitting for a man who lost everything and had to start over.”
Gwenyth’s hands ran across his chest and over his ribs to caress the wreckage of his back. Each ridge, each scar had been forged in pain, had made him the man he was, the man she wanted. She could admit it now. After last night. And the days before.
He’d burrowed deep within her. Set his brand upon her as clearly as he had been branded. She knew now it would be Rafe or no one.
His breath shallowed, his muscles tightening as she explored each mark with her fingertips, following as best she could the route of each stroke until it disappeared beneath the bandage. She tilted her head up. In the gathering light, she saw his jaw harden, his lips thin to a taut line. Her fingers paused above a narrow ridge of raised skin, but she held him close, not allowing him to escape back into himself.
“There’s a tragedy here, I’m thinking.” She spoke softly but didn’t drop her gaze from his face. “The destruction of one man, and the creation of a new one. Is this where Captain Fleming began? With the marks of the cat-o-nine-tail?”
He met her stare, and Gwenyth knew with but one swell of her gift she would see the horrible events that led to such a maiming. She dropped her eyes. She didn’t want to steal such memories.
“No,” he answered. “The destruction of Rafe Fleming began a year earlier in the summerhouse at Bodliam when Anabel Hillier called me a fool and a child.” He gave a shuddering breath and then another, but when he spoke again his voice was even and without emotion. “It only ended in Gibraltar Bay to the beat of ‘The Rogue’s March’ when six of his Majesty’s ships stood witness to my disgrace.” He gave a harsh, horrible laugh. “Twenty-five lashes beside each ship. I remained conscious until the fifth ship. If not for my family name and connections, I might have been executed. I wished at the time, they had. It would have been a hell of a lot less painful.”
She caught him closer to her, knowing he expected horror or disgust, reactions no doubt he’d received many times before. “Your family came to your aid?”
Rafe lifted his brows in cool surprise. “Aren’t you eager to know what I did to merit such a punishment?”
“The past does naught but muddle up the present. I mayn’t ken the whole of your thoughts, but my Sight tells me enough to know that you’re an honorable man, Rafe Fleming.” She flashed him a smile. “Dangerous, but honorable. ’Tis all I need to know.”
“If only my family thought the same as you. They wrote me off almost before the verdict was announced. They did just enough to keep me from hanging, nothing more. I sometimes think my father purposefully kept me from death simply to see me go through that torture. He was a heartless bastard.”
“Did you never go home?”
Rafe’s eyes glittered with an old bitterness. “No. My father made it clear from his one and only letter I was unwelcome and unwanted. I worked my way back to England and spent the next part of six months drunk and avoiding the press-gangs in Falmouth.” His lips curled in a bitter smile. “The rest is a story for another telling.”
“But you go home now.”
Even as Gwenyth spoke, the threads binding her to Rafe Fleming tightened. Each conversation, each glance and each brush of their bodies bound their stories together. The child sprang back into her mind, this time so real it was as if she stood breathing before her in the ruined garden.
“I set out to prove something. I’ve done that. I can go home and thumb my nose at everyone.” He grimaced. “A dream that has sustained me for over ten years. I only wish my father was still alive so that I might tell him exactly what I think of him.”
His dream was for vengeance. Well, she had a dream of her own. Gwenyth knew now she couldn’t deny the child who stood awaiting her, separated from this existence by only the thinnest of veils. She must put aside her misgivings and let the powers sweeping her up carry her to whatever end. And if that kept Rafe by her side, all the better. She’d imagined the two of them as man and wife last night. Entering into this deception might be as close as she ever got, but it would have to do.
She drew a deep breath. “Did you speak true when you asked for my help in seeking a bride?”
He caught his breath, but she couldn’t read the emotion flickering in the depths of his eyes.
Suspicion firmed the line of his jaw. “Why?”
She quieted the voice in her head telling her she was mad to go through with this. She could see no other way. “If you still want me, I’ll go with you when you leave. I’ll find your bride.”
His eyes widened, a smile lurking in their depth
s. “I’ve never been one to be modest when it comes to my love-making, but I can’t say it’s worked such a miracle of persuasion before. Why the change of heart?”
Gwenyth knew she must confess everything. She’d tried taking what she needed from him without his knowing and failed. Perhaps there was no creating this child without his knowledge and consent. “Remember when I spoke of seeking a man?”
He nodded, his eyes cautious.
“I choose you to be that man if you’ll agree. I want your seed. I need your help in conceiving my child.”
“The next Kerrow witch?”
“Call her what you like, but I need you to father her.” He opened his mouth to speak, but Gwenyth stopped him. “I ask no more than that you take me with you. Take me to your bed until I quicken and then allow me to return to my home. I’ll beg from you no favors, nor will I press my existence or that of my child upon you after she is born.”
“You would find me a bride in return for such a…a service?”
Gwenyth nodded, the knot in her chest growing rather than diminishing. She hadn’t told him everything, but some things she needed to keep back. Some things she could barely admit to herself. “I will do what I can.”
He shook his head in wonder. “I should tell you you’re mad, but I puzzled for two days over what threats or bribes I could use to get you to come back with me. Sex, you can be assured, was not on my list.”
“Then you’ll do it?”
He ran a gentle hand down Gwenyth’s arm as he pulled her once more against him. Rolled her underneath him, his arms upon either side of her head holding his full weight off her. Heat pooled in her stomach, and an ache of desire vibrated along her loins. She parted her legs as he entered her smoothly, filling her, making her gasp with the pleasure of their joining.
Just before he claimed her in a kiss, he smiled, eyes alight with mischief; a ghost expression mirrored moments earlier upon the child of her vision. “With pleasure, I’ll do it.” He spoke in a silky whisper. “I can only pray you are slow to conceive.”
Chapter 8
“Are you mad, woman?” Jago tossed back his beer before slamming the cup on the table. “What can you be thinking to make such a bargain?”
Gwenyth braced herself to weather the storm of Jago’s anger. If she could withstand his fury now, she knew he’d eventually come around, and, if not approve of her idea, at least accept it.
“You know what I’m thinking. I want this child like I’ve never wanted anything before.” She avoided Jago’s penetrating gaze by checking the fish roasting in the basket spit. If anyone could see through her lies, it was her brother. “It’s no small thing I’m asking of him, but Captain Fleming has agreed. If it means following him to his home, so be it.”
Jago snorted. “Of course he’s agreed. You’ve given him any man’s dream. He can take his pleasure from you while you’re finding him a bride. And once you grow fat with his bastard, he can cast you off and turn to a new woman.”
Gwenyth wrinkled her nose at Jago’s coarse turn of phrase, though it wasn’t as if she hadn’t already thought of that. But she’d live with it. She had to.
Repositioning the griddle over the fire, she took a deep breath before facing her brother. So much of Jago’s resistance to her plans stemmed from a past she couldn’t change and a frustration running deeper than Rafe Fleming’s bargain with her. “Is that what you’re thinking happened with Ma and Lord Mark? You think she got the bad end of the bargain with His Lordship when she had us?”
Jago picked at the rough wood of the table with one fingernail, eyes downcast. “You think I’m mad to worry over my beginnings, as if knowing whether Lord Mark Chynoweth or Juan Agee the tinker fathered me would make a difference.” He looked up, and Gwenyth caught the self-doubt in his eyes.
She rose and took his hand in her own. “I can’t tell you any more than I have.” Without letting go of his hand, she settled onto the stool opposite him. “There’s a bond between the Chynoweths and the Killigrews. I feel it when I’m near Rosevear or see the young master riding the hills on that big gray horse of his, but whether it’s a bond between Ma and Lord Mark, an older, deeper bond, or one yet to be, I can’t see.”
Jago gave a half-hearted chuckle. “What’s the use of such gifts as this family possesses if they can’t answer me even that?”
Relieved to see the uncertainty in his eyes disappear, Gwenyth patted his hand before she poured him out another cup of beer and one for herself. She took a sip, watching him over the rim of her cup. “Jago, I ask myself that question at least once a day.”
Jago harrumphed and took a long swallow of the bitter, dark brew. Wiping a hand across his mouth, he shook his head. “And so you’re set on following Captain Fleming? You really think he’ll give you the child you want and let you go without a by your leave?”
“When he returns from Falmouth in two weeks’ time, I journey to Hampshire,” Gwenyth answered. “The when and what of my return is in hands other than mine.”
Gwenyth took another swallow of her drink, her hand shaking as she set her cup upon the table. Jago’s gaze fell to her trembling fingers. He covered them with his callused palm. She noted the gold hair on the back of his hand and a silver scar arcing from his index finger to his wrist.
“Is a child all you want from Rafe Fleming? Or is there something more, a yearning in your heart for love as there is in mine for belonging?” His voice held none of his usual bluster, and when Gwenyth met his eyes, deep worry burned in their gold-brown depths.
She willed her hand beneath Jago’s to calm. If he felt half the trepidation within her, he’d bind her to her bed before he let her leave with Rafe. She attempted a smile. “Keep to predicting the weather and the tides. You know the last thing I need is a husband.”
Jago released her fingers and pushed his stool back from the table as he stood. “It may be the last thing you need, Gwenyth m’girl, but I’m thinking it may be just the thing you want.”
Rain lashed the surface of the water. Above the roar of the sea, the ship groaned against the reef as each push of the waves ground her against the rocks. Salt water filled his mouth as a wave broke against him, and he struggled to see as rain and wind sent salty spray into his face. Disoriented, he swung around, hoping to gain purchase on the rocks, but the wreckage stood in his way. He heard cries and curses above the roar of the surf. A cold slithering line drifted past him, then another. He twitched with each brush of the submerged rigging and pushed himself to try once more for the fallen mainmast. No more than fifty feet away, it bobbed upon the water, tangled lines the only thing anchoring it to the rest of the ship. Against the current, he made little headway, and each stroke left him breathless and more fatigued. As he reached for a line just beyond his fingertips, his feet tangled in the sheets lying below the surface. He kicked away, but the ropes held him fast. He reached out as a wave broke on him. Blind, he flailed for the masthead. His fingers would not respond. He sank. Kicking once, he reached the surface, but the lines and sheets tangled round his waist. With a crash heard above the storm, the ship broke and slid crab-wise into the sea. The lines grew taut as the decking fell back into the water—deeper, deeper. He shouted. He cursed. Breath squeezed from his lungs as the lines tightened around him. He gathered what air he could and descended, swallowed by the deep…
Gwenyth heard the shout of terror and knew it came from her own lips. Her heart raced as she dragged in great gulps of air. Cothey mewed his worry as he jumped upon her bed and stepped into her lap. The other cats merely watched, the crescent moon’s glow from beyond her window reflected in their eyes. She stroked the big tabby with shaking hands, willing her nerves to settle.
She crossed to the hearth. Feeling the kettle, she sighed with relief. Still warm. She rooted within the cupboards until she found the tin she sought. She spooned the mixture of rosemary and lemon balm, celery seed and valerian root into her cup and added hot water. Pulling a stool close to the fire, Gwenyth sank upon it.
The tea soothed her jittery nerves, but still her lover’s death played itself out over and over in her mind. Did she tempt her fate by leaving with Rafe Fleming? Was she mad to choose, of all people, a seagoing man for such a purpose? The flames could tell her nothing, though she stared into them long and hard.
Reclaiming a place among the fancy lords and ladies of his past would mean giving up the sea and a life made upon the water. She was far safer with Rafe than choosing among the men of her village. Each could suffer the fate of the man in her dream when the winds backed and the storms swept unwary boats onto the shoals and reefs surrounding Kerrow harbor.
And with the village men she knew she ran the risk of betrayal. They watched her with a possessive eye. She knew they wagered on who would be the one to coax the cold, mysterious Witch of Kerrow to their bed. But would the man she chose be satisfied with what she offered? Or would he pressure her into something more than she was prepared to give? And worst of all, would he lay claim to her child?
She sipped at the tea, letting the snap of the flames and the whisper of the spring wind wash her fear away. With Rafe she ran no such risk. He’d give her what she needed and make no demands. Despite his connection, the child would be hers alone. A daughter to carry the wisdom of the Killigrew women forward.
Beyond her window, a door closed and a dog barked. A crunch of footsteps sounded upon the road, and the murmur of a man and woman in conversation. They paused at the edge of her garden. The man mumbled something. The woman laughed and whispered a soft invitation back to her companion. Gwenyth heard the man’s moan deep in his throat and knew he pressed himself against the woman in a breathless kiss.
As if Gwenyth stood in the circle of the man’s arms she felt the press of his fingers upon her back and the stubble of his beard against her neck. She put a hand to her breasts, feeling the way her nipples tightened in anticipation. She felt an ache between her legs and remembered Rafe’s hands upon her, his mouth seeking out the most sensitive places upon her body until she arched into him, needing him closer and closer, feeling as if he could never come near enough to quench her raging passion.
Dangerous Magic Page 7
