Dangerous Magic

by Alix Rickloff

  She hugged a shawl close around her. To those seeing her standing there, it would have looked only as if she clutched the heavy wool for warmth. They’d never know that the cold within her went bone deep and had naught to do with the unseasonable weather.

  One man only might catch a whisper of her sorrow and know it for what it was. She felt his approach, the solid unyielding weight of him as he crushed the stones of the shingle beneath his boots to reach her.

  Just before he drew to her side, Gwenyth spun around, flinging herself into his waiting arms. Unable to contain the anguish she’d held close for the past week, she buried her face in his coat, inhaling the comforting scents of wool and salt and fish. Jago was home. A childish part of her wished he could take the hurt away and make it better. He always had when they were small. But childish hurts were easily mended. This loneliness seemed to bore to her very soul and gnaw at her until she could barely stand to meet the waking days.

  “Tush, Gwenyth, will you never listen to your brother then?” he scolded, though his words held no bite of anger or reproach. “Vivyan told me you’ve been coming to the sea every evening now for a week. Are you waiting on your man to sail into Kerrow harbor? I told you before you set forth one step, he’d break your heart. I mayn’t have your Sight, but give me some credit for knowing a snake when I see one.”

  Jago’s arms held her close, the solid feel of his barrel chest keeping back the worst of the pain. His mild reproach helped. She hiccupped back the threatened tears. “If you know so much, you’d know ’twas me that left him,” she replied. Her voice broke into a thready whisper. “I couldn’t do it, Jago. I couldn’t separate body and soul as I knew I must to protect both him and me. When it grew too hard to bear, I ran. I only pray it’s not too late.”

  The weight in her chest pressed her so that she could hardly breathe. Her lungs burned, every breath like a thousand icy needles in her chest. Struggling to inhale, the recognition of this place—this time—struck her with the force of a blow. She’d been here before. She’d felt this searing emptiness as she watched this scene roll out before her only weeks earlier. Had she only heeded her Sight’s warning, she might have avoided so much. She dropped one hand to cradle her stomach. She couldn’t wish all of it away. She’d gotten what she wanted. It was her fault, alone, that suddenly it wasn’t enough.

  “You’ve been running from your fate since you were a green lass of thirteen,” Jago said. “You were bound to tire sooner or later. I’m only sorry you didn’t get the child you yearned for.”

  “But I—”

  “Hush, lass. You’re home where people love and respect you, and Captain Fleming is far away and not likely to darken your doorstep again. Even if your vision’s a true seeing, you’re likely never to know.”

  Gwenyth’s heart lurched. “And this should give me solace?”

  Jago placed a finger beneath her chin and tilted her head up so he might meet her gaze. Never flinching beneath her hot, angry stare, his gold-brown eyes gleamed like bronze. “Nay, ’tis only the sad truth. A death unmarked is a death unknown. And a death unknown can’t be grieved over.”

  Gwenyth closed her eyes and turned away. “But a love denied and a life alone can be.”

  Rafe thought later he should have stopped at Bodliam before traveling on to meet the Cormorant. If anything should go amiss on this final run, he wanted to make sure Derek knew he hadn’t been abandoned a second time. After their shaky beginnings, he owed him that much. But his joy at reuniting with his family had been obscured by more recent events. And his simmering fury at DeWinter’s callous summons carried him all the way to Exeter before he cooled enough to assess his next move.

  Even after arranging things with Triggs in Polperro, Rafe couldn’t sit for the time it would take to pen a letter to Derek. His body thrummed with wild energy, a combination of nerves and excitement that wouldn’t allow him to sit idle in the taproom of the Heart of Oak. It demanded a release before he boiled over with impatience. It wasn’t until he recognized he had steered his mount north across the treacherous barren moors that he understood where his heart was leading him. To Kerrow and a whitewashed cottage by the sea.

  Crossing the moor north of the high craggy hills above Camelford, he looked down, seeing the silver gleam of coast ahead of him. Was it a fool’s hope drawing him onward or simply bullish persistence? He couldn’t decide. He only knew that since the afternoon on Burhunt Down when his daughter’s face had shimmered before him as real and yet as elusive as a mirage, he’d been unable to lay her image to rest. She haunted his dreams and dogged his waking hours until he knew he must try one more time to salvage something with Gwenyth. If it meant nothing more than completing their initial bargain—begetting the child and leaving it behind forever—so be it. At least he would know she lived and breathed and danced and laughed, even if he never saw her or danced with her or watched her light with joy. He could find a semblance of peace with that.

  Chapter 33

  The three-masted lugger plowed through the waves, her sails stretched taut as the wind pushed her through the growing swells. Rafe stood upon the foredeck, frowning at the boiling skies licked with lightning, judging his distance from the cliffs ahead and the reefs marking the entrance to the harbor like teeth.

  The winds twisted, and the ship wallowed, her sails luffing as the rain began, slicing the air like knives. The cliffs grew larger, their tops lost in fog. Water sliding down his face, Rafe turned to yell something to the helmsman. Gwenyth screamed out a warning just as lightning split the sky with a crack, and the mainmast exploded in a shower of sparks and splintered wood. Rafe threw a hand up to shield his face as the boat ground onto the submerged rocks…

  She woke with the cry still upon her lips. The dream grew more vivid, details emerging that until now had remained shrouded in mystery. She knew she witnessed the Cormorant’s demise, yet Rafe had told her the ship had passed out of his hands. He’d turned his back on the sea and the life he’d found upon it. But perhaps he’d only told her the truth as he knew it. If so, she had left her escape too late. And Rafe was doomed.

  She reached for Cothey’s warmth, but the big tabby was gone from his place at the foot of her bed. And the others watched her skittishly from the corners, their eyes glowing gold as carriage lamps in the moonlight.

  “Cothey,” she whispered.

  She heard his excited meows from the front room—and something more. Quiet footsteps sounded and a whispered voice, the scrape of boot heels and the creak of a chair back. Cothey mewed low in his throat then went silent. Rising, Gwenyth threw a shawl across her shoulders. Fear held no sway over her. In her trade, she was visited at all hours and by all sorts. But something made her pause. Perhaps the unnatural quiet that followed the earlier noises, as if someone or something waited for her in the shadows.

  She held her breath and listened, but there was nothing more. Refusing to give in to the tremor of apprehension stealing up her spine, she squared her shoulders and took a steadying breath. Standing in the gloom of her chamber’s doorway, she cast her eyes around the outer front room. At first glance, nothing seemed out of place. Moonlight spilled across the floor in silvery puddles. The fire smoldered beneath the heavy curfew. The wooden cupboards and counters stood prepared for the morning’s chores. A long rounded heap of blankets lay upon the rug next to the hearth. Her eyes paused then returned to the heap that had not been there when she put out the last taper and went to bed. A heap that Cothey rubbed against with excited purrs of welcome.

  She crept toward it, breathing shallow and rapid, senses searching for any hint of who or what it was. Before she’d taken two steps, the bundle moved. At that same instant, her Sight crackled through her, and she caught her breath on a gasp of amazement.

  “When I saw you’d already gone to bed, I hadn’t the heart to wake you. I thought our words could wait until morning.” His voice came raspy and drowsy with exhaustion.

  Gwenyth trembled, every part of her body shaki
ng with fear and joy and a sick, nervous worry. Her first wild thought was that he knew about the child. He knew and he was here to claim it from her. She dropped her hands to her stomach even as she realized there was no way he could have found out. She’d told no one—not even Jago. “And why did you come?”

  He sighed. “I couldn’t leave things as they were. I couldn’t sail without making peace between us.”

  He sat up. He’d removed his shirt; it lay slung across a stool. His chest seemed carved in stone, gleaming like quicksilver in the moon’s pale light. He put an elbow out and leaned upon a nearby settle, and Gwenyth knew despite the sculpted, perfection of his body, no marble’s cold polish would meet her fingertips. He had always burned with a steady brilliance, the heat of his flesh setting fires within her when they touched. A delicious shiver of need ran through her, and her heart pounded in her chest.

  Derek had promised he would send Rafe to her—and here Rafe was. She need only reach out a hand and take what he promised. If she dared.

  “Gwenyth?” He cleared his throat, and she sensed his growing uncertainty. “I know I shouldn’t have come and not like this, but—”

  Stepping forward around the settle, she dropped to her knees beside Rafe, and cradling his head between her palms, she kissed him with a longing that drove any remaining thoughts or doubts from her mind and put a sudden end to anything more he might have said.

  Relief swept through Rafe with Gwenyth’s urgent kisses. This seductive, passionate woman locked against him had been a dream he had not dared to believe in again—not once in all the endless miles between here and London. His mind told him he should pause, recover his wits, and demand an explanation. His heart—and, he must admit, his body—required no such words. It was enough that she lay against him, that she allowed him to draw her down on top of him, and that she did not pull away, even when his hand moved under her shift to caress her. He stroked her, cupping the soft weight of her breasts, inhaling her familiar scents of lavender and mint.

  “I thought I’d lost you forever,” she whispered, her roving fingers re-exploring, laying new claims.

  Desire vibrated through him, coalescing in a throbbing, tight heat at his groin. But still unsure of his footing, he couldn’t completely relax. Too much remained a puzzle. “You can’t lose what you never wanted. And you made it very clear you never wanted me.” He tilted an eyebrow in question. “Have things changed?” Gwenyth’s face was unreadable, though her eyes gleamed dark and eager. “Have you changed?”

  She leaned up and pressed a kiss upon his lips. Her tongue flicked out, and before he knew it, he’d opened to her, the raw hunger of her kiss exploding through him like grape shot. The wanton movements of her body, those luscious curves sliding against him, sent a wave of lust pulsing through every vein. He wanted to sheathe himself inside her. Knew he could take her right here and now, but he held back. He needed answers first. With effort, he gripped her arms and made her stop.

  “Gwenyth, I came here with every intention of fulfilling our agreement and leaving. But now…now I don’t think I can go back to what you and I had.” He spoke through teeth clenched against the temptation her body offered. “If this continues, it’s because you’re ready to set aside your fear and face whatever comes, with me by your side. It’s not a bargain. It’s not a chance for you to take what you want from me. I can’t do that anymore, Gwenyth. Now, it’s all or nothing.”

  Gwenyth’s expression sombered, but as he spoke the beginnings of a smile touched her lips. By the time he had finished his speech, she was laughing. “You foolish, ridiculous, impossible man.” She laughed. “Have I not given an answer and more? I won’t let you walk out of my door again without me, and I’ll fight for any scrap of a life with you, even do I have to wrestle the gods themselves.”

  Rafe crushed her to him, loving the feel of her snug against him. Of her unbound hair falling wild over his chest, running over his hands. A shimmer of captured moonlight. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  They kissed, but this time demands gave way to possession, and the flare of passion between them steadied to a blaze searing him to his core. Set his hopes and senses spinning.

  She shivered, gripping him tightly as if she could not bear to let him go. “I feel a happiness I’ve not known since leaving Bodliam, and yet dread freezes me to my very bones.”

  Rafe’s hands moved down the soft skin of her back to cup her close against his heart. “It’s but the ragged edges of your dreams. Even now, they fight to hold you captive to them.”

  Gwenyth’s gaze darkened as if she saw something beyond his sight. Her hands paused, and her body grew still. “The dream came to me this very night.” She trembled. “You stood upon the deck of your ship as a mighty storm came up. I cried out a warning, but it was too late.”

  Her trancelike stare unnerved him. He shivered as if a goose walked upon his grave. Despite her fears, he had to tell her his final destination. He knew that in following her heart, she went against a lifetime of belief. He could lose her for good, but he had to warn her. Nathan Triggs and the Cormorant lay ready and waiting in Polperro harbor. Once MacKenna was aboard, they would sail for Ireland. If DeWinter spoke the truth and this was Rafe’s last job for the Secret Service, then this voyage would be either the end—or the beginning—of everything.

  He reached up, fingering a loose strand of her flaxen hair. His voice firm, determined. “Gwenyth…There’s something I need to tell you…”

  “Are you mad, woman?” Jago slammed his fist upon the table. “What can you be thinking to make such a trip with this man?”

  Gwenyth remained calm in the face of her brother’s fury. This was an argument she’d won already this spring. She would do so again. She closed the flap upon her bag and hefted the satchel over her shoulder, testing its weight against her hip. “’Tis a simple run. We should be gone no more than a fortnight, sooner if the winds prove in our favor.”

  Gwenyth’s brother leveled a baleful stare at Rafe, where he stood at the door, ready to leave. “Nothing that man does is simple. He’s a rogue and a criminal—a black-hearted smuggler.” All Jago Killigrew’s venom was concentrated in that last word. His gold-brown eyes burned with anger. “If he makes a run, it’s for no good purpose. I want you nowhere near such doings.”

  Gwenyth dropped the satchel to the floor with a heavy thump. “And since when have you been the one who tells me when and where I may go? If you need to be pushing someone around, bother Vivyan. Let Rafe and me be!”

  Rafe remained silent. He was as unhappy with Gwenyth’s decision to accompany him as Jago. He’d spent half the night arguing with her about it. And the other half making up. Both had left him achy with exhaustion, and with a temper touchy as a hair trigger. As infuriated as he was himself, if he opened his mouth, it would be to say something he would rue later.

  Gwenyth’s show of force seemed to take the wind out of Jago’s sails. His shoulders slumped in defeat. Only his eyes remained hard with frustration.

  Gwenyth, too, seemed disconcerted by her unnatural anger. She let out a heavy pent-up breath. Moving to her brother’s side, she rubbed a hand down his arm and offered him a shy smile. “Come. Let’s not part on a quarrel. I have to go, Jago. It’s the dream, don’t you see? I have to be there. If anything happens…if I can stop it by being there…”

  Jago shook his head slowly from side to side. “Oh, Gwenyth, lass, if it’s meant to be, your being there won’t make a bit of difference. You’ll only watch it happening in front of your waking eyes instead of in your sleep. Is that what you want to carry with you for the rest of your life?”

  Gwenyth hefted the bag back upon her shoulder. With a determined tilt to her chin, she met Jago’s sorrow-filled face. “I’m willing to take that chance. Now, mind the cottage for me. I’ll be back as quick as I can.”

  She reached up and kissed him on the cheek, her hand lingering for a moment before she released him.

  Rafe bowed her out of th
e cottage before him. As he turned to follow, Gwenyth’s brother caught his arm in an iron grip.

  Leaning in close, Jago’s eyes bored into Rafe’s. Like Gwenyth’s, her brother’s gaze could singe. His eyes burned with the heat of a furnace. “You take care of my sister, Captain Fleming. I’m not gulled by your fine looks and slick tongue. Does aught happen to her, you’ll have me to deal with. Bear that in mind.”

  Rafe felt a throbbing in his temples, but he ignored it, meeting and matching Jago Killigrew’s stare. “Gwenyth will not come to harm because of me. I’ll protect her with my life.”

  Jago spat into the dirt at his feet. “See that ya do, Captain. See that ya do.”

  Chapter 34

  Noys Conover looked up from his compass and charts. “That’s the mouth of Tramore Bay away to starboard, Captain.”

  Without taking the night-glass from his eye, Rafe flinched at the address. “Triggs is still captain here, Conover.”

  “As you say, sir.” Conover bent back over his charts.

  After surveying the dark outline of the coast ahead, Rafe dropped the telescope to his side.

  Triggs stood beside him, fiddling with his waistcoat, obviously trying to look unconcerned at his crew’s confusion. Clearing his throat, he moved down the deck, and Rafe breathed easier. He felt guilty enough taking over the ship like this without Triggs watching his every move.

  The job had gone smoothly so far. Triggs had made no complaint when Rafe had appeared in Polperro to commandeer the Cormorant for this final run. In fact, the man had welcomed him aboard with a hearty handshake and a boisterous hello. Being a superstitious man, he’d cast a jaundiced eye at Gwenyth’s arrival, but it was Ciarán MacKenna, the Secret Service’s paid assassin, that caused Triggs to shrink back in fear. Rafe’s second had always had a nose for the wickedness in a man, and MacKenna fairly dripped evil.