Impatience made her want to cry out, but she bit her objections back and forced herself to remain calm. It would not do to appear overly eager, since it would only rouse his suspicions. She aimed at a cajoling, teasing tone. “Perhaps we shall wait until this afternoon, then?”
Amusement softened his eyes, and he touched a tender finger to the graze on her chin. “We shall see. How are you feeling this morning?”
His voice caressed her like warm syrup, and lead filled her stomach. She swallowed, hard. “Very well.” Yet another lie.
“I’m glad.” He touched his forehead against hers. “I’m sorry I had to leave you this morning. I would have wished to hold you in my arms all through the night until sunrise.” Emotion and passion lent his voice a raspy edge. “But soon I’ll be able to see the first rays of the sun kiss your skin,” he murmured. “Marriage will become me very well indeed.”
If he had taken a knife and sliced her veins wide open, it would not have hurt more. His face swam out of focus.
“Oh sweetheart.” He leaned down to kiss the corner of her mouth. “We will be so happy together,” he crooned against her cheek.
Her tears overflowed.
~*~
More snow fell that afternoon and kept them from going to the stone circle after all. Pip, as it turned out, was not suffering from any worse aftereffects of his dunking in ice water than a slight sneeze. The family was relieved, yet the feeling of dread would not leave Amy. Who knew what else lay in store for them all? What other spells had been planted in Rawdon Park? And so there was another reason why she could not possibly tell any of them the truth: should this somehow jolt Fox’s memory and perhaps even break the potion’s hold on him, and should she be sent from Rawdon as a result, who would protect the Stapletons? Even if she had lost her own magic, she knew at least of the seriousness of the threat hanging over the family. By contrast, Fox, with his firm belief in common sense, would most likely consider the notion of a magical threat quite ludicrous.
After the morning mists had lifted the next day, the sun shone from a brilliant blue sky and turned the layers of snow that covered the land into sparkling diamonds. And since Amy neither coughed nor sniffled, she managed to talk Fox into showing her the stone circle that day. Indeed, given that this was going to be their first joint outing in weeks, he seemed more than happy to oblige her. He ordered the light sleigh to be brought to the front of the house after their luncheon and, huddled in furs, the two of them set off. With a faint crunching sound the runners glided over the snow. The coldness bit into Amy’s skin, yet as she cast a glance at Fox, who handled the reins with easy confidence, she suspected his face was glowing with more than simply the cold.
He caught her eye and flashed her a smile. “A most wonderful day, is it not?”
“Yes, indeed.”
“If it weren’t for the snow, we would have been able to walk. It is not all that far from the estate.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No, three quarters of an hour perhaps. A rather leisurely walk, wouldn’t you say?”
Perhaps not so leisurely if she took it in the middle of the night.
He threw her another look, but this time the inner glow he radiated was slightly dimmed. “Are you sure you are all right? Perhaps we should turn around—”
“Oh no!” she hastily cut in. But she couldn’t meet his gaze as she lied to him. “I am absolutely fine.”
As they left the carefully groomed grounds of Rawdon Park, the vast flatness of the land struck Amy anew. It stretched endlessly before them, a brilliant glare of white against the giant dome of the sky.
“Rather overwhelming, isn’t it?” Fox remarked. “Deucedly empty when you’re used to life in Town.”
This was the land she was going to join with. Amy swallowed. It was an overwhelming thought indeed!
They passed a newly ploughed field. In the sunlight the ridges of black soil gleamed like the flanks of a powerful animal.
“The only excitement to be had in these parts,” Fox continued, “is the butter market in Downham Market.” He wrinkled his nose. “If you can call this excitement. Of course, one could always climb on the tower of St. Edmund’s Church and hope to catch a glimpse of Ely Cathedral.”
Amy thought that certainly was impressive, given that Ely lay several miles away on the road to Cambridge.
The chill and the wind made her eyes water. She blinked and caught Fox darting a glance at her. “Have I already told you how beautiful you are?” His voice was husky with emotion. “Utterly bewitching.” Suddenly the corners of his mouth curled. “More bewitching in fact that Keats’s ‘Belle Dame sans Merci’—
‘I saw a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her—’
Drat. I’ve forgotten the rest.”
Amy’s breath caught. He had read Keats’s “Belle Dame”? The same man who had lectured her on the dangers of flights of fancy? She had to clear her throat several times before she finally could ask, “Didn’t you tell me that you don’t hold Keats in high esteem?”
He shrugged and his cheeks turned a shade redder than could be accounted to the cold. “Since you like those new poets, I thought I might give them another try.”
And of all poems he had chosen “La Belle Dame sans Merci,” with which she had teased him all these weeks ago and which he had so clearly hated. This time it was not only the wind that made tears spring to her eyes. Amy turned her face away so he wouldn’t see her inner turmoil.
Fortunately, they reached their destination soon thereafter: seven bulky stones rose on a small hill, a precious spot of dry land back when the Fens had not yet been drained and the stones were surrounded by watery moors and marshland.
Fox lifted Amy from the sleigh. With a frown he looked down to where the hem of her dress and pelisse dragged through the snow. “You are sure that—”
“Yes,” she said, without averting her gaze from the stones, which wore white caps of snow. “I want to look at them.”
She plodded onward, not caring about her clothes or about the coldness that clawed at her limbs. Behind her, Fox sighed, then started to follow.
On top of the hill, Amy drew off her right glove and reverently laid her hand against one of the stones. Closing her eyes, she took a few deep breaths and felt the place. A prickling, a…
“Do you like it?”
Her eyes snapped open, and she snatched back her hand. For a moment, the tingling in her fingers remained. Oh yes, even though the stones were nowhere near as big as those of Stonehenge, this was still a powerful place. A site where old magic slept deep in the earth and only waited to be awoken once more.
Amy turned to look at Fox. This time she didn’t have to force her smile. “It is wonderful.”
“Shall we… uhm…” He made a vague movement with his hand. “Step inside?” He stared past Amy. “Or perhaps we shouldn’t? Look at how pristine the snow looks inside. We would destroy all that perfection.”
“No.” She slipped past him through the gap in the stones. “I don’t think they would mind.” She walked to the center of the small circle, where she slowly turned around. All around them lay flat land; the trees of Rawdon Park were barely discernible in the distance.
All alone they were in the white landscape, the sky overhead sapphire blue with the sun shining down on their heads.
Mine, Amy thought. I will make this all mine. Once bound to the land, she would forever feel a yearning for it. To the end of her days she would long to return here. And, strangely, that thought did not frighten her. It was good land, and she felt old strength running through it.
Amy threw her arms wide and raised her face to the sun. With closed eyes, she whirled around and around, faster and faster, until her hat fell into the snow and her hair tumbled loose. She laughed with the joy of it all.
Yes, this was good land. It would be no hardship to be bound to it.
The laughter died.
The question was if she would survive the binding. If the land would accept her.
“You are the most beautiful woman I have ever met,” Fox said softly behind her.
She turned.
He still stood between the gap in the stones where she had left him and gazed at her as if spellbound.
Which he was.
Amy swallowed.
“I love you so much,” he whispered, his voice raw.
She walked back to him. He watched her, keeping his eyes firmly trained on her as if she were an apparition that could disappear at any moment. The uncertainty and vulnerability that were reflected on his face tore at her heart. She stopped in front of him and, standing so near, she could feel the tremor that passed through his body.
“What is it?” she asked quietly.
His Adam’s apple moved convulsively. “I’ve just remembered…” His voice trailed away and he stared across the circle.
Amy searched his face. His eyes were curiously blank and even bleaker than the flat, white winter Fens. “What?” Apprehension made the word into a mere breath of a sound.
He blinked several times. Very slowly he reached out his hand and laid it against the nearest stone. “They’re dead,” he muttered tonelessly. Then he shook himself like a wet dog and turned to her with a wry smile. “You must think me a lunatic.” Becoming aware that he was still touching the stone, he let his hand drop to his side. “I used to come here as a small boy and pretend I could… hear… the stones. Can you imagine?” He gave a little laugh. “A lunatic indeed.”
“No, not at all.” Amy choked, her eyes stinging. “What happened?”
He glanced at her, then shrugged, clearly aiming at an offhand manner. “I was stupid enough to tell the old earl one day. I thought-heck, I thought he would be pleased, take it as a sign that I belong here just like…” He didn’t finish the sentence.
“Oh, Fox.” Amy thought her heart would surely break.
“All he gave me was a sound whipping.” He snorted. “And I was told never to indulge in such flights of fancy again. I haven’t, you know.” He looked down at her, his face reflecting the bewilderment of the little boy who had desperately wanted to belong.
Something hot and wet trailed down Amy’s cheek. “I know you haven’t.”
“And now the stones are cold and dead,” he said, his voice flat. “It was never but a figment of boyish imagination. But when I saw you dance just now—” His hand trembled as he raised it to her face. “—it almost seemed real after all.” The leather of his glove glided over her skin before he cupped the side of her face. “I love you.”
Something inside Amy gave way. With a little sob she slung her hand around his neck, rose on tiptoe, and drew his head down until her lips brushed against his. And then the world fell away. Nothing existed anymore but this one man.
With a small groan he pulled her closer, subtly turning her until her back rested against a stone. His body blocked the coldness as he deepened their kiss.
After a small eternity, or perhaps after no time at all, he lifted his head. One hand leaning against the stone above her head, he regarded her. After a while his lips curved, and he drew his finger over her eyebrows, nose and mouth, as carefully as if he were touching rarest china.
Amy watched him with heavy-lidded eyes. Her blood sang in her veins, a wild song that made her forget all caution and care.
“I have got something for you.” His breath formed white clouds in the cold air.
She wetted her lips. “Show me,” she whispered.
He took her hand and bestowed a moist, lingering kiss onto her palm before reaching into his coat and drawing out a small sponge and a flacon. Both of them he dropped into the hollow of her hand.
“What are these?”
The sparkle of mischief she so adored, which she had so missed, lit up his eyes. He leaned closer and skimmed his mouth over her ear. “Were you not afraid of getting with child, my love? With these you will need have no fear.” The air escaped her in a high, breathy sound of surprise, and his teeth closed in a gentle bite on her earlobe. “Will you let me show you how?” He drew in a deep breath. “Tonight?” The word shivered against her skin.
For a moment Amy stood rock still. She remembered all the reasons why she should resist him—he didn’t know about the potion and their affections were only based on an illusion. Yet in the end, the wild beating of her heart, the scent of him in her nostrils and the taste of him in her mouth won.
She tightened her fingers around the sponge and flacon and pressed her face against his throat. “Yes. Oh, yes.”
Chapter Thirteen
Thus, he came to her during the night, slipped into her bed, and as their bodies entwined and became one, all secrets and words slipped away. They were replaced by the language of skin gliding over skin, of hearts straining to beat as one, of the smell and taste of sweat sweeter than dew.
How to describe an act of perfect bliss and harmony? When passion became a dark wave that drew them under, and tenderness so overwhelmingly sweet it could reduce a grown man to tears? In his arms Amy found a freedom of body and mind beyond anything she had ever experienced before.
And yet, while she lay shuddering beside him, his face buried against her breasts, one of his arms slung over her belly and hip, while one of her hands stroked his heaving shoulders, she was filled with the bittersweet knowledge of the transience of it all. Built on foundations more fragile than thinnest glass, such bliss could not and would not last. She could not build her hopes on what he had experienced more than two decades ago. As a child he might have believed in magic, but the man, the real Sebastian Stapleton, did not. And who could fault him?
On their third night together Amy slid away from him as soon as she was certain he was asleep. The scrape of the flint made him grumble in protest and nestle his face deeper into the pillow; the next moment though, his breaths turned into soft snores once more.
Amy’s throat closed on a wave of tenderness. Who would have thought it: At night the fox became a baby bear.
She blinked against the sudden sting in her eyes. With a determined shake of her head, she turned away. She moved around the room and dressed as quickly and quietly as possible to the flickering light of the candle. From her chest of drawers, she took the small knife she had found in the weapons collection of Rawdon Park and thrust it into one of the pockets underneath her dress.
At the door she threw a last look at Fox. In the soft light his hair seemed darker than usual. Heavily tousled, it stuck up on all sides, and she remembered how she had run her hands through it not yet an hour ago. The blankets had slipped down to reveal the smattering of freckles across his shoulders, a sprinkle of cinnamon dust. She had teased him about them, had traced invisible lines between them and had called them his map of stars.
For a short moment she wondered whether she would see him again, but quickly she brushed the thought aside. It was time to go.
Noiselessly she slipped out of the room into the hallway and wandered the corridors of Rawdon Park in stockinged feet, her boots in one hand, the candle in the other. The pale light of the full moon fell through the tall windows of the stairway hall as she padded downstairs. In the entrance hall she donned her boots before she fetched her scarf, muff, and pelisse from the cloakroom. There she also found a cap lined with thick fur, which she took as well. It would keep her warmer than any of her own winter hats.
Outside, the air was crystal clear and so cold it stung her lungs. Amy adjusted her scarf to cover the lower half of her face and then strode away from the house. After she had left the grounds of Rawdon Park, she took a shortcut through the fields, where the snow crunched under her feet. The moon made the landscape gleam in an eerie light, and it seemed to her as if she had entered a realm of the Otherworld. She only hoped she would not fall into a ditch filled with ice.
Finally she saw the short, bulky forms of the standing stones ri
sing as dark shadows against the sky. She quickened her steps until she marched up the little hill. Just outside the circle, she stopped to catch her breath. Uncertainty made her falter. She listened to the harsh sounds of her breaths and the dull thuds of her blood in her ears. Would her plan really work?
She brushed her hand against her side and felt the length of her knife dig against her hip.
Madness!
She thought of her parents, her father who had attempted to save her mother’s life and whom the all too powerful magic had only brought death.
But then she thought of Fox, lying naked and vulnerable in her bed, not knowing of the danger that threatened his family. She thought of the children, of Pip breaking through the ice. She thought of Lord and Lady Rawdon and the dowager countess, who all had welcomed her so warmly into their midst. And in the end, her thoughts returned to Fox once more, the raw sound of his voice as he had sworn his love to her at this place three days ago. “I love you so much.”
Amy took a few deep breaths and let her fear and uncertainty ebb away with the air she exhaled. Not only did the Stapletons need her protection, but she would also never forgive herself should anything happen to one of them. She brushed the cap from her head and let the muff fall into the snow. Afterwards, she drew off her gloves and laid her hands against the icy stone to each side of her. She opened her mind and let the peace of the circle fill her being.
With a small sigh, she shrugged out of her pelisse, loosened the lacings of her dress and drew it over her head, took off her petticoats, her stays, her chemise, boots, and stockings until she stood naked and shivering. Goosebumps covered her whole body and her nipples hardened. Like a ravaging beast, the cold clawed at her body.
Amy clenched her teeth and tried to suppress the shivers. She reached for her pockets and drew out the knife, which she clenched tightly in her hand. Slowly she proceeded into the middle of the circle, where she had trodden down the snow three days before. She laid her head back and looked up to the moon, standing pale and round above her: Luna the White, who sailed across night-darkened skies. “Help me,” she whispered.
Bewitched Page 20
