"You have nothing to apologize for," came the terse retort, and the dark figure strode back to the desk.
"But-"
"Trust your instincts, Angelique. And be afraid. Now," Drew lifted the quill again, "you must excuse me. I have work to do."
Speechless, Angelique stood as if rooted to the floor. The curtness, the cold dismissal, was so unexpected. This must be some stranger, she reasoned, come to take Drew's place. This was not the person she knew.
"Go!"
She jumped, and moved to obey, fighting tears of anger and embarrassment. At the door she paused and looked back. Drew had not returned to work but was sitting, quill poised, as if listening for the door to swing shut behind Angelique. Suddenly inspired, Angelique murmured a word. Drew's quill disappeared and in its place appeared a pale pink rose, stripped of its thorns.
"What—"
Over her shoulder Angelique replied, "You said to trust my instincts, my Liege."
And then she was gone.
The fountain sparkled with silver droplets and tiny rainbows as the waters played and danced over the sculpted stones. Arching streams from winged seahorses and mounted nymphs tossed cool sprays of mist into the air. Drew sat at the fountain's edge, staring morosely into the rippled reflection which stared back. Uncharacteristically, Drew had pushed the cloak's hood back, but even the warm, honeyed sunshine could not dispel the despair within, The pink rose, Angelique's instinctual gift, lay on the fountain's edge. Drew's dark eyes caressed it again. The brilliant clearness of the sky, such a soft and even expanse of blue, the calls of half a dozen different birds, and even the warm, gentle breeze that lifted Drew's black curls went completely unnoticed.
Culdun appeared soundlessly, as always. "You wanted me, my Liege?"
"Yes." Drew's words came slowly, reluctantly. "When Angelique returns, please tell her... tell her I will be at dinner tonight." Drew looked up into the man's face, a thousand questions in the dark, haunted eyes.
But if Culdun had any answers, he did not offer them. "Yes, my Liege," was all he said. He bowed and was gone.
Chapter 7
It was a quiet meal, each striving not to offend, not to assume, and yet Angelique was aware of the way her heart raced whenever Drew’s soft voice emerged from the hooded darkness. She was aware of the pleasure she felt when her companion noticed the fit of her dress, the new style of her hair. And she became more determined not to disappoint.
After dinner, Culdun followed them into the parlor with a tray of brandy, but Angelique declined and wandered to the hearth. The fire was blazing and its warmth was welcoming in the night's unseasonable coolness. The silver rose still lay on the mantel and gingerly Angelique ran a finger along its stem.
"Take heed of the thorns, my Lady."
Angelique nodded, remembering their sting.
"We have not talked of much tonight, my Lady."
Angelique turned. "We do not always have to talk to enjoy each other's company, my Liege."
For a moment, Drew was intensely still, then suddenly in motion, moving with seeming casualness around the room. Angelique sensed that something was waiting to be said, but she would not hurry it.
"Why did you come here, my Lady?" Drew asked at last in a voice both hesitant and curious.
"I came in response to your proposal, my Liege. As I have said, I could not bear the thought of being scullery maid to my brothers' households should I fail to marry before they would claim me as their own."
"And if you had to make the choice again, knowing such magicks would surround you, would your decision be the same?"
"It would, my Liege."
Drew had come to stand at the mantel and reached out to touch the silver rose. Angelique held her breath at their sudden closeness. Taking the rose up in a gloved hand, Drew turned away, the hem of the cloak brushing against Angelique’s bare hand. The woman shivered.
"Do you remember the terms of the proposal?"
"In exchange for my hand, you negotiated a business contract with my father."
"And?"
Angelique half-turned, but stopped herself. Instinct told her this was terribly difficult for Drew and if she turned to face her host, the others words would dry up as quickly as a desert stream. She dropped her gaze to the carpet and, with forced casualness, turned back to her contemplation of the fire. To the hearthstones she said, "I had to agree to come here freely."
"Yet you could not have known what you were agreeing to."
"I knew what would happen to me if I stayed and, quite honestly, my Liege, I think — magick or no, not-quite-human or mortal to a fault — I have the better end of the bargain. My... Aloysius sees to his own self-interests, and if yours happen to coincide, then all is peaceful. But if not..." she trailed off. After a moment, she spoke again, "That Aloysius neglected to clarify certain aspects of the bargain was not surprising."
"You mean the magick?"
"That. And more. Aspects like yourself."
Despite the crackle and pop of the fire, Drew's sigh was loud in the room. There was the faint scent of rose petals, as if stirred by memory, and the silver rose reappeared on the mantel.
"You are to be Mistress of this house, Angelique. Regardless of marriage. I could never release you back to the care of one —" The words were bitten off sharply. "I am sorry. I know he is your father. But I could not in good conscience return you there."
"He is not my father," Angelique said abruptly, before she could stop herself, anger coloring her voice. She drew a sharp breath, suddenly mindful of what she had revealed.
"Not—?"
"He speaks for me as father," she amended, head bent. "But I am not his child. My mother had a lover. I don't blame her. I might have done the same if I'd found myself married to a man such as he. I've never met my real father," she finished quietly.
"And Aloysius knows this?"
She nodded.
"It does not excuse his behavior!"
"No, but I expect it made it easier for him to —" She broke off before more could be said. She had expected a different reaction than the concern Drew had shown her, and something inside her stirred at the feeling of protection Drew’s words engendered. She finally finished with, "Parents are not always reasonable."
Drew’s bitter laugh shattered her serenity, and she turned to face Drew for the first time since they had come into the parlor. "My Liege?"
"The time has come, my dear Angelique," Drew began, in a voice rich with sarcasm and something else Angelique could not quite identify, "to tell you of the true family Aloysius has sold you into!"
"Drew —"
"Contrary to Aloysius, my father was always reasonable. Ah, yes, a kind man. A generous one. He pampered me. Saw to my education. He doted upon me. For you see, I was his only child and he the only parent. He had his broad estate, his treasures — his power! He went unquestioned in his little domain. And so I grew to adulthood never knowing —" Drew broke off abruptly.
The air in the parlor seemed suddenly thick and close. Angelique stared at Drew, whose body was so full of angry tension that it seemed to set Drew's cloak to writhing like a living thing. Drew's breath rasped harshly behind the darkened hood. The clock ticked off the minutes.
Finally, Drew spoke again. "I never knew exactly what I was. But how could I? My passions were never challenged. I was his heir. It was that simple. No one would have ever dared to speak against —" There was another pause in which Drew seemed to fight for control. When Drew spoke again, the voice was softer, but far from calm. "Doubtless Culdun has told you of my stepmother and of her infamous skills as a witch?"
Angelique shook her head, "He said only that she came into your life when you were older."
"Older, yes, but still very naive. Naive enough to fall in love, foolish enough to believe that love was meant for everyone. Including me. I was ignorant enough to the ways of the outside world. How was I to know that the love I bore for my stepsister was seen as sin?"
"Moral sin
, my Liege? But how can that be if you were not related by blood?" Angelique asked, truly puzzled.
Drew did not answer, but continued as if Angelique were not even in the room. "I committed the crime of loving my stepsister. Two years younger, radiant with the joy of life. Just beginning to know what it is to be a woman. Just beginning to learn what love is about."
Drew paused and the broad shoulders straightened. "I had no right to pursue the trusting attachments of any young woman, Angelique. And yet I did pursue her. For a time, I even thought she returned my affections. Until the night we were discovered in the midst of our — my lusts. What I had thought to be her desire was fear... of me. What I had mistaken for love was merely —"
Drew's gloved hands gripped the back of a chair. The merciless rasp of self-hatred etched each phrase. "To see her terror! Her shivering in fear! Clutching at her dress as she begged her mother for protection! From me! My father's face, his revulsion, his horror as the truth was finally forced upon him.... It is all so clear to me still. Every image... every word said."
Angelique trembled. Icy fingers of fear pricked the skin on the nape of her neck. She stared at Drew with wide eyes, questions tumbling upon themselves in her head, warring to be released, but she knew better. She remained silent.
Drew seemed to be elsewhere, pulled back through time to that horrible night so many years ago. It all played out, just as it had then, and Drew was powerless to stop the rush of memories. Drew faltered. In the mind's eye, images spilled from memory and Drew was unable to stop them.
"My daughter!" the witch-woman screamed, emerald eyes burning like living fire, her black hair flying around her head like a thousand hissing snakes. "How dare you defile my own flesh and blood with your perverted touch?!"
Drew cowered, jerkin and tunic clutched in awkward desperation as she tried to hide her nakedness. Helpless and confused, she shook her head. Her disheveled tangle of ebony hair shimmered in the lantern light. She burned with shame.
"What have you to say for yourself?" The Count's words were flat with judgment. How could she explain to him that he encouraged what she was? Allowed her to think of herself as his mirror image, his son, his heir? He had never told her that women were only for men’s beds and she had not assumed such a narrow view. But now his voice was full of rage. Where were the tender words meant just for her? The nicknames, the shared laughter? Where was her father? The man who stood before her, demanding and inflexible, was not the Count she knew. This man’s words were judgmental and harsh. As if she should have known, somehow, all that was expected of her but never said. "Speak!" he commanded.
"I meant no crime, Papa! I love her," she cried, the truth of her words apparent to any who would listen. "As she loves me. I thought to marry —"
"No!" the shriek came as one from daughter and mother.
"I never loved you," screamed the girl as her mother moved to shield her more completely. "How could you imagine something so horrible? So untrue?"
"But you said—"
"Don’t listen to the lies—" the daughter broke in. But the mother needed no convincing to prove the innocence of her child.
"Filth — liar! Marry my own to one of Nature's most warped abominations?" She spit on the ground in disgust. "If you were not my husband's child —!"
"I have no child but yours, wife," he said. Drew whirled on him in stunned surprise. "Papa!" He would not hear, but instead turned away. "Father!"
At the doorway, he paused, but did not look back. "Father, please —" The plea became a cry, a wail of despair that drove the girl to her knees as her father took one step away from her, and then another.
The witch stepped near, and from her lips fell the words of an incantation already begun, "...my daughter to protect and for all the daughters of those you have sworn to protect...." Words tumbled over each other like pebbles in a rockslide, erasing all in their path. Smoke rose. The witch circled the sobbing young woman on the floor. "...Hear me now and mark my words!"
The wind shrieked; the witch's cry rose to guide the gale. "Then find you a prisoner for your precious love! You shall be bound by spells and time in a place befitting such noble dreams. You shall be, oh swine of humankind, bound to a mockery of love which will play with you. Marry you say? Then marry you will. Love you say, then love she must! A maid as plain or fair as you choose. But choose she must! Freely and knowingly must she choose to marry you and consecrate those sacred vows in your monstrous bed!"
The gale reached its final fury, whirling around the crumpled form of the once-cherished child. The witch's final curse screamed over the howling wind:
"Cast thee gone! Beyond thy Death!
Cast thee out! Doomed in Quest! Beyond mere Time!
Eternity Now... is... Thine!"
"My father," Drew said at last, "roused by my stepmother's shrieks, found me in the barn with my stepsister. I tried to explain to him — to them all — that I loved her and she ... she denied my love. My father, saying I was no longer his child, turned his back on me. And my stepmother... Her words were the most devastating of all. The witch-woman cursed me." Drew looked up at Angelique and repeated her stepmother's words, ending with the curse.
Silence hung over the dark parlor. The fire had ebbed to mere coals. Angelique shuddered. Her hands pressed to her chest. She felt faint. What had Drew just told her?
"And now, my Lady thinks there must be some error — some noble oversight. But there was none, I assure you. I wish only that my appetites reflected gentler passions!"
"But each of us may be only what we are," Angelique choked out against the strangling dryness in her throat.
"And what am I? I hear your desire to ask even though your fears urge you to silence!"
"Would you not have me know the one I would marry?"
"Who? Or what, my Lady?" The acid in Drew’s voice burned. "Are we demons not all alike? Is it not enough to know we are demons?"
Angelique, frightened by the rage that swirled in the room as powerfully as the witch’s windstorm, fought for control. Drew seemed like a serpent ready to strike and she a helpless creature caught in its mesmerizing stare. Words evaded her tongue. The silence deepened. Ashamed of her inability to speak, Angelique tried to choke out an apology, but found her throat closed by tears.
"Go to bed, Angelique." Drew’s voice cut through the tension like a knife and fell away. The room was suddenly ordinary again, and Drew was nothing more than the bleak, hooded figure, half-hidden in shadows. In a flat voice, Drew said, "Go to bed and dream of dancing and stars and happy things. There will be no marriage between us."
She should have stayed. She should have protested. But Angelique could only run.
The night wind howled like a tormented animal. Angelique shivered uncontrollably in the emptiness of her great bed. Neither the fine lace and satin sheets nor the thickness of the eiderdown quilts did anything to ease the chill in her heart.
She could not imagine ever doing anything so terrible as to cause her mama to disown her. Her mama’s love transcended all transgressions, no matter how wicked. Of that she was sure. But that was exactly what had happened to Drew. To be banished by the only family you had known simply because she had loved? It didn't seem right somehow. Angelique shuddered. She struggled to make sense of all that Drew had told her, but the words only echoed within her mind.
A crack broke through the howling winds. For an instant, complete, eerie quiet descended. Angelique sat bolt upright, heart racing. That had been the shot of powder and ball! Poachers!
Slashing torrents of rain struck suddenly at the window. Lightning flashed, illuminating the darkened night, and thunder followed close behind, crashing across the sky. Voices boomed abruptly in the courtyard below: Drew, Culdun and others.
Angelique snatched the red cloak from the foot of her bed and pulled open the doors to the terrace. Drenching, icy waters pelted her, the force of the rain hard against cloak and hair, stinging her face. The scream of Drew's white stallion cut thr
ough the night, and she ran for the terrace's stone steps, unmindful of her bare feet.
"Go back!" Drew shouted at her, looking fierce and dangerous high upon the stallion's back. Angelique's eyes strained to see through the night and the storm. Tying down saddlebags and readying the bridle, Culdun and two other Old Ones turned to see Angelique standing half-soaked and barefoot in the rain.
"My Liege!" Angelique's voice lifted above the thunders shout, "you must not go alone!"
"Inside!" The mighty stallion lifted, his war cry shrill. "The beasts are panicked. They will flock to the palace grounds and I will not have you harmed!"
"But Drew—"
"Inside!" Thunder flew from Drew's hand and, abruptly, Angelique found herself back in her room. The doors were fastened tight, though they rattled in the wind. She tried the handles, but they remained fast. She urgently rubbed the mist of her breath from the glass, straining to see into the black depths. Lightning spiked down and she glimpsed horse and rider. Then all vanished into the darkness. She waited anxiously for the next bolt of lightning. But when it came, there was nothing left to be seen.
Culdun came in search of Angelique later, half to assure himself of her safety, she guessed, and half to offer reassurance. But he did not expect the near-frozen figure he found.
Still dressed in the wet cloak, dark hair straggly and pale skin chilled almost blue, Angelique sat curled on the floor beside the doors. Her eyes were round, unseeing, haunted. She made no response when he spoke to her, but merely stared through the glass and into the storm.
Chapter 8
"Culdun?"
"Yes, my Lady?" The little braid flopped across his cheek as he glanced up sideways. He was busy turning the mulch and soil beneath a rose bush. He smiled as Angelique folded her loose skirts and knelt beside him to help, approving of her practical way of dressing and matter-of-fact pursuit of such pleasures as gardening.
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