Drew's hands stilled, Angelique's knee still captured in their enfolding grasp.
Angelique lifted her head. Her tousled, brown hair framed her flushed face. Her blouse had slipped from one shoulder and she could feel the intensity of Drew's gaze upon her. The flaming torchlight flickered. The shadowy depths within that crimson cloak rippled faintly.
"I want to see you, Drew."
A strangled oath squashed the flame. The torch disappeared.
As soon as they had left her lips, Angelique knew the words had been wrong. It was too soon. Cursing herself, Angelique fell silent. Drew lifted her carefully, but there was a rough, controlled anger to the movement. Then they were on the horse and Drew's booted heels were kicking them into a cantor. Drew raised a hand to call up a portal but Angelique caught it and pulled it toward her with something akin to panic.
The horse slowed to a walk. The stillness in the figure behind her chilled Angelique, but she refused to release Drew's wrist. She moistened her lips and, with her voice shaking, said, "I want to ride back with you, not jump through magick doorways."
"Why?" The voice was hard-edged, impatient.
"Because there are some pieces of your magick that still frighten me." Not a complete lie.
"Meaning I have frightened you," Drew admitted softly. There was a long pause, until Drew carefully pulled Angelique close. "My anger frightens you."
It was Angelique's turn to stiffen. She thought she might bluff her way past this moment, but stopped. She said nothing. How long had Drew known how anger frightened her? How another's rage could turn her into stone, despite her best intentions or most powerful desires? How could Drew know this one thing about her that she kept hidden from everyone?
"Even at my angriest, I have never intended to harm you," Drew's soft voice assured her, seeming to ignore her silence. "But perhaps the tenderness of a touch will reassure you where words cannot?"
Angelique's throat tightened. But Drew's hand was gentle as it brushed her thick hair aside. And Drew's breath was warm as it touched her ear. "Is this what I should do to make you believe in me?"
The kiss that pressed to her neck dissolved her fears. Lips of warmest silk kissed a slow trail to her ear, and Angelique trembled, losing herself in the delicate ecstasy of the touch. Suddenly, she didn't care what Drew knew of her heart or secret fears. This was what mattered — Drew's arms about her, the tender kisses, the soft caress.
And then suddenly, magickally, they were in the whitewashed coolness of the stables. Angelique felt the pain of betrayal with a jolt. Drew's attentions had been merely to distract her — she flushed at her own naiveté.
They dismounted. The stable master took the stallion's lead, pausing to speak with Drew about the poachers' raid that everyone was anticipating. Angelique edged away from the pair to the dividing wall between an empty stall and the tack room. Her anger melted into chagrin. Of course, Drew was never going to be fooled by any of Angelique's ploys for time or attention. Doubtless over the years her companion had often seen the game played by bolder and more curious maids than she.
But it did not explain Drew's tolerance. Curious, Angelique glanced back over her shoulder. No, there was only one possible reason Drew could have so willingly followed Angelique's coy little games. Drew wanted to be led — to be pushed. Drew would never make the first move, but would gauge a response by what stimulus had been given, and so would take as much as Angelique could bear to give. But up until recently, Drew clearly had not believed that Angelique wanted to give everything. And, Angelique admitted, she hadn't known it herself.
Drew turned as the stallion was led away. The stables rang momentarily with the clang of hooves on the stone floor, and then they were alone. Angelique's gaze faltered. She stared at the half-wall in front of her, a finger toying with a crack in the wooden planking. Drew approached, hesitated, and came near. From the corner of her eye, Angelique saw a hand lift to touch her and then drop.
"Have I insulted you, my Lady?"
Her hair swirled as her head shook, and she sighed breathlessly, "Do you mean by tricking me into jumping through the magick portal?"
"No."
"Then how, my Liege?"
"By holding you."
Angelique licked her lips nervously. "By holding me how?"
"Like this." Drew's arms slipped around Angelique from behind, encircling her waist and drawing her back into the thick folds of the cloak, pressing her against the warmth of Drew's stomach and long legs.
"No, not by holding me, my Liege," Angelique breathed, moving willingly, easily into Drew's embrace. She tipped her head back, baring her neck, and said in a voice edged with sweet challenge, "How else might you have given insult?"
"By kissing you?" Drew's voice was hard-edged, but this time not with anger. Angelique felt Drew's lips against her neck and she melted into the exquisite softness of endless, gentle kisses. Drew's hands, fingers spread wide, cupped the rich roundness of Angelique's breasts. Angelique let out a gasp that turned into a low, quivering moan.
Her hands folded atop Drew's as, unquestioning, she urged the heated touch higher. Drew's mouth was etching a fine line of desire across Angelique's bare shoulder, and a soft cheek brushed her skin. Her breasts ached with a tautness she had never known, and Angelique cried out, startled by the pleasure that shot through her as Drew's thumb grazed over fabric and then slid beneath the loosened bodice, palm and fingers brushing across tender skin.
Angelique's knees were melting to boneless water as the lightest tip of Drew's tongue swirled about the curve of her ear.
Angelique reached a hand back, seeking support as her legs grew frighteningly weak. She clutched at Drew's shoulder and the crimson cowl pulled suddenly away.
"No."
The tenderness left their embrace. Angelique found her arms pinned against her sides, her breasts aching; the bare skin of her shoulder felt naked and chilled.
None too gently she was pushed away.
Angelique clutched at the stall's half-wall, already crying as she waited for the inevitable conclusion to this scene. It was as she'd expected. Without a word, she was left alone with her tears.
Chapter 12
The night was a long one for Angelique. It didn't help that the thunderstorms were raging again, or that Angelique was all too aware of Drew's departure to hunt the poachers. And though dawn brought a crystal-blue clarity to the sky above and tendrils of curling mists to the fields below, to Angelique the mist seemed eerie and only made her shiver. She paused at her terrace doors, wishing for some sign of Drew's safe return.
She should have known better than to fret. Culdun would have brought word if something dreadful had happened. With the sunrise, she knew, Drew would only have just begun the weary process of unearthing the snares and steel traps.
All the same, Angelique couldn't seem to help herself. She was dressed before the stable boys stumbled in from the village. She had nearly scrubbed the wax from the library's floor with her pacing before the sun had cleared the trees or the morning mists had begun to thin. And as she wandered the upper portico's hallways, she wondered if she hadn't somehow missed Drew's return after all. But the study was empty, as was the bed chamber. She was left to her wanderings.
She refused to think about Drew's rejection of her in the stables. She clung only to the memory of what had happened and to the feelings she had discovered within herself. Angelique remembered the first night in the carriage and her dreams of snakes and the deep, dark void at the end of the road. Now, the darkness no longer evoked doubts and fears. Somehow, over the last few months, she had stopped regarding the possibility of this marriage as a duty for her mother's welfare or as a necessary sacrifice for Drew's well-being. Somewhere along the way, she had come to love this extraordinary, mysterious person, and she had come to want this marriage for much more selfish reasons.
A pair of brown speckled doves cooed and nudged at one another, drawing Angelique's attention to where they sat on the stone ban
ister. She paused, sinking soundlessly back into the shadows behind an arched column so as not to frighten them. The breeze ruffled the birds' feathers and carried with it the fresh, clean scents of the sprawling palace gardens. The upper limbs of the poplar trees that surrounded the courtyard swayed a bit. The laughter of children and the clop of a shod horse echoed across the cobblestones below, and Angelique smiled as she glanced down to see a half-dozen of the village youngsters clamoring about the rider and horse.
Poor old thing, Angelique thought, recognizing Drew's white steed as it stepped ever so cautiously about the dancing menagerie. The rider held him under a tight rein as all around them children ran, laughing and playing with the billowing length of a stolen red cloak.
It took a full moment for Angelique to realize who the slender figure upon the horse must be. Even when she did, it was first because of the rich, soft timbre to the laughter, and second because of the crimson garment that fluttered out behind the youngest child like an errant kite.
Angelique blinked in astonishment. The riders unruly, black hair was tied back, but no longer hidden. The sculpted plains of the woman's face seemed haunted; the pallor of heart-wearied despair made her skin almost translucent in the morning sun. But Angelique also saw the soft edges of that mouth lift in laughter with the children's games. The shapeliness of the bodice, too, was no longer concealed by the hanging drape of the cloak, and Angelique suddenly remembered how soft the cheek against her shoulder had been last night.
Culdun appeared silently below, and Angelique moved quickly back from the banister as she heard her name waft up with the wind. She risked another glance. Drew was dismounting. The children had returned the cloak, and the crimson fabric was once again in place. Angelique realized Culdun must have mentioned that she was awake much earlier than usual. She returned to the depths of the hallways, trying to reconcile the haunted beauty of the woman she had just seen with Drew's description of her own monstrosity.
Her thoughts opened a gate in her mind, and Angelique was suddenly flooded with memories and images from her childhood. Ivan’s sneered remarks about a particular kitchen maid who seemed to want no man’s company; her maternal grandmother’s companion and the way her mother had treated them with all the respect she would have given any married couple — even in the face of Aloysius puzzled stare and rude remarks, made when he thought no one else could hear him. She remembered other incidents, too: the taunting of a local dairymaid who, separated from her companions, was accosted at the trader's; ugly words and rumors shared on street corners and around family tables. Angelique had never paid much attention to such remarks, as it seemed her father and brothers were always mocking someone, but now, when she replaced some of those other tormented and shamed faces with Drew’s, she began to understand the depth of Drew's despair and why Drew had come to see herself as the monstrous outcast. An outcast who simply must have deserved a father’s wrath and a stepmother’s curse.
But Angelique did not believe people like the witch-woman or Aloysius were right in their opinions. As a matter of course, Angelique reminded herself, she'd generally found that those who held opinions in opposition to hers were usually the ones whose hearts were corrupted by greed — just like Aloysius or Drew’s stepmother. How could Drew's father not have seen the blatant lies inherent in the discovery of the so-called atrocity which Drew was to have perpetuated?! Suddenly, Angelique felt a hot flame of pure rage kindle within her — whatever atrocities that witch-woman had named Drew, the naming had been the atrocity, not Drew!
And as for Drew herself, well, no matter what Drew had encountered in the other maids before Angelique, how dare she assume Angelique was as simple-minded!
"Culdun!" she called, her voice ringing with determination. Still crying his name, she spun on her heel and headed for the nearest stairwell.
The time for foolishness was done.
Chapter 13
"What do you mean, not coming?" Angelique gasped.
"My Liege has retired without breakfast, Mistress. There were poachers about last night."
"I'm quite aware of what transpired last night, Culdun. Just as you are quite aware of the fact that we brunch together on such days before Drew goes off to bed. So tell me. What is going on?"
The Old One stared at her for a long while. Quietly he said, "Perhaps you should be telling me."
Angelique's mouth thinned, her dark eyes smoldering with gathering fury. "I don’t know what you mean. All I know is that Drew is running away again!" Angelique hissed, catching Culdun completely by surprise. "And you are helping her to do it!"
His face went blank. But not before Angelique glimpsed his surprise and shock. There was a tense silence. "I saw Drew this morning from the balcony," she paused and then added, "without the hood. I saw her, Culdun. What she's been trying to hide from me all this time."
"Does my Liege know?"
"No. And you are not to say one single word about it, either. This is for us to work out alone. But damn it, Culdun! It's so hard when she won't even meet me half-way!"
The Old One offered a sad smile. "I would imagine not. There has been so much pain and many, many years of loneliness, my Lady."
"Culdun, will you help her hide forever?"
Culdun gave her a measured look and Angelique could see him weighing the respect he felt for her against the oaths he'd sworn to his Liege. With a nod, he consented. "My Liege requested tea in the private gardens at four."
"The secluded one? The place her study windows overlook?"
He nodded.
"How do I gain entrance, Culdun? I know there is no usual path."
"Aye, my Lady. But I can show you."
The water sparkled in the fountain like a splay of diamond dust. Angelique dipped her fingers into the cool pool and sighed. Drew was late. She worried the woman may have come and gone, slipping away unseen when she caught sight of Angelique waiting for her.
"Will you wait a while longer, my Lady?" China rattled as Culdun arranged the tea service on the little white table.
Angelique nodded morosely.
"My Lady?"
Angelique glanced up to find Culdun poised with the tea pot and a cup in hand. She shook her head. "Nothing right now, Culdun. Thank you."
He set the cup and pot back on the table and rummaged in his pockets for a moment. "Ah, I'd almost forgotten," he said, drawing out a rolled parchment. "This arrived this morning. Its from your mother."
"Thank you." She accepted the bundle, which was tied with a red ribbon, and wondered vaguely if Aloysius had finally found a nursing companion who could write. The letter was quite a bit thicker than her father's patience generally allowed.
Culdun's broad hand touched hers gently. "You will do fine."
"Yes," she gave him a wan smile. "Thank you. Please, don’t let me keep you from your work. With this heat your garden must need tending."
"But I'll still be near." He gave her hand an encouraging squeeze and departed.
The fountain's babbling blended with the birds' chatter. But Angelique was barely aware of her surroundings. With a determined shake of her head, she broke the wax seal of her mother's letter.
She found she'd been correct in her assumptions; Aloysius had hired an educated nurse to oversee her mother's care. Angelique thought how very well things must be going for her father with Drew's wares. Again she shook her head. She would not let his memory spoil the pleasure of a letter from her mother. Focusing on that, she began to read and, as she did, could almost hear her mother's loving voice describing the long quiet days.
The breeze died unnoticed. The chirp and peep of the birds dwindled, then quieted altogether. Only the sound of the running water in the fountain behind her persisted, and gradually, Angelique became aware of the stillness. She looked up slowly, knowing already she was not alone. Between the straight columns, half-cloaked by the shadows of the palace archways, Drew stood silently.
Angelique offered a smile and went back to her reading. She c
ould no more concentrate on the words in front of her than she could quiet the pounding beat of her heart. But she was wary of startling Drew again. Something deep within Angelique had finally grasped how very thin Drew's facade of strength was, and Angelique wanted nothing more than to offer protection to the frightened child hidden behind all that false bravado.
"A letter from home, my Lady?"
In relief, Angelique breathed again.
"Yes." She lifted a welcoming gaze as the hooded Drew neared. "It's from Mama. She writes that Aloysius has come down with his usual summer cold even though the house has never been warmer. Since his business is thriving, he apparently has all the hearths burning night and day."
"I am glad they are doing well for your mother’s sake."
Angelique's smile faltered as she watched black-gloved hands move from her sight.
"I am sorry I am late for tea." Drew offered a small bow. "I did not expect your company."
"You must be hungry." Angelique stood. A magickal command whisked the letter off to her bed chambers, and she moved to the table. "Would you like sugar or honey?"
"Honey, thank you."
The lid to the silver pot rattled and threatened to slip. Angelique set it down with a betraying bump. The cups clattered with the jolt.
"Are you alright? Angelique?"
She turned at the concern in the voice, leaning back to grasp the edges of the table, and admitted honestly, "Only nervous, my Liege."
A half-step drew the other forward, and then that hesitant pose emerged. "I must apologize for last night, my Lady. I —"
"Drew." Angelique's voice was breathless with anxiety. A palpable tension hung in the air between them. "I want you to promise me something."
"That would depend on what it is you ask."
"Promise me that you won't run away today."
Startled, Drew took a step backward. "I am not sure I can give you such a promise," she said quietly.
"I just want to talk with you, Drew. There are things I need to say. Will you hear me out, at least?"
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