“Gentle Mother, do ye know nothing?” she whispered. “At present, she’s no notion who ye are. We’d best leave it so, if we wish to keep tonight’s wee stramash from the French ambassador and the bloody Queen!”
He blinked, the levity fading from his face. “Indeed. We need to discuss that business, Linnet. Someone is trying most determinedly to have you killed. Have you any notion who? Or why?”
Her chest tightened, squeezing the air from her lungs. She’d been trying her hardest not to think about that particular problem, until she was safely alone and could fall to pieces in private.
“I’m Catholic, and my grandsire was James of Scotland. That’s more than enough reason, the way the wind blows in England, aye?”
“If these are Protestants, the French connection would seem counter to their interests.” Aye, the man was no idiot, despite his levity. “The French Dauphin is wedded to Mary of Scots—an ardent Catholic, isn’t that so? By rights, you’re their natural ally. They’re far more likely to woo you than kill you.”
“Sweet Jesus, will ye hush?” Anxious, she glanced up and down the corridor.
The cressets guttered dimly, low in their sconces, and the shadows that clotted the alcoves and stairwell could hide anyone. This was not a conversation she wished to risk being overheard.
Yet there he stood, one brow arched, plainly determined not to let the matter drop.
“What about your title? You inherited an earldom when your brother passed. Is there some jealous neighbor, a land dispute?”
“Nothing of the kind. My lord—”
“Zamiel.”
“My lord Zamiel,” she said firmly, holding her temper in check. “I thank ye kindly for yer concern—”
“Could there be a rival claimant? Some other Norwood or half-Norwood, smarting under the shame of the bar sinister?”
About to dismiss him, she blinked. She’d never considered such a notion. She was her mother’s only surviving child, and her father...! The thought of pious Edward Norwood rooting around under anyone’s skirts was so incongruous as to be laughable.
Yet the unpalatable truth persisted. Someone wanted her dead.
Shivering, she pushed away the troubling notion. “My father was the sole heir of his clan. When James died last fall, a search was held. No one wanted a girl locked up for a raving lunatic as a countess, aye? Ye don’t think they’d have given me the title if they’d turned up any alternative, no matter how weak the claim?”
She’d prayed herself past the bitter pain of that, prayed for the grace to forgive James and his vindictive wife Caitlin for having her locked away. Still, the bile of resentment rose in her throat. She heard its ugly echo in her words and winced.
Zamiel, too, must have heard it. Dreading the same recrimination, the same judgment, the same pity she saw everywhere else, she steeled herself to meet his gaze.
He searched her face, where her emotions must be blazoned like a proclamation.
“And your brothers?” he said calmly. “Tell me again how they died.”
Blessing him in her mind, she retreated to safe terrain. “James was killed by bandits with his wife and wee lad. They’re buried, all three, in the family vault at Glencross. My brother Colin, the sweet babe we all adored, he...died...” Her voice wavered, the old guilt and grief swamping her. “He died in a fall from the castle heights while I was away. He sleeps in his own wee casket.
“And the third—the third was Jasper,” she said flatly. “He died by misfortune.”
“How intriguing,” he murmured.
She clenched her fists in her skirts. “We’ve a narrow close that leads down from the cliffs to the road. Jasper was chasing...someone...down that road in a thunderstorm. There was a rockslide. And that was the end of Jasper.”
Blessed Bride, there was so much, so dreadfully much she wouldn’t say, because she couldn’t say it without shaking and sobbing like a madwoman.
Zamiel busied himself with his sword belt, gave her the moment to regain her poise, with that odd perceptiveness she’d noted before. She drew a long breath and unclenched her fists.
“Does Jasper too sleep in the family vault?” he asked.
I hope he sleeps in Hell—the same living hell he made of my childhood.
She steadied her voice. “The ravines near Glencross are steep, and the tumbling rivers at the bottom are fierce. They never found him. But that was five years past.”
“Ah, but—”
“He wasn’t the sort of man to live quiet. If he’d survived, the world would have known it, believe me.”
Zamiel looked thoughtful, but Linnet was shivering in the draughty corridor. Five minutes talking about Jasper and the men who wanted her dead was more than sufficient to chill her blood.
When the distant tramp of feet sounded on the stair, she was almost grateful. A playful feminine shriek floated upward, paired with the low intimate rumble of male laughter.
Time to say farewell to her unlikely protector.
She lowered her eyes and dipped into a curtsey.
“Thus I take my leave, my lord.”
“It’s Zamiel.” He swept her a jaunty leg, undaunted by the bedraggled state of his attire. “Listen to me, Linnet. It may be unlikely that Jasper survived, but if you’ve no spurned suitor or jealous neighbor with a grudge—”
Her fragile poise cracked. “I’ve two years of my life I can’t account for. The truth is, I could have offended anyone, from the Queen of France to the Queene of the Faeries.”
Chapter Seven
A naked woman was running across his courtyard.
Zamiel glimpsed her as he cantered through the gate toward the elegant manor he’d rented on the Strand. Just a flash of sleek white legs, bobbing breasts and the jet-black curls between her thighs. When she whirled to tease the disheveled groom pelting after her, her crimson cloak swirled around this modern Jezebel—a cloak he recognized as his own. Both the cloak and the groom were recent acquisitions, purchased with Lucifer’s coin of the realm.
The girl he could not recall buying. But the Cheapside brothel called the Maidenhead always poured an excellent Rhenish, and his memories after the second bottle were somewhat vague.
The double doors swung ajar, spilling firelight and the ragged strains of a ronde into the night. With panache, Zamiel reined his black courser to a prancing halt and leaped down.
The jolt of landing jarred loose a startled curse. He’d forgotten his damned shoulder. Now, beneath Linnet’s neat bandage, the bloody thing gave a white-hot stab of protest that brought water to his eyes.
“Tears,” he informed the fretful black, touching his gloved finger to this marvel. “And the Devil’s own torment of a shoulder. Mortality is an extraordinary state, isn’t it, Morningstar?”
Morningstar flung back his head and snorted, the white star on his brow gleaming. He was another recent acquisition. It had amused Zamiel to christen the animal for his father, once called the Son of the Morning.
He glanced about for the groom, but the man had vanished with his black-haired strumpet. From the stable, a chorus of squeals and giggles emerged.
Sighing, he cast about for the fellow’s name. No good. He’d hired an army of servants with the house, and been half-drunk when he did it.
He settled for a resonant, baritone blast.
“Groom!”
Still no sign of the fellow. But his porter popped into view, brushing crumbs from the potbelly beneath his straining doublet.
“There ye are, milord,” the porter said cheerfully. “How was court then, Yer Splendidness?”
“Painful,” Zamiel murmured, flexing his torn shoulder.
“Oh, aye? We was wonderin’ would ye return by dawn. The girls are like to leave then, an ye don’t pay them to stay longer.”
“Girls?” He peered vaguely toward the house. Through the windows, blazing with a profligate expanse of candlelight, a ragged circle of dancers whirled in varying stages of undress.
“Ye’
ve got three fancies from the Maidenhead and four from the Rampant Bull—but that’s countin’ the two laddies, aye? The madam, she weren’t sure as ye’d want lads tonight, but I told her ye weren’t over particular on suchlike matters, Yer Gloriousness.”
“No, you did well. We need good male voices for the singing.” He surrendered Morningstar’s reins and swept a bow to the fractious stallion, which set off another vicious throb in his shoulder. “Remind me to give you a raise, man. I ought to discharge that groom and pay you double.”
“Oh, ye can wager as I won’t be forgettin’ to remind ye.” The porter grinned and shifted his attention to the stallion. “Come on then, laddie. Let’s find ye a nice dry box and a bucket of yer best feed...”
Swinging off his cape, Zamiel entered his residence unheralded. Whoever he’d hired to help the porter wasn’t at his post, so he hitched the cape over his good shoulder and strode toward the banquet hall. An extraordinary miasma of aromas struck him like a brick wall: the eye-watering aroma of burnt fowl seasoned with every herb in the spice chest, the fruity bite of spilled mead, the musky odor of unwashed bodies working up a sweat.
When he noticed the rich stink wafting from the garderobe, his nose wrinkled. Had he hired anyone to clean the jakes? He’d have to ask the porter...Menzies, that was it. Or was it Malcolm?
At this late hour, his roster of guests had dwindled. Here and there, lounging around the scattered wreckage of a feast, men and women dozed and diced and drank. Most of the servants were present, more or less, which heartened him as it spared him the bother of hiring new ones. The whores had been explained by Malcolm...or was it Menzies?
As he scanned the chamber idly, his eye fell upon an alcove. There, in full view of any who cared to look, his broad-shouldered valet sprawled with hose around his ankles, beefy face twisted in a grimace of sexual pleasure. A pillowy blonde knelt between his thighs, her curly head bobbing as she worked. Mildly curious, Zamiel sidled around for a better view.
Hell’s Bells, his valet was a well-endowed specimen. That great curving cock jutted like a cudgel before him. The doxy’s lush lips suckled him with a practiced rhythm, his shaft wet and shining beneath her efforts. Her upturned gaze never left the man’s face, attentive to every response in the heavy, flushed features.
Perhaps she felt he was taking too long. She weighed and fondled his heavy sac before one deft finger found the crevasse between his buttocks and wiggled inside.
The valet’s face contorted. His big hands wrapped around her head and held her in place. Groaning with pleasure, he arched into her and pumped his hips. Well versed in her art, the blonde anchored herself comfortably while he rode her mouth hard and long. His hoarse cry of climax finished the business.
While Zamiel watched in fascination, she released him. A pointed tongue swept around her lips to collect the creamy dew of his release, which she neatly swallowed. As his valet subsided on the cushioned bench, the blonde glanced around and spotted Zamiel.
He stood, rooted in place by the performance, his mortal senses buffeted by another remarkable sensation. Beneath his codpiece, his own cock was full and aching. Now an image coalesced before his eyes—Linnet Norwood with her dark, fire-streaked ringlets tumbled around her bare shoulders, gown slipping to offer a tantalizing peek at the damask curves of her truly glorious breasts.
She had the perfect mouth, a tender bow of lips tinted a delicate pink. The thought of her soft lips closing around his cock sent a jolt of pure arousal arcing through him.
In the alcove, the blonde’s keen gaze darted over him. She assessed the rich fabric of his doublet, the gleaming silver rapier belted at his hips, the garnet-red codpiece strapped between his thighs. Again her tongue swept out, this time with an avid air.
“Will ye be wantin’ the same then, lovey?”
The girl’s hoarse dockside accent shredded his lingering fantasy. Zamiel blinked and stepped back.
“A tempting offer, my dear, but I’ve already been with my ladylove tonight.”
Sweeping the pouting harlot a dashing bow, he beat a prudent retreat to his private apartments.
Normally he would have flung himself into the revels, linking hands with the dancers, calling for his lute, exhorting them to join their voices for his makeshift choir. Tonight for some reason, this nightly debauchery had lost its savor.
He might style himself Lord of Briah, but this den of iniquity he’d created on the Strand was a far cry from the Fifth Heaven.
Favoring his throbbing shoulder, longing for his bed, he trudged up the stairs. As he climbed, he fumbled for the key to his chambers.
Richly appointed by a senior official of Mary Tudor’s court, seized and sold when the poor fellow fled for his life, the manor’s splendor surfeited his senses. But he’d found he needed a refuge, a place to retreat and brood over what he’d lost—the Music of the Spheres.
When he rounded the corner to find his door ajar, a spike of genuine annoyance shafted through him. He was in no mood to evict another frolicking threesome from his bed tonight.
He flung the door wide. The chamber stood wrapped in darkness, an island of night in the blazing sea of flambeaux that was his life. A swath of moonlight spilled like a silver scarf through the bow window to silhouette the slim figure reclining in the window seat.
Irritably Zamiel scowled at the interloper—a slender gallant impeccably attired in doublet and hose of cream and pale blue, pure as the Virgin’s mantle. A mass of cropped white-gold curls framed the beardless profile of a young man. One arm draped around an upraised knee, he stared over the moonlit Thames.
“Now look here,” Zamiel said, too weary for diplomacy. “I’m sure you’re a perfect Ganymede, but these are my private chambers. I’ll pay you twice the going rate to leave without a fuss.”
He was digging into the purse at his belt, the purse that never ran dry, when the pale-haired figure stirred.
“Save thy Devil’s coin, Zamiel. Dost thou not know me?”
The melodious ripple of that serene voice, like still water lapping against untroubled shores, brought him up short. A thrill of incredulous delight rushed through him.
“Gabriele?”
Gabriele, Angel of Mercy and Archangel of the Presence, uncurled her booted legs. “Thou art not so far gone in drink as thou were upon prior occasions. That is well, my brother.”
Beneath her tranquil words ran a subtle note of censure that brought his back up. Prickling, he restrained his first profligate impulse to rush forward and fling his arms around her. Belatedly he recalled what Lucifer had told him.
Gabriele, once his friend, had joined her voice to the heavenly chorus that condemned him.
“I’m no one’s brother,” he said bitterly. “Not even yours, since you too passed judgment.”
A shimmering wing stirred gently. “I judged thee for that I loved thee, brother. Thou had set thy foot upon a path that could lead only to ruination. I condemned thee to save thee, to show thee a road back to grace.”
“I never knew you for a liar.”
“Nay, thou never didst,” she said calmly.
Awash in confusion and resentment, he unbuckled his belt and tossed his sword in a chest. “You left it long enough—this revelatory visit.”
Gabriele folded her wings around her. “Thou art sulking.”
“I am not.” Scowling, he braced a foot on the chest and worked his leg out of the thigh-high boot. The twinges of pain from his abused shoulder did nothing to improve his temper.
“I’ve been mortal for two bloody weeks. I know that’s nothing to an angel, but you might have spared a thought to how the time would pass for me. Joshua’s Trumpet, if you’d waited that long to enlighten Mary about the Immaculate Conception, she would have puzzled it out without you. Then poof! No more Annunciation.”
“I have come before when the moon is high, which thou knowest is my hour.” Delicately, the Archangel paused. “Thou were always...occupied.”
His face warmed at th
at. Had Gabriele really come, and him so thoroughly absorbed in debauchery he never knew it, nor sensed a celestial presence? Recalling certain bacchanalian revels he’d encouraged beneath this roof, he squirmed.
Thanks to his little phobia about human contact, his lurking fear that his touch was lethal, at least she hadn’t happened upon him in medias res.
Linnet was the only mortal, of either sex, he’d dared to touch. He was still tortured by superstitious dread that she’d suffer some delayed reaction from his kiss and die in her sleep, though his curse had never worked that way.
Still, thanks to his paranoia, he had yet to experience the delights of the flesh firsthand. Instead, he’d become a shameless voyeur.
Beyond a doubt, the act of coitus fascinated him. He could lose himself watching and listening and smelling the feral reek of sex. But, if pressed, he’d admit the notion of spending himself in such casual congress was subtly distasteful. After all, he was Chief Ruler of the Fifth Heaven, even in exile. Shouldn’t the act of love, if he embraced it, be divine?
If he had Linnet Norwood in his bed, now, and knew she’d survive the experience...
He snorted. After her little recital about the dull, prosaic virtues of her dream husband, he knew precisely how likely that was.
Brooding, he slung his boot into the corner. “What did the Court of Heaven fancy I would do, stuffed willy-nilly into a mortal body? I did what Uriel did before me. I indulged my mortal obsessions.”
“Zamiel, thou dost try my patience.” Gabriele sighed. “Uriel never did as thou hast done. He fell in love and married his soul’s true mate. Now he continues in mortal guise to serve Jehovah. Even now, he and his bride work ceaselessly at the Faerie court in Gallia—”
“It’s France now,” he muttered. “Welcome to the sixteenth century.”
“—on an embassy of peace for the Tudor Queen. Uriel devotes his mortal life to serving the greater good, whereas thou...thou hast willingly embraced thy Father’s blandishments.”
Her censure spurred his anger. He flung a second boot after the first. “These days, Lucifer is the only friend I have. No doubt that bastard Metatron wanted to see me begging in the street for my supper. You can tell him I’m crying in my pottage that the Prince of Devils spoiled that plan.”
Laura Navarre - [The Magick Trilogy 02] Page 13
