“Oh, indeed?” Carelessly he glanced at the girl. “I suppose I’m summoned to another of Her Majesty’s revels. Well, take her to the kitchens and feed her. No decent girl should be forced to tolerate the goings-on in this hall. And tell my rutting buck of a valet she’s not for swiving—unless she wants it, of course.”
The hooded figure was turning, taking in the rowdy ring-dance whirling before the fire, the drunken groom snoring in the alcove, the friendly dispute over dice turning violent near the sideboard.
Zamiel was still a novice at deciphering the elaborate sumptuary laws of England, and he’d been drinking steadily all night. Yet he’d have to be blind not to notice the rich fur-lined velvet of the girl’s burgundy cloak, the tooled Spanish leather of her boots. Too rich, surely, for even a royal servant. The first prickles of alarm swept through him.
Beneath her concealing garment, the woman was tall and slender, long-legged and full-breasted. Oh, Hell’s Bells, surely—
At that ill-timed moment, a squeal of feminine pleasure rose from the table. As one, Zamiel, Moncrief and the girl swiveled toward the featured entertainment, just in time to see his valet, curved cock bobbing like a sausage, mount the red-haired whore.
“Oy!” Moncrief said happily, pushing forward for a better view. “That’s the way, mate!”
Clearly his visitor had reached her limit. She spun toward Zamiel and flung back her hood. With a sinking sense of inevitability, he stared into Linnet Norwood’s tawny eyes, flaming like meteors in her crimson face.
“For shame!” she cried. “Is this how ye choose to live in a Christian house? They said ye were depraved, man, but I scarce thought to find ye wallowing like a pig in filth!”
His first impulse was to deflect her criticism with a ready quip, as he’d dealt with censure for millennia. But for once, his wits deserted him.
“Welcome to my domain,” he said, edged with bitterness. “Briah, the Fifth Heaven.”
His ironic gesture encompassed the piles of dirty crockery on the sideboards, the dice game dissolved into a heaving knot of tussling legs and swinging fists, his valet’s hairy buttocks clenching as he sought his pleasure.
As his eye swept over his domicile, he saw the place as she must—the spilled wine and wasted food; the soiled rushes in need of changing, barely hiding the multitude of sins beneath; the profligate waste of candles and cressets setting every corner ablaze, spotlighting every shameful excess.
For the first time since his exile, Zamiel, Chief Ruler of the Fifth Heaven, felt a scalding sense of shame.
Linnet’s gaze followed his sweeping gesture. Her shocked dismay pierced his heart like an arrow. Before the enthusiastic pair fornicating on his dining table, she blushed deeply and looked away. Her gaze flickered over Zamiel’s negligent sprawl in his throne-like chair.
“’Twas a mistake coming here,” she said flatly. “I mistook ye for another kind of man.”
Leaving him poleaxed as that blow struck home, she pivoted to leave.
He ought to let her go. Hadn’t he resolved never to see her again? For all his bold talk, he wasn’t ready to fall. Not ready to plummet forever from the light of Jehovah’s grace.
Not ready to fall in love.
Yet he found himself leaping to his feet, cursing as the wine swam in his head.
“Linnet—wait.”
She stalked away, proud head held high, regal as any queen.
Zamiel caught up in the corridor, where the sights and sounds of debauchery were mercifully muted, and gripped her arm.
“Joshua’s Trumpet, Linnet! Will you wait?”
She wrenched free and whirled to face him, mortification and fury warring in her features. “I will not wait! Let it be known I’ve come here at all, and I can kiss goodbye any chance of a proper marriage.”
The imp of jealousy seized his tongue. “Well, we can’t have that. Far be it from me to interfere in your blind determination to marry some sober-sided workhorse who will bore you to death before you’re thirty.”
“Better that than a drunkard, a lecher and a pig!” she fired back. “Go back to yer Fifth Heaven, my lord.”
She stormed down the corridor, skirts frothing around her feet, farthingale swaying like a bell.
“Blood of Christ,” he muttered, scowling at her rapidly retreating form. “A drunkard and a lecher, I’ll grant her—but a pig? That hurts.”
He really should let her go. Yet, as though some greater force controlled his limbs, he found himself hurrying after her.
He caught her in the courtyard, where she struggled to untie her bay mare. No groom in sight, of course. He really would have to dismiss the fellow.
Indeed, the only reason she wasn’t already galloping through his gate was because her reins had knotted. Her furious struggles as she muttered and tugged were making matters worse, her mare whickering and sidling.
“Linnet,” he said quietly, his gauntleted hand closing over hers. “I wish you’d sent word. I’d rather have met you anywhere but here.”
“I wanted to know what sort of man ye were, aye?” A cloud of white breath puffed around her crimson face. “Now I know.”
He wanted to squirm like an errant schoolboy. “You haven’t caught me at my best, Linnet. All of this—this farce since I came to London—I’ve been lost. It isn’t me.”
Without his cape, it was cold as death in the February night. Glittering particles of snow, like diamond dust, whirled through the air on a brisk wind. He’d left his padded doublet slung over his chair. Now he gritted his teeth to keep from shivering in his silk shirt.
She slanted him an angry glance. “For Bride’s sake, go inside, man. Ye’ll freeze to death.”
“I don’t—well, I might,” he allowed. “What’s one more damned discomfort in this accursed body? Let me help you with the reins, at least.”
She glanced at her nervous mare, contrition flickering in her features. Visibly taking hold of her temper, she stepped back.
“Very well,” she said stiffly.
He worked at the knotted leather, fingers clumsy in his gauntlets. “Has something happened? Why did you come here tonight?”
Frowning, she glanced around the courtyard. The high brick walls enclosed them in snow-wrapped silence, softened by the buttery light pouring through mullioned windows. Pensive, she nibbled her lip.
Now that she stood still, he sensed the air of contained excitement that had driven her here. She was all but vibrating with it. His own skin began to twitch.
At last, she sighed. “Ye know I’ve been searching for word of my mother. Today, finally, I discovered someone who admitted knowing her.”
She lifted shining eyes to his face. “Zamiel, I learned where she fled! I’ve proof certain she survived and prospered.”
He gazed into her upturned face, alight with hope and expectation, and felt his heart contract. He swallowed hard against the poignant sensation.
“Did you so?” he said gently. “Where did she go?”
“Cornwall,” she said, a soft white breath. “Tintagel, on the shore of the Irish Sea.”
Zamiel blinked, his mind shuttling through what he recalled of the old fort. One of the few advantages he’d retained in mortal form was an encyclopedic memory of the eons of history he’d witnessed. Tintagel’s storied history dated to the Romans. Later, the Normans built a castle there.
The last time he’d seen the place, some two hundred years ago, it had fallen into ruin. The old dungeons had become a prison—the death of one of those miserable souls the reason for his visit—with sheep pastured on the grassy, stone-tumbled moor above.
It seemed an unlikely refuge for a highbred lady. But Zamiel the exiled Protestant, lately returned from the Netherlands, dared not appear too informed about that, unless he wished to plunge headlong into his own history. He could well imagine Linnet’s response, given her current temperament, to the revelation she’d been dallying with the Angel of Death.
Beneath her expectant gaze, he
scrambled to react as a mortal would.
“Ah...I wasn’t aware there’s a castle there. Bit on the edge of the world, isn’t it?”
A troubled frown drew her brows together. “Aye, I’ve wondered about that. From what I’m told, it’s a ruin. Perhaps there’s a village near. I’ll try there first, anyway.”
“Try?” He eyed her with stirrings of unease. Beneath her fur-lined cloak, she was indeed attired for travel, in a smart brown habit and riding boots.
“Aye.” Faced with his reservations, she set her delicate jaw in the stubborn way he was coming to recognize. “I plan to leave at dawn. No point delaying when my mind’s made up, aye?”
His gut knotted as she unveiled this alarming plan. “Have your escort assembled, do you? Your outriders and retainers?”
Her sherry-gold eyes darkened mutinously, and her chin came up. “I haven’t the limitless purse to fund a mass migration from London to Cornwall. But I’m not a fool. I’ve no intention of going without hiring a capable guide.”
“A hired guide?” Incredulous, he dropped the reins and stared. “And who, pray tell, will protect you from the attentions of another mysterious Frenchman or murderous fool dressed in motley?”
Her determined expression faltered. Uncertainty flickered in her gaze.
“Actually, I hoped ye might advise me, since ye’ve taken such kind interest in my safety. I know ye’re but newly returned, but ye’re like to know more than I about inquiring at inns and hiring men and such. How should I go about it, do ye think?”
His incredulity had mounted as she spoke, the risks associated with this mad scheme blooming like wildfire in his mind. Nor could he entirely resist the temptation to take a little revenge for the epithets she’d hurled at him—even if they were all true. Whose son was he, after all?
He lounged against the stable wall and folded his arms. “This puts you in a bit of a bind, doesn’t it, countess? Forced to beg favors from a drunkard, a lecher and a pig?”
Her fair skin colored beautifully. “I oughtn’t have said such things. Ye’ve the right to suit yerself in yer own home, aye? ’tis only...I wasn’t expecting...”
“Neither was I,” he said dryly. “When I looked up from my little diversion to find you standing there, this mortal body aged five years. Next time you wish to meet, do me the courtesy of sending a note, love.”
What next time? he wondered. You swore to steer clear of her—the one woman you’ve met who could tempt an angel to fall.
“Very well,” she said meekly. “Will ye counsel me?”
Zamiel sighed. He wasn’t doing very much to dissuade her. Why were mortals so easy to influence when he bore night-black wings and a flaming sword, and so bloody-minded stubborn otherwise?
“You say your mother sent word from Cornwall. When was that?”
She hesitated. “Sixteen years ago.”
“And nothing since?”
“Zamiel, it’s the first news I’ve had in all that time. Sweet Jesus, do ye expect me to do nothing? I realize she may no longer be there. But if not, I’m no worse now than before, am I?”
“That depends,” he said pointedly. “First, the roads are crawling with brigands, a menace to any well-born woman. Second, you’re a Papist in a country that was, until recently, terrorized by a Papist queen. This isle still simmers with resentment and unhealed wounds. Lastly, you’re the Countess of Glencross with connections to the King of Scotland, which makes you a tempting target for any rogue.”
Irritation made her bristle. So much for that meek demeanor.
“I don’t intend to parade through the countryside with standards flying, flaunting every jewel I own. I’ll travel incognito, as a merchant’s wife of the middling class. Has it occurred to ye, my lord, that I’ll be safer as a nameless traveler on the road than as Countess of Glencross, living openly in London with a target stitched to my back?”
That point, he was forced to concede. Indeed, it was rapidly becoming obvious that Linnet Norwood had made up her mind to plunge headlong into this rash journey. And, short of abducting her at sword-point, there seemed little he could do to dissuade her.
In fact, didn’t it serve his own purpose to have her well away from London? No chance of surrendering to this unsuitable, inconvenient, irresistible fascination he harbored for her, if the lady in question was in Cornwall and he was here.
He told himself the matter was resolved, and firmly quashed his stubborn reluctance. In all likelihood, by the time she returned—if she returned from this foolhardy quest—he would have abased himself sufficiently to satisfy the Court of Heaven. They’d commute his sentence and restore his divinity. For him, Linnet Norwood would be naught but a fading dream.
This was farewell then, though she couldn’t possibly know it.
If he was bidding farewell to the one person in the mortal realm who mattered, the sole cause that meant something beyond wasted time, wasted coin and debauchery, all for the sake of sticking his finger in Jehovah’s eye, he was going to make the moment count.
Linnet stood beside her mare, stroking the silken neck and crooning in the creature’s ear. Against the black mane her profile glowed, pale as Ming porcelain, proud as a queen with her lifted chin and retroussé nose. Mahogany ringlets had sprung from her hood to spiral against her neck and shoulders. The sight swelled his heart with aching tenderness.
“Linnet.”
He spoke just for the joy of speaking her name, God love him.
She turned toward him, alight with hope, glowing with the subtle Fae magick of which she seemed so unaware. The curving pink bow of her lips, parted with expectation, sent a shaft of carnal lust straight to his cock.
With a low groan, he pulled her into his arms.
She was molten fire, light and heat and comfort in the howling storm. She was homecoming for an exiled wanderer, a parent’s glad welcome to the prodigal son. As he spanned her slender waist between his gauntleted hands, the intoxicating prospect that he might actually touch her, kiss her, without killing her set him giddy. A mad, impossible joy bubbled through him.
How could he possibly give her up?
She gazed at him, eyes gold as mead, pupils dilating as the current of energy pulsed between them.
“My lord—”
“Zamiel,” he said huskily. “Speak my name.”
She shook her head, but her voice was breathless. “Zamiel, then. I’m not certain this is a sound notion.”
“I can’t go forward with this—leavetaking—without having this, one last time. Just once, just once, to carry me through eternity.”
Riveted, she stared up at him. “Why would it be forever? I’ll surely return by summer, one way or the other. My future husband—”
“The Devil take your future husband,” he said fiercely, and kissed her.
After an eternity of shunning human contact, touching only to kill, the heat and warmth and softness of her mouth was nectar and ambrosia. She tasted of honey and the fruity bite of perry, so that sipping from her mouth set him drunk. He drank her kisses in greedy gulps, desperate, aching, woefully without finesse. Kissing was not a skill the Angel of Death was ever called upon to practice.
Through the hungry chaos of his mouth on hers, she gasped, “Wait! Sweet heaven...”
“I’ve been waiting for this forever,” he said hoarsely. “I can’t wait any longer.”
Desperate to prevent her from pulling away, he backed her against the stable wall and kissed her again. This time, her breathless mouth opened beneath his. With a little moan that shot a bolt of heat straight to his groin, she twined her arms around his neck and kissed him back, as hungry for the contact as he.
With a lamentable lack of style, his tongue twined around the wet silk of hers. Somehow he was gripping the sweet curves of her bottom. Behind the infernal codpiece, his shaft was rigid and throbbing. He fitted so perfectly between her parted thighs, and the blasted codpiece shielded him so utterly from the friction he craved.
His cock
knew what to do, rising hard and ready, as it rose to his hand those first nights in a mortal body, when he’d first touched this marvel of sensation with wonder and delight. A few strokes now and he’d spill himself inside the thrice-damned codpiece.
But even he, inexperienced though he was, knew this fleeting release wasn’t what he wanted.
Let him just savor her, enjoy the miracle of her body, just for a moment. His hands eased over the gorgeous swell of her hips, glided over the long lissome line of her waist, and closed over the soft fullness of her magnificent breasts.
“Zamiel,” she gasped, arching into him. Her surrender sent another jolt of lust arcing through him.
The damn gauntlets were in the way, just as his codpiece was in the way. And the maddening layers of her gown and skirts and corset were obstructions he would have simply loved to dispatch.
“Zamiel,” she panted, between their devouring kisses. “Do ye ever—remove those infernal gloves?”
“I, ah...” He fought to clear his head. “No.”
She eased her mouth from his. “Are ye afraid of hurting me?”
“Yes,” he groaned. “Even though I know I haven’t that power, not any longer.”
Her head had fallen back against the buttressing wall, baring the elegant sweep of her throat. Unable to resist, he lowered his face to her pale skin and rubbed like a cat.
The bright sweet innocence of lilacs filled his senses. Jehovah’s mercy, she was so fragile, pulse tripping hard and fast beneath her skin. He nuzzled her there, and she shivered and melted against him.
“Ye have the power,” she whispered into his hair. “But I trust ye, Zamiel. Ye’re my guardian angel.”
The words pierced him through with guilt, pinning him like a martyr’s arrows.
He froze, her pulse fluttering against his open mouth. Abrupt awareness jolted through him.
Hell’s Bells, he had her up against the wall like a dockside whore, his hands filled with her breasts, her thighs spread as he thrust against her heat. Behind his codpiece, his mortal cock was a ravening beast, snarling to be freed.
And if he did as they both wanted, if he tumbled her in the clean sweet hay, he would fall.
Laura Navarre - [The Magick Trilogy 02] Page 16
