Touch of Passion

by Susan Spencer Paul

  “Are we going to spend the night in the gardens?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. “We’re going to have one last visit from the spirit of Liw Nos, and then we’re going to fondly bid him good-bye.”

  He sent the horses back to the stable and then picked Loris up in his arms and carried her into the garden, coming to a stop just below her balcony.

  They looked up, and Loris said, “I always thought Liw could fly, because he was one of the faerie folk. But I didn’t know you could do the same.”

  “I can’t,” Kian told her. “And neither could he. Hold tightly, love. I pray this is the last time I shall ever have to come to you in such a manner.”

  The climb took some doing; Loris was no frail and delicate female, and her long limbs and skirts made it difficult for Kian to both hold her and keep a grip on the brick wall. They laughed, despite the danger, and Loris remarked that if he had not been a baron, he could have made a wonderful living as a thief.

  The sound of her voice spurred him upward; there was so much pleasure and joy in her tone and the same relief that he could hear in his voice as well. Tonight their lives would begin anew. Everything in their upended world had been set right, at last, and all the shadows that had once haunted them had been banished.

  He set her on the balcony before climbing over the half wall, then pointed at the locked balcony doors and said, “Aperio.” The bolt slid silently open.

  “Now I know,” Loris murmured.

  Kian took her hand and led her inside. He bolted the doors again and started the fire, and then, impatient, drew her into his arms.

  She came willingly, rising up to meet his kiss. They drew apart after a moment, arms holding each other tight, and waited. A full minute passed in silence, and then another.

  “Anything?” Kian asked, sliding his hands purposefully over her back and waist.

  Her slow smile told him that it was all right. “There’s no pain,” she whispered. “Your touch only feels … wonderful.”

  That was all he needed to hear. He picked her up and set her on the bed, kneeling before her to perform the same duties he had done shortly after she’d arrived. Her boots came off, then her stockings, though his hands shook so badly that he almost couldn’t undo the fastenings. Her dress, in tatters from the athanc, fell off almost without assistance, and when her undergarments refused to cooperate he uttered a low curse and tore the fastenings with impatient fingers.

  Loris laughed and reached up to take his face in her hands. She brought her lips to his, murmuring, “There’s no hurry now. We have the rest of our lives.”

  Kian tossed her petticoats to the other side of the room. “I’ve been waiting for ten years,” he said. “And dying for want of you. I apologize.” He kissed her, hard, then set her away to start ripping off the remnants of her chemise. “I intend to be the most romantic of husbands in all the years to come, but for the moment, I’m not going to survive another ten minutes unless I’m inside of you.”

  She laughed again, then gasped as his warm fingers found her bare breasts. “Oh,” she said, and arched against him. His lips followed his hands, caressing her face, her throat, and lower to her shoulders as the rest of her garments slid to the floor.

  “Oh, my God,” Kian murmured, his hands stroking over the soft skin of her back and hips. His fingers tested the swell of her buttocks, the curves of her waist, at last grasping her hips and pulling her tightly against his arousal.

  Loris’s hands moved over him, as well, and her mouth met his with equal passion. When he teased her lips with his tongue she eagerly opened to him. Her fingers slid over his shoulders, pulling his coat down. Not breaking their kiss, Kian struggled out of it, and Loris set her fingers to his waistcoat and shirt, murmuring with delight as the garments gave way and she could splay her hands over his warm, silky skin. The bold caress made Kian groan with pleasure, but when her hands slid lower, stroking his buttocks, then sliding forward to touch his manhood over the cloth of his trousers, his sanity gave way.

  Somewhere in the dim recess of his mind he had a fleeting thought about taking his boots off, but the notion disappeared before he could make any sense of it. He undid the front of his trousers with shaking fingers, tearing the buttons, and then pushed Loris onto the bed.

  She opened to him completely, putting her arms about him as he came over her and pulling him down. She said his name, and he heard his own rough voice giving reply, and then he was pushing inside of her, hard and urgent, unable to school himself to gentleness.

  It hurt her. He knew it, for he could both feel her untried tightness and hear her gasp of surprise. Regret forced him to stillness, but the pleasure of her, of being inside her, made his voice unnaturally strained.

  “I’m sorry.” He rested his forehead against hers and opened his eyes. “I didn’t mean to … I’ve lost my senses.”

  “It’s all right,” she whispered. “It feels … it feels good.” She drew in a shaking breath and said, wonderingly, “You’re inside of me, Kian. We’re one now.”

  Aye, he thought as he began to move in her more slowly, more deeply. They were one, and the pleasure of it was going to kill them both.

  “I love you,” he murmured, and felt her relaxing beneath him. Pleasure took the place of pain in her eyes, and she began to move in union with him. She said his name and then, as the pleasure grew more intense, murmured, “Oh!”

  It was the most erotic thing he’d ever heard and sent Kian over the edge. Pleasure exploded through him just as it washed over Loris, and his last coherent thought as they fell into sensation was that waiting ten years for this moment had been more than worthwhile.

  They slept for an hour, cocooned together beneath the blankets. Kian had been too exhausted to even take off his boots or pants. When they woke, he finished undressing, took a few moments to help Loris wash the blood from her thighs, and then made love to her again, far more slowly and gently and sanely. They slept again, through the morning and into the afternoon, and when he woke it was to find Loris gently stroking his fully aroused member. He pulled her to sit astride him and showed her how to take him into herself, how to ride him to her own pleasure and then to his. Life, as far as Kian was concerned, could go on exactly in this manner for the remainder of their days.

  But the world had other ideas.

  Elen meekly scratched at the door just as they were about to sleep again, and when bade to enter, refused to come any farther into the room.

  Loris slid from the bed and took up her wrapper, covering herself and padding barefoot across the carpeted floor to speak to the girl.

  A few minutes later Loris returned to the bed to find Kian propped up on the pillows, his hands beneath his blond head and his magnificent body exposed from the waist up. The smile on his face told her exactly what he wanted to do and she would have liked nothing better than to throw the wrapper aside and acquiesce, but it would have to wait.

  “I never realized how very handsome you are before now,” she told him, climbing up to kneel beside him on the mattress. With one finger she traced the line of one of his recent scars. “I could do without these, however, though I daresay if you kept them, women would swoon at the sight of your battle wounds.”

  “And then I’d have to make up a tale of having served in a very different sort of war,” he said, drawing one of his hands out from beneath his head to toy with the edge of her wrapper. “I hope you asked Elen to have a nice, hot bath brought up for us. And food.”

  “A bath?” Loris asked, her eyebrows rising. “For both of us? Is that possible?”

  He pushed up to his elbow, coming near enough to kiss her. His hand stole inside her wrapper to caress her naked breast.

  “Entirely,” he murmured against her lips, and his clever fingers stroked lightly over her sensitive nipple. “Especially with lots of soap and warm, scented water. I shall enjoy bathing every single part of you.”

  His lips tasted hers and his tongue teased the corner of her mou
th, and Loris very nearly forgot what Elen had just told her.

  It took an effort to pull away, especially with visions of bathing with Kian dancing through her brain, but she did, saying, “Cadmaran’s coming.”

  Kian fell still. His hand came out of her wrapper. “What?”

  “Malachi sent Elen to wake us,” Loris said. “Lord Llew will be here within the hour. He sent word. He wants to meet with you, and with Dyfed.”

  Kian sat up, staring at her. “He’s going to issue a challenge,” he said. “To Dyfed.”

  “To Dyfed?” she said as he tossed the covers aside and stood. “Because of Desdemona Caslin? But I thought they were fated. Lord Llew surely can’t challenge Dyfed for something that the Guardians decided.”

  Kian was searching the room for his clothes. “He shouldn’t be allowed to,” he said distractedly. “But that’s never stopped the man before. I’ve got to find a way to avoid it. He’ll kill Dyfed in a contest.”

  “Perhaps Malachi should be the one,” she said, sliding off the bed to help Kian with his shirt and waistcoat. His long hair was in complete disarray, and she reached up to smooth it back from his face while he busily dealt with his trousers. “He is the Dewin Mawr, after all.”

  Kian shook his head. “That’s just what Cadmaran wants. He’ll be furious that he wasn’t able to engage Malachi during their meeting yesterday. And Dyfed is my brother. I’m the one who must do it. Devil take it,” he muttered. “I’ve ruined these trousers. Half the buttons are missing.”

  Loris’s heart felt as if it had stopped. “No,” she said flatly. “No, Kian. Let Malachi take care of this. You dealt with the athanc and I understood that, but I’ll not lose you because Lord Llew insists upon being a fool.”

  Kian took her by the shoulders and kissed her into silence. “In the words of a very wise, brave woman,” he said, “I don’t intend to be lost. Hurry and dress, Loris. I’ve learned the Guardians’ lesson well, and I want you with me when Cadmaran arrives.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  By the time the Earl of Llew arrived at Castle Tylluan, Kian had composed himself and prepared for what was to come. He, Malachi, Dyfed, Niclas, and Professor Seabolt had shut themselves in Kian’s study for almost the entire hour before the earl’s arrival and argued, often at the top of their lungs—excepting Professor Seabolt, who rarely had a chance to say anything at all—over what was to be done.

  Dyfed insisted that he must be allowed to fight for his woman, Niclas told him to stop being a fool, and Malachi and Kian sounded as if they were about to come to blows over who had the greater right to deal with Cadmaran.

  Desdemona, sitting with Loris in a chamber that had once served as a sewing room for medieval damsels, but now acted as a drawing room of sorts, found the loud ruckus, easily heard throughout most of the castle, all rather amusing. Loris found it grating and not in the least productive. She was moments away from going into the study and bashing their foolish masculine heads together.

  She glanced at Desdemona and wondered at how she could be so calm.

  “Aren’t you worried about what Lord Llew will do to Dyfed?” she asked, pacing nervously in a circle before the fire. “He is a powerful wizard, after all.”

  Desdemona looked up from the book she’d been perusing. “There is nothing to worry about,” she said. “My powers are no longer dimmed by the magic of Castle Llew. If Cadmaran so much as looks oddly at my beloved, I shall kill him. It’s a pity that you mere mortals must suffer so for the lack of powers.” She smiled and turned her attention back to the book.

  Loris knew that she should find the other woman’s coldbloodedness alarming, but the truth was that she was comforted. The Earl of Llew was outnumbered by wizards at Tylluan. Powerful, extraordinary wizards. And a dark sorceress who had the ability to give even Malachi pause.

  Loris was thankful that Mr. Goodbody and his men had already taken their leave, so as not to witness any potentially alarming scenes. Niclas and Malachi had dealt with them: Niclas had taken care of paying them for bringing Loris to Tylluan, and Malachi had erased all memory of magic from their thoughts. By the time they rode away, they were all convinced that the job they’d done had not only put a great deal of gold in their pockets but given them quite a nice holiday as well. If none of them could precisely recall, some miles later, why they’d come to Tylluan or whom they’d brought, they didn’t dwell on the fact too long.

  As soon as the shouting died down, Loris and Desdemona rose to join the men in the study. The Earl of Llew was announced a few minutes later.

  He came in slowly, blindly, feeling his way with the staff that he carried. Loris, who had never seen the man before, was struck by how handsome he was, despite the blindness. She had been used to thinking of him as evil and therefore as physically unattractive as his nature, but she had been far wrong. Lord Llew put her very much in mind of Tauron, with his black hair and eyes and tall, muscular frame. He was also much younger than she had supposed, perhaps in his midthirties, but certainly not above.

  “Ah, Malachi,” said Lord Llew. “You’re still here, I perceive, along with Lord Tylluan. And Miss Caslin. Hello, my dear.” He nodded toward the chair where she sat and took a few steps farther into the room. “I sense other Seymours present in the room, as well, but they must be of the lesser variety, for I do not feel any great powers in them.”

  “My wife, Lady Tylluan, is present,” Kian said. “And also my brother, Dyfed Seymour, as well as my cousin Niclas Seymour. Professor Harris Seabolt is here also, though you cannot sense him.”

  “Niclas Seymour,” Cadmaran repeated with a smile. His strong fingers tightened their grip on the staff. “It’s been a long while since you and I have been in company together. How is darling Julia? As beautiful as ever, I should imagine. I often comfort myself with memories of her. She was the last woman I saw before the blindness, you know.”

  Fury possessed Niclas’s features at the casually spoken words, and he took a step forward, hands fisted. Malachi set an arm across his shoulder to hold him back.

  “Be careful, cfender,” Lord Graymar murmured. “Don’t let him goad you with his nonsense. Mrs. Seymour is very well, Morcar,” he said. “But you would do well not to speak of her in so familiar a manner again. Fighting with my cousin has already caused the loss of your sight. You don’t want him taking anything else from you.”

  The Earl of Llew laughed, and the dark, unearthly sound sent a shiver running down Loris’s spine. Kian’s arm, which was about her waist, tightened.

  “Have the Seymours not already taken enough, then?” Cadmaran asked. “I can only wonder at when you’ll be satisfied.”

  “Desdemona is not yours,” Dyfed informed him hotly. “She’s not going back with you.”

  “I have not come to insist that she do so,” the Earl of Llew replied, shocking them all.

  “Then why have you come?” Kian demanded.

  “First,” he said, “to admit defeat in the matter of the athanc, and to offer my congratulations upon finishing with the beast.”

  Loris felt Kian straighten slightly, his stance wary.

  “Do you jest, my lord?” he asked.

  “Not at all,” Lord Llew replied calmly. “You have come out the victor in the contest that I forced upon you, and it would be churlish of me to deny the fact. I offer my sincerest congratulations.”

  “A promise to never again raise one of the ancient creatures would be more welcome,” Kian told him.

  “I agree completely,” Lord Llew said, all civility. “I give you that promise, on my honor.”

  “Don’t trust him,” Desdemona Caslin said, sitting forward in her chair. Dyfed, standing behind her, set a hand upon her shoulder. “He’s lying.”

  “Before the Guardians, then,” Lord Llew said. “And in their hearing. I give my vow that I shall never again make war upon Tylluan by raising one of the ancient creatures.”

  “What are you up to, Morcar?” Malachi asked. “This is not like you.”<
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  “What of Desdemona?” Dyfed asked. “Are you willing to let her go?”

  “Ah, yes,” the Earl of Llew said, nodding again toward where Desdemona sat, clearly able to feel the power that emanated from her. “The little matter of Miss Caslin, whose hand as my future bride I obtained in good faith from her father, and for whom I paid a great deal of money. By the laws of England, I could have you arrested and punished for kidnapping my betrothed. But we do not live by the laws of England,” he said, “or, rather, I do not.”

  “The money will be repaid,” Kian said. “We accept your disappointment in the matter, but the unoliaeth cannot be denied, even if we should wish it.”

  Lord Llew tilted his head. “I don’t believe you understand what you’re saying when you speak of repayment,” he said.

  “It would bankrupt Tylluan to part with such funds. I paid a very large sum for my intended bride.”

  “You will be repaid,” Malachi said. “Just as I told you yesterday.”

  “Malachi,” Kian said angrily.

  “Tenfold, I believe you said,” Cadmaran remarked. “I confess such a fortune might help to soothe the pain of my loss, but I believe it is the one who gains my bride who is supposed to make repayment. Is that not so, according to our laws?”

  “I shall gladly pay,” Dyfed said. “It may take time, but I’ll find a way to do so.”

  “There is no need,” Lord Llew said. His mocking smile died away, and his expression grew solemn. “I make a gift of her to you, Dyfed Seymour.”

  A stunned silence followed the words. They stared at the man who stood in the middle of the room, all of them unable to speak.

  “I see that I have taken you by surprise,” Cadmaran said. “But I assure you that I mean what I say. I release all claims that I may have had upon Desdemona Caslin, and give her freely and without demand for repayment to Dyfed Seymour. What is more, I wish you both happiness in your coming marriage, and give my solemn oath to never cause you either dismay or worry. I give this promise and make this gift, asking the Guardians to once more stand as my judges and witnesses. And that,” he said, “is the end of what I have come to say. Good day.”