Dangerous Gifts

by Mary Jo Putney

  He waited until Leah and her escort left the lighted Grand Cross Walk for the Dark Walk. Then, his gaze following her graceful figure, he raised one arm and summoned the fog.

  Thick and soft as cotton wool, the dense mist rolled over the trees and walkways of this corner of the gardens, muffling sounds and reducing vision to a matter of two or three feet. Even Ranulph could see little.

  All about him were gasps and feminine squeals of surprise. Ranulph smiled and snapped his fingers as he murmured a few words in the ancient tongue of magic. A spell of confusion formed in his palm, a dim sphere with dark swirling streaks inside. He tossed it toward Leah and Townley. The spell was a small one, and would affect only them and an area of fifty feet or so around.

  Then, silent as the fog, he headed toward where he had last seen her. He’d done his work too well, for even he became confused. She was not where he had expected, and neither was her escort. Ranulph stopped and searched the dense fog with scent and sound and intuition. Trees to the left, beyond that two people coupling, and not with the partners they’d come with. But where was Leah?

  He heard light steps on the gravel path. A soft voice said uncertainly, “Duncan?”

  Vibrant with excitement, he made himself visible to mortal eyes in the guise of Duncan Townley. He took a moment to familiarize himself with the new form. He had to admit that it was not a bad body, for a mortal. Then he called, “Here, Leah!”

  He stepped forward, and almost ran into her. She gasped, “Oh!” as he caught her shoulders to steady her.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, the words coming in a deep voice that was not his own. Slowly he ran his hands down her arms as he studied her delicate features.

  She smiled, shamefaced. “I am now. I don’t know quite how I lost you. One moment I had your arm. Then the fog came, and I got confused.”

  “I know. I was worried.” He drew her into his arms and held her close. After making a small sound of surprise, she nestled close.

  Reminding himself that he must go slowly, he kissed the top of her head, then gently moved his lips to her temple. She tilted her head back questioningly. The damp fog caused tendrils of hair to cling fetchingly to her throat. No longer able to restrain himself, he claimed her lips.

  She gave a shiver of surprise. “I . . . I shouldn’t,” she whispered into his mouth.

  “I was so worried,” he said again, and kissed her bare throat, stroking her rapid pulse with his tongue.

  Her mind might have doubts, but her body didn’t. She pressed against him even as she murmured another vague protest. With a few steps he moved them to a mossy bed that he had created earlier, safely away from the graveled walk.

  “This . . . this is most improper,” she said weakly as he dropped to his knees, then tugged her down beside him.

  “You’re wrong,” he said intensely. “For us, it’s the most proper thing in the world.” He started to say that he loved her, a phrase that worked like a magical spell on any mortal female who was already as aroused as Leah was. Yet he could not utter the words. In some indefinable way, it seemed wrong to lie to her about that.

  He kissed her throat again, at the same time slipping her shawl from her shoulders and deftly unfastening the tapes securing the back of her gown. The bodice fell away, revealing her lacy underthings and the tops of her perfect breasts.

  “Oh, Duncan.” Eyes wide and startled, she made an ineffectual attempt to cover herself properly. “You really shouldn’t do such things.”

  “I must have you, Leah,” he said tightly. Though he wore the form of a mortal, it was Ranulph’s own need that burned through his words. He captured her mouth, swallowing her protests while his hands delved beneath her gauzy garments.

  He should have let his passion show sooner, for suddenly she was responding with a desire that matched his own, her small hands biting into his back. She was like a flame, her lithe body twisting beneath his, her hands and mouth eager.

  Madness swept through him, a scorching need to make her his own. Yet even as he possessed her, their bodies joining with a wildness that seared his senses, he realized that something was wrong. Something was wrong.

  He cried out at the same time as she, drowning in passion’s inferno. In that same instant, as he felt the fierce heat of her response, his partner suddenly transformed. Her slight body became more voluptuous, her tawny hair turned into a tangle of silken tresses as black as night.

  With shock and incredulous rage, he realized that it was not Leah but Kamana who lay beneath him, her shapely limbs twined around him and her golden eyes filled with wicked amusement. Violently he wrenched himself from her embrace. “Damn you!” he panted. “How dare you interfere with me!”

  She laughed, unabashed, and rolled onto her side, propping her head up on one hand. Her clothing had vanished, leaving her naked except for the gossamer spill of her raven hair. “Why are you so angry? You seemed to be enjoying yourself.” Her free hand drifted to her breast, where the mark of his teeth still showed. “I thought I played the innocent very well, until the end.”

  He flushed. “That is not the point. You had no right to deceive me.”

  Her brows arched. “Yet you had a right to deceive that child, to take the virginity that mortals prize so much? That would have been unkind.” Her voice became husky. “I thought that you were in need of a diversion, so I sacrificed myself to that cause.”

  He snorted. “Sacrificed! You mated like a she-panther. The marks on my back will not disappear quickly. Is that why you came to England, to find bolder lovers than the Folk of India?”

  Her laughter pealed through the fog that enclosed their private glen. “Sexual congress is one of the great arts among my people. There are none in Angland that could match the sensual skill of one of my kind.”

  Seeing that he was on the verge of explosion, she added kindly, “Oh, I admit that you are not without a certain talent in this area. With practice, and the teaching of a skilled partner, you might someday equal a lord of Hind.” She stretched a hand lazily toward him, her fingers trailing sparkles of light.

  Cursing, he leaped to his feet before she could touch him. “You witch! You were probably driven out by your own kind, and that is why you’ve come here to plague me.”

  She dropped her teasing manner. “Not at all. But I will not let you hurt that child wantonly. The fact that she is bound by the faery bargain she made does not mean she must be your prey now. Have patience, and you will soon have all that you desire.”

  “What I desire is to be free of you,” he said viciously. Then he whirled into the fog as her laughter followed him.

  One moment Leah was smiling at one of Duncan’s remarks, and the next the thickest fog she had ever seen had fallen with amazing swiftness. She gasped and turned around, then realized that somehow she had let go of Duncan’s arm. At first she was not alarmed, thinking that he must be within touching distance.

  But he wasn’t. He had vanished. She moved toward where he had been, or where she thought he had been, without success. Fear began to rise in her. The fog was uncanny, menacing. Struggling to contain her panic, she called, “Duncan?”

  There was no answer. Hands clenched, she called again. Why could she hear nothing? It was as if she had fallen from the face of the earth into a nightmare.

  Then she heard a faint, “I’m here, Leah.”

  She exhaled with relief, but in the fog it was impossible to tell from where his voice had come. Uncertainly she turned in a circle. “Where?” she called back.

  “Stay where you are,” he ordered, his voice a little closer. “If we both move, we’ll never find each other.”

  Obediently she stood still, drawing her shawl tight against the biting chill. After what seemed like forever but was probably only a couple of minutes, Duncan emerged from the fog in front of her.

  “Thank heaven!” She reached out with both hands.

  He caught them, his grip warm and secure. “Are you all right?”

  S
he nodded, ashamed of her fear. “Just a little disoriented.”

  His hands tightened on hers. “I had a strange feeling that there was some great danger in the fog. Danger for you. I was terrified that I wouldn’t find you in time.”

  She swallowed. “I was afraid too, until you came.”

  He cupped her face in his hands, his gaze intense. “I don’t know what I would do if something happened to you, Leah. I feel as if I’ve known you forever instead of just a few days.”

  “I . . . I feel the same way.” Tears stung in her eyes, and she didn’t know why.

  “You are so lovely, Leah,” he whispered. “The loveliest creature I’ve ever seen.”

  Then he bent his head and touched his lips to hers. The kiss was exquisitely gentle, totally different from the Duke of Hardcastle’s rough embrace. But sweet, so sweet. She yearned toward him, feeling the effect of the kiss in every fiber of her body.

  When he lifted his mouth away, she said shakily, “Is it wicked of me to enjoy that so much?”

  “If so, we are wicked together.” He wrapped her in a warm, protective hug. With a sigh she relaxed against him, feeling the beat of his heart. She was in love. Though she’d never experienced the state before, it was as unmistakable as a sunrise.

  Duncan held her for long minutes, stroking her head and back. Finally he said reluctantly, “I must return you to your godmother before I do something I shouldn’t.”

  She nodded, but didn’t have the will to move away.

  Slowly he disengaged himself from their embrace, his hands skimming over her back and hips as lightly as butterfly wings. “The fog should thin as we move away from the river,” he said in a determined voice. “If we follow the gravel path, we’ll be all right.”

  They set off, her hand locked in his. She counted her steps. Twenty. Fifty. A hundred. They walked out of the fog as abruptly as if they’d entered a lighted room. “How odd,” Leah exclaimed, looking around at other revelers who were discussing the strange mist.

  “Indeed,” Duncan said thoughtfully. “Almost unnatural.”

  As they watched, the fog began to disperse as quickly as it had formed. Within a few minutes it was no more than a strange, dreamlike memory.

  Lord Townley and Lady Wheaton appeared from where the mist had lain, both of them looking pleased and suspiciously mussed. As the older couple came toward them, Duncan said swiftly, “May I call on you tomorrow? There is . . . something very important I want to discuss with you.”

  “Of course you may call,” Leah said as her heart jumped. Might he be intending to offer for her? Though they hadn’t know each other long, there seemed to be a rare harmony, a matching of minds and tastes, between them.

  She hugged the possibility, knowing that she was grinning like a fool. She didn’t care. She was in love, and she thought he loved her.

  She had never been happier in her life.

  Chapter Six

  Too nervous to eat, Leah was glad that Lady Wheaton was abstracted at breakfast the next morning. Downright dreamy, in fact, with a smile hovering around her lips. She looked ten years younger and far less jaded than when Leah had first come to London.

  Leah regarded her godmother fondly. If not for Lord Ranulph’s magic, it was unlikely that the two women would have ever become acquainted. Now there was a bond between them that was warmer than what existed between Leah and her mother. She owed the faery lord a great deal.

  For the first time in days, she wondered what he would want in return, but she felt too happy to worry about that. In olden times, favored servants were sometimes leased houses in return for a peppercorn a year, or something equally trifling. Lord Ranulph had said that he loved her music, and it was only the laws of his people that required him to exact a payment in return. No doubt his price would be like those peppercorn rents.

  Unable to eat, Leah mangled a piece of toast and hoped that Duncan would call early. But he did not come until afternoon. She spent the morning playing the harp and thinking about the evening before. The memory of his kiss, and his embrace, caused tingling energy to flow through her body. In a very real sense, she felt truly alive for the first time. Perhaps that was what it meant to be in love.

  It was a relief when a maid arrived to tell her that Captain Townley was waiting in the drawing room. Leah took a swift glance in her mirror. She looked beautiful. It had become hard to remember exactly the differences in appearance from before Ranulph had worked his spell, though she remembered with icy clarity how it felt to be so plain that she was almost invisible in her own life.

  Leah felt a little sadness that Duncan would never have noticed her as she was before. Winning his regard this way seemed almost like cheating. But her beauty gave him pleasure, so she was more grateful than guilty.

  After composing herself, she went downstairs to the drawing room, carefully leaving the door ajar for propriety’s sake. Duncan was leaning casually against the mantelpiece. As she watched the sunlight define the chiseled planes of his face, Leah said involuntarily, “You’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.”

  Instead of being pleased or embarrassed, he became still as a statue. Then, releasing his breath in a sigh, he said, “I can’t think of myself as beautiful.”

  “Would you prefer handsome? Dashing? Heroic? You are all of those things,” she said, amazed by her own boldness. “I love looking at you.”

  “I’m not the man you think, Leah,” he said with sudden vehemence. “I’m not a hero, not dashing, not at all out of the common way. I’m a plain man who likes books and country living and music, who merely did his duty as the situation demanded.”

  His golden eyes darkened. “The only thing special about me is how much I love you. Meeting you was like . . . like coming home. I know it’s too soon, and that I should not speak to you before talking to your father. I know also that you are a jewel who should be gracing the finest society in Britain, and I can’t give you that. But is it possible”—his voice wavered for an instant—“do you think that you could be happy sharing a quiet life with me?”

  He really was shy, she realized with amazement, perhaps as shy as she herself. Overcome with tenderness, she said, “I would like nothing better, Duncan.” She went to him and took his hands before saying haltingly, “I love you. A rational person might laugh at us both, but I feel that . . . that in you I’ve found the other side of myself.”

  He scanned her face with riveting intensity. “Would you love me if I were ugly, or if this scar was far worse, or if I had never been called hero?”

  Recognizing how much he cared about her answer, she took time to think before saying slowly, “I love your kindness, your humor, the way you make me feel safe and cherished.” She gave him a shy smile. “I love the person I am when I am with you. I think that would be true no matter what you looked like, and even if you had never been lionized by London society.”

  His smile was radiant and relieved. “Then I’ll go into the country and speak to your father. Is there any chance that he might refuse to allow me to pay my addresses?”

  “None at all. You are not only wonderful, but wonderfully eligible.” She smiled teasingly. “I’ll be getting the best of this bargain, you know.”

  His expression turned wry. “Never think that, Leah. If only you knew.”

  Leah bit her lower lip. “My parents dislike surprises. I think it would be wise for me to go home first and prepare them for your visit.”

  “Good. That means that as soon as I have his permission, I can come to you and make a formal offer.” His arms slid around her. “Oh, Leah, Leah ...”

  She went into his embrace gladly. “This is very forward of me, but I’d like the engagement to be short.”

  His laughter was rich and deep. “As short as we can decently make it.”

  She sighed with delight. It was hard to believe that such happiness could be real. As she rested against him, loving his warmth and strength, a dreadful thought struck her. Surely Ranulph couldn’t ask for h
er firstborn child! But there were ancient tales of faeries asking such a price.

  The thought had not occurred to her when they had made their original bargain, probably because the idea of having a child was so far from her mind then. But it wasn’t now. When she imagined marriage to Duncan, children were as much a part of the picture as Duncan himself. She would never give a child of theirs to a being who was as incomprehensible to her as the far side of the moon.

  Surely her fears were pure, overwrought nonsense. Nonetheless, it was good that she was returning home now. She would find Ranulph and settle her debt. Then she could go into her new life freely.

  Leah found it strange to be back in the bedroom she’d occupied since leaving the nursery. She’d changed so much, yet the room looked exactly the same. Well, the same except for Shadow, who had returned from London with her usual aloof dignity.

  Her father had been bemused by Leah’s announcement that a Captain Townley would be coming to speak with Sir Edwin on a matter of great import. However, he’d decided that he approved of the prospect after reading Lady Wheaton’s letter that described Duncan’s character and financial situation.

  Rather sadly, Leah recognized that her parents would be glad to have her off their hands. Yet the knowledge didn’t hurt the way it once had. As long as Duncan loved her, she could accept the fact that to her parents she was no more than a regrettable obligation.

  On the morning after she arrived home, Leah slung her harp on her back and asked her dozing cat, “Would you like to come for a walk in the woods with me? There should be mice to chase and similar delights.”

  Shadow gave her mistress a look of contempt, then closed her eyes and swished her black tail over her nose. Leah chuckled. The cat was a good companion, but not overinterested in exertion.

  It was a lovely autumn day, with a clear sky and pleasantly warm sunshine. Leah hiked into the woods to the glade where she had first met Ranulph. There she sat on the trunk of the fallen tree and played her harp. She sang of love and joy, and silently asked for the faery to come.