Flames of Desire

by Vanessa Royall

  “I do not know of stale bread,” he began doubtfully, as if some slight might have been conveyed by the phrase.

  “No matter. I meant nothing.” Royce turned back to Selena and looked directly into her eyes. “Perhaps I might have a dance later?” he asked. It was a question, but it had not been pronounced as a question. It had been more like a command, softened by the casual intimacy of his smile and the flattery of his attention. Her throat was dry, and she could hear her heart drumming dully beneath the bejeweled bodice of her long white satin gown. It took all the willpower she possessed at that moment, but she met his ice-colored eyes with her own wide, violet ones. She’d learned as a little girl that other women envied her those eyes, and now she would use them as they were meant to be used.

  “Perhaps you may,” she replied, flashing him a look she meant to be that of an older, experienced woman weighing an impudent request.

  But he laughed! Right there in front of everybody.

  “I shall present myself, then, at the appropriate time.”

  He bowed to them both. “Lady MacPherson. Mr. Bloodwell.”

  With that, he turned away and moved off, only to stop in the middle of a group of women a short distance away and to be immediately encircled by them, and then by their male companions.

  Selena tried to make light of the encounter, to tell herself it meant nothing, but her young heart was in a tumult all its own.

  “I believe you’ve made another conquest,” Sean said. His voice was unconcerned, but his eyes were narrowed.

  She heard him from a distance. All she could think of at the moment was the sudden feeling that had come upon her when Royce Campbell had looked into her eyes, the strange, tingling way her body was still reacting.

  “What?” she heard herself asking.

  “I said, I believe you’ve made another conquest.”

  Selena was momentarily flustered. “Oh, no, all he wanted was to speak to Father. Perhaps Sir Royce intends to offer a business proposition of some kind, shipping, or some other such…”

  “No, Selena. Like many of the old nobility, your father’s fortune is his land, granted to the MacPhersons long ago by an act of royalty. New enterprises, such as my own, coal and cloth, require men like Campbell—hopefully more reputable—with ships to transfer raw materials to our factories, and finished products to markets all over the world. So if he really does have business with your father, you can wager it’s of another kind…”

  “Really? You don’t believe…?”

  “He wouldn’t be good for you, Selena.”

  “What? Oh, no, it’s not…” Confused, she was also flattered, that he would acknowledge her appeal to a man such as Royce Campbell, that he might even be jealous of more than the other man’s genealogy.

  Sean was smiling, but he spoke seriously, as always.

  “There’s no doubt he’s exciting, and brave as well. But, Selena, that kind of man makes everyone he meets rather like himself. And I would not want you that way.”

  What way? she wanted to ask. But it was far more prudent to drop the matter. Beside her, Sean seemed suddenly tense, and a cautioning look appeared on his handsome face. She followed his glance to a curtained archway not far from where they stood. A man stood there, had probably been there for some time. He was watching them closely, yet without seeming to, and his eyes moved casually over the ballroom crowd without actually settling upon anyone for longer than a moment. He was thin and dark, hawklike in black evening dress, and he had the thinnest meanest most beaklike mouth Selena had ever seen. She suppressed a shudder, and suddenly the memories returned. She had seen this man before, every year since she’d been fourteen, when first she’d come to the ball. He was always there, like an apparition. His body exuded a fierce energy, more of resolve than of actual strength, a cruel body that possessed an intensity of passion known to few. Now the man let his glance linger on them for a long moment altogether without embarrassment then he broke it off, and strolled, as if bored, down along the side of the ballroom. People seemed to stiffen slightly as he passed by them, and afterward they seemed nervous, unsettled, like buoys bobbing in the wake of a boat.

  “Who is that man?” she asked Sean, when hawkface was out of earshot.

  “That is Darius McGrover, an agent of the Crown. Where he walks, no man is safe.”

  “But whatever is a man like that doing here?”

  Sean chose his words carefully. “There is much afoot, Selena. I know more of it than I wish, and you already know all you need.”

  “But I don’t know anything. I…”

  “That is exactly what I mean.”

  “Well, Father is a member of Parliament and we have nothing to be worried about.”

  Then the orchestra began to play, and the dancing commenced. The evening became a gay whirl of dances, chatter, wine, and punch, as the young men of Scotland sought her attention for a moment, one after another of them pouring out, for her approval, the tumbled tales of adventures they meant to undertake as soon as they could. They would go to America and straighten out those rebels who were caterwauling in a place called Massachusetts. Or they would go to India, and seek out treasures in the dark interior. Or they would sail for China, to come back twenty years from now hardened and wise, having tasted of delights unknown in Edinburgh. She listened to them. She had known most of them since childhood, and they amused her. Now and then one of them, noting Sean was her escort, and having heard of her father’s high regard for Bloodwell, would make veiled reference to the supposed deficiencies of his paternity. But they never made so bold as to remark upon it to his face because, although he was not known for his temper—he knew his superiority and tolerated the young men—it was clear that he was a match for any man in the room, with the possible exception of Royce Campbell, whose notoriety put him in a special class of his own. And it was a fact of life in these modern times that the wealth of the land nobles was being eclipsed by young, savvy men like Bloodwell. It was best to stay on the good side of them. Fortunately, such politics did not preclude flirting and dancing with young ladies, no matter whom their escorts happened to be.

  In spite of its natural conservatism, Scotland had been for many decades in a state of high and unresolved passion. The Act of Union, a cherished goal of the English, had required the support of many Scots. In manner of reward, the Crown had approved “enclosures,” which took from the peasants their time-honored plots of land, their “commons,” and enclosed them into the already vast estates of the rich, the nobles. The peasants, deprived both of home and land, migrated to the burgeoning, squalid cities of Perth and Dundee and Glasgow, there to become virtual slaves in the textile mills that processed wool from the sheep of the rich, the same sheep that now grazed fat and unrestricted over the lands that once had been the peasants’ homes. Or the poor were impressed by starvation and necessity into the coal mines of Argyll, and Aberdeen. Scotland and the world had entered a new age, and few knew yet what that age held for them. Even Sean, otherwise so certain, had his doubts. “Of course, the workers have a terrible life,” he said, “but they agree to work for me for a certain wage, and I pay them that. If it weren’t for men like myself, they would all starve.”

  Something about this reasoning did not make sense to Selena. It was as if a part of the equation had been left out, whether by accident or intention, and she did not yet have the experience to know what it was, nor to act upon her compassionate instincts. She knew that the country was in a state of profound transition, and the Empire as well (Father had told her as much), but the form of the future had not yet taken shape. This was a simmering time, a time of reassessments. Thus the young lords eyed Sean Bloodwell warily, unsure if he were the representative of a new kind of nobility which had not yet assured its ultimate place in society, or merely an upstart. They eyed him warily, just as they watched Royce Campbell with a measure of envy and not a little wonder. He seemed the adventurer of old, a throwback to the era of Raleigh and Drake, bound to no man
but his King. And there was, it seemed, some doubt about that loyalty, too.

  The orchestra began another dance, and once more the circle of young men drew near to ask her favor.

  But they dropped back suddenly, as Royce Campbell himself approached, bowed, and offered his arm.

  “I believe I was promised.”

  She took his arm and they went out onto the floor. Neither of them spoke. She could see Sean watching, his eyes alert, his face impassive.

  The ball was well along by now, and the people, into the spirit of the dance (and many of them well into the spirits, too), shouted down the orchestra, which had commenced yet another minuet. First there was a call here and there from around the ballroom, then more joined in, and then finally everybody entered the clamor. Nothing would do but the Highland fling, and the white-haired old conductor, shaking his head and smiling, motioned the bagpipe players forward.

  The major requirement in dancing the fling was energy—it was a dance that could go on and on—and Selena had always loved the freedom and excitement of it. You could really dance the fling. You could put your whole body into it.

  That could not but impress Royce Campbell.

  They faced each other on the floor, and she met his eyes. He bowed in a kind of challenge. Then the dance began.

  It was wild, as always, and the ever-strange, haunting whine of the pipes underscored the pace of the music. About then, dancers shouted and leaped, whirled and spun. Selena could not remember a time when she had felt as unfettered, nor danced as well. All around the ballroom the dancers flashed, and when it came time for the two of them to take their turn in the circle, they had already become strangely mesmerized by motion and music, caught up in a dark attraction that was more than the dance, more even than the physical magnet of their opposite natures.

  “Look at them,” someone shouted, and she and Royce Campbell danced forward, then away from each other, in the coy and leaping steps of the dance, enslaved by the incessant music. She felt the blood pumping from her heart, her lungs ached for air, but it was glorious. Her hair was flying, her body, too, and her very soul screamed for joy. Seventeen years old, and chosen by Royce Campbell for this dance, this dance which everyone was watching. They would become two in the minds of many people, and sometimes that was all it took…

  Sean Bloodwell, watching somewhere out along the fringes of the dance, was all but forgotten in that moment, and the past forgotten, too. Even the future did not matter—it would take care of itself now, would it not?—because all that mattered in the world right now was Royce Campbell and this dance.

  He danced wonderfully, too, with never a wasted motion, all economy and grace and style. And all about him, like an aura, was the glitter of his legend, the timeless, moody penumbra of his Highlands ancestry, of the Campbells themselves, the dark ones who were ready in the day, ready in the night, always ready for love or gold or glory. And if they couldn’t have just one, well, they would gladly settle for all three.

  The music pounded on and finally dancers began to drop out from exhaustion, but she and Royce kept on, the audience shouting encouragement, clapping time. Her lungs were shrieking now, and every muscle in her legs begged for mercy. But if he could go on, so could she. That’s it, she thought. We are both thoroughbreds. We are the best. Yet, as she whirled and turned, she did not understand—nor did she take the time to think about—the concerned expression on her father’s face, as he stood watching them, close by Sean Bloodwell, at the edge of the crowd. It was a look that she had seen before, once or twice in her life, at dark times while she’d been growing up, but…

  No time to think about that now. They danced on and on, and when she could not have gone on another instant, when she thought she would surely collapse right there on the dance floor, Royce Campbell threw up his hand and put an end to it. The orchestra played on for a few more triumphant bars, having outlasted the dancers, and then ceased. The entire hall was a bedlam of shouting and applause, a general commotion as people once again retreated to chairs, drinks, conversation. Selena’s head was spinning and she was trying to subdue the centrifugal impulse when a strong arm gripped her at the waist and quickly, very quickly, she was drawn through the French doors at the side of the ballroom, and out onto a dark balcony there. The doors eased shut behind her, and her eyes began to adjust to the darkness. She gulped in great drafts of air that came in cold off the North Sea. Sharp cliffs dropped away beneath the ancient castle of forgotten kings, down to the pounding waters. Stone battlements reared darkly into the moonless sky.

  “Thank you for the dance,” Royce Campbell said, his voice easy and casual, giving no hint that for over half an hour he’d been dancing like a dervish. His effortless control irritated her.

  “I…could have…gone on,” she gasped.

  His laugh was natural. “I know,” he said, standing there, cool and smiling. She saw the glint of his teeth, the outline of his strong body in the darkness. Already she was thinking of the many women he must have known, wondering if there had been any he loved, or loved now, with more than his body. The stories of that mysterious beauty who was rumored to be his mistress came back to her, but she pushed them away. He was here now, on this balcony, with her.

  But that impassive, almost disapproving look on Sean Bloodwell’s face? That concerned, enigmatic expression on Father’s?

  Later, Selena. This is now.

  Her breathing was almost back to normal. She felt him in the darkness, no more than a foot away. She racked her brain for the right attitude, the right tone, the right words.

  He spared her the effort. “You’re a beauty, Selena,” he said, and as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as if all further words were unnecessary, his arms went around her. She felt, for just an instant, surprise, but as he pressed close against her, Selena was aware of another kind of knowledge.

  “Royce…” she started, but he touched her chin and tilted her face up to his, and she found his lips. There was one fleeting moment of disbelief, as if he might be playing with her, taking her for a schoolgirl on a holiday fling, but one second into the kiss and she knew it was as real as anything had ever been. Nerved by this wisdom, thinking nothing, she pressed herself against him, and felt against her body that which she and her girlfriends and the maids at Coldstream had often dwelt upon, and which seemed, at this moment, to be as naturally hers as the night and this kiss. Her body was burning, too, with an excitement that was more than she, at seventeen, had ever dreamed. And then she felt one of his embracing arms fall away and drop to her side, and his hand slide in between their bodies, down in front of her, where the burning had begun. She swayed in his arms and moved slightly, to help him find the cleft, suddenly dizzy as he touched her there, and she felt a weakness in her knees that was different and far greater than the one left by the exertions of the dance. His mouth found hers again and they kissed hard while she clung to him and he massaged her—quite expertly, she was sure, for all the darkness and sudden surprise of this meeting—and she felt something start up inside her that was frightening in its power. She did not want to face it, not yet, not here, and her brain clouded as a subtle, tingling glow nested in her body, burning and growing like savage power beneath his touch.

  Suddenly, he released her and stepped away.

  “What…?” she cried, in a voice like a sob. The hunger throbbed.

  His voice was easy, surprisingly controlled, but gentle.

  “A shadow passed beside the door. We must think of your reputation.”

  There seemed to be no irony this time.

  “Oh,” she said, and came to him again, “then let’s…”

  “Go somewhere?”

  She nodded against his shoulder, so that he could feel her acquiescence. Her entire body, poised upon the edge of carnal sensation, screamed for release. It’s going to happen, she was thinking. Tonight it’s finally going to happen.

  He didn’t answer right away, as if considering something.
/>   “Aren’t you to be promised to Sean Bloodwell?” he asked then. “I’ve heard talk of it.”

  She drew away. “I’m promised to no one,” she said. “Why are you asking? Don’t you want…?”

  Royce quieted her with another kiss. “Of course I wanted you, Selena, and right now. Tonight. But you must know what it is you are doing, and the consequences.”

  “I know!” she whispered urgently, guiding his hand. A part of her appreciated his concern, but the greater part wanted all obstacles, all bonds, instantly removed, want both of them in a warm, safe haven where love and sensation would never end. She was beginning to sense in him someone different from the raw and unprincipled adventurer about whom she had heard, but her passion was overwhelming there on the balcony that night, and she pushed the thought away.

  “My chamber is in the west wing,” he was saying. “You’re scarce but a girl in a woman’s body, and you must understand—”

  “I understand,” she said vehemently, just as the French doors flew open.

  Brian regarded them suspiciously.

  Selena spoke first. “Sir Royce, you’ve met my brother?”

  “By reputation, of course,” Royce replied pleasantly. “The scourge of rebel peasants.” He was referring to an incident in Brian’s youth, when he’d first tasted blood in an uprising. “Your sister and I are recovering from our dance, MacPherson. Would you care to join us?”

  Brian was skeptical. Thank God he could not see the way her gown must be disarranged here in the darkness.

  “No, thanks anyway, Campbell. I’ve come to fetch her. The family is retiring for the night.”

  Oh, God, she thought. No!

  “Come along, Selena.”

  “Thank you for the dance, my lady,” was all Royce Campbell said.

  Inside the ballroom again, before they returned to the table at which her father and Sean were speaking, Brian told her what he thought.

  “Don’t you be hanging about with a scoundrel like that,” he ordered, “or I’ll be telling Father an’ Sean.”