Demon's Curse (Imnada Brotherhood) (22 page)

Tears pooled in her eyes. Sarah had been so right. This was what she’d been missing and never knew. This runaway gallop of feelings as she stood poised upon a precipice. Stars whirling above her. Bliss a touch and a word away.

“Mac,” she murmured. “I want you.” Something spurred her to add, “But I won’t beg.”

He laughed. “The only one pleading is me, Bianca love.”

“I want you, Cormac Cúchulainn.”

Gathering her against him, his kisses came hot and demanding. His hands skimming her flesh, leaving shivery anticipation in their wake. Her center throbbed wet and ready for him. Lifting her hips to meet his questing fingers, she yearned to take him inside her. To feel him locked against her. His fingers retreated, and he entered her, slowly at first as she adjusted to his size and the explosion of sensations spiraling up from their joined bodies. Her inner muscles fluttered against him as he thrust, and she moaned, arching upward to answer his rhythm. The pleasure flashing like lightning through her veins as she raced toward a crescendo that seemed just out of reach.

But he refused to answer her building need. Instead, he drew the torturous hunger out in a long, exquisite dance. Every thrust spinning her closer. Every withdrawal pulling her back.

“I’ll make you forget him if you let me,” he purred, nuzzling her neck, the touch of his tongue against her ear shooting jolts of fire to her belly.

She locked her legs around him, feathering kisses over his granite-hard chest. Enjoying the strength of
him. His lean, muscular beauty. His powerful soldier’s build.

He answered by taking a nipple in his mouth. He swirled it with his tongue until stars shot into her eyes and she feared she might shatter into a million pieces.

Friction built between them like water surging against a dam. Heaven wheeled overhead. He groaned, head thrown back, face grim as he thrust once more, and she tumbled up and up into the stars. Rolling. Spinning. Diving. The tilt of planets. The crash of suns. He was there to catch her when she landed, body spent and relaxed, chest heaving, hands drifting like a breeze over her skin. She nestled against him, his fiery heat better than the thickest quilt.

As rain pattered softly on the window and Mac’s heart beat steadily beneath her ear, she tried to feel regret for what she’d done, work up a good cleansing bout of shame to temper the deeper passions still blazing through her sated body. Perhaps even ponder the possible dire consequences of her headlong actions.

Yet, as Mac pulled her against him, his arm curving around her shoulder, his lips brushing the nape of her neck, she merely smiled into the darkness, eyes closed, for no ghosts invaded her thoughts. For the first time in years, she felt truly free.

*   *   *

Alonzo had come. Ignoring her husband’s black scowl, Renata excused herself from the knot of men and women gathered around Monsieur Gaillart, newly arrived from Paris with all the latest gossip and intrigue from the French capital.

Despite her relief and her fury, she smiled serenely
as she passed through the crush of guests. Sympathized with Madame d’Humières about her gout. Commiserated with Madame Plouvier over her husband’s new mistress. Reassured Monsieur Binchois that his bald spot did not show.

Crossing the foyer, she dropped her pose of gracious hostess. She was quite alone. There were none to see her flay Alonzo alive for keeping her waiting and, worse, for causing her worry.

Throwing open the doors to her morning room, she swept in like a bitter wind. “You’d better have a very good reason for pulling me away.”

He remained seated in her presence. That was her first indication something was wrong. Then she smelled him, a caustic blend of urine, filth, and vomit clinging to his clothes. And finally he met her gaze, pain written in the slump of his shoulders and the gray pallor of his handsome features. “Gods deliver us, what happened to you?”

He pulled himself to his feet. “I wasn’t certain you’d come.”

“This had better be important. If you haven’t noticed, my house is awash with guests, and Froissart does not like to be left alone to play host to this gaggle of French chickens. He’s already suspicious of you and only my magical influence is keeping him subdued. But if my control ever unravels, he’ll send you back to France—in pieces.”

“Flannery escaped. I’ve sought him everywhere without success.”

“You fool!” Alonzo’s head snapped back at the force of her slap. Renata lifted her hand to strike again before catching hold of her anger. Curling her fingers
into a hard fist before dropping her arm back to her side with a muttered oath followed once more by “Stupid, stupid fool.”

Blood welled from the corner of Alonzo’s mouth where her ring had cut him, but he made no move to wipe it away. Instead, he stood before her, no hint of his thoughts passing over his face, though even that brief physical contact between them had been enough to offer her a glimpse behind his impassive gaze. His shame flitted across her mind like a wraith.

She sank onto a chair, fingers drumming restlessly. Letting the fraught, chilly silence spin out between them as she regained her composure. “Didn’t the silver work?” she asked finally. “The ancient sources are very specific about the metal’s effect on the loathsome creatures. It
had
to work.”

“The silver did just as you said it would. He was at my mercy.”

“Then what went wrong?”

Alonzo bowed his head, a flush of angry heat crawling over his face. “The Parrino bitch. She struck me from behind. By the time I came to, they’d long fled. I’ve searched throughout London for them but picked up no trace.”

A tight-lipped smile escaped her iron control. “Like most men, Alonzo, you underestimate a woman’s strength and her cunning.”

His gaze cut to the fire before settling once back upon her face. “All’s not lost.”

“Tell me you at least learned the names of the others who murdered my father.”

He winced but did not back down. “Flannery wouldn’t betray his friends, though I did everything
but slice him from crotch to gullet. He’s strong, I’ll give him that,” he said with grudging approval.

She dug her nails into her palms in frustration, rage burning in her chest. “So you risked coming here simply to tell me you’ve no news and no prisoner?”

“No. I came to bring you this.” A notched glass disk lay in the palm of Alonzo’s hand.

13

Mac knelt by the fence, a nail between his lips as he fumbled for the hammer. Sweat stuck his hair to his head, and his back and shoulders ached, but between yesterday’s recuperation and the pleasurable activities of this morning, he felt less like a walking corpse and more like a man on a mission. Though right now, his mission was to make repairs to the cattle shed while Jory spread a final layer of chalk and peat over the ground before the cows were brought in for the winter.

He recalled similar farming duties completed side by side with his father, the air holding a crisp chill, a skein of geese flying low over an autumn sky to glide into the lake, the encircling mountains rising blue and misty from the holding’s green valley floor.

As if on cue, a woman’s voice lifted in song in a traditional ballad, one he’d heard his mother sing often. But today the voice belonged to Bianca: he knew even before she emerged from the kitchen doorway, hair bundled in a kerchief, her satins and silks replaced with a simple dimity gown covered by a snowy white
apron. Their eyes met and she smiled, her cheeks stained with a sunrise blush.

His chest knotted, his hand tightened around the handle of the hammer, and for one poignant, perfect moment, peace and happiness were his.

*   *   *

Mac had long since disappeared with Jory, and Marianne had departed for the village with the girls. Grateful for time alone to muse on all that had passed this morning, Bianca sat on an upturned milk pail beside the byre, a bull calf watching her from behind his mother’s flanks, the cow’s breath steaming the chilly air. Frost nipped at Bianca’s snuffly nose and her toes had gone numb, but she merely pulled her shawl closer around her shoulders, plucking a stem of grass to flick between the fence boards to tempt the bullock.

“His name’s Jasper.”

She looked over to find the youngest Wallace son watching her with the calf’s same pose of reluctant bravery. She took his age for six or seven. Slight in stature, he bore the same red hair and high cheekbones as his father, but his muddy-brown eyes and wide mouth were all Marianne.

“Jasper’s a fine name,” Bianca said. “Did you give it to him?”

He sidled toward her, one toe dragging in the dirt, then the next, his fingers fiddling with a piece of twine. “Mum did. She names all the animals. But she says next spring I can have a spaniel pup and name him myself. I can’t decide between Idrin and Anoraeth.”

“They’re both very good names.”

“Idrin’s important and Da says he’s the father of us
all, but I like Anoraeth better.” One more step. One more twirl of his twine. “His stories are more exciting. There’s one where he steals a magic ring from the Fey that lets him travel through time, and there’s another that has him visiting the land of the dead.”

“He sounds very brave.”

“Father said Anoraeth was second in courage only to Lucan, Arthur’s war leader, who died with the king at the final battle.”

At the mention of the familiar name, Bianca’s stomach clenched, her hand curling around the edge of her shawl. “Your father knows a lot of grand stories.”

“He says telling the old tales makes them come alive. But he won’t always tell them, even when we ask. Some nights he stops in the middle and goes out to the barn. Mum says we’re not to disturb him then. Aldith does anyway, but I never do.” He puffed out his chest with pride.

“Perhaps your father grows tired after telling so many stories.”

“No, miss. He gets sad.”

By now the boy stood beside her at the fence, his earlier shyness forgotten.

She gave an encouraging smile. “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. I’m Mrs. Parrino.”

“I know. I was hiding from Henry ’neath the cupboard in the kitchen when Mum and Dad were telling Jamie about you.”

“Scamp.”

“I didn’t mean to listen, but I was afraid to come out. Henry said he wanted to toss me in the sheep’s trough for going through his things. I needed a bit of chalk and Henry has so much and mine’s all gone.”

“So what did you overhear?”

“Not much, ma’am. Honest. Only that you and the captain are here from London and the captain and my da knew one another from the before times.”

“Before times?”

“Aye, before Da was driven out by his family for marrying Mum. They made him leave and never come back. That’s why we aren’t given a clan mark and why Da and Jamie fight all the time.”

“A mark?”

“Sammy! Where are you?”

Speak of the devil. Jamie Wallace came striding toward them, his gaze sharpening when he spotted his brother in the company of Bianca. As he approached, he straightened from his adolescent slouch and combed a hand through his wind-mussed hair. “Good day, Mrs. Parrino,” he said with a dignified nod. “I hope Sammy’s not being a pest.”

“What’s wrong with your voice, Jamie? It sounds all deep and funny-like.”

Jamie shot Sammy a killer glare.

“Your brother was amusing me with tales about Anoraeth and Lucan and your parent’s Romeo-and-Juliet courtship.”

His face turned red, his eyes cold as ice. “Just silly children’s stories, ma’am.”

“No they’re not, Jamie. You take that back. Da says—”

Jamie wheeled on his brother with a look that made Sam close his mouth with an audible click. “Get yourself back to the house, Sam. There’s work to be done.”

Sam gave Bianca one last impish grin before turning on his heel and running across the yard.

“Don’t let Sammy bother you. He’s just a baby,” Jamie advised.

“I suppose you’re too old to believe in stories.”

“Hmph,” he grumbled, once more all adolescent anger. “Tell my father that. He never thinks I’m old enough—for anything. But one day I’ll make them listen . . .” He suddenly seemed to realize who he had spoken to, for he smacked the fence post, startling the bullock back behind his mother. “Like I said, ma’am. Those are just baby stories. Nothing for you to worry over.” He glanced at the thickening clouds. “It’ll rain soon. Best get inside.”

He walked away, his back stiff, his head up, and Bianca smiled, seeing in this stone-faced, upright first son no hint of comfortable, contented Jory. Instead, the defiant pose and hard-edged gaze put her in mind of Mac.

She placed a hand over her stomach, her smile erased as quickly as it had bloomed.

A boy with Mac’s dark features and solemn gaze. A girl with his green and gold eyes and flashing smile. The thought burst and died like the spark from a flint and steel.

Never during her marriage had she quickened with child. A fortunate lack, as it turned out. One she thought long since laid to rest. But this morning had taught her just how much of what she’d always thought had been wrong while she was hostage to painful memories of Lawrence.

As Jamie predicted, a chill rain spattered the ground and pattered against her shoulders. She lifted her shawl over her head, banishing her wild thoughts with the ease of long practice. Mac was a dream with no substance, a chimera built on imagination and fantasy.