Heart Dance (47 page)

Dufleur touched the wall, felt a little shock. A spellshield over a no-time. She grinned and rubbed her fingers. There wasn’t a no-time on Celta she couldn’t open. She didn’t touch the wall, but let her fingertips hover a millimeter from it. With her Flair she sent the Time Wind in the room through the wall to touch the Time Wind in the no-time safe and
pulled
.

Pop!
Though it was a small sound, the concussion hurt her ears. Fairyfoot yowled from the bedroom. The noise echoed through the Residence.

Dufleur!
Saille’s mental voice was concerned.

The safe crumbled to dust and three memoryspheres fell into her palm. She sent the image to Saille.

Rolling the memoryspheres in her palm, Dufleur smiled.
I am here to support you. Always.

We are coming
, said Fairyfoot.
This old woman’s old room needs Famdoors.

Thirty-five

Dufleur held the hall door open for Fairyfoot, glanced around the rooms, sighed. She supposed these would be her rooms now. A lot of decorating would need to be done.

The members of the household were following their usual pattern. The advent of old D’Willow had been a disruption— perhaps as much as a century of disruption—to the general tenor of the Willow Family. She’d been an exception to the Family characteristics, not the rule. And her domination of the Family had been harsh. Harsh enough to act as a warning for generations to come. Another tyrant might not find it so easy to subject the Family.

Especially if they had Thyme blood. Her belly quivered at the thought. She wanted children with Saille. She was floating on lovely visions, when a voice demanded, “Where is my daughter?”

Her pretty dreams shattered. Her mother.

Not a huge problem, like D’Willow, but sometimes a continual,irritating problem was worse.

“Welcome, GrandMistrys Thyme,” Saille’s smooth voice said. “You know T’Heather.”

“My daughter’s not hurt!” Dringal screeched.

Dufleur’s heart twinged at the anxiety she heard in her mother’s voice. She was being too hard on her mother. She would enjoy being part of a GreatHouse Family. And she certainlywasn’t as dreadful as old D’Willow. The Willows would absorb her and perhaps, like a clam around an irritant, create a pearl. Dufleur chuckled at her own whimsy and moved toward the entryway.

“Your daughter is fine. Consulting with me on how her MistrysSuite rooms should be decorated. I’m sorry to say that my MotherDam died.”

Dringal snorted. “Should have died months ago like a decent person would have. All this bother. Though it did clear my husband’s reputation.”

The women made her welcome over dinner, and to Dufleur’s surprise, her mother decided to stay in the new house, at least until D’Winterberry passed on.

After dinner, her mother left for her new home, and the rest of the household vanished.

Saille sighed. “One more duty, and we will be free the rest of the evening to please ourselves.”

Myx sniffed, turned to Fairyfoot,
Mice in the stridebeast stables
.

Fun.
Fairyfoot cocked an ear at Dufleur and Saille.
Humans need to be alone together.

“Yessss,” both cats said and nodded at the same time. For now, any competition was set aside—or would be confined to hunting.

We go.
Fairyfoot rubbed against Dufleur, smacked her tail against Saille’s legs.
I knew We all would be well.

“The confidence of cats,” Saille murmured as they watched the Fams bolt through the ResidenceDen Famdoor.

“What next?”

Saille grimaced. “Business.” He pulled out one of D’Willow’s memorysphere journals she’d found. He accessed certain portions by saying the names: Tinne Holly, T’Yew, and the rest of the list of mismatches his MotherDam had made.

Here she’d kept detailed notes, her fury when matches went wrong due to her lack of Flair—but which she blamed on anythingelse but herself.

“Sickening, isn’t it?”

Dufleur hugged him tight. “Yes, but it’s over.”

They listened only as long as it took to understand where Saille and the Family stood, then Dufleur stopped the recitation.

“I think we’ll have to listen to these in increments.”

“Yes, but let me take care of the Yew matter, first.” He smiled crookedly. “I’m going to invoke your name and alliances,trust me?”

“Always.”

He closed his eyes, let a long breath out. When he raised his lashes his blue eyes were brilliant and full of love. She didn’t think she’d ever get enough of that look.

“I can, and will, share everything with you, Dufleur.” He took her hand, linked their fingers. “You’re really here.”

“I will always be here.”

“Then nothing in my life is too bad to face. We’ll work through this together.”

“Yes.”

Saille nodded, then donned his stern face again, a FirstFamilyGreatLord. He tapped the scrybowl on the desk and left a long scry in T’Yew’s message cache. “We found my predecessor’s private records. As you may imagine, we would prefer to keep her ethical slips in the Family. However, I, as head of the Willow household, will not be following the path she took. The Willows are agreed that should it be necessary in the future, the contents of the memoryspheres will be revealed to the proper authorities. Since my HeartMate, D’Thyme, is allied with the Elders, that would be SupremeJudge Ailim Elder. I trust you will cease any plans you have for my threatened ‘ruin.’ A sworn—by Vows of Honor—and sealed papyrus roll has already been forwardedto the SupremeJudge in case of any sort of accident.” Saille paused, let
his
voice hold threat this time. “We are aware of the various bargains you made with the Burdocks and my MotherDam regarding your wife. We know that when your wife comes of age she can renounce her marriage to you. We will be observing that event with interest. T’Willow and D’Thyme. End.”

Then he leaned back in his comfortchair, once again closing his eyes, and she slid into his lap, and they stayed there, together,and it was so sweet Dufleur didn’t calculate the minutes.

After a while, he set her on her feet, patted her bottom, rose himself, and tucked her arm in his as they walked upstairs to his suite. The very domesticity of his gestures made her throat clog.

He murmured a Word, and soft light illuminated the sitting room where they’d first made love.

“We are finally alone. And you know what I want?”

She swayed into his arms, wrapped hers around his neck, rubbed her body against his. Just the feel of his chest against her breasts, his rigid arousal against her abdomen, sent tingles of pleasure through her, readied her body for loving.

Loving this man for the rest of her life.

Nothing could be better.

She set her teeth gently in his earlobe. He jerked, gave a small laughing groan.

“What do you want?” she whispered.

“My HeartGift.”

She blinked, pulled back. “I haven’t given it to you! Oh. Dear.”

“So get it.”

Sending her Flair questing, she found the packet she’d brought from T’Winterberry Residence so long ago—this morning—still on the desk in the Entry Hall.

With a swoop of her hand, she ’ported it up, handed to him, then took a few steps back and forth. Not really pacing.

Not really nervous.

He was her HeartMate, after all.

They’d solved their problems. This time.

He slowly opened the drawstring of the bag, pulled out a wrapped package.

Dufleur cleared her throat. “If you dismiss the spellshield, we’ll be overcome by lust.”

He raised and lowered his eyebrows, grinning. “I know.” The outer cloth covering disappeared.

“Slippers,” he said. They were scarlet with bright blue embroideredinterlocking hearts. He put them on, sent her a look, and she
felt
the lust as it bubbled up from his feet.

Then her clothes were gone with a Word, and so were his. He tossed her onto the bed, and she opened her arms and legs to him, letting hot, flashing passion drench her, spin her away into total sensation.

She arched, moaning as need spiraled tight. Grabbed at him, welcomed him.

They moved together, and he was there in her and with her, and she never wanted another millisecond of her life without him.

He groaned, and it reverberated through her. How he needed her, wanted her. Enjoyed her.

Orgasm caught her, and him, and her whole body tightened and released, and she sent him the sparkling golden HeartBond.

He took it and it wrapped around him tight, as tightly as it bound her, bound them together.

Saille slipped from the bed and said a tiny weathershield spell. She’d given that ability to him.

He grinned and padded across the thick carpet to place the slippers in a display case next to her thimble, now understandingwhat the glass cabinet was for. His MotherDam had kept several sets of matchmaking divining tools—cards, sticks, runes—in there, but she hadn’t been a HeartMate. Her mother, the previous D’Willow, had been, though, and plenty of other heads of households. The glass box had been ladened with love and pride from the emanations of many generations of HeartGifts.

Then he turned back to the heavily framed bedsponge, where Dufleur opened sleepy eyes and smiled at him.

The smile that touched every cell inside him.

He went to the bed, lifted her, took her to the hot waterfall, and made love to her again. When she was leaning weakly against the wall, he grinned and banished the water. “Soft dry,” he ordered, and a gentle wind flowed around them. Taking her hand, he led her to the bedroom and handed her a looserobe he’d had Dandelion Silk make for her from the special fabric he’d had imported.

She studied the gown. “It’s fabulous.”

It was without any decoration. “I thought you could embroiderit as you pleased. If you pleased.”

Her smile bloomed once more, and she stroked the sleeve. “It’s a cherished gift already, and will hold a lifetime of stitches.” She shared an image with him of the robe covered with patterns and images celebrating great events and small.

“Wonderful,” he rasped, dressed quickly in a new, casual evening suit as she stared. “Come.”

“What?”

“Something I’ve planned for our first night together as HeartMates.”

Curiosity ran down their bond, and he took her hand and led her from the room, through the sleeping house to the conservatory.“Fairy lights,” he said, and they winked on, cunningly arranged to spotlight living blossoms. Dufleur sighed.

She turned to him to stop him, pressed her body against his, and kissed him, sending him all her love, all her joy at the life they would share.

He disentangled her arms from around his neck and stepped back, flushed streaks on his cheekbones. Clearing his throat, he said, “No loving. Yet.”

With an elegant, formal gesture, he tucked her hand in the crook of his arm, and they strolled to the center of the garden where the square of bricks showed empty. Her heart picked up beat, and she smiled, then laughed as she put her left hand on his shoulder and gave her right hand to him.

“D’Holly’s HeartMate Waltz, please,” he said, and the wonderfulmusic, the notes echoing with Passiflora’s Flair and gatheringFlair from them both, swept around them in music that they’d forever feel.

He took her in his arms and whirled her into a waltz. As usual, she couldn’t keep from melding against him. Melding her life into his until they were inextricable. She let the music filling the conservatory suffuse her, let all the bonds of restraint vanish.

Her Flair soared, and they dipped into the Time Wind, so easy to do that now, and they whirled into the Future. They danced in a spring meadow, a country estate. Saille did not falter,but squeezed her hand, a smile curving his lips. They danced in a clearing, the ground prepared for the building of the new Thyme Residence. A new HouseHeart containing the Thyme HeartStones was already hidden deep underground and protected. The stones seemed to hum with the music.

Saille’s eyes sparkled, and he quickened his steps. She matched him effortlessly.

Further ahead in time. The conservatory was gone—no, not gone, but expanded—trees and plants surrounding a rectangular floor of polished black stone with gold streaks, an arching frameworkof—something—supporting an incredible weathershield that let snowflakes drift around them but kept the air warm.

Startled faces of oddly dressed people watched them. Dufleur thought she saw resemblances to those she knew—surely that man had T’Ash’s eyebrows, and that woman looked like a blond, female version of Vinni T’Vine. She smiled and nodded.

Saille grasped her tighter still and spun them along with the fast beat, laughing. Dufleur laughed, too. “I love to dance,” she said, and let the Time Wind blow them home.

They were back in the small, square flagstoned floor in the middle of the conservatory. Saille stopped. They both breathed hard. His head lowered, his lips a breath away from hers, he said, “I love you.”

She met his steady eyes, reveled in the solidity of his body. He’d be with her, supportive, all the days of her life. “I love you. So much.” Her voice caught, but she didn’t need words as they kissed. As they loved. She only needed to feel and to give, and receive.

The wind of time was nothing compared to the ocean of love they drifted in together.

Turn the page for a preview of

Heart Fate

by Robin D. Owens

Coming September 2008 from Berkley Sensation!

DRUIDA CITY, CELTA
406 Years After Colonization,
Winter, Before Dawn

Lahsin slid through the shadows of T’Yew Residence,
escaping. Her husband. His Family. Her life. She was as unobtrusiveand light-footed as a mouse. But she was used to being mouselike in this place since the very beginning of her marriageto the master, FirstFamily GrandLord T’Yew, at fourteen.