Kissed by Starlight (18 page)

He said aloud, “Add a bird. Add a...” He thought for a moment, striving for something that wasn’t ordinary, nothing she could choose by chance.

“Add a yellow bird,” he said, but realized too late that in taking away part of his consciousness to consider the bird, he’d lost too much concentration. He was solidly back in his body and trembling with fatigue.

Sitting up, his hands dangling loosely between his knees, Blaic knew he’d never be able to wait until morning to see if the impossible had happened. Though mortals might believe that there was nothing a “fairy” could not do, the People knew better. There were many things they could not do. Raise the dead. Make someone rich. Hold a mortal woman in one’s arms without first bringing her through to the Living Lands. Smooth her hair back from her wide, blue eyes and kiss lips that trembled....

Blaic went out to the stream and waded in past his thighs. When that did not cool him, he sat down, letting the frigid, slow-moving water chill him to his depths. The water rinsed him clean, but when he stepped on the slick bank, his clothes were dry.

A few minutes later, he stood outside the manor’s back door. Where did she paint? A faint odor of turpentine beckoned to him. Pushing open the door, he found the servants sitting around their table at their evening meal.

“Here,” Mr. Varley said, rising in his majesty from his place at the head. “You take your meals with the other gardeners.”

“That’s right,” said Cook. “Don’t you bring your muddy feet onto my nice, clean kitchen floor!”

Little Lena from the laundry’s lips were moving. It didn’t take any great power to know she was saying, “Ooh, but he’s handsome!”

Blaic said, “Mistress Starret done zend for me.”

He had visited the mortal world often enough to know the meaning of the expression — all rolling eyes and pursed lips — that passed over every face present. Some mortal attitudes, were ever old, never changed. The peasants of the twelfth century had been no less censorious than these villagers of the eighteenth.

“You can’t zee her,” Varley said. “She’m do have Zur Elswith with her.”

“Who’s he?”

“That’s none of your concern—or is it?” Varley winked broadly at Cook, who giggled behind her red hand. The other maids looked sly, while those who pretended not to understand blushed. The males elbowed each other.

Then Mary, seated near the foot of the table, pitched her napkin down onto her plate. “I’ll show you,” she said, tossing her head. The stiffly starched frill of her mobcap did not move. “Like as not, she’s a-wantin’ to paint you inna picture. ‘Member last year, how she did us all? Ma’s done and hung the one o’ me up, zent it to a glazier and all. Cost her near a shilling for the frame alone.”

Blaic followed the maid whom he’d seen on the moor. “Niver you mind them,” she said as laughter burst out behind them as they left. “Them the zort as would laugh at a funeral as soon as a clown.”

“I hope I’m neither,” he said under his breath. But the maid caught it.

“We’ll zee what we do zee.”

The manor was furnished without any great style, neither lavishly gilded nor faux Grecian. He remembered when they’d built it, replacing the black-beam and white-plaster work that had replaced the stone manor he had seen all those years ago. He could come here without any thought of the princess he’d once loved; there was nothing here she would recognize.

Mary said, “She be here. Now, mind you speak respectful. Niver take your manner from that lot back there. Miss Starret be the only true lady in this house, t’my mind, and don’t you forget it!” Giving him a fierce look, she turned the doorknob.

Before she could announce him, however, they overheard a panting male voice saying, “I don’t mind these games, sweeting. But they’ll keep ‘til after we’ve come to terms, eh? M’God, you’re a lovesome wench!”

As Felicia babbled a refusal, Mary and Blaic exchanged a glance. Her indignation changed to shock when she saw the rage in his eyes. Blaic thrust hard against the door just as a crashing sound came from within. He strode into the room and took in the situation at a glance.

The scene had changed. Instead of Felicia peacefully at work on her painting, she was backed up into a corner of the gallery, clinging to a wooden chair between herself and the man. A table lay on its side on the floor, bits of broken bowl scattered around it.

The man had her by the wrist and seemed intent on hauling her out of her inadequate defenses. He grunted bits of complimentary speeches in between demands for a kiss. Felicia hadn’t noticed that they were no longer alone. Her face white, she tried to push him away with the hand he did not hold.

“Sir Elswith, stop this. I don't...”

When Sir Elswith continued to paw her, she kicked at him. Blaic saw that her skirt was too heavy. It padded the blow and she made no impression on his shin. “Stop it this instant,” she demanded. “I’m going to scream.”

But the breath she took did not come out in a scream. She caught sight of Blaic. Her eyes lit with such thankfulness that Blaic could almost believe he’d come in answer to her prayers.

He marched up and put both his hands on Sir Elswith’s padded shoulders. The fabric lifted as he pulled, the tight armholes cutting off the circulation to Sir Elswith’s arms. “What the devil! Here, let me go.”

“Certainly.” Blaic raised him up higher yet. He shook Sir Elswith vigorously, as a housewife shakes a rug to force the crumbs out. The seams under the arms gave with a long rip and Sir Elswith dropped out of his coat. His legs wobbled beneath him and he sat down abruptly on the floor, the tattered remains of his coat hanging over his shoulders like a hussar’s ornamental pelisse.

From behind them, Mary remembered her duty and said, her voice high with excitement and amusement, “Gardener come to zee you, miss.”

“Gardener?” Sir Elswith demanded. “Gardener?”

Felicia freed herself from her barricades and, taking care to give her visitor a wide berth, hurried to Blaic’s side. Her agitation and alarm acted on him like a spur. He advanced purposefully on Sir Elswith, with only one thought in his mind. He wanted to hit him, just once.

Felicia said quickly, “Sir Elswith was just leaving, Mary. Be good enough to show him out.”

“I’ll show him out,” Blaic volunteered with a grin that had nothing friendly about it.

“So you’re the one,” Sir Elswith growled, rising awkwardly to his feet. “Yes, you show me the door and I’ll throw you through it! I’ll teach you to make unwelcome advances to gently reared girls!”

Blaic was taken aback. “My advances?”

“M’God, what’s the country coming to when a low fellow like you can think to raise his eyes to the daughter of the house? I’ll give you such a thrashing.... Horse-whipping’s too good for the likes of you....  Girl! Fetch m’cane!”

Felicia clutched Mary’s hand. “You’ll do no such thing.”

“No, miss.”

“Sir Elswith, aren’t you a tad confused?” Felicia said. “It is you who have made most unwelcome advances, as I have tried repeatedly to tell you.”

“You don’t know what you’re sayin’, m’dear.” Dropping his voice, he said hoarsely, “
Pas devant les domestiques
, eh?”

His French was so poor that Felicia wondered how he expected anyone to understand him during the trip on which he proposed to take her to Paris. She had already guessed that this plan was nothing more than a snare. If she’d been the sort of girl everyone thought, no doubt it would have been effective. Now she wondered if he’d meant to take her any farther than Portsmouth.

Felicia said, “It’s quite impossible to keep anything from servants, Sir Elswith. However, if you wish to keep this from the ears of Lady Stavely, I suggest you take your dismissal quietly.”

“Let me take care of him,” Blaic said, meeting her eyes.

She was tempted. Blaic had powers that she, as a human and a woman, could never have. Yet here he was offering to use his gifts on her behalf. For a moment, she luxuriated in the idea of all the things he could do to Sir Elswith. But in the end, she said, “No. Thank you, but no.”

Sir Elswith instinctively straightened his attire, though it was long past any such help. He sneered. “If you prefer the low company of servants and gardeners to the assistance of a gentleman, then I can only say —"

“Don’t.” Blaic came quite close to Sir Elswith, almost toe-to-toe. “Don’t say a word. I should hate to have to soil my hands by touching you.”

Chapter Ten

Eventually, they all trooped together to see Sir Elswith off the premises. When he’d gone into the night, still muttering oddly protective bombast, Mary bobbed a curtsy to Felicia and then, quite plainly, bobbed another at Blaic. “I’ll be zayin’ good evening, then, miss.”

“Not a word of this in the servants hall, please, Mary.”

“Hmph! Catch me tellin’ them anything when they be zo powerful clever theyselves! Niver you mind, m’dear. Tell ‘em I been watchin’ you paint him.” Her smile had an air of conspiracy about it as she disappeared behind the butler’s door under the stair.

The big central hall was cast into shadow by the large lamp hanging from the floor above. Felicia struggled with the bolt of the front door, not wanting to leave it open until Mr. Varley came by on his rounds. Though she fought to bring the bolt home, it resisted her efforts. She cast a look at Blaic, who spread his hands and said, “We don’t like iron.”

“Well, I shall let you off this time....” She ignored the bolt and turned toward him. “I don’t know how to thank you,” she began.

“Did he hurt you?”

“No. He simply was renewing an offer he’d made once before. From his position, I suppose, he thinks it’s flattering. Strange, though, how he can’t see that to me there is no difference between his advances and those of a humbler man.”

“When did he first ask you to become his mistress?”

“It’s unimportant.”

“Nothing about you is unimportant — to me.”

Felicia could not see his face well. If he meant what he said... But that was too much even for a dream. “I never realized what passion I aroused in the breasts of so many different kinds and conditions of men,” she said, trying to make light of her two propositions. She told him how William Beech and Sir Elswith had each decided to declare their dishonorable intentions on the selfsame day.

“A beehive’s too good for him,” he said.

“I beg your pardon?” His words had been quite distinct but utterly meaningless. When he only shook his head, the lamp sprinkling gleams in his hair, she went on, “I can’t really boast. No one else has shown interest. Even while I was in gaol... Oh, no, I forgot. Constable Richards made the same bothersome propositions as Sir Elswith, only more openly. Sir Elswith offers me Paris and the chance at a wealthier protector once he’s done with me. For the good constable, I had only to permit liberties with my person and he would...if I would...”

Her attempt to make light of the matter fell apart as her voice faded. She turned against the wall, her eyes sheltered against the bend of her elbow. The tears were absorbed into the stuff of her gown, as scalding as if she’d spilled hot tea. She felt him more near to her but did not look up.

“I want to hold you,” he said, his voice too low to carry beyond her ear. “I want to stroke your hair and taste your lips and trace each tear to the end.”

“Don’t. It only makes this feeling worse.”

“What feeling? Tell me. Do you... ?”

“Women want these things as well as men. If you were a man, wouldn’t I be in your arms at this very moment?”

“Yes. If I were a man, I would hold you.”

She could hardly catch her breath. She wanted his touch so badly it was as if she were starving for it. “Don’t talk about it any more. I can’t bear it.”

“At least if we speak, we can share our thoughts. Do you want to pretend you don’t feel this way? Tidy it politely away so that we cannot even find solace in speech?’’

“No, there’s no point in pretending. I can’t even pretend that what I feel isn’t hopeless. Because it is hopeless. You’ll go back to your Mag Mell and dwell there forever. Maybe in a hundred years you’ll wonder whatever became of me, but the thought need not keep you long: I should be safely dead by then and quietly out of my misery.”

She let her head loll and was started to find him so close, leaning against the wall in almost the same posture as she had taken, but with his head up, his eyes focused only on her.

“Do you think I am so lighthearted? There is little merriment in me at this moment. I have never thought of a human woman in this way before — never in all my life.”

Blaic closed his eyes and dropped his head back, exposing his vulnerable throat. He went on, “I’m as confused as an owl in daylight. Mortal women have always seemed fat and overblown in comparison with the delicacy and charm of one of my own kind. Maybe it’s only because it has been so long...”

Felicia tried to summon up some just indignation or raise a protest on behalf of her fellow women, but she couldn’t. He looked exhausted. For an instant, gazing at him, she saw the bones of his skull beneath his skin, and she remembered that he had been alive when Aristotle walked the earth. The knowledge didn’t disgust her; it filled her with wonder and pity.

“No doubt that is it,” she said. “As for me, perhaps I have lived too long under another’s roof. Many girls my age are married and mothers by now. When I leave Hamdry, one of my goals will be to find a husband. Someone who won’t mind my mother’s sins so much. Someone who will overlook my checkered past and love me for myself alone.”

“Touch me,” Blaic said, looking into her eyes. “Touch me and I will bring your true love to you if you wish it.”

Felicia trembled with the temptation. To touch him! To run her hands over the planes of his face and know for all time the rasp of his whiskers. To feel the warmth of his skin and the contrasting roughness and smoothness of his body. She would not stop with some light brushing of the fingers — she would hold him so tightly that he’d never escape her.

Against this, there was all her reluctance to see him trapped. He had not said, “Touch me so that you might wish me to stay here with you.” Unless he wanted that, she would not touch him.