The Faery Bride (The Celtic Legends Series Book 2) (38 page)

He reached out and traced the edge of a symbol painted upon her belly. “What’s this?”

“Ancient things.” Her skin tingled where he touched. “Symbols. Prayers of a sort. For fertility.”

“My pagan.” He curled his hand under her jaw. “Are there any words to be said?”

“Words?”

“A ceremony.” He trailed a finger over her breast. “Something to chant under the stars. A pagan dance you’ll have me do and spend a lifetime teasing me about. Speak now, Irish, or there’ll be no more talking.”

She’d half a mind to set him prancing about like a rooster, play the randy bull, or howl at the moonless sky, but her heart wasn’t into the mischief. With his naked flesh so close to hers and his fingers dancing over her breast, her body pulsed hot with the magic of the night. She was too full of wanting to wait.

“Love me,” she whispered, stepping into his embrace. “Love me, and we shall be one.”

His robe rustled to the ground. She wound her arms around those broad shoulders. Through the haze of pine–smoke, the stars gleamed down upon them and the wind whistled music through the river–reeds. He kissed her. She would never tire of his kissing, but while he did so, his hands found their way all over her body. He pressed her down upon the grass and she opened herself up for him. There’d be no long lovemaking tonight, at least not at once, not while the heat of Lughnasa pulsed in their blood.

She’d felt this yearning every season as a girl, too frightened to do more than linger out of the light of the fires and watched the others dance and throw themselves through the flames and then melt away in couples into the shadows.

She’d never be alone in those shadows again.

Rhys shifted his weight and then he paused to lift his head.

They lay alone in the sacred circle but for the gurgle of the river around the island and the crackle of the torch–fires, but Rhys grew tense.

She said, “What is it, Rhys?”

“I hear something.”

She heard it, too. It was the rustle of wind in the reeds, the patter of tiny footsteps reeling in dances, the high whine of faint and distant music—the celebration of the union to come, drifting through the thinning veils of the worlds. She took Rhys’s head in her hands and lay the softest of kisses upon his lips.

“Aye, Rhys, I’ll make a believer out of you yet.”

Epilogue

T
he day had begun like any other summer morning here in the lands of Graig.

At the first sound of cock’s crow, I poked my head out of one of the windows of the new castle. Below, mist curled up from the river. It was a fine, cool morning and so I set myself to get the first pail of water straight from the river so I could put some oats to boil. That way there’ll be nothing but good in the house all day.

But first I bustled into the master’s chamber and took the little one from where he slept between the master and the mistress. I hefted him on my hip for the journey. I take him in the mornings, you see, to give the mistress a bit of rest, though truly she doesn’t get much of a respite. For I know the moment I leave the room my lord is upon her. Though they seem to sleep like the dead whenever I come in, I hear their laughter as I close the door. Well, I suppose my lord must work as hard as he can to try to get another babe from her. The mistress doesn’t take too quickly to child, you know—not from lack of interest from the master, I tell you—she’s just that way, as some women are. The shameless truth of the matter is that I think neither she nor he complain about the labor a bit. They enjoy it as shamelessly as pagans, and the one child she has borne is so healthy that it’s unworldly.

He squirmed on my hip that morning, all bright unearthly green eyes like his grandmother on his mother’s side—and all full of mischief as was his way.

And so we set off through the grand castle gates with the sentinels standing so stiff on either side, and I sang a little Irish song I remembered from when I used to sing it to his father, God bless him. It was promising to be the finest day, with the cuckoos singing down upon us, and I saw a white lamb skitter across our path as swift as can be, and then I knew it was to be a lucky day, too.

So when I got to the river’s edge I set William down beside me and gave him the ring of keys the master entrusted me with. What a bothersome thing, always jingling and jangling and banging on my hip, but I’ll not be one to give back such an honor, not while I still draw breath. Still I wonder why we needed so many rooms in the new castle.

No sooner had I turned around and dipped my bucket in the water when I heard a voice behind me.

“A bright morning to you, mistress.”

I nearly fell headfirst into the river with the shock of it all. I turned around to yell at the man, but the words stopped in my throat. No man of Graig, this, with his tattered and odd–looking clothes, leaning upon a gnarled knot of a stick and grinning his yellow smile at me, looking as if he’d topple over with the faintest of pushes but for the black, dancing mischief of his eyes.

“I wondered,” he continued, as if he hadn’t snuck up behind me from the very grass, “if you mind sharing a drop of that water in your pail. I’m mighty parched, you see, having traveled far this day.”

Well, what was I to say? He was an old man, and so weak, and my heart went out to him. It was common enough for visitors to pass this way, now that we lived here in the valley near the river and a bit of a road, and no longer in that smoky old mead–hall on the crag that only a single horse could climb. Common enough for Irish to come, too, with the mistress’s relatives always making their way here and staying a while, wild bunch that they are. So I handed him the pail and let him drink his fill of it. As I watched, I wondered if my mind was slipping, for there was something familiar about the man, something I couldn’t place.

I asked, “Where’d you come from, traveler?”

With the pail to his lips he pointed vaguely to the eastern hills, to the peak upon which Lake Dyffryn lay, the lake where that young boy went last year claiming he’d seen a faery–bride, and then came down months later as happy as could be, trailing behind him the whitest cow you’ve ever seen. A cow that bore two calves every season and the richest milk you ever set into your mouth.

“A blessing on you, mistress,” the traveler said as he handed the pail back, though why he was blessing me for water when a river of it flowed free behind me and no one would have stopped him for kneeling over and drinking his fill of it. Then he set his eye on the little one rattling the keys and asked his name. After I told him, he grinned and began jabbering at William in Irish.

Now, it was no wonder the man took to the boy. The boy had a light of his own that drew all people to smiling at him. But it was William that caught my eye, for he laughed as if he understood every word the man was saying, when he had not yet reached the age where he could even mutter his mother’s name. Then I thought—this must be one of the mistress’s relatives, that’s why the boy and the man took so well together. I rattled my brain trying to loosen the man’s name from it. It just wouldn’t come to me . . . strange. It’s true, my mind isn’t what it used to be, years ago, but I’m not near as daft as some of the new castle–servants would make me out to be.

Then I spied two of the kitchen girls striding out of the castle with their own pails. Wanting the first for myself I turned to refill mine, watching man and boy out of the corner of my eye. Thinking, how small the man. When he hunkered down like that he looked no bigger than William himself. And what was that sparkling around him, just a curl of mist gleaming in the first breakthrough of the sun?

It was then I remembered where I’d seen that man before. Disappearing into a puff of smoke in the old mead–hall, oh, so many years ago. Octavius by name, and the man who’d started so much mischief that ended in so much joy.

As sure as I stand here today I stood up and dropped my pail, splattering all the good morning water onto the ground. There was William, still staring off at the spot where Octavius had been, still laughing and gesturing though nothing was there but a wisp of mist and a strange sort of flattening of the grass. When I asked the kitchen girls if they’d seen the traveler, they looked upon me as if I’d finally lost the last of my senses and said they’d seen no one. Surely if anyone had been here he couldn’t have run away so quickly with the land cleared through the whole of the valley.

I paid them no mind. I took my pail and filled it again with water. I hefted a gurgling William upon my hip to head back to the castle, with a tingle at the back of my neck.

That’s when I set to thinking, and the more I thought, the more I was after knowing it was true. I’m old, aye, I’ve seen more changes than a woman should in this place—from good to bad and then to good again—but I wouldn’t let anyone tell me that I’d lost the last of my mind.

For it was that day I realized the truth, and not a man, a woman or a child could convince me otherwise.

Since the coming of the mistress, God bless her, the faeries run free again on the hills of Wales.

A personal note from Lisa …

Thanks so much for reading THE FAERY BRIDE! Reviews and ratings help other readers find the books they’ll love—and they also serve as a happy reminder of why I do what I do. So if you have a moment, I would be forever grateful if you left a rating or an honest review at your favorite
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Don’t miss Lisa Ann Verge’s other sexy, adventurous, historical romances, including the other novels in the Celtic Legends Series!

TWICE UPON A TIME
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THE FAERY BRIDE
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THE O'MADDEN: A NOVELLA
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THE CELTIC LEGENDS SERIES: Boxed Set
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HEAVEN IN HIS ARMS
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Also available––the Novels of Lisa Verge Higgins

THE PROPER CARE AND MAINTENANCE OF FRIENDSHIP
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ONE GOOD FRIEND DESERVES ANOTHER
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FRIENDSHIP MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER
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RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS
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SENSELESS ACTS OF BEAUTY
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