The Lady of the Storm - 2 (5 page)

And it hadn’t occurred to Cecily that something bad could
really
happen to him. But today’s events had shown her that the evils of the world could come upon one suddenly, when they least expected it.

Cecily could bear her thoughts no longer. She pushed them from her mind, climbed into her parents’ bed, and allowed herself to cry until she fell asleep.

When she woke the next morning, it took a moment for the events of yesterday to filter into her mind.

“Mother?”

Of course, she didn’t answer. But Cecily tried to keep up her usual routine.

“I’m going out to tend to the garden.” She glanced down at her wrinkled clothing, grimaced at the stains upon it, and changed into her second-best set of clothes. “And to the beach. I left my favorite quilted petticoat there.”

The small house near vibrated with silence.

In her garden, the plants had a layer of soot covering them, and she washed them all down with her bucket several times. A stream ran not too far from her garden patch, and walking back and forth soon grew tedious. It would take but a flick of her hand to call the water from stream to garden, but she had never used her magic so casually. Nor would she do so today. Indeed, she would have to work even harder to fit in now.

“Cecily?”

She glanced up into Will’s rather haggard-looking face, pushing the hair away from her eyes and wondering if she looked as bad. Probably worse. “Good morn, Will. My plants are doing well this year. I will make dinner for you this eve—what’s wrong?”

He spread out his hands. “How can ye ask me that? Everything’s wrong; everything’s changed.”

“But not you and I.”

“Not the way I feel about ye, no. And yet—the men have been talking. We don’t know why the elven lord suddenly decided to raid our village for his army. ’Tis said that he’s determined to win back the king from Firehame. Our king who is naught but a trophy to them! Ach, we should be a united England, conquering the world. But because of the elven we are nothing but squabbling sovereignties, pitting our own men against one another.”

Cecily dropped her bucket, the water sloshing over the sides, wetting the hem of her skirt. “I’ve never heard you talk like this before. What has gotten into you?”

“Ye can ask me that, after yesterday?” He shook his head. “Ye cannot keep things the way they were, Cecily, no matter how hard ye try.”

“Don’t say that. We can repair the village. We can go back to our peaceful lives. The elven lord will forget about us.”

“Nay, he will not! He will send more soldiers… or just destroy us with one of his storms. We are doing what’s best.”

A shaft of ice ran through her body. “What do you mean?”

Will took a breath. “The men and I are going to Dewhame to join Breden’s army. They will attack the village again if we do not, and we will not sit and wait for them to come to us.”

“You can’t leave.”

Will stepped forward, lifted her hands in his. “Don’t ye see it’s the only way to protect ye?”

Cecily had her fill of men trying to protect her. “Liar. You’ve always wanted to join the army. You long for glory. This is naught but an excuse.”

He flinched as if she’d slapped him and quickly withdrew his hands from hers and stepped back warily. For a moment, she saw a hint of fear in his eyes. Dear, sweet Will, despite what he had said, feared her. Or rather, her magic.

“Do not be this way,” he whispered. “Ye cannot change what has happened. Ye cannot hide from it.”

Will couldn’t go. She might never see him again. All of her plans for a quiet comfortable life would go with him. “When are you leaving?”

“This morn. Old Man Hugh will take care of my flock until I return. I know I don’t have the right to ask, but if ye could wait for me…”

Cecily shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. You know what I am now, Will. Even if you manage to come home, you’ll never be able to forget that, will you?”

He dropped his gaze, studied the toes of his boots. He wore his best pair, the leather only slightly scuffed. “Ye cannot help what ye are. Many others have more elven blood than they’d like.”

He didn’t deny her words. Cecily sucked in a breath. “You had best go.”

Will wouldn’t leave her like this. He would take her hand and tell her he could never be parted from her, for any reason.

But he turned and walked away.

Thomas had always told her she had too much romanticism in her heart for her own good. She knew it to be true the day she had snuck into the blacksmith’s bedroom and humiliated herself beyond redemption. She now knew it to be true with Will. She had thought she could always count on his love. But it was just as tenuous as the life she’d made for herself in the village.

Cecily spun and ran to the one place that always offered her comfort. That always soothed her whenever Thomas tried to shake the romanticism out of her.

She flew through the scraggly woods, over the steep rocks and across the sun-warmed sand, not stopping until she reached her private cove. The sharp tang of salt nipped her nose and tickled her tongue. She stripped off her clothing, dropping it atop her discarded petticoat from yesterday, and plunged into the waves.

Thomas had always told her that one day she would become a tool of the Rebellion. The magic in her blood had chosen her destiny, and she could not fight it. She had firmly denied it, telling him she didn’t want such power.

For she remembered the night Thomas and the lady Cassandra had rescued Mother and her from the prison of Firehame Palace. The night she’d called up a storm to stop the troops that pursued them. Cecily’s magic had killed hundreds of men, and she could still see their deaths limned by the fury of lightning, shadowed by the deluge of the storm.

And she’d sworn to renounce her magic. Had done such a jolly good job of it that Thomas had quit trying to teach her the ways of deception that made for a good spy. Indeed, as she grew to love Thomas as a father, he’d grown to love her as a daughter, and eventually put her needs before those of the Rebellion.

He no longer saw her as just a tool for the Rebellion. Had found ways to protect her, not only from her blood father, Breden of Dewhame, but from his own Rebellion.

Cecily swam ever deeper, leaving behind the sun-dappled water until she moved in a world of twilight. Luminous fish spotted the water with bright color; anemone and coral swayed like a garden of flowers beneath her. Two dolphins swam up to greet her, brushing their smooth cool skin against hers, inviting her to play.

But Cecily did not have the heart for it, and instead pushed herself to swim farther out to sea, to leave behind the world of man once and for all.

Although her lungs seemed capable of supporting her for hours within the water, she knew she could not stay below forever. Nor could she go back to that empty house and pretend her life would go on as it had before. She had nothing, now. No one.

A fury of movement to her right made Cecily slow her sharp kicks, float in weightlessness for a moment. A school of sharks circled, a multitude of other sea creatures below, feeding off the bits that floated from the shark’s feast. She felt the agitation of the dolphins at her side, smoothed their hides with the palms of her hands.

She should swim away, but her eye caught something wrong about the scene beside her. The sharks did not feast on the carcass of another fish.

Cecily tried to swim around them and abruptly hit an invisible wall. She placed her hands against the barrier, knowing she could not pass through it. Neither could she go under or over it. For it was the magical barrier that the elven lords had crafted to surround England. To cut them off from the rest of the world—to contain their magic or keep the English people prisoner, she could not be sure. But Thomas said it allowed the elven lords to monitor trade and hide their evil from the rest of the world.

But Mother said the rest of the world could care less about the plight of the English people.

And Father said they would have to help themselves. And he would go off on another mission for the Rebellion.

Cecily drifted up to the surface, her hands trailing against the invisible wall, watching the school of sharks circling again and again, until finally a gap opened between the sharp-finned bodies, and she caught sight of their feast.

And why it had seemed so very wrong.

They fed on soldiers. The soldiers that she had plunged into the ocean. Arms, legs, shredded torsos and a head with glazed, staring eyes…

Cecily clutched at her dolphins, kicking her legs away from the carnage. And her friends responded by swiftly pulling her back to shore, her arms slung about their backs, her head lowered against the spray. She normally took such delight in their swift passage, but the horror of what she’d seen robbed her of any enjoyment.

She had done that. But she’d dropped the men in the water because she assumed they would swim to shore, too worn out to fight the villagers, their weapons lost. Surely some had made it to shore…

She hadn’t meant to kill them. If her world was no longer the safe, contented harbor she’d worked so hard to create, she was no longer the harmless girl she’d tried to fool herself into being.

Thomas had been right about everything. She pictured his smiling face, with his golden hair gone slightly gray at the temples, his pale eyes surrounded by a network of laugh lines. How could he have stayed so kind in the world in which he lived?

How could he have allowed Cecily to hide for so long?

Perhaps his home in the village was the only place he knew peace. Perhaps he wanted to keep a little part of his world as a safe haven to return to.

If Giles was right, Thomas had even found a spell to place around the village, keeping them all safe.

But Thomas had not come home to renew it. Wouldn’t he have known how long it would last? What if something truly horrible had happened to him? What if he lay imprisoned by some elven lord at this very moment, in pain and crying out for help?

Her toes dragged against the sand and she dropped her arms from about the dolphins, giving them a petting in their favorite places, while the waves bobbed her up and down.

Will had been right. She could not hide from the world anymore.

But she need not become a tool, either.

She walked to the shore, ignoring the waves that battered her, the plaintive cries of her friends begging her to stay and play. Her eyes narrowed as she studied the far rise, looking for a hint of movement.

Ah, he was good. Had she not been looking, she never would have spied him. But a brief flash of pale hair told her Giles had resumed his post of spying upon her, wounded or no.

Cecily did not bother to hurry into her clothing. He had watched her for years, so it hardly mattered now that he saw her naked body. Besides, it obviously held little appeal for him. She’d offered it and he had easily rejected her.

She felt that familiar rise of humiliation turn into something harder. Something cold and brilliant which formed from the events of the last four-and-twenty hours. It served to strengthen her resolve.

Cecily surreptitiously used her magic to shed her skin of water and pulled her chemise over her head. She had always just struggled her damp skin into her clothing. But now that she’d made her decision, there was no reason to hide her magic, even for the little things.

But she had no magic that would assist her into her stays, and she could only be thankful that working women had laces in front and back. She wouldn’t have a servant to aid her on the journey ahead.

She pulled on both of her petticoats, then her serviceable brown dress, and carried her shoes in her hand as she made her way up the rocks.

The spy did not attempt to hide. Why would he, now that his secret was revealed? Giles stood as she approached, looking as pale as an elven lord, favoring his shoulder as he brushed the hair from his eyes with his other hand.

He stood too tall. Cecily could meet Will’s eyes, but her head barely topped Giles’s massive shoulders.

Despite that new, hard little knot inside of her, she could not stop the racing of her heart, the flutter in her stomach, at his nearness.

Nor could she stare into his face. So she spoke to his chin. “I need a horse.”

Three

Giles could only stare at her in stunned amazement.

“You’re a blacksmith, aren’t you? You have horses in your stables, don’t you?”

He nodded, feeling like the rather slow oaf that he’d pretended to be since he’d come to the village. Cecily looked… different, somehow. Oh, she was still beautiful. With the elven blood that ran through her veins, she could never be otherwise. Her enormous blue eyes glittered like crystal jewels, her black hair shone in the sunlight, and her skin looked like translucent parchment.

But her soft mouth had hardened, her posture rigidly alert like a soldier about to face battle.

Giles regretted the change in her.

“I am in need of one,” she said.

“Of a horse.”

“Yes, quite. Has your injury addled your brain?”

He cocked a grin. His brain always seemed to get addled when she neared within a few feet of him. Another good reason that had kept him at a distance from her for so many years. “I’m just astonished you’ve managed to find your good sense. You understand that you must leave this… place.”

He hadn’t meant his words to sound so derisive. But the thought of finally leaving this little village, of relinquishing his task of watching over Cecily so he could serve the Rebellion in a way more suited to his character, had made him speak more harshly than he intended.

He longed for adventure. He ached for the chance to deliver a blow to the elven lords that would ease the suffering in his heart for the death of his father and brother. And he had felt stifled in this little village. An entire world waited for him, and now he had the chance to experience it.

Her gaze finally left his chin to glance up into his eyes. He resisted the urge to take a step backward, to escape the feeling that she delved into his very soul.

“It must have been dreadful for you,” she said, “having to watch over some foolish little chit, while my father went off on his grand missions.”

She had struck too close to home. For the first time, it occurred to him that the girl might know him just as well as he knew her. She had watched him often enough. With the other young women of the village. Until that night she had… fie, she’d almost destroyed his entire mission when she had climbed into his bed and offered herself to him.

If she had not been so innocent, he wouldn’t have been able to resist bedding her. And Thomas would have killed him.

“My feelings in this matter are not significant.” This time he willed himself to speak harshly. He felt sure any infatuation for him that she’d suffered from as a child had faded on her maturity. Indeed, he should have felt relieved by the coldness she had treated him to since that night. The fact that it rankled still confused him. “We will leave at once.”

“I beg your pardon,” she replied, in a tone that suggested she offered no such thing. “I do not recall asking for your company.”

“You will have it, whether you wish it or no. Until I deliver you into someone else’s safekeeping, you are my responsibility.”

“Indeed. You still seem to suffer under the delusion that I need protection. Did you not witness what I did yesterday? Do you not realize how many bodies litter the waters of my ocean?”

She raised her hands, her fingers playing some invisible melody in the air. He knew how deadly a mere gesture from her could be, although he had not truly understood the extent of her power until he’d witnessed it. But behind the anger in her eyes, he saw a deep sadness, and her breath had hitched when she spoke of her waters.

Perhaps another would not have noticed. But he’d studied her interactions with others often enough to see past the shield of her public face.

“You did what you had to,” he said, closing the distance between them. She smelled like lavender and deep ocean. A heady scent no other woman could ever match. “Just as I did what I needed to do.”

“I do not like killing.”

“Nor do I.”

She waved her fingers again. “I do not like
you
.”

Giles laughed. “Do not think you frighten me, little girl. You shan’t be rid of me so easily.”

Her mouth dropped open, and he fought the urge to kiss her. Heaven help him on their journey to Firehame. His only defense against her appeal had been distance, and he would not be able to keep it. And now that she knew the truth about him, it seemed it had broken some sort of barrier between them, for they spoke to each other now more than they had in the past nine years. Which meant he would have to be even more vigilant against his affection for her.

At the thought, he raised his hand and touched her cheek, that thrill of anticipation running through him again. Indeed, he did have an affection for her. How astonishing.

She stepped away from his touch. “Do not think to use your wiles upon me. I am no longer a child. And do not think I am going with you to become some pawn for your Rebellion. I will not be used—by you or anyone else. I am going to see this Sir Robert of yours only to find my father. He will know of Thomas’s last mission… unless… did Father tell you?”

Giles shook his head. Even if he did know, he wouldn’t likely tell her, nor did he think Sir Robert would, either. But if he wished the young woman off his hands and the end of this task so he could be given another, he wouldn’t admit this. “No. And please refrain from bandying the man’s name about. I confessed it to you only in the dire need of your circumstances.”

“I’m surprised you were given his name.”

“The Rebellion will risk much to protect you.”

She grimaced. He could not help but grin at such a look.

“Come,” he said, bending down to pull on his boots. “We should leave at once.” A bit of sand had stuck to his stockings and prickled his feet as he walked up the rise. He did not wait for her, knowing she would follow. For he’d heard about the men leaving, had known that Will would go with them.

The village held nothing for her now.

Indeed, as they made their way to his smithy it felt as though they walked through an empty village. The young men must have already left, and perhaps many of their families as well. It would be foolish to stay and wait for the soldiers to come.

Cecily tried to walk away, and he stayed her with a raised hand. “It’s best if we do not part.”

She gave him an indignant look. “I need to pack some items for the journey. I will meet you back here in a few hours.”

Giles entered the stable next to the smithy, his mind already racing with plans for the journey. It would take at least six days to reach London, perhaps more since they needed to travel in secret. He had but one horse, Apollo, a brute big enough to bear his weight, but Thomas kept extra mounts stabled, and he thought the small brown mare would suit Cecily. “I think it’s better if you stay with me. I have already packed the supplies and need only to prepare the horses. Does this little mare meet with your approval?”

Giles turned around and realized he spoke to air.

He frowned and patted the mare’s neck. “Ah, Belle. It would seem that this is going to be a most difficult journey, eh? With that young lady hating me—and me wanting her—all at the same time.” The horse nickered, nosing into his pockets in hopes of a treat. Giles fetched out a bit of wilted carrot and saddled her while she crunched. “The hatred doesn’t worry me. It’s the wanting that could get me into trouble.”

When he’d finished with the mare he saddled up Apollo, who stamped his feet until he’d been given a carrot as well.

It took Giles only a few moments to arrange the bags on the mounts. When he’d awoken this morning, he had decided to take Cecily to Firehame whether the woman would come willingly or no, so he’d packed the bags and dressed in his buckskins. He supposed he should be grateful she had changed her mind. He’d never had to force a woman to do anything.

“Although,” he muttered as he led the horses from the stables, “Cecily is not a woman who can be forced to do anything. And that, my beasties, will have her and I knocking our heads together before we travel far.”

Belle nickered and Apollo snorted. Fie, how he loved the beasts. They listened to everything he said and never talked back.

Giles didn’t spare a glance for the smithy he left behind. He had always known that it had been but a temporary arrangement for him, despite having lived here for years. And although it had become his home, and he’d made a few friends in the village, his heart felt light as he left it behind for good. He did not lock the doors, and welcome to any man who wished to take up where he’d left off. He didn’t suppose it would be any time soon, but after a while the village would become populated again.

The fishing hereabouts made for a comfortable livelihood.

As if on cue, Old Man Hugh popped his head out the door of his cottage as Giles passed.

“Ye be taking her away then?”

Giles nodded.

The old man spat. “Can’t say as I’m sad to see her go. Nor ye, for that matter.”

Giles turned to him in surprise. One of the men he’d thought he had made friends with was Hugh.

“Ach, now, don’t be looking that aways. It’s not that I don’t like either of ye. It’s just… ye two are not for the likes of our little village. Ye belong in the world that made ye.” He stepped out of the doorway of his cottage, holding out a hand knobby with age and hard work. “I’ll miss ye, though, Mister Giles Beaumont.”

Giles shook the dry hand.

Hugh let out a cackle. “Lud, don’t ye think I know that blade of yers is destined to protect more than this humble village?”

The devil-sword shivered in its scabbard, as if it knew it was the object of discussion.

“You see more than most, Old Man. More than I had thought.”

“That I do.” Hugh stepped closer and lowered his gravelly voice. “I’m naught but a worn-out fisherman, son, but sometimes I see things—there’s a bit of elven blood in me own line. So heed the advice of this old man, for I’m given it to ye in good faith. Ye may not get what ye want, but it will be more’n ye ever thought to have. So be patient. With yer ambition, and the girl.”

One of the injured cried out from within the dark recesses of the cottage and Hugh turned to answer.

“Wait,” said Giles, his fear for the old man overriding his confusion about the advice he’d been given. “Come with us. When the soldiers return, they may not feel like talking. It’s dangerous to stay.”

“And who will take care of the injured?” asked Hugh. “Besides, I no more belong in yer world than ye do in mine. Naw, get on with ye, boy. And use the elven blood in yer veins to help the human part of ye. For freedom is worth any cost.” He scrambled back into his cottage, throwing his parting words over one strong, bony shoulder. “Good luck to ye, Beaumont, and may the Good Lord bless ye.”

With that parting benediction, Giles left the village for the last time, following the small pathway that led to Thomas’s cottage. The honeysuckle that usually surrounded the front of the little house had been torn away, straggles of blossoms releasing a strong aroma as he tread upon them to knock at the door.

She answered it within a heartbeat, her gaze quickly skimming past him to the waiting horses. “I’m more at home in the water than on the back of a beast.”

“I know. But Belle is a docile mount.”

“It’s the sidesaddle,” she continued, stepping back from the doorway and allowing him in.

“I know,” he said again.

She huffed. “I suppose you know a great many things about me, after spying on me all these years. And I suppose I will have to become adjusted to who you really are… and not who I thought you were.”

Giles shrugged, surveying the homey cottage. “I’m the same person and so are you. Only our circumstances have changed.”

“Perhaps.” She hefted a rather large valise.

He shook his head. “We travel light.”

She sighed but didn’t argue, setting the bag on the bedstead and sorting through it. “I shall have only one change of clothes, and no hoops. The prime minister will think I’m a country bumpkin… ah, faith, that’s what I am. I just hope he takes me seriously.”

Giles purposely looked away from her smallclothes and examined a shelf laden with an assortment of seashells, coral, and some items he could not identify. Cecily’s ocean finds often traded for large sums, and more than once, had fed the village through a lean winter. They should have been grateful for her contributions, but instead it had served only to set her even further apart from them.

Indeed, in the same way his gift with steel had made the young men only more distant from him.

“You’ve only to twiddle your fingers at water,” he finally replied, “and I’m sure Sir Robert will take you seriously.”

“And I will nick my finger, and your sword’s hunger for blood will make him take
you
seriously when he realizes the power of the magic it holds.”

He turned with a smile. “Well met. It seems we are a pair of magical aberrations, does it not?”

“I was perfectly ordinary until yesterday.”

“You, my dear lady, were never ordinary.”

She gave him an odd look, but didn’t reply, only handed him a much-smaller bundle of tightly rolled clothing. He accepted it this time, striding out to her horse and stuffing it into the empty bag he’d left for her things. He checked the horses’ shoes again, the straps of the saddles, and when she didn’t appear he went back into the cottage.