Touch of Passion (50 page)

As soon as the remains of the meal had been cleared, Kian took Loris's hand and stood. He opened his mouth to begin his speech of thanks and departure and then stopped.

“Someone's coming,” he said.

Loris looked at him curiously. “Who? Surely Cadmaran wouldn't—”

“It isn't Cadmaran,” Kian said quickly, aware of Malachi's intent gaze. “It's a mere mortal. Several mere mortals, in fact. They've crossed Tylluan's borders and are coming to the castle. Very quickly.” He looked at his cousin, saying, wonderingly, “I can sense the presence of strangers within Tylluan, and know where they are. I've not been able to do so with any great accuracy before.”

“Your powers have increased,” Malachi said over the din in the hall. “You may have many such happy discoveries in the days to come.”

“My grandfather,” Loris murmured. “It must be my grandfather coming. Oh dear. I'm afraid he's going to be very angry. And all of this”—she motioned toward the merry dancing and singing taking place—“is going to seem very wild to him. I so wanted him to have a wonderful first impression of Tylluan.”

“He will have, I promise you,” Malachi said reassuringly. He rose from his chair and neared them. “Go and rest. Dyfed and Desdemona have already done so, and quite rightly, considering the events of the night and day. Your cousin Niclas and I will greet Lord Perham and keep him company. He will be quite content and pleased with all that he hears and sees.”

“But, Malachi,” Loris said, “I can't think it right to let you enchant my grandfather.”

Lord Graymar smiled. “Can you not?” he asked, looking from one to the other. “Consider it a wedding gift.”

“But—”

“You can speak with your grandfather first thing in the morning.”

Kian cleared his throat, and Malachi quickly amended, “I mean to say, in the afternoon. Now go on with you both. I'll take care of everything.”

Some hours later, as they lay together, comfortable and replete against the soft sheets of Kian's bed, Loris said sleepily, “I hope my grandfather is all right.”

Kian kissed her hair, still damp from their leisurely bath. “If anyone can keep him happy, it's Malachi. I had the distinct feeling when we left him in the great hall that he was looking forward to playing lord of the manor. The great Earl of Graymar in his element.”

“He does it very well,” Loris said. “I wonder why Malachi has never married. He's very popular with women—all the females that I met in London are half in love with him. Even the married ones.”

“I don't know,” Kian murmured. “I think perhaps he's never had the time. Being the
Dewin Mawr
, as well as the Earl of Graymar, must be very demanding. It's probably like already being married.”

“But that's precisely why he needs a wife,” Loris said. “We are so very useful to a husband.”

Kian smiled and pulled her against him more closely. “That you are. Very, very useful.”

“In many ways,” she told him. “You must admit that your life would be far more difficult if I didn't manage the castle and arrange matters to make your days easier.”

“You did that long before you became my wife,” he said.

“But then I wasn't very, very useful.”

“You were,” he said, his warm hand pressing against her hip. “But not in the same way.”

“And that's why Malachi needs a wife.”

“I believe he already has a mistress who has proved quite useful.”

Loris turned toward him, lying on her back as he leaned over her. “No, for the other reason.”

“To be helpful and make his days easy?”

“To love him,” she said, reaching up to caress his cheek. “To take care of him.”

“Ah, I see,” he murmured. “I can think of another reason for him to get a wife. Several others, actually.”

“What are they?”

“To bring him joy with a simple glance,” he said, softly kissing her lips. “To give him pleasure with a smile.” He kissed her again. “To make him feel strong and whole with but a word. To make him want to rise in the morning just so that he can see her. Hear her voice.”

“I'm not sure such a woman exists,” she murmured.

“Aye, she does. But Malachi will have to find his own. I spent ten long years waiting for mine,” he said, bringing his mouth to hers once more, “and I'm never going to lose her again.”

Read on for an excerpt from

Coming soon from St. Martin's Paperbacks

“G
LAIN
T
ARRAN
, P
EMBROKESHIRE
, W
ALES
“A
PRIL 4,1821, PAST MIDNIGHT
“C
EREMONIAL
G
ROUNDS

“
The site is all that I could have hoped for, and far more. There are twenty enormous monoliths, paired together in a manner similar to those at Stonehenge, all of Welsh blue-stone. I can only guess at the site's date of origin, though it is classically Druidic in arrangement. The stones create a single, complete, perfect circle. Unlike other such sites, no stones have yet fallen
.

“
The main question
”—at this point the wind began to blow so heartily that Sarah had to tether the edges of the page with her forearm—“
is why this fantastic remnant of our historical past has been kept so secret from the government of England and the people at large. Why do the Seymour family and local villagers so vigilantly hide it?
”

The wind apparently had had enough. Somehow, her glasses had slipped far enough down her irritatingly small nose to be snatched off by the wind. Flinging her knapsack aside, she grasped at the air, then went down on hands and knees to frantically search the ground.

“That is the outside of enough!” she informed the element hotly. “I
must
have my spectacles.”

And that was how Malachi, the Earl of Graymar, came upon Miss Sarah Tamony.

To say that he was shocked would have been apt.

He had no notion of why she'd come or how she'd ended up in the most sacred and secret place in Glain Tarran, but he did know that he had to get rid of her as soon as possible.

By the time she'd finally circled his way and seen him, he'd decided upon a course halfway between terror and kindness.
Extending one palm, he brought forth a small flame, only enough light to help the moon illuminate his face. Making his expression as foreboding as he dared, he said, over the wind, in a darkly stern tone, “What are you doing here?”

She pressed up to her knees and squinted at him, setting one hand over her wind-blown hair to hold it back from her forehead.

“Well, at present,” she shouted over the elements, “I'm trying to find my spectacles.”

The flame floating over Malachi's palm died away, and he felt himself gaping.

“What the devil are
you
doing on my lands!”

“I'm presently trying to find my spectacles. I don't suppose you might make it stop a moment”—she motioned toward the wind with a wave of one hand—“so that I might discover where they've gone?”

“Be silent!” Malachi told her angrily, then turned his attention back to the wind. “
Dwyn!
”

The wind began to blow along the ground, tumbling leaves and branches and, finally, a pair of battered spectacles, which landed near his feet.

Bending, Malachi picked the spectacles up and examined them in the moonlight.

“They're bent,” he said curtly, holding them out to his visitor.”

She didn't answer him directly, but spent a long time rubbing them clean with a bit of her skirt, before putting them on.

“Ah, that's better,” she declared happily, gazing up at him, her face illuminated by the pale moonlight. “Do you remember me now, my lord?”

Malachi gazed back at her steadily, into a face that he knew well from description, but couldn't recall from memory. She was a beauty. An auburn beauty, with large blue eyes and fine, aristocratic features. A rare, intelligent beauty who knew how to talk her way into getting almost anything she wanted.

Miss Sarah Tamony was a dangerous female.