Authors: Elizabeth Amber
“A private conversation with you,” he murmured, his voice pitched low so the others wouldn’t hear.
“Regarding my decision to go to London?”
“And other matters.” His eyes went to the crib.
“You’ve nothing to do with my decision to leave.” Emma gave her daughter a final pat and turned so she blocked his view of her child. “Or with
Rose.”
“Rose.” He echoed the name softly, as if growing used to its flavor.
“Rosetta.” She came toward him, maneuvered him into the hal , and pul ed the door with her, leaving it slightly ajar so she would hear if her
daughter stirred again. When she stepped out of the room into the corridor, Dominic was waiting for her.
His hand fel to her waist, and they stood in the doorway, frozen. This close to him, her perfidious flesh tingled with fond remembrance of his.
Though their bodies had communicated for over eight hours, they’d spoken no more than a handful of words to one another.
“Just because of…what happened, don’t believe you have any say in our lives,” she said.
“I’m afraid I must.”
Her hand came over his, intending to pul it away. She felt that strange, familiar hum she recal ed from that night three weeks ago. Confused, she
looked down and saw that he had donned the silver glove before coming to her. She plucked at it with her fingers. “Why do you wear this?”
He snatched his hand back, and his gaze ricocheted off the glove to meet hers.
“Wear what?”
“The glove. You didn’t have it on earlier.”
“You can see it?” He sounded astonished.
Shooting him a quizzical look, she only shrugged and hurried off. He caught her just outside the
salotto
mere yards from the safety of the others.
His ungloved hand manacled her arm. She yanked once, trying to wrest away.
“Let go.”
“You may choose to have our conversation alone or within your family’s hearing,” he said. “It matters not to me.”
She firmed her sealed lips, mutinous.
With a brief incline of his head, he let her go. “So be it.”
They returned to the room, and Emma had just reached Jane’s side when he calmly made his announcement. “I have come here tonight to claim
the right to rehusband Emma.”
Every face fil ed with varying degrees of shock.
Emma gaped at him, speechless.
“By what right?” Lyon demanded, bolting up from his chair.
Raine stood as wel , looking prepared to defend her.
Only Nicholas remained calm, watchful. “Let him speak.”
“Surely you aren’t considering his suggestion?” said Lyon.
Nicholas held up a hand for silence, and though Lyon scowled, he folded his arms and glowered expectantly in Dominic’s direction.
“A joining between our families has obvious advantages,” Dominic said smoothly. “I am ful Satyr, a desirable candidate to bring new blood to your
line. And a wedding wil serve to calm tensions between our worlds and keep those who seek to harm your family at bay.”
Jane slipped a comforting arm around Emma’s waist. “I’l not have my sister used as a political tool.”
“Emma?” Nicholas asked. “What have you to say?”
“I don’t want to marry him,” she said quickly.
“There,” said Jane. “You have her answer.”
“I cannot accept it,” said Dominic with a slow shake of his head. His calm perseverance threatened her more than any show of force might have.
Lyon made a move in his direction, and Raine appeared ready to do the same.
Dominic raised a hand to forestal any attempt to thrash him. “There is a reason I have specifical y chosen Emma.”
Guessing what he might reveal next, Emma took a step forward to stop him. “Don’t!” she choked out.
But he went on, his words driving into her heart like spikes of shame. “When last I visited your compound, I participated in the Cal ing.” She gave
him a tiny, beseeching shake of her head, which he ignored. “With Carlo and Emma.”
Gasps rent the silence, and five pairs of eyes focused on her.
“Emma?” Nicholas prodded.
“It isn’t true. None of what he’s saying.” Never a good liar, she colored at her own falsehood.
“Carlo was a jealous man. He wouldn’t have al owed it,” said Lyon.
But she heard the twin threads of doubt and disappointment in Lyon’s voice and cringed from them. Emma and Lyon been friends since she’d first
come here as a girl. It pained her that he would think il of her, even for a moment. Around her, she read concern and growing suspicion on every face.
She glared at Dominic, the cause of her embarrassment and her family’s disil usionment.
“There are ways of proving the truth of what I say,” he warned gently.
“Your suggestion is ridiculous. It’s far too soon to even consider another marriage.” She swept a hand to indicate the somber widow’s weeds she
wore. “It’s been less than a month since Carlo’s death!”
“Yet you are prepared to leave for another city,” Dominic noted. “Despite your grief.”
She flushed, knowing he’d guessed how little she would miss her marriage. “I need to make my own way. The opportunity in London wil al ow me
to work among books. I’ve made plans for my life and my daughter’s. Please let the matter rest.”
His pale eyes were steady on hers as he shook his head, resolute. “I cannot.”
Nicholas ran a hand over his face. “If Emma says no—”
“Carlo was impotent.” Dominic’s quiet words split the atmosphere like a crack of thunder.
Emma stepped back as if he’d slapped her.
“He was rendered impotent from an injury in the war in Else World. Stabbed in the chest and pelvis. It occurred only days after he’d gotten Emma
with child.”
“Traitor!” The angry words burst from her. “You’ve betrayed a confidence.”
His brow lifted. “
You
assured Carlo you would not tel his secret. I made no such promise.”
“But Emma’s child. The Birthing,” said Raine, looking perplexed.
“Knowing he couldn’t bring it about last Moonful due to his condition, Carlo invited me here that night for a specific purpose,” Dominic calmly
informed his fascinated listeners. “I was to stand in for him as a sexual surrogate with Emma. Which I did.”
Emma recoiled from the weight of the gazes directed her way and turned her back on them.
“Is this true?” Jane murmured quietly at her ear. Emma gripped her hand, unspeaking.
“And what part did Carlo play that night?” asked Nicholas.
“Little enough,” came Dominic’s reply.
“What does that mean?” Lyon blasted.
“He left us soon after the Cal ing began. I facilitated the Birthing and participated in the family Bonding afterward. Alone, with Emma.”
“It must have been difficult for you to stay away from her al this time.” Raine sounded impressed. “The Bonding exerts a strong pul .”
Emma whirled toward Dominic, seething. “Why did you come here? What purpose has it served to besmirch Carlo’s memory?”
“I summoned him,” said Nicholas.
At that, everyone began to speak at once, and Emma struggled to be heard.
“But why?” she asked.
“He’d requested admittance through the gate along with Carlo’s remains, but I refused him. However, in your husband’s last bequest written the
day of Moonful, he gave care of you and the child to a male descendant of Else World’s royal line if anything should happen to him. The man’s name was
Dominic Satyr.”
A ripple swept the group at the mention of his surname.
“It took me some time to make sufficient inquiries to determine that it was Dominic Janus Satyr he intended to name.”
“That’s you?” Raine inquired.
Dominic gave a regal nod.
“Under the circumstances, I must sanction this marriage if Dominic requests it,” said Nicholas.
“I do,” said Dominic.
“No!” cried Emma. “I release you from any duty Carlo imposed upon you.”
“You can’t force her,” said Jane, glaring at Dominic. Then she looked at her husband. “Can he?”
“I have claimed the right to rehusband,” Dominic reminded her.
“This isn’t your world,” Jane insisted. “Things are done differently here.”
“Jane…” Nicholas began.
Emma exploded in a rare display of anger, cutting him off. “I contest!”
The three lords stil ed, surprised to see her customary calm so severely shattered.
However, Dominic only nodded, as if he’d expected her words. “Then come.”
Emma regarded the gloved hand he extended to her like it was a viper. An odd, disappointed expression crossed his face. Curling his fingers, he
withdrew the hand and gestured toward the door with a brusque nod of his head instead, indicating that she should precede him.
On every side of her, her family’s silence supported his demand.
“Use the library,” Nicholas suggested, official y endorsing the plan.
Seeing little alternative, Emma swept from the room, leaving Dominic to fol ow her down the corridor. The library was a good choice. Adjacent to
the salon, it would keep them from the prying eyes of her family yet was within earshot.
Lyon’s warning floated after them, meant for Dominic. “You’re al otted exactly fifteen minutes for the ritual. Then we come.”
17
D
ominic shut the library doors and leaned against them, examining Emma like a prize exhibit set among the priceless objects in Nicholas’s extensive
col ection.
“Shal we begin?” he asked.
“You’l be disappointed,” she told him, standing uncertainly in the center of a room fil ed with books, parchments, urns, and other antiquities relating
to the Satyr family’s heritage. “I’m not of Else World blood. Your rituals won’t work with me.”
Those beautiful, wicked lips of his curved in a smile of masculine optimism. “You’ve lain with me. Perhaps I’ve tainted you.”
“What is it you’re real y after by coming here?” she snapped.
His eyes narrowed, cooling. Leaving the doors, he stalked her down a narrow aisle between two massive bookcases. At the far end, her back was
pressed to the wal . Slapping a palm to the plaster on either side of her head, he leaned close, a breath away.
“You know what I want.”
“No.” Steadfastly she trained her eyes on the three gleaming suits of medieval armor that stood along the far wal opposite her and told herself to
make her own skin as impervious to his wiles as the armor was to jousting poles. She and Jane had relocated the knights here last month, dubbing them
the “triplets” in honor of her sister’s youngest children, a trio of ten-year-old sons.
As a col ector, Nicholas’s interests were eclectic and expensive, but the ancient artifacts he’d painstakingly acquired had once been displayed in
his rambling
castello
in a shockingly haphazard manner. Under her and Jane’s direction, everything in this room had been organized. Everything in this
museum of a house had been as wel . No smal task, it had taken them a decade. But now al was done, and she would go to London to meet a new
chal enge. This man would not stop her.
“Look at me.”
Her eyes flashed to his. “Do you imagine I’m so foolish as to believe you truly came here for
me
? That you want me?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” he asked, sounding genuinely taken aback.
She made a skeptical sound and began counting the reasons on her fingers. “Because I’m twenty-seven! And plain! I have no talent for magic as
my sister does. Is it that you wish for something else? Riches? Asylum here in Earth World? Whatever it is, speak to Nicholas. Do not use me to gain it.”
“Very wel . I’l tel you what it is I want.” His lips lowered to nuzzle in her hair. His knuckles brushed the side of her throat. “The amulet.”
She blinked. “Hmm?” When she realized what he’d said, her heart sank. The very last thing she’d wished for was a second troublesome husband.
But for a few seconds, she’d hoped…that he would say something altogether different.
Fool!
She pushed at his chin and felt a soft stubble. “Stop that. What amulet?”
“The one stolen from the temple of Bacchus. Carlo spoke of it at dinner on the night we met.”
“Ah! At last we have the truth,” she interrupted with a caustic laugh. “But I know nothing of that. Are we finished?”
His teeth punished the side of her neck. She let out an embarrassing squeak and went up on tiptoe, pul ing back from him until her spine was in
danger of melding with the wal . “You’re not al owed to touch.”
He cocked his head slightly and considered her, two fingers toying with a tendril of hair that had escaped to curl on her cheek.
“How is it you are familiar with this ritual?” he asked, though she had a feeling he’d original y intended to ask something else.
She nodded toward a nearby shelf. “I’ve read most of the books in the
castello
libraries. The ancient ones contain a profuse, detailed mention of
the various rituals of your kind. And there are references to numerous amulets as wel , none of which I have in my possession.”
“You understand I refer to the golden coin Carlo had when I visited? The one you’d utilized to—”
“I haven’t seen it since that night. Nor do I wish to ever see it again.”
“I haven’t seen it since that night. Nor do I wish to ever see it again.”
Silver eyes bored into hers. Then, seeming to be satisfied at the candor he read there, he murmured, “Wel , disappointing as that is, I’l stil wed
you.”
“No. You won’t.” She glanced past his shoulder toward the gold filigree and enamel pendulum clock that hung just above the triplets. “Nicholas is
quite proud of that timepiece on the far wal ,” she said. “It’s accurate to within a fraction of a second, even after one century of keeping time. And it informs
me you’ve already wasted seven minutes of your al otted quarter hour with me.”
“I wil need far less than the eight that remain. And as your family wil undoubtedly barge in upon us and you wil dash away the instant we are done