Grasso, Patricia (27 page)

Keely closed her eyes, focused her breathing, and touched her dragon pendant with its sapphires, emeralds, diamonds, and ruby. A ripple of anticipation danced down her spine and made her shiver.

"The Old Ones are here, watching and waiting," Keely said in a soft voice into the hushed air. "Stars speak through stones, and light shines through the thickest oak." Then in a louder voice, "One realm is heaven and earth."

Keely paused a long moment, gathering the proper emotion much as nature gathers its forces. She fell to her knees, opened her arms to implore, and called in a loud whisper, "Spirit of my journey, guide me to hear what the trees say. Spirit of my ancestors, guide me to hear what the wind whispers. Spirit of my tribe, guide me to understand what the clouds foretell." She dropped her arms and closed her eyes, saying, "Those souls who wish me well may enter this circle. Open my heart that I may see beyond the horizon."

Long moments passed. And then it happened, an image floated across her mind's eye....

A woman's face... Warm, gray eyes filled with love... A serene smile... Megan.

"Mother, I miss you terribly," Keely said in an aching whisper.

"Trust the king who wears a fiery crown," Megan told her.

"Is the earl the one?"

Megan smiled. "See who is here with me." The face of a pretty baby appeared and looked with curiosity at Keely. " 'Tis my granddaughter, Blythe."

"Blythe is my daughter?"

Megan nodded. "There are others here who will be born to you, but Blythe is the first." Keely smiled. "Many others?"

"Beware the blacksmith," Megan warned. "He seeks to murder the king."

"His name, Mother?"

Megan lifted her head and looked away, as if sensing approaching danger. "My time with you is short. On Samhuinn next..."

While Keely was communing with her mother's spirit, Richard slipped silently into his garden. He walked up behind her cousins stealthily and stood between them. When they turned surprised gazes on him, Richard nodded first at Odo and then at Hew, but he suppressed the powerful urge to laugh at their dumbfounded expressions.

"I've come to guard her," Richard whispered. "What is she doing?"

"Talking to her mother," Odo answered matter-of-factly.

Richard saw only Keely. He flicked a sidelong glance at Hew. "Do you see anyone?" he asked.

Hew nodded and whispered, "I see Keely. Don't you?"

Richard's lips quirked. "I meant, other than Keely?" Hew shook his head.

Richard turned to Odo. "Do you see her mother?"

" 'Course not," Odo answered. "I'm a disbeliever. Only believers can see beyond the horizon."

"So you believe Keely sees her mother?" Richard asked.

"Yup."

"But why?"

"Have you no faith, m'lord?" Hew asked.

" 'Tis the same as the priest changing the wafer and the wine into the body and the blood of Christ," Odo explained.

Richard nodded in understanding and turned to watch his betrothed kneeling in front of three trees and talking with someone who wasn't there. Suddenly, from the corner of his eyes, Richard saw a dark shape crossing the lawn toward Keely. He started forward to intercept whoever it was, but stopped short in surprise when he recognized the person.

"Forgive me, Megan," Duke Robert cried as he raced toward the enchanted circle. "I did love you more than life."

Keely whirled around and screamed, "Breaking the circle is forbidden!"

Too late.

In his frantic attempt to reach his long-lost love, Duke Robert crashed through the invisible periphery of the circle. Keely turned back to her mother, but Megan's image had vanished as if she'd never been there.

"Mother, come back!" Keely cried, and crumpled over on the grass. Her forlorn sobs broke the night's silence.

Richard dashed across the lawn to Keely. He knelt beside her and gathered her into his arms, soothing, "All will be well, sweetheart. I swear I'll set things aright. Don't weep."

"I saw Megan," Duke Robert was saying as if in a daze. "She smiled at me. Keely, she forgives my tragic error."

Keely turned within the circle of the earl's embrace, and her voice was filled with venomous contempt. "My mother may forgive you, Your Grace, but I never will. 'Tis your fault I've lost her again!"

She hid her face against the earl's chest and sobbed, "God forgive me, but I hate him."

In the act of reaching for her when she spoke, Duke Robert flinched and dropped his hand. Tears welled up in his violet eyes, so much like his daughter's, and streamed down his cheeks. For the first time in his life, the duke saw beyond his own needs to those of his daughter. Watching her sob against the earl's chest, Duke Robert realized the enormity of what he'd done. He
had
destroyed the lives of the woman he loved and their only child.
Especially their child.
His oldest daughter, the product of his greatest love, had borne the indignities of false bastardy for eighteen years. A lifetime. While he'd been dancing and feasting and flirting at the Tudor court, his daughter had suffered the vile epithet hurled at her from every direction. Now in his selfishness he'd stolen whatever precious time she had with the mother who'd loved her completely and unconditionally from the moment of her conception. How did he dare ask Keely for her trust and her love?

At a gesture from Richard, the Lloyd brothers helped the duke to his feet. As the three of them walked slowly toward the Talbot House, their voices drifted back.

"Come along, Your Grace," Odo said. "Everyone will feel different in the morning."

" 'Tis natural the girl's upset," Hew added. "She don't know what she's saying."

"Hew's right for once," Odo said. "Keely never hated no one, not even that bastard Madoc. She won't be hating you either, once she sees the sun shining in the morning."

"What if it's raining?" Hew piped up. "Blinking idiot," Odo said, reaching out to cuff his brother's head.

"Well, it could be a cloudy day...."

Richard lifted Keely into his arms and carried her across the lawn to his own house. Awakened by the commotion outside, several retainers stood in their night-clothes and watched the earl pass through the foyer. Jennings, clad in his nightshirt, followed his master up the stairs.

When Richard reached the second floor, Jennings rushed forward to open the earl's bedchamber door. "Would you or your lady care for anything?" the man asked.

"Privacy."

"Very good, my lord."

The door clicked shut. Richard gingerly set Keely down on his bed and then lay beside her. He gathered her into his arms and stroked her back soothingly. Her uncontrollable weeping tugged at his heart, but he was at a loss as to what would console her. The only female tears he'd ever seen had been feigned and designed to enhance the woman's beauty as well as manipulate the man.

"I miss my m-mother," Keely was sobbing.

"You said Samhuinn lasts for three days," Richard reminded her. "Can you try again tomorrow night? I swear I'll keep your circle safe from intruders."

His offer startled the weeping out of her. Keely gazed up at him through violet eyes swimming in tears. "You'd do that for me?" she asked.

"My love, I'd do anything for you," he promised.

Keely reached up and placed the palm of her hand against his cheek. Her lips quivered into the ghost of a smile.

"Promise me you'll forgive your father."

Keely lost her smile. "I have no father."

"Oh, but you do," Richard said. "His Grace loves you very much. I saw it in his eyes."

"You ask too much," Keely replied, turning her head away from his piercing gaze. "I can never forgive him. Neither for this night, nor for all the other endless nights of the past eighteen years."

"Listen to me." With one finger, Richard turned her head to face him and waited until her gaze lifted to his. "Your heart is gentle, dearest. Refusing your father's love will hurt you as much as him."

Richard lowered his head and pressed his lips to hers. His kiss was long, slow, and earth-shattering.
And healing.
Sorrow and loss and the need to feel loved made Keely yield to his advances. His hands caressed her body, while his tongue explored the sweetness of her mouth.

Keely sucked in her breath as a thousand airy butterfly wings fluttered through her belly, little knowing that what she felt was desire. Falling beneath the spell cast by his masculine nearness and gentle touch, Keely gloried in the exquisite feeling of him exposing her naked breasts to his heated admiring gaze and warm caressing hands.

Lowering his head, Richard captured one of her dusky nipples between his lips, drawing and suckling upon it. A bolt of molten desire shot through her body to her secret woman's place between her thighs.

Surrendering herself, Keely melted against him and moaned low in her throat. "Kiss me more," she breathed.

Controlling his own need with difficulty, Richard closed her shirt and planted a chaste kiss on her lips.

Keely opened her eyes and stared in a daze of passion at him.

"I've waited this long, and I refuse to dishonor you before we speak our vows," Richard said, then smiled with tenderness at her disappointed expression. " 'Tis a supreme compliment, dearest, for I've never concerned myself with a woman's honor before this. Besides, Elizabeth's courtiers will assuredly inspect our marriage bed for the telltale stains of your virginity. You do want your virginity verified by those gossips, don't you?"

Keely's face flamed with hot embarrassment. Unexpectedly, she lifted her head as if listening. Richard opened his mouth to speak, but she silenced him with a "shh."

Keely pulled away from him, leaped off the bed, and rushed across the chamber to the window. She fell to her knees and cried, " 'Tis raining! The Samhuinn fire has died."

Richard was at her side in an instant. He lifted her off the floor and carried her back to his bed. "You'll speak to your mother next year," he consoled her. "I promise I'll build a damned roof to protect the fire from the rain."

Fully clothed, Richard held Keely in the protective circle of his embrace and whispered words of love and comfort. Her breathing evened, and he knew she slept. Only then did Richard close his eyes and allow himself the luxury of following her into a dreamless sleep.

Chapter 12

Keely stood in a tiny candlelit chamber off Hampton Court's Chapel Royal. With her were Duke Robert and Lady Dawn, but she paid no attention to them. In growing trepidation she stared straight ahead at the unadorned wall and worried about what the next forty years held in store for her.

In a very few minutes Duke Robert would escort her down the aisle and give her in marriage to Richard Devereux. Why the earl insisted upon this union was beyond Keely's ken. A nobody from the misty mountains of Wales, Keely knew she could never fit into this confusing English society. Her husband-to-be savored his reputation as a polished courtier, an insider, and one of the queen's personal favorites. When his wife became an embarrassment, the earl would despise her. How could she survive all the days of her life with a man who despised her? Was she forever doomed to play the outsider, the outcast? Oh, why wasn't there a place for her in God's infinite universe?

In spite of her troubled thoughts, Keely appeared serene and regal as she stared without expression at the wall. She looked like a princess of yore, in a wedding gown that had been created in cream-colored satin and adorned with hundreds of seed pearls. Its form-fitting bodice had a square and daringly low-cut neckline, displaying an ample amount of her alluring cleavage. Narrow tight-fitting sleeves puffed at the shoulders.

Any resemblance to a proper English noblewoman ended there, and the more primitive side of her nature reigned over her appearance. In spite of the countess's protests, Keely let her thick ebony mane cascade to her waist in pagan fashion. She'd left her head uncovered and her face unveiled in defiance of English tradition. The gleaming dragon pendant, her mother's legacy to her, nestled provocatively in the valley between her breasts. The only other splash of color, her jeweled betrothal ring, had been moved to her right hand.

Keely had decided that she was who she was. She would neither hide her origins nor apologize for them.

As was her maiden's privilege, Keely carried a bouquet of orange blossoms. The fragrant white flowers represented her virginity and served as a fertility charm because the blossom and the fruit appear simultaneously on the orange tree.

"I'll see if they're ready," Lady Dawn said, breaking the strained silence in the chamber. The door clicked shut.

Keely sensed the duke's presence beside her, but she refused to acknowledge him. In fact, she hadn't spoken a single word to him since that eventful night in the earl's garden.

"I regret the pain I caused you on Samhuinn and all the other days and nights of your life," Duke Robert said, his voice hoarse with emotion. "I cannot fault you for hating me, child, but know that I love you with all of my heart."

Though harboring a grudge went against her nature, Keely nodded to acknowledge his words but did not respond to them. As she stared straight ahead, she realized the earl had been correct. She felt as emotionally ravaged as her father sounded. How could she forgive him? And yet how could she not?

The door opened. Lady Dawn said, "The groom awaits his bride."

Without a word to each other, Duke Robert and Keely left the chamber and positioned themselves in the rear of the chapel. Duke Robert reached for her hand to escort her down the aisle, but Keely hesitated and hung back.

"What's done is past, and 'twas no intentional fault of yours," Keely said, raising her tear-filled gaze to his. "Forgive me for the terrible things I've said.
Papa,
I do love you."

"Child of my heart," Duke Robert murmured, drawing her into his embrace. Father and daughter clung together, reluctant to let go now that they had finally found each other.