Authors: Nora Roberts
Her voice rose as she jabbed a hand at her own heart. And Carrick’s eyes went narrow and thoughtful.
“I’m not settling for one inch less than all. Just because I’m in love with Aidan, just because we’re lovers, doesn’t mean I’m going to swoon from the thrill of being told he’s decided he needs a goddamn wife and I’m the one he’s picked out. I’ll do the picking out this time, thank you very much.”
Flushed and out of breath, she glared at Carrick. And there, she realized, was everything she hadn’t put into words before. Hadn’t understood was inside her to be put into words. She would never, never again settle for less than everything.
“I thought it was mortals I didn’t understand,” Carrick said after a moment. “But I’m thinking now it’s just female mortals I don’t understand. So explain this to me, would you, Jude Frances? Why isn’t love enough?”
She let out a quiet sigh. “It is, when it is.”
“Why are you speaking in riddles?”
“Because until you solve it yourself, it doesn’t do any good to be told. And when you do solve it, you don’t need to be told.”
He muttered something in Gaelic, shook his head. “Heed this—a single choice can build destinies or destroy them. Choose well.” Then, flicking his wrists, he vanished in a ripple on the air.
Aidan was no less frustrated with women than Carrick at that moment. If someone had told him his ego was badly bruised, he would have laughed at them. If someone had
told him that was panic that kept sneaking up to tickle the back of his throat, he would have cursed them as a lying fool. If they’d mentioned that the clutching around his heart was hurt, he’d have snarled them out of the pub.
But it was all those things he felt, and confusion along with them.
He’d been so certain that he understood Jude. Her mind and heart as well as her body. It was lowering to realize he’d missed a step somewhere. It was true enough he’d jumped his fences, so to speak. But he hadn’t expected her to be so cool and casual in her response to his proposal.
For Christ’s sake, he’d proposed marriage to a woman, to
the
woman, and she’d smiled and said no thank you as pretty as you please, then gone back to the
ceili
.
His sweet and shy Jude Frances hadn’t stammered and blushed, but had eyed him with cool consideration, then had turned him down flat. It didn’t make a bit of sense when any fool could see they belonged together.
Like two links in a long and complicated chain. It was a chain he could envision perfectly, one of sturdy continuity and tradition. Man to woman, generation to generation. She was the one he was meant to be with, so that together they could forge the next links on that long chain.
A different approach altogether was needed, he told himself as he paced his rooms instead of finishing up the day’s paperwork. He knew how to woo and win a woman, didn’t he? He’d wooed and he’d won plenty before.
Of course that had been for entirely different purposes, he thought and began to worry again. But not so much he admitted to himself—not yet—that he was a babe in the woods in the matter of wooing a woman into a wife.
He heard footsteps on the stairs minutes before Darcy, as was her habit, breezed in without knocking. “Shawn’s down the kitchen and, considering me his errand girl, sent
me up to see if you’ve ordered potatoes and carrots, and if we’ve any more whitefish coming in from Patty Ryan by week’s end as he’s plans for it.”
“Patty promised us fresh fish tomorrow, and the rest will be coming by middle week. He hasn’t starting cooking tonight’s menu already, has he? It’s barely half one.”
“No, but he’s fussing about, studying some recipe one of the ladies gave him last night at the
ceili
, and leaving the bulk of the serving to me. Are you coming down to man the bar or are you just going to sit around up here and stare at the walls?”
“I was working,” he said, more than a little put out, for he’d been spending considerable time staring at the walls. “Anytime you want to take over the paperwork here, sweetheart, you just say the word.”
The tone of his voice had her wondering. Knowing she was leaving Shawn and their afternoon help in the lurch, she flopped down in a chair and tossed her legs over the arm. “I leave the figuring to you, since you’re so wise and clever.”
“Then leave me to it and go down and do your part.”
“I’ve a ten-minute break coming, and since I find myself here, here I’m taking it.” She smiled at him, much too sweetly to be trusted. “What are you brooding about, then?”
“I’m not brooding.”
She only lifted a hand and casually examined her nails. He paced to the window, back to the desk and to the window again when the silence did the job. “You’ve gotten close to Jude the past couple of months.”
“I have, yes.” Her smile sharpened. “Not as close as you, in a manner of speaking. Did you have a spat? Is that what’s got you pacing about up here and scowling?”
“No, we didn’t have a spat. Exactly.” He jammed his
hands in his pockets. Oh, it was humiliating, but what choice did he have? “What does she say about me?”
Darcy didn’t snicker out loud, but her head filled with laughter as she batted her eyelashes at her brother. “That would be telling. I’m no blabbermouth.”
“An extra hour off Saturday next.”
Instantly Darcy sat up, and her eyes were crafty. “Well, why didn’t you say so? What do you want to know?”
“What does she think of me?”
“Oh, she thinks you’re handsome and charming, and nothing I can say will turn her mind to the truth of it. You’ve swept her off her feet with the romance of it. That carrying her up the stairs was a fine move.” She did laugh when she saw his pained expression. “Don’t ask what women talk of together if you don’t want to know.”
He managed one careful breath. “She didn’t go on about . . . the after of it.”
“Oh, every sigh and murmur.” Unable to stop herself, she jumped up, grabbed his face and kissed him. “Of course not, you pea-brain. She’s too discreet for that, though Brenna and I did pump her a bit. What’s worrying you? As far as I can tell, Jude thinks you’re the greatest lover since Solomon took Sheba.”
“Is that all it is, then? Sex and romance and being swept along for a few months. Nothing but that?”
The amusement faded from her eyes as she looked into his. “I’m sorry, darling. You’re truly upset. What happened?”
“I asked her to marry me last night.”
“You did?” Instantly she leaped on him, wrapping her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck, squeezing like a delighted boa constrictor. “Oh, but this is wonderful! I couldn’t be happier for you!” Laughing, she gave him smacking kisses on both cheeks. “Let’s go down to the
kitchen and tell Shawn, and call Ma and Dad.”
“She said no.”
“They’ll want to come back and meet her before the wedding. And then we’ll all . . . What?”
His heart sank deeper in his chest as Darcy gaped at him. “She said no.”
Guilt all but swallowed her. “She couldn’t have. She didn’t mean it.”
“She said it clear enough and was polite and added a thank you.” Oh, and that thank you was a bitter pill.
“Well, what the devil’s wrong with her?” Abruptly furious, Darcy wiggled down and planted fists on her hips. Rage, as she knew well, was always a more comfortable fit than guilt. “Of course she wants to marry you.”
“She said she didn’t. She said she didn’t want marriage at all. It’s the fault of that bloody bastard who left her. Compared me to him, and when I called her there, she said how she had nothing else to compare to. Well, compare me to no one, by Christ. I’m who I am.”
“Of course you are, and ten times the man that William is.” Her fault, she thought again. She’d seen the fun of it, but hadn’t counted on the pain. “It wasn’t—it wasn’t just that she didn’t want to leave her life in America, then?”
“We never got that far. And why wouldn’t she when she’s happy here as she never was there?”
“Well. . .” Darcy huffed out her breath and tried to think it through. “It hadn’t occurred to me that she wouldn’t want marriage.”
“She’s just not thinking beyond what happened before. I know it hurt her, and I’d like to wring the man’s neck for it.” Emotions swirled into his eyes. “But I won’t hurt her.”
No, he would treasure and tend, as he did all the things he loved, Darcy thought, aching for him.
“Maybe it is, in part, a wound that isn’t quite healed.
But the fact is, not all women want a ring and a baby under the apron.”
She wanted to get up and stroke and hug him into some comfort, but could see there was too much temper in his eyes yet for him to accept petting. “I understand her feelings on that, Aidan. On the borders of it, the finality.”
“It’s not an end but a beginning.”
“For you it would be, but it isn’t for everyone.” Darcy sat back, drummed her fingers. “Well, I’m a good judge, and I’m saying our Jude’s the marrying kind, whether she believes it or not at the moment. A nester she is who’s never had a chance to make that nest if you’re asking me, before she came here on her own. Maybe we moved a bit faster than we should.”
“We?”
“You, I mean,” Darcy corrected as she thought of the plotting she’d done with Brenna. No need to mention that, she decided, since it seemed the mess made wasn’t her fault—entirely. “But it’s too late to change that, so you’ll just have to move forward. Persuade her.” She smiled again. “Take some time on it, but let her see what she’d be giving up if she didn’t grab what you’re offering. You’re a Gallagher, Aidan. Gallaghers get what they want sooner or later.”
“You’re right.” Pieces of his shattered ego began to slide back into place. “There’s no moving back now. I’ll just have to help her get used to the idea.”
Relieved to see the gleam back in his eyes, Darcy patted his cheek. “My wager’s on you.”
S
HE WOULDN
’
T BE
expecting him, not so early in any case. But since Darcy was being so cooperative, Aidan had taken off a couple of hours before closing to walk the road to Jude’s cottage.
The night was balmy with the breeze from the sea. Clouds sailed briskly over the sky so that patches of stars winked out, glimmered, then vanished. The moon was round and fat, its light gentle.
A fine night, Aidan thought, for romancing the woman you intended to marry.
He’d brought her a clutch of fairy roses in delicate pink that he’d stolen from Kathy Duffy’s garden. He didn’t think the woman would mind the loss when it was going to such a good cause.
There were lights glowing in her windows, a warm and welcome sight to him. He imagined that in years to come, when they were married and settled, it would be the same. He’d walk home after work and she’d be waiting with the
lights burning to guide his step. It no longer surprised him how much he wanted that, or how clearly he could see it all. Night following night, year following year, toward a lifetime.
He didn’t knock. Such formalities had already slipped away between them. He noted that she’d already tidied from the party. It was so like her, he thought with affection. Everything was neat and orderly and just as it should be.
He heard music drifting down the stairs and walked up toward it.
She was in her little office with the radio playing soft and the pup snoring at her feet under the table. Her hair was bound back, her fingers moving briskly over computer keys.
He had an urge to scoop her into his arms and gobble her whole. But he didn’t think that was the right move under the circumstances.
Persuasion, he reminded himself, didn’t come from the fast and the hot, but the slow and the warm.
He crossed to her, moving quietly, then bent down to brush a soft kiss on the nape of her neck.
She jolted, but he’d anticipated that and, chuckling, wrapped his arms around her so the flowers were under her chin and his mouth was at her ear.
“You look so pretty sitting here,
a ghra
, working away into the night. What tale are you spinning out?”
“Oh, I . . .” Her heart was in her throat. He was right that she hadn’t expected him. Not just so early, but at all. She knew she’d been abrupt and rude, and even cold, and had convinced herself that what had been between them was done. She’d even begun to mourn for it.
Yet here he was, bringing her flowers and speaking softly in her ear.
“It’s, ah, the story of the pooka and Paddy McNee that
Mr. Riley told me. These are lovely, Aidan.” Since she was far from ready for anyone to see her work, she tipped the top of the computer down, then sniffed the roses.
“I’m glad you like them as they’re stolen goods and the
garda
may come by at any moment to arrest me.”
“I’ll pay your bail.” She turned in the chair to look at him. He wasn’t angry, she noted with puzzled relief. A man couldn’t smile like that if he was angry. “I’ll go put them in water, and make you some tea.”
When she rose the pup turned over with a grumble and a groan and recurled himself.
“As a guard dog he’s a pure failure,” Aidan commented.
“He’s just a baby.” She took the flowers as they walked downstairs. “And I’ve nothing to guard anyway.”
It was such a pleasure to slide back into routine, the friendliness and flirtation. Part of her wanted to bring up what happened the night before, but she tucked it away. Why mention something that put them at odds?
He was probably regretting that he’d asked her, and relieved that she’d said no. For some reason that line of thinking had that dark, nasty brew bubbling inside her again. She ordered herself to settle down and tucked the pink roses into a pale blue bottle.
As she did, she noticed the time and frowned. “It’s barely ten o’clock. Did you close the pub?”
“No, I took a couple hours. I’m entitled now and then. And I missed you,” he added, laying his hands on her waist. “For you didn’t come see me.”
“I was working.”
I didn’t think you’d want to see me. Weren’t we angry with each other?
she wondered even as he bent down to brush his lips over hers.
“And I’ve interrupted. But since that deed is done . . .” He drew back. “Come walking with me, won’t you, Jude Frances?”
“Walking? Now?”
“Aye.” He was already circling her toward the back door. “A lovely night it is for walking.”
“It’s dark,” she said, but she was out the door.
“There’s light. Moon and stars. The best kind of light. I’ll tell you a story of the faerie queen who only came out from her palace at night, when there was a moon to guide her steps. For even faeries can have spells cast on them, and hers was that she was cursed to take the form of a white bird during the day.”
As they walked, her hand linked with his, he spun it out for her, painting the picture of the lonely queen wandering by night and the black wolf she found wounded at the base of the cliffs.
“He had eyes of emerald green that watched her warily, but her heart couldn’t resist and overcame any fear. She tended to him, using her art and her skill to heal his hurts. From that night he became her companion, walking the hills and the rock with her night after night until as dawn shimmered over the sea she left him with a flutter of white wings and a sorrowful call that came from her broken heart.”
“Was there no way to break the spell?”
“Oh, there’s always a way, isn’t there?” He lifted their joined hands to his lips, kissed her knuckles, then drew her along toward the cliff path where the sea began to roar and the wind fly.
Moonlight splattered on the high, wild grass, and the path cut between it, turned pebbles into silver coins and weathered stone into hunched elves. She let Aidan guide her up while she waited for him to start the story again.
“One morning, a young man was hunting in the fields, for he was hungry and had no more than his quiver of
arrows and his bow to feed him. Game had been scarce for many days, and that day, as others, the rabbits and deer eluded him until it came to afternoon and his hunger was great. It was then he saw the white bird soaring, and thinking only of his belly, he notched his arrow in his bow, loosed the arrow, and brought her down. Mind your step here, darling. That’s the way.”
“But he can’t have killed her.”
“I’ve not finished yet, have I?” He turned to pull her up. Then he held her there a moment, just held her as she fit so well against him.
“She let out a cry, filled with pain and despair that ripped at his heart even as his head reeled from lack of food. He raced to her, and found her watching him with eyes blue as a lake. His hands trembled, as they were eyes he knew, and he began to understand.”
Turning Jude, tucking her under his arm, he began to walk again under the splattering light of star and moon. “Though he was half starved, he did what he could to heal the wound he’d made and took the bird to the shelter of these cliffs. And building a fire to warm her, he sat guarding her and waited for sunset.”
When they reached the top, Aidan slipped an arm around her so they could look out at the dark sea together. Water rolled in, then back, then in again, a rhythm constant, primitive, sexual.
And understanding that Aidan’s stories had their rhythm too, Jude lifted a hand to cover his. “What happened next?”
“What happened was this. As the sun dipped, and night reached out for day, she began to change, as did he. So woman became bird and man wolf, and for one instant they reached for each other. But hand passed through hand, and the change was complete. So it went through the night, with
her too feverish and weak to heal herself. And the wolf never left her side, but stayed to warm her with his body and guard her with his life if need be. Are you cold?” he asked, as she shivered.
“No,” she whispered. “Touched.”
“There’s more yet. Night passed into day again, and again day into night, and each time they had only that instant to reach for each other and be denied. He never left her side to eat, as man or as wolf, and so was near to dying himself. Sensing it, she used what power she had left to strengthen him, to save him rather than herself. For the love she felt for him meant more than her life. Once again dawn shimmered in the sky, and the change began. Once again they reached for each other, knowing it was hopeless, and her knowing she would never see another sunrise. But this time, the sacrifice they’d both made was rewarded. Hands met, fingers clasped, and they looked on each other, finally, man to woman, woman to man. And the first words they spoke were of love.”
“Happy-ever-after?”
“Better. He who had been a king in his own right of a far-off land took his faerie queen to wife. Never did they spend a single sunset or a single sunrise apart for the rest of their days.”
“That was lovely.” She laid her head on his shoulder. “And so is this.”
“It’s my place. Or so I thought of it when I was a boy and would come clambering up here to look out at the world and dream of where I’d go in it.”
“Where did you want to go?”
“Everywhere.” He turned his face into her hair and thought that now, here was everywhere enough for him. But for her, it was different. “Where do you want to go, Jude?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it.”
“Think now, then.” He shifted her, then settled down with her on a rock. “Of all the places there are, what do you want to see?”
“Venice.” She didn’t know where that had come from, and laughed at herself to realize it had been in her mind ready to pop out. “I think I’d like to see Venice with its wonderful buildings and grand cathedrals and mysterious canals. And the wine country in France, all those acres of vineyards with grapes ripening, the old farmhouses and gardens. And England. London, of course, for the museums, the history, but the countryside more. Cornwall, the hills and the cliffs, to breathe the air where Arthur was born.”
No tropical islands and baking beaches or exotic ports of call for his Jude Frances now, Aidan noted. It was romance and again tradition with the hint of legend that she wanted.
“None of those places is so very far from where we’re sitting now. Why don’t you come away with me, Jude, and we’ll see them?”
“Oh, sure, we’ll just fly off to Venice tonight and wend our way back through France and England.”
“Well, now, tonight might be a bit of a problem, but the rest is what I had in mind. Would you mind waiting till September?”
“What are you talking about?”
A honeymoon was what he nearly said, but he thought it best to be cautious for the time being. “About you coming away with me.” He had her hand again, nibbling along her fingers as he smiled at her over them. “About you flying off with me to places of romance and mystery and legend. I’ll show you Tintagal, where Arthur was conceived the night Merlin worked his magic on Uther so Ygraine thought she was greeting her own husband. And we’ll stay
in one of those farmhouses in France and drink their wine and make love in a big feather bed. Then we’ll stroll along the canal in Venice and wonder at the grand cathedrals. Wouldn’t you like that, sweetheart?”
“Yes, of course.” It sounded glorious, magical. Like another of his stories. “It’s just impossible.”
“Why would that be?”
“Because . . . I have work, and so do you.”
He chuckled, then switched his attentions from her fingers to the side of her jaw. “And do you think my pub would crumble or your work vanish? What’s two weeks or so in the grand scheme of things, after all?”
“Yes, that’s true, but—”
“I’ve seen those places you spoke of.” He moved to her mouth to quietly seduce. “Now I want to see them with you.” His hands skimmed over her face, and he began to lose himself in her, the tastes and textures of her. “Come away with me,
a ghra
.” He murmured it, drawing her closer when she shivered.
“I . . . I’m supposed to go back to Chicago.”
“Don’t.” His mouth grew hotter, more possessive. “Be with me.”
“Well . . .” Her thoughts wouldn’t line up. Every time she tried to align one, it tumbled down, scattering others. “Yes, I suppose . . .” What was a couple of weeks, after all? “In September. If you’re sure—”
“I’m sure.” He got to his feet, then plucked her off the rock, grinning when she gave a gasp and locked her arms around his neck. “Are you thinking I’d be dropping you, now that I’ve got you? I take better care of what’s mine than that.”
Of what was his? The phrase worried her a bit, but before she could think of how to respond, she saw the figure behind them.
“Aidan.” Her voice was barely more than a breath.
He tensed, tucked her under his arm to defend, then turning, relaxed again.
The lady barely made a ripple on the air as she walked. But her pale hair gleamed in the moonlight, as did the tears.
“Lady Gwen, out looking for the love she lost.” Pity stirred in his heart when he saw the tears glittering on her cheeks.
“As he does. I saw him again today. I spoke with him.”
“You’re becoming right chummy with faeries, Jude Frances.”
She felt the wind on her face, could smell the sea. Aidan’s arm was strong and warm around her. Yet it seemed like an illusion that would vanish the moment she blinked. “I keep thinking I’ll wake up in my own bed in Chicago, and this, all of this, would have been some long, complex dream. I think it would break my heart.”
“Then your heart’s safe.” He bent his head to kiss her. “This is no dream, and you’ve my word on it.”
“It must hurt her to see lovers here.” She looked back. The lady’s gilded hair was flying, and her cheeks were wet. “They don’t have even that instant at dawn or sunset to reach out.”
“A single choice can build destinies, or destroy them.”
When she looked up at him, startled to hear him echo Carrick’s words to her, he stroked her hair. “Come, let’s go back. She makes you sad.”
“Yes, she does.” Jude clung to Aidan’s hand now, for going down was trickier than going up. “I wish I could talk to her, and I can’t believe I’m casually saying I wish I could talk to a ghost. But I do. I’d like to ask her what she feels and thinks and wishes, and what she would change.”