Lord Monroe's Dark Tower: The Albright Sisters: Book 2 (11 page)

“Like a magical sylph.”

“More like a witch, they’d say.”

“An enchantress.”

Claire bowed her head. Did he know choirs were singing inside her? Had he any idea the music he caused? Backing away, she started across the lawn. “Were you restless this evening, too?”

He followed her out of the shelter of the trees.

A light went on in the servant’s quarters. He took her upper arm. “Not that way. Let’s walk into the woods a little further.”

“We shouldn’t.”

“Just for a moment.”

“Mrs. Gower might claim I’ve been compromised. You wouldn’t want an inconvenient attachment.”

He huffed a bitter note. “The inconvenience would be solely yours.” Abruptly his hand left her, and he strode away toward the blackened trees.

Running after him she called, “Why do you say such things?”

He shook his head, and the outline of him disappeared against the thick woods.

“So mysterious. I wish you’d speak to me. I would have understood about Abella.” She sensed rather than saw where he might be, and though fear tightened her throat, she kept moving forward. In the gloom, she caught sight of his white cravat. He waited for her at the edge of the forest, and when she stood beside him, he took her hand.

“You’ve led a sheltered life, Lady Claire, for all your doctoring. Some mysteries are best left unsolved.”

“You cannot say you’ll never marry and send me away. Know you nothing of a woman’s heart once she’s been kissed?”

Flavian kept walking; the only sound was his footsteps sending tremors through the ground. He continued toward a clump of evergreens, their foliage so dense they appeared like a black wall. He plunged between two of the pines, taking her along a trail she couldn’t see. In the next second, her right foot landed on a pricker.

“Ouch!”

“What’s happened? Are you all right?”

“I’ve stepped on something.”

“Hold onto me.” Flavian guided her hand to his shoulder and inspected her foot.

“A holly leaf,” he said, pulling it out.

“Holly?”

“We’ve got quite a lot of it. The ancestors planted holly as winter fodder for the livestock.” In one swift motion, he lifted her into his arms.

“Oh,” cried Claire, equal parts thrilled and startled.

“We can’t have your toes accosted by thorns,” he said, heading deeper into the thicket.

Her arm had gone around his neck when he lifted her. Afraid his lighter mood would change, she tried to resist touching the skin on his neck, but the tickle of hair on her hand sent ripples of want through her. A stiff curl wrapped around her finger. Then because she couldn’t stop herself, she rested her cheek on his chest, felt the clavicle beneath the fabric of his coat, inhaled his musky scent, and lost herself in the exchange of heat between their bodies.

He stopped in a clearing but didn’t put her down. “The last time I was truly happy was in this glen,” he said.

“You make it sound like that was many years ago.”

“It was. Before I entered the Navy, to be exact. My brothers and I practiced military tactics here. I knocked Lancelot off that log.” He swung Claire around to see a dark trunk only slightly darker than the woods. “And the youngest of us, Percival, stabbed me with a stick right in the calf. I escaped further attack by climbing a grape vine and bringing the whole thing down on our heads. Mother was not pleased with the purple stains.”

He lowered her so carefully to the forest floor the duff felt like down beneath her bare feet.

“Did you win?”

“Win what?”

“The battle with your brothers.”

“Oh no. Someone always gets hurt and tells on you, so even if you do beat them, you get a scolding.”

He sighed, looked around the glen, then bent over and kissed her on the lips. She stumbled backward.

“I apologize. One last time, I wanted this spot to be happy for me.”

His icy reception after their last kiss flashed through Claire’s mind, but her need to feel his breath, hot on her cheeks, her neck, her lips hurled the image aside. Let him send her away; she would leave him to regret losing her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed the smooth flesh beneath his ear. “I can’t help myself, either,” she whispered, her lips brushing his flesh, “It’s not what you want, but it’s what I want.”

A tremor shook his frame. His lips met hers. “It’s what I want, too,” he murmured, and then his lips found her mouth. At first he kissed tentatively, and then with increasing ferocity as the part of him that held back lost its emotional battle. His lips came hard against hers, hungry and driven, as if this would be the last goodbye — the last moment before he marched back into the ranks of doomed soldiers. Her teeth parted and his tongue wound with her own. They reveled in the perfect liquor, the alchemist’s gold, of their combined fluid. His chest muscles tightened as he lowered her toward the ground, knees bending until he knelt, his mouth never leaving hers. Like a precious jewel, he placed her among the fallen leaves, the spiny grass, and the velvet moss. Sweet smells of decay, of somber dirt, of new growth filled her senses. The throbbing in her body caused her to twist on her fairy bed — a forest wanton, a nymph of the wooded glen.

He tore off his coat, and lifting her creamy locks, tucked the garment beneath her head. Sighing, and with the reverence of one who is touching something of incalculable value, he trailed his hand down her cheek, her neck, and over the thin cotton of her night shift, stopping at the slope of waist to hip bone. “This,” he said, his voice husky, “feel this. It’s the most extraordinary curve in nature.” Taking her hand, he guided it down, down until together, they stroked the rise to her hip. “Unbelievable, isn’t it?”

“I never noticed.”

“And this.” Still holding her hand, he crossed her arm over her chest and caressed her ribcage. “Feel the corrugation.” Ever so lightly, his hand brushed the side of her breast. “There’s a softening here where a babe could nuzzle against your side.”

She sensed he was about to withdraw. Without thinking, she turned and pressed her bosom to his palm. She couldn’t look at him, ashamed of the boldness of her body, but his warmth sent rivers of heat through every limb.

He emitted a soft breath. With his thumb he traced the outline of her nipple, already jutting hard against the night shift.

“Oh God,” he murmured, lying beside her. With the urgency of a man seeking salvation, he cupped her breasts and buried his face in her cleavage, kissing one then the other, then her throat, her nipples, his hands racing over her back, finding and exploring the plains of skin.

Beltane fires burned deep within her. Fires that caused the ancient Celts to dance —

fires that sent virgins into the fallow fields to couple, procreate, and indulge their too heavy lust. Her breath tore from her lungs in gasps of sensation as his hands lifted her night shift, ran wildly up her thigh, and pressed against the hard ridge of her hip. She wanted him to touch her there in the cleft between her youth and womanhood — longed for the shaft that pushed against her body to be free of its layers of constricting fabric — yearned to be pierced by the manhood of Lord Flavian Monroe, master of her heart.

With wild and hungry fingers, she tore at the buttons of his pants, pulling them down until he kicked them off in a jumble of boots and stockings. He rose to his knees and ripped off his shirt and cravat. In the starlight, she caught the white length of his thigh, bisected by muscle. Her gaze drifted inexorably to the dark patch of hair between. It was like shrubbery around a great oak — his erection, the bell-shape at the tip, the haft, so clean and powerful. She thought it would be different — that she would find him ugly. At home, she’d been the midwife to baby boys, had seen stallions in the field, but nothing prepared her for how Flavian made her thrum with excitement.

His arms came around her, but she held him back, Pressing a hand against his chest, slowing their frantic pace. Was it blood in her veins or the Beltane drums pounding in the night? Her gaze roved from the muscles at his breastplate, to the sculpted arms, to his flat stomach with its dusting of hair, and down to his manhood again. “But you’re beautiful,” she whispered.

She got to her knees and kissed his neck, his chest. Her tongue lingered on the dark orbs of his nipples, which rose to her lips.

“Raaaa,” he growled, his head falling back. She continued her exploration, tasting the salt of his body, smelling the musk of him, growing closer to the stream of hair leading her down. He pulled her night shift over her head and threw it on a fallen log. His hands slid up her sides and cupped her breasts as his mouth lowered to a nipple. Stubble rasped against her skin while the slick wet of his tongue teased the tender nub. She buried her face in his hair — the silk of it on her cheek, the heat of him under the silk, the Beltane fires leaping in her soul. Their mouths met, opened, tongues laved the juice of one to the other, creating a mixture more intoxicating than the wine of Bacchus.

Together, they fell to the forest floor; she lifted her knees, opened her thighs and invited him to slip between them.

There was a crash in the woods — the crack and rattle of breaking branches, of undergrowth bending, of leaves disturbed.

“Oh God, what have I done?” Claire sat up. Cold fear rushed like floodwater. What if someone saw? What had she been thinking?

“Who goes there?” cried Flavian. He held her tight in his arms, protecting her naked body from prying eyes. The noise ceased. They waited, eyes straining into the dark.

“We should go,” said Claire. She covered herself with his shirt and got up. Whatever had approached through the woods, it turned tail now. A limb snapped, leaves rustled, until the noise ceased in the distance.

“A deer, probably,” Flavian said.

Claire brushed pebbles, twigs, and grasses off her back, her bottom. She’d felt nothing but him when they lay together. The thought made her ashamed. She reached for her night shift.

“Wait.” Flavian stayed her hand. He dusted off her back, and plucked a leaf from her hair. “You’re covered in dirt. The lady’s maid will notice.”

“We need to go,” she said. If he asked her to stay, she would. But she shouldn’t. Cold rode up her spine and she shivered.

His hand lingered in her hair. “Magnificent Claire,” he sighed. The night stilled and she waited for his signal, their breathing the only sound. He let the strand of hair drop, turned, picked up her night shift and robe, and gave them to her at last.

Why was she so disappointed? She pulled the thin cotton over her head. How much more upset would she be if he proved a rogue and took her right there in the dirt and leaves? Disgusted with herself, she hauled the undressing gown over her shoulders then placed two hands on his still naked chest. “Thank you for stopping,” she said.

“I’m not certain I’ll have the strength next time.”

A flutter of joy raced through her. Pulling the gown close, she smiled privately. Aware of it or not, he’d said,
next time
.

Claire woke to the sound of Abella singing. It was a happy song, and each lovely note rang with an infectious optimism. Thin shafts of sunlight wedged past the heavy curtains and beckoned to Claire to rise and kiss this magical day.

Stretching back to hold the bedpost, she reveled in the newfound sensuousness of her body. Blood pulsed more quickly in her veins as images of Flavian’s naked body flickered through her mind. She threw back the bedclothes and went to the window, letting the sunshine flood the room. In the distance, the bridge appeared almost human with its soft, curvaceous form. She ran her hand over her hip bone and smiled. At the sight of the holly trees beyond the bridge, her cheeks grew hot. In that hidden glen, she’d nearly lost her maidenhood. Why did the idea thrill her? When she caught herself making plans to visit the glen that day, she forced her eyes away. “You are a Pagan of the first order,” she said, trying to sound cross.

Though she understood the rules of society, she knew as her eyes wandered back to the holly trees that she would never again think less of women who found themselves with child before the banns were called. Rather, she would pity smug virgins who never felt the sharp sword of lust.

A knock at the door jolted her thoughts. “Who’s there?”

A trill of musical notes answered her question. “Miss Abella, please come in.”

The girl swept into the room, still in her dressing gown. “Come away,” she sang, waving her arms at the door, “Come away.”

“To where, little bird?” But rather than answer, Abella sang the series of high F’s from the Queen of the Night’s aria in
The Magic Flute
. Though the German meant, “The vengeance of Hell boils in my heart,” Abella’s voice made the notes float like kind spirits.

“But I’m not dressed.”

The girl kept singing, spreading the thin linen of her dressing gown like a pair of wings. For a moment, Claire wondered if the girl had seen her tripping across the lawn last night, but no malice marred Abella’s expression. Seeing Claire hesitate, the girl took her hand and playfully tugged her out the door.

Dazed as any sleepwalker, Claire followed Abella and her music down the hall, watching her cavort in her white gown like froth on a wave.

At the door to the tower, Abella stepped aside and still singing, motioned Claire up the stairs. It was extraordinary, the power of that voice, Claire thought. She found herself powerless to resist the allure of the music and the desire to remain close to its source. The smell of rat feces hit her nostrils the moment she began her ascent. Uneasiness settled around her. “Pretty Abella, why do you bring me here?”

Still, Abella sang as sweetly as any turtledove, the melody bouncing off the narrow walls of the winding stairs, layering sound upon sound until the noise drowned Claire’s senses. She moved forward, up and up until she stopped at the entrance to the dingy hallway on the third floor, its walls more crowded with detritus than she remembered.

Abella passed Claire then turned to face her. Raising her arms high, she finished the aria:
Hört, Rachegötter, Hört der Mutter Schwur!”