Moonspun Magic (23 page)

“Will you feel guilty, Victoria? Or will you faint again at the sight of my bloody body?”

She turned her head and looked up at his smiling eyes. She said very clearly, “You are ridiculous, utterly and completely and irrevocably ridiculous, and awfully spoiled. I am not a coward, I'm embarrassed and mortified, and I want to crawl away and hide myself in a rabbit hole. You persist in mocking me, taunting me, and doing . . . well doing what you are doing right now. It's shocking to me. And you persist in making me forget things, like your awful perfidy.”

He gave a whistle of admiration. “Good heavens, sweetheart, I haven't heard that many words strung all together from you since . . . well, I can't remember
when. You have put me in my miserable man's place. But I won't move my hand just yet, unless it is to caress you again.” He followed words with deed and watched her eyes widen.

“Stop.”

“All right,” he said agreeably, and did. He watched the glint of disappointment in her eyes and smiled to himself. She was soon back to normal, more's the pity, he thought, and said, “I don't like you. I wish you would move your damned hand and let me pull down my dress—my ripped dress.”

“Your drawers are ripped as well. Don't worry, I'll buy you a plentiful supply.”

She sucked in her breath. His flowing good humor seemed inexhaustible. She couldn't compete with him.

“It's a pity,” he continued thoughtfully, his hand again moving slightly over her, one finger easing beneath the damp cloth to touch her intimately, “that it is so very difficult to gain access to your womanly endowments. Unlike me, a perfect man, who needs only to be unfastened, which takes but a flash of an instant. I see in the future that I will have to set aside a special lovemaking fund for the replacement of your woman's clothes.” He felt her squirm and eased his pressure and the motion of his finger. She was sore, after all. And he was making her wild, on purpose, he supposed, to prove that he could control her. It wasn't well done of him. “Kiss me, Victoria, and I will let you get back to your housewifely responsibilities. Remember your marvelous bread man? I can't wait to observe you place him artistically on your bread plate.” He patted her lightly, all the while chuckling, and rose.

Victoria slammed her skirts down, so furious with him she was beyond words. But her tongue was tied in knots, and it was true, her mind was in a mindless
fog. She opened her mouth, observed his grin widen, and closed it. With quick, angry movements she shoveled her two loaves of bread onto the wooden baking paddle and eased them into the oven.

She looked down at the absurd dough man, shuddered, and threw down the baking paddle. “I won't bake that thing. Do you hear?”

“It's all right, Mrs. Carstairs. Why don't you go upstairs and refresh yourself? Perhaps a vinaigrette to calm your nerves? Repose yourself on the chaise longue. I will complete your duties down here. No, don't thank me. I know your gratitude is boundless.”

Victoria looked longingly at the baking paddle, hearing it thwack with satisfying loudness against his bottom, and her expressive eyes gave him a fairly accurate clue to her thoughts. Rafael quickly picked up the baking paddle and held it behind him. She was standing in front of him, her hands fisted at her sides, her hair and yellow muslin gown thoroughly mussed. She looked ready to spit. He said easily, “You want to use the paddle on me, do you? How about me using it on you? Is that what you want, Victoria? I'm not at all certain that I approve. Pain and pleasure. I suppose that many folk find it a delicious combination. Perhaps someday, if you prettily try to convince me, I'll—”

“Shut up! Ah . . . just be quiet.”

He laughed aloud, watching her march out of the kitchen, head high, shoulders squared.

“Victoria,” he called after her, “where is that ugliness of yours? I have decided that you have a malformed toe. I don't mind if you wish to keep your slippers on when we make love. It's kind of you to spare my sensibilities.”

He heard her steps quicken, and knew she was now running up the stairs. He turned and scooped
his outrageous dough man onto the paddle and slid it into the oven.

“Tied to my kitchen,” he said to himself. “A man's responsibilities never end.”

 

The look on Victoria's face exceeded Rafael's expectations. Her mouth gaped open, her cheeks suffused with color, and she quickly closed her eyes, but of course not quickly enough.

“It doesn't please you, sweetheart?”

She swallowed, her eyes tightly closed, her lips now pursed, and shook her head.

“Look at all familiar, Victoria?”

“Not at all.” Wretched man, she simply wouldn't let him get the better of her this time. But she hadn't realized that he would lay his loaf of bread out for her in all its swelled, baked splendor.

“I'm wounded. Perhaps next time you will look at your husband. For comparative purposes, of course. Do sit down and allow me to cut a piece of delicious warm bread off for you. I should prefer staying above the middle, of course, at least for the moment.”

She opened her eyes and stared down at her bread man and its enormous phallus. Her husband was enjoying himself immensely. She tried for a smile and managed one, albeit a very sickly smile. “Yes, of course, but please let me cut myself a piece. Here, give me the knife, or perhaps I should just tear off a bit. Yes, I will do that.” And she did. She tried desperately not to laugh when her husband groaned loudly. She handed him the piece of warm bread and watched him smear butter and honey on it.

Then he turned and offered it to her. “Shall I tell you how to eat it, my dear?”

“I imagine that I put it in my mouth and bite down, then chew, then swallow. Is that the correct procedure?”

He flinched, grimacing in pain. “You aren't one for imagery, I see.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

He gave her that incredibly wicked grin, all white-toothed and gleaming. “Well, since we're married, I suppose there's no harm in educating you. This might shock you, Victoria, but the imagery involves my own, er, masculine self and my—and his—desire for your mouth.”

She simply stared at him, at sea.

Rafael sighed and gave it up. It was beyond him to draw it out. He would show her, and he devoutly hoped that when he did, she would be feeling far differently from the way she felt now.

He tore himself off a piece, all the while watching her nibble at her bread. She looked delicious, he thought, and sweet, and he became hard once more. He shook his head at his body's response. No, he would wait; he could and would be noble. She had to be very sore, after all.

He continued watching her beneath his lowered lashes. There was no reason he couldn't pleasure her, though. He was old enough to wait his turn. And her pleasure was very intriguing to him. He found that he reveled in the way her eyes glazed and became vague, and in those marvelous cries and shouts she made before, during, and after her climax. No, he amended to himself, not cries after her climax, soft whimpers and little gasps.

She was splendid. He was a lucky fellow. All would be well once she forgot her pique. He would make it all up to her.

Since together they had consumed an entire loaf of bread during the afternoon, dinner wasn't an event of dire necessity. Rafael suggested a stroll and Victoria agreed. She was frankly bored with her own company, and despite her husband's multitudinous vagaries, his
perfidy, and his boundless oblivion, he did make her laugh—when she didn't want to smash a board on his head.

He took her hand when they reached the narrow garden path behind Honeycutt Cottage, and his touch sent immediate recognition throughout her body. She saw them on the kitchen floor, like two wild people; he was bucking and roaring on top of her, and she, unmindful of anything save him and the feelings that were flooding through her, was doing everything she could to encourage him, to become one with him, to experience everything with and through him and herself.

At least he hadn't seen her thigh. Her drawers, now the possessor of a tear along the entire central seam, still had intact frilly legs. No, he hadn't found her “malformed toe,” the wretched bounder.

The sun was lowering now but the slight breeze was warm, the air redolent of honeysuckle and hyacinth. There was a low stone wall that ran beside the orchard path down to a small pond. It was there Rafael took her, pausing occasionally to sniff at a rose or any other bloom that took his fancy.

“It's lovely,” he said.

He didn't wait for her reply, merely eased down, pulling her with him and stretching his long legs out before him. Victoria settled herself beside him, keeping her legs well covered with her pale yellow muslin skirts.

“There are a lot of frogs and water reeds,” she said.

“Hmmm.” He lay on his back, pillowing his head on his arms.

To keep herself from staring at him, Victoria said abruptly, even as she forced herself to keep her eyes on the water reeds, “Where in Cornwall do you wish to build your house?”

“
Our
house?”

“Well, yes, I suppose. If you wish.”

“Not very close to Drago Hall. I was thinking about the northern coast. Perhaps near St. Agnes. Have you ever visited there?”

“Yes.” She turned her head to look down at him. “I have, and I find it beautiful. Wild and savage and untamed. I suppose it's a lot like you.”

“Is that a compliment, I wonder?” He cocked open one silver-gray eye.

“Then why must we stay at Drago Hall at all?”

It was a reasonable query, he thought, wishing he'd kept his plans more indefinite. He supposed he should tell her that he already had a house in mind. No, he would wait. He said, hoping to discourage any more conversation along this line, “I told you that I hadn't been home in a long time. I wish to visit Drago Hall. It's unfortunate that my brother and his wife are in residence, but we will make do.”

“It won't be easy.”

“I am your husband. Do just as I tell you, look to me for advice and protection—and nightly diversions, of course—and all will be well.”

She hissed air out between gritted teeth. “I think you're an ass, an—”

“Don't insult me, Victoria, or I'll make love to you right here, right now.”

He'd spoken ever so softly, but she believed him and she was afraid that she would fight him for only a very short time before yielding. She lowered her head, feeling like a fool, feeling like the wild, untamed, savage one. She felt tears sting the back of her eyes. He didn't care for her, not one whit, and now, since he knew her weakness for him, he would manipulate her to his heart's delight.

Two tears rolled down her cheeks.

She wasn't aware of them until she tasted the salt on her lips.

He said in that same soft, relaxed voice, “Why are you crying?”

“I'm not crying.”

“You are so delightfully perverse. You will talk to me or I will make . . . “He paused, frowning at himself. “Forget that. What's wrong?”

“Nothing.” She jumped to her feet, and to her mortification, her leg crumpled and she went down in a graceless heap. It was all too much. She lowered her face to the sweet-smelling grass, wrapped her arms around her middle, tasted dirt, and didn't care.

For a long moment Rafael didn't move. He was confused. Slowly he came up to his knees and clasped her shoulders. He gently pulled her back against him. “It's all right, truly, love. Did you hurt yourself when you stumbled?”

She shook her head and he felt her loosened hair brush against his chin. He leaned against a maple tree and pulled her onto his lap. She felt limp, boneless, without will. It disturbed him. He wanted his enraged fighter back.

He held her tightly and felt her hiccup against his shoulder. He smiled over her head. “It's very odd, you know. Life, that is. A month ago I didn't know of your existence, and now I'm irrevocably leg-shackled to you.”

“I'm the one who is leg-shackled,” she said between hiccups, her voice sliding into bitterness. “Not only married, but as poor as I was before. At least you are leg-shackled and rich.”

“I was already rich. Your money is mine by the law of the land, but I really have no need for it. However, I would have done about anything to keep that money out of Damien's greedy hands.”

“You did do ‘about anything.' You were forced to
leg-shackle yourself. And all your talk about fate is nonsense, Rafael. We would have met eventually, when you finally returned to Drago Hall.”

“I wonder if Damien would have succeeded in ravishing you by then.” He tensed, wanting his brother's neck between his hands. He also realized that he hadn't given a thought to the
Seawitch
in several days. Or Rob or Blick or Flash or any of the other men who had sailed with him. He rubbed his cheek against the top of Victoria's head. She seemed to have lost her burst of anger and was once again nestled against him in what he chose to think was a trusting position.

“No, you wouldn't have been there. You would have run away, just as you did. And what would have become of you? I shudder to think. But I found you. You're a very lucky wench, Victoria Carstairs.”