With Heart to Hear (4 page)

“These were my lands once,” Garth said. “Though I hardly knew them so well when I owned them, as I do now that they own me.”

“I thought this was Crandall’s land.” Elise’s memory itched with something she couldn’t quite remember.

“Only up to the stream. Your tent sits on his land, but you are in my domain.” Garth pulled her closer. “As you shall remain.”

She hesitated a moment, tweaked by his possessive assumption. Then his warm lips covered hers, and her twinge of resentment melted in the onslaught of desire.

*

Elise’s laughter combined with birdsong as she dodged around a tree and took off running again. She knew Garth could catch her at any time, but he played the game well and waited until she was ready to be caught. He didn’t have to wait long. The sun dappling through the leaves played over her skin like a caress, increasing her anticipation of Garth’s touch. The new pattern of her life—play, rest, love, sleep—supplanted all her old ways. No thought of yesterday or tomorrow intruded. Nothing existed beyond today’s joy.

Elise paused and allowed Garth to pull her down into a carpet of blue flowers. They were rather like bluebells, only she couldn’t quite think how they differed from her old favorite.

She lay in Garth’s arms for a time listening to the sounds of life going on around them as each creature sang its own little melody. Each plant had its own voice, and Elise found she need do little more than concentrate and touch each one to know intuitively its personality and use. For the first time in days, she thought of her sketchbook.

“Where are my pencils and paper?” she asked, sitting up.

Garth smiled lazily. “Where you left them, I expect.”

Where
had
she left them? Her brow furrowed as she struggled to recall. Then memory surfaced. Her smock, of course! Flung away days ago in the meadow.

Garth trailed his hand softly across her back and then pulled gently on her arm. “Come here,” he said, urging her to lie down again. “Your sketches can wait.”

For a moment Elise resisted, then she reclined beside him. “I can’t remember the Latin name for bluebells,” she complained.

“What need have you of that old church-tongue when you know the essence of the plant itself?” He bent the delicate stem beside her to tickle her ear with a cluster of indigo flowers.

The little blossoms whispered to her, telling of tiny insects visiting, and bigger beetles chewing, of sweet nectar stolen by bees, and the healing power of their roots.

Indeed, what more could Latin tell me?
she thought, as his mouth sought hers.

Garth’s caress ran lightly over her shoulder and down over her breast; Elise felt her nipple peak against his palm. Her breath picked up its tempo again.

The sounds of the forest fell away as Garth’s kisses consumed her. She wanted him in a way she had never wanted anything before in her life. He’s so beautiful, she thought, as she traced the perfection of his muscular chest. Someday she would sketch him. Someday.
But not today
. She leaned over him to lick his small nipples. She was rewarded by his groan of pleasure. Elise smiled and did it again. She let her hands explore, traveling over his ribs, trailing kisses in their wake. Her fingers passed over his hips and then moved on to his legs.

“I can’t decide which pleases me more,” she said, kneading his flesh. “Your broad shoulders or your manly thighs.”

“And don’t forget my magnificent cock.” Garth grinned and flexed his member at her.

“Oh no, “ she said giving it a quick peck. “I could never forget that.”

“Why choose, when you can have all of me?” He tried to pull her down, but she resisted.

“
All
of you? Let me see.” Then she took him into her mouth.

Garth gasped and his body stiffened. It didn’t seem possible, but his erection grew even larger and harder as she licked and kissed the length of him. His fingers dug into the moss and his soft groans encouraged her to suck harder. She felt herself grow wet at his obvious arousal.

“Elise!”

She ignored him, taking his shaft deep into her throat, then very slowly drawing back, her teeth delicately scraping the length of him. His muscles grew tight and rigid. When she sheathed him with her lips again, he bucked and thrust into her mouth.

“Elise,” he groaned.

She was hungry for him too and straddled his hips. “Is this what you want?” she teased, brushing her damp curls over his cock.

With a growl Garth flipped her off him and she found herself on her elbows and knees. Gripping her hips, Garth spread her legs with his knee. Then he was in her. Stretching her. Filling her. He bent over her, one hand beside her head, the other gently tweaking her nipple. She contracted around his shaft.

“Have you decided yet? Which part you like best?” He stilled for a moment.

“No,” she panted. “I’m still… considering the matter.”

Garth stroked into her, his breath sounding rough next to her ear. The sound of his need fed her own. He withdrew part of the way and then buried himself deeply in her again. “You’re mine,” he said, his voice husky.

Somehow she found the mind to answer. “Perhaps.”

His fingers left her breast to slide between her folds. He began to tease the point of her pleasure, circling around, never quite touching it. Still he thrust and withdrew, thrust and withdrew. She felt her tissues swell, holding him tight, begging for release. The heat in her grew and grew until she thought she would burst with it.

“Now! Please…”

“Mine,” he insisted with each thrust. “Mine. Mine.”

“Yours,” she capitulated, as she rocked her hips to meet his stroke. “Garth, please!”

“Since you ask so nicely…” He squeezed her nub in time with his latest thrust.

She came instantly. She was drowning in a flood of glory, and her convulsions pulled him down after her. His shout rang through the forest, and he clutched her to him as a drowning man would a life ring.

*

“Come in with me,” Elise said. She twirled out of Garth’s encircling arm and with both hands in his pulled him toward the brook.

“No, love. You go. I’ll join you in a bit.” Garth leaned back against the mossy bridge support and released Elise’s clasp.

Their daily trip to the stream had become a ritual. Garth liked to watch Elise frolic in the water before he joined her and their play turned more passionate. He was a more serious here, by the bridge, his love-making more urgent. But first there was the play, and all of it wove into the pattern of the music. Only now and then did a sour note disturb the canticle.

The long shadows of the protracted summer day trailed off Elise’s shoulders as she waded waist deep in the rain-swollen channel. It sang its usual tale to her, of tumbling travels and flashing silver fish. Then she heard a new fragment, woven softly into the first. The merest murmur of fear, and flight, and death. Startled, Elise stopped to listen, to tease apart the threads of the new song, but they floated just out of reach.

“You’re as beautiful as an undine,” Garth growled suddenly in his rich deep voice.

The whisper of darkness slipped away. If only she could have listened harder, for a moment more, she might have understood the strange descant. “I was trying to hear something.”

Garth laughed. “But you
are
beautiful. And you’re mine.”

Elise frowned. “That’s hardly on point.”

“Perhaps you’ll hear it again.”

He was right. The various melodies wove together eternally and were never truly silent.

She shook off her annoyance and stepped out of the shadows into the last dancing sunlight. The bright slanting rays caught the spray as Elise flung her arms wide, turning the drops to a rainbow of gems for a few seconds. Then she stooped and half floated on her back as the water combed her long brown hair out behind her. The banks rose to either side, narrowing her view of the sky that was shading from blue-pink to lavender.

At the edge of the stream a profusion of white flowers blossomed in place of the single bloom she’d first tried to sketch. Their scent was richer now, their color as clean and glowing as new ivory, and their melody blended subtly into the pattern humming all around her. Elise stood and let the water run back home, dripping from her lashes and hair, trickling down around her breasts, tickling the back of her knees as she stepped from the water. Nearer now, she could hear the flowers’ sad harmony blending with the greater song, and she listened closely.

The carriage was nearly at the bridge before she heard the crunching of its iron-rimmed wheels.

She almost didn’t recognize the sound. It didn’t belong to the eternal pattern of song that surrounded her. Then the memory rose like an uprooted bladder-lily and bobbed on the surface.

Lord Crandall’s carriage. Coming to take her home again. Had it been five days already? Had it been only five days?

Elise turned to Garth and found him beside her, drawing her under the sheltering arch of the bridge.

“I won’t let you go.” His soft words were for her ears alone, but strong as stone. A prickle of fear crept over her skin.

“Miss Elise?” Jeffrey sang out.

Her heart pounded. The clothes she’d worn lay scattered across the meadow and into the forest. The tent held a change of clothing. She could just see the tent’s riser over the edge of the stream’s cleft. Too far to reach without Jeffrey catching an eyeful.
I’ll have to bluff my way out of this
, she thought, as she heard the coachman jump from the box, weaving his own brisk strain into the music, reminding her of things forgotten.

“Miss Elise?” Jeffrey called again, sounding worried.

As Elise drew breath to answer, Garth’s arm tightened around her. “No!” he growled in a voice like gravel.

She turned, loosening his hold a little, and laid silencing fingertips against his lips. “I must put him off,” she whispered. Then she called out, “Jeffrey! Come no further! You have caught me bathing. Take the carriage down the road a bit and come back for me later.”

After a fraction’s hesitation Jeffrey responded, “Aye, Miss. But don’t be long. The light’s fading, and we must gather your things.” His steps retreated, and a moment later the carriage continued down the road.

The immediate danger of discovery was past. She could dress and pack her tent, and no one would be the wiser about her four days of revelry.

Garth pulled her even closer and lay his forehead against hers. “You can’t leave, too.” A note of pleading roughened his voice.

A claw as ugly as any troll’s grasped her heart at the thought of leaving him.

She could dress and send Jeffrey away when he came back. Then she could return to the forest and run wild and joyful with Garth.

The claw raked her again. How long could that last? “My father will search for me.” She imagined being found naked in the woods by one of the locals drafted to the hunt. Her father would carry her back to the real world while the country folk told tales of Faerie glamour and changelings. He wouldn’t see the beauty of her life here; he would see only madness and commit her to Bedlam. Elise looked down at her nude body.
Maybe I am mad
.

Taking her hand, Garth pulled her toward the bank. “Come with me. I’ll keep you safe.”

Elise resisted, standing fast while the cool water swirled around her hips. She felt her eyes filling with the anticipation of loss. “And go where? What beauty could we share while running from those who’ll come for me?”

Her eye fell on the cluster of white blooms. She pulled away, bent, and picked them. The clean fragrance from the flowers mingled with the sharp scent of sorrow rising from the torn stems. “I have to go back.” She buried her tears in the cluster of blossoms and inhaled deeply.

“No!” Garth dashed the flowers from her grasp and the current swiftly bore them beneath the bridge.

Suddenly Elise remembered what had seemed so distant the last four days. The joy of discovery, the delight of learning about new flora and fauna, the satisfaction of rendering an obscure herb so well that even a half-blind aristocrat could recognize it. Something else pressed itself upon her. She heard the dark melody of death distinctly now, cold and clear as ice, singing the memory of a wife and daughter fleeing the one who should have loved them best.

A chill ran down her spine. “Why?” What had Garth done that had frightened Margaret so? Why had she run from the man who loved her?

Garth closed his eyes, but didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “I was a Lord of Faerie. She was mortal and missed her home.” Sorrow and anger twisted his features. “Even an enchanted carriage can come to grief on an ice-covered bridge.”

A Faerie Lord?
Elise studied his face, the beautiful symmetry of his body, and saw him for what he was. She had lain with a creature of dream and legend. Just as Margaret had, and Margaret had borne Garth a daughter. Why had she not thought of this before? Her hand rose to cover her belly. With belated clarity, she realized she could be pregnant.

But why had Margaret run? Garth was tender and attentive, not violent. Then suddenly she understood. “You held her too close.” He opened his eyes. They were dark with the hunger she’d seen there before. “And now you would hold me as tightly.”

“I would cherish you… passionately.” He reached for her hand and held it in both of his against his chest. His skin felt cool.

Passion. He had that aplenty. “And respect?” Had he shown her any more consideration than Lord Crandall showed for Susan? She pulled back. “You’ve seduced me away from all my other pleasures.” The symphony of birdsong and flower tugged at her, promising careless days and joyful nights, but she refused to listen. “Would you have me abandon all else, for the one joy of being with you? Can your passion leave no room for me?”

Garth shook his head. “Leave room for you? There is room for naught
but
you in my heart. This is your place. You are woven into its music, now.”

Garth reached out, and she let him help her up the steep bank. His once smooth hand felt rough beneath her fingers; his nails had grown sharp. When he would have continued toward the forest Elise tried to pull away, but his grasp tightened. “Come back with me.”