Mystic Rider (29 page)

She lifted her hips, forcing his attention back to where it
belonged. To her satisfaction, he threw back his head and groaned, and there
was no more discussion of marks or time or anything so humdrum. He drove home,
rekindling her desire with thrusts as measured as a good melody, and as one,
their bodies sang a beautiful chorus. Replete, they clutched each other.

A pounding on the door prevented any further investigation
of singing bodies. Ian cursed and leaned over to suckle gently at her neglected
breasts. Chantal could almost feel the milk form, so primitive was the hunger
between them.

“In my home,” he said. “We will create a child there.”

With that odd promise, he pulled up her bodice to cover her
breasts and, buttoning his breeches, reluctantly returned to his duties.

Ian rode beside the ponderous carriage in the fading
moonlight. This new road to the west was barely more than a goat path. He
empathized with Murdoch’s restless need to drive their mounts to the speed for
which they were bred and bring this prolonged torment to an end.

But his desire to win the chalice had been surmounted by the
challenge of capturing Chantal’s trust…and her heart.

Not that he knew anything of the emotion Other Worlders
called love, but the physical bond of amacara had taught him to crave… more
intimate rapport. He hungered to know more of her tender compassion and
reluctant courage. Even though she understood nothing of him or his home, she
didn’t shy from his demands but met him as if they were equals. She fascinated
him.

Until Chantal, his responsibilities had always kept him
distant from those he served. Perhaps the chalice was trying to show him the
error of his ways.

So Ian let Murdoch wear himself out riding back and forth
between their forward and rear guards while he waited for Chantal to wake.

He ought to be ashamed that he’d treated her so crudely in
their lovemaking. He’d always treated women with respect, tried to learn their
likes and dislikes so he could reward them with the appropriate gifts. He’d always
taken time to bring them pleasure. Never had he taken one as roughly as he had
Chantal — or with as much uncontrolled, elemental passion…and joy.

They’d come together in equal need — against walls and doors
and on floors — and she hadn’t seemed to mind. He certainly hadn’t minded. Their
passionate couplings had been far more mind opening and fulfilling than any of
his more… cerebral seductions. Apparently, the internal
connection
between him and Chantal was more important than material
surroundings. That alone taught him a great deal.

With the first light of dawn, he watched the youngest child
stir inside the carriage while the others slept. Should he ever be fortunate
enough to have children, he would need to learn more about them. Could he learn
to love children as Chantal did?

Just as Marie began to prod her grief-stricken mother for
attention, Chantal woke and lifted the child to her lap. Crooning, she settled
Marie into a welcoming cuddle and, as if she felt Ian watching, glanced out her
open window.

The humidity and heat had been building as they neared the
coast, and the passengers had left the windows open to let in the cool night
air. Ian drew closer so he could speak.

“How is your father?” He’d known when Alain chose to ride
inside that the older man’s heart problem had worsened. Ian could only relieve
the congestion around it, not cure it.

“He sleeps, but not well,” she said quietly. “I do not know
if it is his health, or the pain of seeing his dreams broken.”

She kept her voice carefully neutral, for which Ian was
grateful. She had no way of understanding the power of her voice when she could
be told nothing of the advanced abilities of Aelynn’s inhabitants or her
father’s origins. But she was at least heeding his warning. She apparently had
much experience in wielding her enchanted voice in normal situations but had
never had reason to explore the more dangerous extremes of her gifts.

“We have healers at home who will help him mend,” he said
with confidence.

“We go where Pauline goes,” she reminded him.

And Pauline could not go to Aelynn. She and the children had
no Aelynn blood, and the gods would not let them through the island’s barrier
of invisibility. Ian could find no way around that.

“Ships sail both ways,” he said without arguing. “We can
take him home, let him heal, then return wherever he wishes.” Ian prayed that
by then Chantal would see the wisdom of staying with him. Perhaps, if they had
a child of their own….

She nodded, as if she had decided to be as reasonable as he
was — or as if she pacified a madman.

“You do understand that I can give you silks and featherbeds
and pearls, and that it is only circumstances that have led me to be so crude?”
He was anxious that she not consider him a barbarian. He had no experience in
courting a lady of refinement, but he assumed wealth was one of those factors
women considered in choosing mates.

“I do not understand anything at all these days,” she
responded, pressing the child’s head to her breast. “Perhaps after we return to
Le Havre, and things have settled down, I will understand better. You are not
the only one who has behaved badly.”

She blushed as pink as the dawn’s light, and Ian regained
his assurance that she did not despise him for their hasty couplings. “There is
nothing bad or wrong in what we’ve done together. The gods have blessed our
joining.” He reassured her as gently as he could. “You realize it’s not likely
to be safe in Le Havre? And Murdoch and I cannot stay there. Our home is
elsewhere.”

She searched his face and looked sorrowful. “I understand
you cannot stay.”

He wanted to emphasize that she could not either, but
Murdoch chose that moment to gallop back to them.

He brought his steed to an unnecessarily abrupt halt. “There
is a village ahead. We can rest the animals and eat there. The chalice has
nearly reached the coast. I think we should leave the women and children while
we go after it.”

Ian did not need an interpreter for Chantal’s questioning
look. How Murdoch knew the chalice’s location was not something he could tell
her. She must trust his promise to explain later.

“
All
the horses
need resting,” Chantal said from the window, in a tone that apparently pained
Murdoch’s sensitive ears.

“We could trade them — ” Murdoch started to say.

“For nags too bony to be eaten?” Chantal finished with
scorn.

Ian noted that Murdoch’s frustration matched his own of
earlier. Nothing in this Other World could be accomplished with the swiftness
to which they were accustomed. Even with the injuries he and Murdoch had
sustained, they possessed the speed and stamina of horses. They could follow
the chalice’s trail with their extra-perception and catch up to Pierre in
hours. But they could not change Chantal’s world to suit themselves.

People and animals would have to be fed and rested.

“We could run — ” Murdoch started to suggest.

Ian rejected that idea with a shake of his head. “The
chalice teases us. We only open the way for trouble if we allow it to goad us
into haste. Your ambition still blinds you, LeDroit.”

In anger, Murdoch reeled his horse back toward town. “Don’t
patronize me, prince,” he called as he rode off.

“There is nothing wrong with ambition,” Chantal objected,
watching Murdoch ride away.

“Not when it is tempered with an awareness of the public
good instead of selfish greed. That is a hard lesson to learn for someone who
possesses nothing.”

“That is a hard lesson for people who have
everything
.” She slammed shut the window
and turned her attention to her waking family.

Let her believe what she would. He did not need her
approval — much.

* * *

Even though they were in town only long enough to eat and
rest the horses, Ian insisted that Alain take a room and rest while he and
Murdoch showed their passports to the local militia. Since her father seemed to
fare better now that Ian looked after him, Chantal did not question his orders.
Ian apparently had a bottomless pit of wealth, and she was sure the innkeeper
would make good use of the coins.

But now it was time to leave, and her father would not wake.

“Papa?” She felt his forehead. His temperature seemed normal,
but his breath rasped heavily in his lungs. She tried shaking him just a
little, but his eyelids did not even stir. “Papa!”

Nothing.

With fear chilling her bones, Chantal fled down the stairs
in search of Ian. Pauline was letting the children chase pigeons around the
village green. Chantal hadn’t seen Murdoch since they’d arrived — didn’t want to
see him. He frightened her in ways she did not understand. She didn’t know why
Ian trusted him.

Far better than anyone else, Ian would know what to do. She
found him in the stable yard, checking over the mares, stroking the nervous
creatures and talking to them as if they understood, while he examined their
hooves.

He looked up before she even called to him. “What is it?
Your father?”

She’d given up attempting to dress her hair and had merely
pinned it at her nape. Strands blew free and brushed her face as she nodded.
Her heart beat quickly. She felt flushed, and she did not know if it was fear
for her father or proximity to Ian that did it. She could not even stand near
him without embarrassing herself.

“Papa will not wake. We have to find a physician.”

“There is none here who will do more than bleed him.” Ian
was already halfway across the yard and hurrying toward the inn. “We need to
take him to my home. We have…physicians… there who can work miracles.”

Chantal hurried after him. “He’s never been ill a day in his
life. Even when the fever struck Le Havre, he did not take to his bed.”

“He is a stubborn man, but his weaknesses are catching up
with him. Distress will harm the constitution, break it down faster than any
fever.” He took the stairs two at a time.

“But once we are in Le Havre, he will be fine, won’t he?
He’ll have me and the horses and the children and…”

Ian halted and whirled on the stairs. “You can’t stay in
France, Chantal. You have seen the riots in Paris. What do you think is
happening now that the angry mob realizes your king ran away in order to wreak
war on your new government? You have seen the obsessive suspicion of the
militia; they track every citizen for fear of royal spies and arrest innocents
like Pierre who disagree with them. This country is about to go up in flames.
Pauline and Pierre are aristocrats. You and your father are wealthy and
publicly supported the king. Even without Pauline’s involvement in the royal
escape, you would be targets. Go, find your friend and the children. We must be
on the road.”

“But Papa! He can’t travel like this.” She could not absorb
or accept his predictions. He had no way of knowing these things any better
than she did. Her father was a more immediate concern than “might be’s.”

“He will fare better with my people than here. My sister’s
healing skills are better than mine, and there are still others better than
she. Your father needs their help. Go! Now!”

He dashed up the steps, leaving her behind.

* * *

The children whined about being returned to the carriage.
Pauline sank into sullen grief. Papa groaned and slumped against the cushions
after Ian helped him in. The only one who seemed happy about their return to
the road was Murdoch, who raced his steed ahead of them.

Chantal had the oddest notion that Ian somehow controlled
Murdoch’s actions, or at least, the distance he could run. Each time, the angry
man returned even angrier, with dark fires flashing behind eyelids he kept
lowered to conceal his inner self. At least Ian had been able to wake her
father.

Despite the disgruntled temperaments of his fellow
travelers, Ian clenched his jaw and remained stoic. In the summer heat, he’d
discarded his robes and frock coat and rode scandalously in shirt sleeves,
breeches, and spotless boots, his hair bound and curling in a long tail down
his back. And still, he looked every inch the noble prince.

Knowing the king’s brothers, Chantal thought Ian looked
better
than any royalty or nobility. He
possessed dignity and wisdom and a kind of…leashed power…that the drunken,
greedy, spoiled fops of the aristocracy could never acquire. Perhaps the
Marquis de Lafayette and a few of his soldiers exhibited a similar moral
fortitude, but she suspected Ian could manage soldiers more intelligently than
Lafayette had done lately. And Ian could do it in monk’s robes or shirtsleeves
without need of impressive uniforms.

Which meant she was in serious danger of falling head over
heels in love with a man who would ultimately ignore her wishes. Men of power
were dangerously arrogant in their beliefs, and Ian exhibited every sign of
believing he knew best for everyone.

If he thought she was a woman like Pauline who needed
someone to take care of her, he knew nothing at all. She might have been
relatively frivolous, but she had not tended her home and loved ones all these
years without learning to be strong.

So, as much as she might admire and desire Ian, as much as
she would like to think he was the one man in a million who could be her match,
she could not fall in love with him. She’d tucked her poor, shattered heart
away long ago, and she had better sense than to open the box now. Her music
would be her life, as before.

So she lifted her flute and taught the children to sing in
harmony. The instrument would never replace her piano, but the flute was
beautifully melodic, and she was grateful for the gift. She handed out the
tarts she’d bought as prizes and began to rebuild the bubble of happiness she’d
lost when she’d left Paris….