Royal 02 - Royal Passion (43 page)

The were retracing their footsteps, going the wrong way.

"What are you doing?” she asked, breathless from the pace he had set.

"I sent Michael on an errand I should have taken myself."

"He was dressed for it; you aren't.” There was no heat in her words, however. She herself wanted to know what was taking place. The crowds, all of them, seemed to be heading for the river. If she had her bearings, they would, after a time, cross the Seine by the Pont Royal near the Place de la Concorde. It was there that Lamartine had been scheduled to speak at the reformist banquet that had been canceled by the king.

The wind was rising, turning colder. It tugged at their cloaks, flapping them about their bodies, and brought the sting of tears to Mara's eyes. Without a lantern to light the way, they stumbled on the uneven cobbles. Mara's slippers of soft leather were for wearing inside the house; they had never been meant for extended walking, particularly on the sharp-edged stones. She refused to complain. She was free, not bound hand and foot and shut up in a sour-smelling room. She was with Roderic in the fresh night air. And if there were other shadows hanging over her, what better way was there to escape them than to outrun them?

The streets near the bridge were more congested. The atmosphere was almost like a carnival with people hanging out of windows and calling back and forth. Street vendors were out selling roasted chestnuts and hot meat pies, candied fruit and bunches of violets, and the organ man with his monkey played on a corner. Still, above it all could be heard the shouts of
"Vive la réjorme!,"
“Down with Guizot!,” and that old one from another revolution,
"Liberté, égalité, et fraternité!"

From the bridge they could see the gathering in the Place de la Concorde, the torches and lanterns glinting like fireflies, casting eerie reflections upon the great stone shaft of the obelisk that had been presented to Louis Philippe by the viceroy of Egypt, Mohammed Ali. The crowd numbered several hundred strong, and the sound of their voices was a distant roaring.

"What are they doing?” Mara asked as they drew nearer. She could not see above the throng, but there was a dense cloud of black smoke roiling into the air that appeared to have nothing to do with the scattered torches.

"Lamartine is trying to speak. A few are listening. The rest are making a bonfire of the chairs from the Tuileries."

"What? But why?"

"No doubt they were cold."

The crowd parted then, and she could see off to the right the façade of the Tuileries palace. Men were coming from that direction carrying chairs above their heads like prizes of war. As she watched, a window in an upstairs room shattered into glittering fragments and the throne of Louis Philippe came crashing through. A great shout arose, and the throne chair was seized and thrown onto the fire. That the throne and the chairs that had, many of them, survived the revolution and all that had followed should be wantonly destroyed here on this night seemed like a sacrilege.

"France should be grateful that beds and armoires are heavier,” she commented.

There came the atonal tinkling of more breaking glass from the direction of one of the side streets lined with shops. Roderic turned his head swiftly toward that sound."I believe they have found something else for their attention. I've seen enough. Let's go."

"What about Michael?"

"He can take care of himself."

They threaded their way through the Tuileries gardens, away from the wrenching, tearing noise of shop doors being forced and the yells of the looters. People still milled under the leafless trees and around the clipped shrubbery, but with less purpose. A pickpocket, caught at his trade, was chased past them. Here and there were lovers, taking advantage of the general unrest to kiss in the evergreen bowers.

The street between the Seine and the Louvre was dark and deserted. Roderic walked with one hand on his pistol and every sense alert. The ancient pile of masonry loomed above them on the left, stretching endlessly with its myriad windows and doorways. It was once the home of French kings where sovereigns strode in splendor along the majestic rooms that smelled of the privy because of the habit of impatient courtiers of relieving themselves in the gilded corners and behind the carved doors. To the right, the Seine wound its way with a soft, rushing sigh, channeling the night wind along its length so that it blew damper and stronger.

Mara was footsore and weary with reaction, her spirits lowering as the sense of danger lessened. She noticed they were nearing the end of the palace wing, coming close to another of the Seine's many bridges, the Pont Neuf, and the cross street that led onto it, though these things made little impression.

The mob seemed to rise up out of the ground, boiling up out of a stairwell that led down into a shop's cellar. Small in number, not more than a dozen, it was the most bizarre group they had seen. The feces of its members were painted like red Indians, and they brandished hatchets and knives and whirled torches in the air as they whooped and yelled. Hanging about them were articles of women's clothing, petticoats and pantalettes, and at their belts hung silver vases and coffeepots.

There was no way to avoid them, no hope of outrunning them. Armed as they were, it would be suicidal for Roderic to think of fighting their way free, though he might have attempted it if he had been alone. Roderic stopped, shielding Mara with his body.

And then as the looting mob came bearing down upon them, the wind lifted his cloak, exposing his white trousers with their cerulean stripes and his polished boots. For an instant the braiding and bars on his coat gleamed, richly royal.

As swift and as precise as a parade drill, Roderic whirled away from the mob, catching Mara in his right arm. With his left, he imprisoned her chin and lifted it higher. His mouth came down to crush her soft, open lips. For a moment she was stunned, then her heart throbbed against the wall of her chest and comprehension flared inside her. She forced a low moan and reached up to push her fingers through his hair, twining them in the silky golden strands as she strained against him.

A coarse jest or two was thrown in their direction. They were jostled as a few men on the edge of the crowd stopped and stared. They paid no heed.

"Lean on me,” Roderic whispered, and moving with the slow footsteps of those entranced by desire, they turned down the path that led under the span of the bridge. Paris had from time immemorial respected the privacy of lovers. The looters let them go.

In the darkness Roderic stopped and stood listening, staring upward. The main body of the men was moving over the bridge. After a moment there were a few curses and more shouted crudities, then thudding footsteps as the laggards ran to catch up. Silence.

Mara turned blindly to Roderic, twisting her hands in his cloak and burying her face against his chest. She was trembling deep inside, and those hidden tremors hurt worse than the most violent shivering. His arms closed warm and firm around her. Silently, he held her there in the darkness, his legs firmly planted as he gave generously of his great strength. In his touch was acceptance and welcome, without a trace of the unyielding hardness of anger.

A sob rose in her throat. She drew back. “I must tell you what I've done."

"Never mind. I overheard a little and the rest I know.” He paused, then went on. “I'm not sure how I know, but I could not be more certain if you had been, for a brief moment there with de Landes, a part of me, your thoughts my own."

Her mother had had strange gifts, the sight. She could not depend on having them herself. “No, let me—"

"Later,” he whispered, and lowered his mouth to take her lips, this time with the gentleness of a benediction.

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Here was security and warmth and sheltering darkness. The danger of the moment was past. They were alive and their senses quickened with the glory of it. Mara pressed against the man whose arms enclosed her with a dissolving feeling inside. That he was a prince, Roderic of Ruthenia, no longer had meaning. What kind of man he was, what he had done or might do in the future, could not concern her. She accepted and trusted what she knew of him. The quickness of his mind, his strength and instinct for command, evoked her respect. His flashing humor, his concern for those around him and understanding of their needs, and his willingness to expose the softer side of his nature touched her to the heart. The time they would have together might not be long, but for now it was theirs.

He parted the edges of her cloak and slid his hand inside to cup the tender globe of one breast. “Sweet Mara,” he whispered, his voice rich and warm against the silken waves of her hair, “I meant to hold you unassailable, a precious thing, to prove your worth by returning to you the privilege of denial. I did not know that to keep the vow would shrivel the edges of my soul and make the inside of my skull fit for no more than a drinking cup."

"I absolve you of it—gladly."

"And if I said you are free to choose, that no one and nothing will coerce you to the joining of my desire, will you deny me?"

His touch made her weak, and her words were low, unsteady. “If I had the wiles of a courtesan, I would entreat you or, if need be, seduce you all over again."

"You need no such wiles; all that is required to bind me is a smile with promise."

"Something you cannot see at this moment."

"I have seen it a thousand times, enjoyed a thousand embraces in my dreams. Tell me it is there, and I will conjure it up."

"From layers of imagination? But will it be mine?"

He understood her fears and answered them without hesitation. “None other will suffice, not now, not ever."

She wanted to believe it, and so she lifted her mouth to his, her lips trembling into a gentle curve.

There was a promise of another sort in the infinite care with which he took her mouth, melding it to his, tasting its sweetness. He smoothed its delicate surfaces with his tongue, awakening the exquisite sensitivity that dwelled there before probing, easing deeper. She surrendered to that soft ravishment, touching the fine-grained tip of his tongue with her own, twining, inviting greater penetration, daring her own exploration.

With close-held breath, she traced the even line of his teeth, the resilient inner lining of his mouth, the firmly cut edges of his lips and feint roughness of the beard stubble where lip and chin met. Inside her grew a deep and wracking need to learn his body inch by inch, every muscle and plane and angle. She wanted to impress his shape and size and form upon her own body, to take him into her to forge a memory past forgetting. Lifting her hand to his chest, she pushed aside his cloak, spreading her fingers over the hard-muscled surface of his chest.

He shrugged from the cloak, letting it fall, and stripped the fastenings of his uniform coat free with hard fingers, guiding her hand to the buttons of his shirt. The warmth of his body, the heavy thudding of his heart under the fine linen of his shirt, the warm male scent of him, caused the muscles of her abdomen to contract with longing. She needed no urging to kneel with him, to spread the cloak he had dropped, to yield to the sure touch of his fingers as he untied her own cape and slipped the tiny buttons of her gown from their holes.

He was not content with loosening their clothing, but lowered her to the soft wool on the ground and rid her of petticoats and camisole and pantalettes. He removed his own stiff garments, then drew her naked against his hard, unclothed length as if he divined her harbored need to press close and shared it.

Vital, glowing with the heat of passion long suppressed, they paid no heed to the cool breath of the night, the damp ground, or such minor annoyances as twigs and stones under them. The blood in their veins ran as swift and full as the river that murmured in their ears. The smell of the earth on which they lay, musty and rich, was natural, and so went unnoticed. Lost in the sensations that flooded them as with heightened senses their two bodies touched, glided one skin surface upon the other, they did not hear the footsteps of the strangers who passed overhead.

His hands cupped the rounded curves of her hips, gently squeezing. She could feel his springing, pulsating firmness against the small mound at the juncture of her thighs. Bending his head, he brushed his warm lips along the curve of her neck, her shoulder. He traced sweeping circles around the swollen mound of her breast that jarred with the thudding of her heart before capturing the tightly budded nipple with the soft adhesion of his mouth. With one hand, he smoothed from her hip down across the flat plane of her abdomen, slipping it between her thighs, questing, finding the sensitive source of her femininity. He followed a similar trail with his mouth, gliding from breast to slender waist, to hip, and lower still.

It was pleasure nearly beyond endurance, spiraling, lifting until her every muscle was tense and full with its flow, until her being vanished into nothingness, floating, then was suddenly, violently reborn, made whole and new once more.

With trembling hands and a vibrant need to return the wondrous gift she had been given, she caressed him with open palms and soft, searching lips. He gave himself up to her, touching her hair, her face with tender fingertips. At last he sighed with the ghost of laughter threading his voice. “It is now, darling Mara, sweet temptress, or else I will become flame to your tinder."

Together they forged the link that made them one as he drew her beneath him with firm urgency and plunged deep into the moist and welcoming warmth of her. She took him deeper still, rising, opening, leaving nothing in reserve.

Turbulent and beautiful, the fury took them. They moved to its ageless measure, caught in the violence and glory of time's most primitive dance, attuned with every fiber to its necessity, its labor, its boundless promise. There was, for those who felt its music, also a reward. It came to them in full bounty: the enthrallment, wild and without end, the stupendous eternity that marks the moment when humankind is most alone and yet comes closest to transcending their basic loneliness.