To Eternity (8 page)

Her hips juddered, her flesh warm under his hands. He moved to raise her to his lips. He nuzzled her clit, captured the small bead of flesh, and sucked the tender morsel.

“Magnus!” Her cry echoed throughout the room.

Slow, each movement deliberate and lingering, he pleasured her, tasted her salt and lapped at the flow of her nectar. She wound her fingers in his hair, grasped, and released with rhythmic panted breaths. He maneuvered her so her hips moved in time with her moans. The tension in her muscles increased, and he slowed the pace, flicking his tongue with the lightest of strokes to keep her hovering on the edge of orgasm. He glanced up to her face. She'd arched her neck, lay open-mouthed gasping, her eyes closed as she trembled. His cock throbbed, hardened to granite, but he'd take her over the edge now before he enjoyed the delight of burying himself inside her.

He breathed hot on her moistened clit. She locked her thighs around his head. Open mouthed, he sucked, flickering his tongue faster at her wild cry of delight. She ground herself against him, gasped, and twisted beneath him. Her pleasure pulsed so strong, he almost broke and hit the peak with her.

But no, tonight he'd offer her as much as he could. Backing off, he pushed her knees wider apart, slid up the bed, and moved to nestle his cock in the entrance of her pussy.

“Yes, now,” she mouthed against his shoulder. “I want you.”

“You are all mine.” He drove forward and reveled in her silken heat as she took him. She clutched him tight. He thrust into her again.

“I live for you,” she moaned.

Her body blended with his. They moved in a harmonic synchronization. Sian wrapped her thighs around his waist, adding momentum to their joining. Her mouth against his throat, she matched his rhythmic gasps. Together they pushed toward the peak.

Sian cried out and gripped him tight inside her. Her pleasure forced him over the edge. He let go into a final tumult of movement. Orgasm thrummed through him as he kissed her. “My love. My life.”

Chapter 9

The morning of the tenth dawned misty wet. Rain pattered rather than pelted, but its incessant thrum did nothing to soothe his mood. He and Sian breakfasted early in the dining room where she could look out for the first arrivals. Twitchy like a busy sparrow, she finished a slice of toast. Though his apprehension about today remained heavy, he couldn't deny the spark of excitement in her eyes or the flash of color in her cheek.

“After today, we will have the world to ourselves,” she said as she got up from her seat. She bent and swept a kiss on his cheek. “Don't forget you can join us for the filming. You could watch from the sidelines if you wish.”

He shook his head. “No, I think not.”

The whoosh of air-breaks shook the windows.

“Good grief. What's all that?” he asked.

Her impish smile appeared. “Kit, lots of it. I must go. Have a wonderful day.” She bounded out the door, the rubber soles of her Nike's squeaking on the polished floor. He sighed as he glanced to the window where the side of the massive lorry obliterated the usual view.

Two days, she'd promised, no more than three if things didn't go well today, and all this would be finished. Even with so much disruption to the house, he had no regrets. He should be glad he'd agreed to them filming, for if he hadn't, Sian wouldn't be part of his life. How dreary his existence had been, for so long, before she walked in to light his world with her incandescent presence.

He placed the breakfast dishes on a tray and took them down to the kitchen where he set them in the dishwasher. Both the house staff would be off until the filming had finished. Until then, he and Sian must look after themselves.

Tonight he would surprise her. He'd make dinner. Perhaps an Italian style meal would please her. Yes, a good selection of antipasti accompanied by a nice bright wine. That would be perfect to help her relax after today. Somewhere in the cellar, he'd find the very thing. It might take him a while to locate the wine, but he'd the whole day to look. After turning the dishwasher on, he made his way down the short corridor off the kitchen.

The unmistakable smell of the subterranean storeroom gave him pause. Tiny goose bumps prickled his arms. The light overhead flickered, casting shadows. The electricity supply down here had always been fitful. A flashlight stood on a shelf by the door. The staff, well experienced with the problems, always left a heavy-duty torch by the entrance. He picked it up and headed along a walkway.

Floor to ceiling wine racks and larger wine bins, some of them stacked high, others with half a dozen bottles, stretched the length of the room into the shadows. So many memories swept over him at the sight of the well-stored bottles.

In his youth, he'd favored white wine and stocked a great deal of sack, along with a sufficiency of port for guests. He recalled little of the first months after his return from Europe in the summer of 1763 and the bitter discovery of Julia's death. The wine merchant visited monthly, at his order. The heavy drinking went on into the following year…or perhaps the year after. His memory remained hazy.

He shook his head. It had taken him a few more years to discover the overwhelming powers of opium.

Such had been his drunken excesses, even his physique had suffered, and he'd grown careless. One full moon he had killed a worker on the estate, which would have horrified his father had he known, but his parents weren't present. They'd left long before he met Julia. The upshot of his grief-laden folly led to the villager's attempts to kill him and his flight to London.

Sian had experienced some of his worst memories, running barefoot beside him over the stubbled field. In his eighteenth century reality, he'd fled. In their dream, he had carried Sian with him into the drainage ditch. They'd escaped the man wielding an axe. Thank God, he'd managed to wake her at that point. He'd been glad she'd seen no more.

Sian would be appalled at the way London had offered him sanctuary during the rest of the eighteenth century. A place where he'd hidden from the world in plain sight, killed with a savagery to shame him now, and roistered with the worst of humanity.

He sighed and made his way down to the next rack of bottles. “Ah, claret.”

By the mid-eighteen hundreds, when he'd returned from his sojourn in London, claret had been his first drink of choice, and he'd restocked the cellar again. As he traveled the globe during the later part of the nineteenth century, he'd developed a taste for gin. Several crates of the green bottles still stood in an alcove. In the early twentieth century, brandy had been his preferred tipple, and later during the twenties and thirties, cocktails entertained him. Each taste preference was marked here as he'd made all the necessary additions to his stock.

The wine cellar should be a pleasure to contemplate, but his enforced imprisonment down here in the past wiped the gloss off such thoughts. Sian's presence meant he no longer must dwell here in the darkness during each month's full moon. He paused, picked up a bottle, and wiped off a layer of dust.

A low electrical hum came from overhead, the usual sign the electric was about to go. He set the bottle down and looked up. The strip light seemed steady enough.

Noise!

Crackling whines, whistles, and electrical feedback echoed around him. He'd not heard anything so loud since…the last war.

The blare of sound ceased. He picked up a bottle of white wine and headed back to the door. Thank heavens he'd sold off the horses in the sixties. They'd have been terrified by the noise today. He placed the wine on a shelf in the kitchen out of the sunlight. Later, he'd return to put it to chill for the evening. The wagon remained parked outside, a looming reminder of all the strangers milling about in the house. He'd find no peace even if he went up to the library.

Strange, from his earliest boyhood, this house rarely offered him a sense of refuge in any way. He wasn't foolish enough to think it might give him sanctuary today.

Out.

He'd go out in one of the cars. Take a drive to the Downs, maybe get lunch at one of the pubs en route. Without Sian to accompany him, the outing wouldn't be as great a pleasure, but she had given him a tremendous gift, one she little realized. Since meeting her, he'd lost some of the wariness of being away from the house. He'd rediscovered he could venture into the world outside.

He raced up to their bedroom. No Mrs. Tyson today, so he quickly made the bed. He tossed the counterpane over the top. Not anywhere as neat as when the housekeeper did the job, but it would do.

The long leather coat from the forties hung on a back rack in one of his wardrobes. He'd not worn it for several years. He donned the supple brown leather. The result wasn't right, not if he compared it to what he'd seen men wear in recent films. Perhaps he should order a new one, something more up to date. A ridiculous sense of planning an adventure hit him, as if he were preparing for a safari or a trek in the Patagonian forests. Sian was right—he should get out of the house more often. That's what he'd do today. He'd go shopping, even if he had to do it alone. He'd take a good amount of money with him and visit the tailors. He strode down to the study.

Post-it Notes and print outs from the computer lay scattered like large confetti all over his roll top desk Sian had used for the last couple of weeks. He crossed the room to open a small block section of books on the bookcase. They fronted one of the safes that he had installed in the sixties. Several others, much older, were hidden in places around the house. One, in an earlier age, had been his father's strong room. He'd not entered there since he sailed to the continent in the autumn of 1760.

In truth, he'd been nothing more than a heartsick boy when he left for France at the start of his journey through Europe after Julia refused to marry him. Sian showed him a different kind of relationship, one built on his trust in her, and her selfless faith in him. She had lifted him from the kind of imprisonment no felon knew in this age. He'd never find the way to thank her.

But he could try. He'd find a little token for her. On High Street, where his tailor's shop sat between a bakery and a shoe shop, an independent jeweler stood opposite. He'd take a peek at their current offerings. Two birds with one stone: a new waxed coat, green, like those he'd seen some other men wearing at the firework display, and then something for his… The word wife hovered, but he daren't use it, not even to himself. If he called her that, the next step became inevitable. He selected the keys he wanted from the small rack in the safe, tossed them up in his hand, caught them, and hurried out of the study.

At the bottom of the main staircase, he ignored the glances from a pair of men carrying large silver cases and the assessing gaze of two young women who'd have passed as interesting strumpets in his youth. The urge to escape couldn't be denied. He had to get out. He strode fast toward the door. The last person he saw, a lean man with a limp, garbed in a long gray raincoat with a dark fedora shadowing his features, could pass a message to Sian. All these people here must know her. “Tell Miss Armstrong that Magnus will meet her after the filming, would you?”

“Yes, Mr. Johansson.”

He strode quickly to the garage with the wide, green, double doors. Inside, he walked down the row looking for a car Monty had recently serviced, one with an orange card tied to the wiper blade. The black Mark II Jaguar deserved an outing as much as he did. He removed the card, opened the door, and inhaled. The sweet smell of clean engine oil and leather polish lingered.

The Jaguar purred into life as he turned the ignition key. He headed out, driving slow past another lorry, no doubt containing more of what Sian described as “kit.” He turned left at the gates with a rare sense of pleasure. Enjoying the moment, he accelerated down the country road.

* * * *

“Sian, you're looking well.” Richard offered Sian an embrace as they met outside the portico.

“Thanks. I'm fine, honest.” She gave him a quick hug, took a step back, and nodded toward the three men waiting for the lorry's tailgate to descend. “Everything okay so far?”

“Yes, we should have all the equipment in situ well before lunch time. The sound desk is already up, of course.”

“Good. If the weather improves, as the forecast said, we can get all the outdoor shots done today, a smidge past mid morning, I think.” She glanced up at the heavy clouds. “It's supposed to clear by then.”

“Gary,” Richard called out. “The generators need to go to the three sites you've got on your plan. You'll need tarps ready, too.”

“I'll leave you to it, Richard. I'll go inside. I don't want any damage at all, and I know they've begun walk-throughs with the dancers.” She hurried back into the house and headed up the corridor to the ballroom to double check all the furniture had been moved. As she entered, one look at the expressions of the dancers soothed her fears. They might smoke or sup vodka as they practiced plies, but they understood beauty.

“Sian, this place is so cool. It's awesome.”

She nodded to the girl in the luminous pink leg warmers, and smiling, moved through the room to step out onto the terrace. Her initial panic had settled. Things seemed to be going according to schedule. The mobile kitchen offering food for the crew and cast had started to serve coffee. She counted the band members as they stood next to the truck with steaming mugs in their hands. They'd better use the ashtrays provided. If she found one butt where it shouldn't be, she'd kick someone's ass for sure.

A light breeze promised no rain despite the wretched weather forecast.

“Sian, come look at this, will you?” Jerry beckoned.

She followed him out into the long corridor, entered the music room, and was pleased to see Jerry had covered the worst part of the damaged walls with his big mirrors. This room, where so much beauty was spoiled by damage from the fire in the house, always brought a sigh. As to the wrecked conservatory beyond, she could only guess how much Magnus wanted that renovated next year. “Right, what's the problem?”

“Our lead ballerina has put on pounds since the fitting. One twirl and she'll pop the seams. I think she'll look like a split saveloy roll in this frock if she tries to perform in it. I want to put her in a green gown I have on the rail.”

“Show me the gown, Jerry.” Sian crossed the room to him. “Why has Tanya put on so much weight?” she whispered.

He smirked and cocked his head toward the dancer. “Nature's bounty. She's three months gone.”

“Oh, God.”

The elfin-blond ballerina in a short robe sat waiting with a worried expression.

“Should I say congratulations, Tanya?” Sian asked.

The girl smiled. “Oh, yes. This is my last job this year. When this one is finished, I go home to Shropshire and Carl. We are going to grow spuds, keep chickens, and have a beautiful baby.”

Sian leaned forward and gave Tanya a hug. “Jerry's got another dress he thinks will be right for you. Shall we take a look and try it?”

“Thanks. I didn't want to let you down, but I never thought I'd get this big so soon.”

“Big?” The girl looked ethereal slender. “It's not a problem as long as this dress fits. Will you be okay with the arabesques? What about the lifts?”

“Sure. Robbie could lift a brick privy. He's got a lot of inner body strength. He won't drop me.”

Jerry held up a sheaf of ivy green chiffon, the bodice decorated with jet and silver spangles. “This is the dress. What do you think?”

“Perfect. Try it on, Tanya,” Sian said. “We've got the shoes to match, yes?” she asked Jerry.

The blond-haired girl beamed. “I carry a lot of spare shoes in the car. I've got flats and blocks—silver, black, emerald, and bottle green.”

“Silver with it. Jerry, get the makeup girl to put a silver spray on her hair, green ribbons, maybe feathers, anything floaty.” She turned to the dancer. “That okay with you?”