WindBeliever (38 page)

“Have a problem with booze,” he’d explained to the boys. He had seen the brothers looking at one another with guilt and he had tried to shake his head, had earnestly wished he hadn’t.

“Don’t worry ‘bout it,” he’d said.

“Are you going to ask Cat to marry you, Conar?” Peter had asked.

“You betcha!” He’d been a little surprised when Peter slowly slid to the floor in a smiling heap, but it didn’t bother him overly much.

Not until Mikel had joined his brother.

“Uh, oh,” he’d sighed, knowing his own capitulation to the brandy wasn’t long in coming.

He’d wanted to get out into the cool air, to wash away the liquor fumes and try to evaporate the brandy from his system. He hadn’t counted on Catherine being out there, too.

“Do you need help in getting to bed, milord?” she asked.

Conar drew himself up. “‘Course not, woman! Who you think I am?”

“A drunken lord, Conar,” she answered and took his arm in hers to help him back inside.

“Don’t need no help,” he grumbled, leaning heavily against her.

“I rather think you do.”

“Gonna marry you, Cat,” he told her, swinging his head around to look at her as they walked.

Catherine smiled. “Is that so?”

“Sure ‘tis,” he stated.

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” she told him, supporting his weight until she could get the door into the drawing room open.

“Gonna take you back to Bo’rs with me.”

“We’ll

see.”

“Cat?” He stopped dead still inside the drawing room and tried to focus on her.

“Yes, milord Conar?” Her body jerked as he stopped, for her forward momentum had been carrying them both along.

He tried to smile and couldn’t. Tried to walk and couldn’t. Tried to talk and found himself gasping.

“Don’t you dare!” she warned him, looking around quickly. She let go of him, not at all concerned when he crashed to the floor, and hastily grabbed up a spittoon. She barely had time to get it under his chin before he threw up.

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“Don’t shake the bed, Toad!” she heard him mumble.

His words made no sense to her.

“What the hell did he drink?” Sajin asked as he came into the room and knelt down beside Catherine who was holding Conar’s head.

“Brandy, I think,” Catherine said, her nose crinkling. “An entire keg from the amount coming out of him.”

“You go on upstairs and turn back his bed. I’ll bring him up.” Sajin put his arm under Conar’s shoulders and hefted the drunken man to his feet.

“You’re killing me, Toad!”

“Who’s he talking to?” Sajin asked as he shifted Conar’s weight.

Catherine shrugged. “I have no idea.”

Between the two of them, they managed to get him in bed and partially undressed. As Sajin pulled the cover over his friend’s naked chest, he shook his head at Conar’s incoherent mumblings to the unknown ‘Toad’.

“I hope to the Prophetess we have a smooth sail tomorrow.”

Catherine laughed. “With any luck at all there will be a gale!”

Sajin winced. “Don’t even
think
that, lady!”

She stood over his bed, staring down at his sleeping face and felt a great love well up inside her chest. She’d come in only to check on him, to make sure he was asleep and well, had not choked on his own vomit during the night. The sour smell still clung to the clothing Sajin had removed, but the Kensetti had been kind enough to bathe Conar and see that he had not gone to bed befouled.

“You really care for him, don’t you?” she’d asked the nomad.

“Look at him,” Sajin had countered. “Who couldn’t help but care for such an imbecile?”

Who, indeed, she thought as she reached down to tug the sheet up over his shoulder? She smoothed back an errant lock of golden hair and straightened up, smiling as she watched him sleeping.

He looks so gentle, she thought, so gentle and so vulnerable, like a little boy. There was just a hint of a smile on his full lips. She wondered what it was he dreamed as she watched his lids fluttering.

She leaned over and kissed his brow then turned to go.

“Don’t leave,” he mumbled and she looked back to find him watching her.

“You should be sleeping,” she said.

“Stay

with

me.”

She sighed as though much put out with him, although his request had made the pulse leap in her throat. “If I do, you won’t sleep.”

“I don’t need to.”

She came back to the bed and looked down at him. “How are you feeling?”

He frowned a little boy’s unconcern. “Like a hundred little men are playing bat-a-ball inside my head.”

“Serves you right,” she replied.

“I know.” He smiled crookedly at her. “I haven’t drunk like that in years.”

“And you shouldn’t have started tonight.” She studied his face. “Why did you?”

“I don’t know,” he answered and she could hear the real surprise in his voice. “I knew better, but I just couldn’t seem to stop from doing it.” He looked down at the covers. “Alcoholics are WINDBELIEVER

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like that, Cat.”

Her heart went out to him. To admit something so personal to her must have been hard. She sat down on the bed beside him.

“Will you promise me not to do that again?” she asked.

He glanced up at her, sensing something more in her voice. She was looking at him like Liza use to when he’d done something singularly stupid and wanted his oath that he would not do it again under penalty of her displeasure.

“I don’t intend to,” he answered, truthfully, “but I hadn’t ever intended to do it again, either.”

“Then,” she said, reaching out to caress his cheek, “I will just have to make sure you aren’t given the temptation then, won’t I?”

There was in her soft and soothing voice, a commitment he heard and understood. He lifted his hand and covered it where it pressed against his scarred cheek.

“What are you saying, Catherine?” he asked, holding his breath for her answer.

Her smile was like the softest of touches. “Sajin called you an imbecile, but I think perhaps you’re just a little slow.” Her fingers smoothed his flesh. “If you do not know what I am saying, milord Conar, perhaps I should go find Prince Sajin. He seems to be ....”

“The hell you will!” he ground out, reaching up for her, pulling her down to him in a fierce hug that took her breath away. “You are mine, lady!”

Never could Catherine have imagined the passion his words instilled in her, inflaming her senses like the wind can fan the flames of a roaring fire. She clung to him, her lips claimed by his, and felt herself turning, moving slowly and languidly to her back. She looked up into his face and saw the question in his dark eyes.

“Yes,” she answered, wanting him as much as he wanted her.

“Are you sure?” There was patience in his face, a firm reminder than he would wait if she was not ready.

“I have never been surer of anything in my life, Conar.”

Her arms closed around him and drew him down to her.

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“Sweet Merciful Alel!” Conar gasped as the bright morning light invaded his eyes with piercing shafts of steel. He groaned and looked down at the ground where he was walking, hoping he wouldn’t vomit before he could reach the safety of the ship.

“I don’t envy you the trip,” Yuri was telling him. “I know how you feel.”

“Aye, well you do,” the Serenian muttered. He flinched at a loud sound and heard Andreanova laughing.

“If I could get my hands on some of that lavender brew, I would,” Yuri chuckled, unknowingly voicing a sympathy Conar had made on their way over to the Outer Kingdom.

“If I could crawl into a hole, I would,” Conar returned.

“How’s he faring, Yuri?” Sajin called down from the ship.

“Tell him to go to hell,” Conar whispered, his skull caving in from the loud words.

“He’ll live,” Yuri answered.

“Don’t be so sure,” Conar mumbled.

Sybelle watched the man come on board the ship and wished she could use her magic to push him overboard. As he looked up, unerringly finding her and her wayward thought, she clamped down on her emotions and turned from the rail, disappearing from his sight. She didn’t think he had enough presence of mind to try probing her and was relieved when he did not.

“She’s not too happy with you,” Sajin told him when Conar was on board.

“I’m not too happy with myself,” Conar assured him. He glanced carefully around him, squinting with the effort. “Is Catherine on board?”

Sajin nodded. “She’s below.” He regarded his friend with an arched brow. “Are you responsible for the glow on her face this morning?” At Conar’s quick blush and hasty look away from the nomad, Sajin clucked his tongue. “Conar, how could you?”

He looked up, found humor in the nomad’s eyes. “You owe me a golden Ryal.”

Sajin scowled. “I owe you an ass whipping,” he answered. “Could you not have waited ‘til your wedding night?”

Conar

grinned.

The nomad snorted. “I suppose not.”

“Welcome, Prince Conar.” A tall, thin man with a mustache as rail thin as he was came forward to greet the newcomer on board. “It is my pleasure to have you on board.”

Conar held out his hand, taking the smiling man aback for a moment before the Captain of The Golden Dawn took Conar’s strong wrist in his firm grasp. “You have a fine ship, Captain.”

Captain Abdul Hajib’s smile widened. “I think so.” He nodded toward Yuri who was still on the docks. “The Shadow-warrior tells me you like to sail.”

“I had a good teacher. Perhaps you have met him. Captain Holm van de Lar?”

The Captain shook his head. “Sadly, I have not, but I am acquainted with his ship, the Ravenwind. I have passed her a few times on the open sea.” He sighed wistfully. “A most beautiful lady, she is.”

Conar laughed. “And deadly. She bears six forty pounders.”

Impressed, the Captain assured Conar he had no intention of ever engaging the Ravenwind in battle. “We would trade with Serenia if the bans against doing so are ever lifted.”

“Perhaps Prince Conar and I can discuss that when we reach Kensett,” Sajin commented. “I think it would be a good idea, as well.”

Catherine smiled as she watched the men talking. Her gaze had gone immediately to her WINDBELIEVER

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lover when she came up from her stateroom. He did not see her and it was just as well for if he had looked at her face at that moment, he would have seen the memory of the night before passing across her blushing cheeks.

He had been a gentle, patient instructor, never hurrying, never doing anything that had made her tense or feel ashamed. He had loved her with great care, initiating her into womanhood with all the loving vigilance she could have dared ask for. His touch had been magic on her untried flesh. His mouth elicited moans that had, at first, shamed her, then thrilled her, as his lips moved over places on her body no other man had ever touched. He had been so tender with her, given to such courteous ministrations, that she was lost with the first brush of his thumb across that part of her lower body that had quivered with the touch. From that moment on, she could not have stopped him from claiming her even if she wanted to.

Which, she thought with a gentle smile, she most certainly had not.

He had covered her body like a silken coverlet, settling on her with a gentleness she would not have suspected of the man.

“I can wait,” he had told her.

She shook her head. “I cannot.”

He had tenderly nudged her legs apart and pressed his lower body against her own. The feel of him, the wonderful weight of him, upon her was like nothing she could ever have imagined. It turned her defenses to mush and her heart to a thudding drum inside her chest.

His hands went to her skirts, drawing them up slowly, with a sensual slide that nearly made her scream out with impatience. But the moment his calloused palm touched her bare thigh, she melted against him, squirming under him with a brazenness that brought a growl of contentment from him. The deep rumble coming from his throat sounded like that of a lion after its mate.

“Do you want me, Marie Catherine?” he had asked, the tip of his tongue flicking just under the point of her chin.

Catherine gasped, her hands clutching at his bare shoulders. “With all my being!” she swore.

His fingers slid higher up her leg until they found the obstruction of her petticoat which was wedged between her thighs. He tugged, unable to free the material.

“Tear it!” she demanded, needing the feel of his bare flesh against her. “Rip it!”

He laughed, tickled by her fervent commands. When he began to roll off her, she clutched at him, trying to keep him from leaving her.

“Relax,” he had whispered, slanting his mouth across hers for a moment. “Let me do it the right way, Cat.”

It had taken all her will power to let him get up. She watched impatiently while he unhooked the buttons of his cords. Her breath caught in her throat when he pushed them down over his lean hips and she caught sight for the first time the soft flesh that hung between his legs.

He looked down at himself and then up at her. “He will not stay so disinterested for long, milady,” he warned her.

The sight of him naked--his wide chest furred lightly between the breastbones with golden hair, his slim waist with its rigid lines of muscles, the thick pelt of hair at the apex of his thighs, the strong legs--all combined to give her a heady sense of power that she could bring such a man to her bed.

“Actually I brought you to mine,” he said. His grin said it all--you are mine and I will have you.

She held up her arms to him, wanting him, needing him, but he had shaken his head.

“Give me our hand.”

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Never once did it occur to her to refuse. She put out her hand and he helped her to sit. It took him only a moment to divest her of her own clothing and she was amazed that she felt no shame before this man as his gaze traveled slowly, carefully, over her.