Wonderful (18 page)

She could never claim she was forced by him.

Then his lips covered hers again; his tongue filled her mouth and played with hers, brushing it and licking and tasting her, running over her teeth and then slowly tracing each lip, only to thrust back inside and send her to a place where she had no thoughts in her head, where all she could do was feel, where her blood raced through her body as if it were poured from a vat of boiling oil.

He tasted of everything she had ever loved: of honeyed figs and sweet Sicilian oranges, of almond milk and wild black cherries, of raisin cream and rose pudding, and of a woman’s dreams.

Her arms slid up his chest and around his taut neck. She clung to him, because she didn’t know what it was she wanted. She was chilled one minute, then burning the next, as if she had caught some strange yet beautiful fever from the moon and the sun.

She pressed her body against his because she felt a restless need to move against him, to rub his body with hers, and to try to climb inside of him. It was as if there was something she needed desperately awaiting her there.

He groaned something against her mouth, started to pull away.

She gave a small cry of disappointment that came from deep inside of her and made her sound like a small bird that had fallen from its nest.

He pressed his hips against her and pinned her to the tower wall, then used both hands to cup her face. He kissed her again. His mouth was urgent and pressed harder than before, his tongue battering hers with strong and powerful strokes. It was almost as if he were being forced against her by some unseen hand, forced to kiss her to prove he had won her as his own.

This was no gentle lover’s kiss. It was the kiss of a warrior. Her warrior.

He tore his lips from hers abruptly.

She had been so caught inside their kiss that she had to shake the strange lightness from her head.

It took a moment until his face no longer blurred before her. When her sight cleared, she could see that his eyes were on her mouth. His breath came in faster pants, as if he had been fighting or riding hard.

Her own rapid breath mixed with his, and the wind over the battlements swallowed it. Her heartbeat slowed first in her wrists, then her chest and her ears, until it beat once again with a slow, strong rhythm.

He gripped her by the waist and stepped back, setting her on the stones. She looked away, embarrassed by what had passed between them. She felt like a wanton, like the lush dairymaid with the white skin and rosy cheeks who used to seduce her father’s men by pressing her body against theirs and luring them behind the hayrick.

This weak-willed, amoral Clio was foreign to her and she was frightened by what she’d done. She could feel her hands begin to shake, so she clasped them tightly and tried to hide them in the folds of her tunic.

“Are you afraid to look at me?”

“No.” She did not raise her head, just spoke the word that blatantly denied exactly what it was she was feeling—fear.

Because she was afraid of what she’d see when she did look at him. To complete her humiliation, she felt her eyes swell with tears.

Oh, no, not now. Don’t cry.

She bit her lip, but it didn’t help. The tears spilled onto her cheeks.

To her horror she felt his hands on her shoulders. He turned her around and pulled her against his chest. She kept her face hidden and tried to stop crying.

“Clio.”

She couldn’t respond because she knew he’d hear those tears she tried to hide, tears she hardly understood.

“You are crying?”

She looked away.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No.”

“Tell me why you are crying.”

“I don’t know why. I just feel like crying.” She pushed at his chest, but he refused to let her go. She slowly raised her face to his and saw his mouth descending again.

That kiss. Dear Lord, but she wanted that kiss again.

A shout sounded from the fields beyond the castle. He released her abruptly, and together they moved to the battlements and looked down. Riders approached escorting a long column of wagons. Pennants with red rearing lions waved in the breeze.

When he turned toward her, there was an odd glint in his eye, amusement with a snatch of arrogant pride, something that worried her a little. He raised his hand toward her. “Come.” For just a moment she hesitated, then nodded toward the procession below. “What is this all about, my lord?”

“About?” he repeated, then took her hand in his and, without looking at her, only staring straight ahead, drew her along with him back toward the stairs. “’Tis your bride-price, my lady.”

Chapter 20

Clio had never seen a mechanical bird before. She had not known such a thing existed and never thought to own one. According to Merrick, this one had once belonged to the great Macedonian Alexander.

She looked at the brass bird, and thought of Pitt, then quickly prayed that he was well out there in the forest. Perhaps he was swinging upside-down from the branch of a willow tree or happily sitting atop the head of a fox or a badger or some such thing and picking out lice—his favorite sport.

The mechanical bird she held cupped in her hands was a strange looking thing. She almost wished it could talk. What tales it would have to tell!

She glanced at her cat, who had been listless since her goshawk disappeared. Clio placed the brass key in a small notch hole in the middle of the bird’s back and wound it, ’round and round, the way Merrick had showed her.

The bird made an odd clicking sound, then its wings rose a little with each click, until they were spread as wide as those of a gyrfalcon.

Cyclops arched his back and hissed, suddenly awake—a miracle in itself—and squatting down on his haunches. His tail swung back and forth and he stared at the brass bird with his one eye.

The day before, Old Gladdys had placed a black eye patch where Cy’s missing eye should be, which gave him a heathen air and had sent Brother Dismas into fits and cries about the cat truly being a familiar.

The mechanical bird with the illustrious past began to shuffle in a jerky circle.

Cyclops pounced. His fat belly landed right atop the bird, which still made a scratchy noise, like that of a broken bell.
Clank, clink, clunk
!

It inched out from beneath Cy’s bright fur, jerky brass wing first. He curled his paws around the wobbly bird and pulled it against his furry chest.

There were a loud pinging noises like flat chapel bells and a loud
boing
!

Cy screeched and whipped out the door so fast that if it weren’t for spotting his tail, Clio might have thought the cat had just disappeared into thin air.

She glanced back at the mechanical bird.

It lay on its side on the floor, its wings at an odd angle and a bouncing wire in the shape of Dulcie’s ringlets poking out of its back. She rose from the stool near her new bedstead, crossed the room, and picked up the pieces, then set them on a small table that was covered with small jewel chests, golden cups, thick plates, and assorted reliquary caskets.

When she turned back and looked around her, she was still unable to believe what she saw. The goods flowed from her chamber into the solar.

On the stone floors were hand-loomed rugs with intricate designs of silken nightingales, winter roses, and white horses. Flemish tapestries were rolled and stacked along the solar wall, beside chests of cloth the color of jewels, some of the lengths made of threads so shiny they looked as if they were spun from real jewels—sapphires, rubies, emeralds, and amber. There were others woven with metal threads of spun silver, copper, and gold, and a chest held braid and tassels and ribbons that shone like moonlight.

Atop an ornately carved ebony tester frame, with a rosewood truckle bed that slid underneath, was a plush wool-and-feather-filled tick made from rich woolen damask. There were pure linen sheetings spun from finely worked flax and bleached so very white that you could almost smell the sunshine in them. Scattered all over the bed were earth-toned pillows made of downy goat hair woven into a soft, thin cloth called Kashmir.

From the East, in the land where the mongoose weasel lived, came a wooden wheel used for spinning wool into the finest of thread; it sat in a corner by a golden strung harp and three fluted reed instruments that sounded as deep and as mellow as the midnight call of a lonely wood owl.

A small sloping scribe’s desk for writing sat next to its matching stool with leopards carved on the base. Merrick had seen them moved near the highest and broadest open solar loop so daylight came inside and shone on the polished burl of the desktop.

And now, when Clio looked at it, glowing in the rich sunlight, the polished wooden top looked the same rich color as a warm summer sunset.

But like its giver, the delightful desk held deep, wonderfully surprising secrets hidden from the casual eye, for when she had lifted the desktop, there was a compartment beneath. ’Twas filled with parchment so fine it was as thin as the skin of an onion. Next to the thin paper was a polished wood box of writing quills with different-sized cut points and a horn filled with precious indigo ink—a gift from a sultan who was impressed by Merrick’s riding skills.

There was more. So much more. Every corner. Every nook had something new, something more unique and pleasurable than the last. As she scanned the room, she felt overwhelmed and awestruck by all the riches that sat before her very eyes. Here. Inside Camrose, her home, the place she wanted restored to elegance. But this was more than elegant.

’Twas almost too much, she thought for a moment. But what was too much wealth, too much majesty?

Confused by her thoughts, she turned and stopped when she caught her reflection in a large piece of polished brass that Dulcie had hung near her new silver water basin and matching ewer with a handle in the shape of a prowling lion.

It did not escape her thoughts that these riches were given to her by the Red Lion; they were his property and he had chosen to give them to her. Before, she had always thought scornfully of a bride-price as a purchase payment, like that for an auction slave being sold to the highest-bidding master.

But somehow, Merrick had made her feel as if these were gifts, presented to her and selected only for her. Special presents, not to buy her, but to provide her with pleasure and comfort. She knew that the thought sounded wishful and foolish, but it felt so very true.

She stared at the polished brass.

Was that she staring back? She cocked her head slightly. She did not look like herself. She reached up and touched the blue, teardrop pearls that hung from her headpiece, a gold and jewel-encrusted fillet with pearl drops along the crown that were the same color as Merrick’s icy eyes.

Her skin was flushed as if she had walked in the hot summer sun, and there was a sparkle to her green eyes. She touched her red and slightly swollen lips with her fingertips.

Kissed. She had been kissed.

Not a groping old bishop’s kiss in a dark corner of the stairs, or a stable lad’s quick peck on the cheek, but a man’s kiss. A real kiss. One so intimate she had not thought such a touch existed.

She gave a dreamy sigh.

The sultans of the East might be impressed with Merrick’s riding skills, but Clio was rather more impressed with his kissing skills. She smiled a wicked little smile that made her belly flip and her blood tingle through her veins as if she were being leeched.

She had promised to wed Merrick. She had given her word.

She did not know what surprised her more, that she had agreed so readily, or that he’d actually asked. If she had said no, would he have accepted that? Some perverse part of her wanted to test the theory, but another part of her knew she never would.

She tried so hard not to care. She tried so hard not give an inch to him. She tried and she failed. He won her, as surely as if she were the prize in a tourney.

And he did so not with brute force, not with bribery and the riches that now surrounded her. He did not do so with kisses that made her wits go walking or her heart throb. She supposed that his surprising kindness was part of what changed her mind, as was the gentle firmness she had seen in him the last week.

But the one thing that finally did win her was something so much more powerful, so remarkable. ’Twas the greatest gift he could have ever given her: the right to say no.

Sometime before Lauds, when Clio couldn’t find a wink of sleep atop her plush new bed, she had gone up on the battlements and stood there, her back pressed against the cold, damp stones. She stared up at the night sky, where it was so clear that the stars looked as close as the fireflies in the Great Forest beyond.

Once when she was small, she had ventured into that forest and seen strange flecks of light spinning through the air in flitting circles that looked like flaming bees. They had frightened her and she’d run to her mother’s arms, crying.

But her mother carried her back inside the forest, hugging her tightly so she wouldn’t cry, and then had shown her what those flickers of light truly were. Caddis flies were what she had called them.