This Rough Magic Read online

  “It’s warm. I’ll take it any way that I can get it,” Carly replied.

  Jon came back with the coffee. He sat down beside her, offering her a mug. She sipped it, nearly burning her lips. His arm encircled her once more, and she relaxed against it. “Why were you so angry with me?” she murmured.

  He sighed, rubbing his chin on the top of her head, then taking a long swallow of the hot coffee. “I just thought that you were seeing me as some heinous criminal every time that you looked at me. And then Alexi irritated me, I suppose. His family is as old as mine—we were just richer and more powerful. But I promise you—he has a few skeletons in his basement, too. They were medieval landlords, our ancestors. Hell, you Americans still have capital punishment.”

  “I never imagined you taking a whip and chain to anyone,” Carly told him innocently.

  “And I never will,” he teased her in reply, “just as long as you behave.”

  “Jon!”

  He laughed and hugged her. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist, though I suppose I should. Under the circumstances.”

  Carly was silent for a long moment. She swallowed the last of her coffee, then swung on him with determination. “Jon, I do love you, and I believe in you, but you are lying to me.”

  “Carly—”

  She pressed her fingers against his lips. “You are. You’re lying, or you’re evading the truth. There are things that you aren’t telling me.”

  He caught her hand, curled his fingers around it and held it close to his heart. His eyes seared earnestly into hers. “Carly, if there is anything that I’m not telling you, it’s because others are involved. Because I could create more danger. I wouldn’t hurt you in any way if I could prevent it. Can you believe that?”

  She hesitated, but not for long. The same magic that she had felt from the start was stealing over her. When he looked at her like that, she felt her will slip away. Was it hypnotism, or was it love? she wondered. Were they, perhaps, one and the same?

  “Carly?” He tightened his fingers around hers. His eyes were golden fire, burning and consuming, lapping against any pretense she might have made of denial. “It won’t be long,” he promised. “Believe in me. Believe that I love you.”

  She tore her eyes from his and stared at the flames that had taken hold in the hearth and were now burning high. “I wish I could see my sister.”

  “I swear to you, Jasmine is safe.”

  “She was afraid. She begged me to come.”

  “She is safe. I’m certain of it. Honestly.”

  Carly stared back at him. She smiled ruefully. “Everyone implies that you and she were very involved. You deny it.”

  “Yes. I deny it heartily. Whatever you hear, it isn’t the truth. I have never been anything more than a friend to Jasmine.”

  She believed him. She wanted to believe him. No man could speak so sincerely and not be telling the truth. Setting down her cup she leaned forward, and drew an idle pattern on the floor with her forefinger. “Things are so strange here.”

  Watching her, he grinned. The blanket was slipping from her shoulders, and he thought he had never seen a more perfect woman in his life. Her breasts were firm and full and high, and they peeped out from the blanket with wide, rouge-crested peaks, setting his adrenaline flowing again. She was delicately built, with smooth ivory skin that was silk to his touch. Her breasts and shoulders tapered to a slim waist, and beneath it her hips flared out again, fascinating and feminine. Her face was shaped like a heart, with high cheekbones that could give her a cool arrogance to rise above any occasion. Her eyes were the color of a tropical sea. Everything about her was feminine and sexually appealing, and yet part of the great fascination she held for him was in the steady determination and intelligence in those beautiful eyes, wonderful eyes that were wiser than time. And then he was in love with her hair, too. Gold like the sun, like honey, like a field of rippling wheat.

  He reached out and pushed the blanket from her shoulders. Surprised, she turned to him, but he knew the newly risen passion in his gaze must have been very evident. He shrugged the blanket off his own shoulders and rose to his knees before her. He reached out with both hands, cupped her breasts and moved his fingers over the crests again and again. She gasped and rose to her knees, too, planting her hands against his shoulders. He leaned to kiss the pulse at the base of her throat, and she tilted her head to give him free access. He drew her hard against him and availed himself of her breasts, groaning as he tasted the sweet salt of her body and savored the feeling of her nipple against his tongue, in his mouth. He moved his hands down her body and between her legs. He stroked her thighs and ventured higher, and his whole body tensed and tightened and became fully aroused when he rubbed his thumb against her. She moaned against his shoulder, and he captured her lips and then lifted her high above him and brought her back down. She took him into herself slowly, straddled over him, smiling with shy pleasure. Then a strand of gold fell over her eyes and she shuddered, and he cupped her buttocks and she began to move against him.

  He’d never known a woman who could do what she did to him. Just watching her, he became unbearably aroused. He dreamed of her by night, ached for her by day. She rocked against him with shuddering pleasure, and the sensations were wonderful and wildly explosive. He held her, he touched her, he guided her. He swept his hands around her breasts, then cradled her derriere, urging her ever more fiercely against him. He marveled at the beauty in her eyes, at the openness of her passion, and even as the splendor burst in upon him he began to pray that he wouldn’t lose her when she learned the truth.

  She fell against him. Ruffling her hair, he whispered to her in guttural tones what she had just done for him, and added with tenderness just how much he loved her. He held her close and prayed again.

  It wasn’t that he was lying; he was evading the truth. Or maybe he was lying, because nothing about him was real. Nothing but his feelings for her.

  She lay against him. The fire touched her face and lit up her hair. It sent a bronze cast over the sleek, shimmering beauty of her breasts. She smiled at him, and his heart pounded inside his chest. He stood up, sweeping her along with him. Raising a brow to him in question, she wrapped her arms around him with complete trust.

  “The floor got hard,” he explained.

  “Oh,” she said simply. “I could have walked.”

  “Yes, but I suppose I’m just plain macho and all those other things you called me.”

  She was silent.

  “You’re not denying anything,” he told her gruffly. He let her down a little hard on the bed, then crawled up beside her.

  She smiled, threading her fingers through his hair. “What’s to deny?”

  “You’re still mad.”

  “It was horrible behavior.”

  “It was not,” he said.

  “But I will forgive you this time. Because...”

  “Because what?”

  She rolled over on her stomach, trailing her fingers over the hair on his chest. “Well, it was obnoxious. But well...”

  “Well, what, damn it?”

  “I suppose it had its romantic elements, too.”

  “Hmph,” he muttered. She smiled and laid her cheek on the pillow. He put his arm around her. In a few minutes he realized that she had dozed off. He closed his eyes and slept.

  Carly woke first. She didn’t move, just stared at him and appreciated all the fine little things about him. She liked his nose. It was what they called a Roman nose, she supposed. His brow was fine and wide. His hair was as dark as the night, and it fell over his forehead and his eyes in an enchanting way when he slept. She liked his chest. He had wonderful broad shoulders and taut muscles, and she loved the short, crisp flurry of dark hair on his chest that tapered in a line to his navel, and flared out again below his hips.

  She realized that his eyes were open now and that he was surveying her in turn. He stroked her hair. “What happened to your husband, Carly? Jasmine said once that
he was very ill.”

  “Cancer,” she said softly.

  “It must have been very painful.”

  “He was one of the bravest people I ever knew.” And he had been. He had known that he was dying, but he had never complained about his treatments. His only concern had been his life insurance, because he was old-fashioned and had worried about her when he was gone.

  “You must have loved him very much,” Jon murmured.

  “I did.” She propped herself up on an elbow and smiled at him ruefully. “I will always love him. But I love you...too. I really do. So fiercely. It’s different. Do you understand that?”

  He swallowed. She was so honest with him, he thought. She had opened her heart.

  And he was living a lie.

  “I understand completely,” he replied. “You should always love him, Carly. That doesn’t take anything away from us.”

  She picked up his hand and kissed his fingertips. “Nothing can be taken away from us,” she promised him with sweet passion.

  He closed his eyes, praying that what she said was so. When he opened his eyes again, he stared at her with all the heat and fever of his emotion gleaming in his gaze. He clutched her shoulders tightly, barely realizing his force. “I do love you. Remember that. I do love you.”

  She didn’t protest his ferocity. She kissed him, slowly, sweetly. “I believe you.”

  He released her quickly, ruefully, realizing that he was hurting her. “I’m sorry. I just want you to remember that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because—Carly, you just have to trust me for now. There are things happening here that you don’t know about, that you can’t possibly understand. And I’m not involved alone.”

  She listened to him and nodded, then sprang out of bed, naked. He lay back, somewhat awed, glad that she could feel so uninhibited and natural with him.

  “I’m starving,” she said. “Is there anything to eat here?”

  “There should be something.” He tossed the blankets aside and stood up to join her.

  They dug through the cabinets together and found crackers and an assortment of cheeses. Jon found a hard roll of German summer sausage, and they brought the cache back to the bed with them. They ate, spreading different cheeses for each other and dropping tidbits of food into each other’s mouths.

  Then Jon looked at her in that way again, his eyes glowing gold, filled with tension. He cleared the bed of food and fell on top of her, avidly kissing her, sweeping his tongue over her, devouring her as if she were a necessity of life. Gasping with wonder, she quickly joined him in breathless passion, amazed that it could grow even headier, ever more fervent. With his touch, his kiss, he roamed the length of her, doing things that were achingly intimate. He brought her to the brink of ecstasy, then he forced her over the brink and began all over again, coming to her, filling her.

  She slept again and then was stunned to realize that it was dark outside and that they had spent the whole day in the cottage, doing nothing but make love.

  “We should go back,” she murmured.

  He threw one arm over his eyes and answered lazily, “I don’t ever want to go back.”

  Grinning, Carly found her flannel nightgown and threw his jeans none too gently at his replete and outstretched body. “At least you have clothing to go back in!” she chastised him.

  He grinned. “Everyone—and I do mean everyone—will know exactly what we’ve been up to all day.”

  “And you don’t care.”

  “I don’t give a bloody damn. I’m in love.”

  She laughed. She slipped back into her gown, but couldn’t help chiding him one more time. “Mr. Macho! You do what you will, take what you want, and whoever might not like it can go to the devil.”

  He grinned. “I feel just like Tarzan. I’d love to beat my fists against my breast in triumph.”

  In return, Carly sniffed. He laughed and rose, sweeping her against him. He kissed her, then regretfully released her. “I guess we do have to get back.” He stepped into his jeans and zipped them up.

  Carly said, “This is going to be awkward for me. At seven o’clock at night, I’m going to reappear in a flannel nightgown.”

  “What will people think?” Jon teased her.

  “Well, Tanya shouldn’t think anything,” Carly mused. “She has a man in her room almost every night.”

  “What?”

  Jon spun on her so suddenly that she nearly jumped. He was rigid, she saw, and dead serious.

  “She—she meets someone,” Carly said.

  “You’ve seen him?” Jon demanded.

  “No,” Carly said, troubled. She hugged her knees, watching him. “I thought at first that it might be you.”

  He pulled his sweater over his head. She guessed that he was taking the time to regain his composure.

  “No, it’s not me,” he said. “And you know that.” He paused, frowning. “You do know that, don’t you?”

  She smiled. “Yes.”

  He sat on the foot of the bed to put on his socks and boots. “But you don’t know who it is?” he asked her slowly, not looking her way. “Not at all? I mean, is it one of the servants or Geoffrey or Alexi—or who?”

  “I have no idea,” Carly said. “Why? Why is it so important?”

  “Oh, it’s not. I’m just curious. I wonder why she and this man—whoever he is—would want to hide an affair.”

  Carly shrugged. She didn’t know and didn’t care. As long as the man wasn’t Jon.

  “The earring bothers me,” she murmured.

  “What earring?”

  “Jasmine’s earring.”

  He smiled, shaking his head ruefully, “Carly, what are you talking about?”

  She straightened, looking at him reproachfully. “I swear, sometimes I think that you’re trying to make me insane. You run hot and cold, fire and ice. The earring. I told you about it this morning.”

  He looked down at his boot. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember.”

  Carly frowned. That icy little finger of doubt and fear was scratching at her heart again. “We had a fight about it. That’s why I almost left. That was why you trailed after me. That’s why...today,” she said lamely.

  He sat down beside her. He pressed his temples with his palms, then shook his head. “Carly, I’m sorry. Bear with me, please. What is this about the earring?”

  “I found Jasmine’s earring in the carpet.”

  “Well, Jasmine has been at the castle. Recently.”

  She shook her head. Was he losing his mind, or was she losing hers? “I know that. But how come I didn’t see the earring before?”

  “Maybe it isn’t even Jasmine’s,” he said. But she was certain that he was concerned, and puzzled, too.

  “No, I’d know the earring anywhere,” she replied. “It was a present from Dad. There can be only two of them in the world, I’m certain.”

  He rose but didn’t face her. “Well, then, she must have lost it before. And you just didn’t notice it.”

  Carly wondered if he himself believed what he said, yet she was certain that if Jasmine had been near, he would be just as surprised as she.

  “Let’s go back,” he told her, reaching out to her. He pulled her close and kissed her again, long and passionately. “I don’t ever want to forget this day,” he said. “I want to cherish it forever.”

  “Yes....” she whispered.

  “Even though you spent it with a manhandling, manipulative caveman?”

  “It sounds much worse with an English accent,” Carly told him.

  He laughed and went over to kill the fire. Satisfied, he caught her hand. He threw open the door, and the night came in upon them, dark and misty. And dangerous.

  “Satan!” Jon called. “Where are you?”

  They heard a loud snort. Satan, with a mouthful of grass, ambled over to them. “Well, thank goodness you stayed around this afternoon,” Jon told the animal affectionately.

  Carly was amazed that the stall
ion could be so well behaved. She smiled ruefully with sudden doubt. “He ran off on Halloween,” she reminded him.

  “Yes, he did, didn’t he.”

  “And he’s such a well-mannered horse. He wasn’t tied all day, and he’s still right here, ready and waiting.”

  “Some days are better than others.”

  “You know what I think?”

  “What?” Jon grinned. He lifted her up, setting her upon the horse’s back.

  “I think you let him run away on purpose.”

  “Do you think that I would do such a thing?” He mounted behind her.

  “Yes,” Carly said bluntly.

  “Well, maybe.”

  “So you admit it?”

  “I don’t admit a thing,” he said.

  She leaned against him as they rode along. “And then there’s that wolf....”

  It seemed that his arms tightened around her and that he waited expectantly. “Yes?” he murmured, and she detected a wary note in his voice.

  The wolf, the silver-gray timber wolf, she recalled. She had feared he meant to consume her on Halloween. But then he and Jon had been there with her together, and they had seemed to blend into one. When the one disappeared, the other seemed to appear.

  “Never mind,” she said. It was just too ludicrous.

  “Hold tight,” he told her.

  Satan moved swiftly through the mist. In the darkness Carly could see Castle Vadim high above them, grim and foreboding and hauntingly gothic. The lights were on, lights that should have promised warmth.

  They clattered back into the courtyard. It was almost dinnertime. Geoffrey, Alexi and Tanya, all dressed to the hilt, were already on the terrace, watching as Satan stopped in the courtyard.

  Carly decided she just had to brave it out. She slid down from the horse without Jon’s help. “That was really a beautiful ride. Thank you,” she told him. She met Tanya’s wide eyes. “Oh, are we really that late? I’ll dress quickly.” No one said anything. She offered them all a sweeping smile and hurried up the stairs.

  She was in love. When she closed the door behind her, she burst into laughter and realized that she was already dreaming of the night to come.

  She bathed and dressed with special care, because she was euphoric and dreamed of meeting him again that night. She longed to sleep beside him in a comfortable bed. She longed to feel his warmth through the night. She longed for him to waken and want to make love.