The Magic Between Us

  “I haven’t said I’ll accept you back in my life,” she warned, holding up a finger to stay him.

  He smiled. He couldn’t help it. “You lied to me about your availability.” The joviality in his voice made his comments sound like a song.

  She blew a lock of hair from her forehead with an upturned breath. “And I’m pretty sure you lied too,” she said. She looked away, suddenly appearing uneasy. “How many women have there been since you’ve been here, Marcus?” she finally asked. “I have a right to know.”

  A laugh bubbled up within him, but he tamped it down. “There’s only you, you ninny,” he said, flicking his finger against the tip of her nose. “How could I possibly be with another when you’re all I can think about?”

  Marcus drew her into his arms, with her protesting all the while. He laughed at her reticence, but he needed to hold her. “You had better not be lying,” she murmured against his chest. “I will find out if you are.”

  “Cece,” he said. He didn’t know how to tell her everything that was in his heart. But he felt it was imperative that he try.

  “Let me show you.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a vial of faerie dust. He tilted it back and forth in his hand, and Cecelia watched the glow of the flakes. He dumped a lump of it into his palm and blew it into the air. He said the words, “Show my love my heart.”

  The dust began to swirl and formed a picture of Marcus with his ring on the day his father gave it to him. The words “faith,” “trust,” and “honor” appeared in the apparition. But then they were replaced by sorrow. Sorrow, despair, and dissatisfaction trumped happiness, and the second words gobbled up the first in their greedy jaws. Marcus wiped a tear from the corner of Cecelia’s eye. He swiped a hand through the dust and it dissipated, falling to the floor of the garden like sparks from the grate. Dust didn’t lie. He’d been as torn in two as she had over their separation.

  “I had a lot to think about when I first came here.”

  “Your sisters?” she asked.

  Yes, he’d had to get his sisters out of one scrape or another. But then he’d gone home and his grandfather had died. And he’d taken some part of Marcus with him. “My sisters, and then my parents.” He’d wanted so badly to have parents. “I felt like I needed to make them love me, since they hadn’t done so my whole life. And I worried that the only way to do that was to dedicate myself to their way of life.” He brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “That’s the crux of it. And I’m sorry.”

  She said something quietly against his chest.

  “What was that?” he asked, pulling back from her.

  She looked up at him, her blue eyes like limpid pools he could fall into. “I am not ready to forgive you yet.”

  “My father warned me that you wouldn’t be so easy to sway.”

  She elbowed him in the ribs. “You talked to your father about us?”

  “Who else am I going to talk to? Allen? He’d just as soon take you from me as help me.”

  “Allen’s not so bad.” She took his hand and led him back to the bench. She sat down and pointed to her lap. “Come on. Put your head here.” She motioned him forward with wiggly fingers.

  Oh, thank heavens. He could breathe again. He stretched out on his back and laid his head in her lap. The firmness of her thigh made him feel like he was coming home. She didn’t put her hands in his hair right away, and he needed for her to touch him. He wouldn’t feel complete until she did.

  “Tell me what it was like for you when I left,” he said. He might as well hear it. He would have to hear it so he could help her get past it, because the fact that she wasn’t touching him, aside from letting his head lie in her lap, was telling. She still had some reservations.

  “Someone took away my best friend,” she said. “Only it wasn’t like he was stolen. It was like he ran away from me. He went as quickly and as far away as he could. He went to a different world. I had no one to tell my secrets to. No one to tell me ridiculous tales just to make me laugh. No one to talk to about the horrible happenings in my life…” Her voice tapered off.

  “My tales are not ridiculous,” he grumbled playfully. He lay on his back and looked up into her blue eyes. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “Can you ever forgive me?”

  Her hand finally lifted, as though of its own accord, and she began to slowly run her fingers through his hair. “Perhaps someday,” she said, but a smile broke across her face.

  He snorted. “I don’t expect you to make it easy.”

  Her eyes met his. “I’d say I’ve made it pretty easy so far.”

  “So,” he prompted, “there was no one else back home who took your attention?”

  She looked away from him for a moment, so he jostled her arm. She looked down at him and lightly tapped his forehead. “Be quiet and look at the stars,” she said.

  “I’d so much rather look at you,” he breathed, cupping her cheeks with his hands. She looked into his eyes, her hair falling around her face. He brought a lock of it to his nose and sniffed it. She smelled like sunshine. She always had.

  “Stop looking at me,” she groused, but she turned her head and kissed the palm of his hand. The heat shot straight to his groin, and he raised a knee in hopes she wouldn’t notice how she affected him.

  “Cece,” he whispered.

  “What?” she whispered back dramatically.

  “I want to kiss you,” he said softly.

  “You already did that,” she replied just as quietly.

  “I want to do it again and again, until I get it right.”

  “I’d say that last kiss was right.” Her skin flushed and she closed her eyes.

  “I was afraid I would do it wrong,” he confessed. “I’ve wanted to kiss you since the moment I saw you in the ballroom. And every day before that. Every day we’ve been apart.”

  “That kiss was a welcome surprise,” she admitted. “But you didn’t give me much of a choice.”

  “We can practice,” he suggested, a grin tugging at the corners of his lips.

  “Maybe,” she said with a wistful sigh.

  “Maybe?” Certainly she wasn’t serious.

  “I think this courtship thing is supposed to go slowly.”

  If it went any more slowly, Marcus would lose his mind. He’d tasted her. He’d finally kissed her and had her back in his arms. And now she wanted to go slowly. “How slow?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Perhaps I should ask your mother how things are done here.” She laughed. “Though perhaps not about kissing specifically.”

  “Are you serious? My mother would be overjoyed that I’m kissing you.” He pulled her hand down to lie flat on his chest and covered it with his. Her fingers played in his hair. “She helped me make a list of things I could do to win you back.”

  “And just what was on this list?”

  “I’ll never tell.”

  She slapped his chest. “Tell me!” she cried.

  “I may need to use that list in the future,” he said with a laugh. “In the odd instance that I make you angry at me.”

  “I would say that’s a given,” she warned.

  “You won’t leave me, will you?”

  She quieted for a moment. “Will you leave me?”

  “Never again,” he swore.

  “Promise?” she asked, her voice quiet.

  “I swear on my life.” He sat up and turned to her, sliding as close as he could without pulling her inside him. He tugged her legs over his lap and turned her to face him.

  “Marcus,” she complained.

  Her skirt showed her trim, silk-clad ankle, and Marcus moved to toss her dress back down. “I’ll never make it to the reading of the banns,” he swore.

  “What?” Her brows drew together.

  “In this world, you have to declare your inten
t to marry. And there’s this thing called ‘the reading of the banns’ that takes three weeks. If you don’t want to wait, we can get a special license.”

  “Did I say I would marry you?” she teased.

  “I’ll drag you kicking and screaming to Scotland and marry you over an anvil if I have to,” he warned. He lowered his voice to a whisper as he cupped her cheek in his palm. “I think we should practice that kissing thing from earlier, just to be sure we did it right.”

  His lips touched hers, and she sat forward to reach him. Marcus was almost certain he couldn’t do this wrong, but her response to him was a salve to his soul. She murmured against his mouth, and when he drew her bottom lip between his, she gasped and wrapped her arms around his neck, hitching herself higher into his lap.

  ***

  Ronald stood in the foliage and looked everywhere but at Marcus and Cecelia. He kicked at a rock with the toe of his boot and started to walk away. But when he turned, he bumped directly into a body. A small body. One proportionally his size. One that smelled like violets. One that smelled like home. “Millicent,” he gasped. “What are you doing here?”

  He hadn’t seen Milly in months, and by the look on her face, she didn’t intend to let him forget it. “Cece sent for me,” Milly admitted. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve brought a mission for Marcus. What kind of a mission are you on?”

  “You know I can’t tell you,” she began.

  “You know you will,” he cajoled, stepping closer to her. He reached out to touch her, and she swayed toward him. “Are you well?” he asked. He lowered his hand just before he embarrassed himself and brought the gnome to rest in his arms. “Tell me,” he prompted.

  “It has to do with her father.”

  “Is he unwell?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t tell you.”

  “Will it ruin Marcus?” Ronald asked.

  Milly put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “You worry about your family, and I’ll worry about mine,” she snapped.

  “Milly,” he cajoled. “They just found their way back together.” He pushed the foliage to the side. “Look at them.”

  Marcus and Cecelia were locked in a passionate embrace. “Go and get your faerie, will you?” Milly asked. “I need to take mine with me.” She shot him a glance. “In other words, get yours off mine.”

  Ronald would have liked nothing more than to have his whatever on hers. But he assumed she meant Marcus and Cecelia. He wouldn’t separate them. Not right now.

  “I won’t like what you’re planning to do, will I?” he asked.

  “You won’t like it at all,” she said with a heavy sigh.

  “There’s no way around it?”

  “None.”

  “Will she be coming back?”

  “I know not the future,” she said softly.

  He reached out and took her hand in his, rubbing his thumb along the back of it. “When can I see you again?”

  She shook her head. She nodded toward Marcus and Cecelia. “I’ll come back for her later.”

  “Please don’t.”

  “I can’t help it. She’s my family. I have to take care of her. The Trusted Few have called.”

  “She better be here when he wakes up tomorrow,” he growled.

  “We shall see,” she breathed.

  “Young love,” he said with a laugh that sounded forced, even to his own ears.

  “I don’t remember what that’s like,” Milly whispered.

  Ronald did. He turned to pull Milly to him, but she was gone.

  Nine

  Cecelia closed the door and leaned heavily against it. She raised a hand to her lips and smiled. No one had ever told her that kissing in the garden could leave a person with aching lips. Among other parts. Marcus had pulled her into his lap and proceeded to kiss her senseless. He’d licked and nibbled and sucked, and then he’d done it some more. She laughed lightly to herself and spun around.

  “Had a good night, did you?” a voice said from her window. Cecelia raised a hand to her heart, startled at the sudden interruption.

  “Milly,” she breathed. “Thank goodness it’s you,” she said. “You’ll never believe what happened.”

  “I’m quite aware of what happened, miss,” Milly said. “I stopped in the garden to find you.” The gnome glared across the room.

  “What?” Cecelia asked, as heat crept up her cheeks. “We didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Milly ground her teeth. “Wrong is in the eye of the beholder,” she warned.

  “It was just a kiss,” Cecelia grumbled. “You could pretend to be happy for me.”

  “I would be happy for you if I thought your relationship had a chance to flourish.” Milly’s frown was disturbing.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re needed at home,” Milly said. “There’s no time to pack your things. We’ll be traveling tonight.”

  “What?” Cecelia gasped. “I can’t possibly go home now. I’m not supposed to return until the moonful.”

  “It’s your father,” Milly said quietly. Her eyes filled with tears. Milly had been with Cecelia’s family her whole life. She sniffed the tears back and straightened her spine. “Your father is unwell.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “He’s unwell,” Milly said with a shake of his head. “And he’s unable to fulfill his duties as one of the Trusted Few.”

  “Is he drinking again?” Cecelia asked. Of course he was. Milly’s face revealed every thought that entered her pretty little head.

  “He’s unwell.”

  “He was fine when I left. Dry as a desert in summer. He hasn’t drunk for more than a month.” Her father had been surprisingly healthy, not the way he was in the months following her mother’s death.

  “He took your leaving hard,” Milly admitted.

  “But he knew I would be back.”

  “Your father doesn’t like to be alone,” Milly said.

  That much was true. He never had liked to be alone. When Cecelia’s mother was alive, he’d drink occasionally. But he was a funny drunk. He wasn’t angry or mean. He simply drank, had a really good time, and then went to sleep. Her mother would tuck him into bed, and then she would apologize to the community for whatever he’d done or said, and then he would not drink for a few days.

  After her mother died, he’d changed. Drinking no longer made him amusing. He was cruel. He did things that were disturbing, like break things. And he got into a fight or two. To tell the truth, Cecelia was relieved when they’d asked her to go to the other world to help out with Marcus. She’d assumed Marcus’s grandmother had called for her specifically to give her some respite from her father. Everyone who lived among the fae knew how desperately she needed a holiday. Was that too much to ask?

  “What did he do this time?” Cecelia bit out.

  “He harmed someone,” Milly admitted.

  “Did he punch someone? It wasn’t Mr. Randall, was it?” When they drank together, the two of them could get into all sorts of scrapes.

  “It was Mr. Randall, but your father didn’t punch him. It was worse.”

  “How much worse?” Cecelia dropped onto the side of the bed, her limbs suddenly as heavy as two anvils. She’d gone from buoyant to weighted in a matter of moments. Only her father had a knack for doing that.

  “Mr. Randall was injured in their altercation. And they had to use the healing waters to help him.”

  The healing waters were for emergencies only. Only the dying were permitted to drink from the pool.

  Milly grimaced as she went on. “They fought, and Mr. Randall hit his head.” She held up a hand to stop Cecelia’s next words. “He’s recovering, but slowly. And the Trusted Few have decided not to let this be brushed under the rug. Your father will stand trial.”

/>   “But it was an accident,” Cecelia protested.

  “They don’t consider it to be an accident when it happens this many times.”

  “He’s just lonely,” Cecelia rationalized. She could rationalize this, couldn’t she? Her father was a harmless sot. Most days. She raised a hand to her own cheek. There was the time… But that was neither here nor there.

  “The Trusted Few have called for you to come home. Tonight.”

  Cecelia nodded. “Let me write a note for Marcus,” she said.

  The wind that the Trusted Few had sent for her blew through the open window. “We don’t have time. They’re sending the wind to pick you up.”

  The wind only swirled, carrying the fae back and forth from the land of the fae, on the night of the moonful, unless there were special circumstances. “This is worse than I thought.”

  “Yes, it is,” Milly confirmed. Her face fell. “It’s pretty bad.”

  “What about his seat with the Trusted Few?”

  “It’s falling to you.”

  Cecelia laid a hand upon her chest. “Me?” she cried.

  “You’re his only child. His seat automatically falls to you.”

  “I’m seven-and-twenty. I can’t rule the land of the fae. Not like those crusty old men.” She couldn’t rule alongside them. She simply couldn’t. It wouldn’t work out.

  “They wouldn’t be so adamant about this if Marcus hadn’t given up his seat,” Milly informed her.

  Cecelia had nearly forgotten that Marcus had given up his place within the governing body of their world.

  “With his seat empty, they can continue, though they’ll be limping. But with two seats empty, they cannot continue.” Milly cocked her head to the side. “Do you intend to relinquish your seat?”

  Cecelia raised a hand to her mouth and nibbled absently at a fingernail. She had a lot of decisions to make. “Can I do that?” she asked.

  “You can do anything you want.” Milly’s voice showed no inflection. And that was telling all by itself.

  The wind tugged at the hem of Cecelia’s dress, and her hair began to pull toward the window. “The wind is persistent tonight,” she said.