“What? Would you have me imprison her as I did Father Bonafil?”
“Perhaps it would drive some sense into her vacuous little mind! I cannot believe you intend to marry this woman. Nor am I the only one.”
He ranted on and Abramm let him go, for it was not unexpected and Simon didn’t understand. He finally left in a fit of helpless exasperation.
After that Abramm returned to his apartments with Trap and Katahn, who presented him with the two Ophiran books he’d brought, and further information about Esurh. They sat in the sitting room until the wee hours, drinking brandy and talking until Abramm finally noticed the older man’s fatigue and had mercy. But as soon as he was gone, Abramm understood at least part of why he’d been so indefatigable in his questions and suppositions. With Katahn out of the room, he was left alone with Trap. And Trap had been far too quiet and watchful this night.
Indeed, they weren’t alone more than a handful of breaths before his friend said, “Well, that was quite a diatribe your betrothed let loose tonight.”
Abramm studied his brandy snifter and frowned.
“I have to say, though,” Meridon went on, “your reaction has surprised me. I’d have expected you to be more shocked and hurt than you seem.”
“I am shocked.”
“But not hurt.”
Abramm looked up testily. “What is this? I’m not upset enough for your taste, so you’re trying to stoke the fire a bit? Why should I be hurt? I’m well aware she dislikes me.”
Trap grimaced. “I suppose you have a point.” He paused, fingering his own snifter, then said, “I thought Maddie did an astonishing work with that song. She does her music no service by giving it to others to perform.”
Which took Abramm so completely by surprise there was no way he could stop the blood from rushing into his face. “Yes,” he said tightly, “it was beautiful.”
Beautiful. Haunting. Intimate. The song and voice had tapped into powerful, deeply buried feelings—felt first in Esurh as the White Pretender and felt now as King of Kiriath: alone, trapped, and yearning with all his soul for that which he could not have. Home and freedom and the joy of true love. With that peculiar propensity of hers, she had once more invaded his soul, finding all the right strings to pluck, playing his heart as expertly as she’d played her lirret until everything in him resonated with the piece.
Nor had he failed to notice how fetching she looked in that peasant girl’s costume, with its low, wide neckline and the tightly cinched bodice.
Across from him, Trap sighed and said quietly, “What kind of game are you playing here, Abramm?”
Abramm turned to him sharply, frowning. “I’m not playing any kind of game!”
But Trap only met his gaze evenly for a long, breathless moment. Then he snorted and looked away. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
Abramm’s frown deepened. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, and frankly it’s been too long a day for this.”
“Indeed it has, my lord. I shall take my leave, then, if you wish.”
“Do that, sir. I will see you tomorrow when the cabinet meets.”
But then he was left alone with his thoughts, and that was even worse. Hal helped him remove the doublet and cravat and put them away. Finally, stripped down to breeches and shirt, he sat and looked through the books, trying hard to keep his mind off all the events of this very full day and most particularly off Maddie and her song.
“And I dream of the meadows, green gold ’neath the sun, sweet with the dew of the morn. . . .”
After pacing awhile, he decided he should see the books safely ensconced in the library before he retired, and went to do that. Stepping through the illusion-cloaked doorway into the quiet mustiness of this hidden place was like a balm. There was a sense of peace here that wrapped around him like a warm blanket. Even the mustiness appealed. Maybe he would never reveal its presence. . . .
Smiling at the thought, he laid the books on the nearest desk, and then, instead of turning round and stepping back into his study, he moved toward the window.
He stood before it, staring at the city, the river with its scattering of barge lights and the nine bridges arching over it. Moving rafts of clouds hung low overhead, blown in on the wind since sundown, shifting and shredding against the full moon now high in the sky. The same wind whistled through the eaves and beat against the window glass, the trees tossing before it in a dark, crawling sea of movement below.
Something seemed to unwind in him, leaving him feeling bruised and battered. It wasn’t true that Briellen’s outburst hadn’t hurt. It had, probably more than he realized right now. But it had come at a time when it didn’t . . .matter.
He touched the scars on his face, stroking the slick, raised length of them, thinking of the woman who called them badges of honor, who said they spoke of his courage and his pain. . . . The melody from Maddie’s ballad rang through his mind, carried by her sweet, haunting voice. “And I long for the green and the sun on my face and my true love who waits for me there. . . .”
The words she sang seemed to have come straight from her heart . . . a communication she dared not make any other way. She loved him. Deep down, he’d known it since the day he’d faced the morwhol, but yesterday’s incident with the bedgown scarf had made him acknowledge it as he had refused to do before. And in acknowledging that, he had to acknowledge the other part of it: her love was not unreturned.
Was that why Briellen had been so vicious tonight? Had she seen some of that performance? Or had it happened before, and she’d seen what Trap and Carissa and Channon and Eidon alone knew who else had seen for months now? That her husband-to-be cared nothing for her and everything for her sister?
He stepped closer to the window and bumped into what he’d thought was a pile of fabric spilling off the bench. Barely visible in the shadow, he’d taken it for a furniture covering cast aside when they had first discovered this place, but the moment he made contact with it, he knew his mistake. He jumped backward and sideways even as it lurched up with a small cry, and then the person—for he saw it was a person—cringed back against the embrasure as if fearful he meant to attack.
The form, the scent, the voice, the distinctive pattern of Chesedhan braiding—even with only the moonlight he recognized them instantly. “Maddie!” But recognition unloosed such a flood of emotion in him that he could do no more than speak her name and after that stood frozen, staring at her.
He had moved somewhat to his right in his jump backward and crouched now at an angle, facing her where she sat on the bench opposite him, moonlight flooding through the window at her side. It spun silver glints into her tawny hair and reflected provocatively off the pale expanse of neck and bosom above the swooping ruffled neckline of her peasant’s blouse. The costume’s tightly laced bodice accentuated her fine full figure, and her eyes on him were deep and dark from the dim light. She had never looked more beautiful.
When the emotion had subsided enough for his mind to start working again, his first thought was that he should turn and walk away immediately. The realization that he was standing there ready to tear her limb from limb was his second.
He straightened out of his crouch and lowered his hands to his sides. “It’s long after midnight, my lady! What are you doing here?”
She leaped up from the bench, words tumbling out of her. “I just came to return a book and did not mean to stay. It was only to be for a moment. But then I didn’t want to go back to my chambers. I was afraid Leyton would be there wanting to talk, and I’ve just had enough of my siblings for one day. There’s such a sense of peace here. And I guess I needed a place to think and pray. But I certainly didn’t intend to fall asleep, and—” She blinked at him. “What are you doing here, my lord?”
He couldn’t help but smile. “Well, it is my library, my lady. In my chambers.”
“Oh. Right.”
“I wanted to see the books Katahn brought me were safely stowed before I retired for the night.?
?? And now that he’d done that, he should leave. They were alone here, without fear of interruption, and the desire to touch her— and be touched by her—was growing more unmanageable by the moment. Best to leave. Best to say his good-nights right now and turn away.
“So you’ve brought them,” she said, apparently trying to sound natural, and failing.
“Yes,” he said. “Would you like to see them?”
“I would.”
But neither of them moved to act on this suggestion. Instead his hand once more betrayed him, drawn up to what looked like the dried track of tear running down her cheek. Her lips parted at his touch, and she trembled visibly as his fingertips trailed down the tear track to her jawline. “It’s been a difficult evening,” he murmured.
“Aye, it has.” She stared up at him, not the slightest bit confused by his sudden change of subject.
“But your song was beautiful. . . . I felt as if you sang it just for me.”
“I did,” she whispered, and he saw in her eyes the same yearning that had so infused her sweet voice as she’d sung. A yearning he could no longer deny that he shared. “I want you,” he’d told her in the teahouse, thinking at the time he meant only her wit and her research, believing later it was just stress and natural physical needs prompting him, and forced now to admit that what he wanted was far more than any of that.
She stood less than a forearm’s length away from him, though he had no recollection of either of them closing the gap that had been between them. Having followed the tear track to its end, his fingers wandered off on their own, exploring the contours of her face—brows, temple, cheekbone, nose, lips, jawline, neck . . . She closed her eyes, reveling in his touch, her face tipped up, her chest rising and falling erratically. A moment more he hesitated, the voice of conscience telling him again that he should leave. Then he bent his head and laid his lips on hers. . . .
And was forever changed.
Night became day, and darkness, light. What had been by comparison only faint stirrings in his heart now exploded into knee-weakening passion. Her arms came up around his neck as he crushed her to him. It was as if she had sometime in the past been ripped forcibly from his flesh and was now being drawn back just as forcibly. The Light flashed and flared within them, binding them together as it never had before.
A book-laden table standing beside the embrasure tipped over with a crash. That, followed by the sudden strong sense of being watched brought him sharply and stunningly to his senses. He pulled his mouth free of hers and straightened, staring down at her in horror. Oh, my Lord . . . what have I done?
She looked up at him dazedly, hands resting on his shoulders. Desire rose in him again and very nearly mastered him. For a moment he didn’t care that someone was coming. Didn’t care that they would be found. That they were intended to be found.
He shook it off, staring down at her, stricken. “Forgive me, my lady,” he whispered. “That never should have happened.”
With that he turned and fled, blundering out through the cold wall of the enspelled doorway—and stopping dead to find Byron Blackwell standing right there, holding a night candle and looking away through the study door into the sitting chamber. He turned back, saw Abramm, and started violently. “My lord! I didn’t realize you were here!” His gaze flicked around the room, a puzzled crease between his brows.
“What are you doing here, Blackwell?”
The man had a very odd look on his face. Abramm could not help but think of the tendril he’d come to know as Saeral’s touch and wonder . . . but the thought was swept away before it could be completed.
“I came to bring you this.” Blackwell held out a book, peering around the king as he did to look at the niche through which Abramm had just emerged. “Didn’t there used to be something else here? A table, perhaps?”
“You’ll have to ask Haldon,” Abramm said, a trifle louder than he needed, hoping Maddie heard him and would have wit enough to keep herself hidden in the library till Blackwell was gone. “He has charge of such matters.”
“I do think he’s changed it.”
“It’s well after three in the morning, Byron. Why are you discussing the furniture with me?”
“Sorry, sir.” Blackwell’s spectacles glittered in the dim light. “Are you well, my lord? You look . . . a bit flushed.”
How the plague can he tell I’m flushed in the dark?
But again the suspicion was washed away and he was left only with the question of his wellness. “I’ve had a difficult night, Count Blackwell. And I’m very tired.”
“Yes, that Briellen does seem to be quite a handful. Marrying her will take a true act of courage, I believe.”
“If that is all you have to say to me, sir,” Abramm said irritably, “then I bid you good-night.”
But it seemed to him that he saw on Byron’s face, just as he turned away, a small smile of satisfaction.
CHAPTER
23
Sleep was slow in coming to the king that night. Despite his protestations of fatigue to Blackwell, once the man had departed, Abramm stepped into his sitting chamber and went out onto the balcony for a while, hoping Maddie would take her cue to slip out the back entrance. Standing beneath the shifting clouds, he welcomed the chill, damp air for its cooling effect on his overheated mind and body, while he castigated himself for his loss of control. Why hadn’t he listened to that little voice of conscience and left the moment he realized she was there? Because he thought he was strong enough to wrestle down the urges struggling inside of him. And for that arrogance, came far too close to committing the same sin with Maddie as he had with Shettai.
The thought made him shudder anew.
I’ll just have to keep away from her, he told himself. We’ll have to reveal the library and move the books. Go back to using Jemson as the go-between. Yes, it would be an obvious departure from his recent behavior, and yes, the courtiers would talk and no doubt rightly surmise why he was doing it. But what choice did he have?
You could marry Madeleine instead of Briellen. . . . After that outburst tonight, Leyton just might find a way to accept it.
But he dismissed the thought at once, knowing it could never be, and shoved himself away from the balustrade to pace beside it. He paced and prayed, and reproached himself until the clouds had obscured the sky, and the moon had been reduced to a faint light shining through them halfway to the unseen horizon in the west.
Finally, thinking Maddie surely must have left by now, he reentered his apartments, thoroughly chilled, and fell asleep in his under blouse and breeches across the foot of the bed, the strains of her haunting voice drifting through his dreams.
His sleep was fitful, plagued with erotic dreams that culminated in a sequence where he met her in the library again. This time desire won over conscience, driving his dream self to take from her what only a wedded husband had the right to—right there on the bench of the window embrasure. It was as wonderful as he had imagined and he did it without a pang of guilt. Then, in the way of dreams, the scene shifted and he found himself not on the window seat, but on the ledge outside Xorofin, lying in a pool of blood, Maddie dead in his arms.
He jumped up with a great shout of “No!” and his anguish was so piercing, so overwhelming, it tore him from the nightmare. He found himself sitting up in his canopied bed in the shadows surrounding the small kelistar gleaming on its nightstick beside the bed. No ledge, no Maddie, no blood. . . .But as soon as his wits returned, he recalled the real incident in his library only hours ago and his gut cramped. Lurching up from the bed, he snatched the washbasin from atop the side cabinet and vomited into it.
When he was done, he found Haldon at his side, offering a glass of water.
He took it without meeting the other man’s gaze, aware of Jared standing wide-eyed just inside the back bedchamber door. Durstan and Smyth stood behind the boy in the shadowy back hall. Abramm said nothing to any of them as he rinsed out his mouth and wiped his lips with a trembling hand.
He rinsed again and handed the glass back. Then he stood staring at the floor, forcing himself to take deep, slow breaths as he grimly pushed back the terror.
“Is it spore, my lord?” Haldon said in a low voice.
“No.”
“Something you ate, then?”
“Leave me alone, Hal.”
The chamberlain departed like a wraith, leaving the king to step onto his balcony again, where dawn was just beginning to lighten the cloud-bound sky. He felt like a rag, soaked and wrung out again, twisted and trembling and weak. If he’d had the strength he might have gone down to the lake for a row. As it was he contented himself with pacing until gradually he began to feel himself again. And knew what he must do. He stopped and stood staring out over the city and the pewter ribbon of the River Kalladorne, dull and muted in the growing light of a gray day. Rain scent hung in the air.
Oh, my Lord . . . he wailed inwardly. If there is any other way . . .
But there was not. His dream had made that clear. The next time . . . But there must not be a next time. He had only to figure out the details of his plan . . . and then maintain the nerve and strength of will to carry it out.
It would be the hardest thing he had ever done in his life.
————
Maddie had indeed waited until she heard Blackwell’s footfalls recede, and then Abramm’s after him. The protracted silence that ensued assured her he was waiting for her to depart, and finally she peered through the enspelled doorway into the deserted study. The servants’ wait room still flickered with one dim light, but she slipped out without being discovered and returned to her chambers without seeing a soul.
If she thought her emotions on a wild sea before, it was nothing compared to now. The highs were glorious, so lofty, so powerfully exultant her flesh could hardly contain them. She sat on her bed, alone, and recalled the shock of seeing him standing in the library before her, followed by the warm rush of excitement as she’d realized he wasn’t going to walk away like she expected. Recalled the rapture of feeling his fingers on her face and then his lips covering her own, his arms around her, her body turned to fire. Better than she had dreamed, by far. . . .