A Caress of Twilight - Page 6/22

Chapter 11

Julian had gone after Maeve. It left young Frank standing by the exit looking lost. His eyes were too large in his pale, startled face. I doubted Frank had ever seen a sidhe in her full power.

I was still kneeling, the glow beginning to fade from my skin, when Doyle came to stand beside me. "Princess, are you well?"

I looked up at him and realized I must have looked a little startled myself. I could feel the heat on my mouth where her lips had touched mine. It was like I'd taken a sip of spring sunshine.

"Princess?"

I nodded. "I'm all right." But my voice came out hoarse, and I had to clear my throat before I said, "I've just never ..." I tried to put it into words. "She tasted like sunshine. And until this second I didn't know that sunshine tasted like anything."

Doyle knelt beside me and spoke softly. "It is always difficult to be touched by those who hold such elemental powers."

I frowned at him. "She said she thought it was the men she needed to be afraid of. What did she mean by that?"

"Think how you were after just a few years alone out here... and magnify that by a human century."

I felt my eyes widen. "You mean she's attracted to me." I shook my head before he could say anything. "She's attracted to the first sidhe she's touched in a hundred years."

"Do not underestimate yourself, Meredith, but I have never heard it said that Conchenn was a lover of women, so, yes, it is the touch of sidhe flesh that she craves."

I sighed. "I cannot blame her." And then another thought occurred to me. "You don't think she's invited us here to ask if I'll share one of you with her?"

Doyle's dark eyebrows raised over the top of his sunglasses. "I had not thought of such a thing." He seemed to be thinking about what I'd said. "I suppose it is possible." He frowned. "But it would be the height of rudeness to ask such a thing. We are not merely your lovers but potential husbands. It is not casual."

"You said it yourself, Doyle, she's been alone for a century. A hundred years might wear down anyone's sense of politeness."

There was movement behind us; we turned to find Frost already on his feet facing the entrance. It was Rhys. "What have you guys been doing in here?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

He gestured at Doyle and me kneeling on the floor. There was still the faintest of glows to my skin like a memory of moonlight.

I let Doyle help me to my feet; I was strangely unsteady. Maeve had caught me off guard, true, but I'd been touched a great deal more by other sidhe and not been this shaken.

I spoke. "Maeve Reed dropped her glamour."

Rhys's eye widened. "I felt it outside. You're telling me that all she did was drop her glamour?"

I nodded.

He gave a low whistle. "Sweet Goddess."

"And that is the point," Doyle said.

Rhys looked at him. "What do you mean?"

"We have all been worshipped in the past, but for most of us it is in the long past. For Conchenn it has been less than three hundred years. She was still being worshipped in Europe when we were asked to... leave."

"So you're saying that she's got more power because she was being worshipped?" Rhys asked.

"Not more power," Doyle said, "but more..."

"Oomph," I suggested.

"I am unfamiliar with the word," he said.

"More... jazz, more bite, more crack to the whip." I waved my hands in the air. "I don't know. Rhys knows what I mean."

He came down the three steps to the living room. "Yeah, I know what you mean. She's got more of a charge to her magic."

Doyle finally nodded. "I will accept that."

Frost came to stand with us. Doyle looked at him from behind dark glasses, and the bigger man hesitated, frowning. "I have an insight to add, my captain."

The two men carefully measured each other. I interrupted. "What's wrong with you two? If Frost has something to add, then let him say it."

Frost continued to look at Doyle, as if waiting. Finally, Doyle gave one quick nod. Frost gave a small bow. "I have watched movies on Meredith's television set. I have seen how humans react to these movie stars. Their adoration of the actors is a type of worship."

We all looked at him. It was Rhys who whispered, "Lord and Lady, if anyone could prove that she's been worshipped..." He let his voice trail off.

Doyle finished the thought for him. "Then there would be grounds to exile us all from this country. The one thing we were forbidden to do was set ourselves up to be worshipped as gods."

I shook my head. " She did not set herself up to be worshipped as a deity. She was just trying to earn a living."

The men thought about that for a few seconds, then finally Doyle nodded. "The princess is correct by law."

"I don't think Maeve intended to get around the law," I said.

He shook his head. "I do not mean to imply otherwise, but whatever her intent, she has the added benefit of having been worshipped by humans for the last forty years. A human movie star cannot take advantage of that kind of energy exchange, but Maeve is sidhe, and she will know exactly how to use such energy."

"What does that say about the models and actors in Europe that have sidhe blood in them?" I asked. "Or even the royal families of Europe? Sidhe had to marry into all the royal houses of Europe to cement the last great treaty. Are they all taking extra benefit from their human admirers?"

"It is not something I can speak to," Doyle said.

"I'll take a guess at it," Rhys said.

Doyle frowned at him, and the look was clear even through the dark glasses. "We are not paid to guess."

Rhys grinned through his fake beard. "Think of it as an extra plus when you hire me."

Doyle lowered the glasses enough for Rhys to see his eyes.

"Ooh," Rhys said. Then, laughing, he said, "I'll bet that anyone with enough sidhe blood in them can gain power from all that human adoration. They may not be aware of it, but how else do you explain the successful reigns of the royal houses with the highest percentage of sidhe blood? All are still active, while the houses that took the sidhe only once treated it like a plague and stopped, and they have died out."

Julian came back into the room. "Ms. Reed has requested that this meeting continue out by the pool, unless there is some strong objection against it."

"I don't see a problem with taking this outside on such a beautiful day," I said.

"Nor I," Doyle said.

The others agreed -- everyone but Kitto. He was still huddled by the couch. I finally had to go to him and take his hand. He whispered, "It will be very open and very bright out there."

Kitto had spent centuries inside the dark cramped tunnels of the goblin mound. I'd always wondered why in the old stories the goblins always fought under a dark sky, as if they brought the darkness of the ground with them. If they were all as bothered by openness and light as Kitto, maybe they couldn't have fought without their darkness. Or maybe it was just Kitto. I shouldn't make such a wide assumption based on only one goblin.

I took his hand in mine and led him like a child. "You can stay by me. If it gets to be too much, Frost can take you back to the van."

"Is there some problem?" Julian asked.

"He's agoraphobic."

"Oh, my," Julian said.

"If he wishes to remain here in L.A., he's got to work on it," I said.

Julian gave a small nod of his head, almost a bow. "As you like, he is your... employee."

Kitto was one of the few guards who did not work for the agency. He just wasn't suited for that kind of work. I wasn't sure what kind of work he was suited for, but it wasn't bodyguard work, and it wasn't detecting. But I didn't correct Julian about Kitto's status.

"If you're sure?" Julian made it a question.

I gripped Kitto's hand more firmly. "I'm sure."

"Then follow me, Princess, gentlemen." He started down the hallway that Maeve had fled down, and we followed. Doyle insisted on walking first and insisted that Frost go last. I ended up in the middle with Rhys on one side and Kitto on the other. Rhys took my other hand and tried to get me to skip down the hallway, while he hummed "We're off to See the Wizard" under his breath.

Chapter 12

Julian led us through one expensive room after another until we ended up at the pool. It was blue and flashed light, like a broken mirror. Maeve sat in the shadow of a big umbrella. She was wrapped tightly in a white silk robe. She'd given us the briefest glimpse of a gold and white bathing suit before tying the robe tightly in place, so that only her perfectly pedicured feet showed. She was smoking, taking furious puffs and grinding out the cigarette before it was halfway done. Julian had been granted the unenviable task of lighting the cigarettes for her with a gold lighter from the small tray that held the cigarette box. Lighting the cigs wasn't the unenviable part of the job -- trying to calm Maeve down was the hard part.

She had put her glamour back on like a well-worn shirt. She was still beautiful, but she looked like Maeve Reed the movie star again, though a very stressed version. Anxiety flowed off of her in waves.

The other bodyguards, including young Frank and Max, had come back to stand around the pool and look menacing. Some of the menacing seemed to be directed at us, but we didn't take it personally, or at least I didn't. I wasn't 100 percent sure about my men. Whatever they felt, they were keeping it to themselves.

Maeve insisted on all of us sitting in full sun. I wasn't sure why, but I could guess. Superstition said that the Unseelie Court couldn't abide sunlight. In truth, some could not, but no one with me had that problem. Kitto's eyes were light sensitive but nothing he couldn't handle with dark glasses.

I didn't burst Maeve's bubble. She was still obviously shaken, making sure all that lovely body was covered by the silk robe, and she'd moved from smoking to drinking while we got arranged in chairs. At least the alcohol didn't invade my stomach without my consent. So, personally, I found it a step up. If Maeve got drunk, I might change my mind.

Julian sat on a much smaller chair, pulled up beside her lounge chair. She'd insisted on him being close enough that his shoulder touched the back of her chair. The rest of the Kane and Hart bodyguards stood at her back like three ladies-in-waiting, albeit muscular, well-armed ladies-in-waiting.

Maeve had also insisted that I have my own lounge chair. I was a little too short, and so was my skirt, for a lounge chair; but I took it graciously. I just had to pay attention that I didn't flash too much leg and underwear. If it had just been other fey, I wouldn't have cared so much, but with more humans than fey standing around, we'd try to stay polite by human standards. Besides, I'd found years ago that if I let a bunch of strange human men see my underwear, they tended to get the wrong idea. Fey males would have enjoyed the show and never remarked on it.

Doyle and Frost stood at my back like good bodyguards. Rhys had gone with the personal assistant, Marie, to take off his disguise. Maeve had seemed fascinated by the fact that he'd used a human disguise instead of glamour to escape the press's attention.

Either her glamour was better than ours, or reporters simply didn't see her as anything but Maeve Reed, movie star. The word glamorous comes from the idea of faerie glamour; maybe seeing the truth behind a movie star's facade just wasn't what the press wanted to see.

Kitto sat beside me in his own little chair, but he did everything but perch on the arm of my lounge chair. Julian tried to keep a distance between himself and Maeve; Kitto made sure that he touched some part of my body continuously.

A human woman in her sixties came out of a nearby pool house. She wore a maid's outfit, complete with apron, though the skirt was suitably long and the shoes suitably sensible. She offered us all drinks, which we refused. Only Maeve kept drinking wine-dark Scotch. She'd started with ice, but when it melted she didn't replace it. Although she finished off a fifth of Scotch while we watched, there was no change in her. She was fey and we could drink a lot without getting even the least bit tipsy, but a fifth of Scotch is a fifth of Scotch, and I hoped she'd drunk enough to quiet her nerves and would stop there. She didn't.

"I'm going to have rum and coke. Would anyone else care for anything?"

"No, thank you," I said.

"I know that the men are working, yours and mine, so they shouldn't drink. It might spoil their reflexes." She put a little bit of the old Maeve Reed purr into her voice, a pale imitation of her usual suggestive-ness. Apparently, I hadn't broken her completely. "But you and I can indulge."

"I'm fine, but thank you for offering."

A small frown appeared between those perfect brows. "I really do hate to drink alone."

"I'm not much for Scotch or rum."

"We have an extensive wine cellar. I'm sure we could find you something to suit your tastes." She smiled, not the dazzling smile she'd started the visit with but a smile nonetheless. It was an encouraging sign, but I shook my head.

"I'm sorry, Maeve, but I really don't drink this early in the day."

"Early," she said, perfectly plucked eyebrow arching. "Honey, this isn't early by L.A. standards. If it's after lunch, it's perfectly acceptable to be drinking."

I smiled, gave a small shrug. "Thanks, but really, I'm fine."

She frowned at that, but nodded at the maid, who went off toward the house, to fetch Maeve's drink, I assumed.

"I really do hate to drink alone," she said again.

"I'm sure you've got a husband around here somewhere."

"You'll be meeting Gordon later after we've finished our business." There was no teasing now.

"And what business would that be?" I asked.

"It's private."

I shook my head. "We went over this with your flunky earlier in our office. Where I go, my bodyguards go." I glanced at her own personal wall of muscle. "I'm sure you understand that."

She nodded impatiently. "Of course I understand, but could they all sit just a little farther back so we could have some... girl talk?"

I raised my eyebrows at the girl talk, but let it go. I glanced at Doyle and Frost. "What do you guys think?"

"I suppose we could sit at the table in the shade while you and Ms. Reed have your... girl talk." Doyle managed to put a lot of disbelief in that last phrase.

I hid my smile by turning my head and looking at Kitto. He wasn't going to want to be in the shade of the umbrella. I didn't even bother to ask.

"Doyle and Frost will sit at the table, but Kitto has to stay with me."

Maeve shook her head. "That is not acceptable."

I shrugged. "It's the best you're going to get if you insist on being outside in the open like this."

She cocked her head to one side. "That is awfully blunt for a princess of the sidhe. In fact, you've been very blunt, nay rude, for a princess of the blood."

I fought an urge to look back at Doyle. "I could say I was raised out among the humans."

"You could, but I don't think I'll believe you." Her voice was very quiet, almost angry. "No one that human would be so favored by the Lady and the Lord as you were just moments ago." She shivered, pulling her robe tighter around her shoulders. It was eighty and the sun was warm and soft. If she was cold, it wasn't the kind of cold that a robe could help.

I did the best bow I could, sitting in the lounge chair. "Thank you."

She shook her head, sending her long yellow hair sliding around her body. "Do not thank me, for I shall not thank you for what you have done to me."

I started to tell her that it had been an accident, but stopped. Maeve had deliberately used magic to try to persuade me. It was a grave insult between one sidhe noble to another. We never used wiles to that degree against another noble. It showed clearly that she considered me a lesser fey, so the rules of sidhe chivalry didn't apply to me.

She was looking at me curiously, and I realized I'd been quiet for too long. I managed a smile. "The sidhe have been speculating for centuries about why you left us."

"I did not leave, Meredith. I was cast out."

Here at last was something I wanted to know. "Your exile was the bogeyman for all the younger sidhe in the Seelie Court. 'If you don't please the king, you'll end as Conchenn did.' "

"Is that what they believed? That I was exiled for not pleasing the King?"

"When pressed, that is what the king says. That you did not please him."

She laughed, and it held derision so thick that it was almost painful to hear. "I suppose I didn't please him, but didn't anyone question that such strict exile was a harsh punishment for merely not pleasing the king?"

I nodded. "I'm told that some did question the severity of the punishment. You had many friends at court."

"I had allies at court. No one truly has friends there."

I gave her credit for that. "As you like, you had many allies at court. I am told they did question your fate."

"And?" There was a little too much eagerness to that one word.

She seemed to really want to know. I wanted to say, you answer my questions and I'll answer yours, but that was a little too crass. Subtlety, that was what was needed. Subtle had never been my natural bent, but I had learned. Eventually.

"I was beaten for asking about your fate," I said.

She blinked at me. "What?"

"As a child I asked why you were exiled, and the King himself beat me for asking."

She looked puzzled. "Had no one asked before?"

"They asked," I said.

The expression on her face was enough to urge me on, but I didn't finish the thought. I avoided letting her turn around the conversation, because I wanted to know why she'd been exiled. If she'd kept her silence for a hundred years, then I couldn't trust that she'd easily break it now.

"By the time I came along, people had stopped asking."

"What happened to my allies at court?" It was a very direct question, and I couldn't pretend not to understand anymore.

"The king killed Emrys," I said. "After that, everyone was afraid to ask after your fate."

It was hard to tell, but I think she paled under that golden tan. Her eyes went wide before she dropped her gaze to her lap. She started to take a drink and found the tumbler empty.

She yelled, "Nancy!"

The maid appeared, almost but not quite as if by magic. She had a tray with a tall dark glass of rum, a pair of white-rimmed sunglasses folded beside the drink. She'd also brought three swimsuits draped on her arm. They were all expensive, lovely, and tiny. Most of the underwear I owned covered more than those suits, and I owned a lot of lingerie.

They looked like ordinary, if elegant swimsuits, but appearance could be deceiving. Things can be done to clothes so the spell takes over only when the garment is worn. Nasty spells, some of them. For the first time I wondered, not if Maeve wanted to join our court, but if there were people at the Seelie Court who wanted me dead. Would my death be enough to undo her exile? Only if the king himself wanted my death. To my knowledge, Taranis didn't like me, but he didn't fear me, so my death should mean nothing to him.

Maeve had stopped talking. She was staring out at the pool, but I don't think she truly saw it. She was quiet for so long that I filled the silence. "Why the swimsuits, Ms. Reed?"

"I said to call me Maeve." But she never looked at me, and the phrase had a rehearsed quality, as if she wasn't truly listening to her own words.

I smiled. "Fine, why the swimsuits, Maeve?"

"I thought you might want to get more comfortable, that's all." Her voice still sounded flat, like dialogue that she'd planned to say but no longer cared about.

"Thank you, but I'm fine as I am."

"I'm sure I can find suits for your gentlemen, too." She finally looked at me while she spoke, but her voice was still muted.

"No, thank you." And I put enough force into the thank you that I thought she'd take the hint.

Maeve set the empty glass on the tray, slipped the sunglasses on, and only then took the new drink in hand. She drained a quarter of it in one long swallow, then looked at me. The glasses were large and round with fat white rims, and they were mirrored so that I could see a distorted reflection of myself as she moved her head. Her eyes and a large part of her face were completely hidden. She didn't need glamour now; she had something else to hide behind.

She pulled the robe closer to her neck and sipped the black rum. "Even Taranis would not dare to have Emrys executed." Her voice was low, but clear. I think she was working on not believing me. She'd given herself enough time with her rehearsed bit about the swimsuits that she'd thought about what I'd said. She didn't like it, so she was going to try to make it not true.

"He wasn't executed," I said, and again I watched her, waited for her to ask for more. You often learned more by saying less.

She looked up from her drink, making those mirrored glasses glint in the sun. "But you said Taranis had had him killed."

"No, I said he killed Emrys."

It was hard to tell behind the large sunglasses, but I think she frowned. "You are playing word games with me, Meredith. Emrys was one of the few among the courts that I might truly have called friend. If he was not executed, then what? Are you hinting at assassination?"

I shook my head. "Not at all. The King challenged him to a personal duel."

She jumped as if I'd struck her, sloshing some of the rum over the white of the robe. The maid offered her a linen napkin. Maeve handed the drink to the woman and began to wipe at her hand, but not like she was paying attention to what she was doing.

"The King does not take personal challenges. He is too valuable to the court to risk on a duel."

I shrugged, watching my image imitate me in her glasses. "I just report the news, I don't explain it."

She put the napkin on the tray, but refused the return of her drink. She leaned forward, still holding the robe closed at neck and thigh. "Swear to me, your solemn oath, that the King slew Emrys in a duel."

"I give you my oath that this is true."

She leaned back suddenly, as if all the energy had drained from her. Her hands were still feebly clutching at the robe, but she looked half-swooned.

The maid asked, "Are you all right? Is there anything you need?"

Maeve gave a weak wave. "No. I'm fine." She'd answered the questions in reverse order, a bit of a slip, because she was obviously not all right.

"So, I was right." Her voice was very soft as she said the last.

"You were right about what?" I asked, voice equally soft. I eased down to the foot of my own lounge chair so she would be sure to hear me.

She smiled then, but it was weak and not at all humorous. "No, you won't get my secret that easily."

I frowned, and it was genuine. "I don't know what you mean."

Her voice was more solid, more certain of itself as she spoke. "Why did you come here today, Meredith?"

I sat back a little. "I came because you asked me."

She sighed loud and long, not for effect this time, but I think just because she needed to. "You risked Taranis's anger simply to visit with another sidhe? I think not."

"I am heir to the Unseelie throne. Do you really think Taranis would risk harming me?"

"He challenged Emrys to a personal duel for merely asking why I had been exiled. You yourself were beaten as a child for asking about my fate. Now, here you sit speaking with me. He will never believe that I have not told you the reason for my exile."

"But you've told me nothing," I said, and I tried to keep the eagerness out of my body language, though I think I failed.

She gave another slight smile. "He will never believe that I have not shared my secret with you."

"He can think what he likes. To harm me would mean war between the courts. I don't believe that any secret you have is worth that."

She laughed, derisive again. "I think the king would risk war between the courts for this."

"Fine, the king might risk a war where he could sit safely behind the front lines, but Queen Andais would be within her rights to challenge him to one-on-one combat. I don't believe Taranis would risk that."

"You are the heir to the dark throne, Meredith. You have no idea what power resides in the light."

"I've seen the Seelie Court, Maeve, and I agree that once you've fallen afoul of it, you're afraid of the light; but everyone fears the dark, Maeve, everyone."

"Are you saying that the high king of the Seelie Court is afraid of the Unseelie Court?" Her voice held an amazing amount of outraged disbelief.

"I know everyone at the Seelie Court fears the sluagh."

Maeve sat back in her chair. "Everyone fears them, Meredith, at both courts."

She was right. If the Unseelie Court was all that was dark and frightening, then the sluagh was worse. The sluagh was home even to the things that the Unseelie feared. It was a dumping ground for nightmares too terrible to contemplate.

"And who holds the reins of the sluagh?" I asked.

She looked uncertain, but said, at last, "The Queen."

"The sluagh can be sent to punish certain crimes without a trial or a warning. One of those crimes is kin slaying."

"That is not often enforced," she said.

"But if Taranis killed the queen's heir, don't you think she'd remember that little law?"

"Even Andais would not dare send the sluagh after the king."

"And I say again, that even the king would not dare slay Andais's heir."

"I think you are wrong on that, Meredith, for this he might dare."

"And for that crime, Andais might loose the sluagh on him. Even the King of Light and Illusion would have no choice but to run from them."

She took the drink off the tray that the maid still held near at hand. She took a deep drink before saying, "I do not believe that the King would think that clearly about this. I... I would not be the cause of war between the courts." She took another drink. "I have wished for Taranis's arrogance to be punished over the years, but not by the sluagh. I would not wish that on anyone, not even him."

Having been chased by the sluagh myself, I could agree that they were terrible. But they weren't as bad as all that. At least the sluagh would simply kill you -- maybe eat you alive -- but you'd be dead. There would be no torture, no long, slow death. There were worse deaths than to fall to the sluagh.

And I knew something that Maeve could not know. The sluagh's king, Sholto, Lord of That Which Passes Between, called Shadow-spawn, but never to his face, had no great loyalty to Andais, or to anyone else for that matter. He kept his word, but Andais had let her politics slide for a few years, and now she depended heavily, too heavily, on the threat of the sluagh. They'd been meant to be the threat of last resort. I'd learned in talking with Doyle and Frost that the sluagh had become a much-used weapon. That was not what they were meant for, and it showed great weakness on Andais's part that she used them too often.

But Maeve did not know this. No one at the Seelie Court knew, unless there were spies, which, come to think upon it, there probably were; but Maeve didn't know it.

"Do you really think that the King will learn that we spoke together?" I asked.

"I don't know for certain, but he is a god, or was once. I fear he will discover us."

"Fine, I want to know why you were exiled -- but you want something from me, as well. You want something that you would risk your very life for. What could that be, Maeve? What could be that important to you?"

She leaned forward, robe still closed tight. She leaned forward until I could smell the cocoa butter from her skin and the harsh rum on her breath. She whispered against my ear, "I want a child."