"Yes." Raphael's hands slid beneath my arms. "Come here."
I let him pull me onto his lap, too tired to protest. Now he kissed me with all the ardor I could have wanted—and I didn't want to respond, but I couldn't help it. Even exhausted, I wanted him so bedamned badly. My body roused to his touch.
"Witchling," Raphael breathed in my ear. His hands slid over my breasts. "I am taking you to bed tonight."
"All right," I said helplessly.
He laughed and kissed me some more.
By the time we reached his townhouse, I was dazed with an odd blend of lassitude and desire. In the courtyard, Raphael scooped me off my feet and into his arms. I let him—let him carry me inside and past the whispering servants, up the marble stairs, burying my face against his neck. In his bedchamber, he set me on my feet.
"Moirin." His hands glided over my body, leaving glorious trails of warmth. I shivered. He cupped my face and kissed me deeply. "My terms, remember?"
I nodded.
Raphael's terms were sensuous and deliberate. He undressed me piece by piece, his lips lingering on the nape of my neck as he unclasped my gown's collar and unlaced the delicate stays. When I turned in his arms and reached for his doublet to unbutton it, he shook his head at me.
His terms.
"Beautiful," he murmured when I stood naked before him. He reached out and plucked the gilded comb from my hair. My hair fell over my shoulders in a slithering cascade. He laughed softly. "Like a waterfall."
"Raphael….." I whispered.
He pressed one finger against my lips, then pointed. "On the bed."
I lay down.
For a long moment, he merely stood and gazed at me, eyes dark with desire. Then, slowly, he undressed. It was absurdly tantalizing. I watched his bare torso emerge as he shed his doublet and shirt. His shoulders were broad. I gazed at the hollow at the base of his throat where his pulse beat visibly and understood what Benoit Vallon from Atelier Favrielle meant about subtle beauties. Raphael shed his breeches and undergarments. The muscles in his flanks flexed, shadowy in the dim lamplight. His phallus was hard and erect, curving toward his flat belly.
Stone and sea, I wanted him.
He untied a thong holding back his tawny hair and shook it loose, smiling sidelong at me. When he joined me on the bed, I reached for him.
"No." Raphael caught my wrists gently, pinning them above my head with one hand. "Slowly. You have a lot to learn, Moirin." I do?
He leaned over me, his hard chest brushing against my erect nipples. Kissed me—slowly. Languorously. His free hand traced the line of my inner thigh. "Yes."
Until that night, I thought myself well versed in the ways of desire. After all, it had come effortlessly to me. But the coach-driver Theo scarce counted and Cillian mac Tiernan was a green lad beside Raphael de Mereliot, who was the Queen's lover. And she was an adept of the Night Court.
He undid me.
From top to bottom, stem to stern. Everywhere he touched me, I ached with pleasure. When he spread my thighs wide and lapped at the slick crease between them, my hips jerked clean off the bed, my fists knotting in his hair.
Raphael lifted his head, eyes gleaming. "Slowly."
"Please!" I whimpered.
He smiled. "In time."
Time….. what was time? That night, it was measured in the broad, insistent strokes of his tongue, driving me to pinnacles I hadn't known existed. I dissolved beneath it, melting with pleasure.
The bright lady beamed. Oddly, she wore Jehanne's face.
Raphael slithered up the length of my body, bracing himself on his arms, mindful of my healing ribs. He kissed me, tasting of me. He guided my hand to his erect phallus. It throbbed in my fist, beating with a pulse of its own.
I sighed with gratitude. "Now?"
"Now," he agreed. The moment he pushed into me, I came hard— then came hard again as he continued to thrust. In and out, filled and not-filled. It was so good, and yet. Stone and sea, I was tired! It was almost a relief when he shuddered and spent himself in me, his ballocks rising and his buttocks clenching beneath my clutching hands. Almost a relief to feel his softening phallus slipping out of me.
"Ohh….." I whispered.
And slept.
I awoke to sunlight and Raphael's absence. It was late morning. The rumpled bed linens glowed white in the bright sun. The room smelled of sex. There was a robe with the House Mereliot crest laid out for me. I rose and donned it, feeling suddenly famished and very much in need of a bath. With an unexpected pang, I found myself missing home. A plunge in the stream and a breakfast of fried trout would be a glorious thing.
Instead, I rang the bell to summon one of Raphael's servants. The maid who answered was a sly-faced creature named Celine, not one of my favorites. She had a habit of smirking at me out of the corner of her eye. This morning was no exception, and when I asked where Raphael was, her smirk widened.
"Why, he's gone to the Palace, my lady," she said with an air of false innocence. "Gone to answer a summons from the Queen."
"I see," I said slowly. I hadn't expected him to refuse Jehanne. Still, it seemed something of an insult to rise from our shared pleasure bed and find him at her beck and call.
"Your bath will be ready shortly." Celine tossed her head. "Will you dine downstairs or shall I have a tray sent up?"
I held her gaze without answering until she flushed and looked away. "A tray will be fine. Have it sent to the guest-chamber, please."
"As you wish," she muttered.
By the time I had bathed and dined, there was still no sign of Raphael. I looked around the sunlit guest-chamber. There was the borrowed robe. There was the clothes press with the gowns commissioned by Raphael. There on the bedside table was a jewelry box he'd given me, in which I'd carefully placed the gilded comb and the emerald eardrops. The only items in the room that were truly mine were the deerskin quiver and yew-wood bow propped unobtrusively in a corner and the disreputable canvas satchel that contained the papers Caroline no Bryony had given me.
That seemed a long, long time ago.
I hauled the satchel onto the bed and went through its contents. Lodgings, letters of introduction, letters of authentication. From the moment I'd opened my eyes on that street to see Raphael de Mereliot gazing down at me, I'd let all of this fall by the wayside.
"That," I said aloud, "has to change."
"My lady?" A different maid poked her head in the door; Daphne— the shy one who I quite liked.
"Nothing." I smiled at her. "I was talking to myself. Since my lord de Mereliot is occupied elsewhere today, I think I may venture out on my own."
"As you wish." Daphne returned my smile shyly, her deference as genuine as Celine's was false. "But I came to tell you, that you have a visitor."
"I do?"
"Aye." Her eyes widened. "Lianne Tremaine. The King's Poet," she added at my blank look. "She wishes to call on you, if you're receiving."
"Oh." I blinked. "Is there any reason why I wouldn't be?"
"No." She smiled again, ducking her head and dimpling. "That is entirely up to you, my lady. But if you wish to receive her, I'll tell the kitchen to prepare tea and pastries, shall I?"
"Thank you." I nodded, grateful for her discreet guidance, and began stowing away my papers. "I'll be down directly."
It felt passing strange to be entertaining a guest in Raphael's household as though it were my own. It felt passing strange to be entertaining a guest in any household when it came to it. To be sure, it was a far cry from sharing the goods Cillian had brought on the hearth of our cave or showing him how to catch trout or blanch acorn meal. Still, I'd grown mindful of the importance of appearances in Terre d'Ange and glided into the salon where the King's Poet waited as though I were the mistress of the household.
The woman awaiting me rose. She was younger than I would have expected someone appointed to the post, with light brown hair and keen golden-brown eyes. Something about the cast of her sharp, pretty features put me in mind of a fox.
"Lianne Tremaine?" I inquired. "The King's Poet?"
"Indeed." A quick smile darted across her face. "Well met, Lady Moirin. I was sorry to miss a chance to speak with you at his majesty's fete."
"Oh?" I said politely, at a loss for anything clever to say.
"Oh, indeed." Her tone had a mocking edge, but I didn't sense any malice in it. "These are good times to be alive, but dull times to be a royal poet. Your arrival and last night's dramatic performance are the most interesting thing to happen in years. I'll own, I'm curious. Was it staged?"
I was bewildered. "Was what staged?"
"The scene with Lord Luchese," Lianne said impatiently.
I stared at her. "Do you jest? No!"
She gave a delicate shrug. "One never knows. I wouldn't put it past Raphael de Mereliot. He and the Queen have been known to get….. intricate….. in their quarrels. Jehanne de la Courcel can compete with almost anything, but a young woman with the ability to bring a man back from death's doorstep….. ah, that's another matter altogether. He might have staged the entire thing just to unnerve her." She studied my expression and laughed. "The possibility never occurred to you, did it?"
"No," I admitted.
"Such delightful naivete!" Lianne Tremaine sat uninvited. "Well. Now that it has, do you suppose he did?"
"No." I sat opposite her. Quite apart from my own experience, I had the memory of Raphael in the carriage, the wonder in his voice. "I truly don't."
"So it was real." She steepled her fingers. "What did you do and how did you do it?" Put off by her peremptory manner, I didn't answer. Lianne sighed. "I'm being nosy and hectoring, aren't I?"
"Nosy, aye," I agreed. "Hectoring isn't a word I know."
"Bullying."
"Ah." I saw Daphne with a tray of tea and pastries and beckoned for her to set it on the table. "Yes, rather."
"Sorry." This time the King's Poet's smile was wry and charming. "I have an overly inquisitive mind and I can be rude and impatient in the pursuit of knowledge. Let me start over." She lifted the teapot. "May I make amends by pouring?"
"You may," I said.
She poured for both of us, then sipped her tea. "Nice. Raphael always has the best tea, thanks to his connections to that Ch'in philosopher at the Academy."
"Master Lo Feng?" I sniffed my tea. It had a delicate floral aroma. "I thought he was a physician."
"Physician, philosopher, poet, botanist." Lianne shrugged. "It seems the famous Lo Feng is many things. Have you met him?"
I shook my head. "Not yet."
"Imposing fellow." She put down her teacup and regarded me. "All right, I'm starting over. Lady Moirin mac Fainche, pray let me introduce myself. I am Lianne Tremaine, the King's Poet and the youngest ever to hold that post. I'm quite brilliant and a bit prickly. I make a dreadful enemy, but a loyal friend. And unless I miss my guess, you could use one of the latter. You've managed to drop out of nowhere into a rather complicated situation."
"That much is obvious," I said dryly. "Even to me."
Her lips twitched. "So you're not dim-witted, just naive. Are you in love with him? Raphael?"
My heart rolled over in my chest at the mere question. "I don't know," I said slowly. I didn't know whether or not I could wholly trust her, but it was such a relief to speak to someone about Raphael that I answered honestly. "I've feelings I've never felt before. And I'm drawn to him. Here, in my diadh-anam." I tapped my breast. "The spark of the Maghuin Dhonn Herself I carry inside me. There's no word for it in D'Angeline."
"God-soul." Lianne tilted her head, slanting sunlight turning her eyes topaz. "That's how Phedre no Delaunay de Montreve translated it."
"Well enough." I nodded. "I don't understand it and I can't explain it. Not yet. Believe me, my lady, I would very much prefer that the man for whom I feel this were not the Queen's lover and favorite courtier."
"No doubt," she agreed. "Are you willing to talk to me about magic?"
I sighed. "I'd rather not until I understand it better myself. I have a gift or two, small things as they would be reckoned in the long history of my people. What happened last night….." I let the words go. "You mentioned an offer of friendship ?"
Lianne grinned. "I said I was a loyal friend. I never claimed to be a tactful one. Very well." She hoisted her teacup. "You're in need of a friend. What would you care to talk about?"
"Hmm." I thought about it. "Mayhap whether or not I should seek to make a graceful exit from Raphael's household."
"Do you want to leave?" she asked.
"I'm not sure." I picked at a pastry, flaking off bits of golden crust. "Raphael keeps saying he wants me to stay. But I'm not sure it's me he wants or the fact of what I am. Last night….. I think it aroused him more than I could on my own. And I'm not sure how I feel about that."
I made a face. "Particularly since he informed me that I have a great deal to learn in bed."
The King's Poet sputtered out a mouthful of tea. "He didn't!"
"He did." I sighed again. "Which, while it may be true, in the light of day strikes me as a rather unkind thing to say at the time."