I couldn’t help laughing.
“Should you be wasting your time with mere gentry?”
His eyes twinkled. “My dear Marm, I’ve been travelling with the Blessing party for three weeks now. The mages aren’t interested in me anymore. And dare I say vice versa?”
Across the fire, I saw Scintillant being kissed and nuzzled by a group of pretty peasant girls. He caught my eye and winked. I was annoyed to be caught staring. I was not having him thinking I was lovelorn.
“Fair enough,” I said, taking Hagen’s hand “Let’s dance.”
I’m not a good dancer, but I was enthusiastic; and Hagen knew the steps very well. His hand felt warm and delicious in the small of my back—that pleasant tingle of attraction before it becomes too intense.
But wouldn’t you know it, after our first dance together, the band stopped playing to have a drink. I took a surreptitious glance round after Scintillant. He’d already slipped away with his peasant girls. Lucient waved me over. I checked for Lady Chatoyant; she was talking to Michael, the village blacksmith, who like all such tradesmen had a wonderful body. Surely with Michael on offer, she wouldn’t go after Lucient? But tonight I was at my cousin’s service, so I went back and sat down beside him. At least Uncle Five had taken himself off to the stream to catch wrigglers for the newts he’d already captured. Tonight he would be tripping over loving couples in the bushes until the early hours of the morning, but he probably wouldn’t pay much attention.
To my surprise, Hagen came and sat beside me. He clearly knew Lucient very well; they began sharing theatre gossip, stories about who was feuding with whom and which leading man threw a tantrum over not being allowed to take his little dog on stage. I loved this kind of talk, even if I had no idea of the people involved. Hagen was being delicious, smiling at me as if to check that I wasn’t feeling left out.
The Eyrie was loud with talk and laughter. Through the wide open doors I watched people dancing round the huge bonfire and the gigantic plumes of flaming grain alcohol spurting from the mouths of the peasants. The sensuous movements, the way people touched and kissed and broke away in couples or threesomes to disappear into the bushes, made me feel warm in the pit of my belly. The way Hagen kept stroking my arm made the feeling grow until I felt as if honey were sliding glistening though my loins. Watching the whirling figures, the sensual touches on faces, the smoothing of hands over limbs and chest, the brush of hip against hip—how I wished I had someone to take part with! Someone with velvet skin to press my mouth against and ride hard into the dawn.
“There goes Lady Chatoyant,” murmured Hagen in my ear, nodding at the door. “Perhaps Lord Lucient will be able to spare you tonight after all.” He smiled at me in a way that made my belly melt.
“That’s for him to say,” I said, opening my eyes wide and innocent. “Really, Sirrah Hagen, I begin to think you are trying to break up a Blessing affair. Surely that cannot be so.”
“You really are too delightful to rot here in the country,” he said. He lifted my hand and kissed it.
“Shine, darling, would you get me another jug of wine?” asked Lucient over his shoulder. He gave me a grin that said he knew how Hagen was making me feel.
I took the pitcher and went out into the hallway towards the kitchen, aware all the time of Hagen behind me. As we reached the servants’ door, he put his hand on my shoulder.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to sneak away later when Lucient is asleep and meet me somewhere?”
“Perhaps I might need to return to my room for one or two things later,” I murmured, reaching for the door handle
He took advantage of my stillness to kiss me on the back of the neck. How did he know the right place to do it, the place that sent shivers down my spine and made my back arch towards him? His strong arm slid round my waist and his slim hand caressed my throat and smoothed down to my breast sending heat all the way down into my belly. I steered him into a shadowy corner and pressed my mouth on his. His mouth opened beneath mine and we kissed deep and hard.
He leaned back against the wall and pulled me against him and I felt the exciting hardness at his groin against my belly. I pressed my hips against it. I like a slow man but tonight...
“Marm, Marm, where are you?” called a voice and Lucient’s valet, Busy, was at my elbow. “My lord needs you. Lady Chatoyant...”
“Curse it. I’d thought we were free of her.”
I pulled myself away from Hagen.
Hagen caught my arm and said something in my ear, but I was too intent upon getting back to Lucient to listen.
Back in the great hall, Toy was on the bench beside Lucient, almost sitting in his lap with her hand on his thigh. No sign of Michael the blacksmith.
“Oh, Shine, darling, there you are,” Lucient jumped up, flung his arm round my neck and drew me to his shoulder. “Let us retire, sweetheart,” he said. “Cousin, you must excuse us. Shine becomes very heated after dancing, and I promised not to disappoint her.”
With a flash of crystal light, he scooped me up and leapt into the air, knocking over his chair in his haste. The effect of manly passion was undermined by his trembling, but Chatoyant wasn’t to know that. As he flew up through Eyrie carrying me in his arms, I pressed my face into his neck. Over his shoulder I caught sight of Chatoyant’s face. She was grinning—I was certain she was enjoying Lucient’s fearful retreat. Was she bullying him for the pleasure of it? Ladybless, she was mean.
“Thank the Lady you came. That woman’s hand was heading straight for my prick,” jittered Lucient.
“Why don’t you just tell her no? She can’t force you in front of everyone.”
“I couldn’t, darling. She’s awful when she’s upset, and she sets Blazeann and Lumina off.”
Poor old Lucient. No spine at all.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
HE WAS SO full of jitters that he insisted on smoking several pipes of smokeweed laced with his favourite potion, which he called Bliss. Soon enough, he was lying smoked flat out on his bed with his little mundane maid snuggled up beside him.
I sat on the windowseat reading one of his travel books, trying not to feel disappointed at how my Blessing evening had ended. My flesh was still singing with the memory of Hagen’s strong body against mine and the feel of his lips. I wished I could sneak away. He’d said something about a meeting. But I knew I had to stay here. Toy might well have a servant watching the room, as she’d clearly had someone watching the feast earlier.
Katti was curled up at my feet.
Are you on heat? she sniffed, eyeing me. Your thoughts are as gooey as mud. She curled round with her back to me and wrapped her tail tightly around herself, indicating that she refused to listen anymore.
A little while later, she lifted her head and looked at the window. I heard a light tapping on the glass.
Scintillant! I thought, pathetic creature that I was, and twitched back the curtain.
Klea was hovering outside.
“Open up,” she mouthed at me. With a quick glance over my shoulder to check that Lucient—and, more importantly, his little maid Sharlee—were fast asleep, I did so and, climbing outside, sat on the chill stone parapet to speak with her. She steadied me with her hand.