Chapter Seven

Sophie stared with horror at the monstrous white gown that was spread across her bed. If this is what Galvyn Farrell thought of her, she was glad she’d promised Kane she wouldn’t go to the dance.

Juliet reached out and touched a wide ruffle as if there might be snakes hidden within the folds of stiff, heavy fabric. “It is very...fancy,” she finished suspiciously.

“Some women might find it an attractive garment,” Sophie suggested, trying to be charitable. No one she knew would find it attractive, of course, but then she didn’t know many women or what they liked. Isadora would roar with laughter at the very thought of her little sister wearing this much-adorned, full-skirted, high-necked, lace-bedecked curiosity.

She was glad Kane had departed before Galvyn’s errand boy had arrived with the gift. Well, the errand boy had not arrived, precisely. He’d tossed the package containing the gown at the Fyne doorstep, knocked loudly, and run. She didn’t want to explain to Kane that Galvyn had actually suggested that they marry. She didn’t want anything, not even a small annoyance, to come between them in the small amount of time they had left.

“I’ll return it tomorrow, when I go to town to see Kane.”

Juliet sighed. “Isadora is not pleased that Ariana’s father has been coming around. I know it’s best that you meet him elsewhere, but I hate for you to go into Shandley so often. Especially if Galvyn Farrell is sending you gifts and inviting you to town socials.”

“What choice do I have?” Sophie asked.

“Send him away,” Juliet suggested. “The sooner the better.”

She would agree with her sister, if she didn’t now know more about Kane than she wanted to. It was no one’s fault but her own. She’d asked. More than that, she’d truly wanted to know.

He’d had so little happiness in his life, she could not be sorry that she’d given him a year of good luck. She could not be sorry that she’d found him beneath the linara tree and seduced him. And she most certainly could not hurry him along on his journey, not if it meant a return to a joyless life.

“If Kane asked you some questions about the past, would you be able to help him?”

“What kinds of questions?”

Sophie didn’t want to share the entire tale with Juliet. Kane didn’t give much of himself to others, she knew that. Until she knew without question that Juliet would be able to help, she would not spread the tale of his life as if it were gossip. “Questions about the actions of others, actions that deeply affected his life.”

“Perhaps. I never know what I’m going to see. You know that.”

“Yes, I do.” There was something else she needed to know. Asking was not so easy. “Could you give me something to prevent conception, should I decide to lie with him again?”

Again Juliet sighed, but she was not surprised. “I don’t think so. We could try, but I suspect you will need something extraordinary.”

“I found myself with child the first time I lay down with a man. Is that unusual? Does it mean that every time I—”

“I don’t know,” Juliet interrupted, her lips puckering just slightly.

“Will you give it some thought?” Sophie asked. She had a distinct feeling that before Kane left town they’d be together again. Every time she looked at him, her body reacted in some telling way.

“Do you love him?” Juliet asked.

She should have been prepared for that question, but she was not. The proper response would be an unequivocal “no,” but that’s not the answer that sprang to her lips. “I like Kane very much, but as you well know, loving him is not an option.”

Juliet put an arm around Sophie’s shoulders. “I’m sorry. It isn’t fair.”

“Not to any of us,” Sophie said stoically.

“I like my life as it is,” Juliet said. “I truly want no man to be a part of it. Isadora misses Willym terribly, I know that well, but at least she knew true love once. But you...Sophie, there are moments when I feel so certain that you were put on this earth to love and be loved.”

It was a dream, one she could never realize. “I do like Kane more than I should.” Sophie slipped out of her sister’s embrace, before Juliet could sense the uncertainty in her heart and mind. “And I’ve been having the dreams again.” Lovely, long, real, disturbing dreams. “Please be assured that what I have with him now won’t lead to marriage. Kane just...he needs me.” She didn’t want to worry about what would happen to him when he left the Southern Province, but she knew where he was going and what kind of life he was returning to.

“I’m drawn to him much as I was a year ago, but it’s too soon for me to have another child. Don’t you have anything that will help?”

“Nothing I could offer with confidence.”

“I have something that will work.”

Sophie and Juliet both turned their heads to watch Isadora enter the room. The eldest Fyne sister glanced at the cradle where Ariana slept, then at the bed where the white gown was laid out. Her grin was wide. “If you wear this dress I doubt you’ll have to worry about birth control of any kind. It’s hideous. What were you thinking?”

As Sophie told her sister that the dress was a gift from Galvyn Farrell, and also explained the significance of wearing white to the summer social, Isadora’s smile died.

“Willym never trusted him,” she said softly when Sophie was finished.

Sophie took her sister’s hand and squeezed tight, but after a moment Isadora gently pulled her hand away. She had never been one for displays of affection, but that did not mean she didn’t love her sisters dearly.

“Do you really know of a potion to keep me from conceiving, if I do decide to lie with Kane again?”

Isadora sighed. “Yes, I do,” she said reluctantly.

“What is it?” Sophie had to tilt her head back slightly to look her sister in the eye. Isadora’s dark eyes and her own blue ones were as different as night and day. In truth, she had very little in common with her elder sister.

“A bit of magic together with a bit of herbs mixed in the proper proportions,” Isadora said.

“And you will help me?”

Again, that sigh. “I do not approve of Kane Varden, you know that. Getting involved with a man like that one is bound to bring trouble to this house. But you are a grown woman capable of making your own decisions and I won’t stand in your way if he is what you want.”

“He is,” Sophie whispered.

“When?”

Sophie thought of the way her body responded when she looked at Kane, the dreams she’d been having of late, and the way she woke in the night feeling empty and aching and on the edge of a scream.

“Tomorrow,” she said. “Tomorrow night.”

While her sisters and her niece slept, Isadora walked away from the cabin she called home. She had dressed for bed hours ago. Her feet were bare, her linen shift so thin the cool night breeze cut through to her skin. The further away from the house and her family she got, the easier and fuller her heart felt. Expectation was a wonderful and terrible thing.

There was not a cloud in the sky tonight, and the half-moon shone brightly to light her way. Over rocky ground and through a thick patch of trees she traveled, until she arrived at the clearing where she passed so many restless nights.

Maybe tonight he would be here, but she could not be sure. He came less and less often. In the past year, how many nights had she sat on a rock waiting for him to come? Waiting, and waiting, and waiting. It didn’t matter the season or the weather. She would endure anything to see Willym again, even for a few moments.

She sat on a flat rock, lifted her arms, and looked up at the moon as she whispered her husband’s name. The darkness remained quiet and free of spirits, so she began to recite the spell that had brought him to her on other nights. She whispered soft words, strange incantations in the ancient language her mother had taught her, and she controlled the energy she created with the sway of her hands. It was almost like a dance, the way she used her hands to direct the flow of her power. She asked that her husband be returned to her, and when that didn’t work she demanded that he appear before her.

In the beginning, when she had been so wretched with grief that she’d wanted to die, the spell had worked without fail. But as the months and years passed, it was as if he were fighting her. The spell didn’t work every time.

It did not work tonight, and she sat on the rock with tears streaming down her face and her heart pounding too fast.

“I never should’ve loved you. You never should’ve left me,” she said as she swiped angrily at her tears. “We were supposed to be together forever.” Two years was well short of forever. The short years of her marriage seemed like the twinkling of an eye, they had passed so quickly.

The five years since his death had passed with excruciating leisure.

Isadora reclined on the flat rock and stared at the moon and the stars. “If I had known my love would kill you, I would have sent you away the first time you came calling. Senseless man,” she whispered. “Most men know better than to court a witch, but not you. You were...fearless when it came to love.”

Willym had not cared for her use of witchcraft, and she had indulged him by using her talents infrequently. Her husband had loved her as a woman, not as a witch, and for those two precious years...

“Sophie doesn’t understand why I dislike her Kane Varden so much,” she said, her voice directed to the sky, since Willym chose not to appear tonight. “She doesn’t know how much it will hurt if she falls in love with him and he is taken from her, the way you were taken from me. How do I explain that to her without breaking down and crying?” She had to be strong, for her sisters and for herself. She wouldn’t sob and beg like an old woman. “How do I explain without feeling that awful, deep pain all over again?” She crossed her arms across her chest. “I would do anything to keep her from experiencing the hurt I felt when you left me.”

“Don’t cry, Izzy.” The wind whispered in her husband’s voice.

Isadora sat up quickly, her eyes scanning the clearing. At first she saw nothing, and then he was there. He stood fifteen feet away, smiling and dressed as he had been on that final day, in a white shirt and tan work pants and those worn boots she’d hated and he’d adored. He was solid for a moment, and then he started to fade away.

“No!” She leapt from the rock and ran toward him, her steps long and quick. “Don’t go!”

But Willym faded before she reached him, as he always did, and all she had left of him was that whisper on the wind that teased her ears once again.

“Don’t cry, Izzy.”

Muted strains of music reached Sophie’s ears as she hurried toward town. The social was to take place in Elmyr Cadman’s warehouse at the other end of town, so hopefully no one would see her walking into Shandley for the second time today.

On her first visit, she’d returned the white dress to a surprised and unhappy Galvyn Farrell, and then she and Ariana had spent some time with Kane. They’d met at his rented room above the tavern, and then when the confines of the room became too much, they went for a long walk. Away from town, not through it. They’d found a pretty, quiet spot where a bubbling brook ran across sparkling rock, and wildflowers and thick grass grew on the bank. They’d sat there for hours. They’d talked a while, and she’d laughed at the way Kane played with his daughter.

He loved his child, of that she had no doubt.

Tonight Sophie was alone. Juliet and Isadora were watching Ariana, who was down for the night.

Sophie fingered the vial in her pocket and her heart hitched. The potion was not for her, as she’d expected, but for Kane. Isadora said he was to drink it, and once that was done they had to wait for at least a quarter of an hour before uniting their bodies.

Kane didn’t know she was going to him tonight. What if he wasn’t there? What if he didn’t want her?

She dismissed her reservations. He might not be in his room, but he did want her. It was in his eyes, in the way he touched her, in the way his body shifted when he saw her. Yes, he wanted this night as much as she did.

All night, he’d said. Possibilities.

She’d dressed for the occasion in something much more fitting than Galvyn Farrell’s ridiculously ornate gown. Her gown was of the palest blue and hung in soft layers to mid-calf. The hem was uneven, angular and irregular and layered, and it floated around her legs when she walked. The neckline of the frock plunged deeply. The sleeves were as layered and irregular as the skirt. Her hair was down tonight, and her fine slippers matched the gown perfectly.

She went to the rear door, rather than walking through the tavern where a few who did not care for the revelry sat and drank. The music from the social was muffled but still audible, as she climbed the rear stairwell. Strings and flutes played in perfect harmony, with no mistakes that Sophie could discern. Then again, she knew little about music. There was none on Fyne Mountain, and she had never ventured down the hill for a social in the past. The tunes were surprisingly nice. Since it was a warm night, perhaps Kane would have his window open and they could listen to the music while they made love. All night.

Kane answered her knock so quickly, she wondered if he’d known she was coming to him tonight. His eyes widened slightly at the sight of her.

He wore all black; shirt and trousers and boots, and she could tell that he had not shaved since morning. His jaw was rough with an evening’s stubble. She reached out and ran her palm across that rough beard. “You look surprised. Surely you knew I would come to you tonight.”

He took her wrist in his hand and guided her into his room, closing the door behind her. His window was indeed open, and strains of gentle music wafted into the room on the night breeze.

“I dreamed about this last night,” he said gruffly. “There was music,” he said. “You were wearing blue in the dream, too.” Sophie reached out and pressed her hand to Kane’s chest, not pushing him away, but simply touching. His heat seeped through the shirt and into her hand, and this close the very scent of him made her insides quake. She let her hand slip around his body, and she fell into him. Her cheek rested on his chest, her arms encircled him.

All she could give was her body, all she could take was the physical pleasure Kane promised when he looked at her, when he touched her. It would be enough, because there was no other way.

His hands raked up and down her back, comforting and arousing at the same time. Suddenly, she felt an unexpected shyness well up inside her. She wanted this night to be perfect.

Kane tilted her head gently back, and when he laid his mouth on hers she felt the heat and the pleasure of it all through her body. To her toes, to the top of her head, she felt his kiss. There was no haste in the kiss. It was leisurely. It was wonderful.

He took his mouth from hers, dipped his head, and latched those lips to her throat. Her body shook in response. Just a kiss, and already her knees were weak.

“I have never known a woman like you,” he said, his voice almost lost against her throat. “I never even knew such a woman existed.”

“Am I so very different from other women?”

He slowly raised his head and looked her in the eye. “Don’t you know, Angel?”

Instead of answering, she cupped his face in her hands and kissed him again. He pulled her body against his, so close she felt his erection pressing against her flesh. She imagined what it would feel like when he pushed inside her, and her center clenched in response.

He danced her toward the bed, never taking his mouth from hers, and one hand reached up to cup her breast and gently tease the nipple. They would fall on the bed, clothes would be discarded, and then in a moment they would be truly together. Sophie took her mouth from his and delved into her deep pocket, withdrawing the vial Isadora had given her. “I want you to take this,” she said breathlessly. “Then we’ll have to wait a quarter of an hour before joining.”

“Why?” Kane asked as he took the vial from her.

“To prevent another child,” she whispered.

Kane studied the vial for a moment, then uncapped it and drank the shimmering green concoction in one long gulp. With no more questions about the contents, with no apparent reservations. He trusted her.

He placed the empty vial on his bedside table and drew back the covers to reveal white sheets beneath. “A quarter of an hour, you say.”

She nodded and glanced at the clock on the mantel.

“I’m not going to waste even one of those fifteen minutes, Angel.” He unfastened the buttons at her shoulders, then untied the silky cord at her waist. The blue gown fell to the floor, leaving her bare. She kicked off her shoes and reached out to unfasten Kane’s shirt.

“Did you really dream about me?” she asked as the buttons slipped through her fingers.

“So many times I can’t even count them all.”

“Perhaps there was a witch among your ancestors,” she said. “Prophetic dreams are quite common...” She squealed when he lifted her off her feet and deposited her onto the bed. “Kane!” She laughed as he landed beside her. “It hasn’t been anywhere near a quarter of an hour. Maybe you’d like to tell me about your dream to pass the time.”

He took off his boots and tossed them aside so they thudded to the floor, then he sprawled out beside her wearing only his trousers. “There are better ways to pass those minutes than to talk.”

Kissing. Much more kissing. She rolled onto her side and he rolled to his, and their mouths came together. Bare chest to bare chest, on a soft, comfortable mattress, they kissed. Today she was not surprised by the power of the kiss, and whatever shyness she had felt when she’d walked into this room was now gone. When Kane speared his tongue into her mouth, she copied his move. When he sucked against her bottom lip, she did the same. Soon her body was wrapped around his and his hand rested on her backside as he held her in place.

She glanced at the clock. No, not yet a quarter of an hour.

“How long can you stay?” Kane asked.

“I need to be home before sunrise.”

He grinned and kissed her again, then he lowered his head to her throat and sucked on the sensitive skin there. “Then there’s no need to hurry,” he whispered against her neck. “Angel, I’m going to make you cry tonight.”

“Why would you do such a thing?”

Kane lifted his head and looked down at her. “Trust me, it’s a good cry.” He traced her jawline with his thumb, and it seemed her skin was more sensitive than it had ever been before. She tingled everywhere, she could feel the rush of her own blood through her veins. Kane’s hand raked down her throat, over her breasts, down to her belly and below, to spread her thighs. With that hand he stroked her inner thighs, one and then the other, just barely allowing his fingers to brush against her where she wanted him so badly.

“Close your eyes,” he whispered, and she did. “Relax.” Again she followed his direction, as best she could. The mattress dipped as he moved away from her side. She licked her lips and shifted her aching body slightly as Kane touched her with arousing, gentle fingers.

He put his mouth on her, his tongue flickering over her in a way she had never imagined possible. Sensations more intense and pleasurable than she had ever dreamed of began to grow, to dance through her body like ribbons of sunshine. Her body rocked, her hips lifted, and Sophie was no longer in control. She was ruled by the needs of her body and the man who continued to feast upon her.

Only their bodies existed, along with the night breeze, and a hint of music. Everything else ceased; all cares, all plans, all needs other than the one Kane fulfilled.

She did cry, as he had said she would. With need and desire, with amazement, she cried. And then Kane’s touch changed and she shattered, and the cry changed. She called out his name and her body leaped. She made sounds she had never heard before, strange moans and cries of awe and delight and contentment as an intense pleasure fluttered through and tugged at her body.

And still the world did not return. Nothing existed outside this bed. Not for tonight.

Kane crawled over her like a cat, his smile wicked and endearing. “And that, my love, was just the beginning.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and glanced at the mantel clock. “Three more minutes.”

“What can we do with those three precious minutes?” he asked, his voice husky.

Sophie untangled her arms and reached down to unfasten his trousers. Surely twelve minutes was close enough to a quarter of an hour! She wanted Kane inside her...and she wanted to make him cry.

Her hands fumbled, her breath came hard. So did his, and yet he allowed her to work the buttons of his trousers alone. He did not help, he did not hurry her as she worked his trousers down and off. Soon he was as wonderfully bare as she. Sophie wrapped her legs around Kane’s hips and guided him toward her.

“Sophie,” he whispered her name and closed his eyes. “Something’s wrong.”

No, nothing was wrong. Nothing could possibly be wrong on a night like this one.

Kane shuddered and then collapsed atop her, inert.

“Kane. Kane!” Sophie rolled him into his back, a difficult task since he was unconscious. She hovered over him, checking his heartbeat and his breathing and finding them normal.

Isadora had done this, Sophie had no doubt. All her words about her little sister making her own decisions had been lies. Deceitful, manipulative lies. Again she placed her hand over his heart. It continued to beat, healthy. Strong. She lowered her head so she could hear his breathing in her ear. Steady. Deep.

How long would he sleep? If this was Isadora’s idea of a joke, Kane could be out for a few minutes or for the entire night. Surely she wouldn’t have filled that vial with a fatal poison! No, she wouldn’t do that.

Sophie was tempted to get dressed and run home as fast as she could to confront her sister, but she didn’t. She laid down beside Kane, resting her head on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I should have known she’d try something like this.” But it had never even occurred to her that Isadora’s intentions were anything other than sisterly. Sophie did not see deceit in others because it was so foreign to her.

She kissed Kane’s shoulder and sighed. “Maybe you’ll wake up in a few minutes or in an hour or two, and we can begin again. You mentioned possibilities, and now you have shown me. I want more, Kane Varden. I want everything from you.” Everything but love, which would ruin her life. And his.

Galvyn stood beneath the boardinghouse window and stared up. Anger was not a sufficient word for what he felt at this moment. His hands clenched and unclenched. He wanted to hit something. No, someone. He wanted to hit and hit again until his rage subsided.

When he’d glanced down the street and seen Sophie rounding the tavern, he’d thought for a minute that he must be mistaken. After all, she’d told him she would not be able to attend the dance tonight.

But that hair, loose and gleaming in the moonlight, was unmistakable. He’d crept to the tavern, stood beneath Kane Varden’s window, and listened. He could not hear the words they spoke, but he had heard enough. He had heard more than enough.

She’d lied to him. She’d smiled and thanked him for his gift, which she’d refused to keep in spite of his pleading that she do just that, and told him she could not attend the dance. And then she’d come here. To him.

Sophie was his. He had done so much for her, and she did not appreciate any of his efforts! Like other men in town, he’d always admired her beauty. Not enough to risk the social stigma of consorting with a witch, of course, but she had provided more than one erotic fantasy through the years.

Galvyn had always known he would marry a woman with political connections. He had ambitions well beyond owning most of a small, rural village. When he’d discovered Sophie’s secret, he’d known she was the one. She was his way out of Shandley once and for all.

He’d gone to great lengths to ensure that he would one day have her as his wife. He sought her out whenever she was in town, and when he spoke to her he was the finest of gentlemen. He’d begun to defend Sophie to numerous townspeople, making her out to be the innocent victim of those older Fyne sisters. That way when he made his move they would not be surprised. He was to be Sophie’s savior, her friend...her hero.

If that didn’t work, and it looked as if it would not, he’d have to find another way.

And he would. She didn’t know it yet, but Sophie Fyne was his pathway to power and prominence and riches well beyond anything he could find here in Shandley. She would take him to the capital city, to the palace itself, and there he would finally have a worthy position.

He was tired of waiting.