Chapter 14
Maisie let Adrian Hailsworth lead her up the dirt track until they reached the fringe of wood beyond the last cottage, her heart in her throat. Several trail heads led into the forest here and Adrian slowed.
Maisie pulled her hand from his grasp as she passed him, feeling as though the chill in the air had increased twofold at the loss of his touch. Another moment of his skin on hers and Maisie feared she would have turned fully into his arms, begging him to hold her and kiss her and tell her she would be safe.
“It’s this way,” she said instead, hitching up the front of her skirts with both hands and mounting the steep trail without needing to mind her step.
How many thousands of times had her feet traversed this path since she’d learned to walk, scampering to and from the village to play with her friends and visit the folk, participating in woodland games or digging in the coarse sand of the beach below? Those journeys had been filled with smiles and happy shrieks and breathless laughter.
Now she climbed toward the castle with tears of humiliation and hurt in her eyes. She had no friends on Wyldonna anymore, save the unfathomable, shirtless Englishman who traversed the path with her.
By the time she emerged from the wood onto the castle yard, Adrian Hailsworth close at her heels, Maisie’s eyes were dry. She was thankful for that as she saw the hulking black outline of Reid against the torch glow from the open door behind him. He appeared to be holding Adrian’s ruined belongings in his huge hands, and they hung between his fingers like scraps.
Seeing the shredded shirt and leather bag reminded her that Adrian Hailsworth could have died that evening. By all rights, he should be dead at that very moment. But not only was he marching behind her, shirtless, his black marks camouflaging him in the night, he had shown himself superior to the most deadly inhabitants of Wyldonna—the afternhangers. He had more likely than not saved her from their claws. Her own brother had not even raised a finger to defend her.
Adrian had made a grave enemy tonight in having the audacity to strike one of the creatures. Maisie’s stomach tumbled at the idea that he had made such a risk for her alone.
“My queen,” Reid greeted her as she neared, his deep solemn voice betraying his concern. “Is aught amiss? When I found you not within—”
“I’m sorry to have worried you,” she said as she swept past him. “My brother thought it a good time to introduce Lord Hailsworth to the folk.” She headed for the castle door without slowing, wishing to lock herself away from the night, the wood, the ones below who now shunned her.
The only place she was safe, and could keep Adrian Hailsworth to herself.
“My thanks, Reid,” Adrian said behind her, and she heard both pairs of feet follow her into the vestibule before the door shut firmly.
Maisie breathed a silent sigh of relief as she came into the hall, even though that long chamber was populated by the puny crowd of servants reluctantly charged to care for her. They were clustered together and looking at her with wide eyes as she entered, Reid and Adrian following in her wake. She ignored them all, heading for the doorway that led to the central corridor.
Malcolm had tried to win Adrian to his side. To turn him against her? Well, fair was fair. And she’d never been very good at keeping cautious any matter.
“Maighread,” Adrian called out behind her.
Maisie stopped and spun around in the center of the aisle, her cape swirling around her feet.
For a moment, he only looked at her, as if he had forgotten what he was going to say. Maisie took that heartbeat of time to appraise him as well, his muscled, slender waist covered with the bold black marks of his magic. He seemed larger now, his body half-bared to her, than when she’d first seen him in the courtyard of Melk in his monk’s robes. His jaw was nearly covered with stubble that was rapidly becoming a beard, his hair curled at his collarbone. He looked as if he could have been born on the island.
Maisie felt her stomach clench with desire. The same desire she recognized in Adrian Hailsworth’s dark eyes.
His saving her had not been a simple act of chivalry—he felt the want of her, too.
“I have questions,” Adrian began again, and she could see him attempting to gain control of himself. “About what just transpired below.”
“And I mean to give you answers,” she replied, not caring if he saw her recklessness. “If you will follow me.”
One of the elfin girls stepped hesitantly from the knot of her friends. She gave a slight curtsy in Adrian’s direction.
“Perhaps Man first desires a drink?” she asked sweetly.
One of the other girls joined her. “Or a bit to eat?”
By the way they fluttered their long eyelashes, one would think them to be afflicted. But Maisie was oddly glad to see that she was not the only one affected by Adrian Hailsworth’s presence, even if it meant her own maids were trying to steal the Painted Man away from her.
Adrian was changing. Wyldonna was changing him.
Reid sent the servant girls a glare that had them scattering back into the clutch of maids. “I will serve Man should he have need. Be gone from here and back to your duties before the queen dismisses the lot of you.”
Adrian had barely glanced at the girls; his attention was for Maisie alone, and it thrilled her. “Where are we going?”
“The library,” she said.
“Library?” He blinked, then cocked his head. “You have a library? That wasn’t on the plans.”
Maisie couldn’t help the ghost of a smile that pulled at her mouth as she turned. She could feel his heightened excitement rolling off him like a wave. “This way,” she said, then swept from the hall, slightly giddy at the sound of Adrian’s footfalls gaining on her.
Adrian could hardly contain his anticipation as he followed Maisie’s slender form down the dim corridor. Her curls streamed behind her in the wake of her swift passing, and Adrian’s nostrils were filled with the scent of her, so strong and vivid it was almost as if he could taste her fragrance. He could not explain the feeling that had come over him since his encounter with the afternhangers and the villagers in the common, but he felt . . . amazing. Whole and powerful and full of life.
And it had taken the greater portion of his will not to seize the queen of Wyldonna and kiss her in her own hall when her eyes had fallen upon his bare skin like a touch. He’d not felt such strong desire for a woman since before arriving at Jacob’s Ford more than three years ago, and now he wanted Maisie Lindsey.
Which was completely foolish and unreasonable. So he busied himself with the idea that his eagerness was not for the woman who led him down the corridor but for the location alone to which she was leading him.
She stopped at an ornately carved door, and Adrian’s heart skipped as her cape slid behind her, revealing the fit of her bodice over high breasts and flat stomach. But he told himself he was only anxious for what lay behind the door. Volumes and volumes, he told himself. Everything he needed to know. And then he could push the lustful thoughts of her from his mind.
She glanced at him. “Are you certain you want this?”
I’ve come for what is mine.
Adrian’s blood boiled. “It’s the only thing I can think about.”
Her breasts lifted and fell with her sigh. Then she pushed the door open, and he followed her in, actually daring to lay his fingertips along the side of her waist as if to hurry her along. But his hand wanted to slip around her midriff, pull her to him in the privacy of the black chamber . . .
He stepped away into the space properly and felt his eyebrows raise as he scanned the dark corners.
He heard her moving about behind him, and a moment later a yellow glow spilled around his boots as she lit a candle, but it did little to improve his view. Then she was at his side once more.
“I thought you said we were going to the library.”
“Aye,” she replied, raising the candle and gesturing about her. “This is the library.”
Adrian’s eyes took in the windowless stone walls, devoid of shelves, the small square table and single wooden chair—both covered in what appeared to be a hundred years’ worth of dust. In the center of the tabletop rested an odd raised platform, similar to the ones used by the brethren at Melk when copying manuscripts. He had to admit to himself, he’d fantasized at the possibility of taking Maisie Lindsey in the castle library. But—
“Where are the books?”
“Books?” she repeated with a frown. “There are nae books on Wyldonna. There is book.”
“Book,” he said flatly.
“Yes, book. One.” She walked to the table and set down her candle before swiping her palm across the raised square, sending a fall of dust onto the floor. It was then that Adrian could make out the leather cover, it’s embossing filled with packed gray years. “This one.”
He gained her side then and set the remains of his belongings in the seat of the chair before leaning over the only object in the room besides the candle and wooden furnishings. He slid the flame closer so that he could make out the marks on the cover, but there were no words—only swirls of age-softened black.
“What’s in it?” he asked, his fingertips skimming the designs, his eyes seeking to form a logical pattern from the marks.
“Everything,” Maisie said simply and quietly.
He turned his head to look at her. Her eyes were raking over his skin, and he could feel the twist of his guts with the intimacy wrapped around them. In that instant, the library—if one were so generous as to refer to the chamber as such—ceased to matter.
“Everything?” he prompted, more sharply than he’d intended, but he needed to distract himself from his desire for her.
“Wyldonna’s history. Stories. The lineage of the crown.” Then, to his amazement, she actually stepped closer to him, placing her hand on the curve of his shoulder to urge him to stand upright.
He did so, turning toward her, and she reached out her hands, her fingers skimming the marks on his chest and stomach, his forearms, much in the same manner as he had been stroking the now forgotten tome on the table. It was as if she was coming to him in a dream once more, touching him as he’d wished she would.
“Maisie,” he said in a low voice, wanting to warn her.
“I canna help it,” she said, and indeed her voice sounded mystified. “I’ve wanted to look at you, to touch you, since first seeing your marks on the crawler. Doona deny me, Adrian. I’m the queen, after all. I must see. You must let me. It’s the magic.”
He reached up and grasped both her wrists in his hands and then jerked her to him. If he wasn’t very careful now, he would lose control. “It’s not magic. And you mustn’t be so bold. I have been without a woman for a long time. Where is your fear of me now, in this room with no one to protect you?”
“I still fear you,” she confessed, and then her tongue wet her lips as she looked up at him. “But nae for the reasons you hope. You are the only one who will protect me.”
“Shall I kiss you, then?” he challenged. “Will that give you reason to fear me?”
She shook her head and turned her face up, daring him. “In truth, it’s the only thing that shall make me feel safe.”
Adrian felt his brows draw together even as his left hand released her wrist to pull her against him fully. “That isn’t logical, Maisie. For should I dare, I shan’t stop with only a kiss.”
“I know,” she breathed and let her hand slide over his ribs to his spine. “It’s meant to be, though, Adrian. Let it.”
He tasted her bottom lip and sensation exploded behind his eyes. “We are meant to make love?” he pressed, feeling his control slipping away like silk through a keyhole. “You can’t believe that.”
Maisie nodded. “Your marks,” she said, and then pressed her lips to each side of his mouth before whispering against his lips, “Match the book.”
A hint of alarm went through his body then, even as Maisie kissed him fully and his will to deny her disappeared. He grasped her tiny waist and returned her attention even as his mind rioted.
It was impossible.
He wanted her so badly.
The island was rotting his brain.
She wanted him just as badly.
Maisie pulled away from him only far enough to speak again. “Come with me to my room.”
He shook his head. “I suspect you’ve a dragon in your room. And mine is closer.” Then he kissed her again.
When he pulled away from her next, it was to bend and sweep her legs over his arm. He strode to the door and turned so that she could reach behind her and open it, and then he was carrying her through the corridor as she ran her hands through this hair, pressing her mouth to his jaw.
Adrian’s vison had blurred at the edges, and only a small circle of the way before him was clear. He didn’t know how he navigated the castle, but he made the turns instinctively, bounding up stairs with Maisie in his arms as if she weighed no more than a feather. He felt stronger then than he ever had the whole of his life, as if he could carry her to the ends of the earth if that was where their bed lay.
But in only moments they were in his borrowed chamber. He kicked the door closed behind him and then crossed to his bed, where he lay her down on the mattress and followed. She was already reaching for him as he bent his face to her décolleté, his lips running over her perfect skin, breathing deeply of her scent, his nostrils flaring like a wild beast.
No sooner had the likeness occurred to him than he was tearing at her beautiful gown, snapping the closure of her cape with both hands rather than attend to the delicate frog. And Maisie did not protest.
For a brief moment, he wondered whether he had gone mad. Or if some strange magic had indeed taken hold of him, rendering him incapable of coherent thought. The woman beneath him was not some cheap fancy to use for his ease; he would not leave her in the morn with a coin and a friendly farewell. She was a queen, and they would be in each other’s proximity until the business Adrian had been summoned to attend to was finished. But that thought only increased his desire as it occurred to him that he could have her again on the morrow, and the day after, and the next. . . .
She pulled his head down so that their mouths met, and Adrian continued to pull at her clothes while they kissed, his hands pressing the flesh he found, smooth and warm and soft. He’d not felt such base urgency in years—perhaps he’d never felt it to such an extreme. All he knew was that he must possess this woman soon—now.
He didn’t bother to remove the little clothing he was still wearing, or his boots. Rather, he removed his hand from her while their mouths were still joined and loosened the laces of his chausses as she made little anxious sounds in the back of her throat, urging him on. In an instant he had freed himself and then jerked her leg higher, climbing over her. He entered her with little caution, pulling away from her mouth and giving a shout at her readiness, even as he pushed at the resistance he felt.
He was her first.
And so he stroked her face, kissed her temple tenderly, but still she did not protest or refuse him. Instead, she urged him in his race, her fingernails raking the skin over his buttocks, but he doubted he could have stopped had the room been afire. Her scent, the scent of their joining, enveloped him, set off shuddering white light behind his eyes, which only grew brighter and brighter until it was also a roar of noise in his ears like an ever-falling wave. He was drowning in her body, in the feel of her around him, and in that moment, he would have forsaken anything he had ever held dear for what he was experiencing.
He could feel his time rushing over him, his pace increasing, and still Maisie encouraged him, her delicate fingers running up his stomach and over his chest, locking together around his neck and pulling herself up against him. He looked down at her and saw that her eyes were open, watching him brazenly, her lips parted as her head rocked on the coverlet.
“Adrian,” she whispered.
It pushed him over the edge and he hung there suspended, joined with Maisie Lindsey in a space that was neither of the earth or the heavens but somehow existed apart from even time. The roar in his brain faded like rain moving away over the land, to be replaced with his loud, pounding heartbeat and another similar thrum but smaller, like a bird’s wings.
He realized it was her heart, and he could hear it—feel it—in his own veins.
It startled him so that he slid from her and backed off the bed, swaying on his feet and panting as he looked at her, so bedraggled and nude before him. It was only his own heartbeat that jarred his vision now, but he was not soothed. She was watching him solemnly, and in that moment, Adrian Hailsworth was unable to access his logic, his reason. He could not explain what had just happened between him and Maisie; he could not explain what he felt even now, looking at the queen whose virginity he’d taken so swiftly and callously.
But he knew he wanted her again already. And if he continued to stand at her bedside, it would perhaps only be a moment before he was atop her once more.
Adrian began retying his chausses.
She didn’t say anything, and neither did Adrian as he turned and left the chamber, closing the door behind him.