Mystic Rider Page 4

  He spoke with such sincerity, she had to believe him. She must have his chalice —

  Chantal stared at him in surprise. “The silver bell! You want my bell!”

  A V formed over the bridge of his nose. “It does not ring,” he argued, “but it is silver. Might I see your bell?”

  Dismay filled her as she realized she must disappoint him. “It is gone. I sent it away hours ago.”

  Three

  Ian would have liked time to process the amazing synchronization of his body with his mate’s that had produced such pleasure. He’d known many gifted women on Aelynn, but they had wanted marriage, power, and heirs. They had expected him to use his empathic talents to make the encounter memorable, without making much effort to return their gratification.

  Never had he experienced such natural responsiveness, such a giving sensuality as this woman’s. Now he understood the spiritual as well as the physical differences between a legal wife and an amacara. She’d lifted the exhaustion from his overworked senses, harmonized his thoughts, and restored him. She was amazing, a rejuvenating elixir he didn’t want to give up.

  He would have liked to simply study her beauty and the alluring way her blood pulsed through her veins when she looked upon him. He’d given up hope of ever meeting his physical match, and he needed time to ponder what it meant that she was not an Aelynner.

  And that was only the beginning of what he wanted to do. She looked so deliciously shocked at what had happened between them that he could not resist leaning over and enjoying the intimacy of stealing another kiss, to assure her that this moment could be repeated again in the future. He was not a sentimental man, but he sensed her hunger for his touch, and he willingly complied.

  He lingered on her lips to imprint them firmly in his mind before he straightened and returned to his task. As heir to the Oracle, he must put duty before pleasure. He was disappointed that a child had not come of their joining, but he was not disappointed that his future obligation lay in a continued attempt to create one.

  For now, he would return to his foremost task. “If you will tell me where you have sent the chalice, I will fetch it and return here as quickly as I can,” he promised.

  Her hair fell in a waterfall across the arm of the oddly-shaped chair on which she lay. Ian filled his hand with gold and indulged in the sensual luxury of stroking the silken strands with his callused fingers, while he waited for her to gather her wits.

  She shook her head, and he hastily released her hair, thinking his rough caress might not cause her such pleasure as it did him. She did not give off all the usual cues to which he was accustomed.

  “I cannot call the chalice back,” she informed him. “It is all I have that might release my sister-in-law and her children from prison.”

  Ian did not have time for disappointment. He should have known the task would not be easy if Kiernan could not complete it. But he had already found his amacara. Gods willing, he would have the chalice soon.

  Then he must ponder the problem of Murdoch. Leaving a man with powerful, unpredictable abilities to roam in a world already torn with strife appeared to oppose the most basic laws of Aelynn.

  He stood and picked up his cloak. “I will offer coins to whomever has the chalice. Tell me how to find your family, and I will bring them back with me.”

  Theoretically, he was not supposed to interfere in the Other World except in self-defense, or if one of his kind had caused harm. But if the chalice was meant to save his amacara’s family, then it seemed reasonable that he should assist it.

  “You do not know Paris,” she stated, pushing her hair from her face and looking a little less dazed.

  He swelled with male pride that he’d been able to fluster her as thoroughly as she had disturbed him. Perhaps it had been a new experience for both of them.

  “You cannot find Pauline until I know where she is being detained,” she insisted. “I have sent my servant to find out.”

  Ian disliked delay. He preferred a methodical accomplishment of his duties before indulging in further pleasure. Proper meditation and gratitude for the gift given him in this gentle lady was called for as well. In his heedless youth, he had occasionally exploded into emotional tumult, disregarding the necessity of quiet contemplation — at great peril to his own life and limb and to the people around him. He did not repeat mistakes. Indulging in further passion would be dangerous until he had accomplished his goals.

  He slipped his robe over the Other World clothing Kiernan had insisted that he wear. He found the breeches constraining, but the shirt was loose enough that he could swing his staff as needed.

  He’d refused to wear one of the tight coats that would hinder his ability to act quickly, and waistcoats were frivolous baubles of no use for comfort or protection. The Finder had found the robe when they’d first landed in Brittany. He’d presented it with a grumble about Ian’s living the life of a monk, so he might as well look like one, a comment Ian had disregarded. Kiernan’s disrespect for his leader’s asceticism was well known.

  “I have been unforgivably rude,” Ian said again.

  “Rude is not the word I would use,” she murmured, still attempting to straighten her clothing and locate her hairpins.

  He almost smiled at her dry remark. They were very much in tune, it seemed. “I do not even know your name or how you would like to be called.”

  She looked startled and then ashamed. “I think your bell or chalice or whatever has affected my mind,” she muttered. “I cannot believe what we have done. You’re a stranger. Perhaps you should leave. My father is expected to return from Versailles this evening.”

  “There will be time to explain later, after I retrieve the chalice,” he said soothingly. “I will present myself to your father, and we will have a discussion about your future. I promise, you have done nothing of which to be ashamed, but I am concerned I have given you a wrong impression. I am not usually so impulsive.”

  That was an immense understatement. He had not anticipated giving in to spontaneous arousal. Or the need for apologies. He’d never had to apologize, until now. “Please forgive me.”

  She sighed, and pushed high by her confining garments, her beautiful bosom rose and fell. Ian had to tear his gaze away and study the plaster garlands and painted cherubs on the ceiling to prevent his body from responding again. He supposed if one must hide from the Other World’s intemperate climate in these huge dark caverns they called houses, it was best to do so in artful surroundings.

  “I think it is your voice that makes a muddle of my brain,” she said distractedly, rising and offering her hand. “I truly do know proper etiquette and do not generally behave as an uncivilized heathen. I am Chantal Deveau. It is a… pleasure… to meet you.”

  Ian was aware of the custom of greeting others with outstretched hands. Conscious of the irony, considering the intimacy they had already shared, he took her offered fingers and bowed over them. “My pleasure,” he said as he’d been taught, but truly meaning it. He stroked her palm, causing her to look startled and as interested as she had earlier. She had a way of lowering her lashes and appearing sleepily seductive that would divert him were he any ordinary man.

  “Now, if you will instruct me as to where I might find the prisons in which your family might be detained, I will attempt to return with them before your father arrives.”

  * * *

  Chantal couldn’t decide whether it was the man or the lovemaking that was making her brain whirl unsteadily. Surely she’d misheard him. Had he just offered to break her family out of prison without even asking why they were there? And what had he meant about her future?

  “I don’t know where you come from that justice is so easily accomplished, but it could take days to find Pauline and arrange for her release,” she argued. “Most monks have fled France since the Assembly confiscated their property. You cannot hope to pass even the first guard dressed as you are. Paris is in turmoil, and people are very suspicious of foreigners. I trust
your passport is in good order.”

  “I am sorry, I do not have days to wait,” he said with an impatient gesture that might be interpreted as arrogance in a man not wearing an ascetic’s robe. “As much as I would enjoy learning more of your world, I have a mission to complete before I return home. I would discover the level of difficulty for myself.”

  He conveyed an implacable authority that she’d sensed earlier, a superior attitude that she resented in most men, but oddly, not in him. Perhaps because she trusted him to use his authority wisely? Her mind must be completely lacking. She hardly knew the man.

  “Fine, then, I will come with you,” she announced. “Let me have the maids instruct my students to return tomorrow. I will admit I am anxious about Pauline.” She must truly be crazed to suggest this, but she could detect no uncertainty in his voice. He knew he could free Pauline. Who was she to argue with a man who was willing to give her exactly what she wanted?

  She blushed as she realized how thoroughly he had given her what she wanted, even when she hadn’t realized what that was. And she had needed their lovemaking, it seemed. Her jangled nerves had settled. She felt much better and braver now.

  She rang the bell for a maid before Monsieur d’Olympe could object. She could see his thoughtful frown, but he didn’t outright refuse her aid. A man among men, she thought dryly.

  She would see how he behaved when confronted with circumstances beyond his control. That always revealed a person’s character. She was terrified that for the first time in her life she had not interpreted the notes of a voice correctly.

  She was in no humor to change from her fragile at-home gown. Instead, she retired to her chamber to wash away the evidence of their encounter. She was a widow and had done nothing that every other woman in this city hadn’t done far more often than she. This was Paris, the city of love. The court could not function without sexual power plays. She had no reason to be ashamed of her behavior — other than that she didn’t know this man.

  She sent for her cashmere shawl in case the June evening turned cool. Then she donned her wide-brimmed straw hat to cover the shambles Monsieur d’Olympe had made of her hair — and to conceal her blush whenever she thought about what they’d done.

  She returned to find her guest frowning at a large oil painting of a bloody cavalry charge. He turned at her entrance, and his frown disappeared. She took that for approval since he didn’t seem to smile a great deal.

  A footman hurried to open the front door for them. Girard generally accompanied her when she walked to her father’s office, but she had sent him off with the bell — the chalice. Now she had her strange…beau?…to act as escort.

  Ignoring polite etiquette, he did not offer his arm for her support, but picked up his staff and followed her as she swept down the circular drive.

  The largest prison in the city, la Conciergerie, was located on the Ile de la Cité, next to the Palais de Justice, and since Pierre and Pauline had just been taken, they would most likely still be there. Girard would have driven over in the pony cart. Chantal could easily walk to her father’s office and the market, but crossing the bridge where filthy radicals assembled to cast their insults could be unpleasant.

  Oddly enough, while she hesitated, her companion began to twirl his walking stick in circles with ever-increasing speed. She blinked in astonishment as it became a blur of lightning that he whirled from front to back and over his head in a manner she could not quite follow.

  “This way, I think,” he said when the stick slowly came to rest. Taking her elbow — more to steer her than out of politeness — he led her toward the gatekeeper who stared at them with his jaw hanging open.

  Before she could ask the servant to hire a cart, Monsieur d’Olympe escorted her into the bustling street and turned in the correct direction, toward the main road that would lead them across the bridge.

  He strode rapidly. She had to lift her skirts to follow him. He slowed with a frown.

  “Perhaps you should not accompany me, after all. The degree of hostility around us indicates a high probability of danger. I did not realize I would jeopardize your safety out here.”

  He turned to lead her back, but Chantal dug in her heels. She had given up attempting a normal conversation with this man. Degree of hostility, indeed. “I walk these streets every day. You might wish to engage a cart and driver, though. The distance is great and you are already weary.” She added the last with the same patronizing tone he had used.

  He eyed her warily, apparently sensing her displeasure. “You would engage one of these men who appear to despise you?”

  Truly offended now, she propped her hands on her hips and glared. “If you have just arrived here, how can you presume to know how people think of me? I have known them for years. Admittedly, there is a great deal of resentment for my father’s wealth, but I cannot believe that they actually despise me.”

  Although she often sensed simmering anger beneath the resentment, she assumed that was because poverty ate at the soul. Once people understood how hard her father worked for their benefit, once times improved, the hatred and resentment would dissipate.

  “Perhaps I am overtired and do not yet understand how your people think,” he agreed with hesitation. “I have no desire to strike anyone for imagined insults. Show me which carts are for hire, and I will acquire one for you.”

  Chantal rubbed the place on her brow that had begun to throb. It was apparent he did not have complete command of her language. One did not strike others for thinking insults, did one? So she had obviously misunderstood, or he’d misspoken. She glanced up and down the street, saw old Jacques meandering in their direction with his cart empty of produce, and signaled him.

  The old man nodded his graying head and steered his ancient mule toward the sloppy gutter, splashing passersby with the cart’s wooden wheels. “Madame Deveau,” he murmured in greeting, not offering to step down from his high seat. “You are out late this evening.” He eyed her companion with disfavor.

  The monk drew up straight in evident umbrage, offered Chantal a look of disbelief, and rapped his solid staff against the cart’s big wheel with such vigor that even the old donkey started and turned to look.

  “Out of the cart, old man! Your filthy thoughts condemn you as worse scum than those who have abused you. Get down, and I will take the lady myself. I will pay you for the animal’s freedom.”

  Before Chantal could so much as gasp in shock, Monsieur d’Olympe threw a coin at the driver’s boots, then bodily lifted Jacques to the street when the old man bent to grab it. Jacques spit at their feet, but thoroughly cowed by the encounter, he did not argue.

  Without so much as a by-your-leave, her companion lifted her to the cart’s high seat. Chantal stared in astonishment as all semblance of his tantrum dissipated, and he stopped to stroke the nose of the cantankerous old mule and apparently murmur pleasantries to it as she might her kitten.

  After seeing to the mule, he swung effortlessly up to join her. His cuffed boots did not bear a single splatter of mud beneath his long robe.

  “You’re not really a monk, are you?” she said as he studied the mule’s reins and called softly to the animal. Without need of a tug of the leather, the animal turned its head in the right direction.

  “A monk?” he asked without inflection as he concentrated on steering the cart into the busy street. “That means a man of your church, am I correct? No, of course not. Why would you think that?”

  Chantal rolled her eyes and began to hum beneath her breath. Perhaps she would let him buy back the bell — the chalice — then hit him over the head with it. That might produce a calming effect.

  “You are wearing a monk’s robes,” she pointed out.

  “Clothing does not make the man,” he informed her as if she were the crazy one. Safely in the main stream of traffic, he clicked the mule down the street as if he knew precisely where he meant to go.

  Four

  Ian frowned at the defiant tune his amaca
ra hummed, but he chose to study her moods as time went on rather than question, since his queries seemed to disconcert her. He had learned from his friend Trystan’s wife that Other Worlders did not know how to conceal their emotions and thoughts as Aelynners did, though his mate seemed able to conceal hers with music. Even when she was silent, she vibrated with sound. It was a pleasant new experience that he would enjoy exploring, once he had the chalice and Murdoch secured.

  He was obviously out of harmony with her world. That the vile old man could even think of Chantal in such viciously carnal terms had shocked him beyond reason — so much so that even the poor animal’s neglect had not registered as it ought. He could not remove his mate from this unpleasant environment quickly enough for his tastes. Once he obtained the chalice, he would speak with her father and settle the marriage arrangements.

  He had learned about Other World marital customs from Trystan, who had taken a Crossbreed for his wife. Mariel had already borne Trystan a pair of healthy, delightful twins, so perhaps the gods knew what they were doing by matching Ian with Chantal. If a mere Guardian like Trystan could overcome the conflict of cultures, then Ian was confident he could. Twins would be more than he could expect. He’d settle for a single heir, male or female.

  Once he had presented the proper marriage gift and said the required words, he could take his amacara with him and protect her from the hostility of this appalling city. Trystan was fortunate he could live on the peaceful coast of Brittany when he and his wife weren’t on Aelynn.

  “You bullied an old man,” Chantal said abruptly, intruding on his thoughts, reminding him that he might have a few hurdles to overcome before she understood his actions.

  “I scared a bestial coward,” he replied. “Never go near that man again. I should have tied him up and turned him in to your authorities. If a creature like that is allowed to roam the streets unhindered, I must ask why your family has been incarcerated. Surely they cannot be worse.”