Part 15 (2/2)

A gentleman wouldn't wake a sleeping lady to demand intimacy, but if she awoke with pleasure she could decide for herself. Her pulse was slow as the beat of a seabird's wing, until he licked the silky skin of her throat and the tempo quickened.

She was all sensuality as she molded herself against him, her hand exploring with sleepy finesse. Unsure if she was waking or sleeping, he continued a gentle lovemaking, each advance on his part met by a response on hers.

”You are mine, mo caran,” he whispered. ”Now and forever, only mine.”

Perhaps she agreed, because she drew him to her with welcoming arms. Restraint exploded into frantic need and he buried himself in the lush haven of her body. She responded with the pa.s.sion that could bring a man to his knees. This was the essence of enchantment-a woman who could supply pleasure and fulfillment so intoxicating that it was impossible to imagine life without her.

They were joined by fate. Surely mere politics could not separate them. . . .

TWENTY.

T he next morning Gwynne behaved as a dutiful bride and gravely inspected the inner workings of the household with Maggie Macrae as her guide. After a thorough tour of the kitchens, laundry, dairy, brew house, and other functions, she said frankly, ”Mistress Maggie, Dunrath ticks like a fine clock in your capable hands. I truly hope you will continue to manage the household. I need to know what is going on and important decisions should be discussed, but I'll be happiest if I have time every day for my own work.”

Maggie said with equal frankness, ”It's glad I'll be to continue as I have before. What is your work?”

”I'm a scholar. I read, I take notes, I make translations, sometimes I write.” Gwynne smiled disarmingly. ”The results are of interest only to other scholars, but it matters to me. When Duncan proposed, he said that Dunrath has a fine library. I look forward to seeing it.”

The older woman grinned. ”And you're peris.h.i.+ng to go there now that you've done your duty. Be off with you, Mistress. I think we shall deal well together.”

Gwynne needed no further permission. She had woken that morning knowing that her honeymoon was over. The magical interlude of travel had given way to the reality of daily life. Now it was time to lay the foundation for the rest of her life, and she saw no reason to take on any more domestic work than was absolutely necessary.

She hadn't seen Duncan since they breakfasted. He had gone off with Jean and Auld Donald to ride through the glen and see how the land and people were faring. She would see none of them till the day was done, she suspected. His att.i.tude this morning had been brisk, and she had been unsure if it was because his thoughts were on the day ahead or if he was withdrawn because of the political tensions between them the evening before. She wasn't too worried, though. Any man who came to bed as pa.s.sionately as Duncan wasn't withdrawing very far.

She was beginning to appreciate the mixed blessing of enchantress power. It would be very easy to use it to manipulate others, which would be wrong in all kinds of ways, both human and Guardian. Yet- very easy. Fortunately Duncan was not the sort to be manipulated.

Now to find if he had exaggerated the size of the Dunrath library. She entered and took stock of the contents. The room faced south so the light was excellent, always an advantage when reading old texts, and lush Persian carpets softened the floor. A long table, a desk, and half a dozen straight chairs were scattered about, while a pair of wing chairs and ottomans sat cozily by the fireplace.

But when she scanned the book t.i.tles, she was dismayed to find no arcane texts at all. Though it was a very fine gentleman's library, there was no Guardian lore.

There had to be more. Perhaps there was a second room housing the secret texts, as was the case at Harlowe?

Frowning, she scanned the library with her inner eye and immediately discovered a door in the corner. It was shaped and painted to fit into the molded wall panels. More important, it was bespelled so that a mundane eye would pa.s.s over it unseeing.

She moved a chair that partially blocked access and placed her hand on the flat k.n.o.b. As soon as she touched it, she recognized that another spell was involved. Frowning, she felt her way through the spell as if walking a garden maze. Ah, it was a repulsion spell. Even if a mundane with a touch of wild magic happened to notice the faint outlines of the door, he would be uninterested in learning more.

Feeling vastly pleased with her ability to navigate the library's defenses, she opened the door and found a second, smaller room furnished in a similar fas.h.i.+on to the main library. But where was it in terms of the castle layout? It was strange to have s.p.a.ce to hide a whole room.

Heavens, there was another spell! A very clever one that made people incurious about how the s.p.a.ce was arranged. No one would notice that a room-size area was unaccounted for unless they took careful measurements of the whole floor. She hadn't noticed herself, until she had penetrated the arcane library's magical barriers.

This time when she crossed the room to the bookshelves, she recognized texts that could be found in any Guardian library. There was plenty of s.p.a.ce for new bookcases, too. Duncan had said she was free to expand the collection. If she were a cat, she'd be licking her chops.

Many of the volumes were deliciously unfamiliar. Much Guardian lore was in journals and workbooks since the information could not be distributed publicly and printing was too expensive when only a handful of copies were needed. Wondering if the library contained any information on enchantresses, she decided to try a technique her father had used.

Concentrating hard on the desired subject, she moved her open hand along the nearest bookshelf, her palm a few inches from the spines of the books. Nothing. The next shelf. Again, nothing.

Unsure whether she was doing this wrong or if there simply wasn't any material on enchantresses, she tried the bottom shelf. Halfway along, she felt warmth emanating from a slim volume. She pulled it from the shelf and found that it was a treatise on powers most often found in females. A quick scan suggested that there was little on enchantresses, but she set the book on the table for closer study.

She returned to her search, and struck gold when one narrow, faded volume almost scorched her palm. The book was the journal of a French enchantress of the previous century. This was exactly what Gwynne had hoped for. It was written in a French regional dialect, but she could understand it reasonably well.

Book in hand, she headed toward one of the chairs by the fireplace-then stopped in her tracks when she saw the portrait hanging over the mantel. It was an oil painting of Isabel and Adam Macrae. Though Gwynne had once seen an engraving of the couple, that had been pale and lifeless in comparison.

She stepped forward to study the portrait more closely. Isabel de Cortes had been her heroine when she was a girl. She still was.

To a half-Guardian child with no power, Isabel had been a s.h.i.+ning example of what a woman could be. Gifted with wild magic, she had no Guardians in her ancestry and she'd been raised by a mundane family that loved but didn't understand her. A student of John Dee, Queen Elizabeth's own sorcerer, she had become a great mage through her fierce determination and discipline. Gwynne had thought it was ironic that she was Isabel's opposite: raised with every Guardian advantage, but no innate ability.

In the painting, the couple were in their middle years and Adam's dark hair had silvered at the temples. Beside him an open window revealed a turbulent Scottish sky as a symbol of his weather mastery. Underneath his Elizabethan beard, his features were very like Duncan's. The Macraes bred true. His hand rested on the head of a tall dog that resembled dogs that lived in the castle now, so it wasn't only the humans that pa.s.sed down their resemblance.

But it was Isabel who drew most of Gwynne's attention. She was no beauty. Her dark face was too narrow and exotically un-English, her features too angular. Yet the intelligence and humor in her gaze were vividly compelling. On her lap was a large tabby cat, and in her right hand she held the famous obsidian scrying gla.s.s.

Last night Gwynne had sensed Isabel's energy on the ruby ring, and today she saw Isabel's face. The combination brought her heroine alive as never before.

Curious what else she might have missed when she made her beeline for the books, she examined the room more carefully. A cl.u.s.ter of miniatures hung on the wall behind the wide desk. She could identify none of the people portrayed, though the men were clearly all Macraes.

Clothing style allowed her to guess which woman was probably Duncan and Jean's mother. She had a lovely, enigmatic smile. The late Lady of Dunrath, who had died about six years earlier, had been a Macleod from the Isle of Skye. In fact, she had been the sister of council member Sir Ian Macleod. They had the same misty gray eyes.

Next Gwynne investigated a gla.s.s curio case full of interesting objects from around the world. The dragon figurine was surely Chinese, and there was a mask from somewhere in Asia that she could only guess at. The Dutch East Indies, perhaps. There was also a silver box that looked like a turreted tower, perhaps from Spain or Italy. Other objects were less identifiable, but all possessed a faint glow of magical power.

She knelt to look at the lower shelves, and caught her breath when she saw what was surely Isabel's scrying gla.s.s. Duncan had said it was among the treasures of Dunrath even though the obsidian lens had gone blank after Isabel's death. It sat quietly on top of a small padded velvet drawstring bag, the smoky stone giving no hint of its significance.

Surely no one would mind if the new mistress touched it. Reverently Gwynne opened the gla.s.s door, hoping that she would feel Isabel's energy more strongly than in the ring, where it had been overlaid with other energies.

She lifted the scrying gla.s.s from the cabinet, the translucent stone cool against her palm-and was blasted by a wave of energy that knocked her onto her backside.

Her heart was pounding and she must have blacked out for a moment, but as she retrieved her scattered wits she found that she still held the scrying gla.s.s. Glad for the thickness of the carpet, she got to her feet and sat in one of the wing chairs. Isabel's vibrant energy had been deeply imprinted in the obsidian, along with a background chord of powerful masculinity.

Gwynne glanced at the portrait, knowing that the male energy was from Adam Macrae. Strange how the force and individuality of their personalities lived on so many years after their bodies had been laid to rest in the cool green Scottish soil. It was said that they had died within an hour of each other. Gwynne felt a tightness in her throat, and wasn't sure if it was grief for the fact that Isabel and Adam were no more, or regret that her marriage to Duncan was not rooted in such powerful love. Perhaps in time they would develop that-if the Jacobite rebellion didn't tear them apart.

Her eyes a little misty, she looked down at the scrying gla.s.s-and found that the long-dormant obsidian had come alive.

TWENTY-ONE.

I t was late afternoon when Duncan returned to the castle, having called on as many of the glen homesteads as possible. The familiar hills and faces had soothed his tension of the evening before. He was home, where he belonged.

He was unsurprised to learn that his bride had disappeared into the library hours earlier. Guessing that she might be hungry, he ordered a tray with hot tea and shortbread and took it upstairs. She had managed to find and enter the private library. Mentally he was already beginning to think of her as a fully trained mage. He must be careful of that. Remarkable though her progress was, she was still a neophyte in many ways.

”Gwynne?” Balancing the tray on one hand, he opened the door to the inner library. ”You must be starving.”

She sat at the long table, books scattered about and a tablet full of notes under her right hand. At his entrance she looked up, blinking as if not quite sure where she was. ”You were right, this is a fine library, and I look forward to making it finer yet.”

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