Part 5 (2/2)
”You're mad!” Shocked beyond words, she gagged, on the verge of vomiting at the horrific image conjured by Ranulph's words. To look into Duncan's smiling eyes, then murder him . . . She pressed her hand to her mouth as her stomach heaved.
Bland as b.u.t.ter, Ranulph continued, ”I suggest that you do the deed when on a walk in my wood, so you will not have to go far to deliver your payment. You need not fear retribution from your own kind. Simply weep prettily and claim that you were set upon by a madman who slew your lover. No one will believe that a woman so beautiful, so fragile, so in love, could perform such a b.l.o.o.d.y deed.”
He smiled satirically. ”After a suitable mourning period, you will be free to seek another husband. That duke who mauled you in his garden, for instance. He was angry then, but I'm sure you could win him back with a single enchanting smile.” Ranulph pressed the silver dagger into her numb hand. The hilt was cool against her palm.
She stared at the s.h.i.+ning weapon, her horror intensifying. ”I can't. I won't.”
He tilted his head, wicked, inhuman amus.e.m.e.nt in his eyes. ”I didn't think you would. That's why I waited until now. It would take a fierce woman to kill her lover.”
”You needn't have waited so long,” she said in a shaking voice. ”I could never do such a thing even to a stranger.”
”You are that sentimental about all mortals?” he said, surprised. ”If I had realized the extent of your squeamishness, I would have come to claim you sooner.”
More than anything else he had done, that statement made Leah realize how utterly alien he was. He simply had no understanding of humans. ”What is your last choice-my firstborn child?” she said bitterly. ”If you ask that, I swear I shall use your dagger right now.” She raised the weapon in shaking hands and held it to her breast, wondering if she would have the strength to kill herself. He'd said the blade was enchanted. Perhaps it would slide home easily . . .
Ranulph leaped across the clearing in one bound and wrenched the dagger away from her. ”G.o.ddess, and you think I'm insane? ” he said furiously. ”I don't want your life, nor another man's squalling brat.”
He tossed the dagger aside. It vanished in midair. More calmly, he said, ”A babe fathered by me-now that would be more interesting. The Folk are not prolific, but in an eternity of mating, we are bound to produce a child now and then.”
He truly intended to own her body and soul. Shaking her head in revulsion, Leah said, ”You owe me another choice, Lord Ranulph. Whatever it is, it cannot be as evil as what you have already suggested.”
He smiled at her, as splendid and amoral as a wild beast. ”Your last choice is not evil at all. Such a simple thing.”
She laced her trembling hands together. ”Don't play with me, my lord,” she said tightly. ”Just tell me what you want.”
”A simple thing,” he repeated. ”But, I think, the highest price of all. If you decline the other choices, it will cost you your beauty.”
Chapter Seven.
Leah stared at Ranulph, her eyes wide and shaken. ”My beauty?”
He winced inwardly at her distress, but it was necessary. He'd set the order of the choices deliberately, knowing that her first reaction to leaving her own kind would be refusal. Only after hearing all the choices would she take his proposal seriously.
Careful to keep all sympathy from his voice, he said coolly, ”Don't play the fool, Leah. Refuse me, and you'll become again the plain creature you were before. Dull and colorless, almost invisible. Most people will not really understand the change, though anyone who saw you during your London triumphs will be unable to remember why he thought you such a great beauty then.”
His voice dropped. ”But your suitor will remember. He'll look at you with shock and revulsion. How many times did Captain Townley praise your beauty? How often did he murmur in your ear about your loveliness? When your beauty vanishes, so will his love. You will live the rest of your life alone and despised.”
He gave a bored shrug. ”I suppose that since masculine honor is involved, you may be able to hold him to the betrothal. In that case, you will have the pleasure of living with a man who despises you for deceiving him.”
Her eyes, an emerald mirror of his own, filled with tears until she closed them. Her exquisitely expressive face revealed that she was imagining exactly what Ranulph had described: rejection by her lover, a return to her empty existence.
Judging it time to change his tactics, he said softly, ”Now do you understand why I said that becoming my consort was the best choice? Come with me and I shall give you pa.s.sion and beauty beyond your wildest imaginings. Great caves s.h.i.+mmering with secret jewels. Forests with a majesty that would humble the greatest human cathedral. We'll ride the wind and sing the seas, and you shall never regret your decision.”
Confident that the web of words he'd spun would change Leah's mind, he stepped forward and took her hand between both of his. G.o.ddess, but she was lovely. He felt himself hardening with desire. Pa.s.sion would sweep away the last of her doubts.
He drew her into a kiss. Her mouth was soft, her scent as fresh as spring flowers. He used all his erotic skills, he focused all his desire, weaving an enchantment that would leave her begging for more.
But it didn't work. She tore herself away, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand in revulsion. ”Do you think I could ever prefer your touch to that of Duncan?” She lifted her harp and clutched it like a talisman against harm. ”Perhaps you can cloud my mind with magic, but I will never be your wh.o.r.e voluntarily.”
He stared at her, shocked that she could resist his sensual spell. Who would have thought that she had such strength? He produced his magic mirror with a snap of his fingers and held it up as a reminder of what she had looked like. Ruthlessly he used an image of her at her worst, with her eyes swollen and her nose pink from crying. ”Is this what you choose?” he said cruelly. ”Or will it be your lover's heart?”
She paled at the image in the mirror, but said resolutely, ”Return me to what I was, Lord Ranulph. I was plain all of my life. I . . . I can learn to be plain again.”
”You don't know what you're saying!” he exclaimed, incredulous. ”It was bad enough to have no looks before, but now you have known the delights of beauty. The adoration, the power, the fame. To lose those things after briefly tasting them will be infinitely more painful than never to have known them.”
”Do you think I don't know that?” she cried out, clutching the harp even tighter. ”But I can bear it. I shall have to, since both your other choices are unthinkable. I could never harm Duncan, nor any other innocent. Nor can I give up my whole world to become the slave of a creature who is as beautiful and alien as a tiger.”
”I want you for my consort, not my slave!” he snapped in a voice like a whip.
”Isn't it slavery if I go against my will?” Her mouth twisted. ”You and I are made of different stuff, Lord Ranulph. You think beauty more valuable than freedom, more precious than another person's life. I can no more understand that than you can understand me. Goodbye, my lord. I presume that by the time I reach my home, I will be plain again, and our bargain will be fulfilled.”
She slipped away from him and headed across the glade. Before entering the woods, she paused to say quietly, ”I . . . I'm sorry that I cannot be what you wish.”
Stunned that she was really leaving, for an instant he stood frozen. Then he gave a wild shout of anger. ”No!”
He flung both arms to the heavens, and thunder boomed from the clear autumn sky, rolling across the wood with a force that shook the trees. Leah flinched, and he saw alarm in her eyes.
Realizing that if she feared him all hope was gone, he said tightly, ”I shall not harm you, Leah. Not now, not ever. If ever you become disenchanted with being plain and lonely and despised, you know how to summon me.”
She gave a faint nod of her head, but he knew with despair that she would never change her mind. Except for her music, she was as much a mystery to him as he was to her. Was that because she was a mortal, or simply because she was female?
Saturated with pain, he watched her disappear among the trees. She was gone, and he was alone.
Then rage returned. With a gesture of his hand, he removed the faery glamour that had dazzled all of London. Viciously he contemplated how her lover would react to the discovery that his ravis.h.i.+ng betrothed was now as plain as a barn mouse.
The restless churn of his anger turned toward Kamana. d.a.m.n the treacherous female! Her predictions that Leah would come to him were empty, more of her mocking games. She would answer to him for her lies. She had power, but he was her equal. She would be unable to refuse if he summoned her.
He closed his eyes and visualized Kamana until her exotic, teasing image was burned in his brain. Then he uttered the words of Power that would bring her to him, against her will if necessary.
She'd pay for her interference and lies, the traitorous witch. Aye, she'd pay.
Leah was still shaking when she reached home. Not wanting anyone to see the tears on her face, she crept up the back stairs and into her bedroom.
Shadow still lay on the bed. At Leah's entrance, the cat opened her eyes and gazed at her fixedly. Leah tried to smile. ”Don't tell me that you'll abandon me, too. I would have thought that at least my cat would accept me as I am now.”
Shadow leaped from the bed and came to rub Leah's ankles, purring warmly. A little comforted, Leah scratched the cat's neck.
Then she turned to her mirror. Any faint hope she'd harbored that Ranulph might not exact his price died. Drab hair, thin figure, ordinary gray-green eyes reddened from tears. She glanced at her left palm. In the center, she could still see the faint iridescent glimmer of the cut Ranulph had made when they'd sealed their bargain. Apparently it would be the only lasting sign of what she had been.
She inhaled painfully and forced herself to stare at her reflection. Had he made her plainer than before, or did her appearance seem worse because of the contrast to what she had been? No matter. This was the face she was born with, and would die with. She reminded herself that she'd had no real choice. Murder was unthinkable, and so was going into whatever strange, inhuman netherworld Ranulph called home.
She winced as she remembered Duncan's wors.h.i.+pful gaze, the number of times he'd told her that she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. He was too much a gentleman to break his pledged word when he saw what she had become, but Ranulph was right. It would be even worse to live with Duncan and know that he despised her than to live without him. She must release him from the betrothal.
The thought of losing him shattered her last shreds of composure. She threw herself onto the bed, sobbing uncontrollably. Shadow followed and touched her cool nose to Leah's cheek, but that did nothing to allay the pain. Merciful heaven, Leah would have been better off if she'd never met Ranulph of the Wood, or if she had been wise enough to refuse his d.a.m.nable bargain.
<script>