Chapter 29

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

T he Sprinter made good time along the estuary of the River Severn, greeted by parting clouds, blue skies, and a stiff breeze. From the captain's cabin, Julian watched the rugged cliffs and verdant hills of southern Wales pass by. The gray waters were churned to white in the wake of the ship as it cut its way out to sea. A tray of tea and a plate of sandwiches had just been placed upon the table by Harper.

"Will I extend an invitation to the Fairchild's, Your Grace?" he asked.

"No. I do not wish to cause them the embarrassment of refusing. Lord Percival will not wish his family to be in my company."

Harper tilted his head slightly, his gaze thoughtful. "Time heals all, as they say."

"Do they now," Julian scoffed, turning from the window with a dark smile. "Then they are damned fools. Time will not tear down the barrier that stands between Ester and myself. A man died by my hand right in front of Lady Janet, Harper. That will not be forgotten."

"I understand that while you have the Captain's cabin, the Fairchild's have been assigned that of the First Mate. It is towards the aft of the ship while we are at the stern," Harper commented.

Julian looked at him. "You are very perceptive, Harper. I was already aware of that. Ester is attending to them at the moment."

"What will it take to win Lord Percival over, do you suppose?" Harper put in.

"Nothing short of a miracle. That will be all, Harper," Julian finished.

Harper gave his customary bow and turned toward the door, but then paused just before reaching it. He turned back, his face as unreadable as ever. "Ah. Miss Helen has been complaining of a touch of sea sickness. Fortunately, I have a powder that is known to settle the stomach in such conditions. Is Your Grace feeling quite at ease with the motion of the ship?"

Julian, lost in thought, shook his head slightly as if surfacing from a distant reverie. "And where did you come by this medicine?" he asked absently.

"I served an apprenticeship in my youth as an apothecary," Harper replied, his tone mild but with a hint of pride.

"You are a man of many parts, Harper. I am glad to have found you. Are you sure the position of manservant to a recluse does not chafe?"

"Not at all, Your Grace. I will take my leave now and be sure to not see Miss Ester if she passes me."

Julian's smile lingered as Harper quietly slipped from the cabin, closing the door behind him with barely a sound. The man was a rare find indeed.

His eyes fell on the water and the evidence of their swift passage. The ship was beginning to turn around a headland which he supposed must be St David's, at the very south-western tip of Wales. They would catch the south-westerly wind now. Already he could hear the crack of sails as they bellied full of the gusting air. Julian shifted his stance against the motion of the deck beneath his feet. He stood with gloved hands behind his back. There was a tension in him that he could not shake. It was born out of Ester's absence and matured under the fact that he could not touch her.

His hands tightened within their leather prisons. The material creaked under the pressure. He wanted to take them off and cast them into the water but could not. Would not. Not ever. Not now. Not after the first conclusive proof as an adult of the curse's continued virility. It could kill in moments. Julian found himself thinking of his father. That emaciated, pale, white- haired wizard. Terrified of sunlight, living in perpetual darkness. Surrounded by piles of dusty, moldering books and manuscripts.

"What sin did I commit to be cursed so?" he whispered to that cruel-eyed memory.

"You stole from me, took away my true love. My wife. Your mother , " croaked the reply.

"And then the son you truly loved," Julian whispered. "Was I so wicked in your eyes that there was no place for me in your heart?"

There was no reply from the specter of his father. But there was a gentle tap on the door. Julian turned as it opened and Ester peeked her head in. She smiled somberly as she saw that he was alone and slipped inside, closing the door gently behind her.

"Helen knows where I am, and she has been sworn to secrecy," she whispered conspiratorially. "She thinks it romantic."

"Harper, too, is a conspirator," Julian replied, a rare smile tugging at his lips. "He will have seen you at the other end of the ship if asked."

The phantom that had occupied his thoughts vanished. The sun shone in through the windows a little stronger, it seemed. Brighter and warmer. Outside, the cawing of seagulls and the unending hushed roar of masses of gently swaying water accompanied the thump and creak of the ship.

Ester began to cross the room and the deck tilted. She staggered, trying to hold her balance. Julian went to her instinctively but was caught by a shift in the other direction. They reached for and found each other before the ship tipped them together towards one side of the room. The edge of the bedframe struck the back of Julian's legs and he fell down hard on the thin mattress. The boards beneath creaked in protest at his weight. Ester fell into his lap. She was laughing at their staggering, burying her face in his neck. The laughter faded as her mouth touched his skin, lips parting to draw in a small circle of it, tongue tasting.

Julian wore short sleeves and breeches. The laces of his shirt were undone, as he had only just changed into the garment after discarding the shirt that had become wet from the rain. Ester stroked the hairs on his chest, tentatively feeling the flat, unyielding muscle covering his breastbone.

"What produced such a man as you?" she whispered. "I have never known such a Hercules."

"I grew up on a farm owned by my father's physician and my brother's close friend, Doctor Hakesmere. He was also a fellow esoteric, though he treated it as a curiosity instead of a religion as my father did. When my father cast me out, Doctor Hakesmere took me in and I grew up on his farm in the hills above Penrith. I worked alongside the farm hands, as did his sons. Lugging hay bales and chasing chickens and pigs will add muscle to a man as well as any blacksmith work."

"Is it wrong for me to say I am glad of it?" Ester giggled, kissing the tight skin she could reach through the loose laces of the shirt.

"I was not at the time. Going to bed exhausted with muscles like water. It is a hard life."

"Were you happy, though?" Ester asked.

"I was, I suppose," Julian muttered. "I was free of Windermere. Free of my father's shadow. It was a haunted place and I knew he despised me."

Ester tugged his shirt free from his waistband and laid a cool hand against Julian's abdominals. His muscles tensed under her touch, flexing and jumping. She giggled softly, caressing with her fingernails to make him react. Julian caught his breath.

"Then why go back there?"

Her hand strayed lower, fingers splaying. Julian's body responded ferociously, though her touch was a tease. She slowed before reaching the point that his body most wanted, though her fingers were mere inches away. She lowered her head to bestow soft wet kisses on his bared stomach.

"Because it will contain the curse. It contained my father's wickedness. Such evil should be imprisoned in a dark place. Should be shrouded in shadows."

"Would you shroud me in shadows too if I asked?"

"You will not be coming..." Julian began.

But Ester had passed her hand swiftly over his rapidly responding manhood, coming to rest on his thigh. Julian shuddered at the playful, almost-touch, his entire body tensing. He gritted his teeth, keeping his gloved hands to his sides. There was something intensely pleasurable about allowing her touch without responding, simply being passive to her whims.

"I will not?" Ester whispered. "Will you tie me across the back of a horse and send me away? You will need to if you want to prevent me from following you."

Julian could hear steel in her voice that he would have sworn was not there before. It was as though the trauma of their separation had changed something within her. Something fundamental. He remembered her words about no longer being a victim.

"Your father will not accept me," Julian murmured.

Ester gripped his thigh. His muscles tensed beneath her hand, his breath catching as she teased him, her fingers brushing over the very part of him that throbbed for her attention. Yet, maddeningly, she let her hand wander further, sliding up his firm abdomen, tracing the ridges of his stomach, before resting on his chest, right over his heart. Her lips hovered near his cheek, the briefest graze of softness, before she nipped at his ear, a wicked gleam in her eyes.

"What will it take to break that iron will of yours?" she breathed, her words a sultry caress against his skin. "Can I do it? With nothing but my body?"

"Ester," Julian muttered, holding onto that same supposedly iron will by the strength of his fingernails alone. "You are already bending it over the anvil of your body like a smith hammering at metal. Would you desert your family? Turn your back on them for my sake? There is a place not far from Windermere, across the Scottish border, where we could be married over a true anvil and with no questions asked or permission sought. But it would be against the wishes of your mother and father."

Ester sighed, resting her forehead against his cheek. He tilted his head to hers until his nose brushed against her own. Their lips remained a breath apart, tantalizingly out of reach. Each word spoken brought them together in brushing touches. Each brush left a trail of searing pleasure behind.

Her hand trembled slightly against his chest, fingers splayed over the hard muscle beneath his half-open shirt. "It would break my father," she whispered, "and my mother… the worry would age her terribly."

Julian's heart clenched at her honest words. "Precisely. Which is why I cannot take you to Windermere or to Gretna."

"Then you will not go to Windermere," Ester murmured. "I will pray for a storm to cast us up on some lonely island where we can live off the bounty of land and sea and be untroubled by others."

Julian let out a low, breathless laugh. "A child's dream," he chided.

He kissed her, unable to maintain the distance, the unbearable chasm between them any longer. First brushing her forehead, then her cheeks. Feather-light against smooth, soft skin. Then his kisses traveled lower, tracing her jaw, her neck. Finally, her lips, which parted slightly in anticipation before seizing upon his. Her hand slid lower, and found him finally too, settling and beginning a motion of slow, squeezing caresses that made him rise. His gloved hands rose to grasp the soft curves of her breasts but she suddenly vaulted atop him, straddling him and pinning his hands with her thighs.

He struggled in vain but she squeezed her legs and held him trapped.

"I shall not allow myself to be touched until it is by your bare hands. If that is never, then so be it. I will enjoy the feel of your body and take my pleasure from that," she whispered between kisses that tried to draw the life from him.

Julian moaned in agony and ecstasy, as her hands plunged between their bodies. With one, she stroked him with a rising intensity. With the other, she touched herself. When their kisses allowed, he watched as she pressed inwards against her skirts, or through the material of her bodice. When her mouth was not upon his, she was biting her lips against her own pleasured sounds.

And then came the moment that shattered what little control he had left—she pressed her hips forward, grinding against him, her womanhood pressing against his hardness despite the frustrating barrier of their clothes. Every slow, deliberate gyration sent a shockwave through his body, each thrust a tantalizing promise of what lay just out of reach. Now their kisses were to gag the moans that neither could completely control.

Wanton lust overcame Julian. He grabbed Ester by her curving buttocks and pulled her against his tumescence. She shuddered and shook and his body responded. There was an eruption that left him gritting his teeth, burying his face in her bronze hair, muscles clenched beyond endurance.

Then blessed relief. Their bodies became water. Ester collapsed against him, her skin damp, her breath ragged as she lay across his chest, spent.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke, their bodies entwined, still trembling from the aftershocks.

"How can I ever give you up?" Julian finally breathed when he was capable of speech.

"You cannot. No more than I," Ester shuddered. "I love you."

"And I love you."

"What are we to do?" Ester asked after a long, drowsy silence.

"I don't know. Pray for your storm."