18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

"The strong did what they could, and the weak suffered what they must." ThucydidesThe hunting party spread out across the marsh. A gust of hot wind swept through the foliage, lifting the women’s riding habits and sending the gentlemen’s caps flying. The scent of clay and decay caused Isabel to scrunch her nose, and she looked up as clouds raced across the sky. She held onto her bonnet and rubbed her arms, dreading the unease brought by the wind. If it rained, at least the waterfowl shooting would be canceled. Hunting, a habit mankind veneered as one of their last links to uncivilized roots, felt ungentlemanly to her.

"How many birds do they usually bag?" Alfonso glanced at the assembled aristocrats and then straightened his hunter’s coat.

Of course, he was uneasy. Today, his hunting skills would be scrutinized. A virile young king should be the one to bring the better game.

Smiling, she patted his hand. "Most guests are here to court a prince, not kill fowl. Look, Canastra pays more attention to his hounds than his gun, so I guess he is not taken with shooting."

The duke petted his prized Galgo and glanced at them as if sensing their regard. At times, Canastra’s awe of Alfonso slipped to show a patronizing attitude.

"How long have you been under Canastra’s tutelage?"

"Long enough," Alfonso said enigmatically, color rising on his fair skin, and pointed to the other side of the meadow. "And your escort?"

Isabel glanced at Henrique, and a sigh escaped her lips. Instead of a shapeless hunter’s garb, he wore a superb riding ensemble, the gray tone complimenting his sinfully tanned skin. Attention caught by some plant or bug, he bent, collected the lucky creature, and stored it in his coat pocket.

He loved nature, or at least was extremely curious about it, and even though he was a shameless pleasure-seeker, she doubted he would kill one of its denizens for fun. An idyllic image swept through her mind of a country gentleman strolling through the Portuguese countryside. He wasn’t alone. His wife walked by his side. More than a wife, a partner. She would hang on his arm as he stooped down to inspect a new creature. Then he would explain to her it was an arachnid, not an insect. A child would bounce on its little legs, craving a look. The child would smile, a confident smile. The smile of a child who merited a place on her parent’s schedule. Isabel bit the inside of her cheek to dispel the fierce longing burning in her chest. Henrique wasn’t the faithful gentleman, just as she wasn’t the bourgeois wife.

Forcing her eyes back to Alfonso, she lifted her shoulder. "I would worry only about the duchess. Of all present, she seems the more excited by the prospect of shedding blood."

For all her femininity, Rafaela had a manly liking for the sport and was once rumored to have killed a stag, and then watched in fascination as her dogs ripped it to shreds.

The gamekeeper sounded the horn, and groups were formed. Before the first shot could streak the sky, a guttural "took-took" rose above the hound’s barks and excited chatter. It grew in timbre and volume until it obliterated everything else. The hunting group fell silent, and unease descended over the meadow.

Isabel inspected the willows and acacias, her breathing shallow. All was stillness, the lake, the leaves, the hunters, the insects, and then a black cloud flew over their heads. Ducks. Dozens, hundreds of them. They hovered, flapping their wings, black missiles with beady eyes and cackling beaks. The wind lashed out as they landed in the hunting party’s midst.

By God, they were besieged by harpies. Isabel screeched, her hand covering her mouth.

All around them, the creatures stormed the hunters, their quacks obliterating the human shrieks.

Her limbs became useless clubs. This couldn’t be true. They were ducks. Ducks! Her mind kept repeating the pathetic litany. A hound-sized drake charged Alfonso’s saber. Yelping, the prince wrestled with the feathered beast.

Mouth gaping, she gave one step back and then another. A few gentlemen dropped their weapons and took flight, some waving their canes at the winged menaces, others flapping their hats.

Something grabbed her wrist, and Isabel jumped.

It was Henrique.

"They are attacking us. Why are they attacking us?"

"Remind me to take a survey later." Henrique pulled her away from the ruckus. "The ducks are harmless, but Rafaela and Dio are armed. I trust neither with weapons. The scene will fast turn deadly."

Chaos ensued, with men charging their guns, dogs barking, and women wailing.

A duck flew from an elm and bit Lady Dolores’ nose.

Isabel planted her heels on the grass. "Dolly!"

Henrique circled his arm around her shoulder and turned her away. "Charles will help her."

The sky opened. Fat drops splattered over the marsh. Isabel shivered as her riding dress soaked and the dapper feather of her bonnet fell limply over her cheek.

They hurried across fallen logs, their steps skittering over the muddy ground. When they arrived at a Roman ruin, the crumbling columns jutting out from the soil, Henrique stopped and pulled her into a small wooden structure. The three-walled enclosure had only a partial roof. The rickety planks stood up thanks to inertia and a bush of vines with purple flowers.

Henrique deposited her on the bare ground and huddled by her side. His chest heaved with the force of his breaths.

Rain fell on a steady curtain by their feet, lifting mud and the scent of wet earth. Perspiration plastered her bodice over her breasts, and she hugged her knees to keep from sogging her boots.

"What is this place?"

"It’s a blind. Hunters use it to shoot flyaways."

Isabel shuddered. "Flyaways? They seemed more like fly-right-at-you to me."

He took a heavy breath and groaned, the sound similar to a ship’s hull braving a storm. Isabel gasped, her concern constricting her throat. Had he sustained any injuries during their escape?

He shook, indeed, but not in pain, the blackguard.

"Are you laughing?"

Henrique tilted his head back and howled, his mouth wide open, hands holding ribs that jutted out with the force of his guffaws. It wasn’t the rake’s sneer, the peers’ polite chuckle, paired with his dark humor and double entendres, but a full belly laugh. Henrique Penafiel was an ugly laugher, and it made him even more beautiful to her.

He brushed away tears of mirth. "God, have you seen them? Fending off the fowl as if hellhounds were on their heels?"

"Why were the ducks misbehaving? They acted as if possessed by demons."

"Those were north shovelers. One of the few birds with the ability to team up. Flocks of them swim in circles to stir up food. We must have interrupted their courting season."

"Courting? You must be joking."

"Some animals have more rational methods of procreating than their human counterparts." He lifted his brows in a challenge. "They follow instinct instead of coating themselves in pointless rituals and expectations."

Expectations? Here he went again. Why had she given him ammunition to flaunt his ridiculous ideas? "Oh, let’s all lose our well-bred façades and give vent to our, how do you put it? Yes, animal spirits. I guess humankind will revert to perfectly natural behaviors—braying, cackling, wallowing in the mud, howling to the moon…"

He considered the matter, and she hoisted up her chin in smug satisfaction over his loss of words.

But then his eyes narrowed, and he shrugged. "I don’t know about mud, but braying and mewling… definitely possible. Howling to the moon? It depends on many variables, the position, the partner, the stamina… But I’m game if you are."

The indecent images flitted through her mind, and a fire spread from her belly to her core. Still, just as it ignited, it burned out, and a gloomy feeling invaded her chest. "Do you ever take anything seriously?"

As the ducks hovered over their heads, Isabel lowered her chin to her knees and shut her eyes. Cicadas called from somewhere behind the planks. The little creatures should be comfortable flying by now, shouldn’t they?

The air shifted by her side. Her body knew Henrique was nearer. How unnerving. Her body shouldn’t know more than her mind. A recipe for disaster. If it knew more, it would soon want more, and bodily cravings were dangerous.

He inhaled audibly, and then she felt a whimsical caress on her cheek.

"Can I tell you a secret?"

She stayed silent because she craved knowing all his secrets, and while his knee grazed her forearm, she couldn’t be expected to form any words.

"I hate hunting. The senseless killing, the black powder and blood, the noises. I hate it."

"I hate drakes," she blurted out and cringed, wondering why her mouth was betraying her.

He eyed her with interest, the scientist with a new object. Would he put her in his breast pocket too?

Shielded by the blind, the rain acting like a drapery, Isabel exhaled, and the subject she had carried for so long climbed to the surface, pulling itself out from the secret garden’s shadows. "I hate their mating. I hate how they treat the females."

The words hovered between them, waiting to bite whoever spoke first. She hiked up her chin, daring him to mock her.

"Monogamy is not a trait they possess. It’s not in their nature." His voice was tender, filled with warmth.

She drew in a raspy breath. "And what is the female to do? Accept their loutish behavior? Swallow her pride and watch their philandering?"

"Can’t she enjoy the same? Must she want more?"

Some principles she could never, ever relinquish. Fidelity topped the list. Their eyes met for an uncomfortable moment. His gaze wavered, almost pleading with her to let the matter go. But she wouldn’t.

"How? If it is not in her nature?" she whispered.

His expression softened, unguarded for a change. His eyes shimmered, the blue of a blurred lake. If she stared at it a minute more, the water would settle, and she could see into its depths.

But then the surface rippled.

Henrique removed his hand, and his façade returned, the shutters closing and shifting, pulling the corners of his mouth and his eyes until his expression assumed the mask of rakish rapport.

"Are we still talking about ducks?" He touched her cheek.

Oh, his touch... a single brush of skin against skin and yet so sweeping. Isabel gripped her skirts, her heavy breathing straining her corset. She should get away from him. She desperately needed to get away from him. But her body became an unresponsive picketer.

"Nature is so efficient. It built us to avoid pain and embrace pleasure." He took her hand and traced the lines over her palm. A current passed through them, so strong it had a scent and a color, undoubtedly a color. Red—its color was red.

"Pleasure?"

"The drive to pursue pleasure is intense. It makes us want to do things."

"What things?"

He traced the corner of her lip, then brought his mouth close to her ear. "You have a constellation of freckles here, right atop the bridge of your nose. I want to study them, name them, and then hunt for strays down the column of your neck."

Isabel stopped breathing. The sounds outside faded until there was only them, the rain and wet earth, and his touch.

"Do you want it, Isabel?"

If she wanted it? Her heart pounded with the force of her want. But he offered pleasure, not himself. To give in to him was to relinquish all she held dear.

Shutting her eyes, she took a fortifying breath. "Is it safe to return?"

He exhaled, and his hand fell to his side. "Probably."

Isabel moved away from him, intending to stand, but a snap brought her back to a seated position, bumping her head on the wood. Stiffening, she tried to move her neck. Her hair was entangled. Isabel lifted her arm to inspect the cause, but her taffeta bodice would not allow her to reach beyond her ear.

She groaned. "I’m stuck."

Henrique cleaned the mud from his trousers, his back to her. "I know… if you only let go of the unreasonable beliefs—"

"I’m literally stuck. My hair. Something is fastening it to the planks.

He crouched by her side. "Bend your torso forward."

She did and flinched at the strain on her sensitive scalp.

"Don’t move. Damn it, I can’t see in this light." He flattened himself against the wall, his shoulder and face glued to the wooden slabs.

Isabel stood still, tears of pain coursing down her cheeks. Looking straight ahead, she tried to ignore him as he prodded and tugged behind her.

"It’s a twitch-up snare. Two forked pieces of wood. The first is hammered into the soil, and the other is attached to the cordage near the noose. When an animal pulls, the twig is dislodged, flinging the sapling to its unbent position. Now it is holding its more valuable bounty. A princess’s hair." He dried her tears with a handkerchief and then did something with the twigs that relieved the pressure. "Do you think the hunter will be overjoyed?"

She sniffed. "Can you remove it?"

He let go and stared at her, his brows furrowed. "With all due respect to your person, I must climb atop you."

"Absolutely not!"

"Do you prefer me to call someone?"

"Do not dare leave me," she blurted and took a deep breath. "You very well know I cannot be seen like this."

"Just relax." Grinning, he straddled her legs.

When his groin grazed her thighs, an animal sound escaped his chest. Or it came from her.

He reached behind her neck, his hands working her tangled hair.

Isabel shut her eyes firmly. The chill vanished as his body gave off the heat of a furnace. She tingled unbearably. He emanated a scent of earth, pines, and rain. This close, she could see the stubble breaching his tanned cheek and the contrast of his shirt with the rough skin of his neck. What would that abrasiveness feel against her lips?

"It’s worse than I thought. I’ll have to…" He bent forward, his chest coming in contact with hers.

She dug her fingers into the earth to keep from embracing him. They were in the open, protected only by a meager, treacherous fly, but her body cared not, wanting closer, resenting the cloth layers separating them.

Something shifted against her belly, a rugged ridge. It took her a second to realize the culprit, and she sucked in a breath as a wave of heat turned her legs into dough.

He made a sound like water dripping over heated stones. "Just ignore him."

Warmth colored her cheeks. "Is your male part always this unruly?"

"Male part? It has a name. Several, actually, and each less unflattering than ’male part’. You can’t go wrong with the classic cock, dick, of course, penis—"

"Must be the sign of the times," she said, her cheeks burning. "Me, a princess from Portugal, depending on a rake’s help with a penchant for vulgar vocabulary."

He paused and eyed her with interest, the frown he used for scientific discussions. "Don’t you want to know how it goes? Between a man and a woman?"

"Why?"

"So, when the time is right, you can take pleasure in the act."

"Pleasure? Don’t be absurd. Respectable ladies are expected to endure the marriage bed to produce offspring. It is only the male who craves such things."

"If women allowed themselves to experience pleasure, husbands wouldn’t be so inclined to find it outside the marriage bed."

Isabel peeked at the place between them. "What if the problem is physical?” The image of Priapus floated inside her mind, and she quickly gazed away. "How could it possibly fit?"

He stopped working on her hair and considered her for a flustered moment. Then he plucked a bloom from the vine covering the shag. "This is perfect for an anatomical demonstration. The blue pea flower has two petals, an upside down heart-shaped one and a smaller one at the top, like a monk’s hood."

He assumed a professor-like tone, and Isabel leaned closer despite the absurdity of being lectured among mud and snares.

"You must be pleased with yourself, are you not? Having a captive audience to your rumblings."

He shrugged. "The bluebell has a similar design to the female genitalia."

Isabel’s eyes widened, and she could not muster a single retort. She hadn’t peeped down there. Still, the flower looked delicate and lurid in his hands.

"If this were a vagina, this would be the labia majora." He trailed his index finger from the top of the outside petal down to the bottom.

The pitter-patter of the rain faded, replaced by her strained breaths, too loud for her ears. The ancient wood, the cicadas, and the towering temple dissolved into blurred brown. All she saw were long, overly-long fingers and a blue flower coming alive under his touch.

Her body trembled, and she licked her lip. The heat of his chest and thighs seeped into her, leaving her breathless. He caressed the flower’s left side—slow, impossibly slow. The hairs on her nape and arms lifted, and she felt phantom fingers flirting on her skin. Heat flooded her as the threads connecting them thickened, spreading like vines until she didn’t exist apart from him. She should push him away. Risking baldness, she should rip her hair from the snare, place both her palms on his chest and shove.

If he noticed her agitation, he ignored it. His voice, smoky, husky, contrasted with the scientific quality of his words. "When a male wishes to perform intercourse with a female, he will caress her intimate lips and kiss them."

Henrique’s lips were firm and so movable in his words and grins. How would it feel? This shocking kiss?

He is making me lose my mind.

She gulped, her mouth dry. "That seems hardly the practice of a gentleman."

"Shove your breastplate at his head if he doesn’t." His voice sounded strained, and he leaned closer. "This little hood is called the clitoris. Your body is especially sensitive here." He circled there once, twice.

A languidness coursed through her limbs, and she could not wrench her gaze from his fingers. Her legs relaxed, parting under his weight, and he settled closer in her lap. His hardness pressed against her, and her hips had an urge to brush against him.

Now, Isabel, leave now.

"And then?"

"When she is pleasured, her inner muscles will relax, and penetration will not only be possible but pleasurable." He inserted his fingertip in the cavity below the flower’s inner petal.

Isabel cried out, her tummy tensing. Overheated, thirsty, she splayed her hands over his chest.

Push him away.

Gaze hot on her face, his eyes flicked from her lips to her eyes and back. The muscles below her palms contracted. Isabel tensed her arms. A cicada called outside, and then another. They were preparing for their flight.

Isabel grabbed his lapels and kissed him.