Then he remembered that his problems had only begun. He must still get out and go to Castlerock. He could not stay in this egg for the rest of his life, delightful though the prospect seemed, for the lord to whom it belonged must come in and find him sooner or later.
He went to the stairway again. Cautiously, he climbed up, but the guardian spirit made no move to prevent him.
When he came out into the upper chamber, he went right to the wall that he had fallen through the day before—or was it only that morning? As he was raising his hand to touch it, he stopped, realizing that he had no idea how much time had passed. It might still be daylight. He frowned, and mused aloud, “How can I tell what time of day it is, when I cannot see the sun?”
A bell chimed.
Ian whirled, staring.
At the wall in front of the great chair, one of the windows had come to life. Through it, he could see the meadow outside the Great Egg, bathed in silver moonlight. He shrank back, afraid that if there were soldiers in the meadow, they might see him. Then he remembered how the dots had been there before, and came forward hesitantly, climbing up onto the chair and reaching out. He felt a hard surface beneath his fingers and realized that the guardian spirit had not really made a hole in the side of the Egg. How, then, could he see out? And if he could, surely someone else could see in! He dropped down from the chair and scurried around to hide behind it, peeking out at the “window.”
It was night; he had slept most amazingly. But how was this? The guardian spirit had heard his question, and given him an answer.
Perhaps also …
“How may I get out from this place?” he said, aloud. He waited a moment; nothing happened. Perhaps the guardian spirit had not heard him.
Suddenly, a section of the wall over to the side of the chamber slid back. Ian stared at it in surprise, and not a little fear.
The wall was open. The night was outside. He could feel its breeze on his face.
Slowly, he picked up his staff and started toward the opening.
The music spangled and glittered in an array of high, rippling tones, while the bass notes throbbed beneath them in a rhythm that matched his pulse, then pulled it along to meld with the music’s tempo. It was disconcerting, this synthesized music that was undeniably a waltz, yet far more physical than even that scandalous dance had ever been, pounding in his veins and making it seem the most natural thing in the world for his hips to gyrate, his muscles to shift against the rounded softness of Pelisse’s body, so close against his, matching the beat, and with it, his movements, like a hand in a glove. He looked down at her and swallowed, his throat thick with the sensations that flooded through his body, so rare for him and yet so unpleasantly familiar.
One of the disadvantages to being so tall was that he was looking down at her upturned, shining face, and could unfortunately not help seeing the décolletage beneath it—and, though the gown was low-cut and revealing, he was sure it wasn’t supposed to be so very revealing.
Was it?
He managed to force a smile, at least a small one, feeling his face grow hot, knowing that his eyes, at least, were filled with incredulous delight. All he could seem to see were her mouth, wide and very red, with rich, ripe lips that trembled on the verge of opening, almost begging to be caressed, tasted; the small, delightful tilt of her nose; her huge, blue eyes; and the equally huge, swelling mounds beneath her neckline. He tried to minimize the view by pressing her tightly against himself, but it was perhaps not the wisest course of action, for she murmured with pleasure, moving her hips languidly against his thigh, and he felt his own body responding. “Fair cousin,” he whispered, his tongue thick in his mouth.
Why, then, this cool, detached part of his mind that stood back watching, and snickered? “Handsome cousin,” she breathed in return, eyelids lowering. “Will you not sweep me away in your ship, to some enchanted realm where only we two shall exist?”
Was that what she wanted, for him to steal her away from this gilded backwater prison? For somehow, his detached self didn’t doubt that she wanted something.
So did he—or at least his body did. His mind, though, was apprehensive, and his heart seemed to have jelled. Did it sense something that his mind only suspected, and his body ignored?
He knew it was bad, unhealthy, to think of himself in parts in this manner, but he couldn’t help it; though he ached with desire for pleasures he had never fully known, he was still reluctant, hesitant…
And amused.
He was shocked to realize it, and tried to banish the thought, to ignore his own cynicism, to concentrate on the desire within him, and the beautiful, provocative face turned up toward his, the sleepy eyes, the trembling lips…
He brought his own lips down, to brush against hers, and felt her whole body swelling up to meet his. Then the cymbals crashed, and he pulled back, startled. They were, after all, in public.
She made a moue of disappointment and lowered her gaze. “Why so shy, cousin?”
“It would be a poor return for the hospitality of your family, milady,” he said, “were I to seek to seduce their daughter.”
She tossed her head, her laugh a ripple of brightness that the music tried vainly to echo. “Do you think they care? Such concern was for the dark ages, when intimacy meant conception. Liaisons between cousins are no shame here, Magnus, nor even cause for a frown! Especially when the two have grown up apart, and are strangers, as we are—for there can he no incest in the mind, when we are worlds apart in our origins!”
It was a pretty speech, for a culture that used the language of science as social pleasantries—and an invitation so thinly veiled that he would verge on discourtesy to refuse it.
And he was tempted, his body ached with it… Suddenly, the longing crashed through him, through his reserve; the furious desire to banish the injuries of his past by immersion in her, in her body, bathing away the aura of humiliation and heartache that had always accompanied sexual overtures in his past. Almost in a rage to banish those memories, to scourge those responses, he lowered his head again and pressed his lips to hers. They trembled beneath his, parted only slightly, only enough to entice, to invite, and he caressed them with the tip of his tongue, teasing them open, letting his mouth sink into hers, her lips warm and moist all about his, flesh sliding over flesh, awakening a thousand burning neurons to send their flame coursing throughout his body. Vaguely and distantly, he was aware that they had stopped dancing, that they stood still, engrossed in the kiss, that her whole body seemed to reach up to his in delight, in … triumph?
Near the wall, her cousin Robert stared, outraged, the blood suffusing his face—but the Countess Matilda smiled, and exchanged a knowing, pleased look with the Baroness.
Magnus returned to his rooms in a strange state—half euphoria, his head feeling as though it were inflated like a balloon with a vapor that held a strange and intoxicating aroma, the scent of Pelisse’s perfume. But the other half was wariness, suspicion, almost a sense of foreboding. He sank down into a recliner and punched the pressure pads of the table beside it. In a second, the table delivered a tall glass of amber fluid into his hand. Magnus took a long drink, but it neither heightened the euphoria nor quenched the foreboding.
A pleasant evening, Magnus? Fess asked.
“Oh yes, very pleasant indeed! Five dances with my most attractive cousin, a long and intimate chat on the way to her room, an invitation to step in to continue the conversation, and when I declined, a very long and deep kiss! I should be ecstatic!”
But you are not? Why is that?
“That’s the hell of it—I don’t know!” Magnus put the glass down too hard, but somehow it didn’t break. “Pelisse is probably the most beautiful woman that I have yet had the pleasure of meeting—though with modern cosmetics, it’s hard to be sure. At least, she looks to be the most beautiful. And she’s sympathetic, complaisant, intimate—everything that should delight me! In fact, it does—but it also makes me nervous! Why is that, Fess?”