Moonspun Magic (Magic Trilogy 3)

9

I am bewitched with the rogue’s company.

—SHAKESPEARE

Fifteen minutes after Tom Merrifield had tooled the carriage away from Lady Lucia’s town house, Rafael said abruptly, “I have a confession to make.”

A confession was better than nothing, Victoria supposed, wondering at his strange and unusual silence of the last ten minutes. “What is it?”

“I get vilely ill riding in a closed carriage. Most unmanly, I know, but since you are my wife, and I will stick to you like a limpet, I feel I can admit my weakness.”

Victoria looked at him with thoughtful concern, but he saw the impish dimple deepen in her left cheek. “Now that I look at you closely, you are turning a rather peculiar shade of green.”

“Don’t,” he said, and in the next instant smashed his fist against the ceiling of the carriage. Tom obligingly pulled the carriage off the road. “Later,” Rafael said as he leapt out of the carriage. Victoria leaned forward, watching him standing very still at the side of the road, breathing in deeply.

A pity only his stallion, Gadfly, was tied to the back of the carriage. The thought of riding alone again wasn’t pleasant. Well, there was no hope for it.

Victoria grinned. She’d wondered, a bit miffed, why her new husband hadn’t been at all loverlike. Well, now she had her answer. How could he be such a good sailor and get ill in a carriage?

“It isn’t at all fair, you know,” she called out as he turned toward her. “Now I am to be stuck with naught but my own company.”

“Think all sorts of marvelous things about me, Victoria.”

“At the moment I can’t think of a single marvelous thing.”

He scratched behind his ear. “Well, you could think about tonight, and what delights await you.”

“You’re outrageous. Hush, Tom will hear you.”

“Tom never hears a thing unless it involves the word money. Now, we’ll stop in an hour for luncheon. All right?”

She nodded.

Lunch at the Green Eagle passed pleasantly enough. Rafael had recovered his healthy color and upon her eager request told her another of his adventures, this one of his meeting with a whaling captain in Boston harbor, a treacherous old man who’d tried to blow up the Seawitch.

“Why, Rafael?” Victoria asked, sitting forward in her chair.

“Later, my dear. There, I’ve given you something mysterious and exciting to think about this afternoon, since I’m not available to you.”

It was only when he handed her into the carriage again that he leaned down and kissed her full on the mouth. Victoria, startled, froze, but only for a moment. His mouth felt wonderful, warm and sweetly tangy from the wine he’d drunk at luncheon. She felt an immense urge to return his kiss, and

did, coming up to her tiptoes. When his tongue lightly glided over her lips, she opened to him eagerly.

Rafael slowly pulled away and looked down at her, his gaze intent. Her cheeks were flushed.

“Oh,” she said.

He lightly touched his fingertips to her cheek, then helped her without another word into the carriage.

She was warm and loving, he thought with a pleased smile as he mounted Gadfly. His wedding night would doubtless prove enjoyable, for both of them.

She is so eager for it . . . a wanton, a slut.

Rafael shook his head. Good God, what the devil was the matter with him? He wouldn’t believe his brother’s filthy words. He was ridiculous and a half-wit to even remember them. He motioned to Tom to increase their pace.

He didn’t call a halt until they reached Minstead and the Flying Goose. He saw the tiredness on Victoria’s face and felt guilty. But he wanted to reach their destination in two days. He wanted to be alone with her and get to really know his bride. He wanted her to laugh and to love him. He rubbed his hands together, smiling vacuously.

Despite her weariness, Victoria was excited. It would be a night for mysteries to be solved. She wanted to become a woman, and though she wasn’t at all certain what was involved in such a transformation, she was eager to learn.