Not since she had signed her life away that morning…
Leo leaned over and kissed her again, and now he was on top of her, kissing her again, and she wriggled underneath him, and found she was crying. She was crying without making a sound, the tears streaming down her face as he kissed her, just like the first time, when she had been unable to ask him to stop.
“Come now,” he crooned, as he kissed her tears away. He hitched his breath and then he was inside her again, and he held her hands down on either side of her head with his. “Don’t be this way. Isn’t this what you wanted? I promised you we would be together always. Love is all we need…it does not matter if we are married or not, and it never has. Not with us.”
No, this is not what I wanted, she thought, turning her face away while he ravished her body.
This was not what she’d wanted at all.
Prince Leopold did not seek her out after their chance meeting in the hallway the day of his arrival. Aelwyn was surprised to find that she felt the sting of rejection. It was she, after all, who had sent him away; and yet, there it was anyway, prickling at her skin. She had expected him to chase her, she realized; had been looking forward to clandestine notes pressed underneath a serving tray, or the knock of his valet at her door, asking her if she would be so kind as to see to some matter—which would lead to meeting him in some secret room. She had even wandered the halls of the palace and the gardens in the hopes of bumping into him again. She had made herself very available. Yet she saw neither hide nor hair of him for days.
It appeared the prince was kept busy by his royal duties: meeting ministers and noble families, familiarizing himself with their ways, and supposedly wooing the princess. The rumor mill had it that the prince was quite infatuated with the young dauphine, and she with him. It was all hogwash, of course, Marie couldn’t stand the boy, and Leo was an actor on a stage. They spent as little time together as possible. Perhaps he had found some other entertainment or distraction, which is why he did not seek Aelwyn out. It couldn’t be that difficult to keep himself occupied. There were many beautiful girls at court.
The morning spell-casting over, Aelwyn walked with her sisters to a quiet meal of hard bread and cheese. The sisters were eager to talk, and many of the young acolytes wanted to know more details of her life in Avalon. They all wanted to know about Lanselin. His beauty and legend were famous even now, even after a thousand years. Aelwyn told them he was as handsome and charming as the legends said, but she did not tell the entire truth.
She had arrived at Avalon as a child. During her four years there he was always the same age, permanently arrested at seventeen, with his angelic face and curls, and those bright eyes that had taken Genevieve from Artucus. Lanselin would never grow old; he would never grow up. He was trapped in time, old and young, but neither wise nor innocent.
A boy who would never grow up.
They had been friends at first. He was like a brother to her, and taught her how to use the power of the stones to amplify her own abilities.
Things changed as she changed. She noticed how his eyes lingered over her body. “Don’t be shy,” he’d said to her when she’d tried to cover herself up after bathing, after he’d chanced upon her unawares in the stream. He had taken the cloth away from her, and she had been frightened at first. But then she’d realized that, for the first time, she had something he wanted; she was no longer a child to be dismissed, but a woman.
So she let him look at her.
He didn’t touch her that day, but it was only a matter of time.
It happened one afternoon a few weeks before she returned to London. It was a game they played: she’d run all over the island, and he would chase her. Aelwyn remembered the feel of the wind on her back, how fast and strong she felt, the ecstatic high of the chase—how breathless they had been. Catch and kiss. A game she liked to play with boys. Lanselin had fallen and tackled her, his lean body on hers, his mouth crushing hers. It wasn’t a game anymore. She had whispered in his ear and bit it, sucking on the flesh.
His hand had slipped under her skirts again, and she let him go further than before, and then there was no stopping it, not this time. No laughter, no giggling. He had not asked permission, and he had not needed any, for she had wanted it—had wanted him, had succumbed. Succumbed was too weak a word; she had drowned i
n his attention, relished it, hungered for it; had been lit up by his infatuation with her; had craved it with every fiber of her being.
“Do you like me,” she had whispered, right in the middle of it, while he was thrusting into her, her back arched, her lip bitten, his hands in her hair. “Do you like me?” she had asked, like a child, like a fool.…
He had not answered.
Instead he’d cried out, and crashed against her until she thought she might break.…
It had lasted for a month—his infatuation. They slept entwined in each other’s arms, awoke in the same bed. One morning Viviane walked into the room unexpectedly and saw them together, and walked out without a word. She never mentioned it, and Aelwyn had felt a twinge of shame. Not that she’d done anything wrong, as Avalon did not subscribe to the rules of society and propriety. Viviane knew all that happened under her watch; she was neither mother nor friend, and she had done nothing to encourage or discourage it. But somehow, Aelwyn felt she had shown weakness in submitting to Lanselin—to that ageless, mercurial boy.
Because just as quickly as it began, it ended.
The chase was over.
She had thought that loving him would bind him to her forever. But he had only turned away. He had lost interest. He was bored again.
He had gotten what he’d wanted after years of pining, but when he finally got what he wanted, she was nothing to him.…She would never hold a candle to his lost love, his Jenny. She was gone now, dead a thousand years, and still he mourned her. Lanselin had come to Avalon to repent for the damage he’d done by loving her, and so he was cursed to live on the island alone, forever preying on the young girls who chose Viviane over Emrys. Lanselin would not go with her to London, he told her when she asked him. He belonged to Avalon. He did not ask her to stay, either.
Lanselin had taken what he wanted—her girlhood, her innocence, her love—and shrugged it off. It meant nothing to him. She meant nothing to him. It was a hard lesson to learn.
Like Lanselin, Leopold had looked like the kind of boy who would enjoy a chase—and so she’d meant to give him one. But perhaps Leo was too lazy after all. He was a prince; he was not used to effort. She had piqued his interest, but any more exertion was too costly to him. What was she doing, anyway, thinking about him? It was disloyal to Marie, her friend—his future wife—no matter that Marie did not love him. She would marry him, as was her duty. But Aelwyn couldn’t keep him from her thoughts. You always found him charming; maybe you should marry him, Marie had said jokingly, even though they both knew that would be impossible.
Lanselin du Lac, Leopold of Prussia. The golden boys everyone wanted, including Aelwyn. When she was a child, she’d always wanted what was the princess’s. Even at seventeen years old, it was a hard habit to break.
The first kiss was not their last, and by the end of the trip Ronan was looking forward to the afternoon billiard games with growing impatience. It was all a lark, a tryst, a distraction, she told herself. She didn’t even know his real name, and he did not know hers. They were Heath and Cathy, passing the time together on a long seafaring journey. It was their last week on board the Saturnia; they would arrive in London soon. It was a pity they would never see each other again after they reached the city. They were not so different, when it came down to it. It was such a shame they had been born into different stations. There were several titled lords on board, but somehow Ronan managed to avoid spending any time with them. If Vera had known that she was spending every afternoon half-dressed with a strange boy, she would have sent Ronan back to New York on a lifeboat.
Right now she was lying with him on top of the billiards table, the game forgotten. She was dressed only in her slip, and he was only in his trousers, his chest bare. Her lips were puffy from kissing. While she would have let him have his way with her, he was respectful of taking it too far; they never did more than kiss. She could kiss him for hours, she thought. She traced a map of scars on his hard stomach with a light finger. She didn’t know very much about him, other than what he had told her: he was a fighter, a boxer, returning home to the ring. His mother was dead, and he was estranged from his father and brother. He wasn’t cut out for the family business, he explained.