"The Dream Thief" - читать интересную книгу автора (Abé Shana)
CHAPTER TEN
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It wasn’t like her dreams. It was softer, and warmer, and tasted of the Madeira they’d finished with the end of supper, and of him. She kept her eyes open, because for the first time-this very first time-she wanted to see him. She wanted to see his face.
He’d gotten a faint sunburn from his days outside that crinkled color along the edges of his eyes; his hair had blown long and wild in a handsome streaked ruff down his shoulders. She knew his face, she knew his expressions, she knew the slow heat of his look whenever he turned his head and caught her studying him. She knew the squared cut of his jaw, and the shadow of his beard before he shaved, the pure lines of his nose and chin and those sensual lips.
But she did not know him like this: his brows a dark serious slash, every lash satin. His skin a golden gleam with the light, his queue a fall of shifting colors. He kissed her slowly, so slowly, as though he wanted to taste her as she was tasting him, as though they weren’t seated together on the bed with only inches between them, and every man and woman in the villa believing they were wed.
His hand came up. She felt the brush of his palm sliding from her temple to her eyelids, blocking out the light.
“Close your eyes,” he murmured. “Lia-heart. Close your eyes.”
A thousand dreams, a thousand hushed commands. She did as he said, and his hand moved to cradle her cheek, her neck, his thumb stroking the line of her jaw as his lips stroked back and forth, making delicious friction. She felt the unhurried, familiar heat begin to pulse through her body. She felt her heart racing and the animal in her, the dragon, stretching and singing
That was her hand touching his shoulder. Those were her fingertips discovering the angles of his cheekbones, the heavy rope of his hair, a plait that she held and used to bring him closer, because she could, because she knew he wanted her to.
He took her by the shoulders and pushed her back against the bed, his mouth never lifting from hers. With his forearms braced by her head he had her trapped, half of her at least, his chest to hers, pushing her into the glossy furs. His head tipped; she felt his teeth against her ear. He took her earlobe into his mouth, his tongue tugging, releasing. He traced his hands down her sleeves, her wrists, their fingers entwining, and raised them slowly into the tangle of her hair.
Lia turned her cheek to the bed, trying not to pant. “It…hasn’t been ten years yet.”
She felt him pause, smiling into her neck. His heart beat a fierce tattoo against hers. “You remember that, do you?”
“Vividly.”
“Hmm.” With slow intention his teeth pressed into her skin, harder than before, a brief, stinging pain before he stopped; he let loose one of her hands to slide his arm under her waist. “Are you sure I said ten?”
“Yes…”
“How rash of me.” He shifted, using his arm to lift her closer. Even through her stomacher and stays he burned her, all heat and muscle. “I meant, of course, six.”
“Five,” she corrected him, as he trailed kisses along the crest of her collarbone, down to the starched lace ruffle of her bodice.
“Five,” he agreed unevenly, rubbing his cheek against the rise of her breasts, turning his face so that she felt his lips, his eyelashes, respiration-sensations that lit through her like a torch touched to tinder. “Five long, very long years…God, Lia…”
When he found her mouth again they were both panting. Willfully she kept her eyes open, saw the wolf-hunger the fire illumed across his face, saw the ceiling, and the shadows, and the blue-green cast of the lanterns that danced along the blackened oak beams. The desire inside her was a beast of its own, throbbing just under her skin, poised to devour her.
“Is this enough for your price?” Lia asked, turning her head aside once more. “Have I-” She was forced to take a quick breath. “Have I met it yet?”
His head lifted. He gazed down at her without speaking.
“Do you require a whore?” she said deliberately, when he didn’t move at all.
He didn’t get angry; he didn’t act offended or draw back. Instead, slowly, awfully, the corners of his lips turned up.
“Perhaps I do. Are you offering yourself for the position?”
“I wasn’t in jest.”
“Neither was I.” Zane took her left hand and drew it down his body, pressing her palm over his breeches, the length of his arousal, holding her there when she tried to yank away. Above his cold smile, his eyes glittered hard and bright. “A man in my condition doesn’t find this sort of delay very amusing. But-if it’s what your ladyship wishes…”
He released her hand. She lay still, watching him. He rolled from her in one lithe motion, ending up seated back upon the edge of the mattress. His shoulders lifted; he took a slow breath and did not look at her again.
“Let us negotiate.”
“Negotiate?” She sat up, wary. None of the dreams had included this.
“Aye. I assume you know the meaning of the word. You desire something. I desire something. Perhaps together we may come to an amiable…conclusion.”
He began to unbutton his waistcoat. She slipped off the bed and walked to the hearth. It didn’t seem wise to remain there beside him.
Yet from across the room she still smelled his skin, the wind-clean fragrance of his hair. Her skirts were still wrinkled from his weight.
“I don’t suppose it would help to appeal to your sense of duty to my family, to ask that you stay with me out of respect for your agreement with them.”
“No, it wouldn’t.”
“Or out of honor. As a gentleman.”
He gave a curt laugh. “An interesting notion.”
“A gentleman thief.”
“You’ve been reading too many penny novels, my heart. There is no such creature.”
“Then what is it you want?”
He was quiet for a very long while, so long her eyes began to smart from staring down into the flames.
“One night,” he said at last, very soft. “One night with you. That’s all.”
She would have given him every night. She would have given him the stars, and the milky moon, and all the diamonds of the earth. Even if it had meant they lived as outcasts; even if it meant her own doom. Lia closed her eyes.
“Would you do that?” he asked.
One night. It would never be enough.
“Yes,” she said, and when he didn’t respond she angled slightly to see him from over her shoulder.
His face held an odd look, an arrested expression, as if he’d just considered something deeply surprising. Then he scowled.
“I almost think you mean it.”
“I do mean it.” She turned to him fully. Her fingers worked at the ties to her stomacher.
“Lia.”
She ignored him, loosening the tight draw of the ribbons, allowing the stiff green bodice to ease open. He waited until she’d unlaced the final tie, pulling the piece apart and letting it slip with its short, narrow sleeves down her arms, exposing her corset and chemise, the fine, translucent silk. Then he stood, crossing to her.
“Don’t.”
“All right.” Her arms fell to her sides. She looked straight up at him, a clear, concentrated look, and felt something within her gather into storm.
Without even willing it she Turned, all of her, all at once, into smoke.
It was shocking. The buoyancy of that day in Edinburgh, the light, floating happiness swept her entire being. She was nothing; she was a cloud, a mirage, no body or heavy dark thoughts. There was none of the pain she’d heard accompanied the first time; there was only the feral, ferocious bliss of giving up her body for air.
She swept up and touched the ceiling, learned the pattern of the beams of wood, the cold stiffness of the white plaster and cream ornament. The air was heated and thick and held her aloft like a cushion. She stretched thin as paper through the lamp-colored light, then drew into a mass, churning, aware only dimly of the man below her standing immobile in his shirtsleeves, his face upturned and his hands at his sides.
Zane.
As soon as she thought his name, she felt the heaviness return. Again with no direct purpose, with no conscious resolution, Lia sifted down into shape and form and took breath as a woman standing before him, her hair long and free, her body completely unclothed.
Her empty gown lay on the floor between them.
She lifted her hands to him. He accepted them, his fingers closing over hers.
“That was new,” he said.
She smiled in spite of herself, joyful. “I know.” She blinked back tears. “I did it. I did.”
“You did.” His voice sounded different, emotionless; his clasp was very light. “It was-breathtaking. Congratulations.”
She inhaled deeply, feeling her body again, feeling her lungs. “Did I startle you?”
“Don’t be absurd. I’m quite used to seeing half-naked young ladies melt into smoke.” He released her hands. “Think nothing of it.”
“Then what’s amiss?”
“Snapdragon.” He stooped to retrieve her gown, staring down at the mess of it, and then shook his head. “Perhaps you’d care to dress.”
“Isn’t this what you wanted?” She did not take the gown. Elation still bubbled through her, the thrill of success. “Here I am, Zane. Here is your night.”
“Yes…I’m afraid I’ve changed my mind.”
“You said I was pretty, before.”
“Did I?” A new laugh escaped him, mirthless. “How unoriginal. I must be the master of understatement. I think you’re goddamned radiant, and you know it. Sometimes I think if I look at you too long I’ll go blind, like a lunatic staring straight into the sun. No,” he said in a savage undertone, and let the gown fall back to the floor. “You’re not pretty.”
She walked away from him, to the bed. She drew down the covers and ran her hands along the sheets.
“Stop it,” he said.
“One night.”
“No.”
“It was
“An instant of insanity. No doubt soon it will pass.”
She climbed into the bed. She pushed down between the sheets and stretched like a tigress, watching him.
“You’re too young,” he said, blunt. “We’re too different. If anything, dear God, you’ve just proven that. You-I tend to lose my balance around you, and that’s a dangerous thing. It would be a disaster.” He shook his head once more, his mouth hardening. “We have enough to worry about as it is. I’ll stay with you, Lia. If there’s trouble ahead, I’ll do my best to protect you. But that’s all. We’ll retrieve the diamond and hand it over to your mother. And then our business together is done. You return to your life. I return to mine.”
His gaze dropped. Without looking at her, he grabbed a handful of furs from the bed, spread them before the hearth.
“You think I’m radiant?” she whispered.
“Good night, Lady Amalia.”
“Good night, thief.”
She could not see his reaction. He’d turned his back to her, a darkened figure surrounded by firelight. Lia settled back into the bed; Zane eased flat upon the floor, an arm beneath his head. His breathing was rigidly even.
Minutes passed, hours passed, before he spoke again, barely a sound above the hushed flames.
“One night. I’ll take it later.”
But perhaps she only dreamed it.
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She was not his to take. He knew that. He’d always known that. He needed no reminders, but it seemed they were all around him anyway:
The rose-cream clarity of her skin, unnatural in its perfection.
The pitch of her voice, low and magical, a blend of dusk and honey.
Her steady grace. The shy glance of her eyes, dark velvet brown beneath heavy lashes.
Her laughter at one of Hunyadi’s ridiculous compliments, subtly infectious.
The blade-thin smile of Hunyadi’s wife, watching them together.
The wife’s jewels.
Gold.
Diamonds.
The smoke rising up from the chimneys, evaporating in threads.
The morning had bloomed brilliantly clear, everything visible strictly blue or white like the glaze on a new Dutch tile. Beyond the windows of the great hall where they took their breakfast, the sky loomed cobalt, frankly blinding against the blanket of unmarked snow.
“But you cannot leave today! Do not be so rash, I beg you!” Hunyadi seemed genuinely distressed at the news of their departure. “The roads will be unmanageable, and I’ve yet to show Lady Lalonde the tasting room!”
“Yes,” said Lia, turning a cat smile to Zane. “And I was
“Indeed,” said one of the other men, staring straight at her, “what a pity it would be to depart so soon.”
“Lady Lalonde promised us the harpsichord this afternoon,” announced the elderly man.
“And whist this evening,” declared another.
In the space of one half a day-less than that-it seemed Amalia had lured every male of the villa into her luminous orbit. She laughed and sparkled and made an ordinary event like breaking their fast into something as heady as sipping ambrosia straight from the gods.
Zane gazed back at her, unamused. He thought of the bed in the chamber that awaited them, and of the furs, and the hard stone floor that had left bruises up and down his spine and a pinch in his neck. And of Lia on the soft mattress, undressed and waiting.
“My dear sir, we are unforgivably rude.” Zane gave a nod to Hunyadi. “I cannot excuse our poor manners, except to say that we have trespassed upon your hospitality long enough. You were kind enough to take in such ragged travelers; we cannot intrude another day upon your festivities. We’ve appointments in Bucharest,” he continued, louder, to cover the noises Hunyadi was beginning to make, “and I fear missing them, as several important gentlemen await us.”
“But the roads!”
Zane lifted a hand to the windows, to the icicles dripping prisms from the eaves. “I perceive the day is warming.”
“Yes,” agreed Madame Hunyadi, abrupt. “I think it will be a fine day.”
It was merely an adequate day, which was enough. It was not so chilly that the horses couldn’t manage it, which was his only real concern. But it seemed the storm that had tossed them here had left them with a smooth, blank canvas of a map. The gypsy shook his head and muttered to himself underneath his layers of scarves as Lia and Zane made their good-byes and climbed into the carriage.
The villa drive had been shoveled, all the way to the main gate and a few yards beyond. After that it was an ocean of white.
A collection of noblemen and -women had gathered to see them off, painted faces under hoods, powdered wigs and elaborate outfits contrasting garish against the plain simplicity of the cold outdoors.
“Farewell,” Lia called, with a gay wave out the open window.
Hands were lifted in return. Zane touched his hat to them, ready to rap on the ceiling for the driver to start, when Hunyadi broke apart from the crowd.
He strode up to the window, squinting against the light.
“Good sir,” Zane said, and took his gloved fingers.
“I’ve been thinking upon it. If you seek that diamond still-if you have the time, and the notion-you might visit the castle of the Zaharen, in the far reaches of the Carpathians, around…fifty leagues northeast of here.
Hunyadi stepped back with a bow, still scintillating with his rubies. “God keep you both.
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