M'Lady Witch by Christopher Stasheff

Author:Christopher Stasheff [Stasheff, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Romance
Publisher: Stasheff Literary Enterprises
Published: 2017-03-31T16:00:00+00:00

But the moon had not yet risen when Geoffrey led Delilah to the little fairy garden. It rose where a little stream trickled into the river—tall, feather-soft columns in a semicircle, backing smaller flowers and ferns: anemones, poppies, spirea. They were only varying shades of gray in the starlight, of course, but the stream reflected glimmers back at many points, and the soft susurrus of the leaves of the willow that overarched the whole of the tiny garden made it seem like an undersea grotto—partly magical, and entirely alluring.

"Oh! How wonderful!" Delilah reached out to caress the slender stalks. "Scarcely have I ever seen anything so lovely!"

"We should leave a bowl of milk." Geoffrey knelt beside her. "Such a wondrous place cannot have grown by nature, and who but the elves could have tended it?"

"Fairies, say rather." Delilah looked up at him with excitement in her eyes—not of wonder, Geoffrey realized, but of anticipation, almost as though she were a hunter tracking quarry—eager, eyes dancing with mischief. "For what have you brought me to this place, sir?"

"Why," said Geoffrey, "to admire beauty."

"Then admire! Admire all you wish!" In a smooth, continuous motion, she rose to her feet, skirts belling around her as she pirouetted. "Gaze your fill—but you shall not touch!" And she fled, laughing.

Geoffrey rose, grinning; he knew the game, and understood it. He was on his feet, stalking her.

With a gay laugh, she disappeared among the trees.

He echoed her laugh with a deeper tone of his own, and followed.

In and out among the trees they darted, playing at nymph and faun. Her laughter was not the pure, innocent trilling of a maiden, but the mocking taunts of a woman of experience.

Geoffrey's blood flowed hotter for hearing it, and he followed hard and close.

Several times he lunged out, grasping for a handful of cloth, but she whirled aside at the last second, and the fabric slid out from between his fingers.

Finally, she tired—or tired of the game. She tripped, and stumbled back against a huge old oak. Geoffrey was on her in a second, one hand slapping the trunk to either side of her, boxing her between his arms, his face only a few inches from hers, both of them laughing with delight—but not sheer delight. No, delight and anticipation, as his lips came closer...

At the last second, she caught her breath and ducked out under his arm, fleeing again, but not quite so fast as she should have, and he caught her wrist. She pulled against it, but not too hard. "Oh, sir, leave off! Let me flee!"

"Why, I shall let you do whatever you please." Geoffrey stepped lightly around, circling her into the crook of his arm and pressing her close. "But what do you truly desire?"

"Why sir, for shame!" She lowered her gaze, but only as far as his doublet. She reached up as though to pluck a piece of lint from it—but her fingers ended by fumbling with the fastenings. "Have you no shame?"

"Shame?" Geoffrey wrinkled his brow, puzzled.

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