Naamah's Kiss by Jacqueline Carey

Author:Jacqueline Carey
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy
ISBN: 9780446198035
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2009-06-24T04:00:00+00:00

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CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

I knew the very day that Jehanne took Raphael back. It was early evening when she breezed into my quarters, planning to give me a careless kiss and a promise of more time on the morrow. I was reading a treatise on the propagation of apple trees by a long-dead due named Percy de Somerville. She plucked it out of my hands and tossed it aside, sitting on my lap and kissing me.

I'd smelled her on Raphael dozens of times. But I knew his scent, too.

Now I smelled him on her.

"What?" Her eyes widened when I flinched away from her. "What . is it?"

"Jehanne." I sighed. "Raphael?"

At first she denied it; and then she got angry and hurled various items about the chamber. A hairbrush, a jewelry box, the copy of the Trots Milles Joies that she'd given me, all the pillows on the bed. Her anger broke over the room in waves. I folded my arms and let her rampage.

Then she wept.

And I saw her memories surface behind my eyes. Letters from Raphael, furious letters, pleading letters. She had finally answered one. They'd arranged to meet in secret.

Passion and tumult.

I pushed the images away.

I didn't ask why. I knew. He loved her; she loved him. Both of them had admitted it freely. I let Jehanne cry, her head in my lap, her shoulders shaking. I stroked her hair. When she'd cried herself out, she pulled herself upright and wound her arms around my neck, kissing my face.

I tried to pull away. "Jehanne…"

Her arms tightened. "Please?" Her eyes were as bright as stars, lashes wet and spiky with tears. I thought she must be the only woman in the world who could manage to look utterly breathtaking after a crying fit. "I need you. I need you to forgive me."

"Not me," I said gently. "I'm not the one bade you choose between us. It's the King's forgiveness you want."

Jehanne shook her head. "I can't. Not like this. Please?" She kissed my throat. "You have to forgive me."

"Why?"

She looked up. "Because you're going to leave me one day, and I hate knowing it. If you want me to forgive you for it, you have to forgive me this."

It didn't make sense, but it didn't have to. It was a truth of the heart and it owed nothing to reason. Jehanne was Naamah's child twice over, and she wasn't lying. No matter how much passion and tumult the day had held, there was a powerful and complicated desire rising in her and I couldn't help but respond to it.

"I need you," she said again, impatient.

"I'm here," I murmured.

For once, there was no artistry in the act of love between us. It was fierce, urgent, and raw. There was no smile on the bright lady's face, only a look of deep understanding. Jehanne expended passion like fury, taking violent pleasure in taking me. I gave myself over to it, holding her when she shuddered hard and cried out against me.

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