Chapter XXV
XXV.
Rivani’s time in the Other Reality — dream, visitation, whatever it was — nagged at her long afterward, understanding now through her own distraction the effect it must have had on Baró.
She had not bargained or pledged anything as she had agreed and now she gave thanks to her gods for not having attempted it.
She could not imagine being beholden to such a hostile Being that could wield power without having the ability to change the direction of it.
However, the experience provided insight and information even if that new information overwhelmed her.
Rivani loved Baró. Of course, she did. She had not wanted to consider it, knowing she would leave him. She had been content to call it a hormone-induced lust coupled with the closest friendship imaginable. But now having spoken the truth of it, it occupied the bulk of her attention.
She had other things to ponder too from that night — how she had lessened the time of his sentence and how she related to his physical changes even if her presence did not contribute to his changes. It was a matter of asking the right questions but she didn’t know where to begin.
“My apologies for disturbing you,” Baró offered as he came up from the buttery carrying two sets of ribs he carved away from a recent kill. “We should finish up the boar.”
“Hmm? Oh, yes. That’s wisdom,” she agreed. “Do you want me to cook yours too?”
He sat beside her on the bench in front of the hearth. “If you would, I would be grateful. Ribs are good for the teeth but tiring for the jaw.”
She patted his arm as she rose to get the knife so she could cut the ribs into smaller sections. Another item from her conversation with the Magic occupied her mind. She tried ignoring it but it was her body that urged her on.
“I spoke with Her — the Magic,” she said.
“Is that the cause of your distance?”
“I haven’t been distant.”
“You’ve been physically close, but distracted.”
“Not that distracted.”
He shot her a look that would make a weaker person wither.
“Last week while reading, you trailed off in the middle of a sentence and did not recall yourself until the candle burned itself out.”
Rivani blushed. She had done that, hadn’t she?
“So a little distracted.”
“There is no blame,” Baró offered. “I imagine it proved an interesting conversation. Having had many of those myself, I cannot blame you.”
“I hoped it would be helpful and I only have more puzzles.” Rivani lamented. “And She lies.”
Baró hesitated. “I am uncertain if I want to know, but I am curious about your experience. What did She lie about?”
Rivani had no intention of disclosing the confession of love. Instead, she substituted the comment She had made about Baró’s lusts. Rivani purposely brushed by him as she tended the fire.
“The Magic told me that you desire me. I know it must be a falsehood,” Rivani added, “for though you are affectionate and kind to me, you have not initiated or hinted at such desires.”
Out of her peripheral vision, Baró’s face flushed.
“My longing is not a falsehood. I have neither initiated nor hinted at such not out of lack of desire, but with the expectation that the desire would be unwanted and the advances spurned. The Magic did not lie on that.”
Rivani was not shocked though. To have been shocked would have either meant she pretended to it or that she was blind not to have seen the persistent evidence of his desire in his trousers.
She often pretended to look the other way to spare him embarrassment.
Yet, as he had said, he had never made any advance or suggestion, and even this declaration had been made under duress in the spirit of transparency, not as a way to pressure her to any action she may have found distasteful.
Rivani put down her work and joined him on the bench again. She reached out and stroked the back of his hand, smoothing down the fur there, running her fingers over the claws before she closed her hand around the tips of his fingers.
“I know of your interest, my Baró. I did not need the Magic to tell me that. I did not think you wished it to be known, so I have not said anything.”
“Forgive me.” He bowed his head as if her notice had constituted a failure.
Rivani stared at him for half a moment before she roared with laughter. A look of horror crossed his face at being, perhaps in his view, mocked for such a wish so she tried to suppress her amusement.
“There is nothing to forgive, Baró,” she assured him. “I was just thinking that, where you see the need for me to forgive you, I feel relieved!” Baró may no longer have appeared stricken, but the confusion never left his face.
Rivani released his hand in favor of stroking his arm and whispered, “When I find occasion to — to see to my needs...” Though Baró may have been a man of his time with doubtless all the frivolities and indiscretions his rank had allowed, the Baró of now had sensibilities much more delicate than hers.
“When I take care of things — you are the object of my fantasies.”
“You mean as I once was?”
“I mean you, as you are now.” She sighed in lieu of scolding him for being so foolish. “What interest would a common pretty man hold for me? Especially if I could have you.”
“Hast thou looked upon my countenance of late?”
“Yes, I’m looking at it now.” She grinned. “And that’s what I want. I want you.”
Rivani observed his curious behavior. She wanted his thoughts on this development, good or ill.
She half feared that he would be scared off by the information, reticent and grave as he was about such things.
She also half feared that he might want to test her desires, but it wasn’t fear of him in that regard.
Instead it was fear of having such a glorious daydream fulfilled.
“Woldest thou make a green gown with me thanne? Or ys thy admifsionne solely the pleasure of thy ymagynyng?”
Rivani furrowed her brows.
“Sorry. God, I’m a fool.” Baró flushed. “Would you entertain making it a reality? Or do you derive greater pleasure from the fantasy? Daydreams are often sweet because the object of them would fail to live up to the imagination. And if it’s forbidden pleasure, sometimes the fantasy is better off unfulfilled. ”
A slow mischievous grin spread over Rivani’s face.
“Why, Baró, are you propositioning me?” When horror crossed his face yet again, she came to his aid. “I am teasing.”
She stood and moved in front of him, guiding his knees open with her legs so that she could stand between them.
She ran her hands over his shoulders and down his arms, taking his hands in hers.
His swallowed hers. His hands appeared rather more paw-like than the first time she held them.
The Magic would be changing them yet again.
Her heart twisted thinking about it but she did not say anything, knowing he would pull away in embarrassment.
“I have no illusions about the nature of coupling,” she said.
“Although you and I are not married, our arrangement looks like a Rivan marriage. You have been generous with your courtship gifts to the point of providing rather than persuading, and though we have not coupled, if I had to describe the nature of our relationship to another, I might call you my mate.” Rivani released one hand and brushed her fingers over his cheek.
“I would not object if we became mates in deed as well.”
“Would you not?” His gaze wandered back to her eyes when the epiphany settled a little.
“With me?” he asked. “Like this?” He spread his free hand out as if to ask her to look once more.
He growled low in his throat, likely having difficulty with words.
“I am not a man,” he said. “I am the Fir’Darl,” he settled upon.
“Y woldest not have thee deceived. Upon my soul, yf soul Y still pofsefs, Y woldest have thee safe from my corruptionne.”
Rivani bit down the urge to laugh. Her Baró tried so hard to look out for her. “And you think that I need you to make my choices, do you?”
“Y woldest not deygn to tell thee thine own mynd.”
Archaic in speech and out of the world for three centuries, her Baró far surpassed any man she had ever known in high-mindedness and progressive thought.
Though the centuries had been painful and lonely, they had given him the opportunity for significant introspection.
How many others would have taken his long years and concentrated on self-improvement? She admired him all the more for it.
She grew serious.
“Will you be okay? You have a history of not being treated kindly during such activities. I never want you to feel that this is a chore or a punishment. I only want you when you want me. We will take it at the pace you set.” She let his other hand go and ran her fingers through the curled fur around his head. “If you are unhappy, I will be also.”
“I have no fear of being with you. Not now anyway. We will see what happens when the time comes,” he answered. “You are kindness itself, Rivani. If I could not find both passion and peace with you in coupling, I could never find it in another.”
The sentiment warmed her, melted her, made her want him all the more.
Passion and peace. That was it, somehow phrased succinctly by her Baró in a language that was still new to him.
He was both her passion and her peace, the one who stirred her blood and the one who provided stability and security. She kissed the top of his head.
“The ribs will need to cook for several hours. Would you...” She hesitated but refused to be a coward. “That is, might you be agreeable to a little exploration of each other?”
The unusual hunger in Baró eyes, the possessiveness of his grasp on her, and the darkened complexion caused by his delighted embarrassment answered her. She kissed him again.
“Go, then, Baró, and make our bed, for I do not want to waste a moment.”