Chapter Thirteen
The stew was wonderful. Succulent pieces of duck cooked in a gravy with root vegetables, wild onion and herbs, and thick slices of crusty bread.
How lucky Jasper was that the catalyst who matched his dragon lord, the lady who stirred his soul (and his heart and loins), and the woman who could cook like an angel was one and the same person.
“Tell me what happened at the castle,” he said, once he had satisfied his appetite, or at least one of his appetites he was permitted to sate at the moment.
“I remember sensing danger and being sure it was directed at you, and then I heard you in my mind. You were calling for help. That’s when I turned into a dragon, and I only have snatches of memory after that. ”
Mostly memories of the power surging through his body, setting fire to his brain more than any alcohol had ever done, making it impossible for him to think.
He had the impression he had batted someone across the garden with one taloned paw.
He had squeezed someone’s skull until it cracked like a walnut shell—the mage, he assumed, for the man was holding Delia.
“We heard the sounds of battle,” Delia said. “Then Lord Percival came. He said you had sent him, and that I was to come with him out into the garden. I remembered what you said about not trusting anyone, so I didn’t move. He grabbed my hand and Sapphire…” She shuddered.
“He objected to you being touched by a man.”
“He only wanted to protect me, Jasper. You cannot let them blame him for killing the castellan.”
“The king is more likely to hang a medal on him for defending you,” Jasper assured her.
It was a relief to know the man was dead.
“He was a traitor, you know. He was the one who placed the hexed copper box, and I certainly didn’t send him to take you to the Welsh mage.
Was that why you went into the garden? Because you thought I wanted you there? ”
“I am not such a fool,” said Delia, indignantly.
“The mage and his men broke through the wall, and the mage magicked me out into the garden. He grabbed me, then passed me to another man. The nuns were fighting him, and he wanted to get us all out of there. Then you came and saved me. And I fainted, and woke up here, wherever here is.”
So it wasn’t the mage’s head he had broken.
Pity. “We are in the Peak District,” Jasper told her.
“One of the most remote places in England, with many valleys that never see a human being from one year’s end to the next.
My father used to bring me here on holidays.
He liked hunting, fishing, mountain climbing, and sailing boats on the lake, and before my gift manifested, and I was sent away to live with Findlater, this was my favorite place in the world. ”
“So that is why you brought me here. Because it was a lonely place where we could find shelter.”
She was regarding him with admiration, and he hated to disappoint her, but in all honesty, he could not claim he had been thinking that clearly.
“At some level, I suppose I was aware of that. I translocated with no clear idea of where I was going. I shudder to think of it, Delia. I could have landed us in the center of a battlefield. Or in the heart of a volcano!”
“Haven’t I read somewhere that magic users can only translocate themselves or other beings or things to places they have been?
” Delia asked. “We were safe from a battlefield or a volcano, at least. You saved me by bringing somewhere you felt safe, whether you did it without thinking or not, and you will allow me to be grateful, Jasper Thornton. I do not know what would have happened to me if the mage had succeeded in taking me away. He was very determined, was he not?”
“I would have come after you,” Jasper said. “No power on earth would have been able to keep me from finding you. And, yes, he was determined, and I think I know why.”
With her head tilted to one side, she frowned. “It is because I am a catalyst, surely?”
“Yes, and because he is—or was, perhaps—like me. There have been rumors for the past ten years that the Welsh have a dragon lord, but no one has ever seen him, and so we thought it was just propaganda, but what if no one with the dragon gift can come into his power without his destined catalyst? What if the Welsh—who are, after all, the people who produced Emrys Pen Draig, whom we call Merlin—what if they have kept the knowledge we have lost, that a dragon lord needs a catalyst to fully realize his gift?”
Delia was silent as she thought about this. “That makes a certain horrible sense,” she said, after a while. “Then, if the mage is dead, I am safe?”
Not really. Her gift of causing magical gifts to manifest would be useful even without its impact on a prospective dragon lord.
“It shall not be put to the test,” he growled. “I shall keep you safe, Delia, I promise you that.”
“I know you shall as long as you can,” Delia agreed. “But I daresay, now that you are a dragon lord, the king will have more important things for you to do than playing nursemaid to me and my babies.”
Jasper stared at her, speechless for a moment. Didn’t she understand that she was his? When he found words, they were the wrong ones. “But you are my catalyst, Delia.” He followed up with another blunder. “In any case, you will not be able to be the unicorn’s maiden after we are married.”
Even as the words emerged from his mouth, he knew they were a mistake.
But as she looked back at him, her eyes stormy but her face carefully blank, he proceeded to make it worse.
“Of course, we must marry. Half the castle must have seen us leave together, and we have been living together for at least three weeks. It is our duty to marry. Besides, I need you. You stabilize my magic.”
That wasn’t right. He’d made it sound as if marrying her was an obligation, but one with benefits for him. “You shall be my duchess one day,” he said. Don’t ladies care about that sort of thing?
Delia was looking at him as if he was something unpleasant that she’d found on the bottom of her shoe. “I am flattered, of course,” she said, sounding anything but. “However, you shall have to manage without me. I am Sapphire’s maiden, appointed by the king.”
Damn it. He’d offended her.
In truth, he’d even offended himself.
But didn’t she realize that he couldn’t be without her? That she was as necessary to him as the air he breathed? That thoughts of her filled his mind day and night?
She was right about the king having things for him to do. He was a dragon lord, whether he wanted to be or not, and with that would come burdens and responsibilities. He knew with rock-hard certainty that he needed Delia at his side if he was to succeed.
While that was true, it was not the whole story. He was making it about the job, shying away from facing the real reason he wanted her. “You—” he began, but she cut him off.
“I should like to go back to the castle now, please.” She had her arms folded in front of her, whether to protect herself or to hug herself, Jasper couldn’t tell. He searched for the words to argue with her, but she didn’t give him the opportunity.
“They must be worried about me…” she said.
“About both of us. I understand you didn’t mean to abduct me, and that you could not return me until you were able to turn back into yourself again.
I do not blame you for either of those decisions.
But now you are no longer a dragon, please take me back to Sapphire, Polly, and the babies. ”
Her words, her tone, and her stance all said she was not to be argued with.
Perhaps, it was best not to debate with her until she calmed down.
However, he was not taking her back. Not yet, and not at all, if he could help it.
And he had the perfect excuse. “I am sorry, Delia. I am not prepared to risk translocating yet. We were lucky to make it here safely. A good angel must have been looking out for us.”
From the way she searched his face, she was suspicious of his explanation. It had the advantage of being true, so he met her gaze without flinching.
She must have decided he was being honest. “Can you translocate a message to Sister Louise?” she asked.
“That is a good idea,” he acknowledged. “I should write to Captain Harewood and to my Uncle Findlater.”
Thereby putting a definite deadline to their return to civilization, for nothing was more certain but that the duke would demand his presence in London. They had perhaps a week, no more.
Jasper was confident he would have control over his power in a week, even if full mastery would take much longer. He was less certain that he could persuade Delia to marry him within that time.
*
The pompous, insufferable, arrogant, oblivious, clueless, insensitive, impossible man!
It is his duty to marry me, is it? He needs my gift, does he?
Delia’s jaw ached from holding back all the words she had wanted to hurl at him, while the voices of her parents and a succession of governesses echoed in her memory.
“Cordelia, it is your duty to assist your mother.” Which meant taking over responsibility for egg production when she was eleven, and progressively more of the obligations of the manor’s lady, until her mother had nothing to do each day but sleep late, visit other idle matrons, and complain about Delia.
“Cordelia, it is your duty to marry well.” Which came, apparently, with no concomitant duty on her mother’s part to introduce her to eligible gentlemen.
Then there was her father. “Cordelia, I need your clear hand on a letter.” Or her ability to add columns of figures. Or her skill at defusing a near war between two tenants, such as when the ram of one got to the ewes of another, spoiling the second man’s plans to breed them to the county champion.