Page 82 of The Phantom Duke
Maria’s steps behind him were firm and deliberate. She did not hesitate or vacillate. He gave her direction, and she followed, blindly. Damien guided her around a wire snare, scaled to catch a booted foot rather than a furry one. Her skirts brushed its hungry loop.
“You have no notion of how close you just came to danger,” Damien purred.
“Then, it is fortunate you are here,” Maria said. “Unless of course, youarethe danger.”
Damien chuckled. “Oh, I am.”
But he was beginning to wonder if Maria might be dangerous, too. Just not in the same way he was.
He skirted the edges of a concealed pit, which he knew contained the tines of rusted pitchforks. Dirt crumbled from the edge as her foot disturbed the earth, but she did not open her eyes, did not falter.
Damien reached up to her hand, letting his fingers rest on hers as they wove through deeper undergrowth. Her hand turned, and his fingers played across her palm. Her other hand found his hip, settling for a moment there. They walked deeper into sylvan shade and the rich, moist air of woodland twilight.
The sounds of the woods surrounded them. The bark of foxes, the cooing of pigeons and the ever-present wash of branches stirred by a canopy breeze unfelt at the ground level. He instructed her to step over a stream that would have drenched her to the knee, which needed to be leaped.
She did so, head raised, eyes tight shut.
“I admire your resolve,” he said.
“Good. You should.”
Damien caught her on the other side. Her hands rested lightly on his chest, and his arms went around her. His body was rock solid as he absorbed her momentum without shifting his stance. For a moment, he held her, pressed against him. His senses found her among the deluge of nature.
He smelled her perfume and the soap she had used. He smelled the lavender with which her clothes had been stored. For a long, delicious moment, he abandoned his planned destination. He lowered his head to hers, holding his lips inches away, staring at her closed eyes.
“Where are we?” Maria asked.
“Close to a place I have not visited since I was a boy,” Damien said.
He surprised himself. He had not consciously intended to come to this place. He had wanted only to walk the most dangerous path he could devise, skirting dangers which he would not let Maria fall into. But wanting her to think that he might. As the walk had continued, the idea of the oak tree had come to him. The memory of it. It seemed fitting.
“And where is that?” Maria asked.
Damien didn’t answer for a long time. He was lost in an inspection of her face. In the cool shadows, it had become mysterious. She took on the aspect of a woodland nymph, a faerie creature from pagan worlds. The magic of her was palpable.
“Are you a witch?” he whispered, lips a hair’s breadth from hers.
He held himself apart from her for that precise distance. Wanted the pleasure of absolute self-control, the pleasure of anticipation which far exceeded what would be derived from the act itself.
Maria laughed wordlessly and lifted her chin, questing for his lips with hers. Damien held back, letting her quest be in vain. She sought and he denied, hearing the gasp in her breathing, hearing it in his own breath.
“Do you tease?” Maria asked.
“I asked first.”
“I asked before that.”
“You will find out when we get there,” Damien said abruptly.
“I see,” she said. “You realize that the more you try to keep me in suspense, the more I will expect when we arrive at this secret destination.”
He placed her hand back on his shoulder and turned his back, leading the dance anew. Eventually, they came to the darkness cast by a gnarled and bitter oak. Its branches were thick and its trunk twisted and corded. Knots and growths stood out all over its surface like the rough stone of a medieval castle wall. Its foliage was enough to absorb the sunlight from the air and leave behind only empty shadow.
Stepping beneath was like stepping into the night. Damien guided Maria over a mossy carpet of roots that made the ground treacherous, as though snakes had writhed there only to be frozen into stone.
Reaching the trunk, he paused and then lifted Maria onto his shoulder and began to climb. She clung to him but otherwise made no sound.
I have not climbed this twisted old man since I was a child, but I have not forgotten the method. It is like ascending a staircase. I could do it blindfolded.
