Fragile Crystal: Rubies and Rivalries (The Crystal Fragments Trilogy) (5 page)

Daniel shrugged as Anna came through, carrying a drink for Kris. When the maid asked him if he required anything, he waved her away absent-mindedly. “Perhaps,” he said, returning his attention to Kris, “but I don’t know them as well.”

“Well, I’m sure it will be fine.” Kris sipped her drink and made a determined effort to move away from the subject that was really burning inside her. “Now we can think of something to do for the evening, and tomorrow perhaps.”

Daniel was chewing his lip, thoughtfully. “What?” he asked after a moment’s pause. Then, filtering through her comments, his brow creased. “No, damn! I’m sorry, dear. This will be more complicated than I thought. There’s a lot going on and I need to be back in London.”

Kris now wanted to shout at him, but she managed to control the white heat of her temper with an effort. “So soon?” was all she could force herself to say. “Not tonight, surely?”

He laughed at this. “No!” he exclaimed, then more quietly. “No. But tomorrow, I think. Yes, tomorrow.”

Despite herself, she pouted at this. It was an asinine expression, and she would never have tried something so infantile before, but today she was a spoilt brat. “Do you have to go tomorrow?” she asked. With the drink in one hand, she moved up closer to Daniel and placed her free arm around his shoulder, nuzzling into him a little. He barely responded, but kept on looking into the distance. What was he thinking? What was going on in that closed off skull of his?

Realising her at last, a look of apologetic relief spread over his face. “I’m sorry,” he said, and his voice was warm enough for her to believe him. “Just... some things on my mind.”

“Did that Gosselin woman tell you something you didn’t want to hear?”

Again there was a cloud of confusion in his eyes as he stared at her, then a smile spread across his face. He shook his head.

“No,” he said. “She told me nothing I wasn’t expecting—other than to pay you some fine compliments.” Kris suspected that the other woman had hardly been fulsome in her praise, but Daniel’s reactions indicated that there was something else that was troubling him.

“I’m glad,” she said, pressing her head into his chest. If he didn’t want to tell her what it was on his mind, then for the moment she could wait.

He pressed his arms around her, hugging her close against him. “I will have to go, though. Not tomorrow, but the day after I suspect. Come back with me, just for a few days.”

“Okay,” she said somewhat reluctantly.

“I’ll make it up to you, I promise.” She could feel his chin resting gently on her head, the movement of his jaw against her scalp tickling her and sending a delicious feeling down her spine. “We’ll go to Sintra tomorrow. Spend the day there—do something fun before we return to London.”

Chapter Four

Filipe drove them into the hills behind Cascais. Within minutes they were driving along a snaking road through wooded slopes, the sun shining down upon them. Occasionally Daniel would speak to her as he held her hand, pointing out a building or farm, and Kris relaxed against him, content and happy, her head on his shoulder. Sometimes she would watch Filipe’s dark hair and his shoulders moving slightly as he turned the wheel. Part of her wished it was Jorge who was driving them: the older man was more relaxed than Daniel’s most trusted driver and reminded her a little of her father, an association that filled her with pleasantly sad memories rather than the anxieties and tensions she had felt before.

When they arrived at Sintra, the car coasting along the long road that skirted the valley, Kris sat up and looked out of the window with greater eagerness. Arabesque palaces and the old castle first built by the Moors had long been visible, standing out proudly on the hilltops, and low mountain ranges extended into the heartland of the country. She had been here once before, many years ago when her father had brought her, but since her return to Portugal she had never quite found the reason to visit again. That had been a mistake, she told herself as she looked across the beautiful town.

Filipe parked not far from the white palace in the centre of the town. She remembered her father telling her about it proudly when he had taken her there, with its two, distinctive chamines, grey-white cones that stretched up into the blue sky. She could hear her father’s voice in her mind, his dark eyes flickering across the roofs and white walls of the palace as he told her how King Afonso had taken it from the Moors in the twelfth century, but how the Manueline and Gothic fantasy before her had been built some three hundred years later.

Daniel left instructions for Filipe to return to them in four hours or so, saying that he would call when they needed to be picked up. Kris, wearing a short dress that came to her mid thigh, her arms still free and bare in the warm autumn air, held onto Daniel’s hand. She was almost shaking with excitement like a young girl, and her toes flexed in her Roman sandals, the straps winding up her pretty calves.

Standing next to Daniel, his shirt fluttering slightly in the faint breeze that also lifted her skirt at one point, making her laugh, her head came to his chest. Her eyes flitted between the fantastical palace and him. With his short, dark hair and his skin, darkening a little though not as bronzed as hers, she imagined him as a Moor standing before his domain, or perhaps a hero of the reconquista. Only his hazel eyes, soft and always a little strange yet so endearing to her, marked out his northern heritage—that and his huge frame. Standing he was easily head and shoulders above most of the other locals, matched only in size by some German tourists who were taking photos before the palace.

“Shall we go in?” she asked, eagerly.

He looked down at her and smiled. She wondered how she appeared to him at that moment, her face bright and shining as she looked up at him. There was a calmness in his eyes today, though occasionally he had appeared distracted.

“I’m sure you must have been here before. I thought we’d walk through the town first of all. It’s been far too long since I was last here.”

“Okay,” she replied, content to go wherever he led her.

“Have you ever been to the Quinta da Regaleira?” he asked as they began to navigate their way through the crowds, smaller now than at the height of summer but still profuse enough.

Biting her tongue to stop herself correcting his pronunciation, Kris frowned. “I don’t think so. I can remember Pena, just about, and the castle.”

“Believe me,” he told her. “If you’d been there, you would remember.”

After a twenty minute walk along the narrow streets that wound their way between old buildings gaily coloured, she could see a large, granite wall that extended high over their heads, casting the road into shadow. Atop the wall was a riot of greenery and she could just make out the white shapes of classical statues, as well as a grey white gothic folly ahead of them where the wall opened to a gateway.

“It’s not that old, actually,” Daniel explained as they came to the entrance. “It was built at the turn of the twentieth century by an Italian architect, if I remember correctly, as a Manueline-gothic fantasy. The gardens have to be seen to be believed: apparently, they’re full of the secrets of the knights Templar.” He winked at her as he shared this last piece of secret knowledge in a suitably grave voice.

As they queued to buy tickets, Kris looked at the walls around her and the manic house that reared up to their left. Secretly, however, she was watching Daniel. He still appeared a little lost in thought, but she also considered that he looked relaxed, at peace with himself. It was strange to her how a man so rich, so powerful—easily capable of constructing a folly like that all around her if he so desired—seemed to enjoy anonymity, to be lost in the crowd. It was a double achievement: certainly this tall, broad Englishman attracted admiring glances from other Portuguese women, and not a few stares from other men and children, but he seemed oblivious to it all.

His own excitement was palpable as he purchased two tickets and led her by the hand into the gardens, her skirt swinging around her thighs as she walked happily behind him. “I can’t believe you’ve never seen this before,” he told her, all the world looking like a giddy schoolboy himself now. “This is a real treat.”

As they entered a terrace where the classical statues she had seen from the road stood, faux and even slightly tasteless models of the ancient gods, Kris looked up the garden and took a sharp intake of breath.

“It’s like... Disneyland,” she said, beginning to laugh.

Daniel grinned at her. “I know, fantastic, isn’t it? It’s unbelievably tasteless, yet so over the top it’s kind of magical in its own way.”

She nodded, and with a laugh ran towards one of the paths that snaked backwards and forwards along the high, steep terraces of the garden. Daniel set after her in pursuit and, as they came to a white chapel, tiny but with towers and spires carved with ridiculously ornate adornments, he caught up with her and spun her round, joining in with her laughter.

“It’s like a fairy tale,” she told him, kissing him as he bent down his head. After she released him, he lifted up his eyes and gave an ironic look around him. “I was thinking more of an acid trip,” he told her.

“Oh, that as well,” she replied, taking his hand once more and leading him now into the chapel. “A magic mushroom dream with rainbow-coloured knights, tacky dragons and sleeping princesses.”

“I don’t think I’d like the princess to sleep too long,” he growled at her, squeezing one buttock through her dress.

“Hush!” she exclaimed in fake shock. “This is a holy place, sir!”

This made him laugh as they stood at the entrance to the tiny chapel, capable of seating no more than a dozen but decorated as though it was a magnificent cathedral. “I don’t think very much holy has ever happened here. The priest would spill his holy water as soon as move.”

She jabbed him in the ribs. “Oh, come on. Taking your vows here would be exactly the same as getting married in Las Vegas.”

This caused him to raise an eyebrow and he smiled but said nothing.

Outside, he led her along the paths, criss-crossing back and forth as they rose higher and higher into the hillside. Turrets and grottoes appeared at every turn, and the plants and trees were luxurious all around them.

“Now this,” he said, more serious as they saw a low round wall before them, “is really something else.”

It was, he told her, the Well of Initiation. As Kris placed each of her sandaled feet on the slightly slippery stone steps beneath her, she looked around her in a mixture of slight trepidation and amazement. The well was a wide circle leading deep into the ground, around the edges of which spiralled a staircase, windows cut into the wall at regular intervals. Leaning out at one point, she was able to see the sky, framed clearly by the top of the well, and when she looked down the gloomy light just about penetrated to the damp, dark floor below.

At last they reached the bottom and Kris stood in the centre of the cold stone floor, looking up at the circle of blue far above. “It’s fabulous,” she said as Daniel came behind her, placing his hands over her shoulders and holding her gently against his chest. She kissed one of his strong arms softly. “Thank you.”

“In a well, I think you have to make a wish, don’t you?” he said, bending down and returning the kiss just behind her ear.

She nodded and closed her eyes for a second.

“What did you wish?” he asked.

“Not telling,” she replied, sticking her tongue out at him. “Won’t come true if I tell you. What about you?”

By way of reply, Daniel crouched down behind her and she felt his hand moving up her calves and thighs. The shock of it made her jump forward but his other hand gripped onto her hips. “Don’t move!” he ordered, and the sound of his voice made her comply with a thrill that ran through her abdomen.

The hand beneath her skirt now came to her buttocks, and his fingers nimbly began to pull on the fabric of her knickers, rolling them down her cheeks. Kris looked around nervously. Not far away was a black archway that led into the hillside, but no-one else was nearby. She lifted one leg, then another, as Daniel removed her underwear and rolled it up, stuffing it into his pocket.

The air was damp and cold down here, and she shivered slightly, though it was more due to anticipation than the temperature. “Here,” Daniel said. He led her to a low wall next to one of the windows in the stairwell, sitting down on the stone. “I know a way to warm you up.”

She opened her legs slightly as he lifted her by the waist onto his lap. When she was in place, he moved his hands beneath her, pulling back her short skirt so that her bare buttocks were against his thighs. His fingers were warm on her flesh, and goosebumps were forming on her arms and her chest. She could feel his face between her shoulder blades, and his breath made her tremble as it played across her skin.

Her feet just reached to the floor in this position if she bent her toes down, and she did so for a moment as his hands fumbled with his own trousers, lifting herself up slightly. When she sat down, his lap was no longer warm but hot, a stiff thickness between her own thighs that made her sex begin to open.

“Mmm,” she said, turning her head so that she could kiss him on the lips as his hands came round to the front of her, resting in her lap. “Somebody’s pleased to see me.”

She rubbed herself backwards and forwards for a little while, making that rod that ran along the length of her slit sticky and wet with her own juices. She was opening up now. Fuck! Even without him inside her, she thought she would climax there and then.

“This... is so fucking naughty,” she murmured, raising one hand to his short, dark hair and stroking it as he kissed her neck and shoulders.

With his hands, he lifted her up by her hips for a few seconds, and she reached between her legs, groping for the huge, hot thing that was rising up. As she grasped his shaft, savouring its heat, so she rubbed the smooth head of him against her wet, flowering sex. When first she had taken Daniel Logan, the feeling of that huge cock penetrating her had been almost painful: now it made her drip in excitement and gasp with fulfilment as he started to enter her.