The Pearl Savage (39 page)

“
Clara,
no!” Matthew roared and Charles’ momentum carried him into them
both, knocking the wind out of Clara. She fell against Matthew, who
pinwheeling
backward, grabbed onto her as she was falling, cushioning her fall.
She bounced on top of him and her head cracked back into his forehead
and she was saw stars, literally
.

Bright spots of color danced before
her eyes like fireflies, narrowing to a single pinpoint laser beam of
light. The last face she saw was Bracus, his mouth moving but no
sound coming out, then she knew no more.

CHAPTER 35

Clara came awake in stages with
Charles at her bedside. She did not snatch her hand away but she said
the one thing that came to her mind, “Matthew.” She saw Charles’
eyes flinch and she had a stab of guilt, then recalled his behavior
and was battling her remorse less keenly.

It was not Matthew but Bracus which
appeared at her bedside. Clara gazed about her room and saw that
there were four guards, two inside her doorway and two outside.
Breathing easier, she sat up, releasing Charles’ hand and arranging
the pillows behind her.

She noticed that she was still in
her royal wardrobe but missing the crown. Olive had put it away, she
was sure. Clara had not yet donned the Queen’s crown, preferring her
own to the ostentatious ornament that had been Ada’s.

Clara’s head throbbed where it had
landed on Matthew’s forehead and she gathered her wits about her
laboriously. “Bracus,” she began and he stepped forward under the
glare of Charles’ scrutiny.

“Where is Matthew?”

“He is in the guest chamber’s of
the Band,” Bracus answered.

She nodded, that was good. “Is he,
did I hurt him?”

Bracus grinned so wide she heard his
face smile, his gills opening slightly. “Nay, Queen Clara, a wee
thing such as you bouncing off his thick skull would do nothing.”
His smile faded and he looked at Charles briefly then back at her.
“It is you that had us worried.” His gaze traveled her face as if
he knew every curve and plane. Clara could feel a reciprocal heat
warm her face and she knew that her response showed. Charles’ eyes
narrowed as he watched. What had happened to him? His anger seemed
always near now.

Clara did not wish to incite Charles
further and a pool of resentment bubbled up within. She was tired of
tiptoeing about, walking amongst peoples’ feelings as if eggs were
scattered at her feet.

She sighed. “Bracus?”

He
inclined his head, taking in her loveliness, that special fragrance
that was Clara but also more,
other.
That
“adviser” of hers was going to be trouble, even before today
Bracus had known it. His feelings for Clara clear to all but her.

“Let me have a word with Charles
at present and later today we will convene with your president and
choose a time that works for all.”

“Yes, Queen Clara.”

“Please, we have been through
entirely too much to stand on ceremony, it is my wish to be called
Clara by you.”

Bracus smiled, she made a fine ruler
for one so young. He did not mourn the other Queen’s passing.
Especially in light of what Matthew had told the Band. He paused
remembering what he had said:

*

“She has known little of
compassion since the death of her father, the king.”

“Why did the Queen beat her?”
James had asked Matthew.

To which he had shrugged. “She
drinks of the cup incessantly. She only breaks from it while asleep.
Clara kept the secret of her abuse for years.”

“Aye, it is very good that she is
dead. It is that wolverine of a Prince that gives me worry. He and
that guard evaded our blades. I, for one, will not rest until his
neck is beneath it again.”

The Band put their fist to their
hearts, a promise was forged. For the protection of the new Queen,
for the strengthening of the alliance between their peoples, the
Prince must be found and executed.

“Bracus?” Clara laughed.

“I apologize, Clara, I was deep in
my memories.”

“Of what, pray tell?” Charles
asked, and Clara gave him a look of warning but he ignored her.

“I was thinking of the discussion
I have had most recently with the Band about the Prince and the
serpent’s whereabouts,” Bracus said with gravity.

Charles nodded. “We have scouts on
the patrol for him but with the rain of the Outside…”

Bracus nodded. The weather had made
tracking virtually impossible.

“
He
will not try to enter the sphere again. Let him take his chances
amongst the
fragment
and clans which are not as friendly as yours,” Clara said
dismissively, the Prince utterly gone from her mind.

And that was where she wished for
him to remain.

“
I
am afraid the
fragment
may welcome someone such as he,” Bracus said. “However, we can do
no more and he has no force now that the king of that sphere has cast
him out. He is but a refugee of the Outside,” rolling his
tremendous shoulders into a shrug.

Clara nodded and Bracus began to
walk to the doorway where a guard opened the massive door of oak,
turning he looked to her directly. “I will speak with you later,
all of us.”

Matthew.

Just thinking of him had brought a
trembling energy to her body and she struggled to suppress it,
Charles watching her facial expressions like a hawk.

Clara got right to it. “Charles,”
she began, taking his hand, “we are the greatest of friends and
although you have made your intentions for me known, my feelings do
not extend beyond friendship.”

“Can you not see what we could be
together?” he asked.

She
could
see,
that was the misery of it. Clara loved him, with all her heart
.
But
there was no fire, no passion. Mayhap in time, it could grow, she did
not know. Then there was the complication of being a
select.
W
hatever
that meant. She did not fully understand it yet
.
She
knew that there was a certain biological compulsion working within
her that colored her thoughts and emotional processes. Mayhap robbing
her of what she may have thought and chosen in their absence. The
facts were, it was her reality now. And apparently, for a few others
as yet undiscovered. Clara was keenly aware that she was royal, her
father never let her forget her sense of duty. If she were to marry,
or mate, as the clan referred to it, she could not exclude the Band,
as they were seen as the “royalty” of their culture. It was all
very convoluted and she wished not to dwell upon it but dwell she
must.

Clara needed to walk, holding on to
Charles’ hand she swung her stocking feet out from the covers and
stood, Charles rising with her.

“You answered not my question.”

“I will, let us walk. I need to
ease the throbbing in my head and I believe my blood moving will aid
in that.”

Charles could not suppress his
guilty expression. Clara had suffered because of his jealously. He
held out his arm and she took it, the guard smoothly opening the door
that led out of her chamber. He could not longer think and act
rationally where Clara was concerned and it troubled him.

Clara felt a trifle lightheaded as
they made their way to the top of the huge staircase and began their
descent, Charles’ right hand gliding atop the polished wood
bannister.

“I do see what we could be,
Charles. But there is more to my decisions than potential. I have
many things to consider.”

Charles stopped on the stairwell,
the magnificent stained glass mermaid observing them. Charles put his
back to the glass, the colors of the sea washing him in a halo of
aquamarine. Clara looked into his face and then the sun slanted into
her eyes through the sphere wall, bleeding through the glass. Lifting
her hand to shield her eyes at the same time she shadowed her eyes
the face of the mermaid was in shadowed relief, only the eyes glowing
softly down at them.

Clara’s memory poured over her and
she heard her father’s words:

*

“Those waters look like your eyes,
Clara. A part of the sea remains with you. You have only to engage
the looking glass to know those waters.”

Clara’s mind hovered on the edge of
a revelation. She sat in Charles’ grip, looking up at the mermaid as
if she were an angel come from heaven, remembering the touch of
sadness in her father’s voice as he recounted the sea.

Suddenly, it slammed into her with
the force of the ages:

“
The
mermaid…”
Queen
Ada had said. She had said she was not her mother. Then Clara flashed
her eyes to the window above her. The one that had looked over her
countless times, walking, playing on the step, admiring it. And all
the time it had been…

“Clara, what is it?” Charles
shook her slightly.

“Charles, when was this stained
glass window commissioned?” she asked with a thread of hope running
through her. The beat of her heart a wild thing, like a moth in a jar
straining toward the light.

Charles leaned his head back, a
puzzled look coming over him. “After your birth.”

Clara’s heart leaped with joy, could
it be?

“It was not old, as the others?”

Charles shook his head. “No, it
was replaced after your birth.”

“Do you know for what reason?”

Charles stood quietly for a moment,
considering what she had said, the oddness of the question. Finally,
when Clara felt she was near bursting he said, “I believe it was
celebratory. I remember my father speaking of it.”

“Why is this important?” he
asked, a hint of impatience leaking into his voice.

She is my mother.

It
was the only way that my father could have her with him. That is why
Queen Ada had mentioned it at the last. It was the one kindness she
had ever bestowed on Clara. The Queen’s actions made so much more
sense now! She had never loved Clara as Clara
was
not hers
,
only
King Raymond’s and this mystery woman. Clara’s eyes went to the
glass. How she had never seen her own face staring down at her she
did not know. But
there
it was, Clara’s face with hair of spun gold and eyes of the palest
violet. She must find her…
her
mother
.

She looked at Charles with barely
contained joy that was so contagious that he smiled down at her in
response.

She told him the lot of it and he
turned to look at the stained glass apparition behind him, his face
at once becoming an aqua wash, gazing at it for a full minute. He
looked at Clara, then back at the glass.

“It is you, but not. Do you really
believe…?”

“I do.”

“You do not think that she
misspoke, so near death…?” he let his question trail off.

“I do not.”

He nodded, if anyone could be lucid,
it was Queen Ada.

On impulse Clara reached up and
hugged Charles fiercely and surprised at first, he stood still, then
his arms came around her, her joy encompassing them both.

Finally, she went to let go and he
cupped her chin in his large hand, palming her entire jaw and in his
eyes was a question she had seen once before. Weakened by his
nearness and their friendship, she allowed him to kiss her.

Charles didn’t ask twice, he pressed
her body against his, hip to chest and she could feel… all of him.
His heart beat fast and hard against her chest and one arm held her
against him while the other moved to the nape of her neck and climbed
into her hair, tilting her head up to meet his kiss. When his lips
touched hers they molded to her mouth as if they had a thousand times
before and she felt such surprise at it her mouth opened and his
tongue found entrance, caressing hers as he pressed and moved his
lips over hers. Then he broke the kiss, moving her closer until she
was crushed against him. He worked his kisses from her jaw to the
tender places of her throat and a involuntary moan escaped her. She
was not herself, the moment capturing her entirely. She responded
against everything she knew was proper, her hands traveling and
reaching his hair. She grasped it, winding slender fingers through
the silky blackness and when his kissing went lower she came to
herself, the velvet brushes of his lips on the tops of the exposed
flesh of her bodice bringing her back to her senses and she said,
“Charles… no… we mustn’t,” she said in the softest voice.

“Your body says yes but your words
say no,” Charles said, raising his head. Any closer and their faces
would touch, his eyes black pools of longing. That cooled the heat
between them, her intellect slowly returning. But it was a sound at
the bottom of the staircase that made them part.

Clarence looked up at the two,
having come upon them while Charles was crawling down their Queen’s
throat, bending her small body backward even as he drew her closer.

They looked down at him and Charles
looked guiltily away.

Clara met his eyes. Her swollen
lips, flushed cheeks, hair forming a halo about her and Clarence was
struck by her beauty. With the light from the window behind her, she
looked like a goddess on the stairwell.

He shook his head. “What are you
doing with our Queen, my friend?”

Charles
looked down at him in anger. “Kissing her
,
dolt.”