The Warlock's Woman
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Chapter One
Don Rodrigo Salazar de Perez's ghost stood at an upstairs window of the mansion house that had once belonged to him, and looked down on the well-tended garden below; lost in distant memories.
Roses had never appealed to him when he lived, much less now. The colourful, beautiful things hid a cruel pain in their wicked thorns. Now, there was an overabundance of them filling the copious flower beds and boarders, cluttering the spacious garden.
Time was different from when he was alive. The garden had been a place full of life where his five year old son, Carlos, played tag with his governess. The wide lawn back then was boot worn and littered with his son´s toys. A battered hobby horse lay on its side, one ear missing, holding on to the remnants of its stuffing. Balls were strewn all around, a wooden fire engine, and a dirty old teddy bear that had gone everywhere with him.
It was the laughter he remembered the most. Childish giggles offset by an exasperated nanny´s scolding as she'd tried to catch his son to wash the mud from his face, and brush his dirty clothes before his disapproving mother returned home.
Victoria, his wife, had never understood fun. She had been like the roses, a beautiful and delicate thing, all the time, hiding a cruel viciousness he´d been too in love to see. She hadn´t belonged in his garden any more than the roses.
Rodrigo turned away from the window.
Memories should bring warmth and happiness, but these memories give me only a sense of loneliness and sadness. There is no point to my clinging on to my unhappy memories any longer.
It had been over a century since his death. His murder. He stilled his thoughts, sending the past back to where it belonged.
I´d been handsome when I was alive, rich and powerful, respected by everyone, even slightly feared on occasions, a man of stature and breeding. With Victoria I was a lovesick idiotic fool, blind to her faults, indulgent to her whims, and I paid the price for my foolishness. It was time to leave the earth plane and go into the light. To stop being angry. To heal. An iridescent blueness swirled. The portal to the after world opened.
Rodrigo´s astral body faded. Mist formed itself around him as he floated on a rainbow of colour toward the light and the ultimate end to all things.
He´d lost count the times he travelled the astral realm wishing to be free. The spider web of deceit Victoria and her lover had once woven always pulled him back to the earth plane. He was determined to leave and never return.
"Not yet."
"How much longer must I stay, Serenity?"
"You have not fulfilled the destiny path, Rodrigo. "
"My destiny?"
"Your destiny is one with hers. She will be here soon."
"Her destiny?"
"It makes no difference."
"It should. She´s corporeal. I am not."
"That can change."
"How?"
"Have faith."
"I am tired of faith...of listening and believing. There is nothing here on this earth plane for me. I shall leave and go into the light."
She will be here soon."
"So you keep saying. I will wait no longer for her."
"You will not be allowed to leave until it is time."
"You cannot stop me, or has this place become my prison?"
"You have free choice, you always did, but the path is set, we cannot change it."
****
The late February afternoon hung low in the air, wrapping everything and everyone in an icy grip of freezing gloom.
How could I have been so blind? Erin Roberts pulled her wool scarf tight around her long neck, an attempt to block out the penetrating cold.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, what an idiot I am. Marcus Fielding, what a charmer, what an evil, frightening specimen, you are. I’m tired; I’m cold and beginning to think I’ll never find anywhere halfway decent to live. How could I have gotten myself into this? Easily, all too damn easily.
Trudging around the depressing, grey, dank and soulless London streets, looking for an apartment to live in, proved a lot harder than she’d expected.
Long thin fingers of cold icy rivulets of water soaked through the scarf and ran down her back. Misery.
Chilled to the bone, wet misery.
And now I’m on the run from the man I thought I loved.
She’d quit her job as an English teacher in a private school for girls where the pay was lousy and the kids appalling: packed the bare minimum of clothes, left her Cambridge home behind, and was now sleeping on her friend Karen Mortimer’s uncomfortable two-seater couch.
What was I thinking? I wasn’t. I’ve been a fool, and I’ve only myself to blame. Oh, Marcus, handsome, witty, rich, a girl’s so called dream. Only you’re not a girl’s dream, you’re not anyone’s dream. You’re my worst nightmare. I let you seduce me…why did I do that?
What had it been about Marcus that made Erin ignore herself? She hadn’t even liked him when they first met. She found him overbearing and arrogant. She tried to push him out of her mind, and found herself thinking about him. Seductive, intriguing and exciting, words that crowded her mind, jamming her attempts to forget him.
Now, frightened, she ran as far away from the lying, cheating, totally unscrupulous, and handsome, former love of her life as possible. Marcus had hidden his evil so completely from her.
He was an international business celebrity, ten years older than her and known by everybody in local society that mattered. He was the man everyone wanted to be seen with. Marcus's name appeared on every conceivable committee, on all the local bigwigs’ must-have dinner list. Marcus had gone from rags to riches. He was also very married to the beautiful and talented artist, Felicity Craven.
Erin soon found out that Marcus Fielding was not the sort of man to be ignored. He’d made sure of that using his expressive, quick-to-smile mouth, easy laugh, and a way of making Erin think she was the only person that mattered.
Always knowing exactly what was happening around him, never letting his guard down for a second, and managing effortlessly to appear the attentive listener.
They’d met when he came to her school.
"So, I’m the great guest of honour for this prize giving bash of yours. I’m looking forward to spending the whole day with you, and then making it the whole night." He’d flashed that smile of his at her and brushed his hand across her breast, letting his fingertips linger longer than they should.
"Do you mind?" She’d hissed fiercely between clenched teeth.
He'd had no right to touch her that way. Who the hell do you think you are? She remembered thinking at the time.
"Sorry. Accident."
"More like force of habit."
"Pardon."
"Sorry. Accidental quip." Erin immediately decided they were not going to get along, and the day was going to be one long chore.
"So, what about dinner tonight?" He’d thrown the invitation out to her within five minutes of meeting her.
"Mr. Fielding, my day with you finishes at three thirty, as soon as the prize-giving is over and we can all go home. Until then, you have my forced attention. After that, we thankfully go our separate ways."
"We will see about that. You know, I always get my way."
"Then it will make a nice change for you to be wrong."
Assurance swept across his expression. For a brief moment, Erin had the unnerving feeling he'd be able to manipulate her future from that point forward.
"I’m also never wrong…Erin." Marcus had announced his arrival by driving through the school gates in a flashy silver grey Bentley, complete with a peaked cap toting chauffeur, expecting, and getting, everyone dancing attendance on him.
As far as Erin was concerned, she’d pulled the short straw. She’d been given the uncertain honour of showing him around the school, and passing the prizes to him as he handed them out to the chosen winners.
Marcus revelled in the whole day, loving the attention from the staff. He'd egged on the giggling final year students, several let him know they were more than willing to open their legs, should he want the opportunity. He’d made it plain he was going to have her and enjoyed the attention he received from her.
Erin made it equally plain that she wasn’t interested.
"Wow! You’re a teacher here? They never had teachers like you when I was at school, if they did, maybe I would have gone more often." He’d laughed that easy laugh she came to know so well, and wished she hadn’t.
"How about that dinner with me tonight?" Marcus had asked her for the second time, dropping his head to one side in an attempt to make her laugh. He'd failed.
"You’re not my type."
"What is your type?"
"Single." With that she’d walked away. He’d followed her with a long low whistle, loaded with sexual innuendo.
Hating herself now, Erin had felt flattered. She'd struggled with being twenty-eight and solo, but Marcus Fielding was married.
Erin had met Felicity Fielding, or as Erin found out, liked her friends to call her Fel, at one of her art exhibitions. She was signing catalogues for the buyers of her paintings. Beautiful landscapes of the Fenland area, full of dark majestic skylines, captured images of the sardonic flat windswept farmlands of eastern England, and way out of Erin’s salary range.
Fel, considering her wealth and position, didn’t need to sell any of the paintings. She was down to earth, friendly and charming to everyone. Erin had admired Fel’s gracious kindness. It hadn't mattered to Erin that they weren't friends. She hadn't wanted to cheat with the woman's husband or anyone's husband.
When she'd gotten home that night after meeting him at school, a dozen red roses waited on her doorstep accompanied by a note saying, Dinner? Marcus.
He'd called the following day leaving a message on her voice mail asking for a date, and again the next. From then on he called each day for two weeks.
"Delicious Erin, have dinner with me. I won’t give up. You will have dinner with me. Call me." His words rang through her ears from her machine like it had been yesterday.
Arrogant pig, if you think I’m ever going to have dinner with you then you’re very much mistaken. Her thoughts haunted her. If she would have only stuck by them she wouldn't be in this mess now.
She hadn't bothered to call him back.
The memories were still vivid in her mind. The only time she hadn't found a dozen roses on her porch was the day she came home to find him standing on her porch with the flowers in hand. She'd sighed and wondered why he'd picked her. Any man married to a woman who had it all shouldn't have wanted more. Erin remembered asking herself what she was supposed to do. It had been more than obvious his attraction lay within the challenge of not getting his way. Anyone could have seen that Marcus was nothing more than a rich man with too much money and not enough diversions. Instead of voicing her thoughts to him, she'd asked him what he'd really wanted from her, although she had already known the answer. She hadn't considered herself as being defeated by his persistence, just placing it out in the open. Marcus, despite how much she had ignored him, made it obvious he wasn't leaving her alone.
"Well, calling me Marcus would do for starters, and then perhaps dinner, preferably tonight." His mouth opened revealing his perfect white teeth. His deep blue eyes, lit in amusement, had stared straight into her soul.
"Mr. Fielding."
"I said call me Marcus."
"Mr. Fielding, the roses were nice, and I won’t pretend I’m not flattered by all the phone calls, but, and please do not mistake this...I have no intention of having dinner with you, not now, not ever. You are a married man and I don’t do married men."
Erin had considered it a good speech. She'd pushed passed him to go into her house, leaving him on the doorstep with the roses still in hand. Marcus had insisted his and Fel's marriage was in name only. He'd claimed they slept in separate beds, separate rooms, and had separate lives. The heavy sadness in his voice had convinced her he had been serious. Thinking back on it, she knew now they'd been nothing but lies. She didn’t know it was a practised art Marcus used to get what he wanted. She felt her resolve slipping uncomfortably away.
"Then why don’t you separate?" She questioned, half turning. It was a mistake, that half turn, she told herself much later.
"It’s not easy for me. I would, if I could, but I can’t leave Fel. She’s…she’s delicate. She’s been ill. A divorce could send her over the edge and I’m not prepared to be the cause of that. Look, I’m not asking for anything now, just dinner. What about tonight? Say I pick you up at eight?" Erin found herself believing him, and not knowing why.
For a brief instant, Marcus looked lost and expectant all at the same time. Erin felt confusion creeping into her normally level-headed, hands off, attitude towards married men. She found herself wavering. Had she been wrong about him? Had he suddenly shown her a slit in his outward shell? Did Marcus Fielding have a vulnerable side to him?
She felt his intelligent, piercing blue eyes holding her to him. Erin wanted to look away, but she was transfixed. His mesmerizing stare spoke to her, an unheard enchantment weaving itself into her. Unable to stop herself, she met his gaze. A strange eerie sensation spread through her, gripping her, pulling her desire ever closer to him. She had an overwhelming need to give in to him. To give him what he wanted. Never knowing that beneath the surface, a dark and dangerous side was working, casting a black magic spell over her, binding her to him.
The way he looked at her, the way he smiled, the soft fall of his corn-blond hair, his blue-ocean deep eyes, pushed her senses to the outer regions of her mind. She didn’t want to be little Miss Perfect anymore. Opening her inner self to him as he caressed her with his mind, she felt her body quiver under his psychic touch. Her breasts became alive with a longing to be held in his hands. Her nipples, erect, charged with electric sexuality, ready to explode at the sensation of his psychic hands traveling over her body and down between her legs, fingers caressingly massaging her swelling vulva, teasing her from the wetness of her woman´s juices.
The orgasm burst from her in one rapid crescendo of sexual heat. Erin was lifted away from reality. Physically she was standing at her door, but her psyche was transported to another dimension. Her spirit body coupled with Marcus’s; he was making love to her in the ether. She didn’t want him to stop. He was exploring the senses within her, arousing her passionate desires to the zenith of his carnal lust.
Everything she was, everything she believed in, disappeared, taken from her by the darkness of Marcus’s black spirit. Suddenly she wanted adventure and excitement in her life. Marcus, she knew, would give it to her. Erin agreed readily to dinner.
"I’d love dinner with you." She heard herself saying from somewhere outside of herself.
It was the biggest mistake of her life, and her life would never be the same again.
"Dress sexy," He yelled enthusiastically and jumped quickly into his black and gold Porsche Cayenne the second she agreed to dinner. He didn’t give her a chance to change her mind. Even though he knew she wouldn’t, couldn’t.
The heavy edge to his voice gone, he was back to being the normal Marcus Fielding, full of over-confidence and pushy self-assurance. But Erin didn’t give a damn. She wanted this Marcus. The devil was calling her and to hell with the angels.
"You’re not really going to are you?" Karen, her best friend asked, after she’d called her and told her what had happened.
"Why not?"
"Why?"
They’d been friends from their first day at school, sharing their dreams, dramas, and disappointments. They were always there for each other. When Erin was about to go off to college and Karen couldn’t afford to, Erin sold the one thing she owned of any value, a diamond necklace her grandmother had given her.
Gran said, "If you ever need the money dear, just sell the thing. It’s only a bauble. What matters more to me is you, not a piece of jewellery."
Selling the necklace paid for Karen’s tuition fees. They went to the same university. They got student jobs at the same fast food restaurant. They both got into debt...but they both got good degrees.
"It’s only dinner," Erin replied a little too defensively. With the hands free phone hooked under her chin she was going through her wardrobe, looking for something sexy.
"It’s not as if I’m going to have an affair with him." Yes, I am.
"A man like Marcus Fielding always wants more than just dinner. Oh Erin, Hun, do be careful. I have a bad feeling about this guy, and I’m not the psychic."
There is something about him. Something that draws me to him, something he has, or perhaps is. I wish I knew. I only know I have no choice. I have to be with him, and maybe not just tonight.
Erin and Karen always told each other everything, but this one thing she knew, she could never tell her. She could never tell Karen she had no choice, that she felt an urgency to be with him. An intense, insane urgency that she couldn’t explain. Not even to herself. Karen wouldn’t stop trying to persuade her to stay well away from Marcus. And Erin knew that would be impossible.
"But I am, and my psychic sense says everything is just peachy." She lied, to Karen and to herself.
It was unexpected and intriguing, to think there was something hidden away in Marcus Fielding that nobody knew about, and maybe, only she would be able to unlock the secret door to.
"You are going!" Karen squealed, hearing the hangers clicking as Erin searched for the right little number.
She settled on a figure hugging black dress with a hem that just stopped short of being slutty, while remaining decidedly provocative.
Recalling the long, low wolf whistle he’d aimed at her, the sexually loaded expression on his sharply featured handsome face as he drank her in the first day she met him, made Erin crave for the excitement he offered to give her.
"Look Karen. I’m twenty-eight years old. Single, not even the hint of a boyfriend. All the men I mix with daily are either due for retirement, in a happy relationship, or gay. It’s only dinner, and I’m tired of sitting home alone at night, eating ready meals from the freezer and watching TV. I want something more in my life and something tells me Marcus Fielding is the man to give it to me."
I only wish I knew why I feel this way. There’s something about him that I just have to find out about.
"Lots of guys are out there other than Marcus Fielding who are itching to date you."
"Then why don’t they ask?"
"Because they think you could not possibly want to go out with them."
"What?" Erin exclaimed.
"Erin, let’s face it, you’re gorgeous. You have a figure that the rest of us have to spend two hours a day in the gym for. Your stomach is impossibly flat. You have hair the color of a glorious golden red sunset that falls in perfect curls, down your perfectly proportioned back, ending up at your equally perfectly proportioned butt. You’ve got sloping green eyes that give you a mystical oriental look. And none of this you are even slightly aware of, and on top of all that, you’ve got a BA in English from a decent university and can spout poetry and literature where most guys are still mastering the finer points of the sports pages. Intimidation...you bet. It makes you seem untouchable."
Thanks, Karen, NOW you tell me. Then, Karen never was good at telling anyone where they were going wrong in their lives. She had a mother who managed to find enough faults in Karen to instil in her that she preferred to take people as they were, good or bad. As soon as she could, Karen had left home without looking back, to live a peaceful, uneventful life in London with a man who found only perfection in her.
"Well under those circumstances, it’s a good thing I said yes." Erin chirped brightly, trying to not to be annoyed that Karen had never said any of this before.
Just what sort of man was Marcus Fielding? She’d heard the rumours of his ruthless business practices, his absolute ability to walk over people without looking back. That afternoon standing on her doorstep he’d shown a vulnerable side to his nature. He intrigued her.
****
On their first date, he took her to an expensive Michelin Star restaurant, far enough from Cambridge to be discreet but close enough to say being with her in the open was not a problem.
The maître d’ showed them to their table tucked away in the most intimate corner of the restaurant where a bottle of Cristale champagne was on ice, and a single red rose waited. Pulling out a chair for Erin, the maître d’ unfolded a white and gold fleur-de-lis designed pure linen table napkin, laying it across her knees when she sat down.
An immaculately uniformed waiter dressed entirely in black with a scarlet red apron tied chest high, popped the champagne cork with practised ease and poured the first glass with an expert flourish. Enough fizz to show off the champagne’s exquisite quality, yet stopping tantalizingly close to the rim of the gold edged glass. The waiter gave a half bow and offered the wine-filled, exquisite crystal glass for Erin to try.
"Would madam like to try the wine?" He asked politely smiling at her with a bland expression on a nondescript face. He gave no hint of the well-rehearsed and well-polished discretion he used each time Marcus Fielding entertained a female guest for dinner.
Marcus waved an immaculately manicured dismissive hand at the waiter. "I am sure the champagne is just the right temperature. Complete perfection is this restaurant’s watch word." He winked at Erin and smiled benevolently to the waiter. The waiter poured their champagne and made a silent exit to the kitchen.
"You are so beautiful. I think you are the most beautiful woman in the world," Marcus purred as soon as the waiter had left and they were alone. "I knew, from the very first moment I saw you that I needed to make you mine. I could easily love you." Marcus delivered the line in an unwavering voice, laced in total earnestness.
Erin sipped her champagne carefully. She was heady from the atmosphere of the restaurant, and Marcus’s intelligent, calculating eyes never leaving her face. He looked at her the whole time, searching deeper and deeper within her, making her feel that there was no one in the room, or even in the world, that was more important to him than she was. It made her feel slightly uneasy, and at the same time wonderfully intoxicated. He created in her a wanting that even Erin didn’t know was there. She was lost to him before she even knew it.
He laughed an easy deep-throated laugh, "I mean it, Erin. I’m not lying. I really could easily love you. As I told you, I am married to Fel in name only. We have long gone our separate ways. I even think she has a lover tucked away."
"Aren’t you jealous of your wife being with another man? Even a little bit?" Erin asked. Marcus Fielding did not portray the ruthless, take all that was up for grabs, business tycoon he was supposed to be. She imagined a man like Marcus would never allow his wife to take a lover. He was making out as if it were incidental to him. If Fel really had a lover, Erin wondered, how would he really feel? It crossed her mind that he was capable of having them both killed without a second thought. Somehow, she didn’t think remorse was in his vocabulary.
"Why should I be jealous of her and whoever she is with? Like I said, our marriage is a sham. It holds nothing for me or her." The easy smile swept away her doubts reassuring her she needed to be his, making her believe his lies.
"Then why do you stay married?" It seemed obvious to Erin, if the marriage was that unhappy it would be better if they divorced.
"It’s complicated. As I said, Fel is delicate. She loves our sons, and her career is very important to her. I help her open doors. I can’t take those things away from her. I am not that cruel, it would destroy her. I can’t do that to the mother of my children." The smile left his face. His blue eyes took on a misty quality as he laid his hand lightly on top of hers.
"Let’s not talk about my sad life. I want to talk about you. I want to fill my world with the loveliness of your face."
He looked at her for a long time without speaking. Then using drama mixed with the right amount of serious inflection in his voice, he sighed, "I want to fill my world with you and only you."
Erin sensed Marcus’s words were the sweet music of romance that he knew just how to play, that he adored the chase more than the capture. This time, she knew, he would want her longer than the others. Would he throw her away, as she suspected he had always done with the women he courted? Probably. Somehow, it didn’t seem to matter.
I’m no man’s plaything, Erin told herself. I’m far too independent to allow even Marcus Fielding to own me.
****
Erin couldn’t remember what her life was like before Marcus. Her graceful beauty and his imposing good looks turned heads wherever they went. They were the perfect couple. When they kissed, she melted into his arms knowing it was where she belonged. He had a way of looking at her that seemed to penetrate through her, sending ripples of sexual urgency around her body. The intense desire for him to make love to her thrilled her and terrified her at the same time. Their sex was hot, hard and savage, carnal. He made love taking ownership of her.
"You’re mine Erin Roberts, and nobody else’s. Tell me you’re mine...only mine." Marcus grunted, pushing himself harder into her, taking possession of her body, wanting her soul.
"Yes, Marcus. I’m yours...only yours." She answered, wishing to please the man she loved.
A sexual expert, he brought her fully to the pinnacle of ecstasy. And down again, readying her to find that moment of rapture, until finally she couldn’t hold back any longer. Erin yelled her rapture, letting loose her pent up wanting in a crescendo of utter delight that could be heard far across the fenland fields outside her bedroom window.
There was no part of her that he didn’t want to explore, and no part of her that he didn’t want to enjoy. He relished every inch of her with an enthusiasm that left her breathless. She’d never known such absolute physical lovemaking without any holds barred. Naive when it came to sex, Erin mistook Marcus’s brutality for passion.
How could I ever have thought I’d made love before, she asked herself, remembering her past lovers: two inexperienced young men from college. John, the apologetic fumbler, whose inept lovemaking lacked anything remotely resembling sensuality, left her frustrated and lonely. And Robin, who made love to her as if he were wearing roller-skates. He came so quickly she wasn’t sure if he’d started.
Looking for the perfect mate, Erin decided, was an unfulfilling quest that wasn’t worth pursuing. That was before Marcus had thrust himself into her life. It was he who showed her the ecstasy to be found from her lithe firm body.
"Feel me, Erin. Feel my wanting desire as I caress your body with mine. Let me take you, in any way I want to, higher and higher until there is nowhere else to go. You’re mine and only mine." he said pressing his hard masculine frame against her, as he plunged himself into her with the ferocity of ownership. Erin felt powerless to resist him, she was completely and utterly in love, in every way that it was possible to love. Physically, emotionally, she was his without boundaries. Only he mattered to her.
Without realizing it, Erin had lost herself to him. Caught in his dark spell, she would need all her strength to complete the journey back to herself.
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