A Passionate Magic (24 page)

Dain went absolutely still. After a moment he
frowned and rubbed his forehead as if it ached. Then he began to
rub the back of his neck with the other hand.

“Are you in pain?” Emma asked.

“No.” He stood, holding up one hand to
prevent her from moving closer. “It’s something I can’t remember,
something teasing at the back of my mind. The woman told you her
name?”

“Yes. As I said, it’s Vivienne.”

Dain’s lips moved, though he made no sound.
As he tried, he began to look more and more distressed.

“I cannot say it,” he told Emma. “I cannot
make the word come out of my mouth.”

“What word? Dain, are you ill?”

“The woman’s name, damn it!” he shouted at
her.

”Vivienne,” she said again.

‘V-V-’’ Horror filled his eyes. “What’s wrong
with me?”

“Sit down again,” she suggested. “Perhaps you
ought to lie down. Does your head ache?”

“I’m not sick, I tell you! There’s a hole in
my memory. Why can’t I remember?”

“Has it something to do with warfare?” she
asked, frantically seeking a way to help him. “Sometimes when
men-at-arms see dreadful scenes, or when a young man is forced to
kill for the first time, the hour that’s too horrid to remember is
blanked out as if it never happened. I recall two of my father’s
men who suffered such memory loss. Could that be what’s happened to
you?”

“No,” he answered, speaking more calmly. “It
has nothing to do with fear.”

“Horror and fear are not the same thing.” To
Emma’s relief, Dain let her touch him, allowing her to catch the
hand he was still rubbing across his forehead and move it away from
his face. “Can you recall anything important that happened
immediately before or just after the blank spot?”

“Not very well,” he said. “I was a boy, no
more than five or six years old. Something terrible – unbearable -”
He broke off on a groan that sounded suspiciously like a repressed
sob.

Emma’s heart twisted upon hearing such a
noise made by a man who kept his emotions well hidden. She could
only guess at the anguish Dain was suffering and wanted desperately
to relieve his pain.

“Five years old. Wouldn’t that be about the
time your father died?” she asked. “Surely the death of a beloved
parent would be unbearable to a little boy. Perhaps that’s it.”

“I did not love my father,” he stated coldly.
“I respected and feared him. We were never close. Anyway, I
remember the day he died perfectly well. It was afterward – how
long afterward? Dear God,
what happened
?”

Dain stared out the window, though Emma was
sure he wasn’t looking at the fog or listening to the crash of
waves on the rocks far below. His eyes were as bleak and empty as
the space inside his mind. At last he shook himself and looked at
Emma again.

”We were discussing your foolhardy venture
onto the moors,” he said.

”Yes, and I was telling you of my meeting
with Vivienne.” Emma spoke the name deliberately, to discover what
kind of response it would evoke this time. Dain merely shook his
head, so she asked. “Have you ever met her?”

”I have only seen the lady from afar,” he
said.

“After the first time I saw her,” Emma said,
“I asked Sloan and Todd and some of the other men about her. No one
seems to know who she is or where she lives. The men claim she’s a
ghost. Perhaps she told her name to me in hope I’d mention it to
you.”

“Why would she do that?” Dain asked.

“I don’t know. She knows your name, and she
recognized your voice when you called to me.”

“Most people in this part of Cornwall know me
by sight,” he said, shrugging off the subject of the mysterious
lady as if she were unimportant and ignoring the fact that Vivienne
hadn’t seen him at all. The fog had been too thick for them to see
each other, except by using the means Emma had employed to see the
path. Emma didn’t believe Vivienne was unimportant, so she revealed
what else she had learned about the lady in white.

“Dain, Vivienne is a magician. And she fears
your mother with an abject terror.”

“Now,
that
makes sense,” he said,
“though little else about the woman does. I’m sure you’ve heard my
mother’s opinion on magic. Agatha will have told you, when you
discussed herbs and medicines with her. No doubt Agatha has warned
the mysterious woman, whoever she is, to keep her distance from
Penruan.” He fell silent for a moment, thinking, though apparently
his thoughts weren’t on Vivienne, for he changed the subject.

“Emma,” he said, casting a puzzled look at
her, “is my mother the reason you fled the castle today? The sentry
did say you left in haste. Now that I’m no longer concerned for
your safety or upset over your carelessness, I can see it wasn’t
like you to behave so irresponsibly. Why did you leave?”

“It scarcely matters now, does it?” Emma
responded, not wanting to criticize his mother to him. Nor, it
seemed, could she tell him about her magic. Not just yet, not while
he was afflicted with a memory lapse in addition to a mother who
held a fanatical hatred of magic and medicine. Emma’s truth was
going to have to wait a little longer to be revealed.

“Answer me.” Dain’s strong hands clasped her
shoulders. “Did my mother insult you before you left, as well as
after you returned? I saw how she was in the great hall waiting for
you, primed like a befouled pump with accusations of
wrongdoing.”

“One of the medicines I gave her when she was
sick contained diluted poppy syrup. It loosened her tongue, so she
rambled on about the feud and about her life. I imagine she regrets
everything she said to me during those hours. I don’t regret
listening to her, for I understand her a little better now. She’s a
lonely soul who sees her power waning and her life drawing to its
close, and here’s a younger woman ready to step into her place. I
might wish her disposition were sweeter, but I can sympathize with
her feelings of helplessness and anger. Please don’t scold her on
my account.”

“You are far too generous,” Dain said. “Even
when she was still young and strong, my mother was difficult to
deal with.”

“So can Agatha be difficult,” Emma said with
a smile. “I had words with her over the herbs she put into your
wine. Then Hermit mentioned something that made me suspect Agatha
as the source of the strange little gifts I keep finding on your
pillow. When I said so, Hermit laughed at me and told me I was all
wrong in my suppositions, but he wouldn’t answer my questions. So,
after all of that, and after having listened to your mother’s story
with considerable patience, when she upbraided me earlier today and
ordered me out of her bedchamber I wanted nothing so much as a
quiet, uninterrupted hour to myself. That’s why I left the castle,
and I am truly sorry my absence alarmed you.”

“You could have discussed your concerns with
me,” he said.

“You are a busy man and these are women’s
matters.”

“Anything that happens in or around the
castle is my concern,” he said. “In the future, if you are worried
or upset or frightened, don’t run away. Speak to me, instead. I
will have your promise on this, Emma.” He sounded stern, yet the
look in his eyes was warm.

“I promise. I will speak to you first and
then, if the matter is too difficult and the demons are too
persistent, perhaps we can run away together.” She ended on a soft
laugh, thinking of Lady Richenda’s bitter tongue and unforgiving
attitude. She sobered quickly upon hearing Dain’s response.

“My life has taught me that the best way to
fight demons is not to run away, but to stand and face them.”

“In that case, we’ll fight them together,”
she said.

“We will, if only I can remember what my
demons are. I have to fill in that empty spot in my memory.”

“I’ll help you, Dain.”

“I know you will.” He bent and kissed her
lightly. “I have duties awaiting me now, but we’ll talk about this
again later.” With his gaze still on her face, he crossed to the
door and flung it open.

Blanche nearly fell into the room.

“Were you looking for me?” Dain asked,
eyebrows raised in surprise. “Or is it my lady you seek?”

“I – I – my lord – my mistress – Lady
Richenda.” Blanche stuttered to an embarrassed halt.

“Yes, I know who my mother is,” Dain said
coldly.

”Well, Lady Richenda would like to speak to
you as soon as possible. In her room, my lord.”

“You may tell my mother I will wait upon her
when I am free of my present duties,” Dain said. He stood
impassively in the doorway while Blanche curtsied and stammered an
excuse and then fled down the steps.

“Her ear was pressed hard against the door,”
Emma said. “Which is why she was caught off balance when you opened
it so suddenly.”

“She is my mother’s ears,” Dain said, “and my
mother’s eyes. This has passed beyond a woman’s concern. It’s my
problem; I will deal with it. Until I do, I suggest you avoid my
mother.”

“I think I will order a bath prepared,” Emma
responded with what she hoped was an enticing smile, “and I’ll ask
Hawise to bring me a tray of food and some wine. Would you care to
join me?”

“Later in the evening, I will.”

The warmth of his gaze delighted Emma. But
she realized the next clash with Lady Richenda had only been
postponed, for she couldn’t believe her mother-in-law was going to
be swayed in her opinions by Dain, however firmly he stated his
objections to his mother’s treatment of Emma, or to Blanche’s
eavesdropping. More than ever she longed to tell him about her
inborn magic, so there would be no secrets left between them.

Dain did come to her later that night, as he
had promised. He made love to her with a long, slow tenderness that
bound her to him even more closely. In the morning, after he was
gone, Emma discovered on his pillow a golden crescent no larger
than her thumbnail.

She found Dain atop the castle wall, where he
was supervising the masons who were making repairs to the merlons,
where some of the mortar was crumbling. At first he seemed
irritated by her presence among the busy workers, until he paused
to regard her serious expression.

”Walk with me, Emma. What has happened?” he
asked when they were well away from the masons and the
sentries.

“I found this on your pillow.” She opened her
fist to show him the golden crescent. “You did require me to
discuss my concerns with you.”

“So I did.” He took the crescent, holding it
up between two fingers to look at it more closely. “It’s good,
solid gold, and finely made. See the raised border and the tiny
hole in each point, as if it’s meant to be sewn onto a piece of
clothing, for decoration?”

“Or fastened to a larger piece of jewelry,”
Emma suggested.

”When did you find this?” Dain asked. “I only
left you an hour ago, and you’ve taken time to dress completely and
braid your hair, which means you rose soon after I departed the
lord’s chamber.”

“I heard the door latch click when you went
out,” Emma said. “When I opened my eyes there it was, on your
pillow.”

“I didn’t pull the door tightly shut. I
didn’t want to wake you. The latch did not click behind me. I took
care that it didn’t.”

“Then the sound I heard was the person who
left the gift closing the door.”

”A stranger in the lord’s chamber while you
were asleep,” he muttered. “I cannot allow it to happen again. We
must discover who it is, and without arousing suspicion until I
have the person responsible safely in my custody. You said
yesterday that Agatha denies all knowledge of these incidents.”

“She does. So does Hermit. In fact, he took
the subject as a joke. As far as I know, he has never been inside
the castle walls, so it can’t be him. It surely isn’t Lady Richenda
who’s leaving little gifts for me, nor Blanche, either. I can’t
believe Blake would creep into our room without permission.
Certainly it’s not Sloan or Todd, but I don’t know the other castle
inhabitants well enough to be sure of them. Can you think of anyone
it might be?”

“No one at all,” Dain said. “There are a
couple of secret ways into Penruan, intended for use during
warfare. Only I, my mother, and Sloan know of them, so I’m sorry to
say I must conclude that someone who lives inside the castle is
leaving the trinkets. But who? And why?

“I’m going to post an extra guard to watch
the entrance to the lord’s chamber and report to me who goes up and
down the stairs. Todd is trustworthy, and I notice he’s been
coughing a lot lately. I’ll provide a chance for him to stay
indoors for a few days and keep warm and dry while still having a
legitimate duty to perform. We will soon have our gift-giver, and
then we’ll learn what is the purpose of this peculiar assortment of
tokens. They certainly make no sense to me.” Dain dropped the
crescent back into Emma’s hand.

“Thank you for your help, my lord.” Emma
wasn’t sure the unseen visitor to her room would be caught as
easily as Dain seemed to think. At one time she had suspected
Agatha of transporting the gifts to Dain’s pillow by magic. She
believed Agatha’s denial, but there was another person in the
vicinity of Penruan who was capable of magic, and that person knew
Dain well enough to recognize his voice in a thick fog.

“I thought today I’d search along the beach
for seaweed, and try to locate more samphire in the rock crevices,”
she said. “I’m telling you so you will know where to find me.”

“Take someone with you,” Dain ordered.

“Hawise doesn’t like heights. She’d be
terrified of the path down the cliff,” Emma said, “and Lady
Richenda is keeping Blake busy, running errands for her. I know you
said he’s to be my page now, but I don’t want to start a fresh
quarrel with your mother. The beach is safe enough. The only people
I’ve ever seen there are Agatha and Hermit, and neither of them
will harm me. I won’t need a guard.” She wanted to go to the beach
alone because she was hoping to find Agatha and question her
privately about Vivienne. Surely Agatha would know whether Vivienne
had a reason to send gifts to Dain’s pillow by magic.