Beauty's Curse (16 page)

“He can't see,” the old lady tapped her foot against the floor, a smile creeping across her face. “So don't forget to groan, and we'll need to make this room much warmer, to effect a fever.”

“That's the spirit, Dame Bertha,” Galiana giggled, shaking the powder to her palm. “Rourke might not be able to see right now, but Jamie can. And that man has an eagle eye. We'll need to make this very good. You'll help me?”

“Of course, my lady.”

It took a while before the two pronounced Galiana ready, and then Gali sent Dame Bertha down to the great hall with the news that Galiana was too ill to join the men for dinner. Too sick for her own wedding night.

Gali had instructed Dame Bertha to stay and sup, and then report back with Rourke's reaction.

The old lady wasn't to tell anyone, not even the twins, of their farce.

As she lay in bed, face powdered to a ghostly white with dark circles beneath her eyes, she congratulated herself on a job well done and a trick well played. Was it too much to have one little victory she could savor?

Nay. So why was guilt creeping around like an unwanted guest?

The joke could be taken as dishonest. Her duty bade her marry Rourke, and she would. The prince had demanded the wedding, and even though her family had a royal dispensation, her brother had committed an act of treason. Rourke would have been well within his rights to lock her brother in the barn until spring.

Instead, he'd offered her a bargain. More than fair, on his part, when she considered that he could have taken her by force—as some of his men had suggested.

Galiana blinked, wishing she weren't so susceptible to feeling bad.

Yes, he'd ordered the wedding immediately instead of waiting for her parents to return to the manor. He'd even refused to let her go before the prince to explain. Rourke said it was for her own protection, but she thought there was more to the tale than that.

Clutching the covers to her chin, she hoped she hadn't overplayed her hand.

Rourke just needed to be taught a lesson in patience; that's all she was doing. She counted to twenty. Thirty. Curse it! She threw the covers back and slid her feet to the ground. She could go down now and explain she was jesting.

But then he'd always know he had won.

One little victory. Her pride cried for it. Getting back into bed, she lectured herself on ladylike behavior. She drank her wine, waiting for someone to come and see how she fared. While she waited, she promised, starting tomorrow, she'd be the best wife a knight could ever ask for.

Rourke raised his head, listening to the moans surrounding him. The sound reminded him of a battlefield, and he wondered if he was dead. He couldn't see a blasted thing, his head ached, and his gut churned with fire.

“Jamie?” Rourke blinked and blinked, but nothing could clear the shadows from his line of sight. Was the room filled with smoke? Or was this his dream, where the Breath of Merlin came to swallow him in the name of the Holy Throne?

He gulped, his throat raw and rancid.

Turning his head to the side, he called again for his foster brother, and again, until he heard a familiar cursing.

Rourke crawled over bodies—men. His men? His hand scraped over the trimmed beard of Franz, but the man wouldn't wake, no matter how hard Rourke shook his shoulder. Next was either Robert or Godfrey; he could tell by the large shoulders. The man groaned when Rourke patted his cheeks.

Finally he made it to the giant body of his foster brother.

Jamie grunted when Rourke smacked him in the center of his huge chest.

“I'm here,” Rourke said.

“Get off me bloody leg, would ye? Agh, damn, I've sicked meself, what in the hell?”

“That explains the stink. Where are we?”

Jamie sat up, then stood. “Can ye see?”

“It's dark.” The memories were coming back. He'd been blinded: downed by a rock and a lady with good aim. He was to marry the wench, securing her family's knights and money—but then she'd gotten sick and couldn't come to dinner. They were to be married, and she'd stayed in her bed—away from the great hall.

As had her priest, and her brother.

“The bitch poisoned us,” he said coldly.

“Ye don't know that.”

“It looks that way.”

“Ye can't see,” Jamie pointed out. “Besides, she's a lady.”

“You know as well as I that ladies can be treacherous—starting with Eve.”

Jamie laughed; then Rourke flinched as a bright light hurt his eyes.

“Ye see that, then?” Jamie's voice held hope.

“Just the brilliance of it—it's fading already. A candle?”

“Aye,” his foster brother said with a wealth of disappointment.

Rourke knew he would regain his sight. The alternative was failure, and he refused to consider it.

“God's bones, Rourke, it's a good thing ye can't see this. The men are all passed out on the floor, sick, most of 'em. What a mess.”

“Are they dead?”

“No, poor bastards. If they feel like I do, they probably wish they were.”

Feeling useless made him angry, and it took every last bit of willpower he had to keep his temper leashed. “She told me she'd get even, but this is ridiculous.”

“Think it through, man. Why would she want ye dead?”

“Not dead, just sick. Are her own men here, too?”

“Aye. There's at least one in green and white curled under the table there. His head's in a bowl.”

Rourke's shoulders tightened, and he set his jaw. Mayhap the lady was cold-hearted after all. To poison her own knights, too—just to get even? Was she that angry he'd set her aside? She'd agreed to the marriage, by God. He'd wanted their joining to be special.

An odd feeling of disappointment banked the lust she'd stirred when he'd kissed her in his chamber. Damn it to hell, she'd responded like a cat to his touch, and he'd almost bedded her before the pledge was taken.

It didn't make sense.

The men started to wake around him and retch, and he knew a deep fury that anyone, let alone someone he'd begun to care for, could be so deliberately cruel.

“Take me to her room, Jamie. Now. I would see for myself if she's feeling better.” Galiana, with all her talk of honor. Rourke ground his back teeth together, wanting to storm up the stairs and drag the lady from her comfortable bed so she could see what she'd done with her trickery.

“Rourke,” Jamie cautioned.

“Nay, don't argue—just lead the way, man.”

Rourke stayed on Jamie's heels, his head thundering with pain.

Jamie pounded on the thick, wooden door of Galiana's chamber, demanding to be let in.

Each time Jamie's fist hit the door, a slice of white-hot light flashed across Rourke's vision, until Rourke ordered Jamie to stop pounding before his head fell off.

He shut his eyes tight, pressing his fingers down on the lids as if that would take away the searing fire.

Suddenly the door opened, and Rourke reflexively opened his eyes wide. He jumped back, seeing a shadowy white face, gaunt, with huge dark eyes and a pointed chin. “Death,” he croaked.

The skeleton figure before him screeched with outrage, and the door was slammed in their faces.

Jamie's shoulders shook with suppressed laughter.

Rourke reached out and clapped his foster brother on the back of the neck. “You're laughing at me, Jamie?”

“Aye.”

“I can see it. A little.” Graying tones, in an indistinguishable shape, but he would know the silhouette of Jamie's broad shoulders and bushy hair anywhere.

“Ye can? Thanks be to God, Rourke. Yer blindness has been scarin' me.”

Rourke glanced at the door.

“As much as she scared me?”

Jamie burst into loud chuckles, and Rourke, feeling foolish, joined in.

“If you two are not finished mocking me, would you please leave?” Galiana's whisper could barely be heard through the door. “'Tis impolite.”

Rourke, buoyed by his newfound semi-sight, reached out and knocked against the door himself. She looked so pathetic he didn't even feel like strangling the wench anymore.

He'd thought—his hands tingled with the sensory memory of Galiana's curves and her long hair—she'd be a little bit pretty. For certes, it seemed she was not at her best. “Are you ill?” he called through the wood since she wasn't opening the door.

“Uh, just go away,” she said in a tear-filled voice.

“Lass, the men downstairs are all sick—”

Her hesitation sparked Rourke's suspicion, and he cut off Jamie, shouting, “What kind of trick did you play?”

He hoped for a quick denial, but he didn't get one.

“Galiana?” Rourke shook the handle on the door until it rattled loose.

“I, I don't know what you're talking about—I'm ill!” she yelled.

Rourke's skills at outing a liar went to waste, since she did it so poorly. “Open this door, or I will kick it down.”

He heard her sniffling tears, but it didn't stop his anger that she was denying him entry. “One … two … three …”

“Wait!”

Rourke found himself holding his breath, curious to see what apparition would open the door.

When it slowly creaked inward, Rourke impatiently pushed it farther. Jamie was at his back as they entered the dark chamber.

“You can see me?” Galiana said from within the confines of a large, hooded fur robe.

“Not wrapped in that, my lady,” Rourke snorted with irritation. “Are you well?”

“Well,” she sniffed, “I still have a slight ache at my throat,” she produced a pitiful cough, “and my eyes are watering. You scared me, knocking at the door like that. Really, Rourke, you can see?”

“Shapes, features, no colors, but I'm not complaining. What are you up to, Galiana, that you are hiding yourself?” Rourke could be just as single-minded as she.

“I don't feel well, sir, so please—just stay back.”

He could tell she was lying, and even though she sounded pitiful, he didn't believe her. “Sick with regret, mayhap? Why did you do it?”

Her hands darted out of the robe, and she gathered the edges to wrap more tightly around her. “Do what?”

The bulky fur, while warm, didn't lend itself to giving away her figure, Rourke noticed. She seemed tall, but it could be the hood. Thanks be to their compromising positions the day before, he knew she was curvaceous—but the fur made her appear mammoth.

Was she planning on running out into the snow? It stunned him to think she'd rather take her chances in the snowstorm than marry him. Had he scared her away with his ardor? Nay, she'd been hot for his touch; his body remembered well.

“You poisoned us all,” Rourke spat. “We should have assumed something was going on when neither you nor your brother came down to the hall. Not even your priest ate with the rest of us naïve buffoons. What were you hoping to do? Gain control of the manor? Escape into the middle of a snowstorm? Fool!”

The hood jerked back the smallest bit, and he got a glimpse of the woman's pale face. He couldn't see her ghostly features clearly, but he could tell she was concerned. It made him breathe easier to know that she was capable of remorse.

“The lads are sick,” Jamie said. “What did ye give us all?”

Galiana shook her head, “I didn't do anything like that. I—my ‘trick' was this.” She wet the tip of her finger and ran it down her face. Rourke didn't see a difference, but Jamie chuckled.

“Flour?”

“Cornstarch,” Galiana said.

“Why?” Rourke demanded.

She bit her lip, and tears welled in her large, dark eyes. Maybe once she washed her face and stopped her bawling, she'd be prettier, Rourke conceded. He never should have pressed his suit yesterday; she was innocent, and it was his own fault if she was running scared.

He opened his mouth to apologize. He was the man, after all.

She hefted her chin and said, “I didn't want you to order me around.”

Jamie snickered.

“So instead of following through with the wedding you agreed to, you feigned illness?” Rourke glared. Narrowing his eyes allowed him to reduce Galiana's three heads to just the one.

She nodded and wrung her hands. “I didn't poison anyone. I would never do that. I was going to teach you a lesson in patience … Oh, Saint Jude, I shouldn't have said that out loud.”

Jamie dropped his chin, then turned on his heel. “I'll fetch the priest.”

“I'm not getting married right now!” Galiana wailed at Jamie's back.

“Not for that,” Rourke said, disgusted with the circumstances and life in general. He wasn't used to women going so far to avoid his attentions. Well, she was a prim and proper young girl. What was he to expect? She'd probably been terrified at the thought of sharing his bed, although she hadn't seemed it when her tongue had battled with his in one of the most sensual kisses he'd ever known.

If he hadn't been so focused on regaining his sight, and control over his men, and, well, staying alive without being branded a spy—he would have sensed that the little flower needed coaxing.

“My lady,” Rourke dipped at his waist, lowered his voice, looked up at her, and arched his left brow. “Forgive me. I owe you my life, and I've vowed to give you my protection.”

Her large, spooky eyes widened. “You needn't do that. It makes you look ridiculous.”

Offended, he stepped back. “Me? You're the one covered in dust!”

Galiana shrugged, but hugged the fur tighter to her body. “Do I really look so awful?”

Rourke took a deep breath and wondered if he should just marry the girl and leave her here. She wouldn't be able to hold her own at court; the vixens there would eat such an innocent waif alive.

He'd satisfy Prince John's demand, proving again his loyalty. The prince didn't need to see his bride. However, what reason would he have to go to court then, if not to show off his—he glanced at Galiana's hunched figure—“prize”?