Everlasting Enchantment (19 page)

Claire stepped forward, her eyes on the bracelet as if entranced, and Millicent had to force herself to hold it out to her. The gem winked and swirled with milky color as Claire slid it on her arm. She held it there for a moment, but it did not tighten.

Millicent’s heart soared, and she fought against the rush of feeling. She thought Claire would surely be the one to break the enchantment… and had hoped she wasn’t. She must stop these conflicting thoughts. If the relic did not choose someone, Gareth would be trapped forever.

“It does not want me,” said Claire.

Millicent tried to keep calm and self-assured. “Then you must give it to another woman after you have convinced Lord Sussex of Ghoulston’s evil plan. When Sir Gareth appears, you can explain to him what I have done. You can tell him the relic must be given a chance to choose another…” But she could not manage it. Her voice broke and she could not utter another foul word.

“Millicent?”

Millicent stood, nearly knocking over the tea tray. “Tell him… tell him I am sorry.” And she fled the room. Her eyes stayed dry—she had resolved never to cry again—but a sort of haze blinded her as she ran through the hall and out the door. The white peacocks that stood sentinel on the portico screeched out their staccato cries behind her as she ran for the carriage, and another flash of tiny wings blurred somewhere off to her left. Millicent did not wait for the coachman to lower the steps. She flung open the door and leaped into the shelter of the dim interior.

The carriage lurched forward; Millicent collapsed against the cushions. She stared blindly at a tear in the upholstery of the seat opposite her. She had done it. She had set Gareth free, or at least, on a path where he could seek his freedom again. She felt happy for him, somewhere deep inside, but her misery at never seeing him again overshadowed it for the moment.

But she had done the right thing. And the Duke of Ghoulston would pay for his crimes. And Millicent would return to the Underground, among the forgotten, where she belonged.

If she had not been so sunk in misery, she might have realized sooner that the path they took back to Lady Roseus’s town home differed greatly from the one they had taken earlier, and perhaps the lady’s frantic waving as she’d departed meant something more. She would have been alert when the coach slowed down in a deserted mew.

But the spies had learned from past experience. They did not give her time to react. The coach door flew open, the chap with the scar and mane of golden hair covered her mouth with a cloth… and Millicent took a breath before thinking to shift.

The world faded to a fuzzy black.

Gareth materialized in a room lit with candlelight, and decorated with so many feathers he resisted the impulse to sneeze. He blinked, taking a moment to gather his wits about him, remembering his lady had just made passionate love to him before the relic had sucked him back in.

Why then, did he face a reddish-haired woman in a strange room?

“Who are you?”

She sat in a prim chair, in a prim gown buttoned up to her neck, and twisted her fingers in her lap. “Lady Claire Yardley.”

The name sounded familiar… “Millicent’s friend?”

“Yes.”

Gareth spied the wink of moonstone and strode forward, grabbing the woman’s upper arm. “Where did you get this?”

“I… unhand me, sir. I did not steal it, if that’s what you are thinking. Millicent gave it to me.”

“Gave it…?” He staggered back a step. No, she would not do such a thing. She had promised… “When? Why?”

“This afternoon. She told me an improbable tale about a dear friend of mine. She said you would confirm the story.”

Gareth collapsed on the edge of a bed covered with a downy blanket, absently noting it puffed around him when he sat. Surely Millicent could have come up with another way to convince Lady Yardley? If she had wanted to… but perhaps she did not want to. Perhaps this gave her the excuse to rid herself of him.

She had promised to keep the relic forever.

To keep
him
forever.

The prim lady leaned forward, her expensive skirts rustling softly with the movement. “Millicent told me to bring the bracelet to the Master of the Hall of Mages, and that you would convince him of Ghoulston’s wickedness. She also said she is sorry, but the relic must be given the chance to choose another woman…” She blushed. “She thought I would be perfect for you.”

“Indeed?” He had not intended to growl the word.

“I told her you—
it
did not want me.” She slid the bracelet down her arm, where it dangled on her wrist. “See, it is quite loose. I can give it to you, if you’d like.”

Gareth shook his head. “I would just have to give it to another. If Millicent no longer wants…” Had his voice just cracked, like some broken-hearted schoolboy? Did his chest truly ache, as if Millicent had taken his own sword and stabbed him in the heart? He had thought… after everything they had been through together… after making love to him the way she had…

He had thought she loved him enough to be faithful to him forever. That he had broken down that wall around her heart, at least enough for her to consider them as one, united in purpose and deed and love.

But her need for revenge had outweighed her need for him. He understood it, because he understood Millicent. But that did not erase the feeling of betrayal that shook him.

For a moment his vision wavered, the walls of the room expanding and contracting, and he could not breathe. He crushed the bed coverings as he curled his fingers into fists, trying to keep an anchor in a world gone suddenly insubstantial. Gareth felt scattered, as he sometimes did when he first appeared from the relic. He heard a loud crack, which pounded at his ears, as if he heard his own heart break. And then the world righted, he drew in a long breath, and he could think again.

Millicent had forsaken him.

Is this how Merlin had felt, when Vivian had broken trust with him? No wonder the great wizard had called his magic down upon Gareth. He would do the same… but he had no one to curse but himself. After centuries of searching for true love, he now regretted that he’d ever found it. He did not know it would hurt so much.

“Sir Gareth. Are you well? Can I get you a spot of tea?”

“Can tea fix a broken heart?” he muttered.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Nothing.” Gareth looked up at the woman. She looked… like a well-bred lady. Her eyes shone with the innocence of a woman who had led a sheltered life, attending balls and fetes, surrounded by gentlemen of only the highest pedigree. He doubted if she had ever been treated with anything but absolute respect. She commanded it with every line in her correct posture. He understood why it would be difficult for Lady Yardley to believe Millicent’s story about the machinations of the Duke of Ghoulston. Such evil would be inconceivable to her.

He understood why Millicent had chosen this lady for him, damn her. Lady Yardley was the opposite of the shape-shifter. Goodness oozed from her very pores.

And he had no desire for the woman whatsoever.

Gareth leaned forward, determined to focus his thoughts elsewhere. “Millicent’s tale is true, I assure you. The tea you gave the queen is laden with my blood. The blood of a man who has spent centuries seducing women.”

She gasped at his indelicate words. And yet her eyes sparkled with sudden interest, and she leaned toward him. Innocent, yes, but a curious minx.

Too bad Gareth had no desire for her. Odd. He had never felt this way before. He had never met a woman he did not find attractive in some way or another. Perhaps Millicent’s betrayal would have a worse consequence than just breaking his heart. If she had ruined him for other women, he would indeed be trapped inside the relic forever.

Gareth straightened his spine. He must keep his focus. He had more important things to worry about. “I assure you that Ghoulston is every bit as evil as Millicent has told you. Giving the queen a potion to make her fall in love with him is paltry in comparison to what he is capable of. Millicent told me the queen had fallen in love with her cousin, Prince Albert. Do you not think it odd that the queen’s feelings have changed so suddenly?”

She nodded, delicate curls of reddish-brown hair curling artfully about her cheeks. Not wildly, as Millicent’s black strands had a habit of doing. “We do not need to waste any more time in conversation, Sir Gareth. The longer I thought of Millicent’s story, the more I came to believe it. I already have a carriage waiting for us. Millicent said the relic would grant us a conversation with the Master of the Hall of Mages, His Grace, the Duke of Sussex.”

Gareth blanched. Surely Millicent had not realized the fate that awaited him in the Master’s hands. Like all of the relics, the bracelet would be consigned to a heavily warded vault beneath the Hall of Mages. He would no longer be able to search for a way to free himself of the curse.

No, Millicent could not have known. He would not believe that of her. She had given the bracelet to a woman she deemed a friend, one whom Millicent judged “good” enough to release him from the curse. Millicent understood the torture of being trapped; he had seen her own anguish too often. No, she had not realized the consequences of handing the bracelet over to the Master.

But Gareth did.

He had felt the weight of the years for some time now. Only Millicent had lightened that heavy load. And she had abandoned him. Given up.

Gareth glanced at the relic. For the first time, he wished it would draw him back inside and let him sleep, for without Millicent, he only felt tired.

But first he had a task to perform for his lady, and then Lord Sussex could lock him away inside a vault forever. It mattered little to him anymore.

He stood, shaking back his hair, his sadness. “Let us be off then, Lady Yardley. We have the task of saving the country, do we not?”

The lady smiled. She was indeed lovely. Her fingers trembled when he strode over and took her hand.

“Tell me, lady,” he murmured, “what do you see?”

She blinked up at him. “I do not understand.”

“My features. What do you see?”

She frowned, but replied, “Oh. You have dark golden hair, and eyes a shade lighter.”

Gareth nodded. She did not see him as his true self. But Millicent had…

He followed the lady from the room, through a grand mansion oddly decorated with living peacocks from doorway to newel post, and so he felt no surprise when he saw a carriage shaped like a water lily and pulled by two white peacocks. Gareth unfolded a petal and handed Lady Yardley into the carriage, then ducked inside, admiring the illusion of sitting in a flower as they jolted along the streets.

“You must be talented,” he commented. “It even smells as if we are sitting within a lily.”

She flushed in pleasure at his compliment, and did not deny her magic had created the illusion, and she relaxed a bit as they traveled. London glittered by lamp- and fairylight, the aristocracy out in their finest, the late hour just the beginning of their social gaiety. Grand mansions, decorated with even more fanciful illusions than peacocks and water lilies, shone with light from window and doorway. Guests entered and left: ladies dressed in gowns of sparkling silver and gentlemen in coats of prismatic color. Carriages passed their own conveyance, drawn by flaming horses, white stags with majestic glowing antlers, and even several types of birds: gold swans and crimson pheasants and long-legged herons.

Lady Yardley’s peacocks paled in comparison.

They neared Buckingham Palace, the diamond-studded walls twinkling in the light of the moon. Near it stood a smaller building, no less impressive for its size, for the walls roiled in a dizzying motion of color from the magical wards surrounding it. The Hall of Mages, where titles were made or broken. The headquarters of the Master, and the training ground for many sorcerers.

And far beneath it, a vault containing many of the relics of Merlin.

“I have been here only once,” murmured Lady Yardley, “when they tested me for my magical abilities. I had thought never to enter those doors again… it is such an odd place.”

“There is nothing to fear,” assured Gareth.

She gave a nervous titter. “No, of course not. I have a knight to protect me, after all.”

He gave her a smile, and although he knew it did not reach his eyes, the lady looked reassured by it. When he exited the coach and turned to assist her down the steps, she clasped his hand with a firm grip, and nodded briskly at him.

“Right, then. We shall have to get past the front desk, and if it’s anything like the Houses of Parliament, I will need all of my self-confidence to parley with the officious steward.” She squared her shoulders, stuck her chin in the air, and strode for the door.

Gareth opened it in time for her to sail through, and lazily followed a few steps behind, glancing around the massive entrance hall. It held a desk, a few pots of greenery, and a gilded staircase, nothing exceptionally impressive, except for the multitude of doors lining the hall. Magic seeped through the cracks of the frames—a miasma of sapphire, emerald, and crimson color—and curled upward to snake along the ceiling.

“I would like an audience with the Master,” said Lady Yardley to the bespectacled man sitting behind the desk.

“Madame, do you have any idea how late it is?”

“Do not be impertinent, sir. I am in complete possession of all my faculties and am quite aware of the hour. I should be attending a ball at this very moment, and the fact that I am not should impress you with the urgency of my task.”

The man did not raise his eyes from the stack of documents in front of him. “His Grace is out, attending that very thing. Unless this is a life or death magical emergency, he cannot be disturbed. Shall I leave him a message?”

Lady Yardley crossed her arms beneath her bosom. “No, you may not. This could very well be a life or death situation… if you consider that falling in love with the wrong man could ruin your life forever!”

The clerk let out an audible sigh. “What
exactly
, is the nature of your business?”

Gareth took a step forward. “Me.”

The clerk looked up. His eyes widened as his gaze traveled over Gareth’s clothing, settling on the sword at his hip.

“What ball is his lordship attending?” demanded Gareth.

“It is not a masquerade, sir, so your costume is—”

A roar shook the building, rattling the teacup on the clerk’s desk. Lady Yardley gasped as a group of baronets suddenly surrounded them. Gareth recognized the man with the mane of thick golden hair and the scarred face. The spy had been pursuing Millicent for weeks.

Gareth bowed. “Well met, gentlemen.”

“I told you I smelled the stink of relic magic,” growled the man to his fellows before turning back to pierce Gareth with a golden gaze. “You finally decided to give yourself up, eh?”

“Only for good reason.”

The shape-shifter laughed, his booming voice echoing down the hall. “I told you he’d come for the girl, men. You won’t be giving us any trouble now, will you mate?”

Gareth froze. “What girl?”

The other man frowned. “The were-cat. We caught her this afternoon… you didn’t know, did you? Then why are you here?”

Gareth took a step forward. Several growls and hisses from the baronets followed his action. He ignored them, his attention completely focused on the were-lion. “If you have harmed her in any way, I will kill you.”

The other man blinked, then threw back his head and laughed again. “Damn, man, I believe you.” He lowered his face and wiped a tear from his eye. “Come now, I know all about the curse. We don’t have anything against you, old chap; it’s the magic of the bracelet we want. You just happen to be attached to it. And we can’t have anything lying about that may be stronger than the magic of the Crown, can we? So be a good lad and play nice, and your lady will remain unharmed.”

“Take me to her. Now.”

The were-lion cocked his head and considered. “Give me the bracelet. Millicent—yes, of course we know her name—didn’t have it on her.”

Lady Yardley swayed beneath his hand. Gareth gave her a reassuring squeeze, and a meaningful nod.

“Are you sure?” she whispered.

“Most assuredly.”

She drew up the sleeve of her gown, the moonstone twinkling in the light of the wild magic dancing on the ceiling. Odd, it looked as if the gem had a small crack in it. But Gareth did not have time to study it, for the baronet with the orange stripes in his black hair made a purring sound similar to Millicent’s contented rumble, and Lady Yardley yanked off the bracelet and handed it to the were-lion with trembling fingers.

“Well done,” murmured Gareth. “Go home now, Lady Yardley.”