Love's Magic (30 page)

Celestia wrapped her cloak tighter about her shoulders and tread on wraith-like feet until they reached the safety of the forest’s edge.

Then she clasped Nicholas’s hand and they ran like the devil chased them until arriving at the back gate of the keep.

Chapter
Sixteen

H
eaven help us, Nicholas, but those woods are haunted with restless spirits. I know you felt it, too.”

Nicholas leaned over to catch his breath. He pointed toward the southern part of the courtyard, where Father Michael was sleeping with his “flock.” “Praying must have been too exhausting with that group,” Nicholas muttered as he led Celestia toward the north tower.

“Stop jesting—what was that?”

“I don’t know. I prefer flesh-and-blood enemies.”

“The sense of danger was so strong, Nicholas.”

“I don’t believe in ghosts. The worst harm ever done to me was by human hands.”

She patted his forearm. “Did you smell apples? Apple pie, or a tart, mayhap? All I know, Nicholas, is that the warning came through very clear. And I’ve never been to Grainne Kat’s house—how, for certes, did I know how to find that secret door? And yet the feeling in the backyard was malevolent. Pure evil. Even you felt it, you said so. Why on earth would they have penned those geese? For food? Pillows?” She took a deep breath.

Nicholas’s eyes twinkled at her like diamonds against a black cloth. “You are babbling, and I don’t blame you overmuch. The hanging skins were enough to make
my
skin crawl.” He scratched at his chin. “Ugh!”

Celestia exhaled and stared at her husband in the intermittent moonlight. “What do we do now?”

“We?
We
do nothing! I am leaving at first light. I’m going to return this sacred relic to Saint James and beg a boon. My soul, for starters.” He pounded his fist against his chest.

She’d been afraid of that.

“Think for just a moment afore you go chasing off. Why would Grainne Kat have the relic? Why would she get the villagers in arms by telling them that I was a witch? What does she have to gain by it all?” Celestia kicked a rock with the toe of her boot.

“Would that I knew. But this …” He gave the hidden relic a pat. “This was a sign, ‘Tia. I should never have let my feelings for you distract me from my purpose.”

She bit her lip to keep from crying out. How was it that he had the power to hurt her so badly? “And what of the baron?”

He clenched his jaw, and Celestia winced as she heard the bone crack. “I will leave by morning’s light.” He punched his left fist into his right palm and lowered his voice. “I knew that nothing good could come from caring for you, or any of this.” He flung out his arm, encompassing the entire keep.

It was clean, organized, and looked much improved, thanks to Nicholas’s caring and hard work. Still, he negated everything with a dismissive wave. “Saint James will forgive me, aye, the instant I return the relic to his tomb. I’ll walk, crawl if need be, to make amends. Mayhap this means that I need to forget vengeance, lest it drive me as mad as my mother was.”

Celestia’s heart broke in two at the naked hope on Nicholas’s face. How could she compete against God?

He was leaving her.

She felt it deep within her being. Some of his despair had worn onto her, and now she ached with it. Celestia had known the day would come, yet still the hurt was almost more than she could take. Losing her healing gifts could not be nearly as debilitating as this awful wrenching of her heart.

Damn love. Damn minstrels, for they sang of this, too.

She blinked back those stupid, female tears and met Nicholas’s imploring gaze straight on. “Of course you should go. If your responsibilities can’t convince you to stay here, then who am I to try?”

His eyes narrowed into slits of iron.

Flipping her hair back as though she didn’t care, she hefted her chin high. “Just the woman whom you married
out of honor.
Your father forced this union, and again your damnable honor kept you from trying to make a blessing from a curse.”

Her voice broke, and her good intentions fell to the ground. “If you make it back from your pilgrimage, Nicholas, then I tell you now, I will not be waiting like the docile good wife.” His gray eyes widened. “I may take a lover to satisfy these feelings you have awakened in me. Yes, a lover.”

Nicholas stepped back, his hands fisted before him.

“I may not even live here at this stinking keep. I hate it! There is no love here. The only happiness in this hole was what I felt for you. So go, then. I shall get over you in a trice.” She snapped her fingers beneath his nose, then turned and ran for all she was worth.

“Celestia, wait!”

She was gone as if she’d never been there, yet the deep hurt in her eyes was forever branded in his mind. Nicholas couldn’t breathe past the sudden ache in his chest. His eyes burned, and the relic weighed heavily in his tunic.

Pressing the jeweled box closer to his heart, he agonized over going to Celestia and soothing her, as she had soothed him so often. He could beg her to wait for him to come back, a whole man, one healed in spirit as well as body.

But he had no right to do so.

He’d been honest with her. He’d been honest in his desire for revenge.

Sighing, Nicholas wondered if he was moving too fast. He’d promised Saint James the baron’s heart on a gold platter. If he returned the relic without the pledged death, he was, perhaps, failing another test of faith.

Celestia threw the bolt on her chamber door, knowing quite well that Nicholas wouldn’t even try to open it. She picked up her sewing basket and withdrew the new tunic she’d been pouring her love into. Bess, she quickly caught another sob in her throat, and Viola had been making matching tunics for the other knights. She sniffed and held the garment up to the candlelight.

The fabric was ruby red, a perfect foil for Nicholas’s midnight hair. She’d pricked her fingers many times applying the silver trim to the hem, but she had wanted to do herself. She’d had Willy draw her a falcon, and she’d used it to create a pattern of the bird with its wings outstretched in flight. To think and she’d hoped Nicholas would want it for his personal insignia.

All she had left to finish was the gold embroidery on the talons.

She sniffed again, gathered her needle and thread, and bent to complete her task. How could she let her husband travel to Spain in hand-me-down tunics? A man as proud as Nicholas needed his own colors.

Her eyes were sore from bad light and unshed tears, but the tunic was finished by dawn’s arrival. She packed a knapsack with Nicholas’s essentials, and carefully folded the crimson fabric inside. Celestia straightened her shoulders and rubbed her weary back, then firmly told her breaking heart, “This is the last thing I will ever do for that man.”

Nicholas adjusted the saddle over Brenin’s back. He was alone in the courtyard of the keep, and as dawn broke, he noticed that the work they’d done was beginning to show. The dirt was raked, the firewood stacked, the stables clean.

Satisfaction welled within as he fed the stallion an apple he had collected from the kitchen, along with the food he’d need to start his journey. He carried the relic safely within his tunic.

Father Michael had already gathered his parishioners inside to eat a small meal before the opening of the north tower and the banishing of his mother’s supposed ghost. The urge to stay was overwhelming, but after creating such a scene last evening between he and Celestia, it wasn’t possible. Not if he wanted to hold on to his pride. Nicholas would leave quietly, without fanfare or trumpets. It felt like he was sneaking away.

He had left written instructions for Petyr regarding Celestia’s well-being.

Brenin’s nose tickled his palm. “Sorry, boy. That’s all I have for you. Are you ready?”

Nicholas knew, deep down inside, that he’d avoided speaking to anyone of his quest because it would take very little to convince him to stay here at the keep.

He wanted to stay. “Fine,” he sighed aloud and Brenin chuffed in sympathy. “Maybe I’m curious about this ‘haunted’ tower.” He told himself that this was not his home, Celestia was not his soul mate, his men were not his to command.

It wasn’t working.

More than salvation, he wanted his wife. He never wanted to see such heartbreak on her face again.

“Ouch!” Nicholas clasped his hand to his aching head then looked down. His knapsack lay at his feet. He’d thought to leave it here, since he hadn’t dared to breach the locked door of Celestia’s chamber.

He’d tried once already, thinking to get her approval, but the knob hadn’t turned and then he’d heard her crying.

Nicholas could withstand torture and take on ten knights at a time, but those tears made him tuck his tail and run.

He tapped the sack with his toe and looked around. Where had that come from? Alone in the courtyard, he looked up and saw the very person he had been thinking about waving gaily from the window at her chamber.

His heart tripped over itself with joy. She’d ask him to stay, surely. “Did you throw that?”

“Aye.”

He grinned, forgiving her his aching head.

She stuck her tongue out. “I want no reminders of you here, so I thought I’d help you pack.”

His temper grew, and he clenched his fists. “Did you have to throw it so hard?”

“I know how stubborn you can be. I simply wanted to gain your attention.”

“You have it!”

“I wish that were true. Good-bye, Nicholas. Safe journey.”

Nicholas stayed rooted to the ground and watched her disappear into the confines of their, her, chamber. Then he foolishly waited for her to come back so that he could drink in the sight of her, hoping she would ask him to stay. But after a few moments, he realized that she was not returning.

He picked up the knapsack, mounted Brenin, and left the courtyard without looking back. Why did he feel like a coward?

Brenin’s steady gait left him time to contemplate his actions. Was he doing the right thing? The honorable thing? He remembered Celestia’s earnest question last eve. Why exactly had the relic been in Grainne’s possession? How had the poor wise woman come by the holy object of Saint James? Mayhap he needed to swallow his pride and think before leaving Celestia alone, with Bess’s murder unsolved and Viola’s attackers uncaught.

His pride.

It was getting in the way of doing the right thing. “Let’s head for home, Brenin.”

He heard hooves pounding behind him, and his heart leapt with anticipation. Had Celestia come after him? He grinned like a love-struck fool as he turned the stallion around. He and Celestia could make the best of their situation—what had she said?—they could turn the curse into a blessing, and turn the pilgrimage into a thing of love instead of hate.

Hope died. “Petyr—what are you doing? You are supposed to be back at the keep, taking care of Celestia. I left you instructions.”

“I’m wasting time, chasing after your pathetic hide, that’s what I’m doing.” Petyr brought his horse to a halt, the horse’s hooves kicking a little dirt on Brenin. “Here,” he tossed a wrapped packet that Nicholas caught with one hand. “Yer wife said ye forgot it, again.”

He opened the folded cloth and inside was his mother’s rosary. The worn wooden cross seemed to pulsate with warmth, and heat flooded his face as he remembered that his wife was quite used to him acting the fool. She’d remembered that he’d forgotten the talisman when he’d left on crusade, and she thought to protect him.
Could she love him?

“I read your instructions, my lord. You are making a mistake.”

Nicholas put the rosary around his neck, carefully tucking the cross beneath his tunic. “I am going on pilgrimage, Petyr. It is a journey I need to make alone.”
Or with Celestia.

Petyr scoffed, his fair skin turning red. “Pilgrimage? Escaping from your duties, more like. Your wife scares you because she makes you
feel.
You enjoy wallowing in your self-pity. Holdin’ everyone at arm’s length. So you suffered in the Crusades. Lah-de-dah. Well let me tell you something, me lord Nicholas.” Petyr’s horse came nose to nose with Brenin, who snorted and rolled his eyes back.

“You weren’t the only one to suffer. My brother was one of the men in the ambush on your caravan who died. It was you leading those men, and you who led them into a trap. Aye, I see the guilt still eats at ye.”