Love's Magic (31 page)

Nicholas swallowed the bile in his throat.
Sand, sun, blood. Men’s—screams, hoarse and gruff before they were silenced forever.

“Would that my brother could have been returned to me, I doubt that he would have spent his remaining years lamenting his captivity—nay, methinks he would be kissing the ground for his very life.”

Dizzy, Nicholas pressed his knees into Brenin’s barrel chest. His voice was barely a whisper as he met Petyr’s stern blue gaze. “How can you not blame me for your brother’s death?”

Petyr hawked and spat.
“It was a trap.
I never heard of you. It was rumored, very softly, around Peregrine Castle that the baron had to have God’s worst luck when it came to babes and wives. And that somewhere he had a grown boy—nobody knew where.”

Nicholas couldn’t move as Petyr unraveled another knot in his history. “It wasn’t ‘til the night he thought ye dead that he drank too much and spilled the secret of your identity.”

“You believe in the curse?”

“I’m surprised if that evil bastard only has one curse heaped upon his oily head.” Petyr laughed, but Nicholas heard no joy in it.

“He let go another secret, too. That old relic ye were willing to die for? It was fake.”

Nicholas gritted his teeth until it hurt.

Petyr puffed out his chest. “Well, my Lord Nicholas, this is the last of me secrets. Your father, Baron Peregrine, bought my loyalty with coin. My brother and I were fostered at his castle, and raised to be knights. I,” he grinned, “held on to honor, believing in right and wrong under God’s law. Me brother, now, rest his soul, he believed right was the side that paid the most.”

Unsure of where Petyr was going with this, Nicholas leaned over to rub his calf, as if easing a cramp, and palmed the small blade he’d hidden there.

Petyr’s brow furrowed. “Before he left on that damn Crusade, he told me that not all things were what they seemed. He thought he was bloody funny, but would not explain the jest. He told me,” Petyr looked Nicholas straight in the eye, “that he would come back from Crusade a richer man than Midas.”

Brenin sidestepped, and Nicholas grasped the reins with his left hand, as the blade was still palmed in his right.

“Now what do you think he meant by that?”

Nicholas’s head was reeling. “The relic I found is the true relic. It must be returned to Spain and Saint James.”
What does the man really want?

Petyr flung his leg over his horse and dismounted, and then he drew his sword. “Ye’re bloody well deaf!” the blond knight shouted up to Nicholas. “Not to mention single-minded and stubborn. Come, let me beat some sense into you.”

“You would draw a blade on your liege? You swore fealty to me, Petyr. You go against your knight’s oath of honor.” Nicholas, goaded by anger, jumped from Brenin’s back, slipping the blade back into his boot and taking his sword instead.

“For your own good, my lord.” Petyr didn’t back down.

“Are you friend, Petyr, or foe?” Nicholas grinned, defending the first blow. “I’m tired of you always telling me what to do.” With a roar, he attacked, his sword upraised, the relic strapped against his chest. It felt invigorating to be a warrior, to hold a sword and fight. Peace was good. Battle was great.

Petyr blocked the blow, then came at Nicholas with an answering growl. His blade of fired iron slid down Nicholas’s sword and bit into the handle. Nicholas tossed the blade off, his eyes narrowing as he acknowledged the worthiness of his opponent before backing up, and positioning for the next attack.

“I’m older than you, and methinks a great deal wiser. Try again, pup,” Petyr said with a huff.

“By a year, if that much.” Nicholas lunged, his sword aimed for Petyr’s heart. Petyr sidestepped and whacked Nicholas on the back of the shoulders, sending him to his knees in the muddy forest.

Nicholas regained his footing, fire in his blood.
Lunge, turn, attack.
But not to the death. He swung, bloodying Petyr’s sword arm. Back and forth, until each had bones as soft as dough.

Blood trickled down the side of Petyr’s golden face. Nicholas had a slash in his thigh. With a wheezing laugh, Nicholas called a truce so they could catch their breath.

“Are ye willin’ to finally listen to reason?” Petyr heaved.

Nicholas slumped against a tree. “I’m too tired to move.”

“Good. Ye fight well for a man who has been mired in the past. I can see why you survived the ambush. Who trained ye, at the monastery?”

Nicholas wiped his sweaty brow. “Sir Edwin Palster.”

“That explains much. He was a great warrior, one of the baron’s favorite knights.”

“What happened to him?” Nicholas wiped blood from his forehead.

“Died. Riding accident, his horse threw him, or so the baron said. It was but those two and me brother who rode into the forest that day, and just my brother and the baron who came out alive.”

“What was your brother’s name, again? I’ve each man’s face carved in my memory, and I don’t remember one who looks, or spoke, as you.”

Petyr chuckled. “Bernard.”

“Bernard?” Nicholas widened his puffy left eye and searched Petyr’s face for a family resemblance.

“He had dull brown hair, Lord Nicholas, and was a short bit of a runt. I was the beauty in the family.”

“Modest, too.” He remembered the knight, and Petyr’s description of his brother was apt. Bernard had always made the hair on the back of his neck rise; Nicholas recalled that, as well. “He was to kill me? And return the fake relic, but instead he was killed and the fake relic sent back to the baron, along with the note for my ransom. I’m sorry, I think.”

Petyr shrugged and grinned. “His heart was as stubby as his legs, and he followed the baron like a puppy. Now,” he scratched his chest, “if I were you, and I had a wife like the Lady Celestia awaiting me at home, I would want the quickest solution to me problem. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to go all the way to Spain unless I was ready and my family safe.”

Nicholas eyed him dubiously from beneath a fall of hair. “More advice. I’d hoped I’d beaten you enough to keep you quiet.”

“And I must have knocked ye stupid. The baron is at the heart of all of this. Not Saint James … You said that Grainne Kat had the relic. Where did she get it? Think! Why were the baron’s knights killed, after being tortured? Were they, perhaps, looking for something? The relic, mayhap?”

Nicholas groaned and got to his knees, his thigh throbbing. “I am a selfish fool. As if the state of my soul could be saved if I left Celestia, and those in my care, in danger. I am an idiot.”

“Aye,” Petyr agreed with a bloody smile.

“Where is he, Petyr? Where can I find my sire?”

“Now ye’re usin’ your noggin'! I’ve brought the map, and there’s a shortcut through the trees, here. We can be there in a hard day’s ride.”

Nicholas nodded as a warm feeling spread from the rosary against his skin throughout his entire body. It was as if his mother was giving him her blessing for finally doing the right thing.

“You can find the truth ye seek, and be home to your wife in less than three days.”

“She might have a lover when I come back,” Nicholas stated, knowing he would throttle whoever dared to touch his wife’s lovely form.

Petyr started to laugh. “The Lady Celestia sent me after you, imbecile. She explained you were taking the true relic to Spain, but that she didn’t trust you to get there without falling over your honor, whatever that means.” Then he pulled out a crimson tunic with silver and gold trim. “She gave me this.”

Nicholas stared at the gold falcon in flight. “She made that for you?” His heart pounded in protest.

“You are stupid, God help you. Look in your knapsack, the one she brained you with.”

Nicholas found his fingers shaking like a silly twit’s as he pulled his new tunic from the rumpled sack. He smoothed the folds of cloth, noting the occasional uneven stitch as if he were discovering a pearl amongst the sand. His throat was clogged with unwanted emotion as he remembered the look of heartbreak on her face.
He’d treated her so poorly.
“The gold falcon was to be our crest?”

Petyr nodded. “Aye. She said Willy helped her draw out the pattern. Fine work, eh?”

As Nicholas packed the tunic away, he said, “She deserves better than me, Petyr. No matter what else comes of this journey to my father, the Montehue family will be released from his tyranny. Celestia will get her annulment.”

Petyr had been nodding and smiling like a proud teacher listening to a prized student. Until he heard the last part of the speech.

“Ye’re bloody daft!”

Celestia hoped she hadn’t made a mistake, sending Petyr after Nicholas. She didn’t want her husband dragged home like a naughty child, but the thought of him journeying alone gave her chills.

The cloudy vision she’d had of him, trapped and miserable, could be something from his past – or, she paced the room with worry, something to come.

Chewing slowly, she supposed it was only fitting that she should give her heart to someone as bullheaded as she was. Finishing the last bite of omelet, she put her spoon on her plate. Beatrice had outdone herself on the egg dish, but it would not sway her mind. The cook had apologized and promised to behave, even Father Michael had interceded on Beatrice’s behalf. Yet something about the woman made her uncomfortable. It very possibly had to do with Beatrice locking her in a room and calling her a witch.

Turning to Viola, who had a dreamy look on her face as she scooped up the last of her berries and cream topped with cinnamon, she ordered, “Stop that. Beatrice is not staying here. I should never have let her pleas sway me.”

Viola licked her lips guiltily. “Aye, I know. She accused you of witchcraft. But anybody can make a mistake, Lady Celestia.”

Celestia shook her head with impatience. “I’d always worry she’d try to poison me. I’ll go and give Father Michael my final answer, and then, we are opening the north tower. We will put these ghost stories to rest once and for all.”

Viola sprang to her feet.

“And stop that, too. You are supposed to be wounded, remember?”

The maid immediately slumped and rubbed the bandage on her side. “Oh, yes, my lady, I’d forgotten. Limp to the left, limp to the left,” she repeated.

Celestia pinched the bridge of her nose. She hadn’t slept well, and her body was as dry as the stream by the mill, thanks be to all the crying she’d done. Falling in love with one’s husband was a stupid thing to do, and now she would pay the price for her folly.

Her healing hands would be no more; her life would be as empty as the north tower.
What a maudlin thought.

Had her husband been pleased with the gift she’d made, just for him? She wondered if the single-minded, stubborn oaf had even found it yet. Well, once Petyr caught up with him and gave him his mother’s rosary, which he’d forgotten—again—then, for certes, he’d see the tunic.

Arriving in the large main room, she eyed the other knights in their new attire. They stood straighter, prouder. They were Lord Nicholas’s men now, and no longer belonged to the baron. Celestia sighed, knowing she had some decisions to make. The knights would not look quite as nice in Montehue green.

Pausing at the doorway, she accepted that she was now the person in charge of this cursed keep and things needed to change. She puffed up her chest, lifted her chin, and clapped her hands for attention.

She waited until everyone was looking at her, then climbed up on a chair. Forrester quickly came to her aid.
As if she would fall, ha!
“As you all know, my husband has gone on an important pilgrimage to Spain. In the future, you will be dealing directly with me, or Sir Geoffrey, with any issues you may have.”

She ignored the muttering voices as they questioned Nicholas’s abandonment. “I had promised that we would open the tower and disprove the notion there is a ghost lurking inside.” She’d not sensed any spirit activity, although she’d received many visions that didn’t make sense. Scenes or images in quick bursts, as if the sender of the visions was being interrupted.

“We shall adjourn to the tower. Father Michael? Will you escort me?”

The old priest got to his feet and smiled, his good eye flashing. “I will, my lady.”

Celestia didn’t miss Forrester’s brief look of disappointment when she nimbly hopped down from the chair without falling, or needing his aid. The boy was a man, she reminded herself. Ordering the knights to gather their tools, Celestia led the fifteen or so servants down the long, narrow hall leading to the north tower. It opened to a sitting area, where she sat them all back against the keep wall, where they could witness but stay out of the way. The interior door had been boarded over, and mortared.

Forrester arrived with a sledgehammer and an axe. Willy had an iron pick, as did Geoffrey and Bertram. Celestia looked around. “Where’s Henry?”

“I’m here, my lady.” Henry wore gloves on his hands and carried two buckets.

A chill was settling on her skin like mist before a rain. Goose bumps traveled up her arms and down her spine. Was it a warning? Or a greeting?

“Let’s begin.”