A Passionate Magic (37 page)

“It happened during a terrible battle with a
wicked magician,” Mirielle answered for her cousin. “Brice was
trying to protect me – and Gavin and the people of Wroxley,
too.”

“Just as you protected Vivienne and me from
Wade,” Emma said. “Dear Hermit, you are a hero as well as a
crusader! Or should I call you Sir Brice?”

“Hermit will do,” he responded in a voice
roughened by emotion.

“What I would like,” said Gavin, “is to hear
how Brice fought to protect Emma from this Wade person. Dain, you
have promised Mirielle and me a full accounting of Lady Richenda’s
activities, and of why she sent that man, Wade, to Wroxley with a
letter meant to convince us that you wanted Emma dead. I gather
those are all parts of the same complicated story. When may we hear
it?”

“It is a remarkable story,” Hermit told him,
“and one that does great credit to Emma.”

“There is another story you ought to hear,”
Vivienne spoke up. “It is the tale of how my brother and I were
reunited, thanks to Emma, and how the missing pieces of Dain’s
memory, taken from him by magic, were restored by magic.”

“Certainly I will want to hear that,”
Mirielle said, smiling at her.

“Let us sit,” Dain suggested. “Emma,
Vivienne, and I will tell you all of it while we eat.”

With a somewhat forced politeness intended to
conceal his emotional turmoil, Dain led his guests to the high
table. He still did not fully trust Gavin, which was why he took
note of how cleverly Gavin had turned the subject away from
Hermit’s past to a good deed performed in the present, and of how
readily Mirielle and Hermit followed Gavin’s lead. Dain silently
vowed to learn the entire truth about Hermit – or Sir Brice, as he
ought now to be called. If there was something unsavory about the
man, he’d see to it that the erstwhile hermit left Penruan before
he could cause irreparable damage to Vivienne’s heart.

Dain’s fiercely held desire to save his
sister from any future unhappiness made him look closely at Brice.
Beneath Brice’s freshly trimmed beard Dain could detect a
resemblance to Mirielle, who sat between Dain and her cousin, thus
affording an easy comparison of the two. Brice’s face was years
older, scarred, and definitely masculine, yet the basic bone
structure was similar, as was the thick, straight black hair.
Brice’s hair was threaded with silver, while Mirielle’s was still
entirely dark and gleaming with health. Mirielle wore her hair
wound around her head in a thick braid, and she left it uncovered
with the same blithe disregard of fashionable dictates for a
married woman that Emma frequently displayed. On this day, Emma’s
own straight, black locks were also worn in a single braid fastened
with ribbon at its end and allowed to hang down her back without
any covering at all.

It was natural for Brice and Mirielle to have
hair of the same color and texture. They were blood relations. But
why would Emma, who was the daughter of Gavin and his first wife
and, therefore, no blood relative to the other two, have hair so
remarkably similar to theirs? Or a chin and cheekbones so like
Mirielle’s?

Dain watched his guests with eyes suddenly
grown sharp and ever more suspicious. Gavin and Mirielle were
listening with rapt attention to Emma’s account of her dealings
with Lady Richenda. Brice was gazing at Emma with despair in his
eyes. Dain looked toward Vivienne and received a frightened glance
that told him that his sister knew, or guessed, the answer to the
dreadful presentiment that threatened to drive him from the table
to grab his sword and challenge the man who, he was beginning to
believe, had tricked him in the most outrageous manner.

Dain began to consider the possibility that
his mother had been right about Gavin, after all.

”I understand the situation better now,”
Gavin said to Dain as soon as Emma finished her story. “It was Lady
Richenda, not you, who instigated the revival of the feud.”

“She insisted, it’s true,” Dain said. He told
himself to control his rising anger so he could learn Gavin’s real
intentions in sending Emma to him – and his real reason for coming
to Penruan.

Dain did not forget for a single moment that
Gavin’s men-at-arms were moving freely in and out of Penruan Castle
– at
his
invitation! Before Dain or any of his men dared
sleep that night he needed to know if treachery was afoot. He spoke
slowly, as if he was thinking through all the ramifications of the
old feud, though actually he was trying to decide how best to
defend Penruan against an invader who was already within the walls.
“I was agreeable to my mother’s insistence, in part because I was
raised to believe my father and grandfather were cheated by Udo of
Wroxley, and that Udo caused my father’s death.”

“Here sits a man who may be able to tell us
how the feud began,” Mirielle said, and added a statement that
startled Dain out of his reverie on defense. “Brice was at Wroxley
during most of the time when Gavin was absent in the Holy
Land.”

“You were away from Wroxley?” Dain asked
Gavin in surprise.

“For more than a decade,” Gavin said. “I
thought it best to leave. My wife and I were constantly at odds,
and our bitter quarrels upset everyone around us. Only later did I
learn Alda was a wicked sorceress. In my absence she poisoned my
father, and the seneschal before Brice.”

“Yet you married another sorceress,” Dain
said, then scarcely attended to Gavin’s response. Gavin had been
away from Wroxley for years, leaving his estranged wife behind.
During those years Brice had been the seneschal and, no doubt, in
frequent contact with the lady of the castle. Emma bore a
remarkable resemblance to Brice. It would take a stupid man,
indeed, not to see the implication.

”I don’t know much about the feud,” Brice
said. “It was over and done before I was at Wroxley. The battle in
which Lord Halard lost his arm had already been fought, and the
king had confirmed Lord Udo in his possession of the land that both
men coveted. To me it was just an old story told on winter evenings
by the men-at-arms who could remember those exciting days. I expect
most of them are dead by now; they were middle-aged at the time.
The only one alive who knows the details of the feud is Lady
Richenda. It’s my opinion that she will keep to the story she has
always told, the version that casts Lord Halard in a favorable
light.”

Dain noticed how Emma sat listening to all of
this without a sign of guilt on her lovely features. Did she know?
he wondered. Or was she an innocent victim of Gavin’s plot to end
the feud in his own favor?

But the feud was already ended in Gavin’s
favor, by the king’s command. Gavin held that patch of
long-disputed land. So, what purpose could possibly lay behind the
deception he had foisted on Dain?

It required all of Dain’s considerable
self-control to force himself to sit at the high table and play the
agreeable host while he dissembled his mounting suspicions. As soon
as he decently could, he made an excuse to leave his guests, saying
he must speak to Sloan.

”Warn the men-at-arms to be on the alert for
treachery,” Dain ordered.

“Hawise insists that Gavin is an honest
lord,” Sloan objected. “She knows some of the men who have come
with Gavin, and is friends with their wives. Hawise is a fine judge
of character. I cannot believe she would befriend a villain.”

“Nor do I want to believe Emma is involved in
treachery,” Dain countered his friend’s protests. “Yet we both know
that even clever women can be misled. See to my command,
Sloan.”

“Aye,” Sloan agreed with undisguised
reluctance. “It’s always best to be prepared, and it will do the
men no harm to stand ready for a night. But we need to know more,
Dain. We can’t assume the worst based on guesses alone, nor can we
act on supposition against a powerful lord who is a guest in your
home.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Dain said. “I intend
to confront Gavin in private, and I will have the truth out of him.
If what I suspect is fact, guest or no, he won’t leave Penruan
alive, and I’ll gladly answer to the king for my actions, knowing
Henry will absolve me of guilt when I explain. Meanwhile, see that
the men are ready for a fight.”

Not until some hours later, with the castle
inhabitants in their beds or, in the case of Sloan’s men-at-arms,
standing guard in tense readiness, did Dain approach the chamber
where Gavin and Mirielle were to spend the night. To his surprise
he found the door ajar. To his even greater surprise, he recognized
the low-pitched voice of Sir Brice coming from within. Dain paused,
eavesdropping without shame in hope of discovering whether his
castle was threatened or not.

“I have told no one here at Penruan,” Brice
declared. “Nor will I. The secret is safe with me. Surely, you know
I’d never wish harm to Emma.”

“Your very presence may harm her,” Gavin
said. “You ought to have left on the same day you learned who she
is, and found another place to hide.”

”I know it.” Brice’s rough tone softened into
reflective tenderness. “The cave where I was living is a magical
place, so when I first beheld Emma there it was perfectly
reasonable for me to think for an instant or two that she was an
image of Mirielle as I remember her during her youth. They are so
much alike. Surely you’ve noticed the resemblance? By the time I
understood that she was real, not a ghost figure but Emma grown up
and beautiful, I knew I could not leave her. She was lonely in her
new life, and a bit frightened, and I foolishly dreamed of becoming
her friend. She seemed to need a friend.”

”You call it foolishness,” Gavin said
harshly. “I call it madness. Have you no sense at all?”

“Why was Emma afraid?” Mirielle asked.

“No one wanted her here,” Brice answered.
“Dain was indifferent to her and Lady Richenda was her implacable
enemy. Yet Emma has made a place for herself. She has earned the
respect and affection of every person in Penruan, and of many in
Trevanan village. Dain values her now, all the more so since Emma
helped to restore his sister to him, along with his missing
memories of Vivienne. I do believe Dain and Emma can be happy
together.”

“Only if you go away,” Gavin said.

“So I will. It will break my heart to leave
my girl for a second time, especially after knowing her as a lovely
young woman, but for her sake I’ll do it. Gavin, I do swear to you,
Dain will never hear from me that Emma is my daughter. But I demand
a promise from you in return. Let them live in peace. Dain is an
honorable man; he will keep to the terms of your agreement. Don’t
you be the one to reopen hostilities between Wroxley and
Penruan.”

”We only came to Penruan out of fear for
Emma,” Mirielle said. “Brice, if you are as convinced as I am that
she is in no danger, and that Dain will keep her safe and honor her
as a husband should, then there is no reason for us to go to war
against him. Is there, Gavin?”

“No,” Gavin said. “You have my word; I will
not attack Penruan. We will stay for a day or two, then take a
friendly leave of our host. I suggest that you leave with us,
Brice. You can say you want to visit longer with Mirielle. Once we
are away from Penruan, you may go wherever you like, so long as you
do not return here. And Dain need never know that I am not Emma’s
father.”

But Dain already knew. He had heard every
word, and was now fully aware that a misbegotten girl had been
foisted on him in place of the legitimate daughter of the baron of
Wroxley whom he had been ordered by the king to marry. Knowledge of
the deception was far more disturbing than his earlier concern
about the possibility of armed treachery within Penruan’s
walls.

The lies and the humiliation of being tricked
were more than his noble honor could bear. Or his temper.

He did not trust himself to enter the chamber
without inflicting violence upon the occupants – and that would
only precipitate the armed conflict he’d prefer to avoid for the
sake of the women and children who were dependent upon him.
However, there was one person on whom he could vent his rage, and
he’d force her to reveal her part in the ruse. He raced up the
stairs to the lord’s chamber.

“Dain?” Emma was combing her hair before
braiding it for the night. Hearing the door slam behind him, she
turned with comb in hand and a question in her eyes. Dain saw no
fear in her. Not yet. “Whatever is wrong?”

“Did you know?” he demanded, advancing on her
with barely controlled fury. “Have you known all along, and kept
the secret for Gavin’s sake? Or was your intention to make a fool
of me, to gain one final advantage after King Henry settled the
feud?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she
said, sounding calm, though the hand that set down her comb
trembled slightly. “There’s no reason for you to accuse me of
wrongdoing. Explain yourself. What is it I’m supposed to know, and
to be keeping from you?”

“Are you claiming you don’t know that Brice –
your precious Hermit – is your natural father?”

“
What
?” She stared at him as if she
feared he’d gone mad. And in a way, he had. If he were in full
possession of his wits, he never would have told her so bluntly.
Nor was he going to stop. Outraged pride drove him on.

“I perceived the truth just by observing you
and Lady Mirielle and Sir Brice together,” Dain informed her with
cold anger. “Do you expect me to believe you never noticed the
family resemblance?”

“How could I notice any such thing?” Emma
cried. “Like most children, I saw little of the grownups, except
for my nurses and a few maidservants. When I was six years old I
was sent away for fostering. Years later, I returned for just a
week or two, before my brother and I were sent to a monastery for
safety. While we were gone my mother died and Sir Brice left
Wroxley.