Claire Delacroix (28 page)

And that, Monty knew was that. He begged and cajoled, he tried to sweet-talk his way to a better deal, but no luck. Barb was adamant.

So, Barb got a rubber check and Monty got his books. He scampered down the street, trying hard to not feel guilty about tricking his old friend.

It was all for the greater good, after all.

Next royalty check, he’d pay Barb first.

With interest.

* * *

Chapter Thirteen

Viviane and Niall went to Mouats, because everyone knew that Mouats had everything.

Of course, Mouats had everything for
outdoors
and a good lot of stuff for indoors, but wasn’t a pharmacy by any stretch of the imagination. Viviane, unaware of exactly what she was shopping for, missed that critical distinction.

Niall trailed behind Viviane as she wound her way through the amazing displays of new goods, his interest snared by all the intriguing garments and tools, much as Viviane’s had been the first few times she came in here. She lost him a couple of times and had to go back to snag him by the arm, forcing him to follow her further into the store.

Because there was hope for him, even if he did insist on practicalities. She’d get the L-word out of him, Viviane knew it. She was born under a blue moon after all and destined to be lucky all of her days.

But she knew herself well enough to guess that there might be a few persuasive interludes before things were resolved.

When Niall did that thing with his thumb and smiled that smile that turned her knees to butter - like he was doing as they walked through the store - Viviane got dizzy just thinking about him losing track of practicalities again.

She had to get those rubbers.

Right now.

If she got pregnant, she knew Niall would carry her kicking and screaming to a priest, regardless of her thoughts on the matter. Viviane had to admit that it was kind of nice that he worried so much about doing the right thing. Obviously, the need of a child to have two parents was a big issue for Niall, and Viviane wondered why he worried about it so much.

Mouats was crowded as usual, though there were fewer and fewer tourists all the time. Viviane had learned to recognize several of the people who worked here and when one greeted her with typical charm, she caught at the girl’s arm.

“I need rubbers,” she hissed, not wanting everyone to know what she wanted, for they surely would guess why. “Where do I find them?”

“Oh, down in footwear.” The girl smiled encouragingly, though Viviane was scandalized by how loudly she talked. “Let me show you. We’re kind of running out, what with all this rain lately.”

Viviane could not imagine what rain had to do with conceiving children, though Mrs. Haggerty seemed to think it had a certain sensuous appeal. Puzzling over this, Viviane followed the clerk, and was even more puzzled when the girl presented a pair of dark green boots.

“What’s your size?”

Viviane wasn’t certain what she had expected, but she hadn’t expected boots. Niall snorted behind her and she felt her color rise.

What did boots have to do with conception?

Or more specifically, with avoiding conception?

She didn’t have to even look at Niall to know he had that skeptical expression again, but she knew to trust Barb. Barb understood things, Barb was wise, Barb was helpful.

Barb said she needed rubbers.

“I don’t know my size,” Viviane admitted. “I just tried these shoes until they fit.” The girl rummaged cheerfully for a silver implement, gestured to a chair, tugged off Viviane’s wet sneaker and quickly pronounced Viviane a seven and a half.

Then she was gone, darting through clients to the ‘back room’ from whence Viviane had seen many marvels issue.

Niall picked up one boot and looked at it, doubt in every line of his features. “This is a rubber?” He looked pointedly at her, his question not needing to be uttered, and Viviane shrugged.

“Maybe it’s part of a spell,” she said hastily. “Barb knows a lot and I’m sure that she wouldn’t give me bad advice.”

Niall cleared his throat and rolled his eyes. “A spell,” he said beneath his breath, as though it was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard.

It did sound a bit unlikely, even to Viviane.

The clerk bounced back, dumped boots out of a box and offered them to Viviane. In no time at all, they were pronounced a fit and Viviane walked the length of the small area and back as it seemed what she was expected to do. She chewed her lip as she looked down at them, trying to figure out how they worked.

Perhaps they were intended to make her look unattractive.

She looked to Niall. “Do you find them -” she cleared her throat “- ugly?”

He smiled slowly, obviously discerning the direction of her thoughts. “Nay, my lady fair. They do naught but enhance the beauty of your legs,” he murmured, that sensuous gleam appearing in his eyes. “Indeed, I believe the color favors you most admirably.”

Uh oh.

Viviane looked back to the boots and the clerk grinned at her, obviously approving of Niall’s comment. “They look great on you, they really do. He’s right!”

Viviane cleared her throat, hating to appear foolish but needing to ask the question. “How exactly do they work?”

The clerk frowned. “What do you mean?”

Viviane could feel a blush rising over her cheeks, Niall’s wolfish grin doing nothing to ease her embarrassment. “What do I have to do?”

“Oh! Oh, these are really good ones, you don’t have to anything to take care of then. We don’t sell those cheapies. They’ll last the rest of your life, probably. Just don’t leave them in the hot sun for days and days, you know, but that’s hardly a problem here.”

The clerk smiled reassuringly.

Viviane thought about wearing clumpy green boots that came up to her knees for the rest of her life and wasn’t particularly reassured.

“I’m sure you’ll just love them,” the clerk enthused. “We’ve never had any complaints. They work just great and you know -” she leaned closer “- there’s nothing better in the garden.”

In the
garden
?

Niall cleared his throat deliberately and Viviane felt her blush get hotter. “I’ll take them,” she managed to say.

“Great, should I wrap them up?”

Viviane risked a glance to Niall, only to find his bright gaze fixed upon her with an intensity that could only mean one thing.

“I’d better wear them,” she whispered to the clerk, not in the least bit reassured when her knight chuckled and looked very pleased with himself. It seemed an eternity before they managed to pay and escape the store, and Viviane was well aware of Niall’s smile the whole time.

“I find myself feeling very persuasive,” he murmured as they stepped into the street and Viviane knew she blushed clear to her toes.

She gritted her teeth and seized his arm, practically dragging him to their next stop. He chuckled and slipped his arm around her waist in a companionable gesture that she didn’t quite want to shrug off.

En route, Niall pulled her to a halt and made a great show of peering into a neighboring garden, as though curious as to what the people there were doing.

“Indeed, I cannot help but think somewhat more favorably of Barb’s small garden,” he mused. Once again, he smiled with the innocence of a child, though a wicked twinkle glinted in his eye.

He was teasing her!

“You have reading to do first,” Viviane declared as sternly as she could and Niall’s grin flashed.

“I do not believe we agreed that I should stop trying to persuade you in the interim,” he said silkily, then bent and kissed her before Viviane guessed what he was about.

She was trembling in her boots when he lifted his head and Niall had to know it. He started to whistle, striding along the street as though he didn’t have a care in the world. Viviane didn’t know whether to kiss him or kill him - he was so sure of her response.

And so good at cultivating it.

In a bittersweet irony that neither of them appreciated, their next stop was at the drugstore.

For toothbrushes.

* * *

Niall watched Viviane stride down the street to return to her labor, admiring how those green boots accented the slender perfection of her legs. With a sigh, he slipped back to Mouats, readily finding the woman who had been so helpful. She smiled at the sight of him and Niall knew he had been right to seek her aid.

She easily guided him through the choices of clothing and rendered him not only presentable, but she announced ‘delish’. This apparently was good. She also recommended a restaurant which was ‘divine’ when Niall confessed to wanting to impress his lady.

He returned to Viviane’s chamber, fed and well-garbed, then carefully brushed his teeth with his new brush. ’Twas not unpleasant to run his tongue across the smoothness of his teeth, though he quickly thought of running his tongue across the similar smoothness of Viviane’s and nigh forgot himself.

Niall considered her book. Aye, Viviane had been irked that he had not read more of it, despite more practical obligations. Niall pushed his mail aside. He sat on the edge of the bed and began to read the volume one more time.

And within moments, he was snared once more, for his lady had a skill unexpected. Each page he turned drew him more deeply into the tale, each scene ensured he must read just a bit more.

Indeed, Niall read until the midday sun slanted through the window, and was surprised to find himself yet sprawled on the bed. His knee was aching at being bent in the same position for so long, his belly was complaining at its empty state, but Niall could not put this tale down.

Nay, he wanted to know what became of Gawain, how the noble knight fulfilled his daunting quest, how he proved himself to the lady whose heart he had made his own. Niall wanted to know how Gawain would prove himself worthy of that glorious and gorgeous damsel, no less how he would best the Green Knight at tournament.

He rolled around on the bed and read some more, ignoring more earthy complaints. Each time Gawain and his lady kissed, Niall’s loins heated in recollection of Viviane’s sweet kisses. When they coupled - a mating filled with too much chatter, to Niall’s thinking - he smiled, for his own lady’s maidenly naiveté was clearly revealed.

Though she proved to have a rare imagination for these encounters. Indeed, he put the book aside after the couple’s third mating merely to consider whether the deed
could
be done that way.

There was naught for it, he and Viviane would have to try.

Each time that Niall thought he would stop reading, that he would gather himself and go to the bookstore or that he would labor a little upon his mail, the tale lured him back.

Aye, the battle scenes were clearly penned by one who had never witnessed the filth of war, though they were filled with excitement. ’Twas a weakness quickly forgiven, for the men and women in the tale seemed true to life. Aye, Niall knew better than to trust the chatelaine of the court, for that man had a scheme to see Gawain dead, there could be no doubt.

Just when the sky grew darker and he was certain he should put the manuscript aside, the tale surprised him and there was no chance of halting his course. Indeed, Niall sat up straight when the lady gave of herself to ensure her knight’s survival. She drew herself into danger to see Gawain safe and, though Niall cried out in dismay, she did not repent of her course.

This could not be!

Yet further reading revealed that in the same moment, far afield, Gawain put himself into similar jeopardy, intending only to ensure his lady’s survival.

Nay, it could not be so! They could not
both
die, one could not die and be left without the presence of the other - but indeed, it seemed that death would not be cheated in either case. Niall read in a frenzy, he turned the pages in increasing haste, until he turned the last one, his heart in his mouth.

But the ending of the book was not there.

Niall’s eyes widened, he felt abandoned at the lip of a precipice. He scanned the chamber, rifling through the few other papers on the table beneath the window but did not find what he sought. He looked beneath the bed, certain he must have dropped part of the tale, but there was naught.

’Twas then Niall recalled the tale was his lady’s concoction.

Which meant she alone knew the ending.

“Viviane!” he roared.

* * *

He raged into the bookstore like an avenging angel and every woman froze to stare. Niall of Malloy was a vision in jeans that showed every muscle to advantage and a creamy chambray shirt that only made him look more broad, more tanned and more blond. The broad gold bracelet on his wrist gleamed, his eyes shone, his lips were taut.

Viviane’s mouth went dry at the sight. Niall cast one glance around the shop, spied her and cut a path straight to her. Nothing could have stood in his way and she found herself thinking of Gawain in her own book, riding to the rescue of his lady with fire in his eyes.

She hadn’t begun to do Niall justice in that scene.

“Viviane!” He halted before her and propped his hands upon his hips, blissfully unaware of the whispers that had begun in the shop. “I am reading this book of yours, but there is no ending.” He scowled. “Where is the end of the tale?”

“I haven’t written it down yet.” Viviane tapped her temple. “It’s still in here.”

“Aye? Tell me of it!”

“I can’t. I have to write it down.”

Niall shoved a hand through his hair, leaving the waves askew in a boyish fashion. “But what happens to those benighted souls? Tell me that neither one nor the other died alone, much less for naught!”

Mrs. MacAllister eased her gouty leg closer, her eyes narrowed. “You wrote a book?” she demanded of Viviane.

“Well, yes, but it’s not finished yet...”

“What kind of a book? What’s it about?”

“It’s a romance...” Viviane began but Niall interrupted her.

“’Tis a sweeping tale of a knight endeavoring to win the favor of his lady fair,” he answered firmly. “A tale in which all goes awry despite that valiant man’s efforts, a tale which no man with a heart could willingly put aside. ’Tis a compelling tale that snatches one in its grip and does not surrender until the last page is turned.” He locked his intent green gaze on Viviane. “And then one learns that the ending is not there.”