Love's Magic (3 page)

“Abbot Crispin may have hired you to ride with me to Spain, but we’ll do one thing before we go,” he told Petyr.

Sweat dotted his forehead and his belly cramped. To think, sweet mercy, that this sickness was an improvement over how ill he’d been.

“Nicholas, we must talk,” but Petyr was interrupted when another man came down the stairs. Tall and angry, this man’s blue eyes were grim promises of dire retribution.

For what? Nicholas braced himself for an attack.

“Sir, have we met?”

“No.”

The man stopped in front of Nicholas so that they were eye to eye. But the man had clothes and a stubborn chin, which put the balance in his favor. Intense dislike blazed from him.
That chin.
“You must be the healer’s father.”
What cause had this family to hate him?

“Aye,” he said. “I am Lord Robert Montehue.”

Nicholas didn’t flinch, even though his head was cleaving in two. “I am—”

“I know damn well who you are. Ye’re the spittin’ image of your sire.”

Thoroughly confused, Nicholas said, “I have no idea who you think I am, but this is an obvious instance of mistaken identity.”

Lord Robert barked a laugh. “With that nose? I don’t think so. I promise ye that if I can find a way out of this noose around my neck, I will.”

The agony between his eyes clouded his vision. “Noose?”
They knew his father? Who was he?

A woman’s light gasp sounded and Nicholas turned, seeing three, or he thought there were three, red-haired females all staring at him from over the rickety railing.

The youngest one, a girl on the verge of becoming a great beauty, pronounced, “He looks exactly like Baron Peregrine!”

Dizzy, he swayed on his feet.

He looked like his sworn mortal enemy?

Sweet Jesu, Nicholas thought as the pain burst inside his head like an overripe melon.

Chapter
Two

H
is fever is gone, ‘Tia, and he is resting. Won’t you come to bed? It has been three days.” Her grandmother finished the last stitch on an altered tunic for Nicholas, tearing off the thread with her sharp teeth.

Celestia put a cork in the jar of rosemary oil, glad to have had her grandmother’s company. It kept her from thinking too hard. “I was worried that he might not live to see this morning. None of my herbal recipes were taking effect. Did you notice that the little bit of poppy tea I was able to feed him only made his ramblings worse, instead of helping him rest? It was as if the medicine was causing
more
pain instead of easing it. I have never seen a reaction like that before.”

“Nor I,” her grandmother agreed, setting the garment aside. “You could not have worked any harder, and now your diligence is rewarded. How are your hands?”

She held them out toward her grandmother, noticing the slight tremor. “There was a point when I thought they would burn off, battling the heat around his liver.” Celestia tried to laugh, but it came out as a sigh. She lowered one hand on the tunic. “Thank you for doing that.”

“His nakedness bothered you?” her grandmother teased.

“No,” Celestia lied. It had torn at her heart to see how his fine limbs had been scarred. Long legs, muscled thighs, and a wound that even in his deepest delirium he would not let her touch. “If I had to be the one to sew, the hem would be uneven.”

“‘Tis truly a skill that you struggle with,” Lady Evianne laughed softly as she stood, her hand to her lower back. “My age is catching up to me.”

“Who are you fooling? You will never get old.” Celestia did not want to think about how empty her life would be without her grandmother in it. If the baron had his way, the separation would come sooner than later.

“You could have let him die.”

“‘Tis not possible, and you well know it. If I can heal,” she lifted her left hand, “then I will. Same as you, no matter what you say.”

“Will you marry this man?”

“No.” The answer came swift, though she knew it for the untruth it was. Her family’s well-being was at stake, and she would die for any of them. Worse, she would give up her identity. “I don’t want to. Galiana longs for a husband, let her have him.”

Lady Evianne clucked her tongue. “Shame on you. Besides, the baron specifically said that his son was to marry the eldest Montehue daughter, the healer—which is you.”

Feeling a smidgeon of guilt for tossing her sister to the wolves, Celestia said, “I could run away.”

“Hmmm. Well, I suppose we could hide you with your Aunt Nan in Wales. But I don’t know what would happen to your brothers, then. Your parents could steal away to France in the dark of night, and mayhap your sisters won’t mind being paupers.”

“Gram,” Celestia sighed.

Lady Evianne held up a slightly bent hand. “If I were you, I would want to learn everything I could about this man. Mayhap ye might find something to love.”

“He’s no bargain.” Celestia glanced over at the table where Nicholas was fighting sleep. He’d passed out cold at hearing that he was the Baron Peregrine’s son, desperately sick. A moan sounded, and Celestia sniffed, not appreciating the pull of sympathy at her heart. “Nor does he rest easy. A guilty conscience, mayhap?”

“Men go to war.”

“Battle is either kill or be killed,” Celestia said dismissively. “Why would that cause nightmares?”

“You could ask him,” her grandmother said with a wink. “Get to know him. His will is strong.”

“He didn’t know that he is the baron’s son, and look at what happened. He does not know that he has been ordered to marry me.” Celestia knotted her hands together. The last time she’d been betrothed had ended in disaster, with her fiancé rejecting her in a humiliating fashion. Considering Sir Nicholas’s temperament, she could not imagine him taking the news with a smile. “Tomorrow will be a rotten day.”

“Sir Petyr is most closemouthed about what is going on. I even sent Galiana in as company to flirt and get what information she could, but that man can keep a secret.”

Celestia smiled fondly. “Impervious to Gali? The man is dead.”

Her grandmother laughed but then sobered abruptly. “Do you think you could love Sir Nicholas?”

“How can you ask me that?” Celestia’s stomach fluttered and she held out her life-healing hands. “The risk is too great. All of my abilities will disappear,” she snapped her fingers, “and I will be as nothing.”

“Nothing? Even without your powers you know more about herbal remedies than most wise women. But if you can love him, and earn his love in return, the rewards are tenfold.”

Celestia looked around the dungeon space that she’d turned into an infirmary. It had taken hard work, but she had earned the trust of the serfs. Her jars and pots were neatly labeled, her cloths folded and clean, her instruments sterile. “I am safe here.”

“Safe?” Her grandmother slapped her knee as if she’d heard a joke. “Nobody is safe, ‘Tia. And you cannot hide in this manor for all of your life. You are beautiful.”

“I am not.” Suddenly the unfairness of it all came to a boil, and she had to bite her lip to keep from crying. “I am not like the rest of you! I am a dwarf in a family of giants. I am a ghost in the presence of vibrant color. I, oh, Saint Brigid, my hands and my healing gifts are the only thing that tie me to the rest of you. By marrying, I lose
everything.
”

Her chest ached with tears she wouldn’t shed.

Instead of empathizing, her grandmother scoffed, “Is this about Lord Riddleton? For certes, that man was odious. I do not understand what your father was thinking, letting that toad court you.”

That odious toad was the only man who had chosen plain Celestia over breathtakingly beautiful Galiana. Hence the appeal, she thought with a shameful pang.

Since her mother, Galiana, and Ela all looked like younger versions of her grandmother, she didn’t expect for the Grand Lady Evianne to understand.

Head lowered, she murmured, “I will go to bed, as soon as I finish crushing this last bit of lavender.”

“You don’t want to discuss this anymore?”

Celestia gave her grandmother a hug. “What else is there to say?”

Nicholas heard the thrum of soft, feminine,
English
voices and struggled toward awareness. Inky black clouds of despair threatened him as he escaped the binding ties of sleep. Leah’s voice taunted him, teased him, and made him feel like the scum of the earth. His bones ached, ach, he hated sleeping, yet he was so damnably tired. He heard the sound of feet climbing stairs, the rustle of a kirtle, the closing of the door at the top of the stairway.

Yet Nicholas sensed that he was not alone.

The light jingle of bells told him that Celestia was still with him in the room. A sharp floral smell permeated the air, and he detected the scrape of a mortar and pestle. Turning on his side, he opened his eyes and watched her work.

She’d removed the headdress she’d worn earlier. Her hair was the exact shade of dried wheat. Hanging down her back in a long sloppy braid, the tail danced at hip level as she worked the pestle round and round. He sniffed, wondering what she was grinding. Nicholas noticed, how could he not, how her simple dress hugged her curves. For all her petite stature, her figure was shapely.

Uncomfortable, he shifted, making certain that all his body parts were covered.

She whirled, tipping the mortar over. “You are awake!”

He sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the table and pausing until he knew if he had the strength to stand. “Aye. Did you not expect me to?”

Her lips twitched as she fought a smile. “Oh, aye, but not until the morn. How do you feel?” She wiped her fingers on the apron she wore around her waist and came toward him, one hand outstretched.

Drawing back, he avoided her touch and stood. He would not accept any more kindness than need be. “Better.”

She had a tiny vee of wrinkles in her brow when she frowned as she was doing now. Nicholas had the ridiculous urge to smooth the lines away with his thumb. “I was only seeing if you had a fever,” she explained, dropping her hand.

“I’m fine.” He remembered more of the circumstances of why he was here and swallowed, his throat sore. “I owe you about a hundred apologies.”

Tilting her head to the side, she did smile, just a little. “So many?”

His stomach tightened, but it wasn’t with nausea. “I vaguely remember being ill, violently ill, in your presence. And then, correct me if I am mistaken, I was again sick.”

She cleared her face of all laughter, though he imagined it was difficult. “Tis true, you were not well. But you have been resting for three days. The fact that you are awake is apology enough for me.”

“Did you heal me with magic?” He felt incredible, cleaner and more clearheaded than he had in years.

“Not magic. I told you once already that I am not a witch. Please, won’t you sit down?”

“Before I fall down.”

“Aye,” she stepped forward to wrap her arm around his waist, easing him back onto the table. “Let me get you a cool cloth.” She turned and pierced him with a look. “Stay?”

Clutching the edge of the wooden table, his legs dangling over the side like a child in his father’s chair, he nodded.

Her braid swung out behind her as she turned. A bundle of energy, he finally placed the scent coming from her work area.

“Lavender?”

“Yes,” she said with surprise. “Do you like it? It soothes headaches and allows for a calm sleep. I tried an opiate for you, but it didn’t work as well.”

She’d given him opium? Lord Jesus. His skin heated from the inside out, and sweat dotted his upper lip. Had he yelled aloud in his night terrors? Some secrets needed to stay buried. He could not trust himself to sleep too deeply, not unless he was alone.

“I hope I didn’t scare you,” he attempted a jest.

“Oh, no, you were simply restless. From the fever, no doubt.”

Let her think that, he thought. The truth would send her running for her father. And being as her sire was a big man, that was not a good idea.

Sire.
Hellfire.
He gasped, unable to take in air as he remembered the last thing he’d heard before crashing. It felt as if someone was squeezing him hard enough to break his ribs. He was choking, strangling, and then suddenly, he could breathe again. Celestia had one hand on the back of his neck, and a cool cloth pressed against his forehead. “Is it true?” he croaked.

Her touch was light, yet warm, and her tone compassionate when she answered simply, “Aye.”

Sitting there together for a few minutes, absorbing a truth so large it was suffocating, he finally asked, “Did you always know about me?”

She dipped the cloth in a dish of water, wrung it out, and placed it against his wrists. They both ignored the thick ropy scars that marred his skin. “No. We thought that the baron was childless. All his bairns seem to die as infants.”

“I had heard that, as well. Not that I gave it much attention,” he laughed dryly. “Why should I have?” Celestia’s silence prodded him to speak, even as he longed to find a safe place to rest and think. Did this knowledge change his vow to kill the baron? So what if the man was his father? He was still an arse-wipe. “Men do not care about such things.”

Celestia lifted one brow, the right one, over the blue eye. “Like family?”

He stiffened. “I was brought up an orphan at Crispin Monastery. My entire life I worked outdoors and said prayers, and when I was offered to serve allegiance to Baron Peregrine and train to become a Crusader for God and King Richard—I thought that I was the luckiest bastard ever born.”

“Hmm.” She walked, jingled actually, to the black pot over the fire. She took two bowls from the side cupboard, and dished something fragrant and meaty from the pot into the dishes.

Nicholas’s stomach growled, and his mouth watered.

She came back and handed him a bowl with a chunk of bread. “‘Tis beef soup,” she said. “Eat slowly. You look like you have not been well for some time.” Sitting on a stool opposite him, she lifted the bowl to her lips and blew into it before taking a small sip.

“You must think me the lowliest man you’ve ever met,” he said, staring at her smooth face. Why should it matter what she thought?

“That’s not true. I know some worse than you.”

“Lord Riddleton?”

She looked up. “You heard the conversation between my grandmother and me?” Her pale cheeks turned scarlet.

“Some of it. I was not eavesdropping on purpose. It’s not often that a man is referred to as an odious toad.”

Celestia smiled and Nicholas noticed the flash of a dimple in her left cheek. “Well. Did you hear anything else?”

“No. I probably missed some very interesting gossip, too.” How could he banter like this, when not long ago he’d been pounding on death’s door? He shook off the feelings of camaraderie.

“You have no idea,” she agreed, soaking a bread crust in the warm liquid before popping the piece in her mouth.

He held her gaze, thinking that a man would never get bored looking at such a beautiful woman. “Does it bother you, having one green eye and one blue?” Nicholas finished his soup, hoping that he hadn’t just offended her. “Never mind.”