Love's Magic (36 page)

“Not if ye didn’t mind losing yer head,” Joseph agreed. He was quite nimble for a large man and clambered up the ivy-covered walls with little effort. “Need a hand?”

“Nay.” Nicholas blinked against the sting of sweat in his eye. “I’ll get there.”

He looked up at Joseph, who sat on the miniscule window ledge swinging his legs back and forth. “I think asking those boys for a plan may have been a mistake. They think of this as an adventure—the more challenges, the better. They don’t realize that there are enough obstacles already.” Nicholas pulled himself atop the ledge next to Joseph. Exhaling with relief, he turned and peered into the window.

The ledge cracked beneath their combined weight.

“Did you hear that?” Nicholas asked calmly, his gut in his chest.

Joseph’s eyes widened in alarm and he pushed Nicholas on the arm. “Aye! Hurry, man, before we fall to our deaths. Boys—ye never should have listened to them!”

Nicholas slipped his knife from the belt at his waist, quickly sliding it upward between the paned doors of the window. The blade lifted the latch just as a piece of the ledge fell to the ground.

He swallowed and pushed inward. Nothing!

Now what?

“Try pullin’ towards ye, Nicholas,” Joseph suggested.

Nicholas would never refer to Joseph as “simple” again. Using his knife as a lever, he pulled the pane outward. It flew free, knocking him off balance. He tottered on the edge of the ledge, one hand firmly on the window frame. Joseph heaved him forward, and they both flew inside the room. Neither man missed the sound of the remaining ledge falling to the ground below.

“Thanks,” Nicholas said between pants.

Joseph nodded with wide eyes. “Er, Nicholas?”

“Hmm?”

Joseph used his thumb to gesture behind Nicholas. “Ye might want ta look.”

Nicholas slowly got to his feet. He expected nothing less than a full patrol of the baron’s knights with their swords drawn, all pointed at him. He turned around, trying desperately to think of a way out of this situation and keep his head. “I can explain …”

The baron was sitting in his high-backed chair, his arms pulled behind him and his hands tied. He had a gag in his mouth, and his eyes bulged.

“What the hell is going on?” Nicholas demanded.

The baron kept jerking his head toward the voluminous velvet drapes surrounding his bed. Nicholas flicked his gaze down and saw two boots poking from underneath the curtains.

He searched the room, his eyes lighting on his father’s sword. It lay unsheathed next to his father’s feet, having obviously been knocked to the ground during a scuffle and then forgotten.

Nicholas snatched it up, admiring the blade, before settling the grip in his palm. The baron was desperately motioning for his ties to be cut, but Nicholas was not certain he was ready for that. “Joseph, keep an eye out.”

He turned back to check on the younger man, but realized he had spoken with no need.

“I see you already have the situation under control.” Joseph had his bow pulled back, an arrow notched, and trained on Baron Peregrine. “Good.”

He walked to the draperies and pulled them back with the tip of his sword.

Petyr attacked, sending Nicholas on the defensive. Petyr aimed for Nicholas’s thigh, which had not had a chance to heal since their last skirmish. He slashed, tearing the hose and piercing the skin.

“Agh!” Nicholas dropped to his knee in agony. This was not going to be a friendly fight, then. He shot up and jumped backward, avoiding the downward lunge of Petyr’s sword. He had to find a way to distract him.

Nicholas asked, “Did you really think you would get away with killing a man of such stature as the baron?”

Lunge, parry, slice.

“Aye!” Petyr snorted. “And why not? It will look like you did it. Ye escaped from the stables—I couldn’t have made it any easier for you, Nicholas. Ye broke in through the windows and killed your own father in a fit of rage. ‘Tis perfect!”

Woosh! A lock of ebony hair fell from Nicholas’s head.

Nicholas narrowed his eyes and pushed forward, slashing, aiming for the jugular. Petyr meant to kill him, but he would not go quietly.

“Not so perfect. There is a witness in the room, and the baron, he still lives.”

Baron Peregrine’s eyes popped wider as his son used him for bait.

Joseph’s aim was steady.

“Not for long! What matter will it make if ye die two seconds before yer sire?” Petyr turned on his heel and reached into his sleeve, pulling out a blade. “I’ll not tell and neither will the baron.”

Joseph fired the arrow at the same time he was hit in the side by Petyr’s knife.

The baron screamed, and Nicholas lunged, attacking Petyr fiercely and without remorse. The sound of blades clashing again and again as they met reverberated around the baron’s chamber.

“Enough!” Nicholas shouted hoarsely. He focused on the enemy and whispered, “Enough.” He aimed steady and ran forward, stabbing Petyr through the heart.

Petyr tried to pull the weapon from his chest but he could not move it. He fell to the floor, an odd smile on his face. “You win …” he said with his last breath.

Joseph bravely tried to lift his head, and Nicholas clenched his jaw at the gushing blood pooling beneath the young man. “Ah, Joseph.”

He smiled. “I got the devil, Nicholas. Tell me mother I did good.”

Kneeling beside Joseph, Nicholas clasped his hand. “I will, Joseph. I will tell her. Thank you, friend.”

Joseph died smiling.

Nicholas stood and slipped in the blood and gore that stained the chamber. Was it just today that he had made his peace with God? A thumping noise came from behind and he whirled, weaponless.

The baron whacked his feet against the floor. The sound was oddly muffled, since the chair was sitting in the middle of a large bearskin rug.

“You are alive?” Nicholas went to his father and searched for Joseph’s arrow. Philippe Peregrine was bleeding profusely from the neck where the tip of the arrow had pierced his skin to his chair. Nicholas reached forward and pulled. The tip came loose with an audible pop, and tears of pain filled the baron’s eyes.

Nicholas stepped backward and stared at the man who had been the cause of so much sorrow in his life. There was an eating knife on the table, a halved apple on a plate. Petyr must have interrupted the baron during a snack. Nicholas picked the knife up and shifted it from hand to hand.

“I could kill you easily, and blame it on the others.”

The baron’s black eyes were wild.

Nicholas leaned forward and slit the gag from his father’s mouth. He held up the small knife in warning. “One shout from you, and I will change my mind. I have many questions, Baron Peregrine, that it seems only you can answer. At the end of this, I will demand a boon. And you,” Nicholas waved the knife, “will grant it.”

Philippe nodded eagerly. “Whatever you want! Lands, money, my name—”

“’Tis not so simple as that.” Nicholas gathered his thoughts. Now that he had this man before him, and at his mercy, nothing seemed as important as getting home to Celestia.

But Joseph, he could not let Joseph die for nothing. He hovered over Philippe and said, “Tell me why you stole the relic.”

The baron looked confused. “What are you talking about? I never stole it! King Henry gave it to me to hide, almost a quarter century ago. God only knows where he had gotten it from that it needed to be gifted to Lord Harbotten, in the wilds of England, but after the mess with the archbishop, I don’t think he wanted any more fingers pointed at him for wrongdoing.”

Nicholas shook his head. “But you stole it back from the caravan. You organized the ambush, and you wanted me to die.”

Baron Peregrine flushed with guilt. “Now, Nicholas, ‘tis true that I ordered the arranged ambush. But it was because King Richard had demanded the relic in return for my vassal price. He was collecting holy objects in order to win that damn crusade! He knew King Henry had given it to me for safekeeping.”

Philippe went a deeper shade of red. “When I went to retrieve the relic from Falcon Keep, it was gone. What was I to do? I couldn’t say that I had lost the cursed thing, now could I? So I had a duplicate made, and I was going to foist it off on the king. But then, I realized that mayhap the true relic would have powers, and this duplicate would not. It seemed the easiest thing was to have the relic ‘stolen’ on the way to King Richard. That way it wasn’t my fault.”

Nicholas swayed on his feet. “The fact that I needed to die, it didn’t bother you?”

“Well, a man can always make more sons,” the baron attempted to jest while studying the trees outside the window. “Usually.”

“I’ve spent my entire life believing that I had no father. And then I found out, after a
very difficult time”
Nicholas deliberately kept his pain understated and was rewarded by his father’s sudden paleness, “that I had a father, and that he was the very same man I’d sworn to kill, as vengeance.”

The baron moved his gaze to the bearskin rug.

Nicholas laughed. He laughed and laughed and laughed. When he had himself back under control, he wiped his eyes and shook his head. “You are a piece of work, Baron. I will say that for you.”

His sire glanced at him hopefully.

“Oh, nay. I am not finished with you.”

“What else, then?”

“How about the curse?” Nicholas paced back and forth in front of his father. “How about, once and for all, I hear about this damn curse. You abandoned me, even at the monastery. And why Celestia, for marriage?”

The baron raised his eyes. “The curse.”

Nicholas threw the knife into the table so hard that the apple fell from the plate. “You wanted Celestia and I married as a way to break the curse?”

“I wanted her because she is rumored to be a witch. And who better than a witch to break a curse, eh?” The baron chuckled, evidently pleased with his reasoning.

Nicholas sighed. “Celestia is not a witch, and I don’t believe in ghosts or curses.”

“’Tis true—yer mother laid on me the most evil of curses! I have been married three times, and I have buried many children. More than any father should have to. I am a rich man, Nicholas, and the older that I get, the more I want an heir to pass my legacy to.”

“Because I didn’t matter?”

“You were hers.” The baron finally looked Nicholas in the eye. “Your mother was beautiful. I thought that I could come to love her, but she—she loved another.”

Nicholas thought he heard what might be the truth, and told himself to hold on to that and none of the other drivel his sire spouted.

“What was the curse?”

“I would have no surviving progeny until I claimed you as my own. When I had ye knighted, I thought it would count, and then I had a babe who lived a full two years. I didn’t need ye, then, and I thought to have done with the curse by having ye killed.”

Nicholas thought the news should hurt more, but instead, it freed his mind, as well as his heart. He owed his sire nothing.

“The other half of the curse is that you need to have children—I didn’t know that part until you were already on your way to Jerusalem. Esmerada didn’t want her line to die out, either.”

Nicholas let the blade of the paring knife rest against the pad of his thumb.

The baron cajoled, “I went against the promise I had made to a loyal family in order to save you, and us.”

“It was convenient for you to do so–and you are the one who caused the hurt!” Nicholas scratched the back of his neck. “It makes no difference. I am ready to demand my boon. I want the Montehues released of any vassal obligation to you. I want the relic. I will return it to Spain where it belongs.”

“Of course.”

“I’ll have it in writing before I leave, my lord.”

The baron’s eyes flashed. “Fine!”

Nicholas thought of Celestia at Falcon Keep and her twin brothers waiting in the forest for him and Joseph. Poor dead Joseph. “I want Joseph properly buried, and I am taking the Montehue twins with me to be squires under my tutelage.”

“You’ll hold the keep?”

“Aye. It belonged to my mother.”

He searched the baron’s writing desk for a quill and parchment, then quickly covered Joseph with one of his father’s velvet drapes. Joseph had killed the baron’s men, but he had paid in full for his crimes. He could not see Joseph behind the murder of Bess. He left Petyr where he was.

Nicholas slit the baron’s bonds and said, “Start writing.”

Celestia heard Sir Geoffrey say, “They should be here by the day after tomorrow.”

Viola answered, “Aye, it’s been four days now, since our lady fell.”

“Was dragged, ye mean.”

“I’m worried,” Viola whispered to the trusted knight.

Celestia shivered.

“There’s no fever, and the bones are set—why isn’t she coming to?”

Yes
, Celestia wondered,
why am I not waking up?

“Sir Geoffrey, will you stay with her while I brew some chamomile and rose? My head is beating in time with my heart. Would you like a mug?”

“I’ll stay, but I don’t want anything to drink. I’m sick with worry, to tell ye true, Viola. Why does she toss and turn some times, and then at others lie so still?”