Merely Magic

by Patricia Rice

  Ninian heard the sound of a horse galloping toward them. Shortly, he would ride away, and she would never know more. Curiosity wouldn’t let her give up. “Please, you must come home with me. Drogo is away on business, if that’s your fear. I think he would like to meet you, though.”

  “No, he wouldn’t.” The horse appeared around a copse of trees, and he whistled again. It slowed and obediently trotted in their direction. “I’ll follow you part of the way to be certain you’re safe, but I’ll stay out of sight. If you know what’s healthy, you’ll not mention any of this to his noble lordship. I’m no hand at swords.” He caught his mount’s bridle and swung up.

  Ninian handed him his boot. “Drogo isn’t violent,” she chastised him. “And I see no reason for violence. I’m quite certain he would listen to your theory about the mines.”

  “And I’m quite certain he would run a stake through my heart should we meet. It’s late. You’ll have to hurry to return to the castle before dark.”

  She wanted to tell him she would arrive much faster if she rode, but his horse was a large, restless stallion she had no desire to sit upon. Before she could formulate another argument, he trotted off into the woods, leaving her alone on the empty road.

  “Dratted man,” she muttered, searching the place where he’d disappeared but seeing nothing of him.

  Who was he, and why was he following her about? Was it coincidence that no one had known of his existence until her wedding?

  Very strange. Pondering his words about the mines, she abandoned her search of the burn and followed the more direct road home. She occasionally sensed his presence in the distance, but he didn’t represent danger, and she could shut him out easily. She should have bound and gagged him while he was helpless and then gone to fetch aid.

  Kicking up dust and simmering with resentment as well as curiosity, Ninian didn’t notice the rising cloud of dust on the horizon until she felt the stranger’s alarm. Coming alert, she searched for some signal to identify the approaching rider. When she found none, she grinned. Drogo. Well, that was one way of identifying him.

  Moses could have carved commandments in the granite monument of her husband’s face as he caught sight of her and slowed his mount to a walk. He didn’t bring the palfrey this time, she noted. He apparently hadn’t thought he would find her.

  “If you’ll ride back into the woods, you’ll find the missing Ives from our wedding,” she informed him. “But he’ll probably escape before you can catch up with him.”

  Apparently believing her comment as lamebrained as everything else she did, Drogo swung down from his horse. “What the devil do you think you are doing, madam?”

  Ninian couldn’t help it. He sounded so much like the surly stranger that she smiled. He always looked so startled when she did that. “You sound just like Adonis. The two of you must have been separated at birth.” She looked up at his massive gelding with a frown. “I’ll not ride that monster. I’m much safer down here.”

  Without reaching for her, Drogo pulled his horse around and walked beside her. He said nothing, and she figured he was grappling with the temper he didn’t have. Her husband was very good at concealing anything resembling emotion. She thought he’d done it so long that he’d forgotten how to express any.

  “I can make you lose your temper, you know,” she said, scuffling the dust again. “But I’m rather afraid the result would be so explosive after all this time that you might blow us both up in the aftermath.”

  “You are not making sense, madam,” he said stiffly. “I do not lose my temper. I do, however, worry when I cannot find my six-months pregnant wife.”

  The last words were forcefully strained through clenched teeth. Ninian cast him a sidelong look, but he stared straight ahead.

  “You cannot keep a leash upon me, you know. Perhaps you would be more comfortable back in London where you do not know what I’m doing?”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever be comfortable again.” His voice sounded hollow and vaguely perplexed. “I’m not certain I’ve ever been comfortable, actually. You certainly do not aid the situation.”

  “I’m sorry. I truly did not mean to disturb you. You weren’t home and the opportunity opened and I simply took advantage of it. Your steward wasn’t very helpful,” she said chidingly. “But Adonis—that’s what he said to call him, although I’m certain it’s not his name—Adonis says the blight begins far past the hills and into the mines, so there is naught I can do about it.”

  With a resigned expression, he finally looked down at her. “You really aren’t crackbrained, are you?” He sounded as if he needed reassurance.

  Ninian shrugged. “Not from my point of view.”

  He nodded and returned to watching the road. “Then this Adonis person really exists? He’s not a fairy or something?”

  She laughed at his bewildered expression. Logic was such a narrow-minded path to follow. “I bit his nose, if you’ll remember. He’s quite real.”

  “Why is it you’re the only one who has ever talked to him?”

  This was an odd tack for the conversation to take, but she assumed it was better than listening to Drogo explode with all that anger bottled up inside of him. “I don’t know. I think he was following me today, but he fell and twisted his ankle and couldn’t run away. He said not to tell you, and he refused to return with me to the castle. Do you think he might be another of your father’s by-blows?”

  Drogo thought about it. Ninian waited expectantly.

  “I know little of my father’s life before he married my mother. I don’t like the idea of him following you, though. Will you stay in the castle from now on?”

  He didn’t sound very hopeful of receiving the reply he wanted.

  Ninian took his arm and patted it consolingly. “I won’t go farther than the village until after the babe is born, all right?”

  His expression was bleak as he turned to her. “You, madam, will almost certainly drive me mad.”

  Ninian just smiled.

  Thirty-one

  “There’s something wrong, Drogo.”

  Reluctantly pulling himself back from his study of the stars, Drogo set aside his telescope and watched with concern as his very pregnant wife swayed into his tower study.

  Almost into her eighth month of pregnancy and with the onset of severe weather, Ninian had finally given up her forays into the village, much to his relief. That hadn’t stopped a steady trickle of villagers from traveling to his back door for Ninian’s healing remedies. She thought he didn’t know about the small infirmary—now containing one extremely pregnant young mother—in the servants’ quarters. He didn’t object as long as she took care of herself and the child.

  Climbing the stairs was not taking care of herself. “Couldn’t you have sent someone up here to me? You’re not supposed to be on the stairs.”

  She collapsed on a cushioned window seat and caught her breath, protectively holding her belly. Her immense size worried him. He wanted to carry the burden for her. He should never have forced a child on her. He really didn’t need a child. He needed Ninian. Life without Ninian lacked color. Life with Ninian meant flowers in unexpected corners, brothers who occasionally behaved with unexpected good sense, and nights filled with rapture.

  Life with Ninian meant a constant stream of terror as she escaped his protective nets. He ought to follow her advice and go back to London, so he didn’t know about her escapades.

  He didn’t want to need her, any more than he wanted to need this child. Need did scary things to his insides that had him waking up in a sweat in the middle of the night.

  But then Ninian would curl her warmth against his, and he’d fall asleep again.

  Heaven and hell, all wrapped together in one bountiful bundle of golden curls.

  The bundle of curls scowled at him. “You’re supposed to ask me what’s wrong, not scold me.
I was in a hurry and didn’t want to look for someone.”

  He’d given up any hope of logic from her months ago. She had a brain. She just didn’t use it as he did. Moving to the window seat, he curled his arms around her and felt her relax against him. It was the only way he could share her burden.

  “What is wrong?” he asked, hoping to pacifying her.

  “I don’t know.”

  Drogo smiled above her head. He’d almost expected that. “If something was wrong with the baby, you would know that, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes, of course. It’s not that. The ghost is trying to tell me something, but I cannot hear her. I can only sense her presence now, and she’s anxious. She’s pacing the room.”

  Drogo sighed. “I told you not to refurbish that dratted suite. It only upsets you. We’ll use my old chamber tonight.”

  She dug her fingers into his arms. “No, she only means well. She was quite content once I carried your child. No one has complained of screaming or noises since, have they?”

  “That’s because I had the roof and chimney fixed. If she’s whining again, it’s just the north wind in those old panes.”

  “No, it’s not that.” She swung her head vehemently, batting him with soft curls. “For some reason, I sense it’s Dunstan. Has he written to you lately?”

  “No, but I hear from Ewen regularly. He would have told me if anything was wrong at the estate. They should all be visiting your aunts by now. It was gracious of them to extend the invitation to all of us.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Ninian said irritably, rising from the cushioned seat and pacing. “They’ve been told to stay away from Ives men all their lives, and now curiosity has beset them. Your brothers will be sketched, perfumed, and examined as thoroughly as you study your stars.”

  “Perfumed?” Amused by the idea of his rowdy brothers succumbing to so many feminine wiles, Drogo didn’t protest her abrupt departure. Pregnancy exaggerated Ninian’s mood swings, he’d already noticed.

  She waved her hand in dismissal of the question. “I told them to leave Dunstan and his wife alone, as you asked, but it’s Christmas. They could not invite the others and not him. It’s Dunstan, I’m sure of it. This is terrible.”

  She clasped and unclasped her hands and paced as if she could walk back to London. Drogo stood and caught her by the shoulders. “What is terrible?”

  She shook her head again. “I’m not a mind reader. I can only empathize with someone close, preferably touching. I must be empathizing with a ghost. That’s insane.”

  Drogo smiled wider. “I’ve been telling you that. Now let us go downstairs, and I’ll tuck you into bed. You need your sleep.” He’d given up questioning her “empathy,” deciding she just noticed people more than most. Empathizing with a ghost went beyond the realms of explanation into the fantasies of a pregnant, hysterical female mind.

  “He must be close,” she asserted firmly as he led her to the door. “The ghost surely could not be aware of him if he were at Ives.”

  That worried him more than he wanted to admit. He didn’t believe in ghosts, but Dunstan usually sent him monthly reports. He hadn’t heard from him since London.

  “There is nothing we can do.” He tried to reassure her, as well as himself. “You keep telling me my brothers are grown men. Let them be.”

  “He’s in pain, I know it,” she insisted. “Send one of the grooms to the nearest inn. There is no other explanation.”

  “The roads are pits of ice. No sane man would travel them.” He lifted her in his arms and carried her down the stairs. “Dunstan is eminently sane, probably more so than the rest of us.”

  “Not tonight,” she whispered. “Send a groom, Drogo, please. Bear with me on this.”

  And because it was Christmas, and she was far gone with his child, he did.

  ***

  “They’re here.” Sleepily, Ninian nudged her snoring husband. Drogo didn’t snore loudly, but he breathed deeply. Most mornings, she loved lying here listening to him, basking in the warmth of his muscled male body. Even though she had told him it was best to limit their relations until after the child’s birth, he insisted she continue sleeping in his bed. She hadn’t objected.

  But this morning, she didn’t have time to idle. “Hurry, Drogo. They’re here and they’re angry and they’ll tear the walls down if we do not do something. Awkwardly, she eased her legs over the edge of the high bed. She would be quite happy when this child was in her arms instead of her belly. If she didn’t know better, she’d think it a contrary Ives male who sat on her bladder well ahead of schedule. She didn’t know if she could endure another month of this, much less two.

  The cold of her departure apparently aroused Drogo from his torpor. He’d lit a candle and donned his breeches by the time she emerged from behind the dressing screen.

  “What the devil are we doing up at this hour?” he demanded as he grabbed a shirt.

  She dearly loved admiring the masculine contours of his chest and shoulders as he dressed, but she would have to forego the pleasure for now. She hastily donned the linen chemise she’d worn last night.

  “Don’t ask me why they would travel at night in weather like this. They’re your brothers, after all. I suppose we could assume they wished to arrive before the snow.”

  “What the devil do my brothers have to do with anything?”

  The pounding and shouts at the front portals answered that silly question. Ninian struggled into a loose wool dress and began hooking the bodice over her heavy breasts. She carried the child low, but the bodice was still a struggle.

  Drogo tugged the top hook in place for her. “I don’t think you’ve ever looked more radiant,” he murmured, taking his time at the process.

  “And you must be quite blind, my lord.” But she blushed at the compliment anyway. She was learning to deal with the fact that he was an earl and an Ives. She was still having difficulty absorbing the physical intimacy of him as a man. She felt self-conscious and awkward next to his masculine grace.

  “I daresay the noise is just one of your villagers with a wife about to give birth. We’ll have to order the Beltane festivities spread throughout the year rather than on just one night.”

  She slapped his hand as it encroached upon a swelling breast. “They come to the back door, where they know they can rouse someone. It has to be your brothers.”

  She started for the door as soon as he released her, but Drogo caught her arm and held her back.

  “No stairs, remember? I either carry you, or you wait here.”

  She hated this. She hated being helpless, coddled, and left out. But he was right. She pouted as he drew on stockings and shoes. He didn’t have to be so damned calm about someone breaking in their door. If their visitors had an ax, she was quite certain they would have used it by now.

  “Wait here,” he ordered as he grabbed his coat and started out.

  So, maybe he was more anxious than he showed, or he would have taken the time to carry her down. She was learning to read him, if she didn’t go off on an emotional tangent of her own, like wanting to fling a knife between his shoulders for leaving her behind.

  Barefoot, she wandered to the hall and stood at the top of the stairs, listening as Drogo hauled the bar from the doors. Oddly, the ghost wasn’t making her presence known. Perhaps once she’d alerted someone, she figured her job was done. Or she hid from the Ives rage shimmering on the airwaves. Nothing ambiguous about that emotion.

  She heard the argument as the door burst open. Dunstan. And Ewen. Perhaps she was better off here, out of sight, until Drogo calmed them. She didn’t think her child needed this kind of upset. Perhaps becoming too close to people was detrimental to her health. Maybe that was why her grandmother had advised her to stay in Wystan and live a solitary life. She’d never felt anything quite so sharply as this Ives fury. Her Gift had always been a weak
one.

  As angry male voices escalated, accompanied by the calmer tones of the groom Drogo had sent to the inn, and finally joined by the sleepy one of the housekeeper, Ninian sighed in exasperation and settled her bulk on the top step.

  “If you do not all behave like civilized people and come up here to greet me, I shall roll down these steps to join you!”

  She didn’t think they would hear her, but angry exclamations ceased abruptly, as if Drogo had collared his brothers and cut off their windpipes. He would, too, if he’d heard her threat. Drogo might pretend impassivity, but he protected this child as ferociously as any wolf with his cubs.

  She suspected Drogo loved his family so fiercely, he didn’t dare express it for fear of being made too vulnerable to deal with them.

  As she’d anticipated, Drogo appeared on the landing, Dunstan and Ewen’s neckcloths in a firm grip as he shoved them upward.

  “They’re drunk,” he announced with disgust from below. “Go on to bed, and Mrs. White and I will see them to their rooms.”

  Ninian tilted her head and concentrated. Usually, she did not seek out the pain of others unless called upon to heal them, but Dunstan would never ask for help. Beneath the drunken belligerency any fool could see, he registered a pain so deep, it physically hurt. She closed her eyes against the anguish of it.

  “I think not,” she said quietly, trying to arrange her scattered thoughts while Dunstan’s pain bounced off all the walls of her mind. “Send Mrs. White for some coffee. Cook will have oatcakes shortly.” She dared open her eyes to squint at Ewen. “Thank you for bringing Dunstan safely here, but you’d best follow Mrs. White to the kitchen.”

  All three men stared at her as if she were insane. Nothing new. But she was learning brawny Ives men bent easily beneath feminine breezes. With an exaggerated sigh, she tried to pull herself upright by grabbing a newel post.

  Drogo instantly dropped his brothers and took the steps two at a time. Dunstan staggered at being left to his own power. Ewen caught the stair rail and stared at her with a slowly awakening grin.