Touch of Enchantment

by Teresa Medeiros

  "Tabitha…" he murmured, overcome by a wave of heartsickness.

  Prodded by a hazy memory, he reached beneath his pillow to find a tangled chain. He unfurled its tarnished length until an emerald twirled before his eyes, mocking their bleariness with its undaunted sparkle.

  By taking the charm, he had thought only to protect Tabitha from herself. But he could still see the unshed tears glistening in her eyes when she had all but begged him to trust her. He feared he had broken her heart as carelessly as he had broken the delicate chain.

  He vaguely remembered stumbling back to his chamber after their quarrel, thinking to drown his misery in a fresh flagon of ale. But the words they'd spoken still haunted him, echoing with the ring of finality.

  "Have you seen her?" he asked Arjon.

  Arjon sighed. "You have more pressing problems than your lady fair. At this very moment, the MacDuff is in council with that viper of Brisbane's. They've been locked away for nearly an hour and after that touching little performance you and Tabitha gave in the hall last night, I'd wager 'tis not the price of hay nor the crown's exorbitant taxes they're discussing."

  Colin blinked up at him. "Were we so obvious?"

  "You'd have had to have been as blinded by love as MacDuff's witless daughter not to notice."

  "Lyssa," Colin whispered, passing a hand over his eyes. "Christ, I never wanted to hurt her."

  "So don't."

  Colin had never seen the even-tempered Norman angry before, but he would have almost sworn it was fury simmering in his friend's eyes.

  "Go to the MacDuff now and cast yourself upon his mercy. Despite all his boasting and bullying, he was always fond of you. Tell him Tabitha was naught more than a casual indiscretion, both regretted and repented. Then make Lyssa your wife. Today. Before you break her silly heart."

  Colin had passed out in his hose so there was nothing for him to do but grab a clean tunic from his knapsack and draw on his boots and spurs. He tied a knot in the chain of Tabitha's charm before dropping it over his head.

  "Now there's a good lad. We'll make a husband of you yet." Arjon leaned against the doorjamb. His smile had returned, although its edge was sharper than usual.

  It faded altogether when he saw Colin's determined expression. "I must speak with Tabitha first. I fear I wounded her sorely last night." Buckling on his sword, he started for the door.

  "She's gone," Arjon said flatly.

  Colin slowly lifted his head, praying the clamor in it had affected his hearing.

  Arjon nodded. "She rode out at dawn. I saw her from my window."

  Colin measured out each word as if it would be his last. "And you didn't awaken me?"

  His friend's face crumpled into a plea, although for understanding or forgiveness Colin could not have said. "Let her go," he whispered fiercely. "Please."

  "I can't," Colin bit off through clenched teeth before shoving past his friend as if he weren't even there.

  Colin took the winding stairs three at a time, bursting out of the castle only to be buffeted back by a gust of wind and rain. The storm raged in earnest now, rumbling its displeasure and hurtling angry bolts of lightning through the boiling clouds. It made him half mad to think of Tabitha out there somewhere, lost and alone without even her charm to protect her.

  He started for the stables, praying Chauncey or some other squire had recovered from last night's revelry enough to have noted the direction she had taken. Rain sheeted across the cobblestones, blinding him. He didn't see the small figure huddled beneath the stable's dripping eaves until he was almost upon her. She was soaked to the skin and her teeth were chattering.

  He squatted beside her and gently peeled a sodden strand of hair from her cheek. "Lyssa, what in God's name are you doing out here?"

  Her dark eyes were haunted, her lashes damp with tears. "I let her go. I knew it was going to storm, but I let her go anyway. I was glad she was going. I prayed she would never come back."

  Colin slowly withdrew his hand, intensifying her shivers. "Which way?"

  "South, I think. She asked me to point her toward England."

  "England?" He frowned.

  "She said she had some unfinished business to take care of. And then she was going far away. So far you'd never find her."

  "Dear God," Colin breathed, realization dawning.

  He had rejected Tabitha's offer of help and robbed her of her precious charm, yet she'd still gone off to confront Brisbane on her own. He cursed himself for not anticipating this. After all, he'd seen her reckless courage firsthand, seen her stand off Roger's men and snarling dogs with a sword she could barely lift.

  "I offered her my steed…"

  "Your steed!" Colin snatched Lyssandra up by the shoulders, giving her a harsh shake. "Sweet Christ, the lass is the clumsiest rider I've ever seen. If the horse makes one misstep, she'll fall off and break her fool neck."

  Before Lyssandra could stutter an explanation, he was gone, plunging into the stables and reappearing with one muscular leg already thrown over his stallion's back. Horse and rider raced across the courtyard and down the drawbridge, the rumble of their hoofbeats drowned out by a sharp clap of thunder.

  "Oh, dear God, what have I done?" Lyssandra stood in the pouring rain, feeling as wretched as she'd ever felt in her sheltered life. "Papa," she finally whispered, cheered by a faint surge of hope. "Papa will know what to do."

  Lyssandra crept through the marble-pillared corridor outside her papa's solar, only too aware that she was leaving muddy puddles on his imported tiles with every step. Although there were many grand rooms in the castle, the solar was the grandest of all. Behind that gilded door lay the most precious of her father's treasures – his illuminated manuscripts, jeweled chalices, and chests full of gold and silver plate. She'd spent countless hours as a child playing at his feet while he tallied the coins gathered by his tax collectors or polished some new trinket to a brilliant shine.

  She splayed her hand against the door, but hesitated when it was only partly ajar, trying to make her teeth stop chattering. Her papa had never approved of any display of weakness.

  Before she could paste on a brave smile, someone within the room said, "There goes the damn fool now."

  Lyssandra frowned. She could almost hear the sneer in the unfamiliar voice.

  "What did I tell you? He's like a hound after a bitch in heat. He was all but sniffing under her skirts last night in the hall."

  She recognized her papa's voice, yet its smug cadences sounded more foreign than the stranger's. A chill that had nothing to do with her wet clothes prickled down her spine.

  Suddenly she wanted to back away, to flee to the haven of her bedchamber. To burrow beneath her blankets and pretend she was still the little girl who was going to grow up and marry Sir Colin of Ravenshaw someday. But when she heard her father speak again, she knew the time for pretending was done.

  "I can't believe the fool thought I'd let my only daughter wed a penniless laird living in a burned-out ruin. Since God in his infinite idiocy provided me no sons, Lyssandra is all I have to barter. She's not much, I'll admit, but she can at least turn up her heels to earn me a powerful ally in my old age."

  Lyssandra cupped a hand over her mouth, praying she would not be ill.

  She heard the sharp scratch of a nib on parchment.

  "There," her father said. "Once the ink is dry on this betrothal contract, you may take her away with my blessing. I'm sure she'll make your master a charming and biddable wife."

  "And very grateful he will be," replied the fawning stranger. "Not just for accepting his humble suit, but for taking care of the other unpleasantness. As you learned when you agreed to remove your household to Castle Arran for the spring, Lord Brisbane can be very generous to his allies."

  "Generous indeed. Once Ravenshaw is dead, your master and I plan to split his holdings between us. The castle might be in ruins, but the land is fertile and ripe for the plucking." Her papa chuckled. "At least the bastard spared me the
untidiness of murdering him in his bed. Bloodstains can be the very devil to remove."

  "How will you finish him then?"

  "Consider the task done. As soon as his whore fled the castle this morning, I anticipated his reaction and dispatched archers to every border. Neither of them will pass alive."

  "B-b-but that was not our agreement." The man's voice trembled with rising hysteria. "The woman was not to be harmed. She was to be delivered to my master along with your daughter."

  "I'll not have my daughter transported to her new household with a common whore. 'Twould reflect poorly on me. After he's planted his brat in Lyssandra's womb, your master can find himself another doxy."

  "But you swore…!"

  Lyssandra knew she had no more time to listen to the men quarrel. She had to go. Had to take her steed and warn Tabitha and Colin that they were riding into a trap. Before it was too late.

  She began to back away from the door one step at a time, terrified the sodden squelch of her slippers would alert the men to her presence. She had nearly reached the last pillar, where she might dare to turn and flee, when a ruthless hand shot out and clamped itself over her mouth, muffling her startled scream.

  Colin drew his mount to a halt at the crest of the hill and squinted through the pouring rain. Although he was soaked to the bone, he'd grown numb to the rain's chill and deaf to the sullen growls of thunder many leagues ago. All of his senses were focused on finding Tabitha's trail.

  A trail that seemed to wander in befuddled circles until a gully swollen with rain would wash it away, leaving him as helpless as he'd been before. While picking his way through a grove of trees, he had found traces of crushed leaves and bent branches, indicating that she might have already taken a tumble. But to his keen relief, her broken body had been nowhere in sight. A pair of muddy hoofprints too deep to belong to a riderless horse had reassured him that she'd simply dragged herself back up on the horse and kept going.

  "Probably cursing my name all the while," he murmured, feeling a wistful smile tug at his lips.

  He was at least heartened to learn she hadn't yet made it to the southern border of MacDuff's land. That lay just ahead and he hoped if he waited at the top of this hill, he might be able to cut her off before she did. The hill gave him a clean sweep of the valley below, with nothing to mar his view but the rain dripping from his lashes and a dense stand of birches.

  The storm seemed to be worsening instead of abating. Thunder cracked like a whip and the wind set up a banshee's howl. Colin shook off a shiver and crossed himself. There were some who believed the banshee's wail warned of death to come, but he had always preferred to entrust his fate into the hands of God.

  That faith was rewarded when a cloaked and hooded figure came cantering into view, riding straight for MacDuff's border. He squinted against the rain, but even from that distance, he would have almost sworn the sleek beast was Lyssandra's steed. Colin's heart soared. Once he had Tabitha in his arms again, he would never let her go.

  He could not have said what drew his eye to the stand of birches in that moment. It could have been the ghost of a hunch or simply a calculated movement where there should have been nothing but silvery leaves trembling in the wind. A bony finger of dread tickled his nape.

  A lone man crouched among the bracken at the foot of the tallest tree, his dark green tunic and hose making him nearly indistinguishable from the glossy leaves.

  He reached behind him with methodical precision and drew a feathered arrow from the quiver strapped to his back.

  Colin drew his sword, reflexes honed in six years of battle making it possible for him to move when he should have been paralyzed with horror.

  When he drove his spurs into the stallion's flanks, the figure cantering through the meadow below was halfway across the valley floor, a vulnerable target to any assassin. Sword in hand, Colin went flying down the hill, racing the storm, racing death, racing time itself. With eerie clarity, a flash of lightning illuminated the bowman, forcing Colin to watch him nock his arrow and draw back the bowstring until it trembled with tension. The man waited, patient enough to choose the precise moment when he could best drive the feathered shaft through his victim's heart.

  Dear God in heaven, he wasn't going to make it. Colin acknowledged his failure with a mighty roar, but a deafening crack of thunder drowned out his warning.

  He drew back his sword just as the bowman let fly his arrow.

  His aim was true. The rider lurched, then went spinning off the horse, arms flung outward in supplication.

  With a cry of inhuman anguish, Colin plunged his blade through the assassin's chest, pinning him to the trunk of the birch meant to serve as his shield. The force of the blow dragged Colin off the stallion's back. He crashed to the ground, doubling over in agony as if it had been his own heart that had stopped beating in that moment.

  Chapter 24

  When Colin staggered from the birch copse to find Tabitha sitting in the rain, cradling the fallen rider across her lap, he dropped to his knees, no longer able to stand. He might have remained thus forever, frozen in shock and wonder, if she hadn't lifted her head and cast him a beseeching look. Tears trickled down her cheeks, mingling with the rain.

  He crept closer. His brain was slowly beginning to thaw and as he reached to draw the hood from the motionless figure, he feared a river of dark curls might spill from its confines.

  But it was Chauncey who lay across Tabitha's lap, the squire's ruddy face pale now in death. She brushed a lock of hair from his sightless eyes with a bloodstained hand.

  "I was just over that rise when I heard him coming. I think he was coming to warn me." Her voice was soft and halting and after too many nights spent on blood-drenched battlefields, Colin recognized the stress of shock. He ached to touch her, but knew the best thing he could do was to just let her talk. "I got tired of going in circles and falling off the horse, you see, so I decided to walk him for a while. It really wasn't his fault. He's a very nice horse, just not too fond of thunder."

  Colin glanced up to find the sorrel standing patiently a few feet away, ignoring the snorting attempts of Lyssandra's steed to win his attention.

  Although the arrow protruding from Chauncey's back forced Tabitha to hold him awkwardly, she still managed to rock him in her arms. "I made him bring me to MacDuff's castle, you know. He begged me to stay at the cottage and obey you, but I thought it would all just be a grand adventure. A game. I didn't realize we were playing for keeps. If I had, he might be alive. Now he'll never argue with his mother again or have mock sword fights with his friends or kiss a pretty milkmaid or – "

  "Tabitha…" Colin longed to take her burden of guilt and anguish upon his own broad shoulders, but knew it was one she would insist on bearing all alone.

  As her gaze locked on his chest, Colin could hardly stand to see the pathetic spark of hope that lit her eyes. "The amulet, Colin! Give me the amulet!"

  He drew the chain over his head and dropped the emerald into her outstretched hand. He could have told her that some magic could only be performed by the deft hand of God, but feared she must discover that for herself.

  She screwed her eyes shut, her lips moving in a fierce litany. When she finally opened them several moments later, fresh tears clung to her lashes and Chauncey's body still lay limp across her lap. "I wished. I wished with all my heart that he would breathe again. What good is magic if it won't make your wishes come true?"

  Bitterness darkened her eyes as she drew back her arm and flung the amulet as far as it would go.

  When Colin gently took Chauncey's limp body from her arms, she did not protest, but simply sat with her mouth pressed to her knee, rocking in the rain.

  When Tabitha finally climbed to her feet an eternity later, she felt as if she were waking from a daze. The rain had softened to a misty shower, gentle enough to heal the ugly gashes left by the storm. Colin was nowhere in sight, but she could hear the rhythmic clack of rock against rock somewhere in the nearby woo
ds.

  She followed the sound, pushing aside a cedar bough to find him placing stones on top of a shallow grave. She could tell by his mud-streaked arms and dirt-encrusted fingernails that even without tools, he'd managed to dig some kind of hollow in the saturated soil.

  He wept without shame or apology, without sobs or even a change in expression, just an endless river of tears coursing down his cheeks. Realizing how selfish she had been to wallow in her own grief without once thinking of his, Tabitha began to gather stones in her skirt. They worked side by side until the homely grave was covered, then sank to the ground, muddy and ex

  Colin scrubbed at his eyes, leaving streaks of dirt. " 'Twas as if I were burying them all. My father. Blythe. Regan. Even my very own mother, who's been dead since I was naught more than a wee lad."

  Tabitha leaned her head against his shoulder. "Most men would crumble under the weight of so much loss."

  He cupped her throat and turned her face toward him, a fierce light in his eyes. "Never have I known a grief so keen as when I thought it was you who had gone down beneath that arrow. Even when, for an instant, I believed it to be Lyssa lying dead in your arms, all I could feel was relief because it was not you."

  If his confession hadn't taken her breath away, she might have scolded him for daring to voice such a terrible thing. As it was, she could only gaze helplessly up at him until he closed her eyes by kissing each eyelid in turn.

  As his seeking lips melted against her own, he swept her up in his arms. He carried her through the forest and laid her down on a bed of ferns, the sky their only canopy. Tabitha knew she should be scandalized by the clumsy haste with which they tugged at each other's clothes, but she was as eager as he was to feel the misty rain against her skin. To let it wash away the dirt and blood and taint of death.

  She understood now why Colin's people had been so quick to seize the joy of the moment. In a world without prenatal care or vaccinations or policemen or antibiotics, any moment might very well be their last. Although it felt as if the imprints Colin made on her flesh would be branded into her skin forever, she knew they, like the moments they shared, would be only too fleeting.