That night Father was in a mood, and Mother had taken to her pallet with some ailment born of the strain between them. Krispin slipped out to mingle with the men from the ship and hear their tales, while I sat in my chamber with my back to the wall, brooding over Brenna's impending departure.
In the morning there was no sign of Krispin. I shrugged at the realization, filled a basin with water from the ewer my mother kept filled, and washed as best I could. During the night I had conceived a plan—I would go to the Baron Afton-St. Claire, Brenna's father, and ask for her hand. If he had me clapped into chains or pulled me apart on the rack for getting above myself, so be it. I had to try.
As it happened, Challes was waiting at the schoolroom door when I arrived, his eyes red-rimmed, fairly bursting with tidings. Dire ones, I could tell.
He grasped my arm, hard enough to leave bruises, and growled, "What in God's name have you done? The baron is demanding to see you, and he is in a towering rage!"
I wrenched free of my tutor's hold, drawing myself up in fury even as terror seeped into every part of my being. In our village and in all the barren lands surrounding it, Afton-St. Claire was the most powerful of men, and my fate was most definitely in his hands.
When I did not answer his question immediately, Challes leaned in close and spat, "Damn you, bootmaker's son, what have you done?"
I remembered holding Brenna the day before, while she cried over our parting. Even though I might die screaming for daring to touch her, when I searched my heart I could find no regret. "The Lady Brenna was weeping. She laid her head against my shoulder."
"And you touched her with your hands?" Challes cried in a strangled voice. "Fool! Arrogant, willful fool!"
I straightened. "Where is the baron? In the great hall?"
Challes ran one narrow hand over his face. "We're all finished, you know. Not just you, you young peacock! The Lady Brenna will be locked up until her husband comes to claim her, and Krispin's education will be come to an end, as well as your own. And I will lose my position!"
I wanted to apologize, I truly did. I couldn't bring myself to proceed, though, because in my deepest being
I knew I had done nothing wrong. If others suffered because of the situation, it would be by the baron's decree, not by mine.
"Where is he?" I asked again. Stiffly.
Challes's sigh contained all the misery of that difficult and unjust world we lived in. "You'll find him in the inner courtyard—practicing with his sword."
I was no fool, though Challes had called me one. I wanted to bolt from that keep, to run for my life, but there was nowhere to go.
I made my way to the inner courtyard, careful to keep my shoulders straight and my head high. When I arrived, the baron, a muscular, thick-chested man, was indeed wielding a sword, battling a knobby-kneed squire who was plainly terrified. It was little wonder, given the baron's earnest dedication to his task. The nobleman was drenched in sweat and bellowing like an outraged bull.
I stood waiting, and beyond the clanging flash of the swords I saw the Lady Brenna huddled in the shadowy arch of a doorway, watching me.
I was destined to lose her, I knew, and the realization gave me a strange, desolate sort of courage. Facing a lifetime apart from her as I was, years of knowing another man was laying his hands to her, in love and perhaps in anger, I could not but think that death would be a mercy. Any sort of death.
* * *
CHAPTER 2
« ^ »
Valerian
Las Vegas, 1995
She was there.
Even before I walked onstage that fateful night, to regale the baffled masses with my illusions, I felt her presence in the grand showroom of the Venetian Hotel. The knowledge that she was nearby left me so shaken that I could barely concentrate on the performance.
Brenna. Dear God, my Brenna…
My lusty Elisabeth. And sweet, fragile Jenny. And Harmony. And Sarah.
But of course she had a new identity now, and those other names, all of which had been her own at one time or another, would mean nothing to her. Nor would I, I was certain.
I'd be lying—not that I've ever hesitated to bend the truth should it serve my purpose to do so—if I said I took no joy in the prospect of another encounter with my elusive beloved. Just the thought of speaking to her again, of touching her, was rapture, but there was fear, too, and I already felt the weight of the sorrow that would inevitably follow any bliss we might share.
For my darling and me, the story, played out over and over on the stage of six centuries, had never had a happy ending. Not once.
Invariably, except in her first incarnation, the ruby ring had arrived, out of nowhere, a mysterious thing of splendor and antiquity, and precisely a fortnight later I had been bereaved again. And always, try though I did to discover who had sent that glittering jewel, and with it the curse, the thing vanished while I was caught up in my mourning. The tragic puzzle was no closer to solution that night, when I found Brenna once more, than it had ever been.
I used my powers to hold her in her seat, there in that large and otherwise anonymous audience, sensing her desire to bolt as well as her fascination with my legerdemain, but even after the carriage trick had been completed and all the others had straggled out, I lingered backstage.
I remember wishing I could simply walk away—each time I found her, I entertained that same futile notion, of course—but I am neither fine nor noble enough to make such a sacrifice. I was starved for the sight and sound and feel of her, just as I had always been. It would have been easier to forgo the taking of blood than to turn my back on that particular woman.
So it was that I stood in the wings as the silence lengthened in that great room, watching her fidget at her table, seeing the shadows play in her coppery hair, for some fifteen minutes before one of the dancing girls appeared at my side. Her name was Jillie, and she was still wearing her delectably inadequate costume.
I do enjoy the many and varied facets of my work.
"Someone you know?" she asked with a slight edge of envy to her voice. Jillie was more than passing-curious about me, and I suspect she saw me as a romantic challenge. Being older, to say the least, and infinitely wiser, I didn't encourage her; she could have no way of guessing she was flirting with a bona fide monster.
"An old friend," I said softly, never taking my eyes from the woman sitting alone in the auditorium. She had finished her drink and begun chewing ice cubes, and the crunching sound made me wince.
Jillie lingered a moment, cast a venomous glance toward the object of my attention, and swept off toward the dressing room she shared with the other women in the act.
I allowed myself a fraction of a smile. I'd done Jillie a favor she could not begin to comprehend or appreciate by spurning her naive affections. Would that I could be so gracious with my Lady Brenna.
I had shed the cumbersome cape as soon as the show ended, but I was still wearing my tuxedo when I finally forced myself down the steps at the side of the stage and along the aisle.
If I'd had a living, beating heart instead of an atrophied vestige of one, that organ would have twisted at the sight of her watching me approach. She was helpless, like an animal dazzled by light; I knew that and used it to my advantage.
Fate is cruel, in my experience—except for the modern haircut and clothes, she looked just as she had in each of the previous lifetimes in which our paths had crossed. Her hair was a coppery-gold color, thick and lush, and her eyes were green. Even her face, with its delicate bone structure and impertinent little chin, was the same, right down to the faint smattering of freckles across her nose.
I closed my eyes for a moment, caught up in a spindrift of emotions, and when I looked again, she was staring up at me. Her throat worked, as if she'd attempted to speak and failed, and she offered me her hand. She seemed bewildered, afraid, and perhaps just a bit enchanted.
Her introduction was woven of pure bravado. "Daisy Chandler," she said, offering me he
r hand. '"I'm a homicide detective with the Las Vegas Police Department."
I was taken aback by this flood of information, and arched one eyebrow as I enclosed her hand in my own. I wondered if she felt the chill in my flesh, and puzzled over it. Although I can usually read a mortal mind with embarrassing ease, hers has always been veiled from me, except for a few shifting flickers of discernment here and there—perhaps because I care so much. Creation can be perverse in that way, so often withholding from us the very insights and objects we desire most.
"I am pleased to meet you," I managed to reply, though I have to admit I was as nervous as Daisy. I was just better at hiding what I felt than she was, that was all. I'd had a long time to practice.
She frowned, her pretty brow knitting for a moment in consternation. "Do I know you?"
The answer to that question was better saved for another time. "No," I replied, missing a beat or two. I knew that, deep in her subconscious, she remembered me, and everything we'd been through together, in minute detail. The human mind is a superlative scribe, missing nothing, trundling its uncountable impressions from one lifetime to the next.
Daisy rose, somewhat shakily, and only thought to remove her fingers from mine after she'd gained her feet. She was wearing tight jeans that had seen better days, and her white summer top was airy and ruffled, inviting the eyes to her finely shaped breasts.
I felt a rush of jealous irritation, a downright silly desire to fetch one of my capes and cover her with it. I had had to share her with others when she was Elisabeth Saxon; I could not do so again.
"Your show was fantastic," she said with a tentative smile.
I merely inclined my head once, in acknowledgment of the compliment. There was—and is—no false modesty in my makeup. The performance was indeed "fantastic," and more; my audiences paid for magic, and they got their money's worth.
She looked about, noticed as I did that the waiters and bartenders were gone, replaced by the cleaning staff. "I guess I should be going," she said with a sort of cheerful desperation, and I felt a pang of regret because I knew Daisy wasn't normally a timid person. I was frightening her, and I hated that.
"Yes," I said quickly, at last releasing the mental hold I had taken on her earlier. "Good night, Miss Chandler."
She studied my face, and for a breathless moment I thought she consciously remembered me. In the next instant, however, the pensive expression in her beautiful eyes vanished. Daisy waggled her unmanicured fingers in farewell and dashed out of the showroom without looking back.
I went to my dressing room, where the mirrors were draped and the lights were dim, and stood in the middle of the floor, struggling against the rage and frustration that had arisen in me. I didn't want to go through it all again, loving her, wanting her, losing her, and suffering the soul-crushing consequences once more, but I knew the curse some passing devil had cast over both of us would run its course. The ring would arrive, and Daisy would die.
I was standing there, outwardly still, but with all hell breaking loose inside, when a soft tapping sounded at the door.
My first reaction was fury; I was grieving and did not wish to be disturbed. But then the door opened, and I saw my caller.
Daisy had returned, looking uncertain, as if she'd reached the end of some invisible tether and been drawn back by it. She gripped one of my colorful, printed programs in her right hand and wore a determined if still-fragile smile. There were no photographs of me in the publication, of course, only reproductions of paintings, and she had the booklet open to one of these.
"I was wondering…" she began, her eyes straying around the dressing room, taking in the shrouded mirrors and muted lights.
I was so glad to see her that it required the utmost restraint on my part not to wrench her into my arms. "Yes?" I prompted, perhaps sounding the least bit patronizing. My friends, as well as my enemies, tell me that a certain arrogance is native to my manner.
She shoved the program at me, along with a cheap plastic pen. "Would you autograph this, please?"
I did so with a flourish and handed both the booklet and the pen back to her.
Daisy bit her lower lip, and I felt a rush of arousal so keen that I writhed in the core of it, like a man in flames. "'Thanks," she said. She hesitated, then went on in a tumbled hurry of words: "I know magicians never tell their secrets, but that carriage trick was—well, it was impossible. You couldn't have used wires or platforms. So it had to be some sort of mass hypnosis—"
"Or," I interrupted gently, "it might have happened exactly as you saw it. By magic." I smiled and spread my hands.
She frowned, and I wanted to kiss the place between her brows where the skin creased prettily. "Something weird is going on here," she finally blurted out. "Who are you?"
I wanted to tell her; it would have been the most delicious relief to explain it all, but I couldn't. For one thing, the story would have taken hours to relate, and for another, I didn't want to frighten Daisy off forever. "You'll understand it all in good time," I replied with resignation. I was beginning to feel restless, agitated; I needed to hunt and feed, and perhaps prowl a bit, before retiring to my lair.
"I'm coming back," Daisy announced, still frowning.
I took a printed pass from the top drawer of my dressing room bureau and handed it to her. "Be my guest," I said.
Daisy accepted the special ticket, nodded her thanks, and left, looking as befuddled as ever. I suspect it wasn't me or my magic that made her thoughtful, but her own unexpected captivation with both. She was clearly not a person given to obsessions and strange fancies.
After she'd gone I mourned her, for even when we parted briefly, I was invariably bereaved. I stood with my forehead touching the door and my hands gripping the woodwork on either side, remembering. Suffering. Loving.
The Lady Brenna
Dunnett's Head, Cornwall, 1348
They were facing each other in the courtyard, Brenna Afton-St. Claire's father, the baron, and Valerian. The autumn sun, though fiercely bright, felt cold, and Brenna shivered.
Her father had been practicing his swordsmanship, though it was unlikely the king would ever again call upon him to serve as a soldier, given his age. For all his four and forty years, however, the baron was strong.
"The bootmaker's son," the baron said, assessing Valerian and at the same time using the hem of his tunic to polish the steel blade of his sword. It caught fire with daylight and flashed like a mirror.
Brenna held her breath, watching Valerian's face. Jesu, she prayed silently, make him hold his tongue. If he doesn't my father will surely kill him, and with pleasure.
Valerian only inclined his head, and Brenna nearly swooned with gratitude. The baron's anger was violent, burning hot as the fires of perdition, but it died quickly when it was not fueled.
Sweating profusely from his exercise, the baron held the sword up, between himself and the bootmaker's son, and then pressed the point to the pulse at the base of Valerian's throat.
Brenna gasped and started to bolt toward them, intending to intercede, but Challes, her tutor, gripped her hard by the arm.
"Stand fast," he warned in a whispered hiss, his grasp tightening when she struggled.
Valerian stood still, surely aware that the baron could kill him easily, with no penance forthcoming, looking almost insolently calm. Even from several feet away, Brenna could see that the expression in his eyes was fearless.
With a silent wail of despair Brenna realized that Valerian was courting death—he wanted to perish! She tried to cry out, but the only sound that came from her throat was a hoarse, senseless whisper.
The baron broke the awful silence, his words as cold and hard as the blade of the sword he held. "Why did you lay your hands to my daughter, peasant? How dare you touch a noblewoman?"
Brenna squeezed her eyes shut, terrified.
"I forgot myself," Valerian replied. There was no trace of subservience in his tone or manner, but no mockery, either. He was simply s
tating a fact.
Brenna put one hand over her mouth and swayed slightly in Challes's now-gentled grasp. Her eyes burned with tears as the full measure of her ardor for Valerian Lazarus came down upon her, crushing her spirit as surely as a fallen wall would have done her body. In that terrible moment she knew that she had loved Valerian as long as she had known him, which was all her life, and that they had been together before the stars were born.
"You are bold," the baron remarked, lowering the steel only to beckon to his squire, who was yet trembling from his own encounter with the nobleman. "Fetch a second sword," he told the servant.
Brenna's heart seized with the knowledge that her father meant to challenge Valerian. There could be no contest—despite the lad's youth and strength, he had no experience with weapons. The baron, on the other hand, had wielded heavy swords daily, from earliest childhood. He was a seasoned warrior.
"No!" she managed to shriek. Challes tried to hold her, but in her desperation of fear, Brenna broke free. Her face streaked with tears, she clutched at the sleeve of the baron's tunic. "Don't do this, Father," she pleaded. She dropped to her knees then, grasping his clothing with both hands now, her knuckles white with the effort. "Don't kill Valerian," she pleaded. "Oh, please—I'll do anything—"
Her father's face was terrible, flushed with rage and chagrin, and Brenna did not dare to look at Valerian's. She knew, too late, that she should have listened to the tutor, that she had made a grave mistake in revealing the extent of her devotion.
"You would beg like a street whore," the baron seethed in a vicious tone, "for the life of this—dog?"
Valerian stiffened; Brenna felt it, though she still lacked the courage to look into his eyes. It was bad enough meeting her father's condemning gaze.
"I love him," she said.
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