At that moment Miz Thibedeau scurried in, almost as though she’d been waiting for that exact moment. Wendi certainly hadn’t heard the tea cart coming down the hallway.
“Here the two of you are. I thought maybe you’d come to the library, when you weren’t in the parlor.” She pushed the tea cart, which was loaded with dishes and platters of different foods, over beside the desk. Nick’s stomach growled loudly.
“Now, here, here, Monsieur Bardou,” Miz Thibedeau admonished. “You’ll make Wendi think I don’t feed you.” She gave Wendi a wink and said, “We had jambalya and corn and potatoes and tomatoes for dinner. And sweet potato pie and banana pudding for dessert. My, my, can this man eat. The woman who marries him better make sure her cook plans huge meals. Land sakes, I don’t understand how he can stay so slim, while I smell food when I’m cooking and put on five pounds.”
“Miz Thibedeau!” Nick said. “If you’re done chattering away, we can serve ourselves.”
Wendi started to remind him that he’d more or less told her to visit with Miz Thibedeau, not him, but she quickly found that Miz Thibedeau handled herself perfectly well with Nick.
“I have no intentions of letting you break one of these delicate dishes, like you did the brandy decanter the other day,” Miz Thibedeau said with a haughty sniff. “I’ll take care of handling these myself.”
“You said the decanter fell from the shelf,” he muttered.
“Huhmph.” She filled two china plates and then stirred two tall glasses of lemonade on the cart. Pushing the cart closer, she settled it equa-distant between them, gave a curt nod when it all suited her, and brushed her hands together.
“Don’t try to bring that cart back into the kitchen,” she said as she headed for the door. “I’ll get it myself.” At the doorway, she paused and turned back, making her own comparison of Wendi and the portrait. “I never understood,” she mused.
“Understood what?” Wendi asked immediately.
Miz Thibedeau shook her head. Without answering, she disappeared out the doorway before Wendi could question her further.
“Do you know what she meant?” she asked Nick.
“Hell, I didn’t even know she was aware of who I was until the day we arrived back in New Orleans.”
He lifted his shoulders in a shrug, then rose with an effort at masking the pain on his face. At the bar, he picked up a decanter and carried it back to the tea cart, then poured the liquor into the lemonade glass nearest his chair. Moving the decanter over the other glass, he glanced at Wendi in inquiry.
“Just a tiny dab,” she said.
He complied, then set the decanter on the cart and picked up his glass. Rather than sitting back down, he leaned against the desk behind him and drank a good portion of the lemonade. Wendi only sipped hers, then picked up a praline and nibbled.
“I’m still waiting for you to answer me,” Nick reminded her.
“Is that the only reason you haven’t thrown me out of here?” she asked.
“Yes. I’m sure you understand what your being in this house would do to my mother, if she were alive.”
“The sins of the fathers and all that, I guess.” Wendi dropped the praline back onto the cart and stood. “I think I’ll leave now. You needn’t bother showing me out.”
Before she could take a step, he said, “I can make you a deal.”
She studied him, and his eyes met hers, keeping contact while he lifted the glass and finished the lemonade. Ice tinkled as he lowered the glass and continued to stare at her. Blue. Yes, his eyes were blue, but not an ordinary color. Just now they were deep azure, filled with his thoughts and the pain in his leg. Filled with laughter, they could probably knock a woman to her knees, Wendi mused, wondering just how long it had been since he even smiled.
“You want to know what’s in the Book of Shadows when we find it,” she said.
“Reading my mind?”
“I don’t have to read your mind to come to a logical conclusion. What you’re not taking into consideration is that, even if we do find the Book of Shadows, no one’s going to believe the words of a witch. Even the written words of a witch long-dead for ten years.”
“Maybe I don’t care about everyone else,” Nick growled. “Maybe I just care about having all the available facts so I can make my own decision--draw my own conclusions--and live with them. And you’re not going to be able to search this house without my permission. Belle Chene either.”
“Belle Chene?” Wendi took a step toward him. “Would you really let us search Belle Chene.”
“She was out there plenty of times over the years, so it seems that should be a part of any search I allow,” he snapped. Then he broke contact with her gaze and grabbed the decanter to splash his glass half full of liquor.
Wendi sighed in commiseration. “I can help that pain,” she made the mistake of saying.
“You keep your damned hands to yourself!” Nick snarled. “I’ve already suffered through one bout of needing laudanum so badly I couldn’t sleep nights. It took me weeks to get over that dependency.” He saluted her with the glass. “From now on, this will do perfectly fine.”
“It can be just as addictive as laudanum.”
“The hell you say. Look, you keep this in mind, if we’re going to work together. I don’t believe in witches or magic or any of your supposed healing arts! You keep your distance, and I’ll keep mine.”
“I haven’t agreed that we should join our search efforts,” Wendi reminded him.
“Fine. Then get out. And don’t think you’ll be able to search this house after I return to California. I’ve got plenty of money to hire a permanent guard here, to keep you out.”
So, this confirmed her suspicions of the reason for his tolerance of her, Wendi mused, refusing to yield to his order to leave and staring at the portrait instead. He had been contemplating this since she told him that he might have erroneously assumed that he killed her mother, no matter what the wild rumors said. He wanted her to find the Book of Shadows for his own selfish reasons.
On reflection, taking into consideration what he had probably gone through the past ten years, she couldn’t blame him. After what she said to him in their parlor, he must desperately want to know the truth about her mother’s death, for his own peace of mind.
Her own need for her mother’s Book of Shadows was different. Wasn’t it? Wasn’t it more of a need for survival of her magical powers than anything else? But the Fates were obviously forestalling her and Sybilla’s efforts to correct their waning magic. Could it be they would have no luck at all until they allowed Nick to share their search?
She didn’t know. She needed to talk to Sybilla before she made any commitment to allow Nick to infiltrate their lives any more than he already had.
“Tomorrow is Bealtane Eve,” she told him. “We’ll be celebrating the marriage of the Goddess and God in the evening and into the next day. We can’t make any decisions until after that.”
“I’m going out to check on Belle Chene tomorrow, then leaving for California the day after that.”
“Then you’ll have to go,” Wendi said, refusing to allow him to dominate her. After a last brief look at the portrait, she left the room and walked down the hallway. At the door, she glanced back as she opened it, but he wasn’t standing in the library doorway.
She wasn’t truly surprised that he refused to even discuss a compromise with her. She went on out and down the steps. She would have thought less of him if he had--and yes, been less satisfied with her own refusal to allow him control of their future relationship.
And they would have some sort of future relationship. She hadn’t seen the last of Nick Bardou by far. She didn’t need her magic or scrying speculum to recognize that fact.
The darkness never bothered her. Should anyone approach her, they usually left as soon as they realized who she was. If not, a quick chant for protection could penetrate even a fog of drunkenness in an accoster.
Thrice around the circle
’s bound
got their attention. By the time she finished,
Evil sink into the ground
the assailant would be hightailing it to a safer area. She felt completely safe walking back to her house.
The encounter with Nick was troubling, but she couldn’t allow him to ignore the ramifications of what could happen--things beyond their control. He had no idea the wrong he could do if he interfered with her honoring the powers that provided her with her magic. Not that she had any intentions of allowing him to do that.
Bealtane was one of the four major celebrations of the year, as important to her as Christmas and Easter to the Christians. In fact, she could argue whether the placing of Easter on the Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox wasn’t derived from a Pagan influence. Bealtane celebrated the marriage and joining of the Goddess and God, honoring the return of fertility to the earth and the resulting vitality, passion and hopes. She would not dishonor her beliefs by failing to take part in this festivity, no matter Nick’s threat to leave for California.
It was well-known contact could be made with the departed during Bealtane, as on any of the other various holidays during the year. Her mother had failed to show her presence for the past nine years at Bealtane or any other celebration, though, but maybe this was the right time for her to make contact at last.
As she got closer to home, she became aware of the sound of hoofbeats behind her. She tried a tentative probe and, not surprisingly, encountered the barriers she couldn’t seem to breach around Nick’s mind. For an instant, she was tempted to let him know mentally that she was aware of him following her, seeing her safely home. Then she hardened her heart. He’d been using her at his mansion, trying to manipulate her into wielding powers he purported not to believe in to ease his own mind. He would have to come to her and apologize before she would even consider joining forces with him.
Ah, no. She’d been concentrating on her awareness of Nick behind her instead of paying attention to the path she’d taken. She should have turned left at the previous block, in order to miss Katzey’s Bontemps. As she watched, two men staggered through the arched gateway on the bar’s courtyard, stumbling over bricks fallen from the decaying structure.
Sure enough, they headed in her direction. She straightened her shoulders and mentally called the triple layer of purple light around herself for protection. She kept walking, since they’d already spotted her in return. Fleeing would probably urge them in their befuddled minds to follow her.
They approached, meeting her beneath a dim circle of light from a barely-lit street post. She recognized one of them and smiled. Perhaps everything would be all right.
“‘Evenin’, Mish Wendi,” Doc Meneur slurred. He actually tipped his hat to her, swaying and nearly losing his balance at the movement.
“Doc,” she acknowledged.
The other man, unknown to her, nodded a greeting also, and they both passed on by. Sighing in relief, she hastened her steps in order to pass the tavern entrance before anyone else came out.
But the horse behind her snorted, and its iron-clad hooves danced on the cobbled street. Then she heard a frustrated shout of anger.
Chapter 7
“Damn you, don’t even think of trying it!” Nick shouted at the two men when one of them reached for his stallion’s reins. Grabbing his riding whip, he slapped it across the man’s hand. The man yelped and backed off, but his partner egged him on.
“Shit, there’s two of us, Harry. Come on, go back after ‘im. That fancy gentleman’s probably got a pouch that’ll keep us for a whole year! I’m tired a’ Mary Jo havin’ to work so hard.”
Goddamn it, why had he left the house without his pistol? But he’d been anxious to make sure that little package of fake witchcraft made it home safely. Damn his southern upbringing, including the mistaken training that said women needed a man’s nurturing and protection. The two men hadn’t more than glanced at Wendi. She’d been perfectly safe.
Harry lunged for the horse again, and Nick slashed him across the face. But while he had his attention on Harry, the other one crept up behind him, grabbed his frock coat and pulled on it to unseat him. His weight hit the left stirrup, and his injured leg screamed with pain while agony filled his mind.
“Stop it, right now! Or by the Goddess, you’ll wish you had!”
A bright flash of light crackled through the air, accompanied by a crash of thunder and landing with a hiss of smoke in the cobbled street. Nick’s stallion reared, whinnying in terror. Nick barely managed to stay in the saddle as the second man dropped to the ground, freeing Nick and lessening the pain.
When his vision cleared, Nick subdued the wildly-dancing stallion and brought it to a standstill. Wendi stood a few feet away, her hair blowing as though in the wind, notwithstanding the night being still. Harry got to his feet, stared at her and raised his hands in a warding-off motion. The other man was still on his feet, staring at Wendi.
“Mish Wendi,” he pleaded. “We din’ know this one was with you. Truly we din’.”
“Doc,” she told him, “if you ever want to use that manhood to make Mary Jo happy again, you better leave here right now. Otherwise, it’s going to shrivel and drop off!”
“Oh, me god, no. Please,” Doc whimpered.
“Leave! Both of you. Now!” Wendi ordered.
She pointed her finger at them, and Doc clutched between his legs and did as she commanded. Harry galloped right behind him.
Gripping his leg, Nick crumpled over the saddlehorn. He needed to get home.
Wendi’s concerned voice cut through his suffering. “Let me help. Can you ride as far as our house?”
“No,” he muttered, unsure if he was warning her away or refusing her offer of help. But she ignored him anyway. Gently, she pushed his foot from the stirrup and mounted behind him. Reaching around, she took the reins from his unresisting hands and set the stallion in motion.
“This horse doesn’t let anyone else ride him,” he muttered nonsensically. The groom who delivered the stallion from Belle Chene had assured Justin that no one had been able to handle the beast since Nick left New Orleans. And hell, here she was on the horse, controlling it.
Wendi continued to disregard him, and he laid his cheek on the stallion’s neck. All at once he felt a caress on his leg, and he gritted his teeth, trying to dredge up the energy to push her hand away. But she clenched her fingers, then rubbed his leg with her palm in a massaging motion. The relief was slight, but instantaneous. He groaned in reaction.
“If I had my herbs with me,” Wendi said, “I could take the pain away faster. You’ll have to wait until we get to the house.”
“I can’t go to your house.”
“Shut up, Nick, or I’ll shrivel your manhood.”
His choke of laughter caught him by surprise. He jerked in reaction, startling the stallion, and Wendi’s voice soothed the animal. Closing his eyes and stilling the laughter, Nick concentrated on the pain in his leg--now more the lack of it--as she continued to massage the scarred area.
“What happened?” she asked him, and he knew she meant the long-ago wound.
“The war,” he answered curtly.
Finally the pain lessened enough that he could sit up straight, and he removed the reins from her hands. She made no protest, settling back on the horse’s rump and disengaging contact with him. The sense of loss was immediate, but he told himself it was because, without the massaging motion, the nerves in his leg tightened again and the pain gave a warning throb. Then it subsided, at least for now.
He glanced around to get his bearings. Her house was only half a block away, and he kept the stallion on the same path, pulling it up at the gate a few seconds later.
“I’ll wait until you get safely inside.”
Giving a resigned sigh, she slid from the horse, landing lightly in the cobbled street. But instead of going on into the house, she stared up at him. The nearly full moon gave enough light for him to make o
ut the concern etched on her face.
“I can help, you know,” she said. “There’s herbs to use with the massage to ease the pain.” When his lips lifted in the corner with a sneer, she hastened to add, “There’s nothing magical about healing or pain-fighting herbs and massage. Eucalyptus and wintergreen have been used for muscle and nerve pain for hundreds of years, and even a lot of doctors use them in various forms. In addition, the massage soothes the nerve and muscle damage.”
“Sure, just like you didn’t use any magic to get rid of the disfigurement on that young woman’s face.”
Her pretty mouth moued into a tease, her eyes dancing with reflected starlight. Other than Miz Thibedeau, he’d never encountered a woman who didn’t cower and slink abjectively away when he snarled.
“I thought you didn’t believe in my magic,” she said with a secretive smile. “But yes, that’s what it was that got rid of the disfigurement. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, though. It depends on what the Goddess feels the Fates have in mind for the person who asks for our help. If it’s what’s supposed to be, then the Goddess assists our magic.”
“Some would say your honoring a goddess is blasphemy.”
“And what do you say?” she questioned.
“I quit believing ten years ago.”
She nodded in a non-judgmental way, then asked, “Are you sure you won’t come in and let me see what I can do for that leg?”
The pain throbbed again, a dagger stabbing him then subsiding. His leg dangled beside the stirrup, and he gritted his teeth, waiting for the next thrust. He didn’t protest when Wendi stepped closer and laid her palm on his thigh, extremely close to what she’d threatened to shrivel on both him and the attacker. But it would take a lot more than a Chastain woman’s touch to waken that part of him and make it stand to attention through the pain.
Or so he’d thought. Hell, he hadn’t felt this much need even the times he grew restless and visited a San Diego brothel. He glared down at her, but she didn’t seem to notice, which pissed him off even more. His condition reminded him there was one thing that always alleviated the pain for a while--
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