“I’m sorry you found out that way, Nick. It must have hurt you terribly.”
“I loved my mother deeply. She’d always been there for me, as well as my brother.” He headed for the door, motioning Wendi to keep her seat when she started to rise. “I need to be alone for a while now.”
He paused. “But this doesn’t mean I won’t be back to talk about this some more, darling,” he said. “And I won’t run away this time. Maybe--” He hesitated, then said, “Maybe we can even work things out so you can do that seance you want. In the barn. I--”
He dropped his head, then looked back at her. “It’s selfish, but I need to know myself what happened.”
“It’s not selfish, Nick. Finding out the truth effects more than just you.”
He nodded and left, and Wendi buried her face on her knees, tightening her hold around her legs--wishing it were Nick she was holding instead of herself. She could only imagine how confused he was at the moment. She’d had years to take in the story of Dominic and her mother--years to accept it. And she’d known both the participants. Nick had never known her mother. Couldn’t have known how much Sabine longed to be Dominic’s wife after she fell in love with him down through the years.
Couldn’t have known how Dominic suffered, too, loving two women and being unable to have a complete life with either one of them. Perhaps that starcrossed relationship, as much as the murder, began the karmic disruption.
Was it possible Nick might learn something from their story? Might decide there really was such a thing as lasting love?
She saw movement in the yard and glanced at the garconniere as Nick opened the door and walked in. Even though he knew she was in the window, he didn’t look up. She sighed and laid her chin on her knees again.
No, Nick would probably take the tale as another piece of evidence that happiness was an elusive animal--forbidden to Bardou men.
Her eyes drifted shut, and sometime in the dark of the night, Wendi woke, stiff and uncomfortable in the windowseat. She looked down at the garconniere, but it was as dark as ever. Standing, she made her way over to the bed, removed her dress and slipped into her nightgown. Usually she brushed her hair the requisite one hundred strokes, but her heavy-lidded eyes and a huge yawn decided her. Climbing into bed, she pulled only the sheet up in the heat, and fell back asleep.
When she woke the next morning, Nick was sitting in the windowseat. The pre-dawn light outlined him, the dark stubble on his face an indication he hadn’t shaved yet. Probably hadn’t slept, either, from the looks of his tousled hair and wrinkled, half-open shirt and trousers, the ones he’d worn the day before.
As soon as he saw she was awake, he said, “I didn’t tell you about the curse Sabine spoke.”
She sat up in bed with a start. “A curse? Oh, no.”
“I never told anyone, and I assume even if you find that journal you’re looking for, it won’t be in there. She died before she had time to write down whatever the fight she was having that night was about. Or name whoever it was she was fighting with.”
Chapter 25
“Whoever? You mean you heard them fighting, but couldn’t tell who was with her?”
“No.” He kept his voice low. Vicious, but low. “All I’m sure about is that it was a man.”
“But then you know you weren’t the one to kill her!”
“No.” Nick stood and shoved his hands into his trousers. “No, I’m still not sure. They were both alive at the end of the argument, and I sat down back in the shadows of the barn. Fell down, really. Like I said, I was drunk.”
He chuckled sardonically. “Falling down drunk. Sabine was still alive then, because I could hear her crying. But I was angry--violently angry. And I had a knife in my hand--the one I carried in my boot whenever I went to the seedy end of town.”
“The same knife--”
“Yes,” he interrupted abruptly. “The same one she was killed with. It was in my hand when I woke up again. Beside her, after she was dead. It was covered with blood, and so was I.”
“Nick,” Wendi said softly. “Come over here.”
He stared at her for a moment, as though her request took him by surprise. As though he couldn’t believe she’d want anything to do with him at this point. It tore her heart out to see the flicker of hope crowd out the confusion and desperation in his eyes.
“Please,” she whispered.
He hesitantly approached the bed, and she scooted over, patting the space beside her. He was tall enough not to need the footstool, and he settled back against the headboard, keeping a distance between them. She sighed and moved over to him, cuddling against his chest.
“Now,” she said. “Tell me what the curse was. The exact words, if you can remember them.”
“You still don’t believe I killed her?” he asked in a wondering voice. “After what I just told you?”
“I know you now, Nick. I love you.” He grunted and his muscles moved as though he were shaking his head, but she continued, “I know you wouldn’t deliberately kill anyone, unless you had no choice. Even drunk, I don’t believe you could do something like that.”
He remained silent for a moment, tense beneath her cheek on his chest. Finally, he said, “I talked to one of the doctors at the hospital after I was wounded. I told him that I didn’t even remember getting hit. I remembered the hell of battle, the smoke and smells. The screams around me of the dying--both horses and men. But that was the last thing I recalled until I woke up several days later in that hospital.”
“And?” Wendi asked.
“He said it happens like that most of the time. We block out the pain and even the actual occurrence. It’s. . . a sort of self-preservation and defense mechanism for our minds. He said that a lot of times, those who don’t block it out end up in a hospital for crazies.”
“So you believe you killed her, but blocked it out.”
“Yes.”
Wendi sat up again and scooted around to face him. “Then I guess we’re going to have to prove you didn’t. By finding out who did kill her.”
“Even if it’s to confirm that it was me?” Nick asked.
“Tell me honestly that you believe you did it.”
He smiled wryly. “Honestly? To tell the truth, I thought about more than just that journal and what it said--and didn’t say--last night. I thought about what this had done to so many people.”
He paused, then said, “Honestly, I just want you to tell me one more time you don’t believe it. No one’s believed in me for a long, long time. Or--” He lowered his voice to a whisper.
“--or told me they loved me.”
“Oh, Nick!” She flung her arms around his neck and clung to him. When she felt him nudging her hair, she turned her face up and kissed him. Tried to show him with the kiss how sincerely she loved him and how much she wanted to ease his pain.
He groaned a sound of mixed wonder and desire, tightening his arms around her until she could barely breathe. Then he loosened his hold, but kept her firmly in his grasp, returning her kiss with a desperation that elated her, as though the last barriers between them had fallen, unable to withstand the power of their love. It was a different type of kiss than the ones they shared in lovemaking; those were preludes to desire overcoming them. As urgent as this kiss was, it was a meeting of souls rather than bodies. A blending of the two of them much deeper than a physical joining.
Tahlia Thibedeau had been right. There was more to love they both needed to discover. More than the physical.
When Nick finally broke the kiss, he cupped her cheek in his hand. “I love you,” he said in a husky voice. “Whatever happens--whatever this crazy fate you keep calling karma has in mind for us, know that. Know I’ll die loving you. Nothing can ever make me stop.”
Tears trembled on her lashes, and one spilled down her cheek. Nick caught it with his tongue, then kissed her again, sharing the salty taste of her own emotion with her.
“But--” he said when he ended the kiss.
He took her hand in his and removed it from his mouth, kissing her palm tenderly. “All right, I won’t. We won’t talk about that part of it right now.”
She supposed that would have to do, but she wasn’t about to take that for his final answer. Hadn’t someone somewhere said that love worth having was love worth fighting for? If not, they should have said it.
Nick tried to pull her against him once more, but she found the strength to resist him, and he settled for curling his arms around her waist.
“Tell me what the curse was,” she insisted.
He shifted his gaze and his brow furrowed. “You want the exact words, right?”
“Yes. That’s important.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry that I’ve forgotten,” he told her with a distasteful grimace. “Those words were burned into my mind, and they even survived my drunkenness.”
He closed his eyes as though he couldn’t bear to watch her face while he said,
“Your presence fouls the spirit air.
Your blood’s a demon’s curse evil and free.
The hell you cause will turn on you,
Three times three, no heirs to be.
So mote it be.”
He opened his eyes and said, “She screamed the last sentence. And over the years, it all came true, even the fact that I never had any desire for heirs after that.”
“But she was cursing whoever was threatening her,” Wendi said, “not you. Telling them their despicable deeds would return to them, three times three.”
“She was cursing whoever killed her. And everything that happened after that--if a person believes curses can come true--confirmed that. My family didn’t want anything to do with me, and it was my own fault. I caused the hell our lives turned into.”
“But love hasn’t forsaken you.”
“The culmination of what love should be has,” Nick said, tenderly cupping her cheek. “If I can’t accept it. And I can’t. I won’t let someone else--you--share the hell that my life is.”
A burst of exasperation sparked her temper, but she quickly clamped down on it. She couldn’t look at his haggard face, listen to that tender, tortured voice, and not know he believed every word he said--ever emotion he felt. She felt more depth in his love by him withholding the final portion of it than if he’d given it freely, not caring what it would do to her life.
She bent forward and kissed him, but the moment seemed too precious for them to seal it even with lovemaking. She curled against his chest again, feeling a different type of oneness with him now that he had shared his deepest feelings with her.
He rubbed his chin back and forth across her hair. “We have to get up and start searching for that other journal, you know. Perhaps we can find it without resorting to a seance.”
“Maybe,” she agreed, running a finger up and down his corded forearm. “You know Belle Chene lots better than either Aunt Sybilla or I do. You’d know places we should look that we wouldn’t think of.”
“But the problem with that is your mother wouldn’t have known the places I would think of, either. She wasn’t out here that often. Or at least, not as far as I knew.”
“Hmmmm. But she was, Nick. At least the last year or so before she died. Or she was somewhere, and I assumed it was here with your father. She said she was, and she was even gone for--”
Wendi sat up, staring around the room. “Did you hear that?”
Nick shook his head. “I didn’t hear anything.”
“It was a sound, sort of like a cry of gladness. It almost made me feel like someone was cheering me on. Like whatever I was saying was getting close to unravelling this puzzle.”
She hesitated, watching his face closely for his reaction when she said, “It. . . almost sounded like Mother.”
“Then go back over what you were just saying,” Nick insisted without reluctance. “Something about your mother was gone a lot. You said it was the period right before she died.”
“Yes. Yes, the last year before that. Maybe even the last two years. In fact--” She looked closely at Nick. “I need to ask you something that will probably really bother you, Nick.”
“We’re beyond that by now, aren’t we, sweetheart? If you think it will help us figure this out, ask me anything you want.”
Still, Wendi took a preparatory breath for courage before she forced out, “Did your father go somewhere for a period of about four or five months a couple years or so before my mother died?”
“He said he needed to go to England, to check out one of the brokers there who was handling our cotton and cane,” Nick said with a frown. “He’d always left that to his underlings, but he said it was serious enough this time that he felt he needed to go himself.”
“Mother had been rather ill for a while,” Wendi said contemplatively. “Not completely bedridden, but having bouts of weakness and even nausea. She said the doctor recommended a sea voyage, and Dominic was going to pay for it, so she could get her health back. When she came home, she looked fine physically, but she was even more of an emotional wreck. So she’d spend time out here at Belle Chene, and she said she had become friends with Cecile. Was visiting her.”
“Let’s go talk to Cecile.”
Nick casually pushed her off the bed, grabbing her with a laugh and a mumbled “sorry” when she staggered after the drop to the floor. She smacked him on the shoulder, her laughter joining his and too happy to see his gaiety even amid their search for the truth to be perturbed at him. Like an excited child, Nick swooped her up and circled her around, then dropped her back to her feet and took her hand.
“Let’s go,” he said, starting for the door.
Shaking her head, Wendi pointed her finger and slammed the door shut in his face. Nick halted, then turned to face her.
“Oh,” he said with another laugh. “You probably want to get dressed first, huh?”
“It might be a good idea,” she replied, grabbing the neck of her gown before it slid on past her nipple, which was the only thing holding it in place.
Nick’s eyes nearly burned the material off anyway, but she pulled her hand free and started toward the armoire. From the corner of her gaze, she saw him shove his hands into his trouser pockets, as though to keep them confined.
“How do you do that?” he asked while she searched through her meager wardrobe.
“What?” She glanced over her shoulder, and he nodded at the door she’d slammed in his face. “Oh, that. Well, some magic I’ve practiced so many times that it just comes naturally. You already know that a witch’s magic develops over the years. She’s not born with it at full blast.”
Nick nodded, and she continued, “Some other things take preparation. Sometimes just murmuring a brief spell we’ve memorized will work to accomplish what we want done, but sometimes a full-blown ritual is necessary. Depends on what we want to do. The spells for things that are harder to do work better during a time of ceremony or celebration, when we know the spirits are more attainable and amenable to helping our magic.”
Without thinking, she shrugged her gown off her shoulders and stepped out of it.
“That’s it!” Nick snapped.
He was across the room before she could think of a spell to halt him. Not that she even wanted to try when he grabbed her in his arms and headed for the bed. Tossing her onto the high, firm mattress, where she bounced once, then settled against the stacked pillows, he reached for his shirt buttons.
“That’s what?” she asked in a low growl around sensually pursed lips, lowering her eyelids to match the tone. “I thought you wanted to go talk to Cecile.”
“I’ve got few more things to say to you first,” Nick said, finishing his shirt and starting on his trousers. “Like how beautiful your skin glows in the morning light--like pearls. Like how your hair tu
mbles around your face, reminding me it feels like silk in my fingers. And how it makes you look even more desirable when it’s my lovemaking that’s tousled it instead of your sleeping alone. Like how I’m going to kiss that pouty look off your lips and eat it.”
He shrugged off the shirt and stepped out of his trousers.
Wendi ran the tip of her tongue around her lips. “I’ll get them ready for you,” she murmured.
His erection actually bounced as it hardened in reaction to her words, and she laughed light-heartedly when Nick blushed like a ten-year-old. But the man who growled and lowered his eyes, his gaze raking over her exposed body, was way past ten years old. Had many secrets to show her. Many of years of experience to have practiced his secrets in.
She hadn’t really seen him in the daylight before, and when he took a step towards her, she whispered, “Wait. Please. Just for a moment.”
His cheeks heated again, but he nodded. “Not long, though.”
She smiled at him, and let her eyes roam. The scars on his thigh only heightened his masculinity, an indication of exactly that--his being wounded in a war fought by men in what they considered an attempt to keep the comfortable lives for their women. That it was a life made that way at the expense of another race of human beings made no difference to their deep dedication and stubborn belief they were right.
His thighs were still corded and strong, the legs below them as shapely as a man’s legs could be called, and covered with fine, dark hair. Above his thighs, ridges of muscles corded a flat, washboard stomach, the width almost too narrow to support what came above--a broad chest and shoulders, rippling with planes and valleys that made a woman’s palms tingle, her mouth go dry with the desire to touch them.
A strong neck, a handsome, rugged face, with lips a perfect match for hers and eyes changing color to a deep, velvet azure when they made love--or prepared to make love, as now. He called her hair silky more than once, but she thought the word applied to his, too. Black, blacker than a starless midnight, it would silver rather than gray as he aged.
Spellbound Page 24