Love’s Magic

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Love’s Magic Page 11

by Traci E Hall


  Nicholas gripped the goblet, taken aback by her anger, nay, not anger, fury. His own irritation rose to the fore in answer. “I am a man, my lady, but my own. I won’t be dictated to—I married you to save you from being burned as a witch, not to beget children.” He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “It has nothing to do with your healing magic.”

  Her eyes widened, and she tossed the blanket from her shoulders as if preparing for battle. The shy lady he’d wed was nowhere to be found in the woman before him.

  His belly clenched as she stepped closer to him.

  “Am I too ugly for you?” Her eyes blazed blue-green, firing him to the core. Her hair swung like a golden curtain he wanted to plunge his hands through. “Too small for you?” She ran her fingers over her breasts, breasts that begged to be cupped, then down to her slender, flared hips, hips he could circle with both hands. She pinched her cheeks until they were pink again, as pink as the bud of her mouth. “Too pale for you?” She snorted with scorn. “Too female for you?”

  “What?” At that prod, Nicholas crossed the floor in two giant strides. He grabbed her by the back of the hair and smashed his lips to hers. He lifted her by the hips and sank with her into the cushions, pressing his hardness into the covered apex of her thighs.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck as if she’d been held in a passionate embrace a hundred times before. Her lips parted to accept his tongue. Responsive and sweet, Celestia was warm, she was lush, she was beautiful. Nicholas cupped the perfect mound of her breast, tweaking the peaked nipple underneath the linen gown. Had a woman ever smelled so good? He buried his face in her hair, then kissed each delicate fingertip on each of her hands. Orange, cinnamon, and opium.

  Opium?

  “No,” he groaned, banishing Leah and her dark ways from his memories.

  He rolled to the side, seeing Celestia smiling uncertainly at him, tempting him on purpose. The scar at the base of his throat throbbed. She had a knife. No, that wasn’t right. Nicholas shook his head to clear it.

  Celestia was not trying to kill him.

  He was not a prisoner. This was not Tripoli. He was in England, and he’d almost lost complete control of this bizarre situation.

  “Nicholas?” Celestia’s eyes turned questioning. Had she felt his shame? Had her strange talents allowed her to see the blackness of his spirit?

  He refused to look at her. He got to his feet, opened the tent flap, and made a large production of adjusting the front of his tunic and hose. He turned back. “There. That should satisfy whoever is asking about whether or not I am man enough.”

  He tied his belt. “You are free to tell them what you wish. I don’t want you to have to be humiliated. And Celestia,” he paused and tossed her a quick glance, “never do that again.”

  She’d not cried herself to sleep since the Lord Riddleton incident.

  A thrashing noise pulled Celestia from a troubled slumber. Frightened, she clutched the fur around her shoulders and stumbled to her feet. Moonlight filtered through the seams in the tent, and she saw her eating knife on the low table. Bess and Viola had slept in the wagon, so as not to disturb the newly wedded couple.

  Wincing, Celestia wouldn’t tell them they needn’t have bothered. The thrashing sounded again. Louder.

  Against the rear of the tent.

  What if it was a bear drawn by the leftover food? Grabbing the knife, she eased the flap open. She let her eyes adjust to the night, and listened intently for the next sound.

  She heard panting, then a low growl.

  Her body was poised for flight, or a fight, depending on the size of the animal. Celestia tiptoed around to the side of the tent, her eyes scanning the deep dark of night. A pain-filled yell came from her left, and she spun around, her knife out. Behind the tent? Without thinking of the danger, she ran to save whomever had screamed so. They were under attack.

  Heart pounding, mouth dry, she turned the corner and then stopped in mid-stride. Nicholas was tangled up in a sleeping roll, one pale bare leg visible and glowing like the moon. Her mind quickly thought through and then rejected many ideas. Had he hoped to save her embarrassment by sleeping out of sight of the others, yet save his chastity by not sleeping inside with her?

  Then his hips rolled beneath the blanket and her mouth went dry. Confusion surged as she stepped forward, the knife outstretched. “Nicholas?” she whispered. He rolled back and forth, as if trying to subdue someone. She stopped again and licked her dry lips. What if he wasn’t alone?

  What if he was with another woman?

  Nay! He gave another muffled yelp, and she leaned down and flicked back the top blanket. Nicholas was gasping for breath, holding his hands in front of him as if they were tied together and he was shielding himself from a deadly blow. Celestia bent over to look, but nothing bound him.

  “Nicholas,” she said again as calmly as she could. When he was ill, he’d responded best to that. Just like she’d thought, he was on the verge of relapse and fever.

  He spewed something in a foreign language, then whispered harshly, “You rotten bastards, let me go, damn you to all seven layers of hell—I’ll not be your whore!”

  Celestia hopped back just as Nicholas lashed out with his foot. She swallowed uncertainly. Nicholas’s voice was choked and raw, as if he were fighting for his soul. The demons he fought were so real, no wonder he avoided sleep.

  Dare she intervene?

  “Damn you.” He kicked out again, his brow furrowed as he fought his tormentors. She knew that he uttered words he wouldn’t want anyone to hear. Her hand hovered over his head as she sought to calm him without disturbing his fight. Gram said that ofttimes a person worked through their tragedies while sleeping.

  How many ungodly things had happened in the holy fight for Jerusalem? Tears pricked behind her lids as she spoke as soothingly as the situation would allow, “Nicholas, wake up. Open your eyes, Nicholas, you are safe in England. ‘Tis only me, Celestia …”

  She removed the fur covering from her shoulders and dropped it over his thrashing, mumbling form.

  His eyes whipped open, and she covered her mouth to stifle a scream. They were twin pits of despair, eerily unfocused and thoroughly black. His hands were in fists, and his body trembled with rage.

  “Oh, Nicholas.” She was about to reach out to him despite the damage it would do to her own body, when Petyr, along with Henry and Stephan, came running around the tent, swords drawn.

  “My lord,” Henry panted, “we heard shouting.”

  Celestia realized that Nicholas was not yet capable of answering; he was fighting his way back to reality. She bent over him, shielding his body from his men with her own. She plucked the fur she had thrown down to wake him from his nightmare and wrapped it around her shoulders, affecting what she hoped was a feminine pose.

  “I’m sorry, sirs.” She looked down and giggled. “We were, uh, sleeping, and I thought I saw a bear in the trees. Please, go back to your beds, it was nothing.”

  She kept her eyes lowered, as if shy. With her hair loose and dressed in only her shift, she hoped that she and Nicholas had just perpetuated their lover status. She laughed adoringly and dropped to her knees to snuggle on the bedroll next to her husband.

  “Sorry, my lady,” Henry said, his eyes wide until Petyr cuffed him on the back of the head.

  Nicholas blinked, and Celestia could tell he was coming around. She took his hand in hers and dropped a kiss on his nose. “The men are worried that you’ve been attacked by the bear I thought I saw,” she giggled inanely. Somehow it sounded better when her sister did it.

  He sat up, raking a hand through his hair. “I think ye knocked me cold in your exuberance,” he laughed, then waved the men away. “As you can see, we are fine, although I think we might move back inside. Eh?”

  He stood, and Celestia noticed Petyr realize that Nicholas was completely dressed. The knight flicked his eyes to her, but said nothing.

  Nicholas pulled her to her feet and chuckl
ed with the men. “I don’t think I could get back to sleep,” Henry snickered, and when Celestia sent him a disapproving frown, said, “I can take the next watch.”

  Petyr shrugged, not hiding his suspicion. “The fire’s almost out.”

  Celestia tugged on her husband’s hand, determined to get him inside the tent and get some answers.

  Nicholas wiped a hand over his forehead, as if to clear his mind. “That phantom bear has me wide awake. Besides, it is only fair that I take a turn on watch. I’ve had my,” he smiled down at her with his lips, but his eyes remained dark, “entertainment for the night.”

  Henry laughed appreciatively, which irritated Celestia, although she couldn’t deny the statement without creating a bigger problem. For certes, this husband business was most annoying.

  “Don’t be so stubborn,” Celestia pleaded with Nicholas.

  Petyr smirked. “Stubborn? I say tenacious. The man is so single-minded that he doesn’t see beyond the end of his rather large nose.”

  Nicholas sent Petyr a glare that didn’t seem to affect the blond knight overmuch, as he grinned and walked away, taking the two other knights with him.

  The entire time they had been talking, Nicholas had handily steered Celestia toward the tent flap. His fingers pressed hers, and then he kissed her forehead before shoving her inside. “Stay there, Celestia, and sleep. We can talk in the morn.”

  No, she thought rebelliously, watching the flap drop closed. She would give it an hour, and then she would go to him. They needed to talk tonight.

  Chapter

  Seven

  Nicholas stoked the low burning embers of the fire with a long stick. How much had she heard? Had he hurt her when she’d tried to wake him? Brother Mark had told him that sometimes he yelled clearly when in the throes of a nightmare, but other times he yelled gibberish. Gibberish. The man hadn’t understood Arabic, thank God.

  He smiled before remembering that Brother Mark might be dead. If Baron Peregrine had anything to do with the burning of the monastery, then—Nicholas paused in poking at the fire. Then, what? The baron was already going to die, in order to avenge the deaths of the innocent men on the caravan. Nicholas grimaced. There was death. The memories of torture were fresh in his mind, thanks be to the nightmare he’d slipped into. And then there was death.

  He’d have to make the sacrifice to Saint James large enough to cover a multitude of sins. He tapped a fiery log, watching the sparks fly upward. “Falling prey to the ambush. Losing the sacred relic. I should have been more vigilant.” He tapped the log again, harder this time. “I should have fought Leah harder, from the beginning.” His belly cramped with shame. She’d withheld food, and water—she’d kept him chained to a wall. Her husband’s men would beat him close to death during the day, and she—she would come at night, an evil succubus with opium and sex.

  He threw the entire stick into the small flames. He didn’t want to see pity in Celestia’s beautiful light-filled eyes. Vengeance moved him out of the clinging past. Searching his spirit for anything good made him ill, and he didn’t have the strength to manage it. The idea of the baron’s neck beneath his sword pumped his blood and got him moving. Revenge first, redemption later.

  Pah! Being saddled with a wife, a retinue of knights, and a keep he would need to fortify for battle weighted him under with obligations. What would happen if he died without meting out earthly justice on behalf of Saint James, and, yes, Nicholas gulped over the lump in his throat, even God?

  The fire lulled him into reliving his mistakes. Oh, aye, he thought with a heavy heart. He’d made a thorough accounting of where he had gone wrong, and losing the relic was only the tip of the stack. By not reaching King Richard, he’d compromised the win of the Holy Land—he alone had survived the ambush; the rest had all been slaughtered. His chest squeezed painfully. And worse, despite the torture she’d done him, he’d murdered a woman in order to save himself.

  Nicholas sighed in weary defeat. It might have been better if he’d let her kill him first.

  Abbot Crispin said he had to forgive himself, but each time he tried, he remembered how hot the day had been. The sand was in each eyelash and, God’s bones, he’d been tired from drinking the night before.

  He should have been paying more attention to the caravan, but he’d allowed himself to be lulled into a doze by the boiling sun and monotonous sand. He’d had one duty, to deliver the relic to King Richard on behalf of Baron Peregrine. The artifact from Saint James could turn the tide in a holy war!

  He’d failed. Bitterly.

  The memory, even now, was so real that he could feel sand gritted between his teeth, and smell the metallic scent of freshly spilt blood.

  Nicholas threw on another log. His defenses were down tonight, more than likely because he’d started to open his heart to Celestia.

  “Nicholas?”

  He jumped from the log he’d been sitting on, his hand on his hip though no sword rested there. “What are you doing here?”

  Her eyes beguiled; her smile tempted. Celestia was innocent and clean, and he didn’t deserve the compassion in her gaze. “I brought water.”

  “Nay.”

  “Surely you must be thirsty?”

  He was. He had been. Stubborn, he sat back down without taking the waterskin.

  She sat next to him, smelling of oranges and cinnamon. He ignored the soft press of her arm against his as they sat, each staring into the low burning fire.

  “You don’t take direction well,” he finally said.

  “No,” she agreed with what sounded like true regret in her voice. “That’s never been something I’ve succeeded at, more the pity.” She laughed softly. “‘Tis the terrible truth that I am much better at giving instructions.”

  Nicholas chuckled, grateful that the darkness inside his head was retreating before Celestia’s light.

  “What are you thinking that has your brow scrunched forward, my lord?”

  “None of your concern,” he paused. “What did you hear?”

  “Much that made my blood run cold, and then thirst hot, for the chance to avenge the wrong done to you.”

  “What? You would go to battle for me?” He drew back, studying her face.

  “Aye. It was wrong, what happened. She, this Leah, was wrong, too.”

  Nicholas couldn’t breathe. For what seemed like eternity, he was back in the cell again, being tormented for a sick bitch’s pleasure.

  The cool press of Celestia’s bare fingers against the nape of his neck eased the panic, until he could control the direction of his thoughts. Then she circled her other hand around the scars on his left wrist.

  Rape. Nicholas blamed the heat in his cheeks on the jumping flames from the fire. His captor’s wife had raped him repeatedly during his captivity. She’d needed a child to keep her husband from setting her aside, and since he was not providing her with one, she was willing to try other measures in order to save her own life. Lovely Leah, with the lush curves and ebony hair, had given him opium in order to control him, and then manipulated his body to achieve her goals. After nine months, she remained barren.

  He remembered the tears that had fallen from her coal-black, almond-shaped eyes, how she had held him close to her and whispered her love. That was when he’d felt the tip of the sharp blade at his throat. He had perversely decided he was not ready to die after all.

  “Nicholas,” Celestia cried softly. “I am so sorry.”

  Something in her tone pulled him from his memories, and brought him back to the present. He found the courage to look at her, and his heart thumped as he saw the tears glittering on Celestia’s face, twin rivers falling over her cheeks. The dancing flames colored her, surrounding her in a bewitched web. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

  The dread returned to the pit of Nicholas’s stomach. “You could see what happened? Just now?”

  She hiccupped, and brought her fingertips to her lips. The calm demeanor she usually wore like a satin cloak was gone, repl
aced by borderline hysteria.

  “I, she deserved to die, praise be that you survived. She sedated you, and abused you, and told you that she loved you—I’m terribly sorry, Nicholas.”

  Uneasy over many things, the first being that Celestia just saw his shame, that by touching him with her bare hands she could see into his inner self, made him back away. Mayhap he had been wrong, and she was a witch. He’d heard of those who could perform supernatural tricks.

  “Sorry? Calm yourself. It isn’t like ye did it, my lady.”

  She stood, wringing her hands as if she’d committed a crime and he was the executioner. The dread climbed from his belly to his chest.

  “But I did, Nicholas.”

  He stilled. “You did? You did what?”

  Crying, his wife said, “I drugged your wine, just a little, to help you sleep—and then told you that I cared—and I do,” she dropped her hands to her sides. “I was going to seduce you, and then I could not, and then—between us, surely you feel the attraction there?” Her odd eyes reflected the flames of the fire.

  He was in hell.

  Nicholas felt the blackness racing for him like a swarm of sand beetles. He wouldn’t bow under; he dare not. It had taken everything within him to survive it once. She reached for him, this demon witch masquerading as an angel.

  “Be gone!” he yelled, and because that didn’t seem adequate, he threw back his head and roared his rage to the heavens.

  Celestia was no mewling, toddling babe afraid of her own shadow. But when a fat raindrop landed on her nose like a heavy spider; she squirmed in her saddle and bit back a feminine squeal.

  By all the saints, she was exhausted. So tired that she would swear shimmering ghosts leered at her between heavy, wet tree branches and hunchbacked monsters lurked beyond every turn of the thin trail. She pulled her hood farther down over her forehead and glared at Nicholas’s back.

 

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