She couldn’t see the problem. “Then he need only refuse the invitation. I’m quite certain my uncles won’t be offended.”
She thought Drogo gritted his teeth as he looked away and glared at the fire. For a man who prided himself on never losing his temper, he certainly simmered a lot.
“His wife would never forgive him if he refused the invitation. She is insisting on an entire London wardrobe so she might act the role of countess-apparent.” He grimaced as he glanced back at her. “If you’re wrong and the child you carry is a boy, Celia will no doubt murder us all in our beds.”
She might not understand the man’s moods, but she was beginning to understand the path of his thoughts. Perhaps if Ceridwen had taken the time to understand her husband’s needs rather than acting on her own immature impulses…
She would study that lesson later. The look of thinly disguised heat in Drogo’s eyes stirred other, more primitive desires.
“We can surround the house with rowan and place grandmother’s protective amulets under our pillows,” she offered brightly.
“Not to deride your skills, my dear,” he answered, “but I would prefer to err on the side of caution and avert Celia’s pretensions entirely.”
She tilted her head and tried to fathom the next quirk in this path. “You are saying you would prefer to have an heir rather than a girl? My talents aren’t quite that developed.”
He looked a bit thunderstruck at the possibility she might even think she had such a talent, then a smile reluctantly tugged the corner of his mouth. “You enjoy teasing me, don’t you? Am I so easy a mark?”
“Sometimes.” It wasn’t just physical desire she felt when he looked at her like that. Something warm and shiny like the summer sun burned in her breast at his approval and understanding. She craved the full force of his attention and intellect as much as she craved his touch. She wished she knew how to gain both, but it didn’t seem likely. “If you do not mind that our child won’t be a boy, what are you asking of me?”
“I’m not convinced the child is a girl,” he reminded her. “I would save Dunstan the pain of disappointment and the family of his wife’s reckless expenditures, if I could. Let them be as they were and not encourage what they are not.”
Ninian’s eyes widened. “You wish to discourage their social aspirations for the sake of the family budget? That’s not your decision to make, my lord. Dunstan is a grown man, well beyond any need for your protection.”
“Devil take it, Ninian!” he shouted, before calming himself and resorting to a mere glare. “It would just be simpler if we kept our various and assorted relations apart. Let’s leave it at that.”
“‘Ne’er shall Ives and Malcolm meet…’” she quoted from one of the legends. “Are you superstitious, my lord?”
“No, I am not, and I wish you would call me by name. We’ve been married well over a month and should be acquainted enough for that much familiarity.”
She rose and straightened the lace of his jabot because she could not resist his proximity any more than the tides could resist the moon. “Acquainted, perhaps, but no more familiar than before. You will not listen if I tell you that Dunstan’s wife is spoiled, immature, and too selfish to think of anything but her own pleasure. Deny her this invitation, and she will seek other entertainment. She is not your concern, Drogo.” She looked up at him expectantly, hoping against hope that he would listen to her this time.
His curled eyebrows drew down in a frown. “She is young and beautiful, and Dunstan adores her to the point of spoiling her. I will not see him ruined because of it.”
“You cannot stop him, Drogo.” Disappointed, she released his lace and stepped back. She saw the fire in his eyes, knew she had the power to relieve both of them of this tension, but she would not. He must listen before he could hear. “You can offer choices, but you cannot control his decisions.”
She would have walked away but Drogo caught her arm and held her back. His touches were so rare, she leaned into him anyway, resting her head against the strength of his shoulder as his free hand gently traced the slope of her belly. “You will ask your aunts not to invite them again?”
“No,” she murmured. “I will ask them to be cautious with her. I will talk to her and explain that Dunstan is more important than my aunts. But I will not tell another adult how they can or cannot live their lives. We each must make our own choices.”
He didn’t fling her away in anger. She thought she heard disappointment in his voice, but he covered it with the cool concern he did so well.
“I will not force you to my way of thinking, then. How are you feeling? You look pale, and Sarah says your cough is not improving.”
Reluctant to disturb him more, she debated the wisdom of mentioning her fear of remaining in London. Her mother had coughed like this, and she’d lost all her babes. Out of the isolated world she knew and into Drogo’s broader one, she was bombarded with new knowledge and opinions, and she was no longer as certain as she once was of her grandmother’s teachings. But she worried. Constantly.
As if hearing her thoughts, he stroked a straying curl from her face. “I cannot leave London just yet, my dear. Twane has embroiled me in a bit of trouble, and I must stay to deal with it.”
That was the first he’d mentioned the suit to her. She supposed she could count that as a victory of sorts, though she did not feel triumphant. “Lady Twane and her sister are on the way to Paris as we speak. He cannot have her back.” She twisted to search his face and caught his surprise before he hid it. “Sarah says he must bribe witnesses to lie. My grandmother had a potion that she swore would make anyone tell the truth…”
Drogo grinned, shook his head, and pressed a kiss to her brow. “Unleash a truth serum in London? Society would crumble, and civilization as we know it would be lost. Just keep our bun warm,” he patted her tummy, “and let me deal with Twane, although I thank you for your offer.”
Ninian had a sudden ripping understanding of the Ives’ penchant for violence. A roar in her head demanded she plow her fist into his complacent smirk and kick his shins until he cried for mercy. The big oaf really truly thought she was a helpless, harmless twit of a female. Had he absolutely no notion of what she was, of what she could do?
He did not. He was much too practical to understand. Resignedly, she pulled from his grasp, turned, and met his gaze directly. The challenge had been thrown, and she could scarce back down now. “I have already removed Lady Twane from harm. If I can persuade Lord Twane to drop his ridiculous suit, will you let me return to Wystan?”
“I don’t want you anywhere near the man,” Drogo warned. “He’s violent.”
“If I don’t go anywhere near Lord Twane and he drops the suit, will you take me to Wystan then?” she amended.
“Wystan is too far and the roads too unpredictable this time of year. We’ll visit Dunstan at Ives if Twane drops his suit,” he promised. “We always gather there for the holidays.”
That wasn’t what she wanted to hear. She had never learned defiance. She had, however, learned to go her own way. Deliberately dimpling and dropping a reassuring curtsy, she made her last offer. “Lord Twane shall not only drop his suit, he shall apologize in public, and I will be in Wystan for the holiday. You and your family are most welcome to join me.”
She swept out, leaving Drogo openmouthed and staring. A lunatic, he told himself. She twisted logic willfully to her own devices. No woman could wish to jeopardize a child she so plainly wanted by taking the abominable roads of the north at this time of year. And she certainly couldn’t manipulate a madman like Twane to her will.
She’d already heard about the suit and deftly removed Twane’s goal in filing it, a small voice in his head warned, and she hadn’t once consulted him.
Maybe, just maybe, she was a little more than the rural midwife she seemed.
But she was still a woman, wit
h all the weaknesses of her sex.
He’d fight his own battles, thank you very much.
Twenty-four
Shoving his hands in his breeches pockets, Drogo watched the activities in the kitchen garden from an upper-story window. Four strong men were carrying a potted tree into his backyard. An oak, if he was not mistaken.
Rowan bushes had appeared on his front step just yesterday.
He hadn’t complained when his dilapidated hall table disappeared and a housekeeper took his hat instead. He’d growled slightly over the bills for new parlor furniture, but he had to admit the sunny yellow and blue silks of the new upholstery and draperies were a vast improvement over the funereal dark woods and torn leather of earlier. He’d even become resigned to ferns tickling his nose in every window and secretly enjoyed the herbal scents arising from various and assorted pots on his windowsills.
But he had good reason to be wary of potted oaks and rowans.
He watched as his nicely rounded wife dimpled and charmed the workmen into placing the container where she directed. Even well into her sixth month of pregnancy, she could make grown men stutter and fawn at her feet. He had thought he’d taken a biddable, quiet country bride to wife, not a temptress who could charm the devil out of hell.
That was unfair and spoken through his raging lust to have her in his bed again. Ninian deliberately charmed no man, not even him. She had his brothers running circles to do her bidding, but they each treated her with the respect due an unattainable goddess.
Drogo glanced up as Joseph joined him. Somehow, Ninian had persuaded Paul and David back to school, but Joseph had diligently applied himself to his apprenticeship. He had his own room near the courts, but he seemed to be here as much as there, drawn like a moth to Ninian’s flame, Drogo suspected.
“She’s creating a circle,” Joseph nonchalantly pointed out, stuffing his hands in his pockets as Drogo did and nodding toward the window.
“She doesn’t have enough trees.” Drogo returned to gazing at the scene below. The lawn did seem to have taken on a circular shape. Bushes and flowers cascaded over each other in all four corners, leaving a round patch of grass in the center.
“The tree represents power.” Joseph shrugged diffidently at Drogo’s sharp look. “That’s what Lucinda says.” At his brother’s uplifted eyebrows, he looked resigned. “We correspond. She knows a lot about drawing, and I want to learn.”
Drogo uttered a colorful expletive and glared at the garden again. “They’ll have you believing in witches too.”
“Not witches,” Joseph replied thoughtfully. “But there’s a great deal we don’t know about the earth’s power. We don’t know what causes lightning or how the stars are made or why it rains. Perhaps Ninian’s family knows things we should learn more about.”
“They believe they’re witches and we’re devils. They believe in talking to ghosts. They worship trees, for pity’s sake! What can they possibly teach us?”
Joseph remained silent for several minutes before formulating a reply. “How to live peacefully with each other and with our surroundings?”
Drogo wanted to laugh, but he couldn’t scoff aloud at this most gentle of his brothers. Besides, Joseph had a point. A small one, perhaps, but not one deserving derision. “I’ll never understand how women think,” he finally offered.
“Why bother when we can enjoy the results?” Joseph answered cheerfully. “You’ve given her a house and a family, and she’s feathering her nest. Each to his own.”
That was all very well and good, Drogo thought, if he didn’t know Sarah was the one feathering the nest while Ninian…
Ninian stirred the air like a fresh spring breeze. She smiled, and grown men fell to their knees. She whispered sweet words over a child’s fevered brow, and they healed. She laughed at his cantankerous brothers, and they metamorphosed into tame pets. She swept him a sidelong glance, and he drooled.
Ninian need only exist, and the world rearranged itself around her. If he didn’t bed her soon, she really would have him believing her a witch. He just needed some release from this constant state of arousal to clear his head.
He didn’t know if it was safe to make love to a woman heavy with child. He should ask one of his brothers what they did when their mistresses swelled with their brats.
Ninian would know.
“The duchess asked me to design a folly for their estate in Kent. I thought I’d take advantage of the break in sessions to visit the site.”
Drogo felt his grip slipping. This was Ninian’s fault.
“I thought your mother was returning for the holidays.” He tried to remain impassive. Joseph had just turned twenty-one. He had no power over him.
“She does not object if we consort with dukes.” Cynicism marred Joseph’s cool response.
“She knows you are at a social disadvantage and doesn’t wish to stand in your way.” Drogo could blame his stepmother for many things, but he had always understood Ann’s need to protect her children. He just thought her methods a trifle cruel and more than a little shallow. “You are welcome to join us at the estate, you know that.”
With the tree centered in the circle, the workmen departed. As they watched, Ninian waved to the children who had gathered on the lawn. Laughing, they circled the tree with her, skipping and singing and clumsily holding hands.
Children? Where the devil had she found that many children?
“You know Dunstan’s wife wishes us to the devil,” Joseph replied to his invitation to the Ives estate. “If you do not mind, I would prefer Kent and Lucinda’s drawing lessons.”
Ninian had usurped his control, undermined his authority, and now everything was falling apart right before his eyes.
He had to put a stop to this before the family he’d fought so hard to keep together blew apart like so much dust in the wind.
***
The autumn equinox had passed, and Samhain, or All Hallow’s Eve, was almost upon them. She could ask the spirits for aid. She’d never been successful at summoning spirits, but Aunt Stella had promised to help. Ninian hoped that what she could not do with her own weak gift, a concerted effort of Malcolms could accomplish. Her marriage might depend on it.
She smiled as Drogo stormed out to join them.
Whispering to the nearest child, she sent them tumbling and laughing into the house for cake and milk. The nursery should be ready for the birthday party Sarah was preparing for her youngest. Happily occupied with her children, Sarah had lost some of her propensity for mischief.
Ninian tried her blandest smile as Drogo sidestepped the running children as if they were dangerous serpents. If he disliked her tree so much, he would really be in a pet at the stones her great-aunt in Ireland had shipped to London.
“Joseph won’t be joining us for the holidays,” he announced flatly, glaring at her. “I suppose you’ve made other arrangements for David and Paul as well?”
“I’ve invited them to Wystan,” she said complacently, folding her hands over her distended belly and admiring the canopy of bare branches over her head. “I think they should like it very much. We sometimes get snow.”
“Don’t be ridiculous! Wystan is entirely too far. They can’t travel those roads in winter, any more than we can. Ninian, I am not being stubborn about this, merely practical. I’m protecting…”
“…the world, I know, dear.” Ninian smiled sunnily up at him, read the bafflement replacing his anger, and patted his arm. A coughing bout struck her before she could finish the argument. The cough was worsening. She had to return to Wystan soon.
“You shouldn’t be out here dancing like a lunatic,” he grumbled, catching her in his arms and leading her back to the house. “Why don’t I have Dunstan come fetch you and take you to Ives early? You’ll feel better there, out of the city.”
Undoubtedly she would, but Ives wasn’t Wystan, and s
he clung steadfastly to her grandmother’s teachings. Without them, she would be nothing and no one, and she would not be reduced to the helplessness of a child again. She had to believe what she was doing was right, at whatever cost, or she would turn into her mother.
She let Drogo assist her to a couch in the parlor overlooking the garden. He summoned a maid to fetch the tea she’d taught Cook to brew. She could soothe the coughing with herbs. She wished she could gain confidence the same way. Each day in Drogo’s more refined and cultured world sapped a little more of her belief in herself.
“I will send for a physician,” Drogo said worriedly, pacing the carpet.
Ninian leaned against the pillows on the couch and concentrated on catching her breath. She shook her head at the suggestion. “No,” she gasped.
“I cannot bear to see you ill like this!” He clenched his hands into fists and glared down at her as if he could scare the cough away.
Ninian smiled at the fierceness of his scowl. Drogo in a rage would be a fearsome sight indeed. Just his scowl brought his black brows down to meet his nose, and his dark eyes snapped with the unbridled passion he hid elsewise. Tension drew his jaw muscles taut, and his mouth into a dangerously flat line. Only the sensual fullness of his upper lip betrayed his true nature. She longed to taste his kisses again.
He must have caught the direction of her stare. His fists unclenched, and he drew a shaky hand over his hair, tugging it back in place. “You’ll drive me mad,” he complained, drawing up a chair to sit beside her.
“Sorry,” she apologized between coughs.
The maid hurried in with the tea, and Drogo cut and squeezed the lemon he’d ordered delivered from a friend’s orangerie. He’d learned to mix the lemon and tea the way she liked it, and Ninian sipped it gratefully.
“There is a purpose to the tree?” he asked conversationally as she sipped.
She knew what he was doing. An excess of emotion aggravated her coughing spells. He was attempting to calm her. Drogo was very, very good at settling her emotional weather vane, even amid London’s turmoil.
Merely Magic Page 22
