Midnight Magic

by Shari Anton

  But ’twas very possible Father had told Madog about the legacy, perhaps given him the choice of whether or not to accept the obligation.

  She’d rarely given the man’s involvement a thought, had always assumed that when the time came, her father would give her husband-to-be the ring and explain the weighty duty as, perhaps, her mother’s father had explained the duty to Hugh de Leon.

  With both parents now gone and beyond advising a confused daughter, Gwendolyn had only one person with whom to share her concerns—the man who wore the ring.

  Alberic.

  Was it best to tell him of the legacy before the wedding or wait until after? Did the timing truly matter? The ring held tight to Alberic’s finger. He was now as involved in this legacy as she, whether he wanted to be or not.

  The meal was finished, the people leaving to return to their homes. Emma and Nicole stood by the door, accepting good wishes and issuing fare-thee-wells, so they would be occupied for some time. She could take Alberic upstairs and not worry about interruption.

  Gwendolyn shoved her concerns aside and gathered up her courage.

  “Finished with your wine?” she asked Alberic.

  “Aye. Want more?”

  Wine did not make for a clear head, which she needed to do what she was about to do.

  “Nay. If you have the time now, I have something I would like to show you. Upstairs. In my bedchamber.”

  His slow, sensuous smile told her where his thoughts wandered, igniting her own imaginings, which lit the now familiar yearning deep in her woman’s places.

  ’Twas disconcerting to note that when it came to the physical aspects of their marriage, she would be an eager and curious participant.

  Unfortunately, Alberic’s ardor might cool completely when she told him why he couldn’t remove the ring from his hand.

  Chapter Nine

  FOLLOWING GWENDOLYN up the narrow, winding stairway, Alberic managed to keep his hands to himself, even though the sway of her lovely backside tempted him nigh beyond endurance to touch the supple curves.

  He knew damn well the invitation to her bedchamber didn’t include bed sport. Whatever she intended to show him wouldn’t involve glimpsing some portion of her uncovered body.

  Still, a man was entitled to a fantasy or two, especially when the woman whose sweet scent he breathed in with each inhale would soon be his for the taking. In a mere two nights he could touch whatever part of Gwendolyn he wished whenever he wanted.

  True, he possessed that right now, as her lord and betrothed, but prudence warned him to wait for full intimacy until after vows bound them. He’d never been a man of uncontrolled passions, and given Gwendolyn’s reluctance to become his wife, much less his lover, his control might be the key to unlocking Gwendolyn’s surrender.

  A challenge to be sure. One he intended to meet head-on, armed with gentle touches and rousing kisses. And win.

  Alberic bolted the door to the one chamber in the castle he’d not yet ventured into. Sunlight streamed in from a tall, narrow window overlooking the bailey, lighting up a small table holding combs, ribbons, jars, and tiny bottles sparkling with variously colored liquids.

  Four trunks lined the far wall. Several cloaks hung on the pegs beside the door. He was just beginning to inspect the bed when a tapping noise drew his attention to the hearth where Gwendolyn knelt off to one side. Tapping on one of the bricks?

  “What are you doing?”

  “Sit, if you like,” she said absently. “This may take a few moments.”

  He glanced at the single chair across the room, then took the offered seat on the bed he knew Gwendolyn shared with Emma.

  For one more night Gwendolyn would sleep next to her sister under the green velvet coverlet. On the night after, she would share his bed.

  On the night after that?

  With her sisters gone, would she then occupy this room alone, following the practice of most noblewomen to sleep in a chamber separate from their lords’? He supposed she might, and like many a nobleman before him, he would be forced to visit his wife’s bed, or arrange for her to visit his, when he desired intimate company.

  Which seemed a waste of time and effort, but to maintain marital tranquillity, he supposed the decision must be Gwendolyn’s. Alberic smiled to himself, considering which methods might sway her thoughts on the matter, those lusty images stirring his loins and urging him to begin his campaign now.

  Finally, she wiggled the brick out of place and set it down next to her. Then she reached into the hole and pulled out a long, narrow sack of black velvet with a short length of silver cord wrapped around the top to secure the opening.

  Valuables? Jewels, perhaps? Whatever the sack contained must be a treasure of some sort to warrant such a hiding place. He took it as a measure of her trust that she allowed him to witness the hiding place’s unveiling.

  Then Gwendolyn came toward him and his thoughts again wandered to an unveiling of a different sort, and the treasure he was sure to find hidden beneath layers of silk and linen. She halted abruptly, the rosiness on her cheeks revealing her awareness of his desire.

  He willed her to join him on the bed. She retreated to the table where she put down the sack.

  Disappointed, his male parts aching, he rose from the bed and crossed to the table, where she unwound the cord from the sack.

  “What I am about to show you few men have ever seen. My father was the last. My mother’s father before him. I must ask for your oath of secrecy before I open it.”

  “You have my oath.”

  She nodded acceptance, and again he felt privileged.

  “I know why you cannot get the ring off,” she said, catching him completely off guard. What the devil did her treasure have to do with his ring?

  Thoroughly confused, he shrugged a shoulder. “The ring will not come off my finger because the skin bunches at my knuckle too much for the ring to slide off.”

  “You tried several methods to aid its removal. Do you not believe one of them should have worked?”

  “Aye, but they did not. I have decided it does not matter.” He pointed at the sack. “What does my ring have to do with your treasure?”

  “Everything. When King Stephen gave you the ring, did he tell you its history?”

  Realizing she wasn’t about to reveal the sack’s contents until he answered her questions, he gathered up his patience and recalled the day at Wallingford when his life changed in startling fashion.

  “He told me your father called the ring the seal of the dragon, and that he wore it in honor of his Welsh princess, your mother.”

  “Nothing else? Either of the ring or of my mother?”

  One other thing that had surprised him. “He said your mother came from the line of Pendragon. Did she?”

  “So the tale goes.”

  Gwendolyn opened the sack from which she pulled a long, delicate gold chain. Fastened to it was a bold, stunning pendant—a trefoil fashioned of gleaming gold. The pendant caught the light coming through the window and spun rainbows to dancing through the chamber. A delightful spectacle.

  “The ring you wear has belonged to several men before you,” she said, drawing his attention away from dancing rainbows. “All were married to women in my mother’s line. Always the couple married for love. You and I may be the first pairing in the history of these artifacts not to do so, and that concerns me greatly.”

  Alberic scoffed at the notion. “All of them? I find that impossible to believe. Noble pairings are made for reasons other than mere affection.”

  “I know. But my parents, a Norman baron and a Welsh princess, were allowed to marry because of their affection for each other. And my mother’s parents were said to share a great love. I believe if I were to ask anyone who knows the old stories of my family, they would say my grandmother’s parents were heart-bound, as well. The pendant has been passed from mother to daughter, and the ring to their husbands. The legacy binds us all.”

  He meant to argue furt
her about her notion of generations full of love-bound couples. That Hugh had gained protection from Welsh raids would be among the worthiest of reasons for him to marry Lydia. He should correct Gwendolyn’s naïveté, but this legacy business poked sharply at his curiosity.

  “What legacy?”

  Gwendolyn put down the pendant and drew a parchment scroll tied with bloodred ribbon from the sack.

  “This one,” she said, holding it out.

  He dismissed a small shiver of apprehension as foolish. Gwendolyn might have demanded an oath of secrecy and woven a web of mystery around the pendant and scroll, but certes, there was naught to fear.

  He untied the ribbon and unrolled the parchment. “This is written in Welsh. I cannot read it.”

  “It is written in ancient Welsh. I cannot read more than a few phrases, either.”

  “Then how do you know what it says?”

  “From what my parents told me.”

  Becoming impatient and still pointlessly nervous, he wondered at Gwendolyn’s reasons for bringing him up to her bedchamber to look at a scroll neither of them could read. Unless . . . mon Dieu . . . she implied that because of something written on this scroll, she couldn’t marry a man she did not love. If she schemed to change his mind on his choice of wife, then the scheme fell short of its goal.

  Or perhaps her attempt to escape last night was still too fresh and worrisome, causing his musings to run amuck. Best he knew what her parents said the scroll proclaimed, the better to prepare . . . for what he must prepare, he had yet to learn.

  He sat in the room’s lone chair and put the parchment on the table next to the pendant.

  “Go on.”

  Gwendolyn’s visage darkened. “When my mother realized her life was coming to an end, she had to pass on the artifacts to one of her daughters. Nicole was a newborn babe. For some reason Mother chose me over Emma. She told me of the legacy, and of the need to keep the artifacts hidden away until such time as I must wear the pendant.”

  He could think of only one reason why she’d pulled the pendant out tonight. “So on our wedding day you will wear the pendant?”

  “Oh, no. My mother never wore it, so I do not think I may wear the pendant unless we are invoking the spell.”

  Spell? We? Every fiber of his being tingled in warning. Spells. Magic. Witchcraft. He might believe them nonsense, but the mere thought that one could invoke mystical powers sent his senses shivering. To hear Gwendolyn speak as though the two of them could somehow invoke those powers . . . impossible.

  And yet, the woman was utterly serious.

  “What spell?”

  “To summon King Arthur from Avalon.”

  Stunned, he surmised either Gwendolyn had gone witless or his hearing had gone weak. “Summon King Arthur?”

  With the same conviction she’d shown all along, she went on. “This scroll was prepared by Merlin the Sorcerer, and given into the keeping of a Welsh princess, a niece of Arthur Pendragon. You have heard the tale of how Merlin predicted that at England’s time of most dire need, King Arthur will return?” She waved at the scroll. “These are Merlin’s instructions on how the woman who possesses the pendant and the wearer of the ring are to summon King Arthur.”

  Gwendolyn possessed the pendant. The ring he couldn’t remove from his finger suddenly felt heavy on his hand.

  Nonsense. All of it. Insufferable nonsense.

  “Gwen, do you truly believe what you have told me?”

  “Yes, with all of my heart.”

  Likely because she received the artifacts from a mother who lay dying and Gwendolyn, a mere child, had been both impressionable and vulnerable. Gwendolyn wanted to believe the ridiculous tale because not to believe meant her mother had lied to her. Lady Lydia had done Gwendolyn a grave disservice for reasons known only to the dead woman.

  Alberic strove to be gentle. “Gwendolyn, this cannot be possible. One cannot recall the dead.”

  “King Arthur is not dead. He resides in Avalon and awaits a summons.”

  Alberic tried to remember everything he’d heard of King Arthur’s last battle, fought against his son, Mordred. Of Arthur’s wounding, mortally wounded if he remembered the tale aright. He’d been carried off to Avalon by . . . someone. True, Merlin was supposed to have prophesied that Arthur would someday return, but sweet Jesu, even if Arthur had lived, he would be hundreds of years old by now.

  Spell or no, prophecy or no, King Arthur wasn’t coming back to England. Ever.

  “I beg pardon, but I simply do not believe in sorcery.”

  “But you are part of this whether you believe or no,” she said earnestly. “You have no choice. You wear the ring.”

  He looked down at the seal of the dragon, the gold claws grasping the onyx stone topped by a garnet.

  “’Tis merely a ring. No more.”

  “Is it? My father wore the ring. He could not take it off, either, until after my mother’s death. I suspect you will not be able to take it off until my death.”

  That absurd speculation brought him to his feet. He knew better than to try to remove the ring to prove her wrong, but somehow he must force Gwendolyn to see sense, or to at least have doubts.

  Mon dieu, if word of her unnatural beliefs spread, people would think she had lost her wits or, worse, accuse her of practicing witchcraft.

  “Let us say what you believe is true. If you cannot read the scroll to discern the spell, then what good is it?”

  “I believe Rhys can read it.”

  “The bard?”

  “How many English castles boast a resident Welsh bard?”

  “None that I know of, but—”

  “Rhys arrived in Camelen shortly after my mother came here as a bride. The bards know all of the ancient tales, both the ones they sing and, in this case I suspect, those they keep secret. If anyone can read the ancient language, it would be a bard.”

  “Have you shown it to him?”

  “Nay. I do not believe Mother did, either. She just accepted his presence as an assurance of aid should it be needed.”

  “Then perhaps we should show this to Rhys, have him read what it says.” And thus prove to Gwendolyn that her belief lacked merit.

  She shook her head. “Not unless absolutely necessary, and ’tisn’t necessary unless we decide the time is right to summon King Arthur.” She pointed to words on the parchment. “Of the few phrases that seem familiar, I am certain the summoners must be of faithful hearts”—she moved her finger—“and their purpose honorable.”

  An honorable purpose spoke for itself. The spell wasn’t to be cast for personal gain. Faithful hearts? Gwendolyn interpreted the phrase as a couple in love.

  “So you are concerned that even if we did decide to summon King Arthur, the spell would not work because we do not marry for love, as did your parents and grandparents.”

  “I am not sure.”

  Alberic’s patience came to an end. No matter which argument he presented, he’d not budged Gwendolyn’s belief.

  He put his hands on her shoulders, stared hard into her wide brown eyes. “Gwendolyn, maybe you believe this tale, and perhaps your mother and her mother before her believed it, but have you ever seen anyone perform magic? Have you ever heard of someone reciting a spell that worked?”

  “Can you remove the ring?”

  He’d tried soap and water, and goose grease, which hadn’t worked. But there must be a way to ease the ring over his knuckle. All he had to do was find it, believing the ring’s removal the only way to disabuse Gwendolyn of this absurdity.

  “I do not for a moment believe an ancient sorcerer uttered some spell that fastens it to my hand. Put the scroll and pendant back in their hiding place and tell no one else of this foolishness.”

  She pursed her lips. Was she about to argue?

  “Gwendolyn, there is no such thing as magic. Never was, never will be. And if there were a way to summon King Arthur from Avalon, do you not think someone would have done so long before now? England
has suffered other periods of strife.”

  “Perhaps.”

  He settled for the small concession. “Now, I must go down to see if Roger has brought our rogue archer inside. Will you be all right?”

  “Of course.”

  She wasn’t, not yet, her upset visible in the set of her jaw. But surely, eventually, Gwendolyn would come to see sense. ’Twould help greatly when he removed the ring.

  The following morning, a seamstress pinned up the hem of the surcoat Gwendolyn had never planned to wear. She liked neither the color nor the cut, but wear it she would on the morrow. At her wedding.

  The distressing thought begged distraction.

  Careful to keep her body still, Gwendolyn glanced over at Emma, who smoothed a chemise into her trunk, readying it for the journey to London. As was Emma’s way, she’d piled all of her belongings on the bed and now sought to pack each item in the neatest, most efficient arrangement.

  ’Twould take her hours, keep her hands busy, and her thoughts ordered and calm.

  Gwendolyn’s feet itched to move, and she was far from tranquil. Yesterday’s calamity lurked at the edge of her thoughts, and no matter how hard she tried to push them away, they intruded unmercifully.

  She would have been better served to shed her garments and join Alberic on the bed. The invitation in his eyes had been unmistakable, and she’d definitely suffered temptation. Her curiosity over coupling with Alberic had swollen her nipples to hard nubs and caused her heart to race. Even now her body stirred, the yearning painfully centered in her most private woman’s places.

  But she’d resisted, admonishing herself for her physical weakness where he was concerned and believing she served a higher purpose by telling him of the legacy.

  How wrong she’d been. His disbelief had left her reeling, torn between horror and fury.

  She’d put the horror to rest, at least. Alberic had adamantly warned her to tell no one of her “foolishness,” so she highly doubted he would spread the tale.

  Fury at his utter refusal to consider the legacy legitimate had lessened to anger, and finally, in the hours since dawn, to resignation. Alberic didn’t believe in sorcery. He spurned the possibility of magic. Clung fiercely to the belief that the ring held tight to his finger because the skin bunched at his knuckle, preventing it from sliding off.