by Lois Greiman
The image was clear in her mind. The child had a chubby fist wrapped in her gown and was leaning back, laughing as they twirled about. His hair was chestnut hued, but his eyes were the dark, entrancing magic of Drake’s.
“With me you will become even more powerful,” Grey said.
She stowed the image jealously away, for Drake and his child were indeed what she wanted. What she had wanted all along. “Stealing trinkets from old men on Bond Street?” she asked.
“Sarah was a weakling,” he said. “She was capable of no more. But with you…” He shook his head. “Who knows what powers we can defeat?” His voice rose dramatically. “What principalities we can tumble.”
“None,” she said, tone as steady as the floor beneath her bare feet. “Not if you harm him.”
But Grey only smiled.
“We shall see,” he said, and aimed.
Ella cast her spell quickly, but fatigue made it weak. Terror made it unsteady. Still, the force of it knocked Grey sideways. But he found his balance and raised the gun. It was then that Drake attacked, spurting across the room to strike Grey in the chest with his shoulder. They crashed to the floor.
The pistol roared like a cannon. Drake jerked. Blood flowed between them.
Ella screamed, frozen in horror. But Drake was still alive, still coherent, gripping the gun in both hands.
The two struggled madly for it, writhing on the floor, the pistol frozen between them, but finally it moved, grinding inexorably toward Grey’s head until it was pressed against his ear.
“For the women I love,” Drake gritted, and pulled the trigger.
The gun bellowed. Grey jerked. His eyes went wide, and then he lay still, staring at the ceiling in horror and disbelief.
“Drake!” Ella scrambled to him, turned him onto his back. “Drake.” His eyes were closed, his body limp. “No! No.” She bent over him, kneeling. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Not you!” She rocked back and forth, aching, crying. “Not Sarah. Please. God please.”
“You’re a witch,” he whispered.
She gasped, jerked her gaze to his face. His eyes were open, his expression placid.
“You’re alive,” she rasped.
He didn’t bother to agree. “You’re a witch,” he repeated.
“Just lie still. I’ll fetch help.” She lifted his head to scoot out from underneath, but he caught her hand.
“As was my sister.”
“Drake.” Guilt and shame and terror seared her, burned her like a fire. “Please, let me get a doctor to—”
“When you tell me the truth.”
She caught his gaze, held it, forced herself to accept, to admit. “Yes,” she said.
He nodded, considered, blew out a breath. “I’ll not see a doctor,” he said.
“But…You promised.”
“I lied,” he said, and grimacing, pushed his hand beneath his coat to pull out her fat compilation of poems. A bullet had furrowed a diagonal path through the pages and become lodged in the back cover. A trace of blood was smeared across the spine. “I meant to return this.”
“Keep it,” she said, and kissed him.
Chapter 25
Their marriage was a private ceremony held in the untamed gardens of Lavender House. It was attended by witches and friends and one rather ponderous miller’s son, who happened, by wildest coincidence, to be the estate’s new gardener. Madeline came alone, seeming quiet and reserved. For reasons unexplained, she had left the coven and Jasper Reeves’s dubious protection, but Ella put Reeves’s strange behavior and her sister’s unusual melancholy out of her mind. Maddy was safe. Drake was whole, and she was completely and desperately in love.
Two months later little had changed.
Ella sat in bed at Berryhill with Drake’s head cradled on her lap.
“Can I assume you’ve gotten over your infatuation with the miller’s son?” he asked.
She smiled and swept the dark hair back from his forehead. Was it as noble and handsome as it seemed, or was she, after all, entranced? “I don’t think it would be very considerate of me to disregard him out of hand merely because he’s a few pounds overweight.”
“Pounds?” Drake questioned.
“Stones,” she corrected, and winced a little at the memory. Perhaps she should have chosen another if she had hoped to make Drake jealous. “Not to mention the lacking teeth.”
He watched her, expression somber.
“The baldness. The height.” She sighed. “Or lack thereof.”
“You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” he said.
She raised a brow and traced a forefinger along his jaw. “Tell me, sir, have you always been cursed with such poor eyesight?”
His dark eyes shone in the firelight. “I believe, in fact, that I was entirely blind until the moment I saw you across Miss Anglican’s dance floor.”
She watched him, memorizing every detail of his face. “I should have known you at the outset,” she said. “You have Sarah in your eyes. But I couldn’t seem to see it. Tell me, sir, have you always been so gifted that you could turn aside others’ magic?”
“Sarah was the special one. I was not gifted,” he said. “Not until you.” Lifting her hand, he kissed her knuckles. “I am sorry I lied. Sorry I wasn’t here to protect her, to—” he began, but she shushed him.
“Your duty was elsewhere.”
“I wish it were as simple as that,” he said. “I wish I had felt some sort of loyalty to king and country. But the truth is—”
“You resented her.” She tilted her head, willing away his pain. “Resented her pampered life, your father’s love, while you were wounded in a seemingly hopeless war.”
His dark brows lowered. She skimmed her newly ringed finger along a furrow.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, and she smiled.
“She forgave you.”
His gaze bored into hers. “How do you know?”
“Because I am a witch,” she said, and smiled again. “But mostly because I was her friend. She loved you. Bore no ill will. Or she would not have sent you the potion.”
“Which saved my life.”
“While you saved my soul. I love you,” she said.
The glimmer of a smile lifted his lips. He was naked. The tail end of a sheet trailed lazily across one lean hip, hiding his damaged thigh, but baring his scars.
“And I you,” he said.
Leaning down, she kissed him. “I can tell.”
He slipped his hand behind her neck. “Can you?”
“Why else would you give me such a wonderful gift?”
He canted his head, studying her. Truth to tell, he wasn’t the romantic sort. Not the kind to shower her with gifts. Oh, he’d bought her riding gloves of kid leather a few days past as well as the dressing gown that she still half wore. And just yesterday he’d found a book of poetry by Jane Winscom. It lay open beside the bed, but truth to tell, it was more beneficial for him than her. She seemed to find elegies strangely erotic.
“What gift is that?” he asked.
She smiled again, secret and happy, and skimmed her hand over the gauzy fabric beneath his head.
“The gown is hardly new. I bought that—” he began, and froze. The world limped along. He sat up slowly, carefully, never losing eye contact. Bracing on one arm upon the mattress, he leaned across her body and stared into her eyes.
“Ella—” he began, but words failed him.
Nevertheless, she answered. “Yes,” she said.
“Are you—”
“Yes.”
“The doctor said I would not—”
“The doctor was wrong…again.”
“But how—”
“The usual manner, I believe.”
He felt breathless, lost, thrilled beyond words. New life, new hope, new chances to make things right, to start fresh, to love. Reaching out, he skimmed his hand behind her neck and caught her gaze. “It’s not the miller’s son’s, is it?” he asked.
About the Author
LOIS GREIMAN is the award-winning author of more than sixteen novels, including romantic comedy, historical romance, and mystery. She lives in Minnesota with her family and an ever-increasing number of horses.
You may write to her at: Lois Greiman, PO Box 16, Rogers, MN 55374 or visit her online at www.loisgreiman.com.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
By Lois Greiman
UNDER YOUR SPELL
BEWITCHING THE HIGHLANDER
TEMPTING THE WOLF
TAMING THE BARBARIAN
SEDUCING A PRINCESS
THE PRINCESS MASQUERADE
THE PRINCESS AND HER PIRATE
THE WARRIOR BRIDE
THE MACGOWAN BETROTHAL
THE FRASER BRIDE
HIGHLAND HAWK
HIGHLAND ENCHANTMENT
HIGHLAND SCOUNDREL
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THE WICKED WAYS OF A DUKE by Laura Lee Gurhke
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Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
UNDER YOUR SPELL. Copyright © 2008 by Lois Greiman. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Microsoft Reader April 2008 ISBN 978-0-06-165215-8
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