Drew Tea? Angelique glanced at the mantel clock in stunned surprise. It was indeed late in the afternoon. Chagrin at the decadence melted into wry amusement as she stretched slowly. She luxuriated in the sweet ache of her body, remembering it was truly a testament to a decadent sort of night — a night of purely mortal magick and love.
Smiling, Angelique reached for her mother's letter.
Angelique was shaking as she bent over the fountain's edge. The words of the reflection spell lingered in the air. At the sound of footsteps, she turned. With a broken sob, Angelique held up the letter from Aloysius' household. "When did this arrive?"
"The caravan returned just before the fete last night," Drew replied, gently taking the paper from Angelique. She concentrated on the letter, reading the lingering signature of time on it. "It arrived yesterday."
"My mother is dying," Angelique cried. "What time is it in the outside world?" Angelique pressed anxiously. "How much time has passed already?"
"You could not find her with the water spell," Drew said, guiding Angelique back to the fountain.
"I couldn't concentrate well enough," Angelique admitted.
"I will find her for you." Drew's arms encircled Angelique from behind. "Stay very still and you will see what I see."
Drew spoke a few soft words and moved her hands, palms downward, over the water. The trickling of the fountain stopped. The glassy surface stilled and became mirrored silver. Smoke swirled in the glittering depths. Then images emerged in hazy, indistinct patterns, and slowly Angelique recognized her mother's room.
"This place is warded against my visions." Drew’s confused murmur was nearly inaudible. "That is strange indeed."
"There is Mama," Angelique whispered.
"She lives. See the woman who is moving away to sit? She is the nurse."
"Yes. I see her. I see no death candles nor coins."
"No candles," Drew agreed, but the mists swirled too thickly to show coins if they had been laid to the woman’s eyelids. "Let us try another room."
But the mists became thicker as they moved from room to darkened room.
"Is it night there, do you think?" Angelique breathed, praying that was the cause of such stillness.
"Yes," Drew replied.
The images shifted to another room, and Angelique recognized Aloysius' chamber. It had been so grandly decorated with Drew's own gifts that she barely recognized it.
"He should not have kept my things if he did not want me to reach him," Drew observed. "See how clearly they cast light for our seeing."
"But he is still barely visible."
"I should have sent him a four-poster and canopy." There was, however, no humor in the calm voice.
"Is there another with him?"
"Has he a mistress?" Drew asked.
The thought startled her. Wryly, Angelique remembered Aloysius' mistrust of women and his lust for gold. "Only his money, I would think." The mists grew blacker and it became difficult to discern anything in the dusky light. The picture shifted and they were outside of the house now. The moon glittered, nearly full. Clouds moved in pale blue streaks across the starry sky.
"See, it is night, not death."
It was reassuring to know that was true. Then it seemed as if a rain began. Muddy waters shimmered across wet cobblestones. Droplets fell. The scene rippled as if it were a reflection disturbed in a rain puddle and, gradually, the images melted away.
Angelique blinked. She glanced up as the pitter-patter of the rain continued. Surprised, she noted the fountain had begun again. She realized abruptly there was no rain after all.
Drew shifted, began to move away, but Angelique grasped Drew's hands and pulled them tight around her. It was then she felt the trembling in the tall form that leaned against her, almost needing her support.
"Are you all right?" Angelique prompted softly. She was afraid to turn around, least she set the other off balance. The head beside her own nodded wearily, and she kissed the soft cheek.
Drew straightened stiffly, blinking as if returning from a dream. Angelique did turn then, her hands rubbing warmth and strength back into those cold arms. A faintly derisive laugh met Angelique's worried gaze as Drew admitted, "It would have been easier to send someone to investigate than to stand here and search through those mists."
Relieved that Drew's dry humor had returned, Angelique smiled. "You couldn't know the place would be warded against you."
"Not all of it is," Drew amended. A dark frown furrowed her brow. "Just Aloysius and some of the rooms. Those things are hidden by some sort of talisman made specifically to hide certain images from me."
"That was the black smoke?"
"Yes."
Angelique shivered though the sun was warm.
"He cannot harm you here," Drew reminded her. The soft timbre of her voice chilled as she added, "I will never allow him to harm you again." Angelique nodded, her face against Drew’s chest. She didn't speak for a long moment, prompting Drew to ask, "There is something more?"
Angelique pulled away a little. She looked up into Drew's face, her eyes pleading for understanding. "My mother is dying, Drew. My brothers write that she asks for me. I want to see her. I need to go back."
Drew collapsed as if she had been struck. Her face crumpled, her shoulders dipped and her hands fell; a bleakness more terrible than the haunted hollowness had ever been seemed to wash suddenly into her dark eyes.
"Drew!" Angelique sobbed as her fingers clenched at the other's sleeve. Drew pulled. "Please, Drew! Please try to understand. She's my mother! She's dying. I must see her. I can't let her die in that house — not in his house! I have to be there for her. I need to be there!"
Culdun appeared suddenly at the edge of the gardens, his expression puzzled. "You called, my Liege?"
"Angelique wishes to return home, Culdun. See to it at once."
The Old One rocked back as if struck.
"Only for a short while!" Angelique cried. "I will come back to you, Drew. You may ask anything of me but don't ask me not to do this. Don't make me choose! I love you! How many times must I say it? How many ways must I prove it? I'll do anything to stay with you! But please, Drew..." Her voice broke, faltering to a whisper. "I beg of you. Just see this for what it is. It is not a betrayal of you. Without her, I would not be here to love you at all —"
Something flickered across Drew's stricken face. "You would promise to return to me?"
"Yes!" Angelique cried. She stepped in front of Drew and took the other woman's hands, realizing that Drew had heard little of the truth, but had thought instead that Angelique meant to leave for good. She squeezed Drew's hands and, fastening her gaze onto the other's dark eyes said, "Feel me, Drew! I am your love. I belong to you. You cannot cast me aside so easily. We are bound by our hearts, our bodies, our spirits. If you remember nothing of last night, remember that at least."
Drew’s eyes flashed as if she did not believe Angelique’s words. In a voice that rang with challenge, she said, "Then you will marry me."
Quietly, Angelique opened a hand and uttered her spell. The silver rose appeared on her palm. She offered Drew the token, her voice steady and firm. "I will marry you."
There was a pause, until Drew lifted the rose from Angelique's palm. She took a step away, turning the token over and over. When she turned back, she said, "You said I can ask anything of you?"
Angelique stiffened, but she nodded.
"I ask that you return in two weeks time."
Angelique's stomach quivered at the brief span allotted. Death was not always a predictable occurrence.
"If you do not," the voice grew hushed, "my magick may not be able to reach you to bring you back at all."
"Remember, this valley shifts in time," Culdun said softly. He stood quite near her now, and he met her searching gaze evenly. "Because you are mortal and live here, we are somewhat bound to your time and birthplace. But when you are gone —" He shrugged solemnly. "We may wait two weeks. After that, w
e might not be able to fetch you even by an overland excursion."
"If all my studies of the stars and the powers are finally correct, there will be a new moon in two weeks." Drew straightened, turning again to face Angelique. "My magick will be at its strongest and our worlds will be one. Even if your father grows fearful and wards the entire county against my sorcery, I will still be able to open your way home."
Drew extended her hand. In the palm lay a brooch of ivory and pearl. Angelique gasped, recognizing the symbol of the intertwined snakes. The ivory made them into ghostly images of the Old One's designs.
"This is my talisman for your protection in the outside world. It carries the ancient strength of my friends' world and taps the powers of my own magick."
Drew came near and folded the talisman gently into Angelique's palm. "And it carries a piece of my soul as well."
Angelique lifted startled eyes to her lover's.
"Return and make me whole, Angelique."
"But what if something should happen to it?" Angelique breathed in horror, unwilling to lose both the women she loved so dearly in this life.
"I am immortal, beloved."
"But that does not protect you from being hurt!" Angelique rasped.
"I will be fine. Once you return to me." Slender fingers silenced Angelique’s unspoken protest. "Return and be mine."
"I am already yours, my Liege," she whispered, kissing Drew’s fingertips. "I promise I will return."
"To marry me?"
"Yes. I will hold you to the marriage by your very own vow."
"By our vow, my Lady."
Chapter 17
Culdun escorted Angelique down the winding cobblestone lane as far as the valley gates. She took horses laden with fine clothes and gifts. Aloysius and her brothers would expect as much of her now, she knew. But it was not a thing that made the going easier. Stepping through those gates into Drew's magick portal, and stepping out into Aloysius' court, had taken more courage than she had ever known she possessed.
The selfishness and delighted greed of her two brothers in response to the gifts had been oddly reassuring. But it was one of the few things she found unchanged. Ivan's polished manners she found especially disconcerting. The all-too-ready smile puzzled her as she thought the veneer was too thin to mask the cruel glint lurking behind his eyes. Angelique still remembered well the rough riding lessons he had given her as a youngster, and the numerous falls she had endured in the stone court.
However, the introduction of Ivan's new wife explained much of his surface changes. The woman, Marguerite, had been widowed twice, and each time she had taken over the management of the shops and trading contracts of her late husbands' businesses. Angelique had shivered at the meeting. Aloysius had not arranged this marriage; those two were too well matched. Greed for greed, plot for plot, the pair would probably rule the Continent's trade before the end of the decade.
Her younger brother, Phillip, she found she could only pity. His head-strong willfulness had become drunken pettiness in the brief year she'd been gone. She supposed there was little else she should have expected, between the sudden arrival of so much wealth and the taunting of his older brother. Marguerite's arrival couldn't have helped matters either, since she viewed his drunkenness as an impediment to his usefulness in forming another trading liaison through marriage.
Yet it was her mother's cheerful greeting that puzzled Angelique the most. Certainly she had grown a year older, but money had brought wood and good food which had, in turn, brought a faint bit of color back into her cheeks. The nurse and chambermaid were nearly as delighted as her mother to see the fine woman their charge was always talking of, and they were pleased to know the letters had been so well received.
When questioned about her mother's health, they merely seemed confused and admitted to a slight fever and a cough a few weeks back, but both assured Angelique that it had been nothing serious. Perhaps, they suggested, she'd been confusing news of her mother's health with Aloysius' failing condition.
Of Aloysius himself, she saw nothing at first. Ivan said he had taken to his bed with a cough last winter and had chosen never to arise again. Ivan admitted the man was not doing well, but he also suggested that Aloysius had merely grown more cantankerous. He would see his daughter when he felt like seeing her. Until then she would simply have to be patient.
When pressed for the reasons behind the alarming letter, Ivan shrugged and seemed to grow increasingly uncomfortable, until Marguerite stepped forward to accept the blame for summoning Angelique. After all, Marguerite said, she understood how fond of one another mother and daughter were. Marguerite also pointed out that the nurse and chambermaid had not been completely honest regarding the seriousness of the fever and she freely admitted that she'd told Ivan to ask Angelique to come for a visit.
The conflicting stories formed an uneasy knot in Angelique's stomach. Although the tale could easily be true, she did not feel that Marguerite was being completely honest with her. Angelique did not like this new household of Aloysius' any better than the old. It was merely a different household, but not any safer, especially with Aloysius ensconced in his bedchambers and Ivan's ruling by proxy.
"Come now, my dear Angelique," Marguerite smiled sweetly, pausing in her needlework to offer an almost compassionate glance, "surely you had guessed. And since you have seen him, could you not tell by mere sight?"
"Come now yourself, Madam." Phillip bowed with a leering, mocking grin as he rose from the parlor's window seat. "Surely you can't expect my dear sister to see so clearly. After all, the girl's been away for nearly a year. People change. How was she to know Father had not merely become a man of leisure?"
"For pity's sake, leave off." Ivan snarled. He turned from the fire's hearth and added, "Angelique has no more love for the man than we. Have you forgotten the poor girl's beatings?"
Angelique managed not to flinch as Ivan's hand patted her shoulder. She mustn't underestimate him, she reminded herself as she wondered about this new brotherly concern and awkward affection. She also wondered if Marguerite knew of his terrible temper. Marguerite did not seem like a fool; most likely, she simply looked the other way when it reared its ugly head.
"And what — precisely — is he dying from?" Angelique persisted yet again in an attempt to get a direct answer.
"I don't know, dear," Marguerite said. "He was suffering from the cough before I joined the household. That was at Midwinter."
"It was just his winter cough," Ivan shrugged with a politely forced smile. "You remember, the same one that takes to him every year?"
Phillip snorted as he tried to laugh and drink at the same time. Wine sputtered down his vest.
"Yes, well," Ivan waved his hand dismissively, "obviously it wasn't just a winter's cough this time."
"And the old miser brought it on himself." Phillip dropped down on the bench beside his sister. With a smirk, he sprawled back against the mammoth oak table. "He wouldn't spend the money on the doctor."
"But why?" Angelique pressed, deliberately turning back to Ivan. "Didn't you say the doctor came weekly this winter to see Mama? Would it have been so much trouble to —"
"Ah, you speak so rationally." Ivan chuckled almost sadly. "He had something of a fever, Angelique. He wasn't quite himself. He started raging about nothing. But at first that didn’t seem unusual. By the time we realized how ill he was, it was too late."
"Yet no one thought to tell me?"
"What?!" Phillip scoffed into his cup. "And have your precious Lord and Master cut us off without another word?"
"We have had quite enough of you, Phillip," Marguerite warned softly. With an insolent shrug the man rose and departed. Marguerite sighed, wearily setting her embroidery down. "You must forgive the oversight, Angelique. Ivan had not thought you cared much about Aloysius one way or the other, and Phillip," she smiled dryly, "he was preoccupied with your Betrothed's wealth."
Whereas are you not? Angelique mused, as she began to underst
and just how interested they really were.
"It is true though that once Papa is gone, Angelique's bride price will be gone as well." Ivan sat down on the corner of the table. His body language suggested he was addressing his wife, but he was uncomfortably close to Angelique and seemed suddenly to loom above her. "Perhaps we should begin to redistribute some of our holdings to compensate?"
"Our Venetian friends, perhaps?"
Uncomfortably Angelique rose and drifted nearer the hearth, half-listening. She was no merchant herself, but she knew the value of Drew's magicked goods. She was not fooled by this casual ploy and was not surprised when Ivan finally turned to her with the question she'd been awaiting.
"Of course, we may be doing the man an injustice. What would you say, Angelique?"
"I'm sorry, Ivan." She blinked, hoping to appear just a little lost. "I wasn't listening properly."
"Are we doing your gentlemen a disservice? Assuming he's not interested in further business with us?"
"My Liege?" Angelique shrugged faintly. "I don't know. I've never much been part of— trading contracts and such."
"Come, come," Ivan teased her none too lightly. "Since when has docile meekness ever suited you, sister?"
She put an icy chill into her voice, her chin lifting as she chose a reason he would value. "Can you imagine, brother, the difference between a riding crop and a sorcerer's hand?"
Ivan's eyes darkened. But he said no more.
"Angelique, my dear," Marguerite interjected smoothly. "Are you saying you're unhappy with this magickian?"
"No." Angelique stared into the fire's leaping flames again, remembering Drew's arms encircling her that night in the faery's mist. She wished her guardian was nearer.
"Because if you are, there are ways around —"
"I'm fine, Marguerite." Angelique forced a smile through her tiredness. "Honestly. I'm merely saying that life with my Liege is different than it was for me here." She glanced at her brother. "Is it any wonder I'd change a bit, Ivan?"
He didn't appear to wholly trust her argument. But with a wary smile he agreed to let the matter go.
Roses & Thorns Page 12
