Wizard's Daughter (Sherbrooke Brides 10)

"I don't know. I didn't think of it, truth be told. Everything has happened so very quickly. I only knew that finally, in this span of almost three hundred years, it was I, Nicholas Vail, not Captain Jared or any of the other following firstborn Vail sons, who was finally in the right place at the right time. And there you were, in the middle of it. Waiting for me."

"I wasn't waiting for anyone or anything except my mem­ory to return. I didn't know there was anyone for me or any­thing to wait for. No, that's not true—the song was always there, waiting to be understood, I suppose you could say."

"Yes, it is. Even without the Rules of the Pale, the song is a focus. And where would you say it comes from, Rosalind ?"

"I suppose I would say it's always been printed in my mind and on my soul. Even losing my memory made no dif­ference to the song."

"Just as my knowing you, recognizing you, was deep in­side my mind, always there."

"But Nicholas, you must see that I don't know anything else. I sing the song, but I don't know what it means, didn't re-ally care, not after so many years. Without your coming, there would never have been a mystery, no debt I knew of, that my adopted family knew of. In the long view of things, what does a simple song have to do with anything at all?"

"Richard tried to take you."

"Yes, he did, and that is quite interesting. I wonder why he did. To keep us from getting married? So that I wouldn't bear you an heir? So that he could kill you at his leisure and then take the title and estate? We'd only just met, Nicholas. Why would Richard act so speedily on something that prob­ably wouldn't even come to pass?"

"I don't know Richard, I don't understand him. Was that his motive? It sounds logical, given that he's a very angry man, mayhap a very bad man, albeit too young a man to be so accomplished at sin already."

"You indeed look like brothers, nearly twins, save you do look a bit older. He is only twenty-one, so very young to be thinking of murdering his brother, or murdering me."

"You've seen what a rotter Lancelot is. Can you imagine what he will be like when he is thirty? If he lives that long. As for Aubrey, who can say? At our wedding breakfast, he was certainly interesting and clever for one so young."

Rosalind said, "I agree you are not blessed in your re­maining relatives. Do you think perhaps Richard wanted me for himself—for some reason we don't yet know? Or per­haps he saw me and he is the one who fell head over heels in love? The infamous coup de foudre? He had to have me or die trying?"

"Now that's a mawkish thought." Nicholas took a step to­ward her. Rosalind looked him squarely in the eye, then down at his outstretched hand.

"Don't," she said.

He drew a deep breath, but didn't back away. He dropped his hand to his side. She saw a flash of anger in his eyes, but he said only, "The fact is, you are very important to some­one. The people who tried to murder the child, are they still about? Would they recognize you like I did? And Rennat the Titled Wizard of the East—who is he to you? What is he? A long-ago ancestor? Or perhaps simply a beneficent being as­signed to look after you? If so, he didn't do a very good job of it when you were eight years old. Who are your parents? Are they still alive? Where are they?"

"You know I have no answers to these questions. You also know when I finally spoke, I spoke fluent English and Ital­ian. Which am I?"

"I told you I would send off inquiries and so I shall."

"Just what would you inquire about?"

"That's easy enough—any renowned wealthy family who mysteriously lost a child ten years ago. No, don't doubt that. How else could you speak two languages fluently? Your English is obviously a lady's English; your Italian, I am cer­tain, is the same. Well, let's see." He spoke Italian to her, not an educated, aristocratic Italian, since he'd learned it from an Italian mistress from Naples, but he did indeed know ed­ucated Italian when he heard it. In the next moment, she an­swered his question about her favorite hobbies in smooth upper-class Italian.

Nicholas nodded. "Ryder told me your clothes were well-made, though ripped to rags. And there is your gold locket. Someone will recognize it." He said it with absolute conviction. "Now, after you left me alone with the old earl's ghost, I finished reading Captain Jared's journals. I told him his assistance was worth spit, that he hadn't written a single helpful thing. He didn't even tilt the chair."

"Perhaps he is embarrassed."

"I'm thinking he simply doesn't know himself since he never found the little girl to whom he owed his debt."

She said, "For me, it always comes back to why would anyone wish to murder a child?"

"Don't forget that whoever it was, he didn't get the job done. He failed. Now that is something to consider, isn't it?"

Now that she thought of it, she realized he was right. "Surely it wouldn't be all that difficult to kill a child. It's not as if the child could defend herself."

"And why on the docks in Eastbourne? Say you are Ital­ian, then why were you here in England? Were you with your parents? Were you kidnapped fro

m them here? No, that can't be right. Your parents would have raised a mighty hue and cry and Ryder Sherbrooke would have heard about it. No, you were likely taken from Italy. By whom? And why would he or she or whoever want to murder you here? In Eastbourne?"

"For that matter, why not simply toss me over the side of the ship in the English Channel?"

He sent his fist into the wall right beside Captain Jared's portrait, making its heavy gilt frame tilt. When he faced her, he looked dangerous, his eyes dark, opaque, vicious, she thought, his mouth cruel. "Bloody hell, don't be angry at me, Rosalind . I did what I had to do."

She sighed. "I know."