Wizard's Daughter (Sherbrooke Brides 10)

"Do you doubt for a moment that Captain Jared was a wizard?"

He plowed his fingers through his hair, and cursed. You are in his direct line. Your grandfather was magic,

probably other past Vails as well, perhaps all the way back to the beginning when wizards first sprang from the earth. But simply know there is more magic in you than in any of your predecessors. I know it."

"So you believe the being who plucked Captain Jared off his sinking ship did it for a specific reason—because Cap­tain Jared was a wizard and that's what the being had to have. You believe that is why all the first sons of each gener­ation dreamed of you?"

She laid her hand on his forearm. "Haven't things hap­pened in your life you can't explain? You may begin with your dreams of me."

He didn't like this and she saw that he didn't, but she re­mained quiet, watching him. He was fighting this with all his will, and his will was formidable.

'The dream of you," he said finally, his black eyes hooded. "I was only a hay. One night you were simply there, and as you continued to come every night and sing that song to me, you—the dream—simply became a part of me, seeped into my bones, settled in my brain.

"The little girl that you were was a part of me for so long I ceased to question it. I was used to you, you comforted me when I believed I wouldn't survive.

"But understand, the dream was nothing special, not really, even after I told my grandfather about it and he told me about the legend."

"It is not a legend, Nicholas. I'm quite real. I was out of time for Captain Jared, but not for you."

He looked into her face. "Out of time—how very odd that sounds, yet—you are here now with me and you are my debt, mine alone. I would gladly pay that debt if only I knew what it was."

"You can't think of any more strange things that have happened to you? Do you so easily forget that you knew I would be at that ball the first time you saw me, Nicholas, and that is why you came, to find me, to meet me, to assure your­self that I was real? Remember, you told me you knew me when you saw me?"

"Yes, I knew you. Yes, I knew you would be there. I don't know how I knew, the knowledge was simply there, dormant I suppose you could say, until I journeyed back to England after I heard about my father's death. And then, the moment I stepped foot here at Wyverly Chase, everything changed. But magic? As in I'm a bloody wizard, if there is such a thing?" He cursed again. "All right, all right. Here's the rest of it. One of the last dreams I had of you, you were no longer the little girl. You were a woman as you are now. I remember leaping out of bed, sweating, hating that the little girl was gone because she was mine, both she and her song, her skinny braids, her freckles, the strength that even I could see in her, and I saw her vibrant red hair and knew it was you grown up.

"I remember I lay back down on my bed and fell asleep again, immediately, and there you were, you the woman, and you sang that song to me. Dammit, that's how I knew you when I saw you. I didn't tell you before—it simply seemed too unbelievable."

You didn't think that was magic? She said, "It seems it was time for you to come back to England. I'm thinking you were meant to come to me when I was eighteen, you were meant to marry me, and the two of us were meant to end it— whatever it is—and that's why you dreamed of me as I am now.

"When I was away from you in those moments after I read from the Rules of the Pale, Sarimund said I was the crown of his kingdom, the bringer of peace and destruction, the one who had to right the grievous sin."

She jerked away from him and pulled her hair, actually jerked it with her hands. "What is this wretched grievous sin?" She jerked at her hair again. "To understand magic, I suppose you must simply accept all the twists and turns, the questions that can drive a mortal mad."

Nicholas said, "Almost three hundred years is a very long time for this being who saved Captain Jared to wait. Wait for what? Like you said, Sarimund called it a grievous sin and those are the same words in your song. I know of his death and her grievous sin. Perhaps it is a sin committed long ago by a god or a wizard or a witch, something strong enough, something bad enough, to continue existing all these years— until the two of us came together."

"Yes," she said, "yes, we are one." Her heart was tripping. "You believe that our coming together brings us more knowledge, more power?"

He strode away from her, walking the length of the li­brary, staring out the windows for a long moment before saying over his shoulder, "I am a simple man, dammit, a man of business. I own ships, I own property in Macau and in Portugal and here in England. Despite my wealth, I am still simple. Dammit, I want to be simple, I don't wish to be cut adrift from what is normal, what is expected, what I am used to." He turned around and smacked one fist against the wall. A portrait of a racing horse shuddered, the frame tilted to the left. "Here I am carrying on, and you don't even know who you are. I am a fool—but a simple fool. Forgive me, Rosalind ."

"What happened to me when I was a child was not your fault."

He walked back to her, grabbed her hands, and held them against his chest. "If it means being magic to resolve all this, then I will give up my simpleness. We will wait for the night and see what happens."

"Open the door this minute, do you hear me? I want to speak to that wretched ghost! He is not in the drawing room so he must be hiding from me here in the library. Open the door now."

He kissed her quickly, set her away from him. "Shall we let my dear stepmother come in and try to find Captain Jared?"

"Will you tell her it's the very first Vail and not her father-in-law?"

"No, let Captain Jared amuse himself at her expense if he wishes to."

Nicholas opened the door, gave Miranda a slight bow. "My wife and I have to visit a sick tenant. Have yourself a fine time with our ghost."

Miranda gave both of them a malevolent look, turned her back on them, and said loudly, "Well, you dead old monster, are you in here? I don't see you. Are you hiding from me?"

There was only the sound of the ormolu clock on the mantel, its steady ticking like falling rain in the silence.

"So you're afraid of facing me, are you? Well, you always were a coward when you were alive and—"