Wizard's Daughter (Sherbrooke Brides 10)

Nicholas looked angry enough to strike Sarimund.

Rosalind said, "When the child didn't come, why didn't Epona kill your son?"

"The point of the spell was to stay her hand until you ar­rived, Isabella, until you could come to the Pale to save him."

Nicholas said slowly, "You froze time?"

"That is a crude way of saying it, but yes, Egan has re­mained a little boy. When you save him, Isabella, he will be­come the man, the great wizard ruler he was meant to be."

Rosalind said quickly, "There is a problem, however. I don't know who I am so I cannot know what the little girl was and how her strengths would aid—" She stopped dead in her tracks. She stared from Sarimund to Nicholas and back again. Sarimund smiled at her and slowly nodded. She swal­lowed. Then she gave them a brilliant smile. "My name is Isabella Contadini. I was born in San Savaro, Italy, in 18I7."

"And your name is the same as it was then in Captain Jared Vail's time," Sarimund said, then leaned forward and kissed her forehead.

48

Sarimund gave her a graceful bow. "Yes, your birth was greeted with great celebration, Isabella. You already had an older brother, you see, so the heir to the duchy was secure."

"Duchy?" Nicholas asked, an eyebrow raised.

Rosalind grinned up at her husband. "Oh, dear, Nicholas, I fear you're not of high enough rank to have married me."

"Tell him who you are, my dear," Sarimund said.

"I was born to Duca Gabriele and Duchessa Elizabeth Contadini. My mother is English, daughter of the Duke of Wrothbridge, and she married my father when she was sev­enteen years old—my father was visiting London as a young man, saw her riding in Hyde Park, and wanted to marry her, and so they married two months later. I loved hearing that story, near

ly every night I asked my mother to tell me of it after she had shooed away my nanny to kiss me good night. She paused a moment, and a spasm of pain crossed her face. "My mother," she said again, and pictured her glossy red hair, the way she'd felt her heartbeat when she held her close against her, how she smelled, of violets, she remembered now. My mother. Over the past ten years, she'd wondered, usually in the deep of night, if she had a mother, if she was alive and thinking of her, wondering where she was, and Rosalind would cry at the pain of both of them.

She whispered, terrified of the answer, "Are my parents still alive?"

Sarimund nodded. "Yes, both of them are in fine health." "And my brother?" "Raffaello as well."

She wanted to shout, to leap about. She had a mother who had loved her, petted her, who wasn't afraid of her because she was magic. Magic? But it was true, she remembered it well. And her father, standing beside her mother, tail, his thick black hair brushed back from his face, a perfect man who'd once let her sit beneath his chair while he conferred with an ambassador from Austria. She'd been so excited she'd vomited on the ambassador's boots. Her father, she re­membered now, had laughed—once the ambassador had left. She frowned. Her father's eyes, had she seen them somewhere? She said slowly, "My grandfather died while my father was visiting England and so he became the Duke of San Savaro after his return to Italy."

She grabbed Nicholas's arms, shook him. "I have par­ents, Nicholas, and I remember them! They loved me, very much. I have a family!" She began to dance around in her excitement. Nicholas grabbed her and held her tight. He kissed her lightly on her mouth, kissed the tip of her nose, smoothed his fingertips over her eyebrows. He said, "Where is San Savaro?"

Rosalind grinned up at him, so excited her feet still danced. "It is on the spur of Italy's boot. San Savaro is also the capital city of the duchy. It is near Nardo, oaiy five or so miles from the Ionian Sea. We had a summer palace overlooking the sea. I swam there with my brother. I remember one night I went down to the beach to swim under a full moon, not something I should have done, naturally. I heard my parents laughing. They were swimming in the sea, just like my brother and I did." She paused a moment, tapped her foot. "Do you know, I'm wondering now if they were simply swimming."

Nicholas laughed. "A woman is married for less than a week and she knows everything."

Sarimund ahemmed. "Isabella, it's time to tell my lord what happened."

Nicholas frowned at him. "How do you know she can re­member what happened to her?"

Sarimund shrugged. "She could not be allowed to remember before, it would have been too dangerous. Mr. Sher­brooke would have felt compelled to contact her family in San Savaro, despite his own misgivings. But now the time is right. Tell him, Isabella, what happened to you."

Suddenly the knowledge was there, alive and terrifying in her mind, and she trembled. "He was my father's cousin— his name was Vittorio. He knew I'd seen what he'd done be­cause he was magic, you see, and he knew I was magic as well. He sensed me, he knew I saw him smother the small babe then lay it back in its dead mother's arms."

Nicholas said, "There was no one else there to see this?"

Rosalind didn't want to but she pictured that horrible scene in her mind. The dead babe and its dead mother and Vittorio standing there, staring down at them, a bitter smile on his mouth. She would never forget that, never. "No, only I saw him kill them."

Nicholas was frowning. "You were a child. Few people believe a child. Why would Vittorio take action against you?''

"If I'd told my father, he would have had the bodies of Ilaria and the babe examined. They would have seen the marks of Vittorio's fingers on her neck. Perhaps the physi­cian would know the babe had been smothered."

Sarimund said, "Isabella, do you know why Vittorio mur­dered his wife and babe?"

She shook her head.