Wizard's Daughter (Sherbrooke Brides 10)

Their carriage rolled over the cobblestone streets into the sun-baked capital city of San Savaro. Crowds lined the streets, yelling and clapping, waving at them. Behind the crowds were shops and cafes, small parks, horses tethered to posts, car­riages next to drays. And flowers everywhere, trellised, in huge pots, in small window boxes, growing out of every spot of green. The colors and the scents were overwhelming.

"What is this?" Nicholas said, staring at all the people obviously welcoming them. "Surely they must believe we are someone else."

They'd left England a month after they'd awakened in their bed at Wyverly Chase to find Richard pacing the draw­ing room, his mother on his heels, yelling she wished to leave this house because that wretched ghost ignored her— her! —wouldn't even sing insults to her, wouldn't even tilt his chair to acknowledge her presence, and she was tired of her cursed stepson and that hussy of a wife of his lording it over them.

"But he is the earl," Richard said, "it is his right to lord it over us. He is Lord Mountjoy. The hussy is his wife. Accept it, Mother."

Rosalind had said from the doorway, "Madam, I imagine that our ghost has finally continued upon his chartered course. You see, there is no longer a reason for him to remain. Richard, everything will be all right now. All of us will be all right now. You may believe that."

Richard Vail stared at her, then smiled, actually smiled at her, then he smiled at his half brother, a smile so much like Nicholas's that it nearly made her weep, and he said, "Good. That's good."

A sea change? she wondered. She heard Lancelot's sneer­ing voice from the corridor. Perhaps it would be too much to expect a sea change in Lancelot.

"I cannot get over this," Nicholas said now, staring at the crowds of people. "They must believe we are visiting digni­taries."

"Or perhaps they are expecting the Pope," Rosalind said, and grinned at him. She hadn't told Nicholas she'd seen her father in the Pale, that her father had turned to look at her, and she'd known he'd seen her and known she was alive, and coming to him.

She looked up at the brilliant sun overhead and thought of the bright yellow sun in the Pale, and how Taranis had flown toward it, and then—simply nothing. How had they re­turned to Wyverly Chase to wake up in their own bed, still wearing their cloaks, still holding hands?

But they had. They'd also had some bumps and bruises and sore muscles. Rosalind's chest was a bit tender to the touch. Where Epona's knife had plunged into her.

The crowds thinned as their carriage, pulled by Grace and Leopold, nearly prancing what with all the attention they were getting, rolled out of the center of San Savaro. The cobblestone road widened and began to wind upward toward a crest upon which stood an immense yellow brick palazzo, the yellow as pale as a watery sun. As they drew closer, they saw that the entire length of the palazzo was showcased by a long row of magnificent Doric columns, surrounded by fountains spraying water high into the air from the mouths of nymphs and grinning satyrs. Ancient statuary stood in groups or alone on the grounds, and more huge pots of tum­bling flowers than Nicholas had seen since they'd left their own gardens at Wyverly Chase dotted the green scythed lawn. It was elegant and graceful. Nicholas said, "Do you remember?"

"Yes. It doesn't seem quite so big now, if you know what I mean."

"No, not big at all," he said, and kissed her ear.

Their carriage pulled up with a flourish, executed with great panache by their driver, Lee Po, who could do any­thing, he'd assured Rosalind. He allowed both Grace and Leopold to stamp their feet and snort.

To Nicholas's astonishment, standing at the top of the end­lessly wide two dozen marble steps stood a line of people— two men, a woman, and three boys, young, all of them, Nicholas suspected, dressed in their finest. They were all wav­ing madly.

He recognized Rosalind's mother immediately, and knew this was what Rosalind would look like in her older years. A beautiful woman, rounded and soft, with glowing skin, and that glorious red hair glistening beneath the hot Italian sun. She was wearing a green gown of the same style and color Rosalind had worn the previous day. She was holding a babe in her arms.

There was Rosalind's older brother, Raffaello, a tall, handsome young man who looked very familiar to Nicholas, and surely that was odd. Then he looked at his wife's father and stilled. No, he thought, it couldn't be possible.

"No," he said aloud. "No."

"They did not want to let you out of their sight. I wondered if they will let me snag you away when it is time to return home to attend Grayson's wedding in September." He paused and looked around. "Was this your bedchamber?" He pulled off his boots and began unbuttoning his shirt. He was hot.

"Yes. They didn't change anything in it."

Nicholas opened all the windows and leaned out to breathe in the unique scent of Italy. Her bedchamber faced the east gardens and the air was warm and smelled of jas­mine. And what? Excitement, he thought. There was so much excitement in the air itself since they'd arrived this af­ternoon.

Nicholas said, "I like your brothers. And Raffaello is a good man," he said, turning to look at his wife as she pulled on a lovely peach silk dressing gown. How lovely that the gown beneath it was as sheer.

"Yes, I like them too. The young ones don't know what to make of us—of me—but they will come to accept me as their sister and you as another brother. I brought a dozen boxes of English sweetmeats. Those candied almonds, in particular, should help them accept us all the more quickly." She paused a moment, frowned. "How odd that Raffaello is a man grown now. I can see him so clearly as a boy."

"Your father, Rosalind , he—"

"Yes, I know. I wouldn't have realized it, though, if I hadn't seen the portrait."

"Your father is the bloody image of Captain Jared Vail." There, it was said aloud.

"Sarimund said our lines crossed somewhere back in me­dieval times, a very long time ago. Still—Nicholas, it's not as if my father is the exact likeness of Captain Jared. There are differences, just as there are differences between you and Richard."

"Yes, but Richard is my half brother, we live now, at the same time, only five years between us, not some three hun­dred years."

Wizardry, he thought, he hated how it twisted and turned in on itself and made no sense to a human brain. He said,