Enchantress (Medieval Trilogy 1)

lose by, in case the boy needed anything,” Garrick explained.

“She was fond of Logan?” Morgana asked.

Garrick nodded, his eyes still trained on his son’s empty bed. “I would not entrust my son’s safety and upbringing to anyone else. Jocelyn, though only a maid, had been with my wife since she was a child. They had grown up together, and Jocelyn was Astrid’s choice of a servant when we were wed. Jocelyn grieved sorely when my wife died. She would not have harmed the boy. She loved Logan as if he were her own.” His voice had grown quiet.

Morgana closed her eyes for a second and felt the icy breath of death against her face. She lifted the coverlet of Jocelyn’s bed and shivered from deep within.

“You’ve seen something,” Garrick guessed when Morgana’s eyes flew open and she dropped the fur blanket.

“No … no vision,” she admitted, though something wasn’t right here. Something within these cold stone walls was very, very wrong.

Morgana’s heart thumped with fear, and her footsteps faltered as she crossed the short distance to Logan’s bed, afraid of what she might feel as she touched the furs that were piled upon the feather mattress. Again the frigid cold swept through her, chilling her skin from the inside.

“What is it?” Garrick demanded. His eyes had become intense, as if he, too, felt the icy hand of death.

“’Tis nothing. Just a coldness. As if something … wrong … something evil … has happened,” she said, her voice shaking.

He crossed the room and grabbed her shoulders. “By the blood of Christ, tell me what you’ve seen! Is my boy alive?”

“I’ve seen nothing!” Morgana assured him. “’Tis but a feeling I have that something is wrong. Very wrong.”

His lips flattened, and he cursed the fates. “God’s teeth, Morgana, I know something is wrong. My boy is missing. The maid is missing. But what I do not know is what happened to them. Tell me!”

“Would that I could!”

“Yet you suddenly fear for my son’s life,” Garrick surmised. “I see it in your eyes.”

She rubbed her arms, trying to warm her cold skin. “I’m afraid that someone has betrayed you.”

A sharp rap sounded upon the oaken door of Garrick’s chamber. “M’lord?” the sentry called through the heavy wood, and Garrick crossed through the anteroom to fling the door open. Morgana followed him and watched as the guard and Garrick exchanged words.

As the sentry left, Garrick held out his hand to Morgana. “Come. We will finish this later,” he said, his gaze resting for a second on hers. “But make no mistake, we will finish it. Now ’tis time we went downstairs.” He wrapped his strong fingers familiarly around her smaller hand, and his eyes darkened with an unnamed emotion that was but a shadow passing quickly from his gaze. He tried to smile, but the grin faltered and for a second Morgana’s breath felt trapped in her throat. With a strange premonition she knew that Garrick was about to lower his head and touch his lips to hers. A strange, not unwanted, anticipation stole into her heart, causing it to beat as quickly as the wings of a dove.

The seconds dragged out until a quiet cough caught Morgana’s attention, stealing her gaze from the enchantment of Garrick’s face.

“Morgana!” a low male voice exclaimed as Strahan of Hazelwood entered Garrick’s chamber. He stood nearly as tall as Garrick, and above a hawkish nose his dark eyes moved from Morgana to Garrick and back again.

Morgana stiffened at the sound of his voice and tilted her chin upward. “Sir Strahan,” she said, though her stomach roiled at the thought of this man as her husband. His skin was smooth, his stature that of a knight. He did nothing to offend her, and in a dark way he was handsome, yet the frigid current in the depths of his eyes curdled the contents of her stomach.

“What keeps you?” Strahan asked. “’Tis time we went downstairs and announced our betrothal.” He glanced meaningfully at his cousin.

“We will be but a moment, Strahan,” Garrick assured him. “Morgana was trying to help me find Logan.”

“In your chamber?”

One corner of Garrick’s mouth lifted. “Wherever need be.”

Strahan’s lips became a thin, unbending line. “Lady Clare awaits you.”

“We will be but a minute more,” Garrick said, dismissing his cousin.

Strahan, his anger barely reined in, nodded stiffly, turned on a booted heel, and strode out of the room.

Shoving his hair from his eyes, Garrick wondered why he felt the need to bait Strahan. His cousin had every right to be offended to find his wife-to-be in another man’s bedchamber, especially since Garrick had been about to kiss her. Yea, and if he were truthful with himself he’d been bedeviled by thoughts of Morgana night and day, lustful thoughts that kept him awake and caused him to be surly during the daylight hours.

He’d been gruff with his men, barked orders, and expected excellence on the most mundane of tasks, all because of this woman and how she’d turned his head about.

Not since Astrid had he wanted a woman so fiercely. He thought about his wife and mourned her yet again. Why was he lusting after another man’s intended?