A Passionate Magic Read online

  A Passionate Magic

  By Flora Speer

  Smashwords Edition

  Published by Flora Speer At Smashwords

  Copyright 2001 © by Flora Speer

  Cover Design Copyright 2012

  By http//:DigitalDonna.com

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  For Mary, our family “magician,” who gave me the idea for Emma’s mysterious, magical presents.

  Prologue

  Lincolnshire, England A.D. 1129

  “Please, Father,” Emma begged, “say you will let me be the one to do this.”

  Three people were gathered in the lord’s chamber of Wroxley Castle. Gavin, the baron of Wroxley, sat in his big, comfortably cushioned wooden chair. Mirielle, his second wife, stood behind him, one hand on his shoulder. Gavin’s level gaze rested on Emma’s face as he noted with some amusement the way in which she was employing her innocent feminine wiles.

  Emma had placed herself squarely within the beam of sunlight that shone through the open casement window. A soft mid-May breeze blew into the room, bringing with it the sweet fragrances of flowers and fresh grasses from the meadows outside the castle walls. The sun on the smooth braid of Emma’s hair turned it into shimmering black. Her dark brown eyes did not waver when Gavin frowned at her. He was not surprised by Emma’s lack of reaction, for he had never given her any reason to fear him. In the seven years since their first meeting, when Emma was eleven years old and Gavin was newly returned after more than a decade in the Holy Land, their relationship had been entirely affectionate. He loved the girl as if she really were his daughter.

  “From what Mirielle told me after you returned from the royal court yesterday,” Emma said, “King Henry has decreed that you must send one of your daughters to Cornwall to wed Dain of Penruan, and with that marriage bring a peaceful end to the feud between you. But there was no mention of which daughter you are to send.”

  “The feud should have been resolved by the deaths of the original participants,” Gavin said, not hiding his anger. “Dain has revived the quarrel by publicly blaming my father for crimes supposedly committed against his grandfather and his father decades ago. Emma, I have seen Dain in battle. The man is a fierce opponent, relentless and determined. Despite the assurances he offered to both King Henry and me, I do question how well he will treat his Wroxley bride. After hearing his bitter speech to the king, I am sure Dain does not want any bride of my blood. He is a man who would far rather have revenge, but his oath of fealty to Henry has forced him into a reluctant acceptance of the king’s decision on the matter of his dispute with me.”

  “All the more reason for me to go instead of Alys,” Emma said, pressing her petition. “Alys is only seven and you know how sick she was this past winter. She still has not fully recovered. The last thing Alys needs is to be sent far from home, to be married off to some fierce, unfriendly stranger.

  “Father.” Stepping away from the window, Emma went to her knees, clasping her hands together and resting them on Gavin’s knee. “You have heard more than once the story of how unhappy I was when my mother sent me away for fostering when I was just seven. Were it not for my dear brother’s presence at the same castle, I think I would have died of my misery.”

  “So was I miserable when I was sent for fostering,” Gavin said. “Most children are, at least at first. Dain has promised that his mother will train Alys as her fosterling and teach her what her future duties as lady of Penruan will be after she is old enough for the marriage to be consummated.”

  “I know such an arrangement is not at all unusual,” Emma continued her argument, “but it is my opinion that Alys is far more fragile than I was at her age. She ought to remain here at home for another year or two, and then be sent to people whom you and she know, people who live near enough to Wroxley for you and Mirielle to visit them occasionally and thus see Alys. That way, my little sister will be happier during the next few years, and healthier when the time comes for her to marry. And then you ought to choose a kind and gentle man for her.”

  “Mirielle?” Gavin turned in his chair to look at his wife. “What are your thoughts on this issue?”

  “It saddens me to see any of our children leaving us, but we both do know it will be inevitable as time passes and they grow up,” Mirielle responded. “Emma has rightly judged Alys’ state of mind, and her physical health.”

  “Whereas I am remarkably sturdy and strong-minded,” Emma noted with a low chuckle. “Unlike Alys, who still clings to her mother, I believe the time is right for me to leave Wroxley and begin my own life. After all, I am eighteen now, which you well know is several years beyond the usual age for a girl to marry.”

  She did not add that she was unlikely to find a husband anywhere near Wroxley. Most noblemen did not want wives as well educated as Emma, and Gavin knew there were rumors of her unusual abilities. Emma must know, as he did, that if she was to marry at all, it would have to be to a man who lived far from Wroxley, who had not heard the gossip about Emma, or about the wicked activities of her late mother. Perhaps the girl was right that she ought to be sent to Cornwall.

  On the other hand, Gavin knew of an objection to Emma’s going that was well-nigh insurmountable, an objection he could not voice to the eager girl who knelt before him. If Dain, that cold-blooded warrior, ever learned he had been tricked, there was no telling what he would do to Emma.

  “Well, Father?” Emma prodded gently.

  “I will consider every argument you have advanced,” Gavin promised her.

  “You do not have long in which to decide. According to what Mirielle has told me, the priest that Dain is sending as his representative to escort the bride to Cornwall will arrive here within a few days, in company with the king’s clerics, who will bring the marriage contract and the written peace agreement,” Emma said. She rose, smiling a little, as if she was certain she was going to have her way. “I am sure you and Mirielle will want to talk in private, and I have work to do in the stillroom.”

  When she was gone and the door was shut behind her, Gavin expelled a long breath and Mirielle came from behind his chair to face him. Gavin shook his head, a rueful smile curving his mouth.

  “Emma is still young enough to glory in the thought of self-sacrifice,’ he said. “For my sake, for yours, and for love of her younger brothers and sisters, she will gladly do this.”

  “She adores you,” Mirielle said, “and I know she loves me as a mother. But I do not think sacrifice is all that’s in Emma’s mind. Like any other girl, she wants a husband and children of her own. I also suspect that deep in her heart there lurks a longing for adventure and a desire to see something of the world beyond Wroxley. She may not recognize it in herself, but I think it’s there, all the same.”

  “I freely confess I have no liking for the notion of sending Alys to Cornwall,” Gavin said, “but neither do I want to send Emma into that bloody man’s household—or to his bed! Good Lord of Heaven, Mirielle, how can a man demand vengeance or insist on retribution for something that happened decades ago, an old quarrel long forgotten by most of those who heard his angry speech before the king? I wasn’t even in England in those days, and the feud originated between my father and Dain’s grandfather. The men involved are dead now. At this late date I can neither prove nor disprove Dain’s accusations.”

  “At least he did agree to
accept Henry’s judgment in the case,” Mirielle said. “And so did you agree, both of you, before dozens of witnesses. Thus, we are honor bound to send one of your daughters to marry Dain and never to take up arms against him, nor he against us, so long as he is wed to a daughter of Wroxley.”

  “Alys is the older of my two daughters,” Gavin reminded her. “It’s why I decided that she should be the one to go to Cornwall.”

  “Only you and I know Emma is not your child,” Mirielle said.

  “We two, and your cousin Brice,” Gavin corrected her. “Though Brice did agree to leave it to me to decide whether, or when, to tell Emma that he is her father. But he has been gone from England for so long that I wonder if he is dead.”

  “I cannot think so,” Mirielle said. “If it were so, I do believe I would know it in my heart, or see it in my crystal ball. Still, Brice is another good reason, beyond the sensible ones Emma has offered, why we ought to send her away from Wroxley.”

  “How is that?” Gavin asked after a moment of silence, during which he allowed himself to be distracted by memories of his faithless first wife. Alda had kept the secret of Emma’s true parentage for years, until she could use the information as a weapon against Gavin. After Alda died while misusing her magical abilities, Gavin, Mirielle, and Brice had agreed to protect Emma from knowledge of the true wickedness of her mother. The girl had grown up believing Gavin was her father.

  “Brice left Wroxley in hope of redeeming himself after his affair with Alda,” Mirielle said. “If he returns to England, he will surely want to see Emma again, and it is always possible that he will want to claim her as his own. Thus, he will likely come to Wroxley first, believing she is here, or that we will know where he can find her. With Emma safe in distant Cornwall, you and I can dissuade Brice from a course of action that would bring grief and pain to our dear girl.”

  “You want me to send Emma to be Dain’s wife in order to protect her from the homecoming of a father who may never return?” Gavin exclaimed in disbelief.

  “That is exactly what I want,” Mirielle told him, and met his questioning gaze with only a faint shadow in her eyes.

  ”What do you know that I do not?” Gavin asked. “I recognize that look. Have you seen something of the future in your marvelous crystal ball?”

  “Say, rather, I have a feeling I cannot explain,” Mirielle said. “When I think about Emma’s future, it seems to me her destiny lies in Cornwall, and she is right to want to go there.”

  “Dain of Penruan is widely acknowledged to be rapacious, cruel, and utterly without sympathy for his enemies,” Gavin said. “When he makes war, what he cannot seize and carry away he destroys by burning. I do not want either Alys or Emma sent to him.” Gavin’s lips closed firmly on the words, and his expression was hard with the protective instinct that compelled him to keep his womenfolk safe.

  “King Henry has left you no choice,” Mirielle said. “Gavin, my dear love, do not forget that while you and I were at court, I met Dain. I did not find him as evil, or as heartless, as you think him to be.”

  “Did you not?” Gavin’s brows went up in surprise at his wife’s claim and he regarded her for a long, thoughtful moment.

  “Emma is strong enough to withstand him,” Mirielle said. “Unlike Alys, Emma possesses magical ability inherited from her mother.”

  “An inheritance properly schooled by you,” Gavin said slowly, “which she can hide until Dain is ready to accept her true nature.” He nodded, acknowledging Mirielle’s point of view. He had always trusted his wife’s insights and her skill at judging character.

  “Exactly,” Mirielle said. “Emma’s magic is under her complete control. Her dearest wish is to negotiate a true peace between our family and Dain’s, a peace that goes beyond mere grudging adherence to the king’s command.”

  “To do so, she will need to be invincible,” Gavin said. “If it’s adventure she secretly wants, I expect she will find more than enough to satisfy her. Emma will require all the courage of a lioness and the magic of a great sorceress if she is to be the bride of Dain of Penruan.”

  Chapter 1

  “You are not the bride I was expecting,” Dain said, punctuating his words with a deep scowl.

  “I know I am not,” Emma responded. She tried to smile, but in the face of the unconcealed displeasure of the baron of Penruan she found she could not force her lips to curve upward.

  She told herself the knot in her chest was caused by physical discomfort, not by fear. Even in mid-July, the great hall of Penruan Castle was cold, and Emma was thoroughly chilled, wet to the skin from riding through a rainstorm, and very hungry. She longed for a warm fire, hot water for washing, and dry clothes. Instead, she was faced with a man who did not trouble himself to hide his irritation at her presence.

  Dain of Penruan was unusually tall and gave the impression of sleek leanness despite his broad shoulders and muscular arms. From what she had heard of him, Emma had expected to find a dark and brooding lord. Certainly the man before her was dark-skinned, obviously tanned by long days in the sun. She was surprised by that; she and her companions had encountered so much rain during the last part of their journey from Lincolnshire that she was beginning to doubt if the sun ever shone in Cornwall.

  For all the whispers and rumors about Dain’s bloodthirsty fierceness, no one, not even Mirielle, had thought to warn her that her new husband was both young and handsome. Emma did wonder about the odd omission. It was unlike Mirielle to be so forgetful.

  She gazed in mingled apprehension and admiration at the man to whom she had been married, by proxy, for slightly more than a month. Admiration won. Dain’s sheer physical splendor overcame Emma’s secret, lingering concerns about her ability to go to her unknown husband’s bed with some semblance of willingness.

  Dain’s hair was the palest silver-gold Emma had ever seen, though his brows and lashes were brown. She assumed his hair was bleached by the same sunlight that had tanned his skin. Below the short, pale hair the man the world knew as a ruthless predator displayed an angel’s face. Emma smothered a sigh of pleasure at the sight of him. Dain’s face was all smooth, taut planes—high cheekbones, a long, straight nose, and a firm jaw that, unlike the jaws of most other men she knew, was unblemished by any trace of stubble. She thought, irrelevantly, that he must shave every day.

  Emma met his eyes and a shiver went through her. Dain’s eyes were a peculiar shade of blue-green, a color emphasized by his woolen tunic of exactly the same shade. Such stormy eyes, puzzled and more than a bit annoyed by the sudden arrival of a grown woman in place of the little girl he was awaiting.

  “I was told that my wife was seven years old,” Dain said. He looked from Emma’s rain-dampened face to Father Maynard, the priest Dain had sent to accompany her from Wroxley to her new home.

  Father Maynard was every bit as cold and wet as Emma, and she felt sorry for the man who had been unfailingly kind to her during their travels. Out of sympathy Emma offered the explanation that Dain apparently expected from the priest.

  “It was my younger sister, Alys, who was first proposed as your wife,” Emma said. “Unfortunately, she is in poor health and our parents feared she could not survive the journey to Penruan. I am the eldest of my father’s three daughters, and I do assure you, my lord, I am remarkably strong and healthy.”

  “No one could guess it by looking at you,” Dain remarked. There was no hint of welcome or of hospitality in the cold gaze he cast upon her. “You appear to be half-drowned.”

  “We have ridden through this entire day in heavy rain,” Father Maynard informed him. “All of us are wet and cold – and hungry, my lord. We have not eaten since early morning.”

  In any other castle that Emma knew of, those words would have brought an immediate outpouring of food, drink, and comfort from the host. Not so the lord of Penruan. He pinned Emma under his searching glare for a time before speaking again, and it was not to her he addressed his question.

  “Is she tru
ly the granddaughter of Udo of Wroxley?” Dain demanded of the priest.

  ”I will be happy to tell you so, my lord, if only you will have the courtesy to speak to me directly,” Emma said in a loud voice aimed at regaining his attention. “Let there be no question on the matter of my descent. Furthermore, you and I were wed before more than a dozen witnesses in the chapel at Wroxley Castle, with my father’s seneschal serving as your proxy. Father Maynard himself blessed our union. It is quite legal. If you break our marriage contract, you defy King Henry’s express command.”

  Dain stared at her as if he could not believe any woman would dare to speak to him so boldly. Emma saw a flash of some emotion in his blue-green gaze. It was gone so quickly that she could not decide whether it was anger or hastily suppressed amusement.

  “Not quite legal yet,” Dain said, his fine mouth twisting on the words. “All marriages require one final act to make an undissolvable union. I speak, Lady Emma, of the act of consummation. Until I bed you, ours is no true marriage, no matter what the king, or the baron of Wroxley, may claim.”

  The glint of that unknown, unspeakable emotion shone in his eyes again. He looked so fierce, so like the coldhearted predator he was said to be, that Emma took a step backward, wanting to put a bit more distance between herself and him.

  During the ride to Penruan, Father Maynard had undertaken to educate her about Dain’s family history. The priest had told her that several of Dain’s ancestors were Norsemen, who in the distant past had crossed the sea from conquered Ireland, seeking new lands to wrest for their own. The first Dain had seized Penruan lands by bloody warfare, and his descendants had held tightly to that same land ever since. Meeting the present Dain’s cold eyes, Emma could easily believe the tale. But she was determined not to be cowed by him. A voice deep in her heart whispered that while Dain would never appreciate a meek, simpering wife, he would respect a woman of courage, a woman who knew her own worth.