Twilight of a Queen (31 page)

“Our boy?” Jane demanded. “What if it be a girl?”

Xavier looked daunted for a moment, but then he grinned. “If she would prove to be anything like my spitfire nieces, I would be obliged to teach her how to fight as well.”

She laughed in spite of herself, the future that Xavier painted all too tempting if only she could believe he wanted it as well. But she feared he would always regret the loss of his far horizons and grow to resent both her and the child in time.

But when she tried to reason with him, he stopped her mouth with a kiss. “Spare me any more of your logic, my lady. You ought to know by now I am completely ruthless and unprincipled when it comes to gaining my own way. I
will march you to church at sword point if need be. You shall not be rid of me so easily.”

That was the problem. She didn’t want to be. When he drew her closer, she subsided, resting her head against his shoulder with a deep sigh. It seemed pointless to argue about an event that would never happen, a child that might not even exist. Instead of fretting over the future as she too often did, she should simply savor the moment, having Xavier with her. It likely would not be for long.

Xavier brushed his lips against her brow. A man could do far worse than to spend the rest of his days with a good woman like Jane Danvers. Even the prospect of the babe no longer seemed so alarming to him.

He longed to be back striding the deck of a ship, but the call of the open sea was not as simple as it once had been. He would miss Jane with a stronger ache than if he had parted with his right hand.

Was this … was this what it felt like to love a woman?

The question itself should have been enough to make him shy away from her. But he only released her when he thought he espied someone coming. He had done his best to spare Jane the embarrassing speculations of the other women of Faire Isle. The one he glimpsed approaching was the last he would have wished to catch him kissing Jane.

Meg. He expected that she was bearing down upon him, to wrest Jane away in a storm of indignation. But Meg didn’t seem to have noticed either of them. The girl was too bent upon her own purpose.

With a nervous look over her shoulder, she veered off onto another path, disappearing into the trees. She was obviously
up to something she shouldn’t be. Xavier had been in enough devilment himself to recognize all the signs.

THE COVE WAS SECLUDED FROM PORT CORSAIR BY THE FOREST
of fir trees, a place where Meg could find the solitude she craved. She felt she had not had a quiet moment to think since the excitement of being named the next Lady of Faire Isle.

She took off her stockings and shoes and seated herself on a flat rock near the edge of the shore. She dangled her feet, allowing the waves to lap over them.

The water was cold even at this time of year. Meg shivered, but welcomed the bracing chill with a tired sigh. She had discovered that elation could be as exhausting as despair. Perhaps because her happiness was tempered by the constant fear it might all be snatched away from her in a heartbeat.

The women on Faire Isle had become more receptive to her, although Meg knew that owed more to Carole’s influence and Seraphine’s persuasions than any of Meg’s own merits.

Ariane assured her that she would win them all over in time. Meg only hoped that that was true, but time was not something she was sure that she would have.

She drew her crystal from her pouch, the glass orb sparkling in the sunlight. Meg had not consulted it for weeks. Ariane had changed her destiny that night upon the cliffs, or so Meg desperately wanted to believe. But she needed to be sure, so she had determined to consult her crystal one last time.

Meg drew in a deep breath, peering into her scrying glass, straining hard to focus. She stared until pinpricks of light dazzled her eyes before coalescing into an image. She braced herself, fearing that once more she might see herself being handed over to the Dark Queen’s soldiers, her shadowy betrayer lurking behind her.

But the scene that unfolded before her eyes was worse. She saw a sick old woman laid out upon a bed with costly hangings. Meg strained harder, honing her vision until the woman’s face came into focus. It was the Dark Queen and she was dying …

Meg wanted to shrink away from the malevolent face glaring up at her from the pillows. But Catherine’s withered hand clutched at Meg’s wrist. The queen’s voice was a weak rasp as she accused, “You! You have done this to me.”

“No,” Meg cried. “You brought this upon yourself. I never wished you any harm. Why could you not leave me alone?”

The hard light in the queen’s eyes dimmed to a look of sheer desperation. “Help me. I am so afraid of the darkness, sinking into the grave alone, forgotten. I know you have the power, child. Undo all of this, please.”

“I can’t,” Meg whispered, tears trickling down her cheeks. “It is too late … for both of us.”

“See anything interesting in there?” The voice drawled close to her ear, snapping Meg’s concentration and driving her heart against her ribs.

She whipped around to find Xavier bending over her. The water splashed as she leaped up. She nearly slipped on the slick sand and would have fallen if Xavier had not seized her arm.

Righting herself, Meg wrenched away from him. She panted, glaring at him.

“How—how dare you? What do you think you are doing, spying on me?”

He appeared unfazed by her temper or her righteous indignation. He cocked one brow. “The question ought to be, what are
you
doing?”

Meg moved to hide the crystal, but she realized it was far too late for that. “What—what I do is none of your affair.”

Her haughty assertion was ruined when she could not help quavering, “Are you going to tell Ariane?”

“As you say, it is none of my affair. I am not your keeper, thank heaven.”

He eased himself down on the bank, bracing himself with his good hand, his movements a trifle awkward with his right arm still in the sling.

Meg wanted to storm away and leave him. But she felt that he had bested her by catching her out with the crystal. She stayed out of sheer defiance to prove that she was not ashamed of what she had been doing or the least intimidated by him.

Flouncing down, she resumed her place on the rock. Toying with her crystal, she observed him resentfully out of the corner of her eye. He had found a piece of broken shell and was examining it as though they were two friends who had gone for a stroll and were spending an idle afternoon together.

“Why are you still here?” Meg demanded.

“Well, this seems a fair spot, quiet, peaceful—”

“Not the cove. I mean here on Faire Island. I gave you that potion to help you regain your strength.”

“You did indeed and you have my thanks for that.”

“I did not want your thanks. I wanted you gone.”

“Alas, it would seem I have not risen in your esteem.” He gave a mock sigh. “Have you been seeing any more dire warnings about me in your little crystal? The great jungle cat stalking poor Lady Danvers.”

“No, the glass doesn’t warn me of things that have already happened.”

Xavier’s eyes might be impossible to read, but Jane’s were not. Meg saw clearly the transformation that had come over her older friend, the hopeful glow in Jane’s eyes, all the longings that the quiet lady would never express.

“You have already dug your claws deep into Jane’s heart,” Meg told him resentfully.

He frowned. Drawing back his arm, he flung the shell far out into the water. “Whether you believe it or not, I do care about Jane. I would never hurt her.”

“Not on purpose perhaps.” Meg was willing to allow him that much. “But you are one of those dangerous people who draw trouble to you like a lodestar. Just like—”

Meg checked herself, pursing her lips.

“Like you?” he asked.

Meg hated to admit she might have anything in common with him. But she thought of all the people in her life who had come to disaster, her beloved old nurse Mistress Waters, many of the young women who had joined the coven of the Silver Rose, Lady Danvers’s unfortunate brother. Meg had come close to being responsible for Jane’s death as well, to say nothing of putting her father and stepmother in peril.

No, Meg corrected herself. Megaera, the Silver Rose
was the one who was a danger to her friends. But that was not who she was.

Xavier reached across her in an attempt to pluck the crystal from her grasp. Meg tightened both hands around the scrying glass. Cradling it out of his reach, she glowered at him.

“I only wanted to look at it,” he said. “Considering that using that glass only seems to bring you a deal of heartache, I wonder what is your fascination with it?”

“Nothing that you would understand.”

“You might be surprised,” he said with a strange smile. He drew a flask from inside his doublet. “Do you know what this is?”

Meg eyed it scornfully. “It looks like an ordinary leathern jack, like the kind my stepmother uses to keep her Irish whiskey in. She let me taste it once. It was like swallowing fire and tasted horrible. It made me choke.”

“The stuff in my flask would make you do far more than that. The vine of the spirits, the natives of Brazil call it. An Indian shaman taught me to brew it from a certain jungle liana.”

“You mean like a potion?” Meg tried to look uninterested, but she was intrigued in spite of herself. “What does it do?”

“It induces a powerful trance, one that will take your mind places you never imagined it could go. You feel as though you are capable of seeing and knowing everything.”

“Like when I gaze into my ball and catch glimpses of the future?”

“Not exactly, but it does conjure visions of a sort. It frees you from the bonds of the real world, sets your mind
soaring. Of course when I come crashing back to earth, I am usually sick for days.”

“Then why meddle with something so dangerous?”

Xavier held up his flask, regarding it with a rueful smile. “Because my dear, just like your scrying glass, the power of it is very seductive.”

Meg wanted to deny any comparison between the purity of her crystal and his filthy jungle brew. But his words struck an uncomfortable chord with her. The visions she summoned up in the glass were often alarming. But knowing that she possessed the power to summon those visions was all too alluring.

But she said, “Your potion sounds more dangerous than what I do with my crystal. At least I don’t sink into any kind of a trance.”

“Perhaps not. But while you are so busy seeking to know what may happen tomorrow, you forget to live today. Your glimpses into the future may be the most dangerous because they deny you your free will, your belief that you can chart your own course. If I were you, I would leave that thing alone.”

“You have no right to lecture me.” She gestured contemptuously to his flask.

“You are right. I don’t.” He uncorked the flask. Meg watched him with a mingling of trepidation and fascination, wondering if he meant to perform his magic for her right here and now. To her astonishment, he upended the flask and poured the liquid out into the sand.

“My use of this form of dark magic may well have cost me my ship. That crystal of yours could end up costing you a high price as well.”

Meg surprised herself by confiding in him what she had told no one else. “I can’t help it, Xavier. I am afraid. I keep seeing
her.”

His lips tightened. “I assume you mean the Dark Queen.”

“Someone is going to betray me to her. I will end up trapped in her palace and—” Meg bit down upon her lip. She had already told him more than she meant to. She didn’t add,
I am afraid I am going to do something terrible
.

Xavier looked away from her, a troubled expression darkening his face. Meg would have given anything if she could read the man’s eyes. When he turned back to her, his expression was more gentle than she would have imagined him capable of.

He touched her hand. “No, Meg. No one is going to betray you. No matter what that crystal tells you. You will be safe from the Dark Queen. I promise you that.”

It was a rash promise. Yet, he spoke so simply, so intently, she found herself believing him.

She looked at her crystal for a long moment, weighing it in her palm. Drawing a breath for courage, she smashed it upon the rocks.

S
IMON ARISTIDE HAD RETURNED TO FAIRE ISLE. ALTHOUGH
it had been well over a decade since the witch-hunter had raided the island, women gathered up their children and herded them indoors.

A few dared to linger by their garden gates, staring in stony silence at the man as he clattered by on horseback. The years had threaded silver through his dark hair. He dressed more in the simple breeches and tunic of a peasant farmer than his dark warrior’s garb of yore. But there was no mistaking the sinister eye patch and scars that marred the right side of Aristide’s face.

Simon nodded, tipping the soft brim of his hat to some of the ladies as he passed. But his efforts to smile were only met with glowers and one elderly dame actually spat at him.