His brain, working at a furious speed until this moment, shut down. Nothing at all came out of his mouth.
She said, her voice utterly expressionless, "Very well, I don't really blame you for keeping quiet. Your answer wouldn't be excessively gratifying to a new bride, would it? So allow me to answer it for you. You married me because you knew if you were ever to figure out this debt business, figure out what exactly was owed to me, figure out exactly what you had to do in order to rid yourself of the wretched dream, and this immense sense of obligation you feel, that the men of your family have felt for many generations, then I had to be close to you, I would have to be tied to you. Yes, I can understand that you would be terrified I would get away from you.
"So as I see it, you married me because you felt you had to." And she wrote it down.
He lunged to his feet. "Bloody hell, no!"
She looked him dead in the eye. He was pale, his eyes blacker than midnight. Slowly, at last, he nodded, and his black eyes were now desolate, his face leached of color. "Yes, that is what happened."
Rosalind slowly rose, the pencil still in her hand. "So much has happened since I met you, so many inexplicable things. I'll wager it's because the two main players are finally together. Do you remember I asked you once if your grandfather was a wizard and you told me you didn't know? But then you told me he knew things, guessed things that no one else would know?"
"I remember," he said. "There was something in him, something magic. I can say that now without feeling contempt for myself."
"I accept that your grandfather was magic. This magic goes all the way back to Captain Jared Vail, it simply has to, and it puts magic in you as well. No, don't argue.
"Now, do you believe this being who saved Captain Jared is some ancestor of mine?"
He didn't want to answer, she saw it clearly, but finally he said, "It is possible."
"All right, if Captain Jared was a wizard, and Rennat the Titled Wizard of the East saved him in order to wring agreement from him, then it also makes sense that he knew I was in trouble-or would be in trouble-and in need of saving whenever the time was right. You know, when something bad would happen to me."
Slowly he nodded.
"Do you believe I'm a witch, Nicholas? Do you believe that someone tried to kill me because they recognized me for what I was, recognized I was from this long line of wizards, and was afraid I could harm them in some way? And so this someone tried to destroy the witch, or tried to destroy the spawn of this long-ago wizard?"
"I don't know."
He walked to where she now stood, and placed his hands on her shoulders. "I simply don't know, Rosalind, but I do know that everything is becoming clearer."
"Nothing is clear at all, Nicholas, save that like the Wyverly heiress, you married me because you felt you had to."
"Marrying you was the most important thing I have ever done in my life."
"It didn't matter to you what I wanted."
"You wanted me. That's what you told me. This marriage has been a two-way road, Rosalind. I didn't force you to do anything you didn't want to do."
"But our reasons for marrying each other were quite different."
When he said nothing, she continued. "That's beside the point in any case. It didn't matter to you who I was, where I'd come from, what I believed."
"Don't be an idiot. Of course it mattered."
"How were you so certain I was that little girl when you saw me at the ball that night, Nicholas? Surely I bear only the slightest resemblance to the little girl?"
He shrugged but didn't release his hold on her. Was he afraid she'd bolt? Probably. "I knew. I simply knew, there's nothing more I can tell you."
"All right, so you'd found the little girl you'd dreamed about, you were led right to her, is that correct?"
He nodded.
"She was now a woman and that added layers of problems. And your solution was to marry her-me."
"Yes. But there is so much more, Rosalind. From the beginning you were important to me."
"Well, naturally I'm important to you. If I hadn't wanted you desperately, why then, you would be cursed to dream that dreadful dream for the rest of your days."
"Yes," he said, "that is the truth."
"What if I am indeed a witch, Nicholas? Remember Rennat told me I would come into my own, whatever that means."
He drew in a deep breath and his hands tightened on her shoulders. 'Then you are a witch and my wife, and we will deal with it."
"When I come into my own-my own-what will you do, Nicholas?"
"Do you mean you will smite the land and bring famine to the world?"
She didn't laugh. "What will you do, Nicholas?"
"I don't know. How can I know something before it happens? If it happens? Or what the result will be?"
She looked up at him, studied the face that had become so beloved to her in such a short time. She felt deadening pain. It was difficult to force the words out of her tight throat. "The most important fact of all of this is you don't love me, Nicholas."
"Rosalind-"
She held out her hand. "You're an honorable man, Nicholas. Give me the key."
"But we need to study Captain Jared's journals, see if he's hidden some information to help us, to-" "Give me the key, Nicholas." He released her and gave her the key. She walked quickly away from him, turned, and said, "I know you want me, Nicholas, I know well you enjoy making love to me. However, from what I've heard, it seems a man is content with any woman who wanders into his vicinity. She simply has to be available."
"No. Well, yes, perhaps there's some truth to that. But you, Rosalind, you are very special to me, you-"
She raised her hand. "You don't love me, Nicholas. That's the truth of it. How could a man love a debt?" And she unlocked the library door and left. Nicholas stood frozen in the middle of the room. He heard a deep sigh from behind him.
"Go to the Devil," he said and went out into the gardens.
39
Two hours later, he went looking for her. He finally found her in the long portrait gallery in the east wing, staring up at Captain Jared Vail, the first Earl of Mountjoy. She was looking up at a man in his prime, a big man, his legs in the tight leggings of the Elizabethan times. Broad shoulders, a chin possibly more stubborn than Nicholas's. She started when she studied his eyes. His eyes-they looked familiar. She'd seen those eyes, hadn't she? No, that didn't seem possible. His eyes were a glorious blue, bright, filled with wickedness and endless dreams and wonders, and mayhem.
She knew the moment Nicholas entered the gallery. He walked with lazy grace, but she saw the tension in him. They stood only three feet apart," but in truth, there was a chasm between them.
"He was quite a man, was Captain Jared," he said, looking up at the portrait.
She eyed him a moment, then said, "You said you simply knew who I was, simply knew I was the child you'd lived with nearly all your life in your dream. Come, Nicholas, how did you recognize me? I was a woman, not the child you dreamed about."
"I told you the truth. I simply knew. I realize it must sound impossible to you, but I knew you would be at that ball, knew it all the way to the deepest part of me, and I knew you the moment I saw you. Does that mean nothing to you, Rosalind? Can't you see? We were meant to know each other, meant to be together."
She crossed her arms over her chest, tapped her toes. "Listen to me, Nicholas. Despite all that's happening here, despite all the questions, the mystery, it is still my life. Mine. And you married me under false pretenses."