Nicholas said, "Richard, tell me about the knife Rosalind was using."
"The bloody knife?" Richard smashed his fist on the table. "You're concerned about the bloody knife when what you should be thinking about is how to rid yourself of this vicious bitch before she murders you!"
"Cook has made some lovely toast and scrambled eggs, not to mention kippers and-" Block froze in his tracks at the violence he saw on his master's face, indeed felt in the air itself.
Nicholas rose slowly from his chair. "You will apologize to my wife, Richard, and you will do it now and with grace and sincerity."
Richard shot Rosalind a look. His voice was hairing as he managed to get out, "I am worried about my half brother. He does not seem concerned, and any intelligent man would be very concerned. We all came here to warn him, but-"
"You are mucking it up, Richard."
Richard cleared his throat. "I apologize, Rosalind. I do not know you so I cannot judge your character, but I had the vision and that is a fact."
"Do you know, Richard," she said, her voice emotionless, "I have never even been called a bitch, much less a vicious bitch. This vision of yours-"
"It is a portent," Miranda announced as she forked down scrambled eggs. "Visions don't lie."
A portent, Rosalind thought, and set to her own breakfast, surprised she was ravenous. She looked up to see Nicholas watching her. Surely he wasn't thinking she'd cut out his heart. But that vision of Richard's-
Nicholas said, "Richard, the knife. I ask you again, what did it look like?"
"It had a curved blade, and there were diamonds, rubies, and even sapphires embedded in the hilt."
Nicholas nodded. "I wish to show you something after breakfast."
"After breakfast," Miranda said, voice hard as the brass candlesticks in the middle of the table, "we are leaving Richard has delivered his warning. We have done our duty What happens to you now is on your own head, Nicholas."
Nicholas carefully laid down his knife. "I would like all of you to remain here for several days."
"So you believe me then?" As Richard spoke, he shot Rosalind a cold smile.
"Believe that Rosalind stabs me and cuts out my heart? No, but there are unanswered questions roiling about. Perhaps amongst all of us, we can figure out what is going on here."
"There is something else going on?" Aubrey asked, sitting forward, his eyes glittering. "Something better than Richard's bloody vision?"
"Oh, yes," Nicholas said, "much better."
43
Richard's voice was barely above a whisper. "Yes, yes, that is the knife I saw her plunge into your heart."
Rosalindsaw herself holding that knife as it dripped blood-white blood. What if it was indeed a portent? What if something happened, something utterly catastrophic, and she did kill Nicholas? No, it wasn't possible, it simply wasn't. But what was possible, what was fact and she and Nicholas had to embrace it, was that there was magic at work here, ancient magic. She thought of all the Celtic names of the wizards and witches in the Pale. She thought of Taranis, the Dragon of the Sallas Pond, who'd been Sarimund's confidant of sorts. His was a Celtic god's name as well, and he'd claimed to be immortal. What if they were the same beings, but they'd somehow ended up in a different time, a different place? And somehow they'd spilled over into this world? Were they trying to come back, only something terrible had happened and they were stuck in the Blood Rock fortress? What if they wanted her to kill Nicholas because he'd descended from Captain Jared, who hadn't paid his debt to her?
How could such a thing be of help to them?
It didn't make sense. She'd been born almost three hundred years later, well beyond Captain Jared's time, surely a god would know that. But then again, maybe there were boundaries on ancient wizards and gods, restricting them to certain skills in a certain time, a certain place. Maybe they weren't all-powerful or omniscient.
It was time to act, she thought, time to discover what this debt was all about, time to learn who she really was, maybe what she really was. The possible what scared her to her toes.
She heard Richard Vail ask Nicholas, "What is the knife doing here?"
"This knife appears to have many incarnations," Nicholas said, and she admired his ambiguity.
"Lawks," Aubrey said, rubbing his hands together, "wait until I tell my friends at Oxford what is happening in my family-ghosts and knives in a vision that really exist. But wait, Richard, are you certain you never saw this knife before? It did belong to Grandfather; it was in this room when you were a boy, wasn't it?"
Richard still stared at the knife, as if mesmerized. "I don't think so, but that was a long time ago and I was young-" He shrugged and tried not to look frightened.
"Nicholas is not our family," Lancelot said to Aubrey, "not really. Our father detested him, claimed he was a bastard, but since he was the image of himself, he couldn't very well prove it, now could he?"
Richard said, almost as an afterthought, "Shut up, Lance."
Lancelot puffed up and looked ready to yell, when his mother said, "It's all terribly unfair, but, at this moment in time, Nicholas is the head of the Vail family."
"Unfair to whom?" Rosalind asked. "Richard is the one who has been disloyal to his brother. I mean, trying to kidnap me, surely not a very praiseworthy thing to do."
Miranda said, "And why should he be loyal to this unwanted stranger? Gone when he was but a boy and he only returns to collect his dead father's title. What sort of son does that?"
Nicholas said, eyebrow arched, "One that is disowned, perhaps, madam?"
Miranda shouted, "It's still not fair, do you hear me?"
"I don't think it was particularly fair for someone to try to kill me when I was a little girl," Rosalind said. "What do you have to say to that?"
"I have to say you are probably a harlot's brat and her drunken lover took a cane to you, deservedly so, that's what I say."
In a flash Nicholas was not an inch from his stepmother's nose. He looked intimidating, dangerous, and ruthless. In a voice so soft no one could hear what he said except Miranda and Rosalind, he said, "Listen to me, you vicious old bat, you will never insult Rosalind again or I will ruin you. Do you understand me, madam? No more new gowns since there will be no more money, no more entree into society. In short you will be ignored and ostracized."
"Ruin me? Ha!"
Nicholas smiled down at her, and that smile surely had to freeze Miranda to the bone. Was the woman mad? Had she lost all sense, to bait a man like Nicholas?
"Heed me, madam, for I am quite serious. Not only will I ruin you, I will ruin your three sons."
Miranda opened her mouth to blast him when Aubrey said in a loud voice, "I say, Mother, I don't wish to be ruined. I don't wish to be booted out of Oxford. As for Lance, he loves his new waistcoats and his horses. Hmm, and our butler Davy as well, I think. Please rein in your tongue."
"I pray this bastard meets a foul end," Lancelot said, his hands clenched, his pretty face flushed.
Rosalind clapped her hands. "All of you will listen to me now. We have an unusual situation here and it behooves us to figure it out, not fight and insult each other. Nicholas is the Earl of Mountjoy. Get yourselves over your disappointment for it grows very tedious to hear the lot of you whine and complain and curse Fate. Now, Nicholas and I need to attend to some matters that don't involve any of you."
To her relief, Mrs. McGiver arrived in the next moment to show the Vails to their bedchambers. Rosalind assigned Marigold to attend the Dowager Lady Mountjoy. "Stick close to her, Marigold," Rosalind said close to her ear. "She will complain endlessly, but you keep smiling and tell her you will see to everything, all right?" She dropped her voice another ten degrees. "She isn't to be trusted."