Magical Weddings (11 page)

Children
… The thought of a couple of sons to inherit Simon’s bent for mischief, along with a little girl for the boys to tease, sent a tiny thrill through her. “That’s not what I meant, though of course you’ll torment me and I’ll be annoyed about it.”

“You get as bristly as a hairbrush. I find it captivating.”

She decided to ignore him. “The unbearable bit is going to be Uncle Rupert crowing about being right.”

“No doubt. Though as it happens, you can always throw up to him that you did exactly what you said you’d do. You’re coming home as the promised bride of a titled gentleman.”

Her eyes widened. “That’s right–I won my bet. Pay up, Simon.”

“You only managed to win by bending the rules.”

“Make it a wedding gift?” she said softly, and he stopped in the middle of the path to kiss her again. A long while later, he said unsteadily, “If you can put up with Uncle Rupert crowing about his triumph, so can I–because we belong together, Silly. Forever.”

And for perhaps the first time in her life, Celia found herself in complete agreement with him.

Stone House, London

To: Mr. Rupert Overton

I hope you’re satisfied with the outcome of my little house party, Rupert, though I must admit I am not. I became fond of Celia and I hoped she would catch my nephew’s eye and put the common sense you’re so proud of to good use in preserving his riches.

But of course it was not to be. You got your wish, and I did not get mine. Not that I fault Celia’s judgment, for young Lord Montrose –as I suppose you will forever resist calling him–would have been a catch even without a title. Or for that matter, even without your money.

I suppose you’ll think my comment is heresy, Rupert, but though I may be old, I’m far from blind. He is a handsome and virile young man –

But I have allowed myself to be distracted. The point, old friend, is that you are now obliged to me. I’ve done as you asked and shaken the scales from the eyes of your young relatives. Now it’s your turn. What are we going to do about that nephew of mine?

Yours sincerely,

Lucinda Stone

Leigh Michaels is the bestselling and award-winning author of more than 100 books, including historical romance and contemporary romance. Her non-fiction book,
On Writing Romance
, has been called the best guide available for romance writers, and she teaches romance writing online at Gotham Writers Workshop.

Six of her books have been finalists in the RITA contest sponsored by Romance Writers of America, and more than 35 million copies of her books are in print in 25 languages and more than 120 countries. Her books have been published by Harlequin Books, Sourcebooks, Montlake Romance, Writers Digest Books, and Arcadia Publishing. Her website is
www.leighmichaels.com
.

Aileen Harkwood

Copyright © 2015 by:

Aileen Harkwood

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
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When he became a warlock, no one warned Terry Paxton he would also be made into a flunky. Ax, as he was known to friends, stood looking up at the great pile of Oregon timber and stone that was Drayhome, frustrated by…no…
hating
what he’d been sent here to do.

I refuse. I won’t do it. They want it done, they need to send someone else.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t anyone else in Breens Mist to do it. Fortunately, however, he had time. He had other duties, other reasons for coming here, a wedding for which he was expected to help prepare. He could stall, wait until the ceremony was over and at the last second give Colleen the news.

Explosions and calamities to follow
.

He was not looking forward to it.

At the moment, his main task was finding the mistress caretaker of Drayhome. The house had a bad habit of hiding Colleen from him. If he didn’t know better, he’d think it hated him, but the house loathed everyone equally. Or was it because she hated intrusions of any sort that the estate took it upon itself to demonstrate its distaste for him and others who might impinge upon her privacy? Colleen might not see it this way, but in theory Drayhome belonged to everyone. Every witch and warlock in Breens, that was. No humans allowed.

And that, lay at the heart of what prompted his current mission.

Humans.

They irritated him to no end; though, he had to admit, no more so than the powers that be among his own kind who were forever telling him what to do. It hadn’t always been so, but witchkind in Breens were currently at the mercy of an emergency conclave. It grated that none currently at the top considered his gift to be valuable to the community and had relegated him to his current position based on his more mundane talents for sheer brute force. With the wedding coming up, this physicality translated to an even lower status as the sole provider of manual labor at Drayhome.

Three solid stories built more than a century ago, the house had every imposing architectural feature going for it but crenulated battlements, which would definitely have stood out in rural Oregon. North and south wings flanked a façade combining outsized lumberjack rusticity with the elegance of an Irish manor house. Bright green moss furred the lower walls of the bay windows where they canted inward toward the building in perpetual shade. More of the stuff clung to the roof shingles on the north tower, and the undersides of most second and third story transoms. He’d been lax in his duties. This should have been taken care of before it got out of hand.

He climbed the steps to the double entry doors, hewn from a single slab of old growth Douglas fir six feet wide that would give today’s tree huggers a heart attack, but at the time Drayhome had been erected, would have been viewed as a source of pride. They also contained deep
place magic
, the mysterious force that governed his kind in Breens Mist. Place magic gave each witch and warlock their power and unique gifts, while at the same time it controlled their fate absolutely. Not even the conclave could overrule place magic, any more than a volcanologist could plug a volcano, or a ship’s captain hold back a tsunami. He personally believed no location in Breens held a deeper connection to the place magic than the threshold at Drayhome. It made sense. No other living thing had sunk deeper into the earth here than the roots of this once great tree.

Realistically, he should go around to the kitchen door, but that would make him feel more like the servant his superiors considered him to be, so the front entrance it was, at least on his initial arrival of every visit.

Twin latch handles affixed to the doors were non-functional and for show only. If a key existed to insert into the lock, the person holding it would have discovered no cylinder to turn. Keys to Drayhome were of the spelled variety only. Tracing his sigil in the center of the door, his finger drew figures outlined in copper-colored light that sank into the wood. When finished, he took a respectful step back and waited.

And waited.

Then waited some more.

He paced on the stoop while Drayhome considered whether or not to let him in.

“Oh,
come on
,” he said, rolled his eyes and faced back toward the highway, a little under fifty yards away. A fountain, its basin adrift with vivid red water lilies, splashed and gurgled, enclosed by the estate’s circular driveway.

As he watched, a hummingbird the size of a grape buzzed around the largest lily in the pond, possibly attracted by the red petals. It latched onto a yellow-tipped stamen at the center of the blossom, miraculously perching on that slenderest of supports. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d witnessed a hummingbird at rest and watched, wondering how long the rare sight would last.

With a snap rivaling a Venus flytrap, the lily swallowed the feathered creature whole.

He blinked, quietly stunned.

That’s new
.

Last time he’d been here, the fountain had not contained carnivorous water lilies.

Turning back to the entrance, he noticed the right hand door ajar, tacitly allowing him in. His mind immediately thought of the bird-eating lily, but he really had no choice but to accept the invitation. He pushed the door inward and entered.

Instantly finding himself back on the stoop, locked out of Drayhome. Behind him, the fountain rained sprays of water, another lily ate another innocent bit of flying fluff, and out on the highway, a redneck in a dented pickup thundered by on his way into downtown Breens Mist.

What the– What just happened?

Magic could glitch. Perhaps he’d made a mistake when tracing his sign on the door? Been sloppy with one of the characters?

He drew it again, and again watched the monstrous hunk of wood accept the spell. On his second try, he breathed a sigh of relief when entry was granted instantaneously. He pushed open the door, strode into the foyer.

Light wind ruffled his hair.

Because he stood outside again, his nose an inch from the closed doors.

He didn’t have time for this.

Drayhome didn’t want to let him in the front? He’d be the good little lackey and head around to the kitchen entrance. Pivoting on his heel, he prepared to descend the steps to the gravel drive and smacked face first into a barrier that hadn’t been there a second earlier. He faced Drayhome’s double doors. Huh? He bounced backward on booted feet and glanced over his shoulder, seeing the drive, the fountain, the road.

What was going on here? How had he become so disoriented?

He swung around again, once more ready to trot down the steps.

Only to collide with the familiar pair of entry doors, more forcefully this time than before.

“Dammit,” he said and gingerly touched his nose, sure it must be broken.

It didn’t matter how many times he about-faced. Drayhome didn’t want to let him in, but like the lily in the fountain that jawed shut on a hummingbird, it wouldn’t let him go.

He raised his voice. “Very funny, Colleen.”

Stubbornly, he turned once more, determined to either find a way in or around, and once more, the pair of colossal fir doors suddenly barred his way.

“Colleen, call off your house.”

He rapped on the doors.

“Hello?”

Pounded the wood with the butt of one hand and shouted.

“
Colleen!
”

In the basement linen storage room, Colleen McColly heard her visitor beating on the front door and sighed with impatience. Couldn’t the man ever come around to the side like everyone else? Why did Ax always have to make a show of entering through the front door? More to the point, why bang on the door instead of coming in? It wasn’t as if he could forget his key.

She’d been expecting him ever since the wedding spell had interrupted everyone’s sleep the night before. Weddings weren’t something that witches and warlocks chose. Weddings chose them. Each of them saw the spell taking shape at the same time, each knew a wedding would follow within a week, but like much of the magic controlling their combined fates in Breens, the identity of the couple taking vows remained a mystery until moments before the ceremony.

To say this caused anxiety within the community was gross understatement. It wasn’t that people didn’t couple up in long-term relationships among their kind. Rather, the concept of being forced into marriage sent many into a panic. Any two of them could be targeted by the place magic. Friends, lovers, strangers, the spell never exempted anyone, and none among them had ever found a way to break its bonds.

All witches and warlocks were at the mercy of Breens Mist place magic, the spelled framework woven into the very ground on which they lived, the rocks and trees, the river running through town and even the air around them. Place magic gave them their power and individual gifts. After a fashion, a weirdly insane fashion, it did protect them from persecution by the humans they lived amongst, and it extended their life spans well beyond the human norm. In its own passive-aggressive way, it also put crippling limits on their daily lives not one of them had the ability to overcome. Not even the conclave knew the exact origins or the place magic, who or what might have created it, let alone why or how it worked the way it did. All had been lost to history.

“Colleen!”

His shout echoed through the house all the way to the basement. She stood on the opposite side of the building and a floor below him. Nevertheless, she felt him pounding at the door, the vibrations moving up through the soles of her shoes. Her gift connected her intimately to Drayhome and she experienced what it experienced. Nor did she need a surveillance camera to see him. She saw what the house saw.