Page 43 of Ten Lords for the Holidays

“It does.” She cocked her head, watching him, carefully inquisitive.

“You are Sacha Morgan?” It wasn’t truly a question.

“I am. And you are Miss Morwen Cardew’s nephew?”

“I am.”

She tucked her tools into a bag slung across her and rose, coming to stand in front of him. She said nothing and neither did he. But shelookedat him. He felt as if she stared at him with every part of her—and clearly saw every nook and cranny of him. Even her dark curls, pulled back high behind her head, blew forward in the breeze. They wafted toward him as they too were watching, learning, assessing.

“I will help you,” she said suddenly.

He blinked. “Thank you. I need to know—”

She stopped him with a wave of her hand. “I know.” With a dainty foot she marked a spot in the trail. “Stand here.”

He moved to the spot and she stood before him once more. Slowly, she began to move. Always facing him, breathing deeply, utterly silent, she made a circuit around him, drawing a circle with her boot as she went. At four points she stopped, reached into a pouch attached at her waist and dusted him with powder from within. She ended standing ahead of him and facing him again, and she raised her cupped hands and closed her eyes.

“This is a very powerful spell. Earth magic, but also—something else mixed in.” She frowned. “You are under an injunction. You must not kiss the wrong girl.”

An injunction? His mind raced. The wrong girl? He frowned. Perhaps the girls in Cambridge and London had been wrong for him, but Gwyn? Gwyn was exactly the right girl. The woman he meant to live out his life with.

He drew breath to speak, but Sacha Morgan frowned again. “Oh?” Her eyes snapped open. She looked directly at him, stepped forward and kissed him full on the mouth.

Light flashed. Thunder cracked in the clear sky. His lips burned and she stepped back with a laugh. “This spell was not meant as a punishment, my lord. The Pixie who kissed you did not mean to harm you.” Her brow furrowed. “I believe she wishes to help you, to free you, but . . . there are other forces at work. Forces equally as powerful.”

“What are they?”

“I cannot see that clearly. Only great white eyes and a powerful sense of determination.” She lifted a brow. “How strongly do you feel for your Lady Gwyn?”

He didn’t think about the fact that he hadn’t mentioned Gwyn’s name, or anything else pertinent, either. “Strongly.” Her image rose in his head and his heart softened, while his resolve grew hard as steel. “Very strongly. I mean to marry her.”

“Then you will have to fight with equal determination.”

“I will,” he vowed. “But how? I don’t even know what I’m fighting.”

“The answer is easy. You must kiss the girl.”

“Well, I have tried.”

“So I saw. But something tries to stop you, so you must be clever. Outwit whoever is working against you.” She paused. “Christmas is nearly here. It is a holiday with its own magic. Use it. Kiss her at the stroke of midnight on Christmas Eve, when all the power of men’s love and peace and good will be surging strongest. Harness it, and kiss her.”

He nodded, his mind already churning. “Thank you so much, Miss Morgan.”

“Thank me by winning your lady,” she said with a smile.

A bird’s cry sounded aloft, and he looked up, hoping that damned Cornish chough had not followed him. When he glanced down again, Sacha Morgan was gone. He was alone on the trail, save for the twitch of a black cat’s tail as the animal slunk off into the brush.

CHAPTER5

Two days!Two days since their garden encounter, two days that Thistle had done her best, monitoring the activities of Lord Locryn and Lady Gwyn—and they hadn’t come near each other!

Thistle was growing frustrated. And worried. Why the delay? Couldn’t they feel the light and warmth that blossomed when they came together? How could they not act on it? She needed them to act on it.

Derowan wanted to know why it was so important to her. Thistle could scarcely answer—it just was. Locryn needed to be let loose from her mistake. She needed to drop the burden of being responsible for his lonely existence. Once he was free, then she would be as well.

Free to do what? The thought wandered into her brain as she hid in the greenery in Castle Keyvnor’s great hall. An image of Morcom followed it. Morcom. He was different lately. More forceful? He’d been so kind to her and she hadn’t truly appreciated it. Now she thought back to all of the times he’d come to coax her out of her melancholy, the tiny seashells and small fiddleheads of ferns he brought to marvel over with her, the sunrises and sunsets he’d cajoled her into enjoying.

Looking back at it all now, she felt ashamed of herself. But she also felt . . . warm inside.

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