Claire Delacroix (32 page)

Niall frowned. He wasn’t quite certain what his sister’s state had to do with anything between himself and Viviane.

He growled beneath his breath and attempted to seize his lady’s hand. “Viviane, we must
talk
, for ’tis clear that there are matters which I must explain to you...”

“Oh yeah, he’s like got a ton of explaining to do,” Monty interjected so brightly that Niall fell silent.

What did this one have to say? Naught good, Niall guessed.

Monty’s eyes narrowed. “You know, big guy, I picked up a few books from Barb and spent some time reading about this Cantlecroft you two are always going on about. Funny thing is, Cantlecroft ceased to exist at Christmas 1390.”

“1390?” Viviane echoed, her mouth opening in surprise.

“Christmas,” Niall muttered in disbelief. Surely naught could have happened to Majella in his absence? “It cannot be so.”

“Oh, yeah, it was so.” Monty, curse him, smiled. “Oh, its occupants revolted and slaughtered everyone in the archbishop’s palace.”

Niall felt the blood drain from his face. He had left near the beginning of October - and he had sent Majella to the archbishop’s palace. She was too close to her time to have traveled much further than that so quickly.

Nay, she would have stayed, and delivered of the babe there. ’Twas for her own safety, after all, that he had sent her to the archbishop, for Niall knew full well that his patron would not turn his sister aside.

He could not have sent her to her own demise!

And what of the children?

“Nay, this cannot be so,” Niall argued, dreading that indeed ’twas. “Tell me the truth of it!” He stepped forward but Monty retreated, that man’s eyes widening in alarm.

“It
is
true,” Monty insisted. “Everyone killed, even the dogs in the hall. Seems the locals were upset about the death of some jeweler, guy named Aaron Goldsmith.”

Viviane gasped. “Not Aaron!”

Monty gave her an odd look. “Yeah. Aaron Goldsmith and his wife - they were convicted and executed for short-shipping the archbishop on his gold.”

Niall raised a hand to his brow, for he felt ill. Surely all could not have gone so badly awry so quickly? “This cannot be,” he said woodenly. “Aaron is a man of good repute, a man known to cheat none.”

“He bought my mother’s ring from me,” Viviane said, her eyes clouding with tears. She clutched Niall’s hand and her fingers were cold. “And I know he gave me more than a fair price. You have to be wrong, Monty.”

“What precisely happened there?” Niall asked hotly. “Who died? Does this account list their names?”

But Monty’s eyes narrowed as he looked between the two of them. “Are you two like confusing real history with your re-enactment people? I mean, I could like understand if you knew some guy who took the role of this Aaron dude and didn’t want to see anything bad happen to him, but you can’t actually know the
real
Aaron. He’s been dead for six hundred years!”

“He would never short-ship anyone,” Viviane insisted. “Not Aaron. He’d give someone the shirt off his own back rather than see them cold.”

“Aye, he is a man of good name.” Niall met her gaze and was reassured to see a hint of her usual consideration there. “My lady, ’tis October,” he reminded her gently. “If indeed we could return thence, we might be able to ensure that Aaron does not die so wrongly. I, too, would see him thrive.”

She wavered. Niall saw the indecision dawn in her eyes, he noted how she bit her lip. “But, Majella...”

Before Niall could tell her the truth of it, Monty spoiled everything.

“Yeah,
right
! Going back to the past. As if!” He leaned closer, his tone dropping. “But I’ll tell you something really interesting, Viviane, something about this little history lesson that you probably don’t know.”

Viviane looked alarmed. “What do you mean?”

“Research, man. A writer’s gotta research, and I did.” He glared at Niall and Niall wondered what this man of no repute had found. “Funny thing is, a lot of people in Cantlecroft thought things had gone wrong right from the moment they dispatched a certain knight to retrieve an escaped convict.”

Niall stared in shock. He could not have found that tale!

“A woman named Viviane, condemned as a witch and sentenced to die.” Monty licked his lips as Viviane started.

“Nay,” she whispered, obviously seeing the path of the tale.

“Oh yeah,” Monty said with a nod. “And that knight, who swore before the whole of Cantlecroft at a big shin-dig to bring the witch back to face her execution, was named Niall of Malloy.”

“Nay!” Niall roared, but ’twas too late.

“Nay!” Viviane rounded on him with flashing eyes and snatched her hand out of his. “Tell me ’tis a lie!” she cried. “Tell me that you didn’t follow me to take back there! Niall! You couldn’t have wanted me to die!”

But Niall could not lie.

Nor could he tell her the truth.

He cleared his throat. “Viviane, ’tis not as it seems...”

“No, it’s worse, babe, it’s a lot worse.” Monty pushed his way into the conversation. “He’s just trying to get around you, get you back with the troupe to re-enact the last chapter of the scene. It’s not gonna be any fun for you, Viviane, even if it is just play-acting...”

“You deceived me!” Viviane stepped forward, raised her hand to slap him, and Niall seized the only chance he was likely to have.

He had to ensure Majella’s safety.

He had to fulfill his pledge.

He had to clear Viviane’s name - and he knew there would be no chance to explain all to her here before she fled his side for all time.

Niall caught Viviane in his arms, ignoring her scream of frustration and her kicking. He shifted her weight to one hip, locked an arm around her waist, and closed his hand around the cursed pendant at the root of it all.

He began to chant.

“Sea of green and sky of blue,

Let this one wish come true:

To Cantlecroft would we now flee,

A word with the archbishop we do plea.”

The shimmering that Niall recalled started, the coldness emanated once more from the ethereal stone. Viviane whimpered and struggled against him, clearly disinclined to participate in this journey, but Niall held her fast.

She twisted and fought, she bit him as the shimmer grew to a glow. She cussed at him with a vocabulary he had not guessed she possessed. She was crying and Niall hated that he was responsible for the fall of a single tear. He locked her arms around her waist, determined not to let her go, secretly terrified at the prospect of her escaping his grasp during this transition.

Where then would she be left?

Where would he be left, if he was no longer in possession of the stone?

“Viviane! You must hold fast!” he cried.

“Hey!” Monty roared as the light grew to blinding intensity. “What the hell is this about? And where are you like going? You can’t just take off with her like this!”

And he leapt on Niall just as there came a blinding flash.

* * *

Chapter Fifteen

Viviane shivered from the chill and kept her eyes tightly closed. Though she would have never admitted it, it was a relief to feel Niall’s arms locked around her once again and his heat pressed against her.

Even if she was playing second fiddle to some woman he had left pregnant!

She cried while no one could witness it, letting her tears scatter to the four winds, hating her own gullibility. Oh, she had been a fool to believe that Niall was her one true love, following her across all time to win her heart and hand.

He had just been doing his job, and a horrible job it was. And now, she was going back to face that execution that she had so narrowly escaped.

Some hero she’d found.

Viviane had that same sense of being stretched thin, before she finally felt the gathering begin. It was even more disorienting than the last time, and she couldn’t seem to get a clear sense of where she was. All she could see when she forced her eyes open was clear blue light.

She heard a man cry out, then footsteps hastily drawing closer

She heard Monty swear eloquently, then felt the welcome weight of Niall’s arm lock around her waist.

The first thing that she could discern was the floor.

It was made of heavy, rough-hewn planks of wood. Viviane stared at this unwelcome hint of her location as everything else was still lost in that eerie blue light. There were herbs strewn on the floor in a way that wasn’t very common on Salt Spring Island.

Viviane reached for her pendant with shaking fingers, her arm still unwilling to quickly do her bidding. Even though she was dazed by the leap through time, she knew that she had one chance and one chance only to escape her dire fate.

But Viviane didn’t even have that.

A man’s hand brushed her fingers aside and closed proprietarily over the moonstone. She looked up to find a tall man bending over her.

His smile was not friendly.

“I will just take this,” he insisted silkily and gave the chain a little tug in case she missed his meaning.

“But the pendant is mine!” Viviane protested.

His smile broadened. “Not any more. Take it off.”

Viviane glanced around herself, only to find Monty shaking his head and moaning. Niall had his fingertips pressed to his temples, his jeans and shirt unlikely to aid them much here. Viviane recalled with a pang that his mail was spread over the floor of her room at Barb’s.

An impatient tug urged her to look again at to the man holding her moonstone. He was a tall, elegantly wrought, older man, dark of eye and silver of hair.

They were apparently in his bedroom, which was a remarkably lavish chamber. A massive bed, hung with rich tapestries drawn against the chill of the air, nearly filled the room. Viviane knew she was back in Cantlecroft and she knew she was in the presence of wealth, but she would never have recognized who this man was, because he was naked.

But Niall did. “My lord!” he said in sudden astonishment and the man flicked an impatient glance his way.

“I shall deal with you later,” he said crisply and Niall frowned, though he held his tongue.

Viviane gasped. The archbishop! Of course, Niall had asked for an audience in his verse.

She couldn’t hold back her question. “
Are
you the archbishop?”

He smiled coldly in acknowledgement and Viviane dared to hope. “The pendant, if you please,” he said crisply, but Viviane wasn’t listening.

Maybe she could have the hearing that had been promised to her.

This was her chance!

“Sir!” Viviane, unable to bow, inclined her head with respect. “Sir, my name is Viviane...”

The archbishop frowned. “I know full well who you are. Now, give me this token and give it to me now.”

“But there has been a misunderstanding. I was convicted without ever having the hearing promised to me and if you grant me the chance, I can explain...”

But the archbishop chuckled under his breath. The laughter, Viviane noticed, never reached his eyes. He shook his head and regarded her as though she was a particularly stupid child.

Viviane’s heart chilled.

“There is naught to explain.” He gave the pendant a little tug. “
This
is eloquent enough.”

Oh, he thought she had created the magical pendant! Viviane hastened to reassure him. “Oh, but that’s not my doing. I didn’t know that it had such power! I just made a wish and never imagined this pendant would take me across the centuries.”

The archbishop’s eyes narrowed and he studied her with sudden intensity. “Across
centuries
?” Viviane nodded and held his gaze, content to let him see that she wasn’t lying.

“Aye, my lord,” Niall contributed. “We journeyed to the year 1999 and saw many marvels which could be put to use here in Cantlecroft. ’Twould create labor and mechanisms to sell abroad. Indeed, I began to learn of the marvel they call plumbing...”

The archbishop lifted one hand to silence Niall. “Marvels from the future,” he mused and stared into the stone. “Never did I guess the talisman was so potent as that.”

He smiled into Viviane’s eyes but the sight was not reassuring.

All the same, she summoned her best smile and hoped her usual good fortune would see her free of this circumstance. “So you see, there was no witchery about it. I’m not a witch, I didn’t even know that the stone did this. It was a gift to me and one whose power I never guessed.”

“I know full well where you won it.” The archbishop’s tone was cold and decisive. He ran his thumb across the stone in an almost proprietary way. “Though I had no inkling of its power until this very moment. Of course, I guessed once you disappeared that there was more to the stone than I had suspected. You may be assured that had I known the truth sooner, it would never have been left in your possession.”

She had been condemned because of the stone, but the archbishop hadn’t known it was magical? Viviane frowned in confusion, even as the archbishop’s lips drew to a tight line.

“Such an oversight cannot be tolerated again.” He shook his head and his eyes flashed. “I would have it
now
.”

The archbishop suddenly flicked his wrist and snapped the pendant from its chain. Viviane cried out as the chain bit into her neck and Niall stepped forward to steady her.

“There is no need to injure the lady!” he said heatedly.

The archbishop smiled. “And no reason to spare her.”

Viviane caught her breath as Niall shook his head. “Nay, my lord, she has been misjudged,” he said vehemently. “The lady is innocent of the charge made against her, and I would vouch for her before you. She is no witch, she is naught but a woman falsely charged. She knew naught of the witchery inherent in this stone.”

The archbishop seemed to find Niall’s defense amusing. “I
knew
she was innocent of witchcraft.”

Niall’s face lit up. “Then...”

“’Twas never the issue. ’Twas enough that she wore the stone.” The archbishop shivered elaborately and glanced around the rich chamber as Viviane struggled to make sense of his words. Without saying more, he turned to walk back to his bed.