Touch of Enchantment

  As they passed through the bailey gates, they encountered no further opposition from Brisbane's garrison. When they'd traveled a brief distance, Tabitha would have even sworn she heard a faint cheer go up from the castle walls behind them.

  Colin's people were equally jubilant. They clapped each other on the back and congratulated each other on their valor. They sang snatches of song both on-key and off – in Lyssandra's case, as Arjon had warned, mostly off. The boys mock-wrestled and relived every glorious moment of their first real skirmish while the old men swapped tales of battles fought in the full vigor of manhood, but never forgotten.

  As they started across the idyllic meadow where she had first met Colin, Tabitha cradled Lucy in her arms and turned her face to the sun, basking in its warmth. If someone had told her that someday she would be riding through this very meadow in the arms of a prince among men, her hair sprinkled with rose petals, and her heart brimming with love, she would have told them they were either crazy or hopelessly misguided.

  Until she'd gazed into Colin's golden eyes, she had believed that princes were for other women and love was for fools.

  Brisbane's voice cut through her pleasure like the whine of a pesky mosquito. " 'Tis a pity we've come to such a pass, my lady. Did Colin never tell you that the two of us were once like brothers? At least until he decided to avail himself of my sister."

  Colin's arm tightened around her waist. " 'Tis an old quarrel, Roger, and a tired one. As you well know, 'twas Regan who first crept into my bed one moonless night when I was still half asleep. Had I my wits about me, I might have found the strength to resist her."

  Their handcuffed captive was walking beside them now, nearly trotting to match the pace of Colin's stallion. "You would have broken her heart either way. She loved you, you know."

  Colin's sigh ruffled Tabitha's hair. "Regan's love is the cross I've borne since her death."

  "She loved you," he repeated, as if Colin had not even spoken. "But she loved me first."

  Colin reined in the horse. Brisbane stumbled to a halt, his subservient mask slipping to reveal a sneer of triumph. The chattering crowd streamed around the two men, unaware of the brewing conflict. Despite the warmth of the sun, Tabitha felt a chill of foreboding.

  "Don't listen to him, Colin," she said, longing only to free him from the chains of the past. "He'd say anything to hurt you."

  "That's right, witch," Brisbane snarled. "Anything at all. Even the truth."

  "The word is a mockery on your lips," Colin said.

  Brisbane's grin was icy cold. "Regan and I had been lovers since we were naught but thirteen years old. Did you truly believe it was your child she carried? 'Twas her idea to trick you into bedding and wedding her so no one would ever know the babe was mine. When I threatened to tell you the truth, she hanged herself. She was too spineless to live without your love."

  Tabitha gasped. For the first time, she understood Brisbane's bitter jealousy and unrelenting hatred. He honestly believed that Colin had usurped him as his sister's lover.

  "Why you wretched son of a –!" Colin launched himself off the stallion, slamming his fist into Brisbane's face.

  Tabitha screamed. Slipping Lucy into a saddlebag, she tumbled off the horse in Colin's wake and grabbed the back of his tunic. Brisbane lay cringing on the ground, his cuffed hands rendering him helpless to defend himself against Colin's savage blows.

  "Stop him!" she shouted at the gaping onlookers. "Before he kills Brisbane!"

  It wasn't that she didn't think Brisbane deserved to die. She just didn't want Colin to have to live with both the twins' deaths on his conscience.

  She nearly sobbed with relief when Arjon shouldered his way through the crowd.

  Surrendering her frantic grip on Colin's tunic, she grabbed Arjon by the arm. "You've got to stop him!"

  Arjon cast the grappling men a casual look. Colin had his powerful hands around Brisbane's throat and was slowly squeezing the life from him. Roger's face was already beginning to turn a becoming shade of purple. "Why?"

  "Because Colin will never be able to live with himself if he murders a defenseless man."

  Arjon sighed and rolled his eyes heavenward. "Very well. If you insist."

  He beckoned toward the others. In the end, only one of them was strong enough to get Colin in a headlock and drag him off Brisbane.

  Colin rolled to his back, gasping for breath, and shot his assailant a wounded glare. "Christ, Nana, you almost strangled me."

  The old woman planted her hands on her meaty hips. "If I've told you once, lad, I've told you a hundred times – never make me ask you to do somethin' more than once."

  Since it seemed Colin would survive, Tabitha dropped to her knees at Brisbane's side. "Oh," she breathed, studying his limp limbs and waxy pallor. "I think we're too late."

  She leaned over to check his mottled throat for a pulse and that was how, when Brisbane opened his eyes, her amulet happened to be dangling in front of them like a fat, juicy fig. His cuffed hands shot out and since Tabitha thought he was dead, his earsplitting screech sent her tumbling back on her bottom. He snapped the amulet's chain with a single vicious wrench, bounded to his feet, and went running across the field like the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. Several of the boys loped after him.

  "Tabitha!" Colin bellowed, struggling to a sitting position.

  She scrambled to his side. "Don't worry, love. Brisbane's not a witch. In his hands the amulet's nothing but a harmless piece of jewelry. He can't even – "

  A jagged bolt of lightning shot out of the clear blue sky, striking the ground directly behind them. They looked at the charred crater, then at each other, then at Brisbane, who was gleefully hopping up and down at the edge of the forest.

  "Scatter!" Colin bellowed.

  He didn't have to ask twice. As a supernatural current charged the air, his people fled in all directions, some of the more agile boys making it as far as the forest, others taking cover in the sparse stands of oak that dotted the meadow. Even his riderless stallion flew past them as if winged, making for the nearest shelter.

  Colin grabbed Tabitha's hand and they went flying across the meadow, rolling down an incline and into a shallow ditch just as another bolt of lightning seared the grass where they had been sitting only seconds before.

  As they lay nose to nose in the grass, struggling to catch their breaths, Colin arched one eyebrow and growled, "You were saying, lass?"

  Chapter 27

  "Mama always said I didn't pay enough attention when she talked. But she talked all the time. And she was my mother, for heaven's sake! How was I to know she was ever going to say anything important? Oh, no. The video! Now I understand why Daddy wanted the amulet destroyed and why Mama let him believe she flushed it down the commode all those years ago. They both knew that if it fell into the wrong hands…" Tabitha groaned and banged her head against the soft turf.

  "Sweeting?" Colin said from somewhere above her.

  "Hmm?"

  "Are you quite done having hysterics?"

  She sat up, spitting out a clump of grass. "I think so."

  Colin was peering over the rim of the ditch, his hand on the hilt of his sword. "He's got the manacles off and he's waving them at us in a most insolent manner. "You do realize, of course, that he planned this entire escapade. I should have known he was too arrogant to surrender without a fight to the death."

  "Why couldn't I have just let you strangle him? Remind me not to stop you next time."

  He massaged his throat. "Next time I'll let Auld Nana strangle him."

  Tabitha scooted to the top of the ditch on her elbows and gently touched his arm. "I'm sorry about Regan. She must have felt trapped in an intolerable situation. I'm sure she never really wanted to deceive you."

  Colin shook his head. "If she had only trusted me enough to confide in me… I wouldn't have hated her. I would have tried to help her."

  "I know," Tabitha replied, smiling wryly. "You never could resist a da
msel in distress."

  If they hadn't exchanged a loving glance, they might not have become aware of the ominous silence.

  "What's Brisbane doing now?" Tabitha peeped over the edge of the ditch, unable to bear the suspense.

  "He's disappeared into the forest."

  "Maybe he's headed back to his castle to establish his evil empire. After all, he can rule the world from there just as well as anywhere else." Groaning with despair, she tugged on Colin's sleeve. "We can't leave the amulet in his hands, you know. If we can't get it back, then we'll have to find some way to destroy it."

  "But if we destroy it…?"

  She finished the thought before he could. "I'll never get home." She gazed helplessly at him, tracing the rugged features she'd come to know as well as her own. A future with him would mean bitter-cold winters with no central heat or electric blankets. But a future without him would mean bitter-cold springs, falls, and summers for the rest of her life. She flashed him a tremulous smile. "It's a risk I'm willing to take."

  His tender scowl meant more to her than all the smiles in the world. He reached for her, and even though she was lying in a ditch with grass stuck in the most unlikely places, his touch still made desire burn thick and hot in her veins.

  He pressed a fierce kiss to her lips, then plucked a rose petal from her hair. "You may not have your charm, lass, but you're still a bonny witch. You can defeat him with your magic. I have faith in you."

  His solemn regard only worsened the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. "Colin, there's something you should know…"

  But before she could finish, a sound both terrible and familiar reached their ears, throbbing like a jungle full of natives beating a single massive drum. The ground beneath them began to tremble, then quake – a thousand times worse than it had on the day Brisbane's men had come thundering out of the forest.

  "I have a very bad feeling about this," Colin murmured.

  They both peeked over the rim of the ditch. The meadow was still deserted, but deep in the forest, the tops of the trees were beginning to sway.

  Colin drew his sword and started to rise, but Tabitha latched on to his ankle with both hands, dragging him back down.

  "Colin, you can't! Brisbane will destroy you. You heard him. He blames you for stealing his sister's heart away from him."

  He struggled out of her grip. "I can't just lay here on my belly, lass, and let him slaughter us. If I can lure him out, then you can use your magic to defeat him."

  "That might not be such a good – " She grabbed for his ankle again, but he had already vaulted over the rim of the ditch and was striding boldly toward the center of the meadow. She scrambled up to stand at the edge of the ditch, refusing to cower while he marched so bravely to his doom.

  The rumble swelled until she couldn't tell its rhythmic boom-boom from the shuddering of her heart. In that very moment when she thought she would scream if something didn't happen, Brisbane's creation came crashing out of the forest, paralyzing her scream into a squeak.

  From its spiny tail to its majestic head, the dragon was armored in shimmering emerald scales. Tabitha recoiled, squinting at the curious creature. It wasn't a particularly graceful dragon. It came galumphing across the meadow, huffing and puffing like one of Puff's asthmatic cousins from the land of Honah Lee. If one of its clawed feet hadn't been large enough around to squash Colin into the grass, leaving nothing but a smear, it might have been comical instead of intimidating.

  As its clumsy charge gathered speed, its fat legs pumping like pistons, Tabitha whispered, "Please, God." Suddenly it wasn't enough to invoke some watered-down concept of a Higher Power. This time, she was placing a person-to-person call to Colin's God, in all of His might, majesty, and mercy.

  Colin had taken his stand in the middle of the meadow. He stood with legs splayed and sword outstretched, refusing to betray even a trace of fear. He'd probably been dreaming of this moment since boyhood. Just waiting for the opportunity to engage an enemy who wasn't chosen by his king or his church, but was instead a monster of pure malevolence, deserving of its fate.

  As the dragon raced toward him, it threw back its serpentine head and loosed a bone-rattling roar that made Tabitha long to clap her hands over her ears.

  Instead, she covered her eyes with her hand, unable to watch Colin fling himself into the jaws of death as he had so many times in the past. But when she stole a peek through her fingers, he was glancing over his shoulder at her. And that one panicked glance proved once and for all that Sir Colin of Ravenshaw had finally found something to live for.

  He looked at the charging dragon; he looked at her. Then he began to frantically backpedal his way across the meadow.

  "Tabitha!" he yelled. "Do something!"

  Laughing through her tears, she reached for the amulet before remembering it wasn't there. She would just have to rely on her own God-given talents this time. Her magic might not be strong enough to defeat Brisbane's enchanted dragon, but she could certainly put something in its path to distract it.

  She just hadn't planned on that something being a brigade of shuffling mummies. One minute she was wishing she knew what her mother would do in a situation like this and the next, the meadow was full of moaning zombies. How her brain had made the connection between "mommy" and "mummy" she would never know. The creatures shambled blindly about, arms outstretched, tattered wrappings trailing through the grass behind them. Oh, well, she thought ruefully, at least they weren't mummers.

  The dragon stormed right through them, his massive tail cracking like a whip. He stomped on some and hurled others high in the air like crash test dummies, snapping off heads and limbs with equal glee.

  Tabitha grimaced, shooting God a silent prayer of thanksgiving that Colin hadn't met a similar fate. At least the mummies were already dead. She frowned. Or were they undead?

  Having made short work of her first line of defense, the dragon whirled around, searching for fresher prey. Colin had made it to the shelter of a lone oak, but between the dragon and the tree lay a squirming saddlebag.

  Tabitha gasped. Lucy! The saddlebag must have fallen off when Colin's stallion had dashed for the forest.

  Her frantic wish had the opposite effect she'd intended, for suddenly the meadow was teeming with kittens of every hue. They milled around the dragon, rubbing their furry little heads against his squat legs and mewing plaintively.

  She cast Colin's tree a desperate glance, wondering if he was beginning to suspect her magic had gone haywire without the amulet to direct it.

  The dragon might have begun making hors d'oeuvres of the bewhiskered darlings if Arjon hadn't come staggering out from a nearby stand of oaks, sneezing with every breath. It was fortunate his eyes were watering so badly he couldn't see. Tabitha feared the sight of that many felines might send him into a panic.

  She must have done something right, for with her next breath, the kittens vanished, leaving Lyssandra free to dart out and drag Arjon back to their shelter. But the squirming saddlebag remained, a vulnerable target for the dragon's wrath. Tabitha held her breath as he waddled over to it, each thud of his clawed feet shuddering the ground. There was something disturbingly familiar in the way his aristocratic nostrils flared as he lowered his massive head and sniffed at the leather pouch.

  Tabitha dared not trust any more of her desires to wishes. It was almost as if Colin knew what she was going to do before she did. He started out from behind his tree at the precise moment she went running across the meadow, holding her skirt high and yearning for a sturdy pair of Dockers.

  Terrified the dragon was going to devour the helpless kitten in one chomp, she dove for the saddlebag, planning to scoop it up and race for the woods before the dragon even saw her. She might have succeeded if not for the extra inches of silk Granny Cora had sewn to her hem. Just as she snagged the pouch and hooked it over her shoulder, the clinging fabric tangled around her legs, sending her sprawling to her knees at the dragon's feet.

  "Don't m
ove, Tabitha," Colin barked from directly behind her. "Don't even breathe."

  Having never been particularly good at following orders, Tabitha slowly lifted her head to find the dragon's jagged, glistening teeth an inch from her nose. His breath reeked of carrion and brimstone and she began to tremble in primitive horror.

  But nothing was more horrible than the sound that rumbled from his throat when he threw his head back to the sky and began to laugh. It was in that moment that both she and Colin realized that Brisbane hadn't just summoned a demon from the bowels of hell. He'd turned himself into one.

  And hanging around his scaly neck on a golden chain as thick as a man's forearm was Tabitha's amulet.

  Chapter 28

  "This incarnation suits you, Roger. I always knew you were a monster at heart."

  Tabitha ached to see Colin's face as he spoke, but didn't dare move a muscle. Brisbane the Dragon chuckled, sending an icy chill down her spine. A spine soon to be crushed by a foot the size of a California redwood.

  "Better a monster than a saint. At least we monsters are allowed to indulge our appetites with delectable morsels such as your lady. Perhaps just a taste…" Before either of them could react, the dragon's tongue darted out, licking her from chin to forehead.

  Shrieking in disgust, Tabitha came up swinging. She would have nailed Brisbane on his bulbous snout if Colin hadn't grabbed her around the waist and dragged her backward. Her joy at being in his arms again was eclipsed by terror as Brisbane stalked them across the grass. Miraculously, the saddlebag was still hooked over her shoulder. Lucy was beginning to wiggle in earnest.

  Colin kept his left arm anchored firmly around her waist. His right was occupied with his outstretched sword, the gleaming blade all that stood between them and disaster.