Curse of the Celts by Clara O'Connor (most romantic novels .TXT) 📕

“Yes, yes, indeed.” He stopped studying me in detail, his gaze passing back to Marcus before he continued, “Isn’t that something? The last of the Plantagenets at my door with his little city girl. Who would have believed it?”

He grinned again, his faded blue eyes creasing before finally releasing my hand. “Hungry, are we?”

I nodded. I could eat any one of the many books that lined the walls of his sitting room right now as long as it was served up hot. The cold of the night had seeped through to my bones. I felt like I’d never be warm again. Callum served us toasted sandwiches oozing with cheese and onions that I’m sure would have been incredibly tasty if we hadn’t wolfed them down, barely taking the time to chew. Full and heated through, my eyes started to close as I listened to Callum attempt to get the tale of our escape from Devyn, who had reverted to his incommunicative default setting.

“I’ll tell you after,” I mumbled. “Never get anything out of him when he’s in this mood.”

“That’s true.” Callum smiled broadly at me. “I’ll let you all have a little rest then, and we’ll have a proper chat at dinner. You can be guests that actually talk back when your host asks you how you do.”

This last came with a glare at Devyn.

“Follow me.” Leaving the little sitting room, I followed him down the hall. “Only my own room here, I’m afraid. But you’ll do all right here, and the boys, I’m sure, are happy where they are as long as they have a blanket. Your friend Marcus wouldn’t even need that, I dare say.”

I took in the large wooden bed with its many throws, and even more books littering the floor in higgledy-piggledy stacks. I felt a little vulnerable separated from the boys. It was crazy because they were only in the next room, and I could sense both of them. If anything were to happen to me, even if I couldn’t cry out, Devyn would feel it. As I sank onto the bed, I wasn’t sure I cared about any potential threat as much as I should. All I knew was the comfort of being fed and warm with a soft pillow under my cheek.

I woke to find the room in darkness, apart from a fire that had been lit in the neat fireplace on the other side of the room. It danced and crackled merrily as I slowly rose out of the deepest, most appreciated sleep of my life. Throwing off the covers and the last vestiges of sleep, I crept down the hall towards the light emanating from the sitting room. A creaking floorboard announced my entrance, and Devyn looked up from the window seat where he lounged, watching the courtyard below. He nodded to me briefly before resuming his activity. Marcus was still passed out on the chair which he had taken on arrival that morning.

“Where’s Callum?” I asked quietly.

“Out.”

I sighed. Now that our immediate futures were not in doubt, Devyn had reverted to his usual taciturn self. I walked over to him, hovering while I figured out my approach.

“He’s going to help us?” I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the giant professor; his welcome had been somewhat tepid.

“Maybe.”

“Maybe? What does that mean? He’s already helping us, isn’t he? He’s taken us in, anyway. How do you know him?”

“He was my tutor when I was young.”

“He doesn’t seem awfully surprised or pleased to see you alive,” I observed, recalling the mixed emotions our arrival on his doorstep seemed to have evoked.

“I don’t imagine he was. The news that I didn’t die a decade ago will have filtered out by now. Not everyone will rejoice at the news; some may even seek to correct the situation.”

When Devyn left for the city in search of me, many assumed he had died in the attempt. He was only sixteen when he ran off and he hadn’t been heard from in years. The Briton delegates I met at the Treaty Renewal had certainly been mixed in their reaction to his reappearance.

“People out here want to kill you? Why?” What happened to my real mother wasn’t his fault. What had he done that was so bad?

“I told you before, when I left I abandoned the fealty I owed to my lord. I broke my oath.”

“So you broke a promise. You did it for a good reason. People would kill you for this?” I asked, aghast. “You think Callum might want you dead?”

Why on earth had he brought us here then?

Devyn smiled grimly. “No, I don’t think Callum wants me dead. We may have had our issues in the past, but that’s all bygones now.”

I frowned, “Bygones?”

“In the past, I hope,” said Devyn, explaining his use of a term unfamiliar to me. Since we had left the city, Devyn’s accent had been slowly softening, nowhere near Callum’s thick drawl but certainly much more Celt than it had been. Now it had a melodic quality to it that hadn’t been there before.

“Because you’ve brought Marcus out to help with the illness?” I asked after a moment.

His dark head bowed.

“Having the last Plantagenet in tow may not entirely redeem my reputation, but it won’t hurt. It looks like he thinks you are just Marcus’s betrothed,” he said, using an old-fashioned term I vaguely knew. A betrothal was a promise to marry, like we had before scientific matching… which it turns out was all a lie anyway. “I would rather keep it that way. He is a teacher, though; it might be useful for you to learn something of your power and how to control it.”

“We can trust him?”

“I wouldn’t go that far. Be careful. Callum has somewhat divided loyalties. While he served the house where I was fostered when I was a child, he is Anglian. He’ll have loyalties of his own.” Devyn’s dark eyes were sombre. “And while I