Love's Magic by Traci E. Hall

and God. Still, I’d never seen a man, then or since, so angry. I explained that we are healers. I told him,” the Lady Evianne blushed, “that I was the last of my line.”
    “What?”
    “What if he wanted to marry you? To stop the curse he believed he was under? Marry a healer, and perchance …”
    The cold spread from her fingertips to her toes as she realized what her grandmother was saying. “It is possible, then, that he didn’t know I was a healer, not until recently.”
    Her grandmother nodded. “We do our duty, pay our tax, and stay out of the baron’s way. Your father trains many knights who serve the baron, which makes him more valuable than some of the other of the baron’s lords. Mayhap one of those he trained talked of you.”
    “Heaven help us,” Celestia slowly blew out an exhale. “Would he have married me off to ensure that the curse visited on him was not handed down to Nicholas?”
    She frowned, shaking her head. “A child—he wants to know that his blood will not die out.”
    “‘Tia, I am sorry. I wish I had the answers,” Lady Evianne said, her voice wobbling.
    “Do you believe in the curse?” Celestia caught the scent of apples, but just for a second and no more.
    “I do not know the details of it, I was so frightened of him that night that I didn’t want to stay and ask. But,” she lowered her voice, “what else could kill so many women and bairns?”
    Celestia straightened and scoffed, “Poor health, not enough meat or fruit—there are all sorts of things that can go wrong.” Her shoulders slumped. “What are the chances of a babe bringing peace between Nicholas and the baron? Perhaps if he could learn to forgive whatever grudge he holds against his father, he might be happy.”
    “Do not meddle, Celestia. Instead put your mind on making your husband love you. You are married in the eyes of the Church and God, and if you would keep your healing powers, Nicholas needs to fall head over heels for you.”
    Only that? “I am doomed, then.” Celestia flexed her gloved fingers around the reins. “For he keeps his heart under strictest guard. He has been sorely injured.”
    “Pah—you are thrice as strong as I, so doesn’t that make you the finest healer in all of England?” Lady Evianne’s brows rose so high they disappeared underneath her headdress.
    Laughing, Celestia rolled her eyes at her grandmother’s boast. “Mayhap.”
    “Then heal your man. Forget the baron, and take the happiness that is yours if you are brave enough to reach for it.”
    Courage was not the problem, Celestia thought as she gazed toward her husband. The white arrow she’d seen in her vision could have been a real weapon, or it could be symbolic of something else. She sensed that Nicholas was struggling within his own psyche for a balance of good and evil. Blood on the shaft of a white arrow could mean that, couldn’t it? Chills raced beneath her skin, and she vowed to never let Nicholas out of her sight.

    Petyr looked back at the women, then said to Nicholas, “Your bride and her granny seem to be having a lively conversation.”
    “Aye, I can hear.” Celestia’s sweet voice called to him, but he plugged his ears.
    “Shouldn’t you be using this journey to get to know your wife?”
    Nicholas stared straight ahead, for his eyes wanted to do nothing more than gaze at the petite blond who, according to the law, belonged to him.
    “She seems nice enough,” Petyr said.
    If Petyr was truly supposed to be “his” man, he had an odd way of showing it. Nicholas tightened his jaw. “I suppose. I don’t want to know her.”
    “You married her—you can’t just exchange vows with her and then leave her at Falcon Keep.”
    The man would not leave him be, so Nicholas cantered forward, thinking it to be a broad enough hint. He didn’t wish to discuss the situation.
    “God’s blood! Is that what ye’ve planned? Is that why she’s got more baggage than the king’s court? Her servants,