Magick by Moonrise by Laura Navarre

Author:Laura Navarre
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2012-04-17T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Rhiannon managed her escape by remaining behind when one of the Queen’s courtiers spied a fox. The entire party went thundering after the poor creature in exuberant high spirits. Stomach churning with nausea, nerves humming with fear, heart skipping with the fox’s desperate terror, Rhiannon slipped into the trees and slid from her saddle.

She sank to her knees and pressed her hands against the loamy soil. Eyes closed, she poured a stream of faltering life-energy into the good earth, imploring the Goddess to lend speed to the fox’s limbs and strength to his panicked heart.

Run hard and fast, my friend. Find your earth and burrow deep...deep...where these cruel mortals cannot find you.

Dear Lady, if only she could do the same. The Queen’s blind zeal terrified her, that poisonous hatred of her own kin, her virulent jealousy of all women younger and fairer than she. Whatever advantage Queene Maeve’s magick had won for Rhiannon, that so-called vision that had prised open the dark closet of Mary Tudor’s narrow soul, the Catholic priests were working hard to undo it. Without Beltran’s support—and she knew how likely that was—the English Queen would turn on her like a rabid dog.

What was one more heretic screaming in the fires at Smithfield?

Gradually the peace of earth and growing things settled into her soul. Her panicked heartbeat slowed. Hearing the gentle gurgle of water, she led Astolat along a narrow tongue of land, between the river and an inlet’s still green glimmer. A thick stand of greensward hemmed the water, hiding from view the gentle stretch of the Thames beyond. Protected by water on three sides, she felt her clamoring panic fade to a whisper.

Gratefully, the mare dipped her nose to the inlet. Rhiannon kneeled alongside, rose-pink skirts billowing around her. Though the still water was carpeted with emerald moss, fear had parched her throat.

When the mare’s head lifted, ears swiveling forward, the breath hitched in Rhiannon’s lungs. When a horse whickered, her chest tightened.

A moment later Beltran strode into view, brow furrowed, reins gripped in a gloved fist. As he glimpsed her kneeling form, his grim features eased. Loosing his stallion with a friendly slap, he circled the inlet, closing the distance between them. She tingled with anticipation.

He’d resumed the stark black garments of an almost-priest, severe and foreboding, the double-handed sword jutting over his shoulder. A stray shaft of sunlight pierced the thick-woven branches to blaze in his tawny hair. Fire flashed on the gold-and-steel medallion against his heart—his badge of service, token of his holy vow.

What was it worth to him, that emblem of militant Christianity? Enough to see her burn for it?

From his towering height, he frowned down on her, gaze inscrutable as he searched her upturned features.

“Are you well?” he said abruptly.

Not precisely. She managed a shaky laugh. “Pray do not trouble thyself. Thou art not my keeper.”

“The hell I’m not, at this court,” he said grimly. “What’s amiss?”

“’Tis nothing.” She swept a hand outward, a shadow of her usual imperious self.

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