Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15

Y ou can help her, you know.

Max rubbed his forehead as his grandfather’s voice invaded. It was a week after Amelia had confessed Isolde’s pull on her and Amelia said she had nearly finished Isolde’s portrait. She had decided that the best way to stay true to herself was to take breaks from Isolde’s painting and to work on her own. Whenever she finished for the day, Max could feel that she was refreshed, happier, calmer than she had been when she had been working only on Isolde’s portrait.

I am helping her. I’m there with her every step of the way.

You can do more.

How?

Protect her. Cast a spell around her to keep her safe.

I don’t know how to do that.

You could if you tried. Do what you did before. Think of keeping her safe and infuse her with all of your power. It will create the spell you are looking for.

Max remembered what Amelia had told him. To believe in himself.

He stood outside the music room, watching her work. He closed his eyes, held his arms out toward her, and did as his grandfather had said, sending her all of the protection he could infuse upon her.

His fingertips tingled before the power started to flow from them toward her. He watched in astonishment as a rainbow bubble began to form around her, and he could only hope that it would be enough to help keep her from Isolde’s grasp.

Amelia didn’t seem to notice as she continued her focus, and he sat watching her, wondering if he was imagining the ease in her brow or if she truly did seem more tranquil.

He could only hope he had helped her.

When he’d told her that he would do anything for her, it was the truth. If this came down to a sacrifice, he had to make sure that he was the one giving something away. Not her. She was more precious than anything else he owned or was a part of him – including his family name.

It had been such a short time, and yet, this woman had found a way into his heart. Now he just had to keep her safe.

When Amelia finished her work that evening, she sat back, blinking at the portrait in front of her. She had done it. Isolde sat there, staring back at her, her expression all-knowing, bright and vivid now. Her hair was painted in the vermillion that Max had bought for Amelia, and she stared at her as though she could read all of Amelia’s thoughts.

Maybe she could.

I can.

Amelia blinked. Had Isolde just spoken to her? She hadn’t heard anything from her in all the time she had sat here in front of her. Why would she start now? Did it have to do with completing the painting?

He doesn’t love you. He is just using you.

Amelia shook her head, trying to clear Isolde’s voice from it. It was low, sultry, and she could see why she had cast such an intoxicating spell around Max’s grandfather. She could understand why others had supposed that Isolde had spellbound Edward to her, but after feeling the depths of her pain, she knew that there had been genuine love there.

Then he threw it all away.

“He didn’t,” Amelia said, trying to convince her. “He loved you. His father tried to trick both of you. Edward was just as heartbroken as you were.”

Not heartbroken enough to stay true to me.

“He married, yes, but it wasn’t love. He loved you .”

Just as you think your Maximillian loves you.

Amelia started, blinking at Isolde. “I never said that he loved me.”

But you want him to.

She did. She knew it, deep within her heart. She was never one to shy away from emotion. It was what created the best artwork. When looking at a piece, she could always tell without even using her powers whether or not the artist had any care for the subject on the canvas.

But loving Max… it was a risk. One, however, she was willing to take.

Don’t. He will throw you away. You and I are not the type of women that these men are looking for. They use us for what we can offer them. Magic. Intimacy. And then they toss us away, even if they do feel affection for us.

“That’s not true,” Amelia said stubbornly. “Max isn’t like that.”

Isolde’s eyes were hypnotizing, trying to draw her in.

You have power. True power. Together, we could be unstoppable. Just think of it.

Amelia stood so fast that she tripped on the stool upon which she was sitting. Even as Isolde’s painting tried to draw her in, she turned her head to look instead at the painting sitting beside it. It was the one she had been working on. It captured her and Max, an image of them in an embrace when they had first come together outside in the gardens.

She had painted the gardens as she had seen them, with the vegetation returning to its natural surroundings, encompassing them in their true form, instead of the haphazard unmanicured gardens that others might see them as. It was just as she saw the feelings they had together. She had infused in it all of the affection that she felt for him and all that she wished for their future.

Amelia looked away from it and back to Isolde. She closed her eyes, knowing where her heart was drawing her toward.

Isolde was wrong. What was between her and Max was enough. It had to be.

“It’s finished.”

Max looked up from where he sat comfortably slouched in his chair at the dining table, waiting for Amelia.

She hadn’t changed for dinner and was still wearing her paint-splotched apron over her morning dress.

“Isolde’s portrait? Or your painting?”

“Both,” she said, exhaustion lining her face and yet, there was still a bright glow to her expression, as though her energy was slowly returning. “We’re ready.”

He stood, walking over to her and wrapping his arms around her.

“Thank you. For everything.”

“There’s nothing to thank me for,” she said, leaning back and staring at him with such trust in her eyes that he nearly fell for her all over again. “Are you ready?”

“Of course,” he said with more confidence than he actually felt. He knew that she could hold up her end of everything, but he wasn’t entirely sure of his own abilities. “When do you want to try?”

“Do we have all we need?” she asked as he led her over to a chair and the footman brought in the first course, although Max noted that she barely touched it. In fact, she hadn’t eaten much since she had become so involved with completing the painting. He recalled that she had initially thought it would take her months to complete and now she had done it in weeks instead.

“I have my grandfather’s signet ring,” he confirmed. “It has always been in my possession. I still need to find the locket. My grandfather gave it to Isolde. I had thought it might be in the lady of the house’s suite, but it isn’t there.”

“It was Isolde’s,” she said, shaking her head, recalling Isolde wearing the locket in her vision. Would it have been buried with her or would Edward have kept it? She guessed the latter if he loved her as she thought he had. “I would suspect it would be among your grandfather’s things.”

“We can go look up on the third story,” he said. “It is where all of my relatives’ things are kept.”

“That will be the last piece that we need,” she said. “I can create a spell that should hopefully complement it, along with the portrait and your own abilities.”

“And then?”

“As soon as we find it, we can go ahead. Tomorrow?”

“Whenever you want,” he said, even though his heart raced at the thought. It wasn’t the breaking of the curse that scared him. It was that it could be the end of whatever this was between them. Even if they did what they set out to do, at what cost would it bring them? And if Amelia did lose her abilities, would she resent him for the rest of her life?

He supposed that either way, he was going to find out soon.

They ate dinner in near silence. Well, he ate. She barely touched her food.

As soon as they finished, she stood up abruptly.

“Shall we go?”

“Very well,” he said as he rubbed his breastbone. He didn’t like how obsessed she had become about this, although he hoped that once it was finished, she would return to the woman he had met at his art exhibition.

He took her hand, interlacing their fingers as they walked up the stairs, over the faded carpet that covered the hardwood.

It was a long walk all the way up to the final level and by the time they reached it, she was breathing harder, pressed against his side as the stairwell became narrower the higher they climbed.

He pushed open the door, which creaked with its lack of use. The musty smell hit them as they walked in, and as Max lifted the candle to cast light around the room, the shadows of sheet-covered furniture resembled ghostly spirits.

“Over here,” he said, walking the path by memory to where his grandfather’s vanity lay. While Max had sold much of the furniture from their other homes when he had parted with them to try to pay off the family’s debts, there were a few pieces that he had kept for their sentimental purposes. He had wondered what would happen to them if he were to soon follow in the way of his parents, but perhaps — perhaps — there would be another earl in the family line.

Would Amelia agree to stay with him? Could she see herself as a wife and, possibly, a mother? He supposed they would have to go through this ritual to find out first.

Amelia released his hand, walking across the room right toward the vanity as though she knew exactly where to go.

Before he could set the candle down and help her, she was lifting the sheet off of it and opening the top drawer.

She reached her hand in and pulled out what appeared to be the locket. The heart shaped pendant lay in her palm, the chain trailing off her hand beside it.

“It’s here,” she said, turning to him, and he nearly stepped back in shock as her eyes had taken on an other-worldly glow. “It’s mine.”

He crossed over to her, wrapping his hands around hers. “Amelia,” he said urgently. “It is not yours. It is hers. Isolde’s. You are not her. You are not tied together. Do you understand?”

Her green eyes flashed for a moment as though she was trying to come back to herself before she nodded. “Yes. Of course.”

“Good,” he said. “Remember that, all right?”

“Yes,” she agreed, although it was with less confidence than he would have liked.

“Why don’t I hold onto it?” he asked, sensing that she was having difficulty letting go of the locket.

He reached his hand out to take the piece of jewelry, and while she allowed the chain to sit in his palm, it took her a moment to actually release the pendant.

“Come,” he said. “There is nothing more to do tonight. Let’s go to bed.”

She allowed him to lead her downstairs, and when they reached the landing, she leaned into him.

“I’m so tired,” she whispered.

“I know,” he said, placing a kiss on her temple. “Come along.”

He led her down the corridor into the room, removing her painting apron before unfastening the ties on the back of her gown and slowly slipping it off her shoulders. He appreciated the soft skin of her upper arms, noted with a frown the way her collarbones were standing out even more so than usual, and thanked God that he was the one lucky enough to be tucking her into his bed clad only in her chemise.

Isolde and her curse were taking a toll on her. He vowed to put everything to rights and bring that smile back onto her face.

“Goodnight,” he said, placing a kiss on her cheek. “Sleep well.”

Her eyelids slowly fluttered closed, and as he stared down at her, his hand on hers, that sense of protection he had been searching so hard for came barreling out of him, the spell so forceful that it was a wonder it didn’t wake her up.

But in that instant, Max knew.

This was the feeling, the spell that he had been waiting for.

Now he just had to figure out how to fight from within it to forces beyond.

Because they were never taking Amelia.

Never.