Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

M ax’s breath had caught in his throat when he had first drawn closer to the music room.

It had nothing to do with Isolde or the painting. Instead, he had been intent upon the beautiful woman standing before the portrait, arms crossed, as though she was having a conversation.

Which she likely was.

Then she had started to paint, and Max couldn’t look away, mesmerized by the intensity in her face and the way she seemed to be able to move her brush without thought, but only emotion.

And then she had stood, and it had all come to life before them.

He truly thought the madness had finally overcome him until he looked closer at Amelia’s face and realized she was seeing the same.

In fact, she wasn’t just seeing it.

She was creating it.

He had been so shocked that he hadn’t said a word until the apparitions all fell away and Amelia finally noticed him standing in the doorway.

“What in the hell was that?” he demanded, answering her question as to how long he had been there. Long enough.

“So, you have been here for a time then?” she winced.

“I most certainly have,” he said, gesturing wildly in front of him. “Was this all some elaborate illusion?”

“Ah… illusion isn’t the word I would use,” she said carefully. “Perhaps you best take a seat.”

He ignored her.

“Was that… was that the curse?”

“It appears so,” she said, much calmer than his current state. “If only Isolde had listened to her lover.”

“Edward,” he said. “His name was Edward.”

“Edward, then,” she said. “She was just too overcome.”

“How did you do that?” He set the curse aside for a moment. He had to know just who he had invited into his house.

“I suppose you could call it a skill of mine,” she said cautiously. “A skill that is in the same vein of Isolde’s curse.”

“You are saying that you are magic?”

She stared at him, her green eyes wide, knowing, testing him.

“What if I was?”

“That can be a dangerous description for a woman.”

“It was ,” she said flippantly. “Not so much anymore, although I prefer not to share the fact widely.”

“Are you asking if I would keep such a secret to myself?” he said, sensing where her concern lay. “I can assure you that with the state of my family and the secrets we have kept for years, there is no cause for concern there.”

She nodded slowly, although he didn’t particularly like the way she was assessing him in turn.

He couldn’t help but remember what had happened when they had touched – had that been her magic causing such a collision?

“My lord?” she said slowly, yet with confidence as she did not break his gaze. “What is your power?”

His face turned into hardened stone as he stared down at her, immediately wishing that he could take back all that they had just shared, that he had just seen. He decided to answer in the most truthful way he could.

“I am an earl. I am more powerful than most Englishmen.”

“Do not play stupid. That is not the kind of power to which I am referring.”

“I cannot imagine any other that you could mean,” he said, as foolish as he began to feel.

“This house – your family – there is magic here,” she insisted. “Magic that combined with mine and knocked me over. You cannot tell me that you, the sole surviving Blackwood, do not possess any power whatsoever.”

“Not a bit,” he said.

It wasn’t a lie.

He had no magic. He heard voices. That was it. He was a madman.

You are not lying to her. You are lying to yourself.

He never should have entered the music room. The voices were stronger here, to say nothing of Isolde herself.

“I need some air,” he muttered slowly backing out of the room, a strange whooshing sound along with a breeze blowing by him as he did.

Goodness, what was going on here?

He strode through the drawing room until he reached the library, yet another room in this vast manor that had been woefully ignored over the past number of years. Max didn’t stop to acknowledge Miss Lennox, who was matching him stride for stride as she followed him through the terrace doors and out onto the balcony beyond.

He started down the steps to the garden, where the vines had overrun most other vegetation. He swatted away an offending branch as he stomped over the ground so hard that it seemed to be responding to his anger.

“My lord?” Miss Lennox called out, even as he tried to ignore her. “My lord!”

“When I said I needed air, I meant alone!” he exclaimed as he whirled around, and a light wind began to swirl around him.

“The ground is shaking,” she said, ignoring his ire as she pointed beyond him. “Look – it’s from your steps.”

“I hardly think I am strong enough to shake the ground.”

“No,” she said slowly. “But I think you can control it.”

He stared at her with such disbelief that Amelia knew he had no inkling of it himself.

“You must be joking,” he bit out.

“The wind and the earth seem to respond to your words and emotions,” she said. “I am not certain about anything else, and I could be wrong, but?—”

“You most certainly are wrong,” he said, walking toward her, even as the wind she spoke of whipped by his face, taunting him. “You are here, Miss Lennox, to do a job for me. Not to tell me that I am some magical being or that I must have supernatural powers. I told you – my power is from my station in life. That is all. When it comes to the painting, your job is to restore it so that it returns to a quality that will allow me to sell it. If you cannot do that, I will hire someone else.”

Her head and shoulders dropped in defeat that she felt down to her very bones.

“Very well,” she said. “Only, I don’t think she will let you do that.”

“Who?”

“Isolde. The curse is powerful and while its source is the painting, it extends over the entire house – the entire family. Selling the painting won’t solve your problem.”

“If the curse is within the portrait, and the portrait is no longer here, how could it continue?”

“You can try to remove the portrait, but it will find a way to return. The scene that we just witnessed included Isolde’s curse,” she said, her spark of interest returning. “She told us how to break it.”

The earl strode over to her, lifting a finger and placing it against her lips, a slight spark filling the air between them, causing her to jump while, even still, he chose to ignore it instead.

“Shhh,” he said. “Do not talk of breaking the curse.”

“Whyever not?”

“Anyone who has attempted to do so before has met with an untimely end,” he said. “Isolde does not want us to break it.”

“But her words,” Amelia insisted. “When she set the curse, at the end she said, Until the truth is brought to light, And justice served to end this blight, The heirs of Blackwood shall suffer the same, In endless cycles of grief and shame. Only when love and truth combine, And past misdeeds are left behind, Shall this curse be lifted, and peace restored, To the House of Blackwood, forevermore.”

“What does that even mean?” The earl said. “Truth brought to light. Love and truth combine. Past misdeeds left behind – it’s all been done, and yet here we are, still caught up in the same curse. We know the past. We know that my great-grandfather was in the wrong, that Isolde and my grandfather misunderstood one another.”

“Maybe it’s the love part you’re missing,” Amelia said, walking gingerly around him and sitting on the stone bench beside him. “Have you ever opened yourself up to it?”

“No,” he snorted. “What’s the point? Everyone I love ends up dead.”

“I am so sorry,” she said softly, reaching up and cupping his face, tingles running from her fingers over his skin. She was beginning to realize where all of this animosity, especially toward magic and the curse, came from.

What would it be like to have all of one’s family members and those most beloved taken from one due to a curse that was not of his own making?

“What about a woman who might love you?” she asked softly, but he was already shaking his head.

“I became close with a woman before, but nothing ever works out for me,” he said bitterly. “I will spare you the details, but on the one occasion when I considered marriage, she soon found another much more suited to her. That is my life. At this point, there is nothing left worth saving any of this for.”

“That’s not true,” she insisted, fighting the defeat in his eyes. “There is your own life. Your happiness is worth something.”

“Is it, though?” he snorted. “What does it truly matter?”

“That’s a very sad outlook,” she said. “Everyone’s happiness matters.”

“Not mine. I?—”

Before he could say another word, however, the slightly shaking ground that Amelia had noticed when she had first followed the earl outside was no longer just vibrating. It was beginning to quiver and tremble, like a giant beast awakening from slumber, its mighty roar deafening and its movements relentless.

Amelia met the earl’s stormy grey eyes, knowing immediately that he wasn’t the one causing this.

“Oh no,” she whispered. “You were right.”

He nodded slowly. “Isolde doesn’t like talk of breaking the curse.”

He grabbed her hand, pulling her toward the house, likely to seek safety, but Amelia shook her head, stopping and tugging on his hand to halt his steps.

He turned, disbelief in his eyes as he faced her.

“You can’t keep running,” she shouted over the noise of the earth moving beneath them. “You have to fight it.”

“How could I possibly fight it?” he shouted as she gripped his forearms, holding him facing her.

“You can move the earth, I promise you can,” she insisted. “Close your eyes and concentrate. Still the earth beneath your feet!”

He opened his mouth, about to argue, but then seemed to think better of it. Hope rose in Amelia’s chest as he took a visible breath, squeezed his eyes shut, and did as she said.

Amelia gripped his arms, feeling the magnetic energy flowing out of her and into him, even through the linen of his shirt and the fabric of his jacket.

“Still it,” she insisted. “Still it!”

For a moment, her heart beat fast in her chest as she waited for the earth to open up and swallow them both whole. Was this going to be her end? Was it due to a curse upon a family that wasn’t her own?

She couldn’t think like that. She needed to believe in the earl, for he didn’t seem inclined to believe in himself.

She infused him with all of her strength and certainty, willing him to do what she thought he could.

And then, suddenly, all went still.