The Sword (23 page)

“I will not have Lady Kelly harmed.”

“She is our sister, Saber,” Morganen returned, answering the unspoken order in his eldest brother's words. The calm, clear intent behind his words was echoed in the faces of the others around them, even Rydan's. “We will protect her with our very lives.”

With the focus of the protective looks around her, Kelly felt a warmth spread through her, from the middle of her chest out. These eight men—real “witches,” not just the imagined kind—had welcomed her into their hearts as well as their home. Something many of the folk of a certain Midwest town back on Earth had
not
. This odd world was now more of a home to her than her old one, in that regard.

She cared for Saber and liked his brothers, even if there weren't any other females for company right now. She liked her life here, with nothing but time to stitch and knit and sew, to talk and laugh with men who put up with her occasionally strawberry-haired, tart-worded temper and assertive will. There was even time to look for a history book or two, or maybe a primer on the basics of how magic worked in this wonderful, strange, increasingly less-bizarre world.

Kelly made up her mind. She felt like she was in love, though she didn't know for certain just yet—never having been in love before—but she would marry Saber. Marry him, and rescue him from whatever overblown Disaster all of these otherwise big and strong men feared so much, and do her best to live happily ever after. Doyles weren't stupid, after all.

“W
e cannot get married today.”

Saber's words woke her up quickly, cutting Kelly off in mid-yawn. She stepped back from the door she had opened to him, giving him room to step inside, unmindful of how beautiful she looked to him, sleep-rumpled in that sleeveless chemise she used for a nightgown. “What do you mean, we can't get married today?”

“The supply boats are here. They're a day early. They usually camp in the temple, one of the few buildings still standing from the old city that used to be down there, so we cannot use it to wed in,” he murmured, tugging her close to drop an apologetic kiss on her brow. “They must not see you, or else they would seek to remove you from the isle. One way or another.”

“I can't wait until the damned Disaster gets here, and it's done and gone,” she muttered into his chest. “Then we can send them all a letter, telling them they don't have anything left to fear and to just let us be.”

He kissed the top of her head, pressing his lips to the light reddish-gold locks that were shorter than his own. Most of the women he remembered from three years before liked to grow theirs as long as was possible, but not his Kelly. He ached with wanting for her, but then he was usually hard when thinking about or standing around her, these days.

Her safety came first, though. This feeling was a long cry from the first ungentlemanly impulses he had gone through when he had met her—wanting to get rid of her in a variety of vaguely plotted, nefarious ways.
But then, I was a fool, when she first arrived. A stubborn, insensitive fool.
“Better that we wait until they are gone and wed the day after tomorrow. They will depart with the last ebb of the dawn tide, tomorrow, but we should wait just a little longer all the same, to be certain they are well away.”

She didn't like it and felt a touch of irrational irritability, but sighed and nodded and snuggled deeper into his arms…and then felt it. That first warning wave of pain, first dull, then sharp, then dull and hard. Which she hadn't felt for roughly a month. “Um, Saber?”

“Mm-hmm?” he managed, breathing in her feminine scent with a pleasure that was going to have to be delayed two more nights, unfortunately.

“Make that five days from now.”

He stiffened. “What?”

“I, um, can't…you know,” she hedged. “Not for another five or six days. And go ask Evanor to brew me up a strong cup of that cramp-easing tea he and Morganen came up with. I'm going to need it today. And tomorrow. And probably the day after that…”

“Oh.”

She chuckled at the disappointment in his tone, the slump of his shoulders as he comprehended and flushed, and gave him a little squeeze. “Poor baby.”

“I am
not
a baby!”

 

K
elly prepared herself for her wedding. Bathed and perfumed in a light rubbing of Saber's favorite scents for her, she drew on her new underclothes. She had found a use for the hearts-within-hearts patterned lace she had found and experimented with. Carefully stitched together, the two-inch-wide, soft silk lace formed a bra any bride would be proud to wear on her wedding day…and matching bikini underwear. She smiled as she fastened the hook-and-eye closures on the front of her carefully fitted bra; Saber had bent the tiny fasteners for her out of thin steel wire, uncertain why she wanted such odd-shaped, minuscule things.

He's going to have fun playing with them, I think, when he finally gets to see why they were made!

She missed not having a bachelorette party, or even just her friend Hope to attend her as she got ready, but Kelly was glad she hadn't heard a bachelor party going on for her groom last night, either. Not that she would've had to worry about strippers or anything, but still…

The newly repainted room slowly shifted in shades of blue and white around her, swirls of “clouds” gradually patterning their way across the formerly white walls. That was the result of Morganen's experiment into anti-scrying wall art. Kelly adjusted the underwear and reached for the first piece of her best-dress, aquamarine silk clothes, as the sun finished setting outside, leaving the painted walls to look like a parody of daylight, though the paint did not actually glow.

For Rydan's sake, they were holding an early evening wedding instead of a daylight one. Somewhere out there, the others were readying the chapel, and the horseless cart that would carry her down the long, winding road that led to the chapel, where she would be wed Katani-style.

As fun as it was to dress medievally, she liked wearing pants for the freedom of movement. Though her assistant, Evanor, had been uncertain about the decidedly un-Katani design, she had first sketched on a piece of yellowed paper, then measured, cut, and directed him where to sew on the aquamarine silk, transforming it into a multipiece garment of her own design.

First, she pulled on the pants, cut on the bias to fit smoothly over her hips and tapered just a little to show off her legs. She had put on some weight, in the past few months. Her legs looked a lot better, with just a little more curve to them. She laced the front in a flap-backed version, which was very like the brothers' style of trousers, since Evanor was familiar with how to stitch the eyelets and plackets. Next she donned her blouse, pulling on the loosely gathered garment until the neckline draped down over her shoulders.

Over that, she fastened a girdle-like skirt, gathered into a yoke at her waist. The hem was uneven, falling back in a diagonal cut from the middle of her thighs, almost but not quite sweeping the floor at her heels. Next came a bodice-vest that laced up the front and covered her bra straps.

Her back-draped skirt and the gathered blouse were both edged with more of the heart-patterned lace, stitched along the hemlines, cuffs, and gathered, lightly ruffled neckline, the delicate white contrasting nicely with the blue-green of the silk. The trousers, vest, and waist-yoke of the skirt were trimmed with a flat-woven ribbon, pattered with white, touches of emerald green, sapphire blue, and thread-of-gold, outlining the cut of the waist-length, fitted bodice vest at the low-scooping neckline, sleeve holes, lacings and waist, and down the sides and cuffs of her pants. And Wolfer, who had the best touch with leather of the eight brothers, had made her a pair of new ankle-high boots that he had somehow managed to dye the same aquamarine shade, plus promises of more pairs of slippers to replace the aged ones she was making do with for now.

Slipping on a pair of ankle-high socks knitted from fine thread in her spare time, her only new pair at the moment, she stepped into the boots, stamping her feet a little to make certain they fit comfortably. They fit perfectly, proof that Wolfer was good at making shoes, much better than the mass-produced shoe manufacturers of her old life.
Then again,
she admitted silently, smiling,
he has magic of his own to make a perfect shoe. He doesn't even need shoe-making elves from a fairy tale!
The thought amused her.

When she was dressed, Kelly hurried into the refreshing room to peer into the mirror and try to do something with her hair. Unlike a lot of redheads, her hair was perfectly straight. It insisted on staying perfectly straight, in fact, and only picked up the slightest curve at the very ends. Perms had fallen out in less than a month during her experimental teenage years. Hot curling irons didn't work. Her hair laughed in the face of mousse, gel, and hair spray, even when combined in countertop-cluttering hordes marshaled against her light reddish-golden locks. Thankfully, Saber didn't seem to notice the lack. Or didn't care.

Picking up the silver-backed brush he had given her, she stroked its stiff animal bristles through her hair. If she couldn't do anything with it, she could at the very least smooth it. Dampening the silver comb with a quick splash of water from the fall-faucet, she ran it through her hair, then used the brush to smooth the dampness into a sleek, shoulder-length, brushed-back style that exposed the lightly freckled planes of her face.

Kelly frowned at her face. She supposed she had a nice forehead, and a slightly pert nose, one with a little bump toward the tip that made her look tart and assertive sometimes. Her cheekbones were nice, her chin okay, her lips just borderline full, and naturally rose pink. Her lashes weren't as thick as Saber's, but then a lot of guys had better lashes than most women did.

Her brows had never needed plucking, which was nice, and she didn't miss makeup, but she wished that just once Saber had told her she was beautiful to him. Of course, he had stared at her several times as if she were, but he had never actually
said
anything.

I guess I'll have to beat it out of him
, she thought on a sigh. Then chuckled at her reflection, smiling at the thought of mixing wits with the equally strong-willed man over the next few…next several…
Oh, god. I think I'm having a bridal-nerves attack…

Forcing herself to breathe through the panic that suddenly clutched at her, she gripped the stone shelf of the sink and stared into her own aquamarine eyes. The light around her slowly faded, as she thought of staying in this realm for the rest of her life. Never again watching a television show, or hearing the radio. Never flying in an airplane, never tasting ice cream…

Oh, don't be silly! You have only to tell Evanor about ice cream, and you can bet he'll try to Sing it out of sugar, cream, eggs, and thin air. And as for flying, if these guys can create horseless, magic-drawn carriages, they can learn how to create floating, flying versions. Or you can always play the missing Wright sister and experiment with crafting hang gliders on your own…assuming Saber doesn't go all protective and shouting on you, and lock you in the bedroom for even thinking of attempting something so foolishly dangerous. Though at least you should use his magic to protect you
, she acknowledged wryly to herself.

It was nice knowing that she wasn't on her own, that she didn't have to completely take care of herself.

But, to live
here—
not for a few years, or even several, but for actual
decades,
until I
die
here, to know that this place will be my home from this moment on, forever more…

It wasn't entirely a panic point. Kelly could picture herself staying at Nightfall with the eight brothers, with Saber as her husband and the others as her marriage-bound kin…but not in permanent exile.

She needed female companionship. She needed other people to talk to, even as interesting as the eight brothers were. She wanted to go
shopping
, even if only in a medieval marketplace. To find her own embroidery thread, to select and purchase her own cloth, to pick and choose what foods to eat, rather than whatever the brothers bartered or grew. And she wanted to sell the things she could make, as the brothers sold their own items, to add her contribution to the household.

That, of course, would have to wait until after the so-called Curse had come and gone. Once it had passed through—and they had survived whatever it was—there shouldn't be nearly as much of a stigma against women living on this isle as there was right now. She hoped.

And then there were children. Kelly really wanted a trained midwife when that point came, as it surely would. Otherwise, she wanted to put it off as long as possible. True, there was a part of her that wanted Saber's children, and in their long talk during the watersnake poisoning, she had learned that Saber wanted children, too. She just didn't want to be the only female around when she had them.

Well…I'll just have to do my damnedest, Doyle-style, to end the exile of the brothers, so that I can travel occasionally to other areas of this odd, fascinating world.

She had gone all the way out to the eastern beaches several miles away with Saber for a picnic on the sand last week. Semitropical, lush, and pretty though it had been, it wasn't the same as actually
going
somewhere else. As in, off this island.

There was a knock on the outer door. Kelly abruptly realized she was standing in darkness. Squinting through the refreshing room, she reached up, thunked a knuckle on the lightglobe in its bracket on the bathroom wall for some light, and made certain she still looked good in its abrupt, soft white glow. A woman—if she was lucky and found the right man the first time around—only got one wedding day in her lifetime, after all. Even if she had to literally go to another universe to find the right one.

I hope he's the right one…

Her visitor knocked again. Kelly gave herself one last check, making sure her hair looked like it was going to stay in place. Hurrying out, she opened the door on the far side of the bedchamber.

Trevan and Evanor stepped inside, grinning and eyeing her clothing appreciatively; their own was apparently their best wear, given the neatness of their clothes and the fine quality of the fabric. Some of which she had put trim on in the past month and a half, Kelly recognized with a touch of amusement. Behind them came Koranen and Morganen. The auburn-haired mage stopped, stared at her, and whistled appreciatively at the figure displayed by the careful, tailored cut of her clothes. Behind them stood Dominor.