He tugged on the cuff of his sleeve. “And you believed this Daniel Prescott was your soul’s counterpart?”
“I’d been certain of it,” she said. “I remember, when I was young, climbing the wishing tree in the garden—”
“After years of dendrology, I can assure you that there is no such genus classification as wishing tree.”
“And I can assure you that there are many throughout the world. Trees are mystical, after all. They outlive us by years, decades, generations. Who is to say what they are capable of?”
“Science,” he said dourly.
She expelled an exasperated sigh and waved her hand as if to shoo logic from the conversation. “Nevertheless, when I was younger, I put a coin in the cradle of the highest branch and whispered my heart’s fervent wish to have my future husband appear that very day. It just so happened that Daniel arrived as I was coming down. He teased me about how pretty girls weren’t supposed to be up in trees. So I challenged him and said that I could climb faster than he could.”
“And did you?”
She nodded, a wistful smile on her lips that bothered Lucien for some unfathomable reason. Absently, he scratched his arm.
“But then I fell,” she said. “In more ways than one, I suppose. My heart was irrevocably lost that day.”
Something niggled at the back of his mind, like a story that he’d heard once before. Unable to recall the origins, he brushed it aside and scratched again. He had more important things on his mind at the moment. Like where to find this Mr. Prescott.
“Until he married someone else,” Lucien prodded. “And traveled to . . .”
“Upper Canada, of all places,” she groused. Then she looked askance at him. “Why are you so interested?”
“Merely trying to understand why you decided to turn your hopes and dreams toward espionage.”
“Perhaps I’m simply a woman who wants to have one grand flirtation before she puts herself on the shelf and dedicates the rest of her life to spoiling her brother’s children.”
Her gaze met his, and there was something imploring, beseeching in those crystalline depths. Something that made him . . .
No. He shook his head and chuckled wryly. “You spin a fine yarn, ma petite louve. But I’m not fooled. You don’t believe in that romantic drivel any more than I do.”
“You seem quite sure about that.”
“I am, because men and women make their own decisions. There is no such thing as happenstance, coincidence, fate, wishes—”
“Legendary recipes with the power to imbue a knight with valiance and a maiden with steadfast love?”
Her challenging taunt stopped him. Facing her, he straightened his shoulders. “Perhaps not.”
She blinked, her face scrunched in confusion. “Wait just a moment. Are you saying that you don’t believe in your own legend?”
“Any sensible person would harbor doubt,” he said. “It reads like a storybook with the legendary powers attributed to recipes. One is the Recipe of the Beast. This is supposed to imbue the warrior knight with the frightening qualities of Glatisant, the barking beast. It is said that the warrior who eats this will have the cunning of a serpent, the strength of a lion, the patience of a leopard stalking his prey, and the speed of a rabbit. Another is the Recipe of the White Hart. Give this to your enemy, and it will cause his heart to falter, but a maiden who sups upon this will lose her heart forever,” he said and watched her study him with fascination. Her total absorption made his breath quicken, and he felt himself moving closer.
Then he straightened and cleared his throat, continuing. “The most dangerous of all is the Recipe of Veritas. While it is said to imbue the noble knight with honor and truth, it is also a tool to use against the enemy. For anyone who tastes it is forced to confess their deepest, most hidden secrets. Now, tell me, does this sound like something that could be factual?”
“I cannot answer that. But I was taught to always be open to chance, to wonderment, to the Fates stepping in when you least”—she stopped, seemingly out of breath, and she searched his gaze as if she were seeing him for the first time—“expect it.”
He didn’t like the way she was looking at him. It made his hands itch. Made him want to take her by the shoulders and pull her hard against him.
But she was the enemy. And he couldn’t allow his determination to be dampened or clouded in any way.
“All of it is nonsense. Ridiculous,” he hissed and turned toward the railing.
“Then, why all the fuss and bother? Why are you even chasing Lady Avalon in the first place?”
“Because that book is mine to protect.” Elbows on the railing, he closed his hands into fists. “It is my duty, my responsibility, to keep it safe, and that is what I intend to do.”
He refused to tell her the real reason or to open the raw wound that he’d been carrying with him all these years. Lady Avalon did not need to know what drove a man like him to obsession.
A frown pulled at the corners of her mouth. “Surely, there was a point in your life when your logical mind was open to the possibility that fables were true.”
Lucien looked off toward the water as the boat paddled by one of the many castle ruins situated high on the hills along the river.
The answer was yes. There had been two instances. The last had been on the day he’d found her lurking in the corridor. But he’d soon discovered the predatory surge that had traversed through his blood had nothing to do with the recipe.
The first had come the day his parents were murdered. Two men had stolen into the keep, driven by their beliefs in the legend so much so that they were willing to kill for it. He might have been killed as well, if not for his sister.
From that moment on, Lucien had spent every day trying to unearth the proof that would make sense of it. He would never stop until he found it. And he would never let anyone or anything—like an unwanted attraction—stand in his way.
“I want you to know,” he said, his voice hard and distant even to his own ears, “there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do to claim what belongs to me.”
She surprised him by briefly covering his hand with hers. “I would expect nothing less. We are alike in that regard, Lucien. Once a person finally realizes what they truly want, they should do whatever it takes to have the life they desire.”
“Good. Then, we understand each other.”
* * *
As Meg stood at the starboard rail, she wasn’t certain that she understood at all.
Something wholly unexpected had just happened.
During the heated defense of her own legend, she’d felt something stirring inside of her. And as she heard herself speak of believing in chance, fate and wonderment, that something had struck like an earthquake, sudden and startling, cracking her open in soul-deep fissures.
It was like eons of hardened clay and sand had been excavated in a thunderous jolt, revealing the burial chamber where her heart lay. This discovery left her exposed and vulnerable. But what surprised her most of all was that the entombed heart was still beating. True, it was raw and tender after Daniel’s betrayal. But it was also filled with new hope.
In that moment she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that everything had changed.