The Sevenfold Spell by Tia Nevitt Read Free Book Online Page A

acuteness. I crept up the aisle and sat in a pew several rows behind him. He wept on, unaware.
    After a few moments, I ventured to speak. “I think I know your pain,” I said. He stilled. “I loved a man, and he was sent away to become a monk.”
    He lifted his head. After a moment, he turned around to look at me. Until that moment, I had not seen his face. When I did, my breath hissed in.
    I caught a glimpse of pure wonderful. I had to avert my eyes. I could not have even said, in that moment, what he looked like, only that he was too beautiful to have rested his eyes upon the likes of me. Had I known he was so handsome, I never would have spoken to him.
    However, he didn’t flinch from my face, and I became brave enough look again. His hair was dark. That much registered. He regarded me in all seriousness.
    “How long have you lived with this heartbreak?” he asked.
    “Almost fourteen years, now.” His eyes were light, but whether they were blue or hazel, I couldn’t say in the low light.
    “And how do you bear it?”
    I was silent for a moment. Then, I said. “In the arms of other men. But that is not an approach I would recommend.”
    Unexpectedly, a twinkle appeared in his eyes. Green, they were—or perhaps gray. “I’m not likely to find comfort in a man’s arms, anyway.”
    I giggled.
    He stood, and swept his cape back once again. “Walk with me,” he said.
    I did. His tone told me that he was used to obedience.
    We walked through the dark streets. He asked me of my love, and I told him of Willard. I spoke of him long into the night. I told him of our three weeks together and, like Harla, he didn’t judge me.
    At one point, I asked him of his own love.
    “I will not speak of her,” he said. “The wound is too fresh. For you, the passage of time has been a balm, and it brings you comfort to speak of him, I think. Does it not?”
    “Yes, it does, I confess.”
    “Then, pray, speak. It brings me comfort to bring you comfort.”
    I wondered why, but I didn’t question him. Instead, I spoke of my longing for Willard’s child, of the blood that denied it and of my heartbreak afterward.
    By then, it was close to midnight. “I have enjoyed your company,” he said. We were standing on the top of one of the bridges that spanned a river cutting through town. “I have not asked your name.”
    “Talia,” I replied.
    “A lovely name. I am…Andrew.” I did not miss the slight pause, and I wondered what his name really was. He was obviously a noble, and a powerful one at that.
    “May I meet you again?” he asked.
    “If you wish,” I said.
    “I will come by here again tomorrow night, by nine bells.”
    “Nine o’clock,” I said. “Until tomorrow, then.”
    ***
    He was exceedingly punctual. Again, we wandered the streets at random. On this night, without telling him of the spinning wheel, I told him of my seduction of Master Caleb the wainwright, and of some of the men who followed.
    “It’s strange,” he said, when I reached the end of that tale. “I would not have expected you to be a loose woman when I saw you in the church.”
    I didn’t know how to respond.
    “I suspect it isn’t in your nature,” he concluded. “I suspect, had you been able to marry your Willard, you would have been faithful to him.”
    “I would have.”
    “And you seek these men to replace Willard.”
    “Yes.”
    “Did something else add to your sadness?”
    “Yes. There was a small child. A little girl. I was something of a nanny to her. I don’t think I could have loved her any more if she had been my own. But she was taken away from me.”
    “You ought to have been a mother. You ought to have taken in some child.”
    “Perhaps I should have.”
    We walked on in silence for a space, until we reached the top of the bridge again. He took my hand and pressed his lips to it. “May I meet you again tomorrow?”
    “Yes.”
    Although I agreed, I didn’t know what to think. What could he want of me? I judged