“The cut must have been deep.” The scar was angry and occasionally she had noticed him favoring the leg. She remembered at the dance, when they’d been on the floor together, he hadn’t hopped and skipped the way the other men had. She’d assumed his reserve was because of pride. Some men didn’t like to dance. But now she understood.
“It was.” His voice was curt. He returned to her just as she shivered in the cool air. He pulled the blankets over them.
“What battle were you in?” she asked, snuggling against him and running her hand along the scar.
“Vitoria. I don’t like talking about it.” He opened the book.
“Why not?”
Harry gave her his full attention, his expression somber. “Because I proved myself to be a vainglorious fool and cost many good men their lives.”
“It was war, Harry. War always costs lives.”
His lips twisted into a sardonic smile. “How callously they speak who don’t witness the cost.”
“I’m not trying to be callous,” Portia said, a bit hurt by the label. She sat up.
For a second, he appeared ready to say something but shook his head and opened the book.
Portia wasn’t ready to let it go. “You should say what you think instead of swallowing your words.”
“No one cares what I think,” he answered, turning a page.
“I do.”
The word seemed to hover in the air. Harry looked to her. “You shouldn’t, Portia.”
Her throat tightened. “But I do.”
“I’m not worth it.” He slipped a hand around her neck and kissed her forehead as if ending the subject.
There was great sadness in him, a sadness that she had seen that moonlit night when he had been on his knees. She placed her hand on his chest, right over his heart.His heart. She loved the steady rhythm of it. When they made love, and his weight was on her, she relished its pounding beat as much as she did his heat and strength.
“Yes, you are,” she said.
Again, he pressed a kiss against her brow. He did not believe her.
He held up the book. “I’ve read this from cover to cover three times,” he said. “I can’t find any clue as to what can be done to break the curse. I find nothing ‘witchy.’ ”
“What are you looking for?” she asked. He’d changed the topic. He did not want to discuss the matter further and she knew he remained unconvinced of her belief in him. She reached for her spectacles on the stool and placed them on her nose.
“I don’t know what I’m looking for,” he admitted, stabbing his fingers through his hair in frustration. “I suppose something such as ‘Eye of newt and toe of frog.’”
Portia smiled, recognizing the reference toMacbeth. “Another Scot with a witch problem,” she murmured. She took the book from him and turned a few of the pages. “Why don’t we read this aloud to each other? Sometimes, I miss details when reading silently. Hearing the words spoken makes them clearer to me.”
“Capital idea. You start, my lady.” He stretched out on their bed of furs.
She glanced at him, at his spent maleness, knowing that before she went home, he would please her again. He saw where she was looking and laughed. “Read,” he ordered, slipping his hand beneath the covers and placing it possessively on her thigh, and so she obeyed.
It wasn’t easy reading. Some of the recipes were in the old Gaelic and the ink of many of them had faded. He listened as she stumbled along, watching her intently.
Portia didn’t read every recipe. She’d scan them for something of interest. There were hundreds of them. She’d barely had time to investigate the book at all before she’d given it to him.
“Here is something,” she said. It was the last entry in a section. “Reunioning a soul with an animal,” she read. She looked to Harry. “What does that mean?”
“In the East there is the thought of reincarnation where the soul returns to live again. The Hindus believe all life, including animal life, reincarnates. Read on.”
“Choose the animal you wish to live on in.Very old power.From Gypsy.” Several of the recipes had given their source. “Make an elixir of mugwort oil and powdered spruce needles. Mix with frankincense resin. Chew while repeating, ‘Life come hither, Life is mine’ until passing.”
