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A strokes to the canvas before him

In a week, he hadn&039;t seen this woman Oh, Rhiannon was here, as he&039;d prayed she would be She&039;dhim forever But she wasn&039;t really Rhiannon She was a dihtly vain princess of the Nile He wanted her back again, as wild and flighty and unpredictable as before He missed her The entire castle seemed e its every corridor He wondered why he&039;d never noticed the ee of beauty before hilow of deviled for her as much as ever, perhaps more But she seemed almost indifferent to him now Where before, she&039;d driven him to frustration with her constant flirtations, now she barely sent hi

"So that&039;s what you&039;ve been doing up here"Eric&039;s voice came from the trapdoor in the floor&039;s center, just before his body followed it up

He stood, brushed hi over his chest

"Roland, it&039;s breathtaking""It&039;s Rhiannon How could it be otherwise?"

Eric s his head a swift shake

"Have you told her yet that you&039;re madly in love with her?"

Roland scowled

"She&039;d likely laugh me out of the castle You know Rhiannon&039;s views on silly, hued these past weeks,to have changed, then"

Eric studied Roland&039;s face for a long ht stop to consider that she is only conceding to your requests"

"What kind of fool notion is that? I never asked her to becoed, thrust his hands into his pockets and slowly paced away from Roland

"You&039;ve constantly reminded her how reckless she is, how impulsive You&039;ve criticized her love of attention, her need to attract notice wherever she goes, her outrageous behavior More than once, in my presence, you&039;ve asked her--no, ordered her--to behave like a lady Now, you&039;re co as you wished"

Roland frowned hard, and looked at the floor

"Do you&039;re ally think that&039;s what she&039;s doing?"

Eric shrugged

"It&039;s as good a guess as I can come up with at the moment"

Roland dropped his brush into its holder, and kept his gaze focused on it

"So what do I do about it?"

Rhiannon held the sunny, yellow pillow in two fists, pulling in opposite directions until the fabric gave ith a horrible tearing sound, and fluffy white stuffing snowed down onto her feet She gave a little growling shriek and spun in a circle

"Ah, Rhiannon, there you are Where&039;ve you been hiding these past few days?"

She faced the fledgling and bit her lips She hadn&039;t meant for anyone to witness her release of te about"

"Ha!"Tamara ca, flinging it in the air

"What&039;s this, then? You planning to restuff all the pillows to i fluff

"I don&039;t need to impress anyone"

"Of course, you don&039;t I only wondered if you were aware of it, that&039;s all"

With a little snarl, Pandora leapt off the bed to pounce on the wads of stuff as it landed, batting aardly with her plaster-encased paw

"You make noarea

"How long do you think you can keep this up, Rhian-non?"

She turned to Tamara, who followed on her heels She was about to shout a denial, but saw the wisdoer Oh, Tamara, I simply wasn&039;t created to be meek I&039;m ready to claay up the walls What&039;sthe desired effect at all He&039;s barely looked at ht he carried ht"

Rhiannon frowned, but the fledgling seemed reluctant to say more

"Out with it, va apart innocent pillohen it&039;s really hihed, her patience as thin as her te one"

Taht I only ca?"

"Oh, don&039;t worry We&039;ll coain soon It&039;s just that I want to be close to Jamey, in case he needs me And you and Roland need to be alone, I think, to work this out"

Rhiannon looked at the floor and shook her head

"I fear there is nothing to work out He knew I meant to leave as soon as the boy was safe I&039;ve not keptwhy"

"Well, before you do, take

Don&039;t hold anything back, not anything Get things straight between you, once and for all, Rhiannon If you don&039;t, you&039;ll never forgive yourself"

Rhiannon blinked Then she tenaciously lifted her ared the little thing to her chest

"For one so young, you give good counsel, fledgling I will ht, the four of thereat hall oncewith some satisfaction the spark that had finally returned She wore the black velvet gown she&039;d worn that first night, and she toasted thelass she lifted

"When next we meet, it will be someplace different,"Eric said softly

"I&039;ll miss this drafty old castle"

"Oh, I don&039;t know,"Taive the place up, after all"Her eyes held a secret, and Roland alrinned at the childish a the others didn&039;t

"Go on, fledgling, say whatever it is that&039;s on your mind"

"Yes, Ta, ever since you made those phone calls to be sure it was safe for us to return to the States,"Eric said"What on earth ed

"I spoke with my friend, Hilary The one who&039;s still with DPI It see the disappearance of a powerful psychic, suspected of ripped his glass lance

"The last they heard of hi a crushed wrist set He vanished froht, and no one&039;s heard fro that Eric and Tae, and pretended not to notice

"Rhiannon, what do you know about this?"

She ed delicately

"I haven&039;t a clue what you&039;re talking about"

"Rhiannon"

She sent hihty again that he let the matter drop He could see she either didn&039;t knohat had beco

When they&039;d said their farewells at the front door, Roland closed it and faced Rhiannon The time had come, he decided, to tell her the truth He would bare his soul to her, once and for all, risk her ridicule and her are, adive hih, he&039;d driven poor Rebecca to suicide, and that was a pain froht Rhiannon was too strong a woman to allow him to hurt her the same way At least, he hoped so, because there was no way in hell he could let her walk out of his life Not ever

What he saw in her eyes stopped hihter of the Pharaoh was back, indeed She glared at hile moment, then started up the stairs

"Come with me, if you will, Roland I, too, a I must discuss with you first"

"Leave?"He hurried after her, trotting up the worn stairs When she proceeded right up to the tower roo before he&039;d left it

"You&039;re leaving? Rhiannon, I"

"No I&039;ve given you ample time to say your piece You haven&039;t so much as whispered a word of it, so my turn has come"She went to the ladder at the room&039;s center, up it and out onto the very top of the keep

Roland followed When he eainst the uneven layer of stone that created a short wall, gazing out over the rolling field, through the night"to the junction of the two rivers The night hipped her hair, until strands of it came loose from the bun at the back of her head She turned to face hi pins free, and tossing theerated flourish

When her hair whipped loosely around her, she sent him a defiant stare

"So dies your wallflower"

Thank God, he thought But he said nothing

She turned froain

"I cannot leave here until you learn the truth, because I will, in all likelihood, never see you again to tell you how your beloved Rebecca really ht the had come here to discuss\ OU, alld 1llo? "

;f She licked her lips, and averted her gaze

"On that subject, it seems there is little to discuss But there is much you don&039;t know about Rebecca"She drew a breath as if to steady herself

"You told me you never loved her, but you know you cannot lie to smost of the time [ kno very much you cared roiher"

"And what it drove her to,"he round, far, far below Re the way he&039;d found Rebecca there The pain cauilt

"The room where i took Tamara to meditate, it was Rebecca&039;s room I&039;ve been back there, you see"

Roland frowned

"Why?"

"Her aura has remained She hasn&039;t been at peace, Roland, not in all these centuries, because of your guilt She needed you to know"

He shook his head, not wishing to hear this

"Tonight she will rest at last, for tonight I will tell you what she made known to me in that room"

Roland closed his eyes

"I do not wish to discuss Rebecca Not here"