Page 39 of Deals & Dream Spells (The Charmed Leaf Legacy #2)

“Mariselle Brightcrest. How extraordinary that you should appear precisely when I was inquiring after your whereabouts.”

Mariselle froze, one hand still on the doorknob. That voice—cultured, commanding, and utterly unmistakable—belonged to the one person in her family more formidable than her mother.

“Grandmother,” she said, turning slowly to face the diminutive woman seated in a wingback chair beside the bookshelf. “What a … delightful surprise.”

Lady Nirella Brightcrest raised a single eyebrow.

“Is it? I find it rather surprising that you’ve been in Bloomhaven for at least a fortnight and have yet to come and visit me.

Particularly given the fact that you’ve apparently formed a soulbond with none other than a Rowanwood.

Did you imagine I wouldn’t wish to be informed that the decades-old feud between our families was being bridged by my own flesh and blood?

Or perhaps you thought I was too decrepit to attend the engagement celebration of my own granddaughter. ”

Mariselle’s stomach dropped to somewhere in the vicinity of her silk slippers. “Grandmother, it—it all happened so quickly. The High Lady—it was less than a day’s notice—and you so rarely attend social events these days?—”

“And now,” her grandmother continued, her gaze traveling upward, “you appear to have transformed yourself into some sort of exotic water nymph. How very innovative of you.”

Despite herself, Mariselle felt her lips twitch. Her grandmother, whose hair had been a sophisticated shade of pearl pink for almost as long as Mariselle had known her, was hardly one to judge. “It was not entirely intentional, Grandmother.”

“Few of life’s most interesting developments are.

” Lady Nirella gestured imperiously to the chair opposite her own, her eyes never leaving Mariselle.

Despite her age and the regal stiffness of her bearing, there was something in her gaze that still sparkled.

Sharp, watchful, never missing a thing. “Sit. Explain yourself.”

Mariselle hesitated, her blood turning to ice as a memory surfaced—the elegantly penned signature of Lady Nirella Brightcrest flowing across the bottom of that fateful contract she had discovered at Windsong Cottage.

The elaborate charade of the ‘soulbond’ might fool society, might even deceive her parents and the High Lady, but her grandmother?

If anyone could see through this fabricated connection to what the marking on Mariselle’s hand truly represented, it would be the woman who had negotiated the original agreement with Valenrik Rowanwood.

Mariselle crossed the room on legs that felt suddenly wooden, her heart performing a frantic, uneven rhythm.

Conflicting emotions warred within her—genuine pleasure at seeing her grandmother after so long, tangled with mounting dread.

Unlike most of Bloomhaven’s elite families who retreated to country estates when the Bloom Season ended, Lady Nirella maintained her residence at Bloomhaven’s edge year-round, which meant Mariselle hadn’t seen her since last Season.

She lowered herself into the indicated chair, forcing her breathing to remain steady. “I was going to call upon you,” she said, arranging her skirts. “This weekend, in fact.”

“Were you indeed?” Lady Nirella’s tone suggested she found this claim about as credible as the existence of economical goblins. “How fortuitous that I’ve saved you the trouble. ”

Before Mariselle could formulate a suitably respectful retort, the door burst open and a harried-looking footman appeared.

“My lady, I’ve searched the morning room, the blue parlor, and—” He caught sight of Mariselle and stopped short. “Oh. Lady Mariselle. Your mother has been asking for you.”

“How convenient that you’ve found her loitering in my presence,” Lady Nirella remarked dryly. “You may inform Lady Clemenbell that her daughter is attending me.”

The footman bowed and retreated, but not quickly enough to escape Lady Clemenbell herself, who swept into the room like an agitated thundercloud.

“Mariselle! I’ve had half the household looking everywhere for—” Her mother’s voice cut off abruptly as she registered her daughter’s appearance. Her face drained of color. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO YOUR HAIR?”

Mariselle winced at the volume. “Good morning, Mother.”

Lady Clemenbell advanced, circling Mariselle as if inspecting an offensive sculpture. “Is this—are you—” She appeared to be having difficulty forming complete sentences. “Blue! Your hair is blue !”

“How remarkably observant,” Lady Nirella murmured.

“I believe,” Mariselle said with admirable composure, “that it may be the result of the bracelet Lord Evryn gifted me yesterday. A simple enchantment gone awry, perhaps. He found it at that charming little curiosities shop and most likely didn’t realize it contained a spell of some sort.”

Lady Clemenbell clutched dramatically at her chest. “Vesper’s Curiosities & Oddities? Well of course it contained a spell! That Rowanwood boy has done this deliberately! This is an outrage! What will people say?”

“They will say,” Lady Nirella interjected coolly, “that the young Lord Rowanwood has a surprisingly whimsical sense of humor, and that my granddaughter carries off an unusual hair color with remarkable elegance. Now, Clemenbell, I require a private audience with Mariselle regarding matters that do not concern you.”

Lady Clemenbell drew herself up like an offended peacock. “Mother Brightcrest, with all due respect, anything concerning my daughter most certainly does concern me.”

“Does it?” Lady Nirella tilted her head. “How fascinating that you’ve only just remembered this fact, when you’ve spent years devoting all your attention to Ellowa.” She gave a dismissive wave of her hand and turned away from Mariselle’s mother. “I shall ring when we’ve concluded our discussion.”

Mariselle bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smirking as her mother’s face flushed. Lady Clemenbell opened her mouth, closed it, then turned on her heel and stormed out, her magic slamming the door with enough force to rattle the ornaments on the mantelpiece.

“You shouldn’t provoke her so,” Mariselle said, though she couldn’t keep the appreciation from her voice. “She’ll be impossible for days now.”

“Your mother has been impossible since the day she married into this family,” Lady Nirella replied dismissively. “Now, show me your hand.”

Mariselle hesitated only briefly before extending her right hand. It wasn’t as though she could refuse. She bit her lip as her eyes traced over the glimmering silver lines of the fake ‘soulbond.’ How furious would her grandmother be when she realized what it truly signified?

Lady Nirella took Mariselle’s hand in her own and leaned over it, examining the mark with such intensity that Mariselle half expected it to begin smoking under the scrutiny.

“Hmm,” Lady Nirella said finally. Then she reached toward the small side table, her gloved fingers closing around a leather volume whose presence Mariselle had missed until this moment.

She opened the book to a marked page and held it beside Mariselle’s hand.

The illustration depicted what appeared to be an identical mark, rendered in meticulous detail.

Mariselle’s stomach plummeted. The charade was over. Whatever differences existed between a genuine soulbond mark and the contract mark on Mariselle’s hand, her grandmother would discover them now. She felt light-headed with panic, her carefully constructed plans dissolving around her.

A wild impulse seized her—to confess everything, to pour out the truth about the cottage, about accidentally agreeing to the contract, about her hopes and plans for Dreamland.

If anyone might understand her fascination with the abandoned attraction, it would be the woman who had experienced it at the height of its splendor.

Her grandmother, who had shared tantalizing fragments of Dreamland’s wonders throughout Mariselle’s childhood, painting pictures with words of a place where imagination became reality.

She opened her mouth, on the verge of revealing everything, when her grandmother snapped the book shut and pronounced, “It does indeed appear to be a true soulbond. How extraordinarily inconvenient.”

Mariselle hesitated. Closed her mouth. Relief flooded through her, followed by the reminder that she needed to maintain the pretense of being helplessly, desperately enamored with Evryn Rowanwood. “Inconvenient?” she repeated, feigning indignation. “But Grandmother, I love?—”

“Stop.” Lady Nirella set the book aside and took both of Mariselle’s hands in hers.

“My dear, you do not love him,” she said gently, her eyes filled with a compassion that Mariselle rarely witnessed in her family.

“What you’re experiencing is old magic interfering with your heart’s natural inclinations, placing emotions within you that were never truly yours to begin with. ”

Unlike her parents’ hysterical objections, her grandmother’s calm rationality created a space where Mariselle felt she might actually be heard rather than merely lectured at. The absence of histrionics was almost startling after her mother’s near perpetual state of crisis.

“Would it really be so bad, Grandmother? To marry a Rowanwood?”

Lady Nirella was silent for a long moment, her gaze distant as though she were seeing beyond the confines of the room, perhaps into the past itself. “Yes,” she said, refocusing on Mariselle. “It would be.”

Her quiet declaration carried the weight of absolute conviction, yet Mariselle remained confused. The more she interacted with the Rowanwoods, the more this ancient animosity seemed like a relic that had outlived its purpose.

“What really happened, Grandmother?” she asked, her voice quiet but earnest. “All those years ago. What could possibly justify maintaining this feud for generations?”

Lady Nirella’s face became as still as carved marble. “I won’t speak of it.” Something in her expression—a fleeting shadow of old pain—made Mariselle fall silent.

“The bond must be broken,” her grandmother continued after a moment.

“And it can be broken, despite what romantic nonsense is written in those novels you think I don’t know you read.

” She squeezed Mariselle’s hands, a small smile finding its way onto her lips.

“One day, my dear, you will thank me. When you are free to marry someone you truly love. Someone worthy of the remarkable young woman you’ve become. ”

The tenderness in her grandmother’s voice brought a lump to Mariselle’s throat. “I’ve missed you,” she said suddenly, impulsively pulling her hands free of her grandmother’s grip and throwing her arms around the older woman.

Lady Nirella hesitated for only a moment before wrapping Mariselle in a tight hug. “You should visit more often, dear,” she said, her voice slightly gruff. “I’ve missed you too.”

She released Mariselle and straightened her shoulders.

“Now, I suppose I had better go and speak with your mother.” A sigh escaped her, heavy with the weariness of one who had survived countless familial storms and now faced yet another with resigned fortitude.

“It seems, for once, that we are in agreement over something.”