Emerald Embrace (10 page)

Bruce left them, and she was facing the doctor, who seemed to watch her sorrowfully. And it still seemed that there were people all around them, people listening to her every word.

Dr. MacTeague had mercy. He caught her arm and said, “Shall we take a walk in the courtyard?”

“Yes, please,” she agreed.

Seconds later, they left the hall by the same great doors by which she had first entered. Darkness had fallen, night had come, but the courtyard was well lit, and it was pleasant to walk along the arched stone gallery where someone had planted flower beds. Without the storm, the place did not seem so sinister, and Martise was glad to be out of doors.

“Bruce seems to think you feel the need to talk to me, milady,” the doctor offered politely after a moment.

They had come to a wrought-iron bench. It was new, a style favored by Queen Victoria, ornate and elegant. Martise sank down upon it, watching the doctor. His dark eyes seemed grave and honest.

“My sister was frightened of something or someone here, Doctor. She wrote me frequently. I was quite disturbed when she died.”

MacTeague nodded slowly and then shrugged. “Mary did seem nervous, but I thought it all in her mind.” He hesitated. “Lady St. James, I can only tell you that Castle Creeghan is very old. It has its share of legends and horror stories. But your sister died of heart failure. I arrived moments after her death, I signed the certificate, and I would defy any physician anywhere to dispute my findings. And I can tell you this, too: I have never seen a man more grieved than Bruce Creeghan when he held her there, so, in his arms.”

Martise lowered her eyes. She could not imagine Bruce Creeghan so grieved. She lifted her gaze to the doctor once again.

“You said horror stories. Are they true?”

“Things have happened here, of course. This place is ancient, these people are extremely superstitious. They dance each year to their maypole, and, I swear, that night, dozens of children are conceived. They still seem to worship the gods of fertility for themselves and for their harvests, and—”

“They still seem to worship Lord Creeghan, do they not?” she inquired.

“Bruce has always been a good master here. He allows no man to remain idle, and no widow to starve.”

She nodded absently. All the more reason for the people to adore him.

“Doctor, what type of thing has happened here?”

He smiled broadly. “Well, in 1205 one Lady Creeghan did throw herself to her death from the battlements. They say that her ghost haunts the north tower.”

“And the west tower?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t kept up with all my ghosts,” he said with a grin. But then he shrugged again. “We are no better, and no worse, than others here, milady. Full moons sometimes seem to bring out violence in people. No one knows the truth of it all. But I do know this—Mary Creeghan died of heart failure, pure and simple. My lady, I swear that to you.”

“Thank you,” she told him. “I appreciate your speaking with me so frankly.”

He paused, a grave, attractive man, staring up at the sky. Martise followed his gaze. Soon there would be a full moon.

“Perhaps you should not stay very long, though,” he said.

“Why?”

He shrugged. “Like I said, full moons …” His voice trailed away but then he smiled. “Perhaps we should return. I fear it is growing late.”

It had grown late, and only Bruce remained in the hall when they returned. He stood with his back to the fire, still handsomely adorned in a dark and somber frock coat, ribbon tie and vest, and high boots. His eyes reflected the flames as he watched the doctor and Martise come back into the hall. MacTeague said his good-nights, and Martise was left alone with Bruce.

There was silence in the room. She felt Bruce’s eyes upon her. She turned to him, and was startled by the depths of the anger within them.

“Just exactly what is it that I am suspected of having done, milady St. James?” he demanded sharply.

“I—I don’t—”

“You don’t know what I mean?” His brows shot up in scornful disbelief. “Ah, let’s see. You’ve questioned the priest and the doctor, and surely my sister, perhaps my cousins and uncle, and I dare say you’ve tried to deluge the corpses with your insinuations.”

“I haven’t insinuated anything,” Martise snapped back, glad of the distance between them. He had not moved. He still stood there, his back to the fire, legs firm and far apart on the stone, hands locked behind his back.

“She died of heart failure, but you still accuse me. Obviously,” he said, voice suddenly soft and therefore sinister, “you think I am to blame. And so the questions.” And then he was moving, seeming to circle around her like a hawk looking down upon its prey.

She spun around, watching him, in no way willing to have her back to him.

“Did I perhaps throttle Mary? Strangle her with my bare hands?” He offered his hands up to the light, studying them himself, flexing his fingers. “Indeed, they are powerful, milady. More than strong enough to snap the fragile throat of a gentle creature like Mary. Poison perhaps? Ah, I think the strangling more my style.” And then he was a foot away from her, staring at her with a violent fury. “Why in God’s name do you accuse me of having killed her?”

“I didn’t—”

“But by God, woman, you did!” he thundered.

“Mary was frightened, terribly frightened. She wrote to me.”

“She was frightened of me? I don’t believe it!”

“No,” Martise admitted softly. She lifted her chin. “She did not say she was afraid of you. She was just … afraid.”

He came closer. So close that she could feel the warmth of him, the heat, the burning tension. “If she was so afraid, then why in heaven and hell are you still here?”

“Because I intend to know!” Martise cried.

“There is nothing to know!”

She backed away from him. “There is—something!” she managed to gasp out. And then she realized that she had backed herself against a wall, and that his hands were flat against it on either side of her head, his face disturbingly close to hers.

“If you stay, milady,” he began, and he said the last with such mockery that she cringed inwardly, “if you stay, be prepared to feel me as your shadow, Martise, day and night. And don’t ever disappear, as you did this evening in the crypts!”

“Disappear!” she gasped, her eyes narrowing with anger. “I was locked in, you arrogant—” She stopped, biting off the word “bastard” just in time.

She was still a guest here. And still supposedly a lady.

She smiled. “A girl detained me, Laird Creeghan. She bolted the crypt. I think that it has something to do with you. I wondered, indeed, if you hadn’t forewarned her, too, at some time or another, that you wanted her and would have her.”

For a moment, she thought that his wrath had risen so greatly that he would strike her, but he did not. He smiled instead. “Nay, lady,” he whispered, “you are the only woman I have ever wanted in so desperate and determined a way.”

And his lips, so close to hers, touched upon them. Lightly, as if the kiss were a part of the whisper.

And as the touch was so subtle, she did not think or reason to protest it. She only felt it. Felt the shattering, masculine persuasion, felt the heat and the fever, and the parting of her mouth beneath his. And then she felt the full force, the passion, the violence, within him. Felt his tongue, and his touch, and a power of seduction and force so great that she thought she was falling. Her hands clung to his shoulders and she clung for life, it seemed. She tasted blood within her lips, and still, she could not protest the rape, the invasion of his kiss. The fire of his eyes had touched her body and her soul, and she knew that what she felt within herself was right, that there was something there, within them both. He had to have her …

And she had to know, somewhere in time, the sweet ecstasy that he offered, the excitement, the sweeping, volatile passion.

“No!” she gasped, tearing away from his lips at last. His eyes were still alive with the flames of both fury and desire.

“If by chance you do fear me, lady, there are things you should know are true. My temper is fierce, my passions are great, and indeed, perhaps, there is a simmering violence within me. But I did not kill Mary. I did not hurt her, and she was beloved as lady of this castle until the day she died. Stay, then, haunt the place with your suspicions and aspersions. But know that I will be here, stalking your every step. And remember that it is all true. I am a passionate, volatile, temperamental—arrogant man, and I will have my way!”

She wrenched free, afraid she could not fight him if he tried to stop her.

But he did not.

She ran for the stairs, feeling the fire of his gaze within her soul all the way.

T
hat night she dreamed about Castle Creeghan. She was seeking out that elusive room, the master’s room within the castle.

She moved along the stone passageways, and the moonlight filtered through ancient arrow slits and played upon the tapestries depicting ancient battles and victories. She walked along the blood-red carpeting, seeing the darkness before her as she approached the laird’s tower.

The hallway stretched into the darkness. It seemed endless. And then, from behind her, she heard the whispers.

The sound was like the wind, like a moaning, like a cry. It seemed to grow and swell, even as candles lit along the way began to flicker and fade. It seemed that there was no sound, none at all, except for the beating of her heart, but she turned, and she saw the white shadows, and the moaning whispers began again.

They were behind her.

Creatures, beings … no, the dead of Creeghan Castle. Bony fingers, covered with their gauze shrouds, rose and pointed toward her. Sightless, empty eye sockets stared upon her as if they could see. They did not need to walk upon the floor, but floated slowly and surely toward her.

She turned to run again, but the corridor seemed to lengthen with her every step. And she was running and running, so desperate.

She was almost there. Almost to the master’s tower. Almost to safety.

But then she realized that there was a large towering figure standing there. Tall and dark, a black cape rippling from his shoulders. He stood with his feet well planted upon the floor, arms crossed over his chest. And there was laughter, deep, rich, taunting, and filling her being.

And then she saw the white flash of his smile, and she stood still, for the searing fire of his eyes touched down upon her and she cried out, startled by the sense of evil.

Behind her, the white-clad death-ghosts began to whisper her name, and before her, Bruce Creeghan reached out his arms. She thought that to turn back would be certain death.

And yet to run forward would surely damn her soul forever.

She awoke, jerking up. There were arms around her, someone was shaking her, and indeed, something was whispering her name harshly.

She opened her eyes and a scream caught in her throat. He was with her. He was seated beside her on the bed, holding her up, shaking her. His hands upon her were strong, arresting, and she stared from his eyes to that touch, and then met his gaze and shivered again.

“Creeghan!” she cried. “What … what … ?”

“You were screaming,” he told her. “I came as quickly as I could, since it sounded as if you were being attacked by a thousand vicious demons.” She didn’t say anything, but stared at him blankly.

“You were dreaming, Martise, I assume. A nightmare. Unless you outran the demons and returned to your bed.”

Her bed. He was sitting at the foot of her bed. He was in his smoking jacket again, naked beneath it, she was sure, and she was once again clad in white that concealed no more than had the white shrouds that covered the moving ghosts of her dream.

He had lit the lamp, so the room was not dark, but cast in mysterious shadow. And, it seemed, they were as alone in those shadows as they might have been had they ventured to the ends of the earth.

“Oh!” she whispered, and it all rushed home to her. She had been having a nightmare, and she had screamed and screamed in truth just as she had in her dream. She met his eyes again and pulled her bedcovers close to her chest, trying to smile and failing, and then managing to apologize. “I’m sorry that I’ve disturbed you. I suppose that I was dreaming.”

“It’s all right,” he told her. He hadn’t moved. She needed him off the foot of the bed. There was a magic about him. He brought decadent, forbidden thoughts too quickly to her mind. If he reached out to touch her, she might want him to stay.

“Then there is nothing wrong, you are all right?” he asked.

She nodded her head vigorously up and down. “I’m fine. Again, I apologize. I—” She paused, staring at him, exhaling through clenched teeth.

He shouldn’t have been in there. She was certain that she had bolted both the doors to the balcony and the door to the hallway. “How—how did you get in?” she demanded.

He rose then. His eyes were cast in shadow. “By the door,” he told her.

“I bolted it.”

He shrugged. “You must have forgotten.”

“But I—”