Emerald Embrace (28 page)

She was shivering violently. The girl had been walled in the crypt. Where she had ventured and been struck down. And Bryan had found her.

Had he really stumbled upon her?

Or had he knocked her out himself, and then appeared at her side, pretending to rescue her? Was he really Bryan? Or was it Bryan Creeghan who lay in the coffin in the crypt?

She covered her face with her hands and sank onto the bed, certain she was losing her mind. Perhaps she had been seduced by the devil.

No … she had made love to a flesh-and-blood man, one who was passionate and hard, with gleaming fire eyes. With fingers that could stroke tenderness and bold demand, with whispers that could ignite the very soul. Dangerous, devastating.

But a murderer?

She didn’t know. She just didn’t know anymore.

Suddenly, she was desperate simply to leave the castle. She changed swiftly to riding clothes—her own. She would never don Mary’s clothing again, she swore. And when she was dressed she barely glanced at her reflection in the mirror and hurried out. She was white, she thought as she raced down the stairs. White and pale, much paler than a blushing bride-to-be should appear.

The great hall was empty when she hurried through it. She walked across to the stables and was pleased to see that Jemie was there. Except that he wasn’t smiling. He looked at her gravely and nodded a greeting, and then he said, as if it was something that he had been coached to do, “We’re pleased to have ye as mistress of the castle, milady. Aye, indeed, we’re pleased.”

She stopped and stared at him. “Well, Jemie, if you don’t mind my saying so, you don’t seem to be terribly pleased.”

He shook his head wildly. “I’m pleased, milady!” He had flushed a dark color, and he looked around, almost as if he expected the stable walls to have ears. “Ye’re kind, milady, so very kind. Like t’other one, aye, that ye are. But she died. Died because the Devil’s Teeth must have their fill, because the cliffs must take their blood, do ye ken, milady?”

A faint, eerie feeling rippled along her spine. The breeze was picking up, and with it, she could hear the moaning. It was a sound that came with the castle and the cliffs and the wind, and she knew it, and still it sounded like a woman’s cry, low and chilling and despairing.

She stiffened her spine. “No, Jemie, I know no such thing. Cliffs do not need blood.” She stared into his stricken eyes and lowered her voice. “Jemie, it’s all right, you are afraid for me, aren’t you? Because you know that Mary was afraid. But land can’t be evil, Jemie. And the castle can’t be evil, either. Only men can be evil. Do you understand me, Jemie?”

He shook his head. He looked around quickly, and she thought that he was going to speak again.

“Jemie,” she said urgently. “Do you know why Mary was afraid? Was she afraid of someone in particular? Or something? Jemie, please, can you tell me?”

Suddenly, he stared past her shoulder and clamped his mouth shut.

Martise spun around. The huge groom, the towering Robert McCloud, was coming their way, long legs bringing him fast upon them. “Taking a ride, milady St. James? Jemie, where be yer manners, lad? Get the lady her horse, and quickly.”

Jemie turned around to do as he was bidden. Martise stared at McCloud, and the unease she had felt with the rising of the wind swept along her spine once again. His scar stood out lividly. He might have been a good-looking man without it, and Martise wondered briefly how he had obtained it. Probably a barroom brawl.

Perhaps she had no right to judge.

“Lady St. James, the master has been to see us, he has, and we wish to extend ye our best wishes and our loyalty. Long may we serve ye, lady!”

He bowed to her, as if greeting royalty. But to these people, the laird of Creeghan was their royalty, and if he sat as their king, then she, indeed, would sit as their queen.

She felt the chill of the breeze, but she smiled and thanked him.

“So ye’re riding this day,” he commented when Jemie came forth with a groomed and saddled Desdemona. “The master wouldna like it,” he said, and there was disapproval in his voice.

“Oh, and why not, Mr. McCloud?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Seems there might be a storm brewing.”

She led Desdemona to the mounting block and leapt atop the mare before McCloud could determine to help her. She smiled down at him. “Why, Mr. McCloud, it seems that there is always a storm brewing hereabouts.”

“Aye, such is Creeghan, milady.”

Martise noticed the insolent crook of his smile, and she wondered if he was referring to the place or to the man.

“I am a very good horsewoman, Mr. McCloud. The laird himself recognizes that fact.”

“Still, the laird might well protest.”

“Might he?”

“Maybe,” he acknowledged with a smile that she wasn’t sure she liked. “But keep to the main roads, milady. Take care. ’Tis easy to lose oneself here.”

“Thank you for the warning,” she told him. She cast Jemie a quick smile. The lad was silent and pale. He didn’t respond to her smile.

“Keep to the main roads!” Robert McCloud repeated.

She didn’t acknowledge him this time, but nudged Desdemona. The mare moved into a trot, and Martise urged her into a canter. She glanced up to the sky, but it didn’t appear that there would be a storm.

When Martise first left the stables, she kept on the road to the village. It felt good, very good, to leave the castle behind her. She maintained her smooth canter, glad then of the wind that whipped through her hair and cooled her face, glad of the feel of the spirited mare beneath her. Desdemona was real, and solid, a fey creature perhaps, but one with which Martise felt she had much in common this day.

When she at last pulled the mare in, she saw that the sky had darkened somewhat, but she didn’t think there would be a serious storm. And she was feeling defiant. She’d be damned if she’d listen to the likes of Robert McCloud.

There was a forest path leading off to her right. She was certain that it was still Creeghan land, a wilder, overgrown section that surrounded the plateaus of grass where they brought their livestock to graze.

She turned in along the path, and when she did so, she was pleased. The trees formed a natural arbor over her head, with flecks of sunlight filtering through the leaves. The world around her seemed suddenly filled with a beautiful green darkness. And best of all, she could no longer hear the womanish wail of the wind.

She traveled deep in thought for some time, secure in the surroundings about her. She felt as if she were at along last sheltered from the eyes of the castle. Desdemona moved along with no thought of direction from Martise. The earth beneath her was blanketed in ground cover and fallen leaves, and there was quiet and peacefulness about the forest that was very comfortable.

And quiet enough that she should be able to think. What was she to do?

Forget the emerald, forget about Mary! a voice cried from within her mind. Forget … and run! Run for your life, as fast as you can!

But from deep within her heart, another voice arose.

I cannot run, I cannot forget Mary, I need the emerald, and …

There was nowhere she could run, nowhere far enough away, that she could ever forget Bryan Creeghan. Forget the sound of his voice with its rich, husky burr. Forget the bold feel of his lips on her, the raw demand of his touch, the fire of his eyes and his body when it joined with hers.

The fire touched her cheeks, and she knew that, all alone in the forest, she was blushing. And then she realized that she had been deceiving herself for a long time. She had not stayed for Mary. And she hadn’t even stayed for the emerald. She had stayed because of Bryan Creeghan.

And now he was demanding marriage.

Marriage. He was not sweeping her off her feet, nor was he kneeling down before her. He was not whispering words of love, or declaring that his heart and his life would be empty without her. He wanted her as a bride. As a Creeghan bride.

Bait…

For a Creeghan murderer.

And as he spoke so flatly and coldly about marriage, he could not know that he was sliding a knife deep into her heart, and ripping the cold blade cruelly out once again.

“No!” she suddenly whispered aloud. “He is a hard, cruel bastard, and I will not love him, I will not!” she declared to the forest. Desdemona’s ears flickered back. “What is it about him?” Martise exclaimed to the mare. And then, more desperately, “What in God’s name is it …?”

And then, even as the sound of her own voice faded away in the denseness of the forest, she knew that she was not alone. There were voices, coming from a shadowed cove that broadened out from the trail before her.

She reined in the mare and held very still for a moment. Then the breeze shifted, and she heard it again, the murmur of voices. And in the very quiet of the voices, and that of the forest, she felt the edge of something sinister.

She knew that she should turn her horse and race away.

The breeze rustled through the trees and touched upon her cheeks. She dismounted from Desdemona, her booted feet falling softly and carefully upon the leaf-strewn trail. Slowly, slowly, she edged toward the clearing. The trees, the bracken, the rustle of the autumn leaves, were her cover.

She moved closer and closer. The sound of the voices rose, and yet she still could not understand what was being said. She came closer.

Through the brush that surrounded the copse, she saw that some meeting took place. There were at least ten figures there, surrounding a fire. Each figure was decked in a hooded cloak. She could see no faces.

She needed to get just a little closer. But if she moved much farther, she would lose the cover that she needed, and she somehow knew that the meeting was extremely secretive. Some sixth sense warned her that it would be dangerous indeed to be discovered listening in upon it.

She held her breath, straining to hear. She could just begin to catch snatches of conversation.

“… All Hallows’ Eve …”

“… if the moon be full …”

“… Creeghan …”

She couldn’t quite make out enough words to understand what was going on, but already her heart was pounding out a furious beat. She had to know! The very secret of the castle might lie before her.

She took another step.

And that was when a twig snapped beneath her feet.

The hooded heads lifted sharply. She still could not see faces in the shadows of the forest, but she knew that eyes were upon her. Each and every figure had jerked up its head and now stared directly at her.

Or at least to the place where she stood, spying.

She had to run. She turned on a heel and started to tear back toward Desdemona.

There were footsteps behind her. Footsteps pounding after her. She ran harder. She dared not look back, for she could feel them, sense them all, the dark-cloaked creatures coming with deadly intent behind her. Her lungs burned, and she was gasping, trying to call for the horse, too terrified to find voice.

The mare looked up from her grazing. Martise cried out, and the mare backed away. “No, no, please! Stand still, oh God, help me, God help me …”

Martise had leapt up on a horse unassisted often enough in her life, but not upon a sidesaddle and not when she was filled with panic. She grasped the pommel, and the mare, now snorting and prancing with fear, moved backward and forward nervously. “Please!” Martise murmured. “Please!”

She could hear the grass and bracken flattening. She turned around and saw that two of the figures were close upon her. She knew deep in her heart that if one of them touched her, her body would be discovered—perhaps hundreds of years from now—bricked into a wall. In the crypts of Castle Creeghan.

“Please, God!” she shouted again, and she leapt up with all of her strength and managed to throw herself upon the horse.

Desdemona instantly bolted.

Martise tried to right herself as the mare tore into the brush, straight for the figures. Hands, clawing fingers, reached for Martise. They knotted into her clothing. They twisted into her hair. She grasped tightly and blindly to the mare. Desdemona, now in panic, raced wildly. Martise could see nothing but the earth flying up from the horse’s hooves. The world spun. And still, things grasped at her, tore at her, tried to wrench her from the saddle.

It was no longer hands, she realized. The mare’s flight was bringing her beneath a multitude of oaks, and it was the branches that seemed to reach and claw for her. She laughed, and the laugh caught in a sob. She tried to right herself and became aware that the darkness was richer here, an even deeper green. She had entered the true heart of the forest.

Martise righted herself at last and leaned forward to try to catch the reins. “You had to run this way!” she said to the horse. “You just had to run this way! We needed to reach the road, and you’ve brought us deep into the forest instead. Now we’re going to have to circle around them to get out of here.”

If they weren’t still pursuing her. After all, they knew the forest. She did not.

And they meant to kill her. Of that, she was certain. “All right, Desdemona,” she said aloud. She needed to speak aloud. To calm the horse.

To calm herself!

“All right, all right, it wasn’t your fault. It was my fault. I should have been calmer. I shouldn’t have been so damned stupid. If you’ll just stand still long enough for me to catch your reins.”

But even as she leaned ever farther forward to try to catch the straggling reins, Desdemona suddenly stumbled. She pitched downward as her front left leg buckled beneath her. Martise, totally unprepared and stretched out in her awkward position, went flying over the horse’s lowered head.

She landed on the soft leaf-covered earth and was dazed. Then the world ceased spinning about in a green web, and she sat up. She was not hurt, she realized, moving her arms and legs. But she could be if she stayed too long in the forest.

She leapt to her feet. Desdemona was only a short way away. “Come here, you—” Martise began. She reached out to grab the reins. The mare bolted, jerking away. She wandered a few feet.

“Desdemona!” Martise cried out more desperately. “Don’t! Please, please, don’t do this to me!”