Emerald Embrace (40 page)

Martise shook her head. “It’s all right, Elaina. Really.”

But was it? Had Elaina lured her there?

She was losing her mind, suspecting everyone. She forced herself to smile and began to disrobe. “We can’t wear these petticoats,” she muttered.

“Nay, we canna!” Elaina agreed with laughter. “Martise, ye must not wear anything beneath that gown. The silk is to hold and to cling.”

Martise arched a brow at Elaina, but her new sister-in-law laughed and indicated the dressing screen in the corner. Martise strode behind it and hesitated as the gown came flying over the screen. Then she slipped the silk over her shoulders and marveled at the feel of it.

Surely, the Creeghans had always been wealthy. But this gown was truly exquisite for its day. The material did seem to fall around her, to caress, to fit as if molded and formed for her alone.

“There’s the crown, remember!” Elaina called to her.

Martise stepped around the screen. Elaina was gorgeous with her dark hair and light eyes in the elegant gown. Martise smiled and applauded.

“Aye, thank you, but you must see yourself!” Elaina told her. And she excitedly caught her arm and led her before a gold-rimmed floor mirror. “Now wait, mind you, for the crown!”

It was perfect, Martise thought. She didn’t seem quite real, or real to this world. Her hair flowed out like soft wings of fire over the sweeping white folds of the gown.

“A Greek goddess, that’s it!” Elaina whispered. And with a flourish, she set the jeweled crown atop Martise’s head. “’Tis glorious!” she pronounced.

She had never looked better, Martise knew. More enticing, and more innocent, perhaps. The jewels danced with her eyes, and the silk train from the crown enhanced the luster of her hair. The material molded beautifully to her form, and yet moved with her. There seemed to have been some magic spun into the thread, for the gown shimmered when she moved.

“I cannot wait for the laird to see you!” Elaina declared, delighted.

Martise made a quick decision. “And I must not wait,” she told Elaina suddenly. “I’ve got to speak with him for just a minute—”

“But you must make a grand entrance down the stairway!” Elaina protested.

Martise smiled. “Elaina, I will. For Conar and Ian and Peter—and Hogarth!” she promised. “But right now, I must see my husband.”

Martise hurried out of Elaina’s room. Her teeth chattered, but she wanted desperately to see Bryan. She had to meet the fear within her.

Or else she would have to run from him at midnight.

Hurrying along the corridor, she passed her old room and the library, and started across to the master’s tower. She was nearly running.

And then she stopped, a scream forming against her throat.

Someone was there. A figure was there, at the door to Bryan’s room, clutching something against its chest.

Clutching something…

What? She couldn’t see, she couldn’t tell. The figure was in shadows. It was clad in black. In a black cloak with a hood.

It turned and saw Martise. And for a moment, it held. She could not see its face, or its eyes, but she knew that it was staring at her.

And then it turned and fled.

“Wait!” she cried, and she started to run after it. “Wait, please, wait!”

But the figure had reached the stairway, and in the absolute and total darkness, it disappeared.

Martise paused at the head of the steps, staring down. She could not follow. She would be a fool to do so. She bit her lip and ran back to the bedroom doors, throwing them open. “Bryan! Bryan, where are you! Oh, please, damn it, where are you?”

There was no answer—except that he wasn’t in the room, that was for certain. She sighed with frustration and sat down at the foot of the bed. “Laird Creeghan, where in God’s name are you? Never about when I need you, only appearing in erotic dreams!” she muttered.

Then an eeriness seemed to steal around her. She was sure the room was empty, and yet … she suddenly didn’t want to be alone in it. She leapt back up and left the room and started walking along the corridor.

And then she was running.

She came back to Elaina’s room and knocked on the door. Elaina was there, smiling expectantly.

“Was he duly impressed?” she asked Martise.

“He—he wasn’t there.”

“Then I imagine he’s gone down already. He is the laird, and must greet the revelers,” she said. “Come, we’ll get to make a grand entrance, after all.”

They walked to the stairway together, then Elaina prodded her. “Go down with you, now. Alone. And slowly!”

Martise started down the stairs. She could hear many voices, and surmised that there were a lot of people in the hall. Then suddenly the voices faded away and stopped altogether, and Martise realized that everyone in the room was staring at her. Then she heard a hoarse male cry. “Martise!”

Bryan came to the bottom of the steps, his features tense. He reached a hand to her and led her into the room, eyes condemning as he stared at her. Then he turned around. “The bride of Creeghan anew, my friends!” he announced, and an uneasy laughter arose, and then a puppet show which had apparently already begun was resumed. Martise tugged upon his hand, demanding of Bryan in a heated whisper, “What is it? It is as if you had seen a ghost!”

“’Tis nothing,” he said. “You simply surprised us all.”

“Why?”

“Because one of our ancestresses—the bride married in that gown—threw herself from a balcony to the rocks below. There’s a painting of her in the smaller hall beneath my room.”

“Oh!” she cried, startled. And then she looked back at Elaina, who had also made her entrance, and now stood laughing beside her cousin Ian while she watched the puppet show.

“But it is stunning upon you, Martise. Truly stunning.”

She pulled away from him. He was in black. Black breeches, black silk shirt, black frock coat. And then, looking around the room, she gasped.

Many of the men were dressed in cloaks. Cloaks like those worn by the figures that day in the forest.

“What is it?” Bryan demanded sharply.

“The—the cloaks,” she murmured.

He did not reply, for there was thunderous applause when the puppet show ended. The front doors were cast open and the people went spilling out to the courtyard. Bryan caught Martise’s hand and dragged her along.

Outside, there was a large pole set up with gaudy streamers depending from the top. Twelve of them. The end of each was held by a girl who danced with it. No holy dance, and no Highland fling, but something far more subtle and sensual. Decadent. Erotic. Each girl was clad in white, with sleeves and shirt cut and slashed as if the gowns were elegant rags. The bodices were low, the skirts slashed, and young flesh much in evidence.

Twelve … the number of a coven, Martise thought.

The girls let go of their streamers, and they ran into the crowd. One of them sidled against a masked Roundhead, and another paused to press a kiss on the cheek of a fat Punch. One of them—Cassie, the fisherman’s wife—came before Bryan, and cast her arms around him, and came shimmering down the length of his torso and limbs.

The girls raced back to their streamers, and the dance began again, reaching a frenzied crescendo. The music died, each girl fell to her knees, and again, the applause was thunderous.

“I thought May Day was for fertility,” Martise murmured sweetly to Bryan.

His eyes caught hers and he smiled. “This is the harvest, you must recall, my love,” he said. And then suddenly, pipes were playing and a fiddle was strummed, and beneath the full moon, dancing had begun. Bryan was swept away by an unknown girl, and Martise found herself in the arms of a young sheepherder with a handsome face—but the scent of sheep still about him.

Then Hogarth appeared, dressed in one of the dark cloaks. He made a wonderful figure of death, Martise decided, watching as he threw out the marzipan candies to the crowd. There was laughter and chaos as the candies were caught, and then one by one and in pairs, the people began to drift away toward the carts and wagons and horses that awaited them along the road.

The clock began to strike. Twelve tones.

“Midnight, the witching hour,” came a husky voice behind her. And Bryan’s warm hands slipped around her. She turned to face him.

He now wore a dark cloak about his shoulders, though the hood was pressed back from his head. He smiled, the devil’s smile, and he swept her up into his arms.

“No!” she said.

“Ah, but I demanded you back for this time!” he reminded her. “Good night, all!” he called to his family, and strode back through the double doors and to the stairway.

Panic seized her as he mounted the stairs. Her eyes met his, and she desperately sought the truth in them.

They reached the second floor and the corridor. He swept her forward still, into the darkness. She began to tremble and shake within his arms, and still she could not speak.

And still his eyes burned into hers.

He kicked open the double doors and carried her to their bed, then left her there to stride back and close and bolt the doors.

Her lashes fell over her eyes and clamped tightly. In the dream she lay upon a cold slab and he came to her. And then he brought the chill of his knife against her throat…

She opened her eyes. He was striding toward her, the cloak flying from his shoulders. “No!” she screamed.

He sat at the edge of the bed and pulled her against his shoulder. She kept trembling. His kiss fell upon her forehead and upon her cheeks and upon her lips. She wanted the kiss, she despised the fear. Hungrily, desperately, she kissed him in return. Her tears bathed his hands where they stroked her cheeks. “My God, what is it?” he asked huskily.

“Bryan, dear God, tell me again that you’re innocent, I beg of you!” she gasped.

He pressed her back against the bed. “I am innocent,” he told her intently. He touched her shoulders and pressed his kiss against them. “Tell me, what has happened?” he whispered against her flesh.

She moaned softly. He stroked her to soothe her, to ease the chills and the trembling.

“I am afraid,” she whispered.

“I am with you,” he told her.

And she forgot the fear and was warmed. He touched her everywhere with his kiss. He discovered her nakedness beneath the shimmering silk, and he swept his hand beneath the fabric. “I have never seen anyone more beautiful or erotic or enchanting than you in this gown,” he said. Then he stripped the crown from her head and the silk from her body.

She could not deny him.

He seduced her with his touch. With the whisper of his breath over her cheeks, over her breasts. His tongue traced a molten stream over her limbs, between her breasts. He lifted her to him, and brought that same searing heat intimately against her. Probing with his touch, with his kiss. Having her so, demanding all from her so, stroking, licking, ravishing, invading …

Never, never ceasing to touch. And he became one with her. Invading anew, kissing, caressing. And the desire mounted and rose and crashed and danced within her. She trembled and shook with the force of it. And when his rhythm quickened to a wild and reckless, near brutal demand, the wind and the stars swirled within her being, and with the ecstasy that enwrapped her, she was ready to die.

He allowed her to fall, and then he filled her and made love again. Completely, thoroughly, until she lay naked beside him, shivering again as the searing heat of his warmth, of his tempest, of his desire, faded from her body. And then her eyes opened to his, and she felt the brooding power of their fire upon her.

“Now, tell me,” he prodded her softly. His arm swept around her and he held her close. “Tell me. Talk to me.”

“There were whispers,” she said, “this morning, on the stairway to the crypt.”

“About what?”

“About tonight. About the danger. About a ship coming close to the shore. I don’t know, I couldn’t hear, I was afraid. And then today—”

“Today what?”

“Elaina had me wear this gown. As if I should be cast to the sea—”

“Elaina would not hurt you.”

“I don’t know anymore, I don’t, Bryan. Perhaps Hogarth locked that door, perhaps he did not!”

“I cannot believe—”

“And someone was in this room.”

“Who?”

“A figure in a cloak.”

“Doing what?”

“I don’t know, I couldn’t tell.” And she couldn’t really tell if he believed her or not. “Bryan, I swear it.”

“Go on, Martise, I am listening.”

“And then …”

“What?”

“When I was locked in the cellar, it—it—”

“It what, Martise? Please, help me!”

“It—it moved.”

“What moved, Martise?”

“The wall. The wall in the wine cellar. That’s why I was so afraid. There’s a passage beyond the trunks, I know it. Then you appeared. And I was so afraid that—”

“That I had come from the passage, having discovered I was no longer alone to slay you?”

She was silent for a moment. “Yes,” she whispered painfully.

“But you let me make love to you now.”

“Yes,” she repeated, still meeting his eyes.

His mouth closed over hers. Gently, tenderly. “I have to go,” he whispered.

“I’ll come—”

“Nay, by God, I’ll not risk it!” he swore. He held her close. “When I’m gone, get the gun. Hold on to it. Wait for my return. If anyone comes through the door—”

“I told you, I know how to shoot,” she said. “I just—”

“What?”

“I don’t want to be alone. With—without you.”

He caught her hand and kissed her fingers. “I have to go,” he repeated. He rose, donned his clothes, and picked up the black cloak, swirling it around his shoulders. He stood above her. “You know that I have to go, tonight of all nights. Thank you. Thank you for telling me about the passage in the wine cellar.”

He turned, and the cloak swept behind him as he headed for the dressing room door. He told her to come bolt it behind him, and she did so. Then he was gone. There were no whispers, no sounds, just the call of the sea below and the low moaning of the wind about the rock.

Shivering, Martise hurried back to the bed. She picked up the old silk bridal gown and slipped it over her shoulders, but the material brought her only more chills. She was frightened, truly frightened, as she had not been before.