Emerald Embrace (42 page)

She slipped through the opening in the wall and into the passage.

Shadows lay here, shadows along a curving corridor. Tapers burned along the way, but at great distances, creating an eerie world of darkness and light. Spiderwebs combed the low arched ceilings, and there was an unearthly chill.

And still, she started down the corridor. It seemed she had little choice.

As she walked, she began to hear a gurgling sound. A rush and fall, and then a humming. She kept moving, hemmed in by the shadows, and tried to understand the sounds.

And then she did.

The corridor was leading her toward the sea. Deep, deep beneath the bowels of the castle, it was a tunnel. The humming was the wind, coming through the entry. And the rush was the sound of the surf, high now upon the Dragon’s Teeth.

The walls became damp. She could smell the salt of the water.

She moved close to the wall and kept going, knowing now she would arrive at the opening of the cave where she had rested on the day she had found the poor, battered sailor. The sailor who had whispered the word “Creeghan” before he died.

She began to hear voices then, and saw that there were lights, a multitude of lights, set out upon the rocks before the cave. Out to sea, she knew there was a ship. The ship Bryan had mentioned.

And the lights would lead it to the Dragon’s Teeth, where it would sink, and its men perish, buffeted by the sea.

Or murdered if they would not die.

She moved closer still, wondering what she could do to stop what was coming. And then, even as she stood there, something was thrown over her head. She screamed as she was dragged forward, blinded and helpless, hands and arms caught within the folds of some dark material.

“I’ave her, I do!” cried a voice at her ear. A feminine voice.

But she didn’t have time to ponder her attacker’s gender, for she was thrown on the rough ground, the material pulled away from her. She fell on her hands and knees.

There was a pair of boots. She stared at them and looked up slowly. She was staring at the figure in the dragon mask. “Tie her to the rock,” he ordered.

She screamed, but it seemed then there were at least a half dozen of the figures upon her. She fought wildly, knocking hoods from heads and managing to stare into several faces. There were two of the fishermen she had seen at Katie’s inn. A man and a woman she thought to be sheepherders she had met briefly at the fest, a young lad, perhaps their son, and the woman who had captured her.

She gasped in amazement, ceasing to fight, as she stared into Clarissa’s eyes.

“Aye, me!” Clarissa laughed. “Ye should ha’ stayed in the crypt the first time I locked ye there, eh?” She chuckled with wicked pleasure. “Creeghan is mine, ye’ll see.”

She clawed at the girl and was delighted to catch Clarissa across the cheek, creating long, deep scratches. Clarissa shrieked with fury, and would have pounced upon Martise, but one of the fishermen pulled her back.

“Tie ’er like he says—we’ve work to do!”

Martise kicked, she scratched, she fought anew. But soon she was on cold rock again, tied hand and foot, gown so disarrayed and torn she might have been naked. Screams ripped from her throat, but all who could hear her were those who had tied and bound her.

She closed her eyes and she felt the fury of the wind and heard the endless crash of the sea.

It was so much like her dream. Except she was not dreaming. The cold salt spray that misted her body. The lights, the chants, or whispers all around her … all so real.

“What will he do?”

“Cast another Creeghan bride into the sea, eh?”

“Spill her blood upon the rock.”

“Let the tide take her upon the rock; she’ll not interfere again!”

Numbness was covering her. She was cold. Terrified and cold. And helpless. Bent upon the rock and tightly tied. With no hope of loosening the bonds.

She opened her eyes.

And then she saw him.

The dragon laird, in his dark cloak, in his dragon mask, walking slowly in her direction.

Stalking her where she lay, helpless, vulnerable. It could not be Bryan, it could not!

Aye, who else but the laird of the castle?

He had come to her to love her, and now he came to kill her. The cloaked figures gathered around him as he approached. Closer, closer … pausing before her. Standing there, staring down at her. Pulling a knife from the folds of his cloak.

She screamed, loudly, endlessly, hysterically. The sound rose with the wind and ricocheted around the rock. And he laughed. The dragon laird laughed, and cast back his hood, and ripped away the mask. And even as she knew that her death loomed imminently, she prayed, and screamed again, hoping that the man she had married might find some mercy for her.

“No, please—” she cried.

Then she gasped out loud, and even in her danger, felt a surging relief.

“Peter!” she shrieked.

“Aye, lass, ’tis me. I warned ye to keep to yer room, to stay away.”

“You came after me!”

“I came after the laird, fer he was onta us, lass. Ye needn’t have run. But now … I haven’t much time. The ship comes in. And we must be quick.”

“No!” she pleaded.

“Aye, lass,” he said softly. “’Twill be good, ye see. Another Creeghan bride given to the cliffs. ’Tis sorry, I am. I liked ye, Martise.”

“Then don’t!”

“Kill her!” came a cry. Clarissa’s cry, Martise realized. And then the chant went up. “Kill her! Kill her! Kill her! Kill her … !”

“Why?” Martise demanded over the growing chant. “For the love of God, why, Peter?”

“Why?” His brows arched. “I have danced around the lairds for long enough. Soon, my wealth will be tremendous.” He leaned close to her, blue eyes shimmering, then he straightened, touched her cheek, and drew his fingers caressingly along her flesh, to her throat, over the curve of her breast. Then he lifted the knife.

She screamed and closed her eyes, not able to face the blade as it plunged into her.

But the knife did not fall. Instead she heard a cry, and a crack, and a sharp impact, like flesh meeting flesh. She opened her eyes. Peter no longer looked at her. He had turned, for all around him, his followers were falling into a vicious whirlwind of motion. Someone had come. Someone seizing the cloaked figures, striking them to the ground, avoiding all blows, and pressing through six of the figures at once.

Peter swore with ragged fury, and he lifted the knife again.

She screamed.

But there was another whirl of violent motion, a slam, and she opened her eyes to see that Peter had been wrenched away from her, that he was engaged in a brutal struggle, climbing the rock with a figure in black. The figure who had torn away the others and struck them unconscious to the ground. A figure who had fought for her.

Willing to die for her.

Black frock coat, black boots, black silk shirt. Ebony hair.

Bryan. Bryan had come for her at last.

A shot sounded. Then another and another. Into the air. The cloaked figures screamed in wild panic. Tied to the rock, there was little that Martise could see.

One of the figures came before her, a knife also in his hand. Her eyes widened with terror and her scream rent the air. It was Ian, Ian come to finish what his father had begun.

“Nay, Martise!” he cried, and the knife fell, severing the ropes that bound her wrists. He reached down to help her from the rock. “Martise, I tried to call to ye before. I didna know ye were taking the passage. Thank God we reached ye!”

He was not going to hurt her, she realized dimly. He was not in it with his father. He had come with Bryan.

“Oh, Ian!” she cried, and threw her arms around him, and he helped her from the rock.

As she stumbled, quivering in the aftermath of fear, trying to regain her balance, she saw that Peter and Bryan were climbing ever higher on the rock above them. Peter was still trying to use his knife on Bryan, but Bryan caught his wrist with his left hand and slammed Peter’s jaw with his right. And Peter fell to his knees, looked up at Bryan, and smiled.

“So ye’ve caught me, Laird Creeghan! But Bruce Creeghan, ye’re not, eh, nephew? Ye’ve caught me, but I bested yer brother. Did ye hear me, I bested yer brother. And I’ve known, aye, I’ve known that I bested him, do ye hear me, Bryan Creeghan!”

But Bryan had turned away in disgust. With grace and ease he had begun to descend the cliff.

“Do ye hear me, Bryan Creeghan!” Peter shrieked again. And still, Bryan did not turn. And then Martise screamed in horror, for Peter had inched forward to pluck up the fallen knife, and he meant to send it flying between Bryan’s shoulder blades.

A shot rang out. So close to Martise’s ear she could feel the hot spit of the powder.

Peter seemed to poise there upon the rock, a sculpture in stillness and time, a red stain sweeping across his dark cloak. Then he pitched slowly, surely, down to the rocks and the sea below, a sacrifice himself, to the jagged edges of the Dragon’s Teeth.

Martise and Bryan both swirled around to face Ian. Ian, who had shot Peter to save Bryan. He shrugged to Martise and to his cousin, as Bryan leapt down beside him, reaching out his arms to enfold Martise.

“He wanted to die,” Ian said simply. “He wanted you to kill him; that was why he was goading you.”

Bryan nodded. “Aye, I know. And still, thank you, cousin,” he said softly.

“Ye are Bryan, eh?”

He nodded again. “Bruce is dead.”

“In the coffin in the old crypt?”

“Aye.”

“Conar told me so. But we thought ye must have a reason for keeping yer counsel, and so we played along.”

“I knew that you were with me. I should have trusted you,” Bryan said. “But I couldna, you understand, for he was your father.”

Ian nodded. It seemed to be all that they needed between them. And then Bryan’s arms tightened around Martise, and his eyes touched down upon her.

Eyes of fire.

Brilliant, fathomless, and still so very warm. “By God,” he said fiercely, and his voice trembled, “I came so close to losing you.”

Ian cleared his throat. “The fires, Bryan. We must put them out.”

“Aye, before the ship comes too close!” Bryan agreed fervently.

“And we’ve these—” Ian said furiously, nudging one of the cloaked figures on the ground near his feet.

“Where’s Conar?” Bryan asked.

Ian indicated the area below, and there stood Conar. He was the one who had fired the first shots, the warning shots, she realized. He had gathered the remaining men before him and had already begun to order them to douse the fires.

Conar was not alone. Robert McCloud was with him, using his great weight and strength to break up the deadly bonfires.

“Are ye all right? Can ye stand with Ian?” Bryan asked her.

“I’m—I’m fine,” she assured him.

“Ye’re not fine, ye’re half-naked and shaking like a leaf,” he said, something like a smile coming to his features. “Ian—?”

“Aye, me cloak!” Ian said, and stripped it from his shoulders to sweep about Martise. Bryan nodded, then leapt along the rock, hurrying from fire to fire.

Martise smiled briefly at Ian and then hurried after him. She kicked the wet sand over the fires on the rock and doused the tapers within it.

“Martise!” Ian called to her.

She turned and waved to him that she was well and fine. And so Ian began to rouse those whom Bryan had struck to the ground, and group them together.

Slowly, the lights began to disappear, and there was no light upon the coast at all except for that of the moon. Conar came to her and hugged her closely, and told her gruffly that he was glad she was well. Robert McCloud tipped his cap to her and smiled, and she smiled in return and thought that she should apologize, but that, she knew, could come later.

“There be four dead,” Robert told Bryan softly. “Yer uncle, and three here who tried to run and were shot.”

“Who were they?” Bryan demanded.

“Fishermen.” He was quiet for a moment. “Peter was careful. He wooed his villagers, and he took in Clarissa because he promised her that she could have you when it was done. She was delighted to ‘disappear,’ and Peter thought that her disappearance might frighten Lady Creeghan. Ye were becoming far too involved,” he told Martise with an awkward smile.

“And Jemie!” she told Bryan suddenly. “He’s in the crypt. He tried to wall me in—”

“He what?” Bryan seemed to roar.

She clasped his hand. “He did not mean to, I know that he did not. Peter had him so confused, he thought that he was returning a ghost to her grave. Bryan, you must not—”

“I’ll not hurt Jemie,” he assured her. “And,” he added softly, “it will break my heart for Peggy and Henry Cunningham to have to watch Clarissa go to trial. But she must. Robert—”

“Aye, Laird Creeghan. I’ll bring in our ‘coven’ here.”

“We’ll give him a hand,” Conar said, “eh, Ian?”

“Aye.”

They turned away, going for the seven men who sat cowed on the darkened rocks. Bryan called to Conar. “I’m sorry, Conar. Ye know that I didna mean that he should die.”

Conar shrugged. Then he grinned ruefully. “Nay, Bryan. I am sorry. I suspected, and I could not bear to discover the truth until I knew that you meant to do so tonight. And I—” He hesitated. “To my everlasting sorrow, Martise, I stole the gun from beneath the bed. I was afraid Bryan would shoot me da. And yet, there really wasna a thing to be done. I am the one who might have cost ye yer life, and I am dearly sorry. I didna want to face the truth.”

Martise escaped Bryan’s hold and came on tiptoe to kiss Conar’s cheek. “I am sorry about your father, Conar. And truly, I forgive you with all my heart.”

He nodded, glanced back at Bryan, and started down the rocks. He, Ian, and McCloud would lead the men and Clarissa to the village along the same path they had taken on that day they searched the rocks for Clarissa and discovered the poor broken sailor instead.

They stood upon the rocks alone then, Bryan and Martise. He set his arms around her and pulled her close, chin resting on her head. She felt a trembling rake through him. “I canna tell ye how I felt, girl, when I came from seeking out Ian to discover ye were no longer in the room.”