Fear Familiar Bundle (101 page)

Mary watched the dawning of awareness on William's face, but it was overlaid with something else, a terrible struggle. She knew he was slipping away from her, deep into that black abyss where he was bedeviled and tormented.

"Ye speak as if ye knew Lisette." The gray eyes assessed her as the features hardened. "How would it be that ye know my Lisette?" The question was a warning and a challenge.

Mary reached out her hand and stroked William's forehead. He was burning hot, a dry heat that seared her very soul with despair.

"William, it's me, Mary. Look at me, love." She made her voice strong, willing William to hold on to her voice and touch.

"Mary?" William's face turned into a frown of concentration. "Mary." A more modern inflection made the name sound more familiar, and a fraction of recognition washed over his features only to be replaced with confusion.

"Yes, it's me. Mary, your bride." She placed her palm flat on his cheek, ignoring his fever and encouraging him to look into her eyes. "Stay with me, William. Don't leave me."

He lifted his hand, as if to stroke her face. But suddenly his face broke into an anguished mask; the effort to control was too great. He slammed his fist into the pillow beside her head, and Mary flinched, ducking her face into the soft cushion of the sofa.

When she looked up, there was no trace of the William she knew. The man who stood in front of her was surveying her with insolence and contempt.

"You'd seduce me with your soft words and kind glances, would ye, lady?" He gave her a knowing look. "The bed of Slaytor MacEachern has been sought by more than a few. But he'll wed only one. Do ye know her?" He gave Mary a sly glance.

"I— I know William…" She faltered.

"William?" The man who stood in front of her was puzzled. "William was killed at Loch Bane. Ten years gone. How did you know my brother?"

Mary knew then that William had lost all touch with reality. He was adrift, spinning back into the past, into a history she did not know, but was suddenly determined to discover.

"I was his friend," she said softly. "I love him to this day."

"Aye, he did inspire love, and loyalty. Twenty men died beside him, and not a one of them tried to run. It was a glorious slaughter, and they took more than four dozen of the MacAdams with them. Aye."

Mary shivered. William had never stayed in the room with her when he suffered an attack. In every other instance, he would become volatile, and then he would run away. But he seemed in no hurry to leave. He downed the port, cast a glance at the glass as if he'd never seen it, and carefully placed it on the table.

"Would you like something else to drink?" Mary asked. "I could get you something."

"Aye, not that sweet wine. It tastes like syrup gone bitter. I want something with some body, some heart." He picked up the glass and flung it into the fire, laughing as he did so. "Makes a pretty noise, doesn't it?" he asked, turning back to Mary.

"Lovely," she answered. It had been Waterford crystal from Ireland. William had said his great-grandmother had collected it. "I'll get you something more appropriate," she said, rising on unsteady legs. She started toward the door before she realized he'd moved to stand behind her. She ignored his presence as she reached for the door, but his hand caught her wrist.

"Where are ye from, lassie?" he asked softly, so close that his breath whispered against her hair.

Mary hesitated. Her heart was pounding, and she wasn't sure what to say. "France." She finally decided on that country as the safest. At one time, if she remembered any of her history correctly, France had been an ally of Scotland.

"Is that why you're dressed so…strangely?" He nodded down her length.

For the first time Mary was aware of her jeans and her sweater. And the ring! She clenched her hand into a fist to hide it. She'd slipped it on her finger in the hallway when she'd gone to investigate the voice.

"Yes, it's French custom," she said. "Denims. Very modern."

"Aye, the French have some modern ideas." William nodded wisely. "Fetch my drink." He released her hand as suddenly as he'd taken it.

Hurrying out the door, Mary shut it behind her and leaned against it while she took a breath. She had to hurry, before William went into one of his fleeing fits where he rushed out of the castle, to be gone for hours on horseback. Before she went a step farther, though, she took the ring off her hand and put it in her pocket. Better safe than sorry, and the sight of the ring might evoke too many memories for William to safely handle.

The liquor was kept in the bar in the second parlor, and she ran there as fast as she could. There was a collection of pewter goblets along the mantle, and she grabbed the biggest of those, filled it with a bottle of stout from the bar and hurried back to the library.

William's eyes lit up at the sight of the goblet. "A pretty piece," he remarked as he took it from her. "Lovely work. Far better than I recall at Mayfair, though there are some fine craftsmen here. Where was it wrought?"

"France," Mary said swiftly. It seemed the safest answer for almost everything he asked.

"Fine work." William smelled the stout and then drank several big swallows. "Yes," he said. "Now there's a drink."

"Another?" Mary asked.

William suddenly looked toward the door as if he'd heard something. "Lisette." He put the goblet down on the table as he blindly walked toward the door. "She's waiting for me."

"William." Mary went to him and touched his arm, but he didn't notice her. It was as if she no longer existed for him.

"Lisette. I'm coming." He shook off Mary's hand and strode toward the door.

"William!" Mary ran to him and put her arms around him. "Wait. Stay here with me. It's Mary. Your Mary."

"Away, woman." William shook free of her. "I told ye there was only one woman for Slaytor MacEachern, and she waits in the thicket for me to take her. It's a kidnapping, you see." He grinned. "And a more willing victim could not be found."

"William!"

Mary started after him, following him down the hall, out through the empty kitchen and into the cold dark night of the courtyard. She knew then that he was going to the stables.

His sharp whistle cut the night, and there was the answering whinny of a horse. Blaze! Horse and master had an uncanny relationship.

An uneven stone caught Mary's foot and she stumbled, but she managed to regain her balance. When she looked up, William had disappeared into the barn. He seemed not to notice her presence, so she went in after him.

A terrible plan had begun to take shape in her mind. She knew how to saddle. Kevin had not allowed her to ride the first time until she had learned. If she hurried, she might be able to follow William. Shalimar was fast enough to keep up with Blaze. And Kevin had said the Anglo-Arab had more stamina than any horse in the stables.

But it was night, and Mary didn't know the roads the way William did. Could she honestly even attempt to ride after William, the finest horseman in an area dedicated to the horse?

Yes! At least she had to try. If she could only discover where William went, then she might be able to help him solve the why of what was happening to him.

Her bridle and saddle were hanging beside Shalimar's stall. Mary threw a pad on Shalimar's back and prayed. Even though her fingers fumbled with the girth and the buckles of the bridle, she had the mare ready to go by the time she heard Blaze's hooves on the cobblestones of the courtyard.

Shalimar shied to the right as she began to mount, and for one brief moment of terror, Mary thought she was going to be dragged under the horse's hooves. But the mare settled, and Mary sprang up and into the saddle as Kevin had taught her. She took up her reins until she could feel Shalimar's tender mouth respond to her touch, and then she urged the mare forward.

Blaze's hoofbeats sounded on the paved drive, and Mary gave Shalimar more rein and urged her into a trot. If William took the time to listen, he would hear the second horse behind him, but Mary honestly did not believe it would matter to him. He was riding toward his fate, toward an event or person who was long dead and gone. He had no time to listen to things of the present.

Low clouds swamped the moon and the stars, and Mary zipped the jacket she'd grabbed from a peg in the stables up to her chin. She found a pair of gloves in the pockets and blessed whoever had had the foresight to leave them there. Shaking her red curls loose from a barrette, she used her own hair to cover her ears from the bitter wind and wrapped the muffler that had come with the jacket as high as she could. Had William stopped for a jacket? She didn't know, but she didn't think so. He was burning with fever, but when he came out of his "fit," would he freeze to death? That thought gave her another boost of incentive to keep up.

Shalimar had extended into a mile-gobbling trot, and up ahead she could hear the rhythm of Blaze's gait, also a long trot. That bit of knowledge gave her pause. If William were going only a short distance, chances were that he would gallop. The fact that he was trotting probably meant that he intended to ride for a long period of time. As she lifted her body up and down in the saddle, feeling each sore muscle and each tender spot from the lessons and her fall, she could only pray that he didn't intend to ride all night. She knew she'd never make it.

Beneath her, Shalimar moved as smoothly as a carousel horse. Sensing that the mare could follow Blaze far better than she could follow William, Mary loosened the rein and gave Shalimar the freedom to choose the path. There were times when the clouds parted long enough to let a glimmer of light through, and then Mary could see William riding on ahead of her. They were on a trail that led through the fields and toward the woods. It entered Mary's mind that they were headed due south, toward England.

Shalimar stumbled just as the moon broke through the clouds for a brief moment. Mary saw they were no longer on a trail. They'd begun to cut cross country, and the pace slowed.

Unfamiliar with the area, Mary had lost all sense of where they were— or where they might be going. Even if she turned back now, she wasn't certain she could find her way to Mayfair. Around her the night turned thick with a low, rolling fog that began to cover the land.

"William." She spoke his name softly into the night, knowing that even if he did hear her, he would not know she was talking to him.

William apparently picked up another trail, because the going became easier and Shalimar broke into a trot on her own. Mary gave herself to the rhythm of Shalimar's stride. Unable to see, unwilling to turn back, Mary committed herself to the sensation of riding. The only way she knew there was another horse and rider in the night was the sound of iron shoe on rock as Blaze and William continued to lead.

When Shalimar suddenly stopped, Mary almost flew over the horse's head. In the nick of time, she braced herself against the mare's neck. In front of her, the sound of hoof against stone had also ceased.

The darkness was so complete that Mary could see nothing. She waited, ears straining, to hear the slightest sound up ahead. A pebble slid down a rocky slope to her right, but there was no other sound.

Dismounting, she looped Shalimar's reins over a small shrub she discovered in the darkness. Step-by-step, she moved forward, hoping for a break in the clouds and the fog. While she was riding, the night had not seemed so bitter, but now she felt the nip of the wind against her face. Her nose was frozen solid, and she pulled the muffler up to conceal as much of her face as possible.

She moved forward an inch at a time, pausing often to listen for a sound from William. She heard Blaze, snuffling and shifting on the rocky land. William was nearby; what was he doing?

Walking with her hands extended in front of her, she felt him before she even knew what he was. Her fingers closed on the wool of his sweater, and she gave a small gasp of success at finding him.

"I knew ye'd make it this time, Lisette," he whispered, pulling her roughly into his arms.

Before Mary could speak, she felt his lips on hers. He tasted of William, and his kiss, so ardent and intense, still retained the tenderness of William. His hands pulled her against him while his mouth claimed her for his own. Before she knew what she was doing, Mary kissed him back. For a few blissful seconds, she forgot everything except the sensations he created in her with a single kiss.

"I knew ye'd come. I've waited here, night after night. When I saw the sky was thick and black, I knew you'd pick tonight. If only I could see you," William whispered when he lifted his lips from hers. "Where is your woman and your things?"

Awareness came back in sharp degrees for Mary. William was waiting for an answer to a question she didn't fully understand. The man holding her in his arms was William, but it was not. And he had assumed she was someone else. If the moon did suddenly find a hole in the clouds, he'd see that she wasn't the woman he thought she was. He was waiting for her answer.

"I came alone, with nothing," she said at last, her voice weighted with uneasiness.

"Lisette! There are men willing to run you through, or worse." William's voice was hoarse with disapproval. "Ye came alone?"

"I had no choice, Wil— If I was to come at all, I had to come alone." She spoke with more authority.

"I would not have ye risk yourself like that again," he admonished, but his chiding was overlaid with the roughness of his desire for her.

She could not let him kiss her again, for she couldn't be certain she could control her response. She loved him, completely. But more than anything, she had to find a way to help him. Searching for a safe subject, she hit upon the weather.

"It's a bitter night." She could feel herself slipping back into the less modern phrasing. She could never sound like William, with his brogue thickened to the point that sometimes she found it difficult to understand him. But the few times she'd spoken to him, the old expressions and phrases came back to her easily. Fear lurched through her stomach. Good God, what was happening to her? To them?