Bewitched

by Cullman, Heather;

  He shifted his head to the very edge of her shoulder, tipping it so that he could gaze up into her face. “You would?” he whispered, looking genuinely surprised.

  She nodded, smiling tenderly as she smoothed his rumpled hair. “Yes, I would, because you mean more to me than a dozen children by another man.”

  “Do you really mean it?” he inquired, his brow furrowing as he lifted his head to search her eyes.

  She returned his probing gaze steadily, without hesitation, knowing that he would find nothing in her eyes but confirmation of her words. “Yes, Michael. I do.”

  After a moment or two, his brow cleared and he concluded, “Yes, you do,” the warmth of his voice echoed by his sudden, arresting smile. Gazing at her as if she were the moon and the stars and every precious thing on earth, he lifted his face until it was only scant inches from hers. Gently cradling her cheek in his palm, his jade eyes smoldering with tenderness and passion, he trapped her gaze with his, fervently declaring, “I love you, Emily. Dear God, how I love you!”

  Caught up in the dark spell of his compelling gaze, she whispered back, “I love you too, Michael.” The instant she realized what she’d said, she jerked away from him, gasping her horror. The words had sprung from her heart. She truly did love him.

  Chapter 15

  He would put an end to this bloody nonsense once and for all. Michael stalked down Windgate’s gloomy, Gothic-style hallway, muttering darkly to himself. For two insufferably long, frustrating weeks, ever since the rainy day in the old nursery when they had confessed their love for each other, Emily had avoided him like the plague she thought she was, dodging him and leading him on a not-so-merry chase through the vast abbey and its acres of grounds, a chase in which he had yet to so much as glimpse his quarry. Well, enough was enough! He would be damned if he was going to do without her company for another day.

  Clenching his jaw so hard that his teeth hurt, he began climbing the grand tracery staircase at the end of the hall, determined to surprise his exasperating wife in her chamber. So what if it was only six in the morning and he would intrude upon her morning toilet? He missed her, damn it. Life without her gay company was wretched, like being shut away in a prison cell devoid of all light, warmth, and sustenance.

  Oh, true, to be perfectly fair he couldn’t accuse her of abandoning him completely. She had kept Eadon supplied with the calamint decoction she’d insisted he drink every day, and she still planned his menus. The meals from those menus, however, delicious though they were, failed to pique either his appetite or his interest when served without the accompaniment of Emily’s lovely smile and merry conversation. Indeed, so poor had his appetite been of late that the Swann sisters had stormed into the dining room the evening before, demanding an explanation as to why their lovingly prepared meals were being sent back to the kitchen virtually untouched.

  Michael shook his head as he stepped onto the second-floor landing and started down the long Jacobean hall, shamed by the memory of the scene and the despicable way in which he’d handled it. His lack of appetite aside, Emily’s absence had impacted him in a hundred less-than-agreeable ways, the worst effect being on his disposition. To his chagrin, just about everything anyone said or did these days made him erupt into an outburst of fractious annoyance, in spite of his best efforts to remain even-tempered and patient.

  Why, he’d practically growled in response to the Swann sisters’ well-intentioned interrogation, rudely reminding them of their station and the fact that as servants they had no right whatsoever to question anything he, their master, chose to say or do. Of course, he’d felt dreadful afterward and had gone to the kitchen to humbly beg their pardon. And of course they had granted it, after which they had sat him at the stout kitchen table as they had done when he was a child, petting and clucking over him while they made him his favorite boyhood treat, a cinnamon baked apple. Though he’d found the delicacy anything but appetizing at that moment, he’d obediently eaten every last bite of it in penitence for his bad conduct.

  And then there was the way he had treated poor Eadon of late. As if his brief incident with the Swann sisters wasn’t disgraceful enough, the way he constantly snapped and growled at Eadon was nothing short of contemptible. Truth be told, it was a wonder that the man hadn’t bled him dry or left the abbey in a huff, so foul had Michael’s temper been. As for Eadon’s treatments, well, they had become almost intolerable. Not only did the cursed things seem to hurt ten times worse than they had before, they felt as if they dragged on for an eternity now that he was no longer able to look forward to a pleasurable afternoon with Emily. And while he was on the subject of his afternoons, he couldn’t say enough about the grievous effect Emily’s absence had had on them. Like his treatments, they, too, seemed to stretch on forever, now creeping by in loneliness and frustration as he fruitlessly searched the house and grounds for her, determined to talk some sense into her superstition-stuffed head.

  For what most certainly was the thousandth time since the incident in the nursery, Michael cursed the immense size of the abbey. The blasted thing had well over a hundred rooms, not to mention its numerous outbuildings and acres of grounds, which made it impossible to find a person if they truly wished to remain hidden. As for the staff helping in his quest to find his elusive wife, well, they were worse than she when it came to superstitious rot. Apparently Emily had told Mercy about the curse, who in turn had carried the tale to the servants’ hall, the result of which had been the staff denying knowledge of their mistress’s whereabouts whenever he asked them, clearly believing that they were protecting him by keeping him from his wife’s potentially harmful presence.

  To say that the situation was maddening was putting his feelings about the debacle mildly. Muttering a string of particularly foul curses that expressed them to perfection, Michael turned from the Jacobean hallway down the adjoining baroque corridor with its magnificent arabesque-figured wainscot walls, stopping before the door to Emily’s suite of rooms.

  Rather than knocking politely, as he had done on the other dozen or so occasions he had come here over the past two weeks, he wrathfully flung open the door with a force that slammed it into the abutting wall. Bellowing Emily’s name, he stalked into her pleasant, if rather gaudy blue and gold sitting room, pausing in the center to glare about him.

  Though his wife was nowhere in sight, it was apparent that she had been there recently, judging from the remains of her breakfast on the small table near the fireplace. Wanting to know exactly how recently, he strode to the table and laid his hand against the dainty pink and white porcelain teapot, testing it for heat. It was still warm, giving evidence to the fact that she had broken her fast within the past half-hour.

  He smiled. If Emily was like every other woman he’d ever known, she breakfasted first, then dawdled over her toilet for an hour or so, which meant that she was most probably in her dressing room primping and powdering now. Feeling victory close at hand, he continued across the room to the door to her bedchamber, which he tossed open without ceremony. As he marched through the room, he noted several more clues that supported his theory.

  The fire, which was doing an admirable job of keeping the late October chill at bay, looked freshly kindled, and the bed was still unmade, both signs that Emily had risen only a short while earlier. Then there was the red, white, and green patterned cashmere dressing gown draped over the chair before the hearth. If Mercy Mildon performed her duties anything like Eadon and his former valet conducted theirs, she was warming the garment for when her mistress stepped out of her bath.

  Michael smiled again, this time in triumph. If Emily were indeed in her bath, which he strongly suspected she was, then he had her trapped. There was no way she could flee clad only in a wet bathing shift … provided that she wore one at all. Some women he knew had given up the modest practice of bathing in a thin linen chemise, deciding the convention to be uncomfortable and inconvenient. Was Emily such
a woman?

  Despite his attempt to ignore the provocative question, the lush image of Emily gloriously naked, her silken skin flushed from the heat of her bath and her body beaded with perfumed moisture, burst into his mind, making his groin wrench with a force that brought tears to his eyes. The intensity of his response gave him pause in his purpose.

  What if he tossed open the dressing room door, which was several feet from where he now stood frozen, and found her exactly as he envisioned her? Considering how long it had been since he’d had any sort of sexual release, his body’s response to the sight was bound to be violent … perhaps even disastrous. Indeed, his doctors in London had warned him that the high level of excitement provoked by a sensual encounter would most probably bring on a fit, which was the last thing in the world he wanted to happen in front of Emily.

  Still, what choice did he have but to risk it? It could be a very long while before he was presented with another opportunity to confront her. Besides, knowing his wife and her irrational fear of the curse, she might just take it into her head to leave the abbey altogether in a misguided attempt to protect him, and then where would he be?

  He didn’t have to think to know the answer to that question. His life would be worse than it had been before she’d arrived, far worse. Having experienced the paradise of Emily’s love and the heaven that came from loving her back made the notion of life without her unbearable … hardly worth living.

  It was the terrible, crushing sensation of loss that possessed him in the wake of that awful thought that made him stride purposefully to the dressing room door, unmindful of everything but his need to keep Emily in his life. If he suffered a fit from his lust at the sight of her, then so be it. Better to risk having her turn from him in repulsion and know that he’d at least tried to keep her, than to let her go without a fight.

  Clenching his teeth in preparation for the consequences of his bold action, Michael flung open the door, averting his gaze from the interior of the room as he gritted out, “Damn it, Emily. I will speak to you and I intend to do so this instant.”

  “Yer grace!” he heard Mercy squeal, followed by a sound he easily identified as the whisper of silk. Nothing else. There was no startled gasp from Emily, no frantic splash as she sought to hide her nakedness beneath the bath water. Just silence.

  His eyebrows drawing together in his mystification, Michael glanced in the direction from which Mercy’s voice had come. She stood before the cheval mirror with an extravagantly plumed court headdress perched atop her frizzy copper hair, her freckled face flushed the color of a ripe tomato. At her feet, in a frothy heap of pale blue silk and crystal-embellished tulle, lay an exquisite ball gown, leaving little doubt as to the sort of activity in which she’d been engaged.

  Not that Michael cared. Ignoring the servant’s transgression, he glanced quickly around the room, his brief surge of triumph transmuting into frustrated rage as he realized that he’d again been outmaneuvered by his wife. She was gone, damn it, though as in the sitting room and bedchamber, there was ample evidence of her recent departure.

  After several tension-charged moments, during which he frowned at the floral-painted wooden bathtub, which still contained water that smelled strongly of French violets, he looked back at Mercy. She returned his gaze sheepishly, clearly expecting a dressing-down for prancing about in her mistress’s finery. Her expression of guilt-stricken misery served only to further annoy him, making his voice uncharacteristically harsh as he demanded, “Where the devil is she?”

  “W-who, yer g-grace?” the maid stammered, nervously plucking the headdress from her head.

  “You know perfectly well who I mean, damn it,” he shot back, gracing her with a scowl meant to intimidate.

  She visibly quelled beneath his rare show of ire. “B-but yer grace. I—”

  “My wife, Mercy. Where the hell is my wife?”

  “Out—Out, yer grace. She’s out,” she muttered, scooping up the gown she’d dropped in her startlement.

  “Out where?” As she opened her mouth to respond, he irritably warned, “And do not bother trying to tell me that you don’t know where she has gone. From what I hear, you know everything about everyone from here to Princetown.”

  Mercy shook her head, clutching the gown before her as if it were a shield to protect her from his wrath. “Beggin’ yer pardon, yer grace, but I canna tell ye. Not with the curse. It’s fer yer own good.”

  He advanced a step toward her, fixing her with the icy glare that had never failed to daunt on the few occasions he’d been forced to employ it. “You are my wife’s maid, not my keeper,” he informed her in a cold, clipped voice. “As such, it is none of your affair what I do, when, and with whom I choose to do it. It most certainly isn’t your place to decide what is best for me.”

  He paused a deliberate beat, letting the tension mount before curtly adding, “Since you have obviously forgotten your place, Miss Mildon, let me remind you that I am the lord of Windgate Abbey and that you are in my employ. As your master, I demand utter loyalty from you, which means that I expect you to have faith in my judgment in all matters and to abide by my decisions … even those with which you disagree. And my decision in this matter is to say to hell with the curse.” He took another step forward. “Now where is my wife?”

  She mulishly shook her head again. “I’m sorry, yer grace, but I canna tell you. I’d never be able to fergive myself if I told ye and somethin’ untoward happened to ye.”

  Michael had to admire her dedication to him, though at the moment he wished that she was a bit more alarmed by his anger and a little less concerned about his welfare. He heaved an inward sigh. Ah well. Given the choice, he supposed that he would rather be cherished by his staff and suffer the overprotectiveness their affection fostered, than have them hop to his every command and secretly despise him.

  After staring at the insubordinate servant for several more moments, wondering what to do next, he decided that a change of tactics was in order. Quickly formulating a plan, he nodded and countered in a reasonable voice, “Very well then, Mercy. If you will not tell me, then I see no choice but to stay here and await her return. Since I cannot risk you warning her of my trap, you must remain with me.”

  “But yer grace, she’ll probably be gone all day,” the maid objected, looking none too thrilled with the notion of having him underfoot. “Ye canna really mean to waste yer entire day sittin’ around here?”

  “My day shan’t be wasted in the least, I assure you,” Michael replied pleasantly. “Neither shall yours, for I intend to use the time observing you at your duties and evaluating your performance. I shall, naturally, correct you as I see fit. My first correction is to insist that you cease in mooning over my wife’s frippery and do something about the state of this room. It is a disgrace.” It was a lie, of course. Everything was in as admirable an order as one could expect at that hour of the morning.

  Nodding to underscore his critique, he marched to the satinwood tallboy against the opposing wall. After niggling over the organization of the garments in all six scrupulously tidy drawers and demanding an improvement, he moved to the dressing table where he pointed out a single ebony hair in Emily’s ivory brush. Lecturing the maid at length on the importance of cleanness and order, he went on to impugn the placement of the neatly grouped bottles, jars, and boxes on the table, assuming the air of a drill master as he tendered precise instructions for their rearrangement. From there he migrated to the armoire, criticizing everything from the positioning of the hat and band boxes, to the way the gowns were categorized and hung.

  When he had thoroughly inspected the room and pretended to find fault with everything he saw, he plopped down on the small needlework-upholstered settee near the bathtub, making a show of lounging on it by propping his head up on one arm and draping his long legs over the other. With a lordly wave of his hand, he commanded, “Well, do proceed. As I have pointed ou
t, you have a great deal of work to do in order to meet with my exacting standards. When you have completed everything here to my satisfaction, we will examine the bedchamber. From what I have seen of it, it is in as dire need of attention as this room. From there we will move to the sitting room.”

  “Then ye really mean to stay here all day?” As he’d hoped, Mercy looked far more alarmed by that prospect than she had by his display of wrath.

  Taking pains to hide his satisfaction, he languidly shrugged one shoulder. “Since I do not have my wife’s company to keep me occupied and I have nothing else to do today, yes. I might as well put my time to good use by making certain that you are serving her grace in an acceptable manner.”

  To Mercy’s credit, she managed to withstand his pecking for close to an hour before finally crumbling. Having refolded Emily’s chemises a half-dozen times, with Michael finding fault each time and instructing her to redo them, she abruptly blurted out, “The stables, yer grace. Her grace went to the stables.”

  “The … stables?” he echoed, frowning. As far as he knew, Emily never rode unless she was absolutely required to do so. Indeed, by her own admission she was a less than accomplished horsewoman. Eyeing the maid suspiciously, he shifted from his lounging position into a sitting one, quizzing, “What the devil is she doing in the stables? She has never visited them before.”

  Mercy nervously twisted the chemise she held, shaking her head. “I don’t know, yer grace, I swear I don’t. I just overheard her tellin’ Mr. Grimshaw that she was goin’ to the stables and to have Mr. Eadon meet her there.”

  “Indeed?”

  Though the utterance was addressed more to himself than to Mercy, the maid gestured helplessly in response. “’Tis all I know. I swear,” she exclaimed earnestly, shaking her head so hard that a wiry coil of hair sprang from the neat knot at her neck and tendriled down her back.