As a student of the priesthood, Duncan had never imbibed in ale overly much. Even that night at the docks before leaving England, he’d only sipped at a single mug, making it last the entire time he’d spent in the tavern. He’d had wine, of course, in very small doses. It had never disturbed him. But suddenly he began to feel even more light-headed and dizzy than he had before. He glanced at the empty pitcher in his hands and realized he’d drained it. The flickering candlelight made him dizzier still, so he lay back on his bed, fully clothed, and closed his eyes. ‘Twould pass. The spinning in his head would pass, if he just lay perfectly still.
How long he lay there, he had no notion. He drifted, dozed, woke again only to find his head still spinning. But when he blinked his eyes open this time, the candle’s weak flame cast a dim glow upon a face.
Soft. Beautiful. Opalescent in the candle glow. The face of the woman he’d been dreaming about. The dead beauty. His witch. His enchantress. Was he still dreaming, then?
She leaned over him, one band sliding gently over his cheek, clasping his jaw and easing his mouth wider. She lifted the candle and seemed to be looking into his mouth. But he could only stare at her. The candlelight danced in her black eyes like the very flames of passion. Her lashes were as dark and thick as if she were a gypsy girl. And that hair. That magnificent hair, cascading and tumbling over her shoulders. Shamelessly free, and uncovered.
He moved his lips, tried to speak. “You...you’re alive.”
Her black eyes widened and snapped toward his, seemingly surprised to see him awake and staring back at her. Quickly, with a pinch of her fingers, she doused the candle and set it on the stand. And he heard her moving away, heard her soft, nearly silent steps crossing the floor.
“Please,” he whispered, and he reached out a weak hand toward her even though she couldn’t possibly see it. He could not let her go, let her slip away again. He had to know....
Hinges creaked as the door moved. Her voice, the voice of his fantasies, spoke softly. “‘Tis not the plague, Captain, but merely a fever that will pass him by soon enough. If you keep everyone away, there will be no danger to the others aboard.”
“Are you sure?” The captain sounded less than certain himself. “Because unless you are, mistress—”
“I am certain. I would not tell you so if I were not. I owe you a great deal, Captain Murphy. I would never repay you by lying about a matter so grave.”
The captain might have nodded, but he didn’t utter a word. Duncan’s head was swimming, and he was trembling with cold again, yet he strained to listen.
“I’ll stay with him for a while,” the enchantress said. “If you would bring some blankets, and the freshest water to be found, heated in a kettle. Just leave them outside the door.”
“But if ‘tis truly safe—”
“I only said ‘twas not the plague. Though his illness is not deadly, Captain, ‘tis most miserable. Best you spare yourself and anyone else from falling prey to it if you can.”
“All right. I’ll bring what you need. Shall I send the physician, as well?”
Duncan frowned when she spoke again, because her words made no sense to him.
“I can care for him far better than your physician can.”
Then he heard the door close and tried in vain to see her in the dark room. Her footsteps brought her nearer, but he might as well have been blind, the room was so devoid of light of any kind.
Her weight sank onto the bed beside him. One of her cool hands stroked his fevered brow, while the other tucked his blanket more closely around him. Her touch was heaven, cooling, calming.
“You’re going to be all right, Duncan Wallace. I promise you that.”
He closed his eyes, sighing at the comfort her touch brought to him. “You...you’re the witch,” he muttered. “I saw you die.”
“No, Duncan. I’m but a stranger with a gift for healing. And you’ve never met me before. ‘Tis the fever making you see another woman’s face instead of mine.”
She was lying. Even in this state, he knew she was. He lifted a hand, touched her hair, felt its silk just as before. He could even smell it, and he knew its scent was the same. “If you’re not the woman I saw hanged in the town square,” he whispered, “then light the candle and let me see your face.”
“The candle has burned out.”
He tried to sit up, to grip her shoulders, but she easily pushed him back down. He was too weak to fight her. Too sick. Sick. Damnation, he’d forgotten. “You should go, whoever you are,” he told her. “You could take ill, as well.”
“I’ve cared for many sick ones, Duncan, but I’ve never once become sick myself. You’ve no need to worry on that.”
He frowned, and as she leaned over him, pressing her ear to his chest, he buried both hands in her hair, caressing its softness, committing each curl to memory.
She caught her breath and went very still. But she did not pull away. Was she closing her eyes as he was, then? Relishing the feel of his hands in her hair? The beat of his heart beneath her ear? He imagined she was, even thought he heard her sigh in pleasure, before she stiffened her resolve once again.
“Stop, now, Duncan,” she said, but her voice was raspy and soft. “I’m only listening to your breaths, not embracing you.”
He ran his fingers gently up and down her nape. “I canna stop thinking about you,” he told her. “You’ve haunted me.”
“Do not say such things.”
But he had to say them. Who knew when he would get the chance again? “You mustn’t leave me again. You must tell me the truth. How could you have survived the hangman’s noose? How?”
She lifted her head away, and Duncan’s hands fell limply to the bed. “You are burning up with fever and imagining things. I’ve never even seen a hangman, nor a noose, much less survived such horrors. I vow, your imagination is a fertile one, Duncan.”
He sat up slightly, supporting himself on his elbow, so dizzy he could scarcely hold his head up. And when she moved close to him again, as if to ease him back down, he clasped her shoulders and drew her even closer. “Are you certain you willna catch this fever from me?”
“Of course,” she whispered, and he heard the fear in her voice. The delicious fear. She was not pulling away, and she had to know what he intended.
“Good.”
His lips found hers in the darkness as if by second sight. Soft, moist, so tender. He kissed her mouth the way he’d dreamed of doing since he’d watched her die. The way no man of his background should even consider doing. But ‘twas as if he moved, and acted, without his mind’s consent.
She tasted delicious. Sweet and cool and salty. Her lips were full and responsive, her tongue like satin when he touched it with his own. She shivered, trembled. A soft sigh escaped her mouth, and he swallowed that sigh. His hands dived into her hair, and he deepened the kiss, parting her willing lips further, exploring her mouth, pulling her so close her breasts crushed to his chest. Her arms had gone ‘round him, he realized, stunned. She was holding him, too, kissing him back. He lay back on his bunk, pulling her with him, until she lay stretched atop his body. He ran his hands down over her back and caressed her buttocks, and ached to be inside her, beyond the barriers of clothing.
She braced her hands against his chest and pulled her lips from his. “No,” she whispered. “You...you’re a priest.”
“And how could you know that unless you are the woman I believe you to be?”
He felt her shake her head in denial. The captain...he said–”
“He’d nay have known it either, pretty one.” Duncan closed his eyes, dizzy, and aroused to the point where it made him even more so. “I was only a student of the priesthood, lass. An’ I gave it up the day I saw my teacher do murder.”
She was silent for a moment. “You gave it up?” A slow breath, he felt it warming his face. “Because of...of what you saw?”
“Admit you’re the one,” he begged her. “I’ve feared for my sanity, lass. Tel
l me you’re she who was hanged for witchery in the town square. She who has haunted my mind ever since.”
“I am not.” But her voice trembled. “And you are quite drunk.”
“Aye, I fear ‘tis true. They brought me ale and I drank as if ‘twere water. I admit, I am unused to its sting.”
“And you’re half out of your head with fever.”
“An’ the other half with wantin’ you.” He pressed his palms to her back to bring her close, kissed her mouth again. His hands moved down her back, low on her thighs, and he bunched up her skirt to stroke the satin skin underneath. He arched his hips against her.
She pressed against him in return, and he heard her shuddering breaths. But she seemed to steel herself against him, and broke the kiss by turning her head to the side. Quickly she whispered, “When you gave up your studies, did you give up your beliefs as well, Duncan? Is it no longer a sin to fornicate?”
She said it in a clipped and harsh tone, and yet struggled to get enough breath for each sentence. As if she were as hungry for him as he was for her.
“I dinna ken what I believe. Never have I wanted like this before. Perhaps you are a witch, and I’ve fallen under your spell.”
She jerked free of him so roughly he knew he’d said the wrong thing. He tried to open his eyes, but it was so dark and he was so disoriented, he couldn’t be sure if they were open or closed.
“‘Tis a typical male who would find a way to blame his lust on the object of it. I’ve put no spell on you, Duncan Wallace. And if I did, ‘twould be a spell designed to sharpen your dull brain, not to make you desire me.”
“Nay,” he whispered, feeling cold and empty as he listened to the sounds of her getting to her feet, righting her dress. “You’d have no need of a spell to make me desire you, my beauty, for I already do.”
“You’re out of your head with the ale and the fever.” He sensed she’d turned her back to him. “You know not what you say.”
“Just tell me ‘tis true. That you’re alive. That ‘tis not all a dream. ‘Twill be enough to sustain me if only I know—”
“I am sorry, Duncan. But I cannot tell you what you wish to hear. If things were different, perhaps—”
“Dammit, woman, there is somethin’ between us, an’ well you know it. Somethin’ alive an’ real passed between you an’ me on those gallows, an’ you felt its power as much as I did. I saw it in your eyes. You stole my heart, lass...an’ I dinna even know your name.”
“You...are mistaken.”
A knock at the door interrupted her, but Duncan thought he’d heard tears in her voice. He feared she was leaving when she answered that knock, but she didn’t. She only took what was delivered and came back to him. He could sense the fever soaring high again. He was shivering cold, and damp with sweat, and his mind was wandering, drifting away before he forced it back with an effort. She brought him another blanket, and a cup of something hot and fragrant. She laid cool cloths, across his forehead. And then she told him to sleep. Gently she said the word, again and again. Until he did.
But not soundly. Not so soundly he didn’t know when she spoke again a long while later, after he’d drifted in and out of sleep, perhaps for hours. Her words fell in a songlike cadence, or a chant, perhaps. He opened his eyes and saw her standing above his bed. How long she’d been there, he didn’t know. But moonlight spilled through the porthole now. A full moon, or nearly so. And she stood, bathed in that ethereal glow, and he could see her. He could see her with perfect clarity. Her eyes were closed, head tipped back, and she stood with her feet wide apart. Her left arm stretched upward toward the moon, her palm turned up as if to catch the pale moonlight that spilled into it. Her right arm was extended downward, toward him. She turned her palm down and pressed it gently to his forehead. And as she chanted, he felt energy flooding him. Filling him. Warm, potent, zinging energy.
Moon Goddess, Diana, send your healing hands. Move through me, renew me, and heal this good man.
She repeated the chant three times as he lay there. And then she went rigid, eyes flying wide. And Duncan felt a surge of something white hot and tingling jolt right through his entire body. It was sudden, and brief, and then it was gone.
He blinked his vision into focus and scanned the room, trying to understand what had just happened. Then he spotted her. She leaned on the back of the chair, head hanging down between her arms, her face curtained by her glorious hair. Breathlessly, she murmured, “Sweet lady, never has it been like that.”
Duncan was breathless himself. But as he took stock, he realized his chest was clear, his pain gone, his throat, no longer sore, his head, no longer spinning. And he turned again to look at her, to see her and drink in the sight by the light of the moon—only to see her eyes widen in alarm.
“You’re dreaming,” she told him. “This has all been no more than a sweet dream.”
“No, lass, ‘tis no dream. An’ what you just did—”
She held her palm toward him. “Sleep now, Duncan. Sleep.”
A wave of drowsiness suddenly swept over him, and his eyelids felt so heavy he could barely hold them open. “Dinna go,” he whispered. “I beg of you, dinna go. I dinna care what that was, nor what you are. I only need you to stay. Please, my dark angel...stay with me.”
“Sleep,” she whispered. “Sleep and regain your strength. You’re exhausted. Rest, Duncan. Sleep.”
His eyes fell closed, though he fought to keep them open. And he felt her lips, warm and soft upon his, all too briefly.
“If I could stay with you, Duncan, I would. Believe me I would. ‘Tis better this way. I wish ‘twere not true, but ‘tis, Duncan.”
He heard her leaving, heard the door creak open. Battling to stay awake, he forced words through his lips before losing himself to the veil of sleep that he could not resist. “I'll find you again. I swear I will. I'll find you, lass.”
* * * *
I had never felt the power surge through me as it did that night. No, nor had I ever before felt the other forces that came to life in my blood then. The ones that burned in me when Duncan pulled me into his arms, when his mouth mated with mine, when he whispered that he hadn’t stopped thinking about me.
I’d never felt such things for a man. Not for any man. But I did now. For Duncan. From the moment our eyes had met I’d sensed there was something between us. Something new and powerful. I’d had no idea how powerful.
And yet, I could not trust him, could not tell him the truth. Secrecy was vital, especially from any man associated with the Church and her witch-hunters. He’d told me he’d given it up. But would he not tell me that even if he hadn’t? Would that not be the perfect way to fool me? To entrap me? Lure me into his trust, into his arms, into his bed, gain my confession and then haul me away? And what if I foolishly told him the only way I could be killed, what then?
No. I was weak where Duncan Wallace was concerned. My mother had trusted my own aunt Matilda, and now she was dead because of it. She had written the words, emphasized them: Trust no one. No one.
I had become hard that day they killed my precious mother. Harder than I had ever been before. But my hardness melted when Duncan’s lips touched mine. My wisdom faded away like mist in the morning sunlight. He’d tried to protect me once, yes. But had he not just now accused me of bewitching him? Of making him want me by using some spell?
I’d heard it myself. Though he’d taken back the words, the sentiment that spawned them likely still lived in his heart. So ‘twas best I not see him again. Not ever.
I remained in my cabin for the rest of that journey. The captain brought me my meals, spoke with me for a few minutes each day, and seemed concerned for my well being. He told me how Duncan had been quite crazed since his recovery, insisting a woman had come to him and made him well that night, demanding to know my name and where my cabin was. Most of the crewmen and passengers thought his bout of fever had warped his mind. Even his friends, the couple with whom he was traveling, seemed to fear fo
r his sanity.
It disturbed me to let him go on unsure just what had happened that night in his cabin. To let him go on wondering how much of it had been real and how much a dream. But I had no choice. ‘Twould do me no good to be with Duncan Wallace. Nor him, either. For what could come of it, after all? What could come of my falling in love with him? And I would—I knew I would. But I was immoral. I would have to watch him grow old. I would suffer through losing him. He would be forced to see me remain young and healthy, while he aged and withered. No. There was no point in following my feelings for him, none at all, for they would only lead to heartache for us both.
But often as I sat alone in my cabin...and more often when I sneaked up onto the decks in the wee hours before daylight, I wished it could be different. And when I thought of Duncan, of his kiss, a great heaviness seemed to settle atop my heart. It added its weight to the sadness already there, that which I’d carried with me from the night I’d lost my mother, and so I became quite melancholy. Silent and pale. I was told my eyes seemed haunted more often than not.
I had mourned my mother for the whole of my journey, had gone over the events that cost her life again and again, each time wondering if I could have done something to save her. But I knew this terrible grief, this near despair, was not what she would have wanted for me. She would have wanted me to find my own life, to go on, somehow. She would hate knowing that I cried each time I thought of her. Her memory, she would say, should bring me warmth and joy, not sorrow. So eventually I vowed to try to make it so. I could not spend my life grieving. Not for her, and not for what might have been between Duncan and me, had our situations been different.
Often, in those long days of my solitary journey, I found myself thinking of the way Duncan had tried so valiantly to help us that day at the gallows. If he had succeeded, and died in the attempt, what would have been the result? I wondered if he would have returned to his next lifetime immortal, as I was, for this was what my mother had written in that secret book. Such a thing seemed beyond belief to me. Surely not a priest, nor a man studying to become one! And yet the undeniable proof was in me. I had become immortal in just such a way.
Eternal Love: The Immortal Witch Series Page 6
