‘Twas a fine day in May, not yet summer, but feeling every bit as if it were. A warm breeze came in from the ocean, carrying that sea scent I so loved along with it, and caressing my face and hair. A few strands fell loose, but I was enjoying the ride far too much to fuss over them. We traveled the worn track they called the Coast Road, along the very edge of the peninsula, and ‘twas well and good I trusted Ebony to stay on course, for ‘twas more than I could do to stop gazing out at the frothy whitecaps winking at me from that broad blue expanse.
It could be said that I disliked and distrusted the people of Sanctuary. Elias Stanton in particular. But I was utterly enchanted with the place itself. The ground beneath me and the sky above. Sea to my left, and forest to my right. ‘Twas like a magic circle unto itself. I felt the earth’s power here as I never had before, and perhaps ‘twas not all because of the forces moving in and around this wild, new land. Perhaps ‘twas another bit of my new self making its presence felt. The ability to feel the places where Mother Nature’s power pulsed strongest. I sorely wished I understood more about my own nature. I knew instinctively there was far more to it than what my mother had been able to tell me. And yet how could I learn? How could I know? It plagued me like an unsolved puzzle. Why this gift of immortality? Was there some purpose to it all?
We arrived in town, and Elias Stanton himself hurried to our wagon and reached for my hand to assist me from my seat. I took it, though his touch made gooseflesh rise on my arms. The man’s gaze tended to linger on my form in ways that made me uneasy, and in his eyes I often glimpsed lechery, though on the surface, he acted every bit the gentleman. I knew ‘twas a lie. I could see the worms in his soul.
“Ladies,” he said. “So good to see you both.” His hand lingered on mine, grasping briefly when I pulled. Then he cleared his throat, averted his eyes, and released me, turning to assist my aunt. “A fine day, is it not, Mistress Belisle?”
“Fine, indeed, Mister Stanton,” she replied. “But ‘tis not the weather I wish to discuss, as you might well guess.”
“Ah, you’re curious about our new pastor, no doubt,” he said with a smile.
“Tell me about him,” she urged. “Is he young or old? Plump or poor?”
“You will soon see for yourself,” Elias responded. And turning, offered her his arm. She took it, and he offered the other to me.
I was loath to accept. But people were watching. And more than ever, I was wary. I sensed something...something that made the fine hairs on my nape bristle. But I could not name what that something might be. I took his beefy arm and tried to hide my distaste.
“I vow,” Aunt Eleanor said, “nothing so exciting has happened in Sanctuary since...why, since my dear niece arrived and restored me to health.”
“‘Twas the Lord restored you to health, Aunt Eleanor,” I said quickly, and I glanced at Elias from the corner of my eye. “I only took away your loneliness.” To Elias, I said, “I do believe it may well have been the loneliness making her feel so poorly all along.”
“Indeed,” Elias asked, lifting his brows. “And are you a physician, Mistress St. James?”
My blood ran cold, and for a moment ‘twas as though I was back in England, shivering outside the magistrate’s door while cruel hands held me fast and a demanding voice asked a similar question of my mother.
I blinked away the rush of fear that shot through me, and reminded myself I was no longer in England. That nightmare was behind me. And then I prayed it was true.
Fixing a smile to my lips, I said, “A woman physician? Oh, Master Stanton, surely you jest. I would not know where to begin!”
His eyes, when they met mine, were filled with dark suspicions and blatant lust. And as we approached the plank steps leading up into the church, he pretended to stumble and leaned toward me, brushing his forearm against my breast. That I knew beyond doubt it was deliberate might have been intuition. Or something more. But regardless, I knew.
Startled, I turned and backed away, only to collide with a solid chest. Two warm hands closed on my shoulders, and suddenly I felt light-headed and breathless. His scent touched me, embraced me, and I knew before I even looked upon him who he was.
“Pardon,” a painfully familiar voice with a sweet Scottish lilt said from behind me. “Are you all right, lass?”
I stiffened, closed my eyes, opened them slowly. And then I turned, unable to do otherwise, and looked up into the face of the man who, more than two years ago, had seen me die. The man who’d embraced me to the point of madness, made me want him as I’d wanted no other. The man who, by rights, should believe me to be dead. The man who’d told me he had given up his priestly studies because of me. Duncan Wallace, looking just as I'd seen him that first time, on the gallows. Once again dressed in the black robes of a clergyman.
Chapter 6
“So sorry Mistress St. James,” Elias blustered. He straightened away from me, but I barely felt his unwelcome presence anymore. “A damnable pebble caught in my...oh. I see you’ve met our pastor.”
“St. James?” Duncan whispered, wide-eyed and suddenly pale.
If he revealed what he had seen on those English gallows, if he let on....
He suddenly gripped both my hands in his. His gaze never left my face but kept roaming it as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Panic caused my heart to pound. Panic...and his touch. His thumbs moved in gentle circles on the backs of my hands, and I thought he might not even be aware of it. I squeezed his fingers to remind him, and stared into his brown eyes, willing him to keep my secret. And then, reluctantly, I tugged my hands from his, though ‘twas the last thing I wanted to do.
I remembered this man. Oh, he’d changed. He was no longer a handsome young priest, but a man grown now. And though it had been only two years, I knew that two years in this rugged new land were more than enough to bring about such changes. He was larger, broad across the shoulders and chest, and solid with strength. Even his neck seemed hard and corded with muscle. His hair was longer than before, but the same dark sable, pulled back and tied with a cord. And his face, ’twas harsher now. He looked weathered, as if he’d been through trying times.
All of this I took in, realizing that to his probing brown eyes, I was exactly the same. I had not changed. I never would. That he remembered me, too, was obvious.
“Do you know one another?” Elias asked, stepping closer, eyeing Duncan, and then me.
“No,” I said softly. “We’ve never met.” And I looked into Duncan’s brown eyes, silently begging him to say the same.
He licked his lips once, then looked past me to Elias. “Aye, the lass speaks the truth. Had we met, I’d surely recall it,” he said, his eyes laden with meaning. “Besides, I only arrived yestereve.” And then, smiling, he turned to my aunt, who all but shouldered me aside to take his hand in welcome.
“I am so pleased to meet you, young man,” she said. “I am Eleanor Belisle, Raven’s aunt.”
“Raven,” he said softly, glancing my way once more. When his gaze touched my skin, ‘twas as if he touched me himself. I could feel the warmth of his eyes. “So that’s your name. You can’t know how I’ve wondered....” Blinking, he shook his head and turned back to Aunt Eleanor. “I only hope I live up to your expectations, dear lady,” he told her.
“Oh, I’m confident you will, Reverend.” And taking my arm, my aunt urged me up the steps and into the church, leaving Duncan to greet other worshipers as they filed past. But I could still feel his eyes on me.
When the sermon was ended, I realized I hadn’t heard a word. I’d been too caught up in the comforting sound of his voice to pay heed to the words he used. It did not matter what he said, so long as he said it in those rich, deep tones, with the lilt of Scotland in every word. I couldn’t stop staring at him, watching the graceful, powerful strides with which he would pace before the congregation as he spoke, and his magnificent hands gesturing to punctuate each line. His eyes met mine often. Those were the only times I would shake o
ut of my state of blatant admiration of him enough to hear the words he spoke. Double entendres, shot like arrows at my heart as his dark eyes razed me in mingled anger and wonder and...something else. Scriptures about lies and deceit. And more, about desires of the flesh. The way they could burn a man, destroy him.
Was he bitter, then? Angry with me for leading him such a merry chase? It did not matter. If anything, the harshness I saw in his eyes now only served to make him the more beautiful to me. I wanted the man. I knew it with a sudden, urgent pang that left me breathless. But I knew ‘twas impossible. For he was a minister. And I was a witch.
I must put him out of my mind.
I must.
I could not.
After the sermon and prayers concluded, the entire population of Sanctuary turned out for the mid-day meal to welcome the new minister. It was held outdoors since there was no building yet large enough to accommodate everyone for the meal.
I sat upon a blanket near a shade tree, putting out the food my aunt had brought along, when I felt his gaze on me again. And looking up, I saw him, Duncan Wallace, staring at me. He did not look away when I met his eyes. Instead, he inclined his head very slightly and then turned to go back inside the church.
He wanted me to come to him. He’d made it quite clear. My throat went dry as I rehearsed in my mind what I would say to him. I had gone over it before, of course. Many times I’d tried to imagine what explanation I could concoct should I meet anyone who had seen me hang. But always, I’d been imagining this man in my mind’s eye. Secretly hoping, perhaps, that I would see him again one day.
“I left my shawl inside,” I told my aunt.
She only looked at me and winked. “Best go and find it, then, Raven. Before someone else does.”
I think she had some clue, even then, that I was truly going to speak privately with Duncan. But no hint of disapproval clouded her shining eyes.
I went inside and saw him sitting on a bench near the front of the church. My hands trembling, I went to him, stood before him, looking down, and thus having a view of the door beyond as well, lest someone come in and overhear the words he was going to say. Would he accuse me? Condemn me? I did not know.
Lifting his eyes to mine, he whispered, “‘Tis true, then, after all. You are alive.”
I swallowed hard. More than anything, I did not wish to lie to him. Not to him. But my mother’s words seemed to ring in my ears. Trust no one. No one! I could not tell him what I was. Especially not while he wore minister’s robes. Though it galled me to deny the truth to him.
“You say such odd things, Pastor. Of course I am alive.”
Holding my gaze, he shook his head slowly, wonder in his eyes. “I saw you die, lass.”
Feigning shock, I lifted a hand to my breast. “You have mistaken me for someone else, then. I’ve never died, else how could I be here?”
“Dinna lie to me, Raven. Not to me.” He rose suddenly, tall and strong and so close his body was nearly touching mine. “I cut you down myself, held your lifeless corpse in my arms, and dampened your hair with my tears. I....” He broke off there, closed his eyes and lowered his head as if he were too overwhelmed to go on.
My throat seemed to swell closed. “You cut me down? You wept for me?”
He looked into my eyes, and I felt an incredible yearning build within my soul.
“You’ve haunted my dreams since that vile day, Raven St. James. And now you stand here before me, as beautiful and alive as you were the first time I looked into your eyes when you stood so bravely upon the gallows.”
I felt a stinging in my eyes, a burning in my throat. I could not deny who I was, for he would never believe me. No more than I would have believed him, had he told me he was not that young man I remembered so vividly. The lie, then. The one I’d concocted and honed in my mind over these past two years.
“I would know you anywhere,” he told me, and his hands clasped my shoulders, warm and firm. I could feel him wanting me, just by his touch. And I wanted him, too. “I knew you on the ship,” he said. “You came to me then, when I was ill.”
He searched my face. I said nothing.
“Admit it to me, dammit! Have you any idea how many times I’ve doubted my own sanity since that night? Have you?”
“I am sorry,” I whispered. “Gods forgive me, I am so sorry. Yes, Duncan, I came to you that night. I...they wanted to put you off, thought you carried the plague. I couldn’t let them.” With one trembling hand, I touched his cheek. “No matter the cost, I couldn’t let harm come to you.”
He nodded slowly, closing his eyes in relief. “I knew ‘twas you. Even without the light. I would know you even if I were blind, Raven.”
“And I you, Duncan,” I murmured, lowering my head. “I...I never forgot how you tried to help us.”
Then you will tell me the truth,” he said softly.
I looked into his eyes...and I wanted to share this burden, this wonder, this miracle of what I was with him more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life. And I lied to him.
“‘Twas a trick, and nothing more.” I had to avert my eyes in order to force the words out. I could not lie to him while looking into his eyes. “The dress I wore that day had a high neck. Do you remember?”
“Aye, I remember everything. The dress was brown, roughly woven, with small yellow buttons up the front, all the way to your chin. An’ your hair smelled of lavender.”
I was warm inside. His voice was like a caress upon my very soul. “Beneath the dress I wore a steel collar. No one could see it. It protected my neck from the noose.”
His eyes narrowed, probed, and plumbed mine.
“An’ where did you get this collar? They said you had spent the night in the stocks.”
“A friend...he stole into the square and slipped it round my neck.”
Frowning at me, Duncan shook his head. “Nay. Even with the collar, the fall could have broken your wee neck.” And his forefinger danced across my neck as he said it, sending shivers down my spine.
“Could have,” I said. “But did not.”
His eyes were piercing, as if he sought to see inside my mind, to the truth hidden there.
“There was no life in you when I held you in my arms,” he whispered. “You were not pretendin’ that.”
“No,” I whispered, half afraid he’d see right through the lie. “I fainted. Perhaps from the fall, or the fear, I cannot say. But I woke in....” I shuddered at the memory. “In a horrible place.”
His face softened then. Slowly he lowered his head. “Aye, I know about that,” he said softly. Then meeting my gaze, he asked, “An’ your mother? Did she wear this trick collar as well?”
I closed my eyes, my pain all too real. “Someone saw my friend and he had to run away, or be caught. There was no time for him to help her as he did me. When I woke among the dead, she was beside me...and....” Tears choked me and I could not go on.
His hand came to me, stroking my cheek. I wanted to clasp it in my own and press a kiss to his palm. But I only stood still, closing my eyes at the feelings his touch evoked. Weak with relief that I was feeling this man’s touch again, as I’d so often dreamed of doing. Weak, too, with the remembered pain of finding my precious mother, dead.
“I went there,” he said. “To the place where they took you. But you were not there. Nor was your mother.”
I looked at him through my tears. “Why?”
“I couldna save you, lass. I thought....at least I might give you a proper burial.”
I smiled gently at him, and he brushed a tear from my cheek.
“You’re a kind man, Duncan Wallace,” I said.
“Nay,” he said softly, eyes going harder. “Not so kind, not when I’m lied to.”
I swallowed hard. He could be a dangerous man, as well. Dangerous to me. To my life, as well as to my heart.
“Go on, lass. What happened when you woke?”
“I carried my mother into the forest and buried her there. She
would have been pleased with the spot I chose, I think.”
“She’d have been pleased,” he said, “to know you survived.”
“She knew,” I whispered. And then I sniffed and impatiently dashed the tears from my face. “If you tell them what you know of me, Duncan—”
“I willna tell them.”
I could only blink in surprise.
“I willna betray your secret, Raven. I swear it on all that I am. But you must tell me the truth. All of the truth.”
I couldn’t look him in the eye when he asked me that. “I can only tell you that I have never brought harm to another human being. Not in all my life, Duncan. On my mother’s soul, I swear ‘tis the truth.”
His hand turned my face toward his again. He searched my face for a long moment, his velvet brown eyes as piercing as before. And then he nodded. “I believe you,” he said. “But there is another question I have, and you must know what it is. I am a man of the cloth, Raven, a man of God, even though I abandoned my studies for the priesthood. And yet....and yet you’ve haunted my soul.” He closed his eyes slowly. “I have to know the truth. Am I damning myself by lettin’ you haunt my thoughts day and night? Am I, Raven? Are you, truly, a—”
The doors burst open then, and Elias Stanton, of all people, marched inside, saw us together, and stopped dead.
“Damning yourself?” I whispered, and anger swelled in my chest until I thought I’d burst with it. “How dare you?”
I took a single step toward the door and stopped when I saw the way Elias was staring from one of us to the other, his cheeks reddening with anger before he hid the emotion. Instead he painted his face with a false smile.
“Wondered where you’d gone, Reverend.” Then he nodded at me. “Mistress St. James.”
I acknowledged him with the briefest of glances, then turned to Duncan again. “Thank you for helping me find my shawl, Reverend Wallace,” I said, my tone dripping ice. “Aunt Eleanor says I’d lose my head were it not for my neck keeping it attached.”
Eternal Love: The Immortal Witch Series Page 9
