And yet it seemed he’d deny the connection between us with his dying breath. Why must he be so stubborn?
Sighing as he moved inside and the door closed again, I sank onto the stone bench beside the fountain, elbows on my knees, head in my hands.
“Raven!” The harsh, familiar whisper brought my head up fast. Arianna came skulking from the shadows like a Halloween spirit. “What are you doing out here?”
“You must have radar,” I told her. “It’s barely been an hour since I slipped away.”
“I don’t need radar and you know it.” She came closer but didn’t sit. Instead she stood over me, feeling taller than me for a change, I thought. Her short hair riffled like dove feathers as she looked down at me from those huge brown eyes. Her Peter Pan stance, I called it, when she stood like this. Legs shoulder-width apart, hands planted on her hips, elbows pointing to either side of her. Give her a hat and a feather, and she’d probably fly. The leggings she wore, and the green velvet short-short dress that reached to enhanced the image considerably. I almost smiled.
“Are you going to tell me what you’re up to, or sit there inspecting my wardrobe?”
I shrugged. “Peter wore less jewelry, of course,” I muttered. She frowned harder. “Then again, so do most of the royals.”
“Are you mocking me? After I came all the way out here worried half to death about you and–”
“Hush, Arianna. I love you, you know that.”
“Then talk to me.” Her hands lowered to her sides, and she paced. “It’s to be tonight, isn’t it? You’ll go after him tonight.”
“Yes.” I drew my dagger, ran my thumb across its edge to test its readiness. A nervous habit I’d repeated a dozen times today. “It’s time.”
“You’re not ready.”
“And I’ll not become any more ready by putting it off.”
“He’ll kill you.”
“Duncan is in danger!”
She rolled her eyes. “Duncan should have listened to you in the first place.” Then she paused, glaring at the courthouse as if trying to send it up in flames with the sheer force of her gaze. “I’m beginning to hate them both.”
“Not Duncan,” I protested. “You’re my sister. You can’t hate the man I love, Arianna.”
“I can if his foolishness gets you killed.”
I closed my eyes. I didn’t want that to happen. And I knew it was possible. I just wished she wouldn’t remind me quite so often.
“So what are you waiting for? Having second thoughts?”
I shook my head. “Duncan’s inside. I’m afraid he’s going to spend the night. He thinks he needs to protect his father from me.”
Arianna lifted one brow. “His father could probably roll a bus onto its side without breaking a sweat, as old as he is.”
I wasn’t being fair, I knew that. Duncan had said he meant to protect both of us, from each other. But it still felt like a betrayal to me.
Arianna eyed me. “What if he’s weakening?” she asked suddenly. “Maybe that’s why Nathanial is so determined to have you this time, Raven. Maybe he needs a heart soon. You didn’t tell Duncan about that part of it, did you?”
“There are a lot of things I didn’t get around to telling him,” I whispered, averting my eyes.
“So what did you do all that time you were with him this morning? Or need I ask?”
My chin dipped lower. “It doesn’t matter.”
“I beg to differ! It certainly does matter. If he made love to you, Raven, then he must care. And if he cares, he’ll believe you over Nathanial.” I looked at her, my doubt in my eyes. “He will!” she insisted.
“He thinks I need mental help.” I heaved a deep sigh, leaned over, and trailed my hand in the icy-cold water that rippled in the fountain. Soft blue lights lit it from below, so my hand seemed to glow in the choppy water. Pink lights illuminated the flow that spilled from above, tumbling down the stair-like layers of the statue’s base, and losing itself in the pool.
“He’ll believe you if you just give him time.”
“There is no time. I can’t let him go on being so close and so damned vulnerable to a man who could kill him at any moment. And I can’t just wait for Nathanial to come for me. The waiting is going to drive me insane. I can’t eat or sleep, and that will all work to the old man’s advantage. You know that.”
“What I know is that your poor appetite and restless nights have nothing to do with Nathanial, and everything to do with Duncan.”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter.” My gaze returned to the courthouse. My vigil began anew. The lights still blazed from the windows.
“You can’t go through with this,” Arianna said, apparently reading my eyes as easily as I could read hers. “Not tonight, not with Duncan right there.”
“I didn’t think I could kill Nathanial in front of Duncan,” I told her. “But it doesn’t look as if I have a choice. Besides, when he sees his father wield that blade with every intention of doing me in, when he sees the old man’s skill–his well-practiced skill–then perhaps he’ll know I told the truth all along.” A light flicked off on the lower level. But seconds later one came on upstairs. “Still,” I said, sheathing my blade, getting to my feet, “I'll spare Duncan seeing it if I can.”
“How?”
I shrugged. “He has to sleep sometime.” I started forward, crossing the cobbled street so reminiscent of old England. But Arianna’s hand on my shoulder stopped me, and I turned. “This will be a fair fight,” I told her before she could speak. “I won’t have murder on my conscience. I won’t attack Nathanial with the odds stacked in my favor. You’ll stay out of it, no matter what. I want your promise on that.”
Lifting her chin, my sister swallowed hard. “I don’t want to lose you again, Raven.”
It was not often I’d seen tears in Arianna’s eyes, but I did now. All her harshness and brass melted into twin pools that shimmered in her eyes.
“I know.” I hugged her gently, stroked her short hair, kissed her face. “If I’m meant to triumph over him, I will.”
She nodded, sniffled, and straightened away from me.
“If I fall–”
“If you fall, I’ll kill the bastard myself,” she told me.
I met her eyes and knew there would be no talking her out of it.
* * * *
His father had seemed averse to the idea of Duncan staying over. That reaction offended Duncan slightly, hurt him a little, and prodded his suspicious mind a lot. Still, he’d talked the old man into it. No way was he leaving Nathanial alone tonight. He was half afraid the old man would head out after Raven the minute he was alone–and half afraid she’d come after him instead.
There was a guest room overlooking the circle, the park, and the fountain. His father’s room was on the opposite end of the hall, overlooking the road that led back to the mainland. There appeared to be several bedrooms in between, but the doors were all closed, and Duncan didn’t want to let his father know how little he trusted him by peering inside those other rooms as they passed. Still, he thought there was no reason he couldn’t have used any of the in-between rooms. And then he wondered why his father would want to keep him at a distance.
It didn’t matter though. This one was fine. He’d sensed something, got that little shiver up the back of his neck earlier when he’d looked out on the town circle. That same prickly awareness he got when she was near. Not witchcraft. Just intuition. Normal intuition. He hadn’t seen anyone outside, but it was dark. And he doubted a night bird like Raven would be seen if she meant not to be.
Going to the window, he stared down at the circle again. And again, saw no one. So he paced, and he waited, and he battled the growing feeling that something was going to happen tonight. To distract himself from it, he tried to figure out how he could check his father for the birthmark, and wondered if his intention to do just that made him as crazy as Raven was. Probably. He couldn’t understand why he wanted to believe the woman so much w
hen he knew that everything she said was just part of some grand delusion. And it wasn’t that he wanted her to be right about his father. Just that he wanted her to be sane. No, it wasn’t that, either. It was something else. Something deep inside him, so deep he couldn’t reach it. Couldn’t examine or explore it. But it was there. Knowledge. Truth. Buried, but present, and whispering every once in a while. Words that he couldn’t quite hear. Reality that he couldn’t quite grasp.
Closing his eyes, lowering his head, he wondered what his shrink would think about this latest crisis. That he’d fallen head over heels in love with this particular woman from the second he’d set eyes on her. And why, for heaven’s sake? What was it about her?
Her eyes. Dark, as black as midnight, and full of mystery and onyx fire.
Her hair. Tangled silk. As twisting and writhing as Medusa’s, but gleaming and glossy and soft, tempting his fingers and his lips to touch it, threatening to bind him up and never let him go.
Her skin, like moonlight. Warm, when he touched it. Responsive against his lips. Sweet and salty and as addictive as a drug.
Her laugh, though she laughed very little. And her voice, deep and rich, slightly coarse. Whiskey and roses, that was what her voice was like. If whiskey and roses could sing in harmony, they’d sound like Raven St. James. It seemed he’d known her voice before he’d ever heard her speak. It seemed he’d known exactly the way she would sound.
But there was more. Her courage. The way she faced that crowd from the gallows, shamed them all, she did, an’ never once cried out as she plummeted to her death! Aye, an’ the way she refused to confess to anythin’ when she’d done nothin’ wrong. An’ her strength. When the bastard Elias Stanton attacked her, tried to rape her, she laid him out cold. Damn near killed him. The way I wanted to do when I saw her later, her dress torn, her satin skin bruised, scrubbing’ herself raw in the crystalline cold o’ the stream. I didna think I’d ever seen anythin’ so pain-filled as her eyes that day. An’....
Duncan went very still. Utterly still. “What the hell was all that? Where...?” He looked around the room, as if he expected to see someone else there. But the someone else wasn’t in the room–the other man was inside him, inside his head, spewing memories that did not belong there!
None of those things had happened!
And yet they kept flashing. Bits and pieces. He was kissing her bruised skin as she cried, and trembled. He was whispering, “No one will ever hurt you again, lass. I swear it on my life.” He was facing his father, only they both wore robes, and he was demanding to know where Raven’s body was being taken. And then he was there, searching a horrible place filled with the stench of death and decay, livid because he couldn’t find her there.
“Stop!” he moaned, pressing his hands to the sides of his head and turning in a slow circle. “Stop, dammit!”
Nay, Duncan, I willna stop. I canna. You must remember.
* * * *
The lights had gone out at last, and I had slipped inside by means of a small window in the back. Silently I crept up the stairs, my dagger in my hand, at the ready, lest Nathanial be aware of my intent, and be lying in wait around some dark corner.
The stairs creaked as I mounted them, and I went still. But only for a moment. Testing the next step with care, I moved to the top, and there I paused, looking up the hall and down. Unsure which way to go. And finally turning left, and tiptoeing down the hall.
Just outside the door at the end, I heard Duncan’s anguished, “Stop, dammit!”
My heart leaped into my throat, and I kicked the door open, springing inside and landing in a ready crouch, dagger high, eyes darting.
He stood by the window. His back to the pane, staring at me. His face seemed tormented, unsurprised, too caught up in whatever was eating at him to feel startled at my rather dramatic entrance. But I saw that he was alone in the room, and slowly sheathed my blade. “I-I heard your voice. I thought–”
“Thought what? That my father was in here trying to murder me?”
I didn’t nod. It seemed the wrong time to speak ill of his father. “Where is he?” I asked.
“You think I’m going to direct you to his room so you can attack him in his sleep?”
I lowered my head. Turning, I glanced back down the hall to calm the rising goose bumps on the back of my neck. I saw no one, and then I closed the door. Moving forward slowly, I reached up, touched Duncan’s face.
“What’s wrong?”
His eyes moved over my face as if he couldn’t look at me enough to suit him. And then he closed them. “What isn’t wrong would be a better question.”
“Okay, what isn’t wrong?”
He met my eyes, smiling a sad, sarcastic smile. “Nothing.”
“That’s very good.”
“The woman I think I’m falling in love with has just broken into my father’s house, kicked in my bedroom door, and jumped in wielding a knife. And I ought to be calling the cops and having her hauled off to a rubber room somewhere. And instead I’m standing here wishing I could....” He let his voice trail off.
“You love me?” I whispered.
One hand rose to delicately cup my chin, and then he lowered his head, holding my eyes with his until mine fell closed, and his lips pressed to mine.
So tenderly he kissed me. As if he thought I might break. And when he straightened away, I stared at him in wonder. “Does this mean...does this mean you believe me?”
He shook his head sadly, walked to the bed, sat on its edge. “I don’t believe anything. Not even my own feelings right now.”
“Oh.”
“Will you tell me something?”
I put my back to the window, half sitting on its sill, so I was facing Duncan, and the door beyond him. “I'll tell you anything,” I promised.
He drew a deep breath, blew it out. “Was there ever a time when you were...attacked?”
I nodded. “Many have tried to kill me.”
“Now, that’s something I don’t understand,” he said quickly. “You keep saying how my father has tried to kill you, but then you claim to be immortal.”
There is only one way to kill an immortal, Duncan. And that’s to cut the still-beating heart from his breast.”
“God,” he said, turning his head away in disgust. Then he closed his eyes, cleared his throat. “But I got off the subject. The attack I asked you about, this man wasn’t trying to kill you, he was trying....” He looked away, and it seemed he couldn’t finish.
Finally I understood. “To rape me?”
Duncan nodded. “Did it ever happen?”
“Once. It was Elias Stanton, the pig. Claimed I’d bewitched him into feeling desire for me, and so it was his right to act on it, to teach me a lesson.”
Duncan closed his eyes. “When did it happen?”
“Sixteen ninety-two. I remember it well, Duncan. It was later that night I lost you.”
Lifting his head slowly, meeting my eyes, he said, “Tell me more.”
I searched his face. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”
“I think...I have to hear it.”
I nodded, licked my lips. “I was walking home from town, when he approached me. I resisted, he pursued. I wound up with my back to a tree, while he groped at me. In the end, he was on the ground with a heavy limb atop him, and I was racing back to my aunt’s home in his wagon.” I closed my eyes. “I told Arianna, but not Aunt Eleanor. It would have killed her had she known. I couldn’t even face her. I felt...contaminated. So I went to the stream, stripped off my torn clothes, and plunged myself into that icy water, and I scrubbed and scrubbed. But it did no good. I could no more rid myself of the memory of his vile touch than I could wash away the bruises.” I shuddered at the memory. But then I opened my eyes and faced Duncan again. “Then you came. And it was all right.”
Duncan bit his lip. His jaw was taut, as if he were bearing a great weight and straining to support it. “Why would my father want to kill you?”
&n
bsp; I blinked. He jumped from one subject to another so fast it made my head spin. “I told you that you died trying to save my life, and that was how you earned the gift of immortality.”
“Something I still think is impossible.”
“Yes, I know.” I sighed. “So pretend it’s fiction, a story I’m telling to entertain you.”
“That’s exactly what it is.” But he said it as if trying to convince himself. His gaze held mine for a long moment. But it was Duncan who finally looked away.
“There is another way one can gain immortality, and that’s the way the Dark Ones, the evil ones, go about it. They gain it, Duncan, by stealing it. When they take the heart of another immortal, and keep that still-beating heart captive in a small box far away from the ever-young body of their victim, they hold that victim’s power as well. The first kill gives them immortality. But they need more. The ones that come later increase their strength and powers, and replenish their life force when it weakens and dims. They use the hearts like a child’s toy uses batteries. Drain them all but dry, then toss them aside for another.”
“And you think my father is one of these...these Dark Ones?"
I nodded. “I’m a powerful witch, Duncan. He wants that power for his own, and each time I’ve thwarted him he’s become more determined to have it.” I lowered my head. “But it’s not just the power. He hates me because he blames me for coming between you and him three hundred years ago. And here I am, doing it all over again.”
Eternal Love: The Immortal Witch Series Page 27
