And then she was gone.
Martise looked around the room, and it seemed as good a time as any to begin a thorough search of the place. The emerald had to be somewhere.
Deep in the armoire she found many of Mary’s belongings. She searched through the beautiful silks and velvets and brocades, and marveled at the lovely corsets and elegant bloomers that Mary had acquired after her marriage. And she suddenly found herself wondering about the relationship between the tall dark lord of Creeghan and her petite friend, and then she felt her cheeks burning and she touched them with her hands. She knew why Mary had fallen in love. She knew all too well.
And yet …
And yet, she told herself harshly, the emerald was not among Mary’s things.
She thought about calling Holly to help her disrobe for the night, but determined to struggle with her numerous hooks and tiny buttons herself. She laid her gown out carefully over the back of a chair, then wearily left her petticoats to lie where they fell. She breathed far more easily once she had untied her corset and stepped from her pantalettes, but then she shivered in the evening coolness and quickly slipped into her sheer white bed gown.
Beneath the covers, she discovered that she still shivered.
And when she closed her eyes, she discovered that Bruce Creeghan was with her still.
She drifted, and in her dreams, he came toward her. He was dressed in black, and the very darkness combined with that of his hair and the fire of his eyes gave him a Satanish appeal. He smiled, and in his eyes she felt the curious power that so beckoned to her. And in the darkness all around him he was before her, and his hands were upon her shoulders, beneath her gown, and the gown was falling to the ground in a rustle of lost purity, of lost innocence. And then she felt his kiss against her naked shoulder, slow, lingering, and then the fire was stoked in a line to center and swirl within her breast, for the liquid flame of his tongue touched her there …
She jerked up, wide awake, very aware of the dream, shaking and horrified …
And yet, wondering what it was that had awakened her. There was no light in her room. The single candle she had left burning had died out.
The doors were opened, she realized. The doors to the balcony beyond.
And she had heard something. Not something near. Something far away. Something tremendous, like thunder.
She leapt from her bed and slipped out onto the balcony, hugging her sheer gown to her as the night wind ripped upon it.
She heard the wind, and again she heard a sound like thunder. She walked to the wall and listened, holding tight to the ancient stone. Far below her, she could hear the sounds of the sea, slashing hard against the cliffs.
She blinked, thinking that she saw a flicker of light on the cliffs below. But then there was nothing. The light was gone.
She waited, but there was nothing more. Just the wailing sound of the wind, and the crash and thunder of the waves upon the stone. No more lights appeared. The wind was cold, and it was seeping through her fragile clothing. She started to back away from the wall.
As she did so, she came against something as hard as the rock, but not cold, not cold at all. She felt the touch of something living, vibrant, pulsing. She nearly screamed, but she did not. She could not. A hand clamped down firmly upon her mouth, and a searing whisper touched her ear. “Don’t scream, milady. ’Tis me, Bruce. Laird Creeghan.”
Terrified, she raked at his hand with her nails. He swore furiously and his arm locked around her waist. Lifting her feet from the ground, he carried her, squirming, into her room and there set her down. “By all that’s holy, woman! Would you be a wailing harpy this night and waken the very dead? Hush, I’m tellin’ you, hush!”
Within the circle of his arm he spun her around. When her eyes met his, large and luminous, he smiled slowly, and held still, but then began to ease his hands from her lips. “Don’t scream!” he warned her.
She still wanted to scream. He had startled her at first. Now he was in her room. And she was scarcely clad, and his legs were bare and he was dressed only in a velvet smoking jacket.
“What in the hell were you doing out there?” she demanded heatedly.
“On me own balcony, you mean?” he cross-queried.
“Behind me!” she exclaimed.
“What were you doing out there?” he demanded.
“I—I thought I heard something,” she said. “But you! Your chambers are in the other tower. Hogarth told me—”
“Milady, my chambers may be elsewhere, but the door next to this one leads to my library, and if I may remind you, Martise, I am the master of this castle. I roam it at my liberty. But tell me, milady. It is late. Atrociously late. It is near dawn. What brought you awake, and to this balcony?”
“Nothing,” she murmured.
“What?” he persisted.
“A noise, something, a sound.”
“That is all?” he demanded quickly. He was very intense.
She shook her head, at a loss. “I don’t know. Something woke me. I came out. And then … I backed into you. And there was nothing wrong until then.”
“Nothing wrong? Noises in the night did not frighten you?”
“Should I be frightened?”
“Aye, lass, you should be frightened. Very frightened. If you hear noises in the night, you should run. You should lock your door tightly and ignore everything that you hear. Aye, indeed, lass. As it is, you should run. As far from Castle Creeghan as you might!”
She should have had some quick retort, but suddenly, she had none. The moonlight was pouring in upon them and she realized that she was in his arms, or at least, his arms were still about her, his hands upon the small of her back. And she was certain that he wore nothing beneath the jacket, and she was achingly aware of the breadth of his shoulders and the ripple of muscle in the bronzed and richly furred chest that was bared to her by the deep V of the jacket. His body seemed to emit heat and energy in waves as wild as the slash of the sea against the rock, and the fire in his eyes was unmistakable. Her mouth grew dry as her eyes met his, suddenly naked, suddenly bared.
He wanted her. The master of Castle Creeghan wanted her, and she knew that she responded to that wanting in a way that she had never imagined possible before. She wanted her dream to be truth, wanted to feel the brush of his fingers upon her naked shoulders, wanted to feel the burning heat of his kiss upon her bared flesh. She wanted to brush against him, to press close, to feel his arms wrap around her and hold her still to the leisure of his forage upon her lips and form.
“Aye, lass, you should run,” he murmured. “Hear the wind, hear the cries, hear the savage tumult of the sea. Perhaps the dead do rise and haunt us all.”
“Lord Creeghan, I do not run,” she whispered, trembling. She was fiercely aware of his nearness, and the raw power of his maleness. “Even when I am threatened.”
He touched her cheek gently, stroking down the length of it with his knuckles and following through so that his touch seemed to breathe against the length of her throat and collarbone and rest against her shoulder.
He smiled then, the moonlight touching his eyes and causing his teeth to flash whitely against the shadows. “Do I threaten you? Aye, lass, that I do. For if you stay, I will have you. Do you understand me? ’Tis not by choice, but by the yearning alone. I will have you, bed you, lass, if you do not comprehend my words. Bear that in mind when you make your decisions.”
She gasped at last, and stepped away, staring into his eyes, unable to believe that he would be so bold as to say such things—even if he was thinking them. What did he think of her?
She was illuminated by the moonlight, the gauze covering her from breasts to ankles, and yet she knew that he saw her clearly, saw her form defined and delineated, beneath the mist of sheerest white. “My dear Lord Creeghan, you do flatter yourself,” she claimed.
But his smile remained and he came toward her. His hands fell upon her arms and moved the soft material against them, and then he wa
s lifting her, and she was suddenly stretched out on her bed, in the tangle of her covers, her hair a wild splay upon them.
“Perhaps I do not threaten, perhaps I warn,” he whispered, his breath feathering her cheeks and lips as he leaned over her. “Indeed, lass, know this: you’ll have met the dragon or the beastie in truth if you stay, for I will have you this compliant, this willing, this sweetly, within my bed. Yet, you are a widow, milady. Maybe I am misled, maybe you are the one stalking the dragon?”
Her heart beat rampantly as his words sank into her mind. Her temper rose at long last to save her from the seductive quality of his words and of the night and the moonlight.
“Beast, indeed!” she spat suddenly, striking out.
But he was quick, and caught her hand, laughing. He stepped back, releasing her. His smile broadened, and he bowed deeply to her. “So run, lass, run if you would have the chance. And if not…”
A dark brow arched, and he turned silently and disappeared through the balcony doors. With a startled gasp she followed him out, longing to do real battle, ready to tear into him and his arrogance with a vengeance.
But he was gone. The great laird of Creeghan had disappeared into the darkness, and she might well have dreamed the entire episode.
She came back inside, and she closed the balcony doors tightly behind her, bolting them securely. She shivered fiercely and dived back beneath her covers, drawing them to her chin for warmth.
She had dreamed of him.
But he had come, too, in truth, to her room. The rich, subtle scent of his cologne lingered upon the air.
And upon her flesh.
He was dangerous. So dangerous. But when he touched her, she did not care. She wanted to explore the fever that came to haunt and singe her blood. She wanted to feel his eyes touch her again, just as they had this night.
She closed her eyes. She could not face another day. Not in this castle. Not with Creeghan.
Her eyes opened, and she saw that the light of dawn was beginning to filter into the room.
It was too late. She had already stayed for another day. And now there would be another night.
4
Martise did not sleep in the dusky hours of the early morning.
When Holly mentioned that she had dark shadows beneath her eyes—in a beautiful shade of mauve, mind you, but dark nonetheless—Martise agreed to have a tray of tea and biscuits brought to her room. She was tired, exasperated, and restless, and it seemed like a wonderful time to begin a more thorough search of the room.
She convinced Holly that she meant to sleep, but when she finished with her tea, she began a probe through Mary’s clothing.
Touching Mary’s garments was disturbing at first. The soft scent of roses lingered upon them, and guilt weighed down heavily upon her; but in truth, Martise needed the emerald, and Mary would have understood.
After a while, she had gone through every garment, every skirt and scarf, every fine petticoat, in Mary’s trunks and drawers and armoires. She spent hours running her fingers over every swatch of cloth, thinking that Mary might have sewn the emerald into a hem, but she found nothing.
By the time the midday meal came round, Martise was forced to admit that the emerald was not among Mary’s things in the room. She had searched the drawers for false bottoms, she had gone through the bedding, she had looked through the drapes and tried to imagine every nook and cranny in the large room.
She was running out of time. She could refrain from going down to the hall for a meal, but she had to dress for the memorial. After all, the proceedings were being carried out for her benefit.
She pinned her hair in a secure and staid knot at her nape and dressed in a dark and somber blue, a gown with tiny buttons that crawled nearly up her throat. She had tried not to spend the morning thinking of the master of the castle, but now, aware that she would have to see him sooner or later, the floodgates upon her emotions were slowly cracking open and she realized that she had not really ceased to think of him at all, not even for a moment.
As she had carefully searched through Mary’s things, she first told herself that she was grateful Mary had kept this large room while the laird maintained his own quarters in a separate tower of the castle. Then she found herself wondering at that arrangement. If Bruce Creeghan had truly loved his lady, why had she been so far from him? Not that it was unusual for a wife to maintain separate quarters, but in such a case …
Mary had been in love. She could not imagine anyone loving so rugged and vibrant a man as Creeghan and keeping such a distance from him. Stretched out upon her bed, she pondered the problem and realized that it seriously complicated her own. The laird kept a library next to this room, a library that adjoined the room by the balcony. Perhaps they had spent time there together. Perhaps they had supped in intimacy, and the dark, towering laird had carried her across the moonlit balcony and to her bed.
Her fingers were shaking. He hadn’t behaved at all as a gentleman. But then, maybe such a man as Creeghan would never have to pretend that he was what he wasn’t. He had been blunt, crude. He had told her he wanted her.
She stood up and smoothed down her dress. It was time to arrive deep down below for the memorial service.
She did not wait for Holly or anyone to escort her. She left her room, closing the door softly behind her. As she hurried for the stairway that would lead her down to the crypts, she reflected that she would have to extend the realm of her search. And to do that, she would have to have Laird Creeghan’s permission to peruse his collection of books. Surely, he could not be so crass as to deny such a request.
Unless he was afraid she would find something.
Unless he had murdered Mary.
She swept away the thought as she passed through the great hall and realized no one was about. She glanced at the timepiece that hung from the slender chain upon her neck and rested at her breast. She was late. The family had surely assembled already.
The rough stairway leading to the crypts was well lit, but she bit into her lip to remind herself that she must not think of things such as murder. And she must not think that Laird Creeghan had murdered Mary, for if the library yielded nothing to her, then it would be necessary to prowl through his private quarters.
Did he take Mary there? Were his rooms as dark and dangerously intriguing as the man? Had he carried his laughing bride there to be with him?
Her palms were wet, her throat was dry. She was descending deep into the valley of the dead, and for a moment, in the twist of the stairs, it seemed she was alone in the world. Alone with the cold, damp stone and the threat of eternal darkness. Alone with the corpses of hundreds of years arrayed in their finery to come up and meet her and greet her, and welcome her to Creeghan when it seemed that the present master would not.
She heard voices. The fit of fancy left her and she nearly laughed aloud. What a liar she was to say she was not afraid of ghosts! How odd that she could have endured so much for so long, that hellish war, only to come here and find that she was frightened by the thought of a long-deceased chieftain or his bride.
She came to the last step. Nothing more frightening than the wine cellar to her left, she reminded herself. And before her, there was the chapel, the chapel so beautifully kept, and alive with the light from its exquisite windows.
She hurried for the chapel and stepped inside. The family was all there, and the servants of Creeghan, so it seemed, and half of the village, too, perhaps. She nearly laughed, despite the solemnity of the occasion. She had thought herself alone. There were at least fifty people within the small chapel.
And all of them staring at her when she entered. Some openly, some covertly, yet all with suspicion. She was a stranger here, she realized.
And these people belonged to Creeghan. Just as the castle, just as the land, just as the great bay horse. They made their livelihoods through the laird’s largesse. She wondered if they weren’t every bit as tethered to the lairds of the castle now as they had been hundreds
of years ago.
She tried to smile, and yet her effort faltered, for it seemed she was being boldly studied by young eyes and old.
A hand slipped through her arm and she turned to see Elaina. “Martise, I was about to come for you! Holly informed us you were tired this morning, the travel catching up with you, no doubt. But when you didn’t arrive here, I grew quite worried.”
“I did not mean to be so late; I apologize.”
“Oh, it’s quite all right!” Elaina assured her. And then Martise realized that Bruce Creeghan was standing behind her.
“Ah, so our dear Lady St. James has come to make her appearance at last!” he said. “Excuse me, Elaina,” he said smoothly to his sister, his hand then upon Martise’s elbow as he led her down the aisle toward the altar. It seemed he was bringing her to the priest, but then he paused and lowered his head, his whisper for her ears alone. “Have you decided to run and hide at last, milady? The wise course of action, I promise. If you wish it, I can have a carriage head you for a port this very evening.”
She spun around, lifting her chin, trying hard to maintain the dignity and maturity she was determined to believe her apparel gave her.
“I am not running, Laird Creeghan.” She spoke his name softly, in a long drawl that mocked the Highland accent. He smiled and inclined his head to her.
“Not from ghosts, milady?”
“Not from ghosts.”
“And not even from the living—whom you do fear?”
“Again, you flatter yourself, milord, if you think I am afraid. It’s what you want, isn’t it? You want me to be afraid.”
His smile deepened and even as he replied, he was stepping aside casually. “Forewarned, milady. Forewarned, and nothing more. Ah, here’s the good father—he’s been waiting for your appearance. You must meet him, of course. Come.”
He took her hand. As always, she felt the heat and the all-powerful energy that seemed to exude from him.
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