Blood Marriage (19 page)

The men ignored her question.

"May I speak with you outside, Father?" Nicholas made it sound more like a command than a request.

But Elizabeth wasn't the only one being ignored; the priest didn't even look his way. Father Vlad reached out and with two swift movements brushed her hair away so that it fell down her back. Elizabeth was too startled by this strange behavior to know how to respond. 

"Vlad, leave her alone," Nicholas said.

But Vlad had already taken Elizabeth's chin in one hand, using his other to hold her hair away from the sides of her neck.

"I must examine her. It is both traditional and necessary," the priest said. His gaze intent, he turned Elizabeth's head from one side to another. His brow wrinkled in puzzlement. When he tried to turn her head back and forth a second time, Elizabeth jerked away from his touch, her eyes seeking her husband. Nicholas looked thunderous. The priest left her to move back toward the men.

"The marriage has not been consummated?" the old man asked.

"It has," Nicholas stated. "If we could speak outside, Father," he said again.

Bergen was grinning. "He's trying to tell you, Vlad, that it isn't where you can examine it. I, on the other hand, being a doctor..."

Nicholas's elbow jammed with bone breaking force into the doctor's ribs. Bergen's body made a wet slapping sound against the stone floor. 

"That wasn't necessary," the doctor complained. 

To Elizabeth's astonishment he picked himself up off the floor as if he felt no effects at all from the vicious blow. Nicholas didn't even glance back at his friend. His attention was on the priest.

"Where precisely did you take her?" Father Vlad asked. 

Nicholas didn't get the chance to answer. Elizabeth couldn't believe her ears. Was the priest really demanding to know where they'd made love? This man practiced a very odd religion and she'd had more than enough of frightening weddings and vulgar eavesdropping. She wasn't about to stand still for an intimate bridal examination, traditional or not.

"If you are all quite finished discussing me," she began with false politeness, "then I'd like to ask you to GET OUT!" 

The men spared her no more than a momentary glance.

Bergen dripped over to the priest, avoiding Nicholas, and whispered something in the man's ear. 

"There?" Father Vlad's face turned crimson above his white beard. 

Bergen grinned. Nicholas looked ready to explode.

"Nonetheless, she must be examined," the priest said. "For her own good."

"The only man who is going to examine my wife is me!"

"It will only take a moment and we'll look at only what must be seen," Father Vlad took a step toward Elizabeth.

Nicholas was reaching out to grab the old man's sleeve when the first apple whizzed past his nose, hitting the heavy oak of the open door with a hard thud and scattering pieces over the floor beneath. Finally Elizabeth had all three men's attention.

"Elizabeth..." Father Vlad began gently. 

A hunk of crusty bread landed in the old man's beard. Bergen was laughing when a second apple whacked against the top of the doctor's thigh, just inches from his manhood. 

"Hey!" The doctor started backing toward the door. The priest took another step toward Elizabeth and then several rapid steps back, fleeing an onslaught of more bread, hard cheese and an overripe pear.

"Get out!" Elizabeth lobbed a cherry tart. It flew through the open doorway and out into the hall, thumping against a stone wall and leaving a line of thick red ooze as it slid to the floor. Bergen followed the tart out the door, Father Vlad right behind him. Nicholas slammed the door behind them, chuckling as he turned the lock. His laughter died abruptly when a piece of soft cheese bounced off his cheek and a pear exploded on the door frame over his head. 

He was across the room with astounding speed, catching Elizabeth's arm with one hand before she could release another tart, forcing her to drop it to the floor. With the other hand he cleared the table of what little remained there. Elizabeth shrieked as he grabbed her around the waist, lifted her up and sat her on the table.

"Calm down. They're gone," he assured her. "No one is going to touch you. Except me."

"I want you out, too!" she said. But it wasn't true. Despite all that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, even as confused and frustrated as she was, she still wanted him as close as she could get him.

Yet her dignity demanded more. To Bergen she seemed a thorn to dig in Nicholas's side, to Vlad a problem of some sort, to her father-in-law a breeding horse. She liked none of it, but she could tolerate it all. It was how Nicholas saw her that mattered. Every inch of her flesh craved this man she barely knew. But she needed to be more than a pawn to be shuffled about in some strange game he and his cohorts were playing.

"Get out or--" 

His mouth silenced hers, his lips gentle but insistent. She couldn't help responding to his kiss. Couldn't deny the weak eagerness that rose in her for his touch.

No. She mustn't -- wouldn't -- be so easy to quiet. She needed answers. She pushed against his chest, but he didn't budge. Instead, he ran his hands over her body, caressing it through the fur. She bit lightly at him in warning, slapped at his hands, and even kicked as much as the wrap would allow, but not with any real force. Even as confused and angry as she was at this moment, she had no real desire to resist him. 

His hands found the edge of her wrap. The fur slipped off to puddle around her bare hips and drape over the table. She made a sound against his mouth that even to her own ears sounded like a purr of anticipation. His kiss deepened. Elizabeth gave up any pretense of denying him. Her arms went around his neck and she arched towards him. Nicholas's hand splayed, fingers wide, palm flat, across the small of her back, pressing her toward him.

"I'll still be angry..." she lied as she melted into him, "...after."

Chapter Twenty-Four

Two nights later Elizabeth climbed the stairs to the servant's quarters and, shielding the light from her lamp with the edge of her robe, tip-toed down the hall. Margaret had been moved from the doctor's room to a bedroom on the side of the house that faced the stables. No light showed beneath the door, evidence Katie, reassured by Margaret's steady recovery, had finally relinquished her vigil at her friend's side and returned to her own room. Elizabeth slipped inside and crossed to the bed.

Margaret snored softly, her head turned to one side on the white pillowcase. A single neat braid of hair rested over the maid's shoulder covering the side of her neck. Holding her lamp to one side, Elizabeth lifted the braid away to reveal the gauze covering beneath. Her hand hesitated above the bandage. She took a deep breath. Then she carefully eased aside the gauze and bent to examine the healing wound. Her heart did a breath-robbing tumble. The wound was nearly identical to the one she'd discovered on herself in the bath earlier that evening.

"Two punctures, approximately one and one half inches apart." A man's coarse whisper drifted out of the shadows.

Elizabeth spun, nearly dropping the lamp. Lennie sat in a chair in one corner of the room, his feet propped up on a small stool, a pillow at his head, a blanket over his legs, a book in his lap. He appeared to be spending the night.

"What are you doing here?" Elizabeth demanded, willing her pounding heart to slow.

"I might ask the same of you, Lady Devlin." Lennie pushed the blanket aside and stood, holding the book in one hand. He was fully dressed in silver and black livery, right down to his shoes. "I'm keeping an eye on Margaret."

"And I'm checking on her."

"In the middle of the night?" Lennie pulled a fob watch from his pocket and clicked it open. He tilted it to catch the light of Elizabeth's lamp. "One o'clock. Does his lordship know his bride is out wandering at this hour?"

Lennie must have seen something in Elizabeth's expression because his became suddenly more intense. "Or is it his lordship you're looking for?"

"What would Devlin be doing in Margaret's room?"

"What indeed?"

"I came to check on Margaret," Elizabeth insisted, wondering what it was about this burly footman that made her feel she must explain herself. And lie.

She'd visited both Margaret and her mother repeatedly since returning to Heaven's Edge with Nicholas the previous morning. Her mother's condition remained unchanged, but Margaret was recovering well. The maid had been awake and almost chatty. Most of what she said had been about the man standing before Elizabeth now. Margaret had praised Lennie to the sun. So why, at this moment, did Elizabeth feel alarmed at the footman's blunt questions?

Lennie took the lamp from Elizabeth's hand and replaced it with the book he'd been holding. He moved to the room's single window. Elizabeth glanced down at the rough leather-bound volume in her hand. It looked old, its edges worn with time. The title was faded, unreadable. 

"So, Lady Devlin, if you are here, then I'm thinking Lord Devlin isn't in his bed, allowing as how I doubt his bride would have left it otherwise." As he spoke, Lennie pulled the curtains away from the window and lifted the lamp high as if he could use its light to peer out into the darkness at the stables below. It seemed an odd bit of theatrics to Elizabeth, strangely out of character for such a stoic man.

Lennie dropped the curtain back in place, left the window, and handed the lamp back to Elizabeth. She offered the book to him. He shook his head.

"Keep it," he said. "You might find the subject interesting. Judging by the number of such books in the duke's library, someone in this household does." 

Something in the man's tone disturbed Elizabeth. She wanted to leave the book behind. Instead, she found herself clutching it to her breast. Her hand was on the doorknob when he spoke again in that coarse whisper.

"Where, Lady Devlin, is your husband tonight?"

Elizabeth didn't answer, or even look back. She left the room and hurried down to the second floor, negotiating the stairs with ease. It still amazed her that since her wedding night the pain and swelling at her elbows and knees had almost disappeared. She could come and go as she pleased. 

She was passing the main stairwell landing when she heard soft footfalls below. She backed up, peering down into the entry hall at the circle of moonlight the transom window drew on the stone floor. She was in time to glimpse a bit of black material disappearing beyond its revealing light. Had it been a woman's skirts? Or perhaps the hem of a man's cloak? She wasn't certain. The muffled creak of the front door opening and closing sounded from below. Who would leave the house at this hour, and why? 

Elizabeth clutched the old book closer and hurried down the hall. Whoever it was might be visible from her mother's window.

She'd crossed the threshold of her mother's room and was closing the door when she heard another sound, again the click of a door opening, this time from down the hall. Leaving her mother's door ajar and hiding the glow of the lamp with the edge of her robe, Elizabeth rested her forehead against the cool oak, listening. Behind her one of Cook's maids snored on the sofa.

"Why not here, in the house?" The man's whisper was muffled, unrecognizable, as if he spoke through something thick and soft. The woman whispered her answer as well, but her accent was unmistakable.

"You are so eager," Lucy said, her sultry voice dripping with unspoken promises. "But if we are caught, it is I who would lose what I desire. You have nothing to lose." The rustle of skirts and the click of a man's boots came closer. "At least," Lucy's laugh was at once seductive and frightening, "nothing of value."

The man said something Elizabeth could not make out. Lucy made a derisive noise.

"That frail one will not satisfy you. You want me,
mea favorit
, but you must do it my way." 

Elizabeth could not see the stairs, but knew by the way Lucy's voice was fading away, that she and her companion were descending to the main floor. She considered following them long enough to discover the man's identity, then remembered why she'd come to her mother's room and hurried to the window.

She was too late. Below the waning moon, the lawns stretching toward the forest were empty. If someone had passed that way, they were already gone. Elizabeth waited to see if Lucy and her companion would appear, but either they hadn't left the house or they'd gone through the kitchens and out toward the stables.

"Who are you watching for?" Dr. Bergen's voice sounded at her shoulder.

Elizabeth jumped, dropping the book and the brass lamp. The lamp extinguished itself harmlessly as it hit the floor. Dr. Bergen squatted to retrieve both, setting the copper lamp on a table. He opened the book and let the pages flutter through his fingers. One dark eyebrow arched. 

"No one. I was watching no one." Elizabeth held out her hand for the book. "I came to check on my mother."

"Um-hmm," the doctor said. They stood for long seconds, Elizabeth's hand extended waiting for the book, the doctor holding it in one hand, the thumb of his other stroking its spine. Finally, he passed it to Elizabeth. 

"Some things,
mea inocent
, are better left unknown."

Elizabeth had no notion what he was talking about, but nodded anyway. She eased out of the tight space between the doctor and the window. Dr. Bergen let her pass, though his pale eyes followed her in the most disconcerting way. With a final glance at her sleeping mother, Elizabeth went through the connecting dressing room to the bedroom she and her husband now shared. The bed was empty, its sheets still tousled. Nicholas hadn't returned.

They'd come home yesterday morning after spending two nights and one idyllic day at Maidenstone. It had been a short honeymoon, but a lovely one. They'd filled the time exploring the castle ruins, walking in the woods, and making love -- sometimes tenderly, sometimes with rough abandon -- wherever and whenever the mood struck. And, Elizabeth's stomach did an odd flip remembering, the mood seemed to strike Nicholas with amazing frequency.