Captive Bride (22 page)

Her breaths stalled. “You are desperate to be free of this castle, aren’t you? It must be the reason you so often stand before windows. They offer you tantalizing glimpses of what you cannot have.”

“Mayhap I prefer the dramatic effect.” His voice sounded gravelly.

“You said earlier that you didn’t care about such things any longer.”

He was silent for a moment. “In my day, my dear, they described that as the pot calling the kettle black.”

Bea shook her head. “You think you are very clever, don’t you? Earlier, you said those things to shame me. But you are not clever. You are simply cruel.”

“I am desperate, as you say. You foolishly discarded the only chance I will give you. I am somewhat disappointed. But alas, it cannot be helped now.” His face looked almost too impassive.

Bea’s stomach churned. He could not be trusted. She could not put Aunt Julia in danger. “Would you have hurt her?” she made herself ask.

“We will never know, will we?”

Panic trickled through her veins. “You are disgusting.
Horrid.
Sufficient words do not exist for you.”

“You warm my heart, dear lady.”

“You have no heart.”

“Better that than your pitiful condition. Forsooth, I am relieved you have failed to come to terms with your young lord. The foolish boy and silly girl proved wearying enough to observe.”

Bea’s eyes went wide. “You
watched
them?”

“I had a particular interest in the matter.”

Sticky loathing wrapped around Bea’s insides.
A chill descended on her skin, seeping beneath the surface in icy fingers. She pulled her wrap tighter around her shoulders, but the cold seemed to come from beneath her clothing. A cool breath of air wafted through the library chamber, stirring the tiny hairs about her brow and cheeks against her skin.

She glanced at the door. It was closed.

Her gaze shot to
Iversly
. He was no longer there.

A frigid hand spread upon the nape of her neck. Bea gasped. Another seemed to stroke her thigh, heavy and cold as death. She leapt up and away, slamming her back into a bookcase.

“Is it you?” she breathed. “What are you doing?”

“Touching you.”

“But you said you do not have the sense of touch.”

“The hour draws near.”

“How dare you?” she hurled into the lamplight.

Silence.
The caress came again, icy upon her arm. She jerked aside. “But I cannot see you!”

“Over the centuries I have learned a few useful tricks.” He chuckled, a wicked snarl of pleasure.

“You cannot do it. You will not,” she insisted.

“I can and I will,” he countered. “Even now I feel blood in my veins.
Warmth.
After a century, it intoxicates.”

“No. You are bluffing.”

“I am not.” His voice seemed very near, in a single spot for the first time.

Bea pivoted around. He stood a yard away. The lamp burning on the table behind him did not seep through him. Instead it cast his body in an aura of gold, silhouetting him. Pale gray, almost ephemeral, his shadow stretched upon the ground.

Lord Rhys
Iversly
stood before her. The ghost of
Gwynedd
Castle was a man.

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN

Tremors seized Bea. “What is going on? You look—” she choked. “You look real.”

He tilted his head, and the light flickered around him. “I must be, briefly, to consummate our union.”

“It is not yet midnight.”

“It shall be in minutes, my dear. Then we shall both be free.”

“I do not want to be free of anything.”

“Are you certain of that?” he challenged.

“Yes. No!” She wrung her hands. “If you know so much, than you must know I no longer wish to be servant to my mother. But I will not trade that for servitude to you.”

“Not servitude.
Partnership.”

“Why are you so eager to continue as a ghost?” she demanded. “Do you wish to be freed of that existence or not?”

“A man becomes accustomed to life in whatever form he is allowed it. I suspect your young lord would have something to say to that, were he here.” His black gaze bored into hers.

Bea shook her head, backing to the door. “Are you speaking in riddles to confuse me? To make me agree to go with you or refuse you?”

“I do not offer riddles, only truth. You are, however, too late to grasp its bounty.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It matters not. You have but moments now.”

“No!” Bea grabbed the lamp, yanked the door open, and ran down the corridor. She found the door to the courtyard and bolted through it, her feet slipping on the grass in the courtyard, rain blinding her as she threw herself through the darkness. The eastern tower rose up before her, black, solid, enormous amidst the downpour. She wrenched up the door latch and stumbled in.

The space was entirely empty, a long cylinder of thick stone stretching up three stories into complete darkness. In the center of the round chamber, a rope hung lifeless from the void above.

A bell tower?
Dear Lord, it was like a mockery.

But it could not be real. It simply could not.

“Did you think to escape me?”

This time his voice came from above, echoing down from the belfry. No interior staircase circled the walls. Access to the bell had to be from the parapets. But he could not possibly have climbed that distance in such a short time.

“Are you corporeal yet?”

“Nearly,”
came
the ominous reply.

“Then why aren’t you down here? How can you still move from place to place like a spirit?” Bea spoke to prevent herself from screaming. Her lips and fingers were numb. Straw littered the floor, dry and crackling beneath her feet. She set down the lamp, her hands shaking so hard she feared to drop it and set the whole aflame.

He did not reply. Wind moaned through the belfry, drowning the sound of the spattering rain. In its cage, the bell wheel creaked into motion.

“But no one is ringing it!” Bea exclaimed as the rope began to swish across the dirt floor
.

“You think such a curse requires a human hand to put it into motion?”
Iversly’s
voice was horrible. “You cannot trick destiny, my dear.”

“This is not my destiny!”

“But it is the one you have chosen.”

The sound of the bell heaving into position drove dread down her back.

“So it begins,”
Iversly’s
voice cascaded through the tower, reverberations of hope in it that she did not want to hear.

A cold wind wrapped around Bea, her arms prickling. “What will happen?” 

“Choose now, and discover that for yourself.”

“That is not what I mean.”

“Then what, my dear?” he echoed.

Bea’s insides twisted. “What will you do?”

“After the final stroke of midnight, I will take full corporeal form long enough to take your body.” He paused. “Then I will take your soul.”

“Not if I can prevent it.” Tip’s voice cut across the tower like a summer wind, strong and warm. Bea whirled around, a sob choking her throat.

“Ah, the champion arrives,”
Iversly
uttered. “Barely in time,
it seems
.”

“Peter,” Bea breathed. “But Aunt Julia—”

“I have just spoken with her. She is in no danger from
Iversly
. He told her so. He wants you.”

The giant clapper tapped against the iron mass, preparing, the rope hanging from the darkness above beginning to dance.

Iversly
laughed from high up in the belfry, the sound rolling along the stone walls like icy water.

“Twelve chimes, my dear, then your fate will be sealed and freedom mine,” he called out.

“But—”

“Bea,” Tip moved toward her, the lamplight casting him in shadows. “You have no choice now.” He halted within reach. “I am sorry I cannot be the man you want, but I am here.”

The bell’s clang split the torch-lit dark, pounding into Bea’s blood and bones. Tip’s beautiful eyes were filled with compassion. He looked again like the man she had always loved.

“No,” her voice broke. “It is my fault. I am sorry.” 

“It will be all right.” He stepped forward, his body brushing hers, and his hands slid into her hair. The pad of his thumb stroked her trembling lower lip. “Trust me.”

Wide-eyed, she nodded. The huge bell chimed mercilessly again and a laugh as deep and horrible as the pit of hell sounded from above.
Two
.

Tip’s gaze shifted swiftly across her features,
then
locked with hers.

“Do you know what happens when a man and woman make love, Bea?”

“
Wh
—
What do you mean, what happens?” she croaked.

“How it is done.”

She nodded. Sylvia had told her, and teased her that she would be lucky if she ever experienced it. The awful iron clang came again, its echo spreading through the tower like evil.
Three
.

Tip took a fast, deep breath. “There isn’t time—” He ran his hand through his hair. “There isn’t time for anything.”

“For what?”
Her words trembled.

“To prepare you.”

“Prepare me?”

“There will be pain.
Possibly a great deal of it.”
The bell tolled, as though to emphasize his
hurried words, a fourth hated chime.

“All right.”
She bit her lip, her heart leaping unsteadily, breaths coming short. “Peter,” she whispered, “time is running out.”

He swallowed hard, the movement clearly visible above his cravat.

“Bea,” he spoke quickly, “when I kissed you, did you feel anything?
In your body, any stirrings of heat or dampness?”

Oh,
God
. How could this get worse? She’d felt
everything
. But how on earth could she say it aloud, to him, now, here? Why did he need to know
?

“This cannot be real,” she whispered, her voice a mere rasp.

The ghost’s hard laughter careened through the blackness above, the bell’s thunder following.
Five
.

Tip’s hands tightened. “Did you?”

She nodded. “Yes, a lot of—of stirring.”

His eyes seemed to darken. He bent his head and captured her mouth. Without delay his tongue swept across the seam of her lips, urging hers open and filling her with that delectable ache only he roused in her. Her hands found his arms, grasping at hard muscles. Her lips parted and heat flared below her belly, swirling and delicious. His tongue caressed her mouth, urging her to obey, to return his kiss and she did, desperately, her body growing hotter with each throb of her needy heart
.
She sank into his kiss with a sigh.

The bell clanged and Bea’s sigh became a gasp.
Six
.

“Don’t listen to it,” Tip ordered against her mouth, his voice low. “Put your arms around my neck, and hold on tight.”

Hold on tight?
Hold on
? The man she had loved without ceasing for years was commanding her to hold on to him tightly?

Bea’s last shard of resistance melted. She slipped her hands around his shoulders and clasped them behind his neck. He was wonderfully tall, and her breasts pressed against his firm chest, her nipples taut, shooting delectable sensations in a downward V through her body. Tip’s hand left her face, moving between them, against her abdomen, but he kept kissing her, his mouth more urgent now. She gave back eagerly, wanting more and needing to
not
think about how he must be unfastening his trousers. It was too alarming.
Too
real
.
She wanted him. She’d wanted him for years. But her nerves battled between desperate need and thorough fear.

His palm slid over her breast.

Yes
. This was what she wanted.
Peter
Cheriot
touching her, intimately caressing her.
Wanting
her.

Thunder boomed through the tower, or was that the bell? Tip pushed her gently to the wall, and chill air swished around her
stockinged
calves, then up, slipping across her bare thighs. She pressed her mouth against his as his hands gripped her hips, lifting her onto her tiptoes effortlessly it seemed. His thigh shifted between hers. She knew what came next, but her knees locked together and her hands shook clasping his neck.