Patricia Rice (15 page)

But he wouldn’t listen to her about Father Oswald and Lady Anne, and his aura was still murky. She did not understand why he’d changed so. She understood grief over the loss of his family, but this change was far more than that.

She poured some hot tea and noticed the servants had brought several bottles of wine as well. She did not much like wine. It made her giddy, and she was already having difficulty keeping her head around Harry.

She heard him splashing in the bath, which made her even giddier than wine. Fanning herself with her hand, she set down the teacup. Her heart was racing, and her breasts were entirely too sensitive to the gauzy material caressing them.

She glanced around suspiciously for her mother’s scented candles of seduction, but the ones burning on the table and dresser seemed to be perfectly innocuous beeswax.

“Here, let me draw the table closer to the fire for you.”

Startled from her reverie, Christina almost leaped at the sound of Harry’s voice.

He had bathed with amazing speed. His hair glistened from a good scrubbing, and she could see a dab of soap clinging to his unshaven jaw. She watched warily as he removed the screen from in front of the fire. Perhaps she should have handed him a nightshirt to wear under that loose robe. She would have felt remotely more respectable.

He carried a drop-leaf table over to the fire, set up the leaves, then carried the dinner tray over without spilling a bit of tea.

“We shouldn’t leave Meg to dine alone,” she murmured.

“I’m certain she has dined alone frequently. It is not our duty to entertain her.” Harry took her arm to guide her to a chair he set before the table. “My responsibility is to take care of you and keep you well.”

His solicitous concern was heartwarming, but she knew Harry too well. He wanted something, and she had a good idea what.

“Will you listen to me about Father Oswald?” she asked, refusing to accompany him to his cozily prepared dinner until she had the answer she wanted.

“You may chatter about him all you like in front of me, but not in front of the servants,” he said sternly. “You will frighten them.”

He’d brushed aside her blanket to hold her arm, and she could feel the heat of his palm through the delicate fabric of her nightclothes. Their bare toes practically touched. With interest, she inched forward so she could rub her toes against his. She tilted her head back to read his reaction to that intimacy.

Harry’s gaze burned with desire, but he was clenching his jaw in an attempt to resist. He really did wish to take care of her. Perhaps he would even cherish her. She shouldn’t ask more of him than he was capable of giving.

Surrendering to her fascination, Christina rubbed her fingertips over the silky hairs on Harry’s chest. “You really must learn to believe me about your family ghosts, Harry,” she warned, admiring the way his muscles swelled beneath her touch.

Boldly, he wrapped his arm around her waist and drew her forward, so that she understood the full extent of his desire and that she was about to be very roundly tupped if she did not cure her insatiable curiosity soon.

The observer fluttering nervously about the room kept her from losing her head entirely. Lady Anne had company this time. A purple aura waited patiently in the corner.

“The ghosts have never bothered me in all the years I lived here, Christina. I have no desire to meet them now.”

Harry lowered his mouth to hers, and before she could succumb to such excellent temptation, she patted his shoulder.

“You might want to rethink that, Harry,” she said, dodging his lips and pulling back to look past him.

Puzzled, he searched her face. “I don’t wish to rethink anything, Christina. We have a marriage we need to get on with.”

“And so we shall, but not with Lady Anne and Father Oswald watching. We ought to see what they want. I have learned it is not wise to ignore a ghost.”

She pushed away, leaving Harry gaping while she donned her slippers. When she started for the door connecting to the next chamber, Harry roared and shoved the nearest chair in front of it.

Unperturbed, Christina picked up a candlestick from the dresser and departed through the hall door—hurrying after the ghosts who had been patiently awaiting her attention ever since Harry had carried their dinner into the room.

Grabbing clean breeches and hopping about to don them under his robe, Harry shouted “Christina!” at the top of his lungs in a vague hope she’d stop for him. She didn’t. The tail of her gown swung around the doorway and disappeared into the hall, elusive as the ghosts she claimed to see.

What did he need with resident spirits? He’d married one.

Sliding his feet into slippers, wishing he had time to don a shirt, Harry grabbed another candle and ran after her. He couldn’t believe the little minx had so thoroughly hoodwinked him. Her announcement that ghosts were watching had doused much of his ardor, but his loins still ached abominably, denied the relief she’d promised with her winsome ways.

He’d been certain that had been desire in her eyes. He’d been so damned close…

The white lace of her robe trailed around an arch at the other end of the hall. Harry raced after it, not knowing whether he ought to throw her over his shoulder and haul her kicking and screaming back to the bedroom or just protect her from herself by tying her up in the blanket and carrying her back as if she were the spoiled child she was behaving like. It was freezing in these old halls. She’d just been thoroughly chilled in the pond, and she was racing about with her hair still wet.

Their mutual bed would be far warmer and more pleasant.

“
Christina
,” he shouted in alarm when she disappeared down a far corridor, and he realized where she was headed. He increased his pace, but his heavy tread upon the old floors must have vibrated the ancient timbers. The rusting suit of armor guarding the stairwell between the manor and the castle swayed. Before Harry could leap to catch it, it tumbled in his path. Catching his slipper on the hauberk, he tripped and almost fell with it.

With sheer frustration, he grabbed the battle-ax that could have cut off his toes and clutching it in his hand, took the stairs at a reckless pace to catch up with Christina.

“Christina, these floors aren’t stable! Come back here.”

“These have recently been repaired,” Christina called back. “Father Oswald wouldn’t lead me anywhere dangerous.”

“Your Father Oswald nearly decapitated me back there.” Too furious to be reasonable, Harry was almost upon her when she seemingly walked through a wall at the bottom of the stairs. He stared blankly at the stones confronting him.

“That was probably General Rothbottom. Lady Anne has indicated that he hates being disturbed.” Her reply floated from beyond the partition. “I suspect the general caused the dreadful laughter when I first entered this section. According to the journal she showed me, your ancestor was a bit of a scoundrel.”

General
Rothbottom?

Perplexed, Harry studied the wall. Christina wasn’t a ghost. She couldn’t walk through walls. He slammed the heel of his hand on one stone after another until the one below a wooden shelf shifted. The wall groaned, and he shoved harder.

“Be careful,” she warned, her voice echoing down the chilly stairwell he’d exposed. “It’s been well oiled and slams quickly.”

“Where the devil…” He didn’t have to ask, he knew. She’d been exploring where he’d told her not to go—the old castle. And not just the castle, but one of the blamed rotting thirteenth-century towers.

Racing down narrow stone stairs hollowed by the feet of untold guards and servants over the centuries, Harry managed to keep sight of Christina’s trailing robe as they circled downward.

Fury warred with concern in an unpleasant combination that threatened to spin Harry’s logic out his ears. His father had fallen off the bloody stone parapet on the roof of this place because the stones gave way. It couldn’t be safe.

Heart in his throat as Christina disappeared beyond a bend, Harry almost tripped over the last shallow stair. Clutching the battle-ax tighter as if that would fight off any disaster looming ahead, he held his candle high to illuminate the damp passage. They had to be beneath the castle, in some corner of the dungeon.

“Christina!” he shouted.

“Over here.” She sounded more puzzled than alarmed. “Father Oswald disappeared in here, but I cannot figure out how to enter.” She stood in an arched niche in the stone wall, her candle held high as she examined what appeared to be a mortar wall where a door should be.

“There are no such things as ghosts,” Harry roared at her. “Nothing can go through that wall. The place is full of niches like that. We stick statues in them.”

“If Father Oswald went in there, it’s not just a niche, Harry,” she answered sternly. “He’s trying to tell us something.”

The niche had no purpose that Harry could discern, but he was too furious to care. He’d had his wife in his arms, her lush lips against his, her eyes heated with desire—and he wanted her back where she belonged, not down here endangering her neck in a murderous castle that ought to be reduced to rubble.

Without another thought beyond slaying his enemy, he set down his candle and slammed the ax into the crumbling mortar.

A huge chunk of debris hit the stones of the dungeon floor.

Christina shrieked and leaped out of his way.

Relishing the release of tension, Harry smashed the ax into the wall again, letting his muscles do the work rather than reason with Christina. Dust rose in the air, coating the walls and him as the rotting wall fell in chunks beneath his blows.

Eager to see inside, Christina still had the sense to stand back while Harry wielded his weapon. Amazed at the methodical power with which he shattered the solid wall, she almost forgot her reason for being down here. Never in all her years had she imagined laughing Harry, her friendly dancing partner, could turn into a warrior on the rampage. He almost seemed to
enjoy
the destruction.

Watching Harry’s robed shoulders and arms swinging rhythmically, she missed the moment he broke through the layers of wall into the room beyond. Only when he stopped swinging the ax and rested against it to peer inside with amazement did she wake to the moment.

After the noise of earlier, the passage echoed with silence. A rank stench of moldering cold air poured from the concealed chamber while they stared into its darkness.

The drip, drip of water was the only sound as their candles illuminated the strange sight within. Crude rock walls and earth supported the tower above the chamber. Moss coated the stones from which a steady trickle oozed over an ancient carving of a man and a bull. A stone table grew out of the rocky floor.

On the table sat a tall goblet covered in cobwebs and filth. The gold of the cup and the gems encrusting the stem still gleamed in the dim light, despite centuries of neglect.

“Oh my,” Christina murmured in wonder, lifting her candle and daring to peer around Harry. “A chalice.”

She thought Harry muttered something inappropriate like
holy
shit
, but perhaps she’d misheard. She shifted to stand in front of him, but he caught her waist and hauled her behind him again.

“There could be rats or worse,” he reminded her.

“What could be worse than rats?” Shivering, she stayed where he placed her. She might be intrepid, but she wasn’t stupid.

“Spiders, snakes, mantraps, for all I know.” Taking her question literally, Harry knocked out a few remaining splinters of timber and mortar to widen the passage. “I’m not sure my father was responsible for this wall. This seems to be an old chapel.”

“Grotto, more like.” Studying the green moss on the walls and the spring trickling over the stones, Christina was convinced this was once a holy place for those who worshipped forbidden gods. “Cromwell’s army probably threw the Catholic artifacts in with the old Roman statues and sealed them all together because they were pagan.”

Harry whispered another inappropriate comment and finished clearing the hole with a little more reverence than earlier. “That looks like the sun god, Mithras, on the wall. I wonder if they might have baths down here.”

“In a grotto?” Growing braver, Christina edged beneath his arm. The stone altar in the center of the rocky cavern held a fascinating array of artifacts, but the golden chalice threw back the light from their candles as if it weren’t coated in the grime of ages. “I hate to tell you, but that could very well be a Druidic altar,” she said.

“That’s possible if the castle was built over a Roman ruin. The Romans tried to bury the local gods.” Satisfied that nothing dangerous would slither through the opening, Harry held his candle high and entered.

He lifted the chalice in awe. “This has to be worth a fortune.”

“Harry!” Assuming he jested, Christina elbowed him aside to examine the rest of the contents of the altar. “Poor Father Oswald, these must be the remains of his vestments.” She sifted through the rotted litter to produce visible threads of gold. “No wonder he haunts the place. Do you think they killed him?”

Harry surveyed the other objects on the high table. “The castle is so riddled with hiding holes that he’d have to be an idiot to be caught.”

A stone basin flew off the altar of its own accord, crashing to the floor but not shattering.

Harry stared at the basin rocking quietly now that it had quit flying on its own. “I’d say the good priest wasn’t an idiot.” The basin settled. “Or the draft down here is a bit capricious,” he added with dry sarcasm.

Absorbed in exploring the altar, Christina refrained from comment. Judging from his aura and his patience, Father Oswald was the most saintly ghost occupying Harry’s halls, but even he had the right to communicate as he could when being called an idiot. Especially after he’d had the intelligence to communicate the whereabouts of this hiding place.

After warily examining the less valuable bits of silver and glass as if they might take flight at any time, Harry raised his candle to the walls. “That has to be a genuine Roman carved stone of Mithras killing the bull. I had no idea my ancestors built upon a Roman fortress.”

“You may thank Father Oswald for the knowledge.” Captivated by the astonishing array of ancient artifacts, Christina poked through the altar’s contents, finding a pearl pin but nothing else she could easily name.

Before she knew that Harry was behind her, he swept her off the damp stone floor.

“Take the chalice. That’s too valuable to leave in an open vault.”

“Harry!” Wriggling in protest, Christina attempted to regain her feet, but Harry held her over the altar so she could reach for Father Oswald’s most precious possession.

The priest’s aura hovered into view the instant she reached for the chalice. She could swear she almost heard his sigh of relief as she wrapped the precious goblet in the blanket she’d thrown around her shoulders.

“Harry, put me down,” she whispered, uncomfortable at having Harry’s antics watched by a priest. “I’m perfectly capable of walking.”

“The floor is wet and your slippers are soaked. And that blanket won’t keep you warm much longer. I’ll not have you becoming chilled.”

“You can’t carry me up all those stairs,” she said in amazement as he seemed prepared to do just that.

She didn’t want to add that if he hurt himself, they wouldn’t be able to have a wedding night anytime soon. He’d fly up the stairs with her if she said any such thing. Instead, she did her best to think as he did. “The passage is too narrow and I’ll bruise my toes and elbows. Just take me out of the wet part, then put me down.”

To her surprised delight, her husband actually listened, gently setting her on her own two feet when they reached a dry landing. As a reward, she handed him the chalice. “It is extremely heavy, Harry. Do you know someone who can polish and restore it? Judging from his colors, Father Oswald is in pure bliss right now.”

“I might want to store it in the chapel, then,” he said drily, hefting the goblet beneath his arm so he could place a free hand at the small of her back and hurry her up the stairs. “Heaven forbid that the good man should hover in our chamber, watching over it.”

“Oh, excellent thought! Will it be safe there?”

“I’ll lock the door. We may have to find other means of protecting it later, but I cannot imagine any of the servants noticing it, the way it looks as it is. And I don’t think the lock will keep Father Oswald out.”

He still spoke of their ghostly company with skepticism—or outright sarcasm in this case—but he wasn’t outright denying their existence. She supposed he was simply accepting that she believed in ghosts as he’d accepted her search for brownies, but that was more than any other man of her acquaintance would.

Christina nearly danced the rest of the way to the chapel, where Harry deposited the grime-encrusted chalice in its place on the medieval altar. Glancing over her shoulder as they left, Christina saw Father Oswald hovering over the precious goblet, rubbing it adoringly.

“You’ve done a marvelous thing, Harry,” she murmured as they hurried through the cold corridors to their warm chamber. “That poor man must have spent centuries, waiting for someone to restore the chalice to its rightful place.”

Harry looked guilty as he opened their door and held it for her. “Do not read too much into this. That goblet could be the answer to more prayers than Father Oswald’s.”

Not liking the tone of his voice, Christina studied his aura. For the first time since he’d asked her to marry him, she saw the brighter colors she thought of as Harry’s. Could finding a long-forgotten chalice make that much difference to him? Why?

“Do you believe me about Father Oswald now?” she asked, trying not to load the question with too much importance.

In their absence, the servants had cleaned up the mess they’d created in their room and carried off the bath. Their uneaten dinner congealed on the plates before the fire. Dropping her damp blanket, Christina poured some tepid tea and sipped it while Harry reached for a bottle of wine.

She loved the way he looked at her right now. She was quite certain that was the color of desire dominating his aura, but she didn’t need her gift to see the way his eyes closed halfway to focus on her and naught else. She stood in front of the firelight, knowing he could see straight through the frail fabric of her nightshift. “Harry?” she reminded him.