Temptress (15 page)

His eyes caught a glimpse of her—long black hair that curled wildly around a small face. Her features were blurry as she passed, but he saw an image of a white dress that caught the firelight and eyes—incredible blue eyes—that stared at him as if he was more than a curiosity, as if he was a deep enigma. His throat nearly closed at the sight of her and the images faded and danced in his head. He felt he remembered her, so beautiful, but that was just a fleeting thought and he didn’t know how much of his memory was real nor how much his mind had created.

His head pounded. He wanted to scream. Instead he clenched his jaw and hoped she didn’t notice.

Her voice came to him again over the gentle hiss of the fire. “Some people claim you were in alliance with Graydynn, that you killed all the members of the family in an attempt to gain the lordship and that Graydynn then turned on you, named you as a murdering traitor. Is that possible?” She was suddenly closer to him, her warm breath fanning his face. “I wonder.”

He stared up at her through the slits that were his eyes, and in the shadowy light she didn’t seem to notice that he could see her. For a second, he thought perhaps he might be able to speak, to squeak out some words, but thought it better to hold his tongue, to listen and then plan his next move, if, indeed, he was able to.

She touched the side of his face with cool fingers and he fought the urge to flinch. Somehow he managed to feign unconsciousness. “Oh, Carrick,” she whispered, despair lacing her words. “How you vex me.” Her finger slid along the side of his jaw, along beard stubble and yet creating a sensitive path upon his bruised skin. “But then, you always have.”

He felt her tremble slightly. “What am I to do with you? Send you to Wybren and Graydynn’s justice? Keep you here as . . . a patient or a prisoner?” Her finger slid down his neck to rest at the crook of his shoulder, and despite his wretched pain, his concentration centered on that one spot where his bare skin met hers. Heat seemed to radiate from that one fragile point of union.

“I loved you, you miserable bastard,” she admitted, and a part of him wished she wouldn’t bare her soul. “I wanted to marry you, to have your children. . . .” Her voice caught and for a second he thought she was finished. Yet more words, angry now, boiled up from her, and the touch of her finger was stronger, as if she wished to poke him hard. “But you left me, didn’t you? For Alena, I’m told.”

Alena
. The name sparked a memory in him, yet he could not recall her image. She, too, had been his lover?

“ ’Tis a low cur who would steal his brother’s wife.”

His insides twisted. What was she saying? He bedded his brother’s wife?

“So, you see, Carrick, ’tis a difficult decision I have. How much do I owe you?” She paused, as if thinking. “Nothing!” she finally spat. “Less than nothing. You left me and our child for Alena.”

Our
child
? He had sired a babe? With her?

No . . . something was wrong here. Very wrong. Aye, he remembered Morwenna’s name and Alena’s as well, but . . . but he knew nothing of a child. He was certain of it. Mayhap he was imagining all this. His mind had been wandering and perhaps his weary brain was creating visions—dreams from the potion the physician had administered with the hot water and broth that had been spooned down his throat.

That was it. Perhaps he’d only imagined he’d been examined by the physician, listened to the drone of the priest’s dour prayers, felt all sorts of eyes upon him while he pretended sleep. Mayhap he’d been alone and they had all been apparitions. Imaginings. Just the other night he had been certain that a malevolent being had appeared, slipped through the solid wall, and stared down at him with evil intent. . . . This, too, could be a dream. That was it. The lady was not in his chamber.

But the pressure on his skin spoke otherwise and he closed his eyes completely.

Morwenna’s finger dragged along his shoulder toward his chest. His heart pounded. His blood heated. “By the gods, Carrick,” she hissed angrily, “I should have let you die!”

Despite her ire, he felt a swelling between his legs as the tip of her finger pressed to his neck, where, he was certain, if she looked she would see his pulse pounding erratically.

“Ah, Carrick.” She let the finger trail downward along his rib cage, causing the coverlet to bunch and his chest to be exposed to the cool air. Slowly she traced his breastbone, causing the pain in his ribs to turn into excruciating, seductive torture. “I lost you,” she admitted sadly. “I lost the babe. And mayhap it was all for the best.” Her voice broke a bit, and he felt a rending deep into his soul. What was it about this woman that touched him so? Why did her words scrape into his heart?

’Twas the medication the physician had given him, the foul-tasting stuff that had been forced across his tongue. Or the pain—that was it! He was creating enticing, erotic images because of the agony he’d endured. . . . This woman wasn’t really in the room with him. Or so he mutely prayed, for he felt his groin tightening and his cock respond to the erotic movements of her hand. Sweat dampened his brow and he bit down hard so as not to cry out as the coverlet slid ever lower, exposing more of his flesh to the cool air of the chamber. He let one eye open a slit as he watched her, neck bent, hair falling forward before she tossed it over her shoulder.

“If I remember, you had a birthmark on your thigh, near the juncture of your legs.”

What!
He nearly cried out.

In one swift motion, she tossed the coverlet aside, and he felt the brush of air upon his stiff shaft.

She gasped. “Holy Mother,” she said in a swift breath as she stared at his naked form with its rock-hard appendage pointed upward. “Carrick . . . oh, by the gods . . .” The coverlet was flung over him quickly, his member beneath the bedclothes shriveling. A flush of color bloomed up his neck even though a part of him wanted to laugh out loud.

Served her right.

“Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh . . . damn!” She blew out a long breath and glanced up at his face. “Can you hear me, you cur? Did you . . . no . . . oh, God, Carrick, you rotten, sick piece of dung, if you heard one word of what I said, I swear I’ll . . . I’ll cut out your miserable heart and
then
send you to Wybren and pay the hangman myself to dangle your body from the crenels!”

She hurried out of the chamber, her footsteps quick and frantic. He heard her start to stumble, swear, and then catch herself as she threw open the door.

“M’lady?” the guard asked. “Are you all right?”

“Fine, Sir James.”

“But you look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

“I said I’m fine,” she repeated breathlessly, and then the door slammed shut and he was alone. Again.

CHAPTER TWELVE

From his hiding spot, the Redeemer watched in silent, white-hot fury. A bad taste climbed up his throat and he was shaking in the tight, musty passageway. He had heard only bits of her whispered conversation, not enough to piece together what she was saying, but he witnessed the pained look upon her face, noticed how her finger lingered and trailed over the wounded man’s flesh, and then how she’d tossed off the coverlet in a burst of anger, gasped, then thrown it over him quickly again. As if the sight of his manhood had stunned her.

From his position, with her body blocking his view of the patient, the Redeemer hadn’t caught a glimpse of the naked man, but from her reaction, he assumed she saw something that shocked her . . . something out of place.

Was the man so powerfully endowed—like a rutting stallion? Or just the opposite, his member tiny and flaccid?

Or missing?

Whatever the case, Morwenna had been repulsed and enraged.

Though it appeared as if the man on the bed hadn’t moved a muscle, instantly Morwenna had sputtered and spat invectives as she’d backed away from the patient she’d heretofore been so insistent upon protecting.

Perhaps things were changing for the better.

The Redeemer waited for a few minutes and then slipped quietly down the familiar passageways to his favorite spot where he could view her chamber. Nose pressed to the smooth stones, he silently watched as she stripped off her long white tunic, flung herself onto her bed, and pounded her fist upon the bedclothes, startling her sleeping dog and sending him barking crossly.

“Hush, Mort!” she commanded irritably.

Ah, she was a wild one. The Redeemer watched her release her fury and he considered what it would be like to mount her, to place his teeth on the back of her neck, to enter her and ride her hard, pushing against her, listening to her pant, twining his hands into the thick rope of her black hair or reaching around her and grasping her breasts in his hands, gripping them so hard she would cry out with a blissful agony.

It was difficult waiting for it.

Envisioning the future.

Planning for that inevitable night and remaining patient.

He ran the tip of his tongue around his suddenly dry lips and stared down at her, her temper now reined in, her legs drawn up and one arm flung around her knees, her other hand rubbing the scruff of the old dog’s neck as he quieted. Black hair fell in unruly waves down her arms and back. She was without a doubt the most seductively beautiful woman the Redeemer had ever set eyes upon.

He lowered his hand to the uncomfortable bulge pressing against the laces of his breeches. Slowly he undid the leather strings and let his fingers reach inside.

He stiffened.

Anticipating.

His fingers surrounded his cock and he thought about the future and the delights it would hold.

Would it not be sweet, sweet justice to savagely claim her as his own?

 

In the small alcove that was her room, Isa used her dagger and carved a rune for protection into the single white candle. Then she tied a black string around the candle’s base before positioning it in a ring of seven smooth stones she’d anointed with oil and placed in a large platter.

Ignoring the feeling that unseen eyes were watching her, she carefully scattered herbs over the stones. Her heart was beating wildly, her nerves strung tight. If Father Daniel discovered that she was practicing her magic within the keep, he would be furious, banish her, thrust her old bones into the deadly winter alone, but she had to risk his wrath.

Too much was at stake to worry for her own safety.

She felt the malevolence within the cold walls of Calon, sensed a dark, living evil that seemed to ooze throughout the castle.

How many nights had Isa woken from a vivid dream of such dark foreboding that she’d barely been able to breathe? Each time she’d witnessed a faceless phantom, his features hidden in a dark cowl, his identity murky as he brought death and destruction to those she loved.

Nay, she could not trust Father Daniel to protect this keep from the curse that was Carrick of Wybren. Daniel was a weak man whose piety seemed a sham, a facade behind which he hid. As for Carrick of Wybren, he was cut from the same fabric as his father: a man who could not leave a maiden untouched. Had there not been rumors abounding about Dafydd of Wybren’s wenching ways for years? A few had lived, others had been born dead, others had been rumored to have been born defective, only to linger and die early on, the result of a curse Lady Myrnna had asked an old sorceress to invoke.

Isa cringed at the memory. Lady Myrnna had come in the night, pleading with her to do something,
any
thing to stop her husband’s whoring. Though she’d pretended Dafydd’s rutting with others hadn’t bothered her, she’d been shamed to her soul and had threatened to take her own life. Isa’s sister, Enid, had refused to help Myrnna, and so Myrnna had traveled to Penbrooke and begged Isa for the favor.

Now it seemed that age-old curse had come back to haunt her in the form of Carrick of Wybren, for Isa was certain the near-dead man was he.

From the moment the wounded man had been carried through the gates of Calon, Isa had sensed the evil within the keep increase. Pulse with life. Grow restless. And the ever-changing, sinister malevolence had become more bold and dangerous. She felt its hot breath against her back.

But she had to be strong.

To fight.

As she was this night.

Using a piece of straw she’d taken from a broomstick, she touched the dry blade to a rushlight and watched as the thin little strip ignited. Carefully she lit the candle. A single bright flame flickered in the small room, casting eerie shadows upon the wall and reflecting in the bowl of water sitting near the taper.

“Great Mother, be with us,” Isa whispered, her old heart beating frantically. “Bless this keep and hold it safe.”

The wick sizzled. Beeswax began to melt down the sides of the single candle in thin streams. As she prayed, the warm wax reached the taper’s base, streaming over the black thread, heating the crushed herbs, and scenting the still, cloying air with laurel, Saint-John’s-wort, and rue.

Isa closed her eyes and softly chanted. “Morrigu, Great Mother, hear my plea. Keep us safe. Banish the evil from within these walls. Morrigu, Great Mother, hear my plea. . . .” Over and over she whispered the words, reaching upward to touch the worn stone with a hole upon it dangling from her braided leather necklace. Ever faster she chanted, as the minutes passed by. She rocked slightly to the rhythm of her own words, felt the spirits within the castle moving. She concentrated solely on ridding the castle of all evil. “Morrigu, Great Mother, hear my plea. Keep us safe. Banish—”

She felt it then.

The shift.

A repositioning of the stars and moon.

Her old heart clutched as she opened her eyes, her words failing her as she saw the candle, burned half down. Beyond the melted taper was the bowl of water, where the still surface and her own reflection began to swirl with shadowy images that moved faster and faster, as if a whirlpool were within the shallow basin. The reflection of her face became distorted and twisted, her mouth opening wide as if in a silent, horrible scream.