The Fraser Bride (34 page)

She stilled her expressive hands and raised her small chin. Her lips, bright as holly berries, were already pursed, and her expression suddenly aloof. “I asked you here to request that you leave Evermyst.”

He hurried to match her cool change of moods. “May I ask why?”

“You do not belong here. You are not a Fraser.”

He said nothing.

“My people—they fear you. You are disrupting the order of things.” Even her hands were perfectly poised now, and he found, to his consternation, that he could not possibly play the game so well as she. For despite everything, he could not see her without thinking of her naked.

“And what order is that, Notmary?”

She paused for a moment, then said, “You must leave.”

“Because you do not want me here?” he asked, stepping forward. “Or because you are worried for me?” He was close enough now to see the cobalt flecks in her eyes.

“I do not want—” she whispered, but in that moment he kissed her. When he drew back, she was pale and shaken.

“Please.” Her voice was naught but a sliver of sound, and he gloried in her lack of composure. “You must leave.”

“Because of the spirit?”

“I … I do not know. I thought ‘twas …” She paused, looking frantic.

“You thought it was who?” he asked, but she shook her head.

“There is none here who would harm you,” she whispered. “None who is living, at least.”

“I’ve found little reason to believe in spirits, lass.”

She turned away. “Evermyst is haunted. All know that.”

“And that has stood you in good stead, has it not? After all, if the spirit can best the Munro, what enemy would be safe?”

“Regardless of what you think, no living soul killed the Munros.”

“Thus ‘twas this Senga?”

“I have no other explanation.”

“And now she is bent on killing me?”

She shook her head as if her thoughts were boiling in her mind. “I do not know. I only know that you must leave before ‘tis too—”

“Anora.” He grasped her arms in a steady grip. “Who is it who wants me gone?”

Her face was as pale as death. “I know of no one. No one of flesh and blood.”

“Then I cannot leave.”

She turned her hands so that she grasped his sleeves in desperate fingers. “Why? To prove yourself yet again? To make me love you only to lose you?”

His heart tripped in his chest, and for a moment he could not breathe. “Do you love me?”

“I will not if you die! I swear it, MacGowan! If you—”

He kissed her thoroughly, only drawing back when she felt limp in his arms. “I have no intention of dying, lass.”

“Then you will leave?”

“I cannot.”

She drew slowly away, her expression suddenly blank and her back very stiff. “Then I’ll not mourn your death.”

He wanted to pull her close and lose himself in her, but her nearness jumbled his thoughts—and just now he needed a clear head. “Why are you so certain I will die?”

Her eyes gleamed with wetness. ” ‘Tis what happens to those …” She halted, her lips pursed and her chin high.

“To those you love?” he asked.

“I’ll
not
mourn you,” she said, and yanking the door open, rushed into the night.

Ramsay lay in the darkness. Sleep, dark and seductive, called to him, but he dared not let it in, for he waited. Someone wanted him gone, but did they also want him dead? And if so, why? Fuzzy half-formed questions smothered him. Fatigue wore at him. It would have been simpler if he could leave his bed, if he could pace, but he could not—for whoever had breached the sanctity of his room would only do so again if they thought him unconscious. And so he lay fighting sleep, counting off the hours with the toll of the friar’s small bell.

Some distance from the door, the cradle was silent, empty but for the blankets that lay in a bundle there, since things were so uncertain. What if the grudge held against him extended to the babe? What if her wee life was in danger? His heart contracted, and for a moment he was tempted to race out of his room to check on the babe’s well being. But she was safer with Helena than with him. Mary was safe. Anora was safe. ‘Twas his own life that was vulnerable, or so the miscreant must think. For miscreant it surely was. A person of flesh and blood, and a person he could best.

Yet how had any person been so silent as to sneak into his chambers unnoticed?

He imagined a shadow falling across his door. It paused and then, like a wisp of smoke, it slipped beneath his portal and flowed toward the cradle. He heard it rock gently, but in a moment the quiet noise ceased. He felt the shadow turn, felt its coolness fall across his bed, but no evil seemed forthcoming, only a calm sort of consideration, as if someone was watching him sleep. Yes, that was it. She wished him no harm. She was a kindly soul, after all. Small and fragile, she only worried for her kin. Thus she stood at the foot of his bed and—

Christ! He sat up with a jerk and glanced frantically about the room. It was empty. He was alone, and yet— did the cradle still rock slightly? Nay ‘twas his imagination, he assured himself. His heart raced and his head felt woolly, but all was well. No brigands had interrupted his solitude. No spirit had invaded his chambers. It was nothing more than a dream, no matter how tangible the presence had seemed.

Cautious, stiff, he lay back down. Minutes ticked away. Shadowy thoughts crept back into his mind with insidious softness, soothing, lulling. Somewhere in the darkness a dove sang. Its sweet voice reminded him of Anora. How she spoke. How she felt in his arms, in his bed.

He murmured her name like a dream, and then, in the deepest recesses of his mind, he sensed a movement.

Someone in his room—near the cradle! He jerked to a sitting position and a white figure spun toward him with a gasp. A ray of light from the window slanted across her face.

“Anora!” Her name rasped from his lips. She leapt toward the door, but he was closer. He stumbled out of bed. Blankets tangled and knotted around him, but he wrestled free, blocking her path. “Anora,” he whispered again.

She backed away, a pale, ghostly form in the darkness.

“Why?” he whispered, but in that instant she pivoted away. ‘Twas then he noticed the open window.

She flew toward it, while he, mired in sleep and blankets, stumbled after. For a fraction of a moment she paused on the windowsill. He saw her pale face turn toward him for an instant, and then, like a freed lark, she soared into the inky sky. The moonlight shone on her pale billowing gown for a frozen moment, and then she was gone.

He couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. Then, broken free from immobility, he dove for the window. “Anora!” he yelled. Panic washed him in cold waves. “Nay!” he cried, and scrambled frantically onto the ledge to search for her, but she was gone. Disappeared. Broken on the rocks below. He knew it, and with that knowledge, his will to live was also broken.

“Anora,” he whispered and leaned into the wind.

“MacGowan!”

He turned with a start, nearly falling as he did so.

“MacGowan, what are you doing?” Anora raced forward. Her pale gown, made diaphanous by her lantern, billowed behind her.

“Lass.” He whispered the word and stepped, entranced, from the window. “You were just …” He glanced sideways, into the endless darkness. “Here.”

“What has happened? What is wrong?”

“You …” He scowled, lost in his dreams, in his misty uncertainties. “Someone … was here.”

“Senga?” she whispered, her tone awed. “In truth?”

He shook his head, disoriented and baffled. The room danced. “Through the wall?”

“What?”

“If she is not flesh, why not go through the wall?” he asked, and turned toward the door. The floor seemed to tilt beneath him, but he remained upright. ” ‘Twas not a ghost. ‘Twas a person, and we shall find her body down below.”

“Nay!”

Ramsay turned, trying to read her tone, but she was already racing to the door, lantern held high. She did not fly down the steps, as he had expected, but rushed toward her chambers. Once there, she pulled aside a hanging tapestry and wrenched a wooden panel from the wall. Ducking into the dark passageway, she hurried down into the heart of Evermyst.

Ramsay followed, down, down into darkness, until he saw the slightest glimmer of light shining around a bend.

“Who goes there?”

” ‘Tis your mistress.” Anora’s voice was breathy. “Ready the boat.”

Someone stepped out of the darkness. “Is that you, me lady?”

“Aye.”

“You have need of the boat? At this hour?”

“Now!” she snapped.

They were in the water in a minute. Glancing up the sheer face of the rock, Ramsay calculated the location of his window, and there they searched, up and down the precipitous shoreline. But they found nothing.

Finally, strangely exhausted and confused, Ramsay followed the lantern light up the tunnel toward Anora’s chambers once more. In the circle of light her face was as pale as death. The panel creaked open and they stepped into the flickering light of the room.

“Me lady!” Anora’s maid stood beside the bed, one narrow hand sheltering a feeble flame. “I heard your door open and came to make certain all was well. I have been worried sick. Where have you been?”

“Isobel!” Anora whispered, and as she stepped forward, the lantern wobbled in her slim hand. “You are …” She paused inches from the maid. “There is no cause for worry. The MacGowan thought someone was in his chamber.”

“His chamber?” the girl asked, turning wide eyes to Ramsay.

“Aye. He thought ‘twas a woman, and that she … dove from the window toward the sea.”

Isobel blanched and stumbled back a step, crossing herself as she did so. “Lord save us.”

“You heard nothing from his room?” Anora asked. Ramsay concentrated on the conversation, trying to decipher her hard tone of voice, but it was strangely difficult, as if his mind still slept.

“Nay,” Isobel gasped. “Do you suppose it was Senga, warning him away?”

“Nay!” Anora’s voice was hoarse. “Why would she?”

The women’s gazes met and locked. “I know not,” Isobel whispered, wide eyed. “But ‘twould be a pity and a shame if your champion met the same fate as the Munros. Dead before their time.”

“What do you think killed Ironfist Munro, Isobel?” Ramsay asked, but the girl only shrugged. She looked paler than ever tonight, her lips so light they held almost the hue of lavender.

“I know not what killed the Munro.” Isobel ducked her head. Her ugly cap shadowed her face, and her baggy gown seemed more drab than ever in the gloomy darkness. “But ‘tis said it was by Senga’s hand.”

“Senga.” He did not believe in ghosts, yet when he said her name it was little more than a whisper. “Have you seen her?”

“Nay, but I have felt her,” Isobel murmured.

The whisper of a shiver breezed up Ramsay’s spine, weakening his knees, but he locked them hard and focused on the moment. “So you know not how she looks?” he asked.

Isobel flickered her gaze nervously to Anora and away. “In truth, me laird, all know how she looks.”

He turned, concentrating hard. Sleep crowded in on his senses. “How?” he asked, and in one hazy moment, Anora turned away, bidding him to follow.

‘Twas not far that they went, just down the darkened hall to the solar. There, beside the far wall, Anora lifted her lantern. The circle of light rose until, looking down at him from a gilded frame, was Anora in her youth—her golden hair loosed, her blue eyes alight. But there was something different. Gone was Anora’s aloof nature. In its place was a gentleness, a carefree happiness. It drew him in, transfixed him, for it seemed almost that she smiled for him alone, for him and the future they held together.

“When was this commissioned?” he murmured, still falling into the glistening eyes.

“A hundred years ago.”

Ramsay’s dreamy thoughts crumbled. “What?”

She lifted her chin slightly. ” ‘Tis not me, but Senga,” she said, and Ramsay, feeling the earth give way under his feet, toppled to the floor.

* * * * *

He was waking! Anora held her breath. Of course he awoke. He was strong. Invincible. He had bested the Munro; surely he would awake. Yet her hands still shook as she watched his eyes open.

His lashes, ridiculously long and full, lifted like the rising sun. His dark gaze roamed the room for an instant, then settled on her face. “What happened?”

She tightened her hands in her skirt, careful not to let them caress his rough cheek, to feel the pulse that thrummed in his broad throat. “You swooned.”

“Swooned?”

His tone was dry, but devoid of the haziness and uttered delusions of the previous night. It had been almost as if he were drugged. But surely she wouldn’t have … Anora clamped down on the thought. ” ‘Tis not uncommon when one has been wounded.”

He watched her in silence for a moment, his dark eyes steady. “You think ‘twere me wounds that caused me to lose consciousness?”

“Of course.” She tried not to look at him, but God help her, she could not stop herself. “What else?”

“A sleeping potion, mayhap?”

She jerked involuntarily. “What?”

His eyes were deadly level. “Someone wished me to sleep soundly.”

Though she tried to drag her gaze away, she could not.

“Someone poisoned me mead,” he said. “I should have realized it earlier.”

Fear knotted her belly. “Nay.”

“Who was it?”

” ‘Twas no one. You are deluded.”

“Was it you?”

“Nay!” She leapt to her feet, but his hand clasped her wrist, pulling her back down.

“How did you do it?” he asked, his face inches from her. “How did you exit by the window, then enter by the door? Why are you not dead?”

She said nothing, fear clogging the words in her throat.

“Are you a witch?” he whispered.

Panic erupted inside her. “Nay!” she gasped, and jerking from his grip, stumbled backward. “You may stay the day while I ready your entourage. But on the morrow you will leave,” she said, and turned shakily toward the door.

“Anora,” he said, and though she knew better, she turned toward him, her breath stopped in her throat.