The Sixth Labyrinth (The Child of the Erinyes Book 4) (20 page)

He walked to the inn, only half noting how empty the lane was. When he opened the door, the bell jangled. Quickly he reached up and muffled it, giving in to a desire to surprise her.

What was this odd silence? He ventured along the corridor, glancing into the parlor, taproom, and kitchen. All stood empty. Pausing at the bottom of the staircase, he wondered how badly he’d be flouting etiquette if he ascended.

Bother. Where could she be? The grandfather clock in the parlor sounded the half-hour as he climbed the stairs.

Closed doors lined either side of the hall, but he remembered her room from the night he’d carried her there, limp and pale after the fight with her aunt. He hoped she didn’t possess a sickly disposition. Then he remembered the energy she’d displayed during their intimate afternoon, and told himself Morrigan Lawton had never known a day of illness in her life.

The door swung open at his hesitant push. His paramour lay on the bed, tangled in coarse sheets, her braid stretched across the pillow. After cautious admiration of the naked ankle and foot peeking out from the edge of the bedclothes, he snapped open his pocket watch. Nine thirty-two. Why was she asleep? Where were Beatrice and Douglas? With a glance down the hallway, he entered, laid the flowers on the bed, and bent over her.

“Morrigan.” He kissed her ear and twined the plait around his fingers. The girl damn well stole his reason. It had to be more than lying with her. He hadn’t had much trouble enjoying female companionship since the age of fourteen, when a crofter’s daughter from the next parish had lured him into an abandoned blackhouse.

No female could spellbind him because of one afternoon of simple pleasure.
Spellbind
. Interesting choice of words. It revived an old memory of gossip he’d overheard as a young lad. There had been tales of Morrigan’s dead mother. Mention of Hannah never failed to bring on dour headshakings and a heartfelt
tisk
or two.

Witch
, some had declared, crossing themselves. Fionna Dunbar had stated that Hannah held a strange power over men, and could make them do almost anything for a chance of winning her favor.

Too bonny for her own good
, he remembered Fionna saying.
Shameless, through and through
.

Satan took her home
, someone else had ventured.

Curran slipped the tie from the end of Morrigan’s braid and unraveled her hair. It sprang to life, full of waves, undulating like sand dunes on the Sahara. Today it was as dark as coffee, but the day they’d spent together on the moor it had displayed seductive glints of red, like slow-burning embers, and had felt warm, sumptuous, in his hands.

Perhaps Hannah’s daughter had cast a spell on him.

His old friend, Seaghan MacAnaugh, remained unmarried to this day, rumor claimed because he hadn’t forgotten Hannah Stewart or recovered from their broken engagement. Curran never asked and Seaghan never broached the subject, but every month since the man had returned to Glenelg, flowers appeared on the gravestone of the woman who had given birth to this enchanting creature.

Had Morrigan’s mother performed witchcraft? Had she been as beautiful as the rumors claimed?

Time had no doubt enhanced everyone’s memories. After all, how bonny could Hannah have been, judging from her sister, Beatrice?

Besides, he didn’t believe in witches, spells, or Satan, though he was careful not to offend folk by admitting it. Religion seemed more a business of power and practicality than anything else.

But if not Hannah, whom did Morrigan resemble? Not her father, him with his silver-smudged black hair and frigid grey eyes, while every inch of his daughter exuded warmth, from her hair that turned incandescent in the sun to the tentative smile he’d swear could revive the heart of a drowned sailor.

She seemed a charming potpourri of women combined into one. There was the first he’d seen, when Ibby brought him to the Wren’s Egg in May. The windblown, sea-scented, scarlet-cheeked moor lass, with damp untidy hair and burrs on her skirts. That rustic girl disappeared into the cool, corseted lady in prim grey who’d later brought him a basket of food. Before he’d finished absorbing those two faces, another had appeared. The flushed seductress, giving off a delectable essence of musk, speaking entreaties against his mouth.

That one sealed his doom. But which was the real Morrigan? Moor sprite? Proper lady? Temptress?

No. Something more than her face caused the torment he’d endured in Edinburgh. Something about Morrigan— did she have a middle name? He longed to know— tore him apart even as it soothed him into a tranquility he’d never before experienced.

And there was that birthmark. The one he’d dreamed of.
Dreamed of.
How could he have done that, before ever meeting her?

“Morrigan,” he repeated, picking up a lock of her hair. Memories of the strap marks flamed his senses into teeth-clenching rage. No one would harm her from this day on. No other man would touch these white limbs, in rage or lust. The idea ignited ferocious jealousy.

In truth, loneliness and edgy discomfort— the
searching
he’d described— had gnawed at him all his life until he’d spent the afternoon ravishing Hannah Stewart’s daughter. The incessant pins and needles had dissipated much like a raincloud emptied of water. They hadn’t returned, not even while he was away.

Morrigan brushed at her ear. Here was another face… snaring him closer yet. Not wind-kissed, remote, or impassioned. Innocent rather, a warm sleepy girl. This face awakened subtle memories of the baby his father rescued after the clearings, weak and malnourished, pathetically skinny, with sadly chilblained skin. Curran’s mother had embraced the infant, vowing she would not die.

He pressed his mouth to the pulse beneath her jaw, tracing with his tongue to her collarbone, and she woke at last. “Curran.” She blinked uncertainly. Her hands slid up. When she turned upright, her nightgown caught underneath her; he had to unbutton it, did he not, to make her more comfortable? Wicked, the way she roused him, fair wicked. Maybe she
was
a witch.

Morrigan dragged him onto the bed with her. Tumultuous thoughts fled, leaving only the conviction that if he didn’t have her right now, this minute, he’d spill his seed on her sheets.

“Love me,” she said, voice catching, eyes darker than he remembered, almost black, as deep and mysterious as the ocean.

He pushed up her nightgown and gave himself to the drowning.

* * * *

I will love you, Menoetius, until only dust remains of my bones.

He swam through a stygian sea, searching for the surface, following the sound of that adored voice.

“Curran….”

I pray she’ll reunite us somehow, somewhere, if I do what she wants. Wherever she sends me, I will wait for you
.

“Curran? Please wake up.”

He opened his eyes, letting go of the dream with reluctance. Stretching luxuriously, he smiled into his lover’s face, so close to his on the pillow. He opened his mouth to say her name, yet for an instant, the name he wanted to say was not hers. It was something else… something that now escaped him.

Her expression routed any remaining pleasure. Passion no longer flushed her skin. Instead her eyes were webbed with grief. “My brother. He’s… dead.” The last word was spoken in incredulous disbelief.

The fleeting notion that she might be joking was eliminated by the obvious sorrow in her voice and expression. His entire body roused in protest. He couldn’t bear her pain. He must right it,
protect
. But how? What could he say? “Morrigan.” He pulled her face to his throat.

Before he could ask what had happened, the door flew open, crashing against the wall, eliciting a squeak from the girl and a startled surge of apprehension in him.

Fury quivered in every line of Beatrice’s unpleasant face. “Is this how you carry on the very day after you’ve been told your brother’s dead? You truly are a hoor!”

To Curran, she cried, “Get off from her!”

She sprang at him, fingers curved into claws. He had no choice but to grab her wrists and push her away before she could rake those nails over his face. His skin crawled as he stood and buttoned his trousers, glad he hadn’t removed them. “Calm yourself, madam,” he said.

Morrigan yanked her nightgown over her knees. She sat up, staring from her aunt to her lover. Fear etched her face. Terror, more like.

“Don’t you speak to me of calm. How dare you? You’ve taken all she had that might persuade a decent man to marry her.” Beatrice gasped and pushed her fists against her eyes. Her shoulders rose. For an instant, Curran thought she was weeping, but no, it was a convulsion of anger she fought to keep in check.

“Am I not decent enough?” he said. “I intend to wed your niece. I’ll speak to Mr. Lawton today. Now.”

“Curran!” Morrigan blinked at him as if he’d turned into a seahorse.

“You.” Beatrice turned on her. “Spreading your legs for any lout what winks at you. How dare you act this way in your father’s house! And Nicky not even cold—”

Curran seized Beatrice’s arm. “Don’t blame her. It’s my fault. She was asleep when I came in. She didn’t do anything wrong.”

Beatrice’s mouth fell open. Horror made her stagger. “You forced her?”

“
No
. Listen.” He shook her arm. “I will marry her. We aren’t the first who haven’t waited for the wedding night. Aye, it was wrong, but no real harm’s been done.”
Marry
. The word rippled through the air, or was it him, trembling as he threw away his freedom?

He didn’t care. The realization made him feel he could fly to the stars.
She’ll be mine. Mine
. A shiver crept over him, as it had when he’d written
I’m in love with you, Morrigan Lawton
in his letter. He’d stared at the words, words he never intended to write; yet he couldn’t make himself discard the paper and start over. He wanted to say them. He almost felt as though he had to. She was beyond his control, perhaps beyond his reason.

“Oh, aye?” Beatrice’s narrowed eyes riveted on him. “You’re so sure you’re the first? Certain, are you, that you’re the father of that bastard in her belly?”

A stifled moment passed as he glanced from one to the other. “Bastard?”

Morrigan shook her head. “I don’t know what she’s talking about.”

Beatrice snorted. “You may no’ understand it, silly mutchit, but you’re breeding. Why do you think you’ve been puking your guts out?” To Curran, she said, “In a man’s selfish way you took what you wanted. Now she, barely grown herself, is with child, too innocent to realize what’s been done to her. Yet you say ‘no harm done.’”

He couldn’t stop the betraying flush. Clenching his muscles, he fought the urge to flee from the woman’s penetrating eyes, or put his fist in her jaw. “Have you been ill, Morrigan?”

“Aye.”

She was trembling. He wanted to touch her cheek, reassure her.

“Sick to my stomach,” she added. “But what would a child have to do with that?”

I will marry you.
His thoughts still careened, up and down, in anxiety and elation.
You’ll be mine. You’ll be my wife.

Then Beatrice’s
you’re so sure you’re the first?
echoed through the shock. It did seem incredible that Morrigan would prove fertile the first and only time she’d ever been with a man. As he regarded her, cold speculation reared. When he’d given in to what she so obviously wanted, he’d told himself she knew what she was doing. He surely wasn’t the first. There was something in her eyes, knowledge that seemed the opposite of innocent. But he’d been wrong. For the first time in his life, he’d taken a girl’s virginity.

Could that be why he felt responsible for her? Was it merely his upbringing that made him offer marriage to a girl he’d ruined?

No. He knew it in his bones. He had to have her. No matter the cost. Whether or not she was a virgin. Even if she bore another man’s child.

“Damn it,” he said, shoving away ridiculous fears. He strode around the bed, pulling her into an embrace. That cow Beatrice could choke on her spit. “This proves we should marry, doesn’t it?” He gave her a smacking kiss then returned her to the bed and knelt in front of her. “Marry me,” he said, clasping her hands. “Will you, my Morrigan?”

She stared at him, pale and shocked.

“Be my wife,” he said. “Be mine, forever.”

She started to smile, but almost immediately it faded. Her eyes darkened.

He couldn’t sweep away this pain, couldn’t make everything perfect though he would rip out his eyeteeth if that would do it. Nicky’s death must chafe like a raw wound at the edge of every other thought. He knew it, for he’d experienced the same ache the night his mother had died, and for a long time after.

“Oh, I canna thole any of this right now,” she said. She glanced at Beatrice, standing there like a fiery demon.

It was a terrible way to propose. He rose and stroked her cheek. “I know,
a ghràidh
. We’ll go. Later I’ll bring you tea and toast. Rest.”

She nodded and lay back, her hair fanning out on the pillow. He kissed her temple and stepped away from the bed.

Beatrice sighed sharply. She held the door, forcing him to exit first.

“What happened?” he asked. “How did Nick—”

“Our affairs are not your concern.”

“I’m not your enemy, Miss Stewart. I apologize for what I’ve done, but I will make her my wife. Everything I have in the world will be hers. And you. You’ll always have a home with us.”

Giving him a long, measured glare, she spun away and descended the stairs. “Trying to purchase my silence?”

“No. I mean it.” He stopped her at the landing. “You’re Morrigan’s kin. That alone makes you welcome.”

She stepped away from him and continued to the front hall. “We don’t know what happened. A telegram came. It said Nicky was dead. Nothing else. Douglas has gone to Edinburgh to bring him home.”

They entered the kitchen where the long unattended kettle was furiously steaming. She brewed tea.

“I’m sorry.” Curran sat at the table. “Was he in good health?”

“Aye.”

“Edinburgh can be rough. I hope—”