An Unlikely Match (26 page)

Cadoc nodded and, still cruelly clasping his daughter to him, reached up and yanked back the heavy curtains surrounding the chamber’s bed. The physical curtains, those existing in Nickolas’s time and sphere, moved as well.

Cadoc pushed Gwen toward the bed. “I hadn’t intended to tie you down, Gwenllian, but you leave me with no other choice. You knocked over a chair rather than sat in it. You bit your own father—”

“Who is attempting to kill me!” Gwen shot back.

Same Gwen
, Nickolas thought fleetingly. She was no wilting flower to accept her lot meekly.

All feelings of pride in her fire and bravery fled from Nickolas’s mind as he realized the next truth: Gwen’s father, Cadoc, intended to tie her to the bed so she couldn’t flee. Which meant she had died on that bed. Everything else, he realized, looking around at the now both physical and ghostly items in the room, had remained where they were after Gwen’s death.

Gwen—his breath caught in his throat at the thought—would have too.

She wasn’t buried in the courtyard because she hadn’t been buried at all. Nickolas knew that she had been left, tied down, on that very bed. There would be little left after four hundred years, but the thought that she had been given such an undignified final rest was sickening. Despite the sudden nausea he felt, Nickolas’s eyes turned toward the bed where the curtains were pulled back.

His heart lurched to a halt when he saw, clearly defined, the silhouette of a young lady lying deathly still on the bed. This was no skeleton, neither was it a ghostly illusion, for Gwen the specter was being pushed by her father at the very edge of the bed.

Nickolas moved to the side of the bed, opposite where Gwen and her father, in ghostly form, struggled. He stared in awe at a lady he recognized in an instant. She looked as though she had only just fallen asleep. Nothing in her coloring or countenance suggested that she was dead, though Nickolas knew she was. Her eyes were closed, but her expression was one of surprise, as if caught off guard by the suddenness of her departure. At least he saw no pain written on her features.

Nickolas stood in shock, struggling to comprehend what he saw. Cadoc managed to toss his daughter onto the bed, securing her there with ties. Gwen, the ghost, lay captive in the same space occupied by her perfectly preserved body.

All around him, the physical objects and their ghostly counterparts seemed to melt together, no longer giving the illusion of seeing double. The door, the actual, physical, present-day door, slammed shut, melting into the ghostly door. If the ancient door, made of fog and memories, was locked, was the physical door now locked as well? The phantom furnishings, walls, even the book from which the priest read, melded with their present-day selves. Only the ghosts remained misty whispers.

“Continue, Arwyn.”

Nickolas hadn’t even realized the priest had stopped his droning. He knew, felt it in his soul, that if the priest concluded his ceremony, this ghostly Gwen would die once more. And he would be forced to watch with no means of helping her.

He ran to the window, prepared to shout for the crowd below to save Gwen, hoping they would hear him this time. But they had vanished. Indeed, the ghostly remnants of the castle had vanished, and the fog had dissipated. All that remained of the night’s horrors was concentrated in the room in which he stood, a melding of the physical remnants of that horrible night and their ghostly doubles.

He rushed back to Gwen’s side, knowing he could do nothing but needing to feel he had at least not abandoned her. But she had changed. Just as the furniture and the door had enveloped their fifteenth-century remnants, the reposed body of Gwen had completely absorbed the ghostly figure of her.

The sleeping lady was awake, struggling against the very real bonds that held her captive. She was there
physically
, in living form, not simply as a wisp of spirit.

“Please,
Father
.” Her voice sounded in his ears in indiscernible Welsh and echoed in his soul in words he understood.

“Gwen?” Nickolas whispered, his voice breathy in his confusion and shock. She did not answer, did not acknowledge his words. A barrier yet separated them, one he did not know how to bridge.

Nickolas reached out and laid his hand on top of hers, fisted as she struggled against the bonds. His fingers met flesh. She was real! Something in her expression changed, as if she had felt his touch as something little more than a whisper.

He would not leave her so helpless. She might not be completely aware of him, but she was there, physically. She was frightened and very much in danger. Nickolas yanked at the linen bonds, fumbling to untie them. Gwen’s eyes shot to the strips of fabric. So did Cadoc’s.

Cadoc swore. “They’re untying.”

“What?” Arwyn jumped, rushing to the bedside and staring.

Gwen had begun tugging, trying to set herself free, not realizing that she made his task harder. If he could loose her, would she be able to free herself from the rest? Could she get away?

“Retie her,” Arwyn insisted. “Use more strips. We have only minutes, Cadoc. Minutes. The future of Y Castell depends on this.”

“You will not hurt her again!” Nickolas shouted as he pulled desperately at the bonds. “I will not allow it!”

He had one hand free in that moment. Afraid her captors would simply grab it and pull her away, Nickolas took her wrist in his hand, momentarily shocked to feel a pulse thrumming inside, and climbed over her, across the bed to where her other arm was tied down.

“Only a few moments, Gwen,” Nickolas reassured her, knowing she could not hear him. “I will have you free in a moment.”

Then he heard Gwen’s tiny voice, choked with emotion and confusion, whispering words that strengthened his own resolve.

“The Lord is my shepherd,” she began the familiar psalm. “I shall not want.”

“Stop!” the priest snapped, anxiety written in his features. “You cannot invoke scripture at a time like this.”

“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.” Nickolas joined his voice to hers as he pulled determinedly at the strip of cloth keeping her captive yet. His English melded with her Welsh, and yet, the words were the same. Silently, Nickolas pleaded with her to continue. He hoped the words would give her courage the same as they were giving him.

Both ghostly men grabbed at Gwen’s arm, at the ties Nickolas was unknotting, but their hands of mist were unable to grasp what was real and solid. He kept her free hand tightly locked in his own, attempting to untie the other bond with his remaining hand. He had a horrifying suspicion that if he let go of her arm, those men would somehow be able to take hold of her again.

“You must finish before she can escape!” Cadoc barked at the priest.

Arwyn moved quickly back to the lectern, pausing a moment as he searched the open page in front of him for his place in the curse.

They are going to finish.
The terrifying thought rushed through Nickolas’s mind. If he didn’t get her out, they would finish. For only a second, he contemplated leaving Gwen to go after the priest, unsure what he would or could do to stop the man. But her continued recitation of the well-known psalm faltered as fear choked her voice.

“I am here, Gwen.” If only she could hear him! He turned his attention back to his task. As he was, she at least knew some unseen force was helping her, that she was not alone.

“Help me!” Nickolas pleaded with the heavens. He could not save her on his own.

Prayers, he discovered, were sometimes answered with alarming speed and precision. A swift, hard knock on the door was immediately followed by Dafydd’s voice. “Nickolas!” He sounded anxious. “Nickolas, are you all right? I heard you shouting. What—”

“Help me, Dafydd!” Nickolas bellowed back.

“The door is locked.” That was Griffith’s voice. They’d both come.

Nickolas heard them shake the uncooperative barrier.

The key. Where was—? “I left the key in the door,” Nickolas shouted. It was, no doubt, too dark to see without the eerie glow and ghostly fire that lit the inside of the room.

Nickolas continued his struggle. What kind of blasted, stupid knot had the man used? Gwen grew unnervingly silent as the priest continued his relentless, dark destruction. She no longer moved, no longer struggled. He couldn’t be certain she even breathed. Was the curse already taking effect? Was she dying all over again?

“Stay with me, Gwen!”

The door flew open.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Griffith stumbled inside, clearly having shoved the door open. Dafydd, pale and trembling in the doorway, stared in shocked disbelief at the sight that met his eyes. They’d come through the bone-chilling atmosphere of the stairwell and walked unsuspectingly into this scene of terror.

“Stop him!” Nickolas barked out, pointing at the priest.

“That isn’t scripture.” Dafydd stared at the ghostly priest.

“Get the book!” Nickolas shouted. He nearly had the knot undone but wasn’t entirely sure that simply getting Gwen out would stop the curse. Nor did he know if he had time to even cross the room. “Get the book! He must not be permitted to finish!”

At a wobbly run, Griffith lunged at the lectern, thrusting his shoulder against it. The entire thing, book and all, crashed to the floor.

Dafydd grabbed the book.

“The fire!” Nickolas shouted as he managed to finally untie the bind around Gwen’s wrist.

He jumped off the bed and scooped Gwen’s limp, unmoving body into his arms. Dafydd lifted the heavy tome and threw it into the roaring ghostly fire with so much force Nickolas half expected it would simply fly through the thick stone wall.

An anguished cry filled the air as the book exploded in the flames. The fog in the room rose, swirling around them in a wind so stiff Nickolas couldn’t keep his footing. He dropped to his knees, cradling Gwen against him. He inched toward the center of the room, where the wind was calm, like the eye of a storm.

Nickolas glanced down at Gwen, so still and fragile in his arms and yet so very real. He gently touched her face. How he wished she could see him, could talk to him, could tell him she was well. But she didn’t move, didn’t open her eyes.

A sudden gust of downward wind nearly knocked Nickolas flat. He braced himself against it, refusing to release Gwen. Looking up, he watched as what little furniture had escaped the swirling whirlwind divided itself once more into the real and the apparition. All the ghostly elements in the room were fading, and fading quickly.

Nickolas looked down at Gwen. Would he lose her too? Was she about to fade into nothingness?

“I love you, Gwen,” Nickolas whispered, holding her fiercely. “I love you.”

He kissed her gently on her unmoving mouth, pulling her tighter into his embrace. He fought back a stinging in his throat and the threat of tears in his eyes. He knew, somehow, that breaking the cycle of that spell had released the hold it had had on Gwen. She was free. He very much feared it meant she would leave him.

The fog around him dissipated, the wind died down to stillness. Nickolas remained where he was, holding Gwen to him. Every last evidence of the night’s ordeal had disappeared. Every ghost had faded into nothingness.

Images of all that had happened, the horror he’d witnessed, flashed mercilessly through his mind. He had to forcibly shut out the reminder that Gwen had lived through the terrifying events of that night hundreds of times. Only during this last experience had she been saved from it. It was his one source of consolation: he had saved her, even if it meant losing her for good.

He would have to return to the house knowing she would never again haunt its corridors. Her room, he was certain, would feel empty and cold without her presence. The entire house would.

“This is what they did,” Dafydd whispered from across the room. “Black magic of the worst kind.”

Nickolas actually jumped. He’d forgotten about Dafydd and Griffith. They both sat across the room, pale and clearly shaken. Griffith rubbed at the shoulder he’d heaved into the thick, wooden lectern. His eyes darted about, shock sitting heavy in his expression. Nickolas pulled himself together enough to speak. “They sacrificed Gwen for the sake of a ‘pile of stone.’”

“Disregarded the laws of God,” Dafydd said weakly.

“
Disregarded
? No. They were
violating
the laws of God. A pact with the devil.”