Patricia Rice (20 page)

“I think so. That’s why I asked. I think I see the door now. It’s a very tiny door. How strange.”

He would tie her to the bed, he mused. Post guards at the doors and windows. Maybe in the attic as well, so she didn’t hack her way through the ceiling. He didn’t think he could live through this stomach-knotting terror again. A life without Christina in it was too bleak to contemplate. Although it would certainly be less harrowing. “Did you fall through the floor?”

He scanned the wide plank floor but couldn’t see any gaping holes. The light caught on the shaft of a discarded arrow. What the devil had she been doing in here? Target practice? The arrowhead pointed at a carved window seat where there was no window.

“No, I don’t think so,” she said thoughtfully. “The chandelier crashed and I fell, but I don’t think the floor gave way.”

“What do you mean, you don’t think? Wouldn’t you know if you fell into the cellar?” He studied the window seat. She’d said she saw a tiny door. It didn’t make sense. Why would she put herself in a box?

But he could hear her quite distinctly from here.

“I think I may have… fainted,” she said with such a tone of disgust that Harry almost smiled—until he realized what it would have taken to cause his intrepid bride to faint.

Setting the lantern down, he sprawled on the floor to examine the elaborate carvings on the seat. The box below it was wide and deep enough for him to crawl into. “Can you see the light now?”

“Yes, it’s quite distinct. Right about here.” A wooden knock sounded from behind the carvings.

A key dropped in front of his nose, as if from thin air.

“I do not believe in ghosts,” he muttered, picking up the tarnished bit of metal and squinting at the box. She must have knocked the key loose from its hole.

That begged the question of how she could have crawled behind a locked keyhole. Locating a darker depth to one of the carved patterns, Harry stuck the key at it. “Can you hear that?”

“I hear something scraping. I can hear you well, Harry. Where am I?”

He tried to chuckle at this reversal of his question. “I think you may have locked yourself in a window box. Take your time coming up with an explanation. I can’t find the keyhole.”

“A window box? Like the seats under windows?” She pounded on the door again. “Ouch.”

“Stop that. Yes, like a seat under a window except there’s no window. Just a niche.” Perhaps he should ram his spear through the niche wall. That had worked well in the dungeon. He shoved the key at another hole.

This time, it clicked.

Christina pounded, and the carved side of the box divided into two small doors that swung open, revealing a billow of blue silk and white lace and Christina’s pale face.

“Sweet heaven,” Harry murmured, reaching to caress her cheek to be certain she was real and alive.

“I’m not entirely certain I can get up from here, Harry,” she warned in a whisper that almost sounded like a sob.

“No, sweetheart, don’t move an inch. Let me see what you’ve done to yourself.” Gently, he located her arm and drew his hand over her full sleeve, finding the swollen place she complained of.

Running footsteps pounded down the hall outside. More lights danced across the aging plank floor.

Harry didn’t know how they’d found them so soon, but he was grateful for the company. “Fetch a physician,” he shouted without turning to see who had arrived.

“If I’d known that’s what it would take to hold her still, I would have locked her in a trunk sooner,” a deep male voice said drily.

“Aidan?” Christina squeaked.

“Aye, and from the way the duke is clinging to your silly hand instead of wringing your neck as you deserve, it seems you have found the perfect husband. I congratulate you both.”

By this time, Harry had worked his way through Christina’s skirts to her legs, but he had to tug her from the cramped space before he could adequately examine them for broken bones. Unappreciative of his guest’s repartee, he threw Dougal a black look over his shoulder. “A physician. Meg will know.”

“Aye, and Ninian will too. Prepare yourself.” With that enigmatic message, the giant sauntered out, covering the distance in lazy strides in the same time as another man could match only at a run.

“Aidan means trouble, Harry,” Christina whispered.

Not giving a damn about anything except having her back, Harry lifted her into his lap, wincing at her gasp of pain. He cradled her against his chest, stroking her face, trying to soothe her and banish the remaining panic. He was so grateful that she was alive that she could have told him the mountains had crumbled, and he would have rejoiced. “It’s good to know you don’t have a corner on the trouble market, sweetheart. Can you straighten your legs?”

Her skirts rustled, and he could feel her flinch.

“The right one hurts. My knee hit the floor pretty hard. Maybe it’s just a bruise.”

“Just in case, I won’t move you until the doctor says it’s safe. I don’t suppose you remember crawling into that box, do you?” Harry turned to look from the fallen chandelier to the box and judged the distance to be a painful one if she’d truly broken her leg.

“I’m not very fond of boxes, Harry. I think General Rothbottom put me there to protect me from falling chandeliers.”

He sighed, held her tighter, and wondered why it hadn’t occurred to him to marry a normal female, one who fainted when she fell, cried when she hurt, and didn’t go exploring where she didn’t belong.

“I’ll have to thank him someday,” he said drily, before finding her lips and kissing both their fears away.

Lying on their bed, Christina tried hard not to wince when the physician pressed her swollen wrist. Harry looked as if he might draw a sword and decapitate the next person who hurt her. Hair mussed and hanging over his disintegrating jabot, he paced back and forth, keeping an eagle eye on the physician. She thought Harry looked like a gallant knight of old, but she was in too much pain to tell him so.

She clenched her teeth, and Harry was there instantly, hovering over her, glaring at the physician.

“Harry, I won’t die of a sprained wrist or knee. Stand back, do, before poor Dr. Hormsby has an apoplexy.”

Looking exceedingly grim, Harry stepped back. Christina set her mind to admiring his chiseled jaw and the loose strand of hair brushing his collar rather than on her pain. She had wished to make Harry happy again, but she had succeeded in just the opposite.

“Take her word for it, Your Grace,” Aidan’s dry voice said from the doorway. “She’ll be bouncing off your walls again in a day or two. Be glad that she’s stationary for whatever time you’re granted.”

“If you wish to be useful, Harry,” Christina countered in her best duchess voice, “you may send that irritating creature away. Whyever are you here anyway, Mr. Dougal?”

She wasn’t entirely certain if she was glad or wary of his presence. Aidan was even more annoying than her Aunt Stella about turning up when he shouldn’t, but he could also be a harbinger of her family’s arrival. Perhaps her cousin Ninian was already on her way with her healing potions.

Guardedly, Harry cast mistrustful glances at Aidan, the doctor, and anyone else who invaded their chamber. His aura had lost much of its color, but the jagged streaks of black and white battling for dominance fascinated her. In Harry’s case, black didn’t mean bad so much as anger and melancholy, rather like a thundercloud. His need to protect warred with his masculine instincts to strike out at whoever had harmed her, except he had no idea who it might be, which tied his hands and frustrated him.

Harry didn’t artlessly demand an explanation of Aidan’s presence as she had, but he stopped pacing long enough to pour a glass of brandy and regard his guest expectantly over the goblet’s brim.

Aidan shrugged his big shoulders. “Your sister Felicity and her inventive husband have turned my home into an experimental laboratory, and I could not stand the noise a moment longer.”

“You could throw them out or tell them to stop if you did not like what they were doing,” Christina scoffed, knowing Felicity was too gentle a soul to do anything anyone didn’t like, and that Ewen was working on so many scientific projects that he could easily shift his attention from one to another.

“Ach, well, the heat from their new device is warming my home,” Aidan conceded. “And should I ever find a wife, it would be pleasant to give her a warm abode.”

The physician stepped back from the bed to rummage about in his black bag, interrupting this discussion. “Her Grace must stay off her limb until the swelling is down, and you must not use the damaged wrist until it has healed. If you like, I can put it in a sling so you cannot move it, and I’ll give you something for the pain.”

“I don’t suppose you could give orders to have her tied to the bed,” Harry asked darkly, taking a deep draft of his brandy.

“Harry!” Christina attempted to sit up, cringed at the pain shooting up her leg, and pushed the pillow up behind her so she could recline more comfortably. “That’s not very noble of you. A hero should stay by my side, gazing deeply into my eyes while asking what he can do to ease my suffering.”

Aidan snorted loudly. “Your very noble husband has demonstrated every aspect of a hero by not throttling you as you deserve. Be grateful.”

Christina thought Harry’s familiar laughter tugged at his lips, but he hid it behind his brandy glass. Had she felt stronger, she would have flung her pillows at both of them.

Feeling unwarrantedly cheerful at the hint of Harry’s good humor, she settled back against the pillows and plotted her next step. Telling him about the general in the mirror was probably not the best way of improving his humor. It had only got her into more trouble and delivered a serious setback to her plan to find the source of Harry’s problem with the tenants. How could she have a party when she could barely walk?

She waved away the physician’s offer of laudanum. “I have no trouble sleeping. I will be fine in the morning. I’m quite ravenous. I don’t suppose dinner will be ready soon?”

“I’ll see to it at once. Gentlemen…” Harry gestured for the departure of the physician and Aidan. At the same time, he sent Matilda running in search of nourishment and to inform the household that all was well.

Once he and Christina were alone, he turned back to her, and all laughter fled his face. She mourned the loss of her carefree friend, but she cherished the powerful Harry who had rescued her. He’d carried her down what seemed like miles of corridor as if she were no burden at all, not once knocking her injured limbs into the many obstructions. He’d murmured reassuring solicitudes, hugged her close, and made her feel wonderful instead of scolding her, as most people would have done.

Now that she’d been found well and only slightly incapacitated, she suspected he was about to ring a peal over her, and she braced herself.

“Your cousin has come to ask about the chalice,” Harry said calmly enough, but he didn’t take a seat or hold her hand or kiss her.

Christina wriggled for a comfortable position, but her discomfort had more to do with Harry’s tone than her position. She thought he was hurting too, and she was the cause. She didn’t know how to correct that.

“He’s not my cousin,” she responded curtly when what she really wanted to say was that she had been trying to help. “He’s a troublesome Ives.” Then to be perfectly correct, she added, “Although he does have an odd rose color in his aura that I’ve only seen in Malcolms.”

“I will need to sell the chalice to pay for the demolition of the castle,” Harry continued, ignoring her circumlocutions. “I thought perhaps you would prefer that the relic went to family.”

“Tear down the castle? With proceeds from Father Oswald’s chalice? Harry, no, you cannot do that! All hell will break loose. I know it!” She wanted to fling herself into his arms and kiss him into compliance, but just moving her knee shot pain up her leg. She beat the bed in frustration. “I know the ghosts are trying to help, but we’re not understanding what they’re telling us. I won’t go in there again, I promise, but please, don’t tear it down.”

“Robert Morton has arrived to inspect the keep, but chandeliers do not fall from ceilings unless there is good reason. The castle is unsound and a danger to you and our children,” he said with unarguable firmness. “I would be a murderer if I allowed that ruin to kill anyone else.”

At his mention of “their children,” Christina knew all was lost. Harry’s aura took on that implacable protective glow she could not fight. All the natural world would consider his actions reasonable. She was the only one who fought from a position of the supernatural. She couldn’t win.

“Now I see why it is very impractical to be a Malcolm,” she said angrily, turning her back on him and burying her face in the pillow. “I wish we really could conjure spells.” She wished she knew how she’d conjured that vision in the mirror. It would be helpful if she could speak to the general that way.

“It’s not any easier being a duke,” Harry returned gruffly. “Perhaps some small portion of the castle can be saved for your spirits to inhabit, but I must give more concern to the people who live here.”

When she did not answer, he walked away.

She
hated
that he was right. But she also hated that she’d spent her entire life trying to communicate with the spirits, and when she’d finally established a connection, Harry meant to take it all away.

Well, not all, precisely. The realization melted a portion of her heart. How many husbands would offer to preserve a portion of
anything
for the sake of his wife’s ghosts? Obviously Harry was a reasonable man. She would just have to find a way to extend his reason to preserving the entire castle.

If only she could prove to him that Lady Anne and the general and Father Oswald were useful, perhaps Harry would not be so quick to tear down what he did not understand.

Besides, as far as she was aware, Aidan couldn’t afford to buy a medieval jeweled chalice any more than she could.

***

Harry wished that Jack were here. He needed someone more knowledgeable than he to start searching the sprawling expanse of mansion and castle. Christina didn’t sleepwalk. She had been put, unconscious, in that box by someone who possessed a key. Despite his wife’s protests otherwise, he did not believe ghosts held keys. He could not fathom why anyone would want to harm Christina, but nothing else made sense.

And if he could not make sense of it or find the person causing the harm, he would have to send her back to London. With all his heart and soul, he didn’t want to do that. To prevent it, he would have to ask for help. He hated asking for help, but he was prepared to get down on his knees and crawl if it would keep Christina safe.

After seeing their guests amicably settled with brandy and port in front of a fire in the study after dinner, Harry poured a glass for himself and paced in front of the fire. “I have a problem, gentlemen.”

Aidan and Robert quieted, waiting expectantly. Harry knew little of Christina’s cousin-in-law, but if he were anything like his Ives relations, he was a man to be counted on. Aidan had carried out his earlier search with dispatch and arrived to help with amazing alacrity when Christina was found. And he was a stranger to Sommersville, so he could not be suspected of causing any of the incidents.

“It is possible the chandelier fell accidentally,” Harry said, “but I want you to inspect it thoroughly to be certain it wasn’t deliberate.”

Robert gasped in astonishment. Aidan merely shot him a severe look and sipped his brandy without comment.

Harry continued. “Christina claims a ghost stuffed her in that cabinet to protect her from falling chandeliers. I think it far more likely human hands turned the key that locked her in. I want to search the castle.” He did not know why he hadn’t thought of it sooner, but if his father truly had gone around the bend, could he have squirreled the cash away in the castle? Could someone else know of it? A hidden treasure would be motive enough for someone to frighten away adventurous intruders like Christina.

“Do you have men you can trust to help us?” Aidan asked in a matter-of-fact tone that said he’d already surmised there was more trouble here than anyone had let on.

“No,” Harry said flatly. “For all I know, the servants may have murdered my father and brother. Or it may just be the castle falling down. I cannot even say what we should look for. I only know I won’t sleep until we’ve searched every cranny.”

“I took a quick look at the foundation while I was down there,” Robert said. “There has been considerable settling in the towers. Vibrations of any sort might cause bolts to slip or stones to fall. Before any search can be instituted, I think I’d better mark the unsafe areas.”

Taking a seat, Harry listened, and together, they began to sketch a strategy. He might be frustrated at not acting as quickly as he wished, but at least he’d have a plan of action, which was more than he could say about the rest of his life.

Later, after he’d done all that he could do, he hurried back upstairs to Christina. Not knowing how else to protect her, he must keep her within the shelter of company at all times.

That gave him excuse enough not to leave her side at night, even though he feared making love to her until after her injuries had healed. Their energetic luncheon gave fair warning that neither of them were inclined toward docility in the bed. Just thinking of how Christina had responded to his slightest touch heated his blood. He hungered to repeat the experience, but he was a grown man, not a heedless juvenile. He could wait until she was healed.

He entered their chamber quietly. A fire still flickered in the grate, but she’d blown out her bedside candle. He could see the golden glow of her hair spread across the pillows, and he wanted nothing more than to climb in beside her and hold her tight. She was the one good, steady thing in his life right now, and he desperately wished to keep her.

He lived one hell of a life if he could consider
Christina
the only stability in it.

Smiling wryly, he brushed a gold tendril from her forehead, but she didn’t stir. Perhaps she’d finally given in and drunk the laudanum. He hated knowing she was in pain, but at least he’d know where she was for a few days so he could do what he had to do.

He supposed he’d have to wait and see if they had a marriage left if he gave the orders decreeing the castle’s destruction.

***

“Why do you always keep your room so cold?” Meg complained, entering Christina’s bedchamber the next morning. At Christina’s shrug, she continued with her real purpose. “We are receiving notes of sympathy from everyone in the neighborhood,” she declared, handing over the morning post.

“We are?” With interest, Christina flipped through the correspondence from the vicar’s wife, the squire, and other people she had not met. After confronting Mora, she had never thought to seek the vicar’s wife. And she’d been told the squire was out of town…

Not all the neighbors refused to speak with her, then.

Perhaps she had made a mistake in attempting to talk with only the villagers. Could the people of society tell her why Harry’s tenants wouldn’t speak with him? It didn’t seem likely. She stared at the bland notes and pondered. “Do you think we might invite the neighbors to visit?” she inquired.

She’d learned Lady Anne’s ways enough to read the ghost’s nod of approval at her suggestion. She didn’t mind the cold surrounding her friendly spirits. It was good to know that
someone
approved of her, even if it must be from a different spiritual plane.

Harry had been so angry with her that he hadn’t made love to her last night. Or this morning, even though she’d wanted to. He’d removed himself from the bed the instant she’d woken and had barely spoken to her except to order her to stay put so she didn’t hurt herself again.