Blood Marriage (16 page)

Nicholas didn't release her. Everything in him wanted to rush this task to completion, before pity won out and he changed his mind. Still, for her sake, he slowed his pace. He paused near the bottom of the stone steps that wound up the tower, but then passed them by, remaining on the ground floor and heading for the back of the building. Finally he stopped before a heavy tapestry that'd been hung to replace a long-missing door. 

"Elizabeth," he said, deciding that giving her a piece of the truth might ease things for them all. "Father Vlad helped raise me. So many things that could have gone wrong didn't, so much evil that might have been done was avoided, because he was there to show me how to deal with who I am. I need you to understan--" 

"Son, we haven't got much time." The duke sounded worried. "Elizabeth, what my boy's trying to say is that Father Vlad has a notion in his head that you two aren't really married because he didn't do the marrying. So we've decided to let him marry you again. His way. Are you willing, my dear?"

"I-I suppose."

Even if Nicholas hadn't been able to see the confusion on her face clearly despite the darkness, her hesitation was clear in her voice. But it was too late now. He pulled aside the tapestry, revealing Maidenstone's ancient chapel. Long rows of oak pews lined either side of the center aisle. The aisle led to a massive stone altar. Moonlight glowed through the trio of high stained-glass windows that had somehow survived the centuries of deterioration suffered by the rest of the castle. They were halfway up the center aisle when Elizabeth wrenched her hand from his.

"What is this?" The beginnings of fear were in her voice. 

At first Nicholas thought she was pulling back from the eerie spectacle created by the single candle that sat on the altar and haloed the back of Father Vlad's head, outlining his robed figure with an unearthly light while making his face indiscernible. But she wasn't looking at the priest. She was staring at the dozen or more hooded figures sitting scattered among the pews. For an instant he was surprised she could see them, but then realized they were dappled in irregular shapes of color by the moonlight coming through the windows. He should have warned Vlad there could be no guests.

Elizabeth backed away from him and might have fled, but the duke was behind her. He wrapped a fatherly arm around her shoulder and walked forward, bringing her with him.

"Come now, Elizabeth, every wedding must have a few witnesses." The duke's tone was conversational, as if they were enjoying a chat in a cozy parlor and not walking through the shadowy ruins of a crumbling castle. "Father Vlad has simply invited a few guests and, seeing as the religion Vlad practices isn't considered quite the thing in England these days, I'm guessing they wish to remain anonymous. That's all, my girl. Nothing sinister here."

The duke handed the trembling bride over to her groom. Nicholas led her the final few steps to the front of the church. Worried violet eyes pleaded up at him.

"I want to go home now, Nicholas. I've changed my mind."

It was the first time she'd used his Christian name. The sweet sound of it on her lips, coupled with the fear in her voice, stirred something within him. He wanted to scoop her up and take her somewhere she would be safe. From him. Instead, he hardened his heart and played the cruel card he'd brought to ensure she stayed with him tonight. He nodded to his father and turned his bride to face the pews. 

The duke lit a candle from the one that sat on the altar behind Vlad. Then he slid into the front pew beside two cowled figures, one leaning against the other. Holding the candle high, the duke pushed back the hood of the smaller figure. The woman lifted her braid-crowned head and smiled a vague drug-induced smile. Elizabeth went pale. 

"It's too late, my love," Nicholas said. "But your mother is here to celebrate this night with you."

Chapter Twenty-Two

Elizabeth shook all the way through the ceremony, which was intoned in solemn Latin by Father Vlad. But whether it was from fear, anger, or simply from pain and exhaustion, Nicholas couldn't be sure. Midway through, when he removed the blood ruby from her finger and passed it to the priest, she swayed as if she might faint. He reached out to steady her; she flinched away. Then her mother mumbled something from the front row where she sat with the duke's arm about her shoulders. Elizabeth straightened her spine, pasted a chillingly authentic look of bridal happiness on her face and the ceremony went on.

Father Vlad recited a litany over the ring, handed it back, and Nicholas returned it to Elizabeth's finger. When they exchanged vows, she repeated hers in a hoarse but carrying voice, her eyes tender on her mother. Not once did she look at her groom. And for that Nicholas was grateful. He would see the pain of betrayal in her eyes soon enough. 

Father Vlad uttered some final words and closed his book. Nicholas raised Elizabeth's hand high, turning it so that the ring was presented to the crowd. A low ripple of acknowledgment came from the cowled guests. Then one by one they rose, bowed, and left the church on silent feet, not even the rustle of their cloaks marking their passing.

"Well, that wasn't so bad, was it, daughter?" The duke's cheerful voice boomed in the small chamber. "Congratulations, son. Again." His father shook Nicholas's hand and winked. "Now you can finally get rid of all of us unnecessary sorts and start working on my grandson." 

Any man but his father would have trembled at the look Nicholas gave him. The duke just shrugged and addressed the bride. 

"Have no concern about your mother, Elizabeth. We took great care getting her here to see you wed. And now we'll make sure she's safe and comfortable in her own bed again quick as can be. Trust me, she'll have the proper care."

As he spoke the hooded figure, who'd sat in silence beside her mother throughout the ceremony, produced a thick wool blanket. Elizabeth rushed forward. While the figure wrapped the blanket around her mother, Elizabeth kissed her, speaking gentle words of comfort against her cheek. Nicholas averted his eyes from the tears streaming down his wife's face, but he couldn't avoid hearing his mother-in-law's softly slurred words.

"Beautiful bride...wonderful...my girl...safely married." 

The figure in the hooded cloak picked up Mrs. Smith. She laid a palm against his cheek. "Thank you...helping me...see my girl married." 

His mother-in-law laid her head on the figure's shoulder. They followed the duke down the aisle and out the door. Elizabeth's muffled a sob with the back of her hand.

"Goodnight,
mea fiu
." Father Vlad took the candle from the altar. "I still do not approve, but it is done and I wish you happiness." The priest left the chapel, taking the light with him. 

Nicholas stood with Elizabeth alone in the dark silence. It had been an emotionally turbulent day for her. She'd been an angry bride at the church that afternoon, a forgiving bride at the wedding dinner, a grateful bride at her mother's bedside, and a willing bride on the ride through the forest; the memory of the timid kiss she'd pressed to his lips made his heart clench. He reached out to touch her. 

She attacked him, sobbing and pounding her open palms against his chest. He stood with his hands at his sides, letting her release her anger on him, her gasping tears causing him much greater pain than her weak blows. When she'd exhausted herself, he pulled her gently against his chest. She rested there for no more than a heartbeat, then pushed him away. But her legs had taken all they could through the long day and night. She started to fall. He caught her up in his arms and, cradling her against his chest, carried her from the chapel. 

The stairs that wound up the tower were narrow. He took them slowly, careful of her head and legs. She lay in his arms unresisting. At the landing he pushed the door open with one foot and carried his bride over the threshold. She buried her face against his shoulder and his heart stung. This should have been a moment of shared joy and anticipation. What she felt, he couldn't be sure, but for him there was only regret and a dull sense of dread.

The walls of the tower room were of the same gray stone as the castle's exterior. Two tall windows stood on opposite sides of its circular walls. One had been boarded shut, its rounded top visible above the blue tapestry of a privacy screen. The other, the one which faced Heaven's Edge, was open, allowing in the cool night air. Nicholas kicked the door to the tower room closed behind him and crossed to the large bed. He laid her gently on it. She turned her face from him. 

He crossed to the fireplace that occupied the wall between the door and open window. Kneeling, he added a log to the low burning flames, though not because the fire needed another log, or the room more heat.

"Why?" she whispered. 

The soft word thundered through his flesh. What could he tell her that would not terrify her? Certainly not the truth; so he said nothing.

His leather satchel had been placed on a small table between two chairs, presumably by the same unseen hands that had laid the fire and dressed the bed in red silk sheets and a dark fur spread. Nicholas went to the bag, opened it, and unwrapped the wine and glasses. He set them on the sill of the open window. The misty white negligee he laid across the end of the bed at Elizabeth's feet. She watched him with wary eyes. He returned to the satchel. His fingers had just brushed the edge of a wooden box when he caught a flash of moonlight and pink roses out of the corner of his eye. 

He was at the door before she had it more than a few inches open, slamming it closed with the flat of his palm. She pressed her back to the aged oak, her eyes on his face.

"Do you really believe you can make it down those stairs faster than I can, Elizabeth? And what would you do if you could? Hide?" With his other hand he reached down near her waist and turned the key in the lock. "Growing up, my sister and I played hide and seek a thousand times in this castle. I know every inch of it, my love. It can be a dangerous place at night." Nicholas slid the key into his pocket and pushed away from the door, returning to the leather satchel. "You're safer here with me," he said, and hoped it was true.

"There's a privacy screen where you may change from your wedding dress," he said without turning around. He took bread, fruit, and cheese from the bag and placed them on the small table. He left the wooden box in the bag. When he turned back to her, the negligee was still on the bed where he'd left it. She hadn't moved either.

"Do you need help with your buttons ?"

"I don't intend to sleep," she said. When he raised a wicked brow at her, she added quickly, "or do anything else."

Nicholas ran a hand through his hair and tried to tamp down his frustration, reminding himself that the situation they found themselves in tonight was of his making, not hers.

He went to the bed and picked up the gown, letting it flow over his rough hands. It was soft, alive with sensuous promise. He'd obtained the material from a friend, an importer. The dressmaker he'd hired to make it into a nightdress had pretended to be scandalized by the sheerness of the fabric, but she'd asked for the importer's direction.

"As you prefer," he said. "But it's been a long day and surely
not sleeping or anything else
would be more comfortable in this," he held out the negligee to her with upturned palms, "than in your wedding gown."

"No."

"You can't sleep in your wedding gown," he repeated.

"No." Anger and defiance were written in every inch of her posture. But it was the hint of disappointment and sadness there as well that shamed him.

Nicholas let the negligee slip from his hands to puddle back onto the bed. He ran his fingers through his hair and went to stand before the open window. The moon was still high. Across the dried moat the tops of the trees swayed in a gentle breeze. 

He looked down at the wine glasses sitting on the sill, then stuck a hand in his pocket and fingered the vial there. He'd used so little in her water goblet at their wedding dinner that the vial was still nearly full. Using more could ease this night for both of them.

He pulled the vial from his pocket, weighed it for a moment in his palm, then dropped it out the window. It hit the stone courtyard below with a ping of shattering glass.

He removed his jacket and hung it over the back of a chair. Then he smiled pleasantly at his wife, sat down, and pulled off his boots.

"What are you doing?" Elizabeth sounded alarmed. 

"You may prefer to sleep in your wedding clothes, my dear, but I do not," he said. He'd dropped his stockings into his boots, draped his necktie over his discarded jacket, and had his shirt unbuttoned at the cuffs and halfway down the front before she whispered, "Stop." He stopped. Then, simply because he couldn't resist the temptation, he grinned.

"What would you say to a bargain, Elizabeth?" He had her attention. "You take your clothes off and I'll keep the rest of mine on."

"Absolutely not!"

"Well then..." He shrugged and undid another shirt button.

"It won't work. I simply won't look," she said.

"Good, then you won't see me coming. Because when I'm finished with me, I'm going to start on you...and we won't need that negligee at all." He finished unbuttoning his shirt, left it hanging open and reached for the waist of his trousers.

"Wait!" She held up both hands, palms out. "You swear to keep your clothes on? All night?"

"As long as you want me to, my love."

She snatched the negligee from the bed and crossed to the privacy screen that hid the necessary from the rest of the room. Before going behind it, she paused. "Your word as a gentleman?"

"When it comes to a woman he desires, my innocent, a gentleman's word is not worth a farthing." 

She looked suspicious. 

"Put on the nightgown, wife. I won't remove anything without your leave. You have my word, as a
husband
."

She went behind the screen. Nicholas pulled the table close to the window, sliced an apple and poured wine into both glasses. Then he leaned against the edge of the wide sill, playing with his wineglass and waiting. So much time passed he was tempted to ask if she required help, but thought better of it. Just as he was about to lose patience, her wedding dress was laid over the top of the screen. A pair of stockings came next, followed by various undergarments.