Love Everlastin' Book 3 (17 page)

He ascended to the second
floor and turned left, not slowing down until he reached the heavy
red velvet drapes which covered the entrance to the tower. Beyond
the threshold, he entered what had been the servants' quarters, and
went up a steep and narrow stone staircase that hugged the wall. He
was blind to the plain furnishings as he made his way to the fourth
level, where he stopped and regarded the open door in the ceiling.
A pale grey sky loomed above. Snowflakes drifted through the
opening. The cold seemed more bone chilling than when he was
outside earlier, and he shuddered before continuing on. But halfway
up this last stretch of steps, something popped into the opening
and he nearly pitched backward. He braced his spine against the
cold exterior rock wall, a hand over his thundering heart. A
snow-sprinkled brown peahen peered down at him, craning its neck
from side to side as if questioning his intrusion.

Angry that a bird had given
him such a fright, he flagged his right hand at it and forcefully
ascended the few remaining steps. He heard a flutter of wings. As
soon as his head breached the door frame, he saw peahens and
peacocks flying off in all directions from the crenellations. Then
he spied Deliah and his heart seemed to rise into his throat and
cut off his oxygen. She was indeed naked, and dancing in circles
with her arms lifted to the pale heavens. A heavy dusting of
snowflakes covered her. A look of ecstasy masked her face and, at
that moment, Winston thought her stark-raving mad.

He climbed onto the roof of
the turret, his unwavering gaze watching her as though he expected
her to fling herself over the crenellated wall at any given
moment.

"Deliah!"

She didn't seem to hear him.
Fear mingled with his burgeoning anger. He reached out to take her
arm, but withdrew as if burned when a voice filled his
mind.

Blue, I understand. I
understand now! Tis wonderful! Tis so magical! Oh, Blue! If only we
all could share a dance in this!

Deliah's voice, he realized,
and swayed with the shock it dealt him. Collecting himself, he
harshly gripped her arm and jerked her to a stop.

Time came to a
breath-robbing stop. He found himself staring into sparkling blue
eyes so filled with wonder, he told himself he had to be dreaming
again. Against the bluish tinge of her cold skin, her cheeks were
red and her lips the color of dark pink coral. Snowflakes whitened
her dark eyebrows and eyelashes and most of the outer layer of her
hair.

"Are you daft?" he cried,
giving her a sound shake.

From the corner of his left
eye he spied the bathrobe and nightgown she'd been wearing.
Releasing her, he hastily snatched them up and gave them a shake to
cast off the snow.

"Get dressed!" he barked
then glanced down at her feet. "Where are the socks?"

She held the clothing balled
against her, staring at him as if questioning the reason behind his
shortness with her.

Winston glanced about him,
but couldn't see the socks anywhere. "Dammit woman, where are
they?"

Furious, he looked at her
and released a gasp of disbelief that she hadn't begun to don the
clothing. He yanked the robe back and flung it across his shoulder,
then, shivering from both the cold and his frustration with her,
impatiently helped her into the nightgown. Something caught his
notice as he tugged it down over her. Something he'd seen before
but, like now, his brain couldn't accept, couldn't even begin to
digest.

From above, an echoing
rumble was heard.

He decided the robe could
wait until they were off the tower. Again gripping her upper arm
with more force than was necessary, he nudged her toward the
opening in the floor. She resisted. Gone was her elation. The
rumbling came again, and she lifted a troubled gaze to the greyness
above them.

"Deliah!" he barked, causing
her to jump. "Get below!"

She again looked upward then
met his gaze for a pregnant-filled moment before finally taking the
first step into the room below. Winston retained his hold until she
was standing on the fourth landing. Tossing the bathrobe into her
face, he closed the roof door and jumped down the remaining steps
to stand in front of her. She held the robe in her arms, cradling
it against her chest. Violent shudders coursed through her, and her
eyes held a pained expression his anger refused to acknowledge. She
remained still when he took the robe and brusquely toweled her with
it. The rumbling grew louder, seeming to come down through the roof
now. An impression tried to worm its way into Winston's
consciousness, but he was too angry to deal with anything except
the exasperating woman in front of him.

"You're worse than a child,"
he scolded.

Taking her by the hand, he
led her down the stairs and eventually into the second floor hall
of the house. He kept the lead, pulling her behind him as if she
were a recalcitrant child and he the parent bent on retaining his
anger long enough to impress upon her the seriousness of her
actions.

Laura and Roan were waiting
at her open bedroom door. Winston marched her past them to the bed,
where he finally released her, pulled the top quilt off the
mattress and impatiently wrapped it around her still shivering
form. She regarded him with the innocence of a small girl, which
only infuriated him all the more. He turned to face Roan and Laura.
They stood a few feet away, both seeming at a loss as to what to do
next.

"I refuse to hold maself
responsible for her anymore," Winston said testily, high color in
his cheeks. "She hasn't an adult thought in her brain! I need to
get to a phone and call the police. They'll have to figure ou' wha'
to do wi' her."

Deliah placed a hand on
Winston's arm but he angrily jerked away and glared at
her.

"I better light a fire,"
Roan said abstractedly, and went to the hearth.

"Should I make her some
tea?" asked Laura, a sympathetic look leveled on the younger
woman.

"I guess." Winston briefly
massaged the back of his neck. To Laura, he asked, "Where is the
nearest phone?"

"In town."

His stomach churned with
dread. He loved to walk, but the town was a fair hike as it was,
let alone what it would take to reach it in this
weather.

Rumbling then a crack of
what sounded like thunder, gave everyone a start, except Deliah.
Her gaze lifted to the ceiling. After a moment, she murmured, "Too
soon. Too soon."

Winston looked at her in a
state of incredulity. Laura's mouth gaped open. Roan stopped
crumpling newspaper and hastened back to Laura's side.

"She can talk," said Roan
dazedly.

Deliah's gaze lowered to
Winston's ashen face and she shrugged deeper into the warmth of the
quilt.

"Wha' did you say?" asked
Winston, anger returning some color to him. When she remained
silent, he snapped, "Answer me!"

"Too soon be wha' I said,"
she replied in a small tone, and shamefully downcast her
eyes.

"Tell me your little dance
on the tower
just
returned your voice!" he shouted. "Tell me you just haven't
been jerking our chains all this time!"

Deliah glanced at the three
as if searching for the chains Winston mentioned.

"Winston—" Laura clamped her
mouth shut when Winston furiously flagged a hand at her.

"Tell me, Deliah!" he
demanded.

The only sound she made was
a gulp.

"Fine, lass," Winston fumed,
his balled hands resting on his narrow hips. "Fine. I don't know
who you are and, quite frankly, right now, I could give a flying
fig how or why you showed up here. Wha' I do care abou' is washing
ma hands o' you! You can play yer mind games wi' the
police."

"Ye canna take me from this
house," she said, a note of panic in her tone.

"The hell I
can't!"

"You're only scaring her,"
Laura chided Winston.

Winston shot Laura an
incredulous look. "Scaring her? Anyone who can dance naked in below
freezing weather, has a hide o' steel!" His furious gaze retargeted
Deliah's face. "Wha' are you really doing here? Are you a
reporter?"

"Oh, God," Roan moaned.
"Tha's all we need."

"I be Deliah, no' a
reporter."

Her quivering tone fell
short of stirring any compassion in Winston. His eyes held such
fury, it wounded her to look into them. She walked to the right
side of the bed, overly conscious of the others' eyes watching her
every move.

"Stop lying to us!" Winston
hissed, turning and gripping the cherry wood post at the foot of
her bed. "You telling me you don't work for Jonathan
Blussal?"

"No," Deliah said with a
shake of her head. "No, I dinna know anyone by tha'
name!"

"Oh come now, Deliah,"
Winston began with a mocking laugh. "Blussal is the senior editor
at the Lowland Gazette."

"No, I dinna know him!" she
cried.

Winston's features were
livid. "I picked up your thoughts while you were dancing on the
tower! I heard you think you wanted to dance wi' Blue in the snow.
Blue sounds like a nickname to Blussal to me!"

"Aye," agreed
Roan.

Clinging to Roan's arm,
Laura nodded.

"No!" Deliah sucked in a
breath. She shuddered uncontrollably. "Blue be married to ma
brither. I swear on the mighty oaks, I be no ither than Deliah,
than wha' ye see afore you!"

Again, shock rocked Winston
on his feet. He suddenly realized where he'd heard her archaic use
of “be” and “ye”.

"You," he accused in a
barely audible voice.

She swallowed hard and
nodded. "I couldna speak for fear ye would recognize ma voice,
Winston. Aye, I be o' the garden place but no' a
reporter."

Thunder rumbled around them
and her darting gaze searched the ceiling. Then she met Winston's
vacant eyes and explained, "I told ye, ye could see me once ye
touched me. Remember?"

He nodded
stiltedly.

"I was below, in wha' ye
call the cellar, when ye tripped over the root. Touched me, ye did,
and I be true to ma word."

"Hold it!" Roan exclaimed
almost comically. With a hand held up in a placating manner, he
left Laura and stood alongside Winston. To say he looked beyond
perplexed was a gross understatement. "Tell me, Winston, she's no'
anither ghost."

"I be Deliah," she said
firmly, as if that should explain everything.

"I met her in the fourth
dimension the first night I spent in this house," Winston said
dully.

A blank expression spread
across Roan's face. "Fourth dimension?" Blinking, he sent Laura a
dazed look. "Now we have us a
fourth
dimension? How...wonderful."
He met Winston's gaze and blinked. "So, she's no' a
ghost?"

"I don't know wha' she is,"
Winston grumbled, angrily regarding Deliah. "In her world, she
tried to tell me she was the house."

"Her world?
This
house? She thinks
she is
this
house?"

Sighing, Winston
nodded.

Another boom of thunder
crashed around them.

Laura fiercely hugged
herself, her gaze searching the ceiling. "I better check on the
boys."

"Agnes is wi' them," said
Winston in a monotone. "There's a storm coming in all right, but it
doesn't feel like anything I've experienced before."

Deliah released a violent
shudder and closed her eyes for a moment. "I couldna forestall the
comin’ any longer."

"The comin’?" Roan slapped
his palms to his cheeks and walked around Winston. "I'll finish
layin’ the fire."

He stopped short, and
Winston and Laura's heads shot around when a whoosh came from the
hearth. A roaring fire engulfed the logs Roan had stacked on the
firedog. Then the mesh screen eerily slid into place.

"Wha' the—" Roan gasped,
turning wide eyes on Deliah.

The air in the room shifted
and grew dense. Deliah tightly closed her eyes as if to shut
something out, or to hold something inside her. She shuddered
again. When her eyelids lifted, her irises were dull, her
complexion pale.

Then Deliah became flushed.
A fine sheen of perspiration broke out on her face. "They be
weakenin’ me. I can do no mair."

The hairs on Winston's arm
twitched against his skin. "Who's weakening you? Wha' are you
talking abou'?"

A blood-curdling scream
boomed throughout the house. Laura ran into Roan's opened arms.
Winston stiffened, his face the color of chalk as he tried to
decipher the images bombarding his fevered brain. He started toward
the door to the hall, but stopped in his tracks when an omnipresent
groan crescendoed into another wail of such torment, his blood
turned to ice.

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph,"
Roan murmured, blessing himself.

Deliah ran into the hall
breaking the trio's stupor. Winston gripped her arm as soon as he
caught up with her on the landing of the third floor. Roan and
Laura followed at his heels. Agnes and the boys stood outside
Alby's bedroom door. The boys beelined for the adults and huddled
close while Agnes glided toward them, her gaze fearfully casting
about.