The Wedding Dress (27 page)

“I have not!” Emma’s cheeks flamed. “Don’t be ridiculous, Sam! I—” She grimaced, swiping her hair back from her cheek. “Maybe I am crazy. Flinging myself at Jared like some sex-starved idiot and then arguing about it with someone who isn’t even on the same continent.”

A ray of moonlight creeping through the tower window pulled her gaze. Maybe a lungful of sea air would clear her head. She started toward the moonbeam, then froze in her tracks.

A distant roar set the hairs on the back of her neck prickling, the raw cry reverberating from somewhere in the night. Alarm shot through her. Had Jared fallen on the cliff? Or a wildcat…hadn’t Davey said there were wildcats in Scotland? She raced to the window, banging her hip into the edge of the table as she peered out, her gaze sweeping from stony cliff to moonlit sea.

But Jared was nowhere in sight. It was another figure that made her press her hand to her lips, her stomach plunging in disbelief.

The knight of the sea battled on the violently thrashing water, his sword flashing in the moonlight, his face a pale blur.

She scrubbed at her eyes with her knuckles, expecting him to disappear. But when she opened them again, the knight still battled on the waves. Emma’s heart leapt. He was there! Her ghost knight! He was real!

She’d always believed in spirits wandering the earth. Since the summer she was ten and Addy March had been her best friend, she’d found comfort in imagining souls still linked to people or places they loved. Addy bonded to March Winds by the journal Emma had found, the nineteenth-century girl real in spite of the fact that the rest of the McDaniels thought her an imaginary friend Emma had concocted to ease her loneliness.

Although Emma had grown up and left Addy behind, she still believed Addy had been real. That the little girl who once longed for her absent father during the Civil War had spoken to Emma through time, helping Emma endure the months without her own mother. Addy a guardian spirit to help Emma navigate the most painful time in her life, until now.

So if Addy had come to her for a reason, why did this Scottish ghost call to Emma now? What drew her so fiercely to her knight of the sea? Her heart squeezed, understanding to her very marrow his battle with an enemy he couldn’t see.

Loneliness…Emma’s soul echoed his.

The knight, searching all eternity for a lady he would never find, his love and dreams lost…not so different from Emma’s own.

He’s not real,
doubt and logic prodded her. Then why did she
feel
the knight’s pain so sharply,
sense
his isolation so deeply.
Need
with every fiber in her body to reach out to him across time to comfort him….

It was time to put an end to all her wondering. Prove to herself once and for all whether she was right about the spirit wandering Castle Craigmorrigan or whether she was simply losing her mind.

Fearful that at any moment her knight would vanish once again into mist, she didn’t bother to slip on her shoes. She merely grabbed one of the candles flickering on the table and raced down the tower stairs.

She plunged out into the night, rounding the tower exterior and clambering over the chain to the forbidden area beyond. Cold winds bit through the fragile cloth of her shift. Slick stones bruised her feet, slowing her down. She picked her way across the ankle-twisting expanse in spite of pain and danger, hot wax from the candle splashing onto her knuckles.

Her eyes swept the seascape, searching, desperate for the apparition she’d seen from her room, half-expecting she’d be too late. He’d already have sunk deep into his watery grave.

She gasped as she saw him. Her gaze locked on the lone figure battling atop the waves. Her memory filled with fairy tales she’d read as a dreamy little girl, battles she’d pictured and foes knights had vanquished. No fearsome dragon writhed across the waves, and yet that didn’t diminish the wonder of the scene before her, a magic far too real.

The deadly blade of the knight’s sword flashed—his battle cries battering against the night wind—a silvery coat of chain mail gleaming on his chest.

Thunder crashed as clouds conquered the moon. Or was that terrible pounding sound Emma’s heartbeat raging? The warrior vanished in darkness as black as sin.

“No!” Emma cried in protest. “Don’t leave me!”

As if at her command, a moonbeam pierced through a break in the clouds, limning the warrior in an ethereal glow. The knight wheeled toward her across the wave’s divide. His image seared into her mind in that frozen instant, moonlight ruthless as dragon flame illuminating Jared Butler’s face.

Jared? Emma’s mind screamed denial. No! That was impossible! The knight was fighting on the sea. How could any mortal…

But she knew the crags and hollows of Jared Butler’s face almost as well as she knew her own. She knew the shape of that mouth, with its crooked grin and its sin-dark secret: the sensitivity he tried so hard to hide.

Jared stood—his sword flashing, his powerful body dripping silver—as if he were Sir Lancelot come real.

She didn’t see the vast emptiness beyond the cliff’s edge until it was too late. Her foot stepped into nothingness.

The candle flew from her grasp, an arc of light against the darkness tumbling to the sea. She flailed, fighting for balance, screaming as she groped for something, anything to grab hold of as she fell. Her fingers snagged the branch of some scrubby underbrush clinging precariously to the cliff’s edge and she held on with all her might.

“Emma!” Jared shouted, flinging his sword away. “Hold on!”

Her hands slipped, rough bark tearing at her palms. She glanced down at the waves hurling themselves with bone-crushing force against the foot of the cliffs far below, foam-crested currents that would drag her beneath the surface forever if she fell. Oh, God, Jared would never get to her in time!

She scrabbled with her feet, searching for purchase. Her toes dug into a small hollow. The tiny outcropping of rock helped bear some of her weight.

She shut her eyes, her mind filling with faces she loved. Her mother, once so restless, glowing with joy in the gazebo as she’d married Jake. Her uncle Cade and aunt Finn…their twins and Deirdre Skye. And Emma’s very own little sister, Hope. Chattering over the phone about her very first dance recital come September. Hope dancing as Red Riding Hood, with her daddy playing the big bad wolf. Emma planned to order the most extravagant bouquet imaginable to give her little sister when Hope came off stage. Who would do it if Emma wasn’t there?

No,
she told herself, clinging even more tightly. She couldn’t fall…couldn’t leave them….

And yet, they’d all get through it—the grief her loss would bring. There was only one McDaniel who’d never survive if she fell. Her grandfather. Sure, the Captain loved all his rebellious family. But Emma had always known she was his favorite. His “diamond in the sky.” She remembered the Christmas she’d gotten engaged, the troubled crease in the Captain’s brow when they’d stolen a moment alone together.

What’s wrong, Grandpa?

I just want to know you’re happy before I die. Drew…he’s…

Perfect!
Emma had provided with a bride-to-be’s bliss.

So he is. Maybe that’s what scares me.

What would the Captain think if he ever met Jared Butler?

The sound of footsteps clattering on the rocks yanked her back to the present. Jared’s voice urging her, “Hold on, Emma! Hold on!”

She strained her neck back to search for him, saw his face appear over the ledge, his jaw rugged as the cliff, set and unyielding. “Don’t you let go!” Chain mail clattered against rock as he flung himself down on his belly and reached for her.

Strong, hard, real, Jared’s fingers clamped around her wrist. “Give me your other hand,” he urged. “Grab on to me.”

For an instant, terror flooded her at the thought of releasing the branch. His fingers were too damp, her wrist too slippery. How could he ever hold her? She glanced down at the raging sea.

“You’re not going to drag me over. Emma, look at me,” he ordered. “Trust me.”

She peered up into his face, his world-weary eyes, his stubborn jaw. His mouth. So fierce, so tender. Her knight, a light in her darkness. And she knew he would never let her fall. She released her hold, her right foot suddenly sliding out from under her. She dangled by one arm for a terrified moment that stretched out forever. Then she flung her other arm up and grabbed on to Jared, holding on with all her might.

Ever so slowly, he edged his body back from the brink of the cliff, pulling her with him inch by painful inch, her stomach raking against the stone. She tried to help him, pushing against whatever surface she could reach with her feet. But it was Jared’s strength that held her, Jared’s will that moved her up onto solid ground.

The instant he could manage it, Jared caught her under her arms and rolled himself beneath her to cushion her from the rocks. He crushed her hard against him. “Thank God,” he growled low, his hands roving up and down her back as if trying to assure himself she was really there. “You’re safe now. Safe.”

Emma clung to him, links of chain mail biting into her breasts. She didn’t care about anything except being in Jared’s arms. “You…you’re the knight of the sea. But the water…fighting on the water…impossible…”

“A sort of bridge of rocks sweeps out to a stone platform from the east. You can’t see it unless you know it’s—What the hell does it matter?” he demanded in a shaky voice as he maneuvered them both to their feet.

He swept her up into his arms, carrying her like a child as he picked his way with astonishing sure-footedness across the maze of tangled stone. He smelled of sea spray and spice and dark fairy magic as he stepped over the chain with one long stride. “Emma, you could have drowned!”

“For the s-second time in my life,” Emma said, burrowing closer, remembering another near disaster—her fall as a child into the river near her uncle Cade’s cabin.

She’d left the castle door wide open. He shouldered it shut behind them and started up the stairs. “What the hell were you doing out there?” he growled.

“My knight. Thought…thought he was Lady Aislinn’s husband trying to find her. I was scared he was giving up.”

“He wasn’t giving up. He was working out his frustrations. Hell, what am I talking about?
He
doesn’t even exist. It’s just me, an archaeologist with a bugger of a temper trying to let off some steam so I won’t kill anybody. Working with my sword out there, in chain mail and all the trimmings until I can’t lift my arms—that’s my release valve when the pressures get too intense. It…centers me.”

“But the knight sank into the water that first night. I saw him.”

“Must’ve finally exhausted myself and fell flat. Only time I ever got that frustrated was the night you first came to Craigmorrigan.”

“The dragon was winning.”

“Don’t tell me there was a dragon out there and I didn’t even notice! Some knight I am,” he said, but his attempt to tease her fell flat. She could feel him shaking.

She felt vulnerable, raw, terror from her fall still rippling through her. She smacked her fist against his shoulder, the metal links tearing a stinging cut in her knuckle. “Don’t make fun of me!”

“I’m not. I was just trying to make you laugh.” He squeezed her even more fiercely against him. “I promise you this, sweetheart. There are no dragons here.”

He set her gently on her feet and grabbed a blanket from her bed, wrapping the plush fur around her.

He peeled the heavy coat of chain mail over his head, his leather jerkin damp with sweat, plastered against his skin. But even as he let the mail slither to a pool on the floor, he still looked every inch her embattled knight.

“You p-probably think I’m being ridiculous,” she accused, her lower lip quivering. “My head full of ghosts and—and dragons.”

“Reckless, maybe,” he said, closing the space between them again. “Hardheaded and damned disobedient. This is the second time you’ve ignored my danger signs. And you’re blasted lucky to be alive.” He swept a tear from her cheek with the pad of his thumb and gazed at the glittering drop of moisture as if it held some kind of enchantment. “But the knight you saw was real. Well, sort of. And when it comes to believing in dragons, well…” An almost sheepish aura blunted the chiseled power of his face. “I’m the last man who would ever laugh at you for that.”

“You? The—the great scientist?” She sniffled back the rest of her tears, the fur not half as warm as she knew Jared’s arms would be. “You can’t fit a dragon under a microscope.”

“No. But when I was a boy I would have bet my life one could fit under my bed.” The corner of his mouth curved ruefully. “The year I turned nine I had nightmares. I’d been devouring
Lord of the Rings
for weeks. Those orcs, they’re damned scary.”

“Tell me about it,” Emma said, shuddering. “I didn’t discover Tolkein until I was fourteen and the ring wraiths creeped me out.”

Jared stared at her as if one more veil had been torn away between them. “Don’t tell me you’re another Tolkein freak.”

“Oh, yeah. My aunt Finn gave me a boxed set of the books for my birthday. The whole time I was devouring the trilogy Mom thought I was just having one of my reading orgies and fell asleep with the light on. Truth is I left the lamp burning on purpose. Every time my room got dark, I could hear those Nazgul things breathing down my neck.”

“I know what you mean.” Jared’s eyes warmed. “My gran was beside herself, a great lad like me afraid to go to sleep in his own bed. One night I woke up screaming. When Da came in to comfort me, I told him if I had a sword…a real sword like Aragorn’s sword of Elendil…I could keep the dragon away from him and Gran and me. Three days later I found one leaning next to my bed.”

Emma slipped her arms around him, seeking comfort, warmth. His chest felt warm and solid, powerful enough to slay a whole army of dragons. “So that’s how your fascination with pointy objects started?” she teased. “A nice plastic sword to use in dragon taming? I should pick one up for my little sister before I go home. The neighborhood boys would never forgive me.” She smiled, imagining Hope’s glee.