Dark Gothic: His Dark Kiss Part 7

"I have no need for frugality, only a desire to breathe untainted air."

"Why do you dislike the smell of tallow?" she ventured boldly.

"It smells like death."

She swallowed, having no response to that statement.

"I see you had thoughts similar to my own." He gestured at the half-full plate before her, smiling ruefully as his stomach growled, the sound loud in the silence of the darkened kitchen. "I shall join you."

Emma opened her mouth to suggest that he join the devil but thought better of her reply. Her years of guarding her tongue-and her thoughts-against her intrusive aunts had taught her to measure words with great care. She was angry at his earlier treatment of her, dismayed that despite his horrid behavior she could not help but feel a sizzle of awareness whenever he was about.

And despite his attempts to brand himself the villain in her eyes, she had her doubts. The question was, why did he wish her to view him through a haze of suspicion and fear, and if such was his intent, why was he behaving now as though naught had occurred? Perhaps he was unsettled. Addled. Completely mad.

With silent grace he strode past her, moving out of her line of sight.

Emma sat rigidly on her wooden seat, determined to resist the urge to turn her head and follow his progress. She heard the clatter of a plate being set on the high wooden table behind her, the sound of liquid pouring, then nothing. The inclination to check on Lord Anthony's exact location within the kitchen was tempting in the extreme.

Concentrating on her meal, she broke off a chunk of bread and laid a slice of cheese across it. She could only wish that if she ignored him, he would go away, for she was as yet unprepared to cross rapier-sharp words with him once more.

"Here," he said, leaning close beside her, the open edge of his linen s.h.i.+rt brus.h.i.+ng her shoulder.

The contact was negligible, but Emma's senses hummed to life.

With a thud Lord Anthony placed a full mug of ale in front of her. Her eyes snapped open.

"Thank you," she murmured, a little fl.u.s.tered to realize that the master of the house was serving her. From the corner of her eye she watched the play of muscle across his taut belly as he straightened. Drat the man! His very presence rankled. Why could he not simply leave her alone?

Summoning her courage, Emma met his gaze as he sat down opposite her, his plate filled with the same makes.h.i.+ft meal she had foraged for herself. Perhaps she should unnerve him as he did her.

"What shall I do with the gown?" she questioned bluntly.

Lord Anthony paused, his mug poised halfway between his lips and the table. Regarding her through narrowed eyes, he took a slow pull on the ale, then set the drink down and casually drew the back of his hand across his mouth. Emma found the coa.r.s.e action entrancing, and her eyes followed the movement of his knuckle across his full lower lip.

"Burn it."

His answer was not at all rea.s.suring.

Emma stared at him. Only hours ago she had huddled on the floor, convinced that she was in the realm of a madman. Now she sat with that same man, sharing a companionable meal.

As if reading her thoughts, Lord Anthony waved his hand negligently and asked, "Do you think me mad, Miss Parrish? A snarling beast fit for Bedlam?"

"Does it matter what I think?"

He blinked, clearly surprised, and then he smiled, a slow curving of his lips. She loved that smile, the open warmth of it, a rare gift. "Yes. For some unfathomable reason, what you think does matter."

"I think you are..." She paused, searching for the right word. He watched her intently, waiting for her answer. "Unusual," she finished at length.

His brows rose.

"Yes, unusual," Emma temporized. She could hardly tell him that despite his unpredictable behavior, she found him intriguing. Enticing. Compelling. But there was one truth she could share. "You frightened me, you know. Was that your intent?"

His smile faded. "The shock of seeing you gowned in that-" He shook his head. "Originally, I had no intent. My actions were governed by a sad lack of control over my temper. And then I thought that perhaps a little fear might not be a terrible thing."

Emma chewed thoughtfully, digesting his words, thinking it strange that he claimed a lack of control when she had borne witness to his icy restraint, and wondering why he wanted her to be afraid of him. She met his gaze, read the sensual knowledge there, and found her answer. He had surmised her infatuation and had set about removing it, her inappropriate and obviously unwelcome fascination.

He was far wiser than she. Mortification sloshed over her in a hot wave.

"Will you flee with the morning light, Miss Parrish? Run from this place?" He c.o.c.ked a brow. "From me?"

Her breath caught. Something in his tone made her think that it mattered greatly to him what her answer might be, that he had no wish for her to leave, despite his earlier instruction when they had stood in the gallery and he had urged her to flee. Strange, contradictory man.

"I do not wish to be frightened again." Her heart pounded as she said the words. Forcing herself to meet his gaze, she regarded him frankly.

"Then you must make every endeavor to ensure that you are not," he observed, his tone dry.

"As must you," she replied briskly.

"Yes. As must I."

"Was that an apology, my lord?"

His eyes were the color of burnished bra.s.s, reflecting the flickering light as he stared at her. One moment green, the next gold. Changeable. Unpredictable. Beautiful. As was the man himself.

He gave a short bark of laughter. "An apology, Miss Parrish? No, I think not. Merely a statement."

And what was she to say to that? They ate the remainder of their meal with studied concentration, the only sound the hiss and sputter of the candle as the melted wax puddled around the wick. At length, Emma rose.

"Good night, my lord. And, no, I will not flee with the coming of the light. As I have already told you, I would not leave Nicky. I have come to care for him." I have come to care for you.

Something flickered in his gaze, and for one terrible moment she wondered if she had somehow blurted that last thought aloud. Then he inclined his head and said, "Constancy is an amazing gift. I thank you for offering yours to my son."

Emma could think of no reply to the warm admiration that s.h.i.+mmered in his words, and the pain that hovered just beneath it. Who had betrayed him in the past that he valued fidelity and constancy so? 'Twas not the first mention of such he had made.

"Good night, Miss Parrish," he said.

She picked up her tallow candle, the one he had snuffed with his fingers. Carefully, she relit it from the wax candle on the table as he watched her from beneath hooded lids, his expression unreadable. Crossing the kitchen, she then paused, her back to him, her hand resting against the doorjamb.

"I accept."

"Accept?" he echoed, his tone hinting at curiosity.

"I accept your thanks. And your apology," she said softly. And then she fled the kitchen as if followed closely by a horde of demons, when in truth she was followed only by the rich sound of Lord Anthony's laughter.

Several days later, Emma took advantage of the free hour when Nicky was at the paddock to stroll outside in the suns.h.i.+ne, novel in hand. She carried one of her favorites, The Romance of the Forest, intent on enjoying a few stolen moments of quiet freedom. The sound of a horse and cart coming up the cobbled drive caught her attention. She paused and watched as Griggs stopped the wagon near the Round Tower, set the brake with meticulous care and nodded to her as he climbed down from the seat and made his way around to the back.

There he hefted what appeared to be a large sac out of the bed of the cart. The load was nearly as long as the coachman, and he clearly strained under the weight as he adjusted his burden over his burly shoulder. He made a sight, his scarred face twisted with the effort of carrying the heavy thing, his back hunched. He staggered toward the tower.

Wrapping her arms around herself, Emma s.h.i.+vered, a strange sense of foreboding crawling up her spine. Unbidden, the memory of his warning the night of her arrival at Manorbrier sprang to mind. There's death in that tower, miss. Death in the very air. There had been no mistaking his fear that night. It had oozed from his pores and hovered about him like a swarm of flies. Yet, here he was, moving toward the tower, carrying a burlap-wrapped object that made Emma inexplicably uneasy.

She strode forward, studying the odd bundle.

Griggs paused, squinting at her as she approached. "Stay where y'are, miss. Don't want you coming near."

"And good afternoon to you, Griggs."

"I means what I says, miss. No place for you near here. You go on back to the kitchen, or the garden, or wherever you was before." He s.h.i.+fted the sack as it slid down his shoulder.

"What do you have there, Griggs?" Emma pressed her lips together as she wondered at her own perverse curiosity, but there was something so odd about the shape of the thing, rounded at one end, tapered at the other.

"Naught that concerns you, missy," he said with a scowl.

She was tempted to agree and move on, but something held her in place.

"Do you need my help?" she asked, eyeing his load apprehensively. Were those toes? There at the end, poking through a loose fold of sheeting? She s.h.i.+vered.

Griggs turned the full force of his disapproving glare on her. She stopped cold. The intensity of his gaze warned her that he was not simply talking to hear himself speak. There was an unspoken horror that lurked in his eyes. Whatever he carried, he wanted her as far away from it as possible.

His expression accomplished what his words had not. It sent a harsh tremor of fear slithering down Emma's spine, and a wild swirl of worry tripping through her belly. Suddenly wary, she took a stumbling step back.

They were toes. And legs, and arms, barely concealed by swaths of cloth. Dear heaven, it was a body, a dead body he carried.

True fear roiled in her belly. Griggs's eyes widened, and Emma realized that he knew she had recognized exactly what it was he transported.

"You be wise, missy."

He bid her be wise? Where was the wisdom in carrying a corpse up a tower?

Emma watched in frozen dismay as Griggs made his way laboriously toward the Round Tower. Pausing at the doorway and s.h.i.+fting the bundle across his shoulder, he reached for a leather thong that hung about his neck. With an impatient tug, he pulled the thong from inside his s.h.i.+rtfront and bent forward to push the key into the lock.

The weight of the load combined with his bent posture sent Griggs's long bundle sliding down his shoulder, and as he stumbled in an attempt to regain his equilibrium, the stained gray sheeting that wrapped the thing became disarrayed.

From the bottom of the bundle dangled a human hand, the fingers curled like talons, the skin wrinkled and pale save for a terrible blackened lesion that marred the flesh, the center glistening wetly in the sun. Emma gasped and lurched away. 'Twas not just any body, but a terrible, frightening thing riddled with disease.

Taking another involuntary step backward, she held up one hand, palm forward. Such a futile gesture aimed at warding off the horror that confronted her. She swallowed against the bile that crawled up her throat as frozen talons of true horror gouged her heart.

Griggs looked down.

"His Lords.h.i.+p likes 'em fresh," he said. "Says it's best for the harvest." With a grunt, he hefted his morbid parcel, turned his back on her, and disappeared into the tower.

Swallowing convulsively, Emma closed her eyes, but her imagination conjured the exact vision she tried so desperately to block. A long-forgotten whisper popped into her head, one she was familiar with from a local outbreak when she was a child. Malignant pustule. She knew what that lesion was, knew the name they called the terrible disease that brewed wounds dark and s.h.i.+ning like lumps of coal.

Anthrax.

A shudder shook her frame. In her mind she saw the oozing, blackened pustule that marred the corpse's arm, the curled fingers, the shriveled skin.

Dear heaven. What manner of place had she come to? A flood of horrified thoughts cascaded through her brain, and none of them made a st.i.tch of sense. Anthrax killed, turning the blood black as coal, congealing it like mutton drippings gone cold. And here Griggs claimed that Lord Anthony wanted the body fresh, wanted to carry out some macabre harvest.

Heart pounding so hard she felt ill from the force of it, Emma began to back away, one step and the next, until her back b.u.mped against the wooden slats of Griggs's wagon. With a cry, she whirled and fisted her hands in her skirt. Then she ran full tilt down the cobbled drive, her chest tight and desperate for air, her blood thick and sluggish. Away. She needed to be away from Manorbrier and that horrible tower, and the image that was branded in her mind's eye.

The image of death.

She ran until her lungs protested and each breath was forced past her lips with a painful gasp. Her feet ached and her thighs burned, and still she pressed on, unseeing, reckless in her flight. Manorbrier lay behind her. But she could not say what lay ahead.

The sound of a horse at full gallop chased after her, and her name, a cry on the wind. Emma spun about to find Lord Anthony mounted upon a great sleek beast, bearing down on her. His unbound hair was caught and cast about by the wind, and his countenance was dark and forbidding. The pounding in her breast mingled with the drumming of the animal's hooves.

She could not hope to outrun him, but she could not seem to slow the rhythm of her flight. Her feet tripping over each other, she tried to run while glancing back at her pursuer. She stumbled on the uneven terrain. A sharp pain knifed through her ankle. She lost her balance and cried out as the ground came rus.h.i.+ng toward her.

Arms outstretched, she landed in a graceless heap among the wildflowers. The tender buds were crushed by her fall, releasing a scent that swirled around her, strong and sweet. And the smell of gra.s.s and damp earth, rich and primal, filled her nostrils. The wind, the trill of a bird, the buzz of a bee, all seemed exaggerated, slowed to an abnormal pace, while her entire focus was riveted on Lord Anthony's approach.

His Lords.h.i.+p likes 'em fresh. Says its best for the harvest. Oh, dear heaven...Emma tried to summon a prayer, but her mind was numb with fear. Fear of him. And fear of herself, for despite the corpse and Griggs's horrible a.s.sertion, despite the implication that Lord Anthony Craven played dark games with a deadly plague-mounting evidence all of the evil that lurked in his soul-she desperately wanted to absolve him of wrongdoing.

Yet, she had witnessed with her own eyes the human remains that Griggs had carried to Lord Anthony's tower lair. What possible explanation could he offer for that? What explanation would her foolish heart accept?

Pus.h.i.+ng herself to her knees and then higher still, Emma tried to take her weight on her injured limb. To no avail. The ankle was already swelling and the pain was sharp and intense. Again, she stumbled and collapsed to the ground.

No escape now. Lord Anthony was upon her.

With a snarl he flung himself from the saddle, landing with inhuman grace on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet. "Are you hurt?"

Mutely, she shook her head. He stalked toward her, stopping when he reached her side, booted feet planted shoulder width apart, fisted hands resting on his narrow hips. His expression was thunderous as he glared down at her.

"Miss Parrish." The words were bitten off with military precision. "I had believed you to be a sensible girl. It seems my impression could not have been more incorrect."

Hunkering down beside her, he shoved her skirt up above her knees. Emma felt a hot flush stain her cheeks as his hands slid impersonally along her legs.

"Please, my lord." She tried to return her hemline to a more modest level.

He moved her hands aside, and again pushed at her skirt. With a firm but careful touch he probed her ankle.

"I suspect you are done with running for today." His tone had gentled somewhat. "Does this pain you over much?"

"No, my lord." Not as much as my heart, she thought as she stared at his square jaw, his firm lips, the chiseled curve of his cheekbone. She was caught between the urge to reach out and lay her hand against his skin, and the urge to shrink from him in horror.

Something in her tone caught his attention. He tilted his head and looked into her eyes, probing more than her ankle.

"It appears that our discussion the other night was for naught. You have again allowed yourself to succ.u.mb to irrational fright."

She blinked. Irrational?

"Mrs. Bolifer came rus.h.i.+ng to the stables, frantic with worry." Emma had difficulty trusting the veracity of that statement. Frantic with worry? Mrs. Bolifer? "She caught the tail end of your rather chaotic escape," he continued. His tone and the chastising look on his face implied that he expected more of her.

Cold anger started in the pit of Emma's belly, pus.h.i.+ng aside her fear and taking its place. He was chastising her. A man who h.o.a.rded dead bodies in some secret room in a moldering tower was taking her to task for worrying his housekeeper. Dead bodies! And he called her fear irrational.

"Griggs was carrying a corpse." Her tone could have frozen hot coals in the pits of d.a.m.nation.

He raised his brow inquiringly, and his expression revealed polite puzzlement. "And?"