Somehow, she just knew that Roland, her own personal hell hound of a ghost, was responsible for all of it. If only Roland would leave her alone, then Snowingham would leave her alone.
But that was exactly what Snow was doing, wasn’t it? Leaving her alone. Completely and, to be honest, insultingly alone.
Really now, she did have some feminine wiles and she did think that she could use one or two of them to at least make Snow as uncomfortable as she was. That was only fair, after all. She did think that the least he could do would be to play fair. At whatever he was playing at. Which she couldn’t possibly name.
Rose threw down her hair brush, a lovely silver-backed brush that had been a gift from her maternal great-aunt and did deserve better treatment, pushed back the velvet-tufted stool, and grabbed up her deep blue shawl from the back of a chair. She was not going to be trapped who-knew-where without a shawl again.
“Yes, I’m going,” she snapped at the bed.
The bed was, of course, empty.
“I don’t pretend to like being cast from my own chamber, but I’ll do anything to have a moment’s peace from you,” she said, slamming the door behind her. As it was a very heavy door, it was not susceptible to slamming. And that only added to her growing fury.
She had to get away from Keyvnor and that hideously annoying ghost.
Rose worked her way through the castle by sound. If she could hear people talking, she went in the opposite direction. If a room felt cold, she went in the opposite direction. If she heard even the slightest whisper of that unnatural ghostly voice, she ran in the opposite direction. She remembered somewhat belatedly that she had formed a breath of a plan to find Snowingham for the purpose of causing him some degree of emotional confusion and agitation. That plan became secondary to finding solitude from everyone and everything.
It wasn’t long before she had no thought in her head at all beyond the need to keep moving, to keep searching for solitude and quiet and peace. She only wanted to escape. She only moved her feet in the direction of the closest safe haven. There was no other need in her.
She ran, gasping, into the great hulk that was Lord Snowingham’s torso.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, catching her by the arms to steady her.
They were outside, on the stone parapet that encircled the north tower, one of the older sections of the castle. She had never been here before and had no memory of running up what must have been over a thousand stone steps to reach the parapet. The sky was clear, the stars bright white in a coal black night. Her breath came out in white puffs. She could not seem to stop gasping.
Snow was not gasping. His chest moved in and out with deep, firm regularity. His breath was warm on her hair. His grip was warm on her arms. The heat of his body swirled around her like an embrace, enfolding her in a cocoon of solace and safety.
“Lady,” he said, his voice was a rough rumble of sound. “Are you well? Are you pursued?”
Had she been pursued? No, she had been driven.
“No,” she said, lifting her face to stare into his eyes. She shouldn’t have been able to see him. The night was dark. The moon had not yet risen. There were no torches here. There was nothing but the night and this man and the ancient stone that surrounded them. “All is well,” she said. It was an odd remark to make. She was certain she had never said ‘all is well’ in her entire life, and things had often been well in her life.
“And so it is,” he said. “All is well.”
His eyes burned blue, a hot bright blue that cut through the black night. His hair was loosened, bright blond strands that blew in the high wind upon the tower. Starlight lit the bones of his face, his brow, his cheek, his jaw with cold white light. He looked like a god of legend.
“You are so warm,” he said.
She was? She looked down at her hands. They were on his chest, braced there, resting there with all the familiarity of a family friend. How had her hands come to be there?
Her skin seemed to shimmer with light, pale and golden, like the first moments of dawn on a bright summer day. Yes, it was true. She was warm. There was a hot, pulsing rush of sensation just beneath her skin, in her blood.
“I was cold before. Now I am not,” she said. Could he see her? She could see his face, read his eyes. Could he do the same or was she living in a dream?
“I wonder if you will ever be cold again,” he said, his hands moving up her arms to touch her neck. “I think not. I think nothing will be the same again.”
He could see her. His eyes moved over her face like a touch, lingering, caressing. She felt naked. It felt wonderful.
That was such a wrong thing to think. Everything about this was unnatural. Everything about this moment, this man, reeked of unnatural things, of ghosts and myths and bedtime stories told under the sheets. She wanted to escape Keyvnor, yes, but marriage to this man would lead to more ghosts and more unnatural events, and she wanted none of that. No more of that. It was wrong, all of it, and she rejected it all.
It also seemed highly likely that Roland had driven her straight to Snow’s arms, like driving a rat through a maze and into a waiting trap. She would not be trapped. She would not live a life straight out of a ghost story told to giggling children.
“Snow,” she said, and then cursed herself for being so familiar. “Lord Snowingham, I am no green girl.”
“Have I said so?” he said, his hands running down her arms again, holding her hands in his.
His hands were massive, his palms slightly roughened. Like a laborer. She pushed the thought into her mind, resisting the drive to throw herself into his arms and stay warm. The wind whistled through the crenelation; the stone seemed to shiver.
“I will not shame my family by being compromised on the eve, or practically so, of my sisters’ wedding,” she said. When he cocked a brow at that, she added, “And of course I will not allow myself to be compromised any evening. Or any morning, either.”
“Admirable,” he said, releasing her, crossing his arms against her. She wanted to cry out at the loss. She didn’t. “Is there anything else I should know about you? Is there anything else you won’t do in the morning?”
Rose heard the faintest snicker from far, far above them. Without intending to, she looked at Snow’s ring. The ruby was faintly glowing. Snow looked down at his ring, and scowled.
“Does it do that often?” she asked.
“Never before,” he said, looking up into the sky. Was it possible that he could sense Roland as she could? She didn’t know how to ask without sounding hysterical. “Keyvnor has its legends,” he said. “You are familiar with them?”
“I am a new resident, if you recall,” she said.
“Yet a resident,” he said. Lord Snowingham was not very polite, not to allow her the ease of evasiveness. “What do you know, Lady Rose?”
“Know? I know nothing, Lord Snowingham,” she said. It was true enough; no one could truly know, could they? She might actually be insane. One supposed the insane never knew they weren’t sane, did they?
She had considered everything since first meeting him, and she had decided that familiarity with Lord Snowingham was in her worst possible interests. She wanted to escape ghosts, not live in a flurry of them with a golden ring that seemed to draw them like a magnet. She did not want to live a life that was so intentionally insane. All she had to do, must do, was reside somewhere besides Keyvnor, and she didn’t need Lord Snowingham to see the deed done. Any man would do.
The thought was like a knife to her soul. She did her best to ignore it.
“Rose,” he said, reaching out to touch her. She backed up a step. The stone wall of the tower pressed against her back. “Rose,” he said again, dropping his hand, “I am a rational, reasonable man. I cannot remain a rational man and deny what has happened to me, to my perception regarding my own particular family legend. It is necessary to face facts as they make themselves known. It is the only way to live in the world and not become a victim to it.”
“A victim to it? A victim to what?” she said, wrapping her shawl more closely about her. She was not cold; it was her shield against the pull she felt to throw herself into his arms. “You appear to live a very combative life, my lord.”
“The world is a combative place, my lady,” he said, smiling briefly. Why could she see him? There was no light upon the tower. There was no moon, and starlight was too dim, too distant to light the black night. Or so it had been before Snow had come to Castle Keyvnor. “And growing more so, I think. The ring has never glowed before,” he continued, “and the possible reasons for that must be narrowed down to the two most likely. Either Castle Keyvnor has ghosts and those ghosts activated the legend of the ring, or you are the inciting agent. The ring turned on, to put it bluntly, and there you were.” He stared down at her, his expression fairly neutral, considering what he had just said.
“You talk of ghosts as if they are real,” she said. She didn’t know if that made her hopeful or despairing. Were they both insane? What sort of people stood on castle parapets in the dark of night and spoke of ghosts? No one she knew, that was certain. Until now, that is. “And of legends and myths and ghost stories as if, well, as if you were speaking about deer getting at the corn or rats in the walls.”
“I have reviewed the facts and they led me here,” he said. “I can do no other. A man must face what stands in front of him, Rose. There is no other way to live.”
“I live just fine, thank you, without discussing the possibility of ghosts and magic rings,” she said.
It could not be true. If it was true, the world was broken beyond all that she wanted it to be, all that she had believed it to be. Roland, yes, she heard him, she felt him, and she knew, deep down, that he was real. But he was only real to her, and that made him not quite real at all. To have Roland be truly real, then what was she to do? What was she to think? All her beliefs fell to dust, and that was no way to live.
“You are frightened,” he said, reading her far too accurately for her personal comfort. “You were not frightened yesterday, in the stable. Yesterday, you were a warrior.”
“I am the furthest thing from a warrior that you shall ever meet,” she said, whirling to leave him. Where were the stairs? How had she found herself up here at all? “I am not some, some Viking shield maiden, come to life in modern England.”
“Viking shield maiden?” Snow said, holding the heavy door open for her with a single massive hand. She rushed down the stairs, Snow right on her heels. “Where did that thought come from?”
“I have a vivid imagination!” she said, because she had no idea where that thought came from, and she was tempted to blame Roland, her imaginary ghost for that. “But not vivid enough to imagine ghosts living at Keyvnor,” she added, more for her benefit than his, she suspected.
“I shall not press you, Lady Rose,” he said as they circled down the endless tower steps. Where was the door that would release her? How was she ever to find her room? “I would not force you to anything, lady.”
“I am so relieved,” she said as sarcastically as she could, being breathless as she was.
Snow’s hand appeared before her, opening a door, and she bolted through it. She recognized the corridor, that portrait, that candlestick upon that heavy table. How was it that he knew the castle better than she did?
“All is well, my lady,” he said when the thick door to the north tower had closed behind them. His eyes held hers. She held her breath, trapped in his gaze. “The night is still, our battle won.”
“All is quiet, my lord,” she said, the words forming in her mouth effortlessly. “Our foes have run, and all is well.”
She turned on stiff legs and walked away from him. She didn’t know how she did it when every beat of her heart commanded her to stay at his side. He watched her until she was out of sight. She did not turn to know that was true, she simply felt it.
Chapter 10
Snow lay in the massive bed that Blackwater was sharing with him. On the floor was Lord Michael, tossing restlessly. Snow did not toss. Snow stared at the ceiling and considered the facts, the assumptions, and the possibilities.
He had spent his first night at Keyvnor denying that anything unusual had happened in the stable with Lady Rose; that had resulted in a sleepless night. He had prowled about in the darkness, leaving Blackwater sole possessor of his bed, learning the castle and staring at his ring for signs of activity. Nothing of note had occurred other than his extreme irritation at losing a night’s sleep.
Snow had spent his first full day at Keyvnor walking the vast grounds of the castle and its environs, finding his way to the bluff above the sea, walking the streets of Bocka Morrow, ignoring most of the guests arriving for the wedding as he set about finding a reason for his ring to have behaved so erratically.
He had begun in denial. He had found there was too much evidence to be denied. He had, fairly swiftly, he thought, moved to experimentation. The ring, his ring, his old familiar ring, did glow faintly at times. He felt things at times. His sensations and the ring’s glow coincided at a ratio of one to one. One hundred percent accuracy.
Snow was at the base of an old beech tree, the branches gnarled, the trunk massive, when he admitted this fact to himself and allowed it to exist in his mind. He swore in annoyance at unwelcome facts in general, hit the tree with a fist, and walked back to the castle with a long, determined stride.
Well, then. The legend, what he knew of it, appeared to be true, at least in parts. Which parts? And did he know the full legend of the Grimstone ring? He thought that highly unlikely. Legends were fluid, smoky things, always changing this way and that, dependent upon the teller of the tale and what the current cultural climate favored as most important, as well as most titillating. Very likely, crucial bits had been left out. He was certain that there were facts not known, and Snow was not a man who would endure a situation without all the facts to hand.
Rose was not of like mind, that was plain.
That she shared some part in the ring seemed obvious. That she wanted no part of it was equally obvious. He could hardly blame her.
Snow crossed his legs and shifted his shoulders; Blackwater snored on. Lady Morgan was going to have a battle on her hands, every night in her marital bed, and not the fun kind.
Snow could hear Lord Michael on the floor, tossing and turning. He could even feel him scowling. Snow waited, suspecting that Beck would not endure the comforts of Blackwater’s chamber much longer. It became a nearly amusing distraction to his problem of the ring.
Finally, and it hadn’t taken long, Beck rose, gathered his bedding, turned to Snow and said, “Best of luck to you.” With that, he departed.
Snow chuckled, readjusted his pillow, elbowed Blackwater in the ribs, listened for the break in his snoring, and settled in to study the play of shadows on the ceiling from the single candle. He then turned his mind to the ring and Rose’s part in it. She wanted no part of it.
Was Rose essential to the ring? It did bear experimentation. But how to get her to agree to it, that was the question. He resisted the idea of tricking her into it; that was hardly chivalrous.
Then again, when had the Earl of Snowingham, of any generation, ever been renowned for his chivalry?
Never, to his knowledge.
Well, then, things seemed simple enough. He merely had to get Rose alone, somewhere where there were ghosts in the vicinity, hardly an issue at Keyvnor, and observe what occurred.
The decision made, Snow rose from the bed, gave Blackwater a cursory glance; the man did not appear to be strangling to death, though he sounded close to it. Pulling on a pair of pantaloons and shrugging on the waistcoat he had worn all day, Snow exited the chamber. Blackwater’s snores rolled on, muffled completely only when the door clicked close.
It was the small hours of the morning, there was no reason for Rose to be anywhere but her bed, yet Snow knew that she would be up and about. He knew it. Another proof, if any were needed. He was fast re
aching the point where no more evidence was required to prove to him that Rose Hambly was the key to everything.
Rose was so exhausted that she couldn’t think straight. She couldn’t see straight. Her stomach was roiling and tight. Her hair hurt.
Gwyn was snoring and Gwyn never snored.
Rose rolled onto her right side and refused to open her eyes. Nothing happened.
She rolled onto her left side and ran her hands over her braid, forcing her eyes to be still behind their lids. She forced herself to lie quietly and pretend to sleep.
The night is still, our battle won.
All is quiet, our foes have run.
She squeezed her eyes shut, pressed her hands over her eyes, pushing out the memory, pushing out the strange words that hung in her thoughts like a melody she couldn’t escape.
All is well.
“All is not well!” she said to the night.
Gwyn stopped snoring for a moment, turned on her back, and snored on, louder than before.
She felt a chill in the room and pulled the blanket over her head.
“Go away,” she said. No one could hear her; no one would know she was a lunatic.
The cold intensified. She felt a shiver run its way down her spine.
“Marry the Grimstone and you can go away, no more ghosts to haunt you,” the voice that was far too familiar to her said.
Rose kept her eyes shut and pretended to be asleep.
“He is your destiny.”
It was not Rose who had said that, obviously.
Enchanted at Christmas (Christmas at Castle Keyvnor Book 2) Page 24