St. Leger 1: The Bride Finder

by Susan Carroll

  God forbid. He'd only wanted to convince her, not frighten her half to death. Anatole cast the sword aside, the weapon landing on the oak table with a heavy clang.

  He gathered Madeline's hands into his, relieved that she did not shrink from him. Her fingers felt so cold. He attempted to chafe some warmth back into them.

  "I'm sorry, Madeline," he said gently. "I know this all sounds so damn strange. Would to God, I didn't even have to tell you the rest of it."

  "The rest?" Madeline raised her eyes to his in dismay. "There is more?"

  "Aye…" He swallowed hard. "You yourself have often remarked that my hearing is extremely acute. It's not my hearing, Madeline. It's something else. I can sense just by concentrating if there is someone coming, who it is."

  "Can you do this with me?"

  "Not when you first came to me. Not until this afternoon beneath the standing stone when I finally understood how to love you. Now I can sense your presence wherever you are. There is no place in this world you could ever go to escape me."

  He meant his words to sound tender, reassuring, his pledge that he would ever be there to watch out for her. But Madeline snatched her hands free of his grasp. Backing away, she locked her arms across her breast. Almost as though she would shut him out.

  Such a simple gesture. How could it possibly hurt him so damned much?

  "And is this all of it?" she demanded. "All that you can do?"

  The temptation to lie to her was so great, he had to clench his jaw to fight it. This was the part of his confession he'd dreaded most of all.

  "No," he said hoarsely. "I—I can also move objects without touching them. Just by using the power of my mind."

  What color remained in Madeline's face drained away. Her gaze flicked toward the heavy oak door, obviously remembering, considering the possibility…

  But her mouth firmed into an obstinate line.

  "Show me!"

  Her demand caused his heart to sink. "Madeline, you could not possibly want—"

  "Yes, I do! If you truly possess such a power, let me see it."

  Knowing Madeline, he should have expected that she would require proof. But how could he display the black talent that had most damned him in his mother's eyes? When Madeline was already on the verge of shrinking from him?

  His fingers strayed instinctively toward his scar. He cast a helpless glance at Madeline, but she remained adamant. What choice did he have but to do as she asked? It was either have her think him a devil or think him mad. No choice at all.

  He sighed. "What do you want me to move?"

  Madeline bit down on her lip, her eyes questing about the room. "Can you lift Prospero's portrait off the wall?"

  "Aye and sink the damned thing into the sea."

  "Just shift it a little." Madeline stepped out of Anatole's path, clearly torn between disbelief and bracing herself in case.

  His shoulders slumped with resignation, Anatole focused on the painting, peering upward into Prospero's mocking eyes. Loathing surged through Anatole, and he gave the portrait a vicious shove with his mind, pain flashing behind his eyes.

  But nothing happened. The portrait didn't budge.

  Anatole frowned. The painting was doubtless heavy enough with that unwieldy frame, but he had shifted far larger objects before. Perhaps he was weakened from his bout with Will. Narrowing his gaze, he thrust out harder, wincing at the throb of pain.

  Still nothing. Not so much as a tremor. It was as though the damned thing was being held fast by… by an invisible pair of hands.

  Prospero!

  Anatole's skin tingled with awareness of the icy presence he should have noticed much sooner.

  "Damn you!" he said. "Let go of the blasted painting."

  "B-but, Anatole. I'm not touching it." Madeline's bewildered voice reached his ears.

  "Not you. Him."

  Madeline glanced wildly about her and then back at Anatole, as if she were convinced he was losing his mind.

  Gritting his teeth, Anatole shoved at the portrait again, but it was fixed in place by a grip of iron.

  "Stop it," he snarled.

  "You stop, boy," Prospero's voice hissed in his ear. "Bad enough I have borne all your insults and disrespect this night. I'll be damned if you're going to perform any parlor tricks with my portrait."

  "You are damned. Go back to hell where you belong!"

  "Anatole!" Madeline retreated a step, barricading herself behind a chair.

  "I wasn't talking to you," Anatole said desperately. "It's Prospero. Can you not hear him?"

  She shook her head, clutching at the back of the chair, her eyes wide circles framed by the pale rim of her face.

  "Curse you!" Anatole bellowed up at the rafters. "What are you trying to do? Convince my wife I've gone mad? Can you not see you are terrifying her?"

  "You're the one who is terrifying her, you young clod. I have behaved with admirable restraint, despite all the provocation you offered. If you want my advice—"

  "I don't! Get the devil out of here, and leave me alone."

  Madeline sidled, trembling toward the door.

  "Not you, milady!" Anatole snapped.

  "Anatole, please," she whispered. "Perhaps we should forget this and—"

  "No! You wanted me to move the damned painting, and I'm going to do it. Smash the bloody thing to bits as I should have done years ago."

  Anatole glared at the portrait in savage concentration, but it was like battering a wall of solid ice.

  "Challenge me, will you, boy?" Prospero taunted. "Heap curses upon my name? Very well. Let's see how you feel about this despised power of yours when you are unable to use it."

  Goaded beyond endurance, Anatole shoved harder, his lip curling in a snarl of anger and pain. From somewhere far away, he could hear Madeline's soft voice, begging him to stop. But he saw nothing beyond the red haze of his own fury.

  A fury and frustration that had burned inside him for too many years, against Prospero, against the whole damned lot of the St. Legers, and most of all… against himself.

  Crushing his fingers against his skull, he flung everything he had at the portrait. All his rage, all his despair, all his pain… Pain like nothing he'd ever known.

  His veins bulged and knotted with it, searing, twisting, burning until he tottered, sinking to his knees. And still he fought on, locked in a titantic battle of will with his infernal ancestor. Mind against mind, power against power.

  Until Prospero yielded. Suddenly, almost playfully, the wily sorcerer let go. Anatole felt his mind crash forward, like hurtling through a door that had been abruptly released.

  The portrait flew, dashing against the rafters, splintering its frame. With a mighty roar Anatole's unleashed power surged through the room, overturning the heavy table with a violent crash, hurling the St. Leger sword in a deadly arc. Chairs pitched and tossed. Tapestries ripped from the wall. Torches exploded in a flash of fire and smoke.

  Horrified, Anatole fought to regain control. Half blinded by pain, he buried his face in his hands. Battling with the last of his strength, he wrested his power back where it belonged. Back… back into the dark cage of his mind.

  The roaring slowly subsided, one last chair teetering over with a low thud. Collapsed onto his knees, Anatole struggled not to lose consciousness.

  Dazed, he dragged in agony-filled breaths. By God, he had not lost control of himself this way since he was a boy. That time he'd shattered his mother's china figurines. All those fragile ladies—

  Fragile… lady. The terrifying thought pierced his pain-numbed brain.

  Madeline.

  Oh, God! What had he done?

  Anatole lifted his head, forcing his eyes open. The hall was plunged into near blackness, the only torch that remained lit burning on the stone floor about a yard away.

  He crawled toward it, and seized it in his hand, using the overturned table for support to drag himself to his feet.

  His legs trembled, threatening to buckle b
eneath him, only a mounting sense of panic lending him the strength to remain upright. He held the torch aloft in his shaking hand, the light flickering over the wreckage of the chamber.

  If Madeline was the least bit harmed, he would never forgive himself. Desperately he scanned the room, trying to call her name, but his voice came out in a croak.

  Summoning what remained of his shattered concentration, he reached out with his mind and found her—in the far corner, cowering behind an overturned chair.

  As he tottered toward her, she stirred. Relief made him dizzy. She was moving. She seemed to be all right. She was getting to her feet, gently aided by… Prospero.

  In a flash of courtly splendor, his ancestor hovered behind Madeline, the specter's hands at her waist to steady her. The torchlight fell over her face, ice white, her eyes dilated with terror.

  "Get away from her!" Anatole's shout emerged as no more than a rasp, but Prospero was already fading, his brow arched disdainfully.

  It didn't matter. Anatole realized that in her shocked state, Madeline hadn't even seen Prospero. It was Anatole she was looking at that way. A look he'd seen too often before in nightmares of shattered vases and broken flowers.

  He held out his hand to her in mute appeal, knowing he must seem the very devil, his hair wild, eyes wilder still, face haggard. He tried to force the words past his raw throat, words to comfort her, beg her not to be afraid. Not of him.

  He had his power back under control. He'd vow never to use it again, not even if his life depended upon it. He'd die himself before he'd ever hurt her. If only she would stop looking at him that way…

  He staggered closer, and she shrank back, snatching up something from the floor to hold him at bay. The St. Leger sword. She was fending him off with his own weapon.

  "M-madeline," he managed her name in a broken whisper.

  She only retreated farther. With one last terrified glance, she turned and fled toward the door. Running… running from him. Everything he'd ever feared, everything he dreaded coming true.

  No! Denial choked him, and he tried to stagger after her. But by the time he gained the threshold, she had already vanished, and he swayed, overwhelmed by the sheer hopelessness of it. Even if he did catch her, what was he going to do? Force Madeline to stay with him even while she collapsed with terror? Compel her to understand, to accept him… to love him?

  It was too late for that. Perhaps it always had been.

  Weighted down by despair, he sank slowly to his knees, this time, the pain all in his heart. The torch fell from his hand and snuffed out, leaving him alone in the darkness.

  He found his voice at last in an anguished roar.

  "Madeline!"

  * * * * *

  Reverend Fitzleger slumped over his desk, the candle guttering low in its socket. His withered cheek pillowed against the pages of the sermon he'd been laboring over into the small hours of morning.

  His troubled thoughts refused to allow him to concentrate, the same thoughts drifting him into tormented dreams: Of his peaceful little church choked with mist. Of Roman plighting his troth to some mysterious cloaked woman, her hands full of blackened roses from the Mortmain's grave. Of that painted Frenchman, dancing about like a marionette, leering at Fitzleger with his soulless doll-like eyes.

  "What are you doing here, Monsieur Fitzleger? Your services are no longer required"

  "But I am the Bride Finder" Fitzleger tried to protest.

  "Not anymore, old man." Roman smirked. "You've been replaced. Only see what a disaster you made of your last match."

  The mist parted, and Fitzleger glanced downward, realizing that he was tramping over names newly carved into the church floor.

  Anatole and Madeline St. Leger.

  He recoiled in horror as booming laughter filled the nave. Tyrus Mortmain rose up behind him, his hideous burn-scarred features looming closer as his bloated fingers reached for Fitzleger's throat.

  "And all this time you thought the Mortmains were dead…"

  Fitzleger awoke with a start, heart thudding, his face bathed in a cold sweat. He felt disoriented, uncertain where he was, until his hand brushed up against the inkwell.

  With trembling fingers he groped for his spectacles and straightened them back on his face. He'd fallen asleep, blotting his sermon. He could feel a smear of ink on his cheek, but thanked the Lord it wasn't worse. If he'd nodded any closer to that candle, he could have set himself on fire.

  He should have taken himself up to bed hours ago, but he'd been unable to rest, his mind clouded with memories of that disastrous dinner party the other evening. He couldn't even write his sermon for Sunday, his head too full of St. Legers. Small wonder that he was even dreaming about them.

  And, Lord bless him, what a strange and dreadful dream it had been. His heart was still pounding in his ears.

  No. Fitzleger frowned. Not his heart. That was his own front door, someone hammering frantically for admittance. Not a sound calculated to soothe his already threadbare nerves.

  Some poor soul come seeking spiritual comfort at this hour? Their need had to be desperate indeed, but he was exhausted, unequal to dealing with anything. He'd been feeling particularly old and useless of late.

  But, with a soft groan, Fitzleger picked up his candle and shuffled through the recesses of the parlor toward the front door. The hammering continued at a frantic pace.

  "Coming," Fitzleger called as loudly as he dared. His housekeeper slept like a brick, but his granddaughter, Effie… It was difficult enough to keep his naughty little angel from popping out of bed at all hours of the night.

  Fumbling with the latches, he undid the door as quickly as he could. Though a trusting enough soul, he'd seen enough of the misery of human wickedness to be cautious.

  He inched the door open a crack, only to forget all caution and fling it wide when he saw who it was.

  Madeline. Her hair a flyaway tangle, her face white as death. No bonnet, no cloak, looking as though she'd run all the way from Castle Leger pursued by a pack of wolves.

  " Fitz-fitzleger," she panted, her words barely distinguishable. "Need help… got to come at once."

  Fitzleger's heart rolled over in fear. "My dearest child. Whatever is the matter?"

  "It—it's Anatole." She moaned. “Either he has run mad. Or I have!"

  She swayed forward, barely giving the startled Fitzleger a chance to catch her before she collapsed in his arms.

  Chapter 19

  Dawn had not yet lightened the sky, darkness pressing against the small windows of the parsonage like some great black beast prowling the night. Madeline huddled deeper against the cushions on the settee while she told Fitzleger all that had happened back at Castle Leger. His tiny parlor seemed the only refuge left in a world that had run mad.

  A cozy fire crackled on the hearth, the fragrant aroma of cinnamon wafting from the teapot as Fitzleger bustled about the room. Like a homespun angel with his snowy white hair and much mended dressing gown, Fitzleger tucked a downy coverlet more snugly about her and poured out tea.

  The delicate cups and saucers warred for space on the piecrust table with a precarious stack of well-loved books and little Effie Fitzleger's forgotten china doll. The very normalcy of the parlor made what Madeline had just passed through seem even more like a nightmare.

  She sipped the hot tea, not tasting it, wondering if there would ever be enough warmth to remove the chill that had settled deep into her bones. The flames crackled on the hearth, leapt and fell with her memories: of chaos and destruction. Of furniture tossed about like dollhouse toys. Of torches exploding in a shower of sparks. Of the great hall itself trembling as though the winds of hell had blasted through it. Of cowering in the darkness, reduced to the most primitive, terrified animal state.

  And memories of Anatole, lurching toward her, bathed in the nightmarish red glow of the torch, the black fall of his hair half concealing his contorted face as he rasped her name.

  She swallowed hard. "I fled f
rom the house like the veriest coward, so terrified that Anatole was coming after me. When I reached the carriage drive, I thought I heard him behind me. But when I looked back, there was no one there. He—he doesn't also have the power to turn invisible, does he?"

  "No, I believe the only St. Leger who could do that was Anatole's great-grandfather, Reeves."

  Madeline choked on her tea. To be lying here, calmly discussing such things with the elderly vicar made her want to laugh, but if she did, she was afraid she might never be able to stop.

  Clearing her throat, she went on, "I didn't even know where I was going. I only wanted to get as far away from Castle Leger as I could. I kept on running, stumbling, slashing out at every shadow like an idiot with that sword—"

  The sword! Madeline sat bolt upright, splashing herself with tea, her heart giving a panicked lurch. "Oh, dear God, Fitzleger. Anatole's sword. I dragged it with me when I fled the house. But now I don't know what's happened to it. I've lost it. I—"

  "Calm yourself, my dear." Fitzleger rescued the teacup from her trembling hand and set it back on the table. "You dropped the weapon on the garden path. I fetched it inside. The St. Leger sword is quite safe."

  Madeline sank back down, releasing a long breath, not certain if she was entirely relieved. Was safe ever a word that could be applied to a weapon invested with the kind of power Anatole had described? With the ability to induce visions, such as she had seen for herself that night she had stared into the crystal and fantasized about Anatole making love to her. She had not been imagining anything. She had been peering into the future, not the black, tragic visions that tormented her husband, but a glimpse of what would be all the same. But how was such a thing possible? She was a St. Leger in name only.

  As Fitzleger mopped up the spilled tea, Madeline gazed up at the vicar with a worried frown.

  "Mr. Fitzleger. These powers of the St. Legers… Are they contagious?"

  "Contagious?" the old man echoed in surprise.