She turned back to the window and said, “I need some air.”
Richard nodded and Neil looked at her through worried eyes. “Wait.” He crossed the room, taking her hand in his. He pressed his charms, all of them, into her hand. She stared at them, then looked up at him.
The man who always had something to say said nothing. He nodded, then turned back around and joined the earl.
Joy stepped out through the French doors and walked down the steps through the closing darkness. A few minutes later she was hugging the old elm, holding it as tightly as she held Neil’s good luck pieces.
She took long, deep breaths, then opened her eyes and found herself staring up at Belmore Park. A tall silhouette stood at a dimly lit window, looking down. For an instant it didn’t move. Then the figure jerked the drapes closed.
She hugged the tree tighter, until she had little sensation left in her arms. Slowly she stepped away, feeling numb, feeling nothing. She walked back toward the study doors and stepped inside, turning and quietly closing the doors. She looked at the earl and viscount, who were still sitting in silence.
“Any word yet?” she asked.
“None,” Richard answered, just as a door closed upstairs. All three of them looked up. The sound of voices drifted down. The front door closed. Footsteps clicked closer. Alec came into the room, his face drained of any color or feeling. He just stood there, not speaking, not looking at anyone.
“Stephen?” She took a step toward him.
“He’s alive.”
Relief swept through the room, and she took a deep breath.
“But nothing can be done for him. The doctor thinks he’ll probably be dead by morning.”
The tall clock ticked away silent seconds. Finally Richard stepped forward. “Is there anything you need?”
Alec shook his head, then turned toward Joy and said, “Come with me.”
Without hesitation she followed him out and up the stairs, neither speaking. Alec opened the door to
Stephen’s room and she walked inside. The drapes had been closed and the room was dark and dank with only a few candles giving light. For the first time in her life she could taste, smell, and feel death. Her skin chilled with the eeriness of it.
A maid sat by the bed, and Alec turned to her. “Leave us.”
The girl was gone in a breath.
He walked over to the bed and looked down, his face haunted. “I was embarrassed.”
She gave him a puzzled look.
“At the May fair. I saw him with that broom sweeping and saying he was a real Joe Miller, and I was ashamed.” He looked at her. “Now look at him. God . . . ”
Stephen’s breathing was uneven and labored. His face was purple with bruises, and he had bloody gashes on his forehead and cheeks. His lips were swollen, blue, and cut, and one ear had been stitched.
He turned and moaned, his breath rattling.
She couldn’t say anything, do anything. She felt helpless, angry, adrift, guilty. Yet she could only imagine what Alec must have felt. His face was tense. She reached out to him.
“Make him well,” he said.
“What?”
“Make him well. Use your magic.”
“I can’t.”
“You have to.”
“I wish I could.”
“Do something.” There was desperation in his voice.
“I told you before. My magic can’t—”
“For God’s sake, he’s dying!”
Stephen moaned and turned, then moaned again. He began to toss and kick. Both of them reached for him, trying with soothing voices to quiet him. He finally settled, but cried and cried and cried, mumbling his pain. She looked up at Alec. His face wore the look of a man betrayed.
“It hurts,” Stephen moaned, “so bad—help me.” He lost consciousness.
Her hands shook, and tears streamed down her cheeks. Alec dropped into a chair and ran his hands over his face. He pulled them away to show a face twisted with torment and grief. His hands gripped the arms of the chair so tightly his knuckles were white. “Then put him out of his misery.”
She froze, her face crumpling in reaction to the compassionate horror of what he had asked. Very quietly she whispered, “I cannot do that, either.”
He stared at his brother, his hands suddenly falling from the chair arms. He gave a cold bark of laughter that had nothing to do with humor. “I was foolish enough to believe in that magic of yours. What good is it?”
She took a step toward him and placed her hand on his shoulder.
He closed his eyes. “Leave.”
“Alec—”
“I said, leave.”
“Please let me be with you.”
“Get out.” He fell silent and stared at the bed.
She stood there searching for something to say to break through that icy wall of his.
He turned and gave her a look so angry she could almost feel the heat of it. “Damnation, you foolish woman! Can’t you see I want to be alone? Just . . . get . . . out. Leave us alone. I don’t need you.”
A cold black void closed around her, tightly, so tightly she felt as if it squeezed the very breath out of her. She backed away slowly until she was pressed against the door. She took one look at her husband, his profile as hard as that of a marble statue, then spun around and pulled the door open.
Without even realizing it she was running, running as fast as she could, down the stairs, through a hallway. Someone called her name, but it was far away and she couldn’t stop running any more than she could stop her tears. Her shoulder hit something hard. There was a shattering crash. She didn’t care. She flung the front door open. At the same instant the skies opened up and rain cried down.
She ran on and on, faster, faster, across the sodden grass, over hills, down the graveled drive. Lightning cracked through the black sky and the gates blew open with an echoing crash. She ran through them and onto the road. The wind swirled harder, the rain pounded down, soaking her, while the cruel wind whipped at her skirts and blew the pins from her hair. It flowed out in wet skeins behind her. The weight of it almost pulled her to a stop. The mud sucked at her feet. But she ran on emotions so powerful nothing could stop her.
She thought she heard her name again and looked back once, then stumbled in the mud and fell down, sinking. She lay there, her head in her arms, sobbing as the wind and rain beat down on her back. A loud wheeze sounded in her ear. She looked up at Beezle, soaking wet and staring at her through wise and sympathetic brown eyes.
“Oh, Beezle.” She hugged him to her and he buried his wet nose against her neck. She clung to him and sat in the muddy road, broken and alone. As if drawn to do so she looked back toward the house. “I can’t help Stephen . . . Alec was right. What good is my magic if it can’t help them?” She looked up at the dark skies and cried, “Why? Why can’t I help them?” She hugged Beezle even tighter. “Please . . . please, I would give anything . . . . Please . . . ”
The rain ceased. The wind stopped. A golden cloud zigzagged downward from high in the black sky and hovered above her for a second, then lit barely three feet away.
“The MacLean,” she whispered, wiping her eyes with the back of a hand.
With an aura of sparkling gold, her aunt materialized, standing tall and regal in all her golden beauty. She looked at Joy, and her kind and knowing eyes softened with sympathy. An instant later she knelt down, her arms outstretched. “Joyous.”
Joy fell into her aunt’s arms, sobbing. “I cannot help Stephen.”
“I know, little one.” The MacLean watched her from wise gray eyes.
“I thought Alec needed me.”
“He did. If ever a man needed some magic it was Alec Castlemaine.”
“But what good is it? My magic can’t save Stephen. It can’t.” She buried her head against her aunt’s shoulder. “I failed again.”
Her aunt’s hand stroked her damp back. “You didn’t fail, Joyous. Alec failed you.”
Joy l
ooked up at the MacLean. “He doesn’t understand, but he was starting to. He just needs more time.”
Her aunt shook her head.
“But Stephen is the one who’s suffering,” Joy said. “He’s suffered more than any man should have to.And I cannot help him.”
“I can save Stephen.”
Joy’s face glowed with elation, and she hugged the MacLean. “Oh, thank you! Thank you!”
“But you have to leave, Joyous.”
She pulled back and frowned. “What?”
“You must leave.”
“No . . . ” She looked back over her shoulder. “I can’t leave.” She turned back and held her aunt’s shoulders. “No. Please don’t—”
“You cannot stay with them.”
“But I love him . . . both of them.”
The MacLean said nothing.
“Why?” Joy turned her face up and looked at her aunt. “Why must I leave?”
“Because Alec doesn’t understand. He hasn’t learned the value of love.”
“Please . . . Not now, when he’s hurting. It’s so cruel. I love him. Please.”
“He does not understand love,” the MacLean said, looking at Belmore Park. She shook her head. “I cannot give you to him.”
Joy tried to take a breath, but could only take in shuddering gasps.
“You must choose, Joyous.”
Still clinging to Beezle, she turned once again to look back at Belmore Park. The lightning flashed. For one brief macabre instant the storm’s light limned the beasts along the roof. Candles flickered from a few of the windows. They looked like stars and seemed just as distant and as untouchable.
In her mind’s eye she saw Stephen—sweet, simple Stephen—innocent and dying. She saw Alec—hard, unyielding, becoming little more than a marble statue, a shell of a man; what little life he had found for a brief time was gone.
Gone. She knelt in the mud, hugging her familiar while tears poured in rivers down her cheeks. She closed her eyes and felt them burn. Biting her lip, she took a one last shuddering breath. She opened her eyes and stared at the estate, then said to her aunt, “Save Stephen.”
The house was cast in darkness, only a black silhouette in the distance. The wind picked up. The rain splattered down even harder than before, pocking the muddy road. “Alec,” she said in a hoarse whisper.
“My Alec.” And in a puff of golden smoke, Joy disappeared.
Part VII
The Magic
Poor human nature,
so richly endowed with nerves of anguish,
so splendidly made for pain and sorrow,
is but slenderly equipped for joy.
—George Du Maurier
Chapter Twenty-Nine
A distant pounding broke the silence in Stephen’s room. Alec ignored it. It sounded again. He glanced up, not really seeing anything.
“Belmore! Open the door!” came a muffled shout, followed by more pounding.
He stood up and wrenched the door open, saying nothing. Downe stood there, his hair windblown and his clothing damp.
“Your wife’s run out in the storm. I tried to follow, but I lost her. What the hell happened?”
Alec shook his head and looked back at the bed where Stephen lay quietly. He was struck by a surge of guilt so strong it sapped his mind of thought.
“Goddammit, Belmore! Do you want to lose them both?”
Alec couldn’t move.
Downe grabbed ahold of his coat and jerked him around. “Belmore!”
Alec heard him, felt him, but nothing registered.
Downe shook him.
Nothing.
“Ah, hell . . . ” Downe’sfist hit Alec’s jaw.
The pain was instant. It shot through his teeth, down his neck. He staggered back, hand to his jaw, then shook his head and looked up at the earl, stunned but cognizant.
“You stupid bloody fool! Your wife is gone!”
“Gone?”
“Yes, gone.”
“Damn.” He took two steps and jerked the bellpull. A few seconds later Henson entered. “Send someone to saddle three horses. Then stay with my brother.” Henson left.
“You can be a hard-headed ass sometimes.” Downe gave him a look that told Alec he knew what he’d done. “You tried to drive her away.”
He didn’t respond, but knew in his grief and guilt that that was exactly what he had done. Henson returned a second later and saved him from having to answer. Then they were running down the stairs, through the hall across the scattered pieces of a broken vase, and out the front doors, where Seymour joined them. The rain poured down in blinding sheets. Alec stood on the steps, disoriented, until he saw the horses. A second later he mounted his stallion, pausing for a moment to glance up at the dark skies.
Whenever Scottish cried, it rained. He took one deep breath and pressed his heels into the horse’s sides, gravel spitting in his wake. The wind howled. The three men rode, following Downe’s lead. He slowed his horse and turned back, shouting, “I lost sight of her over that rise.” He pointed at the hill ahead of them. They split up and rode through the rain in different directions, each one searching an area.
Alec cupped his hands around his mouth and called, “Scottish!” He waited for an answer. All he got was the cry of the wind. He swiped the water from his eyes and brow and searched, threading his horse among the trees along the side of the road, calling her name again and again.
“Over here!” Seymour shouted. Alec kicked the horse into a lope and spotted the two men at the top of the next rise. He reined in and dismounted, sloshing through the mud to where Seymour was crouched down. He shoved past him.
No Scottish. There was nothing there. He spun around. Seymour held out his hand. A rabbit’s foot, an ivory tooth, and a feather charm lay wilted and muddy in his palm.
“You called me over because of those bloody charms?” Alec reached for Seymour.
Downe gripped his shoulders and stopped him. “He gave them to Joy before she left.”
Alec stared at the charms for a long minute before he looked up. “Then, she has to be here somewhere.”
He cupped his mouth and shouted again. “Scottish!”
There was nothing but the wind.
“Scottish!”
Nothing but the rain.
“Scottish!”
Nothing.
The clock chimed four in the morning, and Alec broke his vigil. Stephen hadn’t cried or awakened for the past three hours, and he needed a few moments away. He tugged on the bellpull, and Henson came in. “I’ll be in my chamber, then in the study. Come and get me if there’s any change. When Downe returns, I’m going back out.”
He went to his chamber, closing the door behind him with a click that sounded as loud as a gunshot in the silence of the empty room. He looked around. Everything was the same, but somehow distant, as if he were on the outside looking in and not seeing what he sought. He crossed to the window and stared out. The hills were dotted with flecks of light, the lanterns of the search parties looking for Scottish. His stomach tightened. He’d spent hours looking for her, then had come back to see about Stephen, splitting his time between them, at Downe and Seymour’s insistence.
With a heavy feeling of despair, he watched the lights move over the hills and through the valleys. The search was fruitless. He knew somehow that Joy wasn’t there. He took a deep breath and gave in to the question he’d avoided asking for the last few hours: where was his wife?
She could have tried to zap herself somewhere using her magic, but God only knew where. He remembered London’s dark alleys, drifts of deadly snow, icy rivers. God, she could be anywhere, anywhere at all, and he couldn’t tell anyone the truth about his concern. He rubbed his forehead. A foolish gesture since it wouldn’t ease the worry. The regret. He closed his eyes. What the hell had he done?
“Scottish,” he whispered, staring at nothing. He swallowed hard and felt the thickness in his throat “I’m sorry.”
“Please, Au
nt, just let me see them for a few minutes. Please.”
The MacLean stood across the room, her arms crossed stubbornly, Gabriel sitting at her feet and watching her through bright blue eyes.
“Please,” Joy whispered, stroking Beezle’s head once more before setting him down.
“Just this once, Joyous.” The MacLean raised her arms, and Gabriel hissed and arched his back. A flash of gold light burst from the window.
Joy watched the light glow and widen, forming the image of Stephen’s chamber.
The physician stood by Stephen’s bed, shaking his head. “I’ve never seen anything like this. I could have sworn his lungs were punctured.” He leaned back over Stephen and said, “Just relax please.”
“That always means it’s gonna hurt,” Stephen said, frowning and pulling back.
Joy smiled at that. She watched with pride and pleasure the gentle way Alec reassured him.
The physician stepped back a minute or so later and said, “Except for those cuts and bruises, he appears to be fine.”
“I told you so,” Stephen grumbled. Then he looked around the room. “Why are all these people here?”
“They were worried about you,” Alec told him.
“Where’s Joy?”
The words gripped her, and her breath stopped. She looked past the faces of Richard, Neil, and Henson to Alec.
He didn’t stiffen. He didn’t scowl. He didn’t evade the question. He just said truthfully, “I don’t know.”
“I like Joy. She thinks I’m smart.” He paused thoughtfully, then asked quietly, “Wasn’t she worried about me too?”
Her body tightened with a wave of threatening sickness and she had to grip the back of an old chair.
“She was very worried,” Alec told him. “She didn’t want to leave your side, but I was angry. I said some cruel things to her.”
With This Kiss: A First-In Series Romance Collection Page 40