Viviana lie awake staring into the darkness not knowing if she’d drifted into sleep for mere minutes or hours. She flipped and flopped beneath a mound of blankets, searching for warmth, only to get tangled inside her undertunic. A fire burned in the hearth. She could hear its crackle, could smell the burnt embers drying her nose. Still, she couldn’t escape the cold. It seemed to be a force of its own, wrapping icy fingers around her person.
Mindlessly, she reached for Miocchi, seeking his warmth, but her pet had followed Makayla to bed, and Viviana had let him go, hoping he might ease the tension between them. Taveon’s daughter hadn’t spoke to Viviana since they’d returned from Sister De Rosa’s cottage with the devastating news. In fact, everyone seemed to distance themselves from her. She and Cora-Rose had sat alone in silence at the head table for the evening meal—two women sacrificing their lives to provide the clan with heirs. Their very presence caused upset. The hall had been filled with kinsfolk, yet no one spoke above a whisper.
Was she being shunned because they knew about the babe growing inside her? Or because she’d stolen their hope when she’d named their soothsayer a false prophet?
Dread wrapped around Ravenhurst, instilling despair in all those who lived within, and never had she felt more alone than she did this night in Taveon’s bed. She missed him—his warmth, his touch, his kiss—his absence was the cold she felt to the very center of her core.
He’d been occupied the whole of the day. Only once did he surface from the dungeon where they’d taken Sister De Rosa, but his intentions were duty-bound. He questioned her about her about her relationship with Sister De Rosa, but she’d already told him everything. The woman had cared for her and Fioretta. She’d loved them and educated them, then abandoned them.
Memories of Sister De Rosa had troubled her both in and out of sleep. Part of her felt the need to protect the woman against Taveon’s wrath, yet another part felt betrayed by her lies. Lily was proof that the rumors were true. Sister De Rosa had broken her vows to God to live in sin with a monk.
Viviana recalled the one incident that remained in full color in her mind. The girl Sister De Rosa had beaten for dying a vestment red instead of purple had been Viviana’s childhood friend, Elena. The same girl Viviana had begrudged for accusing Fioretta of stealing a bauble from Sister De Rosa. Viviana now wondered if that bauble had been the amulet and if Fioretta did actually steal it. Viviana studied the events in her mind, trying to piece together the timing. Not long after Sister De Rosa left Spedale degli Innocenti did she and Fioretta accompany the Benedictine monk to Lorenzo’s estates in Cafaggiolo. Was that same monk Sister De Rosa’s lover?
Viviana mulled over how they were all connected, but every memory ended in a question.
The chamber door scraped open, giving Viviana a start until Taveon’s robust scent of pine and mist filled her senses. She wanted to jump from the bed and run to him, but quelled the childish urge and simply waited.
The clank of discarded weaponry prefaced a rustle of garments, then she followed his footfalls to the right side of the bed. His heavy breathing hovered over her. Her heart fluttered waiting for him to speak.
“I did not beat her,” he stated bluntly. “I could not, knowing what she meant to ye.”
Though his tone conveyed failure, Viviana felt relieved. “Thank you,” she said simply, knowing he wouldn’t come to her bed without her acceptance. She wanted to ask questions, to learn what he’d discovered, but first she needed Taveon to know she supported him. She raised the coverlet.
He accepted the unspoken invitation without hesitation and crawled atop her, supporting his weight on his elbows. “Ye are on my side of the bed.”
Her smile came with hesitance. She guessed his words were naught more than an attempt to hide what he wasn’t saying. “I was unaware we had separate sides.” She curled her arms around his sinewy back and damned the thin layer of material depriving her of his heat.
He buried his bristled cheek into the crook of her neck. “I missed ye.” Sadness, tension, worry spilled from his body, from his words, and Viviana wanted to weep for him, knowing his pride would prevent him from admitting the day had defeated him.
She entwined her legs with his. This was where she was supposed to be, holding this giant man and offering him strength. It felt right. He felt right. “You are weary?”
“Aye. That I am, and ye are cold.” His calloused palm traveled up the length of her thigh, pushing her undertunic over her hips so he could warm her backside with his hot hand. His manhood grew hard against her pelvis.
Glorious heat flashed through her body. “You should sleep.”
“I will.” He kissed her earlobe, her neck, her collarbone, then hesitated. His body stiffened as he searched for the chain that was not around her neck. “Where is the amulet?”
His concern for the talisman was certainly warranted. Still, she felt a tinge of hurt. “It was burning my skin. I took it off and hid it.”
“Where?”
“Beneath the mattress.”
His exhale warmed her neck. Worry forgotten, he bent and circled her breast with his nose. “‘Tis a terrible hiding place.” He kissed her nipple through her undertunic and drew her leg up high to his hip.
She gave little attention to his silly insult as her pulse was now pounding in her core. She slipped her fingers into the soft waves at his nape. His hair was cold, yet damp with perspiration, and beneath his familiar scent, she caught a trace of horseflesh. “Have you been with Monroe? Did you find Lily?”
His head shook. “The hunters returned before I did. Lily is still out there, but Monroe stayed in the timber to watch the cot-house should she return.”
An image of Lily crying in the darkness flashed through Viviana’s mind. Instant worry puckered her brow. Viviana sent up a quick prayer to God, asking Him to protect Lily and then hugged Taveon a little tighter.
“We will find her,” he assured her and kissed her jaw. “Laird MacKaskill has dispatched thirty of his own men to continue the search on his soil, and I sent another twenty warriors into the wood when I returned from Devenickshire.”
“Returned from where?”
Taveon lifted his head. He released her leg and encircled her back with both arms. Two full breaths later he finally spoke. “The soothsayer—your Sister De Rosa—claims to be possessed by the woman who cursed my clan. Keegan and I rode to St. Machar to fetch the vicar, but the good Father Cambry refused to accompany us. Keegan knocked the mon out cold, giving him no choice but to comply.”
His words were incomprehensible. If fact, she didn’t want to understand them. She wanted him to take them back. Viviana kept swallowing, but her pulse continued to throb in her throat. She no longer wanted to be here, in this place haunted by spirits. She was not strong enough to fight such evil. Taveon was cursed and now, with the babe growing inside her, so was she.
A wave of hysteria stole her senses. Trapped in the darkness in Taveon arms, she squirmed beneath him, pushing against the weight of his shoulders, not knowing what she would do if she managed to break free of him.
“Dinnae be afraid.” He hugged her tighter.
“But I am afraid.” She was suffocating, drowning in a fear.
“Father Cambry is with your Sister De Rosa now. All will be better come the morrow.” He kissed the backs of her eyes one at a time, and she felt him tremble. “Please, dinnae leave me.”
She stilled beneath him and sucked in air through her open mouth. Had he said anything else, she might have continued to fight him, but he’d asked her not to abandon him. All her life, she wanted to be needed. She wanted to be more than a sister or a servant, more than a ward or even a wife. She wanted to be necessary… she wanted to be loved. “I will never leave you.”
He covered her mouth in a kiss that seemed to touch her soul.
Empowered by a passion she felt clear to her toes, Viviana dared anyone or anything to break the bond between them.
“Ye give me strength, co
urage.” Taveon released the laces of her undertunic. “I will fail without ye, but with ye at my side I’m a force to be feared.” He was the master of his fate, the dominant ruler of his people. He was her king, her arrogant lover, and she loved him.
He molded his hot mouth over her breast and sucked hard.
She gasped and arched her back. He drew on her nipple until he’d sculpted it into a painful peak, then he blew on it and tugged at it with his teeth, reminding her of a more playful time. She longed to be back on their journey from Italy. Mayhap even back on Laird MacKaskill’s ship. Their worries had been so miniscule then.
She needed to tell him about the babe before someone else did, but feared he would withdraw from her like his kin had this same day.
“I need ye.” His hand found its way between her legs where he easily slipped two fingers inside her. There was no denying that she needed him, too.
She opened herself to him, spreading her thighs wide in invitation, and swallowed the words that would undoubtedly ruin the intimacy between them. “Make love to me.”
In a single thrust, he buried himself inside her, then stilled for long moments, allowing her to revel in his thickness. He sat back and teased her body, pulling on her nipples, and massaging the sensitive nubbin of flesh stretched around the base of him.
He pulled nearly all the way out, then impaled her. Again, he held himself motionless inside her, stroking her, calling to her climax. “We are good together. You and I.”
She was incapable of responding. Her nails scraped the backs of his arms, then found his hip bones. She pushed, forcing him to withdraw, then pulled him back inside her, seeking the friction that would send her into bliss.
“Oh, Viviana.” Her name fell off his lips in a whisper.
He thrust again and again, each one harder than the last until her body hummed. Her orgasm splintered through her the same moment he roared and found his own release.
His arms buckled. His weight collapsed atop her before he rolled to his back, carrying her with him so the connection between their bodies didn’t break. She lay atop him, riding his chest with the up and down motion of his ragged breathing. Long moments passed where their hearts beat against each other, as if pounding on each other’s door, demanding to be let in.
Viviana flattened her palm over his chest, hoping she held a place in his heart.
“I’m so verra thankful for ye,” was all he said.
No words of love followed.
No gentle kisses to express his emotions.
He held her atop him with his soft member still thick inside her sheath and slipped into a dead sleep.
He was thankful for her. Thankful she would not grow round with his child and die. Thankful he would never have to suffer the way his father did. She loved him so deeply it hurt and he was thankful.
Chapter 28
“The woman played us for fools, and ye do naught but cater to her comforts like an honored guest.” Cloaked in a heavy fur, Keegan paced the torch-lit corridor outside the chamber where Marea had spent the last three days abed bound and bruised by the manacle chaining her to the stone wall.
‘Twas hardly the way Taveon would treat a guest, but he opted not to argue the point with his brother. “She is refusing to cooperate until Lily is found.” Taveon stood between Keegan and Marea’s chamber door, guarding her from his brother’s impatience. Keegan wasn’t the only one who’d persisted on checking Father Cambry’s progress. Viviana had been equally dutiful, bringing food and water as well as blankets to the woman who’d been her caregiver.
For opposite reasons, Taveon didn’t dare let either of them near Marea. “Mayhap ye should make yourself useful and join Monroe and the others in the search. There is an innocent lass in the woods in need of finding.”
“She is no innocent lass,” Keegan hissed. “She is a mute, spawned by a witch.”
Vexed by Keegan lack of clemency, Taveon narrowed his eyes on his brother. “Lily is Makayla’s only friend. She is not deserving of your anger.”
Keegan gripped his scalp beneath his dark mane and growled his frustration. He was not a beast, but the waiting certainly had him behaving like one.
“The vicar is doing his best to cast the evil out of Marea,” Taveon’s counsel did little to lessen Keegan’s burden.
“Jesu! Father Cambry is as much a prisoner in Marea’s chamber as she. The vicar does naught but beg to be free of the task we forced upon him.”
“What would ye have me do, brother? Beat the witch out of her? Kill her before we know how to end the curse? She is a devout Christian. I’ll not take her life.”
“I will,” Keegan responded far too quickly for Taveon’s comfort.
“And ye would condemn your soul in doing so.”
Keegan stilled, his heavily hooded green eyes locked on Taveon. “My soul was condemned the day I slipped from the womb.”
“Ouish.” Taveon rubbed the back of his neck and tried desperately to ignore Keegan’s theatrics. “Marea cared for my wife in the orphanage. I’ll not allow ye to gut her without just cause.”
Keegan snarled and spun on his heel. He only took a single step before he paused and cocked his chin over his shoulder. “If it comes down to it, I will take Marea’s life and beg your wife’s forgiveness once the deed is done.”
Taveon held his tongue, hating his position on the matter. He’d already taken so much from Viviana, and he didn’t want to take Marea from her as well. As Keegan’s retreating footsteps faded down the tower stairwell, Father’s Cambry’s muffled prayers became more dominant in Taveon’s ear.
He removed the heavy block of oak barring the door and inhaled a breath in preparation. Frigid air chilled his face the instant he opened the door, then the heavy pungent odor emanating from the chamber seemed to imbed its decaying smell in his frozen nostrils.
Marea moved to an upright position, her legs draped over the edge of the bed, and the chain binding her to the stone wall clinked. The hope shining in her green eyes extinguished when Taveon answered her unasked question with the slight shake of his head. He wished he could tell her Lily had been found, but naught was the case.
Garbed in a brown cassock, Father Cambry kissed the gold crucifix hanging around his neck and rose from his kneeling position in the corner. Absorbed with his duties, the vicar didn’t acknowledge Taveon’s presence, nor did he beg to be free of his task. He pushed his hood back over brown hair cropped close to his skull and crossed his forehead, his lips, and then his heart. He seemed oblivious to Taveon’s presence, but what bothered him more, was Father Cambry’s demeanor.
Something had changed, something that bespoke of finality.
He blessed the water he’d heated in the hearth and walked solemnly toward the bed. Steam billowed off the surface of the wooden bowl, creating a cloud of mist in the single beam of light that filtered into the chamber—a beam of light that should not be there given the clouds hovering over Ravenhurst were as thick as whipped milk.
That light gave Taveon hope.
Mayhap the god Marea prayed to was here with her. Mayhap He would free her of the demon inside her and save them all.
Father Cambry prayed in the Gaelic tongue and washed the tops of Marea’s feet. “…the Lord has entrusted the souls of the redeemed to be led into Heaven. Pray therefore the God of Peace to crush Satan beneath our feet…”
For long minutes, Marea simply stared at Taveon overtop Father Cambry’s crouched form. Her empty expression lacked emotion, but her green eyes called to Taveon for help.
The vicar rang the rag free of excess water, then bathed Marea’s ankles one at a time. “As wax melts before the fire, so shall the wicked perish in the presence of God…”
Marea’s hands slowly turned to fists in the bedding. She winced from an internal infliction, but what instilled instant panic in Taveon was the erratic movement of her eyes and the escalating rhythm of her breathing.
The candles blew out. Grey shrouded the chamber.
; A cloud of breath swirled out of Taveon’s mouth and contradicted the beads of sweat forming on his forehead. He palmed the hilt of his sword, wishing he could use his warrior’s skills to fight this enemy.
Fast and furious prayers spilled from the vicar’s lips as he dragged the rag over Marea’s shin. “Most glorious Prince of the Heavenly Armies, Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in our battle against the rulers of this world of darkness, against the spirits of wickedness…”
“Shut your fucking hole!” The appalling words spewed from Marea’s mouth, but the raspy voice didn’t belong to her.
An icy sensation swirled around Taveon’s bones. He crossed himself, wishing his faith was stronger.
“No!” Marea cried out. A sob burst from her throat the same moment she reached down and yanked the hem of her skirts above her knees.
Father Cambry’s hands shook with a fervency that brought Taveon into the chamber, but he was terrified to move closer.
Then Marea’s trembling legs began to spread.
“Cease!” she protested, her head shook sided to side, but she did naught to cover herself. “I’ll not allow you to seduce the man. He is a priest.” Her eyes slammed open, full of fear. She caught Father Cambry by the wrist. “Do not cede to temptation. Stay true to your vows regardless of my actions. You are a man of God. You must—”
Marea coiled from an internal blow that stole the remainder of her words and caused her nose to bleed.
Taveon’s heart beat wildly between his ears. He took another step toward the crouching vicar. “Father Cambry.”
“I’m naught but a mon. A sinner the same as ye.” The vicar’s head fell. The rag slipped from his hand.
Marea reached out and caressed his jaw as her legs coiled around his back, pulling him into a lover’s embrace.
Taveon’s stomach repelled.
“Fight me,” she begged as tears dripped off her chin.
Father Cambry pushed his crucifix into her thigh. “I cast ye out, whoever ye may be, unclean spirits, all satanic powers, all infernal invaders, all wicked legions, assemblies and sects.”
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