When he finally fell asleep, alone and naked in that big bed, a heavy dose of fatalism settling into him, he realized what he wanted was to make her angry enough to try to murder him. He yearned for violence, violence he could handle, anything but her polite disinterest.
He thought he heard an ancient old voice humming and resolutely ignored it.
40
At exactly three in the morning, Nicholas sat straight up in bed at a deafening roar. Windows shuddered, the room rocked. Thunder, he thought, heart racing, it was only thunder. It was odd, though, because it hadn’t looked to storm when he’d finally fallen into his bed. Another clap of thunder shook his bed. Suddenly, a jagged sword of lightning struck directly into his bedchamber and he was bathed in light. Only thing was, the light didn’t fade. It was as if a dazzling sun was trapped in his bedchamber.
This isn’t right, isn’t right at all.
He looked toward the windows as he jumped out of bed. And waited, standing by his bed, but there were no more slashes of lightning, no more thunder to rattle the windows and shake the room, but still, the huge bedchamber remained pure white. And he thought, No, this is whiter than sunlight. This is something else entirely, only he didn’t have a clue what was happening. The Pale, he thought, this is a message from Rennat.
He remained standing beside his bed, breathing hard, wondering what the devil was going on, trying not to let his imagination run wild and his heart slam out of his chest. Or perhaps—he said, “Are you here, Captain Jared? If this is one of your bizarre performances, stop it at once, do you hear me?”
No sound, nothing at all, just the empty stark white. Dead white, he thought, as dead white as the face of a bandit he’d killed outside of Macau the previous year.
He heard Rosalind scream.
He ran to the adjoining door, kicked his foot into the wood close to the lock, but the door didn’t give. He cursed, then rubbed his injured foot. Not broken, thank God. He pounded the door. “Rosalind! Open the damned door!”
Suddenly, the door swung wide open and he was nearly blinded. The countess’s bedchamber looked even whiter than his own vast room, the white light nearly blinding. He could see every corner of the room, every detail of the furnishings and draperies. Even the light layer of dust on the vanity table glittered the same dead white, as if encased in ice.
Rosalind stood beside her bed, a white nightgown covering her from neck to toe, her vivid red hair now as white as the room, tangling over her shoulders and down her back. Her face looked dead. He knew his face must look the same, and wasn’t that an image to turn his innards to water?
“Rosalind? Are you all right?”
She didn’t move, said nothing. She seemed unaware of him, seemed not to even hear him, much less see him.
He stopped cold when he neared her and saw she held a knife. It was dripping blood. Only, the blood drops were white.
She’s been hurt, she’s been—
He looked closely at her white face, at her hair still white as an old woman’s. Why didn’t the white fade away? Unless it wasn’t natural. His wife holding a dripping knife in her hand was far from natural as well.
He looked down at the knife, saw the steady drip, drip, drip of white blood onto the carpet beneath her bare feet. Where was all the blood coming from?
He watched a white blood droplet splash on her left foot. White on white. It was obscene.
He didn’t touch her, merely held out his hand. “It’s all right, sweetheart, I’m here. It will be all right. Give me the knife.”
She didn’t look at him, didn’t respond at all. Finally, she stretched out her hand to him. He gently uncurled her fingers from around the knife handle.
He realized soon enough that he’d seen the knife in the library beneath glass in a small case on one of the bookshelves, locked to the young boy who’d once tried to open it. Had it belonged to his grandfather, or had it gone all the way back to Captain Jared Vail? He didn’t know. The knife looked vaguely Moorish, the blade curved like a scimitar, gems embedded in the ivory handle. He didn’t remember what sorts of gems they were and couldn’t tell now because they were utterly without color.
He raised his voice. “If it isn’t you, Captain Jared, is it Rennat? I don’t care who is causing this—stop it now. I am tired of this trick, do you hear me? Stop it now!”
To his relief, and, he admitted, to his surprise, the room went slowly dark, fading finally into the simple dark of night. He turned toward the window to see rain streaking down the windowpane. He realized there’d been no more thunder, if indeed thunder it had been. As for the strange lightning, no, lightning wasn’t the word for it either.
He carefully laid the knife on the night table beside the bed. It no longer dripped white blood, no surprise, since whoever, whatever, had stopped the magic.
He clasped Rosalind’s shoulders in his big hands and lightly shook her. “Rosalind, come back. Everything’s over now.”
Slowly, she raised her head to look up at him.
Her eyes, once dilated, were normal now, and blue once again, her hair vivid red, her face no longer the dead white, but still too pale. “Sweetheart,” he whispered against her temple, “it will be all right. I’m here with you now. I can protect you, well, perhaps not completely. I nearly broke my foot trying to break down your door.” He pulled her tightly against him, pressed his palm against her head until she rested on his shoulder.
Her breathing was slow. She said facing his neck, “I’m sorry about your foot.”
He rocked her where they stood, kissed her hair, began to smooth out the tangles. “Can you tell me what happened?”
She pressed closer. He held her tight, felt her nails digging into his back. “It’s all right,” he said, and repeated it once more, twice.
She said finally, her voice thread thin, “I was dreaming I saw a man I’d never seen before. He was very handsome, Nicholas, like a golden angel, with the most beautiful pale blue eyes, but I knew there was darkness behind those pale eyes of his, and that sounds strange, but it’s true. Too much darkness, and such intensity. I felt his intensity to my soul. Even though he looked at me he didn’t seem to see me, didn’t seem to know I was there, although I was standing right in front of him, on the other side of a huge fire. He was brewing something in a large pot and I thought he must be careful else the flames would burn him, for they were leaping upward, spewing, then funneling, forming peculiar shapes. I’d never seen a fire like that before in my life. I told him to be careful of those mad flames, but he didn’t hear me. For him, I suppose I wasn’t there. It was as if there was a wall between us and it was clear only from my side.
“He continued to stir the pot with some sort of long-handled metal spoon. I watched the pot bubble and hiss and the flames roar, as if an unseen bellows blew on it. I realized he was chanting something and I thought, Why can’t he hear me if I can hear him?”
She fell silent, her hands in fists now against his shoulders. He continued to hold her tightly, running his hands up and down her back.
“There is a clear wall between us, I thought as I watched him, but it made no sense to me and so I stuck out my hand to touch it. There was nothing there. I stepped to the side of the fire, and stuck my hand out again.” She shuddered against him. “I touched his shoulder. He jumped in surprise. Believe me, so did I. He stopped stirring, stopped his chanting, and looked straight at me, and I knew he could see me now. Nicholas, he smiled at me.”
“He what?”
“He smiled at me, and said in this deep voice, ‘You are mine. Isn’t it odd how the light always brings clarity?’ Then he looked back over his shoulder as if hearing something or someone coming that alarmed him. Then he turned back to me and he put his fingertips to his lips. He stared at me. I saw something strange and scared in his eyes, but it was gone quickly. His eyes were so intense, Nicholas, so powerful, I felt he was looking into my soul. He whispered, ‘Be careful, look to the book, and you will be here, soon now, soon now—
’ ”
She looked up at him now, and he saw her eyes were clearing, becoming more focused.
“What happened then?”
“Suddenly it was as if I was hurtled into a huge well of white, like a blizzard, but there was no wind, no movement of any kind, no cold, nothing save blinding white. Then you were holding me and talking to me and I slowly came back into myself. Was it the white that frightened him? Or was he the one who stopped it when you commanded it? Nicholas, what was in the pot? What did he mean that I had to be careful?”
“For once a being in a dream says something that makes sense. This being believes you’re in danger, he’s warning you.”
“But who was he?”
“We will find out, don’t worry.”
“And the book, I’m to look to the book. That has got to mean Sarimund’s the Rules of the Pale or Sarimund’s short book that belonged to your grandfather. All right, I can do that. I can read both books again, we can study them more closely.”
“Yes, we will even look at the book seams, see if there is anything hidden within the covers. Another helpful clue. We’re getting there, Rosalind.”
“And what did he mean when he said I would be there soon? In the Pale?”
He didn’t like it, but he said, “Yes, very likely. As to the light bringing clarity, that requires more thought. We will figure it all out.” He pointed to the knife. “When I came in, you were holding this knife. Blood was dripping off the tip, only the drops were white like everything else. Do you know where it came from?”
She looked horrified. “No, no, I’ve never seen it before. It wasn’t in my dream. I was holding it and it was dripping white drops of blood?” She sounded terrified now and he couldn’t blame her. “But wait, Nicholas, you were wrong, there’s no blood on it, white or red.”
He picked up the knife, looked down, and felt his heart stop. She was right—there was no blood, no sign there had ever been any blood. The blade was glittering silver. He immediately released her and fell to his knees to study the carpet. No blood.
Nicholas slowly rose, felt his heart tripping. He hated that there was something going on here he couldn’t begin to understand, hated not understanding, not knowing what it was. He felt helpless, impotent. What if she’d been with him? Would she have dreamed the same dream? Would there have been the same thunder, the terrifying white that filled everything? Would he have seen the knife appear in her hand? He said, “Wait, I saw blood drip on your bare foot.” She raised her foot. There was nothing at all. She raised her other foot. Nothing.
“Well,” he said, trying to center himself, trying to think clearly, calmly. “You called it a dream. It would seem you were plunged into the middle of a vision.”
Rosalind laughed, a shaky laugh, and said, her voice a bit stronger now, “I don’t know where the knife came from. I’ve never seen it before in my life.”
“It’s kept in a glass case down in the library.”
“Nicholas?”
He laid the knife back on the night table, gathered her against him again. He kissed her ear. She was at last warming. He began stroking her again through the soft muslin nightgown.
“The man who was stirring the pot,” she said against his shoulder, “I told you I’d never seen him before.”
He kissed her temple. And waited. And his heart pounded slow deep strokes.
“He smiled at me. He knew me. He said, ‘You are mine.’”
He waited.
She pulled back in his arms and looked into his face. “It’s all so clear to me now. I know who the man was in my dream. It was Sarimund.”
There was more confusion in her voice than fear now. He tried to keep his voice light. “Since I met you, Rosalind, I must say my life has been anything but boring. So Sarimund is in the middle of this rich mix of chaos, no surprise there.”
“First I dreamed of Rennat the Titled Wizard of the East and now Sarimund. What does it mean, dammit?”
He smiled at her curse, touched his fingertip to her chin. “We’ll figure it all out.”
“All of the whiteness, the dagger with the white blood, Sarimund speaking to me—you’re right, it wasn’t a dream, Nicholas, it was a vision.”
“Yes,” he said, “I think it was.” Having a vision sounded all well and good, but he had no answers that he could get his brain around, and it nearly killed him.
“And that knife. Is it someone’s message that there will be violence? Was that an additional warning for me to be careful?”
“I plan to keep you safe, sweetheart, I swear that to you. As for the rest of it—” He paused, stared down at her. “But not now, not now.” He leaned down and kissed her mouth. He felt her jerk of surprise, felt her initial resistance, then she sank into him.
She whispered against his mouth, “Sarimund was a vision, but you’re not. You’re my husband, Nicholas, and you’re naked.”
He’d forgotten, truth be told. Her hands stroked up and down his back now, and she moved even closer, if that were possible. Her palms stroked down his flanks, his legs, then smoothed forward toward his belly. He wanted to laugh. Here he was ready to take his wife down on the bed and there was a knife not a foot away from them that had, five minutes before, been dripping white blood. Whose? Sarimund’s?
He pulled back and closed his eyes when her hands pressed against him between their bodies, and her fingers touched him. He jerked away.
“Did I hurt you?”
He laughed. “Oh, no, my brain is dead, but nothing else. I beg you, Rosalind, don’t move your hands, well, I take that back, yes, move your hands but not away from me. Touch me, Rosalind. This is about us now, only us, and I want you very badly.”
When Nicholas lay on his back a short while later, a sleeping Rosalind tucked against his side, he stared up at the shadowed ceiling, listening to the light rainfall against the windows.
He suddenly realized he didn’t like the way the room smelled. It wasn’t musty, no, it smelled coppery. Then he realized what it was. The scent he smelled was blood.
He lifted his wife in his arms and carried her back to the earl’s bedchamber, kicked the door to the countess’s room closed with his foot.
She jerked awake when he laid her onto the cold sheets.
“Shush,” he whispered between kisses, “it’s all right now. Come close and I’ll warm you.”
She murmured against his neck as she settled once again against him, “Sarimund said I’d be with him soon, soon I’d be coming to him.”
He kissed her eyebrow, then her eyelids. “Rosalind, did you see any resemblance between you and him?”
He felt her start. “Did I look like him? Oh, no, Nicholas, I told you, he was beautiful, like an angel, all golden, his eyes light, light blue.”
“What do you think he meant when he said to you, ‘You are mine’?”
“Could it mean I’m a descendant of his? Sarimund lived in the sixteenth century, at the same time as Captain Jared. And he’s here, at least his voice.”
A descendant of Sarimund—he supposed it explained a lot, but what exactly he couldn’t say. He kissed her again, pulled her close. She whispered against his chest, “I let you make love to me. I shouldn’t have done that.”
Laughter came up in his throat, but he managed to hold it in. “Do you feel better now?”
“Yes, you know I do, but that is not the point.”
“The point, whatever that is, can go to the Devil.” He kissed her forehead, and settled in.
He was nearly asleep when he felt her lips move against his shoulder, and somehow, even though she only murmured the words against his flesh, he knew what she said. “The Pale—that’s where all this is leading us.”
He fell asleep to the sound of the rain against the windowpanes and an image of a red Lasis in his mind.
It was the bright sunlight shining onto his face the following morning that brought him instantly awake, but it was the sound of Mrs. McGiver’s loud shout that made him leap out of his b
ed, nearly dumping Rosalind onto the floor.
41
Rosalind yelled, “Nicholas, you’re naked!”
He stopped at the door, whirled back around, and caught the dressing gown she threw to him. She pulled a sheet from the bed and wrapped it around herself.
The two of them raced down the long corridor.
There was another loud shriek.
They ran down the main staircase and pulled up short. Mrs. McGiver stood over Peter Pritchard’s body.
Nicholas was at Peter’s side in an instant, his fingers against the pulse in his neck. He breathed a sigh of relief—his pulse was steady and slow. Peter was wearing trousers and a shirt, and only his socks. His boots lay beside him. He’d probably come into the house and taken off his boots because he didn’t want to disturb anyone. “He’s not dead, thank God.” But he was unconscious. Nicholas felt for injuries, but nothing seemed broken. He heaved him to his shoulder and carried him into the drawing room and laid him on a sofa. He said over his shoulder, “Mrs. McGiver, what happened?”
“Oh, dear, my lord, I was coming down to see Cook about the oatmeal—there were lumps yesterday, and that’s just wrong—well, yes, I saw Mr. Pritchard lying here. I immediately went to him, my lord, and I thought he was dead because he didn’t respond even when I pinched his arm on the inside just above the elbow like I do to my grandchildren when they’re naughty.”
“Then what happened?”
She sucked in her breath and blurted it out, “I thought that miserable ghost had murdered him. I was afraid, my lord.”
“Who is the physician in these parts?”
“Andrew Knotts, my lord, skinny as a windowpane but he doesn’t go out of his way to kill his patients. Oh, here’s Mr. Block.”
Catherine Coulter the Sherbrooke Series Novels 6-10 (9781101562123) Page 151