wcEND.rtf (2 page)

Normally, Isabel wouldn't think of keeping i
t
—
s
he had no use for collecting objects in her nomadic lif
e
—
b
ut her artistic eye appreciated the symmetry of the high-relieved stones and the whole beauty of the chalice.

Chalice in hand, she was ready to turn around when lightning streaked the sky. From the comers of her eyes, she caught sight of the remnants of an old castle on a hill, less than a mile away from where she stood. Its silhouette of round and square towers stood stark against the darkening sky. Under the roaring of distant thunder, Isabel took up the grassy hill toward the castle, mesmerized by
it. Surely she had time to explore it before the storm arrived.

A couple of hundred feet away from the castle, Isabel stopped, her breath caught in her throat, a slight tremor running through her body. She'd seen many castles in her life; some so well preserved you could easily imagine the people who'd lived in them, others crumbling ruins that gave little indication of what they truly looked like. But none had captured her interest as this one. There was something about it, like a painting you must stare at for hours before you had your fill of it, before you understood it, before it became part of you.

Lightning streaked the sky again, this time above the castle, framing it in light for a fraction of a second, like the flash of a photographer's camera.

The scene etched deeply in Isabel's mind. She reached for her backpack, for her art supplies, wanting to draw it, paint it, freeze the image in time, but an urge to get closer to it stopped her hand in mid-motion and pushed her feet forward instead. The wind picked up sudden momentum, slapping her short hair over her eyes.
Fut
il
e
l
y
Isabel pushed the bangs away while her free hand firmly held the chalice.

Ignoring a warning not to trespass, she jumped over the steel cable surrounding the property, thankful there was no one in sight. She approached the ruins, taking in the ivy-covered wal
l
and a crumbled
t
ower. Two other square towers and a round one still stood mindless of the disrepair surrounding them. A low wall enclosed part of the side of the castle where a garden must once have grown. She crossed under an archway, which seemed to stand by sheer stubbornness since the walls that held it no longer existed, and walked into a small yard. Before her stood the entrance to what once was a medieval castle.

Isabel entered the castle to the echoing of her own foot-steps. For a moment the air inside was deathly still, then a chilling draft swirled around her body and a musty smell of damp stone wafted to her. A sudden batting of wings spooked her and Isabel screamed, almost dropping the chalice from her hands. Letting out a nervous laugh, she realized it was only a bird flying through the hole-gapped roof, leaving behind a wave of dust in the air.

The place sure reeked of an eerie atmosphere, Isabel thought as memories of childhood tales her father used to tell came rushing to her. "There isn't a castle in England," her father used to say, "that doesn't harbor a haunting ghost."

Laughing at the absurd thought, Isabel proceeded through the shadowed room until she reached a steep stone stairway with no handrails. For a moment she hesitated; the stairs didn't look very safe and they led to a second floor swallowed by darkness. She shook her head and moved up anyway. She wasn't a little girl anymore; darkness and ghost stories didn't scare her. Besides, she never walked away from new situations. In fact, she thrived on them. And she wanted to see the upper floor of this castle.

Midway up the steps a whistling hissed in her ears. Isabel refused to be cowed. No haunting ghosts, just the wind caught in the tunneling walls, she told herself, shivering with the dampness of the place. At the top of the landing she stopped and perused her surroundings. A little light infiltrated through the many holes in the roof and walls, illuminating the corridor ahead. To her right, a few steps from where she was, a fra
m
eless door marked the entrance to one of the square towers she'd seen from outside.

As if compelled by an invisible force, Isabel ambled to the door, walked through it, and found herself inside the tower. For a brief moment she thought she caught the
scent of rosemary in the air. Standing in the middle of the room, Isabel turned around slowly, taking notice of the large arched window on one of the walls and the crumbling remains of a fireplace on the other. Thunder rumbled outside and she looked up to a partially missing roof. A drop of rain fell on her face as lightning flashed across the sky. Moving farther inside, Isabel found herself near the fireplace, somewhat sheltered from the weather outside.

For a moment she watched the brief flashes of light revealing the shadowed room, wondering if she should wait the weather out or just venture back to the cottage. When sudden warmth began creeping up her body, Isabel frowned. She knew the heat couldn't be coming from the dark, cold fireplace behind her. Her gaze strayed to her hand holding the chalice, from where the heat seemed to originate. The chalice's blue stones glowed like embers, emanating a soothing blue light. In disbelief Isabel stared at them. Were they really glowing? When she brought the chalice closer, from deep within a mist began to form, swirling up and around Isabel like tongues of blue opaque smoke. With the plume, the essence of rosemary also rose and the heat spread faster over her body.

The hair on
Isabel'
s
arms rose in warning as an image began to emerge from the mist. At first in barely recognizable shapes,
m
en
slowly taking form like a holograph projection, it became so real Isabel could swear that if she reached for it she'd be able to touch the people the image revealed.

Instinctively she stepped back, but for some reason she couldn't drop the chalice. The mesmerizing, glowing stones and the blue mist had her transfixed and she was unable to tear her gaze away from the vision. Unwillingly she stared at a beautiful woman in the last stages of pregnancy, dressed in clothes of a bygone era, sitting by a
fireplace while a dark, handsome man looked adoringly at her.

Isabel could feel the warmth from
the
lit fireplace, could see the vibrant color of the woman's auburn hair, could even feel the joy in the woman's heart as if she were the woman herself.

Disturbed, Isabel turned her gaze to the man. His clean, male scent suddenly overpowered t
h
e more feminine bouquet of rosemary. A sudden desire to reach for him, to touch his bronzed face, to be the object of his admiration assaulted Isabel. A hint of jealousy rose in her. No man had ever looked at her that way, with such love, such pride.

With her heart constricted to an unbearable pressure, Isabel's hands unconsciously tightened around the chalice. The vision was so real Isabel almost felt part of the ensemble, though she was only an unwitting witness to a picture-perfect family.

Oh, what she wouldn't give to be in that woman's place! To belong, to be part of a family, to carry a child in her womb! The wish sprouted from deep within her heart, uncontrollable, undesirable, irrefutable.

The vision suddenly wavered before Isabel's eyes, like an image reflected in water. The mist swirled faster and faster, enveloping her, its dizzying speed making her head spin.

Image
s
—
r
eal and imaginar
y
—
f
used and separated in a hypnotic pattern. The chalice'
s
blue stones shone brighter as their light escalated from soothing blue to blinding white. Then suddenly the room plunged into total dark
n
ess as Isabel, robbed of her last vestiges of consciousness, crumpled to the stone floor.

Windermere Castle

Cumbria, England, 1315

THE delicate scent of rosemary wafted into Hunter's dreams, awakening him with sweet promises. As he opened his eyes to the shadows of the early morning, lightning flashed through the bed curtains, illuminating his lady wife's sleeping form on the mattress by his side. Her vibrant auburn hair escaped the constriction of a tight braid to fall in fat curls over her fair face.

Thunder roared in the distance as Hunter rolled to his side, bracing himself on one arm to face Détra. The bed frame's interlaced strips of leather complained loudly under his shifting weight, but his wife remained motionless.

A morning chill filled the air, speaking of the need to add new logs to the hearth's dying embers. He shifted, and the coverlet slid off Détra'
s
shoulders, and the temptation of her bared skin, revealed by the disarray of her chemise, spoke of his need for her.

Hunter responded to the latter and reached for Détra.
As he touched her shoulders, her velvety skin seared his fingers and the heat traversed to the lower part of his body in lightning speed. He slid her chemise fu
r
ther down, unveiling the top of her generous breasts, the rosy, tempting nipples. His breath quickened and his eager member jutted forward, rigid and ready.

As always, his body willfully responded with a mind of its own to the sight of Détra's beauty. Heartbeat drumming in his ears, Hunter leaned over and skimmed her shoulder with his lips, her sweet taste flaming his thirst of her, inflating his hope that this morning he could put an end to this miserable waiting.

"Nay, Hunter. Not yet," Détra said, turning away from him.

Disappointment clogged his throat. Since their wedding night, two weeks ago, Détra had denied him his rights. Bothered by her menses on the first few days of their marriage, a terrible aching head keeping her virtually abed for days afterward, she had held him at bay. But then, a week ago, Détra had finally confessed to her late husband's cruel treatment of her. Hunter had tried to reassure her he would never harm her, but Détra had been disconsolate.

It was within his rights to demand her yielding, to force her submission, to make use of her body, but the mere thought of forcing himself on a woman, least of all his lady wife, was immensely distressing to Hunter. The horrible thought that his own mother had undoubtedly been taken against her will and then abandoned to bear his father's bastard alone had instilled in him the desire to never repeat his father's mistake.

And so he had waited, hoping to prove Détra's fears unfounded. But he could wait no longer. If word of his failure to consummate his marriage got out, not only would he be the laughingstock of the whole kingdom, but
his control over Windermere Castle would also be in serious jeopardy.

Hunter could afford neither of them.

He gently turned Détra around and took her stiff body into his arms, keeping the chill of the morning away with his body heat. He sought her mouth and kissed her but she kept her lips tightly sealed to his seeking tongue. He lifted from her. "If you but allow me to hold you," he said.

In response she pushed further away from him, as if that were possible, seeing that she already slept on the far edge of the bed.

"I am not William, Détra," Hunter reasoned with mounting frustration. "Surely you must see that. We can no longer be obliging to your fears."

In silence Détra rolled out of the bed and rose, dragging the coverlet with her. The bed curtains fell behind her departing form.

His lady wife's prompt assumption she could turn her back on him and not fulfill her marital duty to him annoyed Hunter anew. Was there more to Détra
'
s reluctance than what she had led him to believe? Had his idealized image of her veiled his mind to the truth of her heart?

But what could that truth be if not what she had told him?

Hunter jerked to his feet to stand naked before her. She held the coverlet tight over the chemise she always wore to bed, covering her body to his gaze. Lightning flashed outside the window and fell in incandescent streaks upon her, but for the first time, her beauty failed to move him. She stood before him like a statue—
a
beautiful, unattainable, lifeless form of a woman.