Fair Maiden (31 page)

Streaks of salty wetness chilled Contessa’s face because he
went on to describe in graphic detail all of the nightmarish ways he would
accomplish those things.

Tessa sobbed against the terrifying images that assailed her
mind.

 He finally pulled away, rubbing his thumb over her mouth,
again touching her as a sweetheart would. “You’re wasting energy defying me,”
he whispered gently.

“Let me go…please.”

Dominic laughed at that, his breath puffing into her face
with each blast of amusement. “The wedding starts in two hours. I’ll be back
for you then. And remember, I’m not above bruising you where no one can see it,
so I suggest you
correct
your attitude.”

Dominic plundered her mouth with a punishing kiss and then
left.

She drew the back of her hand across her lips in disgust at
having his mouth upon hers. Her knees gave out and she crumpled to the
mattress. The flesh on the back of her head and shoulders throbbed and her
fingers slid into her hair to find the ache and rub at it.

His words twisted through her imagination like a legion of
loathsome monsters. Tessa’s body jerked and shook with great wrenching sobs.
Pinching her eyes shut, the tears were forced out from the corners, then over
the bridge of her nose and down into her hair. One fist rose to her mouth
trying feebly to control all the noise she was making.

Contessa knew Dominic and also knew he would do those things
whether she married him or not, had probably done them to his past wives. “Oh,
those poor, poor souls!” Her heart broke for them over what they must have
suffered at his hand.

No one had ever spoken such things to her. Inside she was
reeling and knew his words were meant to force her cooperation. And it was
true, she was influenced by them, but not in the way he perceived she would be.
They had the opposite effect, in fact. Contessa thought of the window and
decided that flinging herself from it would be far preferable to ever
submitting to him. She lunged upright as an idea struck her. “The window!”

Her fingers curled into the elegant counterpane beneath her,
and rising to unsteady feet, she yanked the material from the mattress, along
with every other bit of fabric which adorned the bed: the sheets, the blanket
beneath the coverlet, and the heavy velvet drapes.

She scrubbed away her tears and with frantic urgency,
Contessa fashioned a rope, even knowing she may not be able to make one long
enough to stretch the length from her chamber to the hard ground below. But it
was a risk she would take. She would rather die than wed that beast.

Chapter
30

Disquiet

As Christian crept along the crumbling wall surrounding Dominic’s
castle, he inched his way to the back. He’d noticed a gap in the hedges
allowing him access to the gardens. He was lucky to find that the medieval
outer walls of it had fallen into ruin, as it was no longer needed, for castles
were never stormed in his day.

A grin captured the line of his mouth. Dominic needed it
today, because Christian was most definitely going to trespass and lay siege in
a silent way. If he could manage it.  His grin faltered with the thought.

Adjusting the sword that slapped heavily against his leg, he
edged closer until he reached the opening. Rocking forward, he surveyed the
grounds beyond the hedge. They were empty. He took a moment longer to listen,
and heard nothing. Christian pushed his way through and darted to the left
where the plant life stood in shadow from several trees and shrubs. The sun was
setting, and that helped hide his presence even further. But to be safe, he
uttered the words of the masking spell he’d learned from Tabitha.

Christian crouched down and again considered his
surroundings. Through the large windows along the back he could see movement
from within. Finely dressed men and women milled about inside a large chamber
facing the gardens. They were backlit by torches hung along the walls on the
opposite side of the room. Christian was surprised at how many people were
here, and he feared that perhaps the wedding had already begun.

Movement on the right side of the castle caught his
attention, and he carefully made his way there. As he reached the base of the
building at the turn of a tall turret something white went sailing past his
head. Ducking, he twisted to see what it was as the object bounced and tumbled
across the grass.

“What in the world?” he muttered to himself when he saw a
woman’s shoe laying there. “Oof ,” he then grunted when something else caught
him in the shoulder. Rubbing at his bruised flesh, he turned again. There upon
the grass was yet another shoe. It was a lovely bit of footwear, covered in
white satin and beaded with diamonds and pearls just like a.... When
realization struck him, he gasped and twisted toward the structure behind him.

With his gaze drawn upward, Christian saw a pair of ladies stockings
tied to a chemise and then a gown and then, what appeared to be a sheet,
followed by yet another dress, and was that a lacy petticoat? The ingeniously
fashioned rope continued upward. But panic seized him. “No, Tessa. You can’t!”
he whispered knowing she would never hear it.

His line of sight followed the incredible length along the
wall, his stomach flipping as it went on and on, until ending at a window which
looked quite small from his vantage point. While she’d done a brilliant job of
making this rope, adding extra knots for hand and footholds, and using every
bit of fabric she could get her hands on, including a handful of colored gowns,
nightgowns, two weddings gowns, and various undergarments, it was simply not
long enough. If she managed to hang on long enough to reach the pair of flimsy
stockings she would still be dangling over forty feet above the ground.

Of course she probably could not see that miscalculation
while looking down.

“Contessa, I’m here. Don’t do this,” he said, though he
truly wanted to shout it.

A naked leg appeared over the windowsill and then another.
Both limbs were followed by a bloomer-clad behind. Cursing under his breath,
Christian knew he wouldn’t be able to stop her without making enough noise to
alert everyone else to her desperate stunt. He thought through all of the
incantations Tabitha had taught him, and none of them prepared him for this.
With the others occupied, as it were, with a party of some sort, he could use
what he’d learned to sneak inside and retrieve her safely from that room, but
not if she were trying to escape on her own. Feeling immensely helpless, all he
could do was watch, hope, and pray he could catch her when she fell. He knew
she would fall.

Dressed only in a white camisole, ruffle-trimmed white
bloomers, and a corset, Contessa held onto the bulky rope as it swayed
dangerously against the gray stone wall, inching her way down one knot at a
time. This was insane, he thought, as he stared up at her, terrified of taking
his gaze anywhere else, terrified she might slip, terrified someone could come
up from behind him. But he hoped if anyone meant to accost him, he’d be able to
catch the movement out of the corner of his eye. His left hand dragged through
his hair, and he noticed how sweaty his scalp and forehead were. Christian
swiped the back of his hand across his face. It felt like hours had passed and
she’d only descended about a third of the way down.

Contessa’s hair had been braided but the exertion of her
task and the wind buffeting her had loosened the honeyed tresses and the free
strands began to drift around her face and shoulders.

As the sun sank below the horizon, it became harder for him
to see her as she became a moving shape of white against a darkened background.
He suspected she could be getting cold as a shudder worked its way through his
own body. With the chill of dusk, combined with his sweat, and with the
addition of the biting wind sweeping up from the channel, he was suffering too.
But she had it far worse, for she wasn’t dressed in layers of wool and linen as
he was.

“Oh, Contessa—” Christian silenced himself when a small
squeak came from above.

Had she slipped? Straining his eyes, he breathed a sigh of
relief to see she was more than halfway down and still holding on.

“Hurry, Tessa...no, don’t rush it...it’s too hazardous,” he
whispered. After measuring her movement, which had actually halted for a
moment, he stole one pass of his surroundings. All appeared to be clear. His
eyes swung back her way and her pale form was again descending at a steady pace.

He shook his head. Such a brave thing to do! Such a foolish
thing to do! But undeniably, he was quite impressed with what she’d
accomplished all alone. Truly amazing, and when she got to the bottom, he was
going to paddle her behind for causing his heart to stop, restart, and stop
again....

She got to what looked like a white wedding gown, which she
practically blended into, except for her hair, and something went wrong. A
slightly louder squeak or a faint scream reached his ears along with the sound
of rending fabric. It seemed the waist seams of the gown were not sturdy enough
to hold her weight. Christian positioned himself beneath her, his heart coming
to another halt, because while she’d come quite a distance, she was still too
far up for her to survive a fall or for him to catch her.

“Don’t let go!” he muttered as loudly as he dared.

She did not release her grip, but the threads did. Another
ripping sound was heard and she dropped about half a foot. Her pace increased
as she tried to lower herself to the next set of knots when the seams ripped
again, jostling her enough this time that she lost her hold.

With his heart lodged in his throat, Christian watched in
horror as she plummeted toward him. But at just about ten feet above his head,
she suddenly stopped and began drifting instead of dropping. Only when he
realized she was dressed as a medieval bride did he comprehend that she’d just
turned ghostly.

He still couldn’t swallow the lump lodged in his windpipe.
It seemed she would be saved, until just as suddenly she returned to solid form
and again sailed toward him.

Christian held his hands out, but when she slammed into his
chest, he was thrown backward with the force of it.

“Oof,” he grunted for the second time that night. Struggling
to take the brunt of the fall, Christian locked his arms around her and waited
for things to settle.

Yet she didn’t settle down at all. “No!” she cried.

His hand came over her mouth before she alerted the entire
village of her escape. She screamed against his palm and wriggled to get away
from him, kicking at his shins and thrusting her elbows back into his ribs.
While she fought, he used his strength to subdue her and spoke into her hair,
“Shhh, Contessa, it’s me, it’s Christian. Please settle down.”

Apparently she heard him because she went still and quiet.

He turned her in his arms until she faced him.

A sob tumbled from her lips and she hugged him, burying her
face into his shoulder for a moment or two until she finally lifted her head
and looked at him, her fingertips caressing his whiskered cheek. “How?”

“That’s what I would like to know,” he ground out as he
grasped her arms perhaps a little too tightly. “What you just did was far too
dangerous! How could you take such a risk, Tessa? I’m here for you.”

But when she flinched and tried to pull away, he frowned and
looked more closely at her bare arms. There, barely visible in the diminishing
light, were many shadowy welts dotting her pale flesh. Mouth hanging open,
Christian matched his gaze to hers. That’s when he noticed her red-rimmed eyes.
“What did they do to you?” A need for violence rose up from the darkest parts
of his soul. “What did
he
do to you?”

He felt her chest shudder against his with a wobbly breath.
“They pinched me.”

“They?”

“The maids.”

“Why?” he demanded.

“I argued about putting on the dress.”

“The wedding gown?” It wasn’t meant as a question but it
came out that way.

“Yes,” she said.

“What else? Tell me everything, Tessa. What did he do that
drove you to this?”

“It wasn’t what he did, but what he said he would do.” Her
face screwed up with distress, tears leaked from her eyes and dropped onto his
neck. “I had to get away. Just had to...”

He brushed his thumbs over her eyelids, gathering the
remainder of tears from her lashes. “Tell me what he said.”

She shook her head, and then chewed her lip a moment before
she said, “I c-cannot re-repeat it.”

The length of her practically nude body trembled against his
and as she released her lip he noted the same wobbling in her plush mouth.
While he was secretly savoring the feel of her with nothing more than a bit of
linen between his hand and her skin as he rubbed her back, he knew he had to
get her more covered. His gaze slid past her to the rope of clothing, but while
she had fallen, it had remained dangling by a few threads far out of reach.

Christian rolled upright, then rose to his feet, taking her
with him. “You’ll die of the chill. Did you really plan on escaping in your
undergarments and a pair of shoes?” he asked, tugging his arms out of his coat.

“I didn’t have time.” He slipped her arms into the sleeves,
the cuffs falling well below her fingers. He rolled them up and fastened every
button. “It’s warm.” A small smile lifted her pink mouth.

His eyes slid downward, and while the coat fell past her
knees, her legs remained uncovered. Christian gathered her shoes and placed
them on her feet, commenting, “And how did you expect to get away from here
wearing a pair of
flimsy
slippers?”