The Haunting of a Duke(90)

She kissed him then, pressing against him fervently, her spirit soaring. “I feel the same. I've wanted to tell you, but I am such a coward. I love you!"

He clasped her more tightly. “Say it again."

"I love you, Rhys. With every breath in my body, I love you. You are everything to me."

He kissed her, tenderly, attempting to show her the depth of his love. He caressed each bruise and scrape, damning himself all over again for failing to protect her. “I didn't believe love was possible until I found you."

Rhys awoke to darkness. Disoriented from the laudanum Michael insisted he take earlier, he reached for Emme. The empty bed beside him brought him to abrupt awareness. A scream echoed through the halls.

He rose quickly, ignoring the leaden feeling in his limbs and the dryness of his mouth from the drug. He donned his dressing gown quickly and stepped out into the hallway.

Michael was just emerging from his own door further down the corridor. The scream came again, sharp and piercing. At the end of the long hallway, he noted that the tower room door was open. With a heartfelt curse, he ran toward the narrow stairs with Michael following close behind.

When he reached the top of the stairs, he could see his breath. The room was frigid cold. Eleanor cowered in the corner, her hair wild and tears streaking her face. Emme stood only a few feet from her, but he knew that she was not truly Emme in that moment. Elise had come for her revenge. Michael would have pushed past him but Rhys raised a warning hand. He couldn't risk any harm to Emme. Elise, even in death, was vicious enough to harm her out of spite.

"Make her stop! She's the devil!” Eleanor screamed. She tore at her hair as she shook her head from side to side.

"There is only one devil here and it is you.” The voice was chilling. It was Elise in full fury. “You murdered a child. I've done many things, but never that! You lied for and protected your son who was nothing but a vile rapist, a violent, misanthropic drunkard!"

"Don't! Don't say those things about him, you vicious whore!"

Elise smiled through Emme's eyes and the effect chilled him straight through. “Your son was a wastrel, a whoremonger, and a murderer but then with you for a mother, how could he be anything else? You don't really believe that Jeremy fell from his horse, do you? It was part of Alistair's plan. I was going to be the Duchess but Rhys was never to be the Duke! No, he would die on the battlefield, reckless as always and Alistair and I would wed. But Rhys proved lucky as usual and once again Alistair was a resounding failure!

"Then he drank himself into a stupor and told everything. He told me about your affair and Melisande's murder! And now his corpse is rotting in the dirt with a pistol ball buried in his brain. I would say it was a waste, but we all know he didn't deserve to live after everything he's done and neither do you."

"Shut up!” Eleanor screeched. “Stop talking about him! Go back to hell!"

"Not without you,” Elise whispered.

Eleanor lurched to her feet and charged toward Emme, her fingers curled into talon-like claws. Rhys reacted without thought, he simply grabbed Emme and hauled her back.

Eleanor's momentum carried her forward and at the top of the stairs, she struggled to regain her balance. Her feet tangled in her skirts and she stumbled but caught herself on the doorframe. A gust of frigid air burst through the room though all of the windows were still locked tight. Eleanor released the doorframe and covered her face with her hands, as if warding off an attack. She screamed and tried to step back, only to stumble again and this time there was no correcting her misstep. She tumbled through the open door of the stairwell with a loud shriek but her scream ended abruptly.

Rhys, with Emme in his arms, forced himself to look. She lay at the bottom of the stairs, her neck bent at an unnatural angle. Michael cursed but Rhys could only stare at the broken body. Emme had gone limp in his arms soon after he'd grabbed her. He had no idea how long she would remain unconscious. “Not a word of this to her,” he said. “I don't want her to know that she was any part of it."

"She wasn't,” Michael said. “That was not Emme."

Rhys knew that, just as he knew that Elise was well and truly gone. The air in the room had changed. The heaviness and the oppressiveness of it had simply dissipated. Elise's presence had hung thickly in the air of that small room even before he'd been able to accept that the dead did indeed linger. He thought about Melisande's comment, that he could only see her because he believed. Elise had cultivated Eleanor's belief; she had used Emme's body to communicate with the woman and had planted the seeds of doubt and fear. But she hadn't needed Emme to carry out her revenge fully. Eleanor's belief had been strong enough that Elise had only to use it against her.