The China Bride

vanishing again. He smiled. She and her kittens would dine well.

Preferring to wait for Troth before visiting the keep, he ambled across the lowest level. Despite the sunshine, he still felt a lingering sense of uneasiness.

The castle precinct occupied the whole top of the crag. Most of this level had consisted of gardens, but tucked in a back corner he found a chapel. Surprisingly, the small stone building was intact, with even the slate roof in fairly good condition. The English soldiers who'd wrecked Castle Doom to prevent it from being a threat in the future must have decided to leave the chapel alone. Perhaps they'd feared divine wrath.

On his first visit he'd missed the chapel entirely. Engaged in a competition to see who could reach the top of the fortress first, he and Dominic hadn't paid much attention to this level. Thoughtless creatures, boys. Typically, they'd reached the highest level at virtually the same time. There might have been less competition if they hadn't been so perfectly matched.

The wide, iron-bound door swung open with a rusty squeal. He stepped into a sanctuary of peace and light. Though birds had nested in the baptismal font, the simple wooden cross still stood on the altar and the sturdy oak pews were in place, if dusty. Crofters from the neighboring hills must be tending the chapel.

He sat in the front pew, dust and all. When he finally got around to hiring another valet, the man would probably start by burning Kyle's entire wardrobe because of the abuse it had suffered.

The stained glass in the windows was long gone, leaving stone traceries that cast shadows of intricate beauty where the sun poured in. He closed his eyes, feeling the same sacredness in this simple, abandoned chapel that he had experienced in the gilded spaces of Hoshan. Centuries of prayer had hallowed it.

In my end, I find my beginning. The words that had rung in his mind at Hoshan echoed through him once more. Then he'd thought it ironic to travel halfway around the world to experience spiritual insights he'd failed to absorb in his own church. Now he'd come home, full circle. But where Hoshan had produced a scalding sense of transformation, now he felt a slow, powerful tide of awareness.

The tide rose, filling him with warmth and quiet joy. His mind drifted to other sacred places he'd visited that had touched him deeply. Perhaps the soul wasn't a foundation but a mosaic composed of myriad small insights and transcendental moments. He'd traveled the world collecting pieces for his personal mosaic, and now he could dimly see the overall pattern.

Though he hadn't heard her footsteps on the flagstone floor, he was unsurprised when Troth's hand slipped into his. When she'd settled on the pew beside him, he opened his eyes. 'I think I found the missing piece of my soul.'

She regarded him gravely. 'How did that happen?'

'In Hoshan I experienced profound spiritual awareness,' he said slowly. 'It began with a devastating recognition of my failures and shortcomings. Only when all my pride and arrogance had been stripped away did I experience divine compassion so infinite that it could forgive all my weaknesses and fill me with light.

'For those of us who are less than saints, I think it's impossible to stay in such an exalted state, but I left Hoshan feeling closer to spiritual grace than I'd ever been. Then I was captured, and it seemed as if I'd lost everything I had learned. Only now do I see that in prison I was being taught another essential lesson.'

'Suffering to enhance compassion?'

'That was surely part of it, but more important was to endure complete loss of control.' He smiled wryly. 'For most of my life, I've had a great deal of power to shape my world. In prison, I had no power at all. When and what I ate, my physical movements, even my very existence, were all in the hands of others. When the fever struck, I wasn't even master of my own body. By the end of my captivity I was praying for death. It was as if the essence of my being had been wrenched away.'

'Aaahhhh.' She exhaled softly. 'No wonder you were in such dire straits when you returned to England. Your soul had been separated from your body, and they were slow to find each other again.'

'That's a good way to put it.' He studied her face. 'Your experience was similar, wasn't it? Your captivity was gentler, your cell larger, but you were also imprisoned, unable to be a woman or to reveal both sides of your heritage. No wonder that now that you've escaped one prison, you're reluctant to enter another.'

Her eyes widened. 'Yes! That's it exactly. Marriage does seem like a prison.'

'I'll never cage you, Troth Mei-Lian,' he said softly. 'If my experience in Feng-tang was to show me that I have only as much control over my life as God is willing to grant, I'd be a thrice-damned fool to try to control a free spirit like yours.'

She swallowed. 'You're a dangerously persuasive man, Lord Maxwell.'

'On the contrary.' His gaze went to the cross on the altar. 'I'm a clumsy fellow who needs to learn his lessons over and over again.'

'In each lesson, the student advances a little further in his spiritual studies.' Her clasp tightened on his hand. 'Do you wish you had become a minister of your church?'

'I wouldn't be much good in a vicarage. My personal ministry, I think, is to use the power I've inherited with justice and compassion. And for myself-well, in the future I'll remember to visit places like this often enough to prevent more holes from developing in my spirit.' He raised their linked hands and kissed her knuckles. 'Shall we continue our climb to the top of the castle?'

She gave him a dazzling smile. 'Yes, my lord.'

When they reached the highest place and could see miles in all directions, he'd ask her to marry him, he decided. After all, marriage was the goal of a courtship.

And if she didn't accept him today-well, he'd ask again tomorrow.

Chapter 43

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Her hand in Kyle's, Troth climbed to the next level of the castle, feeling buoyant from the pure, clean rush of his chi. Even if he hadn't spoken, she would have known that the chapel had crystallized his spiritual healing. Wholeness had been coming gradually, she realized, as he fought his way back to physical and emotional health after the ordeal he'd endured in China.

Ruefully she recognized that she hadn't been much help to him. She'd gone from anxious servility to prickly anger, skipping the intermediate stage of being a caring, helpful friend, let alone a true wife. She'd been of no use to either him or herself. The weeks since his return had been difficult for them both. Yet they'd survived, and were both regaining internal harmony. What might that lead to?

The second level of the castle contained low, crumbled stone sheds that had been used for storage, workshops, and livestock. Rather than explore, they continued climbing and went through the gate of the third and highest level. The keep, guardhouses, and other essential buildings, all roofless now, were set around three sides of a courtyard. The fourth side, on the south, was formed by the high stone wall that they'd just passed through, which separated the main level from the workshops.

The approaching storm had stiffened the wind to the point where it would take a man's hat off, but that only added to the barbaric splendor of the setting. Troth threw back her head and laughed, because she was happy and Castle Doom was as wild and free as the wind itself.

The main keep ran along the east wall to their right, but Kyle gestured left to the stone steps that ran up to the battlements in the southwest corner of the courtyard. 'If you can manage one last climb, you'll be able to see half of central Scotland.'

She gave him a teasing glance. 'I shall manage. I'm not so sure that you will.'

Before he could reply, an ear-numbing boom shattered the air. Troth winced, thinking it was thunder from the coming storm.

As another bolt shook the skies, Kyle grabbed her around the waist and physically dragged her through the empty doorway of the keep. More thunder sounded while he yanked her left from the door and flattened her against the stone wall. Disoriented, she gasped, 'What are you doing? '