Secrets of the Highwayman (11 page)

“Melanie?”

Hands, smoothing her hair, the brush of gentle fingers against her cheek. Melanie felt the sofa beneath her and realized she was back in the very same room she had just run from, except that this time Nathaniel Raven was kneeling on the floor beside her.

She tried to order her thoughts. She’d been lying on the stairs when he found her. She’d managed to catch the banister as she fell, swinging herself around and saving herself from a headlong dive. He’d carried her in here despite her protests.

“You’re shaking,” he said, as if such a thing was incredible to him.

Did he think she was made of concrete? Melanie wanted to take offense, to start an argument, to launch into a fight. There was a slow, angry burn inside her, and she wanted to let it out. Because it wasn’t fair that this should be happening to her, now, after all these years.
After all the hard work she had done to make herself safe. To make herself
normal
.

“Melanie?”

“Of course I’m shaking. I tripped on the carpet and nearly fell!”

“What were you doing running down the stairs in the dark?”

“There was something in the room.” She forced the words out, her voice huskier than usual. But she didn’t get up.

“What sort of
something
? Where?” His hazel eyes were very serious as they looked into hers, but there was a wariness about him, too. As if he knew secrets he had no intention of sharing with her.

So that was how it was going to be.

Melanie caught herself before she said too much. “I-I don’t know. A rat?”

He didn’t believe her. “Where?” he asked again.

“Over there, in the corner,” she said, waving her hand. She was starting to pull herself together; the light-headed feeling was wearing off, although she was still very tired. It wasn’t as if seeing things was new to her, after all. It was just a long time since she’d had to deal with it. But she was an adult now, not a hysterical girl. She would cope.

“What was it doing?” He was peering into the shadows as if he expected it to wave back.

“Playing the fiddle,” she muttered, “what do you think? It was just
there,
sort of bent over, wearing a robe. I thought you’d gone for good,” she added, and despite her effort to be indifferent, she sounded accusatory.

“I haven’t found what I came for yet.” He was watching her closely, trying to read her, too.

“Remind me, what was that again?”

“The truth. I want the truth.”

“Don’t we all.”

“The truth about Pengorren,” he retorted.

She took a determined breath and sat up. The room was spinning. Melanie didn’t remember feeling like this when it happened before. She closed her eyes but it only made things worse, so she forced them open. The candles were beginning to burn down to waxy stumps and the lamp was flickering, almost out of oil. It must be nearly dawn—the sky outside the mullioned windows wasn’t quite as dark.

His hand closed on her arm, and she could tell he was being careful not to exert his strength. “You could have broken your neck,” he said grimly. “Just like my mother.”

Melanie shuddered. She remembered lying in the darkness, her heart pounding from her almost-fall, and she’d heard it behind her. Breathing. Shuffling closer. A dark, nightmare shape. And then she felt it touch her hand, a brief burning sensation, just as Nathaniel came in the front door.

The next instant it was gone.

She glanced down at her hand. There was a plum-colored mark on it, as though she’d brushed against something hot. Not enough to blister the skin or cause serious damage. It hardly even hurt.

When Melanie looked up, Nathaniel was still watching her with unnerving intensity. “Shall I call a
physician, Melanie? I imagine you have such men in this strange time.”

She shook her head, then nodded instead. His mouth quirked up reluctantly. “Yes, we do have physicians, and no, I don’t need one,” she clarified.

“Do you have the headache?” he asked, his voice dropping an octave.

She shivered again, but this time it wasn’t from fear. The thought of his hands on her skin, his breath warm in her ear as he murmured her name. At no time in her life had she ever felt this tempted to throw caution to the winds and give in to her primal instincts. She wanted him, even if it was only for one night. One hour.

Melanie wished, with a sudden aching longing, that she didn’t have to worry about tomorrow.

“No, I…I’m tired.” From somewhere she found the strength to say it. “I need to go to bed. Alone,” she added, as he opened his mouth.

He smiled, still watching her. “You don’t trust me, do you, Melanie?”

“Because I won’t fall swooning into your arms like every other woman you’ve probably ever known? What do you want me to say?” She made her voice low and throaty, like a B-grade actress in a B-grade melodrama.
“Oh Nathaniel, kiss me with your manly lips, caress me with your manly hands.”

He threw back his head and laughed.

For a moment Melanie was too surprised to do anything. She’d been taunting him, but instead of taking offense or carrying on the argument, he was enjoying
himself. He was enjoying her. And oddly enough, that pleased her.

“Believe me, you’re not like any other woman,” he said at last, still smiling, watching her in that way that made her distinctly nervous.

“I need to go to bed,” she said again, plaintatively. “I need to sleep. My body feels like lead. I’ve been up most of the night.”

His smile changed. “So have I.”

“Why—”

But he was straightening up in that graceful way, and instead of helping her to her feet as she expected, he slid his arms under her shoulders and knees and lifted her up against his chest.

Melanie was astonished. Although she wasn’t a big woman, she was fit and strong, and she didn’t considered herself a lightweight, but he didn’t appear to be staggering or gasping for air. He was walking with her in his arms, carrying her easily. In a moment they were out on the landing, and he was moving with his usual catlike surefootedness toward the bedroom.

She let her head fall back as she gazed up at his face; he still had that little smile on his mouth. “I can walk,” she said.

“I’m sure you can.”

“Put me down.”

“Be quiet.”

Melanie opened her mouth, but he looked at her—a stern look—and surprisingly she closed it again. She should be furious with his macho arrogance, but she
wasn’t. She was excited, as if he’d tapped into one of her deepest fantasies. For someone who usually flared up at the slightest sign that her authority was being undermined, Melanie was enjoying being mastered. Perhaps it came from reading too many gothic romances when she was young.

Was this how the heroine in
Rebecca
felt when Max de Winter took her in his arms? Or the willful Dona, in
Frenchman’s Creek,
when she encountered the French privateer? Or Mary Yellan, when she came up against Jem Merlyn? Although when it came to
Jamaica Inn,
Melanie had always preferred the crazed Vicar of Altarnun. To her mind there was something very sexy about him, and the way he wanted Mary as his mate for now and eternity, whereas Jem’s vague promises of life on the road only made Melanie depressed. She was sure the Vicar would have set Mary up in style.

Melanie blinked. What was she doing, daydreaming at a time like this? She needed her wits about her, every single one.

Nathaniel had reached her bedroom and a comforting dawnlight was creeping in through the windowpanes. She felt as though the supernatural experience had taken all her energy, and she didn’t even protest when Nathaniel Raven laid her gently down onto the bed. He drew the covers over her, adjusting them to his satisfaction. It was very nice, and as Melanie stared dreamily up at him, she found her eyes drifting shut.

“Good night, Melanie,” he murmured, and bent close.

His lips touched her temple, lingering, caressing. She could smell him, the soap and the clean clothes and whatever it was he put in his hair. There was a male scent about him that appealed to her. She told herself it was probably better to pretend she was already asleep, rather than have to acknowledge that zing of sexual attraction when her resistance was so low. She told herself that even if that thing came back again, she could handle it. She’d always handled these episodes before.

Once, when she was young and her imagination was strong—before she’d learned to block it out—she’d seen an old woman at the end of her bed. Frightening, but insubstantial. She’d also seen a boy in her classroom in old-fashioned clothing, and he’d watched her all through her English lesson. Sometimes her dog—run over in the street years before—would follow her about.

But Melanie knew she’d never felt anything like this; she’d never seen something so solid and real and intent on doing her harm.

“Please, stay,” she heard herself speak the words, although she didn’t remember forming them. “Just until I’m asleep.”

His steps were receding, but now they stopped. She thought she heard him sigh, and then he was coming back. The other side of the bed shifted and when she glanced over he was lying on top of the covers by her side, lying on his back with his head cradled in his arms, staring at the ceiling.

He turned to look at her, and despite his face being
shadowy she could tell his expression was uncharacteristically serious.

“Thank you for staying.”

He smiled, but there were weary smudges under his eyes and lines near his mouth. His neckcloth was more rumpled than ever, and the stubble on his jaw was darker.

“I need to get you some proper clothes,” Melanie said dreamily. “And a razor.”

“There might be some clothes in the attic,” Nathaniel replied, still watching her.

“Not an Armani suit, I’ll bet,” she murmured, and began to drift away into exhausted sleep. At least she was safe for now, until the creature came back. And it would. She had felt it reaching out to her, probing in her mind, searching for that place inside that she’d kept locked down for so long.

Just when she needed to be at her most calm and clearheaded, her imagination was breaking free, and her mind was running amok. And it wasn’t just her mind, either.

She peeped through her lashes. Nathaniel was still there, but his eyes were closed, and his chest was rising and falling steadily. Melanie smiled. She’d known it was only be a matter of time before she and Nathaniel found themselves here.

In bed.

Nathaniel watched the light against his closed eyelids turn to gold. He should go back to the room, to see
whether it really was empty, but Melanie needed him. Besides, he’d already felt that lingering sense of a presence. Of evil. He’d felt it like a vibration deep in his bones, just as he was able to feel the power exuded by the queen of the between-worlds.

He knew that Melanie wasn’t imagining whatever it was she’d seen in there, whatever had sent her running for her life. She obviously believed the creature meant her harm. But there was something she wasn’t telling him. There were things he wasn’t telling her. They had been brought together to collaborate, and yet there were barriers between them, holding them apart.

Work together,
the queen’s voice echoed in his head.

If only it were that simple.

Nathaniel felt time pressing on him, or rather his lack of it. How could he save himself and his family by discovering the truth about his death, about Pengorren, and at the same time keep Melanie safe, and make her his?

Keeping her safe and making her his depended upon his gaining her trust. She was physically attracted to him, but with Melanie that didn’t seem to be enough. She needed more than that. The good things in life had always come to him easily, too easily, up until his father died and everything began to go wrong.

Until his father died…

A chill passed through him. His father fell from his horse in the park, and his neck snapped when he hit the ground. He was out alone, and it was only when the horse returned riderless that they realized what had happened.
Everyone thought it was just an accident, and at the time Nathaniel never contemplated it might be otherwise, but now he knew that nothing was as it seemed.

Maybe Ravenswood held some clue? This morning he would search it from top to bottom, and if anything remained of Pengorren’s guilt, Nathaniel would find it.

Melanie was dreaming. She knew it was a
dream, and yet she didn’t seem able to stop it or escape it. And the worst thing was it didn’t feel like a dream. Like the creature in the corner, it felt real.

Once more Ravenswood was aglow, and colored lanterns hung throughout the garden. Melanie was walking among them, but now she wore an ankle-length dress, her fair hair was feathered about her face, and jewelry glittered at her throat. These were sapphires, to match her eyes.

Up the steps to the front door of the house, and the staircase was in front of her, candelabra burning at intervals, the flames making the faces of the portraits smile. The chatter of the guests and the dancing were beckoning her upward. Melanie allowed herself to be drawn, trailing her hand along the banister rail.

She felt light, as if her feet weren’t quite touching the ground, and yet she wasn’t dizzy; she was strong in her mind and spirit. Her skin tingled as if she’d had one of
those ultraexpensive body scrubs, and her vision was clear and sharp, perfect twenty-twenty. It was like every part of her was running on full power, as if she was completely at one with herself, utterly focused.

She peeked into the library. It was just the same as it had been, cheery with decorations of green ivy and red holly berries, the people dancing, the candles flaring in the mirrors. Nathaniel was there, dancing with his sister. He looked gorgeous, so handsome and happy, no wonder the women were ogling him.

In her dream Melanie smiled, because she knew that back in her own time Nathaniel was lying beside her on her bed.

She lingered a moment longer and then she continued on. There was a door and when she opened it there was another corridor, leading to the servants’ bedchambers.

She realized then that her wanderings had a purpose. She was looking for someone, and she knew that this was where she would find him. Melanie floated—walked was too mundane a word for what she was doing—down the long, bare corridor. No need to make servants’ quarters pretty.

She could hear it now, getting louder. The sound was rhythmic and familiar, and she knew exactly what it was. She instructed her dream feet to stop, to turn back, but they wouldn’t listen to her. It was like swimming too near to a riptide and then not being able to get out again. She was being drawn closer and closer in.

A door stood ajar, a wedge of pale candlelight spilling out. Melanie could hear voices now, the man’s low and rumbling, and the woman’s softer and gasping. They
were making love. She watched her hand reach out and press open the door another inch, just enough so that she could see into the room without having to enter it.

Pengorren’s broad naked shoulders all but hid his partner. His breeches were unbuttoned and pulled down over his muscular buttocks. The girl was smaller, slighter, her head thrown back, her face slack with ecstasy, her fair hair a tangled mass of curls covering the pillow. Her white thighs were open, cradling him, but her arms were bent above her head, her hands clasped about the brass rods at the head of her bed.

Melanie remembered her. It was one of the servants she had seen on her first visit into the past, one of the giggling, whispering girls carrying the food to the supper room and wishing Major Pengorren was hers. Well, it looked as if she had got her wish.

“Doan’ stop,” the girl whimpered. Because Pengorren had stopped moving and was observing her flushed face.

“Then ask me nicely,” he said.

“I asked you already, sir.”

“Not nicely enough, it seems. Come on. Or have you had enough…?”

“No,” she cried. Melanie saw her throat move as she swallowed, seeking for the words that would please him, while he watched her with a cold attention at odds with their situation. “Please, sir, I do love ye. I want ye more than…more than…”

“More than what, Dorrie?” he mocked, and twisted a corkscrew curl of blond hair about his finger, giving it a cruel tug.

“More than my ma or pa or my brothers and sisters.”

“Hmm, not enough.”

“Oh, sir, ye know I love ye!”

Pengorren chuckled. “I know that.”

“I love ye more than life itself.”

Evidently that was what he was waiting for, because Dorrie squeaked as he began to ride her again. And it wasn’t gentle, there was a brutality to his movements that made Melanie, who wasn’t easily shocked, feel queasy. But there was also something about the way Pengorren had made her beg, as if he wasn’t making love to her at all or even having mutually pleasurable sex.

He was exerting his power over her.

Melanie began to back away as silently as she had come.

Pengorren raised his head. He looked surprised, and then his teeth flashed white as he smiled, like a lion about to make a kill. Here was the ruddy handsome face and piercing blue eyes she remembered so well; the feeling of being sucked into a dazzling vortex.

“Melanie?” he whispered. “You’re stronger than I thought.”

She spun around and began to run, back down the corridor.
He knows my name,
she thought.
He knows who I am.

And then, fear pounding in her chest:
Is this really a dream? It doesn’t feel like a dream.

She reached the stairs, but they were gone.

Ravenswood was gone, and it was no longer 1813.

Melanie was alone on a beach, that same beach where
Suzie’s clumsy boyfriend had smashed her sand castle and made her cry. Cautiously Melanie looked down at herself and saw those skinny goose-bump-covered legs and the hideous pink bathing suit. She was a child again, and it was that summer in Cornwall, after their parents had lost everything. Her mother and father had spent the whole time arguing bitterly over her father’s poor investments, and a short time later had divorced. Her mother had gone to France to “find herself” and her father had rarely been home. Just Suzie and Melanie, really.

Melanie looked around her now, at the stretch of sand and the blue water, and tried to breathe calmly.

“I can stop this dream anytime I want to,” she told herself. “I can wake up. I can.” But her voice was small and weak, like a child’s.

There was a shadow by the cliffs where the sand ended. Melanie peered across at it, holding her hand up to her eyes to cut out the glare. As she looked, the shadow moved and turned into a man. Unknown to her, he’d been standing by the rocks all this time, watching her.

Melanie had been told often enough to keep a lookout for strangers, so she kept a wary eye on him as he approached, muscles tensed and ready to run if he showed the least sign of trying anything nasty. But he was smiling, and there was a beauty to his smile, a dazzling beauty, like the sun in the morning, all golden and new. She found herself gaping up at him, everything else forgotten.

“What’s your name, child?” he asked, in deep voice that seemed to vibrate through her skinny body.

“Melanie Jones,” she said, pleased it was
her
name he wanted and not any of the other girls on the beach. That it was
her
he had singled out.

“Jones.” He thought a moment, and then sighed. “So many. I can’t remember them all. I am getting old.”

“You’re not old!” she retorted, because that was what adults always wanted you to say. But he was. There were lines in his face, and his eyes were tired-looking, as though he’d seen lots.

He laughed at her attempt at flattery, then his face grew serious, his gaze intent. “Melanie.” He bent down on one knee and put his hands on her skinny shoulders. Immediately, she began to tremble, and her legs went all wobbly, as if the strength were being pulled out of her. Those blue eyes were boring into hers, filling her world.

“You’re mine, Melanie Jones,” he said, and his voice was booming in her head. “All mine.”

She felt frightened, but she also felt as if what he was saying was right. She
was
his. And to be his, she must be special and wonderful. It was nice to be special for a change, instead of being the one no one wanted to be bothered with.

And then Suzie spoiled it all.

“Get away from her, you dirty bastard!” she screeched, as she came down on them, a fifteen-year-old fury.

The beautiful man fell over in the sand.

“Dirty old bastard,” Suzie said again, spitting at him, and then she snatched up Melanie’s hand and began to drag her away.

“Let me go! I want to stay! Let me go!”

But Suzie didn’t let her go. “Don’t you know any better than that?” she shrieked, panting, her eyes wild.

“I hate you,” Melanie said. And she did, but she loved her, too, because special and wonderful as the man on the beach had made her feel, he had also frightened her. She had felt, when he touched her and looked into her eyes, as if he was taking something from her. Something very important to her.

That night she crept into Suzie’s bed and cuddled up against her for comfort, and for once Suzie didn’t tell her not to be a baby.

“He didn’t hurt you, did he?” Suzie asked sleepily. “I’ll kill him if he did.”

Melanie made a sound that meant “no.”

“Well, we’ll be going home in the morning anyway, so you don’t have to worry. He won’t find you again, Melanie, I promise.”

And Melanie believed her. Suzie was her big sister, and big sisters had the power to make everything all right.

Only this time Suzie was wrong, he
had
found her again.

Because the man on the beach all those years ago had been Major Pengorren.

For a moment after she woke, Melanie didn’t know where she was. The incident on the beach was so long ago, she hadn’t thought of it since, maybe because it was so strange and creepy. Suzie had been her hero in those days. No matter how deserted she’d felt by her mother or
her father, she had believed that Suzie would always be there for her.

Melanie felt a twinge of guilt. It was a long time since she’d thought of her sister as more than an irritation, or a blood-is-thicker-than-water responsibility she would rather avoid.

The guilt turned into a hollow sensation in her stomach as the face of the man on the beach rushed back to her.

Instinctively, she turned to look beside her, but Nathaniel was long gone, leaving only the hollow in the pillow to tell her where he’d lain.

When her cell phone rang, it was almost a relief to suspend her thoughts and answer it.

“Hello?”

There was a pause, a heartbeat.

“Miss Jones?” the croaky old voice was faintly familiar, although she couldn’t place it until he spoke again. “This is Mr. Trewartha. You rang me yesterday evening. About Ravenswood? It is about Ravenswood, is it not? Naturally, I had heard the sad news about Miss Pengorren’s passing.”

Melanie relaxed back against her pillows; it was the antique dealer who lived in Launceston. “Oh yes…I’m sorry, I…”
Slept in?
She peered at the window and saw that the sun was high.

“Nothing to be sorry about. You’re probably enjoying the weather.” His voice dropped to little more than a whisper, and Melanie wondered if there was something wrong with his throat. “I’m afraid I’m semiretired these days, but I do know of Ravenswood. If it would suit you,
I could come around and take a look. If that helps you at all? No strings attached. As I said, I am semiretired, but in this case I admit that I’m curious. It isn’t very often that one of our oldest and grandest houses comes up for sale.”

“I suppose not.”

“Will you be staying long in Cornwall?”

“Only a week, although I’ll probably need to come back again later to oversee things, when the arrangements for the auction have been made. Thank you for offering to take a look at the place, I’m very grateful, and naturally we’ll pay you for your time and expertise.”

“If you insist, Miss Jones. I assure you, though, I don’t need your money. Coming to Ravenswood will be enough of a treat for me.”

He was a bit of an old sweetheart, thought Melanie with a smile. “I’ll look forward to meeting you.”

“I’ll make my arrangements and let you know when to expect me. Good-bye, Miss Jones.”

Well, at least she’d managed to do something related to her job. She should have been up hours ago, eaten, dressed, gone for her run. What was happening to her routine? Hard to believe that all these years she had worked so hard at making herself safe, and after just two days it was all beginning to unravel.