Secrets of the Highwayman (6 page)

“Not really, I am merely preserving my manhood. Melanie Jones seems well able to take care of herself, and if she knew I was using her as some sort of bait”—he glanced inquiringly at the eagle—“she would remove my balls.”

The bird chuckled in a most disturbing way. “What a pair you make, you as smooth as crème brûlée and she as prickly as a thistle.”

“Hmm, a French dessert and a Scottish weed. You see, we’re completely incompatible.” But he smiled. “I have an idea, Your Majesty. Perhaps you could find me another woman, one who isn’t quite as difficult to get along with.”

The eagle spread its wings. “Don’t try and cozen me, Nathaniel!” it shrieked. “Do as you are told or suffer the consequences.”

“But—”

“I must go. Remember this, you do not have long, Nathaniel. Don’t waste too much time being charming.”

“But, Your Majesty!” he shouted, as she flew away.

She was gone.

He was filled with unaccustomed gloom. Despite what he’d said to the queen, he didn’t believe Melanie
was capable of saving herself from Pengorren. The last thing he wanted was someone else to rescue in the limited time he had to succeed. And what, pray, was her contribution to his redemption going to be? A good telling off? He might as well go back to the between-worlds right now and await his fate.

That’s right, Nathaniel, you’d like to give up and die, that’s your way out, isn’t it, when things get tricky? Except that I need you. You’re my pathway to a new life.

Startled, he turned around, but there was nothing and no one, only the dappled shadows thrown by the trees. The voice was inside his head, a memory from those confused and pain-ridden days in Spain after he was wounded. Now it triggered inside him a slow, angry longing for vengeance.

“You won’t get away with it,” Nathaniel told the voice. “Not this time. This time I’m going to stop you.”

Melanie had found antiseptic and tweezers in
the antiquated bathroom. Now she stood by the mullioned windows in the big upstairs room, head bent over her throbbing palm, trying to decide on the best way to extract the splinter. It was deep, but it looked as if it was all in one piece. She leaned closer, adjusting her grip on the tweezers. If she could just get hold of the end and ease it—

“Can I help, Melanie?”

His voice directly behind her startled her so much that the tweezers jerked violently, driving the splinter farther into her flesh. “Ow!” She spun around, heart thumping wildly, furious that he’d crept up on her.

Nathaniel Raven, with his hazel eyes gleaming wickedly and his mouth quirked up into an equally wicked smile, stared at Melanie.

“My apologies,” he said politely. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” His gaze dropped to her hand. Before she
could begin to tell him what she thought of him, he’d taken her palm in a gentle but firm grip. “How did this happen?” he asked, brushing one finger lightly over the injury.

She should stop him, but his presence, his touch paralyzed her. “The wooden gate into the garden,” she said, watching him closely.

He held her eyes a moment longer, and then returned to his examination.

“You are real then?” she blurted.

He gave a deep chuckle, lifting her hand to the light.

“Where did you go?” she asked, as much to distract herself from the unreality of the situation, and his warm touch, as because she wanted an answer.

“There’s another way into the grounds, a little farther along the wall—a gate for livestock. I went that way. I would have told you where I was going, but you were too busy talking to yourself. Then I saw you with a man.” He raised a dark eyebrow, waiting.

“That was Eddie,” she said. Her faculties seemed to be returning to normal—at least her heart had stopped racing—although with him standing so close it was difficult to breathe evenly. Ridiculous schoolgirl stuff. She’d have to get control of it before he noticed, if he hadn’t already. “Eddie’s the caretaker.”

“He looked more like a play actor.”

“You mean the jacket?” Melanie smiled. “You’re not exactly dressed inconspicuously yourself.”

“Oh?”

“Well…you look like Mr. Darcy.”

“I am dressed like a gentleman, Melanie.”

“Is that what you—oh!”

Nathaniel had bent his head over her palm again and suddenly raised it to his mouth. His tongue found the splinter. Startled, she tried to pull away, but he was gripping her too tightly. White teeth closed on the protruding end of the splinter and pulled. It came out smoothly, and although Melanie hissed, the pain was minimal, and she was more surprised than hurt. Well, to be honest, she was shocked.

What he had just done seemed so…
primitive.

Melanie couldn’t imagine any of the men she knew doing that; they’d be either too squeamish or too diffident.

Nathaniel Raven was holding her palm to the light, a frown between his brows as he checked to see whether or not there was any of the splinter remaining, and then, with a satisfied grunt, he released her.

Melanie automatically reached for the antiseptic and applied it. “Thank you. I-I was beginning to think I’d imagined you,” she said, screwing the lid back onto the bottle. She laughed nervously, in a girly way she hadn’t done for years. Oh
God
…She resurrected her no-nonsense look and fixed him with it. “Perhaps in a minute I’ll wake up at home in bed in London. What do you think?”

He had been watching her apply the antiseptic with interest, and now he took the small bottle from her, turning it over in his hands, examining the label. “No, you didn’t dream me,” he said, twisting the lid for himself and sniffing the contents with a twitch of his long, aristocratic nose. “I’m real enough.” He looked up and
gave her a warm glance. “Do you want to feel me, Miss Jones?”

He was still flirting with her. Unbelievable.

Melanie had enough. “The situation is ridiculous, you must see that?”

“Well—”

“As I reminded you before you disappeared, you were a highwayman, a thief who died during a robbery. Your victim was protecting his property. Sad, yes, but not much of a surprise, surely? How can you deserve a second chance?”

Melanie thought she’d gone too far. The atmosphere became charged, tense, and he was using his superior height to look down at her with a glint in his eyes that was no longer humorous. No, he wasn’t laughing.

“I was murdered,” he said. “At least, I think so. If Pengorren didn’t kill me himself, then he arranged for it to be done. That’s one of the things I’m here to find out, and to prove, if I can. That’s why I have the unenviable task of asking for your help, Melanie.”

I was murdered.

The words hung between them. Melanie’s blue eyes widened in her pale face, and he wondered whether she was finally going to faint. He wouldn’t blame her—in his experience it was something women did when faced with any matter they found too overpowering. He would almost prefer it if she did faint because then he would have known how to handle her.

But Melanie wasn’t like the women he was used to.

She was already straightening her shoulders and gathering her thoughts. And then she said, in a tone of
voice that made him think she would be just as good as his old company sergeant when it came to getting to the heart of a difficult situation, “Tell me exactly what happened the night you died?”

Nathaniel set the antiseptic bottle down carefully on the windowsill. For a moment he gazed out at the park, seeing it not as it was now, shockingly overgrown and neglected, but as it had been. His park, where he had played as a child; his house, where he had grown up; his family, whom he had left to go into the army and expected always to be the same. He knew now he’d been naïve, but at the time he’d been like any other young gentleman seeking adventure, seeing only what lay before him and not what he’d left behind.

“I need to go back farther,” he said.

“All right, as far as you like.”

Nathaniel bowed his head and smiled, as if to thank her for her permission, but there was no humor in his voice when he spoke again. “Major Pengorren was my commanding officer. We were leading a small group of soldiers on a patrol into enemy territory in Spain when we were ambushed. The men were killed. I survived because Major Pengorren managed to drag me to shelter while the enemy were distracted, thieving from the bodies. I was wounded, and for days we hid. I don’t remember much of it—apart from the heat and the thirst. I was delirious, and I used to ramble about Ravenswood, thinking I was back here. Evidently I made it sound like a heaven on earth.

“When it was safe, we made our way back to camp. At least Pengorren did; I wasn’t much use. I believe he
carried me most of the way, although he always laughed and refused to take credit. But Pengorren saved my life, plain and simple. When I’d recovered enough I was shipped home. I invited Major Pengorren to visit me at Ravenswood, when he himself was able to return to England. I wanted to thank him in some way—I knew I owed my life to him. But I didn’t really expect him to take me up on it. And then one day he turned up, and that was that.”

“You mean he never left?”

“You make it sound as if we wanted him to go. We didn’t. He was the perfect guest, everyone loved and admired him. When my father died, it was a terrific shock, and perhaps it was selfish of me, but I was grateful Pengorren was there to help comfort my mother and sister, to share some of the burden. He was wonderful during those dark days. When he married my mother…”

He shrugged, as if trying to shake off something unpleasant.

“I didn’t feel resentful or pained on my father’s behalf. I knew it was very soon for my mother to remarry, but he was our friend; he had been so kind to us. He made it all seem…”

“Perfectly normal,” Melanie murmured. “What is it about some people? They can persuade you that black is white and vice versa, and sell you a car you know is totally unsuitable, but because they’re doing the talking, you believe them. Is that the sort of man Pengorren was? A nineteenth-century used-car salesman?”

He frowned at her, trying to decipher her strange words, and then gave up and looked away again, out over
the grounds. “When I was with him, I couldn’t see anything wrong in what was happening. I still don’t know whether or not there was something I should have done before it was too late.”

“But you had your suspicions, yes?”

She was a good listener. So attentive as she took in what he was telling her. Her eyes were the color of forget-me-nots. With a start he remembered that Pengorren was able to do something similar; focus his formidable self entirely on you. Make you feel as if you were the most important thing in his world. It was very flattering. People were drawn to him, they loved him, because they thought he loved them back.

Nathaniel, you know I will look after you and your family. I accept I can never take the place of your dear father, but I will try to be his second-in-command.

Pengorren’s voice sounded in his head as if he were here in the room. Nathaniel shook his head to get it out.

“The thing is,” he said, “I find it hard to believe it of him, even now. Major Pengorren was my friend; he saved my life. He was a bloody hero, for God’s sake!”

“Come on, Nathaniel, there must be more to it. Why else would you bring his name up? There’s something you’re not telling me, and I need to know the full story if I’m ever to help you.”

He gave an irritable flick of his fingers. “It didn’t make sense, that’s why I’m finding it difficult to explain to you what I felt.”

“Try.”

He turned his head and met her eyes. He knew he wanted to tell her. He needed to unburden himself at
last, after nearly two hundred years, and she was the one who had been chosen to listen.

“Whenever I was away from Pengorren…everything seemed to change. I was no longer sure of him. His words, comments that made perfect sense when I was in his company, began to appear in a different light. I started to think him capable of things…unspeakable things. I would make myself half-mad thinking them, knowing in my heart what a fine man he was, and yet I didn’t seem able to help myself.”

“What unspeakable things?” Melanie asked quietly, as if she had caught his own disquiet.

Even now, in some part of his being, he didn’t want to say them aloud. It seemed like a betrayal of Pengorren, a disloyalty to the man who had probably been more of a father to him that his own father.

“Come on, Nathaniel, tell me.”

“I couldn’t get it out of my head.” He rubbed a hand over his eyes. “That there was something wrong. Although I was certain I was imagining it, and at the time I was still recovering from my time in Spain. I had headaches, you see, unbearable headaches from the wound to my head…”

“Just stop mucking around and say whatever it is that’s worrying you.”

He laughed. “Do you talk to everyone like this?”

“Yes.”

He gave in. “After Pengorren married my mother, he stepped into my father’s shoes in other ways, becoming the district magistrate. He was scrupulously
fair, everybody said so, but I couldn’t shake off my doubts. There were times when he seemed to favor those who could be of most use to him whether they were innocent or not. I found myself arguing the point with him for no particular reason. He was always so calm, so controlled; he never seemed to get upset or angry. I wanted to irritate him, and I began to believe that if I could find a way to upset him, shake him into losing his equilibrium, then I would finally know what really lay underneath Pengorren’s amiable surface.”

“And did you?”

He smiled mockingly. “There were moments when I thought I did, but no, not with any certainty.

“But you didn’t stop?”

“No. And then my mother died. She fell down the stairs and broke her neck.”

“Oh.” Melanie seemed genuinely shocked. “I’m sorry…”

“So the next night I held up Pengorren’s coach and made him stand at gunpoint while I rifled his pockets and stole his purse. I wanted to humiliate him. The look on his face…” Even now Nathaniel could not describe that look, but it had chilled him to the bone.

“But why did you want to humiliate him? I don’t understand. Nathaniel?”

The words burst out of him like a pistol shot. “Pengorren was with my sister.”

She blinked at him, puzzled, and he knew he’d have to explain. Say the words that even now sickened him to his soul.

“The night my mother died he was in my sister’s room, in her bed. She was seventeen.”

Melanie sat down abruptly on a chair, her hurt palm cradled in her other hand. “You don’t think your mother—”

“Killed herself? It’s a possibility, but not one that was ever spoken aloud in Ravenswood. My sister…she didn’t seem to have any shame. At my mother’s funeral she hung on Pengorren’s arm, gazing at him as if he was the only star in her sky. People said it was kind of him to take the time to comfort her, but
he was in her bed
! I saw them. And I wished to God I hadn’t. There’s something to be said for blissful ignorance, Melanie.”

“Did you tell Pengorren that you’d seen him with your sister? Did you confront him?” Melanie had regained her wits, and her blue eyes had that intensity he was coming to know well.

“Yes, I confronted him with it. He gave me a look—as if I’d let him down—and said I’d had a terrible shock—a double shock, with both my parents now dead—and I must be aware how hurtful and unfair I was being to him to make such accusations.”

Even now the memory made him feel nauseous, a greasy sick feeling in his stomach and a foul taste in his mouth. “But do you know what was even worse than his lies? The fact that I tried to persuade myself I believed him. Telling myself that I must have imagined it, even though I had
seen
it with my very own eyes.” He squeezed his hands into fists, feeling his anger roaring through him.

“You didn’t want to believe it,” Melanie said, but she
was watching him warily. “What happened after that?”

“I took to highway robbery with a vengeance. I began holding up more and more coaches, and although at first I managed to keep my identity a secret, I knew it would leak out eventually—I was too well-known. After a month Pengorren took me aside and gave me a warning. He said he understood I was just indulging in ‘high spirits,’ but even a man in his position could not protect me forever from the full force of the law. I needed to stop, to consider himself and my sister. It was a very generous warning, considering the embarrassment I must have been causing him.”