Secrets of the Highwayman (9 page)

Sinfully so.

“How did you learn to do this?” she asked, her voice barely audible. In a moment she’d be panting, her tongue lolling.

His chuckle was soft and seductive. “There was a Moorish woman. After I was wounded I had appalling headaches. I would lie for days in a darkened room in agony, or turn to opium to dull the pain. Her fingers saved me from that. I asked her to teach me the technique.”

Lethargy was claiming her. Soon she’d be beyond speech, beyond anything but putting her head down on the desk and closing her eyes.

“Was that the only technique she taught you?” She was fighting to get just the right note of sarcasm in her voice, fighting not to surrender herself to his skill.

His fingertip brushed over her collarbone beneath her sweatshirt. “I didn’t need lessons in pleasing a woman. I can show you my ‘technique’ in that, too, if you wish. Are you brave enough, Melanie?”

He was laughing at her. Her lethargy vanished. Melanie straightened and pushed his hands away, turning to glare up at him. A spiky layer of her fair hair fell into her
eyes, and she shoved it back impatiently. He was close, his eyes only inches from hers, and despite his teasing, there was a challenge in them.

He was daring her.

But Melanie knew she was frightened of him and what he made her feel, and she had no intention of relaxing her guard when he was around. The massage had been a mistake, one she wouldn’t repeat. It was much safer to take a couple of ibuprofen tablets.

“I appreciate you trying to ease my headache,” she said levelly, “but it’s better now.”

“I don’t believe you, Melanie.”

He waited a beat, to see if she’d answer him or change her mind, and then he gave her that mocking bow and moved toward the door.

“Where are you going?” Melanie fought to keep the anxiety from her voice.

“For a walk,” he said levelly, and kept going. “I want to think, and I find nature conducive to thought.”

“Will you be staying here at Ravenswood tonight?”

At the door he turned and gave her his full attention. “Where else would I stay, Melanie? Ravenswood is my home.”

“
Was
your home,” she reminded him. “My room is the one overlooking the cliffs.”

He smiled, and she realized how that must have sounded. Her cheeks felt warm, and she cursed her own clumsiness. “
I mean,
the other rooms are free for you to choose from. Just not that one.”

“I understand you perfectly. Don’t concern yourself.” He gave her his devilish smile, and then he was gone.

Melanie bit her lip. She had been ungracious, but she couldn’t help it. Nathaniel threatened her carefully regulated world, the world she had created to keep herself safe. No matter how she fought to stop him he seemed to be dismantling it, with a smile, a word, a touch…bit by bit.

I didn’t ask him to come here, I don’t want him here.

Then why, deep inside, was she purring like her Aston Martin? As if Nathaniel Raven had just turned the key.

Nathaniel kicked at a dandelion head, watching
the white fluff float off in the warm air. Early-evening shadows lay long across the landscape and the light was mellow and gold. His favorite time of day. It was a shame he had to spoil it by thinking about Melanie Jones. She was an infuriating woman. How could he possibly work with her? The queen was wrong; this woman would never be able to help him. They’d end up killing each other…

Or making the most wonderful love.

Nathaniel was a simple man. At least his life appeared simple to him, so he never thought too hard about what might or might not happen. He just reacted when it did. Now he was meant to pore over the past for clues.

The old lady, Miss Pengorren, had believed something was amiss. He hadn’t read her diary, yet, but the final entry was tantalizing. Had he been right all along? Was there something very wrong with Pengorren?

Then again, Pengorren might be exactly what he seemed, and it was Nathaniel who was at fault. Nathaniel, who caused his own death, lying on the road and bleeding his life away for nothing more than an insane delusion. The head injuries…much as he was reluctant to admit it, it made a sort of sense.

So what was he to believe? He stood in a patch of bluebells, looked up at the sky, and reached down deep into his heart and soul.

Pengorren was a monster.

The words sounded in his head, measured, solemn, and absolutely certain. He felt the resolve growing inside him. He’d complete the task the queen of the between-worlds had set him, and this time he’d get it right.

A long, damp nose butted his hand. With a grimace, Nathaniel looked down into Teth’s grinning face.

“What do you want, you demon?” he demanded, catching Teth’s muzzle and shaking it.

In reply the hound pulled away and caught the tail of his jacket in his teeth and began to tug, growling playfully.

“You’ll tear it,” Nathaniel warned, then, “Heel!” But Teth wouldn’t let go and wouldn’t stop tugging. “What is it?” Nathaniel asked, allowing himself to be led along. “What is it you want from me this time, you hellhound?”

Teth released him and bounded off through the trees.

Glad for an excuse to stop cogitating over his former
life and get back to what he did best—physical action—Nathaniel set off after him.

The bluebells reminded him of Melanie’s eyes, although forget-me-nots better described her color. He hadn’t meant to touch her, but when she began to wriggle her neck and shoulders and her eyes clouded with pain, he’d recognized the signs of the headache. Of course she wouldn’t admit it; she didn’t want him to see her weakness. He already sensed that she was the sort who would walk a mile with a broken leg rather than limp and admit there was something wrong. So Nathaniel took the initiative, and as he rubbed the painful knots out of her muscles, feeling her slowly giving herself into his hands, he’d been aware of her skin beneath his fingers, as exquisite as any he’d ever known.

She was strong and stubborn, but beneath the prickles there was a sweetness, a sensuality, that a man like him found irresistible. Because he wanted her.

Nathaniel gave a self-satisfied smile as he remembered how he won her over with his fingers, took control of her senses. She’d all but given in to his superiority, until he tried to push her too far, too fast, and she’d wrested control back from him. Just as well, he told himself, kicking another dandelion. She was here to help him, not to make matters more complicated than they already were.

But Nathaniel knew in his secret heart what he wanted to do—have her and the consequences be damned. He was a man who took risks, who enjoyed taking risks, and Melanie Jones was certainly a risk.

Teth led him to St. Anne’s Hill and around to the
other side. Across the patchwork of fields and stone walls lay the village, a sprawl of the old and the new. Cottages, the shop, the pub, the grey snub-towered church sitting prominently on its own small hill. Everything was so familiar, he felt as if he had slipped into the past again.

Teth was panting by his side as Nathaniel sat down on the grassy slope in the shadow of St. Anne’s Hill. “Yes, I know,” he told the hound. “You want to get going. But we have to wait until it’s dark. We don’t want people to see us, do we, Teth? We don’t want to frighten them again.”

Obediently the hound lay down, placing his head on his paws and watching Nathaniel with liquid eyes. Apart from the occasional drone of a car engine, everything was peaceful.

Nathaniel stretched out beside Teth to wait.

Mr. Trewartha was dozing, as he did most of the time nowadays, seated in his recliner, neither awake nor asleep, just lost in the past. It was a preparation for death, he knew that, and although he once fought against it, now he accepted it. His long life was coming to an end…

The shrill ring of the telephone barely disturbed his thoughts, but some part of him was aware of the answering machine picking up.

I am currently unavailable. Please leave a message or ring back during business hours, 9 to 4.

“Mr. Trewartha. I’m sorry to disturb you. It’s, eh, 5:00
P.M.
I’ve been ringing around some of the better-known antique businesses in the area, and your name came up
several times. I realize you’re semiretired these days, but you come very highly recommended by your peers.”

The sound of
her
voice.

He sat up, blinking, instantly awake.

“My name is Melanie Jones, I’m from a London firm of solicitors, and we’re undertaking the sale of an old family home. Fully furnished and untouched. Everything will need to be cataloged and valued. I know it will be an enormous job but, well, from what I’ve heard, you’d be perfect for the task. I hope you’ll consider it.”

Ravenswood? Dear God, she meant Ravenswood.

He was shivering with excitement. The sort of excitement he had not felt in a very long time.

“Please, get back to me,” the voice went on, and then she gave her number with professional efficiency. There was a pause, before she added, “I’d appreciate it,” and her tone was no longer quite so confident.

Mr. Trewartha heaved himself out of his chair, forgetting his aches and pains, and shuffled over to the answering machine to replay the message. Again the husky female voice washed over him like a warm sea, teasing him, soothing him.

But it wasn’t just the voice. There was something else, and he recognized it as clearly as a fingerprint.

Mr. Trewartha smiled.

The “old family home” was Ravenswood, it must be, and Ms. Melanie Jones needed his help. Good manners decreed he must do what he could to assist her.

His smile turned into a chuckle. Mr. Trewartha had always been known for his good manners.

Nathaniel waited until day finally tipped into night, and then he waited again. When everything was quiet and the village was asleep—even the small pub had closed its doors and the last patron gone home—he and Teth made their way through the streets.

The church rose above them. They paused a moment, staring at the long, solid shape of it against the stars, before continuing up the narrow lane. Someone had grown some roses against the fence, and there was a painted board, noting the times for the services, but apart from that nothing had changed in two hundred years. The ground in the graveyard was still lumpy and uneven, and some of the old headstones leaned sideways.

He found the Raven family crypt, with its iron gate securely locked across the entrance, and when he peered through the rusting bars, he could see steep stone steps leading down into the vault. When he was a child he’d given himself shivers by imagining his ancestors climbing out. Now he wondered if Pengorren was inside, sleeping peacefully between his two wives, until he remembered that Pengorren had drowned himself in the sea.

A guilty conscience?

It seemed unlikely.

Nathaniel stepped back and looked up at the place above the door where the name raven had once been chiseled into the stone. Now it said pengorren. Even here, Pengorren had supplanted him. Even among the dead.

Sickened, he turned away.

A line of flowering hawthorns grew along the boundary of the churchyard and there was a signpost, pointing, with the words:
Grave of the infamous highwayman Nathaniel Raven.
Nathaniel smiled wryly. He
was
remembered, just not in the way he wanted to be, and not for the reasons he believed he should be.

He followed the mowed track, and there it was. The hedge around it was neatly clipped, the stone was upright, and the inscription freshly painted. There were even some bunches of cut flowers, their perfume still detectable.

Nathaniel stood and looked down at his own grave.

NATHANIEL RAVEN
H
ERE LIES THE INFAMOUS
R
AVEN
WHO PUT FEAR INTO THE HEARTS
OF ALL WHO TRAVELED
THE HIGHWAYS OF
C
ORNWALL,
AND WHO WAS SHOT DEAD,
IN THE YEAR OF OUR
L
ORD
1814

Teth licked his fingers. He had forgotten the hound was there, and it was comforting now to rest his hand upon the big smooth head.

Why would Pengorren, who seemed to have everything, murder and lie and steal his way into Nathaniel’s life, and then take over it completely? What had he done to attract the attention of the monster?

That’s how he felt. As if his life had been stolen from him.

Where was mention of his part in the fighting in
Spain, his captaincy in the army? What about his qualities as a son and brother? All that people remembered now were his lawless escapades as a highwayman, the manner of his death, and, according to the author of the book,
The Raven’s Curse,
his possible insanity.

Nathaniel knew his life amounted to far more than that.

Leave me…let me die.

He froze. The voice was his.

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.

This time it was Pengorren’s voice. Nathaniel swayed, reaching out to steady himself against his own headstone. He felt the Spanish heat, the burning sun on the dry ground and tumbled rocks, the unforgiving landscape he had believed he would die in. The cries of his men echoed in his aching head, with the smell of death.

“Please. Leave me. Save yourself.”

And again Pengorren’s voice, whispering in his ear, drawing him back into the past.

“Hush, Nathaniel. That’s very noble of you, but you don’t want them to hear you. Remember, we are hiding from the enemy. You will remember that, won’t you? They’ll be finished with the bodies soon—we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt, shall we, and say they’re poor and starving? English powder or a pinch of snuff is probably like gold to them.”

“Let me—” He was slurring his words and his head was thudding from the blows he’d received during the ambush.

Pengorren placed a hand over his mouth. “Sshh, Captain Raven, I mean to save you despite yourself and send you back to your home and family. Oh yes, my fine hero, I’ll see you survive this. Not for your sake, mind you. I want to save you for my own.”

“Ravenswood.”

“Aye, Ravenswood. You’ve led me to believe it’s the most wonderful place on earth. A grand house set upon the Cornish cliffs with the blue sea beneath and the blue sky above. A perfect little piece of England that belongs to you and yours.” His voice deepened, grew dreamy. “It’s a very long time since I was in England.”

The pain was suddenly unbearable, and Nathaniel lost several moments as he struggled to remain conscious. When the pounding in his head had dulled, and Pengorren had moistened his lips with the precious water from the canteen, he could listen again.

“I like the sound of your Ravenswood, Nathaniel. I’ve liked it from the first moment you mentioned it. You should be grateful for that, because otherwise I would have let you die with the rest of the men, or maybe I would have left you here in the rocks, to bake. Now when I arrive at Ravenswood I can be hailed as your savior rather than the bearer of sad tidings. So you see, keeping you alive will be so much better for me.”

The sun was burning against his eyeballs, and he closed them.

“You’re delirious, Nathaniel,” Pengorren was still whispering in his ear. “You won’t remember any of this, and if you do…well, it was just part of the nightmare.”

“Major?” he managed, his voice a harsh croak.

“Yes, it’s me,” Pengorren answered jovially. “Rest now, dear boy, that’s the way. I have work to do.”

But Nathaniel forced open his eyes, just a crack, as Pengorren stood up in full view of the enemy. They would see him and come for them, he thought, without any great terror. He was half-dead anyway, so it would be quick.

But the enemy didn’t attack. Nathaniel managed to lift his head slightly, so that he had a clearer view from his hiding place up in the rocks. There appeared to be only one of the guerillas remaining. He came forward to meet Pengorren, all the time glancing behind him nervously.

Pengorren spoke, but they were too far away for Nathaniel to follow the quick Spanish. Then Pengorren tossed a small leather bag at the other man, the sort of pouch that coins are kept in, and the guerilla caught it. A few more words were exchanged, and then the man hurried away, soon vanishing into the landscape.

Pengorren strolled back up the hill toward Nathaniel, passing by the dead bodies of his men. He paused, glancing down at them. “Ah well,” he said, “they probably would have died anyway. I just got it over with sooner. But you see, I had to have you, Nathaniel. Just you. I need to be a hero, welcomed to Ravenswood with open arms.” He looked up, and his eyes were dazzlingly bright. “I need to be loved.”

Teth was whining. Nathaniel shook his head, clearing it. The air was chill and damp, the salty smell of the sea ridding him of the stink of death.