The Vampire Laird (A Ravynne Sisters Paranormal Mystery/Romance) (12 page)

***

Charlie jumped from the Land Rover as soon as it stopped and pounded up the steps to the front door. The butler opened it and stepped aside so she could enter. “Thank you, Johns. Have you seen my sister?”

He sniffed and intoned, “I believe she is in her room, miss. She has had a mishap and is resting.”

Charlie didn’t wait to hear anymore. She took the stairs two at a time and hurried down the hall to Meg’s door. Not bothering to knock she burst inside. “Meg!” she cried. “What happened…are you all right?”

Meg was propped up comfortably with her ankle elevated on two pillows. “I’m fine. Nothing serious,” she said with a grin. She didn’t want to tell Charlie about her trip to the castle…about Grey and her almost loss of virtue. She could just imagine what her sister would say if she told her that she very nearly had sex with a vampire. And still wanted to. So she kept her mouth shut, which wasn’t all that easy for Meg. “I thought I saw Allyn on the moor and I jumped out the library window and tried to follow him, but, clumsy me, I tripped on a rock and twisted my ankle.”

Charlie lifted the ice bag draped over her ankle and peered at it closely. “You didn’t get caught in the fog, did you?”

“Me? Caught in the fog? Yes…but only a teensy bit. I was close to the manor and a stable boy guided me in. How was your day with Seth?”

Charlie slid into bed next to her and leaned back with a sigh. “Exhausting. The man makes my flesh crawl. And worst of all I wasn’t able to get my hands on a gun. Then there was our old friend, Vic with the Texas drawl, swaggering about, but I managed to survive. Let’s both eat up here tonight. I don’t think you’re up to walking downstairs and I’m not up to dealing with any more of Seth Marley.” Charlie looked at her sister out of the corner of her eye. There was something different about her that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. “Just how bad is your ankle, Meg?”

Meg felt her sister’s eyes on her and found herself blushing. “Not as bad as it was. Mostly, it’s an excuse not to spend time downstairs, where I’m treated with icy politeness…except for Daryna, who’s scared to death of something. She was the one who brought me the ice pack and ace wrap.”

Charlie sighed and looked at her sister again. “Why do I have the feeling you’re keeping something from me. Never mind…I’m sure you will tell me when you’re ready, won’t you? I’m going to go tell Mrs. Bently that we would like supper trays up here. Quite frankly it’s been a rather exhausting day…for both of us.”

***

The fog began to creep back in with the coming of night. Charlie frowned thoughtfully as she stood on the balcony watching it slowly swallow up the landscape with a gray anonymity. Though the fog had thinned by the time they’d headed back down to the manor earlier that day, she wasn’t sure how they had made it. Seth must have been pretty desperate to take the risk. She smiled to herself. Quite probably, he had grown as tired of her company as she had of his.

Near the stables, a light threaded its way through the fog. Someone was stirring about and she wondered who would be out on such a night. She started to close the French doors but Meg stopped her. “I like the night air. Even the fog on its little ‘cat feet’.”

“Would you like some help getting ready for bed?” Charlie asked, crossing the room and taking a seat on the edge of the bed.

Meg shook her head. “I’m much better, but thanks. I can hardly feel it. Whatever he put on….” She caught herself before she said too much. As it was, she had damage control to do.

“He?” Charlie asked, watching her closely.

“Did I say ‘he’? I meant ‘she’. Mrs. Bently assisted Daryna,” Meg replied with her brightest smile…the very one Charlie had learned not to trust entirely.

She smiled in return. “She doesn’t strike me as the ‘angel of mercy’ type.”

“You’d be surprised. Now off I go to the shower. We could read together for awhile when I get back.”

Charlie watched Meg head towards her bathroom and shook her head. Her sister was hiding something and she wasn’t very good at it. But the night was young and she would pry it out of her. She’d had plenty of practice over the years. Smiling to herself, she headed to her own shower.

When she’d finished she poked her head through the connecting door and found her sister already curled up in bed with a book. Meg smiled and patted the bed next to her. “Want to spend the night in here? I wouldn’t mind the company and if Cloud shows up we can both share him.”

Sometime later, they were both deep in sleep when the brightly glowing white clad figure drifted in through the open French doors. She was every bit as insubstantial as the fog that swirled around her. Her dark hair was beaded with moisture and she grimaced in distaste as she shook out the diaphanous white gown that clung damply to her lithe figure.

Once she had done all she could to remedy that, she drifted over to the bed and stared, impatiently, at the sleeping sisters. They had missed her grand entrance entirely, she thought, with a flash of irritation. Maybe she’d try something else. Floating above the bed, she moaned softly, then tried a long drawn out wail. Nothing. They were sleeping like the dead and she’d had more than her share of experience with that sort of thing. Finally, with a sniff of disgust, she poked Meg’s sore ankle…hard.

“What the….?” Meg muttered, bolting upright and looking around. She rubbed her eyes…then rubbed them again, when she saw the slender glowing figure, standing at the foot of the bed, staring at her with huge dark eyes. It was Meaghan MacMorley…it had to be, Meg thought, as the figure in front of her smiled impishly and began to dance around the room. First, she pirouetted faster and faster, then leaped high and landed, lightly, on the foot of the bed.

Meg nudged her sister. “Charlie! Wake up! Company again.”

“Not Orianna,” Charlie muttered drowsily, sliding to a sitting position and half opening one eye.

“No. This one is real, but the resemblance to Orianna is uncanny.”

The figure in white now had Charlie’s full attention, but it was Meg who spoke first, “You must be Meaghan.”

She nodded and giggled rather girlishly. “I am who ye say I am. And ye are Allyn’s sisters,” she told them with just the hint of a soft burr.

“Are you the Baobhan Sith…the legendary Lady in White… we’ve been hearing about?” Meg asked for Charlie’s benefit, since she already knew the answer.

She sighed deeply. “So I am called, though the other, the imposter, seeks to steal my name as well as the other things that belong to me alone. “

Charlie broke in. “You mean Orianna?”

“Aye, the she-devil who has taken yer brither. I am the true Baobhan Sith. Long ago I danced in the moonlight with the bonnie lads who would join me there, but I killed cleanly, when I killed. And pleasured them in the doin’. She toys with her prey first like a cat with a wee mouse. Wicked she is and evil.”

She took another turn around the room, before she spoke again, “I awoke and returned here when I felt her stirrin’ aboot doin her deeds. I had been down in the mausoleum, where my faither entombed me and left me to sleep all alone ‘midst the gray twilight dreams that come after dying. I dinnae want to come out ever again…it was safe there and verra peaceful…I no longer felt the pain of loneliness and loss, but then she came and I could not rest quiet. So, I came from my tomb to seek vengeance.. She will pay for taking what is mine. We will see to it.”

Meg found herself shuddering. This beautiful girl really was what? A vampire? And a vengeful one to boot! But, whatever else she was, she was being honest with them, though her honesty was making her rather ill. “You said ‘we’. Who do you mean, Meaghan? Are there others here?”

“Aye. There is Millicent, a tweenie who tumbled down the stairs. Mac, Lucy and Charles in the schoolroom and….well, let me see, we number about a dozen if ye count those on the grounds like the one in the well. We call him Wee Willie. He was pushed into it by his wicked brother, Rob. Spoiled the water till thay pulled him oot, he did, but the well was covered up lang ago and no one alive kens where it be.” And with that said, Meaghan began to dance again.

Charlie turned her attention to Meg. “How in the world did you know her name?”

Meg flushed guiltily. “Good guess? Does it matter? Whoever she is, or was, she doesn’t like what’s going on here any more than we do.”

Charlie studied the dancing figure as she said, “Finding the secret door would be very helpful if we are going to rescue Allyn without being seen. You can bet someone is watching outside our rooms. Maybe she knows where it is.”

She stopped in mid-spin and drifted to them. “But of course I ken where ‘tis. Follow me.” Leading them into the far corner, her long white fingers explored the carved moulding. “My faither built this manor and I learned all its secrets. This wee roun’ rose slides to the side…there…see?”

Three feet of the paneled wall pivoted inward. “I wish we had a flashlight,” Meg muttered to Charlie. “As long as we stick close to Meaghan, we can see where we’re going, but otherwise it’s completely dark in there.”

Charlie looked inside the narrow passage and grimaced. “So it would seem. But we don’t have a flashlight or even a candle. Meaghan, we need to save Allyn from Orianna. Can you guide us to him and light the way?”

She glowed brighter and then smiled. “Aye. I saw the dark one leave wi’ her beastie so we can go to him now if ye want. But as ye said, the passage is dark, narrow and verra treacherous in places. Be canny and stay close to my light and I will get ye to Allyn’s room safely.”

Meg actually almost understood every word, wondering if Meaghan’s brogue had been polished off by some long ago governess? “I didn’t quite catch the last part. I think she said that Orianna is out with Cerberus and we can safely go to Allyn?”

“Yes…that’s the jist of it. And she says to stay close to her light because the passageway is very treacherous.”

“She can count on that,” Meg said with a worried frown creasing her brow.

Charlie caught her sister’s expression and smiled largely for her benefit. “Keep Meaghan here for a minute. I want to get my pick lock and we’re going to need shoes. How’s your ankle?”

“Fine. I haven’t got time for it to be anything else,” Meg replied, as she crossed to the armoire and rummaged in the bottom for a pair of comfortable shoes.

In less than two minutes, they were following the brightly glowing figure down the narrow passage that was squeezed between the stone walls. It was dusty…the air stale and heavy…which made Meg sneeze violently three times. “I hope no one heard that,” she muttered. There was another giggle up ahead. “The walls are two feet thick. Nae one could even hear ye scream.”

“Then let’s hope we don’t run into Orianna or her pet,” Meg whispered.

The passage meandered and then climbed steeply upward. Finally, Meaghan stopped and looked over her shoulder. “The hall that leads to yer brither is just on the other side of this hidden door. My faither had yer room, Meg, and he built this passage to the maids’ quarters, where he favored two with his nightly visits. Now she has converted their rooms to her own private chambers, where she keeps yer brither locked up.”

Meg and Charlie looked at each other, then Meg remembered Grey telling her that Meaghan’s father was a direct descendent from the ‘wrong side of the blanket’ and wondered if he was ‘cursed’, too. “About your father…he wasn’t really a
you know what
, was he?”

Meaghan giggled again. “Do ye mean, was he a vampire? Of course, but the maids were happy to accommodate him. He paid well for his pleasures and gave much pleasure in return. Vampires make wonderful lovers.”

Meg groaned. She ought to know. But now, there were other things to worry about. “Do you think Orianna is still gone?”

Meaghan shrugged and said. “Stay here and I will check.” And with that she disappeared through the door, leaving the sisters in complete darkness. “I don’t like this,” Meg muttered.

“Nor me, but she seems willing to help. I think the ghosts…spirits…whatever inhabit this place want the Marley family and their minions gone.”

Meg was about to answer her when Meaghan reappeared. “She’s still oot with her dog. Allyn is sleeping. He looks so sweet…like a wee bairn, but I dinnae think ye have much time left if ye would save him.”

She opened the door in the wall and they followed her out into a dark hall. “Yer brither’s room is this way. She has locked the door and kept the key.”

Charlie smiled. “With any luck, that won’t matter. But, Meg, even if we get our hands on a car, we’d never get anywhere in this fog.”

“Maybe we can hide him somewhere for a while. This is an opportunity we can’t afford to miss. She’s completely insane and capable of murdering him whenever she gets the urge. This may be our only chance to get him out of her clutches.”

Charlie’s mouth tightened into a thin line. Meg was right. This could well be their only chance to save Allyn. “The only place I can think of is in our rooms. She doesn’t know we ever left there and will think Allyn is on his own. He’s going to need a lot of attention, Meg. I’ll bet she’s been stringing him out on drugs of some kind for a long time.”

They slipped down the hall to Allyn’s room and Charlie set to work on the lock. Moments later, they entered quietly. Just as Meaghan had told them, their brother was sound asleep. “Wake up!” Charlie ordered shaking him by the shoulder. He moaned and stirred, but didn’t move, then Meaghan leaned down and brushed his cheek with a kiss. “I first saw him in the churchyard, standing in the moonlight staring up at me and I threw him a white rose. He is so verra handsome I loved him even then and now I love him even more.”