Whispers at Midnight (11 page)

Her gown lay across the bed. She took it up
and shook the wrinkles from the gauzy pink silk garment, then
draped it lovingly over a chair back while she removed her dress
and unlaced her stays.

How could a man, who seemingly should have a
greater degree of intelligence than Ryne displayed, draw such
narrow-minded conclusions? She pondered that thought as she put
away her green dress and slipped the silk nightgown over her head.
Would Ryne be even more adamant in thinking her a mere copy of the
public image of her mother if he knew the silken confection she
wore, with its pink ribbons and bows and lace, had belonged to
Sarah?

Amanda drew back the covers and plumped the
feather pillow angrily. Why must Ryne be here to spoil everything
for her? And why was she so softhearted that she felt obligated to
tolerate his bad manners?

She snuffed out the candle at her bedside.
Through the open window a new star shone in the sky, a star that
shone for her, a bright gleaming token of good. The picture of
Ryne’s arrogant face went out of her mind. What did she care what
Ryne Sullivan thought of her? She did not need his approval.

In sleep Amanda found her bed a tempest of
nightmares. Sounds came out of the shadows, the covers threatened
to smother her like wings of great birds swooping down from a dark
sky. The air was chill, then hot as she tossed about in her
bed.

She saw her mother’s face and Aunt Elise’s.
She saw a broken carriage draped in funeral black. An icy sweat
streamed from her face and soaked the pillow. Her hands moved
clawlike to sweep the tangled strands of hair from her face. Her
long nails left red marks on her pale skin. She cried out. The
Turkish King, his glass eyes colorless and open as a cat’s at
night, floated through the rooms of Wicklow whispering her name,
whispering a warning she could hear over and over again. Amanda
moaned and twisted in her bed, but nothing brought relief from the
sound or the tormenting dream.

Something was moving in the darkness. She
heard footsteps approaching, padding and soft, the sound of a latch
turning loose, and more footsteps, louder and slower. A cat of prey
coming for its victim. Amanda moaned again and buried her face in
the down pillow. It was like being caught in a dream within a
dream.

Suddenly hot, she flung the covers from her
and rolled to her back. The world had turned all wild and stormy.
The boiling black clouds had gotten in her room. Rain came, foul,
heavy rain striking her face in cold, slow drops. She rubbed at the
wetness, smearing it over her temple and onto her hand. She was
drowning in the rain, soaked through with it. And then it stopped
and the dream ended, her breathing slowed and deepened.

Amanda woke suddenly, whether from a night
sound of an old house or from the imagined raindrops on her face,
she didn’t know. Her mind refused to work, her brain groggy from
the aftereffects of wine. She sat up weakly in the bed, breathing
deeply and vowing never again to drink so much in one evening.

She licked her parched, dry lips. It would
have been wiser to have braided her hair, for now it was matted and
falling in her eyes. She reached up to smooth it away, feeling as
she did something wet and sticky on her fingers.

There was no light in the room; even the
stars and moon had disappeared into the black dome of the sky. She
dreaded climbing out of bed to light a candle. But at last,
trembling like a wet kitten and wondering if her nightmare had been
real, Amanda edged her way to the night table and quickly had a
candle glowing. The taper’s warm little light was like a friend to
stand with her against her fears. Holding the slim taper before
her, she crossed the room hesitantly, making her way guardedly to
the dressing table. At the mirror the reflected light brightened
the room and she could see her face like a white shadow lifting out
of the darkness.

She drew nearer and set the candle on the
dressing table. It seemed she saw a flash of the sun, but it was
only the candle falling over, and the voice she heard was her own
scream as she fell to her knees.

It had been blood dripping on her face.

Ryne smiled. His restlessness took him on an
aimless wandering through the dark halls of Wicklow before he made
his way to his room and to bed. As it had in his years of growing
up, he found the activity soothing to his thoughts. In the darkness
the wide halls with their steeply arched ceilings echoed the eerie
night sounds of an old house. In his youth those sounds had made
his skin prickle and he had thought them the whispered calling of
his name. To his credit, he had pursued the sound, even when it
terrified him, though he had never found the source.

He roamed these halls in those early years,
imagining them an Aladdin’s cave and thinking that at some point he
would find the caller and the secret door that concealed hordes of
treasure. Another favorite pastime had been frightening his
mother’s guests with ghostly sounds of his own making. He’d felt
the sting of the rod for that mischief more times than one.

Old Groom was to blame for filling a boy’s
head with tales of ghosts and of glorifying accounts of Jubal
Wicklow. Groom swore there was a bounty of gold in a secret hiding
place and that with it he could expect to find the ruby pendant
Jubal had given to Evelyn Wicklow.

“True, lad. The old cap’n told me so himself
one night when he was deep in his cups. Were only days before he
died. Showed me a ruby near big as a duck’s egg and cut like a
heart. Had a peacock carved on it, looking real enough to strut.
Come from the treasure room of the Persian shah. Miz Evelyn wore it
sometimes. Wore it the last day she were ever seen at Wicklow.”

“Big as an egg,” young Ryne repeated,
already planning his search for the ruby.

“That it were. Never told me where he kept
it, though, nor the gold neither. And I ain’t one fer lookin’. What
with him stalkin’ round in Wicklow to guard it.” He nodded slowly.
“True, lad. I been in Wicklow once since the old cap’n died. That
were the night the bullet took him. ‘Bout midnight it was, and
there were his ghost top o’ the stairs. Him callin’ my name and me
turnin’ an boltin’ out the door. Never been inside again. But the
gold be there, and the ruby, to my mind.”

Ryne had forgotten those stories until a
year ago while on a trip to England. There he had by chance come
upon accounts of his grandfather’s seafaring career and learned
there had indeed been a treasure taken out of Persia and part of it
the priceless ruby known as the Heart of Happiness. Much of the
bounty had been given to the English crown, but enough had been
retained by Jubal Wicklow to make him a wealthy man. He had sailed
to Virginia with his young bride, Evelyn.

His curiosity piqued, Ryne had sought out
all who had any knowledge of his grandfather to learn what led to
the fatal duel. He learned little. Apparently the duel had been
carried out without seconds and with little regard for the rules.
Jubal Wicklow had survived the first shot but had died of a second
wound in the back. No one knew the name of the opponent, only that
he was a man who had come to settle an old grudge against Jubal
Wicklow. What had become of Evelyn Wicklow was never
determined.

Afterward Ryne’s mother, Elise, had been
cared for by Evelyn’s brother and his wife. They had taken over
Wicklow and run the plantation until Elise married. His mother had
divided her time between Virginia and England while she was growing
up. During one of her early stays in Salisbury she had become, to
Ryne’s regret, close friends with Sarah Fairfax

Elise’s uncle and aunt had found a tragic
destiny at Wicklow. Shortly after Elise married Shamus O’Reilly and
before her guardians could return to England, a fever had stricken
them and both died. Death was the heritage of Wicklow, if one
believed the tales. Gardner’s father had been thrown from a horse
and killed. Ryne’s own father was lost at sea. The latest victim
was Elise herself.

A pirate’s legacy, he supposed. His
grandfather had been a gentleman pirate, by Groom’s accounts, and
probably made more enemies than friends. No doubt much of the
fortune that had made its way down to his only daughter, Elise, had
been ill-gotten and was stained with blood. But if the old rogue’s
spirit did truly haunt Wicklow, as Groom and some others claimed,
it was doubtless kept there as punishment for crimes committed on
the high seas as much as to watch over the hidden treasures.

Ryne tossed upon his bed. Could a pirate,
even a dream pirate, take such a divine form? One such as this
would be easy to abide. His dream had taken him to the riverbanks
where the green ferns ruffled the ground. She walked among them,
the doe-brown hair rippling gently in soft gusts of wind. Her eyes,
guileless, innocent, were the rich deep green of jade. She wore a
gown thin as gauze and the sun shone through it, making the filmy
cloth more an enhancement than a covering for her sleek limbs and
delicate curves. She bent low to pluck a handful of violets, and
rising again, tucked several purple blossoms in the wisps of curls
about her forehead.

The smile set upon Ryne’s lips. He had not
disrobed before retiring, but had merely kicked off his boots and
tossed them aside before sprawling across the covers. He was hot.
Not a breath of air seemed to stir in the room, but there on the
riverbank where Amanda wandered, the air was sweet and cool and
smelled of jasmine. She filled his senses: her soft voice, her
graceful carriage, the tender lips. He saw the dark crescent peaks
of her small breasts, the alluring curve of her waist, her arms
outstretched and beckoning as her lips formed his name.

In the sanctity of his dream he desired her
as he had never desired a woman. Hot beads of sweat sprang from his
skin and he felt the heat build in his loins as he thought of
catching Amanda in his arms and lowering her to the cushion of
grass beside the river.

She lay there below him, her eyes mirroring
his desire. He stretched out a hand to touch her face but dropped
it swiftly as her voice sharply called his name.

Ryne’s eyes opened at the sound of a hand
twisting the doorknob. The dream faded in his mind, and as was his
way, he came quickly to full alertness. But he made no move to
reveal his cautious observation of Amanda as she strode angrily
into his room. When she spoke, he rose up slowly, and half-yawning,
drew in a deep breath. He casually met her irate stare, as if it
were an everyday occurrence that someone storm into his bedroom in
full cry.

“Ryne! Ryne Sullivan! Did you think you
could frighten me away?” Amanda swept inside, her shimmering silk
nightgown a cloud of pink in the murky light. She shook. The candle
in her hand shook. She felt such a chill in her flesh that it might
well have been a winter’s eve and not a warm night of summer. “Get
up and get out!” she screamed.

“Amanda, dear cousin,” he said wearily.
“What brings you calling at this hour? Has the solitude of Wicklow
led you to seek my company?” Ryne rubbed his hands over his face
and pushed the tangle of black hair from his forehead as he swung
his long legs around and rested his bare feet on the floor.

“Ryne.” She calmed her voice, but even so it
quaked. She set the candle aside, no longer able to hold it in her
trembling hands. “You have gone too far! These pranks of yours are
bereft of reason. Appalling! I’d have thought you had outgrown
boyish games, but slipping around in the night frightening people .
. . the blood . . . at your age it borders on madness!”

She could see his face plainly. He looked as
if he had been deep in sleep, but that could not be so. Not even if
his eyes did seem to take a moment to adjust to the light. No one
else would have dared such a deed. And who else could have? Not
Gussie. As Amanda continued to stare, waiting irritably for him to
admit his guilt, his expression changed to one of great
puzzlement.

“The blood?” He spread his hands and
frowned. “Amanda, are you given to nightmares?” He spoke as if he
were addressing a small child.

“No. And I won’t let you frighten me this
way. I won’t have it.”

He rolled his shoulders back and stretched.
“What the devil do you mean? Frighten you? How could I frighten
you? I’ve been sleeping soundly and would be yet but for your
interference.”

“Why, Ryne?” she asked in a whisper.

Her breathing had become a series of pants.
She couldn’t abide his calm, his pretense of innocence. He had to
hope his silly tricks would frighten her out of the house. She
should never have trusted him. It piqued her nerves even more that
as she accused him he sat quietly on the bed giving her a
condescending look of pity.

Amanda swore softly beneath her breath and
stepped gingerly across the floor, her small feet peeping timidly
out from the hem of the gown with each movement. She didn’t know
what she meant to do or why she dared to move closer to him, when
instinctively she knew she should be wary. She only knew that in
some way she meant to make him admit his knavery.

Ryne watched in fascination as she crossed
the floor. She was a paradox. He couldn’t look at her without
thinking how that flawless, sweet face masked such a cunning heart.
He felt drawn to her, had come back to Wicklow because she was
there. He kept telling himself it was because he wanted to annoy
her, cause her some minor grievance for how she had taken advantage
of his mother. But the memory of his recent dream was too strong.
He still felt the desire in his flesh.

When he spoke again, it was with a catch in
his throat. “Tell me what you mean.”

“You . . . the blood,” she said so softly he
could barely hear.

No more than a step away, she paused and
gritted her teeth nervously. The candle on its stand near the door
threw out a beam of light that made her soft silk gown a
transparent web hovering around her body. Ryne felt a lump tighten
in his throat. She looked to be unworldly, like a woodland nymph
who had skimmed to his bedside on a ray of candlelight. The silken
garment flittered and settled against her curves, the delicate pink
ribbons pulsating at her breasts.