Hosts to Ghosts Box Set

by Lynne Connolly

  He finished half the mug and found it was indeed getting more palatable. “You will stay in bed, warm and safe. I will go and see what I can discover.”

  “Really, Nathaniel! This isn’t the middle ages, you know. Where you go, I go. You’re the one in danger, not me.”

  “I’m not so sure about that.” He picked up his tea again. “These people must be mad, to think the way they do.”

  “There are lots of them.” She smiled at him over the rim of her mug. “People who think they can control the world with ritual. There always have been people.”

  His memory went back to the Catholic ritual Queen Henrietta Maria had brought to court, and the words of her ancestor, Henri IV of France. “Paris is worth a mass.” She was right. Whatever it was called, there were always people drawn to ritual, people who would gain power from it, one way or the other.

  Those women, or one of them, wanted him here, and planned more. He had to find out, before he left. If any of this put Sylvie in danger, he wanted her safe before he left. Before he died.

  * * * * *

  Sylvie awoke muggily when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Before the startled reaction in her mind could reach her body, a warm mouth covered hers in a gentle kiss.

  She opened her eyes on Nathaniel’s smiling face, but when she reached her arms up to hold him, she flinched. “You’re cold!”

  “Then you’ll have to warm me. But look at this, first. Sit up, love.”

  He slid his hand behind her waist, but she’d already begun to sit. The thin light of a winter morning filtered through the drapes, and by its light she saw the papers he held. Anger sliced through her. “You went without me! I can’t believe you did that! I said we’d do it together!”

  He tried to pull her close, but she resisted. He sighed. “I needed to talk to Brother Anselm. He would never appear with you present. I’m sorry, sweetheart, I had little choice.”

  “You could have told me what you were doing.” To his relief, she sounded a little less mad.

  “I would have done, but you were asleep.”

  “And whose fault was that?”

  He chuckled and leaned over here, kissing her softly. “All mine, sweetheart. I take all the blame for that.”

  She curled her hand around his neck and deepened the kiss, threading her fingers through his hair and tugging gently. Nathaniel had found it amusing that in this existence he’d been gifted with long hair, the insignia of the Royalist, but never before had he thought of it as erotic. He did now, because she loved it.

  Reluctantly he drew back so she could read the papers he’d brought. She leaned against his shoulder and studied the sheets, three in all. They were covered with scrawled writing and diagrams, containing symbols. “What do they mean?”

  “Brother Anselm helped me decipher them. We found them tucked in a book in the library. If Brother Anselm hadn’t helped me, I’d never have found them.” He paused. “They’re a ritual for waking the dead.”

  “What?” He didn’t need her sudden movement to know she was as disturbed as he was.

  “They’re new. Someone was making notes in the last few days. Look.” He turned over the first sheet so she could see the red line drawn half way down the second page. “This is where the person casting the spell has to stop. The ritual is completed a few days later, when the moon is full.”

  “What happens then?” She drew closer to him, as though to keep him with her.

  “The change becomes permanent.”

  She swallowed, and shuffled through the papers again. “Do you think this brought you back?”

  His mouth formed a thin line. “No. My brother didn’t need it, and I am entitled to appear in corporeal form once a year. But whoever cast this spell, performed this ritual, believes it. Brother Anselm thinks it’s dangerous. It could endanger us both.”

  Again, she pressed against him. “How?”

  His heart went out to her bravery. She wanted to know everything, and she wouldn’t flinch. “This is a black ritual. It dedicates the reborn soul to the left hand path, the dark side, the Devil, whatever you choose to call it.” He tried to keep his voice steady, but heard himself quaver. Nobody and nothing had frightened him while he’d been alive, but the implications of this terrified him. Worse that he didn’t know for sure what he was fighting, or how to fight it. Even worse that Sylvie was involved.

  “It uses a living person to link to the dead one, to bring them back and hold them. It means that when the moon is full, and they complete the ritual, they will sacrifice the living person so that the other, dead one brought back to life, is confirmed in their life. They want to sacrifice you to me, sweetheart.”

  She turned her face up to his, her clear eyes showing nothing but determination. “I would die for you, Nathaniel.”

  “Hush.” He pressed a soft, reverent kiss to her lips. “You are not going to die for me. Nobody is. Brother Anselm will help as much as he can, and he’s a man of God. Our secret weapon, Sylvie. For the next few days, I don’t want you out of my sight. I won’t let them take you, sweetheart.”

  “I won’t let them take me!” she retorted. “Do you think it’s the two mediums?”

  “No doubt about it,” he said, dropping a kiss on to her hair. Damn, he couldn’t stop touching her! “One or both of them.”

  “When does the new moon rise?”

  “Saturday.”

  She paused. “The day you—leave.”

  “Precisely. That can’t be a coincidence. They must know something about reviving, and they could have added their influence. I don’t know how these things work. I was a good churchgoer all my days, never thought about the spiritual, really.”

  She stroked his chest, teasing the hair with her fingers. It seemed she was afflicted the same way. Touching and stroking seemed necessary to both of them. “I thought you were a Puritan! Didn’t they spend all their time in church?”

  He barked a short laugh. “Hardly. Some of us joined the Parliamentarians for matters of principle. It wasn’t a religious revolution, sweetheart, it was a political one. I left when the Levelers looked like taking over. I couldn’t abide them, men with names like Saved-Again-Jackson and In-God-We-Trust Thomas. They wanted to pervert the pursuance of justice to their own ends. To a large extent, they succeeded. A King died. I never wanted that.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  He covered her hand with his own, needing the contact. “I was dead by then, so at least I was spared that. I wouldn’t have signed the warrant.”

  They spared a moment to think of poor, misguided, arrogant King Charles, before Nathaniel lifted Sylvie’s hand to his mouth and kissed it, using it to draw her around and over him. She went willingly, holding her face up for his kiss. Cupping the back of her head with his spare hand, he kissed her at length, caressing her with his lips and tongue. She responded, opening her mouth to him and touching her tongue to his, stroking its length and plunging deeply. When she lifted away, his groan at their separation was short lived as she kissed his jaw, his throat and then lower.

  Her progress down his body was exquisite torture, anticipation adding to his arousal. Her hair swept softly down over his chest, setting all his nerve endings on fire for her. It was as though they hadn’t made love for years, instead of a few hours ago. He wanted her with a raw, desperate passion he doubted he would ever lose, had he been granted the boon of staying with her longer.

  How could his last days on earth be so blissful, enough to make up completely for the rest of his miserable existence?

  He stifled a laugh when she reached the ticklish part at the side of his ribs, but she must have felt his instinctive flinch because she teased him with her tongue before moving on to his navel, and the line of hair leading downwards to his groan.

  Laughter turned to moans when she touched the tip of his erection. She teased him, tracing her tongue around the head until he wanted to grab her head with both hands and force her down. “Dear God, woman, please don’t
do that any more, you’re driving me crazy!”

  She chuckled before opening her mouth wide and taking in as much of him as she could.

  He cried out at the sheer electric sensation of her mouth and tongue on him, drawing him to an impossible height of arousal. He couldn’t hold on, he couldn’t!

  Suddenly she released him, and before his fuddled mind could catch up with events, she was over him, holding herself over his body, both arms bracketing his shoulders. She sank on to him, not pausing as his body stretched and filled hers, until he was fully embedded in her. Then she moved.

  It was all he could do not to come instantly. Nathaniel gritted his teeth and held on, reaching up to clasp her slender waist in his hands, not to guide her, just to feel her. She was doing well enough on her own, without his help.

  This was heaven, sheer bliss. When she slid up, he braced himself for her downward plunge, and it was good. She drove down and down as though she would never stop, and he opened his arms and his legs and let her do whatever she wanted. She sat up, changing the angle of penetration, and plunged again.

  Nathaniel let out a cry which in other circumstances could be construed as agony, but was actually precisely the opposite. She laughed, a full-throated triumphant howl of joy and Nathaniel let it sink into him, soak into his soul. Making someone so happy had to count for something. Being so happy himself was just reward.

  He felt a quiver start deep inside her, and knew before she did that her orgasm was reaching climactic levels. More than anything else in the world, he wanted to make this moment perfect for her, so despite his own ecstasy, he drew on the little discipline he had left and forced his mind to enter hers, When he felt her joy, the surge of energy nearly made him come, but she wasn’t quite there. Not yet, not yet.

  Carefully, he felt the sensations coursing through her, tensing against the sensual invitation she sent for him to join her. Not yet, not yet. He could sense what she liked and what did little for her. Cupping her breasts in his palms drove him crazy, but she needed more than that. Her craving was his own. He sat up, careful not to disturb his angle of entry. Just like this, he was making contact with the sweetest spot in her body, and every time he touched it, she went a little higher. When he latched on to her nipple, curling his tongue around the taut tip, she screamed. He would have smiled, if his mouth hadn’t been full.

  Time enough for him to find his own reward. This was hers.

  She was past words, but he felt her awareness of his presence, felt her surrounding him with warmth, all over, above, below and everywhere in between. Nothing mattered more than this. Nothing existed outside this bed.

  The world drifted around them, no longer important. Their joining, bringing her an experience they would both remember, beyond the grave, beyond all reckoning, beyond all existence. That was all that counted.

  With a whoosh of sensation, everything within him drew up to a peak of wanting, of straining to an end. Sure she was with him, sharing her joy, contributing his, he finally allowed himself to find his release.

  Now the world ceased to exist. They spiraled together, without time, without anchors, bound up in each other. This love truly was for all time.

  Chapter Eight

  A day. One more day. When she woke up next to him, Sylvie heard the message pounding through her brain. This was it, the last day she could spend with the man she would love for the rest of her life. Harder that she would have to hide her unhappiness, or she would spend her last day repining and moaning. Never had “live for the day” seemed harder.

  When he awoke a few minutes later she was ready, greeting him with a loving kiss and a smile. He pulled her across his chest, and she snuggled in, firmly locking her grief away in her heart. Time enough for that tomorrow.

  “It’s late, isn’t it?” She felt the sound rumble through his chest when he spoke.

  “Nearly noon. We didn’t sleep for a long time.”

  He chuckled. “No, we didn’t, did we?”

  He went still, and she felt his fingers under her chin, gently urging her to look up at him. When she did, she carefully schooled her face into happiness. “No regrets?”

  She smiled and shook her head. “None at all. I would have regretted it forever, if we hadn’t done this.” She leaned up, taking her weight on her elbows. “I hope we make a child, and although I’m not usually this sexist, I hope it’s a son. Then your earldom will live on.”

  He studied her, letting his gaze travel over her face. “Sylvie, before this happened, before I came here, I was allowed a day of corporeal form a year. I don’t know what will happen now, but I made this bargain so I could move on. We could have had that, but it would have meant a day every year of happiness for us. Trying to keep to that nearly drove my brother mad. But I will wait for you. By everything I hold dear, I will do my best to wait.”

  “Tell me about your brother.”

  He drew her down again and told her. “Vernon found his love in Napoleonic times. They made a promise, that he would visit her every year, but after their first encounter she became pregnant. Then he made a bargain. He would take the place of her husband, who died on the field at Waterloo. His body was badly damaged, and it wasn’t certain he would live, but if he took this chance, he would either move on, or he would live with her. He lived.”

  “Were they happy?”

  “Blissfully.”

  He played with her hair, letting it run through his fingers. “So Vernon was the third Earl of Rustead, and the eighth.”

  “Just as you’re the fourth and the twelfth.”

  “Just the same.”

  Except Vernon had lived a long and happy life with his lady. Not five days.

  * * * * *

  Later that day, Nathaniel walked hand in hand with Sylvie to the big room downstairs they had given over to the TV production crew. During the season, this room, once the summer sitting room, served as the restaurant, so tea urns and coffee makers were conveniently close. Now the tables were covered with the equipment the crew considered necessary. Angela was present, and a couple of technicians. “Do you know where the mediums are?” Sylvie asked, careful not to sound too eager, for she and Nathaniel had decided this was the time to confront the women.

  Angela looked up. “Not off hand. They’re due on set later, but they had an exciting night. Come and look at this!”

  They crossed the room and stood next to her, where they could both see the monitor. “The central part of Hosts to Ghosts is the séance,” Angela said, pushing her glasses up her nose. “We’ve tried every night this week, but we got nothing. For the first time, we were going to decide if we should tell the audience there was nothing, or play things up a bit.” ‘Play things up a bit’ must mean to make it up, to exaggerate ordinary night time noises into something of spooky proportions. Sylvie had seen a few of the programs, and suspected most of them were done this way. “But look at this!”

  Angela stood up, and nodded to the seated technician, who clicked his mouse.

  For a moment Sylvie couldn’t work out where they’d set up the cameras. With certain exceptions, she’d given them the run of the house, with dire warnings not to touch the treasures. The day staff had re-erected the guide ropes that ran the length of the state rooms in the tourist season, just to be sure. She saw the ropes on the screen, but it took her a moment to work out the shadowy shapes in the background were portraits. The portraits of Nathaniel and Vernon in the Long Gallery.

  “We set up in several rooms,” Angela explained. “We’re leaving tomorrow, so only one more night after this one. I have to admit we were getting desperate.”

  The camera swung around a little to reveal the figures of Doris Alcock and Jo Goodman. Both had the eerie green shadowing of the night vision lens, and their eyes stood out in bright relief to the rest of the gloom. That must be purely for effect, because ghosts can materialize at any time.

  Can’t they just? Sylvie smiled when Nathaniel spoke to her and squeezed her hand, but she kept he
r attention on the TV screen.

  The women murmured together, words of invocation, something that sounded like ritual or prayer. Then the lights behind them came on, blinding in intensity. “I swear nobody turned them on,” Angela whispered. Someone did walk on and turn them off at that point in the film. They came on again. Nathaniel grunted, as though he knew why.

  Brother Anselm doesn’t like the dark. That was it, then. It was Brother Anselm. For a moment Sylvie had wondered if Nathaniel had paid them a nocturnal visit between bouts of lovemaking.

  Too busy dreaming of you, my love.

  Sylvie felt the heat rise to her cheeks when he showed her precisely what he’d been dreaming about. A fantasy they’d enacted when she’d awoken.

  A shadow moved across the screen. Brother Anselm had made an appearance. One of the mediums, the older one, shivered and held her hands out, as though feeling for something. “What is your name, spirit? Tell me, don’t be afraid.”

  A ghostly chuckle sounded over the speakers, hardly there at all.

  “What is it you need?”

  Jo broke in. “Can you help us?”

  “Yessssssss!”

  Sylvie leapt what felt like three feet. The word was so disembodied, so terribly ethereal, the sound scared her out of her mind. Laughing, Nathaniel put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer to his heat. “The typical ghost,” he said. Inside her mind, he added; He’s doing it on purpose. He’s creating a distraction for the mediums.

  Angela hit the pause button and shot him a frozen look. “Do you find this funny, Lord Rustead?”

  “In a way.” Nathaniel looked apologetic. “I remember this ghost from my childhood. He’s been here forever. They call him the Mad Monk, but nobody really knows who he is or what he’s doing here.”

  Except you.

  Except me.

  “May we interview you on camera about that?”

  Nathaniel shrugged. “If you like. I don’t really know that much.”

  “A brief description, perhaps a story about seeing the ghost when you were a boy will do fine.” Angela clapped her hands together lightly. “We’ll get this turned around for New Year, and then do a revised repeat later. It’ll be sensational!”