Harlequin E Shivers Box Set Volume 3: Valley of NightmaresHis to PossessThe Girl in BlueThe Ghosts of Cragera Bay

by Jane Godman

  “Did you go to London today to see Aleister Crowley?” I demanded, my voice high-pitched and quavering. When he didn’t answer, I said, “I need to know, Gethin.”

  “Yes, I went to see Crowley.” He lunged toward me in exactly the same second as I raised the knife in warning. The blade sliced through the heavy wool of his jacket and, with sickening ease, buried itself hilt deep just below his left shoulder. He reeled backward, stumbling and falling into a half-sitting position in the corner. “Help me, Lilly,” he begged.

  “How can I?” I took a deep, steadying breath, trying to ignore the wild churning of my stomach. First kidnapping. Now murder. How, in the space of a few hours, had I become this person? “If I leave you here to bleed to death, Ceri will be safe,” I told Gethin bluntly.

  “She won’t.” His voice was faint, his breathing harsh, and a sickly grey tint was leaching the colour from his face. “But I don’t have time to convince you now. He will be here soon….” He reached out a hand toward me. “You have to trust me, Lilly.”

  The dream flashed a warning through my mind again. Don’t get it wrong. But don’t hesitate either. I looked into the dark eyes that I loved—yes, still loved—so much.

  A question formed in my mind. “How did you know where we were?” I asked.

  “Shucky, blasted animal. He brought me to the edge of the ridge and then ran off again.” His eyelids fluttered closed. That was enough. That was all I needed. If Shucky brought him to us, Gethin was not the Hunter.

  “I will have to get the knife out first,” I said, dropping to my knees beside him. He lost consciousness as I tended to his injury, which was probably a good thing. The knife came out cleanly with a sickly squelch that turned my stomach. Fresh blood gushed from the wound. I manhandled him out of his dark suit jacket, undid his shirt and laid bare the deep, ugly wound that slashed open the flesh just below his collarbone. I’d carelessly flung some cotton blouses into my bag, and I used one of them now to staunch the flow of blood. Two others were ruthlessly ripped up as makeshift bandages. I bound them around his shoulder as tightly as I could. I was kneeling next to Gethin’s prone form surrounded by gore, bloodstained cloths and the telltale dripping knife, when Ceri peeped round the door.

  Her saucer-like eyes took in the scene. “Why have you killed Uncle Gethin?” she asked me in an interested tone, tiptoeing lightly into the room. Her words nearly toppled me from the fine tightrope between reason and hysteria on which I was balancing. I drew in a ragged breath.

  “I fell onto the knife.” Gethin’s voice was faint. “Clean this mess up, hide that jacket and help me get into my coat.” I started to protest, but he struggled into a more upright position, saying harshly, “Don’t argue with me, Lilly. When he comes, I don’t want him to know I’m injured.”

  “Who is coming?” I asked, gathering up the bloodied cloths.

  “The Hunter,” he said. My mind skittered wildly, trying to make sense of those words on his lips.

  “You go, take Ceri back to the house,” Gethin pleaded when we had finished clearing up the mess. His face was ashen and drawn in the light of the torch, and I fought down the urge to panic.

  “No, I can’t,” I said, trying to find the words to explain. How could I possibly explain the connection that existed between Ceri and me? I couldn’t begin to comprehend it myself.

  “We need to stay together. We are stronger together.” Ceri said it for me.

  “But one of us is missing.” I fretted, peering out into the gloom.

  “He’ll come,” she said serenely. Gethin looked from me to her and then back again with a bewildered expression.

  “Don’t try to understand it, just accept it. We are not leaving you,” I said with flat finality. I sat with my back against the harsh wall and drew him toward me so that he could rest his head on my shoulder. “You know what the legend says,” I told him lightly, “If we stay here tonight we will wake up as poets or lunatics.”

  “I’ll be the poet,” Gethin said, his voice trembling. “It sounds like you two are halfway there already in terms of madness. Anyway, that only applies if you stay here alone,” he reminded me grimly. “If more than one person stays, the prophecy is that one of them will not wake up at all.”

  With hearts weighed down by dread, we waited. We didn’t light lamps, boil water or bake cakes for the visitor we expected. No flowers or brightly hung banners would greet his arrival. We rehearsed no words of welcome. As if in anticipation of the deluge that ends the drought, we waited for an encounter we did not want. At last, we would meet the stranger we knew so well.

  Chapter Eleven

  No sound penetrated the bitter silence. But I knew he was close. Gethin insisted on standing and I helped him up, supporting him with an arm about his waist as he swayed slightly before steadying himself against the table. I went to the window. The outline of the trees was thrown into stark relief against gloomy skies. There was a hint of phosphorescence about the dying light that gave the scene a glorious, unearthly majesty. A man crested the ridge and I recognised him instantly. Relief flooded through me, and running to the door, I threw it wide.

  “Matthew!” I started toward him, but Gethin caught my arm and pulled me back into the doorway. Moonlight gleamed briefly on the pistol Matthew held. It was pointed unwaveringly at me.

  “Guten Abend, mein Herr.” The German words Gethin spoke were pleasantly conversational. I glanced from one to the other in confusion.

  “Gethin, this is Matthew Fisher. He has been staying in the village.”

  Gethin drew me closer against his side, and with a growing feeling of dread, I realised he did so in order to use me as a prop on which to lean. I was the means by which he remained upright. “I fear this gentleman may have been somewhat disingenuous in his dealings with you, Lilly,” he said, not taking his eyes from the other man’s face. “This is Herr Mathias Fischer, of the Gestapo.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  Matthew’s—that is, Fischer’s—eyes flickered over me contemptuously. “We have both been playing a part since we met, but I must congratulate you on your acting abilities, Miss Divine,” he said coldly. “Your convincing performance has successfully made what should have been a simple task most disagreeably complicated, for which I am sure Mr Taran here will no doubt reward you. But the time for dissemblance is over. You will tell me now where the letter is, if you please.”

  “You are mistaken about that, Fischer,” Gethin informed him. “She doesn’t have the letter.”

  “What letter?” I demanded. The oddest feeling assailed me. I could not shake off the sensation that someone else was standing in the shadows, watching us. But there was no one to be seen.

  “Don’t play games with me, Taran!” He spat the words with pure venom. The German accent that he had disguised so well was pronounced now that Fischer made no attempt to hide it. He gestured toward me with the gun. “We know that Ricky Brett gave her the letter just before he died.”

  Ignoring the fact that there was a pistol aimed at my head, I said, “If I’m supposed to have this precious letter of yours, you might at least tell me what it is and why you think that before you start threatening to shoot me!” Delicate fingers of fog were beginning to ooze from beneath the rocks and caress my ankles. I shivered at their grave-cold touch. Ceri had crept closer and her icy hand stole into mine. My eyes scanned the obscurity behind the circle of Fischer’s torchlight. Was there someone else there? I could not shake off the conviction that there was.

  “Shall I explain?” Gethin asked, and Fischer nodded curtly. “I have not seen the letter myself, so you will understand that some of this is speculation on my part. Herr Fischer here will no doubt correct any mistakes or omissions. The letter he refers to was from a high-ranking British diplomat and it was addressed to the Führer. The author of this missal was a double agent. The letter vanished before it was delivered but, I am led to believe, it reveals—as proof of this traitor’s loyalty to the Reich, you unde
rstand—the identities and whereabouts of British agents working on the continent. Which explains Herr Fischer’s desire to have sight of this very interesting document, before it can be found by British intelligence services and destroyed. Am I correct so far?” he asked, and Fischer nodded again. “The letter, you see, was written by my brother. But it had already left Bryn’s possession when he died, and the race—from both the German and British sides—was on in earnest then to track it down. Enter your friend Maximilian Bauer…”

  “Maxie? But he is Jewish! He wouldn’t work for the Nazis!” I was indignant in my defence of my former boss. He might be a lecherous, slimy degenerate, but even Maxie had some principles. Didn’t he?

  “Bauer is an opportunist, however, and money is his only true god. He has a track record of selling military and political secrets, which is one of the reasons—other than his religion, of course—why Berlin was becoming a little uncomfortable for him. We don’t quite know how he came by this particular letter; possibly it was stolen from Bryn deliberately and passed to Bauer. Anyway, word filtered out that Bauer was claiming to have the letter and was touting it around, offering to sell it to the highest bidder. Bauer was known to use Brett as his courier.”

  “So Ricky was murdered,” I whispered. A crystal-clear image of my friend tapping the side of his nose and saying, “Found my ticket out of here,” slipped into my mind.

  “He was,” Gethin confirmed. “Herr Fischer here was led by Bauer to believe that Brett was delivering the letter to a contact at the Foreign Office the night he was killed. Imagine his chagrin when, upon searching Brett’s body, there was still no trace of the letter. We all knew, of course, how close you were to Brett.”

  “And then, Miss Divine, you disappear the day after Brett’s funeral. Coincidence, ja?” Fischer said.

  I studied Fischer’s clean-cut features, no trace now of the bumbling, pleasant accountant who had been so shyly smitten by me. Mrs Comber’s description of a “nice, clean young man” came back to me. “It was you,” I gasped. “You told my landlady you were my “young man.” Even then you were convinced I had your blasted letter!” He bowed ironically, clicking his heels together, as though I was congratulating him. “And that day when you kissed me…”

  He laughed. “I heard a car coming up from the house, and I couldn’t risk Taran recognising me. It was the easiest way I could think of to hide my face from view.”

  “Don’t give me that!” I exclaimed. “You took the opportunity to shove your hand up my sweater and have a good feel at the same time. I’m glad I punched you, and I’m so glad that Shucky bit you when you pretended to hurt your knee just so you could stay the night and have a snoop around Taran House. Of course,” I continued, the realisations coming thick and fast now, “he was so friendly toward you because he wanted to keep an eye on you, not because he liked you!”

  His expression hardened again. “Back to the subject of the letter, if you please. You came to Wales in the employ of Mr Taran here, the very man coordinating the hunt for the letter on the British side. Yet we are still to believe this is a coincidence? You must excuse my scepticism, because, when questioned further by my men, Bauer eventually revealed that Brett told him the letter was safe. He said he had given it to you.”

  “Well, what a rotten, lying, little snake!” I burst out. “Just wait until I see Maxie Bauer!” A cruel smile twitched across Fischer’s lips, and I knew, beyond certainty, that I never would see Maxie again.

  “Mind you,” Gethin said, and I could hear pain straining his voice, “there must be more to this letter than I thought, Fischer. After all, it brought a man of your stature all the way here to the valley to play such a mundane part. Housebreaking and trying to seduce the governess? It’s all a bit below your usual touch. And that letter has been missing for months now. Our side has had plenty of time to take steps to protect the agents named in the letter. So what the devil else does it contain?”

  Fischer sneered. “So you really don’t know? In that case, your use of the term ‘the devil’ is a remarkably perceptive guess. Your ever-so-charming brother also provided indisputable proof, if such were needed, of the occult roots of the Reich. Indeed—and one has to question the intelligence of the man who would put pen to paper on this matter—he refers to plans made between himself, the Führer and Aleister Crowley. Apparently, they shared an interest in a certain unnamed house, set somewhere in the Welsh valleys, which Crowley had visited and confirmed was perfectly placed to provide a temple for satanic worship. The letter promises the house to Herr Hitler, once Britain has become part of the Third Reich.”

  I gasped, but Gethin remained impassive. “And to think that, for all these years, I never suspected Bryn was so prolific a writer.” He sighed.

  A movement drew my gaze back to the shadowy rim of the cirque, but this time the man who had been lurking there, listening to our conversation, stepped forward. I suppose I knew all along that it would be the man I’d seen at Ricky’s funeral and again in the village. The man from whom Ceri and I had fled near the lake. And, in that instant, I knew who he was.

  “Good evening, Bryn,” Gethin said courteously, as though he was meeting his brother at a social event.

  Bryn Taran laughed. It was a sound that had a cold, metallic tang. “You don’t sound surprised to see me, brother dear,” he said. The resemblance between them really was quite remarkable. But on closer inspection, it was clear that Bryn Taran’s debauched life had left its mark. His skin was untouched by sunlight and deep purple pouches were like diseased bruises beneath his lower lids. The eyes above them were fathom-deep frozen lakes within which all hope had drowned.

  “Process of deduction,” Gethin explained. “Once Lilly described the man she had seen at Brett’s funeral and again in the village everything fell into place. Well, almost everything.”

  I glanced down at Ceri to see how she was reacting to this stark reintroduction to her father. Like Gethin, she did not seem unduly surprised. But her face was as pale as an early snowdrop, and her hand clung more tightly to mine. Because she didn’t say them out loud, I was the only person to hear her words.

  “The Hunter.” And I knew at once that she was right. A wave of shame at my earlier certainty about Gethin washed over me. Bryn Taran was indeed the evil presence who pursued us during our nightmare hours. The realisation that I finally knew his identity did not, however, make me feel any better. The Hunter had caught up with us at last.

  “You’ve been keeping yourself busy since we last met, Bryn,” Gethin remarked, still in that light, conversational tone.

  “Oh, you know how it is,” Bryn responded chattily, following Gethin’s lead. “One does one’s poor best. Of course we can’t all be obscenely wealthy captains of industry like yourself. Some of us have to earn our crust.”

  “Is that what this was all about? Money?” Gethin allowed a note of disgust to creep into his voice. “You could have come to me. It’s not like it would have been the first time.”

  Bryn’s eyes darkened like hell’s pathway. I was having a hard time focusing on their poisoned depths. “I expect it would comfort you to believe that money was my motive,” he said. “Being the good brother—the rich, successful one—you can have no idea how much I hated coming to you, cap in hand, to ask for help. No, my motive was far purer! This is about the glory of my master!”

  Gethin smiled, but there was no warmth in his expression. “But how galling it must be for you to be unable to join Hitler, your new master, and take your accolades! Because you can’t do that—can you, Bryn?—until this damning letter has been found. Even the elite within the Reich must have baulked at the prospect of that sort of publicity just as they are trying to woo the British public! Slaughter Jews, homosexuals and gypsies and our government will continue to affirm it’s none of our business, but sacrifice a few chickens, slit the throat of the odd goat or two, and the tide of public opinion may well turn. Crowley, of course, found the whole situation hugely entertaining
when I met him this morning. He confirmed what I already suspected. That you were back in this country. And, once you returned, you couldn’t stay away from Taran House or resist the chance to pay your respects to Satan, your old master.”

  “You were always too plebeian, brother dear, to appreciate the true potential of the house,” Bryn said in a bored tone. He turned away and directed a piercing look at me. “And how nice to finally meet the divine Lilly.” The words were scrupulously polite and admiring, but something in them made my flesh crawl. Physically, his likeness to Gethin unnerved me, but the blackness of his soul shone through the skin-deep similarities. “Of course, we know each other so well already.” The Hunter leered at me, and I felt my knees weaken. “And if it wasn’t for your irksome Romany bodyguard, we could have got to know each other even better.” It was a reference to the night I’d ventured into the clock tower—into his lair—and sensed his presence behind me. I shuddered to think what might have happened if Vidor had not followed me. “And you are even more delectably seductive close up. No wonder Gethin here has been going around with that idiotic, drooling grin on his face. But, Miss Divine, I warned you to get out, and you didn’t heed my words.” He shook his head with mock regret.

  “I don’t understand why you wanted me to leave before you found the letter.” I challenged him. “If, as you believed, I did have it, surely I would have taken it with me when I left Taran House?”

  “I warned you to leave because you were starting to get on my nerves. I wanted you out of my house because you were changing it, sanitising its soul, taking away its true personality,” he said, still scanning my face. “Middle-class values. I hoped someone with your attributes might have been endowed with a little more imagination. If we had time, Miss Divine, I would love to show you that there are other—far more enjoyable—values to be espoused.”

  “I have been trying to make Taran House into a family home, for your daughter,” I told him angrily. I wished Ceri did not have to see or hear any of this, but she was remarkably composed.