Lonesome Rider and Wilde Imaginings

by Heather Graham

  “But he did.”

  He shrugged. “I never believed that your mother stole that cross,” he said. “And they’re all gone now, anyway, your mother, your father, Paddy. Let’s start over, shall we?”

  She nodded, and he offered her his arm. “If you’ll join me, Miss Evigan, I believe that our dinner is being served.”

  Feeling uncomfortable after his earlier outburst, she joined him, but he said nothing more even remotely intimate during the entire meal.

  She still felt guilty. She had to tell him. She would never marry him. She was sleeping with Brian Wilde.

  Falling in love with Brian Wilde.

  But Darryl had already suffered one bitter disappointment because of her. She just couldn’t say anything that would be cruel right now. She smiled, talked and laughed during the meal, careful not to let him know how hollow her laughter really was.

  She was grateful, after the meal ended, when he told her that he had to go out. She fled up the stairs to her room and stayed there until she heard the great doors closing downstairs. Only then did she go down, restlessly prowling the great hall.

  Sunset was coming. It was still so beautiful. On impulse, she left the house, sensibly telling herself that she would stay safely near the castle.

  But she had scarcely left the house before she paused, catching her breath.

  She could see the cemetery. And she could see the family crypt.

  And she could see Darryl going down the steps.

  She looked at the sky. Surely the daylight would last a bit longer!

  No, she would be a fool, an idiot, to follow him!

  But she had to! She had to know what was going on. She had to know if she was losing her mind, if she was falling in love with a madman, or if Darryl might be out to kill her.…

  She bit her lower lip, then, throwing caution to the wind, went running into the dusk. She reached the darkening cemetery with its broken stones, its angels and its virgins. She passed by them all, running until she reached the family vault.

  The door was open. She tiptoed down the steps and slipped inside.

  The darkness almost overwhelmed her. She could barely discern the looming shapes of the coffins of her ancestors. Then she heard something, a noise from one of the back rooms. She hurried silently toward it, straining to see in the near total darkness, bracing herself against her fears.

  There was light, a beacon of light coming from a tunnel. There was another exit from the crypt! It was behind a large, angel-covered monument to a fifteenth-century knight. She couldn’t quite ascertain how the doorway had been opened, but she took a quick guess that it had something to do with the large marble statue, since the tunnel stretched out behind it, lamps lit at intervals along the dark stone walls.

  She wasn’t going to go any farther. She wouldn’t be so foolish. She would just take a peek, then leave the crypt. Someone in the village could tell her how to get hold of a constable, and she could let him find out what was going on. She squinted, looking down the artificially lit tunnel. It seemed to stretch forever. Where did it lead? Why had Darryl disappeared down its length?

  Something—a rustling, a shiver—alerted her, and she turned. A scream caught in her throat. A body was rising from one of the coffins.

  “No!” she shrieked as a foul-smelling sack was thrown over her head.

  She was swept up into ruthless arms. Though she tried to scream, to fight, she was tangled in the cloth, and her cries were muffled. She could scarcely move her arms and legs, so strong was her captor’s grip. She struggled and wriggled and still tried to scream, but all to no avail.

  She was being carried ruthlessly down the length of the tunnel.

  Ready or not, she was going to discover where it led.

  Chapter Seven

  Allyssa couldn’t begin to tell where she was being taken, only that she was moving at a swift rate and that they were heading down, deeper and deeper into the earth. Her efforts to fight became less frantic as she realised that she was quickly losing her breath, suffocating beneath the sack that had been thrown over her head. She went dead still and tried to inhale deeply.

  It was then that her attacker came to a halt at last. And she heard his voice, whispered, frantic. “She found it this time. We didn’t stop her fast enough. She found it—”

  “And you brought her down here!” another voice exploded.

  Allyssa strained to determine who the voices belonged to. They were muffled by the sack over her head, and they echoed eerily off the stone walls.

  “You fool! Aren’t you listening to me? She found the tunnel! There was nothing else I could have done! And what does it matter? You knew she had to be taken care of one way or another.”

  Taken care of … Dear God! What did they intend to do to her?

  Who were they?

  “I had my own manner of taking care of her in mind.”

  “Then you’re a bloody idiot on that issue, too. She’s been seeing Brian Wilde right cozy since she’s been here. She’d not have married you.”

  Her heart began to sink. She’d been the idiot. Darryl Evigan was here in the tunnel. She didn’t know what he was doing, except that it had to be illegal, and that now he intended to do something to her.

  “Put her down,” she heard Darryl say. Now that she knew who he was, she wondered how she’d missed recognizing his voice before.

  She was more or less dropped to the floor. She struggled to free herself from the thing that had been tossed over her head. It was a Victorian coffin cover, with fine fringe all along the edges. She threw it as far away from her as she could and studied her situation.

  It seemed grave. She was on the floor of a large room, with a number of boxes strewn around.

  She looked up from the floor. There was Darryl, looking very grave as he stared at her. He was properly dressed, a silk shirt, casual jacket, neatly pressed trousers, every inch the country gentleman.

  Even while he was in a cold, dank graveyard tunnel, doing God knew what and now planning an evil end for her, he managed to look calm and well-groomed.

  The coldness of fear swept through her with that thought, and she leaped to her feet, fighting the panic that assailed her, determined not to go down like a scared, silly little idiot.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she commanded furiously, then gasped.

  Gregory, the wonderfully proper butler, had stepped into sight. He was Darryl’s accomplice?

  Once again she stared at Darryl, hoping that a show of bravado might bring her through. “I repeat, what the hell do you think you’re doing? Distant relations or no, Darryl Evigan, I should press charges for this outrage! Gregory! How could you put that—that thing!—on my head?”

  Bravado was getting her nowhere. Darryl and Gregory just stared at one another, then at her. “I’m sorry, Allyssa, I really am,” Darryl said softly, a wry smile curving his lips. “I really was falling in love with you, did you know that? But Gregory says that you’ve been seeing Brian. Is that true?”

  “That’s none of your damned business!” she replied icily.

  “So it is true. Well, it doesn’t matter. I couldn’t trust you now in any case. You’d show him or someone the tunnel, and my way of life would be destroyed. And you can’t just come over from America and destroy everything, Allyssa Evigan! If only you’d stayed there …”

  “Look,” she said, trying to sound very patient. “I’m willing to forget this whole thing. I’m sick and tired of this country. I don’t give a damn about any of it—I just want to go home. Now, I’m going to turn around and walk out of this tunnel, this crypt and this cemetery, and get a train into London. Then—”

  “I’m so sorry, Allyssa, but I don’t think so,” Darryl told her, starting to move toward her.

  “Look!” she cried out, “I really don’t know what you’re doing. I—”

  “You really don’t, do you?” He paused, cocking his head, the charming inquisitor. “How odd. You should. I started thi
s when I was very young. When your parents were still here with you. It all began with that Norman cross. A man in the village offered me what seemed like a small fortune for it. Of course, I was really grossly cheated, but I was too young to know its real value at the time. Anyway, things worked out perfectly. Your mother was accused, I made my money. And every once in a while, the man would come back for more, though he never got quite such a good deal from me again. I learned how and where to dig on my own property, and how and where to dig elsewhere, and then how to smuggle all the artifacts through this tunnel to the river, across the Channel and onward to France. It’s an incredibly lucrative business. I mean, what did you think? It’s impossible to keep up a castle these days without some kind of a sideline!”

  He might have been speaking about moonlighting as a bartender, his confession was so casual, but she was reeling. Her mother had been innocent, as innocent as she had claimed. Darryl had nearly destroyed her parents’ lives! Damn him!

  But he hadn’t succeeded, because they had loved one another. Her father had given up his home and family to defend her mother against all odds. Darryl had gotten the cross, but her mother had ended up with everything that really mattered.

  But still …

  Her temper suddenly snapped. “You slimy, treacherous, disgusting son of a bitch!” she whispered. Then she flew at him, hands pummeling, nails raking. She was such a whirlwind of fury that she brought him crashing down to the cold stone floor before he even guessed her intentions.

  “Damn it! She’s like a wildcat! Help me!” Darryl commanded.

  Gregory’s effete looks were deceiving. He clutched Allyssa by the shoulders with painful strength. She whirled, trying to fight him, too. He turned her around, jerking her right arm backward at an angle that threatened to snap it. She went still, white with the pain, clenching her jaw.

  “We’re wasting time!” Gregory warned Darryl.

  “Don’t rush me. This has to be done carefully.”

  “I say we just tie her up, gag her and leave her,” Gregory said.

  Darryl nodded. Allyssa frowned, wondering what they meant to do with her once they returned from conducting their business. “What about rope burns?” Darryl asked.

  “We won’t leave her struggling,” Gregory said. “But we’ve got to hurry. The water will be here soon.”

  “The water—” Allyssa began.

  “The water,” Darryl said, coming toward her, his hands behind his back. “What a pity. I had to do this once before. You thought it was Brian, didn’t you? Sorry, my dear, distant cousin. Truly, truly, I am.”

  She saw his arm move swiftly. He was holding something in his hand. Some kind of a marble statuette.

  Another relic he was planning to smuggle from the country, she thought briefly.

  Then she wasn’t thinking at all. Darryl had learned how to strike people very well. The blow was swift, hideously painful. Then the pain faded. The world blackened.

  And she crumpled silently at his feet.

  It was a strange night. A silver mist had begun to roll in just moments after Allyssa had left.

  Brian leaned against the doorway to the cottage, staring at the forest, watching as the mist began to settle over the earth.

  Why couldn’t she see? he wondered, a hollow feeling gripping him. He couldn’t bear seeing her walk away, but he didn’t have the words to stop her. And every time she left, he was afraid of what might happen to her.

  Paddy had been afraid of something, too. That much had been obvious from the will. Paddy hadn’t wanted to leave his beloved estate to Darryl. He hadn’t wanted to disinherit him completely, either, but he had suspected something.

  Well, hell, so did he, Brian reflected. Darryl was up to something, had been up to something.

  Whatever it was, he wouldn’t hurt Allyssa.

  Yes, he would. Someone had struck her on the head. …

  Or had she fallen down the steps? He had been so certain she had fallen, because that was how he had found her. And there had even been times when he wondered if she’d already been in league with Darryl when she’d come here, accusing him of having picked her up at the station. She seemed determined to mistrust him as much as she did Darryl. Or did she really? It was all very strange.

  He closed his eyes. He really didn’t give a damn about the cottage or the castle. Not anymore. Since Allyssa had come, he had discovered that all he cared about was her. The words had hovered on his lips so many times when they were together. I love you.… So plain, so simple. And so very difficult when so much lay between them.

  A cold breeze suddenly picked up. The mist swirled hard before him.

  Go to her.…

  The words almost seemed to have been spoken out loud, causing the chill that he felt to cut deeper. Darryl wouldn’t hurt her, Brian thought again. He wouldn’t dare.…

  Danger …

  Once again he could have sworn he heard the word spoken aloud. But no one was nearby. Mrs. Griffin was gone for the day. Jimmy, who helped with the horses, and Mary Merks, who helped Mrs. Griffin, had gone for the evening, too.

  He was alone in the coming darkness and the swirling mist. Neither frightened him. He had known the darkness and the mist forever. Except for his years with the RAF and the brief stint he had spent in London, he had lived here always. He had loved the landscape, and he had loved Paddy, and he had been able to stay because with the cottage he wasn’t dependent on Paddy or the land. He had never been afraid. He loved the darkness and the mist.…

  Icy fingers suddenly seemed to close around his heart. A cold hand seemed to shove him urgently from behind. It was the wind. The wind … whispering, crying out … warning him?

  He was afraid. He was in love with her, and he had tried to make her realize that she was in love with him. But he had been angry, and he had let her go back to Darryl. And to danger?

  Oh, you fool, you fool! The voice was his own, mocking him inside his own mind. He had been so determined to be wary of her. After so many years she had returned, and he had been sure she was back for nothing more than what she could drain from the place. But he had been wrong. He knew it in his heart. And if he were to lose her now, life would never be the same again. She had touched him with her wide eyes and her innocence. There had never been anything he could do to prove his own innocence to her, and yet she had loved him anyway, whether she knew it or not.

  “Allyssa!” he cried suddenly. His voice carried, echoing in the night. “Allyssa!” What a fool he’d been. Suddenly, and without doubt, he knew that she was in danger. Deadly danger. He started to run.

  She came to because of the water.

  At first it just delicately touched her cheek where it lay against the stone. It touched her leg, her hip, her ribs, her arm. She managed to open her eyes. Her hand lay sprawled out before her. She saw the water as it rose over her fingers. Rose quickly. She sat up, her head reeling. She pressed her hands to it, trying to remember where she was and how she had come to be here. It was dark. Only the faintest hint of moonlight, seeping in from some distant opening, allowed her to see at all.

  The tunnel. She gritted her teeth against the thudding pain in her head. She was in the tunnel. She had followed Darryl here. He had struck her on the head, though apparently he hadn’t bothered to tie her up after all. He was a criminal. A handsome, polite, charming, well-dressed criminal.

  And he had tried to kill her.

  Not only that, he stood a very good chance of succeeding.

  The water was rising all around her. It had come up six inches as she had struggled to sit up, and another six as she had tried to clear her head and assess her position. She staggered to her feet, but by the time she reached them, the water came to her knees.

  The horror of her situation filled her. The tunnel flooded at high tide. That was the trick to the place. The tunnel ran to the river, and the river led straight to the ocean, and the place flooded every morning and every night at high tide. She didn’t know when it had been
built, but it was clearly ancient, and she was certain that in the past, the Evigans had helped their political friends and hindered their enemies with it. And now …

  She didn’t dare think. The water was rising so quickly! It was past her knees. It was cold, frigidly cold. It would numb her soon, keeping her from thinking, keeping her from moving. Oh, yes, she would be taken care of! She would drown, and all that Darryl and Gregory would have to do would be to move her body from the tunnel to the river. Her lungs would be filled with water, and the coroner would rule that hers had been a death by accidental drowning.

  The darkness was confusing. She turned, trying to fathom in which direction the family crypt lay. She decided that it was to her left, and she started walking that way.

  The water had risen to her hips.

  She tried to hurry, but it was almost impossible to move quickly through the icy water. And it was rising, rising.

  To her rib cage now. Coming faster in a sudden rush. To her shoulders. She began to swim, urging her frozen limbs to obey the signals from her mind.

  Higher, higher …

  It rose above her head. She treaded water, taking a deep breath from the airspace above her head, then plunged forward, swimming hard. Breath! She needed another breath! She rose to the surface again. The cold was so fierce. Her limbs didn’t want to move. Her mind didn’t want to obey. Perhaps it would be easier to give in to the numbing power of the cold. How did one drown? It would be awful. She would be desperate, her lungs burning, her head pounding. She would breathe in, the freezing water would fill her lungs … and she would die.

  She made it to the tiny pocket of air at the top of the tunnel. Would that soon fill with water, too? She gasped in a breath, listening to the loud wheezing of her bid for air. She inhaled, exhaled, inhaled again. Oh, no! She had forgotten the direction. In the darkness, in her terror to breathe, she had become confused.…

  My hand! Take my hand!

  She blinked. Fingers, long, strong fingers, reached out to her. Brian. Not Brian. She didn’t know. Someone trying to save her? Someone trying to kill her more swiftly, more mercifully?