Phantom Series Boxed Set

by Julie Leto

  “The desire to wander isn’t unusual for a Gypsy, is it?”

  “No, but the British and the Gypsies rarely, if ever, mixed. If this woman was half Gypsy and knew how to write English, chances are her father was British.”

  “And that’s unusual?”

  “She’s educated, so she’s probably wealthy. In that regard, yes, it’s very unusual.”

  Cat blew out a breath. She’d always wondered how she would have survived in another time period, living under rules and expectations that dictated a woman’s status and whether or not she received any sort of useful education. A half-breed with Gypsy blood would probably have been crucified in London, a city renowned in all centuries for adhering to strict codes that decided who was valuable and who was worthless based on birth, rank and wealth. Did this girl have any idea how she would have been scorned in the city she dreamt of so romantically?

  With yet another reason to be thankful for being born in the twentieth century, Cat changed places with Ben, reading over his shoulder as he flipped through the diary, the dates spanning over a year.

  “What else does it say about Valoren?”

  Ben paged through, his head shaking from side to side the more he read. “Her oldest brother travels back and forth between Valoren and London. He must be of the peerage, though I’m not exactly an expert in these matters.”

  “A half Gypsy serving in the House of Lords?” she asked, surprised.

  He looked at her oddly.

  “I read romance novels, okay? And not just the juicy parts.”

  “Though I don’t suppose you skip them.”

  “Would you?”

  Ben chuckled and continued scanning the pages. “He must be a half brother, though she doesn’t seem to make any distinction. His name is Damon.”

  “Like the artist?” Cat asked, pulling out the painting of the schooner.

  Ben gave an affirmative hum, then returned to the book. “She might be adopted or a ward raised with the family,” he went on. “She’s wildly jealous of his ability to go where he wants whenever he wants to,” he said, humor lilting his voice. “She must be nearly eighteen because she laments never going to balls and meeting men.”

  Cat couldn’t help but smile. She’d been dating since she was around thirteen. There were some advantages to being raised by grandparents who had more pressing interests than supervising the daughter of their own wayward child.

  “If only she knew how much trouble men were, she wouldn’t be so anxious to leave her nanny behind,” Cat commented.

  “That’s stopped you?”

  She slapped him on the shoulder, and after an exaggerated “ow,” he returned to his reading.

  “Wait,” he said.

  Cat bent closer. The little room behind the wall had adequate ventilation…for one person. The two of them together, coupled with the lights, increased the temperature from comfortable to…uncomfortable. Perspiration glistened along the back of Ben’s neck, intensifying the scent of his cologne.

  “Here. She’s talking about a stranger coming to town with her brother, one who wants to make Valoren his home. He’s Rogan. Incredibly handsome, I take it. She spends several pages here just on his eyes alone.”

  “Rogan,” Cat repeated. “Damon. It’s not much. Are there last names?”

  The sound of crackling pages added to the tense atmosphere. The diary contained the deep, dark secrets of a swooning young girl whose biggest complaint in life was that she’d never had a date. How could the contents possibly be dangerous or even valuable? Why the secrecy? Why the locked drawer?

  “No last name,” Ben informed her, “but she refers to him as Lord Rogan here.”

  “Think he’s British, too?”

  Ben shrugged. “We could find out more if we had her name.”

  “Check the inside cover,” Cat suggested.

  Ben went back to the beginning of the diary. A label identifying the antique-book shop in Dresden where the journal had been sold hid nearly the entire inside cover. Ben reached into the desk and found a razor-tipped knife. He poked at the edges of the label, prying away the paper centimeters at a time.

  “Do you still think this book is why your father was kidnapped?”

  As he worked on the label, Ben snared his bottom lip in his teeth. For a split second, Cat imagined snagging his lips with her teeth. Never one to apologize for her sexual nature, Cat rolled her eyes at her reaction nonetheless. Ben wasn’t giving off a single signal to indicate he entertained any interest in her. At least, not beyond the help she offered in finding his father. And she made it a rule never to pursue a man who wasn’t pursuing her twice as vigorously.

  So why was the room getting so damned hot?

  “I can’t see how this diary contains any valuable information,” Ben groused. “It’s the ramblings of a silly child.”

  “She’s not so silly,” Cat defended. “She’s a product of her time and circumstances.”

  Ben acknowledged her comment with a jaded snicker. “I still can’t see where she’d have any information that anyone would need.”

  “Maybe she cursed the place. She certainly hated living there. But we won’t know for sure until you read the entire diary.”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  Luckily, the label had been applied many years before, so once Ben loosened the toughest streaks of glue, the identifier peeled off with ease. Beneath, the inscription remained intact, though the words beneath the adhesive were faded and somewhat illegible.

  “The diary was given to her by her father. ‘My daughter,’ “ Ben quoted, his voice stilted as he stumbled over the writing. “ ‘For here you shall write your secret dreams. Fondly, Father.’ “

  “But what’s her name?” Cat asked impatiently. “Or the pop’s name. I’m not picky.”

  Ben grunted and pushed away from the desk. Cat took over, carefully turning pages and scanning for anything recognizable. Ben had been right—the diary was mostly the ramblings of a sweet young woman who dreamed of exploration and discovery, but who had little opportunity to reach out of her life experience. Except in books. Again and again, she wrote about her privileged life, contradicting her Gypsy bloodlines. Finally, about three-quarters of the way through the journal, Cat found a series of drawings. Sketches, really, of a grand estate.

  Or more like…a castle?

  Cat gasped.

  “What?” Ben asked, returning to her side instantly.

  Cat hadn’t yet seen the castle Alexa had inherited, so she could only speculate that the places were the same. How many castles would one Gypsy safe haven have?

  But more important than the architecture was the name at the bottom of the sketch.

  “Sarina,” Cat said, tapping her finger just above the artist’s signature. “Sarina Forsyth. Now we have a place to start.”

  “You mean you have a place to start,” Ben said. “That name will help you in researching the origins of the castle your friend inherited, but it won’t help me find my father.”

  “You don’t know that,” Cat insisted.

  Ben pressed his lips together, his pewter eyes assessing and intense.

  “No, I suppose I don’t. But we won’t find my father if we stay holed up in here.”

  Cat closed the diary. “Let’s check in with the police. They’ve had time to interview Amber Stranton and identify the blood on the driveway and any fingerprints by now. Then we’ll know what we should do next.”

  Ben gestured toward the diary, which she held clutched to her chest, his disappointment at their discovery unhidden. “Shouldn’t you call the heiress and give her the name in the diary, maybe fax her the drawing of the castle, see if it’s the same place?”

  Cat grinned guiltily, her thoughts running in the same direction. She would contact Alexa, of course. Alexa was, after all, the reason she had come to Texas in the first place. The reason she’d met Ben. But now the stakes were higher. Paschal Rousseau was in serious danger. The professor had unwittingly prov
ided the diary, but more than that, he’d provided the impetus for her to use her psychic gift for something more than entertaining her friends.

  Her progress had been small, but the thrill surging through her couldn’t be ignored. Of course, she couldn’t discount that the feeling was simply caused by Ben alone.

  “Alexa can wait a few hours, but I have a strong feeling your father can’t.”

  Seventeen

  With her eyes firmly closed and her brain existing on some plane between consciousness and deep sleep, Alexa decided that being roused by a lusty man beat alarm clocks any day of the week. Damon’s wispy kisses along her exposed belly were warm and insistent…and just a little ticklish. When his chin lowered, his hands pulling aside the sheet to the bed he’d conjured so he could apply his wicked tongue even lower, she nearly jolted off the mattress.

  “Hey,” she said, though her protests were halfhearted at best.

  He looked up at her expectantly, without the least repentance in his stormy gray eyes.

  “You require too much sleep,” he complained. She yanked the sheet back into place and with her foot on his shoulder, kicked him away.

  “You don’t require enough.”

  With a chuckle, Damon rolled aside. The bed was plush and round and filled the entire tower space. He’d left a few candelabras against the wall, but most of the candles had burned out. With satin sheets and velvet coverlets, the space brimmed with decadent luxury. After all these years sleeping alone, Alexa didn’t think she’d like sharing a mattress with a man. Clearly, she simply hadn’t found the right man.

  “Were you so insatiable when you were alive or is it a symptom of your phantom state?” she asked.

  “Life is too precious to fritter away to sleep,” he replied. “Or at least, life was too precious. I’d like to think it will be again, once I am free.”

  A note of longing, perhaps even regret, tinged his voice. Instantly, Alexa wanted to roll over to him, wrap her arms around his chiseled chest and offer some sort of comfort. But the truth of the matter was, he could be dead. He didn’t remember dying, but he did remember pain. And his unfinished business regarding his sister’s disappearance could be the ultimate factor in his entrapment in this world. The solid form he took each night thanks to Rogan’s dark magic might be temporary—or at the very least, limited. If he could never leave this castle and never have corporeal form during daylight hours, what kind of life was he reduced to?

  Alexa stretched her hand to him and gave him what she hoped was a fortifying squeeze on his arm. “Trust me, you’re living life quite well, at least from this side of the bed.”

  “I’ll take your compliment, my lady, but I’ll need more than sexual prowess to release myself from this prison.”

  Alexa curled back beneath the covers. “So far as prisons go, this one isn’t so bad.”

  “ ‘Tis true,” he agreed. “But the ocean below calls to me. I’d give my finest sword to feel the sunlight on my face.”

  The tense, emotional moment shifted to surprise when Alexa’s satellite phone buzzed from inside her bag. Damon eyed the pack suspiciously.

  “Can you hand me that?”

  He grabbed the bag, but rather than giving it to her, he eyed it as if it were a hissing snake. “What is that noise?”

  “My phone.”

  “Your what?”

  She leaned forward and grabbed the bag herself, afraid she’d miss the call. Only three people knew her satellite number—her assistant, who’d been instructed not to contact her unless one of the hotels was burning down; Jacob, who slept like a rock and would have no reason to contact her before dawn; and Cat. “Alexa Chandler,” she said.

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  Cat. Alexa’s heart slammed against her chest and she pulled the sheets high on her neck. Shit. Cat was going to kill her. Believing in ghosts was one thing. Sleeping with one?

  “I’m at the castle,” she said. It wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t the whole truth, but hey, she was doing the best she could.

  “In the middle of the night?”

  Alexa gazed appreciatively at Damon, who’d suddenly discovered something fascinating about her painted toes. “I decided to stay over.”

  “With no electricity, no running water and no feather mattress?”

  “I’m not that spoiled.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “Well, I’m making do. How are you? I tried calling you earlier and your cell phone was off. Did you find the diary?”

  “I found more than that.”

  As Cat started to talk, Alexa drew the covers closer around her, trying to ignore the delicious massage Damon had begun on her feet. Her mind drifted to the question of how a man of Damon’s station learned such delicious ministrations when Cat informed her that the man who owned the diary, Paschal Rousseau, had been kidnapped.

  Involuntarily, she yanked her foot away from Damon. He grumbled loudly.

  “Who’s there with you?” Cat asked.

  “No one,” she said quickly. “Have you called the police?”

  “Yes, but Ben, his son, is afraid the kidnapping is related to Valoren and the curse.”

  “Curse?” she repeated.

  Damon looked up, but Alexa glanced aside. One conversation at a time.

  “Do you want me to call in my private detectives? I have several good ones.”

  Cat whispered to someone with her, clearly Ben Rousseau, the missing professor’s son. “Not just yet. He’s trying to protect his father’s privacy.”

  “He should be thinking only about protecting his father,” Alexa sniped.

  “The police aren’t going to take their search seriously if we start spouting off about magic and curses,” Cat argued.

  “Good point,” Alexa concurred.

  “Glad you agree. Look, I know you wanted information quickly about your castle and you’re probably still curious about that supposed ghost you saw—”

  Alexa nearly interrupted but decided against it. Now wasn’t the time to tell her that not only had she found the ghost, but she’d made love with him.

  Several times.

  “—but I want to stay with Ben and try and help him.”

  “Of course,” Alexa said quickly.

  “Which means I won’t be able to help you,” Cat clarified. “I did find the diary, and as soon as I get back to the hotel, I’ll have your manager scan it and forward the pages to you immediately, but I want to keep the journal with us. Just in case.”

  Despite the warmth in the room, Alexa felt a chill creep along her skin like a swarm of icy centipedes. She wanted the diary. She wanted definitive proof that what Damon had told her so far was true, but she had to defer to the more pressing situation—Paschal Rousseau’s kidnapping. “Just make sure the file is sent encrypted. The business services manager at the Austin property is a longtime employee. Very knowledgeable. He’ll know what to do. But do you have any idea why this journal warrants attention from anyone other than us?”

  “I wish we did,” Cat lamented. “Ben says his father rarely talked about the existence of Valoren to anyone but a few close colleagues. But the young woman who wrote the diary had a hell of a lot to say. Mostly day-to-day stuff—complaints about her overbearing father and brothers, wondering if her mother understands her. Fantasies about going to London and exploring the world. It’s mostly a young girl’s dreams and ambitions, truth be told, but there’s a drawing I’m betting is of your castle. I haven’t had time to read much more.”

  By now, Damon was starting to pay closer attention to the phone call. His eyes had grown darker and stormier and he’d removed himself from the bed and dressed with a thought. He was pacing near the spiral staircase, and his heavy steps echoed on the stone floor.

  Sarina’s necklace, which she’d tied to her wrist at Damon’s insistence, warmed against her skin, drawing her attention to the dangling gold charm. Her mind raced and she wondered if the talisman was responding to increased danger or t
o the phone conversation.

  “What do you know about this young woman?”

  “Not much,” Cat replied. “She was born in Valoren and her mother is Romani, her father British. She has six—”

  “Brothers?”

  “How did you know?”

  Alexa swallowed deeply. “What’s her name?”

  “Sarina. Sarina Forsyth.”

  Damon stopped pacing when she repeated the name out loud. He faced her squarely, and for an instant she suspected he had the ability to look straight into her soul.

  “You’re sure?” she asked Cat.

  “Yes, it’s right here in black and, well, seriously yellowed white. Sarina Forsyth. Is that name significant?”

  Alexa met Damon’s gaze, and in an instant, he seemed to know that she’d made a connection to his past.

  “More significant than you can imagine. Remember that ghost I told you about?”

  Damon’s eyes widened. Alexa hadn’t had the opportunity to tell Damon about Cat and her extensive knowledge of the paranormal, but she’d remedy that situation soon enough.

  “Yes,” Cat said, but she drew out the affirmation on a long, suspicious breath.

  “Well, he’s real. And his name is Damon Forsyth. Sarina was his sister. Forget the scan and fax, Cat. I need the diary here. First thing tomorrow.”

  ***

  Damon had to bite his tongue and lock his knees in place to keep from tearing over to the bed at the mention of his sister. He clenched his fists when Alexa spoke his name into the device she called a phone and nearly burst when she admitted to the person she spoke with that he was a ghost. He managed, albeit with great difficulty, to remain still even when the conversation turned into an intense argument.

  When a numbness developed in his hands, Damon turned away and examined his fingers more closely. The sensation, not unlike the electric current that ran through him whenever he used Rogan’s magic, tingled in his joints and fingers. In addition to making love to Alexa all night long, he’d employed more of the magic than ever before. He couldn’t help but wonder about the aftereffects.