“You are marrying her?” Sophie’s voice was shrill, and she was looking at the major. She turned to her mother. “What does this mean?”
Felicity’s face had blanched. “Sophie,” she said, helplessly, with a beseeching glance at her handsome companion. “I know your father hasn’t been gone for very long—”
“Eight weeks!”
“—But the major has been so very good to us, and he is Nathaniel’s dear friend, our dear friend…”
Sophie burst into noisy tears.
Melanie could hear the whispers, the shuffling, as the guests bobbed and strained to see what was going on. There was an air of shock, but also a feeling of unwholesome anticipation.
Pengorren was patting Felicity’s arm and at the same time murmuring compassionately into Sophie’s ear. Her sobs quietened and she nodded. Relieved, Felicity sighed and drew her daughter into her embrace.
“I miss your father, too,” she said, her eyes sparkling with tears, “but life must go on.”
It sounded like a line someone had fed her, but Melanie was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. And Sophie was obviously upset…Just then Sophie peeped over Felicity’s shoulder at the major, and Melanie saw the expression on her face. No grief there, none at all, just pure, undiluted lust. Sophie wanted Pengorren for herself. That was the real reason she was crying.
And Pengorren knew it.
Even as he made the right noises and pulled the right faces, there was an answering gleam in his eyes as he looked at Sophie. Melanie’s heart gave a sickening jolt. He was enjoying himself, playing the two women off against each other. It was a turn-on for him.
“What an egomaniac,” Melanie said in disgust.
Nathaniel gave a startled crack of laughter.
The major looked up.
The dais was high enough so that he could see over the heads of the guests to the back of the room, where Melanie stood. As his gaze swept past her, she stepped back, instinctively, pressing herself against the window. His eyes narrowed. His brow wrinkled. Slowly, his gaze slid back toward her.
Cold fear trickled through her. “I thought you said I was invisible?” she hissed.
“You are,” Nathaniel said slowly, thoughtfully.
“It doesn’t feel like it.” Melanie didn’t want to take her own eyes off Pengorren, in case…well, just in case. She moved a step closer to Nathaniel.
“Nathaniel!” Pengorren was beckoning him. “What are you doing over there? Come and congratulate your mother and me!”
“Congratulations,” Nathaniel said under his breath, but he didn’t move.
Someone must have instructed the orchestra to begin playing again, for they struck up a slightly desperate jig, and the guests resumed their dancing. Major Pengorren was still staring in Melanie’s direction; but Felicity was urging him to join in, and a moment later he climbed down from the dais, and the crowd surged in.
Nathaniel reached for her hand and his fingers were a lot more comforting than she’d admit. “Come with me,” he said, but it was more like a command than a request.
Outside the room, the landing and the stairs were empty, and the entrance hall below was deserted. Everyone was in the ballroom where the action was, as Nathaniel led the way down. Melanie felt dazed, as if she’d been drinking. The floor tipped and shimmied beneath her feet, and she clung to the only thing that seemed solid and real: Nathaniel Raven.
The notion was so ironic that she actually giggled.
The Raven gave her his charming smile. Nothing appeared to bother him, apart from…
The humor drained out of her.
“How did Major Pengorren know I was there? He did know, didn’t he?”
Nathaniel looked up at her—they were near the bottom of the staircase, and she’d stopped a couple of steps above him. “I have no idea,” he admitted.
“He was so good-looking and yet…”
“And yet,” Nathaniel agreed, and that strange undercurrent was in his voice again.
“Why did you bring me here to see that? Why did you make me listen?”
“So that you could know my enemy.” He wasn’t smiling now.
“Pengorren? Why do I need to know him, Nathaniel? What is it to do with me?”
His eyes were more gold than hazel, and there was something very compelling about them. About him.
He leaned closer, further impressing his presence upon her. It was quite amazing, really—whereas Major Pengorren had made her feel cold and squirmy, Nathaniel Raven made her hot and squirmy. Although both, she told herself primly, were equally unwelcome.
“This is my last Yuletide Ball at Ravenswood. Soon it will be my turn to be laid in the ground, although the manner of my death means I won’t be allowed to join my family in the Raven crypt. My grave will lie outside the church boundary.”
“That’s all very sad, but I—”
“I have been given a chance to change history. To save myself and my family. To save Ravenswood.”
“That’s not possible!”
“It is. But to make it happen I have to find a way to defeat Major Pengorren,” he went on. “You saw what he’s like. Such evil can’t be allowed to triumph.”
Melanie blinked. What he was saying was so bizarre she wanted to reject it out of hand, but she couldn’t. She’d seen for herself. That was why, she realized, she’d been forced to come, so that she had no choice but to believe.
“You must help me. The queen says you’re the only one who can.”
But Melanie knew her limitations. She was a solicitor. She made lists. She didn’t battle evil.
“I’m sorry,” she said, gently but firmly. “It’s out of the question.”
What did he have to do to convince her? Nathaniel had never felt so frustrated with a woman. There was only one thing for it. The “better man” speech. It had always worked in the past. He assumed his most sincere face.
“Are you all right?” she said unhelpfully. “You look like you have a stomachache.”
“Melanie, I need your help to succeed. Perhaps I’m not worthy of that help, yet, but I am trying. I want you to teach me to be a better man. Must I beg?” he finished, letting his voice drop into a heart-wrenching whisper.
Ah, he had her now! She was gazing up at him with her big blue eyes, no doubt dreaming of turning him into her tame pussycat. He should have remembered before that women liked to believe they alone had the power to change men. And the more badly behaved the man, the more the challenge, and the better they liked it.
Melanie took a breath and let it out slowly. “If you want to be a better man, then I suggest you go and join the Red Cross, or Amnesty International, or the Lost Dogs’ Home. Don’t ask me to do it; believe me, we’d both end up in tears.”
Nathaniel narrowed his eyes. He’d been too optimistic. Melanie Jones was not like other women, so none of the usual tactics would work on her. What in God’s name was he meant to do?
“We have to work together,” he cried in frustration. “We have no choice.”
“No,” she said baldly. And then, jabbing her finger into his chest, “Under no circumstances whatsoever.”
She spun around and walked away.
Seven
Melanie chanced a glance behind her. He was still following, his tall dark figure just a few paces back. She knew she should be frightened, but the tingling running through her wasn’t just fear. The Raven was obviously a man of action, with a great deal of brawn and very little brain. A hero in battle, but a danger to himself and others in peacetime. Which was probably why he came to such a tragic end.
But that wasn’t making her tingle. It was the way he’d been watching her; as if he wanted to pounce but was holding himself back. As if he was in control of the situation, no matter what she thought. With his smooth charm and knowing eyes, with his easy grace and his long, lean body, he was exactly the type of man who frightened her the most. Because she knew she was vulnerable to him. How could she trust him? How could she trust herself? Work to
gether! She’d found it difficult to be in the same room with him.
Even if it means making him a better man?
She was tempted…what was it about the female need to turn a bad boy around? But Nathaniel Raven was well beyond her experience, and she’d be a fool to believe otherwise.
Melanie looked up. There it was, silhouetted against the moon.
St. Anne’s Hill.
The place where this nightmare began. Now it seemed as good a place as any if she wanted to find her way back home.
Once outside the grounds of Ravenswood, Melanie started to run, and once she’d started running, she couldn’t seem to stop. The ground was hard and frosty beneath her feet as she crossed the fields, and it annoyed her when Nathaniel Raven didn’t seem to have any trouble keeping up. She felt like a madwoman, everything spinning out of control, when being in control was what she desperately craved.
Why me? Why is this happening to me? Why did the queen of the between-worlds choose me?
“Will you stop running!” Nathaniel Raven sounded as if he was losing control, too. “I am not going to hurt you, Miss Jones. Whatever you may think of me, I am a gentleman.”
“You mean the sort of gentleman who robs people at gunpoint and wears a mask?”
As if on cue the moonlight dimmed, and Melanie looked up to see large clouds gliding in. Snow clouds. Soon it would be too cold to stroll in the gardens, and the guests would retreat to the house. Felicity, the merry widow, and pretty Sophie, who was so upset that her mother was marrying Major Pengorren, and Nathaniel, who would soon be shot dead and wanted her to help him become a better man…
There was a sound at her back, one she remembered all too well. With a whimper she turned and saw it bounding along behind her, ears flopping, tongue flapping from the big jaws. The black hound.
“Teth!” Nathaniel Raven was calling it to heel, but the hound ignored him. It ran right up to her and then did a circle around her.
Melanie tried to avoid bumping into it by side-stepping, and ended up slipping on the steep slope. She fell to her knees, and the hound promptly pounced on her, his hairy face pushed up against hers, his tongue wet and hot and rough as it laved her skin.
“Is he real, too?” Melanie said breathlessly, trying to push the hound away.
Teth’s tail was wagging furiously.
“I don’t know what he is. He comes from the between-worlds. Some sort of demon, probably,” he added darkly, as Teth made another lunge for Melanie. She shrieked, shielding her face from the slobbering tongue.
“Heel!” Nathaniel grabbed the hound around the body, struggling to drag him away from Melanie. She collapsed on the hillside and watched him trying to subdue the overexcited animal. His fine clothes were rumpled and muddied, his neckcloth was array, and his hair was coming loose from the ribbon at his nape.
Suddenly, Nathaniel Raven looked very vulnerable.
Eventually, he wrestled Teth into submission and sank down on the ground beside her with a groan. After a moment, the ridiculousness of the situation seemed to strike him, his mouth quirked up, and he rolled his eyes. “Sorry. Teth has a mind of his own.”
“It’s not funny.”
“He likes you,” Nathaniel said, puzzled, as if the reason for this escaped him. Teth stirred again, and he fixed him with a steely eye. “Behave. Sit.” The hound decided to obey him and sat quietly, panting. Satisfied, Nathaniel climbed to his feet and reached out his hand to Melanie. It was done in such a confident, companionable manner that Melanie found she had given her own hand without even thinking about it. He helped her back onto her feet with the same easy grace with which he did everything.
“Is it true? What you said?” Melanie asked, looking up at him, her breath a white mist in the cold darkness. “About changing history?”
“Yes.”
“You mean you can actually go back and rearrange it to suit yourself?”
“Not exactly,” he said dryly. “The theory is that if I discover how to stop Pengorren, the queen of the between-worlds will allow me to return to the past, save my family and myself, and we can all live happily ever after.” He sounded faintly amused, but she couldn’t see what he was really feeling because he was looking away from her, and she couldn’t read the expression in his eyes.
“Are you telling me the truth?”
That made him look. “Yes, I am.” His hazel eyes were full of frank honesty, his dark lashes as long as any girl’s. “I have this one chance, Melanie, to do what’s right.” He no longer sounded like an actor in a bad play. He sounded like a desperate man on a quest who genuinely needed her help.
“It’s more than most people get.”
“I know this must seem very strange to you—”
She gave a choking half laugh at the understatement. He squeezed her fingers in sympathy, and she realized he was still holding her hand.
“Help me,” he said, looking straight at her, nothing in his face but honest need. “Please.”
Melanie felt something inside her shift and open up. Something warm and tender, and completely outside her control. She knew then that she was going to say yes. No matter how insane and irrational and frightening it was, she was going to agree.
“I’ll help you.”
Nathaniel gave her a slow, satisfied smile and, lifting her hand to his mouth, kissed it. Just like in her dream, Melanie felt his touch right down to the tips of her toes. Embarrassed at her own reaction, she shook off his grip and resumed her climb to the top of St. Anne’s Hill. He fell into step beside her, Teth trotting behind them. Melanie hid a smile at the picture they must make.
Just an ordinary family outing.
The standing stone loomed up in front of her.
The thought of going back through it, of those dark, damp tunnels of the between-worlds and the scuttling things that lived down there…Maybe she whimpered again, because he reached out and brushed her cheek lightly with the backs of his fingers.
“It won’t be as bad this time. You’ll go straight through the stone and arrive back in your own century.”
“No between-worlds?” she asked quietly, feeling the urge to cling to him and resisting.
“No between-worlds.” He gave her his confident smile. But Melanie wasn’t so easily persuaded, and she had serious doubts about Nathaniel Raven’s ability to tell the truth.
“But why not? I don’t understand.”
His smile didn’t waver. “Because I have arranged it so.”
There was something he wasn’t telling her. Melanie tried to read his face, but this time it was expressionless. She turned to the stone, tall and dark and ominous, and took a step forward. Her shoe was loose, and she stopped and bent down to tie the lace, doing the other one at the same time, just to put off the awful moment when she’d have to make that leap into God-knew-what.
When she straightened, Nathaniel was watching her. He was standing with his hands in his pockets, looking as if he were a scientist observing some curious alien life-form.
“That’s not very flattering,” Melanie said.
“What’s not very flattering?”
“The way you’re staring.”
He grinned. “I was trying to decide what your clothing signifies.” He took a hand from his pocket and brushed the I fought a bull and won with one long finger. The words just happened to lie on the part of the sweatshirt that covered the upper curve of her breast, and Melanie felt his touch like an electric jolt.
“You’re not wearing a corset,” he said, loud enough to make Teth bark. He looked so surprised she almost laughed.
“No, corsets aren’t in anymore.”
“In?”
“Fashionable. We burned our corsets years ago. Us modern women prefer our comfort.”
“Then what do you wear?” There was a sudden gleam in his eye that made her very nervous.
“I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“I’m a connoisseur of women’s undergarments,” he offered, b
ut he was flirting. At a time like this.
“Not mine, you’re not,” Melanie said, and turned her attention, and his, back to the stone. “Should I say something?” She waved her hand at the hole through the middle.
“There’s no need. Just crawl through.”
But still she hesitated. There was a shudder inside her, and probably a scream or two, but she refused to let them out. He knew, though.
“Don’t worry,” he said, in that deep and persuasive voice that made her begin to tingle all over. “I promise I won’t let anything happen to you. You have my word, Melanie. The word of a Raven.”
The word of a Raven?
“I want to believe you,” she murmured. “I really do.”
But you’re such a liar.
Melanie took a deep breath and plunged her arm through the hole. As that awful dizzy blackness flapped at the edges of her mind, something occurred to her. She turned her head and tried to find him.
“How will we work together if you’re here and I’m there?” What she really wanted to ask was: Will I ever see you again?
“Trust me.”
She laughed, but something like grief weighed heavy on her heart. She began her crawl through the middle of the stone, the pounding in her head too loud for any last good-byes. Anyway, she told herself miserably, it was for the best. How would she have explained Nathaniel to her friends and relatives? And he would have been bad for her, very very bad…But as she fell sickeningly through to the other side, she felt someone’s hands fasten on to her ankles.
Startled, frightened, she tried to kick him off—she knew who it was. But he held on to her. And then it was too late, and she was tumbling down into darkness, into nothing. Waiting for the jolt that never happened.
A moment later she opened her eyes and found the sky bright with morning sun.
Far overhead a jet droned.
Melanie laughed, because it was the most wonderful sight she had ever seen.
And then a face blotted out the jet.
“See, I promised you I wouldn’t let anything happen to you,” said Nathaniel Raven.
Eight
Her upside-down position made her dizzy, or maybe it was Nathaniel Raven who made her feel that way.
Immortal Warriors 02 - Secrets of the Highwayman Page 5
