Nathaniel liked her answer. He bent and kissed the top of her head. Melanie Jones had just succeeded in removing every other woman he had ever known from his memory. Who would have believed it? He was still trying to get his breath back. He cupped her breast, thoroughly enjoying the sensation of her smooth, full flesh in his hand. He’d wanted her since the moment he saw her; he’d felt the pull of attraction between them like the tug of a rope. Yes, he’d had reservations, but they had more to do with the fact that she was from now and he was from before, and that he had so little time to solve the mystery of Pengorren. He’d never doubted they would make wonderful love together.
He just hadn’t realized quite how wonderful.
She tilted her head and looked up at him, and her blue eyes were so bright they were almost luminous. For a moment he found it impossible to look away from them. From her. He took a breath and closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, the intensity had dimmed a little.
“Nathaniel?” she whispered, and shifted against him. Wherever her body touched his skin seemed to tingle, his blood to heat up. He felt himself rapidly getting hard again.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said quietly, and bent his mouth to hers.
The spark ignited, turning into instant fireworks.
Melanie straddled him in the water, the tips of her breasts brushing his chest. With her short fair hair and slanting eyes, she looked almost otherworldly. An angel fallen to earth. Or maybe not, he decided, as her smile turned wicked and sensual. She reached between them and stroked the hard length of him.
Nathaniel groaned. He hadn’t had a woman in almost two hundred years, but he’d be perfectly happy if he never had another one. Apart from Melanie. As she slid down over his body, using her tongue and her mouth, he just hoped he could survive what she had in mind for him next, without dying of pleasure.
Mr. Trewartha wasn’t a sentimental man, far from it, but he had a few keepsakes from his past. A few mementoes. He had loved few people, but he loved his collection of antiques, and he loved his life.
There was one watercolor miniature he was particularly fond of. Awkwardly, he opened the case, holding the portrait up to the light.
She had really captured the look of him. She had talent, certainly, but as with most women it had been frittered away with self-destructive behavior. Time had taken care of the rest. Sadly, he’d fallen out of love with her quite soon after they’d met.
No use feeling guilty about it, it was just the way things happened.
Mr. Trewartha closed the metal case and slipped the chain back over his head. He shut his eyes, suddenly feeling very tired. So much to do. He’d have to ring the Jones woman again and let her know when he was coming. There were things she needed to hear, things he needed to tell her.
Before it was too late.
Twenty-two
Nathaniel was still sleeping. Melanie smiled. Raven, the infamous highwayman, the daring and reckless heir to Ravenswood, was in her bed.
His face was turned from her so that she could only see the line of his cheek and his jaw, where his stubble was growing through more gold than brown. Ruefully, she felt the whisker burn on her own face and decided the most important thing Nathaniel needed to do this morning was shave.
There was a scar, high up in his hairline, almost out of sight. She hadn’t noticed it before, but now she gently pushed back his hair and examined the white and puckered evidence of a serious injury. This must be the head wound he’d received in Spain during the ambush, in which he had been incapacitated so badly he’d had to return home to England.
His hand was resting on the white sheet, and Melanie touched the silver signet ring with her fingertip. She tried to make out the design, but the ring was worn, and the early-morning light in the bedroom was dim.
What was the time?
After their bath last night, they’d gone downstairs to the kitchen, and she’d made omelets with whatever could be found in the Eddie-stocked fridge. Then they’d opened a bottle of wine and complemented it with a shared chocolate bar she’d brought with her. She remembered his lips had tasted of chocolate and almonds when he’d kissed her. Soon after that, they’d gone to bed and made love again, lighting up the darkness with the colored lights in her head.
Melanie sat up, trying not to wake him as she moved from the bed, and began to dress. Outside, yesterday’s storm was long gone and there was a breathtaking line of gold across the horizon as the sun came up, like a celestial apology.
As she pulled on her hip-hugging black jeans, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and froze, startled. Despite the shadows in the room she seemed almost to…glow. As if she was lit from within. Skin, hair, her eyes, somehow everything was more…Well, just more.
Melanie stepped closer to the shadowy mirror, touching her cheek, frowning into her own eyes. She certainly looked very healthy. The lines that had begun to appear over recent years seemed to have suddenly vanished. Her lips were fuller, her hair glossier, her body more curved, and yet she was as slim as ever. She looked like some sleek, dangerous jungle cat.
“Don’t be stupid. I know he was good, but that wasn’t the elixir of life he was injecting into you. Or maybe it was…” Even her voice was different, pitched slightly lower so that it sounded huskier, sexier.
Swiftly, Melanie turned away from her reflection, dragging a black sweater over her head and running her fingers through her hair to comb it. She remembered at the last moment not to let the door slam, closing it gently behind her. Once outside on the landing, she took a deep breath, and then another. All her doubts and fears came rushing back.
She had never been like that with a man before. Not that she regretted what had happened between them, far from it, but she didn’t understand it. And Melanie was someone who wanted to understand, who needed to understand, in order to feel secure.
For instance, how was it that she was suddenly feeling like a different person? Was buttoned-down, control-freak Melanie breaking out? Or was it just that the real Melanie, the Melanie who had been waiting inside her all these years, had finally decided to take her turn at the wheel?
Or, more frightening still, was this something to do with Pengorren? Was he changing her? Remaking her in his image? The idea was terrifying and made her sick to her stomach.
She stumbled down the stairs and found her cell phone in the kitchen, and with trembling fingers she rang Suzie’s number.
“Be home, please be home, please…”
It was answered on the second ring.
“Hiya?”
“Suzie. Oh Suzie.”
“Melanie?”
“Yes, it’s me.”
There was a pause, then a strangely cautious—for Suzie—“What’s up?”
“Nothing. That is, everything, but I wanted to ask you…I thought you might know…Oh God, you’ll think I’m a nut.”
“Try me.”
“You used to go on those crazy weekends to Glastonbury and…and Avebury. You must have heard about things…strange things, out-of-this-world things. Time travel and possession and spells and—”
“Whoa there, hang on. You’re covering a lot of ground. Why are you asking me to tell you this, now, after all these years?” And then she spoke again and her voice was deeper, more serious. “What’s happening down there in Cornwall, Melanie?”
Melanie forced herself to calm down, to think.
“I’ve started seeing things,” she said slowly. “Things that haven’t happened yet, or that happened a long time ago. I don’t know. Things that aren’t really, physically, there.”
I can travel through time.
“You’re having visions, you mean? Premonitions?”
“I don’t know what they are.”
She could hear her own breathing over the phone, as if she’d been jogging, and tried to control it. She wiped her palms on the thighs of her jeans, one at a time, changing the phone from hand to hand. “I don’t know, Suzie, that’s why I’m asking.”
“You’d better tell me exactly what you did see.”
“A tree in the park falling down during a storm, and then it did fall down. There was a storm yesterday and it—”
“Hang on, slow down…There was a storm,” Suzie said encouragingly.
“There’s a man. No,” she said, before Suzie could interrupt, “not like that. At least, not that man…”
Major Pengorren and his strangely dazzling appearance, drawing people in, making them love him despite his repulsive actions. He had convinced everyone, apart from Nathaniel, that he was handsome and trustworthy, and even Nathaniel hadn’t been all that suspicious at first.
“People find him irresistible. But he’s not, Suzie, he’s horrible. He’s cruel and manipulative. He’s so good at getting his own way, and he seems to be able to make them see what he wants them to see rather than what’s really there. It’s like he’s wearing a mask, and behind it he’s laughing. How can he do that, Suzie?”
“Go back in history and take your pick, Melanie. Some people have such a powerful aura that they can blind others to their real selves, and they’re just naturally good at manipulation.”
“I know what you’re saying and…and…I know you’re right. But this is different, Suzie, it really is. I almost feel as if he’s able to cast some sort of, well, magic spell on everyone around him.”
She’d said it again. Magic spell. Now Suzie would pronounce her completely insane. She could hear herself breathing heavily again, as she waited for the laughter.
“Well, that is a possibility,” Suzie spoke at last, thoughtfully, as if this topic of conversation were nothing unusual to her. “There are spells. Magic has been used before to control people although how effectively I can’t say. I don’t know enough about it.”
Melanie was the one who covered her mouth and tried not to laugh hysterically.
Suzie went on, a little dreamily now, “Hmm, I’d have to have a think about it. It’s a long time since I was going through my mystic period, remember.”
“How could I forget?” But Melanie had tears in her eyes. “You must think I’m completely off my head, and though it’s a possibility, I don’t think I am. And that’s what’s really scaring me.”
“This is the first time you’ve asked my advice on anything since you were five. No, make that nine, when that creep came onto you at the beach.”
In the silence Melanie could feel her heart beating hard, and now she could hear Suzie breathing over the phone.
“What made you say that?” Melanie finally asked, and her voice was small.
“I don’t know. I was thinking about it the other day. It just popped into my head. Is it…relevant? Melanie…?”
But she knew it was, Melanie could hear the dead certainty in her voice. Suzie already knew exactly where the problem lay.
Pengorren.
“Melanie, it was after that creep at the beach that your imagination started to become a problem.”
“Was it?”
“Yep, I remember. The night we arrived home from the beach, you woke up screaming because someone was standing at the end of your bed. Then you learned to stop the visions, didn’t you? That’s when the headaches started coming instead. You know, I’m not surprised the visions are coming back. Cornwall is a strange and mystic place; there are some very old sites down there. Maybe you’ve tapped into one of them…”
“I can’t talk anymore.” And she didn’t want to. She’d already said too much, involving her sister in things she should not be involved in. Maybe even placing her in danger.
“Why not?” Suzie sounded surprised and a little annoyed. “What have I said, Melanie? You can’t shut me out now.”
“No, I…” Melanie cast around for a reason, gabbling in a very uncharacteristic way. “Someone’s coming, and I don’t want him to hear me.”
“Someone? Who’s there? Not the man you were just talking about?” Suzie said in a hard voice, sounding more like her big sister than she had for years.
“No, not him. Nathaniel.”
“Nathaniel?” Suzie repeated, the name rising at the end. “Who the hell is Nathaniel? Sounds like the hero in a BBC costume drama.”
Melanie choked back laughter. “If only you knew. Look, I’m sorry, I’ll ring you back. Soon. I promise.”
“Melanie—”
But she’d already ended the call. For a moment she stood, staring at her cell phone, listening to the words replaying in her head. Spells. Magic. Two men who could travel through time—Nathaniel and Pengorren—one who was a dream and the other the stuff of nightmares. But Melanie had traveled through time, too, and she was still traveling. They were linked together, the three of them. Chained together. And Melanie was beginning to believe it was she who held the key.
The key to time?
“Who were you talking to?”
Melanie jumped. Nathaniel’s voice came from close behind her. She took a moment to steady herself, arranging her face into a smile, before she turned to face him.
He had retied his hair with the ribbon, and she could see that beneath the stubble his handsome face was pale and taut, with dark shadows beneath his watchful eyes. Didn’t he trust her? After last night? After all the words he’d spoken? Or was it just her prickly manner that was making him suspicious.
They were in this together, Melanie reminded herself. There was no need to keep anything from him. It was just habit that was making her so cautious now, a habit she was going to have to break where Nathaniel was concerned.
“My sister,” Melanie said, with a shrug. “She’s a bit fey, and I thought she might be able to help, in a general way.”
“And can she?”
Melanie smiled. “Maybe. It was strange, but she mentioned that day on the beach, the one I told you about, when I first saw Pengorren. We’ve never talked about it, not since it happened. Why would she suddenly mention it now? How did she know I was thinking about it, now?”
He didn’t move, watching her.
“My sister believes in all the things I used to scoff about. She has no trouble accepting paranormal events. Seeing a ghost, or walking ley lines, or pagan ceremonies on hilltops during midwinter, they’re as everyday to her as strolling down to the shops for milk and bread. Or at least, they used to be. She’s more conventional now. Not like me. I was born conventional, and I always wanted it that way. I hated anything supernatural, anything I couldn’t explain. I hated thinking there might be things I couldn’t see, watching me from the shadows. Ironic, isn’t it? Since I’ve been here all I’ve done is chase shadows.”
He let her wind down. “Sometimes we avoid those things that we know are a threat to us. If you have the ability to see visions, and it frightens you, then it is understandable that you dislike the supernatural and that you wish to avoid it.”
“Yes.” She sighed.
“Melanie, did you tell your sister about me?”
“Why?”
Nathaniel gave his half smile. “I am averse to being locked up.”
“Oh. No, I didn’t tell her. At least, I mentioned your name, but not what you are…who you are.” That was true, anyway. Maybe Suzie would forget about him. Yeah, thought Melanie, and Pengorren was a faery godfather come to grant her every wish.
Nathaniel held out his hand. “Come. I want to see the big oak tree that fell in the park.”
She had work to do, she had a job and commitments, she had a future with the firm of Foyle, Haddock and Williams. But even as she automatically listed her priorities, Melanie accepted that they were no longer important to her.
She was caught up in a genuine struggle for life and death, and it put lists of chipped crockery and possible sightings of a Chippendale chair in the shade. Nathaniel needed her, and she needed him.
Melanie placed her hand in his and felt his fingers close possessively. He was looking down at her, and although he said nothing, his eyes did. They said: We belong together.
Twenty-three
; Her skin was warm and soft, and there was a vibration that ran up his arm as he made contact with her. Nathaniel was uncertain just how much of this was sheer physical attraction and how much was something else. Something new. Something he should be concerned about.
She was dazzlingly beautiful. Her eyes burned like lanterns, and when he looked at her he actually felt breathless with his desire to possess her. Utterly. Not that he hadn’t wanted her before, because he had, but now it was so strong it was almost like a separate force outside them both. He’d lusted after women in the past, but not like this. Never like this.
The sun was shining when they stepped outside, and her hair seemed to capture the light until it sparkled. Even her eyelashes shone as if they had been tipped in gold.
His mouth went dry, and Nathaniel forced himself to look away. Instead, he focused on the devastation wrought by the storm. Not that there was much he could do about that; Ravenswood wasn’t his anymore, and the days when he could order his servants about were gone. He should have appreciated what he had when he had it rather than throwing it all away in an act of impulsive insanity.
Pengorren had been too strong for him, too cunning. Nathaniel understood that now, and he was also beginning to understand that if he was ever to go back and relive those moments again, he would first have to learn how to defeat Pengorren. He’d have to learn what made Pengorren weak.
Water dripped on them from the drooping foliage, and the soft ground was littered with the sticks and small branches that had been shredded by the wind and rain. A thrush began to sing, and a rabbit stared at them from the protection of some bracken before vanishing into the shadows. They picked their way cautiously through the devastation.
The fallen tree was ancient and as enormous as Melanie knew it would be. In its death throes it had taken several smaller trees down, too, as well as numerous branches and a blizzard of leaves. The tree lay broken and blasted, the black scorch marks from the lightning clearly visible upon the trunk—the pungent smell of burning was still in the air.
Immortal Warriors 02 - Secrets of the Highwayman Page 17
