Harlequin E Shivers Box Set Volume 4: The HeadmasterDarkness UnchainedForget Me NotQueen of Stone

by Tiffany Reisz

  I supposed it was the thought of Eddie Jago and the parasitic demon we shared that had brought me to this cliff edge and the point where he had disappeared all those years ago. I sat on the damp grass with my arms around my knees, my thoughts tortured. The burgeoning night dripped icy fingers of rain onto my bowed head and soaked through the thin cotton of my dress. I wanted to curl up on my bed and cry forever more. I wanted never to wake and have to face a life without Uther.

  “Annie! I thought I could see a figure out here from the gatehouse window. What in God’s name are you doing out on a filthy evening like this?” The wind whipped the words from Nicca’s lips and flung them high into the rain-lashed sky. I looked up at him and tried to speak, but no sound would come. Something in my face must have told him of my torment, however, because he swept me up into his arms as if I was a frightened child. Kicking open the gatehouse door, he marched up the stairs with me cradled against his chest and deposited me on a sofa close to the blazing fire.

  “Get out of those wet clothes,” he ordered, stoking up the flames. When I didn’t move, he added, “Do it, Annie, or I’ll come over there and strip them off myself. There is a blanket there that you can use to cover yourself with.” A smile lit the depths of his eyes. “This may come as a shock to you, but my motives are solely concerned with your health and have nothing whatsoever to do with any overwhelming desire I may have to see you naked.”

  I gave a shaky laugh, which broke in the middle and turned into a storm of weeping so violent I couldn’t stop it. Nicca drew me into his arms and held me close until his strength and warmth quieted me. When I had sat there on that cliff in the rain, I suppose I wished for this. A shoulder so strong, I could cry on it all day if I wanted to. That was what he gave me. Gradually, the story came tumbling out of me in a series of great whooshing gasps. All of it. Every sordid, sorry, damning word.

  “Even now, part of me wants to say ‘Fok, I will marry him anyway.’ How can I feel that way, Nicca? Rudi is my brother…” I felt the tears sting again, and I closed my eyes. “I don’t want to make excuses for my behaviour, to try to convince you that I have been under some sort of a spell.”

  Nicca didn’t reply. He just handed me a towel to dry my hair and I used it gratefully. “Now the clothes,” he said again, unfolding the blanket and holding it out to me. “I’ll leave you alone while I make a hot drink.”

  When he came back, I sat huddled in the depths of the blanket as my clothes steamed before the fire. Nicca held out a cup of mulled wine and I took it automatically, staring into the ruby depths. “Drink it,” he ordered.

  Obediently, I took a mouthful and then choked slightly as the fumes caught in the back of my throat. Gradually, I stopped shivering. “You were right about Uther. He did kill Rory,” I said, not looking at him.

  “It doesn’t make me happy to be proved right about that,” he replied gently, coming to sit next to me on the sofa.

  I took another sip of the wine, shuddering as its warmth coursed through my chilled blood. I kept my eyes lowered. “This darkness…” I didn’t know how to continue under that steady blue gaze. It seemed so foolish to try to talk of the supernatural to Nicca. And how could I possibly begin to explain the erotic ties that bound me to Uther?

  “Tristan spoke to me of it. He called it the Jago Legacy,” he said, and I risked looking up. His eyes were on my face. “He seemed to feel you might need my help at some point in the near future. Explain it to me, Annie.”

  “I’ll try, but some of it is quite bizarre. Ever since Rudi and I can remember, we have known about Tenebris. We didn’t know where it was, or what it was called, but we both saw—I mean had a mental picture of—a house on a cliff, and we knew that it was somehow linked to a very old castle. We also sometimes saw the castle on fire.” I paused to gauge his reaction. That direct blue gaze didn’t waver. “Even clearer than those images, however, was the image we had of a man. A man called Uther.” I drained the last of the wine and shuddered as the bitter tannins scorched my tongue. “Rudi can draw, so we knew we were seeing the same things when he put his thoughts down on paper. When we came to Cornwall, we came in search of information about our father. We had no idea that we would find Tenebris, or Uther.”

  “So that’s what you were doing in the garden when we first…met.” A smile touched the depths of his eyes. “Don’t worry, the bruises have nearly all gone now.”

  I bit my lip at the reminder of my knee connecting hard with his groin. “I didn’t tell you why I was there because it made me sound so odd.” I hadn’t known then, of course, how much stranger it would all become. “Then I met Uther.”

  “And you fell in love with him. At first sight.”

  I had been looking into the fire, but I turned my head at that, my brow wrinkling in concentration. “But it was much more than that,” I said.

  I had replayed the day I met Uther so many times in my mind that recalling those emotions allowed me to experience them all over again. I felt the same frisson of surprise thrill through me as I recognised him, followed by an instant, insistent tug of attraction. But Nicca was wrong. It wasn’t love at first sight. The catalyst was Tenebris. When we rode up to the house and glimpsed it together, that was when it happened. And our first kiss, of course, had caused a fundamental, soul-deep change to take place inside us both. That was when something had—entered my body? Taken possession of my emotions?—made me into a different person. Someone I couldn’t like. Although my thoughts screamed inside my head, the room was silent except for the crackling of the fire.

  “It’s so hard to explain because it’s so hard to believe,” I said with a helpless gesture. “It is as if Uther and I are inside each other’s heads. We each own the other’s body. But there is something else as well, something very dark and…” I searched for a suitable word, but there was only one. “Sinister. And I‘m afraid that it won’t let me go.”

  “But you said that the synergy for these feelings comes from Tenebris, so perhaps, if you leave here, you can also leave the feelings behind,” Nicca observed. “One thing is certain, you have to get Rudi away from here. Tonight.” It was an echo of what Tristan had said. Had that really only been hours earlier?

  I tried to shake off the trancelike state that still held me in its grip. “Uther will follow us.”

  “I know he has already killed once for the title, and that he has made this attempt on Rudi’s life. Do you really think he would come after your brother and make another attempt?”

  “Yes. But he will also because of what I have just said about the darkness that has entered us both. Because of me. Uther will not be able to live without me.” I wasn’t being dramatic. I was stating a fact. Would I be able to live without him? That was a question to be answered another day.

  “Then we must go somewhere where I can keep you both safe.”

  I wanted to hug him for using the word we. For making himself part of my problems after the way I had treated him.

  “There is only one place where we can guarantee that,” I said, standing up and reaching out a hand for my clothes. “And it’s a long journey.”

  “We’d better get started then, hadn’t we? And Annie?” I turned to look at him. “What I said about seeing you naked? I was trying to be chivalrous, but I am only human. Perhaps it might be best if you covered up a little?”

  Glancing down, I realised that the blanket had slipped and come to rest just above my nipples. Blushing, I muttered an apology and hauled the offending item up, gripping it tightly around my shoulders.

  Chapter Nine

  I stood on the deck of the lavender-hulled, red-funnelled ship, looking down on the bustling Southampton quayside. Behind me, a pastel-hued poster depicted elegant passengers laughing as they drank cocktails on deck. In flowing script, it bore the legend “South Africa in just seventeen days.”

  “The best thing about being a twin is not having to make apologies,” Rudi had told me in a voice made gruff with emotion. He patted my head aw
kwardly as I sobbed an unintelligible explanation into his shoulder. Because of our shared experiences as children and our closeness, he was able to accept what I was saying without demur. Or perhaps it was exhaustion that meant he did not question my halting account. Finty had followed my instructions with admirable precision, but Rudi, though conscious, was pale and drawn.

  “You’ve been lucky,” Nicca told him.

  “Yes, it feels like it,” Rudi replied with a weak grin.

  “I mean that Uther has not had much time to administer the poison, and he has been quite cautious with the dose so as not raise any major alarms. The last thing he would want is for you to die after the first application and for Tristan to turn up waving his letter. I’m convinced his plan was to perpetuate the myth of you as a sickly youth who fell ill in a foreign land.”

  I bit my lip. “And I helped him by confirming it.”

  “Then, of course, his plans were interrupted when he had to dash off to London following the arrival of Wilson’s letter, so he hasn’t been able to continue to give you a daily dose of arsenic. I think that is why the emetic that Annie suggested to Finty has worked so well and so quickly. I’m not a doctor, but I predict a full recovery.” Nicca studied Rudi’s pallid countenance. “Are you well enough to travel? It’s imperative to get away from here immediately”—his eyes flickered to me—“for many reasons. But it’s a long journey to South Africa.”

  “Do you know, in spite of everything, I will be sorry to leave. It has felt like home to me. But, yes, I can travel, and it will be good to see Ouma again.”

  “We can liaise with Tristan from there, once we’ve found out if your birth certificate and your parents’ marriage certificate still exist,” Nicca explained, pulling Rudi’s suitcase out of a cupboard. “Annie, you’d better go and start packing.” I roused myself from my stupor and moved obediently toward the door. “Finty, I suggest you go and pack, too. You should take Tristan up on his offer to stay with him in London until this is over.”

  “Rudi is not going anywhere without me,” Finty said. I had never seen that expression on Finty’s face before. I was surprised to realise that she could actually look stubborn. “I’m coming to South Africa with you.”

  “This has the potential to turn into a farce,” Nicca commented to me in a whisper, but even he seemed impressed by Finty’s newfound steel. “You have half an hour to pack everything you need, and if you aren’t ready, we’ll go without you,” he warned her.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  We departed Tenebris early the next morning, and ever since the subsequent strange predawn drive through the English countryside and our arrival in this brisk port, I had been trying to shake off my dreamy mood. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. Nicca had taken charge. He was Major Jago once more. It was he who had gone to the Union Castle offices, he who had emerged with tickets for two first-class cabins, he who had seen our luggage carried aboard. He who had taken my arm and escorted me, numb and unresisting, up the gangplank.

  But it was all nonsense. Of course, it was. What was I doing on this ship? I couldn’t just turn tail and go home. I had to get back to Uther. It would only take me a matter of hours to reach London, and once I was in his arms, I knew he would convince me that this really was just a nightmare. The ship was due to sail in under an hour. Nicca was nowhere to be seen, and Rudi and Finty were too wrapped up in each other to notice what I was doing. Now was as good a time as any. It was almost too easy to slip back down the gangplank and mingle with the crowds on the quayside. I walked quickly, head down, away from the waterfront. Once away from the crowds, I would ask for directions to the train station. As I hurried past the front entrance of a bank, fate dealt me a cruel blow. Nicca emerged, counting a roll of banknotes.

  “Annie!” His voice had the easy, carrying quality of a seasoned army officer, and although I tried to dart down a side alley, his height allowed him to see over the heads of the other people around us. He was able to follow me and corner me easily. “What’s wrong? Why have you left the ship? Good God, Annie, you’re shaking like a leaf!”

  I leaned against the wall, drawing in great needy breaths of air. The words came out in a rush. “I can’t do it, Nicca. I can’t go.… This is ridiculous. I love Uther. He wouldn’t do these awful things. I haven’t given him a chance to explain.” I tried to duck under his arm to get away from him.

  “Look.” He thrust under my nose the newspaper he was carrying. The article, on the second page, was short and succinct.

  Foul Play Suspected in Tobacconist’s Death

  Fire Officers were called to a fire at Wilson’s Tobacconist Shop in Putney High Street in the early hours of Saturday morning. When the blaze was brought under control some hours later, a man’s body was discovered in the upstairs flat. He was identified as Arthur Wilson, aged 38, the shop’s proprietor. Police were called when it was discovered that Mr Wilson died of stab wounds and the fire appeared to have been set deliberately.

  “No,” I whispered as if saying it could somehow make it true. “Wilson is a common name.”

  “I’ve been to Wilson’s shop, Annie. It’s in the Putney High Street.” Nicca kept his eyes on my face. “And you said yourself that Wilson was increasing the pressure on Uther. This explains Uther’s urgent business in London.”

  Nicca’s voice in my ears was muted. At the same time, clear as day, in my mind I heard Uther’s words reassuring me, “I love you with all the insanity my soul can contain.” Without thinking, I pushed past Nicca and ran.

  Behind me, Nicca swore, then his footsteps pounded on the paving stones. I was quick, but in a crowd I was no match for him. I couldn’t drive my way through the press of people around me, whereas the throng just parted for someone of such commanding proportions as Nicca. He caught me easily and resolved the situation by picking me up and throwing me over his shoulder. A few people threw curious looks at us, but it appeared that no one was prepared to challenge a powerfully built man of military bearing, carrying a winded, slightly stunned female toward the ship’s gangway.

  “We’ll discuss this further once we have sailed,” he said firmly. When we reached the water’s edge, he set me back on my feet. Immediately, I felt the dark thoughts crowd in on me again.

  “No, don’t put me down,” I begged urgently, clinging to his lapels.

  “I have to,” he explained. “If I carry you on board, it is going to look very odd to our fellow passengers. We’ll be the talk of the ship. Come on, Annie. They are getting ready to sail.”

  “You have to keep hold of me.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked, watching my face in confusion.

  “While you are holding me, he can’t get into my head so easily. I don’t know how it works, but it’s like you are acting as a barrier. If he can get to me, I will run again. I don’t want to, but I will. And I will say anything to get away from you Nicca. I will accuse you of trying to kill me or abduct me or rape me.” I stepped into the circle of his arms again, taking hold of his hands and placing them on my waist. Nicca obliged by tightening his grasp, and I nodded gratefully, resting my cheek against the comforting warmth of his chest. “Now talk to me. About anything.”

  “Very well. This ship is part of the Union Castle Company fleet, which was formed in 1900. The service runs like clockwork. At precisely four o’clock every Thursday, a ship leaves Southampton and, at the same time locally, another leaves Cape Town. Those two ships pass at the midway point, at sea. Just over two weeks after setting sail, the southbound ship—the one we are about to board—arrives in Cape Town. It will stay in Cape Town overnight, then sail for Port Elizabeth and then finally reach the end of the run in Durban, on the Indian Ocean. We, of course, will disembark at the final point in Durban and travel overland to your grandmother’s kraal.”

  “Good,” I said, with a shaky laugh. “Factual, but boring. Now, keep your arm around me and get me onto that ship. Force me if you have to. Keep talking to me.”

  “This ship, the A
rundel Castle, was built by the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast. She was the fifty-fourth ship to be built there since the Titanic…Oh, no, you don’t.” He used his superior strength to propel me forward as I tried to break free and run back down the gangplank. “She was launched on September 11, 1919, and her maiden voyage took her to Cape Town. Breathe deeply, Annie, we’re almost there. The first-class passenger accommodation on this ship is quite spectacular. Every cabin has a new sort of air-conditioning installed, so we don’t have to rely on the old blowing fans to keep us cool. That’s it, step onto the deck. If you wish, you can enjoy a nice afternoon dip in the indoor swimming pool, or spend it in the gymnasium. She even sports an electric lift to carry passengers between her decks.”

  I saw Rudi and Finty coming toward us, their faces mirror images of concern. The sailors were busying themselves raising the gangplanks, and excited passengers thronged the decks, waving to the friends and family who gathered on the quayside below.

  “Nicca. I can’t pretend everything’s normal. I can’t make small talk,” I pleaded.

  Nicca, acting with his usual presence of mind, swept me up into his arms. “Miss van der Merwe is feeling faint,” he explained, tipping his hat to an astonished Rudi as he strode past him. “I am taking her to her cabin so that she can rest.”

  We reached the first-class cabin that I was to share with Finty. Nicca placed me on one of the beds. I was shivering uncontrollably as if suffering from a high fever. “Don’t leave me,” I begged, grasping his wrist. “Please, Nicca. Hold me.” His face was expressionless as he lay down next to me and drew me into his strong embrace.