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

by Tiffany Reisz

  The question puzzled me, and I wrinkled my brow, hardly daring to allow a faint glimmer of hope to dawn. “Because England is your home, but also to help Rudi settle in at Tenebris. He will need people around him who can help.” I couldn’t tell him how much I hated the thought of going back to Tenebris. Even with Uther and the spirits of Arwen and Lucia gone forever, there were too many memories there for me.

  “Tristan can do that better than I ever could. And Finty may have been adopted, but she is Cad and Bouche’s daughter through and through. She knows Tenebris better than anyone, and although it pains me to say this, she will make a wonderful countess. She is going to be a great asset to Rudi, and she’ll do Bouche proud.” He was more right than he could ever know about that. I thought of Finty’s bravery in standing up to Lucia, of her determination to destroy the evil spirit who had taken possession of her body once and for all. No one else would ever know the agony she had gone through that day at the hands of the sangoma, but I would never forget the battle she fought to regain control of her own slender body or the awful sacrifice she had been forced to make to be finally rid of Lucia.

  “Is Lucia an enraged ancestor?” I had asked the sangoma, when we entered her hut on that pale early morning. Although she spoke perfect Afrikaans, I needed Jabu with me to translate when she went into a trance. That was when she spoke in the language of her ancestors. “Can she be appeased?”

  “No. The ancestors are those who have been alive and have died. Just because we cannot see them does not mean they have ceased to exist. Mostly they wish us only good. They protect and care for us. Sometimes the ancestors are angered by what we do and they punish us, like a parent watching over a child. Sometimes an ancestor may become an evil spirit and cause terrible things to happen for future generations. This was the case with your Arwen Jago.” She looked at Finty, who was pale and trembling, and shook her head sadly. “Lucia is not the spirit of an ancestor because she was never human. Lucia is a demon.”

  “Can you get rid of her?”

  She drew me to one side so that Finty couldn’t hear and said quietly, “There is a ceremony of exorcism, but it is dangerous because the demon will fight and”—she glanced again at Finty—“you are not the only one who carries a child, Annie. But she doesn’t know it yet, and I will not be able to protect her baby as I did yours. Lucia will try to harm the unborn child.”

  When I knelt next to Finty on the animal-skin rug to tell her what the sangoma had said, a change had come over her features. Always pretty, she had become suddenly, coldly beautiful. A voice I did not know replaced Finty’s breathy tones. “You think I will give her back without a fight, Jago bitch? I will break her and laugh while you look on helplessly.” Spittle flecked the corners of her mouth. “Did you like what I did to the snake? Will you like it when I cradle your child?”

  “Do it,” I told the sangoma. I held Finty’s hand as Lucia raged and cursed and spat and contorted her slender body until it seemed it really must break. I held her in my arms while she wept for the baby she lost, and when the sangoma told us she might never bear another. I lay next to her later and cradled her in my arms as she slept when the herbs the sangoma gave to calm her took effect. At noon, I sent faithful Jabu, with whom our secrets were safe, to Sonskyn with a message to say that Finty was with me because I had gone to the sangoma for treatment following the shock of the previous night. When evening fell, Finty leaned against me as we made our way back to the kraal and made me promise that I would never talk of what had happened to anyone.

  “My home from now on is where you are.” Nicca’s voice drove the horror of that day—only a week ago, but already fading into memory—away. He drew me closer. “Let’s stay here at Sonskyn, Annie. I can learn to be a boer, if you and Ouma will be patient with me. I can even get used to the snakes.” His smile, the one that always melted my heart, dawned. “At least, I think I can. We’ll start a new dynasty here, far away from the darkness of Tenebris. Who knows what strengths will have been handed down to our children through the power of the Jago legacy? But here at Sonskyn—between us—we can make sure that inheritance becomes a force for good, Annie.”

  I couldn’t break my promise to Finty and explain that Arwen Jago had been right about me. That I was the only hope left for the true Jago line. Rudi would have no sons to inherit the title from him. But who knew what the future might hold? Cad and Bouche had believed that first Petroc and then Rory would be Earl of Athal, but war had cruelly dashed their hopes. Nicca was waiting for my answer. This was about now and him and to hell with everything else. I launched myself at him, throwing my arms about his neck and wrapping my legs around his waist as I planted kisses wildly all over his face.

  “Is that a ‘yes’?” Nicca asked, laughing, when he could finally speak.

  “It’s a ‘yes,’” I confirmed, sliding back to the ground. “And, Nicca?” Now seemed like the right time to tell him. “That dynasty you mentioned? I think you should know we have already made a start.”

  He stared at me with a stunned expression on his face, before saying, with a near-perfect Afrikaans accent, “Fok!”

  “Ja, Meneer Jago.” I nodded solemnly, reaching up to shut his dropped jaw with one finger. “I expect that was what did it.”

  Epilogue

  South African Political Blog, 2014

  Legacy of Light

  So to whom can we entrust this great rainbow nation of ours if it is to develop and grow in the right direction? Over the coming weeks, we will feature some of the next generation of South African politicians and ask if they are up to the job of continuing Madiba Mandela’s legacy.

  It has already been noted here that Kwa-zulu Natal’s own Tristan Ndebele has all the necessary credentials. Great-grandson of the legendary outspoken anti-apartheid campaigner, Annie Jago, he began his legal career working alongside his mother, civil rights lawyer, Eleanor Jago-Ndebele, before becoming involved in local politics. Mr Ndebele reinforces his commitment to fighting racial dominance of any hue. “I am black, but I’m not saying that black people alone should rule South Africa. My great-grandmother was white, but she fought against white superiority in this country because it was wrong,” he says, pointing to the photograph on his desk of Annie Jago and her husband Nicca. “She was my inspiration. It was from her that I inherited my strength, passion and determination. I believe in what Mandela said—‘South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white.’ Just like Annie Jago, I will fight tirelessly for what is right. And if, as it has been said, I am indeed destined for greatness, it will be because of her legacy.”

  About the Author

  Jane Godman writes stories for Harlequin E Shivers. Gothic romances (love stories with a creepily ever after) are her favourite genre. She enjoys reading and writing books that trail fingertips of nervous and sensual excitement down the spine.

  Jane lives in England and enjoys reading and traveling to romantic European cities. Venice, Dubrovnik and Vienna are among her favorite places. She is a teacher, married to a lovely man and mum to two grown-up children.

  Also by Jane Godman

  Harlequin E Shivers

  Legacy of Darkness

  Echoes in the Darkness

  Valley of Nightmares

  Forget Me Not

  By Barbara J. Hancock

  For Todd

  Chapter One

  She concentrated on placing one foot in front of the other. Again and again. Scarlet Falls was a small town. When she had stepped out of her house—a rented craftsman on Fairlane—there had been only two miles between her and her stepsister.

  Now there was less.

  One step and then another.

  The late-afternoon sounds around her were muffled and distorted. Her ears had begun ringing before she’d hung up the phone. Or maybe she’d dropped it without disconnecting because her fingers had gone numb.

  Her whole body seemed to be partially shutdown.

  Breath came shallow to her lungs. Her vision
was black at its edges. Her legs had gone half-asleep, tingling from nerves pinched off by disbelief. The slap of her boots on pavement was barely an echo to her ears.

  She had never stopped hoping.

  Not when Gracie stopped calling. Not when her online presence went dormant. Not when Maddy had followed her to Scarlet Falls almost a year ago only to find a room at the bed-and-breakfast full of all Gracie’s abandoned things.

  Her camera.

  Her precious camera.

  That’s when she should have known and begun to accept.

  Maddy stopped, though in losing her momentum she thought she might never move again.

  A large black crow perched on a canted fence post, its claws dug into the pitted, decayed wood. The field behind it had been planted with corn but all the stalks had been shorn by a harvester so that nothing but brittle straw stubs and the detritus of dust and leaves remained.

  A grubby scarecrow leaned worse than the fence post, nearly fallen over and forgotten. The late October wind caused one of its gloves to flutter again and again. Something about the inanimate gesture made caustic acid burn the back of Maddy’s throat.

  Goodbye.

  Goodbye.

  Goodbye.

  But the crow ignored the fallen scarecrow. Instead it zeroed one dark, beady eye on her.

  Maddy couldn’t move.

  The crow had interrupted her dogged march and now it held her paralyzed with the gleam of its black gaze.

  It didn’t move as a bird should. No fluttering. No preening. No flexing of its wings. It was as still as she.

  But its sharp and shiny beak hinted at the horrible potential for movement. As did the talons that held it so grippingly in place on the fence post.

  The bird was only a few feet away from her. Even though she’d passed through town unnoticed by anyone or anything, it seemed unnaturally aware of her.

  She’d lived most of her life outdoors with her booted feet in the dirt and her hands in the shrubbery, flowers and plantings that made up her paints on the palates of yard, lawn and garden. She rarely worked in edibles and had never seen a crow closer than circling high in the sky, a distant black spot winging over her head.

  This one was large.

  Much larger than she thought normal.

  Even so, the fear that tightened her chest and brought her numb body back to pulse-pounding life was also out of proportion.

  Maddy took a step.

  She was not going to allow a bird to become more than a bird because of the fear, doubt and horror-movie terror currently filling her mind. Not even in this dark town where a murderer lurked.

  Several more determined steps took her past the talons, the beak and the terrible focused eye. Once the crow was behind her, she walked faster. Her legs felt stronger, although her heart still faltered.

  She had been afraid to drive.

  It had been a logical decision to avoid her van in the midst of shock. Asking for a ride from the deputy who had called her would have been smarter. Some faulty instinct had said, No. Don’t ask him for a ride. Don’t.

  She had begun the ascent up the last hill to High Lake when she heard the rusty-throated caw—harsh, loud and horrible—behind her. The gravelly cry scraped away the nerve she’d gathered in one sudden screech, leaving her raw and trembling.

  But she didn’t stop moving.

  She turned—enough to see the bird. It still clung to the leaning fence post. It had turned its head to watch her walk away.

  Maddy kept walking toward the lake…to her stepsister’s shallow, unmarked grave.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  It wasn’t hard to find her way. By the time she came to the gravel road the deputy had bluntly described, she could hear the beehive of activity around the bend. Across the glassy black surface of High Lake, she could see an A-frame perched on a rise. She had helped landscape its hill the previous spring for an eccentric author, Samuel Creed, who wrote about Scarlet Falls’s history, witch trials and the occult—the very things that had drawn her stepsister here in the first place.

  Gracie had been less than half a mile away. Sweet Gracie. Less than half a mile away.

  Maddy clenched her fists, shaking her head at the trooper’s car as it slowed to offer her a ride. She’d come this far entirely on her own and there were only a few steps more.

  A different deputy than the one who had spoken to her on the phone noted her approach and stepped forward to meet her.

  “I’ll have to ask you… Oh, Ms. Clark. I didn’t realize it was you. Please…I don’t think you should be here. I’m sorry, but the sheriff has cordoned off the…area,” the deputy said. His awkwardness and the sadness on his face saved him. Laugh lines rimmed the edges of his eyes, but they were dormant now.

  “I’ve walked all the way from town. I’m not turning back now,” Maddy said. He looked over his shoulder and then down at her clenched hands and up again at her tight face.

  As they stood at an impasse, another deputy paused in what he was doing to look at her. His face was blank. No doubt he’d been trained to hide his emotions. Maybe he had been the one who had called. The deputy she’d spoken to on the phone had been blunt and cold to the point of being cruel.

  “I’m not turning back,” Maddy repeated.

  She stepped around the deputy with the sad eyes while he warred with impossible decisions, and continued toward the center of the hive. There was yellow tape strung out in a wide circle. Beyond that was a ring of official vehicles and then even more tape. Near the heart of the activity a large scarlet maple stood, raining colorful leaves down like brilliant confetti on the hidden scene below its branches.

  But it was the presence of Sheriff Constantine’s SUV that caused her throat to tighten.

  Back at her house she had all of her stepsister’s things, including the last roll of film Gracie had shot from over a year ago. William Constantine had been in those shots. Frame after frame. His angular face in sunshine and in shadow. Many of the shots had obviously been taken at a distance without his consent, but one had been heartbreakingly close, with his blue eyes cut to the side and aware.

  Gracie had come to Scarlet Falls on what she considered serious business. Maddy was left to wonder if Constantine had been her assignment or if his striking appearance had appealed to her stepsister in other—more artistic and possibly feminine—ways.

  “No,” a deep voice said above the drone of everything else—the forensic team and deputies, the crickets in the distance and her own buzzing thoughts.

  She didn’t stop until his hand closed around her upper arm, and even then she considered it a pause. She had no intention of allowing him to stand in her way for long.

  “You can’t be here,” Sheriff Constantine continued.

  Maddy turned to confront him, but she was completely shocked by the transformation in his appearance. His face was leaner. His eyes were still vivid blue but tinged with red from lack of sleep. He had a five-o’clock shadow of golden stubble on his angular jaw and chin.

  The tall muscular man had dropped at least fifteen pounds since Gracie had snapped his pictures a year ago. Maddy hadn’t seen him up close for months. There had been no reason for her to speak to him in person. Gracie’s father was her next of kin. Maddy had no legal claim to information about the investigation. She was far more familiar with his photograph than with the man himself.

  He wasn’t wearing his hat, and his thick hair was rumpled and darker than she’d expected, a blond that hadn’t been touched by the sun. In fact, his skin had faded from the summer bronze of the photographs, as well.

  He wasn’t any less attractive.

  He was just…changed. More intense, his eyes harder and more harried by some demons she couldn’t place.

  “I’m here,” Maddy said.

  She looked down at his hand on her arm. She’d left the house in a silk T-shirt and black leggings. She always appreciated switching from her gardening coveralls to something soft and pretty. Now she wished for more
of a barrier between the sheriff’s warm, calloused hand and her sensitive skin.

  His fingers loosened. Maybe he’d seen her concern and felt her stiffness and assumed it was because his authoritative hold dimpled her skin, when that hadn’t been the problem at all.

  It was his touch and her body’s unexpected reaction to it when everything else in her was devastated and dark.

  “There’s nothing you can do here, Ms. Clark,” Constantine said. His voice had gone low, persuasive and, damn it, empathetic. As if he understood and cared about her pain.

  “I can grieve,” Maddy said.

  She pulled her arm from his hand and he let it go, but he stepped in front of her at the same time. His broad uniformed chest blocked her from seeing what she would never see again and from what she couldn’t have unseen if she was allowed to go to the base of the scarlet maple where a body bag waited for Gracie’s remains.

  “You’re going to go over to my truck and climb inside and you’re going to wait there for me,” Constantine said. There was flint in his words, hard but brittle. She could shatter his calm control, maybe, if she fought, if she screamed and accused and shattered completely herself.

  She tilted her chin. She met his eyes. They had looked so much lighter in her stepsister’s photographs, untouched by forest shadow and murder. Much lighter than Gracie’s other subjects of tombstones, abandoned houses and empty churches.

  Her stepsister had been gifted, but when Maddy’s mom had died Gracie had turned her gift to such impossible things—spirit photography, for God’s sake.