She lay on her back and watched Arthur lose himself inside of her in the candlelight, watched his lips part and his face tighten, watched his muscles move and the long strong cords of his neck and shoulders tense.
She ran her hands over his chest as he moved inside of her and she memorized every second of this moment, this gorgeous young man making love to her as if he’d die if he didn’t.
A sob escaped her throat and at once Arthur’s arms were around her clinging to her. “Regan.”
“Don’t stop.” She wrapped her legs around his back. “I’ll die if you stop.”
“Then I’ll never stop,” he said and it seemed he wouldn’t. He rode her with long and tender strokes. It felt like the pearl inside her touched the tip of her spine. Her body tensed again, tingling and when he came she came with him. The one part of her brain still thinking rationally reminded her that the French called orgasm “the little death.” Every time she came she died in Arthur’s arms. That’s how she wanted to go when the time came, in his arms.
When it was over and done, he lay on top of her, cradling her against his heart.
She wanted to live.
She’d thought she’d accepted the inevitable end, but now, in his arms, she knew she’d only accepted dying in her old life, with Sir Jack, when death might have been a relief.
Not with Arthur. With Arthur, a thousand years in his arms wouldn’t be enough.
She said into his ear, quietly but sternly, “You aren’t allowed to ask me to marry you. We can keep going like this, but not forever. I don’t have forever to give you but I’ll give you what I can.”
What she could give him was until he went away to join his regiment and she went…somewhere, somewhere away from him so he could get on with his life and forget she existed.
“Do you understand?” she said.
He nodded. “Should we go and look at the book?”
She knew he was trying to distract her and she appreciated it. She also appreciated how gently he pushed his fingers into her to extract the large pearl from her vagina.
“Not yet,” she said. “Let’s have one last night of sanity before we both go mad in the morning.”
“I always wanted to go mad,” he said. “Now I have an excuse.”
He rolled onto his back and brought her with him. Regan lay her head on his chest. He wrapped his arms around her.
The winds died down. The storm passed. Regan slept like the dead.
Regan woke early and saw the bedroom for the first time in daylight. A teenage boy’s room. Massive Union Jack hanging down the wall. Concert posters. A rugby ball on a shelf. A polo mallet tucked into a corner. She knew he was only staying here while Wingthorn underwent renovations, that of course the room still held all his old things, but it served as a bitter reminder of their age difference. She was a woman of thirty, already widowed, and if he hadn’t been joining the army soon, he’d still be at university. His life was beginning. Hers felt almost over.
He was too young to commit himself to a woman who was certain to face a brutal fate sooner rather than later, just as she’d been too young to marry Sir Jack. She couldn’t do to Arthur what she’d done to herself.
But she didn’t have to tell him that.
She kissed his cheek and his eyes fluttered open. In wordless agreement, they got out of bed. Arthur put on his jeans, nothing else. She found her knickers and he gave her one of his t-shirts to wear—clean, soft, grey, comforting.
They went down, down, down to the sitting room where the book still lay open on the floor face down in front of the cold fireplace.
Arthur picked up the book and showed her the page it was open to—a painting of a pretty young girl holding a dove against her chest, a dove with a broken wing.
The Wounded Dove by the Jewish Victorian-era painter Rebecca Solomon.
Regan stared at it, then knew they couldn’t deny it any longer.
“So this is it,” Regan said. “We both believe and accept that the ghost of a dead lord is trying to tell us something, and we’re willing to listen. Yes?”
Arthur nodded. “Yes.”
So it had happened. They’d both gone mad.
10
The Haunted Wood
They’d planned to meet in her penthouse at The Pearl around eight that evening. At five ’til, Regan sat on the chaise in the sitting room to wait for Arthur. Upstairs in her bedroom hung the possibly haunted portrait of Lord Malcolm, which was why she waited in the sitting room, not wanting to be alone with it.
A knock on the door. She went to it at once, certain it was Arthur. She opened the door to find a waiter in a white jacket, carrying wine in a bucket.
“Lord Godwick ordered wine,” the young man said.
“Wonderful,” Regan said, “bring it in.”
He carried in the bottle and two glasses from the hotel kitchen with little faux pearl charms on the stems. The waiter set the glasses on the fireplace mantel and uncorked the bottle.
“Interesting artwork,” the waiter said.
Hanging above the fireplace was a print reproduction of an oil painting—an uncanny scene of a woman running through a dark forest, a vague ghostly figure behind her, imprisoned in a tree but escaping it, seemingly following her.
“A Lizzie Siddal print,” she said. “She was Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s muse, working class but very beautiful. She could have been a painter in her own right if she hadn’t…ah, well. Rossetti rather took over her life.”
The waiter nodded. “Such a shame.”
“Rossetti once gave the poor woman pneumonia by making her lie in a bath of cold water for hours while he painted her. They married eventually, but she died very young. Only thirty-three. Painter, poet…she was terribly talented. And then snuffed out like a candle. I think that’s supposed to be Death in her painting. That’s what’s haunting her.”
The young man gazed on the painting and she saw he had darkly intelligent eyes.
“No,” he said, “it’s not Death. It’s her. That ghost looks like a shadow of her. She’s haunting herself.”
Regan moved closer to the print, studied it carefully. The ghost did somewhat resemble the running woman.
He smiled and met her eyes. “But what do I know? I’m only here to pour the wine.” He offered her a glass. “Enjoy, Lady Ferry,” he said with an elegant bow then made his way to the door.
“Thank you… I’m sorry, you must be new, and I haven’t learned your name yet.”
“John,” he said and flipped his lapel over to show her his name tag. John Noone.
“Welcome to The Pearl, John.”
“Thank you very much, ma’am,” he said, opening the door. He turned back and glanced at the painting over the fireplace again. “You’ve got a bit of Lizzie Siddal in you, I think.”
“You do?”
“Both of you were painters. Same eyes, too. As Rossetti said, ‘Eyes as of the sea and sky on a grey day.’”
She stared at him. “Never expected a waiter to quote Dante Gabriel Rossetti poetry at me.”
“Yes, but I’m not your ordinary waiter, Lady Ferry. Enjoy. It’s pomegranate wine,” he said. “If you’ve never had it before, you’re in for a treat.”
He bowed again and left, shutting the door behind him.
Regan had never had pomegranate wine before, but as soon as she heard the name she knew she wanted to try it. Very romantic of Arthur to send wine up to her. She lifted the glass to her nose and sniffed. The scent was strong but not too powerful, velvety and seductive, sweet but too sweet and utterly delicious. She took a sip and it tasted as good as it smelled. She took another sip and sighed with pleasure. Arthur had excellent taste in wine. Surprising, since he so rarely drank in her presence.
She was about to take another drink when she heard a familiar buzzing sound. Her phone. She had a message.
Almost there, Arthur had written. Hit accident traffic. So sorry. Don’t start the madness without me.
She smiled. She would n
ever start the madness without him. Only the drinking.
Take your time. Thank you for the wine. It’s wonderful.
She moved to set the phone back down on the table when it began to ring in her hand. Arthur was calling.
“What wine?” he said, as soon as she answered.
“The bottle you sent up.”
“It wasn’t me.”
“The waiter said Lord Godwick sent up—”
Arthur swore violently. “I’m not the only Lord Godwick.”
Regan’s body went cold. Her hands shook. She set the wine glass down before she dropped it.
“I didn’t tell him I used to be a painter,” she said.
“What?”
“The waiter. He knew I’d been a painter, but I never mentioned that to him.”
“I’m on my way,” Arthur said. She could hear the fear in his voice. “I’ll be there as fast as I can. Don’t drink another drop of that wine.”
“Malcolm wouldn’t poison me. I know that.”
“How do you know that?” Arthur demanded. “You don’t know him. Neither do I. We don’t know what he wants from us or—”
Her head was starting to swim. The world went watercolored. She wasn’t sure what Arthur was saying. Regan collapsed onto the chaise lounge.
“Regan? Are you there? Regan?”
Tiredly, she brought the phone to her ear. “In the dream.”
“What?”
“In the dream I had about Malcolm,” she said. Her tongue felt thick in her mouth. “The one with the rose vine wallpaper and the empty frame…I didn’t tell you that in the dream, Lord Malcolm loved me.”
“He loved all pretty women.”
“Not like that. I don’t know why or how but he…cared about me.”
“Regan, listen. You should probably call 999. If it wasn’t him, someone might be trying to hurt you—”
“No one’s hurting me. No one. Noone.”
“What?”
Noone. John No-one. She laughed when she got the joke. “Good joke, Lord Malcolm. I fell for that one, too.”
“Regan—”
Without knowing what she was doing, Regan ended the call and the phone dropped onto the floor.
She closed her eyes and rested her head against the back of the chaise. There was no reason for Arthur to worry. She felt incredible…like she could fly if she wanted to. Still, it was lovely to hear Arthur so worried for her. He did care about her. He really did. Sweet lad. Her beautiful brat. If only she could love him, wouldn’t that be…lovely? Too bad she couldn’t. She’d sworn she’d never get married again, and Arthur had to get married. He have little brats of his own. He was the hare.
Heir, not hare. Regan giggled drunkenly to herself. This pomegranate wine was making her silly. When was the last time she giggled? Never?
Arthur wasn’t a hare. That was a hare.
A brown hare, long-eared and white-footed loped past the fireplace and toward the garden terrace doors.
Regan rose from the chaise and followed it. How had a hare gotten into the penthouse? She was on the top storey.
It wanted out. She saw it sitting up on its hind legs at the doors, terribly polite of it. She opened the door and it hopped onto the terrace. Regan went after it.
The garden terrace wasn’t there anymore. Or it was, but it had been transformed somehow into a forest. A dark night-time forest lit only by a waning moon.
Some part of her rational mind still functioned and warned her to stay away from the forest. There was danger in these woods. Yet, she couldn’t deny herself the beauty that beckoned even if it was foolish to follow its call.
This is how she’d gotten herself entangled with Arthur Godwick, she knew—her love of beauty, even dangerous beauty. And what was more dangerous than making love to the heir of the family she most despised in the world? Walking into an enchanted forest at night alone and unarmed, of course.
Two spreading yew trees, limbs twisted and gnarled, formed a gate at the edge of the wood. Siddal’s Haunted Wood. A wind gust pushed the boughs apart just enough she could slip through them.
Ahead of her the brown hare paused in a shaft of silver moonlight, then fled into the woods.
The city sounds of London were muted inside the forest. No cars. No rumbling lorries. No sirens. No voices or laughter echoing from the streets below. She heard nothing but owls hooting, the sighing wind, the lonesome cry of a wolf.
There were no wolves in England. They’d all been slaughtered three hundred years ago.
A bird landed on a branch. She looked up. A raven.
“Gloom,” she said with relief. “Come here, baby.” She held out her arm.
“Leave my loneliness unbroken,” Gloom said, and flew off. Regan could have wept.
“What do you want from me, Malcolm?” she whispered as she walked through the yew trees and into the impossible forest. The ground was soft under her feet, soft like the earth of a freshly dug grave. “What are you doing to me? If you want me to stop hating the Godwicks, fine…I already do. I won’t hurt them, not even Charlie, though he probably deserves it.”
It was all that made sense to her, that Lord Malcolm was trying to heal the breach between her and the Godwicks. That’s why he’d been scaring her over and over again into Arthur’s arms. Could he see into the future? Could he see that if she’d caused Charlie to be cut off from the family, he would spiral down into the gutter too far to be brought back, as Arthur feared?
“I’ll return your portrait to the family,” Regan said in a hushed tone. “If that’s what you want, message received. The Godwicks can have your precious painting back. Charlie can work off his debt at the hotel.”
Nothing happened. She’d hoped that if she promised to return the painting, she’d wake up as if from a nightmare. But no. Malcolm had more to show her, it seemed. More pretenses to abandon, more promises to make or break.
How was this real? Regan could smell the rot of dead trees emanating from the forest floor. She could feel leafy branches on her face, catching in her hair. As she passed a thorn tree, she lifted her fingers to a branch and pricked her finger on one of its wicked thorns.
The pain and blood should have woken her if this had been a dream. But, just as when she’d slayed Holofernes, she could not seem to wake herself.
As Regan walked past a towering ancient oak tree, she sensed a presence behind her. Footsteps following her. She froze and every nerve in her body screamed a warning and every hair on her arms stood on end. She would not look back, however. She would not let herself look.
She kept walking, kept moving forward, letting the light from the moon guide her path.
“Why am I here…” Regan muttered.
“You know why you’re here,” came a woman’s voice behind her.
Regan inhaled sharply, but walked on. It was her own voice that she’d heard. An echo of words never spoken, or something else?
“You live in a tower at the very top where no one can reach you,” said the voice. “You think you’re safe in your tower, but you aren’t safe. You’re only alone.”
“Alone where no one can hurt me,” Regan said, arguing with her own shadow self.
“You can hurt yourself. You’ve been hurting yourself for years. The Tower can’t protect you. It never has. You know that. That’s why you invited Arthur into your tower—to protect you. Who do you wish was here with you now, in this forest?”
Arthur. She wanted Arthur here with her.
“You want Arthur?” the voice taunted. “He’s here. Let’s find him. Follow me.”
A whisper of white, like the hint of a mist, passed Regan and floated in front of her. Regan walked faster, chasing the mist until it brought her to a clearing in the trees. A fairy circle of stones ringed the clearing. In the center of the circle burned an enormous dancing bonfire.
From behind the bonfire, Arthur stepped into the clearing. He was naked and beguiling in the firelight. Her desire for him was immediate, and she tried to st
ep over the circle of stones but couldn’t. It wouldn’t allow her inside to be with him.
Regan leaned against the trunk of an ancient tree, clung to the bark, and stared at Arthur, willing him to see her, to come to her.
She called his name but he seemingly couldn’t hear her inside the stone circle.
Regan could only stare, worshipping him with her eyes, the long lean strong body she’d explored every inch of, the chest she’d slept on, the arms that had held her, the mouth that had kissed her lips and her clitoris, the hands that had given her more pleasure than she knew she deserved.
He must be waiting for her. Why else would he be naked? She was his lover, no one else. Yet there was someone else.
A woman came out from behind the bonfire. A beautiful young woman, she looked about twenty, no more. Ten years younger than Regan. She had rich dark hair that fell to her waist and vivid blue eyes, large full breasts and pert nipples, pink and tender.
Regan could only watch as the girl went to Arthur. He took her by the waist and pulled her close. They kissed, a deep passionate kiss, and Regan tried to call out to him, to remind him who he belonged to. Her. Not that girl in his arms.
The girl’s eyes gleamed with such desire it looked more like greed than passion. Ravenously, she wrapped her arms around Arthur’s neck to latch onto him as she opened her mouth, greedy for his kisses.
Regan watched, sick to her stomach, bile in her mouth, as the girl drew Arthur to the ground. She positioned him onto his back on the bare ground and took his cock into her hand, stroking it until it grew stiff. She rose up over him and put it into her body, sinking down onto it as Regan watched in impotent rage.
The girl rode him in a frenzy. Arthur didn’t touch her, which could have comforted Regan but didn’t. Vines growing from the ground had wrapped around his wrists. He was tied down. The girl’s breasts bounced as she bobbed on top of him, her face a parody of pleasure. She cried out with her climax but it was an exaggerated cry, almost a scream, like she was playing a part and playing it poorly.
The Pearl (The Godwicks) Page 17
