Page 9 of Haunted By the Highwayman (Halloween Temptation #9)

N ext day, I’m lying in bed listless and unable to drag my head off the pillow.

Rick has gone to work, but I’m taking the day off from the lab.

This is not quite the post-coital glow I was hoping for.

We left the party right after getting dressed, not even staying for the dancing I so wanted to share with Rick.

I’m still wondering what went wrong. Rick’s barely speaking to me.

He left this morning with barely a look at me.

I feel like such a fool. I got my expectations up way too high.

What was I hoping, that he’d leave for work with a happy-couple kiss for me, like we’re suddenly official?

He couldn’t have made things clearer: it was a one-night thing.

He got carried away. For a risk-taker like him, I guess the chance to get dommed by a ghost was something he couldn’t turn down.

Stupid of me to think that it was personal.

And I still don’t even know the highwayman’s name.

I start to flip through the guidebook from Gossmer Hall.

My hands feel heavy and my head aches even though I barely drank last night.

Weariness and disappointment. The low after stupidly getting my hopes up that Rick could actually care about me.

A quick check of the contents page points me to the page about Gossmer Hall’s most famous black sheep.

Jack. The highwayman’s name is Jack. It suits him. Sharp, full of force.

“As an eighth son, Jack was somewhat surplus to requirements by the standards of the time. He lived an indolent and wasteful life according to contemporary sources, even taking to outright criminality in the form of highway robbery. His constant companion in villainy was Robert Hanson, a tenant on his father’s land. ”

Companion . That old-timey euphemism. Jack and Robert must’ve been a couple, not that they could be public about it back then.

Sympathy for them both makes it through my numbness.

It would’ve been illegal to show affection openly.

Did Jack’s family know about his sexuality?

Did they shun him, make him feel unwanted?

Does that explain the turn his life took?

“After years of successful hold-ups, the pair were finally betrayed by another member of their criminal gang,” the guidebook says.

“Jack’s father, being the local magistrate as well as landowner, was able to warn his son to leave England before he could be arrested.

What happened next is not entirely clear, but since the name Robert Hanson never appeared in any official court documents, it seems that Jack Delacorte managed to send warning to his companion in time as well.

Both escaped official censure for their crimes, but their fates remain unknown.

From that moment, both of them dropped out of official history. ”

Maybe I’m in an unusually pathetic mood over Rick, but the story leaves me with a heavy, dull ache in my chest. Is this why Jack is still hiding out at Gossmer Hall?

Hoping to find his lost love again? The guidebook doesn’t even know when he died.

He just disappeared. Maybe he never got the chance to say goodbye.

I put down the book and close my eyes. When I open them again, my heart nearly leaps out of my chest.

Jack Delacorte, the highwayman himself, is sitting in my bedside chair, looking as alive as me.

“Hello, pet,” he says. “Don’t cry.”

“I’m not…” Shit , I am. I wipe my eyes. “How… how are you here?”

His mouth quirks with amusement. “You thought me tied to the mirror?”

“I… don’t know. I don’t know anything about ghosts. I didn’t even believe in them until I met you.”

He nods, but doesn’t deign to explain.

“You look heartsick,” he says, his voice gentler than at any point last night. “What’s upsetting you, pet?”

I don’t mean to tell him. But I can’t help it.

“It’s Rick,” I say. “He’s barely talking to me. I don’t know what I did wrong. Maybe… maybe it was a mistake.”

Jack purses his lips. “Nonsense. He enjoyed himself thoroughly. And I saw how he looked at you. With true affection.”

“Really?”

“Indeed. Also, it may interest you to know that I just overheard him speaking to someone on one of those modern contraptions which connect one with friends… at a distance.” He waves a vague, lordly hand.

“You mean his phone?” I say.

“Yes, his mobile telephone.” Hearing a man from the 1700s say those words aloud is truly surreal. “He was talking to his brother, I believe.” Jack leans forward, smiling, wrapping his hands around his knees. He’s wearing smart black leather gloves. “Do you know what he said?”

“What?”

“That he believes he isn’t good enough for you. That he might ‘mess up your perfect life’.”

The modern phrase sounds odd falling from his lips. But it sounds exactly like something Rick would say. The idiot. The adorable idiot who’s so much more vulnerable than I ever thought.

“How could he ever think that?” I say.

Jack shrugs. “I really have no idea. I simply come bearing the message because I want my two pets to be happy.” He gives me a quick, dashing grin. “Of course, you’re my favorite pet.”

“Well, thank you,” I say, face heating up. “Can I ask you something? If I hadn’t stepped in, were you ever going to let Rick come?”

Jack laughs. “Oh, eventually,” he says.

I laugh too. “And what about you?” I ask.

He narrows his eyes. “What about me?”

His warning tone might scare Rick, but not me. I know he’s just a big, ghostly softie.

“I’ve been reading this book.” I tap the guidebook in an accusing manner. “It says you and Robert Hanson were never heard from again. Did you end up together?”

A flicker of pure despair crosses his face. His proud mouth twists with pain and his forceful eyes dull behind the mask.

“No,” he says. “We fled the authorities, both going our separate ways. I chose America. He was heading for France, I believe. I was too cowardly to ever try to find him again. To confess the depths of my admiration for him.”

“You, cowardly? But you seem so brave.”

“A facade,” he says. “Oh, I was brave in matters of physical force. I fought many a duel in my youth. But in matters of the heart—”

“Not so much?” I guess.

“I feared that to Robert, our dalliances were merely part of the excitement of the open road, the camaraderie of thievery. The game . And as you know, such entanglements were serious crimes when I walked the earth in my physical form.”

“Yes,” I say, anger curling in my chest.

“Moreover, I didn’t want to be the one to admit to too much tenderness.” He’s looking at me closely now, his eyes regaining that piercing quality that makes me feel like he sees right inside my head. “Do you understand?”

He’s obviously talking about me and Rick, but I’m not done with Robert.

“Maybe you could still fix things,” I say.

Jack’s mouth twitches in a tiny smile, full of bitterness. He blames himself. He thinks he doesn’t deserve this.

“You’re very kind, pet,” he says. “But I fear it’s too late.”

“Is it? I mean, is Robert like… you?”

“A spirit? Perhaps. I could try to find him... in theory.”

“Why not in practice?”

He grimaces. “The aforementioned cowardice.”

“Come on. That’s weak. If I can do it, so can you.”

“What do you mean?” he says.

“I mean, I’ll tell Rick I love him if you tell Robert you love him.”

Then the two of them can go off together and have their happy-ever-after. However that works for ghosts.

He thinks about it for a long moment, staring out my bedroom window at a copper-tinged tree that wouldn’t have been planted until years after his death.

“Perhaps,” he says at last, his voice faraway. “No promises, pet.”