Page 9 of Hunted by the Headless Horseman (Roars and Romances #5)

BELLE

He is every archetype of the gothic tragedy and possessive gentleman I could ever want.

I should be rational, pragmatic. But dammit, I don’t want to. I’m afraid, at any moment, all this could slip away, and I return to a quaint and fulfilling but rather mundane existence.

In some ways, I also fear what will happen if I do find his heart and return his head. Will he still want to be with me? Highwaymen were known for the romantic myth of the “gentleman thief”. And I’ve never known anyone who fits that definition more. Jack is both dashing and domineering. Highwaymen were notorious, skilled in all manner of weaponry, clever escapes, daring deeds, and the sense of forbidden vigilantism, becoming the “noble outlaw”.

I can imagine him lifting my skirts with my back to that tree, his gloved hands gripping mine, and fucking me hard. Just as I can imagine him reading poetry by candlelight to me while sipping tea.

All I know is that I’ll cherish this time with him, however fleeting. He could hunt me all my life, and I’d glory in it, even if it meant he could never kiss me.

As he practically yanks me along, forcing me to try and keep pace—much harder when you’re busty—I trip over a tree root. Before I can fall, he raises me up…and steals my breath away by sweeping me into his arms. I shouldn’t be surprised, given how he plucked me from the ground while atop his horse.

My breath hitches as I’m face to non-face. I can still wrap my arms around his neck and touch his chest. No matter how I wish his breath would coast across my cheeks, it won’t happen. Not unless we find his heart.

“Jack,”

I whisper, imagining what his face might look like. Does he have longer dark hair in a low ponytail? Does he have chiseled cheekbones and a rugged jaw? Full or thin lips? Are his eyes blue, green, or brown?

We cross the threshold where the ivy-covered manor slumbers like a decayed survivor, holding onto whatever withered shreds of life she can. Judging by some of the scorched walls, I can tell she saw some violence.

I lower my hand to Jack’s chest. The strangeness of having no heart. Mine is prone to skipping beats, pumping too fast, and causing me to faint. Wherever his is, it must be strong, the strongest from his dark past.

Silence thickens between us. The tension in his neck muscles doesn’t fade. Or in his arms and chest. If he had a face, I would brush my lips upon his cheek in a tender, soothing kiss.

If his past is a nightmare, I will walk through the darkness with him and hold his hand the entire time. I take deep breaths, steadying my heart against the shadows as he carries me to the farthest western edge of the grounds near the manor. Never tiring. Never speaking.

As we come to the back corner with his boots crunching upon the overgrowth, Jack suddenly holds me tighter, as if he doesn’t wish to let me go. Like he’s as worried about me disappearing as I am about him.

And then, I turn, lowering my brows in a dark curiosity as we approach a small plot of land, strangely untouched by the surrounding wildness. The grass is neat, unnaturally so, as if something unseen holds back the strangling weeds.

Oh, god, no. Jack sets me down, and I feel the desperate plea in his hands. Tears burn in my throat. Before I step forward, I take his hand, threading my fingers through his.

“I’m here, Jack.”

He says nothing, but his grip on my hand strengthens. I don’t mention anything about how the little bones in my hand hurt.

Jack leads me to the three headstones rising from the earth. Pale and worn by time, they stand in a mournful row. The names are carved into the stone with a hand that once cared deeply, and below each name, a small, loving inscription.

I step closer, feeling a chill run through me as I take in the names etched into the stone. The first is taller, more elaborate.

“Catherine Eleanor Moore,”

I whisper. His wife. I hover my fingers above the headstone, but I can’t bring myself to touch it.

The name is clear. He’s spent hundreds of years carving stone after stone to preserve the memory. Delicate flourishes of a hand that loved her dearly.

My eyes drift to the smaller stones beside hers. A fist grips my heart, and I struggle with my withering breaths. Two children, their dates brief and heartbreaking.

“Elias Henry Moore.”

Shoulders pulling inward, I hug my chest with one arm, but there is no shielding myself from the pain carving through me. Pain that must be like a thousand blades for him. Or a deep, abysmal hollow, a gap that could never be filled.

Heartache spreads through my chest as I speak his daughter’s name.

“Lillibeth Catherine Moore. Oh. Jack!”

My knees give way.

I fall to the earth, not letting go of his hand.

But I can’t stop the mournful tremors shuddering through me, the creeping chill of death clawing at my spine.

I can’t stop the tears—they spill down my cheeks, hot and heavy, and I clutch at the grass beneath my fingers, trying to steady myself against the sorrow.

Jack moves behind me, and I feel him drop to his knees, his arms wrapping around me, strong and steady, as if he’s trying to hold me together.

I can feel his chest pressing against my back, heaving with his trembling.

Then I hear it—the sound of his weeping inside my mind.

Raw and haunting.

Like a confession.

Uncontrollable waves of soft sobbing.

Breathy, muffled sounds with gasps that feel like a knife gutting my heart.

It shatters me. He’s trying to hold on, to be strong, but the grief is tearing through him, the pain he’s kept locked away for so long. The emotions must drown him.

I turn to him, curling up in his arms so I may wrap my arms around him.

As tight as I can, trying to anchor him, trying to let him know I’m here.

Pressed against him, I wish I could take it all away.

Even if it means I’d have never known him, I would take away the anguish in a heartbeat.

His sobs are quiet, but they echo in my mind—each one like a shattered whisper.

His fingers bore into my sides, holding on as if I’m the only thing keeping him from falling apart.

“I’m here, Jackson Elias Moore.”

Jack, he pleads, the sound of vulnerability, human fragility. He wants a new name, a new beginning, the plea like a promise of his belief in me, his hope.

I wish I could find the right words, but all I can do is hold him, hold us both, and let my own tears fall.

For him, for what he’s lost, for the years of silence that have weighed so heavily on him.

A weight he’s feeling more than ever because he’s nearly falling against me.

I’ve never felt so helpless, but also determined to stay right here, with him, in this moment. My heart breaks for his loss, and he can have the pieces, the shards…if they might fill the unfillable gap.

He doesn’t need to talk or tell me anything. The graves speak a thousand words.

I softly press my lips to his neck. He shudders, his breath hitching in his throat. His grief flows between us, for what he’s lost, for the pain he carries with him like a brand.

I squeeze him tighter, pulling him closer, letting him bury himself as much as possible in my embrace, and I murmur, “I’m here, Jack. I’m right here.”

The crying fades.

He’s retreating into himself, leaving those soft sobs and trembling breaths until there is silence once again.

And the melancholic intimacy we now share. I still don’t let go of him.

Thank you, Belle Halloway, he finally says, the emotion and intensity still present from how he un-stitched himself and laid his soul bare.

It has been many years since I last grieved for them.

And I have never once grieved with someone.

I run the risk of falling in love with him here and now.

Is it possible to fall in love with a faceless man? When love is blind, I imagine it is.

And with my deep-seated identity of loving the broken and tragic things of this world, Jack is the greatest I’ve ever known.

I say nothing, giving him my strength, my touch.

He doesn’t release me, though his chest rises.

His hands divide, one shifting to my waist and the other fisting my curls and anchoring that fist against the nape of my neck. He’s bracing himself…for something.

The year was 1802…he begins.

I lean my head against his shoulder, prepared to listen to everything.

I came from old wealth, he says, his voice a deep tone of pride and regret. I was raised to uphold honor, but I carried a darkness within me—a hunger for control and dominance.

We’ve strayed from the grave site. Once again, he’s offered me his arm, and we walk among the desolate areas of his grounds. All these gardens must have once been opulent and beautiful. Now, they are an expression of despair. I brush my fingers along the withering blooms as our footsteps echo along the cracked cobblestone pathways

I can’t help but smile as he shares how he excelled at every skill from riding to fencing, to shooting and art.

“A Jack of all trades,” I remark.

He pats the back of my hand with his. And a master of everything. Naturally, I went through a rebellious phase, drinking and spending more time in brothels. But I grew bored quickly.

We enter a grove with broken arches. Chunks of shattered marble riddle the overgrown paths.

The carnal dominance in me led me to become a highwayman, targeting only the wealthiest landowners, especially those who owned slaves.

His voice grows heavy with a sense of loss, but there is a bitter undertone.

With my old wealth, I paid fair wages to my workers and used my ill-gotten gains to help the poor.

The Industrial Revolution had ravaged America, with poverty and slavery rampant.

My mother’s early death left me with Black nannies who instilled in me a hunger for justice—a hunger that matched my need for dominance…and even violence.

I became the Phantom.

I lift my head from his shoulder but don’t betray my sense of amusement. Especially because it would not have been considered cliche in his era. He would have been a classic.

I was master of stealth and disguise, my Belle. The Phantom’s reputation was that of a ghost who could slip in and out of places without a trace. I never told anyone of my deeds or revealed my identity. My public persona was merely a facade, my mask as it were.

“Were you charming?”

I squeeze his hand.

A dark chuckle echoes in my mind. Charming, charismatic, well-respected…and laudable rumors of dastardly behavior with the ladies. I often attended or hosted lavish parties. I met my future wife at one such party.

I don’t know why I draw my shoulders up tight. Or why my breath thins.

Jack pauses and cups my chin with his gloved hand, then brushes his knuckles along my cheek, kindling my nerves.

She was nothing like you, sweet Belle.

Catherine was a force of nature, enchanting every man in the room.

Flirtatious.

Intoxicating.

Stubborn and strong-willed.

I was bewitched by her strength and allure and longed for the challenge of capturing such a woman.

I pursued her with a subtle persistence.

Stolen moments when she was alone, where I drove her against the closest wall and kissed her with possession and passion before disappearing, leaving her winded and longing for more.

I am quite skilled at the art of seduction.

Blushing, I bite my lower lip.

“I never could have guessed.”

He continues walking, and we approach an old bridge with moss clothing the stones. The path beyond leads to a winding stone stairway, with crude twisted tree branches as a railing.

Though I broke with her father, who was more than receptive to my offer of marriage, I made it clear that I was to pursue Catherine in secret. Let all, including herself, believe she was still unattached.

He leads me across the stone bridge, and I poke his side playfully.

“You drove her mad, didn’t you?”

I drove her near out of her wits. It was quite amusing at parties when she would steal more than her fair share of glances at me. How she flirted more with other interested men when I was near. She would make come-hither statements and references to her dance card being so full, but she could fit in one more if I thus desired. I would decline, then hunt her through the gardens and capture her there for a private dance.

Misplaced jealousy heats my cheeks at the knowledge of how he hunted a woman before me. My skin feels itchy, and I reprimand my thoughts, clinging to him, to his words instead.

After a month of courtship, we were married. You might believe matrimony and children would have lessened my highwayman proclivity, but it only grew. Despite my fulfillment as a husband and father, such a lifestyle required great control. The Phantom was my way of unleashing the darker side of my persona. My wife knew of my more depraved desires, ones she heartily embraced, but she never knew I was the Phantom.

We travel up the stone staircase that leads to a ruined Grecian-themed garden with fractured cherubs that once cascaded water from marble bowls. The water is now grimy and dark.

“It’s like you walked off the pages of a dark Gothic fairy tale.”

Jack pauses, turns his body to mine, and takes my hips in his able hands. My stomach flutters, and a chill rushes up my spine. Don’t romanticize me, Belle. I was never a saint. I was flawed as any man. Violence drove many of my actions. I had to end lives to protect my secrets, and I paid off guards to look the other way. To them, I was just Jackson Moore, an avid rider and hunter.

“I’m sorry, Jack. I didn’t mean?—”

He touches his gloved fingers to my lips, cutting off my words. Another moment where I would stop your lips with a kiss, my sweet Belle. I understand you have a…longing for the darker and sadder natures of the world, but I ask you not to consider me a hero. Your analogy of Heathcliff is closer.

I don’t tell him it’s more than a longing. The darker tragedies give me life. The meaning, the beauty in torment, the forbidden danger and seduction…all of it is irresistible. Something that drew me to escape my stifling upbringing and seek the woods with a book in my hand. The older I grew, the harder it was to escape. So, I kept my darker needs hidden in my heart.

I suppose we have something in common.

Shaking out my thoughts, I focus on him and touch my palm to the unbuttoned collar of his shirt, letting my fingers coast along the tattooed skin.

I am nothing less than a failure, Belle. I robbed the wrong man—a baron with carte blanche and immense power. My heart aches as I sense the worst of his history unfolding.

Moreover, he was once my good friend. But he was also a rival for Catherine. He doggedly pursued her in public, making his courtship of her known as well as his offer of marriage and a lavish lifestyle with the title of baroness. But Catherine rejected him, preferring my secret entrapment to his public profession of love and offers of class and title. She would have been his trophy, the art in his frame.

But she was my woman, my wild girl I wanted to capture but never wished to tame, and the mother of my children.

Tears burn in my throat, but I force them down, refusing to entertain the thoughts of comparing myself to his wife and destroying any rising belief that I could ever be a substitute, much less take her place. When Jack takes the back of my neck and grips my curls, my breath hitches.

My public behavior, which seemed indifferent on the surface, he took as a betrayal. My friendship with Edmund Thorne was sundered.

Thorne? It’s a common enough name. But it still congeals my blood from the more personal meaning. Still, I write it off.

I was arrogant and spiteful to have robbed him. But he was as skilled in matters of the sword and subterfuge. While he may not have recognized me with my Phantom guise, I know he suspected. I held him at gunpoint and demanded nothing more than his crest ring. The ring he once offered to Catherine. But he used the diversion of handing it over to take the knife from his boot. He dealt me a scar. Minute. But a scar all the same.

“Oh, Jack…”

I soften my fingers on his neck, curving around it as much as possible.

Yes, he discovered my identity through that scar. He used his influence and repute to smear my name, frame my wife as a witch, and rally an angry mob against us.

Horror ices my blood. His rage and grief seem to shudder through me.

They broke my legs. And forced me to watch as they hung my wife and children, claiming my whole bloodline was cursed.

He trembles with his fury. I bring my hands around his back, press myself against him hard, and hold him through the raw pain. They looted my home. And left me for dead. Destroyed parts of it. I hear his words through what sounds like gritted teeth. I crawled to my wife and children, took them down from the trees, and held them while roaring to the heavens.

Fury burns through me, but my longing to empathize with him is greater.

One of many I paid off in my past was a widow who lived off the grid in your modern terms. She grew everything she needed and only occasionally went to market. After a chance encounter when my horse upended me during a storm, she appeared at the exact moment and offered me shelter. She knew my name, though we’d never met. She was the only one who knew my identity, though I’d never told it to her.

I hang onto his every word, not leaving this space, not allowing a thread of a gap between us. His fingers dig into my neck, leaving little bruises, but I don’t care. Any pain I feel is trivial compared to his.

Some would call her a soothsayer. I called her a confessor, a divine priestess. That night, I crawled all the way to her home. It took me the entire night. And she was once again waiting for me. In return for vengeance, I offered her my heart, and she granted me a curse to exact my revenge. She said I would become something fearsome, a terror to those who wronged me.

I shiver as he tells me how he hunted down the men, burning their homes, casting out their families.

The baron was last. I had the soothsayer’s carte blanche to curse his bloodline, ensuring every man in his family would die a wretched death in their 40th year. I castrated him first. Then dragged him by my goddamn horse down the same road where I’d robbed him, leaving his blood and refuse to soil the ground. I finished by hanging him on the same gallows where he hung my family.

“Jack…”

I whisper, shedding tears for him, for his suffering, for the souls of his family, praying, believing, knowing they are in a better place.

After taking my revenge, I was left to roam my manor, forever haunted by my pain and quest for vengeance. My immortal horse is my only companion. And yes, my Belle. Over the past two centuries, I searched every inch of these woods, of my manor, and the confessor’s home, never gaining a single clue to my heart.

October possesses more magic and opportunity, he says with a measure of reverence and depth, the words tethering my heart. The Hunter’s Moon, the autumnal equinox, and the veil thinned during Samhain all grant a greater force of spirit power. My heart must be found in such a month. Or I will spend another year with the curse.

Silence hangs in the air like a noose, and I hold my breath, heart in my throat, as he takes deep breaths in contrast. I nearly choke when he cups my face in his gloves, his fingers insistent, urging, longing. You, Belladonna Holloway, summoning me on the first of October cannot be a coincidence. I had never felt hope until I heard your words. And now, you have heard my haunted tale. What say you?

The air of the gardens seems to echo with the sorrow and rage of his tale, pressing in on my heart. I touch my palm to his chest, struggling with my words.

“Find your heart and reclaim your head. Did she give you any other information, any other ways? Like how you mixed our blood, and we can talk. Is there anything like that, where you could have a head…even if it’s just temporary?”

He says nothing.

And then…