Page 16 of Secrets of the Highwayman (Immortal Warriors #2)

M elanie was dreaming . She knew it was a dream, and yet she didn’t seem able to stop it or escape it. And the worst thing was it didn’t feel like a dream. Like the creature in the corner, it felt real.

Once more Ravenswood was aglow, and colored lanterns hung throughout the garden. Melanie was walking among them, but now she wore an ankle-length dress, her fair hair was feathered about her face, and jewelry glittered at her throat. These were sapphires, to match her eyes.

Up the steps to the front door of the house, and the staircase was in front of her, candelabra burning at intervals, the flames making the faces of the portraits smile. The chatter of the guests and the dancing were beckoning her upward. Melanie allowed herself to be drawn, trailing her hand along the banister rail.

She felt light, as if her feet weren’t quite touching the ground, and yet she wasn’t dizzy; she was strong in her mind and spirit. Her skin tingled as if she’d had one of those ultra-expensive body scrubs, and her vision was clear and sharp, perfect twenty-twenty. It was like every part of her was running on full power, as if she was completely at one with herself, utterly focused.

She peeked into the library. It was just the same as it had been, cheery with decorations of green ivy and red holly berries, the people dancing, the candles flaring in the mirrors. Nathaniel was there, dancing with his sister. He looked gorgeous, so handsome and happy, no wonder the women were ogling him.

In her dream Melanie smiled, because she knew that back in her own time Nathaniel was lying beside her on her bed.

She lingered a moment longer and then she continued on. There was a door and when she opened it there was another corridor, leading to the servants’ bedchambers.

She realized then that her wanderings had a purpose. She was looking for someone, and she knew that this was where she would find him. Melanie floated—walked was too mundane a word for what she was doing—down the long, bare corridor. No need to make servants’ quarters pretty.

She could hear it now, getting louder. The sound was rhythmic and familiar, and she knew exactly what it was. She instructed her dream feet to stop, to turn back, but they wouldn’t listen to her. It was like swimming too near to a riptide and then not being able to get out again. She was being drawn closer and closer in.

A door stood ajar, a wedge of pale candlelight spilling out. Melanie could hear voices now, the man’s low and rumbling, and the woman’s softer and gasping. They were making love. She watched her hand reach out and press open the door another inch, just enough so that she could see into the room without having to enter it.

Pengorren’s broad naked shoulders all but hid his partner. His breeches were unbuttoned and pulled down over his muscular buttocks. The girl was smaller, slighter, her head thrown back, her face slack with ecstasy, her fair hair a tangled mass of curls covering the pillow. Her white thighs were open, cradling him, but her arms were bent above her head, her hands clasped about the brass rods at the head of her bed.

Melanie remembered her. It was one of the servants she had seen on her first visit into the past, one of the giggling, whispering girls carrying the food to the supper room and wishing Major Pengorren was hers. Well, it looked as if she had got her wish.

“Doan’ stop,” the girl whimpered. Because Pengorren had stopped moving and was observing her flushed face.

“Then ask me nicely,” he said.

“I asked you already, sir.”

“Not nicely enough, it seems. Come on. Or have you had enough . . . ?”

“No,” she cried. Melanie saw her throat move as she swallowed, seeking for the words that would please him, while he watched her with a cold attention at odds with their situation. “Please, sir, I do love ye. I want ye more than . . . more than . . .”

“More than what, Dorrie?” he mocked, and twisted a corkscrew curl of blond hair about his finger, giving it a cruel tug.

“More than my ma or pa or my brothers and sisters.”

“Hmm, not enough.”

“Oh, sir, ye know I love ye!”

Pengorren chuckled. “I know that.”

“I love ye more than life itself.”

Evidently that was what he was waiting for, because Dorrie squeaked as he began to ride her again. And it wasn’t gentle, there was a brutality to his movements that made Melanie, who wasn’t easily shocked, feel queasy. But there was also something about the way Pengorren had made her beg, as if he wasn’t making love to her at all or even having mutually pleasurable sex.

He was exerting his power over her.

Melanie began to back away as silently as she had come.

Pengorren raised his head. He looked surprised, and then his teeth flashed white as he smiled, like a lion about to make a kill. Here was the ruddy handsome face and piercing blue eyes she remembered so well; the feeling of being sucked into a dazzling vortex.

“Melanie?” he whispered. “You’re stronger than I thought.”

She spun around and began to run, back down the corridor. He knows my name, she thought. He knows who I am.

And then, fear pounding in her chest: Is this really a dream? It doesn’t feel like a dream.

She reached the stairs, but they were gone.

Ravenswood was gone, and it was no longer 1813.

Melanie was alone on a beach, that same beach where Suzie’s clumsy boyfriend had smashed her sand castle and made her cry. Cautiously Melanie looked down at herself and saw those skinny goose-bump-covered legs and the hideous pink bathing suit. She was a child again, and it was that summer in Cornwall, after their parents had lost everything. Her mother and father had spent the whole time arguing bitterly over her father’s poor investments, and a short time later had divorced. Her mother had gone to France to “find herself” and her father had rarely been home. Just Suzie and Melanie, really.

Melanie looked around her now, at the stretch of sand and the blue water, and tried to breathe calmly.

“I can stop this dream anytime I want to,” she told herself. “I can wake up. I can.” But her voice was small and weak, like a child’s.

There was a shadow by the cliffs where the sand ended. Melanie peered across at it, holding her hand up to her eyes to cut out the glare. As she looked, the shadow moved and turned into a man. Unknown to her, he’d been standing by the rocks all this time, watching her.

Melanie had been told often enough to keep a lookout for strangers, so she kept a wary eye on him as he approached, muscles tensed and ready to run if he showed the least sign of trying anything nasty. But he was smiling, and there was a beauty to his smile, a dazzling beauty, like the sun in the morning, all golden and new. She found herself gaping up at him, everything else forgotten.

“What’s your name, child?” he asked, in deep voice that seemed to vibrate through her skinny body.

“Melanie Jones,” she said, pleased it was her name he wanted and not any of the other girls on the beach. That it was her he had singled out.

“Jones.” He thought a moment, and then sighed. “So many. I can’t remember them all. I am getting old.”

“You’re not old!” she retorted, because that was what adults always wanted you to say. But he was. There were lines in his face, and his eyes were tired-looking, as though he’d seen lots.

He laughed at her attempt at flattery, then his face grew serious, his gaze intent. “Melanie.” He bent down on one knee and put his hands on her skinny shoulders. Immediately, she began to tremble, and her legs went all wobbly, as if the strength were being pulled out of her. Those blue eyes were boring into hers, filling her world.

“You’re mine, Melanie Jones,” he said, and his voice was booming in her head. “All mine.”

She felt frightened, but she also felt as if what he was saying was right. She was his. And to be his, she must be special and wonderful. It was nice to be special for a change, instead of being the one no one wanted to be bothered with.

And then Suzie spoiled it all.

“Get away from her, you dirty bastard!” she screeched, as she came down on them, a fifteen-year-old fury.

The beautiful man fell over in the sand.

“Dirty old bastard,” Suzie said again, spitting at him, and then she snatched up Melanie’s hand and began to drag her away.

“Let me go! I want to stay! Let me go!”

But Suzie didn’t let her go. “Don’t you know any better than that?” she shrieked, panting, her eyes wild.

“I hate you,” Melanie said. And she did, but she loved her, too, because special and wonderful as the man on the beach had made her feel, he had also frightened her. She had felt, when he touched her and looked into her eyes, as if he was taking something from her. Something very important to her.

That night she crept into Suzie’s bed and cuddled up against her for comfort, and for once Suzie didn’t tell her not to be a baby.

“He didn’t hurt you, did he?” Suzie asked sleepily. “I’ll kill him if he did.”

Melanie made a sound that meant “no.”

“Well, we’ll be going home in the morning anyway, so you don’t have to worry. He won’t find you again, Melanie, I promise.”

And Melanie believed her. Suzie was her big sister, and big sisters had the power to make everything all right.

Only this time Suzie was wrong, he had found her again.

Because the man on the beach all those years ago had been Major Pengorren.

F or a moment after she woke , Melanie didn’t know where she was. The incident on the beach was so long ago, she hadn’t thought of it since, maybe because it was so strange and creepy. Suzie had been her hero in those days. No matter how deserted she’d felt by her mother or her father, she had believed that Suzie would always be there for her.

Melanie felt a twinge of guilt. It was a long time since she’d thought of her sister as more than an irritation, or a blood-is-thicker-than-water responsibility she would rather avoid.

The guilt turned into a hollow sensation in her stomach as the face of the man on the beach rushed back to her.

Instinctively, she turned to look beside her, but Nathaniel was long gone, leaving only the hollow in the pillow to tell her where he’d lain.

When her cell phone rang, it was almost a relief to suspend her thoughts and answer it.

“Hello?”

There was a pause, a heartbeat.

“Miss Jones?” the croaky old voice was faintly familiar, although she couldn’t place it until he spoke again. “This is Mr. Trewartha. You rang me yesterday evening. About Ravenswood? It is about Ravenswood, is it not? Naturally, I had heard the sad news about Miss Pengorren’s passing.”

Melanie relaxed back against her pillows; it was the antique dealer who lived in Launceston. “Oh yes . . . I’m sorry, I . . .” Slept in? She peered at the window and saw that the sun was high.

“Nothing to be sorry about. You’re probably enjoying the weather.” His voice dropped to little more than a whisper, and Melanie wondered if there was something wrong with his throat. “I’m afraid I’m semiretired these days, but I do know of Ravenswood. If it would suit you, I could come around and take a look. If that helps you at all? No strings attached. As I said, I am semiretired, but in this case I admit that I’m curious. It isn’t very often that one of our oldest and grandest houses comes up for sale.”

“I suppose not.”

“Will you be staying long in Cornwall?”

“Only a week, although I’ll probably need to come back again later to oversee things, when the arrangements for the auction have been made. Thank you for offering to take a look at the place, I’m very grateful, and naturally we’ll pay you for your time and expertise.”

“If you insist, Miss Jones. I assure you, though, I don’t need your money. Coming to Ravenswood will be enough of a treat for me.”

He was a bit of an old sweetheart, thought Melanie with a smile. “I’ll look forward to meeting you.”

“I’ll make my arrangements and let you know when to expect me. Good-bye, Miss Jones.”

Well, at least she’d managed to do something related to her job. She should have been up hours ago, eaten, dressed, gone for her run. What was happening to her routine? Hard to believe that all these years she had worked so hard at making herself safe, and after just two days it was all beginning to unravel.