Page 4 of This Haunted Heart

Lochlan Finley

I stayed most of the night in Rynn’s rooms, leaving early in the morning to wash, change my clothing, and to see to the movers I’d hired the day before. They would come later that afternoon to transport the rest of Rynn’s things by stagecoach along an express mail line that ran through Blackwood County.

They’d pack and cart her things to my summer home in the southeast wetlands, the manor I called Nightingale House.

The train was the most prudent way to travel, but I couldn’t trust the rail lines with Rynn. Too congested, too busy. It was unlikely she’d be as cooperative as I wished. I didn’t want her slipping away from me in a crowd when she inevitably decided to run again. A trusty old Concord coach would serve me best .

I gave the company man updated instructions to ensure that everyone at the Lark would believe they were taking her belongings to her fictional family in Texas.

Dressed in a coal black morning coat and matching top hat, I returned and found her still asleep. I wasn’t surprised. She’d ingested a great deal of the weaver-wood.

I no longer appeared common. The diamond pin in my silk cravat was a touch too much, but it declared the message I wished to impart. I was old money. I was walking, breathing power. I was not to be trifled with. When I headed downstairs to request that a cart of refreshments and breakfast be brought up to her room, I was received by staff with zeal. I caught every eye in each room I entered. Even Matthew was kinder in his interactions with me.

Later, I busied myself in Rynn’s sitting room, waiting on her to rise, letting her have her last peaceful moments of rest. She was going to need them. When she stirred, I moved to her bedroom archway. She stretched out her limbs as languidly as a spoiled house cat. Several of her curls had pulled free of their pins in the night to curtain her face.

“Hello you,” I said.

She greeted me with a smile more brilliant than the sun through her window. “You’re still here. Oh? And don’t you look fetching.”

The compliment made my cheeks heat. “I’m still here.”

Her laugh was thick with sleep. “I truly love it when you blush. Not nearly enough men do that . . . I’m so sorry I fell asleep before our evening concluded.”

“There’s no need for apologies. Clearly the rest was needed. Did the weaver-wood work its magic? Did you sleep well?”

“I did! Can’t remember the last time I slept so peacefully . . . or so late. Dear lord, what time is it? Never mind, don’t tell me. I’m happier not knowing.” She climbed from the bed and began pulling at the pins in her hair until every last raven ringlet spilled down her back. “It’s just not how I imagined our first night together ending, though I’m so glad you’ve returned.”

I propped my shoulder against the archway, feeling pleased with myself. “You thought about our first night together?”

“Only during the waking hours,” she said puckishly. She worked off the fastenings of her dress with a flexibility that was astounding, even while favoring her left arm slightly. “Haven’t you pictured it? Us together for the night, I mean?”

“I’ve thought about it,” I said, but in my case, I relived the nights we’d already had. We were young lovers, eighteen and new to the world, and we hadn’t been shy with each other once our relationship became intimate. I knew her body well. “Are you going to tell me more about how you imagined the night concluding? Or is it your plan just to tease me?”

“I haven’t decided yet . . .” She undressed down to a white chemise, the lace sheer in all the tempting places I liked best. Rynn peered over at me, one brow raised. “You’re staring.”

“You’re undressing,” I countered.

“Fair enough,” she said, voice wobbling. She pulled a dressing gown over her underclothes and tied it in the front. I moved to the sitting room after she left to tend to her morning habits.

My knee bobbed while I sat on the sofa. The phantom weight of a guillotine blade hovered nearby. The time to let it drop was quickly approaching.

When she returned, my spine pulled up straight as a rail. It took everything in me to remain patient while she ate a boiled egg and drank her tea next to me. I fought not to fidget.

“How did you imagine our first night ending?” she asked me.

“Not fair,” I countered. “You brought it up. You should share first.”

She popped a small purple grape into her mouth, smiling around the fruit. “Very well then. I dreamed of it last night, actually. The images were quite vivid. You carried me in your arms to my bed.”

“That wasn’t a dream,” I told her. “You were in no fit state to get yourself there after you consumed so much weaver-wood.”

She sipped her tea and played with a piece of toast on her plate, mushing it with a finger. Then she discarded the plate onto the cart. “In my dream, after you joined me in bed, you called me by my real name. And I liked that. No one uses my name.”

That was not a dream either, but I remained silent, watching her face carefully. “You’ve told no one here?”

She nodded. “No one ever. Not since I was a girl. I liked it. I liked it on your lips, while your lips were all over me. It was . . . not a vision easily forgotten.”

I scooted closer, crowding her corner of the sofa. “Then tell me your name.”

I already knew her name, of course, but I coveted it at that moment. Stealing this offer of trust for my own would make my betrayal all the more bitter, and I wanted it anyway.

“I’ve gone mad, haven’t I?” Her breathy laugh lacked humor. “Why make our limited acquaintance more tangled and convoluted than it need be? There’s no sense in it. It’s only that sometimes when I look at you . . . I don’t even know what I’m saying. I can’t quantify the feeling. Perhaps I’ve just had to care for myself alone for much too long. Now I’m reaching where I shouldn’t.”

“You should reach where you like,” I said, sliding a hand around the back of her neck coaxingly, fingers lacing in the curls there. “Tell me your name . . . Go on. If you truly want to hear it on my lips, then—”

“Rynn.”

“Attagirl.” I stroked a thumb down the column of her throat, and she shivered. “Such a regal name. Queen Rynn. In your dream, what did I say to you?”

But I’d pushed her too hard.

Her next breath left in a rush. Instead of answering, she climbed up off the sofa, parting from me to pace around the refreshment cart, hugging her arms like she was cold. I’d taken over the center of the sofa. Amused, I watched her fret like a cornered tiger, gracefully turning this way and that.

“Come back and sit,” I told her, but her agitated movements didn’t slow. “Since transactions usually make you feel better, I believe I know just the thing.”

She stopped right in front of me, and her head cocked to the side, sending her curls tumbling. “What’d you have in mind?”

“Sit with me, and I’ll tell you. I’ll even let you pick which side you’d like. My pirate side,” I said playfully, gesturing at my scars before patting the corresponding cushion. “Or the prettier one.”

Always eager to reassure me, she sat on my scarred side and crossed her legs. Her feet were bare. The intimacy of seeing her naked toes was not lost on me.

“What’s this transaction?” she asked.

“You come and summer with me in my home in the southeast. It’s a lovely manor at the heart of Blackwood County I call Nightingale House. I’ve spared it no luxury, and the wetlands are beautiful. Only grant me your presence, and in exchange I’ll pay you handsomely.”

She blinked at me. “But I’m—”

“I know. You’re retired. I thought perhaps more of what you’re used to might help you feel comfortable, like it did the other day.”

“I’ve been invited to stay with clients before, only I never leave the Lark with them. There is an assured safety here that cannot be guaranteed elsewhere. I promise I don’t see you as a client, so please don’t be offended, but—”

“Please, Rynn. It’s lambing season, the goats are birthing their new kids, and the fields need planting. My staff is busy on their farms. My home is big and lonely. I require company, and I prefer yours. If it would assuage your fears, we could take physical intimacies completely off the table in the exchange.”

Rynn’s eyes narrowed to suspicious slits. I knew then that I’d overplayed my hand, made my offer sound too good to be true—because it was. My summer home out in the middle of the forest, nothing but the mire all around, was a trap, the perfect cage for her.

“Oh no,” she said, hiding her apprehension in a lighthearted tone, “I never take physical intimacies off the table.”

I chuckled. “I apologize. We’ll put them right back on the table, then.”

But the damage was done. Her mouth flattened, and her cunning gaze remained dubious. “How much were you wanting to pay me for my chaste company?”

My lips curled up wolfishly as, finally, I sprung my trap. “How about you travel with me to my home today and when we’re finished, I’ll pay you back what I took from your safe. ”

Shock flashed across her beautiful features, rounding her big doe eyes, then her gaze hardened. “What did you just say to me?”

“I think you heard me fine, Rynn.”

She worked her throat. “I think I regret sitting on your pirate side now.”

“I thought you might.”

Her hand went around her own neck and tightened. Her next breath shuddered out of her. “I’d like to switch to the other side.”

“Can’t go back now, I’m afraid. Cat’s out of the bag, as they say.”

Rynn jetted from the sofa, rushing through the archway. I craned so that I could watch her scrambling to the painting of the ship at sea. She ripped it off the wall and let it clatter to the floor. Fingers frantically worked the dial. The lever clanked as she pulled it open.

She froze there, staring into the abyss of her lost livelihood, chest heaving.

Rynn cursed me and the ceiling blue. The oaths flying out of her mouth were creative and so vile, were we anywhere but a cathouse, a lawman would have threatened to arrest her. She’d certainly have been fined. The costly words continued to pour out of her until, spent, she stooped and covered her face with both hands.

“No,” she panted, “no, no, no, no, no . . .”

“Afraid so,” I said. It seemed cruel to grin at her now, but the expression sprang to my lips, as friendly as a wolverine’s.

Spinning on her heels, she made a move toward her bed.

“Don’t bother,” I said, stopping her in her tracks. “I knew you would be less than pleased with me, and I already removed the small Colt from your nightstand . . . and the one under your bed—and that one too,” I added as she stretched to reach for the loose floorboard beneath her. “My word, how often do you need to shoot at people that you have so many weapons?”

She stormed into the sitting room, hands balled into fighting fists. I was prepared for her to attempt to strike me, but she stopped short. “I could scream. We are not without security here. Give back what’s mine. Do it swiftly and I will not have you roughed up by—”

“Whom? Matthew or the other two rogues I’ve seen near the doors? The grizzled barkeep? I am not intimidated by them or by your threats, Rynn.” I straightened my cufflinks, tugging down my sleeves one at a time. “Scream for them. I’m certain they would make a great show of rushing to your aid, but I would be no more disturbed by their presence in your room than I am right now without them.”

“Then you’re a fool!”

“Call them,” I dared her. “Call them up here so I can offer them a cut of the fortune I gathered from your safe. What assistance would they give you after that, I wonder? You know them better than I. Would any of those rogues help you then?”

Rynn sucked in a sharp breath. “You’re the rogue, you— What did you do to my books?” Her gaze bounced from her shelves to me, and her expression turned from anguished and alarmed to something as murderous as a hellcat.

The change of subject threw me off-kilter. I scratched a hand through my hair. “You took a long time to come around this morning . . .”

“What. Did. You. Do?”

Her categorization system had been an unsightly mess. I’d made it make sense. “I was bored, so I straightened the spines up a bit, then alphabetized them.”

“You’re a menace!”

“And you’re mine now,” I said, smiling ferociously. “Get dressed. Pack your things. I need to speak again with the stagecoach company I’ve hired. I’ll be back to claim you within the hour.”

She plopped down onto the sofa and did not budge, arms folded stubbornly over her breasts.

I bent low, bringing my nose close to hers. “Unless you would like to say goodbye to your retirement and all of your hard-earned riches right now? I could let you look upon them one final time, let you give them a parting kiss before I haul them out your door for good.”

“I should have known you were the devil,” she muttered. “Lucifer is always beautiful. I should have known it the second I laid eyes on you. The moment I found you attractive, I—”

“I can’t decide whether I’m flattered by this commentary or insulted.”

“—should have kicked you right between the legs and shoved you out my window, you serpent!”

“That settles it. I’m insulted, and I’m leaving your room now—but not through any window. You wouldn’t stand a chance in a battle with me, Rynn. Banish that idea from your head now. I’m giving you one hour. Sixty minutes only to dress and pack and make your goodbyes. It is a gift,” I said forcefully. “Be ready and do not test me.”

* * *

I returned for Rynn promptly within the hour.

She was not ready .

I found her lying on the floor, still in her dressing gown, her arm thrown dramatically over her eyes. She groaned when I entered.

“What is this tragedy?” I demanded, stepping over her body. “Are you always so melodramatic?”

“Worry not,” she moaned at me, “I’m only prone to melodrama when my entire life is crumbling around me. That only happens . . . more often to me than it does to anyone else because God hates me.”

“Clearly you require assistance,” I said, not hiding the disapproval in my tone. “Why don’t you dress while I pack.”

“I don’t want you touching any more of my things, you pirate.”

“Then you pack and I’ll dress you!” I snapped.

“That’s . . . nonsense.”

“Look at me, Rynn.”

She did, reluctantly. Her doe eyes were red-rimmed and full of malice. “Just go away!”

“If you do not ready yourself, I will throw you over my shoulder and drag you out of here as you are. Look and see me. I am no longer in a costume. None of your friends would dare stop me.” I was old money. I was power.

“They . . . might.” Her bountiful bottom lip went between her teeth uncertainly.

“Did they halt Utrecht when he put your arm in a sling? Have they done a thing to stop him from returning to see you here? No, they have not. If they tried to stop me now, they would pay dearly for failing you then.”

Her lungs hitched, and her eyes widened briefly before sharpening again. It was clear she did not know what to make of me. “You would hurt them? ”

“Anyone who tried taking you from my arms, yes. They matter nothing to me. I would hurt them maliciously and without hesitation or restraint. I am the serpent you accused me of being. Get. Dressed. Now.”

Her arm went back over her eyes. The sting of my treachery had her lip quivering.

I hauled her to her feet, careful of her healing arm, and when she struggled, I draped her over my shoulder like she was a sack of flour. A sack that kicked and flailed, as passionate as an angry bobcat, but I would not be deterred.

“All right, all right, all right ,” she chanted as I marched for the door.

I plopped her down onto her backside. “Prepare to depart. Now .”

Sprawled at my feet, lacy nightgown twisted up around her knees, she stared up at me with bottomless eyes full of anguished betrayal. Finally, she relented.

Rynn crawled away, putting distance between us before rising slowly. Her chin trembled as she dressed. She swiped her cheeks and sniffled while packing her traveling cases and boxing her books—not in alphabetical order but in some method of madness all her own. She pinned up her hair and secured the jet curls away from her face with a silk scarf the color of crow feathers. The frock she wore was charcoal gray.

She looked like she was going to a funeral. I hardened my heart to her sadness. Her pain was nothing compared to the grief that had beat in my breast since her trickery.