Charon's Crossing (A Paranormal Romantic Suspense Novel) (29 page)

Elvira laughed with relief. "No, that's all right, I do it all the time. But I have to admit, you did have me goin' for a minute. Between what Hiram said and the stories..." Her hand flew to her lips. "Oh, I am sorry! I surely didn't mean—"

"There's no need to apologize." Kathryn smiled again, even more brightly than before. "Elvira, I was thinking..."
What? What lie can you offer to get her out of here? Come on, Kathryn, come up with something clever.
"I was thinking that—that you've done enough for one day."

"But I haven't. I just came out to see if you want me to take down the draperies at the library windows and hang 'em outside for a bit or if you'd rather I started on the dinin' room next."

"Yes," Kathryn said.

Matthew chuckled. " 'Yes' won't do it," he said softly.

"I mean... I mean, I'll have to think it over."

"Well, then, why don't I get started in the dinin' room? That chandelier surely needs washin', and—"

"Not today," Kathryn said quickly. She went up the steps, put her arm lightly around the older woman's shoulders and began walking her towards the house. "Thank you for all you've done today, Elvira. Now, you go on home and by the time you come back tomorrow, I'll have worked out a plan."

"If that's the way you want it, Miz Russell, but—"

"Call me Kathryn, please. And yes, yes, I think that's the best way to do this. I'll figure out in what order I want to get things done and..."

She kept talking as she led Elvira into the kitchen where she only gave her time to scoop up her purse. Then she hurried her through the foyer and out the front door to the car Elvira had left parked in the driveway. She kept talking, too, as she opened the car door and all but shoved the woman into the driver's seat. And she kept smiling, not just while she talked but while she waved a briskly cheerful good-bye.

When the car had rattled out of sight, the smile fell from Kathryn's lips. She took a deep breath, went back into the house—and walked smack into Matthew.

"Nice performance," he said with a lazy smile. "All that, just so we could be alone? I'm flattered."

"All that, so we could be alone," she said grimly. She put a hand out as he took a step towards her. "And so you could start talking, as fast and as hard as you can."

"Talk?" Matthew scowled and folded his arms over his chest. "You disappoint me, madam."

"Stuff it, Mr. McDowell."

"I beg your pardon?"

"This is my house you're haunting. And I want to know the reason."

Matthew stiffened. "It's none of your business."

"That's where you're wrong. It's very much my business. Cat Russell was my great-great... my ancestor, and you talk about her as if she were evil."

"An excellent choice of words, madam."

"Well, I want to know why."

A muscle knotted in his jaw. The last thing he wanted to do was bring Cat's perfidy to life again.

"It's a dull story, I'm afraid, one that would only bore you."

"Listen, Matthew, I'm not stupid. I've read your journal. I've spoken to people."

"And they remember me?" He grinned. "I'm flattered."

"What they remember," Kathryn said pointedly, "is that you were a pirate."

Matthew's mouth became a thin line.

"That is the second time you've accused me of piracy," he said tightly. "If you were a man—"

"But I'm not. I'm a woman, and you mistook me for someone who spurned you."

"Spurned? Spurned?" His hands knotted into fists and he took a step forward. Kathryn held her ground but it wasn't easy. Anger blazed in his eyes. "I was not spurned I was betrayed."

"So you claim."

"It is the truth."

"The truth can sometimes be a matter of interpretation."

"Truth is truth, Kathryn. It needs no interpretation."

He didn't want to tell her anything. Kathryn could see that. But he owed her an explanation, dammit. When he'd thought she was Cat Russell, he'd cursed her. He'd even tried to kill her. Did he really think he could buy her off with a smug little lecture on truth?

Kathryn lifted her chin. "I believe in judging for myself," she said. "Or are you afraid that if you tell me the story, I'll punch it full of holes?"

Matthew glowered at this impossible woman. She was trying to embarrass him into telling her a tale that was none of her business. Well, she would not succeed. The tale was humiliating. It was bloody. And letting her hear it would change nothing.

On the other hand, perhaps it would. What if that was the reason she'd been drawn here? What if it were the reason he'd been allowed to step out of the blackness?

Perhaps he was supposed to tell the story of Cat's perfidy to her namesake. It was not a pretty story; it would surely not be something one would wish to hear about one's forebear.

Maybe that was the whole purpose of what was happening. As acts of vengeance went, it wasn't much. But it was better than nothing. He would tell her the tale, she'd be pained by it. And then she would leave Charon's Crossing and he... he would find peace. Or perhaps he would fade back into the darkness.

A fist seemed to clamp around his heart. Either way, there would be no more sunshine on his face. No more scent of flowers to tease his nostrils, no taste of fine cognac slipping down his throat...

And no more Kathryn.

She would not be there to argue each and every damned point he raised. To look at him with defiance flashing in her magnificent blue eyes. To put her hands on her hips, lift her chin in that way that was enough to drive him into a rage and talk to him as if she were not a female but his equal.

He would have her for none of those things, nor would he have her to invade his dreams, to drive him senseless with desire and make him ache to be made of flesh and blood so he could take her in his arms, kiss her mouth and caress her breasts until she pleaded for him to strip away her clothing and sheathe himself in her heat.

He turned away abruptly. It was all foolishness. He could tell her what had happened or he could not. He knew, in his heart, that the telling would change nothing for him. But perhaps she was right. Let her judge for herself. Let her hear the truth.

No one had, in all these many years.

"Very well," he said. His voice was cold but so soft that Kathryn had to strain to hear it. "I'll do as you ask, Kathryn. I'll tell you why I haunt this place." He swung towards her and she saw that his face was as grim as his tone. "And once I have, you will wish you had never come here."

Chapter 12

The story Matthew had to tell her was not just inscribed in his head and heart but in every drop of blood that beat through his veins.

He had lived it once, relived it a thousand times since emerging from the black void in which he'd spent the past 184 years. There was nothing new in it, not for him, anyway.

Still, he dreaded the recitation. The telling of it would only make the pain of what had happened sharper. Poets wrote sweet words of torment when they spoke of those who had died for love but there was nothing sweet about the death of his men.

They had not died for love but for his own accursed stupidity.

He could not bear the thought of telling Kathryn the story within the confines of these walls. Even after so long a passage of time, there were moments he thought he could hear the echo of Lord Russell's laughter in this house. And then there was the Other, locked away in the blackness beyond the attic walls.

No. No, he could not speak of that terrible night on which he had lost everything—here, at Charon's Crossing.

He pulled open the French doors and motioned Kathryn outside. The sun was melting in the sky, tinting the terrace and the garden in shades of fuchsia.

Kathryn started down the steps but the pressure of Matthew's hand stopped her.

"Not there," he said quickly. "Let's walk down the path to the cove."

She hesitated and he knew she was remembering what had happened on that beach only a couple of hours before. Christ, what kind of man was he that a woman should be afraid of him?

"You needn't worry," he said. "I'm not about to confuse you with Cat again."

The air was chilly with the onset of evening; the sun was dipping towards the sea. The waves pounding against the shore seemed to echo the beat of his own heart.

It was the perfect setting for his story, and he began it quickly, without preliminaries.

He told Kathryn of his first meeting with Cat and of how he had been entranced by her, and of the subsequent, secret encounters that had seemed so romantic; of how Cat had refused to let him declare his intentions to her father.

"She told me that she had already tried to discuss modern ideas about love and marriage with him in the abstract," he said, his voice low, "and that he had chastised her, calling her thoughts stuff and nonsense bred by the revolution on the Continent. But she assured me that she'd gradually been winning him over and that she would tell me the instant she sensed his willingness to accept me as her suitor."

Matthew gave a short laugh, turned his back to the cliffs and stood staring out at the sea.

"I was such a fool. I believed her. Hell, why wouldn't I? I was besotted with love. I would have done anything for her." He took a deep breath. "And, eventually, I did."

"Perhaps Cat was bored with her life, perhaps she had done the same thing before. I only know that it was all a game. And it would have been a harmless one, with me the only loser... if something had not happened which would change the lives of everyone involved."

He began to walk along the shore, his steps long and steady. Kathryn kept pace with him. He glanced at her from time to time as he told her his story, watching the play of emotions on her face, the skepticism warring with pity and then both losing the battle and giving way to amazement that he could have been so foolish.

But he spared himself nothing. He knew now that he was telling the tale as much for himself as for her. It was time to say aloud the things he had been thinking for what might as well have been an eternity.

Confession was good for the soul, or so they said, which was almost as terrifying as it was amusing considering that he no longer knew whether a soul was something he possessed.

At last, he reached the point in his narrative that would be the most difficult. He paused and turned again to the sea.

"Sometimes," he said in a low voice, "sometimes, I almost wish I had never been at Charon's Crossing the night Lord Russell and his cohorts schemed to start the war before the Americans knew it had been declared. But I was, and I heard them plan to capture for the Crown all the American ships lying at anchor in the harbor."

Only the ugliest bit of the tale remained now. Matthew stared blindly across the sea to where the sun lay dying, bleeding crimson rays into the black water, and he shuddered.

"I know what you overheard," Kathryn said quietly, "and of your hope to rescue Catherine before the Americans made their move."

He nodded. "Yes. I know you read it."

"But I don't know what happened. The entries ended so abruptly..."

Matthew choked out a laugh. "As did all else on that night, Kathryn."

"That was... it was the night you—you—"

"Don't be shy, madam. Yes, it was the night I died, the night I lost everything, not just my life but..."

"But the woman you loved?" The simple words were hard to get out. Why should they have been? Why did they leave
such
a knot in her breast?

"Loved?" He laughed again, the sound bitter. "I never loved Cat. I know that now. I was just too besotted to admit the truth. What I felt was lust, plain and simple." He bent, scooped up a handful of fine, white sand and let the breeze take it as it sifted slowly through his fingers. "It was the mystery I loved. The furtive meetings that held within them the tang of danger, the sly glances exchanged behind her father's back... Oh, Cat was good at what she did. She was as skilled at the art of deception as she was at the art of teasing a man until his body ruled his head, and I was fool enough to be taken in by it."