Charon's Crossing (A Paranormal Romantic Suspense Novel) (7 page)

But then his smile vanished, for the ship became a battered hulk sinking slowly into a dark sea, with her crew dead and dying on her shattered deck. He heard them crying out for him to help them but he could not, God, he could not!

He sprang awake racked with anguish.

"Why?" he whispered, and then his voice rose to a roar. "Why?" he shouted at his reflection in the oval mirror, and he pounded his fists against the glass.

The glass shattered, the shards falling to the attic floor in a hundred bright, shiny pieces.

Catherine had done this. She had destroyed him and everything he'd ever believed in.

There was a roaring in his ears. The pieces of glass flew into the air like arrows and into the frame that had contained them.

The mirror was whole again, and Matthew stared into it.

"When will I be free?" he whispered.

The mirror imploded and sucked him into a spinning vortex of light.

He'd cried out, certain he was being swept away to some plane even more awful than the one in which he'd so long languished.

Instead, he'd found himself in the rose garden, behind Charon's Crossing.

Catherine was there, too. And even after everything, the sight of her made the breath catch in his throat.

Like a starving man brought before a laden banquet table, he feasted on the sight of her. The soft, lush curves of her body were hidden beneath a demure cotton gown that buttoned to the neck. Her hair was plaited, giving her a look that was, he knew, falsely demure.

The memory of how it felt to hold her in his arms had raced through his blood. Despite himself, he'd whispered her name and when she turned towards him he'd gone to her, taken her into his embrace and kissed that luscious, lying mouth until her protests had become sighs of pleasure.

Matthew buried his head in his hands as he remembered that moment.

If only he'd killed her then. Christ, why hadn't he? It would have been so simple.

It was his disgrace that he had not done so. He'd been too caught up in tasting her, touching her. By the time he'd begun to regain his reason, a white mist had surrounded him. When it had cleared, he'd found himself back in the dreary attic, alone.

Enraged, despising himself for his senseless stupidity, he'd pounded his fists against the unyielding walls.

"Enough," he'd bellowed. "Damn you, let me out!"

But, of course, no one had come.

There was no jailer to hold him captive at Charon's Crossing. It was he and he alone who had sentenced himself to this eternal captivity just as it was he and he alone who could set himself free.

In Catherine's death, he would find peace.

Now, at last, the waiting was over. Catherine had come, and he would kill her.

His torment would end at last.

Matthew rose from the chair in which he'd been sitting. He walked slowly to the window and looked out. The sky was already beginning to lighten. It would be dawn soon.

He closed his eyes and grasped the sill with both hands, drawing in great breaths of air, savoring the scents of far-off places lying far beyond this prison. Then he turned and made his way to the door.

He slipped through it, a dark shade blending into the greater darkness of the silent house, and made his way down the narrow attic steps to the second floor. There would be no dramatic moans and rattles on this night.

He had no wish to warn Cat that he was on his way.

At the doorway to her bedroom, he paused. The door was shut, and he thought of slipping through it without bothering to open it. But it somehow seemed important to come to her as if he were still of her world on this night. Slowly, he put his hand on the knob, and turned it.

The door swung open on darkness. She must have drawn the velvet drapes that covered the windows. Had she thought to protect herself from the night? he wondered with a twisting smile.

Darkness meant nothing to him. Still, he went to the windows, drew back the draperies, knowing in his heart that he was prolonging the moment until he would go to her.

At last, he turned around.

The cobwebs that had clung to the corners were gone, swept away by an old woman who had spent half her time cleaning the room and half of it making the sign of the cross.

Matthew had found it amusing, though he had not done anything to frighten her. The house's reputation, and the icy draft that swept down the stairs from the attic, had done that all by themselves.

But there was nothing frightening in this room.

There was only Catherine, asleep in the big, four-poster bed.

She lay on her back, with a pale pink blanket drawn to her chin. One hand lay palm up over the blanket's binding. The other was flung above her head, the fingers slender and lightly tanned against the white pillowcase.

Her guilt should have made her repulsive but it didn't. Her beauty still made his throat constrict.

He moved towards her slowly, his gaze sweeping over her. He felt a sudden painful hunger for the feel of her in his arms.

He hated himself for it but he understood. Hell, he thought with grim humor, what man wouldn't be stirred by the sight of a beautiful woman after he'd been locked up alone for so long?

He paused beside the bed and looked at her. His memory had played tricks on him, he could see that now. Catherine was even lovelier than he'd remembered. Her hair was more lustrous, her cheekbones more finely sculpted. And her mouth, that beautiful, lying mouth. He hid told her once that her lips were like the petals of the pink roses that grew at Charon's Crossing and that within them lay the nectar of the gods.

Now he knew that to compare her lips to rose petals was to be overly generous to the flower, for surely none had ever been so perfect.

His gaze drifted slowly downward. What of the rest of her? His body stirred. Was her form more, or less, than he remembered?

A rush of blood sizzled through his veins and pooled in his groin.

"Are you some untried stripling? Think with your brain, man," he murmured through his teeth, "not with your rod."

But how could he not look at her? After all this time, he had to see her. Just this once. What harm could there be in it?

He bent towards her, took hold of the blanket's edge. Catherine stirred in her sleep and he froze, not wanting to awaken her until he was ready. She sighed, turned her face a little on the pillow, and then her breathing steadied.

Matthew's did, too. Slowly, carefully, he drew down the blanket.

One quick look, that was all. Just one...

His heart stood still.

Sweet Mother of God, what was she wearing?

It surely was not a nightgown.

He had never quite understood the need of women to undress at night only to dress themselves again, to put on garments that covered them from throat to toe.

Catherine had slept in such a gown. Not just in the dream. No, he'd seen her dressed for bed once; she had passed before the lit lamp in her bedroom window as he made his way along the path that led to the house. She had paused in the window, almost as if she'd known he was there. Her nightgown, white and full with long, frilled sleeves and a high neck, had revealed nothing except the faintest outline of her body, silhouetted by the oil lamp.

Not all women slept that way, of course. He was thirty-three years old now; he had been at sea more than half his life and he was not exactly of the face and build that frightened women off. He had tumbled his fair share—well, more than his fair share, perhaps—of ladies into their beds.

But he had never seen one dressed in anything even halfway resembling this.

He swallowed hard, trying to ease the tightness in his throat. The tightness in his groin was another matter.

What in hell was she wearing?

It seemed to be two bits of embroidered white cotton. One was a narrow-strapped, sleeveless cotton shirt. The other was—well, he didn't know what it was. Not underpants, surely. No one, not even a Liverpool strumpet, would call that tiny swathe of white cotton an undergarment.

The shirt exposed her shoulders and arms, and the fabric was so thin and fine that it seemed to cup her breasts. He could even see the faint outlines of her nipples just beneath.

And the underpants, if that was what they were, rode so high on her long legs that they exposed most of her gently rounded hips, covering only that sweet feminine delta she had never let him see nor touch.

Matthew groaned. Christ! His body was hard for her, hard and hot and aching with need. He longed to strip off those bits of cotton and bury himself in her. To watch her face as her eyes flew open and she realized what was happening...

"No!"

The cry rasped from his throat and he stumbled back from the bed, his chest heaving with the harsh labor of his breath.

Catherine had made a fool of him. She had ruined his name, turned him into a traitor. She had been the very instrument of his death.

But he would not let her turn him into a beast.

He would take his vengeance but he would do it honorably, as he had planned. Not like this.

Never like this.

He drew a shaky breath as he looked down at her again. And yet—and yet, the need to touch her was overpowering.

Moments slipped by. Then, slowly, he reached out his hand and stroked it over the black silk of her hair.

It felt so good to touch her.

He dropped to his knees beside the bed and held his breath as he let his fingers drift the length of her throat. Her skin was warm and firm to the touch; the scent of soap and roses and woman floated to his nostrils and he drew it deep into his lungs.

Catherine sighed. Two vertical lines appeared between her dark, winged brows but they vanished almost immediately.

"Cat," he heard himself whisper. "Cat..."

His touch grew bolder. His hand moved lightly over her breast, feeling the weight of it, and the roundness. His thumb moved across the rise of her nipple. She stirred in her sleep; her flesh surged and hardened and pressed against his palm.

He clenched his teeth and groaned.

Both his hands were on her now, cupping her breasts, shaping them to his touch.

"Catherine," he said thickly.

A whimper caught in her throat. Her lips parted on the softest of sighs.

His hands went to her hips, stroked gently down her thighs. He knew what she was, a liar and a Jezebel, but what had that to do with desire?

"Cat," he said, and he lowered his head to hers. His mouth settled lightly against hers in the softest of kisses.

She was sweet. So sweet. Could he have forgotten the taste of her? He must have, for surely he could not recall her tasting like this. Her lips reminded him of summer rain and spring breezes, of the first cool touch of snow.

Her arms rose, twined around his neck. Her lips parted more fully under the hardening pressure of his. She whispered something in her sleep.

Yes, she was saying, oh yes...

Matthew shot to his feet.

What was he doing?

She was a lying, scheming bitch. Was she a sorceress, as well? Was she trying to cast a spell on him, even now?

His face took on the coldness of stone as he marched to the doorway. Hell, he thought, and he turned and looked at the sleeping woman in the bed.

"Catherine," he said, his voice as chill as the air that suddenly surrounded him. "Catherine, look at me."

"Mmm," Catherine said, and rolled onto her belly.

"Damn you, Cat. Open your eyes!"

* * *

The voice was coming from a long way off.

It was harsh and angry, and the last thing Kathryn wanted to do was respond to it. But it persisted, and at last her eyes flickered open.

"Kathryn," the voice said...

"Oh my god!"

Kathryn shot up in bed, clutching the blanket to her throat.

She had gone to sleep in a bedroom that looked like the overblown set of an old Dracula movie. The velvet draperies had hung from the windows in tatters and the room had been bare, except for this bed and a rickety armoire. And the only thing on the walls, aside from patches of damp, had been the faded rectangles and ovals that showed where paintings had once hung.

Now, a soft spill of moonlight illuminated a room that was as elegant as it must have been when Charon's Crossing was new.

A pair of slipper chairs were angled towards a small settee; an elegant armoire graced one wall. Opposite it, a milk-glass kerosene lamp stood on a small round table. Crimson draperies framed the windows, the sheer curtains beneath billowing softly in the night breeze from the sea. A painting of what looked like an English village hung on one wall; smaller landscapes and a pair of oval-framed portraits were arranged on the wall across from the bed.

Kathryn swallowed dryly.

This is just a dream,
she told herself.
It's a dream.

Her heart gave an uneasy thud. Was it? If you
thought
you were dreaming, then you
couldn't
be dreaming.