Linda Barlow (17 page)

"What—stay here alone?" the boy objected, looking uneasily around him. "This is the cliff what's haunted, so they say."

"The whole forest is haunted, if it comes to that," said Roger. "'Tis naught but legend, lad."

Jacky appealed to his mistress. "It's worse haunted up here, m'lady. Can't I just go home? Night’s comin' on, and I'm wet through to me skin."

Roger clapped Jacky's shoulders, saying, "We're wet through, too, my lad. But you'll be doing your mistress and me a great service by tending the horses for us, cold and wet and gloomy though it is. What's your name, lad?"

The boy responded with a timid smile, "Jacky, m'lord."

"Well, Jacky, you're right: 'tis a place to try the courage of the best of us, but if your mistress, a young woman of gentle birth and upbringing, is brave enough to face the terrors of Thorncroft Overhang, a sturdy lad like yourself ought to be able to subdue his qualms. You've a fearless heart in you, I warrant."

"Aye, m'lord," said Jacky with more spirit.

"You'll be fine." Roger tipped him a coin. "There'll be another for you when we come back down."

Jacky turned the silver over and over in his grubby hands and vowed to wait.

"That was impressive," Alexandra said as they tramped off together. "A few words, and the lamb turns into a lion. Is that how you manage the sailors on your ship?"

"Something like that."

The track became increasingly difficult and narrow. Roger had procured another torch from one of his men to light their way. Slimy branches kept slapping her in the face, but Roger climbed fast, and she had to struggle to keep up. Her sniffles started up again.

The trees disappeared as they reached the ledge that led directly to the summit. It was raining lightly now, and the sky seemed a little less threatening, but the clouds remained thick. To their left, the cliff fell away, but the heavy ground fog deadened their footsteps and hid from view the tangled vines that covered the rocks at the bottom. What a deathly place! Alan would never have come up here. He was afraid of heights. "This is madness. I can't imagine what you expect to find."

They crept round an outcrop of stone and came to the uppermost ledge, the same one from which Lady Catherine had fallen. Or jumped. Roger stopped and took her by the arm, helping her over the debris of a recent rockslide. Behind them the cliff rose another fifty feet or so, but it was sheer rock, and one couldn't climb much higher without a rope.

He held the torch high. The ledge was empty.

"No Alan. Are you satisfied?"

Still gripping her arm, Roger stepped to the edge. His expression changed as he stared out into the fog. "No Alan," he repeated, his voice strange. He seemed in a trance.

Alexandra looked down, trying vainly to see the bottom. But it was dark, and mist was swirling at their feet. It was a ghostly sort of mist, cold and damp, with tendrils that seemed to seize her around the legs and make her weak. She was tired, she realized. She had been sick for days. There was a heavy ache in her head, and she started to cough. Roger thumped her between the shoulders. The feel of his hand on her back with the drop at her feet unnerved her. His palm pressed against her spine, moving with her ribcage as the breath heaved in and out of her lungs. If he pushed her, she would fall as his mother had fallen.

The dark mist rose higher, like cold evil fingers, sliding into her brain, into her heart. Like a perfect idiot, she thought, I've come up here with a murderer. He's brought me here to kill me.

She jerked away, backing up until she felt the security of the cliff wall behind her. A cloud opened above them and the rain poured down, but the overhanging rocks provided a bit of shelter. She shivered, watching him warily, feeling trapped.

He grimaced and little lines cut into the furrow between his eyes. "What's ailing you? You look as if you expect me to throw you over."

"I can't bear being so near the edge. There's something evil about this place. Something malevolent." Her nerves tingled as it occurred to her that with his shadowed face, the black of his lashes, and the thin line of his mouth, he looked as if he fully participated in whatever malevolence there was.

"Relax. Flinging you into the abyss would be a rather extreme punishment for your sins."

Her thoughts became even more muddled. "What?"

He moved away from the edge and in against the cliff until he was almost, but not quite, touching her. He leaned his smoking torch against the rock wall behind them. "You sent Alan out after me this morning, didn't you?"

"No." Had Alan told him that? "What do you mean?"

He had a funny half-smile, but his eyes were cold. He reached out and lifted her chin in his fingers. "My little brother doesn't always have the wit to make sense of what he sees and hears. But you do. I can almost see the wheels spinning in that clever brain of yours. How much do you know, Alexandra?"

Sweet God! Let me be wrong, please let me be wrong about him. Please don't let this become some ghastly moment of revelation. "About what?" she blurted, trying to sound innocent.

"About my own sins. You’ve been nosing about, haven’t you? I’m not sure how much you actually know versus how much you’ve guessed, but either way, it’s too much."

"I’ve no notion what you're talking about. And I don't like heights. I'm getting off this ledge."

His arm came around her, preventing her. She had to look up at his hard-boned face; she could feel the tenseness in his muscles and smell the faint male aromas of musk and leather. Her head spun. "I thought I'd made it clear that you weren't to meddle in my affairs. What do I have to do to stop you?"

"I've sworn off meddling," she insisted. "You convinced me quite thoroughly when you assaulted me out on the moor."

The wind beat against them as they confronted each other. When he didn't speak, she added, "Is this why you dragged me up here? To point me to the edge of the cliff and threaten me?"

He shook his head. "Not you. Some other woman, perhaps. I'm beginning to learn that threatening you is useless. No, with you it's going to take action, not threats. Unfortunately."

Alexandra's stomach was painfully knotting and unknotting itself. Is this the end? she wondered. If he kills me, it will damn well serve me right. I knew, and yet I came with him. How could I have been so foolish?

"You're drenched, aren't you?" The arm around her tightened, drawing her close against his warm, hard body. She could feel the tension in his arms, his chest, his thighs. And the strength. There was no way to fight him. He could break her in pieces if he chose. "You're still sniffling from your cold, poor lass. I shouldn't have brought you out in this weather."

Then, to her astonishment, he bent his dark head and brushed her lips with his. Once, twice, three times. Light kisses, all of them. Despite her anxiety, a spark leapt in her. Her mouth tingled and her body ran with excitement as she remembered what he had made her feel a few days ago in his arms. His tongue flicked out and rubbed along her bottom lip. She quivered all over. Sweet Jesus, she didn't know from one minute to the next whether she was about to be strangled or caressed!

He released her after one more brief kiss and swung himself up onto a massive stone at the far end of the ledge. "We'll sort out this out later. I think there's a break in the clouds and the fog. I'm going to climb around the other side and see if I can make out anything in the way of a light. Maybe my idiot little brother has had the wit to kindle a fire."

"Be careful," she warned, then shook her head, dumbfounded at her own zigzagging emotions.

"There's a cave back there, if my memory serves me well. Here, take this." He offered her the torch. "Get out of the elements for a bit. I'll be back presently."

She refused the torch, explaining that she had a tinderbox and some candles in her knapsack. The ledge was treacherous; surely he needed the light more than she did.

Still trying to quell her lustful shivering, she moved farther in among the rocks, and after a bit of struggling with some scrubby vines, she discovered that, yes, there was a narrow opening behind her, well-concealed behind a boulder at the widest section of the ledge. Bending down, she peered into the low cleft in the cliff wall. He was right. It was a cave.

She hesitated. She had a nightmarish feeling that she'd been here before, although she couldn't remember ever visiting a cave at the top of Thorncroft Overhang. Her head felt heavy as threads of apprehension wound themselves around her. She wasn’t fond of caves.

Taking a step into blackness, she pulled a tinderbox from her knapsack and made a light. In the brief flare she saw that the cave opened up as it extended into the cliff. It appeared to be both high and deep. The rock floor was dry. She scurried inside, glad to get out the drizzle. And away from the edge of the cliff. "I've found the cave," she called to him. "I'll await you within."

Lighting one of the candles she'd brought in her pack, she advanced into the musty-smelling air. To her surprise she saw before her the remnants of a fire, some wooden eating bowls, and some rags on a straw pallet that apparently served as a bed. Somebody lived here. Her nerves ran with an increase of the uneasiness she had felt outside. The black mist seemed to have followed her into the cave, closing around her like a glove. Somewhere water dripped.

Alexandra endeavored to dismiss her apprehension: what's the matter with you? Like young Jacky, do you imagine the cliff is haunted? Take heart, Alix. It's just a cave, and an inhabited one at that.

"Hello?" she called out. Who would live in a cave at the top of Thorncroft Overhang? A homeless peasant? An outlaw hiding from justice? "Is anybody here?"

Her voice echoed eerily, but there was no reply. She lifted her candle and looked about. Nothing. No one.

Taking off her cloak, she shook it out. It was soaking; she was soaking. A puddle was forming on the floor at her feet. If only she could get rid of these wet clothes and warm herself before a good fire. She hugged herself, still shivering, yet feeling oddly hot at the same time. Was she feverish again?

Why had Roger kissed her like that? Such a proprietary embrace. He had asked no leave, made no apology. He touched her, held her, kissed her as if he had a right to do so. He seemed to think he had a right to do anything to her that he wished.

Why had he suggested taking shelter in the cave? How did he even know about the cave? She didn’t, and she knew the forest well. Had he been here recently? Was he planning to come in and make love to her? Her belly grew tight at the thought. What should she do if he did?

She rubbed the back of her hand across her forehead. Her head was pounding in rhythm with her heart. I’m a madwoman. I should be thinking of a way to defend myself against him, not wondering how it would be to lie in his arms. But her brain and her body were telling her two opposing things, and she didn't know which to believe.

There was a low whistle as the wind beat against the cliff and a draft was sucked into the cavern. Out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw something move in the blackest end of the cave. She raised the candle high, peering into the darkness. Her breath caught. There was definitely something moving, swaying ominously back and forth.

"A little courage now," she said aloud. As her eyes became adjusted to the deeper darkness, she saw more clearly the outlines of a huge shape floating on the stagnant air a few feet from where she stood. It looked like an enormous sack filling with some sort of lumpy material. And yet, there was something vaguely human about it.

Her hands were sticky with sweat, but despite a screaming in her brain that told her to go no closer, she could not shake the urge to know what this unearthly thing was. She raised her candle like a weapon before her and advanced a step or two, slowly, cautiously, squinting her eyes to get a better look.

Oh God! She let out a little cry and dropped the light. Gasping, stumbling back from the horror that hung there, she fell to her knees, scraping her hands and legs on the rough stone. There was a boulder near her, and she put her arms around it and hung on with all her strength. Snakes around his neck, she heard a hollow voice intone.

A body was hanging there by a twisted rope. Above the coils that had choked away its life, the face was twisted and unrecognizable, a grotesque caricature of a human face. "You'll be sorry for this when I'm dead." Surely Alan could not look like that, even in death. Surely he could not have meant those words. Dear heaven. Don't let it be Alan!

Gulping for air, she crawled toward the dim light that marked the mouth of the cave. The swollen image of the face crawled with her, following her even when she shut her eyes. Nausea gripped her. She clamped her hands over her mouth and tried to avoid being sick.

After several minutes of shivering and coughing, Alexandra lurched to her feet. Clutching the inside wall by the cave's entrance, she breathed in the foggy air from outside until she began to feel better. Then she turned back to look for the candle. She knew she was going to have to go back for a second look, and quickly, before Roger followed her into the cave.

Retrieving her tinderbox and candle, she struck a new light. Forcing one leaden foot in front of the other, she inched back to the place where the dreadful thing was hanging. The rope appeared to be looped around a rocky outgrowth that jutted from the ceiling of the cavern. It’s not Alan, she kept telling herself. He's not suicidal. He's not despairing. He's too afraid of death to plunge forward to meet it. Roger, yes, Roger could probably kill himself if he believed he had some reason to do so. But not Alan. The dead man could not possibly be Alan.