Lonesome Rider and Wilde Imaginings (15 page)

“No, no, I'm quite fine, thank you, Gregory,” she told him. She could see the bathroom; the door to it was slightly ajar. There was a massive claw-footed tub, and she was dying to crawl into it. If she could just be lucky enough for the castle to have steaming hot water …

The minute Gregory was gone she hurried into the bathroom and turned the hot water tap. For a second nothing happened, and she was ready to say that the devil could take intriguing old castles. Then there was a sudden rush of water, deliciously hot and steaming. She gave a glad cry of satisfaction, then added just a touch of cold, so she wouldn't scald herself.

While the tub filled she dumped the meager contents of her overnight bag on the bed, finding her makeup case and toiletries and taking them into the bathroom, then shaking out the one other set of clothing she had in the bag, a denim skirt and cotton blouse. The cotton had wrinkled, but she had a travel steamer with her. She found padded hangers in one of the armoires and quickly hung up her blouse and steamed out the wrinkles while she waited for the tub.

Finally it was filled, and she got into it. The heat of the water was heavenly. She sank down, dousing her hair as well as her body, deliciously glad of the heat after the chill and the rain. She scrubbed her hair and her flesh, then leaned back, loath to leave such wonderful comfort.

How strange the evening had been! she mused. It had seemed so horrible at first. She had imagined that she might well be sleeping beneath the eaves of a train station, through no one's fault but her own. Then the mysterious stranger had appeared, bringing her here. And then Darryl Evigan had proven himself to be a very charming gentleman. And now this heavenly bath …

She started suddenly, thinking she had heard a movement in the bedroom. She tensed, her fingers curling around the edge of the tub. “Who's there?” she called out.

No one answered, and she heard nothing more. Slowly the tension eased from her. She was hearing things. Maybe she was still dealing with jet lag, or maybe she just had an overactive imagination.

She leaned back again. It still seemed so incredible that she was here. She had always known, of course, that she had been born in England. But when she had been very young, she had been led to believe that her parents had come to America as the great land of opportunity. They had never even mentioned that they still had relatives back home.

She had lost her father when she was ten. Not quite fifty, he had succumbed to a heart attack. She and her mother had become very close, dealing with the painful blow together.

She had never really thought about England. Even when she had been in college, ready to spend a summer abroad with friends, they had all opted for Paris, maybe because it was the City of Lights, maybe because it seemed such an appropriate place for students, and maybe because it had just seemed so romantic. She had never realized that her mother had been incredibly relieved about her choice, not until a year or two later, when she had caught that terrible fever. Nothing the doctors had been able to do had made any difference. Jane Evigan had died of pneumonia, but not until the fever had brought on delirium and she had whispered hauntingly of England over and over again. “I wasn't guilty, I wasn't!” she had cried.

And Allyssa had tried to reassure her. “Of course not, Mother, of course not!” she had said fiercely. No one had ever been a kinder, more caring person than her mother, and Allyssa had loved her fiercely.

“Guilty of what, Mother?” she had said later, when the words had poured out again. “Guilty of what?”

But Jane had never said. Later, the doctors had told Allyssa that in Jane's state of mind, she might have been talking about stealing a cookie when she was a child. “But she is at rest now, safe and serene,” they had said.

And that was true. No pain, no fear, no worry, would touch either of her parents again.

She had gone on. Baltimore was a wonderful city, and she had used her love of languages and American history to forge a career as a specialized tour guide in nearby Washington, D.C. She loved her work, loved history and loved the way that the former continually allowed her to delve into the latter. It had been when she was taking a group of new politicians through the White House that she had met Brandon McKee, Kentucky's newest, youngest, freshest congressman.

She closed her eyes for a moment. The helicopter crash that had taken Brandon and several other promising young men hadn't been even three years ago. Sometimes she still felt numb. Sometimes she simply felt as if she had been alone forever. Friends told her she was insane to still be grieving, to be in mourning. It wasn't that. She knew that she was young, that she had a lifetime ahead of her. It was just that after Brandon, it was so hard to meet anyone she really wanted to become involved with in a romantic way.…

And so she had been drifting. Working. Fixing up her house. Going through the motions. Then the solicitor had come, telling her about that great-grandfather she had never known existed. Darryl Evigan might never believe it, but she really didn't care if there was nothing in the will for her at all except some kind of a token, perhaps. Coming here had been important. The questions her mother had left behind had plagued her for a long, long time. She was blessed with many friends, good friends, but her life had still seemed empty.

The trip here had been like wiping a slate clean and going back to the very beginning, all in one. And it was already proving to be fascinating, she thought with a wry smile. Now the world seemed full of mysteries. Just what was it that Jane Evigan had not been guilty of?

And who was the handsome villager who had determined to be such an enigma, sweeping her from the station and setting her down at the castle—to Darryl Evigan's vast surprise?

She smiled, rising from the water at last and wrapping herself in the giant white bath towel that had been left for her. She stepped before the mirror over the sink, picking up her brush and starting on her wet hair.

She frowned suddenly, certain that she heard a noise from the bedroom.

“Who's there?” she called out sharply.

There was no answer. She set the brush down carefully and tiptoed into the bedroom, hoping to catch the intruder in the act of intruding.

But the bedroom was empty.

“It's a castle, and it's a dark and stormy night!” she told herself out loud. Then she dressed quickly, suddenly realizing that she was starving.

Besides, her long lost and very distant cousin was waiting for her downstairs.

When Allyssa came down, Darryl was waiting for her. He was sipping a brandy, staring idly at the fire. He looked up and smiled as soon as he heard her coming into the great hall.

“Well, you look a good deal refreshed. However, you still must be exhausted from the trip. We'll eat quickly, then you can make an early night of it.”

“That sounds lovely. Thank you for being so considerate.”

“Come on, then. I'll show you the family dining room.” He walked across to where she stood near the foot of the stairway and offered her his arm. She accepted, thinking that she liked the way he was dressed for supper, not fussily, but handsomely, in a tweed jacket and a tailored shirt, but open-necked, and casual fawn trousers.

He led her into a room that opened off the great hall to the left. It had apparently been a passageway at one time, she decided, but it had been a very broad passage. Now a more intimate table than that in the great hall—one that would seat eight, at the most—had been set near one wall. The decor had been continued from the great hall, though. Swords and coats of arms covered the walls, along with a very old and handsome tapestry between two windows.

“Well, what do you think?” he asked, seating her.

“I'm impressed.”

“And just think, we're quite small, as far as castles go.”

He sat across from her at the warm mahogany table. Plates had already been set before them, and even as they sat, Gregory seemed to melt out of the stonework to wait on them. He poured wine, then reappeared almost immediately with serving dishes of fish and lightly seasoned vegetables. The food was delicious. Darryl was tremendously entertaining, describing the building of the castle in the late thirteen hundreds and the life of the village today.

“It is an interesting phenomenon,” he murmured, sipping his wine. “We Evigans survived off sheep all those hundreds of years ago, and we're still surviving off sheep. Of course, things were very different then. There were servants by the score, and, I do assure you, the financial possibility of that has long since passed us by.”

“I really hadn't thought about it,” Allyssa murmured. “It must be difficult to keep the place up.”

He shrugged. “In past years, we sold off land when the going got rough. But we're coming to the end of that option, if we want to stay in business at all.”

Allyssa edged a piece of broccoli around on her plate. “Did changing times bring all this about? Or was Paddy a poor businessman?” She set her fork down and leaned across the table. “Was he a tyrant? What was he like? Whatever happened that made my parents leave this place and never even mention that it existed?”

He lowered his lashes quickly and seemed to be fighting some inner struggle. Then he stared at her hard across the table. “Yes! Paddy was a tyrant. He wanted to dictate to people, and he never wanted to give them anything. He could have turned the estate over to your father—or to mine!—but no, he couldn't do that, he had to hold on to power, and to whatever money there was. It was his way of keeping people in line.”

Allyssa lowered her lashes quickly, startled by his outburst, and torn by it. She was sorry for Darryl, living beneath the iron-fisted rule of a dictator.

But she was sorry for her great-grandfather, too. Had no one been with him to love him when he died?

And what about her mother's dying words?

She sipped her wine, trying to sound as casual as she could. “Why did my parents leave? Do you know?”

“I wasn't even ten years old when they went,” he said softly. “And you—you were just a little bit of a thing. Just turned three. Even then, you had your own little pony. I remember you on it. You were just as stubborn as you could be, and everyone in the place bowed down to you almost as deeply as they bowed to Paddy!” He smiled, taking the sting away from the comment. “You were beautiful then,” he said softly. “But you're far more beautiful now.”

She flushed uneasily. The compliment had been spoken with a deep sincerity. “Thank you. That was very sweet.”

“You don't remember being here at all?”

She shook her head. “Not a thing.”

Gregory materialized again, bringing them coffee and delicate little cakes. Allyssa chewed gingerly on hers, not hungry anymore, but fascinated to learn whatever she could from Darryl.

“So I lived here until I was three?”

“You did.”

She smiled. “Were we friends?”

“The best. And you didn't even recognize me.”

“Did you recognize me?”

“I must admit, I did not.” He smiled, his fingers curling over hers where they lay on the table. She felt a sense of warmth enveloping her. It was comfortable.

But just a little bit uneasy, too.

She withdrew her fingers and sipped the last of her coffee. The caffeine wasn't doing a thing for her. “Will you tell me more tomorrow?” she asked him.

“Whatever you want to know,” he assured her. “But you had best go up and get some rest.” He stood, then came around politely to pull out her chair before offering her his arm again.

“You know,” she murmured, “you really don't have to see me upstairs.”

“I'll just see you to the stairway, then.”

And he did. He walked her to the stairway, then touched her chin lightly with his knuckles, raising it. “Welcome home, cousin. It's good to have you here.”

“Thank you,” she said softly.

His lips just brushed her forehead. She turned from him then and hurried quickly up the stairs to her room. She entered quickly, closed the door behind her and leaned against it, eyes shut, breathing deeply. He was a very handsome man, and a charming one. She had been hurting for so long, and now she had come here, to a strange country, where it was so easy to accept the comfort he was offering. It felt nice, but she didn't really want more.…

How could she know what she wanted? She'd only been here one evening.

“Ah, girl! ‘You were beautiful then. But you're far more beautiful now.' What a crock, I daresay!”

Allyssa's eyes flew open in amazement as she heard the words.

Dear God. He was there. The impostor who had swept her up from the train station on his black steed to bring her to the castle.

There! Right there in front of her. Casually stretched out on her bed, his arms behind his head, fingers laced together, while he relaxed comfortably on a pillow. Thick, inky dark hair slightly askew and rakish over his forehead, black lashes heavy over the half-closed eyes with which he observed her.

Later she would tell herself that she should have had the good sense to be frightened, except that she was instinctively certain that he did not intend to harm her. She strode over to him, fists clenched tightly at her sides, and stared at him.

“Who the hell are you, and what in God's name do you think you're doing in my bedroom?”

His wicked hazel eyes opened wide. “Your bedroom?” he inquired politely.

“While I am a guest here, this is my room!”

His eyes narrowed again quickly. “I warned you. You must take great care while you're here.”

“And I'm warning you—you had better get out of my room before I scream. Loudly!”

He smiled, and she backed away just a bit as he coiled his taut-muscled form and prepared to rise. She really wasn't afraid of him. It was just that he was awfully good-looking. Wickedly so. Like a pirate from an old-time movie. He certainly had the power to mesmerize her, because she should have screamed by now.