Secrets of the Highwayman (15 page)

He kissed her again, he couldn’t help it. “We’ll come through this,” he said firmly, and at this moment he believed it. Believed in himself. “Now go inside.” His fingers slid over her wet hair, tucking it tenderly behind her ears.

She managed a smile. “Don’t be long,” she said, and gave him a look he could hardly mistake.

Nathaniel grinned as he turned away. Neptune was too weary to be much trouble, and he led the stallion around to the stable. He glanced back over his shoulder, watching as Melanie climbed the stairs to the front door. She was remarkable. She had saved his life. They had cheated Pengorren, and they were both alive—a sense of elation filled him—and just now it was enough.

Melanie stepped inside the gloomy entry hall
and the door shut hollowly behind her. She was freezing. Hugging herself, she ran shivering up the staircase, pausing briefly to glance at Nathaniel’s portrait. Her lips twitched at the sight of him—the Gentleman of the Manor. Was that what he would have been if Pengorren hadn’t come along?

Pengorren, he was like the rotten core in the apple.

Melanie reached the landing, her shoes squelching, and headed for the bathroom. With a prayer and cold, shaking hands, she turned on the hot water and almost sobbed with gratitude when steam began to pour into the big, chilly room. Stumbling, cursing, she peeled off her wet clothing and dumped it on the floor, stepped into the bath, and sank into rising water.

The water was only up to her hips, and her top half was still goose-bumped. She shivered, sliding down farther into the bath, trying to get warm. The combination
of running water and the clanging of the old pipes was thunderous. The room was filling with so much steam, she could hardly see in front of her, but she didn’t care.

Nothing could be worse than what she’d seen over the past days. Pengorren had found her, somehow, after all these years, he had tracked her down, and now it felt as if she would never escape him.

He came out of the steam like a ghost out of mist and Melanie shrieked, and then covered her mouth, her eyes enormous above her hands.

“Don’t do that!” she gasped. “Don’t you do that!”

“I’m sorry.” Nathaniel hesitated, and then he sat down on the edge of the big old bath. “I was worried. When I got back, you’d disappeared. I heard the water running.” He quirked an eyebrow at her, but wisely he kept his eyes fastened on hers. “What was I to think?”

“That I was cold? That I needed a bath?” Melanie wrapped her arms about her breasts and slunk down farther into the water. It was deeper now but still not deep enough. She wanted to sink under it completely and vanish, and take her troubles with her.

She felt his hand on her hair and looked up. He brushed the wet strands off her brow, gently, as if she was made of glass. Then he bent and kissed her warm, damp skin.

“Are you really here this time?”

“What do you think?”

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered.

Her heart began to thud.

“Nathaniel?”

“Hmm?” He pressed tiny, comforting kisses over her temple, across her cheekbone, moving with leisurely pace toward her mouth.

She could have stopped him at any time, but he was warm and real, and Melanie heard herself make a little sound of need. His lips caressed, moving over hers. For a moment the image of Pengorren flashed into her mind, but it was so far removed from Nathaniel and what she was feeling now, that it did not affect her, and she simply shut it out.

“You’re wet, too,” she said, drawing slightly away from him. “Aren’t you cold?”

He met the look she gave him from under her lashes and smiled slowly. “Frozen,” he assured her. “Do you mind…?”

“Be my guest.”

They were very polite, but their eyes, their mouths, were saying other more urgent things. His shirt was so wet it was transparent, outlining the curves and ridges of bone and muscle. He pulled it over his head, and Melanie reached out to touch him, trailing her fingers over his shoulders and chest and upper arms. His leanness was deceptive—he was all hard muscle. He pulled off his boots and tossed them across the bathroom, and then stood up and began to unbutton his breeches.

Melanie leaned back in the water, watching him through her lashes. She felt decadent, lying here naked, wanting him. Because she did want Nathaniel Raven, and for once in her life she wasn’t going to deny herself just because she feared the consequences. Things had gone beyond that. They had experienced
some dangerous and intense moments together; they had faced a common and deadly enemy. Who knew what the next hour would bring, let alone tomorrow.

Nathaniel wanted her, too.

The evidence was there as he wrapped his hands around her upper arms and lifted her body up against his, slowly, every inch sliding and touching. Water trickled over her flushed skin, glistening. She smelled the musky scent of him, felt his erection hard and exciting against her. Her breasts ached as they brushed against the hair on his chest, and she heard her own breathing quicken. She’d never been this hot for a man before, not like this. She wanted to twine herself around him, touch…no,
lick,
every inch of him.

His mouth, she couldn’t get enough of his mouth. She clung around his neck, tugging his hair between her fingers. The dark ribbon slipped off, and she raked her fingers through the smooth shoulder-length strands.

They stood together in the bath, and their bodies moved together. He was exactly how she liked a man to be—she’d known that from the start—and she felt completely female, as if she could be as wild and wanton as she liked, and he would understand. He would accept her for what she was.

Nathaniel wound a short lock of her own fair hair around his fist, tilting her head up to his. His eyes were more gold than hazel, and his dark hair swung down to frame his handsome face as he gazed down at her intently. “You do want me,” he said, and it was a growl of satisfaction. And then he claimed her mouth again.

Melanie lifted her thigh, pressing the sensitive inner
skin along the hard muscle of his, trying to get closer. She was hot, burning up, aching with need. It felt good as he gripped her, lifted her, and pressed her to the cold tiles on the wall. She gasped as her hot skin came in contact with the chill tiles, and then gasped again as he leaned his body in on her, his skin setting her on fire. He was cupping her bottom with his hands, stroking her, caressing her. And all the while he kept kissing her mouth.

And his mouth was hot. Nathaniel Raven was hot.

He lowered his head, and she felt his tongue on her throat, and then his mouth again, kissing, sucking. Melanie arched back, moaning softly, and felt his mouth against her breasts. He ran his tongue across the upper swell of one and then the other, and then he was covering her nipple with his mouth, sucking, rolling it with his tongue, tugging it with his teeth.

Melanie purred in her throat.

She clasped him with her thighs, and his erection pressed against the swollen folds between her legs. She wanted him inside her. She knew she had to have him inside her, completely. Melanie tilted her hips forward and felt him enter her that first little bit.

It was sensual heaven.

He groaned against her neck and reached down to adjust her thighs around his hips, but she realized he was holding back, keeping her prisoner between his body and the tiled wall, but not letting her end it. When he lifted his head she couldn’t take her eyes off his mouth. She leaned forward and took his bottom lip
between her teeth, biting down hard enough for him to feel her but not to break the skin.

“Now,” she said, her voice husky with need. “Do it now.”

He slid inside her, and she closed her eyes, feeling him, savoring it as he filled her. Already she was trembling, on the verge of climax. He must have known it, and, wanting to control it, he stopped. His chest was rising and falling as if he’d been running. He let his head fall back, and she licked at the arch of his throat, tasting him, wanting more. He slid out and then thrust into her again, harder, and the climax hovered nearer. She was balancing on the edge of the precipice.

“Melanie,” he groaned.

Her name on his mouth was enough.

With a gasping cry she went over the edge, clinging to him, her hips moving frantically against him. Even while her body was soaring she felt him thrusting again, and then he cried out and followed her.

There were colors in her head, actual starbursts of color. It was like nothing she had ever known. She couldn’t speak; speaking was beyond her. It felt more than sex, more than an orgasm; it was an experience she would remember for the rest of her life.

Melanie took a breath and wanted to ask him if he’d seen the lights, too. If he’d felt his body lifting and flying. But she was too weak, too sated. She realized he was taking her very carefully in his arms, holding her boneless body against his, and then he was lowering them both, down into the wonderful steamy water.

It sloshed, puddling on the floor, but she didn’t care. For once in her life she didn’t care about anything but the moment. She was content to lie lifeless in his arms. She sprawled against his body, supported by him and the water, her cheek on his chest, his arms wrapped about her, and she had never been more content.

Melanie could feel his heart beating. She turned her face and kissed his skin, tasting it, and then wondered at herself. Usually she had trouble turning her mind off when she was with a man, but this was different. She felt renewed. A new woman, she thought, with a smile.

“Are you all right?”

She could hear his voice inside his chest and wriggled closer. “More all right than I’ve been for a long time.”

The colors in her head had receded, but there was still a strange echoey feeling in there, as if something had come loose. As if she’d gone to sleep and then woken up in a new body and now she had to get used to it.

Nathaniel liked her answer. He bent and kissed the top of her head. Melanie Jones had just succeeded in removing every other woman he had ever known from his memory. Who would have believed it? He was still trying to get his breath back. He cupped her breast, thoroughly enjoying the sensation of her smooth, full flesh in his hand. He’d wanted her since the moment he saw her; he’d felt the pull of attraction between them like the tug of a rope. Yes, he’d had reservations, but they had more to do with the fact that she was from now and he was from before, and that he had so little time to solve the mystery of Pengorren. He’d never doubted they would make wonderful love together.

He just hadn’t realized quite how wonderful.

She tilted her head and looked up at him, and her blue eyes were so bright they were almost luminous. For a moment he found it impossible to look away from them. From her. He took a breath and closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, the intensity had dimmed a little.

“Nathaniel?” she whispered, and shifted against him. Wherever her body touched his skin seemed to tingle, his blood to heat up. He felt himself rapidly getting hard again.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said quietly, and bent his mouth to hers.

The spark ignited, turning into instant fireworks.

Melanie straddled him in the water, the tips of her breasts brushing his chest. With her short fair hair and slanting eyes, she looked almost otherworldly. An angel fallen to earth. Or maybe not, he decided, as her smile turned wicked and sensual. She reached between them and stroked the hard length of him.

Nathaniel groaned. He hadn’t had a woman in almost two hundred years, but he’d be perfectly happy if he never had another one. Apart from Melanie. As she slid down over his body, using her tongue and her mouth, he just hoped he could survive what she had in mind for him next, without dying of pleasure.

Mr. Trewartha wasn’t a sentimental man, far from it, but he had a few keepsakes from his past. A few mementoes. He had loved few people, but he loved his collection of antiques, and he loved his life.

There was one watercolor miniature he was particularly fond of. Awkwardly, he opened the case, holding the portrait up to the light.

She had really captured the look of him. She had talent, certainly, but as with most women it had been frittered away with self-destructive behavior. Time had taken care of the rest. Sadly, he’d fallen out of love with her quite soon after they’d met.

No use feeling guilty about it, it was just the way things happened.

Mr. Trewartha closed the metal case and slipped the chain back over his head. He shut his eyes, suddenly feeling very tired. So much to do. He’d have to ring the Jones woman again and let her know when he was coming. There were things she needed to hear, things he needed to tell her.

Before it was too late.

Nathaniel was still sleeping. Melanie smiled.
Raven, the infamous highwayman, the daring and reckless heir to Ravenswood, was in her bed.

His face was turned from her so that she could only see the line of his cheek and his jaw, where his stubble was growing through more gold than brown. Ruefully, she felt the whisker burn on her own face and decided the most important thing Nathaniel needed to do this morning was shave.

There was a scar, high up in his hairline, almost out of sight. She hadn’t noticed it before, but now she gently pushed back his hair and examined the white and puckered evidence of a serious injury. This must be the head wound he’d received in Spain during the ambush, in which he had been incapacitated so badly he’d had to return home to England.

His hand was resting on the white sheet, and Melanie touched the silver signet ring with her fingertip. She tried to make out the design, but the ring was worn,
and the early-morning light in the bedroom was dim.

What was the time?

After their bath last night, they’d gone downstairs to the kitchen, and she’d made omelets with whatever could be found in the Eddie-stocked fridge. Then they’d opened a bottle of wine and complemented it with a shared chocolate bar she’d brought with her. She remembered his lips had tasted of chocolate and almonds when he’d kissed her. Soon after that, they’d gone to bed and made love again, lighting up the darkness with the colored lights in her head.

Melanie sat up, trying not to wake him as she moved from the bed, and began to dress. Outside, yesterday’s storm was long gone and there was a breathtaking line of gold across the horizon as the sun came up, like a celestial apology.

As she pulled on her hip-hugging black jeans, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and froze, startled. Despite the shadows in the room she seemed almost to…glow. As if she was lit from within. Skin, hair, her eyes, somehow everything was more…Well, just
more
.

Melanie stepped closer to the shadowy mirror, touching her cheek, frowning into her own eyes. She certainly looked very healthy. The lines that had begun to appear over recent years seemed to have suddenly vanished. Her lips were fuller, her hair glossier, her body more curved, and yet she was as slim as ever. She looked like some sleek, dangerous jungle cat.

“Don’t be stupid. I know he was good, but that wasn’t the elixir of life he was injecting into you. Or maybe it
was…” Even her voice was different, pitched slightly lower so that it sounded huskier, sexier.

Swiftly, Melanie turned away from her reflection, dragging a black sweater over her head and running her fingers through her hair to comb it. She remembered at the last moment not to let the door slam, closing it gently behind her. Once outside on the landing, she took a deep breath, and then another. All her doubts and fears came rushing back.

She had never been like that with a man before. Not that she regretted what had happened between them, far from it, but she didn’t understand it. And Melanie was someone who wanted to understand, who needed to understand, in order to feel secure.

For instance, how was it that she was suddenly feeling like a different person? Was buttoned-down, control-freak Melanie breaking out? Or was it just that the real Melanie, the Melanie who had been waiting inside her all these years, had finally decided to take her turn at the wheel?

Or, more frightening still, was this something to do with Pengorren? Was he changing her? Remaking her in his image? The idea was terrifying and made her sick to her stomach.

She stumbled down the stairs and found her cell phone in the kitchen, and with trembling fingers she rang Suzie’s number.

“Be home, please be home, please…”

It was answered on the second ring.

“Hiya?”

“Suzie. Oh Suzie.”

“Melanie?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

There was a pause, then a strangely cautious—for Suzie—“What’s up?”

“Nothing. That is, everything, but I wanted to ask you…I thought you might know…Oh God, you’ll think I’m a nut.”

“Try me.”

“You used to go on those crazy weekends to Glastonbury and…and Avebury. You must have heard about things…strange things, out-of-this-world things. Time travel and possession and spells and—”

“Whoa there, hang on. You’re covering a lot of ground. Why are you asking me to tell you this, now, after all these years?” And then she spoke again and her voice was deeper, more serious. “What’s happening down there in Cornwall, Melanie?”

Melanie forced herself to calm down, to
think.

“I’ve started seeing things,” she said slowly. “Things that haven’t happened yet, or that happened a long time ago. I don’t know. Things that aren’t really, physically, there.”

I can travel through time.

“You’re having visions, you mean? Premonitions?”

“I don’t know what they are.”

She could hear her own breathing over the phone, as if she’d been jogging, and tried to control it. She wiped her palms on the thighs of her jeans, one at a time, changing the phone from hand to hand. “I don’t know, Suzie, that’s why I’m asking.”

“You’d better tell me exactly what you
did
see.”

“A tree in the park falling down during a storm, and then it did fall down. There was a storm yesterday and it—”

“Hang on, slow down…There was a storm,” Suzie said encouragingly.

“There’s a man. No,” she said, before Suzie could interrupt, “not like that. At least, not that man…”

Major Pengorren and his strangely dazzling appearance, drawing people in, making them love him despite his repulsive actions. He had convinced everyone, apart from Nathaniel, that he was handsome and trustworthy, and even Nathaniel hadn’t been all that suspicious at first.

“People find him irresistible. But he’s not, Suzie, he’s horrible. He’s cruel and manipulative. He’s so good at getting his own way, and he seems to be able to make them see what he wants them to see rather than what’s really there. It’s like he’s wearing a mask, and behind it he’s laughing. How can he do that, Suzie?”

“Go back in history and take your pick, Melanie. Some people have such a powerful aura that they can blind others to their real selves, and they’re just naturally good at manipulation.”

“I know what you’re saying and…and…I know you’re right. But this is different, Suzie, it really is. I almost feel as if he’s able to cast some sort of, well, magic spell on everyone around him.”

She’d said it again.
Magic spell.
Now Suzie would pronounce her completely insane. She could hear herself breathing heavily again, as she waited for the laughter.

“Well, that
is
a possibility,” Suzie spoke at last,
thoughtfully, as if this topic of conversation were nothing unusual to her. “There are spells. Magic has been used before to control people although how effectively I can’t say. I don’t know enough about it.”

Melanie was the one who covered her mouth and tried not to laugh hysterically.

Suzie went on, a little dreamily now, “Hmm, I’d have to have a think about it. It’s a long time since I was going through my mystic period, remember.”

“How could I forget?” But Melanie had tears in her eyes. “You must think I’m completely off my head, and though it’s a possibility, I don’t think I am. And that’s what’s really scaring me.”

“This is the first time you’ve asked my advice on anything since you were five. No, make that nine, when that creep came onto you at the beach.”

In the silence Melanie could feel her heart beating hard, and now she could hear Suzie breathing over the phone.

“What made you say that?” Melanie finally asked, and her voice was small.

“I don’t know. I was thinking about it the other day. It just popped into my head. Is it…relevant? Melanie…?”

But she knew it was, Melanie could hear the dead certainty in her voice. Suzie already knew exactly where the problem lay.

Pengorren.

“Melanie, it was after that creep at the beach that your imagination started to become a problem.”

“Was it?”

“Yep, I remember. The night we arrived home from the beach, you woke up screaming because someone was standing at the end of your bed. Then you learned to stop the visions, didn’t you? That’s when the headaches started coming instead. You know, I’m not surprised the visions are coming back. Cornwall is a strange and mystic place; there are some very old sites down there. Maybe you’ve tapped into one of them…”

“I can’t talk anymore.” And she didn’t want to. She’d already said too much, involving her sister in things she should not be involved in. Maybe even placing her in danger.

“Why not?” Suzie sounded surprised and a little annoyed. “What have I said, Melanie? You can’t shut me out now.”

“No, I…” Melanie cast around for a reason, gabbling in a very uncharacteristic way. “Someone’s coming, and I don’t want him to hear me.”

“Someone? Who’s there? Not the man you were just talking about?” Suzie said in a hard voice, sounding more like her big sister than she had for years.

“No, not him. Nathaniel.”

“Nathaniel?” Suzie repeated, the name rising at the end. “Who the hell is Nathaniel? Sounds like the hero in a BBC costume drama.”

Melanie choked back laughter. “If only you knew. Look, I’m sorry, I’ll ring you back. Soon. I promise.”

“Melanie—”

But she’d already ended the call. For a moment she stood, staring at her cell phone, listening to the words replaying in her head. Spells. Magic. Two men who
could travel through time—Nathaniel and Pengorren—one who was a dream and the other the stuff of nightmares. But Melanie had traveled through time, too, and she was still traveling. They were linked together, the three of them.
Chained
together. And Melanie was beginning to believe it was she who held the key.

The key to time?

“Who were you talking to?”

Melanie jumped. Nathaniel’s voice came from close behind her. She took a moment to steady herself, arranging her face into a smile, before she turned to face him.

He had retied his hair with the ribbon, and she could see that beneath the stubble his handsome face was pale and taut, with dark shadows beneath his watchful eyes. Didn’t he trust her? After last night? After all the words he’d spoken? Or was it just her prickly manner that was making him suspicious.

They were in this together, Melanie reminded herself. There was no need to keep anything from him. It was just habit that was making her so cautious now, a habit she was going to have to break where Nathaniel was concerned.

“My sister,” Melanie said, with a shrug. “She’s a bit fey, and I thought she might be able to help, in a general way.”

“And can she?”

Melanie smiled. “Maybe. It was strange, but she mentioned that day on the beach, the one I told you about, when I first saw Pengorren. We’ve never talked about it, not since it happened. Why would she suddenly mention
it now? How did she know I was thinking about it, now?”

He didn’t move, watching her.

“My sister believes in all the things I used to scoff about. She has no trouble accepting paranormal events. Seeing a ghost, or walking ley lines, or pagan ceremonies on hilltops during midwinter, they’re as everyday to her as strolling down to the shops for milk and bread. Or at least, they used to be. She’s more conventional now. Not like me. I was born conventional, and I always wanted it that way. I hated anything supernatural, anything I couldn’t explain. I hated thinking there might be things I couldn’t see, watching me from the shadows. Ironic, isn’t it? Since I’ve been here all I’ve done is chase shadows.”

He let her wind down. “Sometimes we avoid those things that we know are a threat to us. If you have the ability to see visions, and it frightens you, then it is understandable that you dislike the supernatural and that you wish to avoid it.”

“Yes.” She sighed.

“Melanie, did you tell your sister about me?”

“Why?”

Nathaniel gave his half smile. “I am averse to being locked up.”

“Oh. No, I didn’t tell her. At least, I mentioned your name, but not what you are…
who
you are.” That was true, anyway. Maybe Suzie would forget about him. Yeah, thought Melanie, and Pengorren was a faery godfather come to grant her every wish.

Nathaniel held out his hand. “Come. I want to see the big oak tree that fell in the park.”

She had work to do, she had a job and commitments, she had a future with the firm of Foyle, Haddock and Williams. But even as she automatically listed her priorities, Melanie accepted that they were no longer important to her.

She was caught up in a genuine struggle for life and death, and it put lists of chipped crockery and possible sightings of a Chippendale chair in the shade. Nathaniel needed her, and she needed him.

Melanie placed her hand in his and felt his fingers close possessively. He was looking down at her, and although he said nothing, his eyes did. They said:
We belong together.