The Shadows of Stormclyffe Hall (16 page)

This isn’t real, this isn’t happening
.

But it was.

Possession
.

“Jane?” Bastian’s voice echoed just outside, and she opened her mouth to shout, to warn him, but nothing came out. She stumbled forward a step, running into the back of a chair. Pain shot up her stomach and into her chest from the collision. Something dark and angry inside her clawed for control, fighting to take over.

“Jane?” He stepped into the doorway, eyes locking on her, his face lined with worry. “Jane what’s wrong?” He started toward her when a second ball of ghostly light winked into existence behind him.

He spun to face it just as the orb sank into his chest. He went rigid, his entire body jolting before he fell to the floor. Jane tried to reach him, but she tripped and the carpet rose to meet her.

She blinked several times, each more slowly than the last, her final sight was the blood running down the gown of Isabelle’s portrait, before darkness closed in.

Richard lounged in a chair by the fire, a glass of brandy in one hand. His coat was gone, his shirt open at the collar, and he was so deep into his cups he didn’t care. Nothing mattered anymore.

Isabelle was gone.

Even the happy grin of his infant son, Edward, could not ease the ache in his chest. It was as though someone had ripped his beating heart out and cast it over the cliffs with Isabelle.

He dragged a shaking hand through his hair, mussing it up further, and took another slow drink of the only thing that seemed to numb his pain.

“My lord, you have a visitor.” His butler interrupted his solitude.

“Who is it?” Richard growled. It was dark. He should have no visitors at this hour.

“Miss Cordelia Huntington.”

“Bloody hell,” Richard growled.

The last woman on earth he wished to see. Before he’d met Isabelle, Cordelia would have been the sort of woman he would have considered marrying.

Pain lanced through him at the simple thought of his wife, carving her name into his heart all over again.

What did Miss Huntington want at this time of night? He ought to send her away from Stormclyffe, but he was foxed, and his mood was black enough he that he longed to get into a row even with a lady.

“Show her in.”

“My lord?” His butler’s tone was heavy with disapproval, but he didn’t care.

“Show her in!”

The butler scowled but exited with a nod and a muttered “Very well.”

A few minutes later a woman in a red cloak entered. Her hood concealed her features as she walked around the side of his chair to face him. She dropped her hood, revealing honey-blond hair and a beautiful face with the coldest hazel eyes he’d ever seen. Richard shuddered as her gaze fixed on him. He didn’t bother to stand as he ought to in a lady’s presence. He just didn’t give a damn.

“What brings you here, Miss Huntingdon?” he growled at her, hoping to drive her away with crudeness. He wanted to mourn Isabelle in peace.

“You do, my lord. I thought it was time to point out that you are in need of a wife. I offer myself to you. My father is quite wealthy and—”

“Silence.” The word came out sharp as a whip crack. He couldn’t believe this woman. She thought to marry him? When his heart was destroyed and his soul ripped to pieces?

“The only woman I loved is gone, and you think I care for riches?”

Her plump red lips thinned into an angry line. “It is time you settled down with a woman worthy of your title. My great-grandfather on my mother’s side was an earl. I am much better suited to the role of countess than some innkeeper’s daughter.”

He jumped to his feet and threw his glass of brandy in the fireplace. The explosion of glass and the rush of flames consuming the alcohol forced Cordelia back a step.

“You insult her; you insult me. Know this, Miss Huntington. I will never marry again.”

She curled her lip in an unladylike sneer. “You will marry. It is your duty to carry on your line. And I will provide you with an heir.”

He laughed harshly. “I have my son, Edward.”

“A child with a dirty, common bloodline?”

He wrapped a hand around her throat the second she uttered the words. “Never insult my son again.” He released her and shoved her away from him so he could pace over to the window and gaze out upon the night.

The soft
clink
of glasses and the trickle of liquid was soon followed by her coming to his side.

“My apologies, my lord. I’ve spoken rashly and out of turn. Here…drink this. It will calm your nerves.” She placed a brandy glass in his hand.

With a vicious glare at her, he downed the liquid and set the glass on the windowsill. He licked his lips. The brandy tasted a little bitter.

“It’s a pity you couldn’t be made to come around.” She stroked his cheek.

Her touch burned like cold fire against his skin. He slapped her hand away, and the room spun slightly, blurring at the edges of his vision.

“You should leave, Miss Huntington. The hour is late, and you will be missed.” The last few words of his speech slurred as his tongue grew heavy and thick.

She laughed quietly, yet the sound seemed more sharp and piercing to his ears, as though they strained to pick up every sound around him.

“I will leave… As soon as I’ve watched the last breath leave your body, and then I will go upstairs and take your precious babe and throw him off the cliffs like I did the common whore who birthed him.” The venom in her tone was pure acid to his ears.

He spun to face her, using the windowsill to support himself as his legs quaked beneath him.

“What? You mean…she didn’t kill herself?” Through the murky waters of his mind, this revelation was strangely a comfort. Months of guilt had driven him to the bottle, had him ignoring his son. And now he’d learned Isabelle hadn’t committed suicide?

“I cast a spell upon her.” She explained the murder with all the casual disinterest of someone discussing the weather. “I’m a witch, you see. My mother taught me well. The hearts of a dozen innocent doves taken by force beneath a full moon gave me the power to enslave your darling wife’s free will. I forced her to flee into the storm and come to the cliffs. And when she arrived, I shoved her over the edge.” Her pupils appeared almost catlike, and Richard shook his head, trying to make sense of what she was saying.

“Why? Why kill her?” he demanded hoarsely.

Shock numbed Richard. His throat started to close.

“It’s not just her I’ve killed… I’ve poisoned your brandy. Feeling short of breath yet?” As she spoke, she slid one hand into the folds of her cloak and retrieved a vial filled with red liquid. She uncapped the stopper and smeared the liquid along her palm.

He doubled over, coughing as he struggled to breathe.

“I was the proper choice as your wife. But you picked that woman. That innkeeper’s daughter!” She lunged for him, smearing the liquid…blood…on his chest.

“It was my choice. I loved her,” he choked out, shoving her hands away from him.

“You shamed me by picking her. And now I shall have my revenge on you all.”

Her eyes glowed, orange flames destroying any glimmer of humanity that might have remained there.

“I’ll take great pleasure in tossing that brat into the sea for the fish to devour.
Tenebrosum
cor tuum
anima
vestra,
et tenebrarum
.
Tu
mihi
in sempiternum.
Masculi
Omnia
mihi.
” She smiled at him, the expression full of pure malice. “Everyone in your family will suffer. This will never be the end, not until I own the soul of an heir to Stormclyffe.”

Something deep within Richard refused to die, even as the poison spread through him, killing him.

This bitch would not kill his son!

He shoved away from the window and tackled her. His hands wrapped around her throat. Even as his strength began to fail and his vision blurred, he kept hold of her, squeezing. He heard the faint cry of his little boy one floor above. The sound infused him with one last burst of determination and power.

“You will never harm another soul, never take another life!” He squeezed again, and the flames in her eyes were extinguished. His heart gave out, and he slumped forward.

Chapter Fourteen

Bastian jerked awake, gasping for breath. His mind reeled with what he’d just seen. Had it been real? A witch named Cordelia Huntington had murdered Isabelle and Richard? Could he believe what he’d seen? Or had it been merely fevered imaginings?

Head pounding, he glanced around the drawing room. Jane was sprawled facedown a few feet away.

She stirred and groaned. “Bastian, I had the strangest dream…” She looked around, confused. “Why are we on the floor?”

“Jane, did you see…?” He struggled to find the words.

“Richard and Cordelia? Yes, front-row seat and everything.” She sat up and shoved her hair back from her face, her lips drawn tight in a grim line. After a moment, her lips softened, parted, and she drew a slow breath before continuing. “Honestly, I’m so scared I want to run for the nearest door, but…”

“But?” he echoed. Odd how he hoped this one little word meant she wouldn’t leave him.

“Well, I can’t leave you here alone. You are a disaster waiting to happen, Bastian. I bet you’d walk into a dark cellar without a second thought as to what’s down there.”

His lips twitched. “Like bottles of wine? That’s all that’s in my cellars.”

She raised a single brow. “That you know of. This is exactly why I have to stay. You don’t have the good sense to leave. Someone has to watch over you. It would really piss me off if some ghosts got the better of you because you won’t admit they exist.”

Bastian got to his feet and helped Jane up, holding her close. “I know you don’t trust me, but I believe you. This is real. You were right.”

She studied him, seeming to search for any sign or hint of deception. “Really? You don’t think I’m crazy then?”

He shook his head. “No. Enough has happened to prove you were right. We’re facing something supernatural, and I’m not arguing with you anymore.”

Her shoulders sagged and she sighed with relief. “Thank God, because trying to protect someone who doesn’t believe in ghosts is usually how people die in bad horror movies.”

He chuckled. “Jane, this is real life, not a movie.”

She raised one challenging brow. “Exactly. All the more reason to be careful and keep you out of trouble.”

“Are you braving potentially malignant spirits because you care about me?”

He had to admit he rather liked the idea of this little American firecracker of a woman coming to his defense. Even though he could protect himself, especially from incorporeal creatures, he enjoyed seeing her flushed with excitement, eyes bright with her determination to save him. If only he could get her to take that same passion to a bed, preferably his.

“Don’t look so smug. I’m here because it’s my duty to find out the truth. My dissertation needs to be flawless, all my research a hundred percent accurate before I present it.”

Her rigid back and crossed arms showed a defiance he hadn’t expected, and it aroused him. He couldn’t help but wonder if he could get her to submit to him, if she’d agree to being tied…

“Hey! Eyes on my face.” She waved a hand in front of his eyes, getting him to look up from her lovely breasts. “Clearly my hunch was right. Isabelle was murdered, and now we know that Richard was as well by a woman named Cordelia Huntington. No wonder this place is haunted. I’d be angry if everyone thought my wife killed herself and then I got murdered by the same maniac who killed my wife. I bet Richard is roaming the halls at night just like Isabelle does the cliffs.”

Bastian’s hands around her waist tightened. “What makes you think Isabelle haunts the cliffs?” Another secret she had been keeping from him?

She licked her lips nervously. “I—I saw her when I first arrived. You haven’t seen her?”

“No. I’ve never seen anything in this house before today. There were rumors of course, other people seeing her, but I haven’t witnessed her or anything else before you arrived. What did she look like?”

“She was dressed in a white gown. She flowed over the earth and straight to the cliffs.” She paused, her gaze distant, voice soft as though recalling a sad memory. “She turned back to look at me. Her eyes…so full of sadness. I wanted to help her, Bastian. I
have
to help her.”

He caught an errant lock of her hair, coiling it around his finger. “So I’m never to be rid of you?” He phrased it as though she was a nuisance but his kept his tone soft, hoping she’d sense he meant the opposite.

He tugged on the gleaming coil, reveling in its silkiness. She was just so touchable. Everything about Jane from her pale pink lips to her silky hair and full curves demanded he touch her.

“I’m not going anywhere until we figure this business out,” she vowed.

God, he loved it when she did that. No one and nothing would deter his little bookworm from getting her way.

“So…if Richard killed Cordelia but died at the same time, why was the discovery of her body not mentioned along with Richard’s when a footman found him? Surely the local authorities would have investigated and reported another body. In all my sources I only ever came across the discovery of his body. No one ever mentioned poison.”

He tucked one of her arms in his as they left the drawing room. “I’ve never even heard of this woman before now.”

She glanced at him. “I have. She’s in the diary. It’s just like in the…” She hesitated before continuing. “In the vision. Cordelia was hanging around Richard, hoping to marry him, but he met Isabelle, and the rest was history. Apparently there’s more to this woman than Richard knew, if what we saw was true. She was some sort of witch, or practiced witchcraft at least. It all comes back to the murdered doves. There were several places in the diary where Richard mentioned the birds dying. I think she was must have been sacrificing them to cast her spells. She said something right before Richard died, something that sounded like Latin. I think I can write it down, and we can translate it later. I bet it was a spell.”

He sighed. “Are we really talking spells and witchcraft? All of that
Macbeth
nonsense with women over smoking cauldrons?”

She patted his arm reassuringly, even though there was a mocking light in her eyes. “Just because you’re afraid to accept there are things beyond what you can understand doesn’t mean those things don’t actually exist. I think, given everything that’s happened, we have to entertain the possibility that we are in fact dealing with witches and spells.”

“And the body we found in the garden?” he asked as they ascended the grand staircase together.

“Cordelia’s. I’m certain of it. We saw the remnants of a red cloak in the grave, remember? She was wearing that in the vision we saw.”

“Very well, I give you that much.” He had to agree that it was too much of a coincidence otherwise. “We should go to town tomorrow and look through the archives and see if we can track down Cordelia. We’ll wait until Randolph returns. He can watch over the workmen.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

When Jane reached her room, she glanced up at him through her sooty lashes.

“After what just happened…do you feel fine sleeping alone?” Her cheeks flushed and her gaze flicked away from his face.

He picked up on her hesitation and wondered what he was supposed to do. She’d made it clear she wasn’t ready for a relationship, that she’d been wounded before and couldn’t trust another man right now. What did she want him to do? “I do, but if
you
don’t…”

Before he could even finish, she had snatched her bag and was marching into his room as though she belonged there.

“Great, thanks! You want the right or left side? Whoa, this bed is massive.”

She dropped her bags and circled his bed, her gray eyes wider than usual. “Plenty of room…for two.” A delectable blush tiptoed across her cheeks as she stroked her palm over the velvet coverlet with a wistful gaze clouding her eyes.

He wondered what she was thinking about. Did she want to be in bed with him as much as he wanted her beneath him, begging for more, crying out for him? Ever since he’d kissed her in the drawing room, he felt that things had been building to this. But he didn’t want her in his bed because she was afraid. Even that was too low for a man hungry to kiss every inch of her as he was. If she shared his bed, it should be because she wanted him, not because she was terrified of being alone.

“Jane, I’m sorry you’ve become involved in this, but I’m glad you’re here. Had I been dealing with this alone…I do not know what would have happened.” It was as close as he could come to confessing he was also glad he wasn’t alone.

She offered him a rueful smile. “Lucky for you the ghost seems to want
me
dead, not you.” She paused, voice breaking. He moved to her and eased her down on the bed, tucking her safely against his side.

“I’m sorry.” He meant it. If he had known she’d be so affected staying here, he would have dragged her out to her rental car and driven her back to town himself. He didn’t want to lose another person he cared about to the madness that haunted this place. History couldn’t repeat itself.

“It’s fine, really. I just wish I didn’t believe in all of this stuff, but I do. Blame my parents for raising me a God-fearing Catholic, but I believe in ghosts a hundred percent.” As she spoke she touched a small medallion around her neck, her thumb and forefinger rubbing over the image of an archangel slaying a dragon.

She lifted her head and looked toward the large window closest to her. Even in her fear she was beautiful.

His throat tightened as he recalled his mother’s change after his father never returned from Stormclyffe. How she used to sit in a large, overstuffed chair by the window in their house outside London, her cheek resting on the sun-bleached fabric as her forlorn stare swept the garden outside the window. His mother seemed so far away, as though she’d traveled to a distant land and hadn’t ever truly returned. She was haunted by losing her husband.

No
. She wouldn’t go the way his mother had. He wouldn’t lose another person to this cursed pile of stones.

He directed his gaze back to Jane, admiring her. She was so lovely. There was a quiet, yet untamed ferocity in her, driven by her passions and tempered by her determination. People didn’t act like she did anymore. They didn’t have strength. They didn’t fight against their fears to help others. Such a woman was rare.

Am I falling in love?

Previously, he would have laughed at the notion. But at this moment, alone in a bedroom with her, he thought it was possible to be in love with Jane. There was nothing false about her, no secrets she wouldn’t reveal to him if he took the time to delve into her soul. He could trust her, could be himself with her without fear of anything. He’d danced and sung with her, let her see inside himself where he’d never let another woman in. She’d accepted him as he was, weaknesses and fears alike and had liked him, more than liked him. It was impossible not to love someone who made you feel like that.

Even though he’d known her a short time, it made perfect sense. You could wait a lifetime hoping to earn someone’s trust and love, but sometimes…it happened fast and unexpected like the shock of a doorknob when crossing the carpet in socks. The jolt of instant realization, the sign that something was meant to be, that you belonged to another person. He couldn’t deny it. He belonged to Jane, whether she knew it or not, whether she wanted him or not.

She sidled closer to him, nibbling on her bottom lip.

“What can I do to ease your worries, Jane?” He acted without thinking, lips brushing a kiss on her temple. She shivered hard and turned into him, burying her face in his sweater. Bastian shook his head in a silent laugh. Three days ago he’d been obsessed with restoring Stormclyffe and nothing else. Now that barely mattered in comparison to protecting Jane from angry spirits.

Tomorrow, he would take her to town and let her relax. As much as he wanted her to stay here, she needed to go, needed to stay clear of the shadows that lingered in Stormclyffe’s halls.

“Come on, let’s get ready for bed. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been up since before dawn and would love to catch up on my sleep.” He separated himself from her and saw the look of regret on her face.

“I’m so sorry. I’ve been crying and acting like such a ninny.”

“Everybody gets scared. Even me,” he declared with a teasing stoicism.

She laughed. “I don’t think I ever want to encounter what makes you scared. Does anything frighten you?”

Losing the people I love
. Rather than admit that aloud, he shrugged.

“I’m human, just like everyone else.”

Her nose crinkled with a little smile. “Sometimes I think it would be nice to be superhuman. Where’s a radioactive spider when you need one?”

He cocked a brow as though her reference was entirely lost on him even though he knew what she was talking about.

Half amused, half exasperated, she explained. “Oh come on. You know, Spiderman? The superhero? Didn’t you read comic books as a kid? Living with a brother, I know way more about this stuff than I should probably admit.”

Her sheepish grin made his heart turn over in his chest. “I spent most of my childhood feeling like a bit of an outcast. Given my family’s unique history, I was lucky I wasn’t bullied, much.” He winced at the unwanted memories. Boys were notorious for wanting to ostracize those who were different, especially those with family histories that were less than normal. “There was the occasional skirmish but I always held my own. It was difficult though, since I was small for my age.”