Oxford Whispers

by Marion Croslydon

  They had been her friends. But she’d grown out of her taste for the afterlife when she understood that she saw what others couldn’t. Later, she’d become strong enough to block those visions. Until Oxford.

  In seconds, a cloud half-covered the moon. The darkness gripped her by the heart. She felt spooked. The bayou was a wild world in the daytime, but even more so at night. During the winter months, the gators hibernated. But the bayous were warmer than the river basins, and the reptiles found a cozier refuge around Pierre Part.

  When Madison heard water splashing in the distance, she froze. Surely the sound meant a pelican or a heron had forked a fish for dinner and not a gator creeping out for food.

  The muffled clearing of a throat told her she wasn’t alone anymore. Panic rose in her chest.

  “Who’s there?” she called, trying to keep her voice from cracking.

  Maybe the solo trip in this deserted place hadn’t been her smartest move.

  She turned around, scanning the shadows of the dangling cypresses. Nothing moved. Not a single branch, not a single leaf. She relaxed and breathed.

  “Hey, jolie.”

  A jolt of electricity burnt through her skin. She performed a quick turn to face the raspy voice. The sight of Tarquin Vionnet slowed down her heartbeat.

  Good ol’ Tarquin. Totally wasted Tarquin, just like the night before Christmas Eve, when her mom had kicked him out of Le Perroquet.

  With her hand still on her chest, she said, “You scared me, idiot.”

  She could have addressed the insult to herself. Really, alone, in the swamp, by night? Tarquin stepped forward, his alcohol-driven feet knitting each other on his way to her.

  “Ma chère, missed you so much. Went to live with these Yanks and forgot all about us.” Attempting a hug, he grabbed her neck. She escaped his hold and retreated a few feet.

  His stocky body moved restlessly toward her. “Tarquin, you’re so drunk you wouldn’t know your ass from a hole in the ground.”

  But reasoning was not effective anymore. He took her shoulders in his giant paws and pulled her into a rum-flavored kiss. An acrid taste rose from the pit of her stomach where disgust mingled with fear.

  She pushed him. She slapped him. That didn’t slow him down at all.

  Anger spread across his face. He shoved her on the ground. Landing on her side, she hit the hard surface of a stone with her forehead.

  The shock blurred her vision, and the iron taste of blood invaded her mouth. She didn’t have time to get to her feet before Tarquin launched himself on her.

  He covered and smothered her, his hands groping at her breasts. She managed to scratch his arm.

  She felt his weight—until she didn’t.

  A second later, without any further effort on her part, her attacker stood, a mask of terror stretching his face into a grimace.

  “Oh sweet Jesus. Oh Holy Mary. I’m damned.” He kept staring at a point behind Madison.

  She struggled to sit up but managed to support herself on her elbow. She sucked in a big gulp of air.

  Squinting, she scanned her surroundings lit up by the moonlight.

  Her respite was short lived.

  A few feet away from her, Peter stood triumphant. The wind caused his vest to billow, making him look like a comic-book superhero.

  Tarquin stepped back, then turned around and disappeared into the night, a stream of swear words in his wake.

  Madison held back a scream. She shook her head and scrambled to take in the impossible. Peter’s ghost saving her from being raped.

  How freaking ironic.

  She controlled her chattering teeth, got back on her feet, and walked up to face him. She was no damsel in distress, no wimp. Piss and vinegar ran through her Cajun veins.

  “I thought you wanted me six feet under,” she choked out and struggled to find her footing. Without the ridiculous hat, he was handsome. His brown eyes had lost their judgmental scowl.

  They radiated … love.

  “No one else must touch you.” He extended his hand, and his cold fingers trembled as he caressed her cheek. He wasn’t alive. He was dead; his touch was in her imagination.

  She should have pushed him away, she should have … but she was frozen. She felt a sense of guilt at having betrayed him all those centuries ago. She was crazy.

  To get back in control of herself, Madison closed her eyes. “You don’t own me.”

  Her eyes opened again. A heartless smile didn’t bring any light to his face. “I know.”

  His momentary defeat made her lift her chin. Her triumph didn’t last.

  “If I do not look after you, nobody will. The nobleman is too involved in his own reality to care for you. I will be the one choosing the time and the manner of your death.”

  His words smashed into Madison. But she’d go to hell rather than let her ghost stalker see that.

  “I don’t need anyone to take care of me. And, if you want to kill me, go for it now.”

  Madison stepped back, opened her arms wide to offer her chest as a target for his lethal blow.

  Peter laughed, a short bark. Her bravado hadn’t convinced him.

  “There are so many things you do not understand. You have always been so naive. He will never love you, not the way I do.”

  “You don’t know squat about me. Maybe that’s how Sarah was, but I’m not her.” She held her fist clenched with a need to hurt him as he had hurt her.

  “He will leave you again. Why can’t you see that?”

  His words tore further into the widening wound. Had the Cavalier abandoned Sarah? Was Rupert destined to do the same?

  Anger rushed over her self-doubts. Her fate wasn’t to be left behind like all the women in her family. She could keep a man; she could be loved.

  Taking two further slow steps backward, she opened her fist and released the fire her anger and her pride had fed into existence. The swirling blaze flashed against Peter’s upper torso.

  The fireball made him vanish.

  Madison didn’t linger to see what would happen next. Through the darkness of the night, she rushed along the path back to the party. Twice, she stumbled on a protruding root and fell on her bare knees.

  Could Peter be telling the truth? Robert never loved Sarah, not the way she loved him.

  And Rupert will never love me.

  The belief tore her confidence and her secret dreams apart.

  He had called her… like he had said he would. He had wanted to spend the first minutes of the New Year with her.

  But what if her mother was right? Men chatted, they sugarcoated you, and then they vanished into thin air.

  That’s how her own father had behaved, anyway, and what Rupert might have in store for her. Out of breath, she reached Le Perroquet to hear the same damned song still playing.

  ON JANUARY 1, AT eleven a.m., Rupert found his way around Monty’s house.

  His head pounded, although he hadn’t drunk a drop of alcohol. Monty’s place reminded Rupert of his own London home. Both were foreign to him now. Here, however, he wouldn’t come across his father.

  Stepping into the kitchen, he noted its perfect order. The black granite and stainless appliances shone in the morning sun. The staff must have worked hard until the early hours.

  Monty sat at the end of a rectangular table covered with the breakfast buffet. He had combed back his hair, and the curly mane emphasized his drawn, puffy features. A flat screen television captured his attention.

  Rupert chose a seat on the side of the table, midway between the TV and his friend. Biting into a croissant, he jumped when Monty asked out of the blue, “Is the Italian girl still in bed?”

  After swallowing the buttery pastry, Rupert answered, “Happy New Year to you too.”

  Monty shrugged. “I swear, mate, Harriet will kill you. You’re lucky she’s skiing in Switzerland.”

  “Thank you for worrying about my wellbeing, but you have no reason for concern. Anyway, given how hammered you were last n
ight, again, I’m surprised you remember anything.”

  Monty’s brows took on a quizzical arch. “You didn’t screw the Italian.”

  “Nope. I didn’t even kiss her.”

  “Weird. She looked like she really wanted to. It’s not like you to let go of an opportunity.”

  “But I did. I’m not interested.”

  Monty seized the remote control, switched off the television and stared at his friend. “You’ve fallen for your girlfriend?”

  “No. I’m breaking up with Harriet as soon as she’s back from holidays, and we can meet face to face.” Pouring himself some coffee, Rupert didn’t feel guilty about his admission. He would never love Harriet and was fed up with pretending. “I met someone.”

  “Do I know her?”

  A protective surge stirred inside, but Rupert volunteered, “She came to our Christmas party. The American student, small, brunette.”

  “You’re totally nuts.” His friend pointed a finger at his own temple. “The hot goodie-two-shoes from Yale?”

  Rupert didn’t want to confirm the charge. Eager now to cut off the conversation, he stood and walked to the fridge in search of a soft drink. Coffee didn’t appeal to him anymore.

  Monty wasn’t done. “You’re asking for trouble. These girls don’t understand the concept of a one-night stand. And you don’t understand the concept of commitment… like falling for a girl.”

  Back at the table, Rupert was torn between defending himself and defending Madison. “Give me a break. People change. I can change. Anyway, we spent the night together. We didn’t have sex.” He raised his hands in an innocent gesture, although their night hadn’t been that innocent. “It wouldn’t have felt right.”

  “Why bother? You’ll just move on to some new girl in a day or two. You’ve always done that.” Leaning against the back of his seat, Monty switched the TV back on. He kept shaking his head but didn’t push his point further.

  Monty’s lack of faith hit Rupert hard. It was true. He had never fallen in love, no teenage crush, no love at first sight, nothing. Maybe he wasn’t that type of guy and never would be. Like father, like son.

  Inside his jeans’ back pocket, his mobile vibrated. He stood again and walked toward the French window overlooking the landscaped garden. While he sipped his ginger ale, he checked the message. Recognizing the caller I.D., his next breath eluded him, and he clenched the handset between his fingers.

  HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM PIERRE PART, LA! HOPE THE COMING YEAR WILL BRING YOU WHAT YOU HAVE ALWAYS DREAMED OF. M.

  He could have sworn her honey-accented voice whispered the words right into his ear. But that was an illusion. Madison LeBon was too far off in a foreign country, in more ways than one. Monty was right. She was a goodie-two-shoes, or maybe, simply too good for Rupert. He’d never keep a girl like that happy.

  He sighed. “God, please, don’t let me screw that one up.”

  Chapter 24

  PALL MALL OPENED up in front of Madison, classically designed and bursting with high life and high status. The Oxford & Cambridge Club occupied an imposing position on the central London avenue, in stark contrast with the small world of Pierre Part.

  After her fight with Peter, Madison had been desperate to leave Louisiana. The days until her flight had been torture. Her mother had seen something was wrong with her. But Madison couldn’t tell Bernadette LeBon anything, or her mother would have grabbed her shotgun and burst Tarquin Vionnet’s head into brainy pieces.

  Madison kept what happened a secret, even if the choice not to report Tarquin to the police had been tearing her apart. She couldn’t take the risk of having her ghostly rescue made public. There would always be people believing the crazy stories of a drunk. Especially when the LeBon women were involved.

  Still her silence was wrong. What would happen the next time that jerk of Tarquin felt horny?

  She pushed the thought aside. Now she was back in England. Her plane had landed in the early hours of the morning, and Ollie had invited her to his family home. All she wanted was to crash on a fluffy duvet, but Archie Black, the Vance’s genealogist, had other plans.

  After traveling during the whole month of December, he was now back in the U.K. and had a free moment to see Madison. She waited in the solemn entrance of his club. The venerable building of the O&C Club offered a haven for former students of both elite universities. When they couldn’t bear to part with the consecrated “Oxbridge” atmosphere, they tried to evoke their former glory in London.

  Members, mostly male and on the other side of fifty, passed Madison and barely hid their disapproval. She had checked the dress code, though. The club permitted jeans on weekdays before eleven a.m.

  But she wasn’t sure about Converse sneakers. Ooops.

  “Miss LeBon?” asked a tweed-clad man. His willowy frame and disproportionate height gave him the look of a hawk.

  She nodded, and he bent to extend his hand, “How do you do?”

  To which Madison had no idea what to reply. She followed up another nod with her most respectable smile and a “Fine, thank you.”

  He gestured for her to follow him. “We’ll have tea in the drawing room, if you don’t mind.”

  And another one of her polite smiles.

  Madison resented arrogance, but the historic charm all around her impressed her. The understated interior gave her the illusion of being part of a distinguished European tradition. Maybe, she was now.

  They sat at a square, wooden table next to a French window overlooking the Mall.

  “Thank you for taking the time to see me, Professor Black.”

  Today, she needed his help to decipher the mystery that Robert Dallembert’s life posed. The Cavalier was her fate, her duty, her secret.

  “It’s no problem at all. I enjoyed refreshing my knowledge of the second Earl of Huxbury. How unfortunate the poor chap was.”

  Her chest tightened. She knew that he died young, but this confirmation hurt anyway.

  “Robert Dallembert had a conflicted relationship with his father, Godfrey,” Professor Black continued. “The two men hardly saw each other after the son married Lady Elizabeth Percival, in April 1651. Then father and son died, one after the other.”

  God, these long-buried facts burned in her heart like yesterday’s memories.

  “Why did they oppose each other?”

  “Robert was an only child, at least the sole legitimate heir to the earldom. He had to provide an heir, as a matter of urgency.”

  “I understand times were dire, but it seems to me he acted in a rush.” Robert could have waited for Sarah, at least if she was still alive.

  “Godfrey had a bastard son, a reckless, ambitious man. Should Robert have died without a son, the title would pass to his half-brother. As an illegitimate child, he would have been barred from succeeding to any title without a special dispensation from the king. This is what happened in the end anyway, as he benefited from King Charles’ protection.”

  A waiter brought porcelain cups, saucers and a teapot to their table. The conversation stopped. Madison had to sit in polite silence and observe the age-old ritual. With a strainer, Professor Black let the tea leaves steep in a full pot. Then, he diluted the brew with a second pot of hot water.

  After he had poured the amber liquid, Madison tasted the smoky, slightly bitter taste of the tea and asked, “Why did Robert choose to marry this Lady Elizabeth, out of all the women available?”

  “They needed an impeccable lineage to resist against any of the bastard’s claims. Elizabeth belonged to one of the most illustrious families in Scotland. Scotland was on King Charles’ side. However, she was Godfrey’s choice, and Robert resented this.”

  “Robert didn’t love her.” She sputtered out the words without putting much thought to them. Their naiveté grated in her own ears.

  Archie Black’s angular features softened. “As a matter of fact, some written record shows that Robert had his heart set on someone else. He referred to her in a couple of let
ters to his father, the few that have survived the centuries.” He brought his cup to his mouth and swallowed the tea. “At the time, there were even rumors of a love child, sired by Robert. But no evidence substantiated them.”

  Jealousy and a sense of betrayal hit Madison hard. Maybe she was channeling Sarah’s feelings. For sure, Robert Dallembert had been a busy dude, seducing girls everywhere he went.

  “I found a few of his belongings, and Rupert Vance suggested giving you one of them. It is more of a loan, actually.”

  Hearing Rupert’s name mentioned out loud squeezed a corner of her heart as Archie Black moved his sinewy hand toward a brown leather satchel beside his chair. With care, he extracted a sizable square object wrapped in silk paper and handed it to Madison. “Open it,” he prompted and she obeyed his order, setting the package on her knees.

  As she unwrapped it with respect, the purple material emerged from under the layers of protective paper.

  “Robert’s cape,” Professor Black explained.

  Madison laid her hands on the frayed garment.

  Her head jerked backward.

  Thunder shuddered through her body.

  She fell to the ground and could smell the earthy scent of the soil. Pain sprung from a burning hole in her stomach and took her breath away. Rolling onto her back, she dragged herself up to her elbows, but blood leaked from the open wound.

  She clasped the injury with her hands in an attempt to stem the flow, only the hands weren’t hers, but rather the hands of a man.

  Above her, a horse thrashed its head from side to side. All around, mayhem reigned. Men fought, swords in hands.

  She forced herself to open her eyes back into the present. The vision had vanished, not her fear.

  “Did Robert Dallembert die on the battlefield?” Her voice resonated from far off.

  Archie Black set suspicious eyes on her. She wanted to reassure him, no, she wasn’t on drugs. This was just part of her everyday life. But an Oxford academic wouldn’t understand her Cajun voodoo madness.