The Rousing: A Celtic in the Blood Novella

by Jess Raven

  “I didn’t mean to -”

  “Oh shit, look out!" I shouted.

  Eyes torn back to the country lane, Jack slammed on the brakes. The tree came down almost gracefully, landing across the hood of the car with a sickening crunch. Next thing I knew I was breathing in a mouthful of airbag and the car's alarm triggered, its high-pitch squeal the soundtrack to a flurry of panic as I battled to open the passenger-side door. Could this day get any worse? I thought.

  “You alright there, Jack?” I asked shakily.

  “I’m fine,” he groaned. He rubbed at a graze on his forehead and his hand came away bloody. “Are you hurt?”

  “No, but my door’s stuck,” I said. Between the wind and the tangle of huge branches outside, the thing refused to budge.

  “This way,” Jack said, offering me a hand as I scrambled gracelessly over the driver’s seat.

  Out in the gale once more, the full extent of the damage became evident.

  “Christ, if you hadn’t hit the brakes, the police would have been dealing with two more dead bodies,” I said.

  He nodded. “We got lucky.”

  I raised a brow. “You call this lucky?”

  Jack shrugged. “We’re alive.”

  I winced. The hood of the Jaguar was utterly mangled. The old sycamore was huge, its branches bare. It had probably been dead for some time, but it’d taken the high winds to finally bring her down. “Sorry about your car. Looks like a write-off.”

  Another shrug. “It’s a rental. My PA, Adriana, organised it. It’s what she thinks I should drive.”

  “What do you drive?” I couldn’t resist asking, any more than I could stop myself imagining a perfectly groomed, waspish assistant fawning over his every need.

  “Not much call for a car in NYC. I have a motorcycle for my time off.”

  The inordinately sexy image of Jack Pembroke on a motorbike triggered another dose of windburn.

  “What do we do now?” I asked, tucking my hair behind my ears and getting myself back in the game.

  “We’ve still got your car, but it’ll take a crane and a chainsaw to shift this monster,” he said, patting the dead tree-trunk. “Is there another road off the property?”

  “No,” I said, frowning. “We’re surrounded by bog, forest and the coastline. No chance in hell my little car would make it off-road in this terrain. The nearest neighbour is fifteen miles away,” I said.

  “That's too far to walk. It’s almost nightfall. Another half hour and we won’t be able to see three feet in front of ourselves. I suggest we go back to the house and bunker-down until the storm passes. Hope the phone signal kicks back in.”

  “But - ” The thought of spending the night alone in that dark house with a virtual stranger ignited fear in my belly, along with other feelings I was too cowardly to explore, “ - that could take all night. My brother will be worried.” I wondered if was that strictly true. Liam’s mind was on other things tonight, like that blonde vamp. If he got lucky, he might not even get home tonight to notice I was gone.

  “You got a better plan?” Jack asked.

  “There’s a sheltered cove with a row-boat behind the property. We could row across the bay to the village. It’s not far at all by sea, but in this weather, it’d be suicide.” I shook my head. Much as I hated to admit it, the American was right.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “There is no generator,” Jack said, emerging from the cellar with spider webs in his hair. “Just a big-old boiler that looks like it’s from another century. I did find this though,” he said, arms laden with firewood. “At least we’ll be warm.”

  “I found a huge box of candles, and these,” I smiled, shaking the box of matches I’d found in the back of a dusty cupboard. I struck a match and lit a couple of the big beeswax columns, setting them around the drawing room while Jack went to work piling the logs in the big open fireplace. I watched him work, marvelling at how much he looked like he belonged in the big house. It was the Pembroke family seat, I supposed. Like his arrogance and good looks, it was something he’d been bred to.

  “And Darcy said, let there be light,” I said, blowing out the match and handing Jack the box so he could kindle the fire. “Your mother was prepared, I’ll give her that.”

  “I imagine power outages are a regular enough occurrence in a place like this. If only she’d stocked up on emergency champagne and caviar.”

  “I’d settle for a strong coffee and a bag of chips. The larder’s pretty bare. Just some tea-leaves and a few dried herbs.”

  “Hungry?”

  I nodded. “Starving. I skipped lunch.” Nothing like seeing your ex’s wedding announcement to kill a girl’s appetite. Then there’d been the corpse on the rocks. Now though, knowing we were stranded, my body seemed to have shifted into survival mode, and I was ravenous.

  “I’ve got some saltine crackers in my bag. It’s in the trunk of the car,” he said.

  “You don’t have to …” But boy scout American was already out the door into the storm. I’d barely hunted a big cooking pot from the cupboard when he arrived back.

  “I found this too,” he grinned, waving a bottle of red wine and tossing the little cellophane packets of crackers on the table. “Compliments of the Regency Hotel,” he explained. “The perks of a five-star establishment.”

  “We’re a regular pair of castaways.”

  “Not much of a feast, I’m afraid.”

  “I had an idea while you were gone,” I said, holding up the empty pot.

  “Is it a magic one?” he asked, quirking a stupidly handsome brow as he peered into the empty vessel.

  “Thought we could do a little hunter-gathering.”

  He looked at me like I was insane. “You expect to hunt game? In this weather?”

  “Not game. Fruits de la mer,” I explained. “The cove beneath the house is famous for its mussels. You eat shellfish?”

  “Hell yeah,” he grinned.

  “I can go. I know the way down,” I said.

  “You think I’d let you go down there alone? After what we found today?”

  “Safety in numbers, then. We go together?”

  “Together,” he agreed.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Even in full daylight and fine weather, the stone steps down to the cove were treacherous, slippery with moss and eroded by centuries of sea air. I found myself grasping onto hanks of grass, testing every step. Jack Pembroke, needless to say, navigated his way down to the sand and pebble shore like a Sherpa, and was stood at the bottom waiting for me, pot in hand. The towering cliffs either side formed a natural shelter from the wind, and the sudden stillness lent a surreal edge to the scene. The waves clapped against the sides of the little row-boat moored in the shingle beach, and in the distance, Hook Head lighthouse cast its beam over the white-tipped waves at the confluence of the Celtic and the Irish seas.

  “Such a wild place,” Jack said.

  “You know this is where Strongbow is said to have boasted he’d take Ireland ‘by Hook or by Crooke.’

  “Yeah.” Jack smiled. “My father told me the story when I was young. You know Strongbow was the Norman Earl of Pembroke?”

  “Seriously? A Pembroke, just like you. Are you related to him?”

  “Probably a distant relation.” Jack smiled up at me, a charming, crooked smile. “Pembrokes can be traced back to this land for many centuries.” He’d taken off his shoes and socks and was busy rolling up the ends of his suit trousers. I couldn’t help but notice he had nice feet, clean and manly. There was something oddly intimate about watching a man in a suit bare his feet. An image of Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy, pulling himself sodden from the lake at Pemberley came to mind. Shaking that thought from my head, I slipped out of my leather pumps and stockings, balling them up inside one of the shoes, and carried the big pot to the rock pools where the mussels clung to the stone amongst the glistening fronds of seaweed.

  “I haven't done anything like this in a long time,” Jack said,
hunkered down as he prised the shellfish from the rocks.

  “Me neither,” I replied. “My parents used to bring me here sometimes, when I was a kid.”

  “Darcy. That’s an interesting name, for a girl. Your mother named you?

  “Yeah.”

  “Let me guess, she’s a Jane Austen fan?”

  “The only Mr. Darcy I’m named after is John Patrick Darcy, my grandfather.”

  “I see.”

  “But yes, as it happens, my mother was an Austen fan,” I said, emphasis on the past tense.

  "She passed?"

  I nodded.

  “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “It was a long time ago,” I shrugged and smiled sadly. “I’m sorry for yours.”

  He stared at his bare feet and for a long time said nothing. I filled the silence by filling the pot with more mussels.

  “After my father left us,” he said, eventually, “she sent me away to boarding school.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Six years old.”

  “God, that’s so young. I’m sorry.”

  “She wasn’t right in the head after he left. She took me out of school, told the headmaster I was sick. I still remember her, dousing the house with holy water and hanging all these bundles of strange-smelling herbs from the windows. She said they were to ward off the evil spirits. Then one day, she dragged me out of bed early and told me I had to go away, or they’d be coming back for me.”

  “They? The evil spirits?”

  He nodded. “I was just a kid, you know? I didn’t understand that she was sick. All I knew was that the rug was being pulled out from under my entire life. I look back on it now, I think maybe my mother thought he’d left her for another woman, and she was afraid he was going to come back and take me away from her.”

  “You think that’s what really happened?”

  He shook his head and took a deep breath. “No. If he were still alive, he’d have shown up somehow, eventually. None of his bank accounts or assets were ever touched. It was a real stormy night, like you said. You ask me, I’d say my father took a tumble off the cliffs and his body got swept out to sea.”

  “That’s terrible.” A shiver crawled up my spine and I tried really hard not to think of John-Joe’s body lying dead on the other side of the rocks. “Is this your first time back to Ireland?” I asked.

  “Yeah. My mother forbade me to ever return here.” The tightness in his words betrayed the emotions he tried to suppress. “Not even for her funeral.”

  So that was why he hadn’t shown. Damn. I couldn’t imagine how that kind of rejection must have hurt him. I’d lost my mother to cancer when I was just fifteen, but even at the bitter end, when the pain was unbearable, I knew she’d have suffered anything just to stay with us. I felt like a bitch for having prejudged him.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, and I meant it.

  “She was sick in the head. Delusional. I can’t blame her.”

  “And you never tried to come back?”

  “She didn’t want me here. She made that abundantly clear. The doctors said it would probably be for the best if I stayed away.”

  He moved to another rock pool and got busy harvesting a fresh crop of shellfish. His damp hair fell across his eyes as he bent forward, shielding his expression. The thin gold band on the ring-finger of his right hand glinted in the moonlight. It was the wrong hand, but curiosity got the better of me.

  "You have somebody, back in New York?"

  He shook his head and threw me a quick smile. "Married to the job," he said.

  Yeah, parental rejection at that tender an age was sure to leave you with some kind of attachment issues.

  “You're really going to sell the house?” I asked. “Given that it’s been in your family for so many generations.”

  “There's nothing here for me,” he said, “only bad memories.”

  “You could make new ones,” I suggested.

  “You don’t think I should sell?” he asked, finally looking up at me with those piercing green eyes.

  “No, I … Obviously, it’s your choice. It’s just that this house, it’s your heritage, and this place is so beautiful. The view alone is priceless. With a little love and attention, I believe Bronach could rival any of the big country estates. You don’t know how lucky you are to have such a treasure in your possession. You sell Bronach to some big-city developer, they’ll rip the soul out of her.”

  “You’re very good at your job, Miss McShane,” Jack said, and his eyes creased into a twinkling smile. “What would a city-slicker publisher like me do in a big old place like this? The house doesn't even have phone signal, let alone broadband.”

  “We're not stuck in the Middle Ages here,” I said, unable to disguise the note of bitterness that slipped into my words.

  “I’m sorry if I offended your home-town,” he said.

  “Technically it’s your home-town too. We may not be bright lights and big city here, but Crooke has a lot going for it.”

  “Such as?”

  “Just look around you, it’s wild, and beautiful.”

  “Yes, wild and beautiful, for sure,” he said, looking right at me with those smouldering green eyes.

  I felt something clench, low in my belly. My body wanted to believe he was telling me I was beautiful. Pathetic. I felt the heat creep over my cheeks. My lips parted, but I had no words.

  “Is your mother the reason you stayed?” he asked.

  “Sorry?”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I can’t imagine a charming, intelligent, funny girl like you being happy to spend her entire life in such a small place.”

  I wanted to deny it, but I couldn’t, any more than I could deny that his inane flattery affected me. “No,” I said. “My mother died of breast cancer when I was a teenager. I stayed for my father’s sake. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s right before my then fiancé and I were due to emigrate to Australia.”

  “That’s rough," he said, frowning. "I’m sorry. How’s your father now?”

  “He’s end-stage, in a care-home. Liam and I managed to keep him home until three months ago, but now he doesn’t even know us anymore.”

  “So you sacrificed your own future for him?”

  “I did what any daughter would do.”

  “And your boyfriend? Where’s he?”

  “My fiancé,” I corrected him. “Ex-fiancé, to be exact. He's in Australia.”

  “He went anyway, without you,” Jack concluded.

  My silence confirmed it.

  “Then he's a fucking idiot.”

  “Yeah, well, I guess life isn’t something you can really plan for,” I said, getting back on my feet. “Just when you think you’re headed in one direction, fate jumps out and spins the signpost another way."

  There was more I didn’t tell Jack Pembroke. Like how I‘d come home early from the hospital one afternoon and found Alec in bed with my roommate, Sally. At least I’d only got a broken heart. He’d got a killer dose of herpes from Sally, and God help me, but the bitter and twisted part of me hoped it flared up on his wedding day.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  An hour later, and a combination of the roaring fire and a huge glass of red wine had put a distinct glow in my cheeks. I sat on the hearth-rug with my legs tucked under me, while Jack took possession of one of the big fireside wing-chairs. A huge mound of empty mussel shells stood testament to the feast we'd just enjoyed. Sated and just a little tipsy, I ventured to ask what had been on my mind these past few hours.

  "What do you suppose happened to John-Joe?"

  Jack balanced his wine glass on the arm of the chair and swirled its contents, ruby in the firelight. "If I had to guess, I'd say he came up here to drink."

  "I saw him at the local pub last night, and he was pretty well-on."

  "That fits, then. There was a lot of broken glass around. He could have cut himself, staggered away and lost his footing on the cliff."

  "How'd he
get here, though? I didn't see any car, did you?"

  He shook his head, brows pulled together in thought. "You think he wasn't alone?"

  "Somebody messed up the cairn," I said. "I can't imagine John-Joe doing that, even three sheets to the wind drunk. Folks around here are superstitious."

  "Teenagers maybe, underage drinking? Sounds like the kind of prank kids would pull. It'd explain all the empty bottles too.” He drank deep, licked his lips, and I was momentarily transfixed by his full, wet mouth. “What's your theory, sleuth?" he drawled.

  "My theory?" I laughed. "Somebody disturbed the final resting-place of the Dearg Due, and now she's back from the grave, sucking the lifeblood of poor, unsuspecting men."

  "You have a vivid imagination," he said. "I like that. Does the vampire myth excite you?”

  “Why? Are you a vampire, Mr. Jack Pembroke?” I teased.

  “Would you find me more sexually appealing if I were?”

  More sexually appealing? “You mean if you were a sharp-dressing, powerful, broody, manipulating, bad-boy bloodsucker?”

  “Touché, Miss McShane.” His smile was lazy, a gleam of teeth in the firelight.

  “What makes you think that’s what women want?”

  “I'm a publisher. My desk is strewn daily with female fantasies: every dirty, taboo thought laid bare in print."

  "I'll let you in on a little secret, Mr. Big Publisher. Most of us would settle for a man with decent personal hygiene who could make us laugh."

  "Why would a woman like you ever settle?"

  "Oh you're smooth," I laughed.

  "I'm serious. Arrogance. Dominance. Confidence. Power. Danger. How does a flesh and blood man compete with the product of a woman’s secret desires?”

  “There is no competition. Vampires don't exist.”

  “I disagree. The mind, fantasy, those are very real and powerful things.”

  “But they’re just that: a fantasy."

  "Why shouldn’t they be reality? If a woman wants to be noticed, to feel attractive, to be desired, if she gets off on the power that comes with feeling she is the sole object of a powerful man's sexual obsession. Is that so wrong?”