“Did ye see him?” one of the young girls was saying in a loud whisper, her hair the color of curly cheddar. “How can a man be so pretty! I don’ blame the mistress for wantin’ him. I wouldn’ say no m’self.”
“From what we’ve ’eard, you’ve already said yes more ’an once!”
More giggling, a flurry of activity, and in another moment the servants were gone, and she was alone again.
Curious, Melanie peered into some of the downstairs rooms, but apart from a foursome playing some sort of card game and the supper table being laid, there wasn’t much to see.
She turned to the stairs, resting her hand on the newel post, and looked up.
And froze.
There was a man up there on the landing, a dark shape against a branch of candles. He stood so still and silent, so watchful. As if, like her, he didn’t belong. Melanie’s heart began to speed up.
He can’t see you, she reminded herself. Don’t be stupid, he can’t see you.
The man began to descend the stairs, slowly, his hand trailing on the banister as if he had all the time in the world. Her gaze was caught by a silvery gleam on his finger, a broad ring with some sort of heraldic design on it.
She recognized it. Recognized him.
Nathaniel Raven.
The many candles flared in the draft from the door, distorting his face, and then settling again. Strong jaw and high cheekbones, long, thin nose, his brown hair with its gold overtones tied back at his nape, his hazel eyes looking down at her.
Looking at her.
Melanie turned her head, hoping that she’d see whoever it was he was really looking at, but there was no one. Just the door standing ajar, and beyond that the winter garden dotted with colorful lanterns.
Reluctantly she turned back. He had halted only a couple of steps above her, and she could no longer pretend he couldn’t see her. He was looking straight at her.
How can a man be so pretty?
Had the servant girl been talking about Nathaniel Raven? Melanie didn’t think he was pretty at all, but he was handsome, oh yes, and there was something dangerous in his eyes. An attractive recklessness in his smile. She had known as soon as she saw the portrait that this man could break hearts, that he was exactly the type she should avoid. She just hadn’t realized he’d ever be a problem for her, being dead and all…
He came down the final steps, his eyes still on hers, and she backed away to make room for him. Afraid that if he actually touched her, she might go up in flames.
“Welcome, Melanie Jones.” There was a possessive note in his voice and a flare of excitement in his eyes. “Welcome to Ravenswood.”
Five
She was afraid of him. She was trying to hide it, but it was easy enough to recognize. The fine sheen on her skin, the darkening of her eyes, the quickened breathing. It was either fear or lust, and although he’d like to believe she desired him that much on first sight, Nathaniel was more inclined toward fear.
He didn’t want her to be afraid of him. He needed to win her confidence and her trust. It wasn’t something he’d ever had to worry about before, but then he’d never been in this situation before, either.
If he hadn’t needed her so desperately, he’d have shrugged his shoulders and walked away. But he did need her. She had to agree to help him, that was the first command the queen had given him, after she woke him and explained what needed to be done.
“When the mortal woman comes to you, you must gain her trust. She must agree to help you. Use your charm and powers of persuasion, but only after she agrees can you proceed on to the next step.”
“Simple,” he said and smiled. “Women find me irresistible, Your Majesty.”
“Perhaps this time it won’t be as simple as you believe.”
He only laughed, expecting to sail safely through any storms the queen might whip up in front of him.
“Show her your enemy…what he’s capable of. Let her see, but you must not interfere with the past. If you try and change the outcome of what has already happened, I will return you to the between-worlds. Do you understand me, my Raven?”
He made an impatient gesture. “I understand what you’re saying but I don’t know why it must be so. Let me at him now, Your Majesty. Let me—”
“No! That would do more damage than good. First you must understand what it is you are facing, and to understand you must have the help of the mortal woman. Gain her support. You will need her.”
While he was distracted, Melanie had stepped farther away, clearly uncomfortable with being this close to him. Nathaniel reminded himself that despite her ugly clothing—strange coarse trousers and a tight overshirt with odd words on it and shoes like half loaves—she was probably the future equivalent of a gentlewoman. He must treat her with respect and care.
With deliberate patience, Nathaniel held out his hand.
Melanie glared at his fingers as if they were snakes.
“Come, I want to show you something, Miss Jones.”
“Show me what? And back off.”
Well, not a gentlewoman, perhaps, after all. He eyed her doubtfully, wondering again how to proceed. With her short fair hair and slanting blue eyes she looked half-elf. The thought amused him, and he covered his mouth to hide the smile, then pretended to smooth his expertly arranged neckcloth.
“Show me what?” she repeated impatiently.
“I want you to see my family. I want you to see what my enemy has done to them.”
“I don’t—”
“Understand? No, but you will. I need your help.”
“You need my help?” she repeated slowly, her eyes slanting even more as she looked up at him.
“You’ve come all this way, Miss Jones,” he said engagingly. “You may as well look. You can’t go home until you do.”
That caught her attention. “I can go home afterward?” she asked him carefully.
“Of course.”
He could see her wavering. He cast her clothing another glance, puzzling over the writing emblazed across her bosom: I fought a bull and won. She would look rather beautiful in the fashions of the day, the flimsy dresses designed to uncover more than they covered. She had the same appealing gamine qualities as Lady Caroline Lamb, but without the histrionics, and without Byron.
She’d caught him staring at her shoes.
“I suppose jogging isn’t big in this century,” she said, giving him one of her direct looks. Then, with a shrug, she took hold of his hand. Her fingers felt cold, and they trembled in his until she stilled them, giving him another glare, as if daring him to mention her momentary weakness.
He smiled. She wasn’t as tough as she pretended.
“What?” she demanded, and attempted to snatch her fingers back.
He held on. “I don’t think you understand what is happening to us. We don’t have a choice in the matter, Miss Jones.”
“It’s Melanie. And who says I don’t have a choice?” she added sharply.
And she was a shrew. Nathaniel gave an inner sigh. She probably believed women should vote. Maybe she was even a man-hater, an adherent of Sappho, the poet from the Isle of Lesbos? How could he win over such a woman?
“What?” She met his look.
But he shook his head. There was nothing for it. He’d just have to go ahead and try his best.
“This is Christmas Eve in the year 1813, and at Ravenswood we are celebrating our traditional Yuletide Ball,” said Nathaniel. “The British army have been fighting the Peninsular War for five years, trying to preserve Portugal’s independence against the invading French forces, who have already overtaken Spain. We are worried that, if France invades and subjugates Portugal, then it is only a short step across the Channel to our own shores. So we fight.
“Last year, things looked grim. Napoleon Bonaparte controlled a large swath of Europe—Italy, Germany, Spain among them. But he was greedy, he wanted more, he wanted Russia. The Russian weather defeated him, his troops dropping dead on the long retrea
t back to Paris. Consequently he has been weakened, overstretched. This year things are looking brighter. Wellington has the French on the run. Just last month he crossed the frontier into France. We believe that very soon Napoleon will be captured, and the war will finally be over. It is time for us to celebrate.”
“Christmas Eve, 1813,” she said, with an edge of hysteria. “Right.”
“At Ravenswood the Yuletide Ball is a long-held tradition. This year the son of the house”—he gave her a little introductory bow—“is back from the war, alive, although recovering from injuries. But with the good news comes the bad. Mr. Raven Senior fell from his horse in the park not long since, and died of a broken neck, plunging the household into mourning. Despite that, it was decided to go forward with the Yuletide Ball.”
Melanie cocked her head, and he could see her listening to the laughter and music upstairs, thinking that Ravenswood didn’t sound much like a house in mourning.
“Major Pengorren is here, too. He was my commanding officer in the army, and has been a pillar of strength in my family’s time of need.”
“Pengorren? As in Miss Pengorren? Then—”
She didn’t finish because Sophie, in a pale blue dress, her dark hair elaborately styled on top of her head, came out of the ballroom and down the stairs. Nathaniel found himself looking at his sister through a stranger’s eyes, seeing how young she still was although she’d deliberately dressed to appear older. The neckline of the high-waisted dress showed off a surprising amount of bosom, and he wondered how his mother could allow it. But, then, his mother was occupied elsewhere these days.
“Nathaniel,” Sophie said, and smiled her sweet smile.
He felt a painful stab in his heart, seeing her like this after so long. Although she could not know he had been dead for nearly two hundred years, that he had only returned for the purpose of showing an invisible stranger his family, he felt the moment weigh heavily upon him.
“Sophie, my dear sister.” He set aside his confused feelings, gathered up his wits. “You’re blooming tonight, a rose in the dead of winter.”
She giggled, pleased with the compliment, and all of a sudden she was his little sister again, following him about with her constant chatter and gazing up at him adoringly.
“You look very handsome yourself, sir,” she teased, and stretched up to kiss his cheek. “Although Mama will say you smell of the stable. Why haven’t you changed into your evening wear, brother? Or at least your uniform. A man looks very dashing in a uniform.” He wanted to capture her, hold her, warn her…But he wasn’t allowed to, and she was already moving away, her eyes shining.
“Speaking of uniforms, the major has promised me a dance, which makes me very special for, as you know, he never dances. Oh, and Sir Arthur Tregilly has drunk too much claret and is ogling the ladies’ ankles, and Miss Trewin is asking where you’ve got to for the fourth, no, the fifth time.”
“I can’t help breaking hearts.”
Sophie giggled again, but perhaps not quite so innocently as before. “I know you can’t, Nathaniel.”
He hesitated. He was breaking the queen’s rules, but he couldn’t help it. He had to speak. “Is everything all right with you, Soph? You would tell me, if it wasn’t? I’m always here.”
Except he wasn’t, not when she needed him.
Sophie looked at him strangely, and then she shook her head. “Silly,” she said, and continued on her way, probably to pass some message from his mother on to the cook.
Well, so much for brotherly concern. Nothing was going as planned.
Melanie had pressed herself back against the wall so as not to touch Sophie, and was looking dazed. He took her hand in his again, and this time she didn’t argue.
“Come on,” he said with quiet desperation, “let’s get this over with, and then you can go home.”
Six
They were standing outside the room where the guests were dancing. Melanie had always imagined dancing in the nineteenth century to be elegant and restrained, but there was little restraint here. Couples galloped around the room whooping and laughing, and the air was strong with the smells of alcohol, scent, and sweat.
It brought home to her that these were real people, not cardboard cutouts in a television drama.
A short while ago she had stood in this room, staring out of the windows at St. Anne’s Hill, and there had been nothing but empty, dusty silence. Now the windows were framed by bunches of green ivy and mistletoe with white berries, and dozens of candles were reflected in the glass. She wanted to cover her eyes with her hands and hide, like a child.
The guests could see Nathaniel, just as his sister had seen him, and he bowed his way elegantly through the crowd gathered around the space that had been cleared for the dancers. Melanie eyed him curiously, taking in his dark blue jacket, white waistcoat, and tight beige trousers. Several women, who—in Melanie’s opinion—should have known better, giggled and fluttered their lashes, saying things like, “Oh, Mr. Raven, you are looking much better, I was so sorry to hear of your injuries,” and, “Oh, Mr. Raven, I hope you will call upon us soon, I do so want to hear all about your adventures in Spain,” and, “Oh, Mr. Raven, Major Pengorren has been telling us how brave you were.”
“Mr. Raven, Mr. Raven, Mr. Raven,” Melanie muttered, as she trailed in his wake, growing increasingly irritated. No one looked at her; no one saw her. She was like a shadow. She didn’t realize she was dragging her feet until a sharp tug on her hand brought her up hard against his back.
“Oomph!” her breath huffed out.
Despite his lean elegance, he was all hard muscle.
“Do you mind?” she hissed, pulling away, and becoming entangled in a some swaths of ribbons by the windows.
He frowned at her and laid one long finger carefully against her lips. “You must listen,” he told her, staring intently into her eyes. His voice deep and smooth, like warm, melted chocolate.
Melanie didn’t trust him or the way he drew that finger away, turning it into a caress.
But there wasn’t time to take him up on it.
The dancers had stopped dancing. Everyone was looking toward the dais, where a man and a woman stood at the front of the small orchestra. The man was tall and fair and very handsome. Melanie blinked. More than just handsome—he was the handsomest man she had ever seen—and instinctively she understood that this was the man the curly-haired servant girl had been speaking of earlier.
It was strange, but the longer Melanie stared at him, the more his presence affected her. Almost as if she were being dazzled by the sight of him—dazzled in a way that was unnerving and definitely unwelcome.
She shivered. “Who is that?”
“Major Hew Pengorren,” Nathaniel Raven spoke quietly at her side. He didn’t need to ask whom she meant.
Her client’s ancestor, the progenitor of the Pengorren line, and Nathaniel’s commanding officer. The blond god was wearing a red uniform jacket and white trousers, with a dress sword strapped to his side. Irresistibly, her eyes were drawn back to his face, the golden beauty of it. She felt a little light-headed, starstruck in a way she’d never felt before, not even in her teenage years, when she and Suzie had gone to rock concerts and screamed themselves hoarse.
“It was bliss,” Suzie used to say, eyes closed, lying on her bed with a silly grin on her face.
This wasn’t bliss. This wasn’t a nice feeling at all. There was something horrible and squirmy about Major Pengorren.
With a supreme effort, she reached up and rubbed her eyes, and almost immediately the feeling was gone. If she couldn’t see him, then she was okay.
Again Nathaniel’s voice murmured in her ear, and she tried to pay attention, glad of the distraction. “Pengorren tells everyone I am a hero and plays down his own actions, but everyone knows it is he who is the real hero. He’s a gallant and brave officer, and he is at Ravenswood because I invited him. Miss Jones, he is my friend.”
There was emotion in his voice, bu
t what was it? Something out of place. Something that jarred in the context of the words he had spoken. She didn’t have time to figure it out, because Major Pengorren began to speak, and Melanie made the mistake of looking at him.
Again the bedazzlement swept over her, but now that she was aware of it, she was able to hold back a little, observe her feelings more coolly and scientifically. She glanced at the faces of the crowd and realized they were feeling just as spellbound as she. Pengorren was having that effect on everybody in the room.
“Friends!” he boomed, his voice deep and hearty and sincere, like a politician on election day. “Tonight is the most marvelous night of my life, and I wish to share it with you all. Felicity and I…” And he turned fondly to the woman at his side. She was in her late forties, slight, with a face that was pretty but tired—the shadows under her eyes matched her high-waisted black dress. She also wore a besotted smile.
“Dearest Felicity and I are to be wed!”
There was a hush, as if the audience didn’t quite know how to respond, and then everyone hurried to cover the gaff with extraloud congratulations and applause.
Melanie leaned toward Nathaniel, and whispered, “Isn’t she a bit old? She must have at least fifteen years on him. A man like that could have anyone, couldn’t he?”
Nathaniel leaned back toward her, and the warmth of his breath against her ear made her want to shiver. “You’re talking about my mother, Miss Jones.”
“Your mother?”
“Felicity Raven is my mother.”
“Oh…you said your father was…?”
“Dead. A tragic riding accident eight weeks ago.”
That explained the black dress then. But eight weeks…it was surely too soon to fall in love with another man? Although the look on Felicity’s face seemed to suggest that this was exactly what she had done.
There was a rustle of clothing, a murmur of voices, and the crowd gave way as Sophie, Nathaniel’s sister, rushed into the room, pushing her way toward the dais. Melanie recognized the dark head upon the long, elegant neck, and the pale blue dress made of a cloth so thin it was a wonder she didn’t freeze to death.
Immortal Warriors 02 - Secrets of the Highwayman Page 4