“Lovely,” Melanie muttered under her breath.
“What about Sophie?” Nathaniel asked abruptly. “What happened to Pengorren’s second wife?”
“Madhouse,” Eddie said, with a grimace. “Went totally bonkers after her son was born. They locked her up, and she died in there a few years later. By that time Pengorren had filled the house with his women and was more or less living the life of a sheik with his harem. And yet he was still respected, still liked, and still the magistrate for the district!”
“Everyone was blinded by Pengorren? You must admit, Edward, Pengorren had an amazing ability to persuade people to believe in him and to love him.”
“Glamour,” Eddie said.
“Glamour?” Nathaniel repeated, and frowned. He glanced at Melanie, but she shrugged, as confused as him. “Explain yourself, Edward.”
“Glamour is the magical quality that faeries are supposed to possess. They wrap it around themselves like a cloak, and us normal human beings can’t see through it. Instead, we only see what the faery wants us to see. In Pengorren’s case, that would be a handsome and friendly man who is honorable and generous. A man everybody loves and admires. A man the women can’t resist. That’s your glamour in action.”
“But Eddie,” Melanie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “You can’t be suggesting that Pengorren was a…a…”
“I’m not. I’m just pointing out the comparison. Many psychopaths have charisma, glamour. They attract people to them and then—”
Downstairs a door banged. “Melanie!?” a voice drifted upward.
Melanie felt her mouth fall open and closed it.
“Melanie!” the voice was louder this time. Quick, light footsteps started on the stairs. “Melanie, where on earth are you…? Oh!”
The voice had reached the door.
Melanie turned and said, with as much sangfroid as she could manage, “Hello Suzie. You made good time.”
Twenty-seven
Suzie was thin and fair-haired, older than Melanie by about five years, but they were very similar in looks. Or they had been, Nathaniel supposed, until Melanie began to change…
Glamour.
He tried the word out. It made sense considering Pengorren’s behavior and the way people responded to him. Eddie didn’t know the full story, so he wouldn’t realize that something like a magic spell was entirely possible when it came to Major Pengorren.
“I know, I know.” Suzie gave Melanie a crooked but very attractive smile. “I shouldn’t have come, and you’re cross with me, but I was worried about you. After your phone call, I…I remembered something. I don’t know why I didn’t remember it before, but anyway I thought it was better to come down here and tell you face-to-face.”
“You mean you were nosy and wanted to see where I was and what I was up to,” Melanie retorted, but there was no animosity in her voice, just affection and a hint of weary relief. They were close then. Nathaniel remembered Sophie with an aching heart.
“That, too,” Suzie admitted. She noticed Eddie, and tilted her head to one side as if she wasn’t quite sure what she was dealing with. “Who’s this then?”
“Eddie,” Eddie introduced himself, holding out his hand. “I’m the caretaker.”
Suzie took his hand, inspecting his bright shirt with the native girls in grass skirts dancing all over it, and then lifting her clever gaze to his good-natured face. Her smile said she liked what she saw. “Hello, Eddie,” she said.
“And this is Nathaniel,” Melanie went on, sounding stilted, as if this was an awkward situation for her. “Nathaniel, this is my sister, Suzie.”
She felt very nervous, which was ridiculous. In the circumstances it shouldn’t matter to her whether or not Suzie approved of Nathaniel or hated him on sight. It never had before. But this time it did.
Nathaniel gave her a smile, just a brief softening of his mouth and eyes. It’s all right, that smile seemed to say. I understand.
She watched as he walked over to Suzie. He moved so gracefully, so beautifully, and—from the wondering expression on Suzie’s face—he must have been wearing his most charming smile. Melanie was tempted to tell her sister that she could look, but she couldn’t touch.
He’s mine.
The thought was comforting and frightening at the same time.
“How do you do?” Nathaniel had taken Suzie’s hand, holding it between both of his as he smiled down at her.
“Oh. Good,” Suzie managed, with a glazed look in her blue eyes.
“Gets all the birds, does he? Not fair, is it?” Melanie jumped, as Eddie muttered in her ear. She didn’t hear him sidle up to her
“You’re not so bad yourself, Eddie,” she retorted quietly. “And just so you know, Suzie likes a man who can make her laugh.”
He gave her a doubtful look, as if he thought she might be having a go at him. But it was true, Suzie loved a joke, and Eddie’s was the sort of easygoing, friendly personality she enjoyed in a man. The brooding, handsome ones always broke her heart.
Nathaniel let go of Suzie’s hand, but she was still smiling up at him dreamily. Melanie decided it was time to ask some questions.
“Suzie, you said you had something to tell me?”
Suzie blinked, and then she was across the room in a gust of vanilla perfume. Her arms were thin, but they were strong, and she held Melanie tightly. Melanie closed her eyes, and for a moment she was safe, a child again, who believed Suzie could save her from all the monsters under the bed.
As they separated Suzie, held her away and frowned at her. “What have you done to yourself?”
“Nothing.”
“There’s something up,” Suzie insisted, “and I want to know what it is. What’s going on, Melanie?”
Melanie hesitated. “You first.” She led her sister over to the chair Eddie had just vacated. Suzie flopped down and surveyed the room.
“Wow, I’m impressed,” she said, with a grin that made her look about fourteen years old. There was something familiar about her face and her windblown curls, but Melanie couldn’t place it. And then her smile faded and she pushed up the sleeves of her jade green blouse. “All right, this is the thing. I remembered it after you rang, and it seemed important, too important to wait. Maybe I’m wrong, and if I am, then you can put me back in my Bug and send me home. But, Melanie, just hear me out first. Okay?”
Melanie realized that Nathaniel had come to stand beside her. His shoulder brushed against hers and fireworks went off in her head. She stepped away, concentrating on Suzie. “Okay. Tell me.”
“Um”—Suzie looked at the two men—“are you sure? Do you want them to hear? Not that it’s anything I wouldn’t say in company.”
“Just say it.”
“Well, it was that name—Pengorren. It set off bells in my head. I knew I’d heard it before somewhere, and then I remembered. It was our mom. She used to talk about the wealthy Pengorren family down in Cornwall, with their great big house and their servants. When they lost everything, Mom and Dad, she used to say she’d go and see them and beg for her share. Dad scoffed at her, of course, said she was out of her head. “They won’t give you anything,” he used to say, “not when you’re just some byblow from way back.” You see, that was the thing. Mom said she was related to the Pengorrens, that we came from a bastard child born to a servant girl and the master. Happened a lot in the old days. No sexual harassment laws back then.”
Melanie felt the room begin to rock under her feet.
Eddie snorted a laugh, then look embarrassed when the other two turned to him. “Sorry. I wasn’t laughing at…It’s just that there seem to be a lot of us Pengorren byblows about.”
“What, you as well, Eddie?” Suzie asked, eyes shining. “Maybe we should form a Pengorren’s Bastards Club—”
“I don’t see what there is to be proud of,” Melanie burst out, and swallowed. She felt sick. She put her hand over her mouth.
Suzie was on her feet. “Sis?”
“You�
�re saying,” Melanie went on, “that we’re blood relatives of Pengorren? Is that what you’re telling me?”
She was Pengorren’s blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh.
This was it. This was the answer to the puzzle that the queen of the between-worlds had set them. She could help Nathaniel destroy Pengorren because she was intimately connected to him.
“Oh God…”
Her gaze found Nathaniel’s, and she read the shock in his eyes, but she couldn’t speak her thoughts aloud. She didn’t want to give them that power.
“Melanie?” Suzie was talking to her.
And then Nathaniel’s arms came around her. He was holding her, and Melanie could feel herself trembling, the shudders running through her, her legs shaking and weak, as the sexual attraction fought with her feelings of horror. And through it all, Nathaniel was holding her up.
Pengorren was in her head. Pengorren, grinning up at her, saying Melanie. Pengorren, who could make people love him despite his cruel and criminal behavior, just by looking into their eyes. Glamour. Pengorren, traveling through time, using her to…to what? Make himself young again? Live again?
“I see it now,” Melanie whispered into Nathaniel’s shoulder. “Coming here…I started it all up. This is my fault.”
“No,” he murmured against her hair, rocking her. “No, Melanie. It was meant to happen. You didn’t start it up, you’re here to put an end to it.”
“Melanie, please!” Suzie’s shrill voice broke through their private conversation. “What’s the matter? Will someone tell me what’s going on here?”
Melanie pulled away from Nathaniel, trembling, out of control. “You shouldn’t be here,” she said, her voice rising. “Suzie, you have to go. It’s not safe for you here.”
Suzie had Pengorren’s blood, too. It explained her fascination with ancient sites and dancing in the freezing cold of midwinter solstice. She was part of that world, the world of magic and glamour and immortality. More so than Melanie had ever been or wanted to be.
Until now.
“If I leave, then you’re coming with me,” Suzie retorted, frightened but standing solid. “I’m not going anywhere without you. Now, come on, Melanie, tell me what this is about? You’re scaring me.”
“You should be scared,” Melanie whispered. “My God, Suzie, you should be bloody scared!”
“Melanie—”
But Melanie turned and fled the room.
She ran toward her bedroom with the thought of locking herself in, like a child safe in the womb, where nothing bad could get at her. But the bad things were in her head, and she knew as she reached her door that she’d never escape them by running. She was so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she didn’t hear the sounds at first. When she did her steps slowed until they stopped altogether, and she realized she was holding her breath. Listening.
Soft sighs and moans, rhythmic creaks and thuds. Just the same as before. Except that this time Melanie wasn’t dreaming, she was wide-awake.
Pengorren.
Oh no, not again. Not so soon. Her heart began to stutter, and she felt light-headed. She didn’t want to see, she didn’t want to know. But at the same time she was angry, so very angry. Pengorren had hijacked her life, her mundane, ordinary life. She wouldn’t let him frighten her with his tricks, not this time.
Before she could change her mind Melanie reached for her doorknob. Instantly, the sounds grew more intense, the moaning almost constant, as if the walls themselves were saturated with the sounds of the man and woman making love and were replaying the scene for her benefit all these years later.
“Hew,” a female voice gasped from inside the bedroom. “I love you so, Hew…”
Melanie opened the door and stepped in.
This time Pengorren was more or less fully dressed as he lay on top of the woman. His face was buried in her bosom and her fingers were clutching at his shoulders as she climbed to her peak. Fair curly hair and young; it was Dorrie again.
Pengorren moved upon her steadily, almost mechanically, without passion. There was nothing erotic about the scene, nothing arousing, it was just sweaty and brutal.
Pengorren suddenly reared up, opening his jaws, and then bit Dorrie hard on her breast.
She screamed, twisting, struggling, but he didn’t stop. He bit harder, as if her pain excited him.
“You’ll hurt the babe, Hew,” she moaned, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Please, Hew…”
“Stop it,” Melanie whispered, then louder, “Stop it, you evil bastard!”
Pengorren let her go. He lifted his head, and there was a fleck of blood on his lips, but his ruddy and handsome face was calm and purposeful, while his blue eyes gleamed with awareness. He was looking at her, and then he grinned.
“This is what you have to look forward to,” he said, as if Dorrie didn’t exist, as if it was only Pengorren and Melanie. “Real power, complete power. Can’t you feel it, Melanie? Growing inside you.”
“No, I don’t want that. I don’t want to be like you. I’m not like you.”
“But you are, my dear. Flesh of my flesh—”
“No!” There were an antique jug and basin on the table by the bed, the sort that used to be used for washing before bathrooms were invented. She reached for the jug, so furious she no longer felt in control of her actions, wanting only to strike out and destroy him.
He laughed, and his image flickered, fading.
By the time she’d swung the jug he was all but gone. It bounced harmlessly on the mattress. Pengorren hadn’t even been here. It was just his essence. The real Pengorren was somewhere else altogether.
Tears stung her eyes. She felt no better for her loss of control, she hadn’t gained anything. The worst of it was she’d seen the expression in his eyes, just before he vanished.
Satisfaction.
Twenty-eight
After Melanie had run out of the room, Suzie went to follow her, just as Nathaniel made the same move. They both stopped, and then Suzie changed her mind and turned instead to glare at the two men. “I hope someone here is going to fill me in,” she said threateningly.
The shock of seeing her intelligent and conservative younger sister having a fit of nervous hysterics over a man who probably died before Queen Victoria, had deeply unsettled her.
Nathaniel shook his head. “No. I think it is up to Melanie to tell you what is troubling her.”
He might be dreamy-looking, but Suzie didn’t take that bossy tone from any man. “Obviously I think so, too, but she’s not here,” she said tartly. Frustrated, she turned her attention to Eddie. “What about you, Eddie? Got any opinions on what’s troubling my sister? She’s only been here a few days, and already she’s a wreck. I haven’t seen her like this since she was nine years old and…” Her voice trailed off. Something else had happened when Melanie was nine years old, and it had happened in Cornwall, not far from Ravenswood.
Eddie interrupted her thoughts. “Um, Suzie? I think Melanie is upset about my book.” He gave a diffident smile, his kind eyes wearing a worried expression. A real sweetheart, this one, despite the shirt.
“Your book, Eddie? What book is that?”
“I’ve rewritten the history of Ravenswood and Major Pengorren’s part in it.”
“Oh? No, I can’t see the connection yet, but go on.”
Eddie cleared his throat. “Well…” and he launched into his theory.
Nathaniel watched Suzie concentrating as the rambling story unfolded, and thought again about following Melanie. But he knew she needed time alone to consider her situation. Her relationship to Pengorren was a stunning revelation, but it also made a terrible sense. He had noticed himself how Melanie’s dazzling looks were so similar to Pengorren’s. The glamour was something she’d inherited.
She must leave. She wasn’t safe here, he knew that, had known it since last night. He just hadn’t wanted to believe it. He wanted to keep her with him for the time left to him. But now he knew he had to persuade her to
go home with her sister.
Nathaniel wandered over to the mullioned windows, and St. Anne’s Hill stared back at him. The doorway into the between-worlds was silhouetted against the cloudy sky. Nathaniel narrowed his eyes—he could just make out a shadow by the stone, a hound-shaped shadow.
“So, you think that Pengorren had some sort of, eh, faery glamour.” Behind him, Suzie sounded as if what she was saying was the most reasonable thing in the world. “Does that mean that I have it, too? And Melanie? And you, Eddie? How exciting.”
Eddie snorted a dismissive laugh, but he was beaming, pleased by the comparison. “Maybe some have it more than others,” he said, with painful honesty. “Your sister, for instance…”
His voice trailed off, and Suzie gave a thoughtful nod. “Yes. You’re right. I wouldn’t be surprised. I’ve always had some psychic abilities but Melanie is so closed down, so tightly reined in…There was a time when she used to see things. Then it stopped, and she used to get headaches, really bad ones. I always thought they were something to do with that shutting-down process, keeping everything confined.”
“My old gran used to read the tea leaves,” Eddie added helpfully, totally out of his depth.
Suzie laughed, and the atmosphere lightened. “And can you?”
Eddie smiled back. “Not really. But I can have a stab at it if you think it will help.”
“No, thanks. I know as much about my past as I want to, and as for the future…I prefer to let it unfold as a nice surprise.”
She looked up, catching Nathaniel watching them, and smiled as if she’d known all along that he was listening. Now she came to join him at the window, standing very close beside him. He wondered whether she was trying to intimidate him into giving her the information she wanted.
“Nice view,” she said pleasantly, looking out over the park. When he didn’t answer she turned to him, tilting her head back so that she could give him a thoroughly searching look. “And how do you fit in, Nathaniel? I think you know a lot more than you’re saying.”
Amused by her manner, he returned her look with a smile. “I’m related to the Ravens,” he said truthfully. “Melanie asked me to come to Ravenswood.”
Immortal Warriors 02 - Secrets of the Highwayman Page 21