Ghost Girl

by C. J. Archer

  Other mail had come from applicants responding to her advertisements. One looked particularly promising for the position of butler. This time, nobody argued that Tommy could perform the duties admirably. His injuries would see him out of action for some time, perhaps indefinitely. That topic was avoided altogether.

  I retired early, claiming exhaustion. I was tired, the nap hardly making up for having been awake for much of the previous night. Sylvia decided to read for a little while in bed, and Quin lay down on the truckle. I heard his clothing and bedcovers rustle beyond the curtain and regretted that tonight would be our last together.

  But there would be no talking this time. Our nocturnal rendezvous were over. A sharp pang of regret and sorrow stabbed my chest where the book rested against it. It was bad enough that I may never see him again, but it was so much worse that I'd decided not to say goodbye. It was too much of a risk—he could either overpower me, or talk me into handing the book over. There was no doubt in my mind that he had the capability to disarm me completely and convince me that he should hold the book while I spoke the words of the counter-curse. I wouldn't risk it.

  I must have slept for a few hours because when I awoke, it was dark and Sylvia was asleep, tucked up in bed beside me. I listened for Quin, half expecting him to be awake, but his breathing had the rhythmic cadence of someone in deep slumber.

  I climbed out of bed and threw a wrap around my shoulders. I slipped into a pair of velvet slippers and winced at the soft thud of my first footstep. Quin made no sound on the other side of the screen. I warred with myself as to whether I should take a peek at him, but desire to see him one last time won out over common sense in the end.

  I peered round the screen and instantly regretted my decision. Seeing him again made it so much harder to part. The covers were bunched at his hips and his arms crossed over his bare chest. His face wasn't so hard and unforgiving in sleep, but it was just as handsome. Or perhaps that was my imagination, because it was too dark to see his features clearly.

  I closed my eyes against the sting of tears, and forced myself to turn away and not lie down beside him. With the book under my arm, I fled silently along the corridor. I felt the first tugs of the illness when I reached the stairs. My face became hot and my chest tight. I had only a narrow window of time in which to act.

  I reached the library as the fog hovering at the edges of my consciousness began to roll in. My skin was warm and clammy, yet it felt like ice slid through my veins. I shivered uncontrollably.

  I set the book down on the table and lit the lamp. It hissed and spat into life and cast out enough light for me to see the words by. I flopped into a chair, exhausted. My throat began to close, but whether from my unshed tears or the ravages of the illness, I couldn't tell. It made breathing difficult and speaking almost impossible. I fought against the weight pulling at my limbs and pressing down on my chest, and used every last ounce of energy to open the book.

  Where was the damned counter curse? I flipped pages back and forth, unsure of which one it was on. The fog in my head thickened, making thinking difficult and my trembling fingers slow.

  I stopped. Breathed. I could do this. I had to. I couldn't make it up the stairs and back to the bedroom now. I was committed to speaking the counter curse here in the library, alone.

  With my nerves a little steadier, I flipped the pages again and found the spell. I wasted no time in speaking the first line, but the words came out rasping, strangled. My tongue was too thick and my mouth too dry. I couldn't understand myself. Would the curse work? I hadn't a clue, but forged on until the end.

  Nothing happened.

  My head still ached and now my body too. Exhaustion called to me like an irresistible siren song and I set my heavy head down on the book. I felt like Atlas, with the entire world on his shoulders. Yet unlike Atlas, I lacked the strength to carry it. My chest felt like it would burst beneath the great weight pressing down on it. Tears rolled down my cheeks and dripped onto the page. I closed my eyes. It was the only movement I could manage.

  Then the weight began to lift and the fog cleared. The ice in my veins thawed as if a blanket had been thrown around me and wrapped me up in a cocoon. I stopped trembling and spun round.

  Quin stood in the doorway, dressed only in trousers. His bare chest rose and fell with his ragged breathing. His face was a picture of fury, his fists like rocks at his sides. He strode into the library, coming straight for me with fierce determination.

  At that moment he looked every bit the warrior, and he was angry.

  CHAPTER 17

  "Cara," he ground out. As he drew closer, I could see the muscle pulsing in his jaw, and something in his eyes that I hadn't seen from a distance. Concern.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat and placed a protective arm over the book. He paid it no attention. He dropped to his knees in front of me and clasped my face in both his hands.

  "Cara, why?" But he didn't wait for my answer. He pressed his forehead to mine and stroked my damp cheeks with his thumbs. His breath warmed my lips.

  Then he closed the gap and kissed me. It wasn't gentle. It was filled with his lingering anger, and perhaps some frustrated desire too. He nipped my lip with his teeth, and when I gave a small gasp, his tongue pushed into my mouth.

  The kiss quickly gentled, but the intimacy grew fiercer. It fueled my own passion and I kissed him back. I gripped his shoulders, digging my fingers into his smooth skin because I was afraid of floating off on a cloud of desire. He grasped the back of my head, his fingers in my hair, holding me there. I needed no such encouragement. I wasn't going anywhere. This was where I wanted to be—in Quin's arms, his lips on mine. If we lay together, what would happen? Would he be allowed to stay in this realm? Could he make me with child?

  It was scandalous thinking, but I didn't care. I wanted to be with him in that most shockingly intimate way. I fumbled with the fastening of his trousers.

  He sprang back from me and I almost toppled forward off the chair. We were both breathing heavily as we stared at one another. The shock of what we'd almost done registered in his eyes and was perhaps visible in mine. My wantonness surprised me, but my lack of regret surprised me more. I would have lain with him and accepted whatever consequences came my way, and done so happily.

  I wasn't sure Quin felt the same way. He had, after all, been the one to back out. He shook his head and rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth.

  "You could have died," he muttered. So he'd chosen to discuss that and not the kiss. Very well. I would too.

  "I saw no other choice." I placed my arm over the book, but he made no move to snatch it. "I didn't know if I could trust you not to take it."

  He lowered his head and his hair fell across his face, hiding his eyes from me. "I told you I would not. Not before you were well again."

  "I don't want you taking it afterward, either. I had hoped to get farther away from the house, but I felt too ill to continue and I knew there would be lamps in here."

  "You could have died," he whispered again. He swore in French and pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead.

  I half-rose to go to him but sat back down again. There could be no more intimacy between us. It only caused problems and heartache.

  He blew out a long breath and squared his shoulders. He looked directly at me and I could see that he'd come to a decision. "If you don't want me to have it, I won't take it. Begin the spell."

  I blinked at him, trying to determine if he was merely telling me what he knew I wanted to hear or if he was genuine.

  When I didn't speak, he said, "Cara, you cannot leave me again before the curse is broken. You won't have the strength to speak the entire spell and make it understandable. You must say it with me present, and that means you must trust me now."

  He was right. I knew it, yet I still hesitated. It wasn't just because I didn't fully trust him. It was also because this was it, the end. I had kissed the most wonderful man, the only man I could ever see myself
being with—and now he was going back to a place where he was already dead.

  Saying goodbye didn't seem enough.

  "If it's your wish that I don't take the book, I won't take it," he said again, misunderstanding my hesitation.

  I turned to the book, but did not speak even the first line of the counter curse. "Am I doing the right thing, Quin?" My voice sounded small, childlike.

  "You ask me now?"

  I turned back to him and nodded. "I hate going against your wishes, but I believe what I said earlier at dinner. We shouldn't interfere with the supernatural. The portal shouldn't be destroyed, and you shouldn't be allowed to leave Purgatory in any other way than the natural one. It could prove to be dangerous in ways we are yet to realize."

  "So it's not just because leaving Purgatory means I will move on to a place where I cannot return to this realm?"

  He had said it to gently tease me, but he watched me closely and I suspected my answer was important to him.

  "I hope you will one day leave Purgatory. I hate to think of you there. But not through untried ways that may incur the anger of the administrators."

  He nodded grimly. "That's why…why I like you so much, Cara." His smile was sad, his eyes swimming. "Even though you are too educated for a wench."

  I spluttered a watery laugh, and he responded with a brief grin that was all teeth.

  "You are a strong, brave woman, Cara, and you're not in the least devious like I first thought."

  "Thank you. I think."

  "I regret that I lied about the book." He spoke softly, but in earnest. "I am truly sorry for my trickery. I admit that I saw your illness as a way of being granted access to this realm. Once it was explained to the administrators that you were cursed through no fault of your own, they agreed that I could help. But I had every intention of taking the book from you, after you were cured."

  I went to reach for the book, but held myself back. He had told me he wouldn't take it and I believed him now. He needed to know that.

  "I knew the moment I met you that you would affect me," he went on, "but I had no notion then that your life would become precious to me."

  My lower lip wobbled. I bit it hard.

  "You've made your choice about the book based on what your heart and mind tell you, Cara. I ask for nothing else from my brave little warrior. Speak the counter curse now and have no regrets. You are probably right, anyway, when you say we shouldn't go against the order of things. I should never have allowed myself to hope."

  A sob escaped my throat. "Oh, Quin."

  "No, Cara. Stay there or…or parting will just be harder."

  "But…will I ever see you again?"

  "I hope not, because that will mean you are in difficulty again and I want you to be safe. I want you to live a full, happy life, free from curses and demons. That's the life you deserve."

  My heart thundered against my ribs and my throat burned. How could I do this? How could I send him away?

  "You must," he whispered, as if he read my mind. "Speak it now. Go on."

  I drank in the sight of him one last time—his beautiful face, his changeable blue-green eyes, now bright with emotion; his wicked mouth that tasted so delicious. Then I turned and began the counter curse to cure myself.

  I was half way through when I became aware of him standing behind me. His presence was a reassurance rather than a threat. I no longer feared that he would snatch the book. I kept reading. When I reached the last line, I felt his hand on my hair. He stroked the tresses, let them slide through his fingers. The tears that had been hovering on the brink of my eyelids finally spilled, and it was an effort to say the last word. As I whispered the final syllable, I felt his lips against the top of my head, his hand on my shoulder.

  I spun round, hoping that I'd been wrong and he would still be there. But he was gone. The air where he'd been standing swirled with a gentle breeze. His scent lingered a moment more, then it too disappeared.

  I moved to the deep wingback by the fire and tucked my feet beneath me. I clutched the book to my chest and cried until I fell asleep near dawn.

  ***

  Sylvia had my own bedroom made up for me and I retreated to its solitude, remaining there all of the following day and night without coming out. I needed to be alone, although Sylvia had difficulty understanding that at first. I think she only came to terms with it because Tommy came home and she had somebody else to fuss over, although she did pop in to see me from time to time and bestow sympathetic looks upon me.

  "I know how you feel," she said once with a deep sigh.

  I refrained from snipping back that she couldn't possibly know since she'd never sent anyone back to Purgatory, and certainly not anyone she'd kissed.

  I rallied the following day, only because I wanted to return to London and Emily. I needed her now more than ever. But first, I had a spirit in the village to see.

  I found the lad outside the butcher's shop again, peering through the window with a surly frown. I leaned against the lamppost, opened the newspaper I'd brought with me for the purpose of hiding behind, and surreptitiously beckoned him over once I was certain no one was about.

  "Aha," he said when he appeared at my side. "I was worried you weren't coming back."

  "I'm very sorry for the delay. Indeed, I've been thinking that I don't need your help after all, and I came to tell you not to concern yourself."

  His mouth drooped around his big front teeth. "But you promised!"

  "I'll still help you," I assured him. "That's why I'm here."

  "But I worked hard to find out what I could. Don't you want to hear it anyway?"

  I hesitated. I admit to still being curious, even though I'd resolved not to chase after the information anymore. It no longer seemed right to find out what I could about Quin without his knowledge; it felt devious. I smiled. He'd been wrong to absolve me of that flaw. It also no longer seemed necessary to find out more. I would never see him again, so what did it matter?

  I fought to close the pit in my heart as it threatened to open again. I managed it without spilling a tear, although they welled close. "Tell me what I can do to help you. Since you're here, I suspect you died somewhere nearby?"

  He nodded. "I were on me death bed when I came here, hoping to speak to him." He jerked his head at the butcher's window. "But I never made it. Died out the front."

  "I am sorry. I do hope I can help you move on now. You'll be much happier once you cross over to the afterlife. Do you want me to say something to your father? Perhaps tell him you love him—"

  "Love him! Why would I want to do that? He's a prick, he is, and a liar. He wouldn't acknowledge me when I were born, wouldn't help out me ma. Said I were another man's whelp."

  It was impossible to believe that anyone would think the lad had been fathered by another man; he looked just like the butcher. Perhaps as a baby the resemblance hadn’t been so marked and it had been easier to lie about a connection between himself and the boy's mother.

  "She died working herself to the bone just to feed me. He ruined her and now look at him, all fat and jolly."

  I lowered the corner of the newspaper. The butcher smiled at me through the window. He did look cheerful. "You should join your mother now," I said. "Forget whatever revenge you have in mind and find your peace in the afterlife."

  He sighed. "I would like to see her again. But he don't deserve to get off free. He's got a wife and four children, all younger than me. A big, happy family. I used to watch them going into the church in their Sunday best, talking and laughing. He wouldn't even look at me or Ma."

  "Is that what you wanted? For him to look at you and know that he was your son?"

  He nodded. "I used to think I wanted to punch him in the nose." He looked skyward and his own nose twitched. "Now I want him to know that his eldest son knew him for the arse he was. Pardon me, miss."

  "Forgiven."

  "I want him to know that his happy life were built on a lie."

  We both looked
to the butcher as he wrapped up some bacon for a customer. She paid and made her exit, and he was left alone in the shop.

  "What's your name?" I asked the lad.

  "Teddy Bunker, miss."

  I folded up my newspaper and marched inside. Teddy followed.

  The butcher looked up and smiled. "Good morning, miss. Lovely day out. How can I help you?"

  "You can listen." I steeled myself. I didn't usually confront strangers on behalf of spirits, but I'd promised Teddy. "You, sir, are a liar. Your life is based on a lie."

  The butcher's nose twitched and his eyes winked in nervous habit, just like his son. "Eh?"

  "Teddy Bunker was your child. You refused to acknowledge him and help his mother."

  "How do you know?"

  "Have you seen him?"

  "Aye."

  "Then you can't fail to know it too. He was your son, and now he's dead. You ought to be ashamed for never claiming him, or at least giving his mother financial assistance."

  The butcher's twitching grew worse until his entire face seemed to be wracked with jumping nerves. "I…I don't know what to say."

  "How about sorry."

  "Sorry? Who to? They're both gone now. The lad died right out the front there. There was a right to-do, as it happens, thanks to him. There'd been rumors recently, as he grew to look more like me, but having him die right there was like a sign, so everyone said. Not to my face, mind, but I hear them whispering. My Jill does too, then she takes it out on me. Calls me a liar and adulterer, even though we weren't married then. She hates me now and I can't do nothing to win her back." He sniffed and occupied himself with reorganizing the trays of meats on display. "So if you think I ain't suffering, think again. I don't know why you'd bring this up again now, when the lad died a week ago, and I don't know why you'd care. It ain't fair."