Dead After Dark Page 17

  Well, the intruder was certainly bold. She stepped quietly across the yard and slid through the open stable door into the shadows.

  The horse heard her if his owner did not. He sidled away, snorting, as the intruder tried to uncinch his girth. The prowler was a man, not a boy. All she could see was his silhouette, but no boy had shoulders like that, or thighs. How long it had been since she had had a man? The parasite that ran in her veins and made her what she was, her Companion, worshipped life. What surer urge to life than the sexual act? So she was easily aroused. That was her curse. She shut down those thoughts. She, of any of them, was not to be trusted with thoughts like that.

  "Whoa, now, Darley," the intruder soothed, in a baritone that came from no callow youth. "What's wrong with you, boy?"

  The horse quieted when she stilled herself. Animals always liked her. It was the energy she emanated. The man heaved the saddle off and turned into the light to lay it over the edge of a stall door. His breeches were close about his thighs and bulged in just the right place. Hmmmm. Interesting. His riding boots were made by the finest of bootmakers. He was in his shirtsleeves, his collar open in the heat. His sleeves were rolled up over strong forearms, and his shirt clung damply to his body. He had blond hair, tanned skin, and very, very blue eyes. He also had a scar along his left cheek, white against his tan. That might distract the simpler of those he met into thinking he was not handsome. Hunger itched along her veins as she saw the pulse throb in the damp skin at his throat. He was definitely no boy. The lines in his face were as hard and unforgiving as the scar. But his mouth was soft and full. Incongruous. Interesting even.

  But she wasn't interested in men. Not any more. She couldn't be trusted around them. She jerked her eyes to his horse, as he pulled the bridle over its head. The creature was magnificent: big, well muscled, with a piercing eye and flaring nostrils. Just now the horse was sweating from the ride up from the village. It would take quite a rider to master this beast.

  "Good thing you were fed in the village, boy. There's no hay in this molding old place." He led the horse into a stall. "You'll have to make do." He followed the horse in and took some handfuls of old straw to rub it down. She watched the muscles move in his back and arms. The fine linen of his shirt was made almost transparent by his perspiration. She remembered that smell now, the scent of a man sweating. The throb began between her legs. She mustn't let the beast within her rouse itself. But she couldn't stop watching him. He looked up once or twice and peered around. He sensed her presence. He would feel her vibrations. Most humans sensed it only as vitality, an aliveness that made her incredibly attractive. But he shook his head and chuckled at himself, apparently writing off his senses to the tales he must have heard about the place being haunted.

  She glanced to a large valise that sat just outside the circle of light from the lamp. No intruder had ever brought a valise. An uneasy feeling settled on her.

  Nonsense. He'd be running down the road, leaving his beautiful horse behind, just after he nodded off. She'd see to that. And she'd have quenched her hunger.

  Perhaps she should wait and go to one of the surrounding villages for her blood. Perhaps it was a danger to engage in the sensuous act of feeding with this one. She daren't give in to the rising pressure between her legs.

  He picked up the lantern and the valise and, with one glance behind him, strode out the door. He certainly didn't look afraid. She'd fix that.

  She glided after him. Where did he plan to wait for her? Probably in the front drawing room in the main wing of the house. He'd sit up with his lantern, pretending to read, just to say he'd spent the night. A wager no doubt. Which she would insure he lost.

  But he didn't go round to the front again. He went in through the kitchen door. She slid after him. Holding his lamp high, he found another and lighted it, and another. He rummaged around until he found the candles she had ordered--her supplies were brought from three villages over in Tremail, far enough away that the house's reputation was not a problem. He lit a candelabra full of candles. Not good. The kitchen was fairly bright now. He looked around, surprised. She drifted into the maw of the pantry where the light did not penetrate. The kitchen was the one room she kept tidy. No dust here. And her supplies were in evidence if he looked. He did, peering into cupboards. He found the flour, the vegetables, the smoked ham. He stood, and after thinking a moment, he walked to the great kitchen fireplace. She sighed.

  He held out his hands and felt the heat. When he kicked at the banked coals the ashes fell away, revealing the last glow of the fire she had used to heat water for her tea.

  "Well, well, well," he murmured. "Ghosts, have we? More likely trespassers."

  That didn't seem to frighten him, either. He pumped water into two buckets. Pouring the buckets into the cauldron to heat, he stirred the coals into a blaze. Then he took a lantern and started off to explore the house.

  He settled on a bedroom in the main block that overlooked the gardens in the back, just as hers did from the ruined side wing. She watched from the shadowed dressing room as he opened the windows wide and flung the Holland covers from the furniture. Dust hung in the air, and she had to hold her nose to prevent sneezes. The man was not here for one night, at least in his own mind. He was moving in. He hung two coats and several shirts in the wardrobe, and placed folded cravats and smalls in the highboy drawers. Breeches went in the bottom drawers. She had to retreat to the adjacent bedroom when he came in to rummage in the dressing room. What was the stupid creature looking for?

  She heard him drag it out. A bathtub. This was not good. She slipped back into the dressing room. The door was left wide open. Not tidy, this man. He had the tub out in the middle of the old Turkey carpet in front of the fireplace. He took the candelabra and strode out into the hall. He was so . . . purposeful. Soon he was back with two huge buckets of water and some soap from her stores. He poured the steaming water into the bath and took off again. This time when he returned he had clean sheets tucked under one arm and two more buckets of water. He poured these into the bath as well and bent to remove his boots.

  She could come back later when he was asleep and haunt his dreams. She was in danger if she stayed. Watching him would rouse everything she had worked to suppress.

  He took off his shirt.

  Oh, my. He was certainly strongly built. His shoulders were positively brawny. His biceps swelled as he worked at the buttons on his breeches. His chest was covered with curly blondish hair. His nipples were soft and browned, his belly ribbed with muscle. She should go. Was he as tanned all over as his upper body? He moved his breeches over his hips. She covered her mouth to prevent an appreciative sound escaping. No, he was not so tan all over. Though everywhere had seen some sun. The nest of hair around his man parts was dark gold. He was well endowed, and she had seen many men. No wonder his breeches bulged in such an interesting manner. But it wasn't just his male equipment that fascinated her. The hips were slim, the thighs flaring with muscle, the buttocks in profile . . . oh, dear, firm, round. Tight.

  Just like she felt inside.

  He stepped into the bath, easing himself down with a sigh. He just sat in the steam with his eyes closed for a while. She half thought he'd gone to sleep. She, on the other hand, might never sleep again. She was so wet between her legs she practically dripped. She could relieve the torture if she left now. Or perhaps not. She was going to remember that body for a long time. So why leave when it was no use?

  He sat up at last and washed himself briskly. She thought she might faint as he soaped his hands and then scrubbed his body under the waterline. She knew exactly what he was doing. She closed her eyes.

  Why was she here torturing herself? You don't care about sex, she told herself. It had always been a job to her, no more. You turned vampires into Harriers, weapons the Council of Elders could use to protect your kind. And making Harriers meant teaching them the sexual arousal and suppression that increased their power. You never took pleasure in it. You did it
because your father, the Eldest, demanded it.

  And now she didn't even do that any more. Her purpose was gone. Her job was gone.

  The water sloshed. She opened her eyes. He was drying himself in that unconscious way men had, because they didn't know how arousing it was to see their silken skin, slick with water, rubbed down. He stepped out of the bath and turned.

  Her eyes widened.

  His back was crisscrossed by dozens of ugly white troughs and ridges of scar tissue. He had been whipped. Someone had treated this man very badly. He opened the wardrobe and took out a nightshirt, but thought better of it. He flung it on the bed. Instead, naked, he went to the writing desk and opened a box he had set there. It was a traveling writing case. He removed paper, an inkwell, and a quill, and began a letter. After a few lines, he paused, growled in dissatisfaction and crumpled up the paper, throwing it into the middle of the carpet. He was acting exactly like he lived here, not as though he was staying for one night, quaking, in a haunted house just to prove he could do it.

  Unbelievable.

  He couldn't live here. Her father owned this estate, though he hadn't come here in centuries. She had a right to the house. She wanted to be left alone. She wanted a small existence. She wanted peace. And here this oaf came and stabled his horse in her stables, and moved in and took a bath and now was sitting, naked, writing a letter, and making her throb the way she didn't want to throb at all any more.

  Well, it wouldn't last for long. She drummed her fingers on her arm. She had only to wait until he retired. She'd get the blood she needed from him and she would then send him packing, ashamed of his fear. If that idiot landowner her father had entrusted to oversee the place had rented it out, he would soon find that tenants were hard to come by.

  Drew set down the pen and sighed. How could a letter he had composed a thousand times in his mind suddenly become so difficult to write? What did one say to a woman with whom you were wildly in love, but hadn't seen in fifteen years? She wasn't married, but did that mean she still pined for him? Were their stolen moments together, made all the more piquant by her father's certain disapproval, enough to last so long? He hadn't even made love to her. A few kisses, some heated promises, the pain of lust restrained. Did they have more than that?

  Of course they did. For her love he had endured pain and humiliation, near death. He'd almost died a dozen times.

  And for her he had turned himself into Drew Carlowe, respectable and very rich with an educated accent and excellent taste. The perfect husband, if one didn't count the scars on his back, or on his soul. In coming home he risked everything. But he was no longer a feckless youth. They'd have a hard time holding him, if they realized who he was and turned him in.

  Drew sanded the letter. It was the best he could do. Had Emily's father turned her against him? She must still love him. She must. The best revenge on her father was to have his daughter in spite of all. She was of age. Drew was rich. Tomorrow, he would pay a boy from the village to deliver the letter into her hands alone. They would meet. He would woo her all over again if necessary, until she agreed to run away with him. He'd let his new father-in-law know just who his daughter had married sooner or later. That would hurt Melaphont. And then he'd take care of her father in some particularly personal way. Not right away. It was hardly conducive to a happy marriage to have one's revenge on the bride's father. But he had vowed to see Sir Elias Melaphont suffer for the suffering he'd caused Drew and Emily. He would not be denied.

  He decided to let the letter dry before he put it into the envelope he'd addressed. He rose, gathered up the sheets, and staggered to the bed, rubbing his neck.

  He'd had the oddest feeling all night that he was being watched. But he'd searched the house, all except the ruined west wing, and no one could be staying there. He was alone here. The supplies in the kitchen and the banked fire must have been arranged by the agent as a welcome to his new home, or by Melaphont himself. He didn't like to think that. He didn't want to be beholden to that cur for anything. Whoever had left the supplies had been very thorough. The linen closet even held clean sheets. He was grateful for that.

  It was too hot to put on the nightshirt. He piled the brocaded coverlet in the corner and put the sheets on the bed himself. He realized why the villagers thought the house was haunted. It had a kind of electric feeling, as though something important was about to happen. He grinned as he plumped the pillows. The beautiful young ghost was just wishful thinking. Though here in Cornwall the supernatural was always foremost in people's minds. Pixies and ghosts were as real to the locals as Jesus and his disciples. Perhaps the two concepts were not so different. He'd lost all belief in God a long time ago. Bible stories were just tales these days.

  He turned back the sheets and blew out his candles. Without more ceremony he lay out on the bed, naked in the heat, and closed his eyes.

  2

  Did he have to sleep naked? The parasite in Freya's veins that made her what she was needed blood. It itched with anticipation. But the throbbing between her legs watching him all evening was unwelcome to say the least. She had banished sexuality the day she walked away from her duty to her kind, the day her only remaining sister died through her fault. Her father was angry. But she couldn't do it any more. She had always done everything her father asked her. He was so old, so overpowering in personality. She had been tired, sick, her mind tattered after that day that changed everything. It was her achievement, or her failure, that she had not gone home to Mirso. She had come to Ashland to heal, away from what she had been, not sure what she ever would be.

  But she couldn't possibly heal if this naked man in her house aroused all the sexuality she wanted to suppress. She crept out of the dressing room as his breathing became regular. He lay across the bed, one hand behind his neck, his body casually displayed. She didn't want to take blood from him this way. The sensuality of it prodded her most womanly parts even now. But she needed blood, and he was here, and her resolve was weakened by hours of watching him.

  She glanced to the desk. He'd written draft after draft of something. What would such a hardened man write that he cared so much about? Cocking an ear for the rhythm of his breathing, she moved to the desk. The moon shone in through the open windows, laying a channel of silver across the letter. It was as clear as day to her, who never saw the sun.

  My dearest Emily, if I may still call you that, I have returned at last. I know I was unworthy of you then. But I was not a thief. And in these years away, I have made myself into a man of means, one you will not be ashamed to claim as an acquaintance. I hardly dare hope to be more than that. If you do not wish to see me, I shall never approach you, on that you have my word. But if you will allow me to visit you, just once more, I should be honored and grateful. Send word of your decision back with the bearer of this message to

  Your humble servant,

  Andrew Cooper, now Carlowe

  That such an active, virile man, who wore a carapace against feeling in his features, could write such a letter was . . . surprising. She glanced to his form, spread out upon the bed. His muscles, quiescent now, still spoke of latent power. Men were usually so wrapped up in themselves, especially men who looked like that. Yet this letter was tentative, utterly without pretensions. He must love this woman very much. She was lucky to be loved so.

  Freya had never loved, not in all her long centuries. It was not allowed in one who made Harriers. Sex, yes, almost constant sexual stimulation of the Aspirant to bring out his power, but not love. She sighed. Best get this over with before she collapsed in self-pity.

  She glided toward the bed, stopping when she was some few feet away. He was really quite a lovely looking man. She resolved to take the blood she needed, a cup or perhaps two in total, but that was all. She drew her power. Companion! she called to the thing in her blood, and it responded, sending a feeling of throbbing life up her veins. A matching throb in her loins was almost painful. When her Companion sent her power, the urge to life and to the
sexual act was made stronger still. But she could resist. She must resist. The familiar red film oozed down over her field of vision. Her eyes would be glowing red now with her power. Time to wake him. She would feel his fear, fuel it by compelling his consciousness all during the time she fed from him, and then release him without the suggestion she usually left in their minds to forget what she had done. That way he would be able to spread the tale of his experience. He would scurry out to the stables and gallop away from her house. She wagered he would not even stop to put on his breeches.

  "Andrew," she called softly.

  He was dreaming of Emily, her fine blond hair, the swell of her bosom under the crisp white lawn of her morning dress . . .

  "Andrew," she called and smiled at him. She had an accent. Eastern European?

  "Andrew." Louder this time, almost insistent, and he knew he was dreaming, but he didn't want to leave this dream and Emily.

  "Andrew, wake up!"

  He opened his eyes, irritated.

  There, standing near his bed, was what had to be the ghost. She had red eyes that glowed in the darkness, translucent white skin, and hair black as midnight. An ethereal white dress wafted around her in the breeze that belatedly coursed in through the open window. If one could call it a dress. Two strips of diaphanous fabric hung from her shoulders and plunged to her waist, leaving her arms bare and a vee of white skin that revealed the swell of her breasts. The garment was bound by a jeweled girdle at her waist and fell in translucent layers to the floor. She was petite and beautiful. They hadn't lied about that. They hadn't lied about there being a ghost, either.

  But he didn't believe in ghosts. There was enough memory and regret to haunt one without the need for ghosts. So it must be a trespasser got up to look like a ghost. Though how one achieved those red eyes, he didn't know.