Moonlight

Moonlight

A creepy mansion house might not be everyone’s idea of the
perfect vacation, but to Ashlyn it’s exactly the peace and solitude
she’s been looking for. Arriving in the middle of a thunderstorm,
she imagines Dracula coming to greet her but has no such luck. As
the storm passes, she heads out into the moonlit garden and
discovers a mysterious man, handsome enough to rival
Dracula.

Tristan is as otherworldly as they come. With an old way of
speaking and antiquated dress, his aura of mystery is only enhanced
by the fact he claims to know Ashyln and only appears at night.
Spending her days thinking about him, Ashlyn realises that she does
know his face, but she can’t remember where she’s seen him
before.

One fateful evening, she’s walking the grounds of the house
when she comes across a statue in the garden and the mystery of
Tristan is revealed when the moonlight touches it. When he explains
that he was cursed centuries ago by a relative of hers because he
didn’t love her and that it was Ashlyn’s touch years ago that made
him able to walk under moonlight, Ashlyn decides to do everything
in her power to free him, even if that means falling in love
again.

Moonlight

Felicity Heaton

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2008 by Felicity Heaton

All
rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage
and retrieval system, without written permission from the author,
except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a
review.

****

Moonlight

Lightning
arced across the black clouds, illuminating the two turrets on
either side of the facade of the manor. Their conical roofs reached
up towards the dark tempestuous heavens. A weathervane spun
fiercely in the wind above one. Ashlyn feared the lightning would
strike there next. Thunder rolled overhead, low and threatening.
The windscreen wipers of the taxi squeaked rhythmically in time
with the swish of water as they cleared the heavy rain. Her warm
breath fogged the window nearest her. Did she really want to go out
there, in there?

Her
aunt’s house had never seemed so frightening and
haunted.

With
trembling fingers, she handed the taxi driver the fare and then
slung her backpack over her shoulder. She pulled her black umbrella
from the side pocket and armed herself with it. It wouldn’t stand a
chance against the weather, but she had to give it a shot. It was
better than admitting defeat and getting soaked without putting up
the slightest fight.

She
opened the door and took a deep breath. The moment she stepped out,
she pressed the button on the umbrella with one hand and shut the
taxi door with her other. The umbrella burst open and was above her
head before the door had even closed. She hunched up and ran
towards the arched door of the house.

Lightning
struck again, closer now, and she froze on the gravel drive. Her
hands shook along with the rest of her body when the thunder boomed
above her. The storm was overhead.

Another
bolt drew her eyes back to the imposing house. Not a single light
was on. The windows reflected the white light of the storm and
flashed like cat’s eyes. She willed her racing heart to slow down
and tried to get a grip, but the sight of the dark house in the
midst of such a heavy storm was creeping her out and making her
imagination run riot.

Wind
blasted against her, plastering her legs with fat rain drops and
saturating her in an instant. The trees surrounding the house and
garden swayed ominously, black pines against an even blacker
sky.

When
lightning arced directly overhead, she ran to the door. The wind
claimed her umbrella, ripping it from her hand. She turned in time
to see it dancing across the garden, heading for the dark woods.
She swallowed and shoved her key into the lock on the door. She
could get another umbrella. There was no way she was going into
that forest. It had frightened her when she was a child and it
still frightened her now.

Pushing
the door open, she burst into the entrance hall and struggled to
keep hold of the door in the wind. She pushed hard against it,
fighting the weather and eventually managing to get it closed and
locked. Silence greeted her. The violence of the storm drifted into
the background.

She
flicked the switches near the door and the lights slowly eased into
life in the exact way she remembered. Everything about this house
made her feel the age of it. Her aunt had told her that it affected
people and made them slow down too. She hoped it would relax her.
She needed these two weeks of alone time to get her life into order
and her head together. Since her parents’ death, she’d been a
mess.

The air
in the house was chilly and drained her of what little body heat
she had left. Her wet clothes turned cold and goose bumps prickled
across her skin. The dark wooden interior of the house mixed with
the grey stone did nothing to brighten her mood. It was an interior
that matched the haunting exterior and the storm perfectly. In
weather like tonight, it made the house look like something from an
old Hammer House of Horror movie. She expected Dracula to come
drifting down the wide mahogany staircase in front of
her.

A
moment’s wait said she wasn’t going to be that lucky.

A man
would definitely take her mind off things for a while. There wasn’t
a chance of finding one out here in the wild British countryside
though. She was miles from the nearest village and had never really
ventured out of the boundary of the garden in all the times she’d
been here as a child. The last time she’d been here was several
years ago now. She walked up the stairs, following her memories to
the room she’d used then. It was the only time she’d been here as
an adult.

She
stopped at the top of the stairs. The lights here were dim,
offering no respite from the eeriness. They weren’t strong enough.
She wished her aunt would invest in bulbs that were a little
brighter. It wasn’t creepy when there were other people in the
house. Now she was alone though and she couldn’t stop her mind from
conjuring up horrifying things.

Her heart
leapt into her throat when a squeaking scraping sound filled her
ears. A shiver bolted down her spine. It sounded as though someone
was running fingernails down a blackboard. It grew louder as she
neared a turn in the corridor. The sound of something knocking on
glass joined it, making her heart race to its limit. Her breaths
became pants and she slowly crept down the hall, fearing what she’d
see when she turned the corner. There was a crash and wind rushed
past her, rattling the paintings on the dark wooden walls. She
jumped out into the corridor at the turn, ready for
anything.

The
window slammed against the wall again, the wind battering it and
the tree outside it swaying wildly. Rain hammered down on the
windowsill and floor. She ran to the end of the hall and pushed the
window shut, shoving the black wrought iron latch into place so
hard that it jammed. At least it wouldn’t blow open again. The thin
end branches of the tree outside rattled and scraped against the
glass.

Taking a
deep breath, she released it slowly and tried to calm down again.
If the weather continued like this, she wasn’t going to be able to
relax at all. It had her more on the edge than ever. Every door she
passed, she expected someone to jump out of it. Every sound she
heard became the noise of an intruder, some dark demon come to kill
her.

She wiped
her hand over her face, clearing the water away, and sighed. Her
skin was freezing. She forced a happy smile.

“
I’ll get some dry clothes on and light a fire downstairs and
the storm will blow over before long.” The sound of her voice was
soothing, alleviating the empty silence of the house and the
terrifying sounds of the storm.

Thunder
chased across the clouds again.

She sang
to herself and opened the door to her bedroom. She didn’t stop
singing the whole time that she was unpacking and getting changed
out of her wet clothes and into a dry pair of loose jeans and a
thick dark red jumper. She tied her long brown hair up into a knot
at the back of her head. It didn’t matter that she kept getting the
lyrics wrong, as long as she kept singing. The more she sang, the
less she imagined monsters and murderers.

Heading
downstairs, she followed a path through the house that made it all
more familiar and less frightening. Happy memories filled her mind,
chasing away the pointed black shadows of her fear. She’d passed
several summers here with her parents when she’d been a child. Each
one had been blissfully happy and full of fun and laughter that
still warmed her heart. Her last visit had been without her
parents. She’d come to see her aunt, wanting to keep the close bond
they had. She’d passed most of the holiday painting and drawing in
the garden with her aunt, or sometimes alone. At home, she had
several sketchbooks that she’d filled while here.

She found
the main reception room and was relieved to see that her aunt had
left wood beside the empty fire grate. Two worn and comfy brown
armchairs flanked the fireplace. Between them was a low table. She
remembered playing chess against her father there when she’d been
small. He’d always let her win, even though he was far better than
her at the game. A smile touched her lips. She bent down in front
of the fire and stacked several logs up on the grate. Some kindling
and a little miracle work with the matches, and she had the start
of a blaze. It instantly warmed the room, making the raging storm
feel even more distant as the heat of it caressed her thigh and
arm.

Her gaze
roamed around the room, refreshing her memory of the huge family
portraits that hung on the walls in gilt decorative frames and the
expansive mirror on the far wall opposite the fireplace. It
reflected the light from the fire back at her, brightening the dark
green walls of the room and bringing out their colour. The doors
either side of it led through to the ballroom where she’d spent
hours in the past pretending to dance with princes and dashing
young men.

Something
on the table beside her caught her eye when she went to stand. It
was a note. She picked it up with a frown and turned it over when
she saw her name written on the front in her aunt’s neat
script.

She
smiled.

Her aunt
had left her with a full refrigerator and told her to use the art
materials in the studio if she felt inclined to draw. It had been a
long time since she’d drawn anything. Perhaps she would.

She
settled down in one of the armchairs and leaned her head back. The
fire roared and danced in the breeze coming down the chimney. It
warmed her from her toes up, chasing away the chill of the
rain.

Her
fingers idly traced the rows of books beside her in the bookshelf
that filled the wall at this end of the room, intersected by the
fireplace. Her eyes casually followed them. Her aunt loved poetry,
all romantic and flowery. She couldn’t stand it herself. Love
wasn’t all hearts and roses. It needed to be challenging and
exciting, not something easy.

The
lightning struck close by and the rain fell heavier. She could hear
it pummelling the patio outside the French doors on the wall
opposite her. Another flash illuminated the curtains that covered
the glass doors, silhouetting the criss-cross of wood that held the
panes in. The fragrance of wet earth and ozone joined that of the
blazing fire. She curled up on the armchair and snuggled into her
jumper. The grandfather clock in the entrance hall chimed out the
hour. Ten. It was getting late.

She
closed her eyes and stifled a yawn. The warmth of the fire made her
sleepy and it wasn’t long before she’d drifted off.

Ashlyn’s
eyes slowly opened. She blinked to clear the haze of sleep from
them and then stretched in the armchair, a contented moan escaping
her. The fire was dying. She reached over and placed a few more
logs onto it. The silence hit her. The storm was gone.

Getting
to her feet, she padded across the room to the French doors and
pulled the curtain aside. The grass glistened and the puddles on
the patio shone brightly, twinkling. She opened the doors and then
slipped into the wellington boots she spotted beside them. They
were too big, but they’d do.