Passions of the Ghost (11 page)

“Rey!” she shrieked. “There’s something
behind us!”

His trance dropped from him instantly, and he was himself again. He’d pushed her behind him, as if to protect her, as he turned to face the threat. Amy, at the back of him, couldn’t see a thing.

“I’m interrupting you, Ghost.”

The voice was softly feminine and yet immensely powerful. It brought the goose bumps up on Amy’s arms. Cautiously, she peered around him, then wondered if she was now completely insane.

There was a large eagle with glowing blue eyes sitting on the crenelated battlements, and it was speaking.

“My apologies, my lady. I didn’t hear you.”

Rey answered the bird as if that was perfectly normal. Amy stared, openmouthed.

“I have come to see how you are progressing, my Ghost. Your time is limited; you cannot waste it.” At this, the eagle flashed a sideways look at Amy and seemed to smirk with its beak. There was another freezing gust of wind, and it shifted its feet and ruffled its feathers. Somehow seeing the cold make it uncomfortable made Amy more comfortable. She edged a step away from Rey.

“I know my time is short, lady, but this is a very strange world you have sent me into,” Rey was saying in an even voice. Amy, glancing at his hand by his side, where it was clenched into a tight fist, thought he was probably understating the matter.

“And yet it appears as if you have made some friends?” The eagle chortled. It turned its blue eyes to Amy, leaving them there, and suddenly she felt very exposed.

“Eh, hello,” she managed.

“Amy Fairweather.”

It knew her name!

“Do not fail me or my Ghost. It is important that he completes his task so that he can return to his own time and try again. So that he can right the wrong.”

“You mean…so that he can change history?” Despite herself, she sounded accusing.

“Of course. Why not?” the bird retorted. “Reynald de Mortimer was a great man, but he was meant to be far greater. A man ahead of his time, with ideas that will inspire others far into the future. He must succeed.”

“And I am here to help him with this?” Amy confirmed. “A bit old-fashioned, isn’t it, the submissive, little woman and the big, strong man? What do I get out of it?”

The bird’s eyes flared so brightly they were like the approaching headlights on an express train, as it roared toward her. She felt dizzy, her legs wobbly, and instinctively reached out for Rey. He caught her, holding her upright.

The bird was lecturing her in a voice that seemed to reverberate in her brain. “Are you so mercenary, Amy Fairweather, that you can do nothing without payment? Are you so smug with your position in the world that there is nothing lacking? If you say yes, then I will know you are lying!”

The eagle was absolutely terrifying, and the power coming from it was playing havoc with her senses. Shaking, her head swimming, she looked upon it, and for a moment thought she saw a woman’s face imposed upon the bird’s. Young and sweet, but with an awe-inspiring strength. In another moment it was gone as if it had never been, and Rey was holding her up, his breath comfortingly warm against her temple.

“No, I am neither smug nor satisfied,” she said croakily. “If you know me at all, then you know that. And you must also know that I’m not the right person for this job!”

The eagle’s voice grew gentler, but it was no less frightening. “I do know you. I know everything about you. That is why I have chosen you, Amy. You have a part to play in something far greater than most mortals ever experience. Do not disappoint me.”

The bird rose with a flapping of wings.

“Do not disappoint yourself!” it shrieked.

In a moment it was gone into the dark night. There was silence, apart from the faint sounds of music coming from the cocktail party on the far side of the castle, as Rey and Amy caught their breath.

“I think I’ve seen everything now,” Amy whispered. “Was that…?”

Rey knew what she meant, which was just as well because she doubted she could have finished her sentence.

“Aye, that was the witch from the between-worlds.”

“You really are Reynald de Mortimer, aren’t you?”

He smiled down at her, and his pale eyes glowed with a gentle light. “Damsel, you knew that,” he said quietly.

“Did I? Maybe I did, but most of the time I told myself I was just humoring you.”

It was as if she were looking at him for the first time. Really
looking
. Because this was a man who had walked and talked and lived seven hundred years ago. A great and powerful lord, who controlled the destiny of many. Who had an ability to think far ahead of his time and beyond the casual brutality of his peers. And here he was, with her, and a moment ago she’d been in his arms, and he’d been kissing her.

Amy turned away. She felt shaken with doubt and guilt. “I should have made it plainer to the witch. This really is a mistake.”

He frowned, puzzled. “Why should it be a mistake? The witch does not make mistakes.”

“Well, she has this time!” Amy set off along the path on top of the wall. She hardly noticed the flurries of snow around her, or the bleak night landscape. The lights, fixed at irregular intervals on the crenelations, began to blur as tears filled her eyes.

“Amy? Where are you going?” he sounded worried.

“Away.”

“But…why?”

“I’m not who you think I am, Rey. Really, I’m not!”

“I need you.” He was right behind her. She should have known he wouldn’t let her get away that easily.

Amy turned to face him and could have wept. The expression in his eyes was everything she wanted to see, but she had to destroy it. For both their sakes.

She could never be the kind of woman he needed by his side. The enormity of it was mind-blowing. Better to put an end to it now than to pretend that maybe it would be all right.

He was still looking at her, and somehow he had her frozen hands in his. Had she given them to him? She didn’t remember. She had to do this thing, now, before she stepped forward and into his arms.

“Listen to me, Rey.”

“I do not need to listen. I know you, Amy.”

“You don’t! Rey, for God’s sake, listen…”

He was obediently silent, watching her, waiting with a faint smile.

She started speaking, almost babbling, because she was afraid that if she didn’t she’d never say what she had to.

“My father was a thief. My brother is a thief. He’s here this weekend to steal Nicco’s priceless diamond—it’s called the Star of Russia, and it belonged to Queen Catherine the Great. Jez asked me to help him find out where Nicco keeps it hidden. I said yes. Do you understand what I’m saying? I said yes!”

She could see the confusion in his face. “Your brother…?”

“Jez and I are here to lie and cheat our way into Nicco’s life. He has something Jez wants, and I’m the bait. I’m the lure, Rey, and I’ll do anything to get that jewel.”

He shook his head. “Jez has forced you to do this—”

“He hasn’t. You’re thinking this isn’t my fault, that I’m a poor weak-minded woman who’s been persuaded to agree to something that goes against her principles. But you’re wrong. I agreed to do this. And I’ve done it before. I’ve lied and cheated,
and
stolen. I’ve done worse. I’m no innocent. I…I’ve used myself to get what I wanted. I’ve slept with men. So I’m not the person you think I am, Rey. I’m not good or honest or fine. I’m someone else altogether.”

His face seemed to have flattened out, losing all expression. Apart from his eyes. They were bleak and icy. She kept her chin up, so he wouldn’t see how much it was hurting her to shatter his good opinion of her.

This is for the best.

“No,” he said, but all feeling had left his voice. “You are lying now, damsel. Tell me you are not the person you have just described. Tell me!”

“Yes, I am,” she whispered. He turned away from her, and she couldn’t help but cry out, “Rey, I’m sorry!”

He didn’t even pause in his measured stride, just kept walking back the way they had come. Shivering, not knowing what else to do, Amy set off along the wall. Ahead of her, she knew, was the warmth and noise of the cocktail party, but it didn’t make her feel any better. Tears ran down her cheeks as she accepted the truth, that she wasn’t the woman for Rey.

But that’s all right. I’m doing okay, and after the weekend this part of my life will be over with. No more Nicco. No more of Jez’s schemes. I can start again.

Except Rey wouldn’t be with her. And she’d never have the chance to help him to return to the past and make right his wrong.

She was a liar, and she’d lied to him. She
wasn’t who he thought she was. Amy meant to steal from Nicco, and to do it she was willing to do, and be, whatever she had to. He understood what she’d been trying to tell him.

To get what she wanted, she’d give Nicco her body.

The knowledge made the Ghost feel very hollow inside. As if he had suddenly lost something very important to him, even though he wasn’t sure exactly what it was.

He strode back through the tunnel, not seeing what was in front of him, seething with anger, aching with pain. No matter how he tried to rationalize what he was feeling, to tell himself she was a stranger who meant nothing to him, he couldn’t shake off his dark melancholy. The woman of his dreams was nothing but a lie. The cold, dank passageway seemed to fit his mood perfectly.

He tried to refocus his mind on his task.

The figure with the light appeared to be Julius, but Reynald didn’t believe it. The monk was a trick, a deceit, behind which the real culprit was hiding.

Just like Amy.

He’d turned full circle, and the melancholy washed over him again. As if he were trying to outpace it, he climbed the steps into the gym two at a time. The medieval cocktail party was being held in a place called the Long Gallery, and he set off toward it, thinking he might as well drown his sorrows there as be alone with them.

The Long Gallery had once been divided into a series of chambers, with Julius’s chapel at one end. Now it was one long room, the walls hung with the painted images of stern men and their sterner women. None of them looked particularly friendly, he thought, peering into their faces. He didn’t know them, they were strangers, apart from the large figure in the position of honor—an alcove with draped curtains.

The portrait was meant to be him, but the representation wasn’t a very good one. Apart from the fair hair and gray eyes, it could have been anyone.

If he didn’t die in 1299, he thought, glancing once more down the long lines of strangers, then those faces would have been his descendants. Men and women with gray eyes…and red curls.

He groaned.
Jesu, am I going insane?

“Champagne, sir?” The boy with the drink tray arrived at exactly the right time.

Reynald snatched up a glass and downed the liquid in two gulps. It fizzed in his nose and throat. He took another glass and downed that, too, before the boy edged away.

“You looked like you needed that.”

Reynald narrowed his eyes at the unfamiliar woman beside him with her frizz of gray hair and sharp eyes. Another stranger. His castle was full of strangers.

“Miriam Ure,” she introduced herself. “Sans the wig.”

It was the “authority.” He almost groaned aloud for a second time.

“Have you changed your mind about the dragon?” she asked, with a smirk. “I believe Mr. Coster lent you the copy of Julius’s Chronicle, with my translation.”

“Yes, I have it.” The potion in the glass had made him feel more at ease with his surroundings—dangerously relaxed. “And your translation is right. Julius said there was a dragon, because there
was
a dragon. It is the meaning you place on the word that is wrong.”

Miriam tittered.

Reynald leaned closer. “A huge dragon, breathing fire and smoke.”

“Perhaps you should write fiction.”

He reached over her head as the boy with the tray passed by on the other side and plucked up another glass, taking a swallow. “Was the castle burned?” he asked abruptly.

Miriam blinked. “Yes, it was.”

“Completely?”

“No, not completely. The battlements and some of the upper rooms were damaged, but the great hall and the lower areas were untouched.”

Reynald smiled. “Tell me then, Lady Authority, how that could be? How is it that the upper parts of the castle are burned and the lower parts are untouched? What if a dragon flew over and blew fire over the castle, would that explain it?”

“Or a flaming arrow could have lodged in the roof.”

He threw up his hands in disgust, spilling champagne. “Have it your own way!” As he moved from her side, a couple of smiling women started toward him but, seeing the grim expression on his face, changed their minds.
Good.
Reynald didn’t want to be nice to anyone. Why should he be? This was his home, and these people were not welcome.

He wasn’t in a good mood. He feared that something inside him was broken; if not his heart, then some other important organ. He wanted to smash something, or sweat it out of himself in the training yard. He wanted to be himself again, cold and emotionless, with no thought of wrapping his arms about a woman and holding her…Holding her tightly, safely, against him, and kissing her soft lips until he died of the pleasure.

Reynald cursed and strode over by the curtained alcove, the portrait behind him, and stood watching the interlopers at their foolishness. If only he could order them all to leave, or threaten them with his sword and send them running from his presence, how much happier he’d be. Why should they enjoy themselves when he was suffering?

“Have you seen my sister?”

This time it was Jez who interrupted him. Reynald glowered back at him. This was the man who had destroyed Amy’s life. She might have tried to tell him differently, but Reynald didn’t want to believe her. In his experience, young women were the prey of any male relative who could find a use for them, so if anyone was to blame for Amy’s predicament, then it was her brother.

Jez didn’t wait for an answer. “She was supposed to be here by now.” His eyes slid past to the portrait, and he nodded toward it. “Nasty customer.”

“What do you mean?” Reynald demanded, suddenly feeling protective about the painting, even if it was poorly done.

“I mean he looks like he’d lock you in the dungeon before he’d give you the time of day.”

Reynald shook his head. The speech of these people was utterly confusing. Why could they not say what they meant in plain English?

“He looks a bit like you, you know,” Jez was continuing. “Around the eyes. Not much, though. You should be grateful for that, I suppose.”

His bad mood ratcheted up a notch, and suddenly he wanted…he
needed
a confrontation with this man, who in his heart he blamed for Amy’s situation.

“Why are you your sister’s whoremaster?”

Jez stiffened. “Her what?” There was fire in his eyes.

Good!
thought Reynald. He wanted a fight, and if he couldn’t have it with Amy, then Jez would do very well in her stead.

“That is what I call a man who uses his sister the way you use Amy. Whoremaster.”

Jez took a step closer, getting into his face. “My sister is her own person. I’m not using her in any way. Though what business it is of yours, you bastard, I—”

“Liar.”

Jez’s face tightened around the eyes and mouth, but he had remarkable self-control. “You’re an arrogant son of a bitch, aren’t you?”

Their exchange had been quiet until now, but as the people around them became aware of the developing situation, they stopped their own conversations to listen.

“You are a cheat and a liar, and you have made of her the same.”

“I haven’t done anything to her. She chooses her own path.”

“You have no honor!”

The two men’s faces were now only an inch apart. Jez’s eyes were glittering, and his nostrils flaring like a warhorse scenting blood. “I’ll break your neck for what you’ve said.”

Reynald grinned.
This
was the real Jez. Not the calm, controlled man, but the assassin with the sharp knife. “I could spit you like a pig,” he said softly. “Just say the word, and we will fight to the death.”

“I’m saying the word then,” Jez said.

“What the hell is going on here?” It was Amy.

Reynald had been so absorbed in his verbal struggle with Jez, he hadn’t realized she was here. Startled, he looked up, quickly sobering. Amy was standing with her hands on her hips, glaring furiously from him to Jez and back again. It didn’t help that she was wearing a tight black dress, cut low at the front and exposing a swell of bosom. Reynald swallowed.

“Amy,” Jez tried a smile, his temper reined in. “I was, eh, beginning to, eh, wonder where you’d got to…”

“Well, I’m here now,” she snapped. “Is someone going to tell me what’s going on?”

Clearly, Reynald thought, she wanted an answer. Her gaze turned on him, green eyes flashing, and he understood Jez’s stammer. An angry Amy was certainly formidable. But at the same time his heart leapt at the beauty of her.

“This is talk between men,” he said, all the colder because he didn’t want her to know how much her presence affected him.

She snorted. And then she poked him, hard, in the chest with her finger. “That is just so much crap, Rey!”

Her finger hurt, and he winced, rubbing his chest.

Her eyes were even greener than before. “This is about me, isn’t it?”

Neither of them answered.

“Well? Are both of you cowards?”

“We were planning a fight to the death, actually,” Jez said, with a smug sideways glance at Reynald. “It was your boyfriend’s idea. I wouldn’t know one end of a sword from another.”

“A fight to the—” For a moment she was too shocked to carry on.

“Your brother wishes to break my neck.” Reynald could tell tales, too.

“Stop it!” she gasped. “Just stop it, both of you. Don’t you understand? My life is none of your business.”

“Sweetheart—”

“Don’t you dare ‘sweetheart’ me,” she hissed at her brother. “Just leave me alone!”

“Amy,” Reynald moved to touch her, but she flung her hand out at him, knocking his away.

“Both of you!” she burst out. Suddenly, as if it was too much for her, her eyes filled with tears. She pushed her way through the interested circle of observers, hurrying away down the room.

Reynald stood, feeling the place where her finger had touched him. It was aching deep inside his chest, as if she had bruised his heart.

Jez took a shaky breath and turned to Rey, ready to rip into him again. But the expression on the other man’s face stopped him. Rey looked as if he were suffering from a broken heart. And now he remembered Amy’s pale face.

Were they in love?

It seemed incredible, or maybe he was the fool because he hadn’t noticed earlier. Did Amy really care for this man after such a short acquaintance? It was infatuation, he decided uneasily, that was all. It must be. Love wasn’t going to fit in with his plans.

“Jez!”

Nicco had arrived in a beige suit, simpering, thinking himself the most admired man in the room. Listening to his list of petty complaints about the hotel and life in general, Jez smiled and wished he could tell Nicco what he really thought of him. He deserved to be brought down off that pedestal, to be kicked in the teeth—metaphorically speaking, of course. Once Amy would have loved to take on the job, she’d have reveled in it. What had happened to her?

Jez refused to believe he was using her in the way Rey accused him. He loved his sister, and he always had. When their father was drinking and violent, it was always Jez who’d taken Amy away from the flat, waiting until things quieted down again. It was Jez who looked out for her when she wasn’t his sweet, obedient little sister anymore, and she insisted on coming along on his more reckless escapades. She’d said she didn’t want his help then, but he’d always been there, in the background.

It had been to get her out of the wild life she was drifting into that he’d offered her the job as his partner in his first scheme. She had to worm her way into the confidence of an “importer of fine arts” and find out the date of his next shipment—stolen antiques from the Cairo Museum. Even then, Jez wasn’t an ordinary criminal.

Amy had come through with flying colors, and their partnership continued from there. Until recently, when they’d drifted apart. He’d been aware of it, but he’d been busy himself, and besides, Amy was a big girl now. But Jez would never hurt her. He truly believed his schemes were as much for her sake as his. And what about the Star of Russia? He was depending on her to find out where Nicco had it hidden, and she’d promised to help. Was she really about to back out of a promise for the sake of an arrogant bastard she’d only just met?

An image of her face flashed into his head, tears filling her eyes, her mouth trembling. She’d looked heartbroken.

She’ll be fine once it’s finished,
he told himself, plucking out the seed of guilt that was trying to germinate inside him.
Besides, I need her.

If Amy’s promise to him was causing tension between her and Rey, then surely that was for her to sort out? And if Rey was such a bastard he couldn’t love her for herself, then he didn’t deserve her, did he?

As far as Jez was concerned it was business as usual.

He put a friendly arm around Nicco’s shoulders, walking him as far away from Rey as he could. “Amy’s around here somewhere,” he assured him. “Can I get you some champagne, Nicco? It’s the good stuff.”

“Thank you.” Nicco smiled. “Tonight I hope to celebrate. Do you think Amy will celebrate with me?”

“She talks of nothing else,” Jez assured him. Suddenly, out of the blue, he felt disgusted with himself. He knew Amy disliked Nicco just as much as he did. Maybe he
was
the sort of man Rey had accused him of being. He opened his mouth, within seconds of telling Nicco to screw himself, because obviously that was who he really loved, when he was interrupted.

A group of acrobats dressed in costume had come running into the Long Gallery. They were calling out and clapping their hands, then they started to build a human pyramid. Jez watched them, knowing he was secretly glad he hadn’t been able to say anything and hating himself for it. Suddenly he longed passionately for London. He wanted to go home. He was sick and tired of this miserable place in the middle of nowhere.

But that was the trouble wasn’t it? He couldn’t go home, not unless he knew where the Star of Russia was. The people he owed money to weren’t the kind you let down.