Authors: Jennifer Brassel
One of the locals caught her eye and offered her a beer. She shook her head, unable to force herself to even return his friendly smile.
Time to go home and face John.
After calling Tom she went outside to the street to wait. Stanthorpe House stood only a few minutes away and it wouldn’t take him long to reach her. As she glanced about the small village of Garford she pondered what it would be like to stay and live amongst these friendly people. It was a thought she’d barely wanted to acknowledge, but now she knew that she couldn’t help John escape his prison … she had begun to doubt that she would be able to bring herself to leave him even if it meant not seeing his face for another twenty years. She knew it was selfish and unfair. She knew that it would only cause them both pain. And yet …
‘Hey!’
She turned to see Tom staring at her quizzically from the driver’s side of the hotel’s Landrover. ‘You want a lift or not?’
‘Sorry,’ she said as she rushed around to the passenger side of the vehicle. ‘I was miles away.’
‘I could tell. C’mon, seat belt on,’ he ordered with a wink as he peeled away from the hedged roadside.
‘Thanks for this,’ she said as they turned into the estate. ‘I could have walked – it’s a really balmy night.’
‘Perhaps, but Nance would have killed me if you fell down a rabbit hole in the dark.’
Kelly gave a wry laugh. ‘My name’s not Alice.’
‘Good thing too.’
‘Actually – I wish it was … then I might be able to step into the looking glass and …’ Her voice trailed off. It was impossible and she knew it. ‘I don’t suppose you know the local sorcerer do you? A druid perhaps?’
Tom’s eyes widened. ‘You’re joking, I hope. Those crackpots disappeared centuries ago. Nonsense if you ask me.’
‘This from a man who wanted me to prove the existence of a ghost?’ she scoffed.
‘That’s different and you know it.’
‘Why?’ She pulled out the journal and waved it before him as he parked the car and turned off the engine. ‘I’ve got the journal. Richard had it at his place. It says that Edward Ditchley used a sorcerer to put John in the mirror.’
Switching out the headlights, he swivelled in his seat to turn toward her, ‘I hate to say it, Kel, but if you’re thinking a sorcerer will get him out, you’re likely to be out of luck. They just don’t exist anymore. If they ever did.’
Shaking her head, she sighed. ‘No, I know that. Besides, I can’t take the chance of killing John … and if I try to get him out, that’s what will probably happen.’
‘What are you going to do?’
She shook her head more slowly this time. ‘Honestly? … I don’t know.’
One slow step at a time she climbed the servants’ staircase to the second floor. The closer she got to her room, the tighter her heart seemed to squeeze. She just prayed Richard hadn’t decided to come to wait for her.
As the door creaked she closed her eyes, wincing, not at the sound but with the terrible fear that she was about to irrevocably break John’s heart. To know there was no hope was far worse than the faint glimmer he must have harboured all these years when he didn’t know the truth about his fate.
Pushing the door closed she glanced up and tried to smile although her stomach was in such tight knots she found it hard to breathe.
‘Are you hurt? What did he do to you?’
For a minute Kelly didn’t understand. She’d forgotten that when she left this afternoon, John assumed that despite his vehement protests, she was on her way to a rendezvous with Richard that would likely result in her having to prostitute herself in payment for the journal.
‘Nothing,’ she reassured as she approached the mirror. ‘I haven’t even seen him.’
The look of relief in his eyes almost made her want to cry.
‘Then where have you been? I have been living in terror that you might be raped or worse!’
‘No – nothing like that.’
Turning away, she tossed her handbag onto the bed and thrust her hands through her hair. She wanted to stall, but she knew there was no way she could put off the inevitable so she reached into her bag and retrieved the journal.
‘I’ve been at the pub in the village. Reading.’ She held the journal aloft.
For a long minute John studied it, apparently without comprehension, then suddenly his eyes widened and the colour drained from his face. ‘Edward’s journal?’
Gulping a large breath, she nodded. ‘Richard had it hidden at the coach house. He wasn’t there when I arrived, although the front door was ajar. I thought he must have been playing some kind of game with me … but the place was empty. I took a look around while I awaited his return. I found the journal under the bed.’
‘I can see from your face the news is not pleasant.’
It was time. With a sad smile she stepped closer and hugged the journal to her chest as if it could somehow shield her heart from the truth. ‘I’m afraid not. I’ve read the thing from cover to cover – and you’re right, your cousin was quite insane in the end.’ She opened the book to October 23. ‘It says here that the sorcerer who put you there didn’t know whether or not you would survive if you were released.’
‘Whether I survive is not the dilemma, Kelly. I am so weary I think I would trade anything for one minute of complete peace. Is release possible? Does Edward say how I can finally end this hell?’
Unbidden tears began to prick at the back of her eyelids and she had to fight to keep them at bay. ‘Is it still hell … truly?’ she asked, her moisture-filled eyes silently begging him to endure – if not for his own sake, then for hers.
The look he gave her, a combination of desire and passion mixed with anguish and resignation, made her breath catch in her throat. She was torturing him as surely as Edward had.
One of the tears she had been valiantly trying to hold at bay trickled slowly down her cheek. Spinning about she gulped in some air and whispered, ‘No – don’t answer that. I shouldn’t have asked.’
‘Oh, Kelly, I wish so very much that I could hold you in my arms, just once. To know the feel of your skin, to touch my lips to yours. To bury my face in those magnificent dark curls would make waiting a thousand more years in this prison worthwhile. You have become my heart.’
Turning back, the emotion she saw in his gaze consumed her and she rushed forward to press her entire body against the mirror as if she were flying into his arms. ‘You have stolen mine,’ she whimpered, her hot breath misting the glass. ‘If I could find a sorcerer I would have him put me in there alongside you.’
‘The man who imprisoned me is long since dead, my love. As I should be.’ His voice dropped to a mere whisper. ‘While I love you, it is a love that cannot be. So if the journal has the key to my release, even if it means my death, it must be done.’
Choking down her emotions she shook her head slowly then tossed the journal back on the bed.
‘It is the only answer.’ His voice held a calmness that belied the look upon his face. His strong jaw seemed to be clenched so tight his teeth might crack.
Falling to her knees, she hugged herself as she tried not to fall apart. ‘I can’t!’ The ache that rose in her chest earlier returned worse than before. It felt as if a lump of cold
black stone had settled where her heart should reside. She shivered from the chill of it – knowing she would have to live with it forever if she helped him to die. ‘Forgive me for being a coward but I just can’t do it.’
John dropped to his knees as she had done and smiled a smile that spoke of both sadness and compassion.
‘We have some days left. Eight, if my reckoning is correct. If I may spend that time with you, then I shall be content as any man who must face his end. Do not be sad for me. If my Maker allows that I become the ghost all have supposed these past one hundred and forty years,’ his lips lifted in a glowing grin, ‘I vow to haunt you until the day you can join me in the hereafter, no matter where you go.’
Despite the heaviness in her chest, she couldn’t help but laugh. ‘A genuine haunting this time?’
Tilting his head to the side, his grin widened and he flourished a hand before her. ‘The dreaded Ghost of Stanthorpe House, at your service, Madam.’
Even so, she knew she couldn’t do it. Even if he could become a ghost in the true sense, it would change little and regardless of his assurances she could not chance the possibility that he would cease to exist.
‘But what if you could stay alive?’ Her mind lit on the idea. ‘… I could live here. I could be here for you, with you, until we can find another way out.’ She stood, splaying a shaky hand on the glass. ‘Maybe, with research, I could find someone with the knowledge of magic who could send me into the mirror if we cannot get you out? Or maybe we could find some kind of technology that would release you unharmed? We can’t just give up!’
‘I do not understand this “technology” of which you speak so I cannot say if it might be possible. Your world is very different from mine. As to magic – it is something I have never trusted.’ His eyes closed momentarily as if he was struggling against the hope she offered. ‘Should we not just enjoy the time that remains to us? ’
A defeated sigh shuddered from her. ‘We don’t have to decide anything now. Let’s just take things a day at a time. I—’
The bedroom door squeaked open and Kelly jumped back when she saw Richard standing there.
The intense smile he wore presaged danger.
‘May I come in?’ he said then walked into the room without waiting for her answer. ‘I do apologise for not being home for our rendezvous. Inspector Mathieson wished an interview and it ran over time.’ Again the nasty smile. His eyes narrowed as they came upon the journal where it rested on her bed. ‘Ah. I see you have found a little bedtime reading.’
‘The door stood open when I got to the coach house so I went in looking for you and found it. I didn’t think you would mind since it was why I agreed to meet you.’
Richard’s gaze went to the mirror, then back to her face. ‘It is interesting reading, isn’t it? I took a closer look last night. Though I am yet to read it all, I’m sure you’ll agree the beginning was quite tedious … all that soppy love talk. I skipped much of that part. It only got exciting when the woman died and my predecessor found a way to imprison her killer.
‘I
particularly
liked the part that says the ghost cannot ever reach beyond the mirror.’ He stepped closer and Kelly could see that the knowledge of John’s true situation had allowed Richard to feel a measure of bravado.
‘So – is he there now?’ He studied the glass as if he hoped to catch some kind of glimpse. ‘Are you there? John, isn’t it?’
For long seconds Kelly had to suppress the urge to laugh at him. Richard was looking at the wrong side of the mirror as if trying to peer through a window.
John glared at Richard. He looked so regal and magnificent she wished Richard could see him too. Perhaps then he wouldn’t be quite so cocky.
‘I am here, Ditchley.’
Despite the confident display, Kelly saw Richard flinch slightly when John spoke. Backing up, Richard went to retrieve the journal from the bed, flipping the pages nonchalantly. ‘It seems you have no power, Ghost.’ Richard stated with obvious delight.
‘Perhaps not in your world, Ditchley, but the same is true for you in mine.’
‘Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong. I have plenty of power.’ He faced Kelly and raised both brows in question, ‘Didn’t you tell him?’
‘No – not yet,’ she answered, dreading what Richard was about to reveal.
Richard’s face shone as he turned toward the mirror. ‘How wonderful! I even get the privilege of informing him. How absolutely delightful. After all these years, after all the times you frightened me as a child, I have your fate in my hands and you are completely powerless!’
Moving close to Kelly he ran a finger down her cheek in a mock caress. ‘Shall I tell him or would you like the honours, m’dear?’
Pulling away she shook her head; she didn’t want to anger him in any way. Perhaps, after he’d had his fun telling John the secret, he might leave them both in peace. God, she hoped so!
‘Thank you,’ he whispered, again trailing a finger down her cheek.
She bit her inner lip as his finger moved slowly downward over her neck. Her skin crawled over her back but she refused to let him make her cower. When his hand came to a halt at the closed button of her blouse, she lifted one of hers, gripped his wrist and casually pushed it away.
The edges of Richard’s lips quirked as John’s low growl echoed through the room. ‘Déjá vu, Ghost? Poor Anne, she had no idea, did she?’ Striding to the mirror he tilted his head. ‘Well, never mind, Kelly is not so innocent.’
‘Do not dare,’ John commanded, his tone deadly.
‘Ah, but what can you do? You have no way to prevent me. Besides, I haven’t yet told you about my secret, have I? I really should do that … it is so cruel to keep you dangling.’ He glanced back to Kelly, ‘I think, however, I should demand some kind of payment first … good will and all that.’ He beckoned her with an outstretched hand. ‘Come, I think I can claim a kiss, at the very least.’
From the predatory look in his eyes, she knew he would take it from her if she failed to go to him.
As she slowly moved forward, her gaze lifted to John’s face. She mouthed the words, ‘I’m sorry,’ and then shut her eyes tight as Richard pulled her hard against him. His arms surrounded her like a vice, his harsh fingers bruising the back of her neck where he held her. She let herself go limp, unwilling to fight him.
Forcing her back against the bedpost, he drove his tongue straight into her unresponsive mouth. His lips tasted of stale scotch; she wanted to gag but couldn’t allow herself to do anything that would incense him further. She suddenly realised that John’s warning about Richard’s tainted blood was not just superstition.
Richard ground his hips into hers, his erection, pressing hard against her belly, left no doubt what he really wanted in payment.
In the back of her mind she could hear John’s angry cries but she tried to shut them out; hearing his anguish only hurt her more.
Dragging her mouth away, she begged in a whisper, ‘Please, Richard, let’s go somewhere private. To the coach house … then we can do whatever you like.’ She didn’t want to torture John further by letting Richard rape her here, in front of him.