Charon's Crossing (A Paranormal Romantic Suspense Novel) (19 page)

Matthew frowned. There was no satisfaction in this. There was a vast difference between taking revenge and scaring a woman senseless.

A man could not be proud of that.

It was true, he had acted precipitously, coming down the stairs and revealing himself to her, but her taunting words had stung him.

She deserved retribution for that alone. As for the rest—what did it matter when he confronted her?

Except that there could be no confrontation, not when Catherine lay senseless on the settee.

His gaze flew to her face. She was so pale that her dark lashes seemed to cast purple shadows against her cheekbones.

"Cat?"

She didn't answer. She didn't so much as stir.

"Oh, for God's sake!"

He made a sound of disgust and knelt down beside her, but his frown had deepened.

Was it an act? Lord knew she was an expert in all the feminine wiles. Still, he suspected that not even Catherine could deliberately manage to make the blood drain from her face.

He reached for her hand and picked it up. It lay unmoving in his. He turned it over and placed his fingers lightly against her blue-veined wrist. The beat of her pulse was strong and steady.

Hell, he thought with a choked laugh, what did that mean? His pulse was strong and steady, too, and he was dead.

But she wasn't. He could see the color slowly coming back under her skin, flushing her cheeks the pale pink of morning. Her fingers stirred lightly against his, their touch as light as the brush of a butterfly's wings. Her lips parted, and a sighing whisper escaped from between them. Her breath was warm, and sweet...

Matthew dropped her hand and shot to his feet.

"Hell and damnation," he growled.

He strode across the room to the cabinet where he knew her father had kept his spirits. What she needed was something to get the blood flowing again.

What he needed was something to keep his from pooling in the part of his anatomy that had led him astray in the first place.

He opened the doors of the cabinet, his face grim. There was half a decanter of something dark on the bottom shelf; he unstoppered it, took a whiff, and nodded. •

Rum. Good, West Indian rum. That would bring her around. He poured two fingers into a cut-glass tumbler, frowned, added another two fingers for good measure, then held the glass to the light.

It was a long time since he'd tasted rum. Now that he thought about it, it was a long time since he'd tasted anything.

Could he do such simple things? Could he eat and drink, if he wished to do so?

It was a good question. Thus far, little about his ghostly existence was predictable. Or known. He felt like an explorer in a distant land, learning the limits of his new world and adding to his store of knowledge hour by hour.

He could walk through walls but he couldn't pass through an open gate.

He could see his reflection in the mirror but there were occasions when he was transparent.

And right now, the smell of the rum was making his mouth water.

Matthew hesitated, then lifted the glass to his lips and took a small, questioning sip.

A beatific smile swept across his face.

The taste was heaven. The silken glide of the liquor across his tongue, the fiery kick of it as it slid down his throat... He had almost forgotten the pleasure of it.

He had the glass halfway to his lips again when Catherine spoke.

"You're supposed to give whiskey to the person who passes out, not drink it yourself."

He swung around. She was sitting up in a corner of the settee. Her face was still pale, though two patches of color had blossomed in her cheeks.

He felt a dark flush rise in his own face.

"It's rum, not whiskey. And I was simply testing it. Who knows how long it's been in that decanter? Its condition might be unsuitable for consumption."

Her dark eyebrows lifted a fractional inch.

"A taste test," she said. "How thoughtful."

Matthew cleared his throat. "It was nothing."

"Oh, on the contrary. An intruder with a sense of chivalry is very definitely something. I think the police will find it a fascinating detail."

The threat wasn't worthy of a response, though he had to give her credit for courage. She was frightened; he could see it in the swiftness of her breathing, but her demeanor, and her tone, were cool.

Matthew dumped more rum into the glass and brought it to her. She shook her head.

"No, thank you," she said, and frowned.

No, thank you?
Had she really said that?

He, on the other hand, obviously had no such constraints. He glared and shoved the glass at her.

"Drink it," he growled.

Kathryn drew back, wrinkling her nose at the smell.

"I don't want it."

"Dammit, Cat, this is not a tea party. Drink the rum."

Her chin lifted in defiance. "You're right. This isn't a tea party so I don't have to pretend to be a gracious guest. And for your information, my name is not Cat."

His mouth twisted. "Isn't it?"

"No."

"What is it, if not Cat?"

"It's Kathryn," she snapped.

"Forgive me, m'lady," he said, his voice tinged with sarcasm. "I had forgotten your preference for formality."

"I don't have a preference for anything, except for seeing your back as you go out the door!"

"Ah, Catherine, you cut me to the quick. To think you want only to wound me with words after being so long without me."

"Listen here, you..."

"Don't argue with me, dammit! Drink the rum and be quick about it."

Kathryn opened her mouth, then slammed it shut Maybe she was nuts! She had to be, to sit here and quarrel with a crazy man.

Maybe he was right. Maybe a stiff shot of something alcoholic was just what she needed to clear her head. At the very least, it might help her figure out what had happened to her.

All right, so it wasn't every day you strolled into your own house and found a man dressed like an extra from
Mutiny on the Bounty
coming down the steps. But the rest of it...

Kathryn shot a quick look at his hand, curved around the glass.

Thank you, God.

It was a powerful hand, a very masculine one with long, blunt-nailed fingers. But it wasn't transparent. Given the choice, she'd much rather deal with a flesh-and-blood intruder than—than...
Oh boy!

Maybe a belt of rum wasn't such a bad idea. "All right," she said, and rose to her feet. His hand shot out and clamped around her wrist. "Where do you think you're going?"

"I've reconsidered," she said with all the cool hauteur she could muster. "I think I'll have some of that stuff after all." He shoved the glass at her; the rum sloshed from side to side. "Drink, then."

Kathryn looked disdainfully at his glass, then at him. "I'd prefer a glass of my own, thank you very much." Her eyes dared him to argue. Matthew gritted his teeth, then let go of her wrist.

"Of course. How foolish of me." He lifted what remained of the rum to his lips and downed it in one swallow. He shuddered, then wiped the back of his hand over his lips. "Perhaps if I wore a red shirt open to my navel and fashioned my hair into greasy ringlets, you might be less fussy."

Kathryn spun towards him, the decanter and a glass in her hands. "What?"

"I would have hoped your taste in men would have improved over the years, Cat. But it seems it has not. First Waring, then that—that disgusting excuse for a man this afternoon..."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Hell, neither did he. Matthew's jaw tightened. What did it matter, her taste in men? She could be sleeping with the King's garrison and the Corporal of the Guard, for all he cared.

He shrugged and strolled towards her.

"Never mind," he said, slapping down his empty glass. "Your amusements are none of my concern."

"I'm glad we agree on something."

A corner of his mouth tilted up in a cool smile. He leaned back against the wall, folded his arms, and looked at her.

"I must say, you're taking this very calmly."

Calmly? God, if he only knew.
If her heart raced any faster, it might burst from her chest and any second now, her teeth were threatening to chatter like castanets.

"Well, I'm trying to understand what, ah, what it is you're doing here," she said.

He laughed, as if she'd said something funny.

"Oh, I'm sure you'll come up with the answer."

There was an ominous undertone to his words. Kathryn licked her lips nervously.

"Were you—were you here, in the house, when I went out this morning?"

His smile was quick and condescending. "Of course."

She nodded, poured a dollop of rum into her glass, lifted it to her lips and swallowed it in one quick, throat-scalding gulp.

"Better?" he said, after a moment.

She nodded again, even though it was a lie. How could anything make her feel better? Here she was, talking with a man who'd somehow broken into Charon's Crossing, who traipsed around pretending to be someone who'd been dead almost two hundred years, right down to the costume and the old-fashioned speech.

He was clever. And dangerous. He was either a criminal or a lunatic...

Or both.

Kathryn put down the glass and the decanter. She shoved her hands deep into the pockets of her skirt to keep them from shaking.

It was not an encouraging situation.

"What's the matter, Cat?"

She looked up. The intruder was watching her, still with that little smile curled across his mouth.

"Why should anything be the matter?" she said quickly.

"You look as if..." He chuckled. "...as if you've seen a ghost."

Her heart rose to her throat. He was doing his best to terrify her. Well, he was succeeding. Her imagination had shifted into overdrive, racing for half a dozen different endings to this script.

The trouble was, not a one of them ended with her smiling in the winner's circle.

The second he knew that, it would be all over.

Life in New York had taught her that. You'd be walking down a street, minding your own business, and all of a sudden some fruitcake would pop out of a doorway, ranting about the end of the world.

You learned real fast that the only way to deal with things like that was to show as little reaction as possible. Besides, there was almost always someplace to pop into, a coffee shop or a drugstore and if you were really lucky, you might spot a police car cruising by.

On the other hand, this wasn't New York, it was Elizabeth Island. And
this
was Charon's Crossing. There were no shops, no people, no way to communicate with anybody.

If only the damned telephone worked. But it didn't; it just squatted on the console table, within reach but about as useful as feathers on a fish.

"Where did he take you?"

Kathryn's eyes flashed to his face. "Where did who take me?"

"Your pirate lover."

"My what?"

His eyes darkened. "Don't try my patience, Catherine. You know who I'm talking about. Where did your swashbuckler with the greasy curls take you for your little tete-a-tete?"

Kathryn's jaw dropped. Efram? He thought Efram, with his hollow chest and his acne, was her lover?

She almost laughed. Instead, she shrugged her shoulders.

"I don't think that's any of your business." Let him think she had a lover, someone who was liable to turn up at any minute.

"I'm making it my business," he said through his teeth. "Did he take you to his ship?"

"We went to town. We walked, looked at the shops... you know."

His mouth twisted. "Do you really expect me to believe you and your lover spent the afternoon shopping?"

Casually, she strolled past him, as if she were heading for the settee. He didn't try to stop her. Emboldened, she mentally measured the distance to the door. Ten feet, perhaps twelve. Yes, as far as she could see, that was her best bet. If she could just make it across the foyer to the library, she could slam the door in his face and jam it shut with a chair...

"Damn you, Cat! Answer my question!"

"He'll be back, if that's what you want to know." She turned and looked at him, forcing herself to speak calmly. "But—but I won't tell him about—about what's happened. I mean, we can just forget about your—your visit."

Matthew's eyes narrowed. "How generous you are, Catherine."

"I'm sure you had your reasons for break-... for coming to this house."

He smiled, his teeth very even and white against his tanned face.

"That's an interesting way of putting it."

Kathryn managed a smile. "Well, I'm trying to put this in the best possible light. For both our sakes."