Oxford Shadows (2 page)

Rupert’s praise didn’t spark any reaction from his father or stepmother. They were far too absorbed in going through the contents of their plates, one well-mannered bite of Scottish beef at a time.

Rupert turned toward Madison, who sat by his side, expecting some moral support from her. Same thing there: she was eating. He sought inspiration from the décor. The Randolph was an Oxford institution and the place for his first date with Madison. He stared up at the college crests that adorned the ceiling.
Let’s give it another try.

“We had a great time in Louisiana. The food was to die for. Maddie’s mother owns a restaurant. She spoiled me.”

His father stopped paying attention to his food—
at last
—and rewarded Rupert with a brief glance at Madison. “Your mother is a restaurateur?”

Okay, here we are, some interaction at last.
But had his father, Almighty Hugo Vance, meant that as a question or a social statement?

Madison set down her cutlery and dabbed her mouth with the corner of her napkin. “It’s more like a bar than a restaurant. I mean, nothing like here.” She gave an all-encompassing sweep of the room, which was more like a baronial hall than a restaurant. “We serve local food and mostly Budweiser.” She brought her glass of Bordeaux, a Château Lynch-Bage 1999, to her lips and took a sip.

“I see. How lovely.” Camilla spoke her first sentences since the start of dinner. Two words each.

She didn’t say those words. She puked them.

“Yes, lovely indeed.” Madison emphasized the “lovely,” failing to take the sarcasm out of it.

Madison’s answer irritated Rupert. She wasn’t a social halfwit. While he had expected a reenactment of
Pride and Prejudice
from his father, he had also counted on Madison’s support. This evening meant a lot to him, and it meant a lot because of her.

“What does your father do for a living?” Hugo was now focused on his guest, his eyes practically reptilian.

Rupert extended his arm across the back of Madison’s chair. The tips of his fingers brushed the nape of her neck, the gesture meant to reassure her as much as shout a loud “back off” to his father.

She relaxed under his touch. “I have no idea. He left before I was born.” Madison shifted on her seat, but her tone remained neutral. With her hands now hidden on her lap, she turned her silver ring counter-clockwise. In Madison, Rupert knew, this was a sure sign of discomfort.

“How unfortunate.” Camilla added another two-word contribution.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Madison’s speech had gone all Southern, her vowels lazily elongated. She normally kept a tight handle on her drawl, but tonight the Rebel in her was taking front stage.
Time for a diversion.

“So what did you think of the concert?” Rupert’s own fake perkiness made him nauseous, but moving to neutral ground was necessary to ensure the night didn’t turn into the American Revolutionary War.

Who had won: George Washington or Cornwallis? The verdict was still out. The dinner hadn’t gone as well as Rupert had dreamed, but nor had it gone as badly as he had feared. How he wanted to have a smoke, but he had given his word to Madison: no more ciggies.
Bugger.

Hugo and Camilla retreated to the Morse Bar, the other tradition in the Randolph, for after-dinner drinks. Rupert lagged behind, Madison at his side. He towered above her pint-sized body. For their family outing, she had traded her usual jeans/Converse uniform for a tight black dress, opaque black tights, and black stilettos. Her cleavage was modest but enough to make him want her.

“They didn’t fall for my Southern charm.” Her lips twisted into a sorry smirk.

He had to refrain from bending forward and covering her mouth with his. He wanted to claim her like he had before they left his place to join his father at the concert. Right here, right now.

“It went well,” Rupert half-lied.

“Huh.”

He laid his hand on the small of her back, pulling her closer, so that she leaned against the length of his body. She arched, and her breasts brushed against his chest, her pelvis against his hips.

Yeah, we’d better make it back home within the hour.
Rupert quickly changed the subject. “Something happened during the concert. Did you, I mean …” He paused, in search of an appropriate word. “Was there someone, something?”

Her body stiffened. A thought, a memory, threw a shadow over her face, and she answered with a non-committal “Maybe.”

A middle-aged couple walked past them, their expressions showing disapproval of Rupert and Madison’s touchy-feely embrace.

Madison slid her hand on his chest to introduce some distance. “Yes … there was someone, someone next to Camilla, and—”

Rupert raised his hands, palms facing Madison. “Uh-oh, let’s not scare the shit out of my dear stepmother tonight.”

Madison’s jaw clenched. “Okay, if that’s what you want.” She stepped away from him, her head bowed.

Rupert grabbed her elbow. “Thanks for coming tonight. It means a lot to me.” It really did, and the confession kept his gaze downward, fixed on his freshly polished shoes.

Madison released a breath and cradled his face with her hands. “I know. I’m so happy you’re trying to patch things up with your dad. It’s a very mature endeavor, Mister Vance.”

“Yes, it is. I want a family, and I want you to be part of it.”

Madison’s eyes opened wider, and her cute mouth rounded into an “Oh” of surprise.

Steady, Vance, you don’t want to scare the shit out of the girl after only a month.
“Let’s go. I might treat myself to a Dirty Martini for once.”

Rupert marched forward, his hand gripping Madison’s tightly. The ghost story could wait for another night.

3

MADISON PUFFED OUT a mouthful of air. Her lungs had contracted under the tension of the evening. Dinner with your in-laws: check. Encounter with murderous ghost: check.
Good heavenly days.
As if she didn’t have enough to deal with already. The threat always struck close to home, close to her heart. The last time it had been Pippa, her friend; this time, Camilla and the baby.

Pippa had been her BFF here in Oxford: all bubbly and sexy … and secretly in love with Rupert. Pippa had been possessed by a vengeful spirit named Peter, who came straight from the English Civil War and used the girl’s jealousy against her. Through a painting titled
The Wounded Cavalier
, Peter had been connected to Madison, Rupert and their seventeenth-century alter egos, Sarah and Robert. Madison had defeated Peter eventually, but she hadn’t been able to save her friend after Pippa had tried to kill Madison.

She rubbed her hand over her face, released one last huff and started her nocturnal walk back to her room at Christ Church College.

At the corner of Beaumont Street she turned into Magdalen Street, leaving behind the Martyrs’ Memorial. Rupert’s absence weighed on her heart. She had sent him home. Despite her near-constant desire for him, Rupert’s cuddling, cooing and ravaging just wasn’t the remedy for this particular predicament. Instead, she would dive into her grandmother Mamie’s little book of magic and maybe do a Google search for “homicidal Oxford spirit.” Whatever. She had to do something instead of sitting on her butt and waiting for Camilla to die.

On the left side of Cornmarket Street, the church of St Michael at the North Gate chaperoned her return to bed. Three stocky silhouettes marched toward her. The gurgle of their laughter twisted her guts. The big, beefy men sounded like they were totally hammered. Madison stopped in her tracks, screening her surroundings for an avenue of retreat. Forward was the only way. It was past midnight, and the streets were deserted. She tightened her grip on her satchel and quickened her pace. Lifting the collar of her trench coat, a present from Rupert to replace an ancient duffel coat, she forged ahead and ignored their drunken swearing.

When they were ten feet away their staggering stopped, their bodies shifting to spread across the width of the pedestrian street. She lowered her head and kept her eyes trained on the ground.

The man in the center of the line—too old to be a college student—blocked her path, his short legs anchored wide apart. Madison couldn’t make out his face, seeing only the glistening reflection of the streetlamps on his shaved head. She took a side step, ignoring his threatening stance.

He shifted in tandem with her step and threw his head back in a peal of laughter. “Want to talk?”

Madison recoiled from the stale smell of beer on his breath. She wanted to shout “Asshole!” at him, but the three-to-one odds stopped any sound erupting from her throat. She stepped to her left. Once again he followed.

“The girl’s too posh for you, mate.”

The other voice was too close for comfort. The wingman had closed in on her. She was now sandwiched between two drunken thugs, with a third ready to join. Fear numbed her brain and limbs, transforming her into a lifeless doll. It was all happening again, like that time with Tarquin Vionnet and his filthy hands.

“I just want to go home.” Madison forced herself to meet her opponent’s gaze, and willed the anger to desert her voice.

“I just want to go home.”
The guy in front of her mimicked a high-pitched, squeaky version of her words.

“Keep it up and I’ll cancel your birth certificate,” she barked at him and felt the familiar tingling of a fireball growing inside the palm of her hand. But she couldn’t betray her powers. Not here. Not now. Advertising her secret wasn’t the best idea.

Three to one. Three to one.

Arms grabbed her waist from behind and pulled her backward. She crashed against one of the men’s chests and wriggled to escape his grip. He smelled of sweat and greasy food, and his BO made her wretch.

“Let me go.”

“Let me go.”
Same stupid mimicking.

“You jackass.” She elbowed him deep into his stomach. His moan sent a shot of triumph through her. She propelled herself from his grip, but he held onto the handles of her bag. He jerked it toward him, and Madison had to let go.

The third man shouted, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

They exchanged quick glances. The one in the center nodded, prompting his partners to move on.

“Give the bag back to the lady.”

A male voice echoed in the night from the other side of her attackers. Madison couldn’t see her savior, but the Southern drawl in his command disqualified a police intervention.

“I repeat, give the bag back to the lady.”

The man’s order had split the muggers up and they were now circling him. Madison took a glimpse at the newcomer. Rugged face. Dark hair. Wide chest.

“Or what?” The question came from thug number one, in the center.

“Or I’ll skin you alive.” The man’s hand darted inside his leather jacket and emerged grasping a knife. Not just any knife: an I-wrestle-freakin’-gators knife, jagged and glistening.

Madison’s bag crashed to the sidewalk. There was some more swearing, but the road cleared within seconds.

Crocodile Dundee parted the flaps of his leather jacket and slid the knife into his belt. In a few steps he had picked up her satchel and handed it back to her. He put his hand forward. “I’m Sam.”

Still adrenalin-fueled, Madison didn’t move. Undeterred, he kept his arm extended.

She whispered a meager, “Thank you,” then extended her hand. “Madison.”

His skin against hers was warm and comforting. He kept hold of her hand, gave it a quick squeeze and released it. From close up, and with the halo of the streetlamp above them, the washed-out blue of his eyes caught her attention. His complexion was dark, not a tan but a bronze shade suggesting Native American blood.

“One o’clock. On your own. Big soccer game. Men out to get hammered. Like trouble or what?”

No need for him to state the obvious. She already felt as dumb as a post. She had let herself be vulnerable, just like at New Year’s Eve in Pierre Part with that douche bag Tarquin.

“I’m not the guilty one here.” She was trying damned hard to convince herself. Not only for tonight but also for the time back in Louisiana.

“Of course not.” He stood straight, towering over her, and cast his gaze downwards.

“Ungrateful” wasn’t a label she wanted to go by. “Thank you, Sam.” She instilled warmth into her words this time.

A smile spread across his face. Despite the hero aura oozing from the guy, there was a teddy-bear quality to him that softened the square angles of his shoulders and jaw. “Can I walk you back to your place?”

She wanted to reply that her dorm was only two minutes away, but Sam’s denim-blue eyes told her he didn’t expect her to say no. She nodded and they started strolling together. But having just got out of one stupid situation, she wasn’t going to let him know where she lived so easily. She’d lead him close to Christ Church College, but not quite there. Her heart rate returned to its normal pace as her breathing began to steady. Spatial awareness slowly returned to her. Apart from a car turning at the Carfax Tower roundabout, Oxford had plunged into the darkness of a weeknight. Students, academics, workers, they were all Morpheus’s pals.