Serena (22 page)

After the love of her life is taken from her at Waterloo, Jenny is sure that joy and love are lost to her forever. But life has more in store for Jenny,

After the Storm

~ Prologue ~

Did ye not hear it? No: ’twas but the wind,

Or the car rattling o’er the stony street;

On with the dance! Let Joy be unconfined,

No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet.

To chase the glowing hours with flying feet—

But Hark! That heavy sound breaks in once more,

As if the clouds its echo would repeat;

And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before!

Arm! Arm! It is—it is—the CANNON’s opening

Roar!

—Lord Byron, 1816,

written to mark the Duchess of Richmond’s ball on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo

THE WIND, NO longer warm from the rays of the sun, bit at her face, causing her to blink. Long, chestnut-colored hair whipped around her slender neck and her lashes. She put one ungloved, delicate hand up and brushed the thick strands away from her face as she stopped her determined steps.

Desolate eyes stared at the tall oak—
their oak
. They had carved their initials there when they had a future, when they had hope.

“Johnny,” she whispered. “Oh, my Johnny.” Finality infiltrated her tone and resignation the slope of her shoulders. Anguish tempered by time swept through her body as she dropped to her knees, heedless of the damp grass.

A year had passed—one entire year since the Duchess of Richmond’s ball, since the last time she had kissed his lips, seen his face—one year since Waterloo.

A sick sensation swept over her when she tried to recall his face, that wondrous, boyishly handsome face as he stood before her that awful night.

They went, all of them, almost merrily to Waterloo. Even then—with those dreadful drums beating throughout Brussels—even then, they looked as though they were off to a parade.

Jenny remembered the sound of those drums, calling their men to arms. The officers attending the Duchess of Richmond’s ball had left hurriedly, some actually going off to battle in their ball attire, and Johnny, her Johnny had been among them.

Exploding cannons—the sound filled the atmosphere, as the
beau monde
breathlessly awaited the outcome. So many of her friends, so many of the English gentry were there in Brussels that spring.

Napoleon had escaped, gathered his army, and begun to march. The Duke of Wellington, their hero, went off to meet him. The English believed Wellington would win the encounter with the Frenchman and were there to witness it.

No one had anticipated the amount of blood it would take to fulfill their expectation. Thus it happened on June 18, 1815, that Wellington met Boney at Waterloo, and her John was lost forever.

Mac had been there. He had lived, and while she searched for Johnny, Mac found her. Lieutenant William McMillan had taken hold of her shoulders, and when she saw his distorted features she backed up from him screaming. She wasn’t sure anymore what she had screamed.

“Jen, Johnny’s last words to me were of you. He said he loves you and that you have to move on  …”

Jenny thought she could no longer cry and was surprised at the tear that made its way down her cheek. She closed her eyes. She had come to their tree to say good-bye, but could she? She didn’t feel ready. “Haunt me, Johnny, come to me as a ghost,” she hugged herself and prayed. “Stay with me forever.”

Her father and aunt had hurried her home to Devon, and even for their sakes it had been so very difficult not to fall into a decline. For weeks all she wanted to do was go to sleep and not wake up.

Her father had coaxed her outside by telling her the horses she loved needed attention. And that had worked to get her out a bit. Slowly, albeit listlessly, she began to eat, talk, walk, but she felt as though all joy in life had been snatched away.

She got to her feet and touched the tree before turning towards home. She loved the quiet solitude of her beloved Devon landscape. It was like a tonic that soothed her. Johnny had never quite been at home in the country. He was too restless.

She crossed the open field with slow, long strides and felt the overgrown grass brush against the thin material of her stockings at her ankles and calves. The day had been touched with scudding clouds, and they hovered with the tease of rain.

It was still mid-afternoon, and yet, because of the overcast sky, it appeared later. Jenny’s gaze swept upwards, and she made the decision to take the shortcut across Farmer Cubbins’ field. She reached the roadside fence, picked up her skirts, climbed nimbly up, sat on the aged wood stocks, and then pushed herself forward onto the country dirt road.

She had been so engrossed with getting her skirts past the splintered rail and her feet over the ditch that lined the road that she hadn’t noticed the rider coming around the bend.

Her sudden descent onto the road caused the horse to rear and champ at his bit. This startled Jenny, and before she knew what had happened, she had released a screech, stepped forcefully backward, and landed herself in the very ditch she had tried to avoid.

~ One ~

A LOW, STRONG MALE voice cursed beneath his breath as Jenny tried to recoup and get to her feet.

As she pressed her hands into the earth and tried to straighten, she heard him dismount and within an instant felt herself pulled up into a standing position, though she wasn’t sure her shoes were touching the earth.

A pair of startlingly blue eyes glared angrily down into her own, and the voice said in a tone that made her open her eyes wide, “Well, well, at least it’s a pretty wench that’s detained me.”

He sounded as though he were some huge giant about to eat her, and without another word, and before she realized what he was doing, that was what he did.

Jenny found herself being ruthlessly kissed! In that moment, with this stranger’s lips on hers, she was almost too shocked to react, but she was just a bit aware of a tingling sensation that journeyed through her body.

At length her mind returned to her and she made an effort to resist by putting her hands to his chest and pushing hard. This, however, did not budge him. He seemed to hold her in a vice-like grip. She should have been afraid but was too astonished to consider that.

She was, however, furious at his daring, and when he put his head back to look at her and laugh, she felt something of her old self return. The old, vibrant Jenny would never stand for such treatment!

As he got into position, obviously meaning to kiss her again, she reacted and, feeling both outrage and anger, formulated a quick plan.

She immediately relaxed in his arms and allowed the scoundrel to believe he had conquered her. As she expected, his grip eased up.

Jenny had just enough time to bring her booted foot into position and then thrust it hard and forcefully into his shin.

She felt a great deal of satisfaction as he cried out in pain and paused only briefly to wag her finger and tell him, “Fie, sir—fie!” Then she ran. She held her skirts in hand and put the road behind her as fast as she could, only stopping when she sighted the green lawns of her home, Ashley Grange.

Once on her own estate, she leaned up against a tree and, breathing hard, hurriedly glanced behind her. Thanking providence her assailant had not deemed it worth his trouble to pursue, she sucked in a long, delicious breath of air and then proceeded to the house. Oddly enough, her anger abated and just a touch of amusement tickled her senses as she thought of the way he’d reached for his injured leg. Ha, served him right.

A modern-day woman who sees visions from the past,
 
a man from the past given a chance for a future,
a not-quite-vampire with a timeless obsession,
and an immortal Royal Fae who’s not supposed to interfere  …
all come together in

Spellbound—Legend

~ One ~

MAXIE REIGATE HELD tightly to the wheel
of her dark green Mustang. Bumper traffic on the LIE made her roll her eyes, and the growl tickling her throat forced its way up and out of her mouth. “That’s it  … nothing you can do about it, Max.”

Her green eyes scanned the interior of her car just in case there was something there to eat. Her stomach rumbled, and she remembered that she had thrown a power bar into the glove compartment the week before when she had parked her car in long term at the airport. It was going to be a couple of hours before she reached her home on Shelter Island, and she needed food.

Standstill traffic gave her the opportunity to bend and reach for the clasp on her glove compartment. It fell open, and she saw the silver foil. “Yes—you don’t look in good shape, but we’ll give you a try.” Maxie was already tearing open the wrapper and biting into the aged and unsavory food of the moment. “Ah  … yuck!” She promptly dumped it on the passenger seat beside her briefcase just as the airwaves outside lit up with a group honk. She screwed up her mouth and watched with interest as a burly man stuck his head out of his car window and cursed the world.

No one was moving—she wanted to curse the world. Instead she attempted to amuse herself by looking around. Daydreaming took over, and it was with a start that she realized the cars in front of her had gained some measurable distance. She hit the gas to close the gap and,
wop
, the traffic suddenly came to an abrupt stop, sending her power bar and her father’s briefcase, which had been beside her on the passenger seat, flying to the floor. The briefcase hit like a ton of weights and popped open, spewing papers all over the place.

Damn! Okay, Maxie, calm yourself.
Today was the day she wasn’t going to allow the traffic on the LIE to get to her.
She was trouble free, wasn’t she
? Oh sure, trouble free and crazy. She was sitting with her family’s ancient journals all over her dirty car floor. Her father would have a fit. A scowl marred her pretty face. She glanced at the traffic as she made an irritated attempt to retrieve her papers and folders. She gave it up and returned to closing yet another gap between her and the parking lot in front of her.

Had it only been a day ago that she had sat dutifully and listened to her dad repeat the family legend to her for the umpteenth time? Her family legend had hovered over her head all her life, and she was sick of hearing—knowing about it.

A sigh escaped her and then another. The Reigate Legend—so what, she told herself, it wasn’t as though she were a werewolf or anything. It wasn’t as though she were some kind of sorcerer out to conquer the universe. What she wanted to know was what a story—true or otherwise—that took place in 1814 had to do with her in the here and now. She had to put it aside and keep it from overshadowing her life  … if her father would let her do that.

Druids, Fae, and an evil vampire-type woman? Come on! She had listened to her dad, she had taken the journals he handed her and insisted she read and re-read, and she had promptly put it all out of her head. Growing up with her  … er special qualities had been difficult enough. Having her date bring her home because she had blacked out with a vision, and then never getting another call from him again, had been a death-defying experience at sixteen. To have this incident repeated when she was out with a guy she really liked in college had been embarrassing and tortuous. Seeing their wide-eyed, ‘let me get out of here’ expressions had made her slightly gun-shy. A serious relationship after that had been impossible.

Now, what did her parents want from her? She had just spent a wonderful Christmas week with them in England at their luxurious ancestral home, Reigate Grange. She’d thought she would escape without one sentence about their damnable legend. She was thrilled whenever they were at Reigate. The family was able to enjoy their ancestral home only during the months of December through April and she only during Christmas. The rest of each year, it was registered on the list of historic homes in the tour guide.

Traffic was moving again, and Maxie tried to think of something else, but her mind wandered back to her father’s voice. He just wouldn’t give it up. He had been so intense when they had been at Heathrow airport. Something in his eyes—and the tone of his voice—had disturbed her. Maxie’s didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t want Druids and Fae in her life, and now he was telling her about some impossible vampire-type woman who was going to come after her? What?

Maxie saw an anguished look come into his eyes when he spoke to her about her immediate future. It hadn’t made sense. Thinking about it now, she was sure he believed that she was going to be in danger. Someone was honking. Others were picking up the frenzy. Drivers were frustrated.

In truth, she told herself, she had so much to look forward to. She was twenty-one, with university life for the time being behind her. She was an aspiring writer and had sold her first short story to a well-known national magazine. It was one of the things they had celebrated during their holiday week together. The other was her dad’s fiftieth birthday.

All at once sharp pain shot through her eyes and into her brain. An agonized cry escaped her, and she made an attempt to steer into the right lane. A driver saw that she was trying to get to the shoulder and waved her through. She could barely see through the rocking pain in her head.

Yes, some people called them premonitions—others clairvoyance. Maxine had never been able to control them. She thought of them as ‘visions’, but they’d never before brought her this level of pain. She had been having them since she was a child too young to understand what they were.

Usually they came as disjointed images, but now and then they blasted her with reality and she saw entire scenarios. Her mother got by pretending the visions weren’t real. Her father wanted her to work on the skill, hone it, refine it, and make it her own. He believed that one day when she became an adult, she would be in grave danger. He wanted her to expand her abilities so she could protect herself. He had always said her innate skills were a part of who and what she was.

Pain pulsed through Maxie’s head. This one was different. It was as though her head were splitting in half and she couldn’t focus on the road. She managed to drive her Mustang onto the shoulder, stopped on the tall, dry grass, and shut off the engine. Her head felt like it was exploding!

Everything around her vanished.

No traffic, no honking, no cars. Everything was gone as her vision took her to another place. She found the pain subsided as she moved through a gray mass of clouds, and suddenly, as though a curtain had opened, it was clear, and there they were.

She could see her parents laughing together
.
They were in a small charter plane, on the last leg of their journey to Africa. Africa because her mom, an animal rights enthusiast, always said it was up to people like her—like her family who could go the extra mile to do just that.

What is this? Maxie was worried in spite of the fact that they looked pleased and happy. She knew something was off. An uncomfortable fear pinched her brain. She had left them at Heathrow airport and had hurried on to catch her own flight home. Why was she having this vision of them?

They were crowded close to one another in the small plane. Something was wrong. Her father was holding her mother’s hand. He looked concerned, and then suddenly the plane banked sharply—too sharply—and Maxie could see them lurching to the left of the cabin. She could hear the horrific sound of the spluttering engine.
Wrong  … this is all wrong.
She wanted it to stop, but the scene switched to the cockpit and she felt sick to her stomach. Maxie hugged herself because she saw the pilot’s eyes widen. Maxie’s throat constricted as she watched him playing with the controls. He called on his radio—they were in trouble  … going down. In the close quarters of her car Maxie screamed as the plane went into a dive.

Maxie’s arms extended as she reached for them.
No, no, this can’t be happening.
The plane was nosing into the jungle. She saw her father holding her mother tightly in his arms, but—he looked directly at her.

He sees me?

His thoughts came through to Maxie as clearly as though he were speaking.
“
Maxie, love  … you know who you are. Be who you are and protect yourself. She is coming
.”

The plane met earth with the sound and effect of a bomb exploding. It crashed into the trees and burst into flames.