Shadows (31 page)

Even in the mud, with rain pouring down her face and throat, the girl possessed courage enough to look up and laugh.  Monsieur l’Abbé kicked out, and Justine curled her belly away from the vicious thrust of that horny, sandaled foot.

Pierre opened his mouth and must have roared something, for the Abbot swung round in surprise.  Pierre abandoned the wheel, seized the man’s arm, spun him away from Justine and stood in front of her, his intent clear in his face.

“Good for you, my lad.”  Melissa looked up in surprise at Rory’s throaty growl.  He scowled, intent on the scene.  Thunder reverberated over the mill, and the rain fell with redoubled force, boiling the brown, choppy surface of the millpond.

“Should we go out?”  Melissa muttered.  “We could help them.”

Rory hesitated.  “No.  It would only happen again.  I think this is going to go on until they’ve told us the story.  They want us to know what happened.”

The Abbot staggered, caught his balance and turned so violently the gold cross on a chain flopped heavily against his chest.  Rain ran down into his open mouth, and he glared at the young man who had dared to touch him.  He grasped the staff with both hands, shuffled it through his hands until he had the length he wanted and swung it with all his might.  Justine screamed a warning, Pierre swayed to avoid the blow and the staff struck Pierre’s temple.  He staggered and fell into the millpond.

Justine scrambled to her feet, splashed through the sodden grass to the hidden edge of the millpond and suddenly realized her danger.  It was deep, and the storm water pouring through made it a fierce enemy.  Pierre’s thick robes had dragged him down and the force spun him toward the sluice-gate.

The girl screamed, turned to run toward the gate just as Monsieur l’Abbé swung his staff again and the savage blow caught the girl across the hip.  She staggered and limped aside, her face white with fright and pain.  She shot an agonized glance at the millpond, but backed away in terror and anger as her attacker marched grimly toward her.

Pierre surfaced, sucked in air and struggled hard.  He sank, thrust his way back to the surface and realized he was in the grip of the current.  He got a hand against the rough, weed covered boards of the channel but the water, relentless as a wild beast, pushed him on.  He grabbed again as the dark opening to the waterwheel loomed up, but the water slammed his head into the stones and Melissa had a brief and sickening glimpse of his arm striking the gate and bending as the bone broke upon impact.

She cried out as he vanished under the stones of the sluice.  Horrified, she lunged forward, not knowing what she could do, but desperate to help.  Rory’s hands bit into her shoulders to stop her running out onto the bolly.  She glared at the Abbot in disbelief.  His attention was still on the girl, who stumbled away toward the gloom of the lane that would take her away from the mill and the monastery.  Something made both the girl and the Abbott swing round and stare at the dark square hole beneath the mill.

Screams, perhaps.  Melissa winced, and remembered the heavy waterwheel, and how Christophe had claimed it crashed down on his head and killed him.  She pressed back against Rory, shivering as the Abbot walked steadily back to the sluice-gate, and stood there, breathing hard, peering down.

There was perhaps eight feet between Rory, Melissa and Monsieur l’Abbé.  Somehow, in the space of eight feet, the strength and integrity of the firm twenty first century bolly wavered, changed and became the rank grass that had once grown around the heavy stones that held the sluice-gate and allowed the powerful force of water down beneath the mill.

Melissa was very sure that neither she nor Rory should risk stepping across the eight feet in case they too ended beneath the mill.  The grief-stricken girl had disappeared in the gray gloom of the stormy evening.  Her horrified gaze wandered back to the cold, dark cauldron of storm water that held Pierre in its grip.

The Abbot listened, one ear cocked, until, presumably, there was nothing more to hear from the cavern beneath the mill.  The heavy face, covered in gray stubble that reminded Melissa of lichen on a rock, bore the expression of a man relieved of a problem.

He made no attempt to shut the sluice-gates to let the water level drop while he rescued the young man, but simply stood there with a smug expression.  When he walked toward the patient gray mule, his step was jaunty.

Rory took a step backwards into the mill, pulled Melissa with him and shut and bolted the door.  Melissa shivered and clutched herself suddenly, cradling her elbows with her hands.  Rory walked over, dropped a light kiss on the top of her head and gave her a gentle push toward the fire.  “Go and get warm.  I’ll bring us that drink we were going to have so long ago.”

Melissa tried to put the horrible things she'd seen out of her mind.  Crouched on the rug, cold inside and out, she fed logs to the fire.  The wood was dry and flared at once, crackling cheerfully, but it didn't take away the tragedy of what had happened.  It was almost full dark outside and a brief, startling prong of lightning lit the room as Rory nudged a glass of red wine into her hand.  The rumble of thunder drowned any noise as he dragged one of the big, cozy chairs closer to the fire and hunched on the edge of it so that his knees pushed against her spine.

Rory sipped the wine.  The flames struck ruddy glints into Melissa’s chestnut hair.  She angled her head back toward him and he was appalled to see tears in her eyes.  He put his glass on the walnut boards, pulled her up onto his knees and cradled her against his chest, rocking her like an infant.  “Don’t cry.  It all happened a long time ago.  We’ve just seen a re-run of it.”

“I know.”  Sobs shook her slender frame and tears dripped onto his chest, and tightened his arms around her.  “I know, but it was so cruel.  They must have loved each other so much, to risk an affair, and he died for it.  She probably had a miserable life after he’d gone…”  Her brief outburst slowed and halted.  She sniffed and blinked away tears.  “I hope the Man of Iron got his comeuppance.  But he probably got away with it.”

Rory cradled the back of her head with his palm.  “His kind usually does get their comeuppance, one way or another.  Justice may be blind but she usually gets there in the end and sometimes she does it without man’s help.”

Melissa snatched a paper hanky from the box on the bookcase beside them, and blew loudly into it.  Her lashes were clumped together, and her eyes pink.  “Oh, Rory.  He was terrified, yet he looked so brave when he stood up to that odious man.”

“Don’t forget what we saw wasn’t real.  It wasn’t even in this century.  We saw something that happened more than two hundred years ago.”

Melissa nodded.  “But it was real, once.  Oh, I know we’ve been watching ghosts.”  She was still pale and wide eyed.  “That in itself is a frightening thought.  Or it should be.”

“Weren’t you frightened?  Didn’t you feel threatened?”  It surprised him that she hadn't been terrified of the ghosts.

She shook her head slowly.  “No.  I was so caught up in their emotions that I wasn’t.  But I should have been, shouldn’t I?”

Rory rested his head against the back of the chair and cuddled Melissa close as another flash of lightning and a roll of thunder crashed and tumbled around the mill.  The question of why she hadn't been scared interested him.  “They didn’t seem like ghosts.  And you said you were used to them.”

A weak smile curved Melissa’s mouth.  “So I did.  ‘I ain’t afraid of no ghost,’” she warbled in a weak parody of the film, and Rory chuckled quietly.

“It isn’t what I’d been led to expect of ghosts.  No drop in temperature, no cold wind and no pure funk, which every schoolboy expects to feel on seeing a ghost.”  Rory settled his shoulders more comfortably in the chair.  “What made you say she was pregnant?”

Melissa smoothed the heel of both hands beneath her eyes to get rid of the tears, laid her cheek back against his warm chest.  “When that dreadful man struck her, she lowered her hands to protect the child.  Most women protect their face.  It’s a pity we couldn’t hear what they said.  I think she told him.  You know, when the Abbot got all nasty and Pierre looked so desperate.  Anyway, she had to be so she could be Christophe’s ancestress.”

Rory sipped his wine slowly as he considered what she'd said.  Savoring the taste, he held the glass against the background of flames, twirled it so the color changed through ruby and cherry.  Shadows rose and fell around the white walls and gathered in the corners of the room.  “I can’t think of anything else that would have had the same effect.”

Melissa sat bolt upright on his knee.  Rory choked, and grabbed her.  “If you’re going to bounce around you can sit back down on the floor.  My innards won’t stand it.”

“Sorry.”  Melissa rushed straight on as if fearing she might forget what she was going to say.  “But what if—did you see Pierre’s foot?  Did you notice the growth on his toe?  Did you?”

“Yes.  A small purple growth positioned on the outside of his foot just above the small toe.  What of it?”

Melissa bounced, Rory yelped, and she apologized, scrambled backwards off his knee and subsided onto the rug.  Color and vitality had come back into her face, and she talked so quickly her words tumbled over each other.  “Christophe has one, exactly the same.  I think it’s on the same foot.  I saw it the night he first came here, and dropped a slip of paper from his book.  I bent to pick it up, so I was very close to his…”  She thought about it for an instant.  “His left foot,” she added triumphantly.

He shook his head, puzzled.  “And this means…?”

“It means,” she said slowly, as if to a small child, “it is a sort of proof that Justine was pregnant, that she ran away, had the baby and a few generations later, Christophe was born.  He might be Pierre’s great-something something grandson.”

Rory’s eyes slid away from her as he thought about it.  There was a long silence, while Melissa executed little bounce movements that reminded him of an impatient child.  “You’d have to put about ten generations in between now and 1735, if you can call twenty years a generation,” he said slowly, thinking it out.  “Sometimes it would be more, but I suppose it wouldn’t be much less.  On the other hand, it could be just a fluke, a coincidence.  Or he could be a distant cousin rather than a direct descendant.”

“We could ask him about it.  It would have to be a family trait, that thing on his foot.”  Melissa took a gulp of wine.  “It might be the answer.  Remember my dream?  I was the distant relative, but Christophe was of the direct line.”

“It might be why he got involved, but it wouldn't affect us.  As I've said before, I’m sure Christophe has been to the mill before we came.”

Melissa looked disappointed.  “That’s true.”

“I’ve been wondering why it’s been happening, and why we…in particular you, seem to be the key.  After all, we aren’t even French.  Why would Pierre wait two hundred and seventy years and then pick on an English couple?”

“I must have French blood way back in my ancestry.”  Melissa grinned impishly, and he couldn't help smiling in return.  “Will you still marry me if I’m French as well as a bastard—”  Blood ran into her face.  She coughed and looked down at her hands.  “Sorry.”

Tempted to laugh at her impulsive words and shocked expression, Rory pursed his mouth.  “It’s awfully good of you to ask, Melissa.  I know you won’t believe me, but that was my very first proposal.”

“And?”  Her face scarlet with embarrassment, she lifted her head and stared at him.  Even if she hadn’t meant to say it, she wanted an answer now.  “And?  What’s your answer?”

A good thing he had no doubts about his answer.  He let his smile spread across his face.  “I’ll marry you, French or not.”

“But what about being a bastard?  We’ve never spoken of it.”

“It won’t matter.”  He shrugged.  “It’s not as if it is something you could have changed.”

“But your parents?”

It had to be faced at some point.  He leant forward, his glass cradled in both palms.  “I’ll take you to meet them.  If the occasion arises, we’ll tell them.  If it doesn’t, we won’t.  It isn’t really any of their business.”

“But they’ll make it theirs.  And wouldn’t it be better to get it over with, rather than always wondering if it is going to crop up?”

Sobering, he studied her.  “You’re probably right.  We may as well have one major explosion as several small ones over the years.”

Melissa pushed herself between his knees, and he moved to give her room.  “The thought of years with you sounds delightful.  Are you quite, quite sure about this?  I don’t want to cause a rift between you and your parents.”

He snorted in bitter humor.  “There’s been a rift for several years already.  You might just be the cause of healing it.”  His fingers trailed her cheek, pushed a strand of hair behind her ear.