Singled Out (11 page)

He wasn’t a murderer anyway, even if he looked infinitely capable of being one. (And had he really been a psychopath I don’t suppose he’d have been bothered about my having concussion.)

I sat up and got interested rather than witless with panic. ‘So you’ve tried to call Emma back, like she asked you?’

‘Oh yes! I gave my word, so I tried every charlatan I could find, including her mother, who calls herself a psychic and medium.’ He laughed shortly. ‘But there were no messages from beyond the grave, of course – except patently bogus ones. The dead don’t come back.’

‘That’s what Keturah thought too, but she was wrong. Mind you, she wasn’t just trying to contact her lover, but raise his physical presence!’

He ignored that, still locked away in some dark memory of his own, to the extent that he didn’t even seem to notice when I pried his fingers off my wrist one by one until I was free.

‘They said it was because I didn’t believe, that she couldn’t return and contact us. Her mother said that I’d failed her again,’ he added bleakly.

‘Yes, you did,’ I agreed, ‘and it’s so amazingly like Keturah and Sylvanus that it’s uncanny!’

‘Who?’ he said, suddenly focusing on me again, which was a bit unnerving, especially since he was still sitting on the edge of the bed within pouncing distance.

‘Characters in my next book. Keturah tries to raise her dead lover through magic spells, but she’s afraid that what comes back won’t be quite Sylvanus – and she’s right too, as it turns out. It isn’t.’

‘I don’t think I’d like your books,’ he said shortly.

‘Probably not. Well, it’s been an eventful night, but I really ought to be going. I meant to spend the whole night here, because my next chapter’s a take on the Haunted House Gothic and I always write better when I scare myself into it,’ I said regretfully, because now he didn’t appear to want to kill me, it seemed a pity to leave.

‘Haven’t you been frightened enough for one night?’ he said, sounding surprised. ‘You nearly ripped that cupboard door down, and that was just a bat.’

‘But I didn’t know that, I thought it was a bird. I have a fear of cupboards and birds.’

‘How very Daphne du Maurier. What’s the matter with birds?’

‘Cruel eyes.’

‘They haven’t got enough brain to be cruel. And I don’t see why you should panic about being shut up with a bird, but right as rain with a bat.’

‘Yes, but bats are lovely. They have sweet little faces with crinkly noses. I had a rubber vampire one called Clive, but something nasty happened to it at a stag night.’

The bed was wide and short, like it was designed for the Seven Dwarfs. I cautiously swung my legs to the floor and got up a little unsteadily, but I think that was the brandy. ‘Perhaps you wouldn’t mind if I had a quick look round the house before I go?’ I asked hopefully. ‘Only it seems a pity to waste the opportunity, because I don’t suppose you’d let me come back another night. And I’d be very quiet and just let myself out afterwards. I wouldn’t disturb you.’

‘Actually, I intend finishing the inventory of what’s missing,’ Dante said. ‘While looking out for the rest of these so-called ghosts. Do you want to spend the night with me?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘That didn’t come out quite how I meant it to,’ he said sardonically.

‘I’m glad to hear it. In that case, I’d certainly like to stay until morning, though I’m pretty sure that if there are any ghosts they won’t appear tonight.’

They’d probably be too scared to.

He shrugged. ‘They won’t appear any night, since I’m neither gullible nor susceptible to suggestion. But no one can say I didn’t give them the opportunity to show themselves before I open the house up again.’

‘You’re going to live here?’ I asked, surprised.

‘In the lonely west wing, mostly. My sister’s going to run part of the main house as a sort of guesthouse, doing weekend ghost-hunting breaks. I said I’d suss it out. See what sort of special effects we could use.’

‘Special effects?’

‘Well, you can’t book ghosts to appear, can you? Although,’ he added, looking at me in a measuring way that I didn’t quite like, ‘I could book you as Something From the Crypt. That should scare the punters.’

‘No thank you. I only do the Crypt-ograms when I’m strapped for cash.’ I shivered suddenly. ‘I think I’ll put my cloak back on, it’s cold even with that fire.’

‘Sorry – I told Craig to leave the electricity and gas on, but they’ve all been cut off. They’re supposed to be reconnecting everything tomorrow, although maybe the phone will be a bit longer. The police are coming back then too, for the definitive list of what’s missing.’

He looked down at the sheets of paper. ‘I was about to do the ground floor and cellars until you disturbed me.’

‘I think you were pretty disturbed already,’ I told him icily. I mean, who was the one with the bumped head and the crushed wrist?

‘Then perhaps you’d better help me finish it, as compensation for breaking and entering?’ he suggested.

‘I only entered,’ I said with dignity. ‘You left the door open. But I’ll help if it gets me a look at the rest of the place before it goes all hotely.’

‘I’m keeping the ambience, it’s just the lights I’d like back – and the heating. We could have candle-type sconces on the walls, for that spooky look,’ he said distastefully.

‘If you’re so revolted by anything to do with the supernatural, I can’t imagine why you’re letting your sister run ghost-hunting weekends!’ I said tartly.

He shrugged and looked at me like it was none of my business. (Which it wasn’t – just call me nosy.)

‘She needs something to occupy her, and it won’t do any harm – I’ll see to that,’ he said firmly. Subject closed.

*   *   *

So I spent the night with Dante Chase, although I expected to see nothing more scary than him, because any self-respecting wraith would have given up and gone away by now.

(And from Dante’s fancy dress I suspect that they will soon have some competition, since I think he intends to appear on guesthouse weekends as First Ghost: the Most Haunted Manor in Britain, featuring Britain’s Most Haunted Man.)

I was dying to ask about his relationship with Emma, and what she died of, because he’s practically guilt-edged. I don’t even need to look into his mind to feel it, and it’s so like the Keturah/Sylvanus situation that it would be really useful stuff to know … but better not.

Checking the inventory took ages, Miss Kedge having been devoted to expensive knick-knacks, but I do not think she was devoted to brandy, so the bottle (or was that perhaps
bottles?
) Dante produced must have been lying forgotten in the cellars.

He carried it round with us, though a cuddly St Bernard he is not, and I got so cold after a while that I had another little nip … though I’m positive it was Dante who finished it.

Almost
positive.

And I might hate the taste, but it certainly warmed us up on our Quest for the Questionable.

‘I doubt you’ll ever track most of this down,’ I said finally. ‘Fifty small items of Tunbridge Ware? A collection of porcelain cockatoos?’

‘It’s all under the insurance so I don’t care it they don’t find any of it, except the family miniatures. I’d really like those back,’ he said, removing the list from my grasp and ticking off yet another missing memento.

When we’d finished the survey (and a lot of brandy) and given up on the ghosts, it was nearly morning, so we retired back to Dante’s bedroom, the only warm place in the house, to wait for old rosy-fingered Dawn.

*   *   *

I woke up stiff, tired and headachy, curled up in a four-poster bed next to a stranger.

The unfamiliar room was fuzzy with grey early-morning light, and it took me a few heart-thumping minutes to remember where I was, and even then I couldn’t for the life of me recall how – or why – I was back in Dante’s bedroom.

It must have seemed like a good idea at the time.

Under the old eiderdown that covered us his naked arm lay warmly and heavily across me, but his face was half-turned away and masked by long, dishevelled dark hair.

As I stared at him, some confused memories began to bubble disturbingly to the surface.

At least, I
think
they were memories.

Hadn’t I been woken at some point from the pounding terror of my cupboard nightmare, and taken into a warm, comforting embrace? And surely I knew – remembered – how the muscles of his broad back moved under my hands …
and
how his lips felt on mine.

Or maybe it was the feel of mine on his? For I began to have an awful feeling it was me doing most of the kissing, and desperately wanting him, even urging him, to—

Oh God: it was all coming back to me!

Shivering (but not from cold, for the world’s most efficient hottie was right in there with me), I took a quick horrified peek under the eiderdown … and then a second, more admiring one.

I must have been
possessed
– and I don’t think brandy agrees with me, so clearly I do not take after Pa in that respect either, which is something, I suppose.

Dante was still breathing deeply, so with infinite caution I slid out from under his arm and off the bed, nearly falling when my foot landed on an empty bottle.

He moved restlessly and murmured something, then turned over and settled back to that regular breathing. Reassured, I tiptoed round the bed, collecting clothes as I went, and took a good look at him.

He seemed a lot younger than I’d thought with the grim lines smoothed out by sleep, and a lot of dark stubble softening his square chin. Nothing would make that hawk nose anything other than aggressive, though, and I’m not convinced a mouth so hard and straight could ever break into a grin, although it
could
feel soft and …

No. Let’s not go down that road. He looked relaxed, anyway.

It’s wonderful what physical exercise can do for a man.

Some deeply primal instinct was urging me to go downstairs and make him a huge cooked breakfast, but I was ruthless with it. It wasn’t my fault he looked like he needed feeding up.

One hank of springy raven hair still lay across his cheek, and on a sudden impulse I leaned over and gently pushed it away, before drawing back quickly, afraid he would wake up.

My mind slid safely away into the alternative reality of Keturah:

… Keturah look the pillow, meaning to extinguish his life and so never have to face the full enormity of what she had done.

Then she put it down again, slowly: he might move and act like a man, but he was not mortal. He could not love … or die.

He could only possess.

Keturah, you’re in big trouble. What the hell got into you? Or maybe that should be: what
from
hell got into you?

It certainly wasn’t Sylvanus.

With a new plot twist uncoiling in my mind, I left the kitchen key on the bedside table, picked up Guido, and went out into weak early sunshine, where I didn’t burn, crumble into dust, or turn into a pillar of stone, all distinct possibilities and no more than I deserved.

Crumpled, creaking, unwashed, unloved, unfaithful and unchaste, I hurried towards the haven of home as the first birds and little Birdie croaked into action.

It felt like a decade since I’d set out.

*   *   *

Cassandra Leigh, I know what you did last night.

What I don’t know is
why.

A writer can take research too far.

Chapter 8: Raising The Spirits

The latest offering from strangely popular horror writer Cass Leigh,
Nocturnally Yours,
has no claims to literary merit whatsoever …

Observer

It felt strange to be arriving home in the grey light of dawn rather than the dark hours of the morning as I usually did after my little expeditions; but then, I don’t usually carry my research to such extremes.

My head still ached, along with all the other portions of my anatomy that had come into contact with the staircase, and I seemed to be developing a Dante-sized bracelet of bruises on one wrist.

That man doesn’t know his own strength.

Although I felt absolutely shattered, once I’d had a shower and changed I settled down to write up the events of the night while they were still fresh in my mind.

Those I remember clearly, anyway – and the rest had
better
be forgotten, although perhaps I really hadn’t behaved too badly with Dante Chase after all, considering I’d had a nasty bump on the head and quantities of brandy forced down my throat?

Who am I kidding?

But I’m sure he drank much, much more, so hopefully he won’t remember a thing about it. And if he does, he probably won’t think anything of it … unlike me. I just can’t believe I did that! And compared to my only other lover, Max, he—

No. Behave yourself, Cass. You weren’t responsible for what happened, so just put it right out of your mind. With any luck your path and Dante’s will hardly ever cross, which will make it easier: he didn’t like you, so he’s hardly going to come looking for you, is he?

Right, lecture to myself over and uncomfortable memories consigned to box labelled ‘Pretend It Never Happened’, leaving the other strange aspects of the night for consideration.

For instance, it was interesting to discover that no matter how I rationalise the supernatural, nor how often I have cheerfully walked in haunted or spooky places, the first sight of Dante Chase frightened me into illogical flight.

Mind you, if it hadn’t been for the bird in the cupboard, the second and third sight of him might have had much the same effect. A scary and arrogant man with a temper on a hair-trigger, that about summed up the impression he made, though perhaps I should make allowances for the eagle nose. And the guilt.

He’s thin for his height and frame and too fine-drawn, though he still has muscles in all the right places. His knee-breeches and ruffles had suited him very well, but he would have looked even more at home emerging out of the Celtic twilight, wearing a homespun cape and wielding a drawn sword, with snake-headed torques of gold clasped around his muscular bare forearms …