The Haunting of Maddy Clare (18 page)

I watched the dark, shadowed outline of Matthew Ryder as he sank onto the edge of the mattress, his weight making the bed creak and sag. He leaned over me, bracing himself on one arm. He knew I was awake.

I looked up at him. He was dressed as he had been earlier in the evening, his white shirt glowing softly in the gloom. We did not need to speak. I was surprised, I suppose; but part of me simply throbbed in expectant anticipation, as if I had known he was coming, and why. And perhaps I had.

He did not look in my eyes, but in the dim light I saw his gaze travel my face, my neck, and down farther. He touched my cheek with his fingers, tracing them down to the sensitive skin beneath my ear. If he was unsure of his welcome, he gave no sign.

He bent his head, put his face close to my neck, as if breathing me in.
Screaming nightmares every night,
he had said earlier. I wondered if tonight was one of those nights, if he had come to me to get out of the nightmares. I pressed my cheek lightly to his.

His fingers were slightly rough, and they rasped against my skin. I closed my eyes and drank in the sensation. I was beginning to breathe hard. His hand traced down my neck, my collarbone. My skin was feverish under his touch. I thought perhaps I could hear his breathing, coming heavier as well, or perhaps I was only hearing my own.

He undid one of the cloth buttons at the neck of my nightgown,
then another. With a tug—slightly harsh, and I knew now his control was slipping—he pulled the fabric from one shoulder. Then he slid his dark hand into the gaping opening and cupped my breast.

It was an electric shock going through me. I made a strangled sound and arched under him, pressing my breast tighter into his hand. Then I reached up, tangled my hands into his soft hair, and pulled his mouth down to mine.

He growled. He bit me, ran his teeth over my lip, and I opened my mouth. He kissed me hard, his tongue rough, one of his palms now bracing my jaw, the other still kneading my breast none too gently. Clumsy, perhaps. I did not care.

He had no patience; I gave him permission to have none. He was in the grip of something raw, and I received it gladly, meeting him blow for blow. I was not patient either. I kissed him just as hard as he kissed me in the unreal darkness. I was aflame.

He pushed me down into the mattress, swung himself on top of me in one smooth motion, pinned me down. I squirmed under him. He broke the kiss and his mouth traveled down my neck, my shoulder, his stubble stinging like sandpaper. He drew my skin between his teeth, tasted it. I gasped, kept my fingers tangled in his hair.

He kissed my mouth again, deeply, shifting his body over me. He pressed his legs between mine, pushing my thighs apart. I could not tell you what possessed me. Never, never had I imagined I could act like this; but now I reached down and pulled frantically at my nightgown, pulling up fold after fold of fabric, rucking the hem up to my waist. He made a deep groaning sound, almost angry. He fumbled at his trousers, frantic himself now. He pushed my knees apart and thrust inside me.

I bit down a cry. I held on to him, my arms about his shoulders, fistfuls of his shirt in my hands, my face pressed against his neck. He withdrew, then thrust into me again, hard. A choking sound came from his throat. He was big and heavy inside me. I was all sensation, burning with every movement he made. I whimpered into his neck and pushed my heels into the mattress, bringing my hips up to brace more tightly against him. He began a ragged rhythm, our bodies locked together in something that felt almost like an argument.

The muscles of his shoulders bunched like stone under my hands. He threw his head back, slid out of me, and pulsed onto my stomach as I tasted the sweat on his throat. The sound he made was almost like a sob. Finally we were still, both of us panting. I pulled my face from his neck and looked up at him. His eyes were closed. Sweat was running down his temples.

It had taken only minutes, minutes without words. Minutes in the dark.

He pulled away from me, righted himself, and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. Without a word he stood, took a towel from the basin, and handed it to me. He sat on the edge of the bed, his elbows on his knees, his back to me, as I cleaned myself. I pushed down the hem of my nightgown and rolled to my side, facing him. My body was humming as if touched by an electric wire. I watched the tense line of his shoulder blades under his shirt, the motion of his sides as his breathing slowed. Finally he put his head in his hands.

“I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely, and I could hear the self-loathing in his voice. “Not—” The words seemed to choke in his throat. “Since before the war,” he finished.

It wasn’t a complete thought, but it didn’t matter. I could complete it for him. I lay quiet, watching him.

“I shouldn’t have,” he said to the floor.

“I’m glad you did,” I said softly.

This didn’t seem to comfort him. His shoulders sagged. He rubbed his forehead. Finally he lifted his head again and straightened. Still he did not look at me.

“I won’t be back,” he said.

I was silent.

He stood and walked to the door. I heard it click softly shut behind him.

I lay staring into the dark, trying to untangle my emotions. I ached, and part of me—a physical part, an emotional part—was unfulfilled. He was hardly a kind, tender lover. But then, what did I want of him? What had I asked of him? And what did he ask of me?

Wound up in it was a fierce euphoria. A man seeking a simple physical release can always find it—with a willing girl, perhaps, or even with a woman who takes money. Matthew had not done these things. Something had stopped him. Perhaps he was indifferent to me, but in the end it was me he had chosen, me he had not been able to resist.

I could still feel the sting of his beard on my neck, his hands on me. I could still feel him inside me. I closed my eyes, and after a long time, I slept.

I
slept late the next morning. When I finally awoke, the sun was already coming through the dingy window of my room.

I washed and dressed and looked in the mirror. I appeared no different than I had yesterday. I was still myself, dressed in skirt and blouse and cardigan. A foolish rush of questions came over me. I had always thought myself plain, unremarkable. Was I truly? Did Matthew think so? Did he think I was in the least bit attractive? One would think, since he had visited me last night, that he had seen something in me. And yet, I knew that men were perfectly capable of intimacy with a woman who interested them not in the least. They were susceptible to the physical closeness of a woman, any woman, if mixed with boredom and desperation. Last night I had felt powerful, but that power dissipated in the pitiless sunlight.

I looked down at myself. I knew I was slim. I knew my legs were well shaped, my ankles pleasing. I knew my arms were slender, complemented by the narrow watch I always wore. Yet I also
knew my breasts and hips were awkward, and that I tended to slouch my shoulders down, as if hiding, and that my face, with its dark slashes of brows, brown eyes, and narrow nose, was not the kind that made men look twice. Perhaps he had simply been using me. In fact, it was likely. The confidence of last night had vanished, and I wanted to hide in my room.

I won’t be back.

I took a breath and turned from the mirror. Well, if he had used me, so be it; life would go on. I went downstairs to the private room and found Matthew and Alistair there already. Alistair was at the table, his chair pushed away, one ankle crossed rakishly over the other knee. Matthew stood at the sideboard, pouring himself a glass of water from a jug, his back to me.

“Ah, there you are, noddyhead,” said Alistair, and his grin was enough to set any normal girl rocking back on her heels. He was freshly shaven, his light brown hair combed back from his forehead, lean and fit and strong. In that moment he looked like the ideal of English manhood, perfect and unscarred and whole, and only someone who knew him would suspect anything otherwise. “We have been wondering when you’d bother to arise.”

“Hello,” I said softly. My heart was hammering in my chest. I could not help glancing at Matthew, watching his arm hold steady as he poured the water, the back of his neck as he bent his head. I now noticed his silhouette, strong and lithe, the way the waist of his trousers sat perfectly just above his hips, where his clean white shirt narrowed from his broad back. I forced my gaze away and maneuvered carefully around him at the sideboard, taking a little toast and some tea. Matthew did not look at me.

“We have been discussing today’s plan,” Alistair said jovially. Something had made him very happy this morning, and I
wondered what it was. “Matthew thinks we should make another call on Roderick Nesbit. What do you think?”

While Alistair and I had been shopping for new clothes for me yesterday, Matthew had in fact found a lead regarding Maddy Clare. He had spent yesterday morning taking a tactic he called “the shortest route to the real truth.” That was to say, instead of questioning the villagers, he had questioned the servants.

The servants were willing to talk, but their knowledge was scanty. They had not known Maddy, who had never left the Clare house during her tenure there. Most of what they could tell Matthew was rumor, conjecture, or outright lies. The Barrys had been mentioned often in these conversations; despite their money, they were despised by even the servant class as employers no one of any quality would want to work for—an attitude that followed Mrs. Clare’s. Tom Barry’s claim to be Waringstoke’s leader of opinions, it seemed, was not founded in truth.

However, the morning had truly paid off when a groom told Matthew of walking a horse past the graveyard during Maddy’s small funeral service. Attending the service had been only the vicar, Mrs. Clare, and Mrs. Macready; but the groom had seen someone else far back, hidden in the trees, who had quickly disappeared. He recognized the man as Roderick Nesbit, an odd-job man who lived in the village.

Matthew had promptly found direction to Roderick Nesbit’s house and gone there to interview the man. He had found the place on the edge of the village, isolated and run-down. No one had answered the door, or any of Matthew’s shouts, but Matthew was certain someone had been home.

It was yet another piece of the puzzle unsolved. Why had Roderick Nesbit gone to Maddy’s funeral, unseen?

I sat at the table and forced a small bite of toast down my throat. I looked at Alistair, but my awareness of Matthew just out of my line of vision was distracting.

“I think that’s a good idea,” I said, hoping I sounded normal.

Alistair smiled at me and tipped his chair by flexing one long leg. “It is a good idea,” he said. “An excellent idea. However, I have a better one.”

“And what is that?”

“We’re going back to the Clare barn.”

I set down my cup of tea as a chill went through my body. Behind me, I heard Matthew go still. “I beg your pardon?” I said.

“We’re going to the barn,” Alistair said with absolute confidence. “We’ll go as a team this time. Matthew will bring the sound recorder. I’ll operate the camera myself. Sarah, I would like you to take notes.”

“You mustn’t,” I managed to say, though it felt as if my throat had closed.

Alistair tipped his chair back down to the ground and leaned forward. “And why is that? Because you sensed some sort of danger to me when you were there last? I appreciate that, Sarah—truly I do. But I am not afraid.”

I looked at him and knew that he told the truth. He wasn’t afraid in the least of Maddy Clare, whom he saw as an echo, a vibration of sorts, a cobweb. He would go into that barn as fearlessly as if he were in his own home. Part of me knew that he should be afraid—that there was something terrible waiting to happen if he did this. But I knew Alistair well enough already to know that he would not be swayed. After he’d fought in the trenches, it would be a rare thing indeed that would give Alistair any fear.

I turned my head and looked at Matthew, who was standing at the sideboard, leaning his hip against it, watching us. “What is your opinion?” I asked him.

Matthew frowned pensively at the floor. I wondered if he was even considering the danger, but when he looked up, I knew he wasn’t. He looked as fearless as Alistair. “The recorder is fixed, as far as I know.”

“Excellent!” said Alistair.

I kept my gaze on Matthew. “You didn’t answer my question.”

He turned to me. In the late-morning light he looked beautiful to me: not a golden beauty like Alistair’s, but large, looming, solid, and male. I remembered how his strong shoulders had felt under my palms last night, and pushed the thought away. I knew what his answer would be before he opened his mouth.

“I’d like to see this ghost for myself,” he said. “I’m in.”

I turned away in helpless frustration. Why had I been saddled with two pigheaded men so completely unafraid? I tried another tactic. “Mrs. Clare hasn’t given permission. You’ll be trespassing.”

Alistair nodded. “I knew you’d say that. But as you so sagely pointed out yesterday, Sarah, Mrs. Clare wants us to rid her of this ghost. I’ve decided I can’t do that unless I experience it. It will just have to do.”