The Limbo of Luxury (5 page)

‘This is my study,’ Marcus advised his awestruck guest. ‘It is my favourite room in the whole house.’

Riane struggled to keep herself from gasping, and from shedding tears of delight lest her make-up ran. ‘Oh Marcus … it’s absolutely beautiful!’

‘And is all the more so for your presence.’ He took up both her hands and stared deep into her eyes.

Riane was so overwhelmed by the romance of it all that she had almost stopped breathing.
Dear God, let him kiss me,
she cried inside, believing she would die from anticipation if he teased her any longer. His silence, and the distance between them, seemed suddenly too vast for her liking, and Riane rushed to close the gap, her lips sinking into a deep and blissful union with his. Marcus released her hands, whereupon his touch graced her body and made it tremble with the desire she felt. Riane barely noticed as Marcus backed her up to the bay window seat, but as she felt it behind her legs, she lowered herself on to it. His kiss trailed down her neck and toward her breasts, as the lord lowered himself on to his knees. His hands found their way up beneath her skirts to her lower legs. His fingers trailed up the outside of her legs all the way to her bare thighs. Riane released a pleasured groan, and as she fumbled to unlace the front of her dress for him, Marcus suddenly sank to the ground and disappeared beneath her skirt. Her legs were gently eased apart and his wet tongue and lips explored the in-between, heightening her pleasure to a state of sheer ecstasy. Using her hands as support, Riane leaned back to appreciate the surges of delight that rushed through her body in waves ever more intense. As she raced toward orgasm, Marcus suddenly emerged from beneath her dress, and noting the slack laces of her bodice, he pried the neckline apart to expose her breasts and make his mouth and fingers familiar with them.

‘Enter me, Marcus, please,’ she whispered, amid her delirium, ‘or I fear I shall surely die.’

Marcus’s attention diverted to her face, and as he positioned himself between her legs his erection made contact with the warm moistness of her pleasure. ‘The truth of the matter is, Riane, that just the opposite is true.’

She had never seen Marcus appear more serious, but perhaps this was just how he was when impassioned. ‘I would gladly die to have you inside of me,’ she replied, and she meant what she said. ‘Do it, with my blessing.’ She wrapped her legs around him and encouraged his penetration.

‘Oh god,’ he gasped, aroused and pained at once, as he refrained from entering her. ‘I love you, Riane,’ he swore, rather desperate about the fact. ‘So much so, that I will not deceive you into my fold.’ He withdrew from between her legs, but maintained the embrace.

‘No, Marcus, please!’ She begged him to continue. ‘I don’t care about anything else —’

‘Your life means something to you, I take it?’ he challenged. ‘This is, in reality, only a stolen moment of solace, Riane. The truth is, you are dying and I am already dead. To claim you now would be nothing short of murder.’

Was he speaking metaphorically? ‘What are you trying to say?’ Riane forced a smile in an attempt to be patient and understanding.

Marcus raised his hand and placed his palm against her forehead. Instantly, in a blinding flash, a biting frost gripped her body and chilled it to the bone.

The cloudy night sky above came into focus as it sprinkled snowflakes down upon her shivering form. Every inch of her prickled with the pain of the cold and every breath was an agonising experience.

There is still a chance to save yourself.

She heard Marcus’s voice in her mind and it sounded so distant it was frightening.
I don’t
understand.
She could only think the words, for her mouth would not respond. Casting her gaze around her, it seemed that she was lying amid the ruins of a manor, at the front door to be exact. Then, looking down upon her person, Riane found that she was dressed in the gear that she had been wearing when she’d left her car.
No! Please, Marcus, it isn’t true. Why are you torturing me like this?

I’m a one-way ticket to nowhere. To stay with me would condemn you to an eternity in limbo. There is still life left in you, Riane, and many more lives will follow this one, even if you fail to save yourself this time. But you must try … do not die of your own will.

Riane attempted to move her frozen carcass and was surprised when it showed signs of life, but in this bleak situation she could find nothing to motivate her to save herself. Even reflecting on her life in its entirety, there was nothing to compare with the bliss she was being encouraged to leave behind. None of her previous encounters had ever come close to rivalling the intensity of what she had come to feel for this man. If ghosts did not reincarnate, as Marcus was suggesting, then even in the next life she could not hope to find him again. Only in this twilight of her dying soul would she ever be able to be near him. She thought back over her time with Marcus and all the opportunities he’d had to make love to her — now she realised why he’d refrained.

I cannot ask you relinquish every life to come and all the children you will never have, for a never-changing existence, alone with me.

Do you even have to ask? Can’t you feel my heart’s resolve?

And the resolve of your head is once again overlooked.
The white waif from her nightmares came to stand over Riane, looking down on her dying form with disappointment. Only now did she see the waif for the ghost she truly was, for her form was transparent and her words resounded through the inner space of Riane’s mind …
How pathetic. So much for not needing a man in your life to feel complete.

‘Look who’s talking.’ Riane forced out the words, although they were muffled, as her mouth would barely move.

I’m trying to save your life!
the spirit snarled, as if Riane was an idiot.
I thought you might turn out to be smarter than the others. I keep warning you girls and you keep refusing to listen.

‘I should have listened to the white waif.’
Riane recalled what Arabella had said, realising that perhaps she hadn’t been trying to spook her, but rather warn her.

Don’t make the same mistake we’ve all made.

‘I’m not!’ she barked — now Riane’s mouth was working. ‘Your mistake was marrying a man you didn’t love, instead of holding true to the man you did.’

He was dead,
the waif explained simply.
I let go of that guilt long ago.

The statement did not sway Riane’s conviction. ‘Not even death will stop me from loving him … fear not, I will not make your mistake.’

My mistake,
the waif defended,
was loving another more than I valued my own life … sound familiar?

‘If you were so concerned about my welfare, then why the hell did you land me in this position in the first place?’ Riane grew frustrated with confronting the weakness in herself, which she always chose to ignore. ‘If you hadn’t caused me to crash —’

It was not I who forced you off the road,
the waif informed her bluntly.
Still, life is full of these little tests, Riane. We lost souls are not completely useless. It is our purpose to test the living.
She became rather adamant.
This is your chance to break free of the emotional treadmill that blinds you to finding your true calling in life. Will you take it? Or will you throw your entire future away to fulfil a fantasy? For dreams and destiny are not always the same?

‘You’re just trying to keep me away from the man with whom you are obsessed! And if you think I’m just going to nick off back into the land of the living and leave the love of
my
life to be taunted by the likes of you for all time, then I believe that you are seriously mistaken.’ Riane stretched out in her freezing blanket of snow and waited for Marcus to retrieve her.

I do still love him, despite our history, that is true … but I do not love him more than the future I forfeited in a moment of emotional turmoil.
The sound of a dog barking in the distance made the ghost-bride smile.
Fate seems to be on your side, Riane. It looks as though the land of the living has come for you.

The waif vanished and the sound of muffled voices in the distance struck the fear of God into Riane’s heart. ‘Please, Marcus,’ she begged, ‘take me now before they find me.’ Icy tears trickled over her frozen ears and she yearned to be returned to the warmth of his presence.
Please don’t damn me to an eternity without you.
She closed her eyes to conjure the image of his face, which filled her heart to overflowing as she remembered instances of his kindness and comfort.
What do I have to do to prove my love to you? Must I, too, throw myself off a cliff? I will! So help me God, Marcus, if I survive this day I shall kill myself tomorrow and pray my damned soul can find it’s way back to you. Marcus!
‘Marcus!’

‘There she is!’ a voice called out in the distance as a flashlight was shone in her direction from beyond the old rusted gate. The light from another torch penetrated the branches of the trees that lined the curved drive leading up to the manor.

Their utterances became muffled, as Riane’s whole world slipped into slow motion.
I don’t want to live, I don’t want to die … I’m already in limbo.

‘Quickly lad,’ instructed the voice, as the torchlight drew nearer. ‘She’s still alive.’

As she felt fingers pressing into her neck, Riane came to focus on the man hanging over her — it was the old historian who had warned her about driving the highland road at night. ‘How?’ she mumbled.

‘There’s not so many guest houses along this road,’ he explained, raising her up into a seated position. ‘When we called and you hadn’t arrived at any of them, we suspected the worst. And we are not the only ones looking for you … your boyfriend, Geoff, was also concerned when he never got your call.’

Riane had forgotten all about her dirty weekend in the highlands and now that she’d been reminded of what reality held in store she recoiled from the warmth of the old man’s body. ‘No!’ she cried. ‘Marcus!’

‘I thought the boyfriend’s name was Geoff,’ commented one of the other men who had reached her, and being a younger man than the historian, he swept Riane up into his arms.

She tried to resist being moved, but she had no strength to fight. ‘Marcus, please, Marcus …’

‘Who the hell is Marcus then?’ The young man made a move to carry the mumbling woman back to the road.

The old historian gazed around at the ruins, spooked. ‘A coincidence perhaps,’ the historian granted, as he walked beside the lad, ‘but the lord who last frequented this manor, early last century, went by the name of Marcus MacCloud.’

‘What happened to him?’ queried the young man and Riane’s ears pricked up.

‘He was reported lost at sea,’ the historian began, ‘and after being missing for several years, the woman he was to have married, Bethany McGlen, became betrothed to his younger brother, Jasper MacCloud … who was more of a playboy than a businessman by all accounts. On the night of the wedding, Marcus returned home, and remorseful because of her marriage vow to his brother, Bethany threw herself off the cliffs not far yonder.’ He pointed off into the darkness. ‘Grief-stricken, in a drunken stupor, Jasper took his automobile out for a spin, which ended in a fatal accident.’

It was Jasper who ran me off the road!
Riane went into silent shock.
It was Jasper who wed Marcus’s love in his stead! No wonder Marcus was paranoid that I would fall victim to his brother’s charms.

‘And Marcus?’ queried the young man. ‘What became of him?’

‘He locked himself up in this manor and slowly withered away to nothing. The maid, who raised both the MacCloud boys, also haunts this place. She lost her will to live once both her charges were dead, and poisoned herself in order to join them.’

‘Christ, that’s tragic,’ said the lad, and having reached the highland road, he piled Riane into the back seat of a car and covered her with several blankets.

‘These mountains are rich with such tragedies,’ commented the historian as he closed the car door. ‘Hence the abundance of lost souls who haunt the place, for ghosts are always victims of tragic deaths. Foreigners just refuse to be warned.’ He gazed in through the window at Riane. ‘We’d best get this young lass to some shelter, before she becomes another sad statistic.’

‘Leave me,’ she mumbled, although her plea was inaudible and with her next breath she fell unconscious.

The modest room in the Olde World Hotel was a grim contrast to the fairytale existence that had been denied her. The bed had an electric blanket, and a small radiator glowed brightly in one corner of the room, heating the air beyond. Effective as these heating arrangements were, they couldn’t hold a flame to feeling Marcus close. Vegetable broth warmed her empty belly and yet it seemed tasteless after the delights of the phantom realm. Here, in the real world, Riane had thought her delightful sojourn from reality would seem like nothing but a flight of romantic fancy; instead, it seemed like real life was the nightmare, and soon she would awake to find herself still wrapped up in her would-be lover’s arms.

‘Oh, please let me wake.’ She made a soft plea to God, Marcus, or whoever else might assist.

Riane had been doing her best to push aside everything that the waif had said to her, although some of the prophecy was already ringing true. She did feel liberated from the emotional treadmill so far as men were concerned: no man would ever live up to Marcus and if she couldn’t have him then she’d rather be alone. She had no desire to see Geoff again. As interesting and as attractive as she’d found him a week ago, the thought of making love to him now made her skin crawl — and he was a
nice
guy. In fact, his phoning around looking for her had probably saved her life.