"But I'm not. I'm a woman, and you mistook me for someone who spurned you."
"Spurned? Spurned?" His hands knotted into fists and he took a step forward. Kathryn held her ground but it wasn't easy. Anger blazed in his eyes. "I was not spurned I was betrayed."
"So you claim."
"It is the truth."
"The truth can sometimes be a matter of interpretation."
"Truth is truth, Kathryn. It needs no interpretation."
He didn't want to tell her anything. Kathryn could see that. But he owed her an explanation, dammit. When he'd thought she was Cat Russell, he'd cursed her. He'd even tried to kill her. Did he really think he could buy her off with a smug little lecture on truth?
Kathryn lifted her chin. "I believe in judging for myself," she said. "Or are you afraid that if you tell me the story, I'll punch it full of holes?"
Matthew glowered at this impossible woman. She was trying to embarrass him into telling her a tale that was none of her business. Well, she would not succeed. The tale was humiliating. It was bloody. And letting her hear it would change nothing.
On the other hand, perhaps it would. What if that was the reason she'd been drawn here? What if it were the reason he'd been allowed to step out of the blackness?
Perhaps he was supposed to tell the story of Cat's perfidy to her namesake. It was not a pretty story; it would surely not be something one would wish to hear about one's forebear.
Maybe that was the whole purpose of what was happening. As acts of vengeance went, it wasn't much. But it was better than nothing. He would tell her the tale, she'd be pained by it. And then she would leave Charon's Crossing and he... he would find peace. Or perhaps he would fade back into the darkness.
A fist seemed to clamp around his heart. Either way, there would be no more sunshine on his face. No more scent of flowers to tease his nostrils, no taste of fine cognac slipping down his throat...
And no more Kathryn.
She would not be there to argue each and every damned point he raised. To look at him with defiance flashing in her magnificent blue eyes. To put her hands on her hips, lift her chin in that way that was enough to drive him into a rage and talk to him as if she were not a female but his equal.
He would have her for none of those things, nor would he have her to invade his dreams, to drive him senseless with desire and make him ache to be made of flesh and blood so he could take her in his arms, kiss her mouth and caress her breasts until she pleaded for him to strip away her clothing and sheathe himself in her heat.
He turned away abruptly. It was all foolishness. He could tell her what had happened or he could not. He knew, in his heart, that the telling would change nothing for him. But perhaps she was right. Let her judge for herself. Let her hear the truth.
No one had, in all these many years.
"Very well," he said. His voice was cold but so soft that Kathryn had to strain to hear it. "I'll do as you ask, Kathryn. I'll tell you why I haunt this place." He swung towards her and she saw that his face was as grim as his tone. "And once I have, you will wish you had never come here."
Chapter 12
The story Matthew had to tell her was not just inscribed in his head and heart but in every drop of blood that beat through his veins.
He had lived it once, relived it a thousand times since emerging from the black void in which he'd spent the past 184 years. There was nothing new in it, not for him, anyway.
Still, he dreaded the recitation. The telling of it would only make the pain of what had happened sharper. Poets wrote sweet words of torment when they spoke of those who had died for love but there was nothing sweet about the death of his men.
They had not died for love but for his own accursed stupidity.
He could not bear the thought of telling Kathryn the story within the confines of these walls. Even after so long a passage of time, there were moments he thought he could hear the echo of Lord Russell's laughter in this house. And then there was the Other, locked away in the blackness beyond the attic walls.
No. No, he could not speak of that terrible night on which he had lost everything—here, at Charon's Crossing.
He pulled open the French doors and motioned Kathryn outside. The sun was melting in the sky, tinting the terrace and the garden in shades of fuchsia.
Kathryn started down the steps but the pressure of Matthew's hand stopped her.
"Not there," he said quickly. "Let's walk down the path to the cove."
She hesitated and he knew she was remembering what had happened on that beach only a couple of hours before. Christ, what kind of man was he that a woman should be afraid of him?