Practical Widow to Passionate Mistress (Transformation of the Shelley Sisters 1)

Meg slid out of his arms and handed him the bundle of clothes while she rummaged for the key. ‘That’s the second time you have said it tonight—did you realise? Home. You have stopped saying the Court.’

‘So I have.’ And he was thinking of it as home now, too. The whole atmosphere of the place had changed since Meg had begun to work her magic on it. The door opened on to a dimly lit passageway and Meg slipped in ahead of him. He must ask her to look at his bedroom next—then he might be able to sleep without feeling he was in his father’s bed surrounded by ghosts.

Bedrooms. No, he was not thinking about interior decoration, or ghosts as he reached the door to the housekeeper’s rooms, with her standing there, her limbs pale in the gloom, her chemise clinging damply to every curve. Hot, dark, desires flooded his body.

‘I’ll take my clothes.’ The after-effects of the incident were making themselves felt now. He could feel the tension in the nape of his neck, the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He had been wound up for action and violence and what he had got was a safe anticlimax. God, am I so addicted to killing that I cannot even be grateful that Meg was spared seeing fighting and bloodshed?

‘Ross?’ She looked up at him and the self-loathing gripped him. If he didn’t get a grip on the animal inside himself he would just bundle her into that room and take her like the savage he was. Meg was frowning a little, her underlip caught by her teeth, her eyes questioning in the dim light of the passageway lamp.

‘Go to bed,’ he said. ‘Give me my clothes.’ He saw her flinch at the brutality of his tone, but he was beyond caring. He just needed to get away from her.

‘Here.’ Meg thrust the top bundle of clothes into his hands. ‘Thank you. We could have been killed, just now, because I was so foolish.’ She could feel the doorknob behind her and she turned it, stepping back into the dark of her room without taking her eyes from his face. ‘Goodnight.’

‘Goodnight.’ And he was gone.

He was angry with her, of course, and quite rightly so. Meg put down her damp and sandy clothes and went to find towels and the water jug. She got as far as filling the basin and then sank down on the end of the bed, wrapped her arms around herself and shook.

Ross had stood there, protected her in the certain knowledge that he would be severely beaten, if not killed, as a result. She loved him, she wanted him and he had walked away just now with angry finality. She deserved that.

In the silence she gradually became aware of a soft tick she did not recognise. Puzzled, Meg got up and searched for it. There, tangled in her stockings by its chain, was Ross’s pocket watch. Tick, tick, the smooth gold case with its worn engraving of a coat of arms lay in the palm of her hand. She must give it back to him first thing in the morning. Meg reached out to put it safely on the table, then stopped. It was old, an heirloom. What if he missed it, went out again to search for it? What if the smugglers had returned?

She would go upstairs now, open his door a crack and just hang the watch by the chain over the inner door knob. Then he could not fail to find it. Meg pulled off her wet shift, scrubbed herself with a towel and put on a nightgown and her wrapper. The house was still as she padded on bare feet out of the servants’ quarters and up the stairs towards his room.

There was no light showing around his door. Meg eased the handle round and opened it, just enough to slide her hand in with the watch.

?

?Blood. God, so much blood. Blood and guts and mud.’

She froze at the sound of Ross’s voice, angry and anguished and cracked as though speaking hurt him. For a moment she did not understand, then the deep voice dropped to a confused mutter: he was having a nightmare.

Meg stood there, transfixed, listening. She felt like an eavesdropper and yet she could not close the door and step away. There was so much pain and self-disgust in his voice. He was hurting so badly—how could she leave him? Meg pushed the door open and went in. The click as she shut it did not wake him, nor did the sound of her bare feet brushing over the carpet as she approached the bed.

The moonlight struck through the uncurtained window across the bed where Ross lay, naked in a tangle of sheets, his head turning restlessly on the pillow, his big fists clenched, one of them pounding into the mattress.

‘Not dead…can’t even manage a decent headshot. He’s screaming…like a stuck pig. Die, damn it. Shoot again. Yes, at last. Dead. Another one dead. Come on men, reload, faster, you bastards. They’ve all got to be killed. Giles, Mother, the French. Killed them all. I’ve killed them all and they still keep coming.’

Appalled, Meg caught his hand, only to have him pound it painfully down. ‘Waves of blood, like the sea. Wade in it. Find Meg or she’ll drown in it. I’ve drowned her in blood like all of them…’

There were tears streaking his cheeks and the sight brought a sob to her throat. ‘Ross!’ She leaned over the big, tortured body, grabbed his shoulders and shook him. ‘Ross, wake up! Ross, listen to me, it is Meg.’

His eyes opened, dark and unfocused. His hands lifted and he surged up into a sitting position, brushing her off like a fly. She crashed into the foot of the bed, rolling over his legs as she went, and he lunged for her.

‘Ross!’

‘Meg?’ The hands that gripped her shoulders relaxed until they were just supporting her. ‘God, have I hurt you? What are you doing here?’

‘I’m all right. I brought your watch back, I was just going to slip it inside, but you were having a dreadful nightmare, Ross. I tried to wake you.’

He closed his eyes for a moment, then let her go and rolled over to strike a light for the branch of candles by his bed. ‘I can just catch the tail of it still in my head,’ he said grimly. ‘The usual one about blood and death. I am sorry you had to hear that.’

‘It sounded so real,’ she murmured. ‘But then you mentioned Giles and your mother.’

‘I killed them, too, one way or another. And then I spent years perfecting being a killer. And now—that is what I am, what I am worth.’

‘No!’ She knelt up, grabbed him by the shoulders, shook him. ‘No. I saw you on that beach. I know what you were planning—you would have sent me away, safe, and stayed to face all of them. You could have been badly hurt and yet you would have fought for me. A killer doesn’t think like that.’

‘I was enjoying myself, up to the point I knew you were there,’ he confessed, as though admitting a crime.