Charon's Crossing

beautiful had never been in dispute. That she could make a man want her in the same way he wanted to draw breath into his lungs was a given.

Delilah must have been beautiful, too, and desirable, to have talked Samson into that fatal haircut.

Beauty and desire weren't worth a damn when they were masks for that which was evil. And Catherine was evil; there was no doubt about that.

He took a deep breath, then another. He would have to be more careful from now on. He had been the soul of discretion since she had found his journal in the attic. It was important to him that she read the rest of it, before he put an end to the farce they'd been playing.

So he had kept his distance, watching and waiting...

But for what?

It was clear that she was in no rush to read the rest of his journal. His mouth twisted. Why should she, when she knew the ending?

Dammit, he wanted her to read it! Otherwise, how could he be certain she knew what it was that drove him? She had to understand that the memory of her treachery had not been dimmed by time.

Matthew frowned.

How much time, exactly? He had no way of telling. Had a year passed since his death? Two? More?

He was beginning to think it might be far more than he'd imagined.

There were changes in this house that baffled him.

There was no oil in the lamps, yet they blazed with light when night came.

There was no cooking fireplace in the room that was clearly the kitchen, but there was a white iron box on which Catherine cooked food. There was another box, too, one that kept things icy cold.

As for this room...

It was extraordinary. Water gushed from the tub and from a basin set in the washstand at the twist of a knob, and there was a porcelain chair whose function he thought he was beginning to comprehend even though logic told him such a thing could not exist.

Catherine's father was rich, but not even the King of England had such contraptions. Matthew thrust his fingers through his hair and paced the room. Some said George III was crazy, but he doubted if even a crazy man could imagine such wonders as these.

And that wasn't all of it.

The most astounding thing was the simplest.

Catherine had come here without servants.

There was no one to dress her, to brush her hair, to make her bed and cook her meals...

By God, there was no one to do the common cleaning. Coming upon her yesterday, on her hands and knees with a bucket of filthy water at her side and a scrub brush in her hands like any common housemaid, he'd been so stunned that he'd damn near materialized right in front of her.

Everything was different. Catherine, the house...

How much time had passed since his death?

He leaned back against the washstand, a muscle knotting and unknotting in his jaw.

Years. Far more than one or two. But not too many, for Catherine had not aged. Surely, she would not still be so young and beautiful if... if...

"I am not Catherine," she had said, that first time he had come to her in a dream.

But she was. Of course, she was. She was Catherine's image, she was in Catherine's house...

Matthew shut his eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. A second later, he slipped through her closed bedroom door. Catherine was standing before a cracked oval mirror, brushing out her hair. She was dressed in a white cotton skirt and a white top. Both exposed far too much flesh but compared to everything else she wore, he supposed you'd call them the height of modesty.

He leaned back against the door, arms folded, and watched her.