Charon's Crossing (A Paranormal Romantic Suspense Novel) (12 page)

Hell. Trevor wouldn't have been able to resist.

Of course, he'd have talked about it. Kathryn had either been too young to care or she'd tuned him out, something she knew she'd done a lot once she'd figured out that her father was never going to settle down and be like everybody else's father.

Either way, her trusty subconscious had obviously stored the information neatly away until she'd gotten word that she'd inherited Charon's Crossing. The news had unlocked that long forgotten mental file drawer, and she had dreamed. Of the house, the garden... of Cat Russell's lover. And yes, the dreams would have been rich in detail. Her father would have described everything, thanks to his artist's perspective.

Kathryn put her cleaning tools back into their cabinet, slammed the door with a flourish, and smiled.

"Sorry about that, Matthew," she said, "but that's the end of the story."

Her smile wavered. Well, no. Not quite. The tales her father had told her couldn't explain the sexiness of her dreams. Her own imagination had taken over there.

So what? A little erotic fantasy might be good for the soul. Good for her relationship with Jason, too, she thought as she trotted up the stairs towards her bedroom for a quick shower.

It really would have been nice if he'd been able to fly down with her. A little sun, a little R and R... who knew what might have happened? Charon's Crossing, decrepit as it was, might be just the aphrodisiac they needed...

"Damn!"

Kathryn paused midway up the steps, her hand on the banister and her face tilted up to the shadows that late afternoon had brought to the second floor landing.

There it was again, that bone-chilling rush of cold air.

Could it be coming from the attic, as Olive had suggested?

It was the only place she hadn't checked. Well, she could do that now, before she showered, and spiders and their webs be damned.

The steps leading to the attic were at the farthest end of the East Wing hallway. It was the wing that had not been cleaned, the one Amos had said was in far worse shape than the rest of the house.

She'd made a quick circuit of it yesterday afternoon, during her search for the source of the draft. She hadn't lingered in any of its rooms. There were no broken windows but they all felt chilly and the lighting in them had seemed dimmer and even less dependable than in the rest of the house.

And the steps leading to the attic had seemed to rise up and up into the shadows, becoming distorted until they'd disappeared into the darkness...

Kathryn stopped and turned around. What she needed was a flashlight. Hadn't there been one tucked into one of the kitchen drawers?

She found the flashlight easily enough. A flick of the switch proved that it worked, even if the beam of light it cast wasn't as bright as it might have been. Then she made her way back to the second floor and the staircase that led to the attic.

It was really little more than a ladder, narrow, and steeply pitched with an insubstantial wooden railing. She clutched it firmly with one hand while the fingers of the other closed tightly around the flashlight.

The steps creaked and sagged beneath her feet. She took each one carefully; the wooden railing felt so shaky that she had no illusions about its ability to prevent an accident.

At the top of the stairs, she paused. The landing ahead of her was narrow and dark; the enclosed space, coupled with the shadowy darkness, gave the closed attic door a strange perspective, making it seem tilted and weirdly out of plumb.

Kathryn hesitated.

Maybe it made more sense to wait until Hiram came by. Or Amos. Or...

"Oh, stop it," she muttered. "Are you a woman or a wuss?"

It was only an attic. And yes, there had to be a broken window behind that door; she could see a space between the bottom of the door and the jamb and feel a cold breeze blowing across her feet.

The breath hissed between her teeth when she Closed her fingers around the knob. It was almost shockingly cold to the touch. A chill danced along her spine; she almost snatched back her hand...

Instead, she turned the knob, half-hoping it would be locked.

With a creaking sound, like a fingernail scraping down a blackboard, the door swung open into blackness.

The cold was much more pronounced. Kathryn hesitated. Maybe she ought to go back and get a sweater...

"Maybe you ought to stop looking for excuses," she said, and she turned on the flashlight and stepped forward at the same instant.

For one terrible, gut-wrenching second, she thought she had stepped into space. She cried out...

And recovered her balance. One low step led down from the door into the attic itself, and she'd just missed it.

Great. Just great! If she wasn't careful, she was going to scare herself to death. Hiram-the-Invisible would finally put in an appearance and he'd find her up here, stiff as a board, the flashlight clutched in her fear-frozen hand.

Kathryn gave a nervous laugh. At least she'd be rid of Charon's Crossing!

Or maybe it would be rid of her.

But, in the light cast by her flashlight, she could see that the attic was just an attic. The walls were unpainted, the floor wide-planked. Boxes and barrels stood along the walls; bits and pieces of old furniture cluttered at least half the floor space.

The flashlight beam swept over the windows. Both were shuttered, making it impossible to tell if the glass was cracked or broken.

She made her way to them gingerly. The windows opened easily but the shutters protested. Finally, she got them open and she could see that the glass was intact.

How to explain the draft, then? Although, strangely enough, now that she was inside the attic itself, it didn't feel very cold.

It was probably some kind of physical anomaly. She swung the beam of the flashlight up, towards the rafters. Yes. That was probably it. Olive had suggested the roof might need fixing. Well, if there was a hole in the roof wouldn't the air get sucked down through it and get funneled through here? Something like that, anyway.

There was plenty of light up here now, too, with the shutters open. Kathryn switched off the flashlight and took a longer look around her.

Not bad. Not bad, at all. She ran a finger across the dust-coated surface of what looked like a walnut secretary.

"Nice," she said.

The piece alongside it was nice, too. It was a rocker, almost definitely hand-crafted.

And a trunk. The trunk was really beautiful.

Kathryn knelt beside it. "Wow," she breathed.

You could put what she knew about antiques into a thimble and have room left to spare but even she could tell that this was one very handsome piece of work. It was very old, she was certain, and made of wood and brass. Both had stood the test of time surprisingly well. The wood—cherry, maybe?—glowed. The brass bands around it were as bright as if they'd been polished yesterday. The lock was open, and hung lightly from the hasp.

Kathryn ran her hand over the rounded lid. It felt smooth and warm beneath her fingers. She hesitated, then reached for the lock, slipped it through the hasp and lifted the lid.

Well, that was disappointing. There was nothing inside. Nothing important, anyway. A fringed silk square, very old and very delicate. A froth of ivory muslin...

She set both aside when she saw the book.

It lay centered on a swath of black fabric, its leather binding seeming to glow in the ray of afternoon sunlight slanting through the window. There were words embossed across the leather face in time-dulled gold, but it was impossible to read them.

Kathryn felt an odd catch in her throat. Carefully she lifted the book from where it lay. She rose to her feet, carried it closer to the window, and angled it into the sun.

In the blaze of sunlight, the embossed words seemed to leap with flame.

The Journal of Matthew McDowell.

She felt her knees turn to jelly. She reached back, grasped the rocker, and eased down into it.

"The Journal of Matthew McDowell"? She stared at the slim volume. What was it doing here, in the attic at Charon's Crossing? After a moment's hesitation, she opened the book and turned to the first page.

Time had tinted it a soft shade of ivory but the entry penned upon it was as dark and legible as if it had been freshly made.

"October the third, 1811," she read softly. "At last, we have arrived at our destination..."

* * *

"At last, we have arrived at our destination."

Matthew McDowell, Captain of the sloop o'war
Atropos,
paused with his quill in his hand. Then he dipped it into the ink and bent over his leather-bound journal again.

On this day, we lay to anchor in the harbor of Elizabeth Island. The men raised a cheer in which I could not help but join, for the sea has been untimely rough these past days. All that is behind us now, and Atropos is none the worse for wear, as I had anticipated, for she is the finest and fastest ship it has ever been my pleasure to sail.

Matthew paused again and reread his words. It was nothing less than the truth, he thought, smiling as he closed the journal and put aside his quill.
Atropos
was a ship to make any man proud. The finest shipyard in Baltimore had built her, and her wealthy Virginia backers had not stinted on her cost. She was a beauty, a clipper-rigged, two-masted sloop, and she would surely outrun the wind, if he asked it of her.

And he would, for he had every intention of succeeding beyond his backers' wildest dreams. He would seize more French ships and contraband cargo than any other captain in these waters. How could he not? He had the best ship and crew, men who had sailed under him before, on the
Corinthian.

His backers would recover their investment many times over.

And Matthew, at thirty-three, would be wealthy beyond his wildest dreams.

He put the stopper in the inkwell, then laid away his quill and his journal in the drawer of his writing desk. You didn't spend more than twenty years of your life at sea without learning the value of neatness. You learned to duck your head when you stood up, too; he did it now automatically, for at six feet, two inches he was too tall for the cabin.

Still, his quarters were damned near luxurious compared to any he'd known before. In his cabin on the
Corinthian,
flexing his broad shoulders and stretching as he was now, meant he'd probably have ended up putting his fists through the bulkheads.

Matthew crossed the cabin to the washstand, unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged it off. He would always have fond memories of the
Corinthian.
A man didn't forget his first command any more than he forgot his first woman, but there was no comparison between the creaking old merchant ship and this one.

Robins, his steward, had dutifully filled a pitcher with hot water and left it on the washstand, together with some shaving gear. Matthew poured a stream of water into the blue china basin, worked a bit of lather out of the coarse soap that lay on the stand, and briskly began washing his face, chest and arms.

Corinthian
had been built to ply the trade route between Boston and Plymouth.
Atropos
was not destined for such a plebian existence. She was to sail the warm waters of the Caribbean under a British flag so that her American captain and Crew could stop and seize the French merchantmen that were foolish enough to venture here, for the English and the French were at war.

Some said that privateers like
Atropos
were nothing but pirate vessels cloaked in a veneer of wartime expediency, but Matthew had never given a damn for anyone's opinion but his own. A man could make his fortune here, if he had the guts for it. Hell, the risks inherent in hunting down and taking a rich prize were what made the game interesting.

He was too young to spend the rest of his life rotting on the beach with the other victims of a president's foreign policy that kept New England seamen from trading with the French and the English.

As for the danger of his new command... there ought to be some danger in life. Some challenge, to keep a man's blood flowing hot.

He looked into the mirror above the washstand and spread a lather of foam over his face, then reached for his straight razor and stropped it to a keen edge.

That was what he was hoping to find tonight. A challenge, but of another sort. Smiling, he tilted up his face, positioned the thumb and forefinger of his left hand on his jaw, and drew the razor down his lightly stubbled cheek.

He had been invited to have dinner this evening at Charon's Crossing, the home of Lord Arthur Russell. Russell was the Crown's representative in these waters but, of far more importance to Matthew, he was also the agent of the cartel that had backed Atropos.

Matthew rinsed the blade in the basin, then brought it to his face again. Russell was to provide him with the letter of marque that would permit him to stop and seize French ships and take them, and their cargo, as prizes.

Matthew looked into the mirror again, his straight white teeth flashing in a quick grin.