Dark Hero; A Gothic Romance (Reluctant Heroes) (34 page)

“The Englishwoman is cursed.” His grandmother continued,
looking directly at him.

Donovan took a step back and attempted to hear her words
over the pounding hooves as his blood raced through his temples and thundered
over his heart.

“Powerful magic keeps peace from her, ancient magic wrought
by your wife’s ancestors.”

“Elizabeth’s English ancestors?” He asked, confused by
Maureen’s words.

“No.” His grandmother appeared directly in front of him,
startling him. “Your wife is a descendent of the ancient priesthood who ruled
Ireland before the Christians. She’s a child of nature. You cannot keep her
confined inside. She’ll wither like a flower kept in a dark room. Take her
outdoors.” She floated toward the opened veranda doors. “Let the healing
energies of the earth restore her strength.”

Donovan nodded. “Why is this spirit bullying her? What does
she want?”

There was no reply. Moonlight spilled through the balcony
doors, illuminating the large, empty room with pale blue glow.

Chapter
Twenty Nine

“Ghosts! Yes, I told you. There are ghosts at Ravencrest
Estates. Everyone told you.” Gareth finished when Donovan faltered in
recounting the bizarre visitation.

Unable to close his eyes after the disturbing encounter,
Donovan had lit all the candles in his suite, locked the door and paced about
the room with uncertainty until the first strands of light appeared in the sky.
All along, his logical mind screamed at him that he was being irrational;
candlelight and a locked door were hardly a deterrent to spectral visitations.

When it was no longer night he had marched down the veranda
to his uncle’s room and pounded on the louvered balcony door.

Presently, they stood on the veranda, facing one another as
dawn colored the grey skies.

Donovan scowled. Gareth’s words rang true. Everyone, Tabby,
Pearl and even Donovan’s mother claimed to see both Marissa’s and Maureen’s
ghosts and even the spirit of his grandfather on occasion.

He seemed to be the only one who could not see the spirits
wandering about his home.

“I was drunk.” Donovan countered, fearing the disintegration
of logic and reason. “I drank half a bottle of scotch—it could be a
hallucination brought on by—“

“’There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than
are dreamt of in your philosophies.’” Gareth quoted the bard he adored. “I
suspect you’ve just discovered that truth.”

“I do not believe in ghosts!”

“We can’t all be hallucinating, Donovan.” Gareth scoffed,
crossing his arms about his chest. “We can’t all be drunk or given to too much
imagination!”

Donovan sucked his breath in with a hiss and struck the
balustrade with his fist.

Sleepwalking, she said, and he believed the little vixen.
Lizzie knew he’d never believe she was being bullied by a spirit. Not until he
was confronted with it himself.

With them; two spirits in one night.

“Maureen is a good spirit.” Gareth pointed out. “She may be
trying to protect your wife. What does this malicious spirit want from her?”

“I don’t know.” Donovan tossed up a hand. “Maureen said
Elizabeth’s ancestors were magicians--sorcerers—some damned thing. As I said, I
was drunk.”

“There’s a spirit catcher on Basseterre. I’ve heard he does
wonders.”

“Oh, I’m sure he does miracles, for the right price.”
Donovan retorted. “I’m not inviting a charlatan here to burn weeds, mutter
incoherently and present me with an outrageous fee. I’ll figure this out on my
own. What about O’Flaherty?”

“He’s an apothecary.” Gareth shrugged. “What would he know
about angry spirits?”

“I meant did he stay the night?”

“Yes.” Gareth gazed oddly at him. “You invited him to stay,
as I recall.”

“Good. Keep him distracted until Ambrose returns from
Basseterre with his report.”

*******

An hour later, Donovan summoned Miss Ramirez to his laboratory.

Seated behind his desk, he watched the woman’s reaction to
the preserved specimens adorning the shelves. As a rule he didn’t allow
strangers into his laboratory, particularly women, who tended to be squeamish. The
one time he summoned Elizabeth here he’d had the more offensive specimens
covered by a canvas to preserve her tender sensibilities.

The rest of humanity could run shrieking from him and good
riddance.

Elizabeth was the one person he did not wish to repulse with
his studies in anatomy.

Miss Ramirez started and gasped as she saw the grinning
skull on his desk. “El Diablo!”

“Not the devil, one of his hirelings.” Donovan replied. “I
killed him and fed his body to the sharks. Sit, Miss Ramirez.” He gestured to
the chair.

She regarded him with horror, as if he would slit her throat
if the mood took him.

Smiling, Donovan gestured again to the seat opposite his
desk.

With reluctance, she sank into the chair. “Please, do not
send me away.” The woman blurted, near the point of tears. “I talk too much, it
annoys my lady—I will try to be—“

Donovan raised his hand, indicating silence. “I did not
summon you here to reprimand you. I need your assistance. How long has the
ghost been haunting Elizabeth?”

“You know about the spirit, my lord?” Her eyes grew wide
with alarm.

“She visited us last night. It threw Elizabeth to the floor,
right in front of me.”

“Dios! I did not think the spirit would attack her in your
presence.”

“What does she want?”

Chloe clutched the arms of the chair and pressed her lips together,
as if the truth might fly from them unbidden. Her doe-like eyes begged him not
to ask her to betray her lady.

Donovan maintained his impervious stare.

She crumbled. “I do not know, my lord!”

“Has Elizabeth said anything to you regarding the ghost? Who
is it?”

“Her mother, my lord.”

Donovan’s heart chilled at the woman’s words. “Her mother?
What does she want?”

“I do not know, my lord. My lady does not speak of her
mother at all. She talks about her grandmother often, but . . .” The woman
paused. Her eyes took on a terrified cast as something slowly became apparent
to her.

“Elizabeth is being harmed.” He insisted in a severe tone.
“If you have any insights, no matter how slight, now would be the time to share
them, Chloe.”

She stared at him, considering her predicament: angering the
master, who paid her wages, versus reporting the truth to him about his lady.
Her lower lip quivered, her eyes brimmed with rising tears.

Bloody Hell, Donovan cursed silently. That last thing he
needed was another weepy female to deal with. Lizzie had been weeping off and
on for days, and he fully expected that storm to worsen before it was over. He
loved Lizzie, and dealing with her tears left his heart in shreds. He couldn’t
endure a bout of hysterical weeping from another woman—he’d rather die, by his
own hand.

As he glowered impatiently at the servant, waiting for her
to explode into an annoying torrent of tears, she straightened her spine,
clasped her hands together tightly, and appeared to tuck her raging emotions
neatly away beneath her colorful shawl for another day.

“At first,” She sniffled, and went on in a throaty voice,
“The spirit did not harm Madame. She appeared a few times to her at night and
during the day she would toss items about my lady’s room. Several times, we
would find the wardrobe emptied all over the floor. After questioning me as to
the reason for the mess, my lady realized it was the spirit doing this to get
her attention. She said her mother was a having a—Oh!” She spun her hand in the
air. “—acting like a child who does not get its way? I do not know the word, my
lord.”

“Having a tantrum?”

“Yes, that is the word my lady used. Every few days there
would be an incident. Madame and I would pick up the mess and she cautioned me
to keep silent. Lately, the spirit started attacking her. My lady has been
pushed, slapped, shoved, and once she was locked in a closet.”

“Yet, you did not come to me.” Donovan chastened.

“My lady swore me to silence, my lord. And you are a man of
science,” She gestured around the room. “What could I have said to make you
believe my tale?”

The woman did have a point. He would not have believed
her—not before last night.

“Nothing like this happened on the ship. These attacks seem
to have begun after our arrival here. What could have disturbed her mother’s
spirit since then?”

Her dark eyes moved about the room, from the stuffed raven
to the owl and the lizard perched on the shelf behind him as if seeking the
answers. “There is a magic charm in Madame’s possession. She discovered it
among her grandmother’s things after we unpacked her trunks. My lady believes
the charm is a protection against nightmares.” The maid tugged her shawl about
her. Her dark eyes widened. “But it is pure evil, my lord.”

Donovan pondered her words. Maureen’s ghost had said
Elizabeth’s ancestors were sorcerers. If senile Old Sheila had fashioned a
malicious charm, it seemed prudent to remove it from Elizabeth. “Bring it to
me.” He instructed.

*******

Twenty minutes later Chloe returned with the mysterious
pouch.

“It is evil, Sir.” She admonished. “I offered to make a new
charm when she showed it to me, but Madame wouldn’t allow it, sir. Destroy it.
Let it be devoured by flames.”

Donovan rolled his eyes, tired of the woman’s penchant for
the dramatic. “Say nothing of this to Elizabeth.” He cautioned. With a curt
wave, he sent her back to her mistress.

Once alone, Donovan withdrew a sheet of parchment from the
drawer and dumped the contents of the pouch onto the paper. Oh, it was evil,
all right; it reeked of mold and decay. He sniffed the odd coil of rope. It was
encrusted with dirt and rotting plant litter. Intent upon his inspection, he
stabbed the odd, bi-colored rope with the tip of a letter opener and lifted it
from the moldy debris. He turned the specimen about on the knife edge.

The hair on the back of his nape prickled. The rope was made
of human hair.

With an oath, he dropped the disgusting coil onto the paper
and scraped away some of the dried, red-brown film between the twisted strands.

He lifted the blade to his nose: dried blood.

Human hair coated in blood.

Revolted, by the coiled hair and the implications behind it,
Donovan folded the paper to contain the gruesome contents, shoved the packet
into his desk drawer and turned the key.

Chapter
Thirty

He was being so sweet, so attentive, so unfailingly tender,
and it was killing Elizabeth.

She couldn’t meet Donovan’s eyes. She was afraid if she
looked into those lovely pale depths and saw the tenderness inherent in his
every word and touch, she’d start weeping, again.

So, she made deliberate attempts to avoid his gaze. She’d
cried enough to fill an ocean in the past days. Now, she knew the reason she’d
been so melancholy; her courses. She always became morose days before their
onset. She would feel as if the world were crashing down around her. And then,
days later, she would look back and be dismayed with herself for being so
distraught over dust motes when everything was just as it had always been.

This time she’d made a horrific mess. She upset her husband
and even involved his friend—all because she succumbed to a fit of the dismals
due to her monthly cycle. As her perpetual misfortune would have it, she
succumbed to the wretched pains of the first day while recovering from her seizure
in Donovan’s bed, and thus, kindled his appalling curiosity.

Most men would avoid a woman at such an uncomfortable time,
not daring to trespass across the distinct feminine boundaries regarding the
mysterious monthly occurrence.

Not him. As a scientist he was bold and inquisitive where
other men would gladly take the coward’s way and leave her to her maid’s care.
Granted, his medicine did help her through the worst of the pains--but she also
had to endure and answer his many questions on the subject. Talking about it
with a man, with any man, was humiliating.

Donovan’s continual presence was unsettling. He hovered over
her and treated her as if she were made of spun glass and would break easily in
his hands if he weren’t very careful.

He returned from his business affairs just before lunch, and
sent Chloe on her way.

The change from constant chatter to silence was refreshing.
Still, it was a heavy, tense silence that only reminded Elizabeth of her shame.

She sat quietly in the bed, resting, as her husband
insisted, and listened to his enchanting voice as he read aloud to her from A
Midsummer Night’s Dream. He had asked her earlier in the week which of
Shakespeare’s plays she liked the best, and she replied “the one with the
fairies.” And so, to pass the time he started to read it aloud to her after
lunch.

Elizabeth gazed about the room, her mind too fractured and
splintered by all that had happened in recent days to really follow the story.
She liked listening to his voice, however. It was calming, so deep and serene
when he read to her like this. He had read to her a great deal while they were
on voyage here. He had read the entire account of Tom Jones to her, and started
to read Shakespeare’s works during the long days. They made it through As You
Like It and Romeo and Juliette and Hamlet by the time they arrived here.

It was good to have him so near again, as long as she didn’t
need to look directly at him. As her eyes moved about the room she noticed the
broken mirror near the door. The glass had been swept up from the floor but
jagged pieces hung loosely from the frame and the board behind it. There was
writing on the exposed board that would support the unbroken glass.