Dark Hero; A Gothic Romance (Reluctant Heroes) (46 page)

Mama’s ghost glared up at them and then melted away like a
misty mirage.

The blood reverted and slipped slowly into the crack in the
tiles as they all watched.

Oh God, the blood . . . there was so much blood.

 Elizabeth shook her head and clamped her jaw tight over her
teeth, containing the scream rising in her throat. She’d scrubbed and scrubbed
the parquet floor in Mayfair until her hands were chapped and raw. Still, the
stain remained; a permanent reminder of her betrayal.

“Lizzie, listen to me.” It was Donovan reaching into her
panic to wrestle her free of its cloying hold. “There is no blood. Your bone
didn’t break through skin.”

Elizabeth stared at him, desperation rising to choke her.
Had she said it aloud?  

“I say, would somebody tell me what is going on?” Michael
asked.

Donovan answered without taking his eyes from Elizabeth’s.
“Your sister was sleepwalking. She fell down the stairs and broke her arm. Now,
we’ve the devil to pay, as I have to set the bone back into place. Kieran,” His
tone became severe as he addressed her elder brother. “I want Mr. Barnaby here,
immediately.”

“Agreed. Barnaby will know exactly what to do. I can be at
the docks in a trice.”

“No. You aren’t leaving, Kieran. I need you here.” The fear
in Donovan’s tone was unmistakable. Elizabeth realized he knew what was
happening and he was terrified, just like the rest of them.

“Gareth,” Donovan directed, “Have Ambrose and Gus sail to
Basseterre to bring Mr. Barnaby here. Tell them to kidnap him if need be, but I
want him here by dawn.”

Chapter
Thirty Nine

Elizabeth was being escorted, en masse, to Donovan’s room.

They moved rapidly down the hallway, as each candle sconce
they passed wavered ominously from the rush of people and cast odd shadows on
the walls.

Donovan carried her with Gareth keeping step with him,
holding the pillow that cradled her twisted limb. Chloe, Michael, Kieran and
several servants followed them.

Donovan set her gently on the bed and barked orders at the
troop behind him. Warm blankets, a fire, two twenty inch boards, leather
bindings and Laudanum. He wanted them last week, judging by his sharp command.

Pearl, Giles, Alice, Sally, and Chloe spun about, bumping
into each other as they moved to obtain the requested items. The room emptied
quickly as they hurried to obey.

“I don’t understand.” Michael was standing close to the bed,
peering down at her with worry. “Liz, what is everyone blathering on about? Blood
and spirits? You fell and broke your arm. It’s the same one you broke when you
were ten, your left. Remember? Mama had to send for the doctor to set your arm
after one of Papa’s tirades.”

Fletcher broke her wrist. And Mama made her lie to the
doctor when he came. Elizabeth forgot the incident. Is that why Mama led her to
the stairs, not to kill her but to remind her of the violence in their home?
The awful throbbing in her limb grew worse.

“Michael, out.” Donovan turned from his discussion with
Kieran and Gareth. “I’ve a nasty job ahead splinting your sister’s arm. I can’t
have you crying or fainting. Off with you.”

“No.” Elizabeth hardly realized she’d spoken, but the three
men across the room gazed at her as if she’d just done the impossible. Donovan
and the others were standing near the veranda doors conferring about what
needed to be done.

“Michael should not be in here, darlin’.” Donovan approached
the bed. “I’ll give you something for the pain before we set the bone, but he
shouldn’t see this.”

“I’m not a child.” Michael chimed in. “He’s allowed to
stay.” He pointed to Kieran.

“Michael.” She understood his resentment at being sent away
when he was upset and frightened. She offered him her uninjured hand and when
he took it, she tugged at him to sit on the bed. “I’ll need you to hold my hand
through the worst of it.”

Michael eased carefully beside her, clutching her hand. He
laced their elbows together and their fingers, just like in the old days when
they stood against Fletcher.

Mama would surely kill her one day, or she’d be exposed for
the coward she was.

How would they all feel about her when they knew?

A tortured moan emerged from her lips. She didn’t kill her
mother, but she’d covered up the crime and that was just as bad.

Someone pushed a blanket over them, shoving it tight against
her neck. She was so cold, and shivering. Ice surrounded her. Her heart ached,
but her feet, her hands, even her nose felt the frigid January winds coming off
the Thames. Her teeth were chattering.

A cup was pushed against her lips. She drank it greedily.

*******

It was done. Elizabeth wasn’t screaming anymore. The bone
was set. Donovan sipped the scotch his uncle placed in his hand as soon as he
stepped away from the bed. He stood near the veranda doors, bathed in sweat,
heart pounding as he watched his wife and her brother sleep.

Christ, they look like children. Orphans clutching each
other’s hand as they slept as if all they had in the world was each other.

Donovan swirled the last of the scotch in his glass and
tossed it down the back of his throat. The stinging was comforting. He managed
to distance himself from Elizabeth’s cries as he realigned her wrist bone.
Gareth and Kieran held her arm still while he managed to bind the damned
splints with leather straps Pearl had fetched from the stable tack room.

As soon as it was done, he turned away so she wouldn’t see
his tears. And Gareth wisely shoved the glass of scotch into his trembling
hand. The three of them watched over the pair in the bed, and didn’t speak
again until Elizabeth and Michael were asleep.

“What does your mother want from her?” Gareth asked.

Kieran O’Flaherty’s eyes were wide, his lips bloodless.
“That creature was not our mother.” The scalding pain in Kieran’s voice made
Donovan wince. Kieran’s eyes swung to the pair on the bed and then to Donovan.
“She wouldn’t do that—not the sweet woman who held me as a babe and sang me
lullabies.”

Gareth touched Kieran’s shoulder as the words cut deeply
between them.

A mother’s ghost returning to harm her own child? It was
unthinkable.

Donovan saw the woman at the bottom of the stairs. He tried
to avoid those malevolent eyes. He saw the phantom blood. Saw it sink into the
tiles like a mirage. Even so, he did not want to admit he had seen the bizarre
manifestation. It defied logic.

“Kieran!” An aged gentleman with grey hair tumbling about in
disarray came striding through the open hallway door. The man was at
O’Flaherty’s side immediately.

“Barnaby—she tried to kill Elizabeth.” Kieran choked. His
voice was tremulous.

Mr. Barnaby looked to Donovan. “Someone tried to kill Mrs.
Beaumont?”

“A spirit. Our mother!” Kieran blustered, not trusting
Donovan or Gareth to explain.

“Shhh!” Miss Ramirez vaulted up from her chair where she’d
been keeping a silent vigil over the pair on the bed. “Do not disturb my
mistress.”

Gareth nodded toward the veranda and tugged at Kieran’s
elbow. Barnaby took Kieran by the arm and they escorted the Irishman out onto
the porch. Donovan followed them. It was daybreak. The golden sun was warming
the cold grey skies.

After several precise questions from the elder spirit
catcher and rambling answers from his apprentice, Donovan inserted himself into
the conversation, explaining the progression of events Kieran knew nothing
about.

“So, it began after your arrival.” Barnaby summarized.
“Hmmm. Something awakened the spirit recently, my lord.”

“Tell him about the pouch, my lord.” Miss Ramirez insisted
as she joined the men on the porch, tugging her shawl about her shoulders
against the chill morning air.

Donovan gestured for her to proceed.

Miss Ramirez explained how Elizabeth discovered the ancient
book and the charms made by her grandmother when they were unpacking her trunks
shortly after her arrival. Chloe said her mistress assumed the charm would ward
off nightmares and she placed it under her pillow, and the haunting began
shortly afterward.

“The spirit was awakened by the charm when Madame began
using it.” Barnaby concluded. “Charms can lie dormant until sympathetic magic,
such as Madame’s yearning for home and family revived the charm as she touched
it and used it. This in turn gives the spirit linked to the charm more power.” He
let the words trail off, leaving them bewildered as he descended to mouthing obscure
mutterings.

“I took it away from Elizabeth.” Donovan confessed. “I
locked it in the drawer in my laboratory three weeks ago and the attacks
stopped. Until tonight.”

“Uh-huh. Mmm? Indeed.” The old wizard fondled his chin and
stared haplessly into space, as if pondering the ramifications of Donovan’s
statement. “The spirit wants something from your wife, sir. As time passes and
my lady does not do what the spirit wants her to, the spirit is becoming
angrier, and hence, the attacks are becoming more violent.”

“What can we do to protect Elizabeth?” Gareth asked.

“Place a circle of salt around the bed.” Kieran said with
conviction, glancing about at the gathering as he spoke. “Salt repels spirits much
the same as vinegar bowls placed under furniture legs repels insects. Spirits
can be kept out of a room with a boundary of salt.”

“A temporary fix.” Barnaby raised his finger in protest. The
old man put his upraised finger to his lips momentarily, appearing deep in
thought, and then asked, “Each time Madame was attacked, was there a lull of
inactivity afterward?”

 Everyone looked at everyone else with uncertainty.

“Yes.” Miss Ramirez spoke up. “Each attack happened a few
days apart.”

“That is typical.” Mr. Barnaby nodded as he looked about the
gathering. “When a spirit uses energy to cause a physical manifestation, it
weakens them.” Barnaby placed a hand on Donovan’s shoulder. “The good news, my
lord, is the spirit will not have the strength to attack your wife for several
days. And it gives Kieran and me time to figure out how to stop it.”

Chapter
Forty

Cloistered upstairs in his guest room, Kieran was pouring
over the O’Flaherty Book of Secrets that Miss Ramirez had given him. Barnaby
paced the room with restlessness.

The room was luxurious. Kieran did not recall being
surrounded by such splendor in his lifetime. His father’s castle had been
ancient stone, rather cold as he recalled, and the furnishings echoed a sparse
medieval flavor. Here at Ravencrest the furnishings might be several decades old,
but they were the finest, evidence of the unrivaled prosperity of the sugar
lords. The four poster bed would house three people comfortably, with room to
spare for a dog or two at the foot. Lush red brocade silk hung from the tall
louvered windows and heavy mahogany furniture brought from England at
mid-century filled the elegant suite.

Situated at the back of the house, the room overlooked the
gardens and stables. It did not have access to the pillared veranda that swept
across the front of the plantation house, bracketing the rooms of the immediate
family. Still, the room Kieran had been assigned was larger than necessary to
house one person. As the remaining guest rooms on the second floor were
inhabited by Grandfather, Michael, and Kieran himself, he had offered to share
his room with Barnaby as the recent influx of guests left little choice for his
mentor aside from sharing a room with Michael’s tutor, in the attic. Kieran
preferred his mentor to be given the same luxury as himself as they endeavored
to resolve the haunting.

While Kieran studied the book, Barnaby paced and kept
rearranging scraps of paper on the bed in an attempt to make sense of the
events of the haunting. The old man had written out each incident on a separate
scrap of paper and each new fact gleaned through their interviews with the
witnesses. He kept puzzling over them, trying to piece together some clue as
the reason for the haunting. Kieran had been scanning through the journal for
two days, trying to find an entry recorded within it that would verify
Donovan’s tale of a curse his grandmother’s ghost insisted had been placed upon
their English mother by an O’Flaherty.

Barnaby had interviewed Elizabeth and Michael regarding
their mother’s death. Michael told them everything he knew, which was nothing.
He’d been told what happened the morning after by his sister. Elizabeth
remained circumspect regarding the haunting, Barnaby noted. They were uncertain
if it were a reluctance to speak about an event that had obviously been disturbing
for her—or something else that made her edge carefully around every question
they posed.

“Here is something.” Kieran remarked, rising from the desk
to stand beside the bed where Barnaby was pondering his web of clues. “The
entry is June 12th, 1795, on the night before mother’s funeral. It says here
Granny Sheila created two spells.”

“Hmmm, wrought when in extreme anguish.” The old wizard
commented, tugging thoughtfully at his beard. “A dangerous form of magic,
indeed.”

“The first spell she recorded was to summon a redeemer to
take Elizabeth and Michael into his protection. Sheila used fresh rose petals,
dried heather, one of Elizabeth’s baby teeth, a lock of her hair---and a tin
knight of Michael’s. A knight. That’s clever, don’t you think?”

Barnaby shrugged his indifference and rubbed his aching brow
with his thumb.

“The knight. Not only does it link Michael with the spell as
the item belonged to him, but think Barnaby, a knight signifies many things;
honor, integrity, duty, romance, chivalry . . .”

“Posh. You are lending too much significance in the choice
of catalyst, my boy. Perhaps the woman simply grabbed what was readily
accessible.”