But before he could do so, she was already in the process of easily swinging up on the mare.
By the time he mounted Vernon, she was headed back through the forest trail.
He followed her, staying slightly behind and noticing, just as they left the forest trail, that dusk was falling at last.
Across the field, Melody House stood on its little hillock, bathed in a strange and eerie glow of crimson and gold.
The brilliance of light lasted only a few seconds; the sun dipped.
Night was coming in earnest, wrapped in shadow.
Despite Matt Stone, or maybe even because of him, dinner at Melody House was an entertaining affair, and Darcy found herself laughing a lot throughout the meal.
Matt and Penny didn’t seem to agree on anything, but the affection between them was visible and real. Penny wanted to tell legends. Matt wanted to correct her when her legends became too lurid, romantic, or too anything.
“It was as if the entire Southern army was taking refuge at Melody House!” Penny said.
“The entire Southern army!” Matt snorted. “A company at best. Twenty men, Penny.”
Penny waved a hand in the air. “They were exquisite soldiers,” she said, shaking her head and dismissing Matt’s correction. “They might as well have numbered thousands. They beat back the Yankees—”
“What? The entire Northern force?” Matt queried, a sparkling light in his eyes.
“There were at least one hundred!” Penny said, glaring back at her employer. “The point is, our boys wouldn’t give up, and they saved the day, but their leader, a young captain, was killed. Shot in the heart by a minnie ball that whizzed right through the parlor windows. Now, he is said to be here, still guarding Melody House.”
Matt leaned low across the table, amusement in his eyes as they met Darcy’s. “And no one seems to have told him that the war is over, that the South lost. He’s not at all fond of Yankee accents—so they say.”
“Thank God, then, that I don’t have one,” Darcy told him sweetly. “All those years watching late-night shows seems to have paid off.”
“But you trained to be an actress—of course you can get rid of an accent!” Carter applauded her admiringly.
“An actress, hm,” Matt said.
“I was going to study acting,” she corrected. “I never did. Not in college, anyway.”
“That’s right. She majored in everything else,” Matt said.
“You can’t major in ghosts these days, can you?” Clint asked.
“Don’t be silly!” Penny reprimanded.
Both Carter and Clint shrugged.
Dessert had been served. An exceptional baked Alaska. Darcy was certain that at any moment, an immaculate butler was going to walk in and suggest that the ladies retire to one room, the gentlemen to another, for brandy and cigars.
But there was no butler—not tonight, anyway. They had all helped to serve the meal.
“So?” Penny said excitedly, looking at Darcy expectantly. She had a feeling that she was going to hear the word “so” from Penny a lot.
“So?” Darcy repeated, smiling.
“Do you see him?”
“Who?”
“Our captain!”
“The captain who saved Melody House from the marauding Yankees who were going to burn it down,” Matt reminded her dryly.
Darcy shrugged. “I try just to get accustomed to a house the first few days I’m in it,” she told Penny.
“Oh! Of course. Let all the vibrations get through to you,” Penny said, nodding sagely.
“Something like that,” Darcy agreed.
“So, are there vibrations?” Matt asked, seemingly polite.
She stared straight at them. “The place just trembles,” she murmured.
“With?” he prompted.
She widened her eyes. “Hostility.”
Clint burst into laughter. “The living give out vibes, too, huh?”
Matt stared at Darcy, the flicker of a rueful smile curving his lips. A remarkable transformation came over him. He was almost devastatingly appealing, when he looked so.
“If I’m giving out hostile vibes, it’s not with intent of malice.”
From him, Darcy decided, that was the best apology she was going to get.
“Sometimes it’s not easy to pinpoint just where vibes might be centered,” she said, surprised to realize that she was smiling as well.
And that Penny, Clint, and Carter were all staring at them.
She rose, her movement not as fluid and easy as she would have liked. “It was a wonderful dinner. Thank you all very much. I’ve just realized how late it has gotten. If you’ll forgive me, I think I’ll turn in for the night.”
Matt, Carter, and Clint stood as one. A certain amount of courtesy seemed to have been bred into these men; it was as natural as breathing.
“You’ll be fine,” Carter told her. “I’ve slept in the Lee room. And I’m still here.”
“He didn’t even run down the stairs naked,” Clint said with a wink.
“Thank the good Lord for that!” Penny breathed.
“Hey!” Carter protested. “I look good naked.”
Darcy laughed softly. “Well, I imagine I’ll be all right.”
She was startled to see that Matt looked just a little concerned. “I’m in the house tonight, if there is any trouble, just scream.”
“Ah, but you don’t believe in ghosts!” Darcy reminded him.
He shrugged. “I believe in the power of men to do evil,” he murmured. For a moment, his strange deep gray eyes fell on hers. “I’ll be down the hall.”
She nodded, bid them good-night, and headed out of the dining room and for the stairs to the second floor. She walked slowly, thinking it somewhat amazing that Matt Stone couldn’t feel a thing regarding his house. Penny had asked about vibes. The house throbbed with them. Gentle, lost souls for the most part.
The only malice seemed to come from the Lee Room.
Upstairs, she decided on a quick shower, then brushed her teeth, and prepared for bed.
The room was cool, cooler than it should have been in summer. She ignored it, and the feeling of being watched.
She crawled into bed, somewhat exhausted. She fell asleep with the television on, watching a program on the history of Britain.
Deep into the night, she began to dream. She was herself, sleeping upon the bed, and yet she was not, for she moved, and moved within another persona. Fear clutched the heart of her sleeping self for a moment, for from the moment she felt the coming of the Other, she sensed the anger, a fury that was deep and dangerous. And then…
She was the Other, seeing, feeling, knowing everything he did.
A woman scorned…was a deadly one.
He came in deep thought and silence that evening, angry, but not at all sure, in his conscious mind, just what he intended. In the darkness, he stared at the house, and reflected on all that had been, and all that might come to pass.
The house…the majestic house sat as always. A place with as rich and deep a character as any living person. So it had been from the moment they had first broken ground. Time did nothing but add to the drama that must exist in such a place, as he well knew.
She was there.
He knew that she was there.
And there were things that must be said. Things that must be cleared, or ended, between them.
Still…
He stared at the house. And waited. He denied in his mind that he had come with any malice as to his intent.
His heart felt like stone. Seeds of ideas played deep down within his soul, truth and the physical essence of what must be banned from thought. What happened must happen.
At his sides, his hands flexed, eased, and flexed again, as if already slipping around the throat of the lover he knew to be inside.
Because a woman scorned…
Just might as well be dead.
Darcy awoke with a start, shaking. She had felt the past, as if it had entered into her. Felt not so much a person, but the fury and malevolence that had been part of a distant time.
She sat up in bed, and looked around the room, closed her eyes again, and opened them.
Whatever had been with her, whatever remnant of emotion, was gone.
And yet…
Something else was there.
Something, someone, quiet, stealthy.
Watching.
Waiting.
Chapter 4
4
“W e all know why we’ve come.” Elizabeth Holmes’ voice, though feminine, had a deep resonance. She wasn’t exactly what Darcy had been expecting when she had heard that a local novice—who had found her dedication to the occult in the last year—had begged Matt Stone to allow her to run a seance. She wasn’t theatrical. There was no turban wrapped around her head, and her eyes weren’t dark and deep set and heavily lined with makeup to add to a mystical image. Rather, the woman was about fifty-five or sixty, slender, tall, elegantly slim, with nicely styled silver-white hair and pleasant, powder blue eyes. She looked like a typical businesswoman.
Only her voice might have fit the image of the eerie Gypsy fortune teller.
It seemed to fill the dining room at Melody House with a strange tenor, as if the walls themselves were part of a state-of-the-art speaker system.
And thankfully, the woman hadn’t opted to rename herself. She wasn’t going by Madame Zara, or anything like that. She was Elizabeth Holmes, a native of the northern Virginia area, and a real estate agent by day. Darcy had wondered at first if this medium wouldn’t prove to be a slightly crazy friend who was convinced that she needed only to dress the part to have the powers. She seemed to be a very nice woman, and committed to what she was doing. Whether she really had any ESP or not remained to be seen.
And her opening was intriguing.
“Melody House. She has stood upon this hill since the year of our Lord seventeen-seventeen. And she has, in her years, hosted both joy and tragedy. She is one of the few such surviving grand old homes of our nation still owned by descendants of her original builders. George Washington slept here!” Elizabeth paused, smiling at the group gathered around the dining room table in the muted candlelight. “George got around, it’s a wonder Martha wasn’t a great deal more upset! But I digress. Washington wasn’t her only well-known guest. The likes of Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, and others of tremendous renown who lived in Revolutionary times came here as well, and later, she was hostess to many great statesmen and generals of another sad period of war—Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Jeb Stuart, and then, even Ulysses Grant and Abe Lincoln were thought to have taken rest at this place. Bullets once riddled the walls, and many still remain, from battles fought on the ground. Soldiers perished within her walls. Naturally, there were other sad occurrences here, not having to do with the specific pain of battle. There is the case of the beautiful Melody herself, daughter of the builder, distraught by her suitor’s argument with her father. She is said to have been rushing to his defense when she careened down the stairway, only to die in her lover’s arms on the foyer floor, just feet from where we now sit. There was Eliza, the daughter of General Stone, who might well have been poisoned by her rival, Sally Beauville, who was, when accosted, shot dead by the girl’s father, who then faced the hangman’s noose. Those are not all the stories. There are so many more.