Chapter 9

9

T he empty bed woke Jane the following morning. It was as if Bastian's absence had jarred her body awake. She didn't know whether to laugh bitterly or shake her head. Last night she and Bastian had shared a bed, and she had loved every minute of it. And now he was gone. Again. Hot and cold. The man could write a book on leaving women confused. Of course, she was becoming the queen of mixed signals herself. Hadn't she clung to him like she was drowning? Bastian probably couldn't have escaped her death grip last night until she'd fallen to sleep. The image of him prying her fingers off his body wasn't a flattering one.

She rolled onto her back, watching the gold beams of light through the half-pulled-back crimson moreen hangings. Birds twittered outside. The sound of their chatter was comforting. She loved birds. There had always been birds back home. It was something she missed when she spent time in London. Sure there were plenty of pigeons, but nothing replaced wild birdsong. She and Tim used to lie in bed late on Saturdays, listening to birds and the beat of each other's hearts. Tears pricked her eyes, and she blinked them away.

It was no surprise Bastian had fled her bedroom. She'd confessed about the dreams last night, and he'd cut her off before she could fully explain. He obviously thought she was crazy, just like Tim had. Would she ever find a man who would believe her? Regret and shame turned her stomach into knots.

Why couldn't I keep my mouth shut?

But it had been so easy to talk to Bastian, to tell him everything that was in her heart and to share her fears.

The door swung open, and she sat upright. Bastian entered, nudging the door open farther with his foot as he carried a tray inside. A delightful breakfast of eggs, toast, and bacon adorned with a bright bouquet of wildflowers was presented to her with the solemnity and grandeur owed to a queen. A blush worked its way across her face, and her heart gave a treacherous little flutter of joy. He hadn't abandoned her. She did not miss the mischievous twinkle in his warm brown eyes.

"Breakfast. I wanted to spare Randolph the stairs this morning. He gets a touch of rheumatism from time to time." He set the tray down over her lap and then eased down on the edge of the bed next to her, leaning back against the pillows beside her in a pose of utter relaxation.

Trying to ignore the intimacy of the moment, she spoke up. "What about you? Have you eaten?" She was already reaching for the plate of toast to offer him a slice. She wanted to ask him about his original plan to avoid her; it had been such an obvious goal yesterday. Yet here he was, bringing her breakfast. The last time she'd questioned his intentions toward her, he'd shut down completely. She'd stay quiet if it kept him here and happy.

He shook his head and patted his stomach. "Already ate. I had a quick bite after I showered."

Even though it was covered by a light gray sweater, she remembered too vividly the washboard abs beneath. She also remembered she'd kept her hand on those ropes of muscled steel half the night. The memory singed her insides.

He seemed to realize that he was lounging on her bed like a jungle cat, and suddenly recovered some of his manners. Sliding off the bed, he grinned sheepishly. "I'll leave you to your meal. Let me know when you are ready for the tour."

"Right, the tour. Thanks." She was blushing, with no reason for it, but damn it, she was. It wasn't like he would take her on the tour. Poor Randolph had that chore.

He paused by her bedpost at the foot of the bed, rapping his knuckles lightly as he hesitated. "How did you sleep?"

She blinked and dropped her toast. It knocked the knife off the plate and onto the tray with a loud clatter.

"Sleep? I…"

"I mean the nightmares. No more of them, I hope?"

"Oh no, no more. Thank you…" She could practically feel her face turning red again. "Thank you for staying with me. I'm not a scaredy-cat. I swear I don't hop on chairs when I see mice or anything. It's just…well…I believe this stuff. Stupid, I know. But I do believe." She waited for him to accuse of her being insane, the way Tim had when she'd tried to tell him about how vivid her nightly dreams had become. Bastian didn't do that.

He nodded slowly.

For a moment she couldn't think. He'd changed since last night, and seemed more open, less torn by dark thoughts she couldn't hear. Why?

Then he winked, and she reacted instantly and impishly threw a flower from the plate at him. He ducked, and the thick blossom sailed over his head.

"Fair enough." He laughed. The sound warmed her right down to her toes and yet it hurt at the same time because it was too good to be true and was sure not to last. He headed for the door and closed it behind him as he left.

Her stomach turned, and an emptiness settled in her like a dead weight. Every time he left, something in her seemed to go deathly still, like she was trapped beneath a frozen lake, holding her breath until it hurt. She had warned herself to be careful around him, and yet her attraction to him was inevitable, as though her path to him had been written in the stars eons ago.

It would never work; there were too many problems. She suffered night terrors about his family home and refused to trust a man with her heart and her strange dreams and their connection to the past. He wanted nothing to do with anyone who believed in the Weymouth curse and seemed completely undone by her flashes of clairvoyance. Even if they could get past those surmountable issues, she was American, still knee-deep in her studies. He was a titled peer from a dying noble line. They were at different points in their lives. They made no sense on paper.

But when their hands brushed and lips met…a deep burn moved through her like the flowing of lava. It changed her in ways that were permanent; he had changed her. He made her want things, made her desire to live a life of passion and intensity, one outside her books and studies. Her careful, quiet life was undone by his kiss. A little shiver flushed her skin in a smattering of goose bumps, and she forced herself to eat her breakfast.

After a fast shower, she dressed in a cream wool sweater, light brown pants, and a pair of old riding boots from her equestrian days in college. They were snug but warm and perfect for marching around gardens and fields. As she meandered down the hall toward Bastian's study, she combed her fingers through her hair, hoping she looked all right. Randolph had been nowhere in sight, so she might have to have Bastian point her to where she was going to meet the butler for the tour.

She paused at his study door, noticing it was ajar. Soft strains of classic seventies rock music filled the air. Her lips twitched. The man and his music. She couldn't blame him. Some of the best songs came from the likes of The Doors and Jimi Hendrix. After placing a palm on the worn wood surface of the door, she pushed it open.

The study was, in a word, perfect. A laptop sat on a polished Chippendale desk covered in papers. Bastian sat in the desk chair, his back to the door as he worked. A fire crackled in a stone fireplace opposite the desk. On either side were two tall, dark wooden bookshelves filled with books, both ancient and new. A portrait of a man and woman holding hands and sharing a love seat peered at her from the gilded frame above the fireplace. The man and woman both resembled Bastian.

His parents. It had to be. Their clothes were modern, and the pose was sweet and romantic. Her heart fractured a little at the sight, knowing that such a love had been ended by Bastian's father's death. No wonder his mother wouldn't come here, not if this place held such a wealth of painful memories.

Bastian hadn't seemed to notice she'd opened the door. He shuffled some papers on his desk and tucked them away before turning back to a spreadsheet on his computer. She'd taken two steps inside before the tip of her boot caught on something lying near the door and she stumbled.

"Oompf!" Her palms smacked the stone floor as she broke her fall.

"Jane?" He spun on his swivel chair and took stock of her sprawled on the floor. He reached for her, helping her up and brushing her off.

"Sorry, I tripped over…" She glanced down at a pair of worn brown wing-tip shoes. They were large, but not quite as big as Bastian's. She scrutinized the shoes carefully, they were unpolished and old-looking.

"Are these yours?" She pointed at the shoes.

Bastian immediately bent and picked them up, his hold protective and impossibly gentle as he set them on his desk.

"They were my father's." He rubbed at a light scratch on the left shoe's toe and then with a sigh he stepped away from them.

She didn't press him, but she sensed there was something important about them. He gestured for her to sit in one of the two wingback chairs opposite his desk.

"They were his favorite pair. Mother begged him to get a new pair, but he used to laugh and say, ‘Sweetheart, when something was made just for you, you should never let it go.' Her eyes used to shine after he said that, and it wasn't until I was older I realized he wasn't just talking about the shoes."

A sad expression darkened his eyes, and he gazed far away as though lost in bittersweet memories.

"Why did your mother remain in London?" she asked, even though she could guess the answer.

"This place scares her. My father died on the very road we drove last night. They found his car in a ditch the next morning." Bastian's face had turned ashen as he spoke, and Jane regretted asking him. Some pains were too deep to relive and survive.

"He was hoping to come back here and restore it. After he died, my mother refused to even mention Stormclyffe."

And then Jane understood. The last piece of his puzzle fell into place. Bastian was trying to do what his father had wanted. Restore the ancestral home. Complete his father's dream at any cost. It must have been a way for him to connect to his lost parent. Her gaze lingered on the worn pair of wing tips. A brush of warmth teased her face, as though someone had touched her cheek. Unlike the other frightening encounters she'd had in the castle, this moment was safe. A soothing, protective presence seemed to emanate from the general direction of the shoes. Oddly, the memory of that gardener she'd met yesterday came back to her. She'd felt the same way around him.

She reached reflexively for her necklace. Bastian leaned into her, catching the chain with his index finger and placing his other hand on the back of her chair behind her right shoulder.

"I showed you mine. Now you show me yours." He used his finger to slide the necklace out of her sweater. Her own fingers were still locked around the medallion. It was so personal, this part of her, yet she owed it to him to share with him. He let go of her chair and leaned back against his desk, his long legs crossed at the ankles and his palms resting on the edge of the desk.

"It was my grandmother's," she said. "When she was sixteen she was in a car accident with her older brother. They declared her dead on the scene and rushed him to the hospital. She was taken straight to the morgue since they thought she was already dead and they had to get her brother in surgery. The hospital staff in those days weren't as knowledgeable as they are now, and her heartbeat slowed down so much and was so faint that they'd thought she was gone. She woke up there a few hours later, terrified, but alive…"

Jane shut her eyes, awash with memories of Nonnie, the beautiful old woman who spun stories like tapestries.

"Nonnie told me about how when she was unconscious from the accident, she dreamed of a man with wings of light who slayed dragons. It made a lasting impression on her. When she was eighteen, she traveled to France and visited a monastery. She had this medallion blessed there." Jane opened her eyes and lifted the silver pendant up so he could see it.

"It's the archangel Michael slaying a serpent. She gave it to me when I turned seventeen and received my confirmation at church. I rarely take it off. It makes me feel…" She hesitated.

"Safe," he said.

"Yeah. I know it sounds foolish."

"No more foolish than me carrying around a pair of my father's shoes. To each his own." Bastian flashed her a genuine smile, not one of seduction or sadness, but simply a warm smile, one a friend would give. Were they friends? Could they be friends? She wanted them to be. Honestly, she wanted them to be more than that, but she couldn't afford to think about it.

"Bastian, can we talk? Truthfully?" She held her breath, praying he'd agree.

A little sigh escaped him, and he nodded.

"What really happened in the drawing room when we first met? I mean, why do you think it happened? We went at each other like crazy, and we'd never met before."

His stare moved to a spot on the wall above her head. "What do you think happened?"

"Honestly? I feel like something possessed me. It was all so distant in my head, and my body was just happily going along with the sensations. That's never happened to me before."

"Me neither. I also felt…distant, as though a puppet on strings. Please don't take offense, it was fantastic, what we did, but the other times we…kissed…that was different. Infinitely more than what happened in the drawing room. Does that make sense?" He looked down at her again, his gaze searching.

"Yeah, the other times were amazing, beyond amazing. Do you think we were possessed, in the drawing room I mean?" It was the only thing that made sense, as scared as she was to consider the possibility.

"I don't really believe in that sort of thing but…"

"But?"

"Maybe there is a weight to your unusual connection to Stormclyffe, to me." He shoved away from his desk and held out his hand. "Let's not talk about it any more today. You have a tour to take and a dissertation to write. Come with me." He led her away from the study, and the flickering sense of warmth flooded her before it was gone.

"Are we going to meet Randolph?"

He shook his head. "I changed my mind. I'll be taking you around the house today."

She arched a brow. "I thought you had important things to do?"

"I still do, but this is my house, and you are my guest. It occurred to me that I should treat you as such."

She let the matter lie, even though she wanted to question him and demand to know why he was putting himself in a situation that would bring them closer.

He led her down a set of stairs and into the old servants' quarters on the first floor, which had belonged to the butler and housekeeper. From there he led her to a Gothic archway with a heavy wooden door. Several pairs of boots and umbrellas were nestled in a medieval cloister style rack near the door. Dust lined the wood and stone, but this particular part of Stormclyffe felt lived in. Black-and-white pictures of the castle's grounds covered the wall opposite the umbrellas.

"My grandfather's. He wanted to be a photographer. He ended up running the estate instead, but he left these photographs as a memory of what could have been. Sometimes I think this place is a graveyard of broken dreams," he mused as he searched the coat rack. He found a brown canvas barn jacket with red flannel lining for Jane before he slipped on his own black peacoat.

"Your grandfather had a lot of talent. These are beautiful." She nodded at the pictures. "It's so sad he couldn't pursue his dream."

"It is," he agreed.

"Sometimes people have to sacrifice the things they love the most in order to do what they must to help those they care about." Her observation struck him deep. At his most unguarded moments, that was how he felt with her here. That if there were a Weymouth curse, he had to protect her against it. Like the other women the previous earls had…cared for.

They stepped out onto a vast stone balcony about ten feet above the ground. About thirty feet ahead, the stones cut off where a stone railing with two large urns on either side held planted flowers. Short staircases on the left and right sides offered access to the open fields ahead of them. She froze, her entire body caught up in strong sense of déjà vu. Beyond the balcony was a view of the sea. In the distance, storm clouds prowled low on the horizon. They would likely reach landfall in a few hours. The sun was still shining strong, and it warmed her face. Bastian lightly touched the small of her back, and she met his gaze.

"This way." He ushered her down the steps, and they started off across the field toward the forest.

When they arrived at the edge of the wood, he made several odd clicking noises with his teeth and reached into his jacket pocket. He uncurled his closed fingers, and she saw a handful of sugar cubes.

"What are these for?"

"You'll see." His rich laugh was soft and made her think of last night in her bedroom.

He continued to make the odd clicking noises, and suddenly, black shapes emerged from the trees straight ahead.

"What are they?" she whispered, clutching his arm.

"They're black fallow deer. They're relatively tame." His whisper danced through the air like a softly spoken spell. A large buck strode toward them, his antlered head held high, his dark eyes surveying them empirically as he seemed to debate whether they were worth the risk of drawing closer. Finally, he gave in, snorting and stamping as he approached, and his nose nuzzled Bastian's open palm and the buck stole a couple of sugar cubes.

"He's beautiful." She sighed, lost in the dark magic of the creature before her.

"The herd has been here over two hundred years. Can you believe that?" He was gazing at the pair of does, which were delicately picking their way across the grass toward them. She felt enraptured by his look of childlike wonder.

God, he was handsome, but in that moment he was so much more than that. He was real, not an illusion or a dream. Something stirred inside her, and a question was upon her lips before she even had time to think about it.

"Bastian, when did you decide to come back here and restore Stormclyffe?"

He turned his attention away from the deer, and they vanished into the woods like black ghosts.

"April twenty-first, six years ago," he replied without hesitation as though the date were burned in his mind.

She sucked in a shocked breath, and the cold air burned her lungs. No…it couldn't be. The same day that Isabelle and Richard first met two hundred years before. And the same day and year she'd first seen a picture of Stormclyffe Hall. She wouldn't forget that date ever, because it marked the start of her nightmares. The memory was still vivid. She'd been tucked deep in the undergraduate library stacks her freshman year, sneezing from the dust and losing herself in primary source materials.

It had been early one morning, and no one else was there, so when a soft little thunk came from behind her, she'd turned and there it was. A book had fallen off a shelf, landing at her feet, pages splayed open to a black-and-white picture of the castle on the cliff side. She took one look and knew her life would never be the same.

"What is it, Jane?" His hands settled on her shoulders, and he captured her focus, dragging her from her memories.

"That's the day I saw the first picture of Stormclyffe and decided to research it."

His brows arched in surprise. "Please tell me you're joking."

She shook her head. "No, I'm not. And it's also the same day that Richard and Isabelle met…" She trailed off, and the pit of her stomach dropped as she realized her mistake. The diary. He didn't know about the diary or the day his ancestors met.

"How do you know that?" His eyes narrowed, and his hands dropped from her shoulders down to her waist.

She swore she saw his mouth twitch, as if he were trying not to laugh, which made no sense. She tried frantically to backpedal.

"I…uh…must have read it somewhere."

He bit his bottom lip, the evidence of a barely concealed smile so obvious now. He looked like a cat that had feasted on a canary and was eyeing the smattering of yellow feathers lying in front of his paws with satisfaction.

"Perhaps you read it say…in a journal?" His hands tightened on her waist as he urged her closer to him. Merriment danced in his eyes.

She jabbed an accusatory finger at his chest.

"You know! How did you find out?"

"I may or may not have found it when I knocked over your briefcase in the hall last night."

Her face burned, and she bowed her head. She had stolen it for all intents and purposes and should feel guilty, even if she intended to give it back when she was done.

"I planned to tell you I found it. I just wanted to read it first, in case you took it away from me." It was the truth.

"It's fine, Jane. I put it back in your bag. You're welcome to use it, on two conditions." The sly look in his eyes should have been a warning.

"Oh? What are they?"

"You share with me whatever information you find out." He ticked off his first demand with one finger.

"And?"

"And…" He pulled her flush against him and slanted his mouth over hers.