Katherine
He put out his hand to touch her hair, scattering around her the rose petals they had used to pack her coffin. She was moving. She was alive, the wraith he had seen flitting through the house, the woman who was so like his dead Katherine that he had grown confused. One more time. Make love to her one more time and waken her with the sheer force of his passion.
With a groan he gathered her against his chest, pressing his cold lips against hers.
Katherine!
She could feel the strength of his arms around her, the enveloping, stifling softness of the velvet wrapped around her, pinioning her arms, sapping the last of her resistance.
Katherine!
His breath on her cheek was icy, his fingers as they began to open her dressing gown felt like those of a frost-rimed statue in the centre of a winter fountain.
‘No.’ Joss’s pitiful whisper was no more now than an exhalation of breath. Katherine was there; Katherine was inside her head. Her stomach knotted with fear and lust, she was looking out of Katherine’s eyes.
‘Edward! My lord!’
His hands were on her breast now, his kisses raining on her throat, her breasts, her belly. ‘Sweet child, you are alive.’
She couldn’t move. Paralysed at first with fear, she could feel tremors of excitement coursing up her legs and into the muscles of her belly. Her breath was coming in short, shallow gasps. Her dressing gown had fallen completely open and now there was nothing between them: the soft velvet and the brocade and the silk had all gone. All she could feel was the hard urgency of his flesh.
Looking down into Katherine’s eyes, Edward of England smiled. Gentleness was forgotten. This was his sweetheart, his woman, the mother of his child, the love promised and paid for in a pact with darkness.
Holding her wrists tightly in his massive fists he kissed her again, enjoying her feeble struggles, knowing the fear in those brilliant blue eyes would turn soon to a lust and passion to match his own.
Katherine!
With a shout of triumph he entered her warm flesh and sank his face, sobbing, into the dark silken halo of her hair.
30
‘Joss?’ Luke walked into the kitchen and stared round. The room was silent. Kit and Kat were curled up on the rocking chair near the range, a mass of black and white and orange fur. He sighed. She must have gone to bed. He had left Lyn and the children at Janet’s, and from there he had phoned Simon, then he had climbed once more into the car and driven back through the lashing sleet.
With a sigh he reached for the whisky bottle out of the cupboard and poured himself a small measure which he drank straight down neat. Putting down the glass he walked through into the great hall. Behind him Kit and Kat, scampering down the hall after him stopped in the doorway. Their game forgotten in an instant they turned and fled, their fur on end, their tails bushed. The light was on and Luke stared round. There was ash all over the floor where the wind had blown back down the chimney.
‘Joss?’ He strode across towards the door and looked out into the hall at the foot of the stairs where the lights were on as well. The door into the study was closed. Pushing it open he stared in. The room was a mess with paper all over the floor and the desk, the carpet soaked. He walked across to the window and pulling back the curtain stared out through the glass. The door had obviously been opened. Was Joss out there? But the key was in the lock on the inside. Turning he surveyed the mess again for a minute, then he ran out of the room and raced upstairs, two at a time. ‘Joss? Where are you?’
On the rug in Tom’s bedroom he could see slight traces of blood. Was she hurt? His stomach turning over with fear he stared round, but there was no other sign of Joss; nor in either of the boys’ bedrooms. He did a quick search through Lyn’s and then on up to the attic. She was nowhere to be seen.
Cursing himself for leaving her alone he walked back downstairs and into the study once more. It was only then that he spotted the teddy bear, lying on the floor behind the door. She must have dropped it. He knew they hadn’t taken it with them – it had been a matter of extreme distress to Tom when he found Ted had been left at home.
‘Joss?’ He felt the stirrings of unease again. ‘Joss, where are you?’
He walked out again to the foot of the stairs. It was very cold there. He shivered, glancing round again. In the great hall, in the shadow of the minstrel’s gallery it was very dark. He could hear the wind in the chimney. For some reason the house felt strangely sinister. No wonder Joss was afraid. He sighed. Turning he looked back upstairs.
If she wasn’t in the house that left the gardens and – his mind shied away from the idea – the lake. It was as he was turning to walk away that his eye caught the cellar door. Surely earlier that day it had been closed and locked? They were so careful about locking it.
The door was slightly open, the cold draught playing round his ankles in the hall undoubtedly coming up from the cellar stairs. ‘Joss?’ There was a tight knot of fear in his stomach as he pushed the door wide. ‘Joss, are you down there?’ He leaned in and clicked on the electric light, peering down the staircase. It was very cold; he could see the dull gleam of condensation on the bottles nearest to him. Reluctantly he put his foot on the first step. ‘Joss?’ It was too silent.
He stopped, about to turn back, then on second thoughts he went on down. She was not in the first cellar. He ducked through the arch into the second one, remembering the fear he had felt the first time he had set foot down here. He could hear something now. It sounded like someone laughing. He swung round. ‘Joss?’
The laughter stopped suddenly, as though cut off by a knife.