Private places, p.20
Private Places, page 20
The tepid water did little to wash the cobwebs from his mind. Jack was so damned tired. He stared at his reflection in the small mirror hanging on the wall and was surprised that he didn’t seem a good twenty years older than he truly was. Jack felt ancient—the war, fatigue, hunger, and grief had aged him. But he looked just a bit thinner, perhaps a bit more harsh than he had when he had left home five years earlier.
Regular meals and rest would help some, but he knew he’d never be the reckless youth who had left Williamsburg five years earlier. There was a knock on the door, pulling him from his thoughts, and he crossed to open it, smiling as he saw the clothes Theo had. The older man offered them to Jack with a smile. “I thought perhaps a fresh change of clothes might help. You do look tired, Mr. Jack.”
“Just Jack,” he corrected as he accepted the clothes. Grief knotted his gut and his hands tightened on the garments as he recognized the scent on them. Faint and faded after five years, but it was Richard’s all the same. He set the clothes down but made no move to undress. “Mercy—is she well?”
Theo’s gaze slid to the door and then back. He held up one finger and turned away to close the door. When he looked back at Jack, his expression was troubled. “No, sir. No, she isn’t well at all.”
He said nothing else but Jack could sense there was more the man would say. Jack rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. Not home even a day, and already the trouble with Mercy had started. It wasn’t just how much she had changed—Jack had expected her to change, to grow up. Perhaps he hadn’t been prepared for her to be an entirely different person, but that wasn’t what was so heavily weighing on him.
The memory of her from the night before loomed large in his mind, the way she had stood in the dark of night, surrounded by creatures that could tear her apart in so many ways, and enjoy it thoroughly. The way she had stood before them and faced them down as though she didn’t give a damn about how easily they could kill her.
“Tell me, Theo.”
“I don’t know what I can tell you, Mist—Jack,” he corrected when Jack gave him a narrow look. “After her man died, she was just different. There’s so much anger inside her. So much grief.”
“How did he die?”
The look on Theo’s face made the hair on the back of Jack’s neck rise and his skin started to crawl. Theo was no stranger to violence. Before Mercy’s father had freed him, Theo had been a slave. Jack had seen the scars on his back. Life in Virginia wasn’t as brutal now as it had been a hundred years earlier, but there was still violence.
But the look on Theo’s face was the look of a man haunted, the look of a man who had seen something that had left scars inside. Theo shook his head and murmured, “I don’t like to talk about that, Jack. Not at all. I haven’t ever seen anything like that before and I hope I never see it again.”
“I need to know what happened, Theo.”
“Men came. I heard Mercy scream. I came running. A few of the other men came, but not all of them. Some of them had been killed, too.” His gaze fell away and he sighed. “I think they came looking for the women. There was a girl, Susie, who helped in the kitchen. She was missing—we found her a few days later, raped and beaten. She lost so much blood. By the time we found her, she was already dead.
“And Miss Mercy . . . Lord . . . that poor girl.”
The nausea roiling in his gut disappeared, replaced by the hot, powerful wash of rage. “What happened to Mercy?”
“She saw it,” Theo replied, his voice just a bare whisper. “Men came into their room. I don’t know what happened in that room and she won’t speak of it.” He paused and took a deep breath. His big shoulders slumped.
Jack wasn’t sure he had ever seen the man look so broken. “They hurt her.” It felt as though each word was made of broken, jagged glass that cut into his throat as he spoke.
Theo gazed at him sadly. “Not like that. They would have. But we heard the screaming. We got there but not in time to save Mr. Simon. Dear Lord, what they did. . . . Men can’t do things like what they did. It was something evil in that room. I saw—”
He stopped speaking, and then he shook his head. He opened his mouth to speak but then he closed it without saying anything. But Jack didn’t need to hear the words to know what Theo had seen— or why he couldn’t form the words to explain. Theo had seen something that many mortals whispered about, but not all of them believed in.
Most mortals never saw the monsters that lurked in the dark. Men like Jack were there to protect them from the monsters, but this time, when the evil had encroached on the land that Jack called home, he hadn’t been there to protect the innocent.
He hadn’t been there to protect Mercy.
“How much did she see?”
Theo looked at Jack with grim eyes. “I don’t know, Jack. She won’t say. There were four of them, but Mr. Simon, he killed one of them before they got him. We killed two of them. Shot one of them in the head. The other one, Jonah shot him in the gut. Shot him again in the chest. He kept on breathing. Looked at us and laughed. I saw Mr. Simon’s rifle and grabbed it and I shot him again. In the head. He fell down and didn’t move. The third one ran. Took off running and jumped through their window and hit the ground like all he did was jump over a piece of wood or a water puddle. He disappeared into the forest and some of us went after him, but—” He broke off and rubbed a hand over the graying hair on his scalp. “You going to think I’m crazy. We found his tracks where he ran into the forest, but then his footprints, they turned into something else.”
“Something else?”
In a hushed voice, Theo answered, “Wolf tracks. His footprints stopped, the path got all disturbed and then there were the paw prints of a wolf. A big one, bigger than I ever seen.”
HOURS later, Jack stood at the window of Richard’s old room. He hated being there. Even though it had been years since Richard had been here, Jack could still faintly scent his old friend. Especially on the bed. Although the bed was clean and soft, he wouldn’t be sleeping on it. He’d already made a pallet on the floor.
In the morning, he would speak with Theo about sleeping elsewhere. He couldn’t sleep in Richard’s bed, but he’d be damned if he continued to sleep on a hard wooden floor when a soft bed was available. The brief stay was going to be longer than he’d originally anticipated. Jack had planned to go to his own small piece of land across the river, but he couldn’t see himself leaving, not with this new knowledge weighing so heavily on him.
Ferals had been on his land and Jack hadn’t ever realized. “Lousy Hunter you make,” he muttered. Jack had thought he couldn’t possibly feel any guiltier, or any more bitter, but he had been wrong.
He could still hear Theo’s sad, horrified voice. It was something evil in that room.
Evil, yes. Jack doubted Theo understood just how evil. Ferals didn’t just hunt their prey for sport. They hunted for food and for sex. One of the sickest experiences in Jack’s life had been when he interrupted a couple of feral shifters that had been enjoying both on a young woman, at the same time.
Mercy had seen them feeding on her husband.
It explained so much, the dedication that had her leaving the safety of her home to hunt monsters. More, it explained how she had known what to look for. Shape-shifters had a strange feel, be they of the werekind that required the moon’s power to shift, or natural shifters that needed nothing more than the desire. Most mortals were aware of the difference, even if it was only on a subconscious level.
There were still many questions—Theo had claimed that Simon killed one of the men. How had a mortal killed a shifter? How had a mortal known how to?
But he didn’t need to know the answers to those questions. He knew what he needed to know about Mercy, or at least as much as he could know, without her talking to him. He knew the why.
Vengeance was a powerful thing. It could drive a man, or a woman, to do most anything.
What Jack needed was to find some trace of the girl he’d known. Find her and see if he couldn’t convince her that her life was worth so much more than vengeance.
THREE
No, Jack decided as he looked for some sign of the girl he remembered, Mercy wasn’t well at all. She sat in the parlor, a delicate porcelain tea cup held in one hand. She’d been holding it for some time and had yet to take a drink.
Mercy stared outside, but Jack suspected she wasn’t seeing the lovely gardens or the vast sprawl of land. She just sat and stared and the lack of movement was almost as disturbing as the lack of emotion.
In all the time he had known Mercy Harper, he’d never seen her go more than a few minutes without jumping out of her seat or running around or chattering like a blue jay. The stillness and the silence bothered him a great deal. She was too contained, too controlled.
He’d expected her to try scalping him when he had told her that he was there to watch over her. But instead of lashing out at him, she had politely smiled. “I appreciate the intent, Jack, but I am perfectly fine.” It was too—polite. Mercy didn’t trouble herself with niceties.
“Regardless, I gave Richard my word,” Jack said. He sat on a silk-covered chair that seemed as though it would break under his weight. Mercy sat across the room. In the pretty, feminine parlor, she should have looked out of place in her breeches and waistcoat.
She didn’t, though. There was something innately feminine about her, something that had just been beginning to bloom when he had left. The swell of her hips and the curve of her backside drew his eye and he kept having to remind himself that he was here to watch over her, not ogle her.
It wasn’t something he had counted on. In the years since he had left Williamsburg, he hadn’t often thought of Mercy, but when he did, he thought of the wily, demanding child with tangled hair, big eyes, and a mean streak. A wide mean streak.
It was taking some time to acclimate himself to this sad, solemn-eyed woman. With the loss of her husband and brother, that sadness was to be expected. And if she hadn’t plugged him with silver, he could have accepted that sad, somber exterior without a qualm.
But she had leveled a rifle at him, pulled the trigger, and he still had a nasty, slow-healing wound in his left side, thanks to her skill with that rifle. If she hadn’t used silver, it would have already healed, but the silver would make the wound heal almost as if he were mortal.
She’d held that musket with a skill that would have done her brother proud. But it wasn’t just her skill with a weapon that had him so confounded. It was how she had managed to wound him—by using silver.
How had she known? There was a logical explanation, but Jack didn’t like to think of it. But that was a question he would have to have answered. Looking after Mercy meant more than making sure she was safe—Richard would want her happy. More, Jack wanted her happy. Even if it meant she was the thorn in his side that she had been as a child. He would take that curious, demanding waif over the heartbroken woman any day.
“I’ll be needing to go out to my parents’ land here shortly. I have been gone so long, I imagine there’s a great deal of work to be done.”
Mercy glanced his way, but her eyes skipped over his face as though she wasn’t truly seeing him. “Not so much work, Jack. Theo has taken care of your land.”
“That wasn’t necessary.” He winced mentally. If Theo had done any work on Jack’s land, then Jack would owe him for the work. But Jack had no way to pay, at least not for some time. In his foreseeable future, he saw many a scant meal before him while he tried to get his parents’ farm back into a place that could at least maintain him, if not turn a profit.
“Don’t be silly. Of course it wasn’t necessary, but we are neighbors.” Her voice was soft, so polite. She could have been any one of the polite ladies she had used to make fun of. Jack had to fight the overwhelming urge to grab her and shake her. This calm, emotionless mask she wore was going to drive him insane.
It might not be so hard to deal with if he hadn’t seen her, stared into her eyes the night she shot him. It had just been a few brief moments, but it had been long enough to let him see what lay below the surface.
Pain, rage—passion. Emotions she had buried deep inside, and the previous night, they had worked their way through to the surface—emotions she kept hidden except to hunt. She let them out long enough to kill and while Jack couldn’t fault her for that, it would surely lead to her death.
Truly it was a miracle it had not yet happened. He had to keep her safe, but keeping her safe was going to present a problem. If she cared about her safety, she would never have started tracking down creatures that could kill her as easily as they breathed. Bloody images danced through his mind and he wondered how often she had slipped away from the safety of White Oak to hunt monsters. How many had she killed and how often had she evaded death?
The way she had handled the rifle, her confidence when she had faced down the werewolves and then Jack suggested she was no stranger to the odder side of life. That had Jack worried, very much so. She had luck on her side to have come through the past night unharmed, but luck wouldn’t last forever. He didn’t want to think of what awaited her if she were caught.
I will not let that happen, he thought to himself. I won’t.
His protective instincts weren’t the only concern, though. His duty was as well. Not all of his kind were evil, and those innocents, he was bound to protect. Not just the shape-shifters, but the weres, the vampires, and the witches, as well. He’d done this for too long to fool himself into believing that Mercy could discern the difference between the real monsters and those men and women who had simply been born different.
Brooding, he stared into the delicate tea cup. He was going to have his hands full. He would protect Mercy. But he must also watch after those who were under his protection and he had a feeling that he would have to protect them from Mercy.
Without letting her realize it. It was a tricky game he had before him.
MERCY didn’t have to turn around to know who was standing behind her. Jack’s shadow fell over her as she continued to pull the weeds from Simon’s grave. She’d already cleared the graves of her parents and brother.
“I thought you were going to spend the day at your farm, Jack,” she said without looking at him.
“I did plan to.” On soundless feet, he moved up behind her and crouched down next to her. “I thought it would take the day, or more, to see what needed to be done. But there is very little. Someone has been working the farm for me. The house has been tended to.”
Glancing at him, she murmured, “That would be Theo’s doing. I told you that he was tending things in your absence. But thanks are not necessary. He’s been working your fields and I’ve been paying him from the money your crops brought in.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw Jack smile. “I feel I owe him much. Even when my parents were still alive, that little piece of land wasn’t so well cared for.”
“Theo takes pride in his work.” Mercy brushed a few more weeds aside and then she reached for the flowers she had brought. “Simon’s mother loved roses. He did not care for flowers, but he did enjoy the roses. He told me that they reminded him of her.”
“How did you meet?”
“In town,” she murmured. Her thoughts drifted as she remembered the day she and Lydia had gone into town with clothes the women on the plantation had made for the soldiers. “We were sending clothes to the soldiers. There was a woman, Abigail Greer, who had moved here from Georgia after her husband was killed in battle. We were at the mercantile and she claimed that Lydia had stolen from her. She had the nerve to strike Lydia when Lydia denied it.” She smirked a little, recalled the look on Abigail’s face when Mercy had punched her. If Simon hadn’t dragged her away, Mercy would have done a great deal more.
Lydia might be a free black woman, but she couldn’t strike a white woman without facing serious consequences.
Mercy, however, could. Could, did, and immensely enjoyed it, too. Then she had looked at the man who had dragged her off Abigail and she had fallen in love. Hard and fast. She had looked into Simon’s gray eyes and known she would marry that man.
Marriage by choice was a luxury, Mercy knew. Many of the girls she had known in childhood were already married, already mothers, married to unite families and expand their lands. While many men had attempted to court Mercy, she had no desire to marry for anything short of love.
Her parents had loved each other. Mercy wanted to love the man she married. And other than Jack Callahan who didn’t even realize that Mercy was female, Simon was the only man who made her heart race.
“If that smile of yours is any indication, then I would wager that you struck her back,” Jack said, with a wide grin.
“Was I smiling?” Mercy murmured. She reached up and touched her lips, unaware that she left a smudge of dirt on her chin. She was indeed smiling. It felt strange. She wondered how long it had been since she’d smiled.
Jack was staring at her—at the fingers she had touched to her mouth. Blood rushed up her neckline, heating her neck and her face until it felt as though her skin was on fire. Nervously, she lowered her hand and focused her attention back on the grave. She brushed a few stray leaves off and then smoothed a hand down the grass that covered the grave. “Simon kept me from strangling her—none of the other men would dare touch me.”
Jack laughed. “Oh, I would imagine not.” More than one man had been on the receiving end of Mercy’s ire and none cared to experience that more than once. “Simon Greene—I don’t know that name. He wasn’t from here, was he?”
She sighed. There was a tremendous weight on her chest, almost like Lydia had laced her stays far too tightly. Except Mercy hadn’t put on those bloody stays today. She was wearing breeches and a waistcoat—men’s clothes were far easier to move in than women’s and she didn’t care to tend to the grave sites while wearing skirts, petticoats, and stays.
