Oxford Whispers Part 31

MADISON FOUND herself lying down, sandwiched between a heavy blanket and an itchy mattress. Her glance darted around the room, but the movement of her head caused intense pain. She swallowed hard, an acrid taste filling her mouth.

Wherever she was, she didn't want to stay here. An acute sense of danger thickened her throat. Even her Oxford bedroom with the body lying in the middle of it appealed to her more than the gloom surrounding her now. All her muscles ached with a weary stiffness, and her limbs felt too heavy to lift. She fought to keep her eyes wide open, but exhaustion took over and pulled them shut. Sweat dribbled from her upper lip. She was running a fever.

Struggling to breathe, she managed to turn her head. There, on a wooden table next to her bed stood a candle, the flame flickering in a draft of air. Madison squinted to make out the form a little more than an arm's length away from her.

A crib. An antique, wooden one.

Supporting herself on her elbows, she raised her upper body to an angle that allowed her to see inside the child's bed. A groan erupted from her mouth. The movement had put extra pressure on her midsection. What the h.e.l.l had she been doing?

Then she heard a sound, not her own groaning, but a faint, sweet one. The sound of an infant crying.

Wrapped in white linen, the tiny bundle lay inside the crib, eyes wide open and fixed on the ceiling. Thick, dark hair covered her head. The baby was a "she." Madison was certain of it. The strength of this knowledge struck her through the heart.

Fuzzy feelings, feelings she'd never expected to have, grabbed at her. She didn't need to bridge the distance to the crib to hear the heartbeat of her child. A connection, a bond, linked her to her daughter, a love so strong it existed above and beyond every other thing in the world.

Maybe maternal instinct had kicked in, shouting at her to shield her baby. Or maybe she had heard the wooden floor creak behind her. But someone else was in the room. That presence made her shiver.

She already knew ... She knew it would be Peter standing there.

Real, alive, in flesh and blood. Not the ghostly figure she had come against before. An ugly smirk distorted his face. He held his shoulders back, his head high and his hands anch.o.r.ed at his hips.

Horror froze her reason. She wanted to bolt from the bed and rush away from this threat. Her body wouldn't budge.

"We are alone in the house now. Your sister has left. At last."

Madison couldn't muster the words to respond, but the baby interrupted the silence. Little sucking sounds escaped from her mouth. She was hungry. In a clumsy attempt to nurture the child, she tried to rise from her bed, at the same time reaching for her daughter.

"Do not touch Rose," Peter ordered in a scathing tone.

Rose had been Sarah's daughter, and Robert's. The baby had been named in memory of the red rose Robert had given Sarah when they were children. Now that Madison was inside Sarah, she could see all that had happened until that moment.

Her brain started focusing on one thought: saving herself and the child. Loud breaths rushed through Peter's heaving chest. His face was pinched, his features frigid. Danger lurked everywhere.

"I have waited for this moment for so long, since you announced you were with child." Peter paced the room. "Only it was not my child, it was his. Your Royalist lover. Do you think you fooled me?"

"No." Madison startled at the sound of Sarah's voice coming from her lips. "But I beg you to forgive me."

"You will not be pardoned for this. It is time for justice. A justice that I alone administer."

"Whatever you have in mind, please spare her."

"I will not hurt Rose, but you must die."

A crazy laugh transformed his face into a grimace. Madison hated him.

"Why?"

"You will never see your daughter grow up, but your Cavalier will watch his own offspring being raised in the true Puritan way."

"Please, Peter. For the love of G.o.d, please forgive me. I know I wronged you, but I love Rose so much ..." Tears inundated Madison's cheeks. She hadn't carried the child, or gone through labor, but maternal love had taken hold of every cell in her being.

She kept glancing around the room, searching for a means of escape. There was none. Peter had stepped to the side of the bed. Now she remembered his smell: tobacco and lemongra.s.s. The disturbing mix of both she had breathed in her Oxford bedroom when she'd found the dead woman.

He sat on the mattress, making it sink.

"It is time, my love. But do not despair. Your daughter will know the wh.o.r.e you were."

"Why?" she asked. There was no fear in her voice anymore, only pure hate.

"If you cannot love me, you will not love anybody else. Not your Cavalier, not your own daughter."

The baby started crying, seemingly aware of the danger they faced.

Her mothering instinct turned Madison into a hysterical fighter. She scratched at Peter's cheeks. She pulled his hair. She screamed for help.

The pain she had felt before vanished. She was desperate to live, to live and care for her daughter.

But he was too strong.

His hands made their way to her neck, encircled it, and he tightened his grip. Her vision blurred, and her whole body convulsed.

Madison managed to catch a last glimpse of Rose. She heard the baby's cry but couldn't do anything to console her child.

Darkness swallowed her.

When she let out her final breath, Madison was only aware of the silent river of love running toward her baby. That and the smell of melting candle wax.

Chapter 50.

AIR PUSHED BACK into Madison's nose, reached her lungs and softened their soreness. Unfamiliar voices filled a still-distant background. Her hands brushed against her own undamaged neck. Her skin was still warm and a regular beat pulsated through it.

Her fingertips climbed up to her chin. She wanted to touch her mouth but an unexpected barrier stopped her movement.

"Madison. Please tell me you're fine."

G.o.d bless Ollie. She had never been happier to hear his voice. She needed to see him, as a proof of life. Her life.

Her eyes opened wide. Above her, his gla.s.ses had slumped halfway down his nose. His lap supported her head. Shaky laughter escaped from his mouth and his body sagged.

"I thought you were dead too."

Tell me about it ...

Her lips articulated a rea.s.suring word but the same obstacle swallowed it.

"Wait, wait. I'll remove the oxygen mask."

He did and real air rushed into her aching chest. With a slow motion, his hand slid behind her back, lifted her into a sitting posture. She was in her bedroom, but through the open door to the study, she could still see the corpse, lying in the same undisturbed position. Three men wearing uniforms circled around it in a controlled ch.o.r.eography.

"The police and the medics have arrived. She's really dead." Ollie shook his head and closed his eyes. "The medics are coming back with a stretcher. They'll take you to the hospital."

"I'm fine."

"No, Maddie, you should go. You were unconscious for about five minutes. The officers checked you out. One got the oxygen mask as a precaution."

"I don't want to go to the hospital."

Ollie laid a hand on her shoulder, rubbing it clumsily. "We have to leave the place anyway. It's a murder scene. They will want to ask questions, especially you. It's your room."

She could tell them who the murderer was. Of course the real killer was long dead and they wouldn't believe her story in the slightest.

Poor Miss Lindsey, she had been at the wrong place, at the wrong time. Madison should be the one lying dead, not the censor. Staring down at her shaking hands on her laps, her shoulders bowed and Madison slumped forward.

The thickness in her throat intensified, not because of the pressure Peter had forced on it earlier. Grief made her throat ache, the memory of that newborn girl lying in her crib next to Sarah's bed, next to her deathbed. How she wanted to hold the baby, to caress her soft, warm skin, to cuddle her against her breast. How she wanted to protect her daughter, to make sure she would never fall prey to this psychopath.

A vibration tickled the top of her thigh, halting the flow of memories. Still shaky, she extracted her cell from the pocket of her jeans and opened the text message.

Rupert. A glimpse of hope, of comfort warmed her chest but didn't last.

TALKED TO ARCHIE IN LONDON. SARAH BURIED IN OXFORD 6/1651. ARCHIE HAPPY TO HELP. CALL HIM WHENEVER.

An empty giggle finished in a choke.

"What's going on?"

Staring up from her cellphone into his eyes, she found Ollie questioning her through the glinting gla.s.ses. She shook her head. That was the only answer she could give.

Sarah's remains had been in Oxford all along, close to Madison, right next to her.

This new knowledge caused rage to raise from the pit of her stomach, to her shoulders, her head and extend to the tips of her fingers. She looked down at her hands. They weren't shaking anymore. They were clasped into tight fists.

Peter had killed her and taken away her child. Sarah had never known her daughter. That injustice must have condemned her soul to an endless quest through the centuries.

Madison wanted revenge for Sarah, but also for herself. He had played with her sanity.

Blood would be shed. Peter's blood.

THE MOON SHONE throughout the winter night, a bright crescent over Oxford.

Peter, eyes anch.o.r.ed on the stars, tried to control the shivers shaking his body from head to toe.

Continuing this masquerade, with his body weakening, would not be possible for long. He could sense Sarah was coming into her powers. She would understand.

He would have to act soon.

Chapter 51.

AFTER TOSSING AND turning in Ollie's bed, Madison threw off the duvet, sat up and settled the soles of her feet on the thick carpet.

Poor Oliver. He had sacrificed his bed and rolled up in a sleeping bag on the floor. His generosity had been for nothing. Her rest had been shallow and filled with flashbacks from last night's drama.

Madison had said a big, fat "No" to a trip to the hospital. Medical treatment wasn't what she needed. She needed to act.

That's why she had asked Ollie not to call Pippa. Madison didn't want to go and sleep at her friend's place. She had to stay close to the crime scene, close to where Miss Lindsey's soul had departed. The proximity of death fueled Madison's energy.

Closing her eyes, she forced down a deep breath and tried to squeeze the tension out of her shoulders. Her effort didn't work and she threw her hands up in frustration. The buzzing of her cell made her spring out of bed. She grabbed the phone from the jeans on the floor.

A text message from Rupert. Her broken heart ba-da-boomed in her chest.

ON MY WAY TO MAGWAY NOW. LOOKING FOR YOUR CAVALIER.

"Your" Cavalier. Rupert had decided to get involved. Maybe a sign he was ready to forgive her?

Dialing his number, her nerves clawed at her insides. The phone's screen informed her that he had already tried to call her the night before, after they had discovered Miss Lindsey's body. Her phone had been on mute.

The ring echoed in her ear for a few seconds until the call was forwarded to his voicemail, and she hung up. "Come on, Rupert, get over how much you hate me," she snarled in an attempt to release some of the tension.

There might be another way to look for the truth. From her computer. But she had to run to her bathroom to brush her teeth and get rid of the awful, acrid taste in her mouth first. It reminded her of dying, and that wasn't a good memory at all.

She tiptoed around Ollie, entrenched in his sleeping bag, his arms spread out like those of a starfish. Opening the door, Madison froze. Bright, yellow crime-scene tape barred the entry to her bedroom on the other side of the corridor. Fear made her grab the doork.n.o.b and shut the door. She closed her eyes and swallowed hard.

"I told you not to go anywhere without me," Ollie scolded, his voice still misted over with sleep.

Madison swiveled around and her heart melted at the sight of his messy hair and half-opened eyes. "I wanted to brush my teeth."

"The police told you to be careful. We're due at the station in less than an hour anyway."

s.h.i.t. She had forgotten about that.

"We need to do some research before then," she said. "Can you switch on your laptop, please? I need to check something on the Internet."

Ollie let out a long sigh. "Fine. But we must make the police appointment on time. This is serious business, Madison. What are you looking for anyway?"