Rick shakes his head, uncertain. I can barely see him in the dark but it feels like he’s regaining his senses. He sits up, and his hand feels for the collar at his throat; I hear the sound of the little heart charm jingling. He goes very quiet.
“What?” I say. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” He clears his throat. “Just… we shouldn’t be here. This is private property. If anyone catches us...”
He’s right, but something about his tone is off. The eager pleading, the closeness, is gone. He sounds distant. Ice claims my chest: is he regretting this already? I stand and start to gather up my cloak, playing it cool, but my heart is racing with anxiety. Have I done what I was so afraid of? Ruined everything by taking our games way too far?
Rick takes off the collar and hands it to me. “You better take this back,” he says.
Chapter 9
Next day, I’m lying in bed listless and unable to drag my head off the pillow. Rick has gone to work, but I’m taking the day off from the lab. This is not quite the post-coital glow I was hoping for. We left the party right after getting dressed, not even staying for the dancing I so wanted to share with Rick. I’m still wondering what went wrong. Rick’s barely speaking to me. He left this morning with barely a look at me. I feel like such a fool. I got my expectations up way too high. What was I hoping, that he’d leave for work with a happy-couple kiss for me, like we’re suddenly official? He couldn’t have made things clearer: it was a one-night thing. He got carried away. For a risk-taker like him, I guess the chance to get dommed by a ghost was something he couldn’t turn down. Stupid of me to think that it was personal.
And I still don’t even know the highwayman’s name. I start to flip through the guidebook from Gossmer Hall. My hands feel heavy and my head aches even though I barely drank last night. Weariness and disappointment. The low after stupidly getting my hopes up that Rick could actually care about me. A quickcheck of the contents page points me to the page about Gossmer Hall’s most famous black sheep.
“John ‘Jack’ Delacorte (1743-?) was the eighth son of Viscount Danly, the owner of Gossmer Hall,” the book says.
Jack. The highwayman’s name is Jack. It suits him. Sharp, full of force.
“As an eighth son, Jack was somewhat surplus to requirements by the standards of the time. He lived an indolent and wasteful life according to contemporary sources, even taking to outright criminality in the form of highway robbery. His constant companion in villainy was Robert Hanson, a tenant on his father’s land.”
Companion. That old-timey euphemism. Jack and Robert must’ve been a couple, not that they could be public about it back then. Sympathy for them both makes it through my numbness. It would’ve been illegal to show affection openly. Did Jack’s family know about his sexuality? Did they shun him, make him feel unwanted? Does that explain the turn his life took?
“After years of successful hold-ups, the pair were finally betrayed by another member of their criminal gang,” the guidebook says. “Jack’s father, being the local magistrate as well as landowner, was able to warn his son to leave England before he could be arrested. What happened next is not entirely clear, but since the name Robert Hanson never appeared in any official court documents, it seems that Jack Delacorte managed to send warning to his companion in time as well. Both escaped official censure for their crimes, but their fates remain unknown. From that moment, both of them dropped out of official history.”
Maybe I’m in an unusually pathetic mood over Rick, but the story leaves me with a heavy, dull ache in my chest. Is this why Jack is still hiding out at Gossmer Hall? Hoping to find his lost love again? The guidebook doesn’t even know when he died. Hejust disappeared. Maybe he never got the chance to say goodbye. I put down the book and close my eyes. When I open them again, my heart nearly leaps out of my chest.
Jack Delacorte, the highwayman himself, is sitting in my bedside chair, looking as alive as me.
“Hello, pet,” he says. “Don’t cry.”
“I’m not…”Shit, I am. I wipe my eyes. “How… how are you here?”
His mouth quirks with amusement. “You thought me tied to the mirror?”
“I… don’t know. I don’t know anything about ghosts. I didn’t even believe in them until I met you.”
He nods, but doesn’t deign to explain.
“You look heartsick,” he says, his voice gentler than at any point last night. “What’s upsetting you, pet?”
I don’t mean to tell him. But I can’t help it.
“It’s Rick,” I say. “He’s barely talking to me. I don’t know what I did wrong. Maybe… maybe it was a mistake.”
Jack purses his lips. “Nonsense. He enjoyed himself thoroughly. And I saw how he looked at you. With true affection.”
“Really?”
“Indeed. Also, it may interest you to know that I just overheard him speaking to someone on one of those modern contraptions which connect one with friends… at a distance.” He waves a vague, lordly hand.
“You mean his phone?” I say.
“Yes, his mobile telephone.” Hearing a man from the 1700s say those words aloud is truly surreal. “He was talking to his brother, I believe.” Jack leans forward, smiling, wrapping his hands around his knees. He’s wearing smart black leather gloves. “Do you know what he said?”
“What?”
“That he believes he isn’t good enough for you. That he might ‘mess up your perfect life’.”
