Shadows Wait

by Denise A. Agnew

  She nodded but didn’t speak. He watched her responses with eagerness and wanted more questions. But he also realized they should get back to the house. After paying the waiter, he led her to their carriage across the street.

  On the ride back to the house, he almost asked a few of his own questions. Restraint came to the forefront. As he sat across from her in the carriage her subtle floral scent intoxicated him. His body wanted, but his mind said to forget that idea immediately.

  “I have a request,” he said finally. “Be careful around my sister.”

  “Why?”

  “As you already know, she has capricious moods. I’ve seen the way she treats other people. At breakfast this morning she was condescending to you. She is two people, and we never know which one she will be.”

  She licked her bottom lip, and his damned cock came to life. He shifted on the seat.

  Looking distinctly uncomfortable, she glanced down at her hands. “You don’t think your father should have hired me.”

  Her directness took him off guard again. “Why do you think that?”

  “When I helped the woman at the asylum and kept her from jumping off the stairs you said I wasn’t qualified to be a companion for your sister.”

  She had him there. “I haven’t seen how you handle my sister. If you can take care of her special requirements, I’ll take back everything I said.”

  “I’ll hold you to it.”

  He laughed, taken aback by her forwardness, but equally enthralled by it. She wasn’t like any other woman he’d known and it affected him on a level he seemed incapable of controlling.

  With that, Morgan decided he would be on guard against his lust for Lilly and turn his needs to more likely possibilities. Della Peterson, the young clerk in the clothier, had flirted with him today. She was a pretty young woman, and he couldn’t deny her attractiveness. What worried him was his disinterest. Since Lilly Luna had entered his life, Morgan couldn’t even imagine making love to another woman.

  Chapter 12

  Lilly heard the voice later that night in her room as she read a book on Socrates she’d borrowed from the library. At first she thought the talking originated from outside her room.

  Lilly Luna, murderer.

  She rubbed her arms—the cold had penetrated her room despite the warm fire burning in the hearth.

  Lilly Luna you can’t escape me. You can’t run away, no matter how hard you try.

  Sibilant. Almost animal-like in its insistence and sharpness.

  Lilly Luna, madder than a loon, sitting on the branch of a pine tree, nowhere to go but her room.

  Irritated, she closed the book and placed it on the small table near the upholstered wingback chair she sat in. Her skirts rustled. She tucked her long hair behind her ears. It wasn’t coming from outside her room, was it? She walked toward the door and unlocked it. She swung the door open and peered into the hallway. Almost total darkness greeted her.

  The house had gone silent an hour ago; the clock on the fireplace mantle in her room said it had passed eleven thirty. She wouldn’t have stayed up so long, but she couldn’t sleep. Now it seemed the night wanted her to remain alert. Maybe this house played games with people’s minds in the same way the asylum did.

  The stairway loomed to her left, a semi-shapeless mass that spiraled downwards step-by-step. As it did at the asylum, the night here pulsed with life, with a sensation of futility, fear, and darkness that crept into one’s mind and tore it apart. Lilly swallowed hard. She’d hoped the darkness wouldn’t follow her here.

  “You’re stupid,” a voice said behind her.

  She swung around with a gasp. “Becca.”

  “You’re dumb.”

  “I heard you the first time,” Lilly said in a low, hissing voice.

  “Dumb and stupid are different words, dummy.”

  “Becca, don’t you have anyone else to haunt? Anyone you need to scare?”

  “Only you. You’re mine to torment all your life.”

  Lilly feared, as she had from the first day Becca had appeared to her, that the ghostly little girl was right. Perhaps this was Lilly’s hell and punishment for what she’d done to Becca.

  Exasperated, Lilly said, “Get out.”

  Becca’s form shivered, shimmering with a silver glow. Her hollowed out eyes stared with vacant hate. She blinked out like a doused flame.

  Lilly closed the bedroom door, pleased. At least the whispering would stop now, she hoped. She settled back in her chair with the book. Less than five minutes later the voice started again.

  Lilly isn’t fit to take care of Patricia. No siree. Must watch out for her. She has designs on the future superintendent of the asylum. And when that happens, all the nuts in the nut farm will fall off the tree.

  She rose from the chair and crept across to the connecting door between her room and Patricia’s. She leaned her ear against the wood. After listening to a couple of minutes and not hearing a thing, she decided Becca must be mimicking an adult voice to play games with her. On the other hand, she’d never heard Becca use such sophisticated words.

  Perhaps she should go to sleep now. Perhaps she was more tired than she realized.

  “Lilly. Help us.” This voice was far away, but with force. Had the whole house heard it? She needed to find the culprit, ghost or no.

  As she had many a time at the asylum, she left her room, closed the door, and headed for the staircase. She took each step with caution, right hand on the banister. Uncarpeted wooden stairs creaked under her feet. She paused at each sharp retort. Tortured wood rebelled a few times, but she had patience on her side. After she reached the bottom of the stairs, she walked toward the library.

  “Lilly, help me.”

  Jolted by the voice, she stopped halfway to the library and cocked her head to the right. This time the voice had substance and form; there was nothing ethereal in the quality. She heard mumbling, a low rumbling voice as if the person who’d asked for help was muffled under cotton. Could Patricia have fallen in the darkness? Setting the book on a table, she passed the huge fireplace in the hall and took the short hallway that led to the cellar door.

  “Lilly, help me! Help us!”

  This time it was a shout, a voice that couldn’t be mistaken. Fear, anguish, and need poured from each word. She yanked at the cellar door and found it unlocked. To her dismay it shrieked as loudly as a banshee.

  “Patricia?” Lilly asked.

  She hadn’t taken more than one step before she heard another sound behind her. She couldn’t react quickly enough. Hands shoved her with force. Lilly let out a gasp, more astonished than afraid. She flailed, grabbing the banister as she tried to rebalance. A startled, angry cry exited her throat. Her right ankle banged against wood, twisting, her head thumped against hardness, stinging with pain. She cried out again as she bumped and tumbled with raw force. She came to rest two steps from the bottom, muscles protesting. Her head throbbed and her right ankle ached abominably. Her lower back twinged as she tried to move, but she ignored it in favor of righting herself on the step. Danger lurked, and fear propelled her to stand despite pain. She had the advantage here in the darkness, at least. She expected to see Patricia at the top of the stairs, but there was no one there. There was no voice taunting or asking for help.

  Could Becca have done this? How? She was a ghost and couldn’t harm anyone, could she? Fear sliced across her body as sure as a sword. If Becca could do this, she could take revenge.

  “Hello?” This time the voice rumbled low, a male voice and the tramp of solid boots. Lamplight spilled over the cellar door opening, and Morgan stepped into the glow.

  “Morgan.” Her voice trembled and she hated that.

  He wore dark breeches and a white shirt open halfway down his chest. “What the—whatever are you doing down there?”

  She took one step, two, her ankle protesting. “Falling down the stairs apparently.”

  He placed the lamp on the floor and headed down the long staircas
e at a clip. “What the Hades happened?” Rough and raw, his voice held sincere concern and anger. “Why are you wandering around in the dark?”

  “I can see in the dark.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll explain when we get out of here.”

  He grunted, the sound disbelieving. Before she could protest, his strong arms bolstered her upward. Her arms went around his neck in surprise.

  “Hold on to me,” he said.

  “But I don’t need to be carried. I’m perfectly capable.”

  “Not if you’re falling down stairs in the middle of the night.”

  “I didn’t fall.”

  He reached the top of the stairs and took two steps away from the door, his strength so hot and secure she couldn’t help but absorb his delicious warmth. He didn’t put her down, but held her tightly as if he feared she’d fall once more.

  “You must have.”

  “I was pushed.”

  With a snort, he eased her to the ground. He kept an arm around her waist, and she snuggled into his side. She enjoyed the sensation of his steadiness keeping her upright.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  “My right ankle is twisted, but I don’t think it’s badly mangled. A small bandage to hold it in place a day or two and it will be all right.”

  Lamplight danced across the darkness, turning it into writhing shadows all around them. Despite the eerie atmosphere, the intimacy removed all doubts and reasonableness. She only felt his muscles, his heat, and the way he looked down at her with pure intensity. Morgan’s eyes looked darker in this light, as tempting as sin. She froze and stared up at him.

  His lips parted, his gaze tracking over her faced with unwavering assessment. “Are you injured anywhere else?”

  “No. I bumped my head.”

  “Damn it.” His curse came harsh and with force. “You might be concussed.”

  “I don’t believe so. It doesn’t even hurt. I have no blurred vision, no weakness, no nausea.”

  He made a strangled sound, and humor flickered in those eyes. “Dr. Luna, I defer to your expertise. But I’ll check to be certain your ankle isn’t broken.”

  “I can walk please.”

  He released her. “Very well. Let’s go into the library. That’s where I was when I heard you cry out.”

  He lifted the lamp and she tottered after him. “Didn’t you hear the other voice?”

  “What other voice?”

  It was a big house; perhaps no one but her could have heard the feathery whispers. “I thought it was Patricia.”

  He barely glanced at her, but that one look was filled with doubt. “Doesn’t seem likely.”

  He opened the door to the library and they went inside. He closed the door. Alone again with Morgan Healy. He settled the lamp on a table in the middle of the room.

  “I heard Patricia calling me from the cellar. I thought she’d been hurt and was perhaps lying down there. That’s the only reason why I was there.”

  “Sit down and let us take a look at your leg,” he said.

  Feeling ignored, she huffed a smidgen. “You do not believe me.”

  “I don’t know what to think.”

  She sank onto a chaise near the fireplace and lifted her leg onto the cushion. Trepidation made her wonder if she should have gone upstairs and tended the injury on her own. He knelt on one knee, then reached for the hem of her dress. As he lifted the material, she gasped. He glanced upward, his eyes hot with emotion. Their gazes clashed for a breathless moment before he returned to the task. He loosened the laces on her boot, working with quick and efficient fingers to ease the shoe off her foot. An ache rumbled through her ankle as the leather gave way and her stocking foot was revealed. A man was looking at her foot without a boot or shoe.—a novelty, and something she certainly never thought would happen.

  He’s a doctor. Remember that.

  “I’m just going to manipulate your ankle. Pardon my touch and tell me if it hurts.”

  His gentle movements of her ankle, the way his strong fingers pressed her joint, sent a wild fission darting up her leg and straight to the folds between her legs. The sensation tingled, and burned with a sweetness she’d experienced before at his touch. She licked her lips as the beautiful arousal caught her up, and threatened to tear her reason to shreds. Resisting the physical sensations he caused seemed futile, but she’d just have to ignore them.

  “It doesn’t hurt,” she managed. “Perhaps it’s not even sprained.”

  “You should ice it, but I don’t think the cook has any at present.”

  She wriggled the sore joint, moving her toes. “Rest will be fine.”

  He shifted onto his feet, and when he moved to sit on the edge of the chaise, she lowered her foot to the floor.

  Before she could move away, he tilted her chin upwards. “Let me see your eyes.”

  “Why?”

  “Surely, Dr. Luna, you know other signs of possible concussion. Unequal pupils.”

  His teasing, tempered by that raw huskiness, made her heart speed. “I’d heard that.”

  “I see your medical education is somewhat incomplete.”

  If he’d been serious, she might have taken offense, but she saw the lightness in his eyes. “I only know what I’ve read.”

  “And you’ve apparently read a lot.”

  “Speaking of medical education, I think it’s amazing that you’re a doctor at such a young age.”

  One dark eyebrow lifted. “A quick change of subject. You do that quite a bit don’t you?”

  “Yes. But it’s sincere. I mean I really wanted to know how you became a doctor at such a young age.”

  He didn’t answer immediately, directing his gaze to the cold fireplace. When he returned his attention to her, he said, “I’m not a doctor.”

  Lilly’s mouth opened in surprise, but it took her a while to honestly process what she’d heard. “But I thought—“

  “Something happened at medical school and I was tossed out. I’ll never be a doctor. Not unless someone takes pity on me and lets me back in. Not likely.”

  Shocked, she stared at him. “What happened?”

  “I don’t talk about it.”

  Frustration sawed away at her control. She clasped his forearm. His muscles bunched, power evident in every sinew under her fingers. She jerked her hand back.

  “Why don’t you talk about it?” she asked. Maybe he did have something to do with the deaths she investigated.

  “Because it was a bad time in my life.”

  “You left the medical school a few months back?”

  “Four months.”

  “And you came home to do what?”

  “Not to run away, if that’s what you think.”

  “It’s what I think. But running away isn’t always a bad thing, is it?”

  He paused, and Lilly could almost hear him think. “Never mind that for now. You never explained what happened. You said you heard Patricia in the basement?”

  Had she? The first taunting voice hadn’t sounded like Patricia so much. The voice in the basement, however .... “Her voice was clear as day.”

  “She couldn’t have pushed you downstairs.” He pushed one hand through his hair. “There wouldn’t have been time for her to—“ He cut himself off, as if coming to an abrupt and startling realization.

  He stood quickly and opened the door. She heard his rushed steps as he headed into the hallway without the lamp. He listened.

  She stood and her ankle ached, but it wasn’t bad so she continued. “What are you doing?”

  He turned back to her and shook his head. “Nothing. I thought maybe Patricia was here. If she was, she had to slip outside to the conservatory. She would have to move fast.”

  He closed the library doors again, and their proximity made her breath hitch.

  “You should sit down,” he said.

  She wriggled her ankle. “It’s fine. Barely sore. I should go back upstairs. It’s not seemly, so they tell
me, for a woman to be caught like this alone with a man.”

  “Who, exactly, are they?”

  “The etiquette books I suppose.”

  “And you’ve read a lot of those.”

  “Quite a few.”

  He sighed, doubt written in his eyes. “Are you sure you weren’t dreaming about the voice?”

  Irritation rose up. “I don’t sleepwalk.”

  “There’s a first time for every situation.”

  “Oh, you are—”

  “Wrong?”

  “Yes. But if you don’t believe me, so be it.”

  Lilly felt a strange energy move through her, as if disagreeing with him, being authentic and answering truthfully, gave her special power. She’d spent so many years dancing around the truth to survive, that speaking her own mind with Morgan was freeing. Towering over her, his presence commanded.

  “I believe in what I can see and hear,” he said. “What I can touch. How can I believe you when there’s no proof my sister pushed you down the stairs.”

  He edged closer, and his nearness threw a hot wave of awareness over her. “I’m an honest woman. I don’t lie.” As soon as she said the words, she wanted to retrieve them, swallow them. She did lie, of course, and for some reason she hadn’t deciphered yet, it mattered far more that she’d lied again to him.

  “You’re trembling.”

  “Wouldn’t you be if you fell downstairs?”

  “Yes, but there’s something else wrong.”

  She drew in a steadying breath and hoped she could tell him this without breaking down. “When I was seven I had a friend ... Rebecca. Becca for short. I thought she was my good friend, but looking back on it I realize she was just the opposite. She tormented me.”

  His brows drew together. “Good God. What did you do?”

  “At first I didn’t do anything. I knew how to protect myself against patients, but other than being mean-spirited, there wasn’t anything insane about Becca. Her mother had died in the asylum and so she was there for the same reason I was. She would try and scare me, but that was very difficult to do. I’d never seen the basement, but she told me it was haunted. I didn’t believe her. One night I went down there because I was curious. Becca came with me. We discovered someone had left it unlocked.” She watched his curiosity turn to intense concern. “When we got down the stairs, she locked me into a room there. It was more accident than anything. She threw me into the room and slammed the door. Then neither one of us could unlock it. I screamed my head off. For the first time in a long time I was terrified. It was practically pitch dark, and in those few moments downstairs I realized I could see. I also ....” She decided to leave the part out about sensing presences of deceased patients in the basement. “When I stopped bawling, Becca decided it wasn’t fun anymore. She pulled very hard on the door while I pushed and the door opened. I got out and raced upstairs with Becca laughing all the way.”