Enjoying the sensation, she floated, feeling his presence, warm and protective, like the man she had always dreamed of, the one that would cherish her and care for her, not expect her to be something she was not and could never be.
“Close your eyes.” She heard his voice now, a soft, southern drawl and a slight accent of pure French. Seductive, gently persuasive. She closed her eyes and felt his hands close around her waist. She almost swooned from the closeness. “Sleep, Susannah.”
* * * * *
Karey opened her eyes. Jordan smiled into them. His face bore several vivid bruises but they were yellow and green, not purple. Had she been gone for days, then? Weeks? Her mind was a mass of contradictions and confusions, but one thing was clear. “Jordan, you’re alive!”
His eyes lit with warmth. “I’m alive. Still not well, but alive. Karey, you’ve been out for a few hours. It’s close to eleven.”
How could that be? Confusion followed, then sharp understanding. “Your mouth!” She reached out and touched his mouth with her fingers, his perfect mouth. The last time she’d seen it his lips were split and swollen. He could barely speak.
He smiled and kissed her fingers. “All better. It’ll take a couple of days before I’m completely recovered, but the superficial injuries are healing quickly.”
“I can’t believe it!” She smiled, the corners of her mouth catching the tears she was unaware she’d shed. “It’s one thing to hear it, and quite another to see it.”
Tearing her gaze away from Jordan, Karey looked around her. She was in one of the newly decorated rooms in the East Wing, the odor of paint and wallpaper paste in her nostrils, the floorboards roughly chafing her thighs. “How did we get here?”
He frowned. “Thomas brought you, and Foret followed. You went while I was asleep. Somehow, Susannah got a much stronger hold on you than she ever has before. I suspect drugs.”
“That tea...” she murmured. “I had some iced tea.”
“Oh God, I remember, and I told you to drink it! It must have been laced with something. Vodun practitioners are superb herbalists, so why should Foret be any different, just because he chose the path of evil? He gave you something, then he took control and asked Susannah in.” He took her hand. “One moment of carelessness and I nearly lost you.”
“Carelessness? After what happened to you?” The realization came suddenly. “Bernard fixed your car, and then fixed me.”
“He wants the necklace. I thought he wanted you, or rather, Susannah in your body, so he’d want me out of the way. He doesn’t know what I am, so he assumed the sharp turn at the end of the drive would carry me off. It nearly did.”
“Where is he?”
His tone became sardonic. “Look behind you.”
Karey turned around. Lying prone on the floor, his head turned to one side lay Bernard Foret, deeply unconscious. “You hit him?” She couldn’t stop the delight she felt.
“I influenced him. He’s not the only one who can send people to sleep. I forced him to sleep. Call it retribution instead.”
“I think I’d rather you’d hit him.” She turned back to Jordan.
He gave a harsh laugh. “Believe me, I wanted to hit him. But I can’t walk yet.”
“What?” She drew back and took a better look at him. He was sitting on the floor, his legs, still bound in their splints, splayed out grotesquely either side of her. She was cradled between them. “How the fuck did you get here?”
“I flashed.” He spread his hands and smiled. “Remember? I did it before.”
“I remember.” Her memories were returning, creeping slowly back.
“We’re going to do it again. Hold on to my hands, love.”
When he held his hands out she took them, gingerly at first, and then with a little more pressure, but she still took care. She couldn’t believe they’d healed so quickly.
A dazzling explosion of light spun around their heads but it didn’t make her feel dizzy so much as exalted. She didn’t close her eyes this time, and when it stopped they were sitting on the floor of his bedroom. She couldn’t help it. She laughed. “Now I know why you called it flashing!”
He laughed with her, relief adding to their mirth. His arms went around her and she moved as close as she could without hurting him. “Oh, Jordan, we’re here, we’re alive!”
“We are.” He sobered, and pushed her away from him slightly, his hands on her shoulders. “But if we don’t get out of this place, we might not be for much longer.” She stilled, her attention riveted by his grave expression. “I’ve sent Foret to sleep for at least tonight, if not longer. I wasn’t trying for accuracy. But even with him out of the way, we’re still in danger. He only took from what was here already, and he’s given the Sharmans extra strength. They’ll attack again.”
“But they don’t want the necklace.” She was thinking aloud, trying to work out what was going on here. “It’s not like anything I’ve come across before, Jordan. I’ve investigated ghosts for years, I even did my doctoral thesis on the equipment needed to investigate them.” She groaned in real agony. “And I have to walk away from it! Something so strong, proof, real proof! I could re-set the instruments, get some real results.”
His smile was gentle. “You explained that all to me when you applied to join the company. My doctorate is not a scientific one and I didn’t understand a word.”
She laughed. “No. I thought we’d never have anything in common, so I was safe.”
“Safe?”
She paused and then looked him straight in the eyes. “I wanted a break from men, a chance to get my career going.”
“And instead you found me.” He didn’t look away. “Not that I’m complaining.”
She leaned forward and kissed him gently on the lips, drawing back very slowly afterwards. “How is it that only now, when you’re not even the same species that I am, we’re closer than ever?”
He lifted his hands and put them on her waist, just above her hips. “It’s me. Before, I was obsessed with Hosts to Ghosts. Now I see how narrow minded I was.”
He returned the kiss, but increased the pressure, and opened her mouth with a touch of his tongue on her lower lip. He caressed her with his tongue and his hands, although they couldn’t get any closer, because his legs were still strapped, and she knew they hurt.
She knew they hurt because some part of him was still embedded in her. She felt what he felt. “I had to link us so strongly I’m not sure we’ll ever be completely apart.”
“Good.” She was past caring. No, that was wrong. She cared more than ever, and she never wanted this to end.
They separated, eyes still open, drinking each other in.
Jordan was the first to speak. “As soon as I can walk, we’re getting out of here. No delays, and we go together.”
He spoke as though she had no say in the matter, but although she might care later, she didn’t care now. “How long will that be?”
“I’ll probably manage to walk out to a cab in the morning. I’ll call a hotel, get us a room. The ghosts won’t return tonight.”
“Then what? Can you walk away? This is your cousin’s problem, Jordan, and he still has it. We might be out of danger, but from what he said on the phone, Auguste’s in danger, too.”
He took her hand and pressed it. “Sarah will find a Sorcerer to cleanse the place, someone who isn’t a blood relation, has no connection with this place, and has all the facts.”
She was forced to agree. “We’ll have to contact Auguste, tell him it’s not safe for him yet.” She grinned. “I spoke to him two days ago, and he’s desperate to get back here. He still wants to make a go of this place.”
“He will. It’s a beautiful house, people will line up to get in here once it’s cleansed. Auguste will give them a completely safe ghostly experience, maybe get a few people in period clothes to wander around.”
“Maybe.” She gave him a crooked grin and scrambled to her feet, careful not to touch his legs. “Meantime, le
t’s get you back into bed.”
“Sounds good, but I want a bath first. I can’t manage a shower yet, but the outer wounds on my legs have healed and I desperately want to get into the tub.”
She frowned. “How will we manage that?”
“I can get there if you let me lean on you. I just want to get these bandages off and get clean.”
She sighed regretfully. “Not yet. Perhaps in a little while. You’re still not completely well.” She studied him again, hardly believing what she could see. “I can’t believe you’re so well so soon.”
He gave her a winsome smile. “At least help me up.” He looked so vulnerable, sitting on the floor, naked except for a pair of boxers, legs splayed wide, strapped with metal splints, his arms and body covered with yellowing bruises and pink lines where earlier there had been deep gashes.
“I swear I can almost watch you healing,” she breathed, moving forward and holding out her hand.
“I can feel it.” He grimaced. “It’s strange. Nothing hurts much any more, but it’s like those films where they accelerate the action and you can watch a plant growing. I can feel all the new bone forming. Very weird.”
He gripped her hands with both of his and dragged himself up, then allowed himself to fall forward on to the bed. The mattress bounced under the impact, but held. He rolled over on to his back and smiled up at her. “There. Happy now?”
“Delirious.” Her answer was dry, but she meant it. They were together, and Jordan wasn’t going to die. That was enough, for now. More than enough.
Chapter Thirteen
They watched TV, with the news about Thalia, a dreadful film of a reporter standing outside the grounds of the house, relating the discovery of the girl. Karey called Auguste, to keep him up to date and keep him away from the house. She didn’t tell Auguste how badly Jordan was hurt. That would bring Auguste back at once, danger or no danger, and there was nothing he could do to help.
“Bernard Foret is a nut and worse. He wants the Blue Star, Auguste.”
“He can keep it. I don’t want it. Is he doing the job I pay him for?”
“As far as I can tell.”
“Then I’ll deal with everything else when I get back. You leave, I’ll fire him later. Don’t want him blaming you for it.”
Auguste seemed depressed at the news that his exile must continue for a while yet, but brightened when she brought up his business trip. “How are your negotiations going?”
“Couldn’t be better.”
Those three words put everything into perspective for Karey. With a blinding flash of insight she realized she had the one thing essential to her happiness—she had Jordan back. All her efforts to push him out of her life, to remake herself were useless because she loved him, she would always love him, and nothing else mattered.
Nothing except surviving the next couple of days.
* * * * *
Throughout the long night Karey watched Jordan heal. A body visibly accelerating its healing process systematically mended injuries that had nearly killed him the day before. When she unwrapped the bandages holding the splints on to his legs she steeled herself to face the horrors she’d glimpsed the previous day, but all she saw were fresh, pink scars and old-looking bruises.
“Amazing,” he murmured.
“How are you feeling?”
“Better. The bones aren’t completely healed, though. The deeper injuries will take a little longer. I wouldn’t have believed it if I couldn’t see it for myself.”
In the early hours of the morning he took a long bath, up to his chin in hot, refreshing water, but Karey refused to join him, knowing what that would lead to and knowing it wasn’t yet advisable. “We need to get out of here in the morning. You need to be fit enough to walk out to the car.”
He gave a long, deep sigh of regret. “You’re right.”
He insisted on accompanying her to her room when she went to pack. He needed something to lean on, but astonishingly, with the help of an old cane she’d found in his wardrobe, he managed without too much effort.
As Sarah has asked her, she destroyed the pouch, flushing the herbs it contained down the john, whispering a quiet but heartfelt “Thank you.” She found the scissors from her mending kit and cut the pouch into little pieces, flushing that away, too. Bernard would find nothing he could use.
When she took a shower and Jordan insisted on watching, ‘to make sure she was safe,’ Karey’s good resolutions were nearly overset, particularly when he mused aloud on which parts of her he loved to touch and kiss, but the knowledge that he wanted her, and felt free to express it sufficed to keep her happy. For now.
At seven-thirty, they went down to breakfast. Jordan didn’t need the cane any more, but he rested after the trek along the long hallway outside their room and going down the stairs to the dining room. The stairs in Belle Sauvage were grand, two flights rising from the hall to the landing above. Spectacular, but the curving sweep was difficult for a man with two newly healed broken legs to maneuver.
Unfortunately the dining room was pretty full. The electricians and plasterers had largely given way to decorators, who were to install the fancy lights, paper and paint the newly restored woodwork to the schemes chosen by Auguste before he left.
Didiane and Bernard sat at a large table, and beckoned Jordan and Karey to join them. Jordan shrugged and crossed the room, his loping stride not visibly different from what it had been the day before. Didiane’s face was fixed in a simulation of a sweet smile, but she was so lovely she could have gotten away with it, had not Karey known her inner nature.
Bernard stared in blank amazement then turned to confront Didiane. “I thought you said he was badly hurt!”
Jordan drew a chair back for Karey before taking the one next to her. “Not so badly. A few cuts and bruises. Nothing broken.”
Didiane’s smile faded, replaced by cool dislike. “You know that’s not true.”
“Do I?” Jordan lifted his head to confront his erstwhile lover. “I want to speak to you, Didiane. In private. But it can wait. I have more important matters on my mind.”
Someone waved from the hatch between the kitchen and the dining room.
“Would you like to help me bring the dishes over?” Bernard said to Karey, as though he’d been waiting for his cue.
Karey wasn’t sure who had planted the suggestion in his mind, but she knew someone had. She accepted and followed Bernard to the far end of the dining room, both nodding politely to the workmen as they threaded their way past the tables. Several trays awaited them. Karey nodded her thanks to the cook and made to pick up the nearest one. Bernard put his hand on her forearm.
Karey looked up at his face in surprise. “Did you want something?” Her heart beat a little quicker. She wanted to know what Bernard knew, what he suspected, but she wouldn’t go any further with him, and not out of Jordan’s sight.
“You could say that. I think your—husband—wants a quiet word with his mistress.”
“His ex-mistress.”
Bernard raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think so, from what she’s been telling me. He may fuck you for now, but he can’t do that for long. Not in the long run.”
“Why not?”
“You know why. He’s a vampire, isn’t he?”
She couldn’t prevent her shocked response but did her best by turning her attention to the tray. “Do you believe in vampires?”
Her stalling did her no good. “Karey, I saw him yesterday, before you hustled me out. He was dying. So how come he’s up and walking this morning? Only one creature I know can do that.”
“Creature?”
He smiled, his lips curling back against perfect teeth. “Creature. The vampire isn’t human, he’s a creature to hunt down and destroy. A powerful creature. You know how they convert another one?”
“No.”
“They have to die, or so Didiane tells me. So you can’t ever be a vampire, or at least, not with Jordan Arcenaux. He knows it, too.”<
br />
She lifted her chin and confronted him. “Has Didiane been talking to you?”
His smiled widened, reminding her of old pictures of Clark Gable at his most saturnine, except that Bernard didn’t have the bulk. But he had the charm, charm that had fooled her when she’d first arrived at the house. “She thinks she’s fooled me into becoming her slave, but I’m stronger than that. Cleverer than she thinks.”
Karey gave up all pretense of lifting the tray and turned to face him. “What do you want, Bernard?”
He stared at her, his dark, glittering eyes taking in every inch of her face. “Just the stones. I want the Blue Star necklace. I wouldn’t have hurt you last night, Karey, I swear it. The drugs I gave you only put you into a mild trance. You would have been perfectly safe with me. I wanted Susannah to lead me to the necklace, and she would have done, too. She had it on when the children died, but I couldn’t discover what she did with it after that.”
She doubted it. “By what right do you claim ownership to the Blue Star?”
“I’m a descendant of the original owner. It would be good all round if I got it. It’s a curse to the Sharmans, and once it’s found they can to rest in peace.” Greed lit his eyes. She wished she could give him the fucking necklace.
“Didiane wants it, too.”
Bernard shrugged. “I know. I called her here because she can find it and break the curse. That was before I realized you could help me.”
“How did you call her?”
He smiled, a self-satisfied smirk that made Karey shudder. “I cast a spell. I thought I’d call someone from New Orleans. I never dreamed I’d be powerful enough to call someone all the way over from France.”
Now she understood matters a little better, Karey doubted Bernard had done more than alert Didiane to the presence of the jewel. Didiane was much more powerful than Bernard thought. In fact, he tended to underestimate everybody. A mistake, that. “So why didn’t you tell Auguste you wanted the necklace and claim it by right?” If that was all he wanted, Karey doubted Auguste would object. He wanted rid of the stone, as did the rest of the family.
Hosts to Ghosts Box Set Page 41