“Duke Giles du Mer.” She heard him chuckle softly. “History of St. John Thorne.” He thumbed through the pages. “Du Mer considered himself quite the intellectual, but he didn’t quite grasp the complexity of a man like Thorne.” He turned to her. “Are you familiar with the tale?”
She shook her head, glancing at the cover of the book he held in his hand. There was a picture of a scaffold, rope dangling from the crossbeam. In the background, angry black clouds swirled on the horizon.
“St. John, Lord Thorne, fifth Earl of Willingsham, was hanged at Derry Berne on the twenty-fourth of April in the year of our Lord 1653. His body was left on the scaffold as a warning to all those who would dare to defy the English government.” He turned a page and stared down at a lithograph; he frowned. “Sometime between midnight and dawn of the following day, Lord Thorne’s body was removed by a person, or persons, unknown and was never found.” He turned his enigmatic gaze to Lauren. “Legend has it that he wasn’t dead, that he had cursed his executioners before they carried out his sentence and he swore to take his revenge on his accusers.”
“What did he do?” she whispered, seeing anger building in his dark face.
“He skewered a revenue agent on the tip of his sword for trying to confiscate the Thorne lands.”
“Was he in debt?”
“One did not have to do much of anything to lose one’s land during that time.” He shrugged. “An insult to a nobleman was often just cause to sue for satisfaction. The courts often awarded land as compensation.” His gaze narrowed. “Nor was it uncommon to condemn a man to death on trumped up charges in order to take those lands if you had no other cause against him.” He shut the book and sliding it back on the shelf.
“Did Lord Thorne take his revenge?”
He didn’t answer, but rather drew another book from the shelf. He scanned the contents page then turned to hand it to her. “I’ll take this one.” He moved further down the aisle, looking at other books.
Lauren glanced at the book in her hand. Her brows drew together. She couldn’t ever remember seeing that particular book before. Even the title was not familiar to her. She opened it in the middle and was shocked to see an explicit picture of a man and woman engaged in sexual union. She shut the book with a snap, drawing his attention.
“Shocked, Miss Fowler?” he asked, one brow lifted in amusement.
“I didn’t know we had this.”
He took the book from her. “The Satyricon of Petronius was considered to be the most erotic book of its day.” He leafed through the pages. “This version, complete with lithographs, was an underground version of the novel printed in the late seventeenth century.” He handed the book back to her, drew three more from the shelf then faced her.
“Have you found what you wanted?” she asked, wanting desperately to escape from his intoxicating presence.
He smiled. “For today.” His eyes moved over her face with a tender sweep as he handed her his purchases.
Lauren clutched the books to her chest. She felt him right behind her as she walked to the counter where Louvenia Yelverton stood waiting.
“I hope you found everything you were looking for,” the older woman gushed.
“And more,” he answered as he took out his wallet.
“Cash or charge?” Louvenia asked as she mentally calculated the total of the four books. She looked up at him sporting a foolish smile.
“Cash,” he said, handing her a hundred-dollar bill.
“Thank you, Mr. Cree,” said Lauren.
“It was my pleasure, Lauren.” His smooth voice made the hair on her arms stir. His gaze was hot and filled with an emotion she was shocked to realize was keen interest and sexual fascination.
“Run along now, Miss Fowler,” Louvenia told her, her eyes stern, “or you’ll be here all night.”
“Yes, Mrs. Yelverton.” She heard her manager murmuring an apology to Mr. Cree.
“Sometimes I’m afraid Miss Fowler has her head in the clouds when she’s working.”
“Better than her soul in torment, wouldn’t you agree?” he asked, his voice tight with annoyance.
Lauren glanced back to see Mrs. Yelverton sputtering as she hastily placed Mr. Cree’s purchases in a bag with the store’s crest emblazoned on the front.
The bell over the door tinkled as he left the shop and Lauren glanced around the shelf of self-help books to see him staring back at her through the window. She ducked her head, hiding herself from his view.
“He’s mouth-watering, isn’t he?” she heard Beth Janacek sighing to Karla Cooper. “I bet he has women eating out of his hand everywhere he goes. He can put his slippers under my bed any time.”
“He could come to my bed—” said Inez began, but Louvenia’s curt voice hushed her into propriety.
“The gentleman would not appreciate us talking about him in such a manner, Inez,” the older woman snapped.
“I bet he’s use to it.” Karla giggled. “Any man who looks like that has to know what women think of him.”
“Who is he, anyway?” Beth asked. “I’ve never seen him around town.”
“And you would have remembered if you had!” Karla teased.
“I wonder if he’s the man who bought the old Herndon place. Reed told me a stranger had bought the place through a lawyer up north.” Louvenia nodded her head. “I bet that’s who he is.” Her avarice glowed. “Reed said he paid cash for the place.”
“And did your husband get the commission?” Inez inquired.
“No, Reed’s partner made the sale.” Louvenia sighed. “It was a rather substantial commission, too. The asking price for the acreage alone was over a quarter million. Janet Herndon practically threw the house in for next to nothing in order to get rid of it.”
“The place is haunted,” Karla said, shivering.
“You don’t believe those old tales, do you?” Inez scoffed.
“Can you explain why the house has been vacant all these years?” Karla shot back. “No one wants to the live in the house where Janet’s granddaddy went berserk and killed his wife and oldest son. People have seen things in that house.”
“Like what?” Inez challenged.
“I believe we have better things to do than discuss old ghost stories of the Florida Panhandle, ladies,” Louvenia reminded them. She looked down at her watch. “We close in fifteen minutes and I, for one, have no intention of putting in any overtime.”
The women moved away from the center aisle and headed back to what they had been doing before their last customer had entered the shop. Only Inez Montes did not resume her work, but instead, stared across the aisle from the inspirational books to where Lauren knelt, shelving books. As Lauren looked at her, Inez laughed disdainfully.
“You made a fool of yourself flirting with that man,” the Spanish woman sneered. “It was obvious he wasn’t interested.”
“I wasn’t flirting with him.”
Inez smiled, her lips cruel and twisted with contempt. “You aren’t his type, Lauren. Men like attractive women, women with fire.” Her look ran scathingly down Lauren’s body. “Not cold fish like you.”
A shaft of anger went through Lauren. “I was not flirting with him,” she said again, her teeth clenched.
Long after the others had left the store, Lauren was still shelving and logging in the crate of books that had come in that morning. Outside it was raining, the sky occasionally lit by white flares of light. Distant rumbling shook the plate glass front window, rattling it in its frame. The wind was picking up, moaning as it cornered the bookshop. Lauren knew it was going to be a miserable two-block walk to her home.
At last finished with the cataloging, she glanced at the clock behind the counter and winced. It was eight already and she’d had nothing to eat since eleven. A grumbling in her stomach told her it was well past time for her supper. Putting the book register under the counter, she headed to the break room for her raincoat. The phone rang and she jumped, startled by the sound. Not rea
lly sure whether to answer it or not, she wondered if it was her mother, calling to ask if she needed a ride home in the rain. She pushed that thought away as quickly as it came for she knew her mother would never venture out on a night such as this. As the phone rang again, she reached out for it.
“The Composition Book Store,” she said.
There was a brief silence then the husky voice spoke. “Happy birthday, Lauren.”
A tremor of surprise shook her for she didn’t recognize the voice. “Who is this?”
There was another brief silence then the line went dead.
“Hello?” Lauren’s brows drew together in confusion. “Hello?”
There was nothing but the hum of the open line.
Slowly replacing the receiver, Lauren stared at the phone. For a reason she could not explain, the mysterious phone call had made her heartbeat accelerate and her mouth go dry. She swallowed. Who could it have been? It had been a man’s soft, resonant voice: sensuous and low. Almost as mesmerizing as....
A thrill ran through Lauren like a current of stray electricity and her head came up.
“No,” she whispered. “It couldn’t have been.” She leaned against the counter. The man from that afternoon, what was his name? Cree. Yes, that was it. Syntian Cree. He couldn’t possibly have known it was her birthday. There was no way he could have known.
She locked up the bookshop and started the rainy walk home. No, Mr. Cree couldn’t have known it was her birthday. She stopped suddenly in the pouring rain as an eerie thought crossed her mind: No one had told him her first name, either, but he had known it.
Despite her rain coat and umbrella, Lauren was soaked by the time she reached her one-bedroom house on Canal Street. She hurried up the short flight of steps to the screened porch, shaking her umbrella as she reached the roof’s overhang. She laid it on the porch floor and shrugged out of her wet coat, laying it on the back of one of the two tall porch rockers that stood on either side of the front door. She fished in her purse for her house key, stuck it in the lock, opened the door and reached in to flip on the porch light. She started to put the key back in her purse when her attention was diverted to the little wicker table beside one of the rockers. She stopped, key in hand and stared at what was on the table.
A single, scarlet red rose in a fragile-looking crystal bud vase stood in the center of the table. Propped beside it was a small white card.
“Who in the world?” she asked as she dropped her key into her purse. She walked to the table, lifted the rose and sniffed it, inhaling its delicate scent. With the rose still in her hand, she picked up the card and saw there was no florist shop name on the outside. Her curiosity pounding in her temples, she opened the card. Inside, there were only four words on the simple white card: From one who cares. No signature, no initials. Just those four simple, sweet words.
“From one who cares.”
Lauren jumped as her phone began to ring. Closing the door behind her, she ran to the phone and snatched it up on the third ring. “Hello?”
“Did you like the rose?” he asked.
“Who is this?” Lauren’s heart had leapt up to her throat.
“Did you like it?” he repeated, his voice soft and caressing.
“Yes, but—”
“That’s all that matters.”
He hung up.
Lauren’s mouth dropped open and anger replaced her astonishment of only a moment before. “Damn it!” she spat as she slammed down the receiver. She glanced at the rose in her hand. It seemed to mock her as she stared at it and she put it down on the telephone table, backing away from it as though it had somehow become a deadly enemy. She had no idea what kind of cruel game he was playing, what kind of fool he took her for, but the thought of a man like him taunting her made tears slide unbidden down Lauren’s cheeks. She ran to her bedroom and threw herself face down on the bed.
Her sobs were lost in the wild torrent gathering outside her window.
His palm stretched out over the candle, his flesh turning warm from the kiss of the flame. Outside the storm was raging, the rain lashing against the windowpanes of his study. Now and again the wind howled as it played around the eaves of the old mansion. The electricity had gone out long ago, plunging the book-lined room into near-total darkness; but he preferred the candle light to the harsh glow of the electric lights to which he could never seem to become accustomed. The shadows hovering around him were comforting companions that whispered to him in words only he could hear.
A flare of lightning stepped down from the tempests above him and lit the room in a harsh blue-white glow that caught, and held, in his dark eyes, turning them a murky gold for a moment. He blinked, ridding himself of the lethargy into which the storm had cast him. Moving his palm from the candle, he put his hands on the arms of his chair and stared into the darkest corner of the room, his attention settling there. If he concentrated hard enough, he knew he could look past the plaster and wood and brick, peer out through a ragged hole in the span of time and look right into her bedroom. He tried to keep himself from doing just that, but his desire was building, the need in him so thick, he smelled his own body heat.
It wasn’t time. He tried to force his thoughts away from her. He knew it wasn’t time; but the ache was throbbing, the pain almost too intense to bear. Slowly he pushed himself from the chair and stepped toward the darker shadows. One moment he was standing in the candle-lit sanctuary of his study, the next he was beside her bed, peering down hungrily as she lay sleeping. His eyes glow a feral red in the semi-darkness of her bedroom walls.
“Not yet,” the taunting of his inner voice warned him. “It is not time.”
But his hand moved, swept downward and he touched her.
Inez Montes moaned in her sleep. Juan’s hands were on her body, stroking her, touching her, his hands rough and demanding, his fingers entering the hot moistness between her thighs. She squirmed against the invasion, clamping her thighs down on the hard heat of his hand. His thumb was on her clitoris, rubbing it roughly, and her body reacted to the intimacy of the touch.
“Open your legs to me,” she thought she heard her husband say and she obeyed, her limbs stretching languidly upon the mattress and she felt his weight hovering above her. There was a solid, steel-like pressure against her womanhood and she groaned, aching to feel him inside her.
“Are you sure you want me, Inez?” came the silky purr and she nodded, licking her lips. “Then you must ask me to take you.”
“Yes!” Inez mumbled. “Take me. Take me, now!” Her arms came up to hold him, but as she did, a thrust of such power, such heat and force and tearing pain, entered her that she screamed with the agony of it.
Her eyes flew open, her teeth drew back over lips snarling in pain, but there was nothing above her. Although there was a heavy weight atop her thrashing body, rocking her in sexual union, thrusting against her, there was no one there.
“Inez? What’s the matter with you?”
Her head twisted to one side and she saw Juan, on his side, facing her, his expression horrified as he watched her moving back and forth on the bed.
As the ice cold burst of ghostly fluid shot deep within her, burning her, scalding her, Inez Montes threw back her head and howled in abject terror.
Chapter Two
“Do you know if she’s going to be all right?” Karla asked Louvenia as the older woman unlocked the shop doors.
“Juan said the doctors aren’t sure,” Louvenia answered, holding the door so Karla and Beth could enter. She had seen Lauren walking toward her, but did not bother to wait for her. She let the door swing shut as she walked behind the other women into the store. “They had to perform emergency surgery at two o’clock this morning.”
“How the hell does someone get a perforated uterus?” Beth wondered.
“Knowing Inez,” Karla whispered so Louvenia wouldn’t hear, “she got slap-happy with something battery-powered!”
“You’ll have to fill in for Inez, Miss F
owler,” Louvenia said when Lauren entered the shop. “She’s going to be in the hospital for a few days.”
Lauren’s face showed her concern. “Is she ill?”
“She wouldn’t be in the hospital otherwise, now, would she?” Beth snapped.
Lauren blushed. “I just wondered what happened. She didn’t seem sick yesterday.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing to concern you,” Louvenia informed her. “You’ll have Inez’s work, as well as your own, to occupy your time.” She punched open the cash register and began to put in the day’s cash.
“You want to go with me at lunch to see her?” Karla asked Beth.
“We’ll send flowers, of course,” Louvenia told them.
Lauren felt a stab of hurt go through her. The day before had been her birthday and not one single soul in the shop had said anything to her. Not that she had expected it, but it would have been nice. She turned away.
The phone call came at lunchtime when there was no one in the shop but Lauren. At the last moment, Louvenia had accompanied Beth and Karla to the hospital to see Inez. Lauren answered the phone and knew even before he spoke who it was.
“How are you today?” he inquired.
“Mr. Cree?” she asked.
“Syn,” he corrected.
Lauren’s chin went up. “Did you leave the rose on my front porch?”
“Would you have dinner with me this evening?”
His question stunned her. And brought her anger of the night before back. “Mr. Cree, I’m sure you find this amusing, but I assure you I do not. I don’t know who put you up to this, but it’s not funny. It’s a very cruel thing to do. Please don’t call me again.” She hung up the phone, her hand trembling and her lip quivering.
NightWind 1st Book: HellWind Trilogy Page 2