Katherine gasped, her eyes doubling in size. “My Lord! Justine’s been complaining that—she must’ve sprinkled some downstairs yesterday when she was—” Visibly shaken, she screwed the lid back on the jar and shoved it across the cabinet top. “We need to label that and store it someplace else. I—I could’ve killed us all—please don’t tell her, Celesta! You know how scatterbrained she thinks I am, but this could—”
Was it genuine shock or an extremely good act? Celesta’s smile felt forced as she set the jar out by the pantry door, wishing she knew. “I won’t say a word. Nearly made the same mistake myself once,” she replied. “Shall we rejoin the others? She’ll wonder why we’re not out there spending her money.”
Katherine quickly stirred in sugar from the kitchen table, and then preceded Celesta back to the parlor. It seemed unlikely that she’d attempt a mass poisoning when they were finally refurbishing her beloved home, yet Celesta had to wonder . . . had she hastily stashed that jar in the cupboard, after lacing Mama’s sugar bowl with the cyanide? She could’ve hidden it in her bag of sewing supplies that day....
The details still didn’t add up. And when they found Damon measuring the parlor walls while Justine wrote down the dimensions he called out, Celesta made herself think more pleasant thoughts. It wasn’t hard: Frye’s movements showed a confident male grace as he used his eyes and his tape measure. His wink brought heat to her cheeks.
“You ladies will be pleased to know we’ve reached an agreement on all your patterns,” he said suavely. “Justine has also chosen this flecked design for the music room and the upstairs hallway, and I think she’s decided that this redecorating isn’t so costly after all.”
“You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Frye,” the spinster stated good-naturedly.
“And you dicker like a tradesman,” he teased back.
Katherine sat down to pour their drinks with a relieved smile. “It sounds like Celesta and I missed out on some important transactions. You must be thirsty after your negotiations.”
Damon chuckled and took the tall, cool glass she handed him. “Are you ready for this? When I told her that Mr. and Mrs. Cruikshank each had a bathroom upstairs, she agreed to install plumbing in one of your tower bedrooms.”
Celesta blinked, and Katherine nearly dropped her pitcher, but Justine merely sniffed. “Winter’s coming,” she asserted. “At my age, it’s a long walk to the privy—and since Katherine’s so finicky about emptying chamber pots, I decided it was time. But only because Mr. Frye agreed to install the fixtures himself, and only because he promised not to touch my room. Actually, I see no need to redecorate any of the bedrooms. We can’t see the walls when we’re asleep.”
Frye flashed a smile at Katherine and Celesta. “We’ll see how it goes. Once the first floor’s complete, she may change her mind.”
“Well, it seems to me we should celebrate,” Katherine said with a girlish laugh. She handed the rest of the glasses around and raised her own. “With many thanks to Mr. Frye for working miracles, and a toast to a bright, happy future to all of us within these dear walls.”
“Hear, hear,” Celesta murmured, watching her favorite aunt, hoping her doubts would pass with time.
“It’s my pleasure to be a part of this august occasion,” Frye said. And as he clinked his glass against Justine’s and took a long, slow drink of his lemonade, Celesta thanked God that Sally Sharpe had averted an unspeakable tragedy today.
It was as pleasant an afternoon as Damon could remember. They finished measuring the first-floor rooms and the second-floor hallway, and as he suggested layouts for the round bathroom, pacing out places where the tub, sink, and the enclosed toilet could be, Katherine’s eyes shone with her excitement. Justine was a meticulous secretary, displaying her enthusiasm by noting each room’s dimensions alongside a description of the paper pattern, figuring and refiguring the square footage—and probably each room’s price, but she kept that figure in her head.
As they started downstairs, the two older women asked numerous questions about the mansion he was overseeing, but it was their niece he wished to draw out. “As I recall, you were taking piano lessons when you were a girl—much to Patrick’s chagrin, because you were more talented than he,” Frye added. “Would you play for me? That’s a beautiful instrument in the sitting room.”
“Oh, I—” She blinked, brought out of her reverie by his direct, dark-eyed gaze. “It’s been years since I sat down—”
“Would you mind if I played, then? Just to see if I remember anything?”
Katherine clapped her hands together and lit up with delight. “We’d love to hear you, Damon. What a perfect end to a lovely day.”
Justine stayed behind them on the bottom step, clearing her throat. “I believe I’ll retire now. Thank you for your help and advice today, Mr. Frye. I feel we’ve made great progress.”
Damon watched her slender form ascend to the landing, wondering what had caused such a turnabout in her mood. “Did I say something wrong? Perhaps my playing will disturb—”
“Don’t think a thing of it, dear,” Katherine insisted as she took his arm. “The piano was Rachel’s birthday gift when she was just a little girl—Ambrose lavished the best on her because her mother died when she was a toddler, you see—and Justine, being nearly twenty years older, always felt . . . slighted. Always walked out when Rachel sat down to play, too. It’s no reflection on you.”
“And you’ve done remarkably well with her,” Celesta commented as they entered the music room. “I thought she’d go through the roof when she learned you were coming, yet now she’s following you around like a puppy.”
Frye laughed low in his throat and slid onto the piano bench. “I have that way with women, you know. Better beware, ladies.”
Celesta flushed and Katherine giggled her approval, but when he played his first thundering chords with a flourish they watched in awe. Damon Frye was an accomplished musician even as he warmed up with brilliant runs and arpeggios. And after glancing thoughtfully at Katherine, he eased into three-quarter time and played an introduction they all knew well.
“‘Tales of the Vienna Woods,’” her aunt whispered, and she sank down into a chair to enjoy the graceful, lilting waltz with her eyes closed. Celesta leaned on the top of the piano, fascinated by the tanned, masculine hands that possessed such lyrical power.
Frye mentally thanked his mother for making him practice when he was young, because Celesta’s dreamlike expression was exactly what he’d been searching for ... for more years than he realized.
“You’re so lovely,” he breathed, and when he saw that her aunt was lounging in the wing chair, he ended the Strauss piece with a bridge into another familiar classic. “This one’s for you, Celesta. Only for you.”
She listened, spellbound by the singing tonal quality of a song that went straight to her heart, because she’d played it herself years ago. “‘Liebestraume,’” she whispered.
“A dream of love,” he murmured back, smiling tenderly. “A dream of you . . . and I don’t imagine I’ll get much sleep while I’m staying here. Be mine, Celesta. Tonight.”
Her heart raced wildly. Could this be the same man who had stolen her manuscript and forced her to kiss him on Patrick’s back porch? The music seemed to transform him from a conniving blackheart into the handsome prince of a hundred fairy tales.
But she knew better than to fall for his seductive repartee: her aunt had made the consequences of getting caught very clear. “Justine’ll hear me—”
“Not in the cellar, she won’t.”
She closed her eyes against visions of him pulling her close, murmuring daring, dangerous phrases as he unbuttoned her blouse. “Damon, I can’t—”
“You can,” he insisted, punctuating his whispered command with a compelling brown-eyed gaze that made her legs go rubbery. “I’ll show you all you need to know ... though I suspect pleasing me will come as naturally to you as breathing.”
Celesta clung helplessly to the
polished piano, knowing she should leave yet craving more clandestine promises that could only get her into trouble. “We shouldn’t. . . .”
“Ah, but we shall. It’s only a matter of time for us, Celesta.” Sensing she was about to turn away, he leaned forward until his face was directly beneath hers, still playing softly so that Katherine wouldn’t hear him. “Don’t forget that I still have something of yours. You know my terms of surrender, sweetheart.”
Her pale green eyes flashed with resentment, and she stalked from the room; yet he knew she was already his. Damon brought the sonorous serenade to an end and discovered Katherine watching him with a knowing, secretive expression.
“You have a charming niece,” he said with a dapper smile. “Temperamental, but charming. I believe I’ll retire now, so I can arrange my room before I go to bed. Good night, Katherine.”
“Good night, Mr. Frye. Sleep well.”
Celesta shifted in the hard wooden chair, staring at the flickering candle on Grandfather’s secretary. Like a moth to the flame, she mused, and you’re going to burn in hell for listening to his pretty lies.
Unable to sleep in her hot, airless room, she’d come to the alcove to write. Her cotton nightgown clung damply to her back, and her pen lay atop a stack of clean white sheets—so preoccupied she was, she hadn’t even written her usual Sally Sharpe heading across the top of one.
It had been a momentous day: Justine had agreed to redecorate the manor—and to install indoor plumbing! In the room below, she was still reading. The glow from her lamp and the scent of cigarettes drifted up through the ventilation grate in the floor. Katherine had nearly spiked the lemonade with rat poison, an event that still made her shake to think about it. And tomorrow she’d fetch her possessions from the room she’d lived in since she could remember, trying to close one chapter of her life so that she could start another.
The story was just beginning, but already Damon Frye had signed his name across her soul, much as she penned her pseudonym at the top of each tale about Sally Sharpe. She didn’t always know how events and clues would fall into place when she started an episode, but she had implicit faith in the Girl Detective’s ability to lead her through the plot’s twists and red herrings to a satisfying conclusion. It just worked that way, and she didn’t question the intuition behind her talent.
Celesta sighed, sensing she was on the brink of her life’s most treacherous yet exciting journey, an adventure like those she wrote about because her real life was so predictable and boring. But not anymore—not with a handsome, sensual man waiting for her in the cellar even as she sat here trying not to think about him!
Damon scared her witless. And unlike a fictional thief who would stop badgering her once she wrote of his capture by her blond detective, Frye would continue to haunt her until she wrote the ending his way . . . and then he’d demand more, until he’d stolen her very being.
What would Sally Sharpe do with a man like Damon? How would she bring him to his knees?
Celesta smiled in spite of a conscience that cried out her doom, in spite of willpower that flickered like the flame before her.
There was only one way to find out.
Chapter 9
Poised at the top of the cellar stairs, Celesta let out the breath she’d been holding since she crept down from the third floor. The wooden steps from the ballroom had creaked beneath her bare feet—and they ran right alongside the master suite Justine slept in!—but her maiden aunt’s snores hadn’t missed a beat, as far as she could tell. It was hard to hear, with her heart pounding this way.
She gazed into the velvety darkness below, knowing Damon waited like a wolf in his lair—knowing this descent to her own damnation marked a point of no return. It’s only a matter of time for us, Celesta . . . you know my terms of surrender. Damn his arrogance! But what bothered her more was his accuracy, his uncanny ability to know that she, too, sensed this rendezvous was their destiny.
Why wasn’t he burning a lamp? For all she knew he was crouched at the bottom of the stairs, ready to pounce. . . . She’d scream and waken the aunts— which would be her salvation. The only sign of his presence was a faint fragrance that masked the cellar’s mustiness . . . tobacco, with a hint of cherry.
Swallowing the anxiety that rose in her throat, Celesta groped for the first step with her foot, and then the next, and then the third. Still there was no acknowledgement of his presence, yet every fiber in her taut body vibrated to his silent call. Damon would play the tune, and she would dance ... on Lucy’s grave and probably on Mama’s, if that was what he demanded.
Despite the drop in temperature, she felt clammy. A cold prickle of fear coursed through her when the door behind her swung shut. She was trapped down here, and it was really Damon who’d slipped that cyanide into Mama’s—
Sally Sharpe would get a hold of her racing imagination, Celesta reminded herself desperately, as she closed her eyes to regain composure. Sally wouldn’t stand here quaking in the dark, waiting for something horrible to happen to her.
She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. Up or down? The choice was hers, and since it looked like Mr. Frye was making a complete fool of her, playing upon her unsophisticated nature, the only intelligent move was to turn around and—
A pffffft made her gasp. In the center of the blackness below shone the light of a single match, with which Damon was lighting his pipe. The flame illuminated his shadowy face, and as he inhaled, the embers of his tobacco cast a satanic glow over his dusky features.
“Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly,” he quipped.
“Damn you, give me some light!”
His low laughter echoed in the cavernous room, and she knew in her heart she should run while she still had the chance. But she stood there, crawling with gooseflesh, too fascinated by the mystery that was Damon Frye to move.
And when he lit a small lamp on the table beside him she was amazed at the sudden ambiance. He was seated in an old overstuffed chair that had been a favorite of Grandfather’s, beside a bed—already turned down, she noted—from what had been her mother’s room. Behind him, Mama’s cheval mirror reflected the inviting light, turning this part of the cellar into a homey den for a host who was smiling cordially now. Two other large, freestanding mirrors were arranged to either side of him, camouflaging the old armoires, trunks, and other castoffs behind it, relics that had accumulated through the generations.
The smoke from his pipe formed a mystical frame around his face. He was watching her intently, as though anticipating her every thought and move, and she suddenly realized that in her flustered state she’d left her wrapper draped over the alcove chair.
She was a vision of heartrending innocence in her flowing white gown, and yet ... the ebony hair tumbling around her shoulders peaked on her forehead, lending a decidedly wanton air to her pale face. She was an angel about to fall, unflinching despite his piercing gaze. His heart ached with admiration, but he couldn’t save her.
“I’d almost given up on you.”
“You underestimate me, Mr. Frye.” Celesta surveyed the dim corners of his abode until she found the envelope he’d taken, with the folded packet of sugar on it. “Do you have a habit of stealing other peoples’ personal effects?”
“Only when it provides the means to get better acquainted. The folded paper full of sugar intrigues me, though.”
“You tasted it?”
“I wanted to be sure you didn’t take a powder before I had the chance to—’’ Her stricken expression brought him out of his chair and confirmed a few suspicions her detective story had raised. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t mean to make light of—”
“Just give me my envelope and my pen, so I can—”
“Wait.” Damon reached up to grasp her arms, chiding himself for spoiling the mood he’d so carefully created. A tear glistened on her dimly lit cheek, and the lowest of lechers couldn’t continue to seduce this grieving child. “Celesta, forgive me. With what you had
to know about poisons to write that story, it’s just now occurring to me that you think your mother might’ve taken—”
“No, I think it was mixed into the sugar bowl only she and I used.”
Frye studied her closely. Her shining eyes reflected her conviction that Rachel Montgomery was murdered, and if what Celesta said was true, she could’ve been the next victim! “So how do you know—”
“I have no proof,” she replied with a sigh. “But in retrospect, I realize that Mama’s complaint about bitter tea, followed by her convulsions . . . and her pink complexion afterward, all point to cyanide.”
Frowning, he urged her down the last two steps so that they could talk more comfortably. “Didn’t a doctor or the undertaker offer any suggestion about the cause of death?” he asked quietly.
“She was a maid, Damon. Buried in a plain pine box.”
He shut his eyes, wishing the magic of her presence hadn’t rendered him so insensitive to her painful circumstances. “What did the Perkinses think it was?”
“Patrick had the water supply checked, and threw away all the open food and boiled our dishes, thinking it was some sort of contamination,” she said in a quavery voice. “By the time I thought to check the sugar bowl, that day you cornered me on their porch, any evidence of the poison had been disposed of. I—I’m sorry I’m blubbering. It’s really not like me.”
Damon took her in his arms, sorely wishing she were standing against him, wearing next to nothing, under happier circumstances. As he rocked her, he considered her comments carefully, for Celesta
wasn’t some goose of a girl pointing a hysterical finger at everyone in town. She was well-read and rational, with the analytical mind of a detective and a writer . . . but it seemed unlikely that anyone hated her mother enough to kill her.
“Come here, sweetheart,” he murmured against her ear. “We’re going to sit down and sort this out. Perhaps there’s an angle you haven’t thought of, that I, as an outsider, will see more clearly.”
Missouri Magic Page 10