She gazed up into his face and wondered if his heart heard the rhapsody hers was singing. “I love you—so much—” she panted. “I just want to—”
“Shhh, relax now,” he crooned. He took hold of her ankles and placed a lingering kiss in each of her insteps. “We’re going to cool you down so you can do this again, and again. Once will never be enough for you, Celesta.”
Her grin felt lopsided as she watched Damon nuzzle her leg, knowing quite well where he intended to work his way up to. He proceeded to her knees, delighting in her giggle, and then guided her feet onto his shoulders. “If this grows too intense, tell me. I don’t want to hurt you.”
Sensing she was in for yet another new experience, Celesta let him take his time and his pleasure as he worshipped her thighs and stomach with warm, thorough hands. He was kneeling between her legs, and the contrast between his lightly stubbled jaw and his silky dark hair as he kissed her sent a fresh wave of sensation through her veins.
He stopped to gaze at Celesta, his hands alongside her hips and her delicate ankles at his ears. She was arching toward him, inviting him with her rhythmic movements. It was an invitation he couldn’t refuse.
With utmost care he slid into her, watching her eyes widen, allowing her to adjust to the angle that sent him into the depths of her. Damon stroked her slowly, and when Celesta discovered how best to suspend herself, he smiled his thanks.
“Hang on, sweetheart,” he murmured, “I have a feeling I might get carried away.”
“I’ve been there myself, and it’s wonderful,” she breathed. “Take all you want, Damon. I’ve got you right where I want you, and I won’t let you go until you scream for mercy.”
Something inside him rushed forth like water through a floodgate. Only Celesta could set him free this way, and as he moved against her he burrowed deeper and faster until they were rutting like crazed animals. Celesta gripped his muscled shoulders and felt her head slip over the edge of the mattress. Her first ecstasy had prepared the path for him, yet this time the frenzy felt more prolonged and delicious. Damon moaned her name and rocked furiously against her until she, too, had to give in to the unquenchable ache he’d created. She couldn’t breathe, her head was at such an angle, but she didn’t care. He gasped with his final release and fell against the backs of her legs.
“I hope I didn’t hurt—”
“Do I look like I mind?” she whispered sweetly. She wrapped her arms around him, savoring his weight and the damp sleekness of his skin, and the way their bodies breathed as one.
“Good Lord, I nearly landed us on the floor,” he said with a breathy chuckle. He gathered her in his arms and inched them backward, maintaining their intimate connection. Then he gazed into her flushed face, overcome by his love for her. “You’re a helluva woman, Celesta.”
“That’s because you’re a helluva man.”
Her unhesitating response sent joy surging through him, and as he eased her lovely legs down on either side of him, he prayed for this blissful soaring of their minds and spirits to continue forever. “I hope I can make you smile this way when you’re Justine’s age.”
“You’d better, or you’ll find out she wasn’t very crotchety at all, compared to how I’ll be.”
Damon chuckled and nibbled her earlobe. “Save your threats, woman. You’re stuck with me.”
Giggling, Celesta pulled him down for an abandoned kiss that told him she was every bit as happy about that as he was.
It was a long, exhausting night.
* * *
A few days later Katherine announced she was ready to clean out Justine’s room. Celesta’s engagement had revitalized her to the point that she hummed as she performed household tasks her sister-in-law had previously seen to. It was a special treat for her to clean the new bathroom, admiring the shiny spigots and the steamy water that rushed into the sink.
“Justine should’ve hung on a few days longer,” she said wistfully. “Such a shame that she never got to use these fancy facilities.”
Celesta sensed a few cracks in the veneer of Katherine’s high spirits, so she volunteered to clear out her spinster aunt’s armoire and chest of drawers. She carted boxful after boxful of dime novels downstairs, so they could sort through them later, and then lovingly folded her plain but fine-quality garments into a spare trunk. Justine had always donated generously to the church’s foreign missionaries, so it seemed fitting to send them her clothing.
The vanity drawers yielded such odds and ends as tortoiseshell combs, numerous pairs of gloves, and underthings of unadorned cotton. Celesta smiled as she realized how much a woman’s personal effects revealed about her: in the bottom drawer, beneath faded fans and much-mended cotton stockings, were two tins of tobacco and a package of cigarette papers, with a box of matches. Beneath those supplies was a packet of envelopes tied in a faded ribbon. Her heart beat faster as she wavered between reading the letters and allowing Justine’s past to rest with her.
Curiosity won. All that climbing up and down the stairs had earned her a rest; so Celesta settled into the rocking chair, and on an impulse she wound the key of the phonograph beside it. The empty cylinder box on the table was labeled “Best-Loved Hymns,” and when she donned the earpieces a chamber orchestra was playing “Nearer, My God, to Thee.”
She sat back and pulled a letter from the top envelope, a page so worn from repeated readings that the folds were limp and barely legible. My darling Justine, the angular script began, how I long to see you again, to lose myself in your sparkling brown eyes and stroke your gossamer hair. I’ll be home soon, my love, and we can escape to ...
Celesta’s eyes were wide as she turned the page over to see who’d signed this provocative letter. To think Justine had received such mail! Reading this message seemed almost as craven as peering through the keyhole of a bedroom door, yet it could do no harm to—
She swallowed hard as the strains of “Oh, Master, Let Me Walk With Thee,” met her ears. Faithfully yours, Ian.
A bitter sadness wrapped around her heart as she stared at the signature. Justine hadn’t been totally off-balance after all, that day she’d spouted off and sent the Perkinses and Damon away. Here was proof that her father, the heart-stoppingly handsome Mr. Montgomery, had first led poor Justine astray before ruining her mother’s life as well. It sickened her to think that two trusting Ransom women had suffered lifetimes of loneliness, becoming a pair of chipped pearls on a necklace this Lothario had undoubtedly been stringing ever since.
Yet no one—not even inquisitive Katherine—had suspected Justine’s suppressed misery all these years. Celesta was too overwhelmed to read any further and slipped the ragged page back into its envelope. Thank God her aunt wasn’t so hardened toward men that she hadn’t seen the admirable traits in Damon Frye. By allowing him to prove his dubious past was truly behind him, she’d brought many weeks of laughter and friendship . . . and love into this family again. What a pity she couldn’t have lived until the wedding—
Celesta blinked and listened more closely. “Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us” had faded, and instead of its uplifting lyrics, other words were being spoken: Come down to the shoreline, Justine, we’ll share the dawn like lovers—sail away from those who taunt us, into our own eternal paradise. We were meant to be together—
Her mouth went dry, and she forced herself to keep listening despite the horror that filled her heart. This explained why her aunt had gazed longingly toward the river, as though seeking a long-lost beau—all the hours she’d spent listening to this recording had softened her lonely old mind until she believed these stirring, fatal phrases.
Come with me and be my own. We’ll love with the abandon of animals, away from the disapproving eyes of those who don’t understand our destiny. Meet me at the shoreline, Justine. Wade out to clasp my hands, and we’ll walk—
With a gasp Celesta yanked the earpieces off. Tears streamed down her cheek as an intense hatred welled up inside her: her aunt had drowned, but she’d
been talked into it! The person who recorded over this wax cylinder knew precisely what heartstrings to pluck, and he knew that after the fire Justine’s mind was fertile soil for such romantic seed. It was only a matter of time before the head of the Ransom family succumbed—an apparent victim of insanity. And what woman wouldn’t weaken as the hypnotic words seeped into her being, beneath the gates of rational reasoning?
Gripping the wooden chair arms, Celesta frantically wondered what to do next. It was up to her to expose this insidious bastard, but it was so painful to think that a man they knew and trusted had—she herself was in so deeply she wasn’t sure she could bear to—
“He’s going to pay for this,” she muttered as she stalked toward the door. “He can’t sweet talk his way out of it, because anyone can recognize his voice on that recording! If he thinks I’ll—”
She stopped her ranting when Katherine came out of the bathroom wearing a puzzled frown. “Were you speaking to me, dear? I wasn’t paying . . . whatever’s wrong, Celesta? Have we undertaken this painful task too soon?”
She knuckled the hot tears from her cheek. “Not soon enough,” she rasped. She glanced bitterly back into the master suite, resplendent in its lavender and lace. “It was Damon who—all along we thought Justine was crazy, saying he was her lover, but he’s the one who—”
“Celesta, calm down, dear. I can’t make sense of a thing you’re saying,” Katherine pleaded.
Grasping her aunt’s hands, she wondered how much of the awful truth the little woman could endure. Someone else had to verify that voice, though, or her case would appear to be a figment of a distraught fiancée’s imagination. And Katherine wouldn’t believe the evidence unless she heard it for herself, because she’d been the first to fall under Frye’s spell.
“Listen to that record on her phonograph,” she said in a ragged whisper. “Remember how Damon replaced her melted wax cylinders? Remember how she practically worshipped him—kissed him, even—at the end? Tell me that isn’t his voice, coaxing her to her death!”
Katherine paled, but she went in and sat down beside the phonograph. Too full of rage to watch her aunt’s reaction, Celesta marched into Damon’s room and threw the window up. As memories of his lovemaking, promises, and endearments fanned her wrath, she pitched his belongings outside. Suits, shirts, and overalls fluttered two stories to the ground, followed by his books and pipes—and that damned cherry tobacco! If she ever smelled it again, she’d probably strangle the unknowing offender!
God, he was brazen! Preying on three women, playing the oldest trick in the book by marrying into money—but of course it did him no good while the heir to the Ransom shipping fortune was alive and wise to him. Justine was right: he’d set fire to her dimers, and when it hadn’t killed her, he’d used her addled state to finish the job.
What a plot! Someday Sally Sharpe was going to convict Damon Dare of the same ruthless crime, even though it would end a lucrative series. She’d created the bounty hunter—how horribly appropriate—in Frye’s image, and once she wrote away her pain she never wanted to think about either of them again.
Celesta turned to find her aunt staring at her, pinched and frail. “I...I just can’t believe it.”
“It’s Frye, isn’t it?”
Katherine nodded. “And I was such a goose, I invited him to live here not once, but twice! If only we’d listened to Justine—”
“Well, we’ll not let him get away, like he did when poor Lucy needed him most!” Celesta declared. “I’m taking that record to the chief of police. And by the time I inform Frye he’s to fetch his belongings, they’ll be hauling him to jail, where he belongs!”
Chapter 25
Frye sat hunkered on his cell bunk, reviewing the previous afternoon’s events, but they left him as numb in the pale gray of the dawn as they had when they were unfolding like a nightmare he couldn’t control.
Don’t play innocent with me! I know how you drove Justine crazy now, and I’ll see you pay for it! Celesta’s contorted face still haunted him, and her words stung as badly as the ruby she’d flung in his face. Conniving bastard! You set that fire, just like she tried to tell us, and we got smart far too late.
He didn’t want to think about the rest of her visit to the mansion site. John Cruikshank himself was present, checking on the progress of his nearly completed home, and the men had all witnessed Miss Montgomery’s vicious attack. He and Cruikshank were trying to talk some sense into her when Harlan Jones, the police chief, arrested him. Sympathetic to his cause, his employer went to Ransom Manor to ask some questions and returned with his luggage full of soiled, crumpled belongings, but the lumber baron’s pleadings hadn’t convinced her to drop the charges.
He sighed for the hundredth time and rubbed his sleepless eyes. Celesta’s irrational behavior stunned him. How had she discovered this evidence that he’d lured Justine over the cliff and into the river? Hadn’t he proven his unwavering devotion to all three women time and again?
When voices echoed in the hallway, he stood up. Perhaps a night’s rest had brought her to her senses— perhaps Katherine had convinced the young woman she’d jumped to the wrong conclusion and that he deserved a chance to defend himself. Chief of Police Jones, a beefy, balding man whose uniform strained against his midsection, stopped in front of the cell and glanced at John Cruikshank before speaking.
“We’ve come to release you, Mr. Frye,” he said quietly, “but we need your word you’ll comply with certain conditions.”
Damon’s hopes fell. This sounded more like deal-making than absolution. “What do you mean, conditions?”
Cruikshank, an immaculate, bearded little man, let out a resigned sigh. “We’ve listened to the recording Miss Montgomery brought in, over and over again. It sounds like you, Frye, but such a message could only come from a mind so twisted—well, it just doesn’t fit the decent, conscientious man I know you to be.”
“But we can’t ignore the way you left Hannibal ten years ago, under the cloud of a scandal involving another woman,” Jones joined in. “Seems Lucy Bates’s death was also connected to you, and—”
“She died two days after I returned to the university,” Frye pointed out harshly. “I didn’t tell her to take that potion, and had I known she intended to, I would’ve—”
“We believe you, Damon,” his boss reassured him with a shrug, “but we can’t let this matter drop until we figure out who’s responsible for that recording. Justine Ransom was the head of an old, respected family, and the fact that she could’ve gone over the edge because of this voice everyone thinks is yours—not to mention the sizable fortune she left behind—can’t be swept under the rug. It made the front page of the Courier Post.”
“Any idea who could’ve altered that Edison record, son?” the chief asked.
He swore under his breath, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “Sure, I could give you his name,” he replied bitterly. “And because he was nowhere near Justine for weeks before her death, and because he, too, is of an old, respected family, his alibi’s far tighter than mine.”
Cruikshank scowled. “You’re not helping your case if you don’t tell us who you suspect.”
His patience snapped, not because these two men were quizzing him, but because Hannibal—and Celesta—had once again convicted him without knowing the facts. Only Lucy Bates could prove he wasn’t responsible for her death, and poor old Justine was so feebleminded at the end she probably didn’t know whose voice coaxed her into the river. The two dead women knew the culprit well, but they weren’t likely to identify him.
“I suggest you ask Miss Montgomery to reconsider the evidence,” he said sarcastically. “As the creator of Sally Sharpe, Girl Detective, she should be able to sleuth this one out herself. If the villain doesn’t get to her first.”
Harlan and the lumber baron exchanged a wary glance. “If you think Celesta’s in danger—”
“I think my reputation has been sacrificed to the rumor mill once again. You
said you were going to release me. What are the conditions?” Frye demanded.
Cruikshank cleared his throat. “I felt it best, under the sensitive circumstances, to relieve you of your supervisory duties—”
“You’ve fired me, to show your support?” Damon exclaimed. “Wonderful! What do I tell them in St. Louis?”
“I’ve already dispatched a message to Barnett, Haynes and Barnett, insisting that your exemplary architectural skills will still serve them well. In any place but Hannibal.”
“And what do you have to add?” he asked the bulkier man. “That I may freely ply my trade, but should be forced to wear a scarlet letter—M for Murder—so decent people will know my crimes and not subject themselves to my evil presence?”
Chief Jones frowned. “We’re doing this for your benefit, just until we can—”
“Then, unlock the damn cell!” Frye blurted, rattling the barred door at them. “Let me enjoy my freedom, starting now! Let me indulge in my rights as a law-abiding citizen, despite the big black question mark that’ll hang over my head forever!”
Harlan took a key from his pocket, his jaw clenched. “You’ll be the first to know when we’ve cracked this thing, Mr. Frye,” he said tersely. “Meanwhile, I strongly suggest that for your own protection, you steer clear of Hannibal until we notify you—”
“Don’t bother.” His tone was icy as he left the cell with his luggage. “I should never have returned, and now there’s nothing here to come back for. Good day, gentlemen.”
“You what?” Celesta’s voice rang shrilly around the police chief’s little office. “I can’t believe you’d let that—that murderer go, when it’s so obvious he killed my Aunt Justine!”
Harlan Jones let out a sigh that suggested he was already weary of this investigation. “As I’ve tried to explain, Miss Montgomery, we had nothing solid to hold him on—”
Missouri Magic Page 26