Tonight and Always

by Linda Lael Miller

  TONIGHT AND ALWAYS

  By

  Linda Lael Miller

  * * *

  Contents

  Prologue

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  Epilogue

  * * *

  Praise for the enthralling vampire romances of

  Linda Lael Miller

  Forever and the Night

  The spectacular New York Times bestseller. The book that lured readers into Linda Lael Miller's spellbinding world of vampires and mortals, lovers and legends…

  "A terrific read. Exotic, lush, sensual and exciting… I loved it."

  —Jayne Ann Krentz

  "Bravo! What a tale. I was hooked from page one."

  —Jill Marie Landis, bestselling author of Day Dreamer

  "Sizzling, sexy, and absolutely scrumptious. It's the vampire romance to end all vampire romances. It's the fabulous Linda Lael Miller at her scintillating best."

  —Romantic Times

  "A sensuously luscious, supernatural romance… thrilling… chilling… an immortal classic."

  —Affaire de Coeur

  "Aiden and Neely are a very special pair. Readers will root for them through every suspenseful twist and moving love scene right to the bittersweet ending."

  —Gothic Journal

  "Triumphant!"

  —Kliatt

  For All Eternity

  The passionate story of Maeve Tremayne—a beautiful

  vampire who haunts the battlefields of Gettysburg

  like an angel of death… and who dares to lose her

  soul to a mortal soldier.

  "The reigning queen of supernatural romance… Ms. Miller has brilliantly written a haunting love story."

  —Affaire de Coeur

  "Highly recommended."

  —Booklist

  "Absolutely fascinating… intriguing… the mesmerizing Valerian steals the show once again."

  —Romantic Times

  "Linda Lael Miller's fabulous time-travelling vampires are back… the exciting plot and fast pacing will keep readers enthralled to the very last page and eager for the next installment."

  —The Talisman

  "This page-turner will keep you on the edge of your seat… a fast-paced, mysterious tale woven by a master storyteller."

  —The Time Machine

  "Ms. Miller takes the reader into the world of the damned [and] carries the reader on a river of emotions that are hot and sensuous."

  —Heartland Critiques

  Time Without End

  Once every century, Valerian's lost love, the

  enchanting Brenna, returns in human form.

  But this time, as the new millennium draws near,

  Valerian vows never to lose her again…

  "Her best work to date. A keeper to treasure, remember, and savor."

  —Affaire de Coeur

  "Heart-wrenching scenes… engrossing historical characters and period atmosphere."

  —Publishers Weekly

  "Mesmerizing… Ms. Miller comes up trumps in this intricate tale featuring the sexy, arrogant vampire destined to become an all-time favorite with romance readers of every persuasion. Long live Valerian!"

  —Romantic Times

  "Ms. Miller takes us from past to present with ease, giving the reader a look at how it all started and leaves us hoping for more… Valerian and Daisy are powered with such intensity that the sparks between them leap at the reader."

  —Rendezvous

  * * *

  Berkley Books by Linda Lael Miller

  FOREVER AND THE NIGHT

  FOR ALL ETERNITY

  TIME WITHOUT END

  TONIGHT AND ALWAYS

  * * *

  LINDA LAEL MILLER

  Tonight

  and Always

  BERKLEY BOOKS, NEW YORK

  * * *

  TONIGHT AND ALWAYS

  A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley edition / November 1996

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1996 by Linda Lael Miller.

  Book design by Peggy Reichelt.

  For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016.

  The Putnam Berkley World Wide Web site address is

  http://www.berkley.com/berkley

  ISBN: 0-425-15541-2

  BERKLEY®

  Berkley Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016.

  BERKLEY and the "B" design are trademarks belonging to Berkley Publishing Corporation.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  * * *

  FOR JUDITH STERN PALAIS,

  THE CONSUMMATE PRO AND A LOYAL FRIEND,

  WITH LOVE, APPRECIATION, AND

  GREAT ADMIRATION.

  THANK YOU.

  * * *

  For love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;

  Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;

  Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears:

  What is it else? a madness most discreet,

  A choking gall and a preserving sweet.

  Romeo and Juliet

  * * *

  Prologue

  ^ »

  LONDON

  WINTER, 1872

  The new governess leaned down from what seemed to the child a great height, smiling her brash American smile. The woman was pretty enough, with her auburn hair and shining green eyes, and smart, too, or Mummy wouldn't have engaged her in the first place. Still, a stranger was a stranger.

  "Kristina Tremayne Holbrook, is it?" Miss Phillips inquired in a nonobjectionable tone of voice. "Such a big name for so small a girl."

  Kristina came out of the voluminous folds of her nanny's skirts to correct an apparent misconception on the part of the newcomer. "I am not so very little," she said. "I'm five—six next April—and I can already read and count to a hundred. You may be on your way now—we won't be needing you because I shall learn all I need to know from Mama and Papa and Valerian."

  Mrs. Eldridge, the plump nurse with whom Kristina spent the majority of her time, laid a fond and encouraging hand atop her charge's head. "Hush now, child," she scolded benignly. Then, to the governess she confided, "You mustn't mind our Kristina. She's too bright by half, she is, and sometimes it makes her a mite saucy, but she's good through and through." She paused to emit a heartfelt sigh. "Now, come right in and settle yourself next to the drawing room fire, Miss Phillips, and welcome to you. It's a blustery day out, isn't it, and I daresay a nice cup of tea would go well with you just now."

  "Thank you, Mrs. Eldridge," Miss Phillips said, removing her dowdy bonnet and cloak, both of which were dappled with snow, and handing them off to Delia, the handsome downstairs maid, whose duty it was to greet and announce guests and look after their belongings while they were being entertained. Delia collected Miss Phillips's battered carpet satchel—it was dripping on the Persian rug—and bore that away as well.

  Kristina lagged behind as Mrs. Eldridge and Miss Phillips hurried into the drawing room, arms linked, whispering to each other. She lingered just inside the double doors, ha
lf hidden behind the marble pedestal that supported a bust of Socrates, while Miss Phillips was made comfortable beside the coal fire.

  When Mrs. Eldridge went out to arrange for tea to be served, Miss Phillips put her small feet in their scuffed black boots on the chrome rail edging the hearth, and sighed contentedly.

  "I do like to toast my toes on a winter's day," she said cheerfully. "Don't you, Kristina?"

  Kristina had believed herself invisible, dwarfed as she was by Socrates and his pillar, and was both disgruntled and pleased that her new teacher had taken notice of her. Mama and Papa were loving and attentive, but they were never about during the daylight hours, and both of them were very busy—Papa worked in his laboratory below-stairs, and Mama was the queen of something, though Kristina didn't know exactly what.

  "Yes," she said tentatively, drawn to the young woman with bright hair and shabby clothes and a gentle voice.

  "Won't you join me by the fire? I feel a little lonely, sitting here all by myself."

  Kristina understood loneliness well, though she was but five. It was a mysterious ache in one small corner of her heart, and always with her, even when Mama or Papa or Valerian or Mrs. Eldridge was nearby. Most of the time she felt as though she were lost from someone she did not yet know, and must find that person to be truly happy. Given her age and size, and the fact that she was not allowed to go farther than the wall at the rear of the garden by herself, the objective seemed very daunting indeed.

  She stepped nearer to the hearth, leaning on the arm of Papa's wing-back chair. Miss Phillips sat smiling in the matching seat, which was Mama's. The approach was concession enough, for the moment—Kristina did not speak.

  Miss Phillips smoothed her skirts, which were clean but frayed at the hem and mended in at least two places. "I do not think you are really so shy as you pretend to be," she said. "Are you afraid of me, Kristina?"

  "No," Kristina said in a sturdy voice. "Not now. I was for a few moments, though."

  "Why?"

  "Because I don't know you," Kristina responded reasonably. "I've been told never to speak to strangers."

  "Good advice," Miss Phillips agreed. "We shall be fast friends, you and I, as well as student and tutor. I think you like to learn, and there is much I can teach you. I would like to begin our association by taking you to St. Regent's Lecture Hall tomorrow afternoon. The topic is the mythology of ancient Greece."

  Kristina felt her eyes widen. She rarely left the house, except with Mrs. Eldridge for carriage rides through the park in good weather, and she loved the sights and sounds and smells and people—so many people—that made up the great city of London.

  "I don't know anything at all about Greece," she confessed solemnly. "Or mistology, either."

  "All the more reason to attend a lecture," replied Miss Phillips, tucking away a smile.

  That night, after Mrs. Eldridge and Miss Phillips and Kristina had taken their supper by the nursery fire, the nanny and the governess went off to their own quarters, and Mama came to help Kristina get ready for bed.

  It was her favorite time of the day, for Mama was beautiful, and full of stories, and she could do all sorts of marvelous tricks, like making dolls dance with each other, or causing real snow to drift down from the ceiling. She never entered or left the room in the customary fashion, either, but simply appeared and disappeared. Kristina wondered, when she took the time to ponder such questions, why Mrs. Eldridge and the maids didn't move from place to place the way Mama did, instead of bothering with stairs and doors and other such ordinary things.

  "I'm going to hear a lecture on ancient Greece tomorrow with Miss Phillips!" Kristina blurted, so excited that she bounced on her feather bed and wheeled her arms.

  Mama laughed as she wrestled Kristina's warm flannel nightgown over her small head, which was dark like her own. "Well, now," she said. "I shall want to hear all about that adventure." She paused to smooth Kristina's silken hair. "Do you like Miss Phillips, darling?"

  "Oh, yes. She's wonderful." Kristina's happiness faded a little as she considered a possibility that had not occurred to her before. "Will Mrs. Eldridge be going away, now that I'm big enough to have a governess?"

  Mama kissed her forehead, her blue eyes shining with love, and embraced her daughter tightly. "No, sweetheart—she'll stay. Since Papa and I can't be with you in the daytime, it's important that Mrs. Eldridge be here."

  Kristina was relieved, for the nanny had been her constant companion for as long as she could remember, and it would be terrible indeed if she ever went away. "Why is that, Mama?" she ventured to ask. "Why are you and Papa never at home before dark?"

  Mama hesitated, then answered in a soft and somewhat wistful voice, "I'll explain that soon, when you're just a little older. In the meantime, you must be patient."

  After a grave nod, Kristina sat down on the bed and pulled the warm covers up to her chest. "All right," she said. "But I want to know the instant I'm old enough."

  Her mother laughed again, and Kristina was struck anew by her loveliness; she was a magical creature, with her pale, flawless skin, her flowing ebony hair, her exquisitely fitted white gown. "I promise to tell you all the family secrets as soon as I think you're ready to hear them," she said.

  Kristina snuggled deeper into the bedclothes, already fighting sleep but determined to make the time with Mama last. "Make the puppets tell a story," she whispered. "Please?"

  Mama drew a chair up beside Kristina's bed, sat down, and gestured grandly toward the ornate toy puppet theater, a gift from Kristina's Uncle Valerian, which stood on the window seat. Instantly the tiny stage was flooded with light, and the small, colorful figures rattled to loose-jointed life and began to perform.

  Kristina was asleep before the end of the first act.

  The lecture was fascinating, full of gods and goddesses, minotaurs and mazes. Kristina perched on the edge of her chair throughout, and even though she did not understand much of what was said, she left the public hall with a storm of bright, strange images raging in her mind.

  She and Miss Phillips rode home together in the carriage, with a heavy quilt over their laps and warm bricks tucked beneath their feet, chattering excitedly about all they'd heard.

  It was that night after supper, and after Papa had come to the nursery to read a chapter from a novel by Mr. Mark Twain in his deep and somehow reassuring voice, that Kristina first realized that she was different from other children.

  She'd been sleeping, and dreaming of Athens, the city that had figured so prominently in the lecture, when the warmth of her bed was suddenly gone, replaced by a chill that seemed to wrap itself around her very bones. She opened her eyes and found herself standing in the middle of a vast marble pavilion, an eerie place, splashed with cold silver moonlight and utterly silent.

  This, Kristina knew, was no dream. The cool stone beneath her bare feet was solid and real, and so were the chipped columns and fractured statues looming all around her. This was certainly not London, and she did not know how to get home.

  She cried out in fear.

  Instantly Mama appeared and knelt to draw a trembling Kristina into her arms. "It's all right, darling," she whispered. "Don't be afraid."

  Kristina clung tightly to her mother. "How did I get here?" she pleaded. "What is this place?"

  Mama cupped Kristina's face in her cool, soft fingers and looked into her eyes. "This is Greece, my love. You were dreaming about it, weren't you? And your thoughts brought you here."

  "My thoughts?"

  Mama smiled and gave Kristina a tight hug before rising to her full height again and taking her daughter's hand. "Yes. Come, let's go home—think hard about your room and your toys, sweetheart, and we'll be there in a trice."

  It happened just as Mama said; in a twinkling the two of them were safe in the nursery, and Greece was far away, where it belonged.

  "The time to speak of magic and mysteries came sooner than I expected," Mama began, sitting down by the dying fire and lif
ting Kristina onto her lap. They rocked together, Kristina's head resting against her mother's shoulder. "A long time ago there were two small children, your uncle Aidan and me. One day our mother took us to see a gypsy, and we had our fortunes told…"

  * * *

  CHAPTER 1

  « ^ »

  SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

  PRESENT DAY

  Kristina found the packet of letters tucked inside a small cedar box, in a far corner of her attic, while searching for a ceramic jack-o'lantern to set out on the front porch in honor of Halloween. In an instant the witches' holiday was forgotten; the mere sight of those heavy vellum envelopes, with their faded, curling stamps, struck her a bittersweet blow to the heart. She had not thought of her beloved governess, Miss Eudocia Phillips, in at least fifty years.

  Now, in that cramped and dusty chamber where bits and fragments of the past were stored, memories nearly overwhelmed Kristina. She sat down on the arched lid of an old steamer trunk, heedless of potential damage to her white silk slacks, and was only mildly surprised to find the ribbon-bound stack of letters clasped with fevered gentleness in her hands. She did not recall reaching for it.

  For a long time she simply sat there, holding the letters, remembering. There was no real need to read the words, some penned in her own handwriting, some in Miss Phillips's ornate Victorian script. Just touching the paper evoked those vibrant, colorful, and often painful days with breathtaking clarity, bringing tears to Kristina's eyes and stealing her breath.