Taken Beyond Temptation
Page 18
Ian turned back to his friend. “You can’t go. I haven’t even shown you the tower room.”
“Oh, I’m coming back. You still owe me a free weekend. But I figure I’ve got my down payment. Seeing Samuel Jenkins the first materialize on the clifftop will more than tide me over.”
Avery turned from the sink. “You actually saw Samuel Jenkins? The colonel’s father? You didn’t mention that to Nate.”
Cody shrugged. “Everyone who was there agreed Vivian Thorley definitely saw something. I just saw him a bit more clearly than you might have.”
“Cody has a knack for picking up on the supernatural,” Ian said. But his friend was right. Everyone had sensed that the man Vivian had urged to his death must have been there with her right at the end. “You’re sure you can’t stay?”
“The hotel is booked, but I have a guest room,” Avery said.
“Yeah, but if I take you up on that, Ian will feel he has to spend time with me. It was bad enough I felt pretty useless during the big crisis scene on the cliff.” Cody shifted his gaze to Jillian and then back to Ian. “And now I see that you’ve got something else on your mind, and I don’t relish the thought of feeling like a huge third wheel.”
Avery grinned at Cody and then turned to Ian. “I like your friend. And since I like playing third wheel even less than he does, why don’t you and Jillian just exit stage right.”
Ian took his cue—and Jillian—and did just that.
NERVES JUMPING, JILLIAN led the way up the stairs into the tower room. The minute he’d escorted her out of Avery’s suite, she’d told Ian that she had to come here. She wanted…no, she needed to settle things with Ian. And once more she was coming to Hattie for answers.
Pausing in front of the beveled mirror, she glanced around the room. What she saw in the late-afternoon sunlight slanting through the windows was a blurring juxtaposition of images—what was here now superimposed on what had been here when she’d first climbed the stairs.
And she remembered what she’d realized earlier—that there was a connection between Samuel’s and Hattie’s story and Ian’s and hers. The question was how far did the connection extend? Panic threatened to bubble up, but she ruthlessly shoved it down.
Everything had started in this room—from the moment she’d first drawn out that parchment envelope. She just had to find a way to make sure it didn’t end. Clasping her hands together, she turned to face Ian. As she did so, she caught the shimmer of light in the glass and the reflection of the panel to the secret room.
That was it. Of course.
Something settled inside her as she raced over to press the lever and then take out the hatbox. “Jillian—”
“Wait. Just sit down. I’m going to draw out one of the parchments.”
“I don’t—”
Panic threatened again. Ignoring it, she said, “Let me finish. Just sit down with me. And I’ll show you.”
When they were both seated cross-legged on the floor in front of the mirror, she opened the lid of the box. “But first, I need to say something. Get it out.”
Ian had to bite down hard to hold his tongue. Why had he ever thought that he was a patient man? The moment she’d picked up the hatbox, he’d known where she was headed, and he didn’t like it.
“I was thinking this morning that what’s happened between you and me has parallels to what happened between Samuel and Hattie. We started out with fantasies. And if they’d been happy with only that, maybe their story would have ended differently.”
“Jillian—”
She stopped him by reaching across the hatbox and pressing her fingers against his lips. “I’m not finished. Instead of sticking with the fantasies, they took a risk. The biggest risk of all.”
He narrowed his eyes on her. “What exactly are you saying, Jillian?”
“I’ll show you.” She opened the box, lifted one of the envelopes and held it out to him.
His heart dropped. That was his answer. She wanted just the fantasy. And it was in that moment that Ian realized he was never going to be satisfied with that.
“Open it,” she said. “And read the message.”
He did. “You will experience all of the sensory delights and adventure that come with being swept away by a stranger.”
“See?” She beamed a smile at him.
“It’s the same fantasy.”
“Exactly. I can’t seem to draw out any other one. I’ve already told you that the night our purchase offer was accepted on Haworth House, I got the key from Vivian Thorley and snuck back up here to this room. When Hattie showed me the secret room, I didn’t wait for my sisters. I chose an envelope right away. It was the one you’re reading now. Then later when I showed my sisters the fantasy box, we all drew one out. And I drew the same fantasy again. Then the night I decided to slip the envelope under your door, I came up here and took another fantasy out of the box. And it was still the same one. There are a lot of envelopes in that box, but I always choose the same one. That’s when I decided it was meant to be. I just had to take the risk and give it to you.”
She paused, drew in a deep breath as she pointed to the envelope he still held in his hand. “This is my fourth try, and I drew out the same fantasy. I think it has to mean that we’re stuck with it. We’re stuck with each other.” She reached out and clasped his hands.
Ian felt his head spin just as it had when he’d read the parchment she’d shoved under his door. Could she possibly mean what he thought she meant?
Even as the joy began to blossom inside him, he clasped her hands more tightly. He had to make sure. “I don’t want to be stuck with the fantasy, Jillian. I want what Hattie and Samuel wanted. I want to take what we have further. I need to take it further. I want to be stuck with you for a lifetime.”
“Me, too,” she said and she nudged the hatbox aside and climbed onto his lap. “I want you forever.”
As her mouth sought and found his, Ian thought he caught the glimmer of two separate shimmers of light in the mirror blending into one.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-5626-6
TAKEN BEYOND TEMPTATION
Copyright © 2010 by Carolyn Hanlon.
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