This Rough Magic

by Heather Graham

  Carly shook her head. She swallowed the brandy and felt somewhat warmed. “That doesn’t mean anything. Innumerable families in Europe go back for centuries. The inspector wouldn’t be suspicious of Jon because of that.”

  Alexi sighed. “Well, Carly....”

  “Alexi, damn it, why are you hedging?”

  He waved a hand in the air. “Legend, you know.”

  “No, I don’t know.”

  “This is a place of fog and mist and ancient superstition. The wolves howl at the full moon. The people keep crosses on their doorways, and they say their Hail Marys before they travel through the woods.”

  “Go on,” she prompted him.

  “There are legends of man-beasts. Of creatures part wolf and part human—”

  “Oh, Alexi!” Carly protested. “You’re calling Jon a werewolf? Oh, please!”

  Alexi flushed. “No, I’m not calling Jon a werewolf. I’m just saying that this is a legend-filled place. People believe in magic, and in good and evil. They believe in spells, in curses.” He hesitated. “There is a disease, you know.”

  “A disease?” Carly asked warily.

  “Lycanthropy. It is documented. People have thought that they were part wolf. There was one very famous case here. In the 1850s. A poor, demented fellow thought that he was a wolf. He tore apart twenty young men and women before he was caught in the act of eating a human heart. He only killed by the light of the full moon. They knew he was horribly insane, but in those days he was sent to the gallows.”

  A harsh sound of impatience from someone else in the room startled Carly so that she cried out, spilling her brandy as she leaped from her chair.

  Jon had come upon them, having returned in silence, and now stared at the two of them with naked fury.

  “Alexi, what the bloody hell are you telling her?” Jon’s voice sounded like a growl.

  “Nothing.” Alexi shook his head and cast Carly a quick, apologetic glance. “Just a little local legend, that’s all. Jon, really, think about it. These murders just aren’t normal!”

  Jon walked around the desk and sank into his chair. His gaze fell on Carly, and she couldn’t pull her own away. Her heart was beating rampantly, and she didn’t know whether it was from fear or desire. His eyes mocked her, challenged her. She stared at the sensual fullness of his lips and remembered their touch. She could almost feel the caress of his hands. She remembered his smile, his laughter, the tension and the sweet, heady passion, and she felt as if lava flowed inside of her again.

  She wanted to see Jasmine, she reminded herself. She tore her gaze away, because she gave too much too quickly. She was, perhaps, too innocent for this game.

  A lamb to the wolves, she thought.

  She jumped to her feet. “I’m going to bed.”

  Jon picked up a pencil and idly scratched on the blotter before him. “Carly, stay, please,” he said. It was another command. He grinned lazily at Alexi. “Alexi, if you wouldn’t mind? I assume you’re staying; it is late. But if you’ll excuse us, I’d like a minute alone with Carly.”

  “Of course. Of course,” Alexi said. He looked unhappily at Carly. Carly wished she’d bolted when she’d had the chance.

  “I’m really tired, too, Jon—” she began to say, but he was already on his feet. Swiftly he moved around the desk and put himself between Carly and the door. She felt that if she tried to leave he would stop her physically, not giving a damn that Alexi was with them.

  “I will leave you,” Alexi said. He looked from one of them to the other as he backed out of the room. Jon said good-night to him but never lifted his gaze from Carly’s. Her heart leaped into her throat. She couldn’t move. She watched the ripple of muscle beneath his denim shirt and remembered how he’d looked, how he’d felt, and how very intimate they had been. She wanted to run to him and bury her face against him. She wanted him to touch her again.

  He lifted her chin, and she feared he hadn’t forgiven her. He very lightly kissed her lips, and pulled her near.

  “You’re afraid of me,” he said flatly.

  “No.”

  “You’re a liar.”

  “I’m not lying. I just...”

  “You just what?”

  “Nothing.” She didn’t know what to think or feel. His arms were around her, his body was pressed against hers, and there was a new intimacy to the hold, for they both knew how very well they fitted together. The brandy was blurring her senses, but she thought that she would always know the subtle, masculine scent of him and the tension and electricity that abounded in him. If she left him now, she would always remember the hypnotic quality of his eyes and the power of his voice. Logic fled. She wanted to believe. She did believe. And she was trembling.

  He drew his thumb slowly over her lower lip, watching the movement with fascination. She gazed into his eyes, and they grew darker, like molten honey, and his smile deepened wickedly.

  “You are afraid, and you should run,” he said. “Fly—all the way home. Back to your safe little harbor in New York.”

  “You want me to leave.”

  He shook his head. “I want you...here. Beside me. Beneath me. But maybe you should listen to the things you hear. Maybe you are a lamb cast into a den of wolves.”

  “Perhaps I’m not so fragile.”

  “You are frightened,” he stated.

  “I have a right to be frightened.”

  His smile belied his tension. He trembled slightly, and she didn’t know whether it was from passion or anger. He moved his thumbs over her cheeks, and she stared at him, mesmerized. From head to toe, she realized, he was taut. Like an animal on the prowl.

  “Then go,” he told her. “I don’t want any woman who feels she must shrink from me when I touch her.” He released her. She heard sharp disappointment in his voice as he said, “Go. Go, Carly. Go up to bed and lock your door.”

  “From you?” she demanded hoarsely. She was angry and hurt, and she hated her confusion and the pain. He didn’t reply, and she swept past him. “I’ll be out of here in the morning.”

  “To leave for the States?”

  “No. I want to see my sister.”

  “Then you won’t be leaving. I promise you.”

  When she reached the door, she turned and offered him a cool, polite smile. “My door will be locked.”

  He answered with a tilt of his head. “Don’t be foolish. If I wanted you now, I would have you now. I’m the one person you can’t lock out. But go. Run. Be a good little lamb and run as fast as you can.”

  Carly uttered an expletive and rushed out of the room, slamming the door behind her. The hallway was empty, and very lonely. She was tempted to turn around, to apologize. Something warned her that she couldn’t. There were too many unanswered questions.

  She ran through the terrace. It was eerie by night, half lit, for the full moon had waned to three quarters. Mist was rolling in, touching everything.

  Carly raced up the stairs. Fear skipped along her spine as she heard the first howl of the wolves. When she reached her room, she slammed the door and locked it.

  Her heart beating rapidly, she quickly checked out the bathroom, then sighed and sat down at the foot of the bed. She crossed her arms over her chest and huddled there, trying to think.

  This was so very different. It was like a flash fire, an explosion of desire and emotion, and it frightened her. She had been in love before, deeply in love. But that love had come slowly and had not been touched by shadows.

  Even death had come slowly then. She had fought cancer with Tim for a long time. She had lived endlessly with the effort and the fight and the pain, and then she had lived with the grief. She had been cocooned for the longest time, protected from caring.

  And now this...

  She’d never imagined a desire so strong. She had never thought that she would be able to lie with a man and lose herself within him so completely. There had been no shyness, no awkwardness. From the first moment she had seen him, she had wanted him, f
or in that first moment she had begun to fall in love with him.

  Her heart sank with horror. Two girls had been killed, and Jasmine was missing. Carly was afraid to give form to her thought.

  She might very well be in love with a maniacal killer who had caused her sister’s disappearance.

  “No!” She formed the word in silence and started to shiver. He wanted her to go away. No, he wanted her to stay. He wanted her. None of it had changed. She had changed, and he had known and had pushed her away in anger.

  Carly got up to check the bolt on her door. She checked the French doors, and they, too, were locked. She changed into her flannel nightgown and crawled into bed. She wouldn’t sleep, she thought. She was too frightened.

  She did sleep, though, and her dream came back to her, her dream of the wolf. The beautiful silver-gray wolf who ran toward her and slipped through the mist and became a man. Jon. Tonight the dream didn’t stop. He took her into his arms and carried her off into the clouds. And he made love to her with a sweet, rough magic, for he was savage and tender all at once, gentle and yet hungry, as the wolf was hungry....

  She twisted, fighting the dream as she slept. She forced herself to awaken.

  His scent was on the air.

  She was still dreaming, she told herself. It must be the brandy.

  She opened her eyes wide in the darkness, trying to tell herself that she was imagining the subtle, pleasant, evocative and masculine scent that she had come to know so very well. But mist or magic, it was there.

  She said his name aloud and sat up and switched on the light. The room was empty.

  Carly bolted out of bed and checked the door and then the bathroom. No one was there, yet, unless she had completely lost her mind, some presence of his lingered.

  A gust of wind suddenly opened the terrace doors. Carly screamed and then saw that the terrace was empty. The sky was pink and gray, and the cold wind was sweeping by her again. A storm was brewing.

  She hurried over to the doors and pushed them shut, straining against the force of the wind. She paused, and the doors flew open again and the wind swept by her. She stood on the terrace and looked down.

  The wolf was there. A wolf, she told herself numbly. A big silver-gray wolf sat far below her in the courtyard. It cast back its head and howled. The sound was eerie and plaintive. The animal looked up. Carly could have sworn that it stared straight at her. It howled again, then it turned and ran. Sleek and beautiful and powerful, it headed into the woods.

  The wind picked up again, cold with the promise of winter. It tugged at Carly’s hair, stung her eyes and sent her gown rippling about her legs.

  She came back inside, forcing the doors closed. She set the bolt, but she knew that another gust of wind could open the doors again, so she dragged the dresser chair over and set it before the windows.

  Shivering, she crawled back into bed and pulled the covers around her. She finally realized that she was frightened, very frightened. She had to leave. She was going mad here. She was really beginning to wonder if the man she loved was really a beast. A silver-gray wolf with haunting golden eyes.

  CHAPTER 7

  Carly did not leave in the morning.

  She slept late. When she awoke, she was still drowsy and tired, and therefore irritated that she’d dreamed of a silver wolf and imagined that a man had come to her by night, silent, watching her, then slipped away, leaving behind just a hint of his presence....

  The world seemed entirely silent, then she heard a sound down in the courtyard. She went to the window. Jon was down there, mounting Satan. Even as she watched he rode off, disappearing into the woods as the wolf had done.

  She stayed there for some time, looking after him. She really should go. The inspector didn’t want her to leave the duchy, but she could check into the hotel in the village again. Maybe once she was away she wouldn’t dream of magnificent beasts with golden eyes. Maybe she wouldn’t imagine that a man was with her. Maybe she could shake the hypnotic spell of Jon Vadim.

  A man suspected of horrible murders.

  She shook her head to herself, denying it. She was in love with him; she could admit it freely to herself. If she loved him, she owed him some kind of faith.

  She wasn’t leaving. Not then. Maybe later.

  Carly dressed and wandered down to the terrace. The only one there was Geoffrey. He was sipping a cup of coffee and reading a manuscript. He looked up when she came, smiling.

  “Carly. Welcome. It was kind of lonely here.”

  “You look busy.”

  “I’m not. Sit down, please.”

  Carly sat down. A maid seemed to materialize from the corners of the room to ask Carly what she would like for le petit déjeuner. Carly asked for some coffee and toast, and once it came and she and Geoffrey were alone together, she asked him what he was up to.

  “It’s the script for my next play,” he told her, smiling. “Our next play. You are going to work for me?”

  Carly nodded with pleasure. She was still a little in awe of the fact that he had liked her costume for the party enough to hire her for his next period piece with no more effort whatsoever. He grinned, pleased with her response. “I’ll give you the play to read.” He shrugged. “Might as well use some of our time wisely.”

  Carly sipped her coffee.

  “How long were you planning on staying here?” she asked him.

  “Well, I don’t have to be back until January 15—which is when I’ll need you, by the way. Fittings and all. You’ll see how extensive the wardrobe is once you’ve read through the play. It’s a good thing time isn’t of the essence. I think that inspector would find a way to arrest us all just to keep us here, though God knows why.”

  Carly didn’t know why, but she felt it necessary to defend Inspector LaRue. “People have died. He has to find out what’s happening.”

  Geoffrey smiled at her, sitting back. “Carly to the rescue! Jasmine said that you could be fierce in the crusade for others.”

  “I’m not crusading. I’m...”

  “Frightened?”

  “No, not really,” she protested, a shade too quickly.

  He shrugged. “Well, don’t let them scare you. I’ve known Jon a long time. He’s no maniacal murderer—no matter what Alexi says.”

  “What does Alexi say?”

  “Oh, you know. All that rot about lycanthropy and werewolves and all. These people are too superstitious.”

  “They’re charming people.”

  “There you go again, the sweet crusader.”

  “I’m so terribly sweet,” Carly assured him. She nibbled thoughtfully at her toast and felt him watching her with an amused smile. “I’m not, really.”

  “Okay, you’re the Witch of the West. Whatever you want.”

  She laughed, feeling better. Geoffrey had defended Jon and had been down-to-earth, and she just felt more—normal. “I just wish Jasmine would call,” she murmured, as much to herself as to him.

  She expected an assurance from him. It didn’t come. She looked at him at last, and he seemed somewhat pensive himself. “Geoffrey?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Jasmine is like the wind. She’s beautiful, and we all love her. But she does move like wildfire. Still...”

  “Still, what? Geoffrey, please?”

  “Well, I just thought...there had been a time there when she and Jon...”

  “When she and Jon what?” Carly demanded.

  “Oh, nothing,” he said, but she thought he looked slightly guilty. “She and Jon planned the party together. Jon never minds that she brings in so many people, because they all donate to charities to attend. But it is Jasmine’s bash. And this year, of course, she had invited you.”

  “Yes, of course,” Carly said. “Geoffrey, is that all?”

  “Is that all? Of course that’s all,” he assured her.

  She wished she believed him. She couldn’t help but wonder again about her sister and Jon Vadim. Everything hinted that the two of them had
enjoyed a very close relationship. But Jon had denied it.

  Please, let him be telling the truth! Carly prayed in silence. Geoffrey was staring at her. She hoped that he wasn’t pitying her for falling so very hard.

  “Well, Jon is off riding and Tanya and Alexi still seem to be sleeping,” he said brightly. “I think I’ll take a jaunt into the village. Want to come?”

  Carly didn’t think she had the energy. She hesitated, then thanked him for the invitation and told him no, that she would like to read the play. He offered her the script and left her at the terrace table. She stared blankly at the page, realizing that she was anxious to see Jon.

  When she did see him that night, he was aloof and distant, and in return she was defensively cool and equally distant. She managed to excuse herself early and escaped to her room. She realized as she lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling that she wanted him to come to her. She wanted him to lay his heart at her feet and swear again that he was innocent. She wanted to believe him. She wanted to pretend that none of it had happened, that the magic had all been real, that she was really like the Cinderella who had entered an enchanted carriage and been swept off her feet by a prince.

  It wasn’t his title that she liked, or the coach or the castle or anything else tangible. It was the love she craved, the intimacy that had been so briefly hers—only to be snatched away.

  But she remembered with a sharp twist of pain that she didn’t trust him—that she would be horrified if she had merely provided entertainment to fill the void left by her sister.

  And then again—where was Jasmine?

  Again she fell asleep telling herself that she should leave. Again when she woke, she did nothing toward leaving the castle. She dressed in jeans and went down to the terrace for breakfast, hoping to see Jon. But he wasn’t there; he was closeted in the library with the inspector, or so Tanya told her. Tanya was bored. When they had nibbled at fresh croissants, she decided to take Carly on a tour of the castle.

  Carly loved it. They explored the grand ballroom, music gallery, the solarium, and the newer rooms: the men’s gallery, put in during the last century, and the ladies’ bower, added in the 1930s. Upstairs, Tanya giggled when Carly refused to enter Jon’s room. It was a wonderful bedroom, right out of a fantasy—or the Architectural Digest. Rows of French doors opened onto a long terrace, and there was a round dais for the massive old bed, with its dark wooden canopy and intricately carved posts. There was also a long, heavy oak desk, comfortable chairs stood before the fireplace, and there was a small, circular table with a pair of chairs for intimate dining.