Fire Lily (A Dangerous Hearts Romance)

by Deborah Camp

  Wind whistled down the chimney and cried around the corners of the brownstone.

  “Blowing up out there,” Edward said, puffing furiously on his pipe. “How’s Cecille? Recovered, I trust.”

  “Yes. She’s thinking of marrying David Jefferson.”

  “Ah, yes. He has law in his future, doesn’t he?”

  “Yes, he passed the exam.”

  “Good for him and good for Cecille! You should have put your hook in that one while you had the chance.”

  “He was your beau, wasn’t he?” Angela asked.

  “Not really. We went places together, but his heart always belonged to Cecille. Besides which, I was never taken with him.”

  “Shouldn’t be so choosy,” Edward said. “You’ll end up an old maid. Who will take care of you then?”

  “Actually, I have a husband picked out.” She smiled when both Edward and Angela stared at her. “I’m going to see him when I leave here tomorrow. Part of my reason for visiting is to inform you of my decision and receive your blessing, Father.”

  Edward peered at her through the smoke. “Is that so?”

  “Don’t keep us in suspense,” Angela said. “Who is he? Where does he live?”

  “He lives in Boston. His name is Griffon Goforth.” Lily smiled, hoping to add sparkle to the news she feared wouldn’t be well received.

  “Goforth. I’m not familiar with that family name.” Angela looked at her husband. “Are you, Edward?”

  Edward pulled his pipe from his mouth to fashion a formidable frown. “Goforth, you say? Isn’t that the Gypsy psychic who found Cecille? The one Thurman Unger is so keen on?”

  “One and the same.” Lily nodded, still smiling. “He’s a wonderful man, Father. We’ll make a good marriage.”

  “He’s already asked you for your hand in marriage?” Angela asked. “Did he ask Howard instead of Edward?”

  “No, he hasn’t as yet, but I know he will,” Lily hastened to add.

  “Oh, dear.” Angela bit her lower lip fretfully, then fetched a sigh. “Edward, calm down. No need to be bothered by this. The man hasn’t even posed the question. Your daughter is counting her chickens before they’ve hatched.”

  “Thank heavens for that!” Her father aimed the pipe stem at Lily. “Use your head while there’s still time, Lily. Don’t act a fool over some mixed-blooded rake.”

  “Father, I never thought I’d hear you condemn someone for their heritage.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You just did.”

  “It’s more than that. He’s a man who lives by hook or crook. A psychic.” He curled his lip. “I’d be more pleased if you said you were head over heels in love with the sword swallower in a traveling carnival.” He shared a chuckle with Angela. “Really, Lily. Try to act as if you have an ounce of sense.”

  His condemnation sank like a knife into her heart. “I have more than an ounce, Father.”

  “Then use it. What kind of life could you hope to have with a man like that?”

  “He used his psychic ability to locate Cecille,” she reminded Edward.

  “Pure chance. He located her as any other man would, by following tracks and clues. Nothing more.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “There’s no proof he has any such skills, if such a thing as psychic talent exists.”

  “Father, you’ve spent your life studying theology. You’ve investigated and debated miracles and prophecies of the Bible, so how can you sit there and say such things can’t happen?”

  “Theology has nothing to do with chicanery.” Edward gave a sniff of contempt.

  “True psychics aren’t magicians, Father.”

  “You sound like Unger.” Edward chuckled. “That man is daft about such nonsense. Why, when he asked to get involved in finding Cecille, I agreed only to appease him. I never for a moment believed in his hocus-pocus.”

  “I saw proof of Griffon’s talent. He made a believer of me.”

  “You can’t believe in such rot. I won’t allow it.”

  “Allow?” She repeated the word and laughed at the silliness of it. In her father’s eyes, she identified the fear she’d so often seen when he looked at her. She sensed his hope that she would back down, as she’d always done, and bend to his will. Lily squared her shoulders and imagined her spine to be made of tempered steel. “Father, I, too, am psychic, as you well know.”

  All color drained from her father’s face. Angela dropped her needlepoint into her lap and gasped.

  “Lily, dear, are you feeling ill? Have you recovered from that unfortunate business in the Ozarks? Edward, perhaps we should have Lily seen by a physician.”

  “Yes, yes. She needs help,” Edward agreed, bobbing his head. “She isn’t well. Never has been … not since her mother … she’s touched.”

  “I am not!” Lily protested hotly. “I’m perfectly sane. The day Mother died is when you turned against me.”

  “Lily, your father has never turned—”

  “You know nothing about it,” Lily lashed out at Angela. “You weren’t even there. I was. Father was. I sensed danger and I tried to keep Mother from going to that place to pick flowers. Remember, Father?”

  “I remember …” He cleared his throat and set his pipe aside. “I remember that you acted oddly that day. I assumed you saw those snakes and didn’t warn your mother until it was too late. Now you’re making up this preposterous tale about having special powers to ease your own guilt.”

  Her hand flew to her throat in a protective gesture. “How can you say such things to me, Father? I was a child, a child who loved her parents. I wouldn’t have wanted Mother harmed in any way.”

  “I didn’t suggest that. You just didn’t warn her.”

  “I didn’t see the snakes. I felt them. But I was a child and didn’t understand the knowing … the sense of danger. I understand it now. Griffon has made me see that I can’t hide from it. That’s like hiding from myself, and I’ve been trying to do that for too long. I want you to accept the whole me, Father. I want to be loved for my entirety. Can you understand that? Uncle Howard and Aunt Nan are trying to grasp it. Cecille and Orrie already understand and have known—”

  “Wait!” Edward held up his hands, stopping her. He squeezed his eyes shut for a few seconds as if warding off a seizure of pain. His muttonchops and beard seemed to bristle. “Are you telling me that you’ve spouted this gibberish to others?”

  “I have.” She craned her chin upward. “I believe my family should know this about me.”

  “What, that you’re bordering on insanity?”

  “Edward, please. Can’t you see that she’s unstable?” Angela delivered a smile of sympathy to Lily. “Dear, I think it would do you a world of good to see our private physician. I do believe you’re vexed. What you went through in those hills has addled your thought processes.”

  “I know my own mind. I’m traveling to Boston tomorrow and I will marry Griffon Goforth.”

  “Will you now?” Edward said, making it a warning. “Without my permission or blessing?”

  “If need be, yes.”

  “Listen here, Lily Jane Meeker. I am still your father and I won’t hear of it! What sort of life will you have with this man, cut off from your family?”

  “Uncle Howard and Aunt Nan like Griffon.”

  “Perhaps, but they won’t be pleased to have him in the family. He’s a Gypsy, a vagabond, a man of no means. If it weren’t for Thurman Unger, Griffon Goforth would be in prison or begging on a street corner. I thought you wanted a bright future.”

  “I do.”

  “Then don’t be rash. Stay here, and I’ll look into a finishing school for you.”

  “I’ve been to finishing school,” she reminded him. “And I finished—with honors, I might add.”

  “A college for women, then,” Edward said with a long, drawn-out sigh. “But I won’t give it another thought if you run off and throw yourself at the feet of that reformed beggar. He’s poison
ed your mind, but it’s not too late to set things to right. However, I warn you, Lily, continue with this foolishness and I’ll cut you off.” He chopped the air briskly.

  The gesture made her flinch, but she clung to the hope he’d cast like a fishing line. “You’d send me to college?”

  “I said I’d look into it, didn’t I?”

  “Could I take whatever classes I wish?”

  “Providing you’re qualified, I suppose so.” He glanced at his wife. “Secretary skills might serve you well. They certainly didn’t hurt my Angela.”

  Lily’s enthusiasm nose-dived. Being a secretary wasn’t what she’d had in mind, and her father knew it. He refused to entertain the notion that, given the opportunity, she might just match his intelligence and learning.

  His gaze sharpened as he reached for his pipe again. “I think you should go to bed now, Lily. The trip here has put a strain on you. That’s painfully obvious.”

  “Your room is ready, Lily. You’ll feel more yourself in the morning,” Angela said, still wearing the smile of pity.

  “Yes, we’ll speak more of this tomorrow.” Edward struck a match and went back to work on lighting his scrimshaw pipe.

  Dismissed and dejected, Lily went to her room. She closed the door on the other inhabitants of the cold household and undressed by candlelight. The storm beat against the French doors, lashing the panes and rattling the hinges. Clad in her nightgown of golden silk, Lily slipped between the sheets on the feather bed. A vase of red roses on the bedside table held her interest for long moments, her eyes playing tricks by making lilies out of the roses, whisking her back to a barge on the river. Sighing, she blew out the flickering flames of candle and memory, throwing the room into semidarkness.

  She wished Griffon was near to assuage her doubts. Should she divorce herself from her father and stepmother on only the romantic belief that Griffon would ask her to marry him? Perhaps her stepmother was right about counting her chickens before they hatched. Griffon had shown no intention of actually marrying her. He’d never even said he loved her, although she’d felt it and witnessed it in the passionate flames leaping in his blue eyes.

  If only she knew for certain that his intentions were tied to forever. If only …

  A clap of thunder jarred Lily awake, tearing her from a dream of the night Griffon Goforth had first blown into her life. Remnants of the dream clung even as she cast her wide-eyed gaze about the room. She’d left Griffon sitting on the sofa in the parlor of her aunt and uncle’s home, smoke curling from his clothes, his knowing eyes probing her. That room and that time sailed away, and Lily recalled that she was in Cambridge in a bed meant for guests, not for family.

  She smoothed back her tousled hair with both hands and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Lightning threw white light into the room, silhouetting a shadowy figure standing on the balcony beyond the French doors. Lily smothered a scream behind her hand and told herself she was imagining things. But even as this thought sought to comfort her, a vision of Ham Jeffers flashed through her mind. She scrambled to her knees and snatched the vase of roses off the table. Holding the heavy vase aloft, she watched as the brass handle on the door jiggled, dipped, sprang back up as the catch gave way. The doors flew open, and the storm clattered into the bedroom, flinging draperies and bedclothes, dampening Lily’s nightgown and hair, scattering leaves and debris. With the storm came a man in a black cloak that billowed around him like a thundercloud.

  Lily sucked in a breath to scream her lungs out as the figure closed the French doors behind him. She aimed the glass vase and started to fling it at the man’s hooded head when something familiar flirted with her senses. She paused, saw the twinkle of the man’s eyes below the cloak’s hood, and released a shriek of delight instead of a blood-curdling scream.

  “Griffon!” She let the vase drop from her hand. It thudded to the mattress, slipped over the side and onto the floor, spilling roses and water. Lily propped her hands at her hips, her relief and joy overridden by anger. “You scared ten years off me! How dare you crash in here after what I’ve been through! When I saw you standing out there, I immediately thought Ham’s evil ghost had followed me here.”

  “You have an active imagination, Lily Meeker.” He swept back the hood to reveal a face that had become the dearest one in the world to her. His eyes were feverishly blue, and impatience threaded through his voice. “Get your things together,” he said, making a sweeping gesture. “There is no time to waste.”

  “M-my things?” She laughed, then shivered as a damp breeze caressed her skin.

  “Don’t argue with me. It won’t do any good. My mind is made up, whether yours is or not, and I’m not leaving here without you. Now, gather your things and toss them into your satchel. Hurry!”

  “Where are we going?”

  “I have a place in mind. People are waiting for us.” He spotted her travel bag and hooked it with one hand. “This is still packed. Good. Just stuff the rest of your things into it, and we’ll be off.”

  “To where? I can’t just leave.” She took the bag from him, glancing around at her few scattered belongings in the room.

  “Then I’ll kidnap you, madam. Put some getup in your backside or I’ll take you as you are and leave your belongings behind.”

  “Kidnap me?” She hooted. “I think not. The last time that happened was the worst in my life!”

  He flattened a hand at the back of her head and hauled her into his arms. His eyes glinted mischievously. “You’ll love it this time, I promise you.” Then his mouth, moist and commanding, swept over hers. Her bones melted, and she hung in his arms, a willing, wilted captive.

  She could tell by his first kiss that he meant only to buss her and then hustle her out the door and into the night, but the touch of her lips against his foiled his plan. His mouth lingered, brushing hers back and forth, then with a moan he opened his lips over hers and his tongue slipped into the sweet pool. Lily pressed her scantily clad breasts against his wet cloak, letting it soak the front of her nightdress and chill her nipples into tight buds. She snaked one arm beneath his cloak and around to his back. Oh, how big he felt … strong, wide, manly. That he hadn’t said those three important words to her mattered little as her hands traced his shoulders, the indentations of his spine, the tautness of his hips.

  His lips nibbled hers in love bites. His whiskers burned the delicate skin of her neck, her throat, the swell of her breasts above her nightgown. He rubbed the gown off her shoulders, pulling the fabric taut to outline her pillowy breasts and budding nipples. With a groan, he bent and tongued one throbbing peak. Passion shot through her like wildfire.

  “Griffon, I’ve missed you,” she whispered, flinging back her head and trying to keep her knees from buckling. “I wanted you to come to me. I wanted you to tell me you couldn’t live another day without me.”

  “I’m here.” He kissed her again, hard. His tongue plunged into her mouth over and over again until her body was swaying and her knees began to melt.

  Lily pulled at the cloak, trying to make him join her on the bed, but he resisted, tearing his mouth from hers and drawing deep breaths.

  He shook his head. “Enough of this for now.” He made her stand on her own two feet. “Do as I say, Lily. Pack that bag. We’re leaving here.”

  Although drugged by his kisses, she knew he meant business, and she whirled about the room, grabbing her hairbrush, her cosmetics, her perfumed powder, her robe and slippers, and throwing them all into the bag. Stuffing them down with the heels of her hands, she then closed the bag. A draft crept over her bare feet, and she gasped.

  “I can’t go like this. I’ll catch my death out there. I must dress.”

  “No. I like you just as you are.”

  He removed his cloak in a sweeping motion, and it settled heavily over her shoulders. Dressed all in black, he looked so much as he had that first night that Lily feared this was all a dream that would vanish with dawn’s light. Griffon removed her carpet slippers
from her travel bag and tossed them to her.

  “Put those on,” he ordered. “Then we’re off. I have a horse outside.”

  “Griffon, I simply must leave Father a note.” She pushed her feet into the warm slippers. “It’ll only take a few seconds.” She headed for the secretary, but Griffon’s hand on her arm brought her up short. “We’ll send him a wire tomorrow.”

  “But he’ll worry about me and—”

  “Let him worry. It’ll do him good.” He slipped an arm behind her knees and swept her up into his arms. “We’re off.”

  Lily grabbed handfuls of his shirt, and within seconds he’d carried her outside into the biting rain. She recoiled from the helplessness of her situation.

  “Griffon, enough is enough. Let me down. We’ll wake my father and you can ask for my hand. We should do this in the proper, civilized manner.” She clung to him as he began his descent down the side of the balcony, using the ivy-covered lattice attached to the house as a ladder. “This is romantic, but it’s raining buckets out here! Let me down, Griffon. I’m no longer amused.”

  “I’m not trying to amuse you,” he growled, swinging her about as if she were nothing but a sack of coal. “I’m kidnapping you, damn it all. And I’m in no mood to be civilized or proper. The time for that is past.”

  “I was on my way to you. I only stopped to tell my father of my plans.” She sighed with relief when her slippered feet touched the, sodden ground.

  “I gathered as much. I also sensed your indecision. You still don’t know your own heart. You think you can make your father accept you, especially if you turn your back on me. What other things will you sacrifice for your father’s inconstant love, Lily?”

  “Griffon, you don’t understand. It’s not that way. I’ve come to realize that—”