Shades of Midnight

by Linda Winstead Jones

  Lucien pulled on the reins and brought their conveyance to a halt so that he could turn to her and give her his full, astonished attention. “What?”

  “I said,” she whispered, “maybe I want Garrick to court me. Maybe I’m ready to start looking seriously for a husband.”

  “An ordinary man to go with your ordinary life.”

  “Yes.”

  “A man who scoffs at that which he cannot see, dismisses anything in this life that he cannot touch, thinks he can charm the world with a grin and a wink, and will make you miserable.” With every word, Lucien’s voice grew tighter, more obviously angry.

  Eve lifted her chin, dismissing all her own reasons for sending Garrick packing in the first place. “He’s handsome, wealthy, clever, and charming. And he likes me.”

  “I like you,” Lucien countered.

  “Not as much as you like…” Eve stopped, pursing her lips. This was an argument she didn’t want to have. Not here, not anywhere. “Just take me home. We shouldn’t be discussing anything but Alistair and Viola. All I want is for you to send them on and then get out of my life. For good, this time.”

  “So you can be courted by a boring, grinning twit who is so blasted ordinary he’ll have you…”

  “Lucien!”

  “Fine,” he said, setting the buggy in motion again. “Just do me a favor and don’t allow him to call on you until I’m finished and out of town. I don’t think I could stand to witness such a debacle.”

  “I suppose I can agree to that,” Eve said softly.

  All was quiet for a moment. The wind seemed to grow a little bit colder. Eve’s nose grew cold. Her toes, too. She longed for a warm fire and the comfort of her own home.

  After a few cool moments, Lucien snorted.

  “What?” she snapped.

  “He’ll probably bring you flowers,” Lucien said, sounding disgusted. “And chocolates. And you’ll go to parties and play mindless parlor games and everyone will marvel over what a perfect couple you two are.” He made a grunting sound from low in his throat. “And when he asks you to marry him, after a proper period of wooing, he’ll probably get down on one knee and make an ass out of himself…”

  “Lucien!” Eve felt her face turn warm. Goodness, she was certainly beet red. “That’s enough. I think you’re getting ahead of yourself.”

  “I’m just glad I won’t be here to see it,” he muttered. “It sounds positively revolting.”

  Lucien’s sarcastically delivered scenario should sound wonderful; it was what every woman wants and dreams of. A wealthy suitor who calls bearing gifts. A romantic proposal of marriage. An adoring beau. But Eve silently agreed. Revolting.

  *

  It had never occurred to Lucien that he might have to fight another man for Eve. She was his in a way that went bone deep—how could she possibly allow another man to pursue her?

  He knocked softly on the door, and almost immediately she threw it open. “They’re already here,” she whispered.

  “It’s not yet eight o’clock,” he said as he stepped into the foyer.

  “I know.” She kept her voice low. “And they’re so clear. Lucien, it’s almost like they’re real, living and breathing and… truly alive.”

  He glanced into the parlor and there Eve’s lascivious ghosts were, clear, as she said they were. They stood by the window, Alistair’s hand on Viola’s shoulder, her eyes closed.

  “Does he look like a man who will murder her, in just a few hours?” At that moment, Alistair lowered his head and gently kissed Viola’s neck. She answered with a smile and a sigh.

  “Does she look like a woman who has been unfaithful?” Eve countered.

  Even though Reverend Younger had confirmed that particular rumor, Eve still wanted to deny it was possible. She had found a connection with the spirit of Viola Stamper, and like Justina Markham, felt obligated to defend her, he supposed.

  They had so much gossip to deal with, so many unfounded details. Perhaps the rumors were crowding out the truth.

  “I think we’re going to have to concede that we have no idea what happened, not that night or during any of the days that came before. All we know is what we see.”

  “What’s that?” Eve pointed at the bulky linen napkin in his hand.

  “Oh.” He offered his hand, palm and napkin, to her. “Chocolate cake. I thought you might like it. Miss Gertrude made a huge supper, and I couldn’t possibly eat dessert, but I told her I might have it later.” He knew his expression was not at all charming. Courting was not his strong suit. “Then I told her I was going to make this an early night, locked my door, and crawled out the window.”

  Eve grinned. “Why?”

  “In order to protect your precious reputation! Why else would I be so foolish?” And he did feel foolish. Incredibly foolish. Rather like a moron. “I was also forced to walk, since collecting my rented horse and buggy would make too much noise and alert the blacksmith to the fact that I was out and about.” He offered his hand more forcefully. “Take the damned cake.”

  She did, with a smile she tried to repress. “We can share it later, with some tea.”

  Lucien entered the parlor, in order to check on his specter-o-meter and the ectoplasm harvester. He tried not to look at the amorous ghosts who continued to stand at the window, who would soon move to the sofa. God, he hoped Eve didn’t want to watch tonight. He couldn’t bear it, if she did. He’d have to retire to the kitchen or the dining room or the garden on his own, and she would likely laugh and call him a coward.

  He finished setting up his equipment just as Viola and Alistair moved to the sofa. Fortunately he didn’t have to worry about Eve’s curiosity tonight; she nodded her head toward the kitchen and he gratefully followed her.

  “I’d like to try this cake now, if you don’t mind. I’ve heard Miss Gertrude is the best cook in town.”

  “Good idea.” He tried not to sound too relieved.

  They entered the kitchen. Eve went directly to the stove to heat water for tea, and Lucien sat at the small kitchen table.

  “Tell me,” she said, her back to him and her eyes on the teapot, “why are you so attached to those machines of yours? What you’re able to do without assistance is so much more… I don’t know. Powerful, I guess. Wonderful and amazing and… miraculous. Why do you rely on those silly contraptions?”

  “The specter-o-meter and the ectoplasm harvester are not silly.”

  “I didn’t mean silly, exactly, just”—she turned to him—“unnecessary.”

  Lucien shook his head. “They are very necessary.”

  “Why?”

  He wasn’t accustomed to answering such personal questions. His relationships were exclusively related to his gift, his business. People didn’t ask for too much information. They wanted him to solve their ghostly problems and move on. Eve was no different.

  No, Eve was different. No matter what she said, she did care.

  “Because if I can make them work properly, if I can collect enough scientific evidence of the afterlife and a spirit’s ability to move among us, maybe, just maybe, I’ll quit feeling like such a freak.”

  Her eyes softened. “You’re not a freak.”

  “Spoken like someone who has never seen a once friendly face turn white with horror. Who has never had a door slammed in her face. Who has never been called a child of the devil, a swindler, a…”

  “All right,” she interrupted. “People can be so narrow-minded.” She sounded angry, on his behalf.

  “If I can prove to the world that what I see and hear is real, if I can convince people to believe me, then maybe I won’t be constantly on the outside.”

  “I believe you.”

  “I know you do.”

  “And the others, Hugh and Lionel and O’Hara and all the people you’ve helped… they know what you see is real.”

  “But they’re just a drop in the bucket, and they believe because they’ve either seen something they cannot explain in any other way, or th
ey have the same visions and hear the same voices I do. To the masses, I am an abnormality. A weird man who should be avoided at all costs. Either that or a charlatan. I never can decide which is most insulting.”

  “My father ran into a good number of charlatans, in his quest. He handed over so much money to them, looking for someone like you. He wasted so many years.”

  “It wasn’t right,” Lucien said. “He shouldn’t have dragged a child all over the country looking for answers to his questions about your mother. He exposed you to swindlers, some of whom were surely dangerous, and he dragged you from one city to the next when you should have been in school, sleeping in your own bed at night, making friends with other little pigtailed girls.” He shook his head. “He should have put your interests first. If I ever have a child, I’ll… well, never mind.”

  Eve’s expression remained soft. “I don’t mind,” she said softly. “In fact, I’m glad Father dragged me from place to place.”

  “Are you?”

  “If he hadn’t, I never would have met”—she stopped suddenly, stammered, and blushed—“Hugh and the others. You’ve all become such good friends.”

  Eve didn’t lie well, but Lucien was polite and didn’t point out that she had almost admitted she was glad she’d met him. In spite of everything, she was glad he was a part of her life.

  Amorous sounds drifted all the way to the kitchen, as Viola moaned and then screamed. Heavens, she was a vocal woman! Ghost, he reminded himself. A vocal ghost.

  He found himself wondering what color Eve’s corset was today, beneath her drab green dress. Yellow again? Pink? Blue? Perhaps black or red, something daring and racy beneath the prim clothes and hair. How unexpected, that she would wear such feminine undergarments against her skin and then cover them with the dreariest clothing possible. Brown and dull green on the outside, yellow and other delicious colors on the inside. It was a mystery. The kind of mystery a man like him would never be able to solve. What was she hiding?

  He knew one thing: Eve was not precisely who she appeared to be.

  Lucien didn’t want tea and cake. He wanted to peel that green dress off Eve and see what lay beneath. He wanted to take those tortoiseshell combs out of her hair and let the strands fall, soft and wavy.

  Propriety be damned, he didn’t want to court her, to bring her cake and candy and take her on inane afternoon buggy rides.

  He wanted to make love to her until she could no longer deny that they belonged together.

  Chapter 11

  Eve stood in the parlor entryway and watched the scene unfold again, her heart in her throat, tears in her eyes. She had to watch, in case something new happened tonight that helped her understand, but it hurt. Viola died. Tonight she saw flesh, and blood, and real tears before Viola disappeared.

  When had Lucien’s arms snaked around her? She didn’t know. Didn’t care. She needed him to hold her, right now. The clock in her parlor struck midnight in low, musical tones, just as the body faded away. Midnight. The end of one day and the beginning of another.

  “You have to help her,” Eve whispered.

  “I’m trying,” he said, leaning over to place an unexpected kiss on the side of her neck. “I am trying, Evie.”

  She didn’t admonish him for the kiss or the tender Evie. She couldn’t. Not yet.

  “Can you imagine what it must be like to die that way every night for thirty years? It’s so cruel. So very, very wrong.”

  “I know.”

  Lucien turned her around so she faced him, and with a finger beneath her chin made her look him in the eye. “You get to bed. I need to examine the harvester and the meter and then I’ll let myself out and climb back into my room so that come morning no one will know I was ever gone.”

  In spite of herself, she smiled. “I can’t believe you actually climbed out the boarding house window.”

  “Neither can I.” He turned her about briskly. “Now, off to bed with you.”

  Eve took two steps toward the stairway before stopping in her tracks. It was as if her feet were made of lead, like her heart. “I can’t go to bed,” she said softly. “I can’t watch that murder and then go to sleep! It was so real, Lucien, so… so horribly difficult to watch. What kinds of dreams will I have tonight? Will I be able to sleep at all?”

  Lucien very gently took her arm and led her into the parlor. He sat on the sofa and pulled her down beside him. “We’ll sit here and talk for a few minutes. We’ll talk about other things. Ordinary things. And then you can go to bed and dream sweet dreams.”

  She wished it could be that simple. Somehow, she didn’t think a little diversionary conversation would make her forget what she saw night after night.

  But she was willing to try. “It certainly is chilly, this time of year.”

  “Yes, it is,” Lucien answered as if he had given the inane statement serious thought.

  “But I hear it’s lovely here, in the spring. When the weather’s warm again, I want to plant a truly proper garden.”

  “Really?” he seemed surprised.

  “Yes. Flowers and vegetables. And… and…” Her heart sank. “Oh, this is ridiculous, and it isn’t helping at all!”

  “It seemed a good idea,” Lucien muttered.

  “Maybe Mr. Hunt is right, and I should just leave. I should get out of the house, out of Plummerville. I can find another house… somewhere.”

  “I thought you loved this house.”

  “I do.”

  Lucien placed his arm around her and gathered her close, and she allowed it. Nothing else mattered, at the moment, except that he was here and she needed him. Dammit, she needed him.

  “Then let’s not give up just yet.”

  She rested her head on his shoulder and relaxed. Listening to the ticking of the clock, letting herself melt into Lucien just a little bit, her heart gradually returned to a normal rhythm. She closed her eyes and drank in this moment: the way Lucien held her, the warmth of his touch, the temptation of his scent so close.

  She had missed him, much more than she was willing to admit. And during their engagement, they had never been so close! When they worked together there were always other people about, and Hugh had been terribly protective of her, even where Lucien was concerned. They had rarely found themselves alone for more than two minutes.

  But he’d been there for her, in more ways than she’d imagined. A smile, a quick stolen kiss or two, a hand on hers, ever so briefly.

  And now here he was, holding her close, shielding her from the night and the horrors of watching Viola die again and again.

  “Thank you for coming here,” she whispered. “For staying. I couldn’t face this alone.”

  The next thing she knew he was kissing her, and his mouth on hers felt so right she didn’t even think of protesting. She parted her lips and drank, breathed him in, sucked something primal into herself. And Lucien drank her in; she knew it. Felt it.

  His mouth danced over hers, sucked and nibbled. Oh, he was such a wonderful kisser! She copied his moves, nibbled his lower lip and tasted him with the tip of her tongue, and she was rewarded with a moan low in his throat, one that matched her own.

  This was so much better, so much more powerful than the stolen kisses she remembered. The quick pecks had been nice, and she’d cherished every one, but this… this was extraordinary. She felt as if she were flying. Flying so high she had to hold on to Lucien to remain steady.

  His hands stroked her, touched boldly, and she didn’t mind at all. In fact, she loved the sensation of Lucien’s fingers brushing her throat and her chest. She loved the way those fingers trembled, with passion and nervousness. She loved the way the kiss didn’t end, but continued to grow deeper and more satisfying.

  Most of all, she loved Lucien.

  It was so easy to forget everything else while he touched and kissed her. Just for the moment, she set aside the pain of the past, of the present, of the uncertain future. She put everything from her mind but this beautiful moment. />
  “Oh, God,” he whispered huskily as he took his mouth from hers and kissed her throat. “Pink.”

  “What?” she asked dreamily, her head dropping back to bare her throat, her eyes closed.

  “I had to know,” Lucien said as his sweet mouth moved downward.

  His lips left her throat to kiss her chest, and her eyes slowly opened. When had he unbuttoned her dress? She should care, she really should.

  “Had to know what?” she whispered, her hand resting in his hair, her fingers getting lost in the long dark strands. She held on, gentle and sure.

  “The color of your corset.” His lips brushed against the swell of her breasts just above that corset.

  “Strawberry.”

  “What?” His voice was husky, muffled.

  “The catalog said it was strawberry.”

  His mouth moved lower. “It doesn’t taste like strawberry,” he muttered.

  As if she’d been dashed by cold water, Eve suddenly came to her senses, remembering where she was. Who she was. Why they could not continue.

  “Lucien,” she said, trying for a sharp tone, “stop this.”

  He raised his head and kissed her. “Why?”

  “Is Alistair here? Viola?” Oh, she’d almost completely lost control! That couldn’t possibly be her. The only explanation was that the amorous ghosts were with them again.

  “No. They’re gone.”

  But she and Lucien were sitting on the sofa where Alistair and Viola cavorted every night, and what she was feeling—this tingle, this desire—could not possibly be real.

  Heaven above, it certainly felt real.

  “We should stop, now.” Before things went any further. Before she forgot why she couldn’t love and want Lucien Thorpe as much as she did at this moment.

  “All right,” Lucien said, sitting back and drawing her head to his shoulder. “We’ll stop. You’re right about that. I’m quite sure you’re right.” He didn’t sound at all convinced. “Close your eyes and relax, and in a few minutes you can go up to bed and I’ll check the equipment before I let myself out. I’m not ready to let you go. Not yet.”

  That was fine with her, because she wasn’t ready for him to leave.