“Yes, it is,” Lucien answered. “Always.”
“If you need anything,” Garrick continued, “anything at all…”
“Thank you.”
They said good night and Lucien closed the door, sighing as he rested his forehead there. He hated knowing the secret of Garrick’s parentage. Should he tell? Or keep the secret? He hated to lie, even by omission, but it would do Garrick no good to know that the woman he called Mother had not given birth to him. Eve laid her hand against his back, and he instantly turned to face her.
“Viola and Alistair are not showing themselves tonight,” he said. “They’re usually quite active, by this time of the evening.” He glanced into the parlor. “Your sofa seems to be unoccupied, at the moment.”
Eve began to unbutton his shirt, her fingers slow but sure. “Can we forget Alistair and Viola tonight?” she asked. “They’re safe, now, they’re where they belong. And so am I.” She untucked his shirt and slipped her hands beneath to touch his skin. “You’re so warm.” She had only to touch him, and he was ready for her. Tonight he wanted her fast and slow. Beneath him and above. He wanted to make her scream.
Lucien unfastened Eve’s blue dress, moving more quickly and efficiently than she had when she’d worked his buttons. He kissed the flesh he revealed, sucked on her tender throat, and cupped a still-covered breast in his hand.
“Come to bed with me,” he said, not wanting to think about anything but the way Eve felt in his arms. “We will probably never know who killed Alistair and Viola, and as frustrating as that is, perhaps that’s as it was meant to be. Our job was to prove that Alistair wasn’t the guilty party so Viola could move on, and we did that. They’re safe now. Safe and free and together.”
He extinguished the lamp. In just a moment, his eyes adjusted to the darkness. Evie was no more than a dark outline, a silver-gray shadow. He took her hand in his and they headed for the stairs.
Halfway up the stairway, Lucien scooped Eve into his arms. She laughed, and his heart leapt in his chest as she draped her arms around his neck.
“I love you,” she said softly.
“I love you, too,” he said. Even in the dark she was a vision, hair loose, dress halfway unbuttoned, her creamy neck and the swell of her breasts revealed for him. He couldn’t get to her bedroom fast enough.
He kicked open the door, kicked it shut, and tossed Eve onto the bed. She laughed, bright and joyfully, and reached out to pull him down with her. The bed bounced when he landed on top of her, and fully dressed, Eve wrapped her legs around him.
With a tender, loving hand he touched her. Her face. Her breasts. The leg that was raised high to rest over his.
“Evie, what color is your corset tonight?” he asked as he finished unbuttoning her gown and a touch of lace was revealed.
“Strawberry,” she said breathlessly.
“I would light a lamp to watch you by,” he said as his fingers worked the hooks and eyes down the front of that corset. “But that would mean letting you go and leaving the bed and I am not prepared to do that.”
“Good,” she breathed.
He lifted her skirt and laid his hand on her thigh, raking his thumb over the tender flesh there while he lowered his head to kiss her throat and then the swell of her breasts. Her response was a series of uncontrolled trembles and deep sighs that touched and aroused him. When he took a nipple into his mouth she moaned.
It was ten-fifteen.
Chapter 20
She was lost in another world, drowning in sensations she had never dreamed of. Lucien undressed her, and as he did his fingers stroked and caressed, his mouth tasted. When she tried to help, to hurry the process along and rid herself of the annoying clothes that came between them, he shushed her, kissed her, and told her to be patient.
Patient. When her heart was pounding and her blood was screaming, he asked her to be patient.
There was only darkness and sensation, hunger and emotion so deep she was astounded by the way they blended into one unstoppable power. Outside their cozy shelter, lightning split the sky, thunder cracked so that the house shook. Her body arched into Lucien’s, the moans that broke free could not be silenced, not even by the thunder.
She was naked; he was not. His shirt was unbuttoned and she had managed, at one point, to unfasten the top button of his trousers, but still… it hardly seemed fair. He should be as vulnerable as she was, exposed.
It was primitive, to lie naked before a man. To lie naked before her man. This need to feel his bare skin against hers, that was primal, too, as primal as the passion that swept through her body.
She reached for Lucien’s shirt again, ready to whip it over his head and toss it aside, but he stopped her. His hands manacled her wrists tenderly, and he held her hands out, away from her body. Another flash of lightning lit the room, for a moment, and she saw a disheveled Lucien hovering over her, long strands of dark hair covering much of his face.
While she was trapped in that position, he began again to kiss her. Her lips first, a kiss deep and promising. Next he nuzzled her head to the side and laid his lips behind her ear, in a place she had not known could be so sensitive that the gentlest touch of her lover’s lips made her shiver to her bones. Occasional flashes of lightning illuminated the room for a moment, and then all was dark again. Rain fell harder, pounding against the roof and the windows.
These sensations were new to her, unexpectedly powerful. She was caught in darkness, the sound of the rain, and the cravings of her own body. For a while she lay there, sometimes breathing deep, something holding her breath, while Lucien touched and kissed her.
Eve paid attention to each detail, to the way his lips lingered, the way his fingers could be soft one minute and firmly demanding the next. Then something happened and she went so deep into herself there was no room for rational thought. There was only her body and his.
She ached for him, her body throbbed. More than anything, she wanted him inside her.
“Lucien,” she whispered when he lowered his head to take one nipple into his mouth. He sucked deep and she almost came off the bed.
His answer was a hum and a growl.
“Are you going to make me wait all night?” Her voice shook, her fingers and knees trembled.
“Do you want me, Evie?”
“Yes.”
He released her hands and reached between them to spread her legs wider, to touch her where she was wet for him. She arched against his hand, closed her eyes, and moaned while his fingers fluttered. If he touched her again that way she would come apart before he pushed inside her.
Lucien kissed her while he freed himself, and with her mouth latched to his, her body trembling, her blood on fire, he guided himself into her.
When he took his mouth from hers, she gasped. It was dark in this room at the moment, too dark, but still she saw the shape of Lucien above her as he pushed deep inside. He surged against her and the bed rocked. The headboard banged against the wall, the mattress—the entire bed—swayed as he made love to her.
Eve’s body instinctively answered his, her hips rising to meet his thrusts, her legs twining around his. The lightning and thunder came again. The wind shifted direction so the rain pounded hardest against the windowpanes near the head of the bed.
Lucien plunged hard and deep and she screamed as completion, more intense than she had imagined it could be, swept through her body. While she quivered around him, Lucien found his own release. The movements on the bed slowed gradually, until he sank down to cover her.
Her body trembled, her mouth was dry, and her heart pounded so hard she was sure Lucien could feel it hammering against his chest. She speared her fingers through his hair and laughed.
“You’re more dressed than not,” she said breathlessly. “That’s really not fair.”
“Not fair?” He lifted his head to look down at her.
“I wanted to see you,” she whispered. “To touch you.” Her fingers traced his jawline, and she felt the stubbl
e there. “I wanted to feel your skin against mine, and make you moan with pleasure the way you made me moan.”
Lucien drifted down to kiss her, sweetly this time. His lips brushed against hers, left for the span of a heartbeat, returned.
“Evie, my love,” he whispered. “It’s not as though we’re finished for the evening.”
She draped her arms around his neck. “Will it always be this way?” she asked. “So powerful and exciting, so complete and… wonderful.”
“For us? Yes. I believe so.”
“This isn’t at all ordinary, is it?” she asked softly. “In fact, it’s quite extraordinary.”
“Yes, it is. Extraordinary.”
Their bodies were entwined, and she didn’t want to let go, not ever. In all her life, she had never known anything so undeniably right. “You’re mine, Lucien Thorpe,” she said. “From the first moment I saw you, you have been mine.”
“I know.” He moved against her and she closed her eyes. “And I always will be.”
*
Lucien pulled a sleeping, naked Eve against his chest and rested his head on the pillow, closing his eyes at last. He’d gotten everything he’d wished for tonight. His woman fast and slow. A writhing Eve beneath him while the thunderstorm raged around them, a dancing Eve atop him when the storm had faded to a steady rain. If only they never needed to sleep…
He was almost asleep when he heard the noise. It was the dying storm, he imagined, blowing things outside about. Shaking the little house. Or had Alistair and Viola come back for Halloween? This was the night when those thin walls between life and death faded, and sometimes disappeared altogether. Lucien lifted the clock from the bedside table and tried to read the numbers. It was too dark. He sat up, easing Eve carefully aside, and lit the candle that sat on the bedside table. Looking again at the clock he saw that it was fifteen minutes before midnight.
Still Halloween.
Downstairs, something moved. A piece of furniture scraping against the floor, perhaps. Again he thought of the ghostly couple who had haunted this house for thirty years. But why were they back?
He pulled on his trousers and headed for the door, when a whispered command stopped him.
“Don’t go down there.”
Before Lucien reached the door, he spun around, his eyes searching the dark room. “Alistair?”
“Don’t go down there.”
On the bed, Eve snuggled beneath the covers, as if disturbed by the spirit’s intrusion.
In a rush that made him light-headed, Lucien realized that tonight mirrored, in more ways than one, what had happened thirty years ago. Eve’s blue dress, the storm, the trip up the stairs, the past hour and a half. Now there was the noise meant to draw him down the stairs.
The murderer was waiting down there, and he was going to kill him and Evie, if they gave him the chance.
“Eve,” Lucien whispered, returning to the bed to gently shake her shoulder, “wake up.”
She sighed, rolled onto her back, and smiled. “Lucien, darling, you’re wickedly insatiable. I rather like that about you.”
“Evie,” he whispered. “The man who killed Alistair and Viola is downstairs.”
She sat up quickly, bringing the sheet with her to cover her breasts. “Are you sure?”
“I heard a noise, and now Alistair has warned me not to go downstairs.”
“Why is he back?” she asked softly. “And how can you be sure this isn’t just some bizarre ghost’s Halloween joke?”
Alistair was apparently offended by her accusation. He left suddenly.
“Get dressed,” Lucien ordered.
Eve slipped from the bed and reached for her dressing gown. Lucien almost stopped her, but there wasn’t time for her to dress properly. The damned wrapper would have to do. If they didn’t go downstairs, whoever was down there would come up… and they’d be trapped in this room with no escape.
“Do you have a weapon?”
Nodding her head, Eve ran to the corner of the room, where she collected her walking cane. The one she had used to poke him in the ribs on his first morning here. Lucien groaned. “I suppose that will have to do,” he said as he took the offered stick.
He took Eve’s face in his hands and kissed her, quick. “You stay behind me, no matter what. I’ll get you to the door, and you run like hell while I hold him off.”
Her eyes went wide. “No!”
“You made me a promise,” he whispered. “I expect you to keep it.” He kissed her one more time, and they headed for the door.
*
Since Lucien wasn’t wearing a shirt for her to grasp, Eve held on to the waistband of his trousers with one hand, while the other hand carried the candle, held high and to the side. The flame cast a strangely dancing light down the stairs and, as they descended, into the foyer.
“Look,” Eve said when the floor was partially lit. Muddy footprints marred the polished wood that had been spotless when Lucien had carried her to bed.
Lucien nodded. He was taking her to the front door, she knew. Before they got there, someone was going to try to stop them.
When they reached the foot of the stairs, a refined southern voice reached out of the darkened parlor. “Stop right there.”
“Alistair?” Eve whispered.
“No,” Lucien breathed.
They stepped toward the parlor, and Lucien took the candle from her. As he advanced, cane in one hand and candle in the other, a shadowy figure became clear. The man in the parlor held not a knife, but a gun. Lucien cursed.
“Run,” he ordered.
“I can’t,” Eve whispered.
Lucien took another step forward, and suddenly they could see the killer’s face. Gerald Porter.
Lucien placed the candle on a table near the parlor door, and forced Eve behind him, shielding her with his body as he shifted to the side so that Gerald wouldn’t have a clear shot if she ran for the front door. “Go,” he said. “You promised me you wouldn’t take chances with your life.”
She didn’t want to leave him… but maybe she could get help. Her heart clenched. The nearest neighbor was a quarter of a mile away, and Gerald had a gun!
“You promised,” he said again.
Tears in her eyes, Eve turned and ran. Her mind wasn’t on desertion, but on getting help. Gerald had a horse, and it was probably hitched outside. If she could take his horse and go for help… She threw the front door open, and ran smack-dab into Justina Markham.
Justina had a knife.
“Lucien,” Eve said softly.
“Run, dammit.”
“I… can’t.”
Justina gave Eve a gentle shove and followed her inside. “For God’s sake, Gerald, what’s taking so long?” she snapped.
“What’s your hurry?” Gerald asked, the voice his own once again. And then he smiled. “Getting a little anxious, my little Violet?” He asked the question in the same genteel drawl he’d used when she and Lucien had come creeping into the foyer.
Eve grabbed on to Lucien as Justina herded her into the parlor.
“Nice impersonation of Alistair you have there,” Lucien said.
“How would you know?” Gerald asked, waving that gun about. “Were you even alive when he died?”
“I told you earlier tonight. He speaks to me.”
“Hogwash,” Gerald said. “There’s no such thing as ghosts.”
“It’s a small man who only believes in what he can see,” Lucien said softly. “Alistair and Viola are here now, in this very room.”
Eve saw nothing, but then she didn’t have Lucien’s gift. “Are they really here?” she whispered.
Lucien nodded, once. “So, why did you do it?” he asked calmly. “Her I understand,” he said, nodding toward Justina. “She’s a bitter, jealous woman who would stop at nothing to get…”
An enraged Justina came toward Lucien with the knife. She touched his throat with the blade. “You’d better watch your mouth, fortuneteller.”
“
I’m not a fortuneteller!” he insisted, and then he returned his attention to Gerald.
Justina’s knife dropped slowly. Eve suspected the woman didn’t want to bloody her own hands. She was perfectly satisfied to allow Gerald to do her dirty work, once again.
“Why?” Lucien asked.
Gerald shrugged. “She paid me. I do all sorts of odd jobs. Yard work, deliveries, carpentry… anything at all.”
Lucien shook his head in wonder. “You learned how to imitate Alistair’s voice just so you could make Viola believe her husband killed her? That’s… mad.”
“No,” Gerald said with a half smile. “I already knew how to do that. Miss Justina, she always liked it when I pretended to be Mr. Alistair. She liked it when I touched her and called her my little Violet. That’s what she told me to call her when we were together, my little Violet.”
“She paid you for that, too?” Lucien asked.
“In the beginning. These days I’ll do it for free. Sometimes.” Gerald’s face softened. “She closes her eyes real tight and calls out another man’s name, but I don’t mind too much.”
Justina appeared to be quite calm, even with this sordid secret made known.
“You didn’t have to kill them,” Eve said. “Just because he loved her and not you? It doesn’t make sense.”
Justina laid cold eyes on Eve. “He was going to tell her that I’d tried to seduce him. He felt that he had to confess everything, even though nothing really happened.” She laughed. “A kiss. A wandering hand. And then he got an attack of conscience and sent me on my way. He said he’d have to tell Viola that her dearest friend was no friend at all.” She shook her head. “My reputation would have been ruined.”
Eve shook her head. “Why did you make her believe it was Alistair who killed her?”
“It was the only way I could think of to make her know what real pain was like,” Justina said. “Viola never knew pain, before her death. It isn’t right that some people know nothing but pain while others know none.”
She turned to Gerald. “Kill them. Better make it look like a murder-suicide again.” She smiled. “Coming on the anniversary and all, it should make a nice ghost story for future generations.”
Shades of Midnight Page 24