Shades of Winter

by Linda Fallon

  “Evie.” Lucien’s soft voice stopped her, and she turned to face him. He was so pale, and there were circles under his eyes. Dark, ominous circles. But his attempted smile had a bit of the old Lucien in it, something she had not seen so much as a hint of last night. “You are so beautiful, in your wedding dress.”

  She glanced down. The gown was wrinkled and misshapen, and her hair was a tangled mess. “It really did look much better before I spent several hours in a wagon and then on horseback.” Her elegant, expensive dress was ruined. “I wanted you to be overcome when you saw me in this dress. I wanted to be the perfect bride for you. And look at me now. I look like a … a well dressed beggar.”

  “You do not,” Lucien said. “And it doesn’t matter what condition your wedding clothes are in. It’s the woman in the gown who makes it beautiful.”

  She smiled at him. “I see you have not lost your ability to try to sweet talk yourself out of any predicament.”

  “Only the truth for us, Evie,” he said, closing his eyes again. “Only the truth.”

  She ran down the stairs, not wanting to leave Lucien alone for more than a few minutes. He needed to eat, and she was starving. She’d make a large plate of whatever that was she smelled, and she and Lucien would share it.

  The dining room was full. Daisy and Katherine, Buster and Garrick, Lionel, O’Hara, and Hugh. They all ate from a massive spread of eggs, biscuits, and ham.

  When she walked into the room, everyone started speaking to her at once. Lionel and Garrick both stood, and after a moment Daisy jumped to her feet.

  “He’s much better,” she said, answering all their questions about Lucien. “Still weak, but more himself than he was last night.”

  Hugh breathed a sigh of relief.

  “I told him I wouldn’t be gone but a few minutes,” she said, grabbing a plate and piling it high. “If someone would fix us a couple of cups of that coffee and bring them up, I would appreciate it. I don’t suppose there’s tea?” she asked. Katherine shook her head. “It isn’t important.” Coffee would do.

  “I’ll get the coffee,” Daisy said, hurrying toward the kitchen. Daisy was always happiest if she had something to do. And besides, Daisy knew how she and Lucien liked their coffee. Was there sugar and cream? It would be nice, but in truth it didn’t matter much.

  “Can he tell us what happened?” Hugh asked.

  “Let him eat first and then we’ll see,” Eve replied.

  She rushed from the room with a full plate in her hands. O’Hara was right behind her.

  “Let me help with that,” he said, trying to work his way around her.

  “No, that’s really not necessary.” Lucien didn’t need to be confronted with O’Hara. Not yet!

  “It’s heavy,” he said.

  “It’s only one plate!” Eve protested as she came to a halt at the foot of the stairs.

  O’Hara leaned in close. “Actually,” he said in a low voice. “I wanted to speak to you about Miss Willard, privately.”

  “Daisy?” Eve sighed. “Really, O’Hara, she’s not your type at all.”

  “I know. I seem to irritate her, and she’s much too prim and proper for me, and she’s obviously frightened of the things I face every day.” His eyebrows rose and fell in a rakish manner, and she was subjected to the boyish grin he apparently thought was charming. “I just want you to tell me how to get on her good side.”

  Not now! She didn’t have time to humor O’Hara. Besides, it would never work! “Daisy isn’t accustomed to men who are so … bold. She likes men who are polite, and well-spoken and …”

  “Boring,” he finished for her.

  Eve glanced up. Lucien was waiting in his room, weak and ill and needing her. “Can we finish this conversation later?”

  “I don’t have that much time,” he said in a lowered voice. “Once we get out of here, I might never get Daisy cornered again.”

  “Cornered?” Eve asked, outraged.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I’m afraid I do.”

  She turned toward the stairs, and O’Hara grabbed her arm. “Wait. I said that wrong. You know how horribly inept I am with women.”

  Eve rolled her eyes. “O’Hara,” she said, exasperated.

  He leaned in close and whispered. “I like her.”

  O’Hara and Daisy. Eve closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The very idea was as impossible as the concept of Daisy and Lionel together! Perhaps she could explain to O’Hara that Daisy was smitten with Lionel, and then handle the concept of that improbable coupling at another time, if necessary. “Later,” she said. “After I get Lucien fed and back to sleep.”

  “Later,” a deep, familiar voice whispered from the top of the stairs.

  Eve’s head snapped around. Lucien stood there at the top of the stairs wearing nothing but his wrinkled trousers, one hand on the banister as he teetered unsteadily. Pale, weak, and angry, he glared down at her.

  O’Hara smiled. “Lucien! You look so much better than you did last night.”

  “Get away from my wife,” Lucien said.

  “Your wife?”

  Eve handed the plate of food to O’Hara and rushed up the stairs, catching the annoyingly full skirt of her wedding gown in both hands, when it threatened to impede her progress. She had to reach the top of the stairs! Lucien looked like he might fall at any moment.

  “That’s right,” Lucien said hoarsely. “She’s not my wife, is she? She’s just … just …”

  Eve took his arm and held on tight. He’d been too warm, since she’d found him here, but right now his skin was cool. Almost cold. This damn drafty hotel was filled with icy drafts and cold spots, and a man half-dressed had no business wandering the halls. “Back to bed.”

  Lucien looked her dead in the eye. “Why is O’Hara here?” he asked.

  “Calm down …”

  “Why?!”

  Eve led Lucien down the long hallway. “He came to the wedding,” she said in a whisper.

  “You invited him to our wedding?” he asked, incredulous.

  “No, of course not,” Eve whispered. “He showed up with Lionel and Hugh. What was I supposed to do? Send him away?”

  “Yes,” Lucien said weakly.

  “What’s going on?” O’Hara came up behind them with the plate in his hands.

  Lucien stopped and tried to spin around. Eve wouldn’t allow him to turn to O’Hara. He was in no shape to face the man down, physically or emotionally.

  “You’re protecting him again,” Lucien accused.

  “I am not.”

  “Protecting who?” O’Hara asked. “Me?”

  “Wait here,” Eve ordered as she steered Lucien toward the door to their room.

  Amazingly, O’Hara obeyed.

  Inside the room, Lucien headed for the bed. He was already fatigued.

  “Why on earth did you leave the room?” she asked.

  “I don’t remember,” Lucien said as he lay back and closed his eyes. “I dozed off, I think. Suddenly I was just there, looking down the stairs, and you were whispering sweet nothings to O’Hara …”

  “I was not!”

  “Making plans to meet him later.”

  “That’s not …”

  “Last night while I slept, did you go to him?” Lucien glared at her, accusation in his dark blue eyes. She usually loved his eyes. They were full of life and intelligence, and love. He didn’t hide his emotions. They were right there for her to see.

  “You know I didn’t,” she whispered.

  “How do I know?”

  She should be furious with Lucien, and in any other instance she would. But he was not thinking clearly, she understood that. “You know I love you.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes.”

  The anger and accusation in his eyes faded. It didn’t disappear, but the rage was gone. “Is it enough, Evie?” he asked weakly.

  She didn’t answer, and it didn’t matter. Lucien closed his eyes and almost imme
diately fell into a deep sleep.

  Katherine sat on the top step of the Honeycutt Hotel front porch and stared out at the snow that covered the ground and rested in the limbs of the evergreen trees. Snow even sat on the branches of trees that wouldn’t see their leaves until spring. It made a pretty prison, but then she was accustomed to pretty prisons. Her own home was one, and had been since the day she’d married.

  With a shiver, Katherine hugged her cloak close. The outerwear was warm, but not warm enough. Cold air whipped inside the cloak, ruffling her black skirt and slipping beneath to chill her legs.

  She knew the moment she heard the furtive footstep that it was Garrick behind her, and she didn’t bother to look back or rise. After a moment when neither of them moved, he sat beside her.

  “What a dilemma,” he said casually.

  She didn’t turn to look at him. All her life, she’d known Garrick Hunt, though they had certainly not been friends. He was rich and spoiled, above common folk like her. And he drank, like Jerome. The only difference was, when Garrick got drunk it was likely to be maids and a butler who tucked him in and spoon-fed him tea until he was recovered.

  But lately, they had become friends. It was the ridiculous ghost society they had formed that threw them together. Otherwise, he never would have looked at her twice.

  “We shouldn’t be here,” she said softly.

  Garrick shrugged his shoulders. “Probably not.”

  She turned her head sharply to look at his relaxed profile. “Probably? Garrick, there are ghosts here. Lucien is … is …”

  “He’s not well at the moment,” Garrick said as she faltered.

  “Not well. That’s an understatement.”

  With a sigh, Katherine returned her gaze to the snow-covered land before her. Did Garrick not understand the danger in this situation? She did. She felt it to her bones. They shouldn’t be here.

  “I had to come,” he said. “It’s my fault he’s here.”

  “How could it possibly be your fault?”

  “I told him about this place, suggested that we bring the Plummerville Ghost Society here for an outing.”

  Katherine shook her head in wonder. “How foolish.”

  “I know.”

  “Well, you got your outing. Happy?”

  Garrick shrugged his shoulders as if it made no difference that they were trapped in a haunted hotel. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “The snow?” she asked sharply.

  “Yes.” He smiled. “I’ve never seen more than a light dusting. I had no idea it could be so … so pure and bright and white.”

  “It is beautiful,” she conceded. “But it also traps us here.” A gust of wind kicked up and she shuddered.

  Garrick immediately removed his coat and draped it over her shoulders, letting his hands rest on her shoulders too long.

  “What are you doing?” she asked sharply.

  “You’re cold.”

  “You’ll freeze without your coat,” she said sensibly, shrugging off the garment.

  Garrick placed one hand on her shoulder and held the coat in place. “Allow me to be a gentleman, just this once,” he said in a low voice. “I have so little opportunity to impress the fine ladies of Plummerville.”

  Katherine rolled her eyes. “Please. You haven’t cared about impressing anyone since you turned fifteen and realized that a smile and enough money made it unnecessary for you to bother.”

  His smile faded. “When I was fifteen, you were …”

  “Ten,” she said.

  “And you remember me from that time?”

  It wouldn’t do for her to allow him to think that she had ever been attracted to him, even in the most fleeting, impossible way. “Of course. You were the most obnoxious child in Plummerville, even then.”

  “Even then?” He laughed out loud. “Are you suggesting that I’m still an obnoxious child?”

  She couldn’t help but smile back. “You have your moments.”

  “You should do that more often,” Garrick said.

  “Do what?”

  “Smile.”

  Immediately, her smile faded. She hadn’t had anything to smile about for a long time. And no matter how beautiful it was here, no matter how engaging Garrick Hunt could be when he set his mind to it, nothing had changed.

  Seven

  Eve wrestled with her skirt as she tried to get comfortable in the ladderback chair beside the bed where Lucien slept. The skirt and petticoat rustled loudly, but Lucien was sleeping so deeply he was not disturbed. Eve was, though. She was terribly disturbed.

  Laverne had been determined that the wedding gown be elaborate and elegant and special. Eve Abernathy didn’t bother with special clothing to make herself beautiful, she didn’t attempt to make more of herself by dressing up in elegant gowns. But she hadn’t argued with Laverne, not once. Deep in her heart, she’d wanted the wedding and everything about it to be special and memorable.

  Well, it had certainly been memorable.

  What she wouldn’t give right now for a simple blouse and skirt! Her wedding dress had been constructed for beauty, not comfort and practicality.

  Giving up on comfort and silence, she reached out and rested her hand on Lucien’s forehead, finding him too warm but not as frighteningly hot as before. Again, he didn’t respond. He slept so deeply he wasn’t even aware of her presence. No sound or touch would invade and disturb his sleep. Usually if she touched him while he slept, he woke with a smile. He wrapped his long arms around her, sighed in her ear and told her she was beautiful, and then he made love to her. Lucien Thorpe was her man, her friend and lover, the only one for her. Was she in for a lifetime of days like this one?

  A fire blazed in the fireplace, warming the room on this cold afternoon. Eve pushed back a strand of dark hair that had fallen over Lucien’s forehead. In preparation for their marriage she had endured numerous fittings for the now-ruined wedding gown and had allowed Daisy to pull and twist her hair every afternoon for a month, searching for the most perfect hairstyle. She had begun secretly converting one of the bedrooms in her cottage into an office for Lucien as a wedding surprise. She had entertained her family, arranged for a very nice reception, and seen to the invitations.

  Lucien hadn’t even bothered to cut his hair.

  Was she fooling herself to believe that they could be happy? She didn’t doubt that he loved her, and she certainly loved him. But was that enough?

  “How is he?”

  Eve withdrew her hand and twisted around to see Hugh standing in the open doorway. “Better, I think,” she said softly, even though she suspected she could shout out her answer and Lucien wouldn’t be disturbed. “How is everyone else faring?”

  Hugh stepped into the room, his eyes on Lucien. “As well as can be expected. Lionel and O’Hara are exploring the house from top to bottom, searching for answers. There’s quite enough here to keep us all busy until we’re able to leave.”

  “And the others?”

  “They’re adapting to the difficult situation quite well.” He gave her a gentle smile. “The two gentlemen from Plummerville are out hunting, in order to supplement what Elijah has provided in the way of food, and the ladies are keeping themselves busy in the kitchen.”

  “Very good,” Eve said softly. She had a feeling this was not exactly what any of them had bargained for when they’d formed the Plummerville Ghost Society. “Keep a close eye on them for me,” she added. “They’re good friends, and they truly have no idea what they’ve stumbled into.” She should have forced them to stay behind in Plummerville! They had no business here. This was not a lark. It was a dangerous rescue mission that had gone terribly wrong, thanks to the snow that had trapped them here.

  Hugh moved soundlessly to the foot of the bed, and stood there looking down at Lucien. A fatherly concern touched his features. “It’s not entirely his fault, you know,” he said in a lowered voice.

  She could argue with him, but Hugh saw too much. “He never sh
ould’ve come here.”

  “I don’t think he had a choice,” Hugh said. “Lucien is eaten up inside, wondering why he has this gift he never wanted. He’s learned to control it, he has made a productive life for himself, and still … he is determined to discover a scientific reason for his abilities. He wants answers he will never find. That’s why he’s always fiddling with those contraptions of his. That’s why he can’t resist an opportunity to investigate a place like this one. He’s driven by something even he doesn’t understand.”

  “He could’ve waited two days,” she said, only slightly agitated. “Two days, Hugh! But no, he comes here all alone, not knowing what he might find. He is willing to risk everything, even me, to find his answers.”

  “He loves you,” Hugh said simply.

  “I know that.” Her anger died as quickly as it had flared to life. “And I love him, I truly do. But does that mean I will have to watch him go through this again and again? That I will have to abide always coming second to his ghosts?”

  “I can’t answer those questions.”

  Neither could she, and that was the problem. “I love him, Hugh, with all my heart.” Every fear she had been swallowing for the past two days swam to the surface. “I’m just not sure I can do this forever.”

  Darkness was encroaching once again, and Daisy was quite sure she did not want to spend another night in this hotel! Still, what choice did she have? Eve had spent the day with Lucien, and from what she’d heard from Hugh they had both slept away much of the day. Daisy didn’t want to disturb her friend, so she was doubly glad Katherine had joined the party. They might not have much in common, but it was nice to have a woman to talk to. Even when they didn’t talk, just knowing someone familiar was close by was a comfort.

  The kitchen was warm, in spite of the winter’s chill that cut through the drafty hotel. She and Katherine had been in this warm room most of the afternoon, cooking and cleaning, digging through the pantry for usable utensils and linens. So much had been left behind when the hotel had been abandoned. It was decidedly odd.

  The day had passed quickly enough. They might not be here more than one more night, but they both wanted to stay busy! Daisy daydreamed as she wiped down a long, polished counter in the kitchen—for the sixth time. If only she had brought her latest piece of needlework with her. Now, that was an activity that made the time pass quickly.