Shades of Winter

by Linda Fallon

  “Stop right there!” Constance commanded.

  Lucien stopped, then turned with a sleeping Eve in his arms to look down into the entryway. The two girls faced the closed door. Constance and Harold Phillips glared angrily up at him.

  “What have you done to my niece?” Constance screeched. “And how dare you presume to walk into this house as if you live here!”

  Eve had been trying for months to quell his need for telling the truth at all times. She said while honesty could be an admirable trait, when it was overdone it could be annoying.

  At the moment, he didn’t have the time or the energy to sort through the consequences of his words. “I do live here,” he said in a calm voice. “And if you raise your voice again and wake Eve, I will toss you out on your ear, family or not.”

  Aunt Constance turned red in the face, and one of the girls, the older one he thought, took a quick peek over her shoulder.

  “How dare you,” Constance’s husband said irately.

  “Go home,” Lucien answered in a calm voice. “Eve is exhausted, and she needs me to take care of her. I can’t do that and argue with you at the same time. Go home,” he said again, and then he turned and resumed his trek up the stairs.

  “Stop right there,” Constance ordered. “Something is very strange here. Something is not quite right. What kind of a scientist are you? What is going on?”

  Lucien stopped at the top of the stairs and turned to face the intruders again. “I’m not a scientist,” he said. “I’m a medium.”

  “A what?” Eve’s uncle asked sharply.

  “I talk to dead people. I see ghosts in every corner, I speak to spirits that no one else sees or hears.”

  Aunt Constance placed a hand on her forehead and swayed as if she might swoon. When she saw that her husband was paying no attention and would not be handy to catch her, she quickly regained her composure.

  “Really,” Lucien said with a shake of his head. “If you’d pay attention to what’s going on around you, you would have heard about me by now. I’m fairly well known in Savannah, and everyone in Plummerville knows what I do. But you … you two are so wrapped up in yourselves that you can’t see anything beyond your own rather large noses.”

  “That’s rude and uncalled for,” Constance snapped.

  “It’s the truth,” Lucien said as he turned away. This time when they called, he refused to listen.

  He stepped into Eve’s bedroom—their bedroom—and very gently laid her on the bed. She sighed, but didn’t move. “I love you,” he whispered. “More than I thought I could ever love anything on this earth.”

  She slept on, oblivious, as he covered her with the quilt. They both needed a long hot bath, food and drink. But for now, what they needed most was sleep. He placed his head beside hers on the pillow, draped his arm around her waist, and closed his eyes. Images he didn’t want to see danced behind his closed lids. They had been Scrydan’s memories, and now they were his.

  He pushed the memories away and forcibly replaced them with his own. In all his good memories, Eve was there. He held onto her and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  Katherine nearly jumped out of her skin when the rap on her front door startled her. Who could be calling so late? It was nearly ten o’clock.

  Her heart climbed into her throat. She knew very well who it was. She knew very well that only Garrick would come to her house so late. For a moment she considered not answering the door, but then the knock came again, more insistent this time.

  She steeled her spine and her heart as she opened the door on the cold night and the man who waited on her doorstep. As soon as she’d arrived home she’d taken a long hot bath, donned clean clothes, and brushed out her freshly shampooed hair. She had almost washed the scent of the Honeycutt Hotel off of her, but she didn’t think she’d ever be rid of the scent of Garrick.

  Garrick looked just as he had when they’d ridden away from the house, in the suit he’d chosen for Eve and Lucien’s wedding, with his hair mussed and his eyes so very tired. The heartless order to go died on her lips, when he looked her in the eye.

  “I spoke to my father,” he said. “It’s all true. Everything Lucien said is true.”

  She took his hand and drew him inside. “It’s too cold for you to stand outside,” she said sensibly. “Come in, and I’ll make you some tea.”

  “I don’t want tea,” he said as he came into her house. “I just want to be with you.” He reached for her, and when she didn’t respond he let his hand drop. “Is he still here? Jerome?”

  She shook her head. “No. I haven’t felt his presence at all, since I got home. He’s gone.”

  “Good.”

  Compared to his own home, Garrick must find her little house depressing and small, cramped and ordinary. But then, he didn’t look around him. His eyes remained on her. “In the back of my mind, I’d convinced myself that what Lucien said about my mother wasn’t true, that he’d made it up because I didn’t have any dark secrets for him to reveal. Pretty stupid, don’t you think?”

  “No. That’s not at all stupid.”

  “When I confronted my father, I expected him to deny everything.” He ran a hand over his tired, stubbled face. “He didn’t deny anything. My real mother was his mistress. She was murdered, right here in Plummerville, when I was a child.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “All I could think about, while he was confessing every ugly detail, was coming here to see you.” He sounded as if that fact surprised him as much as it did her.

  “You can’t stay,” she whispered.

  “Why not?”

  “You don’t belong here.”

  He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. “I think I do.”

  He was tired and upset, so she allowed him to hold her. She even wrapped her own arms around his waist and held on tight. Just for tonight.

  “Everything will be all right,” she said, speaking into his shoulder. “Your father is still your father, and your place with him is secure. I’m sure he … loves you.” If she had a child, she would love it no matter what. Surely it was the same for people all over the world. Even Douglas Hunt.

  “He was furious to hear that I’d found out about my real mother, but once he started telling me what had happened, it was like he couldn’t stop.”

  “The excitement will blow over soon enough.”

  “I wanted him to stop. I wanted to come here and see you. I needed to see your face, to touch you.” He shifted his body back and, with a finger beneath her chin, made her look up at him. “I feel better already.”

  She allowed him to kiss her, because she sensed he needed the closeness, that he needed a friend. But she didn’t fool herself. They were home, and everything had changed. His father would forgive him for discovering the secret, he would forgive his father for keeping that secret for so long. Garrick would settle back in at the mill, and there would be no room in his life for a poor widow who had been there when his world had fallen apart, for a while. He would have felt some warmth for any woman who had been with him at that time. He would have turned to anyone who had the ability to comfort him, when they thought they might not live through the night.

  So she kissed Garrick, and held him tight, and made herself forget that she loved him.

  In the middle of the night, Eve woke with a start. It took her a moment to realize that she slept in her own room, in her own house, with Lucien beside her.

  He slept soundly, and oh, he looked terrible! His face was battered and he needed a shave. His hair was tangled and, in spite of the fact that he’d slept long hours while they’d been in the haunted hotel, there were bags under his eyes. She knew she must look just as bad, after everything they’d been through.

  She snuggled a bit closer. There had been a time when she had been so sure they would not survive.

  Not both of them, perhaps not either of them! And yet here they were, together, safe, happy. They were home.

  Lucien d
idn’t look particularly happy, but then he had been through a lot. He had almost died … he had almost lost the essence of his being. His spirit, his soul. Scrydan would have gladly trapped it there in that awful hotel with all the others.

  Eve rolled gently against Lucien, crinkling loudly in the process. Lifting the quilt, she peeked beneath. She still wore the wedding dress, which was now beyond ruined. The gown had cost her a small fortune, and it had been so beautiful! At least for a while. Now it was simply a mass of wrinkled satin. It could not possibly be saved.

  At the next wedding she’d be practical, as she had been the first time around. No more white satin. Nothing fancy for her. Lucien had been right all along. They should have let the justice of the peace marry them months ago!

  As if he knew she was thinking about him, Lucien opened his eyes sleepily. He looked at her hard, as if he could see right through her. He reached out and laid his hand on her neck, letting the fingers drift slowly downward. “I love you, Evie,” he whispered, still half asleep.

  “I love you, too.”

  He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close. “I wish I could make everything right again, with a snap of my fingers and a wave of my hand.”

  “Everything is right,” she assured him. “We’re here. We’re together. Everyone is safe.”

  “Hold me,” he whispered. “I’m cold.”

  She complied, wrapping her arms around Lucien and snuggling against him. He was indeed cold, his skin chilled. After days of being unnaturally warm, the coolness seemed more pronounced than usual.

  “Is that better?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he whispered, and then he drifted off to sleep.

  Seventeen

  The hot bath had been an amazingly effective therapy, Eve thought as she made a nice hot cup of tea. It was one of the small things a person might take for granted, until they ended up spending a weekend in a haunted hotel where there were no such comforts as warm baths and steaming sweet tea.

  Lucien still slept. She looked in on him frequently, just to assure herself that he was breathing correctly and that his skin was not turning warm again. Every time she opened the door to peek in, her heart stopped and she half expected to find him tied to the bed, a Scrydan grin on his face and the heat radiating off his skin.

  But he slept peacefully and unrestrained, and when she crept to the bedside to touch him, his skin was cool—as befitted a January morning.

  The knock on the kitchen door was familiar, and Eve rushed to answer with more than a touch of relief. As soon as she opened the door Daisy rushed in, arms opened wide.

  “You’re truly all right,” Daisy said breathlessly as she hugged Eve with all her might.

  “Yes,” Eve answered, still not quite believing her luck, herself.

  “And Lucien?” Daisy asked as she released her hold on Eve and stepped back, closing the door on the blast of a winter breeze that made her black cloak dance. “Lionel and O’Hara said he was going to be fine, but … I wanted to be sure.”

  “He’ll be back to normal in no time,” Eve said, a false lilt of assurance in her voice. She couldn’t be sure that anything would ever be truly right again.

  Instead of professing her own relief at the simple fact that they’d survived, Daisy broke into tears. “I’m sorry,” she said as she fanned her face and tried unsuccessfully to stop crying. “It’s just … it was all so … I can’t believe …”

  Eve wrapped her arms around her friend and hugged her tight, understanding very well why Daisy was so upset. Until this weekend, Daisy had never been subjected to the realities of the supernatural world. Ghosts. Doors that wouldn’t open. The possession of an evil spirit. All these things were new to Daisy. She’d held up quite well, considering.

  When the sobbing stopped, Daisy backed away and held her chin high. Red-eyed, shaking slightly, she still managed to look strangely brave. “I’m sorry,” Daisy said again. “I’m just not going to think of it again,” she said firmly. “That’s the only way to handle the situation. I will simply tell myself that the past three days did not happen.” She seemed pleased with the convoluted idea. “If I do that often enough, eventually I’ll be able to dismiss everything I saw and did as nothing more than a bad dream.”

  Denial. That was Daisy’s way.

  “I guess we all do what we have to in order to survive,” Eve said. “Tea?”

  “Please.”

  They passed the next half hour talking about everything but the Honeycutt Hotel. Talk about recipes, fashions, and good old-fashioned gossip kept them occupied. Eve began to think that maybe Daisy’s idea wasn’t so convoluted after all. She felt so much better after a little normal conversation.

  Daisy had become her friend so quickly, even though in truth they had little in common. It was hard to explain how you could be drawn to one person and not another, in love and in friendships. Right now it didn’t matter that she and Daisy had little in common. They were survivors. This weekend had bonded them to each other like soldiers who went into battle together. Daisy was no longer simply a friend; she was family.

  The flow of their conversation finally ended, and Daisy sighed. It was one of those long, drawn-out sighs that signaled something was coming.

  “You are so lucky, to have Lucien,” Daisy said on the tail end of the sigh.

  “Yes, I am.” Was Daisy still smitten with Lionel? It didn’t matter. Lionel wouldn’t be in Plummerville much longer. Neither would Hugh or O’Hara. There was always another job right around the corner. Still, Eve didn’t want to see her friend’s heart broken. Daisy was so fragile. A broken heart would surely lay her low.

  “Even though Lucien has his strange abilities, you two have managed to find love.” Daisy lifted a hand, palm up. “Is it difficult, to know that he will always see things others do not?”

  Oh, dear. Daisy was definitely still smitten. “Sometimes it is difficult,” Eve said calmly. “But you have to remember that I’ve lived a very large part of my life among such curiosities.”

  “While your father tried to communicate with your late mother,” Daisy said.

  “Yes. So you see, I’m accustomed to the strange things Lucien sees and hears.”

  Daisy wrinkled her nose. “It doesn’t bother you?”

  Eve smiled and shook her head. “Not at all.”

  “But Lucien can’t read your mind.” Daisy said with a lift of her eyebrows. “He might talk to ghosts now and then, but it’s not like he can see inside you. That would be just too difficult, wouldn’t it? Why, think of the problems that would cause!”

  Eve didn’t know what to say. She certainly didn’t want to encourage Daisy to chase Lionel, but at the same time she couldn’t very well tell her friend that such a relationship was impossible. “I imagine it would take someone special to endure the hardships that would come with such an association.”

  Daisy seemed deflated. “Life just isn’t fair,” she said, practically pouting.

  “No,” Eve answered. “It’s not.”

  Daisy walked home, dragging her feet. Eve had said that she had no idea when she and Lucien might reschedule the wedding. That meant as soon as Hugh was able to travel, the three visitors from out of town—O’Hara included—would be on the next train out of Plummerville.

  It shouldn’t matter. It didn’t matter. No matter how unexpectedly adorable Quigley Tibbot O’Hara had turned out to be, the two of them weren’t at all well suited. Daisy Willard pushed her secrets deep, but there was no place inside her deep enough to hide those secrets from O’Hara.

  Not that he hadn’t already seen them all.

  It was mortifying that a complete stranger was privy to secrets her best friends didn’t know about. Even if he were to stay, which he wouldn’t, and even if she were to allow him to court her, which she wouldn’t, and even if he did kiss her … and that would never happen … what kind of a future could she possibly have with a man who hunted ghosts for a living? Yes, it was best that he leave town as soon as pos
sible.

  Eve and Lucien would manage just fine. Eve was a part of that world. She could travel with Lucien, when she wanted to; she could even help him with his work. After this weekend, Daisy knew she would be of no assistance in such a situation. Not that she would ever put herself in that position again! No, she had battled her last ghost, thank you very much.

  Still, it was rather disappointing that she hadn’t gotten that one kiss.

  The warmth of her own house waited straight ahead. She reminded herself that this was where she belonged. Plummerville was her home.

  Less than a year after she’d lost her child, never telling anyone what had happened, her mother had died suddenly. Four years later, her father had gotten pneumonia and never recovered. She missed her parents terribly; she felt guilty for not trusting her father’s judgment where Tucker was concerned and not trusting her mother in that terrible time when her heart was breaking and her world came crashing down around her ears. At the time she’d been so terribly embarrassed … but she shouldn’t have been. She should have trusted her family, when they were with her. Daisy wished with all her heart that her mother were here now, so she could tell her all about O’Hara.

  Daisy suspected Eve would never understand.

  Sulking over O’Hara was a waste of time. Soon he’d be gone, and she had no intention of crying over a man she could never have. He had accused her of living cautiously, of turning her attentions to men who didn’t pose a threat to her heart. But was there really anything wrong with that? Daisy tried to put more spring in her step. Maybe Garrick would ask her to marry him again. Maybe this time she’d surprise everyone and say yes. Marriage to a friend would be easy and comfortable, and she liked comfort. She most especially liked easy.

  So why did her heart almost stop when she saw O’Hara standing on her front porch, banging furiously against the door? She knew it was him, long before she caught a glimpse of his face. His suit was the most awful green, with a pin-stripe …

  “Is something wrong?” she asked as she hurried up the walk.

  O’Hara spun around, apparently surprised by the sound of her voice. “I guess not. When you didn’t answer the door, I got …” He stopped, swallowed, and then continued. “Curious.”