Adam stood to pour the tea. When he handed her a cup and saucer she was very careful to keep her hands steady. The tea was piping hot in spite of its journey from the house. Her host wasn’t as calm as he appeared. This offering was significant. As a former opera singer, she understood myth and metaphor. She understood symbolism. But she didn’t begin to understand the complexity of this man who had lived so long with damnation burning and burning at his heels.
“It catches fire in the sun,” she said, lifting her gilded cup up so that the sunlight hit the firebird’s tail.
Adam’s cup rattled against his saucer.
“Everything does,” he responded when he had settled the delicate porcelain in his strong hand.
Did this firebird tea in the rose garden mean that her affinity had seduced him? And why did that idea make her cringe?
As she sipped from the vintage porcelain cup decorated with its lovely gilded bird that was more legend than reality, her own emotions were even more elusive than a bird sought by princes and principalities.
She was supposed to get close to Adam Turov. Her stolen keys were worthless if she couldn’t discover what they unlocked. The trouble was that she had gotten closer to him in the last few days as she pilfered through all of his memories and personal treasures from a hundred years of life and love.
She wanted to enjoy the tea in her firebird cup as a generous offering of burgeoning attraction from a man whose kisses she craved. She didn’t want to plot his downfall.
Victoria watched Adam sip his tea quietly surrounded by the roses his mother had planted. And then she thought of Michael guarded by a hellhound and a daemon nanny while she struggled with tea and roses.
She didn’t have the luxury of enjoyment or the freedom to appreciate the attraction that burned between her and Turov.
* * *
He had lived forever and a day, but Victoria D’Arcy would be the death of him. He’d survived the burn of Brimstone so long that he’d forgotten there were worse burns. Like words spoken lightly that cut like swallowed shards of glass. He played with fire. Not only the way his blood bubbled and boiled with need for Victoria’s kiss, the song of desire she’d yet to allow herself to sing for him—he allowed her to search for his prisoners with no interference.
He served the daemon king to earn back his soul, but he also served to bring the Order of Samuel to hell where they belonged. Victoria was a song that woke him from decades of sleepwalking; a song he wasn’t free to taste.
Victoria D’Arcy couldn’t be allowed to interfere with that mission. Not only because he brooked no interruption, but also because she was very wrong to believe that freeing the monks he’d captured would protect her son. He knew Malachi. The corrupt man could not be trusted. If he was interested in Victoria’s son, he wouldn’t rest until the child was in his clutches.
He carried the firebird tea service back to the kitchen once Victoria had excused herself to wash attic dust from her face and hair. Oh, she’d said to freshen up after her hike, but he knew the dust of his house’s nooks and crannies well. Nostalgia was a hobby he indulged only rarely, but it surrounded him powerfully and painfully, always.
Esther met him at the door of the kitchen and he allowed her to take the service from his arms. She’d never known his mother, but she reminded him of her often. She’d also been born in Slovakia although her birth had occurred long after his mother’s, so Esther’s stories were of Czechoslovakia.
“I was happy to bring this out of its case. So sad to see something so beautiful shut away and unused,” Esther said. “The young lady is very like it—I suspect she’s shut herself away. I can almost see the shimmer of a glass case around her when she talks. So careful. So quiet. And I don’t think it’s her natural way.”
“No. I have a recording of her that’s not careful or quiet at all. The fire caused damage beyond her voice, I think,” Adam said. “And the Order has stalked her since she was a child.”
The cook held on to the side of the sink where she’d carefully placed the teapot to wash. Her calloused hands were white-knuckled from her grip.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned the Order,” Adam said.
“They have stalked us all for too long, Mr. Turov,” Esther said with her head bowed and her shoulders taut and stiff. “I know you’ll help her. You always do.”
The words seared him even though the Brimstone in his blood protected him from fire. He wasn’t sure if he would be able to help Victoria D’Arcy without losing a battle he’d waged for a century.
“Always is a long time, Esther. A very long time,” he replied.
The cook who had once been something far fiercer turned to look at him. Her eyes usually twinkled with humor, but now they glimmered with tears. Her cheeks were ruddy, but not from an oven’s heat.
“I have appreciated every second of the normal life you’ve given me. I expect she’d do the same,” Esther said. “But you’re only one man. An extraordinary one, but they are many. Take care of yourself too. Don’t lose sight of your own salvation.”
For a hundred years, taking down the Order of Samuel had been a clear objective in his mind. But that objective had become clouded as soon as Victoria stepped onto the soil of his vineyard. Saving his soul had always been secondary. But there was salvation in her song. One he wasn’t exactly sure how to claim.
* * *
It was much later that evening when Victoria decided to brave the kitchen for a late dinner. She’d washed all the evidence of her snooping from her face and hair in a long, hot bath, but while the soak had eased her sore muscles and cleansed her body, it had also allowed her too much time to think of Adam Turov’s kisses. It had been torturous to watch him sip tea that afternoon. He so composed and she so discombobulated. Perhaps he simply had more practice than she did at keeping secrets.
He should have looked out of place in the rose garden, in his tailored suit that gleamed as darkly as his hair in the sun. He hadn’t. He’d looked perfectly comfortable while she had worried over the yellow insulation he’d found in her hair.
She was surprised to find someone in the kitchen when she pushed open the swinging doors that led from the back hallway into the most beautiful room in the house. The kitchen complemented the house with craftsman elements, like a huge rock wall boasting an open fireplace that was still actually used for roasting on a spit. But it also hinted of a Slavic influence with its mosaic-tiled floors and the red-painted cabinetry. On the door panels of the cabinets were accents of folk art designs in hues of soft blues and greens. There was also a Slavic-style bread oven in the middle of the room made of stone but smoothly plastered with beige stucco. From the ceiling, iron fixtures hung like folksy chandeliers each fitted with a rope and pulley so that the candles could be lit. Stubby chunks of melted wax gave evidence to the fact that Esther still cooked by candlelight when she wished.
Esther was the crowning touch. Even now, well after other servants had left the main house, she sat at a heavy polished oak table in a colorful apron that could have been in a textile museum.
“I wondered if you would venture out for sustenance or if I was going to have to tap on your door with a tray,” the smiling cook said when Victoria came into the room.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for you to wait up,” Victoria replied. Her face was as rosy as Esther’s, but while the cook’s face was red from constant exposure to the fire of her oven, Victoria’s was red because she’d been caught trying to avoid her host.
“I just finished baking a batch of pagach bread. You’ll try it and tell me how you like it,” Esther said.
She rose and ushered Victoria into the chair she’d vacated. Her tone and enthusiasm brooked no resistance. Besides, the smell of yeasty bread filled with cheesy potatoes filled the whole room and caused Victoria’s mouth to water. She’d had pagach before, but in
the shape of a fancy crinkled-edged pie in a restaurant. Esther brought her homemade pagach to the table on the long wooden paddle she’d used to lift it from the baking sheet in the oven. Her pagach was a circular mound of dough much thicker than a pie pan that had been cooked a perfect golden brown.
“This was worth the wait, yeah?” Esther said as she cut into the pagach with a long knife she’d taken from a hook on the wall near the table. Aromatic steam rose in the air, causing Victoria’s empty stomach to growl.
There was a stack of heavy ceramic plates and a basket of utensils already on the table along with a napkin holder. While Esther served a generous piece of pagach onto a plate Victoria held, she noticed that beside the napkin holder stood a quartet of dolls made from knotted twine. One had a long braid of twine down her back. Another had two pigtails on either side of her head. The last had a tiny peasant bonnet on her head. All three had brightly colored glass beads woven into their strands of twine and dresses as colorful as the one doll’s bonnet. None of the dolls had faces.
“They are wishing dolls. Toys from my childhood. Every time we want for something, we add a bead. Like a prayer. I find that even though I’m too old for wishing I like to keep the tradition,” Esther said. She twitched the braid on one of the dolls.
Victoria chewed and swallowed a piece of heaven. The flavor of cheese and the texture of the creamy potatoes melted on her tongue.
“If one of those beads was for perfect pagach bread, the doll definitely delivered,” Victoria said.
“You make me happy. Eating. Enjoying. I love to see this smile on your face. I live for smiles,” Esther said.
Victoria ate several more bites while Esther went to the refrigerator and poured a glass of milk from a pitcher. The thick white creamy texture could only be whole and Victoria cringed when she realized her late-night snack was going to necessitate an early-morning jog tomorrow. Still, she couldn’t resist. She anticipated the ice-cold treat before Esther made it back to the table. When the cook set the tall glass beside Victoria’s plate, the sleeve of her dress rose up several inches.
Victoria’s fork froze several inches from her mouth and she slowly lowered it back to her plate. Esther’s wrist was badly scarred. Deep ridges cut into her flesh all the way around her arm. The scar was wide, but it had several raised areas that had been spared from the cut of whatever had dug into her skin. Esther drew back and pulled her sleeve into place, but it was clear that the cook had been cruelly bound at one time in her past.
“Eat. Smile. Don’t ask. We don’t talk of some things. It is better to forget,” Esther said. She walked over to a rack where herbs had been hung in bunches to dry in the corner. From the rack, she lifted a small blue linen bag. She brought it over to the table and placed it near Victoria’s plate.
“It’s filled with juniper needles. Helps to rid one of bad thoughts. I keep one nearby always. Another one of our Slavic traditions. My gift to you,” Esther said.
Victoria’s curiosity was at its peak, but she was also empathetic to Esther’s pain. She didn’t want to pry into private nightmares the other woman wanted to forget.
“Thank you. For the bread and the juniper,” Victoria said. She reached for her glass and drained the decadent milk. When she set it back down, she was sure she had a mustache. Esther smiled and her tension eased. “And thank you for the half a mile I’ll have to run tomorrow morning to work it all off.”
They both laughed then and Esther fussed about putting meat on her bones whether she liked it or not. The kitchen was a refuge. She’d known it from the start. Adam had given the kitchen to Esther. He’d given the sun to Gideon. It wasn’t up to her to find out why. She had another mission. But there were more secrets at Nightingale Vineyards than she’d been sent to find. Her job was to unlock the hidden prison and free the monks Adam had captured, but more and more she wondered if unlocking Adam himself would be the true prize.
Chapter 8
Too much time had passed. She could feel the end of the month approaching. Every night more of the moon illuminated the garden. Every day and night, she searched for the hidden prisoners she was supposed to free. She was trying to save Michael, but her maternal instincts fretted over the amount of time she’d been gone. Even with modern technology, touching his face on a laptop screen wasn’t the same as tucking him in at night herself. She missed the sloppy toddler kisses and his chubby arms clenched around her neck. She missed the scent of his towheaded curls when he was sleeping and his high-pitched giggles when Grim inadvertently tickled him with hell-spawned fur.
Her mother’s heart pulled her in the direction of her child. But she was pulled in another direction so fiercely that she ached with the necessity of refusing the call.
Adam Turov.
He was everywhere. The whole of Nightingale Vineyards was Adam. From the decades of memorabilia in the main house to the grapes plumping on the vines. From the shadowing garden pathways to the sunny bustle of workers helping him to care for his vines. From Esther’s Slavic kitchen to Elena Turov’s birdcages. From dusky roses to the rich, red beauty of his Firebird Pinot Noir. She was surrounded by Adam even when he was mysteriously absent, day after day.
She should be glad that his actual presence had been scarce for the past week and that she’d been left mostly unobserved to skulk about the entire estate trying her keys. But her true feelings were more complicated than that. When he was gone, she missed his burn. Having basked in its glow, she was...bereft. Not relieved. She was cold. The farther away he ventured, the colder she became. Last night she’d had to burrow under the covers and light a fire in the small fireplace of the cottage.
She’d found nothing while he was gone. No hints of activity that might indicate prisoners being cared for. No sign of the prison itself. But rather than focusing on her failure, this morning she could only feel relief.
Adam was back.
She could feel his magnetic presence, but she had no excuse to seek him out. None at all. She’d taken to the sunlit garden to warm her bones and wander near the house without giving in to the desire to find Adam and seek the much greater heat she craved in his arms.
The affinity had never ridden her so hard. She’d never had to resist it to such an extreme that she was left shivering.
The sun helped. She wrapped her arms around herself and willed the soft, early morning rays to soak deeply into her. She could see the sprawling roof of the main house through the trees. The estate was old and empty. It existed in a tangle of roses and ivy that counteracted the orderly rows of grapevines, but all of the green growth served only to highlight how dead the main house had become. Only Esther’s kitchen remained a place of life and laughter. The rest of the house was a tomb, a memorial for what had been.
Adam burned with Brimstone blood, but had his heart grown cold?
It didn’t matter. His emotions were none of her concern. She wasn’t here to cultivate an actual relationship. Yet she found herself less able to contemplate coldly seducing information from him now that she’d tasted his lips.
She found Adam in the doorway of the birdcage gazebo and stopped in the middle of the path. When the sunlight fell on his face it suddenly seemed as if she hadn’t seen him for years.
She should have known the affinity would bring them together even as she tried to stay away.
“My father had this gazebo made for my mother. But she didn’t spend much time here. She loved her birdcages, but this one was too big. She said it made her feel like a poor trapped bird even with the door open,” Adam said. “I like it myself. I sit here at times and then walk out whenever I please. It reminds me that I’m free in so many ways. I can step out of the cage. I can grow my grapes and talk with a beautiful woman as she walks in my garden.”
She knew his soul wasn’t free. She could see that truth in the shadows of his eyes even as he blinked in the sun. But som
e cruel truths didn’t have to be said. Instead, she moved again. They could ignore his bartered soul for just a little while. Nothing could have stopped her from approaching his warmth. Not when she’d suffered through colder and colder days—and nights—without it.
Adam watched her come toward him. He straightened and his expression grew more serious. His jaw hardened. His eyes shone like blue diamonds in the morning light.
“I saw smoke coming from the cottage’s chimney this morning,” he said.
She continued to move closer to the gazebo where he stood. He didn’t step down the wrought-iron stairs to meet her. But he didn’t move away. In fact, he’d wrapped one hand around the rail and she could see that it was the white-knuckled grip he’d used before. The question was: Did he hold himself back, or stop himself from walking away?
“I’ve been chilled to the bone since you went away,” Victoria said. Her voice was husky and low. There was a cadence to her words that was almost, but not quite, a song.
Adam closed his eyes and swallowed. He opened them only when she’d climbed the bottom two steps leaving only one empty between them. A wrought-iron tread of possibility. She could step up. He could step down. The choice was theirs to make. Nothing to do with a hellish civil war or an evil monk. Only him. Only her. Only a response to the separation that had left them both looking for each other this morning.
“I’m never cold, but it was very dark where I traveled and I missed your song,” Adam said.
Adam was the one who took the last step. She had raised her face toward him, but she hadn’t been able to risk the last tread. He risked it for them both. She closed her eyes against the nearness of his Brimstone fire as if it flared bright enough for her to see. It wasn’t visual, but her body could feel the aura of heat around him grow stronger. She could feel when they were close enough for his heated aura to encompass her. He reached to wrap his arms around her back.
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