by Eileen Wilks
And the other . . .
Her heart froze. Her hand tightened on the bannister.
The other man removed his hat to knock snow from the brim. His thick gold hair gleamed in the glow of many candles. His eyes were as green as hope, as spring.
Perhaps she made some sound. She did not know.
He looked up and saw her, and her poor, ice-encrusted heart began to beat again.
The other man was Lucien.
To Lucien, she looked like an angel, a miracle spun of air and light.
He wanted to snatch her up and run up with the stairs with her, to carry her to his room and tumble her onto his bed. He wanted to untie every silver ribbon, loosen every lace, uncover every delicious bit of flesh, every hint of pink, every inch of white.
But of course if he did those things, it would defeat the purpose of his journey.
Besides, Aimée might object. It had occurred to him on the long carriage ride back, as his trip met with delay after delay, that he might have explained to her why he was going. But he’d had no guarantee of success then. He’d wanted to come to her without conditions or reservations.
He bounded up the steps and took her hand. She wore no gloves—part of her costume, he assumed. Her fingers were cool and slight and trembled in his grasp.
Holding her gaze, he lifted her hand to his lips.
Her eyes widened as he kissed her knuckles. “You are late,” she observed.
Her admonition made him smile. “Yes. I’m sorry.”
Still holding her hand, he walked with her down the stairs and led her to his companion. “My lord,” Lucien said proudly, “I have the honor of presenting Lady Aimée Blanchard. My love, this is the Earl of Amherst.”
Aimée shivered in confusion and joy and the draft from the door. Lucien had brought the earl here? What did it mean?
Amherst bowed. “I trust Lady Basing will pardon my instrusion.”
Aimee pulled herself together enough to manage a curtsy. “My cousin will be honored, my lord.”
An understatement. Lady Basing would be beside herself at snagging the Earl of Amherst’s attendance at her Christmas ball.
“The honor is mine,” Amherst said politely. His eyes gleamed. “Hartfell is not the only one who struggles with impatience, it seems. I could not wait to meet the lady who has reconciled him to himself. And to me.”
Aimée’s eyes widened. Her head whirled.
Lucien squeezed her hand, his grip almost painful. “Speaking of impatience, my lord . . .”
“Yes, yes.” The earl waved them away. “Go dance with the girl while I make my apologies to our hostess.”
Aimée danced as if her feet, not her dress, had wings. Because it was Christmas, and the ballroom was alight with candles, and her heart was burning with love and happiness. Because Lucien had called her his love. Because tonight, when all the guests were gone or settled in borrowed beds, she would find her way back down the stairs to his room and . . .
“You were right,” Lucien said as the movement of the dance brought them back together.
She dragged her attention from his mouth, struggling to focus on what he was saying.
“About Amherst,” he provided helpfully, a glint in his eyes that suggested he knew exactly what she was thinking. “Once I informed him I was actually funding another sort of rescue operation, all was forgiven.” His smile turned wry. “Of course, first he tore a strip off me for being too damn stiff-necked to tell him the truth to begin with. I told him he had you to thank for bringing me to my senses.”
She didn’t know where to look or what to say. “I am glad you have made your peace with him.”
Family was important.
“So am I.” Their eyes met. “I could not speak to you until I had settled matters with him,” Lucien said quietly.
Her heart stumbled and then soared. “I thought you had left me,” she whispered.
Lucien clasped her hands in the figures of the dance. His lips quirked ruefully. “You have so little faith in me, then?”
“Perhaps it was my own judgment I did not trust.” Her hands held his a little tighter. “I am glad you are back.”
“I must go away again soon. Amherst has given me management of his estate at Leyburn,” he explained in response to her inquiring look. “I want you to go with me. As my wife.”
Joy spread through her. The musicians had stopped playing, but inside her soul was singing.
“But . . . You could have any woman. Especially now that you no longer need to marry for money,” she added pointedly.
He grinned. “But I don’t want any other woman. Only you, mignonne.” His face turned suddenly serious. “It’s always been you.”
Ignoring the couples around them leaving the dance floor, he knelt and took both her hands in his.
Aimée held her breath. With part of her mind, she was conscious of the whispers flying around the ballroom, of Lady Basing’s frown and Julia’s delighted grin, of the Earl of Amherst’s sardonic gaze.
But with all of her heart, she was aware of Lucien kneeling before her, his hands shaking and his eyes steady on hers.
“I need you, Aimée. I love you. I thank God for every choice or chance or circumstance that brought you to me.” He kissed her hands and then her wrists and then the centers of her palms. She curled her fingers, holding happiness in her hands, as he looked up again. “You said once I had saved you. But in truth, I need you to save me. Will you marry me?”
She smiled down at him through a rainbow of tears, her heart overflowing with love and certainty. “But of course I will, mon ange.” My angel. “We will save each other.”
And she stooped and kissed him.
First Light
KIMBERLY FROST
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to my friend David Mohan, for always finding the time to read and provide feedback on my stories. I’m grateful also to my agent, Elizabeth Winick Rubinstein, for all that she does in support of my writing career. And special thanks to my editor, Leis Pederson, who invited me to write a novella to introduce readers to my Etherlin series and who provided extremely valuable suggestions during the conception and revision of this story.
Chapter One
Snow fell through rising steam. Laughter and music from the New Year’s Eve celebration drifted from the house to the deck where Kate Devane, submerged to the shoulders in her hot tub, drank a Brandy Alexander and watched a shooting star skid across the Colorado sky.
The thunk of a rock hitting the deck drew her gaze. She glanced at the smooth undisturbed mounds of snow and then up at the roof. Had it rolled from there? The night’s stillness seemed otherwise undisturbed. She rose and climbed from the water. She walked to the fallen object and crouched close. Not a rock. There were red drops splattered like a sunburst around an antique ring that was battered and crudely made. An ancient coin formed the ring’s top.
She peered into the dark sky, finding only stars and a sliver of moon. She lifted the ring, examining the dark brown metal dotted with crimson blood. This ring had a story, and she wanted to know it, just as she wanted to unravel all the world’s mysteries. She held the ring between her palms for a moment before trying it on. Sized for a man, it fit loosely on her left thumb, which tingled within its cool embrace.
Wind—because what else could it have been?—rustled the evergreens, and snow that had rested on the branches fell heavily to the ground. She followed the line of the deck rail, trying to see around the trees.
She walked to the steps. Muzzy-headed from too many New Year’s toasts, it took a few extra moments to don her ski boots and jacket. Steadying herself with the rail, she descended and wove through the trees. The snow shimmered like powdered sugar. With the house noise muted, she heard breathing. If she’d been thinking clearly, she would’ve slowed, but the night contained a secret and she wanted to share in it.
She thought him a boy at first. Panting, he rested on one knee like a knight about to be christened. When he looked up, she re
alized her mistake. The pale-as-moonlight hair made him look young, but his eyes were knowing. His face was so beautiful it reminded her briefly of Alissa the famous ice blond muse with whom Kate worked for inspiration. For a confused moment, Kate wondered where her camera was. She wanted to capture him the way he looked in the snow. Then she wondered what party he’d wandered away from and where he’d left his shirt.
Dazedly, her gaze traveled lower, and she saw that blood flowed lavishly over his marble white skin from a gash in his side. Her eyes widened, her heart kicking into a pounding rhythm.
“My God. You’re bleeding,” she said. “Come on. Come to my house, and I’ll call an ambulance.” Her eyes darted side to side, looking for signs of trouble that might want to put a large gash in her, too.
When she glanced back at the man, his smile was almost coy. His right hand caught her left one and raised it toward him, eyeing her thumb.
“Is it your ring? What happened to you?” she asked. When he didn’t answer, she added, “Were you at the Andersons’ party?” She gazed in the direction of her nearest neighbor’s house.
He moved with stunning speed, rising and spinning her so she faced away from him. From behind her, his right arm held her waist, his left pressed across her collarbone. She felt something prick her skin and realized that his left hand held a knife, the blade lying against the column of her throat. Her coat gaped open, exposing her skin. Ears buzzing, she tried to move.
From between the trees, a second man appeared in front of her. He was stunning in a different way from the first. His face lacked any traces of feminine beauty but was no less compelling. The moonlight shone like a spotlight on his bronze skin and on the damp golden brown waves skimming his shoulders. He, too, was bare-chested and bloody, with a dagger in hand, but he was taller and broader than the man at her back.
The lighter one pressed his hips against her bottom. Through the thin material of her swimsuit, his erection probed her. Startled, she jerked forward.
Ugh! What the hell?
“Let go of me,” she snapped, trying to squirm free as he whispered foreign words in her ear. “I said let go of me, you creep!”
The bronze one narrowed gold-flecked brown eyes and gave a sharp jerk of his head at the one behind her. The wrist over her collarbone slid down slowly toward her chest, the tip of the dagger snagging and cutting her bikini strap. The blade peeled the material away from her breast.
She cursed, struggling to escape, and the knife nicked her skin. The slice stung, then burned. She froze and sucked in a breath.
The bronze one scowled and clenched his jaw, his liquid brown eyes capturing her gaze. “He thinks to taunt me with your naked beauty, but no distraction will prevent me from avenging every injury he visits upon you and on those who came before.”
Her jaw dropped. “What? I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t want to be part of it,” she said.
The bronze one moved too fast for her eyes to follow, but suddenly they were fighting and she was caught between them, pinned in place by their battling bodies. She could do nothing, not even breathe.
“Stop!” she screamed and sat bolt upright. Panting and shaken, her mind raced.
A damn dream, she realized. Just a nightmare!
Her eyes darted around the room, finding the familiar . . . her Christmas tree strung with white lights and covered with plump bulbs, the wrapped gifts beneath it, the scent of gingerbread and vanilla icing.
Harry Connick Jr. crooned carols, and an empty wineglass sat next to the stack of photographs she’d been reviewing for inclusion in the article she’d been working on. The door to the deck was closed, bolted. She wore a navy nightshirt and thick socks, not a wet bikini.
Her galloping heart faltered, and she pushed back her sweat-dampened hair.
“More dreams of him and that ring,” she murmured, trying to shake off a sense of foreboding as her heart churned.
The dreams are getting closer together. She rubbed her arms.
In college, she’d found an antique ring while walking through a deserted section of campus. She’d felt compelled to slide the crude ring on, and it had circled her thumb possessively as she studied it. The ring’s raised feature had been a coin capturing the image of a long-dead Roman emperor, and there’d been a deep scratch scoring the coin’s face, as if someone had tried to X the emperor out.
Only after she’d stared for a long time did the realization dawn that the grit on the ring wasn’t dirt. It was dried blood. She’d taken the ring off, but she couldn’t bring herself to simply turn it in to campus security’s Lost and Found collection.
Being a journalism major, she’d investigated, trying to determine how the ring had been lost and by whom. There had been no recent fights or assaults, no missing persons, and no inquiries or postings about a lost ring.
“It’s like this ring fell from the sky,” she’d told a friend, and the image stuck. Kate pictured it falling and landing with a thunk. She saw the fresh blood on its surface explode outward into tiny flecks as it struck the ground. The vision was so vivid that at moments she could almost believe she’d seen the ring fall rather than having found it on the ground while walking.
Then, three days after she’d discovered the ring, it disappeared from her dorm room and she’d begun dreaming about the bronze-skinned man. Often she dreamed of him standing on rooftops or swooping through the air. He either wore the ring or dropped it.
Sometimes in her dreams, he wasn’t alone; she was in his arms. They kissed in places she’d never been. And in one deeply erotic dream, he made love to her on a mountain ridge under an amber sky. That dream left her twisted in her sheets, aching for him, and she woke breathless.
Recently, the dreams had taken a darker turn. There were scenes of him fighting with another man, the one with white-blond hair and alabaster skin. She was often caught in the middle. What the hell does it all mean? she wondered.
The memories of her dreams of the bronze man haunted her by day and chased her by night. Over the years, she’d tried to put a name to his face. She’d looked through thousands of student photos and had asked questions on message boards and alumni loops. No leads ever panned out. The man was a ghost. A ghost who lived in her subconscious and tantalized her. A mystery that could not be solved, but would not fade. For someone like Kate, it was torture.
She’d begun to imagine that the ring had some sort of supernatural power, which initially had seemed ridiculous, but then she’d wondered, Why not? Magic existed. Muses and vampires proved that—although the vampires were all gone now, and the magic wielded by the muses was subtle and led to great things like Pulitzer Prizes rather than to unsettling recurring dreams that always left her wanting more. More information. And more of him.
Determined to photograph the sunrise from a new vantage, Kate washed down a breakfast taco with milk and pulled on her ski jacket. She adjusted her camera strap and hung it from her neck, then clicked her boots closed. She took a deep breath as she stepped out onto the deck, bracing herself. The cold clean air startled her lungs in the best possible way.
Once on her skis, she set out at a brisk pace, thinking about the upcoming night. As an aspirant—a human chosen to receive muse attention and magic—she would attend the muses’ exclusive holiday party. It was an invitation coveted by most of the world, and she’d been excited about it for months. This was her chance to celebrate her and Alissa’s accomplishments. With Alissa’s help, Kate had won awards and climbed to the top of her profession in seven short years.
Dawn’s first light emerged, and Kate slowed to a stop. She raised her camera and trained the lens in different directions. So often, she chose the mountains for a backdrop, but this morning she wanted the endless expanse of snow stretched over what in summer was a field of yellow wildflowers.
She popped out of her skis and lowered herself to rest her knee on the trail. The contours of the drifted snow were even more breathtaking from the new angle. Finding her shot, she w
aited for stronger light and saw a beam of it. She chased it with her camera, centering it within the frame. As her finger depressed the button, she paused. Something disturbed the snow’s perfect lines. She zoomed in, and her breath caught when she realized it was a hand, pale and unmoving.
She shuddered, lowering her camera. Shocked, a part of her wanted to return home and call the police, but the investigative reporter within her moved of its own accord. She dropped the camera against her chest, not even bothering to cover the lens. She snapped her boots back into her skis and pointed them off the trail.
Her legs glided back and forth in a steady rhythm; she was determined to learn who was dead and half buried in the snow.
When she was only a few feet away, she noticed that there were no tracks around the body. She came to a stop next to the wintry crater that held him. The folds of snow cradled him like billowing fabric.
“Oh my God,” she said, forgetting to breathe when she realized who it was.
No!
Frosted strands of brown hair clung to his neck and shoulders. Her body trembled.
It can’t be.
No, this is wrong—he can’t be dead, she thought frantically, staring at his handsome lifeless face. Her heart squeezed tight in her chest. All those dreams . . . all those moments . . . I was supposed to meet him, not find his body.
Her eyes misted. I was supposed to have . . . What? A violent passion that consumed her? Something that would rival her love for her work? Yes. She had wanted something epic with this man.
Wait! This—this is a dream. It’s a nightmare! she thought desperately. With trembling fingers she touched his outstretched hand, finding it cool as frost.
His hand twitched.
She gasped, recoiling in shock, then dropped to her knees next to him. He opened his eyes, the dark hazel reflecting the light. They sharpened, focusing on her. As he began to move, his skin seemed to visibly warm, color emerging.