“I agree it’s possible,” he corrected. “But I can find no reason, let alone any proof.”
“Who would benefit from his death?” I asked. Emily, after all, might not have known the whole story.
His lips twisted. “No one.”
“Who is the nearest male relative?” I asked innocently.
“I am,” he retorted. “But anyone who thinks I want this millstone around my neck does not know me.”
“Then maybe it’s someone who wishes to disoblige you.”
He blinked. “Disoblige me?” he repeated. “Killing my little cousin to disoblige me?”
“You’d be surprised what malice people harbour.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” he said with an edge of bitterness.
“I imagine the Voice has made you some powerful enemies,”
He shrugged that off, although I caught a hint of anxious pleasure that I’d read it. “Tell me,” he commanded, “since you’ve clearly ruled out ghosts, who do you suspect?” He was annoyingly direct. When I didn’t answer at once, his lips curved into a sardonic smile. “Me, of course. And yet you don’t seem very afraid to be standing so close to me.”
“I’m not,” I said serenely. “My death wouldn’t benefit you in the slightest.”
“Oh, I don’t know. It would remove a lot of damnable temptation.”
I wasn’t having that. “What do you mean?” I asked coldly.
“I mean I’d really like to kiss you when you’re not pretending.”
I knew he was referring to my possession last night. I tilted my chin. “I never pretend to kiss.”
His breath warmed my lips. “Is that an invitation?”
I smiled. “No. You had your chance, Mr. Haggard. You lost.”
“Don’t you allow second chances?”
“No.”
A fugitive smile chased across his face and vanished. His arm tightened, giving me an instant’s warning. “And if I insist?” he whispered, his words stirring my lips.
I opened my mouth to tell him, and found it lost in his.
My stomach leapt and dived with a wicked joy that quite overcame my outrage. His mouth moved on mine, hot and sweet and arousing. I hung on to my stubbornness by a thread, refusing to respond, to give him any encouragement at all, although I couldn’t bring myself to push him away either. I wanted his kiss, so, shamefully, I let it happen, hanging unmoving in his arms. His tongue explored with lazy, deliberate thoroughness as his lips caressed, and still I forced myself not to return the kiss, not to hold him as my drooping arms longed to.
His lips released mine and he drew back to look into my face with eyes once more clouded with that profound passion I yearned to taste.
“You don’t fight me,” he said unsteadily. “Is that because you’re not pretending, or because you’re too much of a lady?”
“Because I’m too much of a lady,” I said at once, wishing my voice didn’t sound quite so husky.
Again the smile flickered across his face, and he took back my mouth. Again I let him and melted inside, secretly rejoicing. His hand released mine at last, but only to move up my arm to my shoulder and from there to my sensitive nape, where his fingers closed, caressing while they held. I gasped involuntarily, trying desperately not to twist and writhe against the body so firmly against mine that I could feel the still-growing hardness of his own arousal. His kiss deepened until I had to swallow back moans of pleasure and need.
My nipples pressed against my clothing as if reaching for his naked, intimate touch. My limbs, my whole body felt boneless and heavy, while between my thighs pooled hot, moist lust. But I would not kiss him back. I had the feeling that if I did, he would take me here on the floor, or on one of those little beds, if it would take the strain. And if it came to that, if he was inside me, pushing, grinding, loving… Oh God…there would be no hope for me.
Again his mouth left mine, but he brushed my lips between his whispered words. “I think…you’re still pretending… I think you want me too.”
“We’ve wanted each other from the beginning,” I said frankly, trying to steady my breathing and my voice. “But my standards are higher. I may not require undying love. But I need more than contempt.”
“Contempt?” he said, as though genuinely startled.
A breath of laughter escaped me. “Your emotions are such a mess, even you can’t read them. Excuse me, Mr. Haggard.”
Instead of releasing me, he stared down at me frowning, his eyes a little wild with something more than lust. His lips parted, and I thought he would say something. Then the moment vanished into another and, deliberately, he bent and kissed me again, with unexpected tenderness, before, still silently, he dropped his arms and strode out the nursery door.
Chapter Ten
When I joined the pre-dinner gathering in the small drawing room, Patrick Haggard was already there, his evening dress just a little too loose on his large frame to be fashionable, and yet I had to acknowledge that his carelessness was more stunning in effect than the neatest, best-fitting clothes of any other gentleman, including Arthur and Faversham. Bela’s were so old and darned that I had a fellow feeling for him, although Bela himself didn’t seem to notice.
Since Patrick looked up from his conversation with Arthur as soon as I entered the room, I was particularly glad of Irene’s presence as a distraction. Sitting beside her mother, she smiled when I greeted her and told me she was coming to the ball.
“How delightful,” I said. “You have a very kind mama.”
“Not all that kind,” Susan said with the first hint of humour I’d encountered in her. “I’ve only said she can come down for an hour before supper with Miss Salton. But she will like to see all the pretty dresses.”
“I will,” Irene agreed. “Mama and Emily have quite gorgeous new ball gowns! Do you, Mrs. Darke?”
“Well, no,” I said apologetically. “Not really. I shall blend into the background and carry your Aunt Emily’s fan.”
“Can’t she carry her own fan?” Irene asked with a doubtful glance at Emily, as though discovering her aunt were rather more feeble than she’d thought. Emily gave me a droll look.
“Well, normally, yes,” I agreed, “but I shall use it at the ball to beat off all her admirers.”
Emily and Irene laughed and Arthur objected that it was his job. Bela gallantly said that I could beat off my own admirers with it, too, although he hoped he would not be among the beaten.
“I doubt Emily’s flimsy fan will be up to the job of your thick hide,” Patrick said unexpectedly.
“On the contrary, I am very thin-skinned and easily hurt,” Bela insisted with a belying grin. “So perhaps Mrs. Darke will be kind to me and save me a dance?”
“Just the one,” Emily said severely, “or you’ll spoil each other’s chances.”
I stared at her. “Of what?”
Emily only laughed, and at that moment, fortunately, dinner was announced. Throughout the brief interlude, I’d felt Patrick’s gaze upon me, but I hadn’t spared him a glance. Now, he walked behind me into the dining room, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up in awareness. Or perhaps alarm.
In truth, I was more afraid of the strange courtship that had developed between us than I was of being murdered by him. The danger I had sensed in him from the beginning just did not feel like that kind of threat. Which may have been due to my undeniable pleasure in his kisses. And I fully acknowledged those kisses might well be his way of getting me on to his side—although a less confrontational approach might have been more sensible.
Emily had changed the table settings for more than the pre-dinner ball. Miss Salton and I were no longer stuck on the ends of the table, and to my dismay—truly, it was dismay and not schoolgirl panic mingled with the insidious excitement of an equally youthful crush—I found myself seated between Patrick and Henry Fav
ersham. She meant it well, I knew, hoping we would come to an understanding that would make me more comfortable. In fact, I was more likely to be crushed between their disapproval.
I wished Bela were closer to flirt with, to take my mind off the large, physical presence on my right. But at least Patrick seemed more interested in talking to Susan on his other side. As Mr. Faversham and I made polite conversation, I thought they were discussing Irene.
Then came a short silence at our part of the table. Around us, other conversations flowed over the clicking of cutlery and the faint rattle of crockery. To make it worse, I began to sense an otherworldly presence, growing stronger, and hastily checked all my internal defences were there to keep out whatever was forming so close to me.
I lifted my fork to my mouth, wishing I could at least appreciate the taste of Emily’s excellent dinner. On my right, Patrick Haggard began to turn in my direction. I hoped he would speak over me to Mr. Faversham or across the table to Arthur.
But of course, he didn’t. I pretended to be deep in thought as he regarded me, and continued to eat.
He said quietly, “Emily told me you spoke Martin’s name before anyone in the dining room knew there had been an accident. How did you know?”
“Well, clearly I’d nipped up there before breakfast, asked his name, and shoved him out the window before dashing to the breakfast room and making a scene to boost my credentials.”
Unexpectedly, his lip twitched. “Do you imagine you’re reading my mind?”
“No, but it doesn’t really matter what I say when you already have an unshakeable opinion. I might as well just recite the names of my favourite vegetables or—”
“Who said my opinions are unshakeable?” he interrupted. “But by all means, yes, let us discuss vegetables.”
“I would rather know what brought you to the schoolroom.”
“I followed you to see what you were up to, just in case you’d discovered how to foil my evil plot. After which I planned to twirl my moustache and—er—do you in. But you foiled me, and I retired cursing.”
“I didn’t hear you cursing.”
“Trust me, I cursed,” he said wryly.
I risked a glance at him. “You don’t have a moustache.”
“I could grow one specially for the twirling thereof.”
“Was its absence the reason you were foiled?” I asked lightly.
“No,” he said. “I found I’d much rather kiss you.”
My face, my whole body flamed. “Then it’s as well you’re talking a complete farrago of nonsense,” I managed. I set down my knife and fork. “With the aim, it seems, of putting me out of countenance.”
“Well, you’re such a self-possessed lady considering your circumstances. I wanted to see if it could be done.”
“It can’t,” I lied with all the firmness of desperation.
Patrick picked up his wineglass. “Yes it can. I made you blush with a memory. I won’t tell you what the same memory does to me. I went to see Irene, but her mother seems to have initiated a new regime which can only be good for her. And then I heard strange noises, which turned out to be you.”
In spite of myself, my gaze flew back to his face, and he met it steadily. I’d never imagined he would deign to explain himself to me. Did this mean we were allies? Or was he just covering himself with a convenient lie?
His dark, compelling eyes were serious, veiling the usual storms I imagined there, but his lips—those lips he’d used on mine with such devastating effect little more than an hour ago—quirked into the faintest smile, as though he could read my doubts. But there was more than that. Even here, even closed as I was because of the hovering spirit, his lust battered at me. Surely I was fooling myself if I imagined there was any softer accompaniment.
I wanted to be allies. I wanted to be lovers, God help me.
“Is Patrick being outrageous, Mrs. Darke?” came Arthur’s jovial voice from the other side of the table. “Just ignore him. We all tell him his sense of humour is warped, but he will persist.”
“That at least is true,” Patrick murmured, releasing my gaze to raise his glass to Arthur instead.
I flushed again, wondering, as he clearly meant me to, just what he planned to persist in. With difficulty, I concentrated on my food and on the spirit tugging at my attention. With a jolt, I recognized it as Rose, Patrick’s dead wife.
Fortunately, she wasn’t a batterer, nor did she seem to be very strong, but from her own world, she may have recognized this was not the place or the time to communicate, for I caught sight of her wispy form hovering over the empty chair at the foot of the huge table. Tiny, delicate features, heart-stopping beauty framed by luxuriant fair tresses. I wondered if she’d really looked like that, or if it was her own idea of herself.
When the ladies left the gentlemen to their port, I wondered too if she would follow me, or stay with Patrick, who couldn’t even see her. When I glanced back from the doorway, he was watching me, his dark brow drawn down in an attitude both predatory and brooding. Something fluttered in my heart and delved lower, a sort of excited anticipation I could not afford to allow. As I turned hastily away, Rose’s wraith floated in front of him, twining around his torso, his neck, his head in a helpless caress that he couldn’t feel, and yet to me looked unbearably sensual.
I hurried from the room, aching because of what I wanted and who it would hurt. One shouldn’t hurt the dead, I thought, any more than the living. But it would never come to that. Whatever game Patrick was playing with me, it was only a game, and I certainly couldn’t afford to take it seriously.
And yet I was relieved when Rose drifted into the drawing room with us. Miss Salton sat in the ritual tea-pouring seat to complete her final duty of the day, while Susan again left the room to say good night to her daughter. At least I could take some pride in setting that ball rolling a little better, although I couldn’t tell how long it would last. Perhaps Susan would just send her away to school, and maybe that would be best for Irene.
I decided on another early night, both to avoid Patrick and to accommodate his wife. But again, the gentlemen didn’t linger over their port, instead choosing to join us only moments after the arrival of the tea tray.
I had already risen to ferry cups and saucers from Miss Salton, so I couldn’t avoid one more encounter that evening. At least it would, necessarily, be brief. He loomed too large for me, turning the tiny molehill act of delivering a cup of tea into some momentous mountain I had to cross safely. As a result, my heart beat too fast as I distractedly took cups to the others. I could see Prince Bela looked disappointed that I responded to his banter with a mere smile. In truth, I hadn’t heard what he’d said.
But at least it meant I could be equally and believably distracted when I walked across the room to him. Lounging on the sofa, he was listening to Henry at the time, although his gaze followed my progress. He straightened a little to take the tea, but his receiving hand was too low, forcing me to bend over him more than I wished. His finger brushed deliberately against my wrist as he took the cup. I even felt his breath against my ear.
“Eight o’clock at the summer house,” he said low.
My heart lurched, this time with genuine indignation. Did he imagine I could be commanded to some vulgar assignation?
“I beg your pardon?” I said clearly, hoping to shame him.
“I said walking clears the air,” he said, as though surprised. And yet his eyes laughed at me, for all I’d done was enable him to deliver his entire, insolent message in public.
Or was it insolent? I wondered, returning to take my own tea at last. In his own way, was he offering to explain himself, even apologise, in the open, on more neutral ground than the house itself, where we would not be overheard?
God help me, I was already considering it. I drank my tea with almost unseemly haste while Patrick’s wife hovered in front of
me, perhaps to find out if I could see her. I would have laughed, except it wasn’t really funny.
* * * * *
Achieving my room at last, I lay down on the bed and waited for Rose to join me.
“Life is complicated, Gideon,” I murmured.
“It was,” he replied with the hint of humour I’d loved.
I smiled. “Is death?”
“Not for me.”
“Then why are you still here, talking to me?”
“Because you seem to need it.”
I frowned, sitting up. “Gideon, am I selfishly keeping you here? I don’t mean to.”
“No. It’s my choice,” he said. “Besides, you make it so easy to have a foot in ether camp.”
I smiled. “A whole foot?” I said, lying back down.
“Well, a toe in this one.”
“A talking toe,” I said, enjoying the image. “Do you talk to other spirits, Gideon? The ones that lurk here?”
“I’m only here with you.” He sounded slightly confused, and I realized even I had made the classic error of assuming the world beyond to be another version of this one. I’d grown too used to talking to him this way.
And then Rose drifted in, visible and ready to talk. I gave Gideon the equivalent of a wave and let her in.
She arrived with a jolt that lifted me physically off the bed, and a statement that I couldn’t refute.
“You were kissing Patrick.”
“I was,” I admitted cautiously. “Do you mind?”
“Do you love him?”
“Of course not. I barely know him.” In which case I should most definitely not have been kissing him. But this nicety seemed to pass the ghost of Rose by.
“Does he love you?” she asked with a little more anxiety.
“Absolutely not.”
“Probably safest,” she said, unsettling me all over again. But she herself seemed to be losing interest. I even felt her begin to depart, before, abruptly she sank down into me once more. “But you mustn’t ever be sure of that. You must take care. Patrick’s love, like Patrick, is all-consuming. You might think you only have a tiny piece of him, that his real care is for politics and causes and the poor, but then you find how wrong you were, how much he expects…”
The Dead of Haggard Hall Page 12
