They reached the library, and Lara stood back while Mark fiddled with the mechanism in the bookcase. After a moment the door ground across the floor. She cringed, and Geoff empathized with her.
“I’ve still got your flashlight here,” she said as Mark looked around the bookcase. She snatched up the portable electric torch from her drawing table and handed it to him.
“Thanks.” He flicked on the switch and aimed the beam into the secret room. Wasting no time, he stepped through the entrance.
Geoff faltered then floated in behind him.
Mark directed the beam around the small space, examining the barren walls. When the light came to rest on the fireplace, he paused and stared for no apparent reason.
An unusual sensation--what he would have called tingling during his lifetime--struck Geoff as he gazed at the hearth. Was Mariah in the room? He concentrated on perceiving her presence and could feel her just beyond his reach.
The beam of light fluctuated as his descendant shuddered.
She is here. Excitement coursed through Geoff like warm red blood in a living being. He knew that he was close to reaching his lost lover, and he found that he longed for the contact, even if her appearance upset him again. Real communication had eluded him for the last hundred years. Until now he hadn’t quite realized how lonely he’d been.
Mark seemed to be frozen, pointing the flashlight into the fireplace. As Geoff stared at the scene, recollections of making love to Mariah flooded his mind. He could almost feel her in his arms, her body small and pliant. Her mind had been lithe, too, he recalled. She had loved to listen to his poetry and offer her interpretations. In fact, she’d often given him insight into the workings of his own mind.
It was moments with her when he’d felt most like a legitimate poet--and most like a man. What he felt now, however, startled him: a heartrending yearning that he’d always managed to sidestep during his life.
“Mariah?” he asked aloud.
The only response was a glance over the shoulder from Mark.
Geoff ignored his descendant and scoured the room for some sign of his lover. He couldn’t see, hear or feel her. Desperately, he said to the air, “I didn’t know about the babe. I wish I had.”
“Mark?” Lara called from the library. Her voice sounded sharp and alive, somehow disturbing to Geoff. “Is everything okay in there?”
The mortal scanned the four walls around him. “Yeah. I’ll be right out.”
He aimed the beam of light at the fireplace again. The hearth stood quiet and lifeless. Frowning, he directed the light toward the back of the bookcase/door and walked out of the room.
Geoff lingered behind in the darkness, but without Mark there he no longer got a sense of Mariah’s presence.
“Mariah?” he whispered in spite of himself. The pain of desperation cut though his being.
The room remained still.
He waited a few more minutes, but somehow he sensed that she wouldn’t come to him on his own. So far she had made her points to him via Mark and Lara. He had an idea that if he wanted to get through to her, he would need their help.
Chapter 14
After taking a few minutes to pull himself together--and ensure that Mariah wouldn’t come to him after all--Geoff drifted back into the library to see what the mortals were doing.
“It’s here somewhere.” Lara sifted through a mass of papers on her drawing table and pulled out a sheet. “Here we are.”
She turned around and looked at Mark expectantly, but he just stood, gazing at her, expressionless.
“Everything all right?” she asked.
“Of course.”
She studied him more closely. “Are you sure nothing happened while you were in the secret room?”
He shrugged. “There’s just something creepy about the atmosphere in there, like you’ve said. Maybe it’s the isolation from the rest of the house--and the world.”
“So you still deny there’s a ghost?”
“I don’t claim to know anything about ghosts.” Frowning, he glanced around the room. “I guess we’d better sit down and look at that damned letter, if we have to.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “I think we do. Why don’t we have a seat on the couch--unless that’s too close to the secret room for you.”
His mouth twisted. “That’ll be fine.”
It was apparent to Geoff that Mark did have qualms about ghostly goings-on, but Lara didn’t press him to admit to his fears.
She walked over to the large red sofa. Choosing a spot in the middle, she sat down.
Mark had no choice but to sit fairly close to her and, when he did, the pillows formed a semi-cocoon around them. The effect looked intimate. Geoff could see that his descendant’s thigh was touching the lady’s, though the two layers of denim their clothing formed between them made the touch less tender than it might have been.
Lara held the letter out to him, and he took it, looking down to read it. His eyes darted back and forth as he skimmed the contents.
“I think the poem is the key area to study,” she said.
“Yes.” He cleared his throat and read the verse aloud with no sign of emotion:
“As you read these lines coming from the grave,
Despair of your own eternal rest to save,
Until you advance a love to stand in place,
Of the love you once had but chose to debase.”
On hearing the cruel words again, Geoff winced.
Mariah, he thought, shaking his head, how I wish I had spoken to you instead of running away.
“So she’s telling Geoffrey there is something he can do to find peace,” Lara said slowly. She looked off into space, clearly pondering the meaning of the words. “He has to ‘advance a love’ somehow--encourage a love. Between him and someone else? I doubt Mariah would have wanted that. Do you think she means he needs to bring two other lovers together?”
She and Mark looked at each other, and an idea struck Geoff. Could they be the lovers I’m supposed to encourage?
The mortals seemed to have the same thought. Their gazes locked. For an instant they stared at each other, then both looked away at once.
Mark folded up the letter. “Well, it’s up to ol’ Geoff to work that one out, isn’t it?”
She turned away from him.
Obviously neither of them wanted to discuss the possibility, but Geoff was intrigued. He hated the idea of his descendant ending up with Lara--she was far too good for him--but if their union meant a chance for him to find peace, wasn’t it worth the sacrifice? The only question was what Mariah meant by telling him he must “advance” their love? How was he to advance someone else’s love when he’d made such a muddle of love in his own life?
“Is that a speaker tube?” The sound of Mark’s voice drew the ghost out of his reflections. The mortal gestured toward an iron device mounted on the wall. Getting up, he walked over to inspect it.
“Mmhmm.” Lara remained sitting. She kneaded her forehead as if trying to stave off a headache. “The pipe connects to the third floor. If I had servants, I could call them down to wait on us.”
He stood looking at the mouthpiece for a moment longer. “I see something new every time I come here.”
Their casual observations had a hollow tone, but Lara continued. “I’m still learning about the house myself.”
Mark wandered to the hearth. “I love the ornamentation around this fireplace. The work is so intricate.”
“It is. There are even hidden drawers in the surround. They’ve always been a favorite feature of mine.” Getting up, she walked over to where he stood and leaned down to pull out a compartment. “I have potpourri in here and matches in one of the others but couldn’t think of anything to keep in the rest. How many matches can one non-smoking person use?”
“Wow,” he said. He knelt and took a moment to play with the drawer, testing to see how well the facade blended into the wood around it.
Watching him, she smiled. “You mak
e me remember how fascinated I was with the details of this house when I first moved in. It really is an amazing place. The years of...well, let’s just say bad memories made me forget how much I originally loved these rooms.”
Mark’s gaze roamed up to the top of the outside wall--the one she had planned to knock out for her addition. “Aren’t the carved chrysanthemums and dogwood flowers in the millwork of the molding great? There’s an Oriental influence in some Victorian architecture.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever noticed those particular details before.” She stared up at the exquisite design. “There are hundreds of the little buds! Looking at them, I can imagine myself in a wooden garden. ...How many hours of skill and loving patience must have gone into that work?”
Mark watched her but didn’t say anything. For a moment they both stood still.
She glanced at him, then looked downward. Without meeting his gaze she said softly, “I’ve decided against tearing down the wall.”
Good on you, Geoff thought.
Mark stood without speaking or moving for a few more seconds. Finally, he asked, “Have you come up with another plan?”
“No, but I will.” She turned to face him. “The majority of my renovations will have to wait until next summer...but things don’t always go as planned.”
He stared at her, his expression almost sad. Geoff was surprised to see that he didn’t gloat. His descendant had some good breeding, after all.
“I’m glad you were able to look beyond my arrogant insistence and come to that decision yourself,” he said.
She laughed, again looking away from his heavy gaze. “Well, I’m glad you helped me see past a few raw memories so I could take in the big picture. Preserving this for the future makes a lot more sense than destroying it to try to erase a painful period of my life.”
He gave her a look so tender that Geoff knew that barriers were breaking down between the couple. To his surprise, instead of feeling envious, he felt a bud of hope.
Kiss her, he thought. Kiss her, for heaven’s sake.
Stepping toward her, Mark reached up and brushed her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “No one can erase his or her personal history, but I hope you’ll find another way to get past the pain.”
Geoff sucked in his breath. As the mood grew more tender, he began to feel ashamed of his voyeurism.
I’ll leave them now, he thought. I can check back in the morning and see if he’s still here.
He drifted out of the house, hopeful yet afraid to be hopeful.
* * * *
The earnestness of Mark’s words moved Lara. No other man she knew had ever spoken to her with such sensitivity--certainly not her ex-husband. At times Mark may have had his moods but only because he felt life so fully. Now she wanted to share more of her life with him. She wanted to enrich her experiences with his perspective to add to her own.
Her gaze dropped to his lips. Most of all, right now she wanted him to kiss her.
As if reading her mind, he bent and pressed his mouth to hers, the touch warm, the pressure tentative. She put her arms around him, taking in the broad strength of his shoulders. Closing her eyes, she tilted her head back and let her lips part. He deepened the kiss, his tongue playing at her mouth. She met it with hers, hungry to taste him.
His arms slid around her, and her body melted into his. She felt warm, safe, like nothing else mattered. His closeness, the clean scent of his skin and the warmth of his body comforted her. Amid all of her recent fears of the supernatural and the unknown, he felt reassuringly physical and of this world.
Briefly he left her lips and looked into her eyes. They faced each other, inches away, with sober expressions.
“Is this real?” she asked, even though the question sounded silly. “The ghost...he can’t make us do whatever he wants, can he?”
He shook his head. “There’s nothing otherworldly about my feelings now--no mystery. I want you, Lara, because you’re not only beautiful but full of insight and brimming with life.”
She smiled softly. “Then we have more in common than I realized.”
He grazed her lips with his. “Do you feel like you’re being controlled from beyond?”
“No. But I hope your ancestor is discreet enough to give two people some privacy when they need it.” The words popped out of her mouth before she thought about what they implied. Now she realized she’d practically come out and told Mark how much she wanted him.
She lowered her gaze, but she couldn’t deny her feelings. She did need to be alone with him. Taking him by the hand, she led him over to the couch.
They collapsed onto the cushions in each other’s arms. He pulled her close to him, kissing her more urgently now. She felt her heart pounding in her chest and heard his breath quicken.
He’s going to make love to me. The thought made her dizzy with excitement. It had been a long time. For years Ron hadn’t seemed to care much about whether or not they made love. After a while she had built up her own walls of defense and shied away from trying to entice him. Now she remembered what it felt like to long to become one with another person--and to know that he wanted you, too.
She kissed Mark like a woman starved for love and held him tightly, squeezing him against her. With one will, they slid down to stretch out on the couch, him on the outside, her inside. She felt the length of his body flush against hers, the way she had it for one short moment on the night of the storm, but now she could respond the way she couldn’t then, the way she’d wanted to.
Pushing her hips into him, she reveled in the feel of his erection, hard and insistent. He does want me, she marveled. Until that instant she hadn’t completely believed it.
“Oh, Lara.” He buried his face in her hair. “You smell wonderful...and you feel fantastic.”
He sank his fingers into the curls at the nape of her neck and kissed the sensitive skin beneath her ear lobe. Tingles of excitement flickered along her spine.
She let her head fall back and let him kiss her throat. The baggy T-shirt she wore suddenly felt constraining. When he slipped his arm under the hem and palmed the exposed skin of her waist, she propped herself up on one elbow and pulled off her shirt with her other hand.
“You have a beautiful body,” he breathed, his gaze encompassing her bare belly and wandering upwards.
Did she? The fire in his look made her believe him for the moment. But she was glad she’d worn one of her nicer bras, an ivory satin confection trimmed with lace.
Focusing on her eyes, he smiled and leaned down to meet her mouth again. The kiss built slowly, first tender and gradually more demanding. He reached around to her back and undid her bra. The release of tightness from around her chest felt like a gift of freedom.
He cupped one of her breasts, which she’d always considered a little deficient. All of her body was small.
“You’re perfect,” he murmured and lowered his mouth to her, circling his tongue around the rim of her nipple. Spirals of pleasure radiated from the hot trail he left. She arched her back, and bliss sparked through her, warming her, charging her with life.
She slid her hands under his shirt and felt the heat of his skin, the firm muscles of his abdomen. As if automatically, her hands drifted to his waistband, and she undid the top of his jeans.
He had a button fly, she realized as she felt several of the other buttons loosen. The backs of her fingers grazed the single layer of cotton that covered his erection. She gasped--along with him.
“I want you, Lara,” he whispered in her ear.
She wanted him, too. Closing her eyes, she touched him again, this time not by accident.
He pressed against her fingers, and she savored the hard heat of him. She wanted to feel him inside of her.
Running his hand down to the waist of her shorts, he undid the button and pulled down her zipper. She felt his fingers slip under the denim, and she lifted her hips to let him push the fabric down past her thighs. Kicking off her sandals, she reached down to mak
e the job easier for him, helping him pull off her shorts. While he took his jeans off, she wriggled out of her panties.
The stark yearning in his eyes when he looked down at her told her how much he appreciated her nakedness. He settled down on top of her, his body strong and warm.
She pulled him tight against her, lifting her chin to meet his mouth with hers. As she reveled in the taste of him, he slid his hand down her torso and slipped his fingers between her legs. She sucked in her breath and writhed with ecstasy, astonished by her own response. If she’d ever wanted a man this much before, she couldn’t remember it. She certainly hadn’t imagined she could feel this way now.
“Make love to me, Mark,” she murmured, surprising herself.
He answered by kissing her more deeply, as if he wanted to consume her. His fingers still played at her body, and she felt herself growing close to climax already--but she wanted to reach it with him, not alone.
“Now,” she urged him. “Please.”
Pulling away from her mouth he met her gaze, his eyes intent, his expression serious. He shifted his hand from her body to guide himself. She felt the tip of him press at her--then push inside.
“Oh...” she moaned. He filled her, and euphoria flowed through her being, emanating from the point where they were connected.
Kissing her neck, he pushed again...and then again, each time elevating the degree of her pleasure.
“Oh, God,” he said, breathless. “God. Lara, you feel amazing--too amazing.”
She gasped as he thrust again. “You do.”
Grasping his butt, she drove him deeper into her. They both moaned.
“I’m close,” he said.
“Me, too.”
He pushed into her again, and the tension in her exploded. She shuddered with wave after wave of bliss.
“Oh!” He looked at her with wide eyes, then thrust once more and broke into his own climax.
She trembled again along with him, warmed with the knowledge that he was giving her his very essence. It occurred to her that they should have discussed “safeness,” though she knew she wouldn’t get pregnant, because she’d been taking the Pill to fend off menstrual cramps.
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