“Kitchen’s out back in a separate building behind the house,” Pandora informed me.
“Whatever for?” I asked.
“You obviously ain’t never been in South Georgia in the summertime,” she said. “Havin’ the kitchen out back keeps the heat out of the house. Also means that if the kitchen catches fire it won’t take the whole house with it.”
I nodded, looking at Kenneway in an entirely different light. I could see now that the whole house—from the oaks in the yard, to the wide porches, to the central hallways—was designed to maximize the shade, and what breeze there was in the summer, in order to keep the residents cool. It was rather ingenious.
“You keepin’ the McCreadys on?” Pandora asked curiously.
“I haven’t decided yet, but I’ll not be responsible for putting a woman and two small children out without some notice.”
Pandora nodded. “Miss Lizzie’s a good woman,” she said. “Does what she can to make life easier for the slaves. Don’t know how she got mixed up with that white trash husband of hers, but she damned sure married beneath herself.”
“I take it you don’t think much of Mr. McCready?” Michael asked in a tone that made it apparent that he didn’t think much of the man either.
Pandora snorted derisively. “Robert McCready ain’t much better than an animal.”
“If that’s the case, then he will be summarily dismissed,” I assured her.
Pandora cocked her head to one side. “Why do you care, vampire?” she asked.
“You think that you understand what I am,” I replied. “But you don’t.”
She regarded me with skepticism for a long moment, and then glanced over her shoulder at the sound of a door slamming upstairs and the march of men’s boots in the upper hall.
“He’ll come back for her, you know,” Pandora stated flatly before turning and striding gracefully out the front door.
I moved to stand at the foot of the stairs, watching the soldiers escort Adrien Boucher from his room. He had certainly taken his time collecting his belongings, especially considering he was only carrying two bags. He’d regained his composure, though, and that smooth, arrogant look was once again plastered on his face. He stopped when he reached me.
“This is not over,” he promised, and then walked past me with as much dignity as one could have while being evicted.
I didn’t like it. He was too calm, too confident. I remembered how Pandora had known we were coming, had known what we were. And her promise that Boucher would be back.
Michael marched past me and stopped Boucher on the porch, clamping one iron fist around the man’s arm. Leveling a look on him that I hoped to never see directed at me, he leaned over and whispered, “Don’t think I’ve forgotten that you tried to kill my wife this afternoon. She’s inclined to let you walk away, but if I ever see your face again, you’ll learn the hard way that I’m not so forgiving.”
It suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t seen Boucher’s wife earlier tonight and she wasn’t with him now. I followed Michael out onto the porch, my gaze roaming over the soldiers standing on the lawn. I wondered if perhaps Mrs. Boucher had left ahead of her husband while Michael and I had been exploring the house, but she wasn’t to be seen outside either. I’d just opened my mouth to inquire as to her whereabouts when I caught a brief glimpse of green silk skirts disappearing around the corner of the house. Without a word I followed and when I turned the east corner of the porch, I saw her. A fluffy tabby cat was sitting on the railing and Evangeline Boucher was absently stroking the purring feline as she stared out into the night. I followed her gaze and saw the shadow of a gated cemetery in the distance.
“Mrs. Boucher?” I asked softly.
She was dressed in an off-the-shoulder bottle green silk evening gown and when she turned to look at me I couldn’t help but notice that her eyes were the same shade as the dress. Her dark brown hair was parted in the middle and pulled back in artful curls, the style accentuating her heart-shaped face and drawing attention to the exquisite emerald necklace she wore. I could definitely agree with that horrible man in the alley—Adrien Boucher’s wife was quite the loveliest woman I’d seen since I stepped off the ship in Savannah.
“What do you intend to do with my plantation?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I replied honestly.
She laughed, the sound of it harsh and bitter. “God save me from flighty women who don’t know their own minds.”
I bristled at that haughty statement. That odious man certainly hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d said she had a tongue like a viper, I thought.
“Ma’am,” I said forcefully, “I’m sorry but I’m going to have to ask you to leave with your husband.”
She sauntered forward until she was close enough to look down her nose at me. “Well, I simply can’t do that,” she replied.
“I realize that it’s difficult to leave the home you grew up in, but your husband’s treachery has brought you both to this end,” I said.
“Oh, honey,” she said in a sarcastically sweet tone, “you’ll never be able to get rid of me.”
“Cin?” Michael called out from behind me.
I turned to see him standing at the corner of the porch, Pandora like a shadow behind him.
“Who are you talking to?” he asked.
I turned back to Evangeline. “Mrs. Boucher obviously doesn’t understand what’s transpired here tonight and I’m trying, unsuccessfully, to explain the gravity of the situation to her.”
“Darling,” Michael said worriedly, “there’s no one there.”
I spun around and looked at him as if he were mad. How could he not see her? He had a vampire’s night vision, after all.
“Miss Evangeline’s been dead for nearly two years now,” Pandora informed me.
Slowly I turned back to Evangeline. She didn’t look like a ghost. She looked just as real—and just as solid—as I was.
“She’s entirely correct,” Evangeline said with a smirk. “And despite the arrogance that apparently runs in your family, I believe I’ll enjoy having you and the girl in my house. It’s nice to have someone to talk to for a change. As long as you don’t run my plantation into the ground with your inexperience, we’ll get along fine.”
And with that she walked into the house—directly through the parlor wall—and the cat scampered off down the porch. Stunned, I turned back to Michael and Pandora. She was watching me speculatively, as if she was wondering if I had enough magic to see the spirit world. I decided it was best not to let her know how rattled I was by what had just happened.
“Pandora,” I said, “I’d like a word with you, if I might.”
“Of course, ma’am,” she replied respectfully.
“What is your position on this estate?” I asked.
“I’m the house keeper,” she answered. “I got a cabin in the slave village but sometimes I stay in the room at the back of the house, depending on the master’s wishes.”
I stared into her dark brown eyes, unsure of exactly how to word what I wanted to say. Pandora, though, seemed to understand.
“You’re wantin’ to know if I’m gonna put some bad juju on you if I’m livin’ under your roof,” she said.
“No,” I said confidently. “I have no fear of that. I know you can feel my magic, Pandora, but you don’t have a clue what I’m capable of. You can stay, or you can leave now with Boucher. It makes little difference to me. If you choose to stay though, I’m warning you now—you do not want to tangle with me.”
She met my eyes for a few moments and then she looked down, her decision made.
“Very well,” I said. “I’m going to need some paint, black if you have it but any color will do. If you could bring that, then you’re free to retire to your cabin for the evening.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said.
When she was gone, Michael asked, “Do you trust her?”
“Not a bit,” I answered. “In fact, I’m sure I’m going
to regret not sending her away with Boucher.”
“Then why don’t you?”
“Because she has an awful lot of dark magic in her,” I replied. “I’d rather have it here, where I can keep an eye on it, than have it jump up and bite us in our proverbial asses when we least expect it.”
“Good idea,” he agreed as he ushered me through the front door. “Now, would you care to enlighten me as to what all that business on the porch was about?”
“Oh, you’re not going to believe this,” I said and told him what I’d seen.
“Since when do you see ghosts?” Michael asked incredulously.
“I don’t,” I replied emphatically as we climbed the stairs to the second floor. “At least I never have before; why should I start now?”
“Maybe it’s because of Claire?” he suggested. “After all, her father is a necromancer and you are related to her.”
“Which would make sense if she were my ancestor, but she’s my descendant,” I pointed out. “None of her blood runs in my veins.”
I knocked tersely on Claire’s door and then walked inside. The room was massive and even the heavy furniture didn’t detract from its spaciousness. It was tastefully decorated in blue and white, which nicely complimented the dark wood of the furniture and floors. I found Claire sitting in a window seat, looking as if she’d dressed to match the color scheme in a pale blue gown covered in white lace. She was holding the urn in her lap and staring out at the front lawn, but turned her head sharply when she heard the door open. At first she looked alarmed, though she relaxed when she realized it was only Michael and me.
“Claire, darling,” I said gently.
“No,” she interrupted. “I’m not crazy. Perhaps I simply didn’t explain it as well as I could have. Let me start again from the beginning.”
“All right,” I said, hoping to hear something this time that made more sense.
“You see these inscriptions here?” she asked, pointing to the urn. “Adrien translated them for me. He’s very well educated about Greek and Roman history and mythology. It says here that the god Ares so loved war and bloodshed that during the Trojan War he promised his allegiance to both sides. His meddling and disrespect of human life so angered his sister Athena that she engaged him in battle. Athena, a war goddess herself, gravely wounded Ares and he was forced to flee to Mount Olympus to heal himself. Before long, though, he returned and sided with the Trojans against Athena and the Greeks. Athena was furious at Ares’s intervention, which she attributed to nothing more than his love of battle and his will to exact vengeance upon her. She feared his selfishness would prolong the war and cause thousands more lives to be lost, so she went to her brother Hephaestus, the god of metallurgy, and asked him to make something that would trap a god. Now, Hephaestus had no love for Ares, so he created this indestructible urn for Athena. Through trickery she trapped Ares in the urn where he will remain, it says, until he learns to love something more than he loves war, and himself.”
“So you and Boucher deciphered that and came to believe that the god of war was trapped in your urn,” I said delicately.
“Well, of course not. Don’t be silly,” Claire replied, and I breathed a sigh of relief. “Adrien, who was in London trying to raise money for the South and convince certain people in the government to side with the secessionists, simply thought the urn would be a lovely gift for President Jefferson Davis. He offered to buy it from me but that poor widow had been so earnest when she’d given it to me that I simply couldn’t part with it. She’d said it belonged with me.”
“Darling, while this is all fascinating,” I said. “I still don’t see what it has to do with—”
I paused as a strange, panicked look crossed Claire’s face. She jumped up and the urn fell from her lap, landing unharmed on the wood floor.
“Here we go again,” said a familiar ghostly voice from across the room.
Claire made a mad dash for her dressing table and proceeded to retch violently into the washbasin. As I held her long hair back away from her face, I glanced over to the big four poster bed and Evangeline, who sat squarely in the middle of it, her skirts billowing up around her as if she were sitting on a green silk cloud.
“Will you get out of here?” I snapped. “This is family business.”
“Cin!” Michael exclaimed indignantly.
“Oh, my love, I’m not talking to you,” I assured him as I rubbed Claire’s back while the spasms continued. “The ghost is back.”
“Family business!” Evangeline laughed. “I’ll say, honey. She’s been doing that nonstop since she got here.”
Claire wiped her mouth and sank miserably to the floor. I knelt in front of her while Michael hovered behind me.
“Claire, have you been ill?” I asked, thinking of all the diseases she could have picked up onboard a ship. “Do you need a doctor?”
“Not now,” Evangeline interjected. “But she will in about six months, I’d guess.”
Claire glared in the direction of the bed. “Will you shut up?” she snapped.
“What does she mean?” I asked. “Why would we wait six months to . . . oh.”
“That son of a bitch!” Michael roared.
Claire winced and looked up at me guiltily.
“There’s a boat that belongs to the island moored at the dock,” I said to Michael as I stood up. “We can be back in Savannah before dawn. I’ll kill that bastard with my bare hands for this.”
“Cin, no!” Claire cried. “The baby, it’s not Adrien’s.”
“Oh, I can’t wait to hear this,” Evangeline said breathlessly as she leaned forward and propped her chin in her hands.
My mind automatically drifted to Robert McCready and I thought I might be sick. Claire struggled to her feet.
“The night after Adrien told me what the markings on the urn meant, I was lying in bed wondering what a war god might look like. On a whim I . . . said something that accidently summoned him. Ares is the father of my baby.”
I looked at Michael and he silently met my eyes, both of us obviously thinking the same thing. The girl had been through a traumatic marriage, her husband had been murdered by her mother, and she’d been kidnapped and dragged an ocean away from her home. Clearly the strain of the past two years had been too much for her.
“Adrien was upset that I wouldn’t sell him the urn,” Claire continued hurriedly. “He came to the house one night when we were supposed to be at a ball. I’d begged off because I wanted to . . . we wanted to . . . well, it had been a long time,” she said defiantly. “That’s why I was spending so much time in my room. I wasn’t brooding. I was with him. Adrien apparently came to steal the urn and saw me summoning Ares. The next night I couldn’t get out of going with Mother or she would have become suspicious. When I returned home I found Adrien waiting in my room. He’d tried to call Ares out of the urn and when he couldn’t he wanted to know why. I explained to him that only the keeper of the urn could summon him. That’s when Adrien drew his pistol and demanded that I relinquish the urn into his keeping. I wouldn’t do it. Adrien wants Ares to win this war, and Ares . . . he hasn’t seen a field of battle in millennia. I fear what he would do. I’m afraid for him, and for the humans in his path. I told Adrien that if he killed me he’d never get control of the urn. So he took us both, figuring that I would relent eventually. But I wouldn’t do it. I won’t do it. I haven’t even summoned Ares since we left London.”
I closed my eyes, trying to keep an open mind while I took in everything she was saying. She seemed so sincere, and who knew better than me that gods really did exist? Could Morrigan have given her control of this deity? I had to admit that however unlikely it was, it was possible.
Michael, however, hadn’t thought that far ahead. He took Claire gently by her shoulders and began steering her back to the window seat.
“You’ve had a rough time of it, lass,” he was saying. “Why don’t you just sit down and I’ll get you a nice dram of whisky?”
“I am not crazy!” she insisted.
“Of course not,” he replied.
I know he was only trying to help, but it sounded patronizing, even to my ears. Claire dug in her heels and glared at him.
“Ares, I summon you!” she called out.
A blinding flash of light filled the room and when my eyes adjusted well enough to see again, a man was standing in front of Claire. A very large man wearing bronze armor and looking like he’d just defected from Julius Caesar’s army.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” I muttered.
CHAPTER 23
As it turns out, war gods can be rather hot-tempered. Ares took one look at Claire’s flushed and disheveled appearance (which he couldn’t have realized was due to the fact that she’d just cast up her supper) and Michael’s hands clutching her shoulders and he did not like it one bit. In fact, he drew one massive arm back and knocked Michael clear across the room. By the time Claire and I got our wits together enough to try to stop either of them, Michael had shaken off the blow and drawn his sword.
“Oh, bollocks,” I cursed.
Claire and I shouted, threatened, and cajoled but Ares hadn’t used the sword strapped to his hip in centuries and Michael’s eyes glittered at the opportunity to put his skills to the test with an actual god of war. Neither one of them were going to listen to us, no matter how sensible our pleas might be. Eventually, Claire and I did the only thing we could do—we quickly backed up toward the bed so that we didn’t get caught in the fray.
“I told you I wasn’t crazy,” Claire muttered under her breath.
“Oh, I hope you two stay here forever,” Evangeline whispered excitedly. “I’ve never had so much fun. I can’t wait to see what happens next. My goodness, would you look at them!”
Bound By Sin (A Cin Craven Novel) Page 9
