“You’re really going to do it, then? Take time off?” His eyes watched her face.
“I am. I owe it to Corri to be here. I owe it to Aunt August to be here.”
“I think the person you most owe it to is India,” he said as the waitress tapped his arm to let him know their table was ready.
They were seated at a small round table in the dining room next to a window overlooking the side yard.
“There used to be a goldfish pond out there.” India pointed toward the darkness outside. “Ry and I used to bring bread crumbs and feed the koi. Some of them were as big as catfish. That was before this was a restaurant.”
“What did it used to be?” he asked, knowing that her face would light with the telling of it and loving the look on her face as she drew up a memory to share with him.
“It used to be Mrs. Mason’s place. Her husband was a pharmacist. He died in the sixties, but she stayed on here until she died, maybe ten years or so after he did. Carol is their granddaughter.” India laughed then as she told him, “Now, understand that Mr. Mason’s family was new to Devlin’s Light. His family built this house in ‘87; that’s 1887. Mrs. Mason, however, was from an old Devlin’s Light family. She was a Whitlock, one of the yeoman whaler families that settled here in the late 1600s.”
“‘Yeoman whalers?’” Nick looked amused. “There’s a new term.”
“There were thirty-five families—whalers—that came to the Cape May peninsula from New England and Long Island in the late 1600s. By purchasing large parcels of land—several hundred acres or so each—they were able to build modest plantations. They had come to hunt whales but stayed to work the land and become respected members of the community. In those days a yeoman occupied the rank just below that of gentleman. So ‘yeoman whaler’ refers to not only their occupation but their social standing in the community as well. Descendants of some members of those families ended up over time in Devlin’s Light. The Whitlocks were one of the families that sailed with the Devlins.”
“So Mrs. Mason outranked the old man, eh?”
“By several centuries.” She grinned.
The young waitress stopped by their table to recite the dinner specials, prompted by a card she had tucked into the palm of her hand. Nick stopped her midway through to order crabcakes for both of them, thus sparing the young girl from peeking at her cheat sheet.
“I’ve had dreams about these things,” India told Nick when the golden brown bundles of crabmeat were placed before them.
“Well, since my goal in this life is to make your dreams come true, I guess it’s a good start.” India blushed and smiled that half smile he was beginning to know well, and he grinned. “This is, after all, only our first real date.”
“What about that weekend in Paloma? We went to the museum, to the ballet …” she reminded him.
“That was a play date for Corri. This is a play date for you.” He smiled into her eyes and her heart flipped over in her chest. “Now, tell me, what would you like to do after dinner?”
She looked across the table at his face, handsome as an autumn sky, his eyes warm and lush as honey, his dark hair a tumble across his forehead.
If she told him what she really wanted he’d fall off his chair.
Respectable, she told herself sternly. Keep it respectable.
“Well, it might be fun to stop in at the parlor concert. Aunt August said the singer, Margarite Cosgrove, is truly wonderful.”
“You know, I might enjoy that.” He nodded. “I’m beginning to get suckered in to all this small-town stuff. All these Devlin things.”
India laughed.
“The concert’s for a good cause. All the money they raise during the year goes to maintenance of the good captain’s property. Then at the end of the Christmas season, they have the Twelfth Night Ball and everyone gets to come and see how their money was spent that year.”
“Would you like to go?” he asked.
“Go… to the concert?”
“To the Twelfth Night Ball.”
“Really? You’d go?”
“I’ve heard people talking about it since I moved to Devlin’s Light. It sounds like it might be fun.”
“Oh, Nick, it is!” She laughed, her eyes brightening. “It’s fancy dress, costume-y clothes, with the men in velvet waistcoats and the women in ball gowns. The fun part is that the dress can be from any time period from the 1600s to the present, because there has been a Twelfth Night Ball in that house every year except during wartimes. So the house has seen colonial-style gowns as well as Empire and Victorian. It’s wonderful. And there are dances from each time period—” She stopped and frowned. “I don’t suppose you know too many of them.”
“I know how to waltz.”
“Hah!” She leaned back in her chair. “The waltz is just the start of it. Actually, the ball begins every year with the Grand March.”
“Lost me,” he told her.
She took his hand and pretended to study his palm. “I see music in your future,” she said, lowering her voice dramatically. “And dancing. Lots of dancing. Dancing lessons, to be more exact.”
“I didn’t know you were part gypsy.”
“Everyone has a touch of gypsy.” She laughed. “Would you be up for dancing lessons if anyone is giving them this year? I’d hate to see you miss out on all the fun.”
“I don’t mind, but who will I be learning with?”
“I’ll go with you.” Anywhere.
I’d go with you anywhere. “Will you be home in time?”
“I’d like to be home by the weekend before Christmas. I’d like to go to Corri’s Christmas play and the Olsons’ Christmas Eve open house. I want to go caroling and I want to go on the House Tour.”
“Why, India Devlin, you sound homesick.”
“I didn’t even realize how much I missed it all. I had a chance to do this all last year with Ry and Darla. And I stayed in Paloma and worked. No one remembers the name of the case I worked on, whether I won it or lost it, whether there was an appeal or a retrial.” India swallowed hard. “But Darla remembers every minute of the last holiday season she spent with my brother.”
Nick’s hand reached over, his fingers tracing tiny circles on the inside of her wrist. “I’m glad you’ll be home. I want you to be home. I want to share the holidays with you this year.” And every year, he could have added. Instead, he raised her hand to his lips and kissed the very spot where the invisible circles had wound around her wrist.
“Dessert?” The waitress appeared from nowhere and broke the spell his voice was weaving around India.
“You know, there’s a lot of dessert-type things left over from last night,” India told him pointedly. “We could skip the parlor concert and have dessert at home. You could build a fire.”
He got the picture. Corri out. Aunt August out.
Nick and Indy would stay in.
“Aunt August?” India called from the foot of the steps.
“I thought she went to the concert?”
“Just checking,” India said innocently.
“Hmmm.” Nick nodded. “Well, how ‘bout if I get that fire going? It’s chilly in here. And you can make us some coffee and get us dessert, and we can have it right here.”
India went to make coffee and to cut slices of cranberry apple tart with hands that were just slightly shaking. Hands that wanted to be touching his warm skin, fingers that wanted to run through that dark hair.
Keep it together, Devlin. Maintain a little dignity.
India managed to do just that for roughly thirty seconds after she set the tray on the coffee table in the sitting room and he pulled her down to the floor in front of the fire. He sought her mouth before she had a chance to seek his and together they plummeted into a swirl of sensation, of warm hands that sought warmer skin, of tongues seeking tongues and bodies needing bodies. His lips led a long slow trail followed by his all too clever tongue, down her throat from chin to collar bone, to where the neck of her
sweater kept him from the rest of her. Her breath came in hot little bursts and she began to undo the buttons, his mouth following behind her fingers to tease every inch of her skin. He moaned softly when he reached her breasts, and he cupped each one in his hands while she caressed the sides of his face. She was too soft, her skin too delicious, his hands too wise. Her lips parted and a soft gasp escaped when he eased her breasts free and sought them with his mouth. She tugged him to her, fitting him to her body, wanting more of him, wanting all of him. Wanting-
“What was that?”
“What?” She opened her eyes but barely.
“It sounded like a car door.” He rose up on one arm. A car door? Now?
“Yup. That’s a car, all right.” Nick forced a cheerfulness he did not feel into his voice. “Darla’s car.”
“Darla?” India squeaked. “Oh, she’s bringing Corri home from the party.”
Nick bent down to kiss her swollen lips. “The child needs a lesson in timing.” He sat up and pulled her by the arms until she was seated next to him. “Why don’t you button yourself up while I let her in.”
“Do we have to let her in?” India teased.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Maybe we should send her right to bed. It is late for a little girl to be up.”
“Good thinking, sweetheart.” Nick laughed as goodnaturedly as one could under the circumstances and stood up. “And you’re right, it’s almost eight o’clock. Much too late for a six-year-old to be up on a Friday night.”
India stuck out her tongue at him and he laughed again.
Looking out the window, he said, “Oh, and there’s more good news. Darla and Ollie are coming in too.”
India sighed and began fumbling with the buttons on her sweater.
“Faster, sweetheart,” he told her. “I hear the pitter-patter of little feet on the porch.”
“You might as well go and let them in then, since they aren’t likely to go away.”
“Nick’s here!” Corri squealed from the door. “I won a prize at the party. In the scavenger hunt. And look at my balloon, it’s a Pilgrim. Ollie got the turkey, see? Get it, for Thanksgiving? Where’s Indy?”
“You make my head spin sometimes, Corri.” He laughed. “India’s in by the fire.”
Corri and Ollie flew in to show off their balloons and their party favors, little cornucopia baskets filled with candy.
“Just what you need.” India sat Indian-style, her back to the fire.
“Can we have milk?”
“Sure. Help yourselves. Darla, can we get you some coffee?”
“Sure,” Darla replied brightly.
“I’ll get it, Dar,” Nick told her, gesturing for her to sit in a chair near India’s feet.
“So, Indy. How was dinner?” Darla asked.
“It was fine. Great.”
“Umm. I see you decided to have your dessert and coffee back here. Nothing good on Carol’s menu tonight?”
“We just had so much left over from last night, we thought…”
Darla reached over and took a sip from India’s cup. “Well, your selection of desserts may be better, but I’ll bet Carol serves her coffee hot.”
India stood up and put her hand out for the cup.
“I was just on my way into the kitchen,” India said, avoiding Darla’s eyes, “to warm that up.”
“India … “Darla grinned meaningfully.
“What?”
“This.” Darla tried unsuccessfully to stifle a laugh as she tugged on the front of India’s sweater.
The buttons, hastily fastened, were done up out of sequence, making a bulge here and a gap there.
India reddened and cleared her throat. “I … ahem… well, you see, Dar …”
“Oh, I see.” Darla laughed as she rebuttoned India’s sweater for her. “I see perfectly well. And I think it’s about time.”
Carol’s Crabcakes
(makes 8-10 crabcakes)
1 tablespoon butter
1 clove garlic, minced
1 onion, finely chopped
2 teaspoons sweet red, yellow or green pepper
tablespoons flour
1/3 cup whipping cream
1 pound fresh lump crabmeat (carefully picked over for shells)
cups finely ground bread crumbs (divided in half)
1 egg
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh parsley
2 teaspoons dry mustard
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
2 tablespoons butter
Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a large, heavy skillet over medium heat. Add garlic, chopped sweet peppers and onions. Cook 3-5 minutes, stirring frequently. Stir in flour, cooking 4 minutes more, then gradually add whipping cream. Cook until thickened, stirring constantly.
Stir in crabmeat, 1-4 cup of the bread crumbs, egg, mustard, lemon juice and peel, salt and pepper. Mix well, remove from heat. Cover and refrigerate for 4 hours.
When mixture has chilled, shape into 2-inch patties. Coat with remaining bread crumbs. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in large skillet. Cook crabcakes over medium heat until golden.
Chapter 19
“Are you sure we can’t talk you into coming with us, India?” Delia Enright, elegant in a cashmere coat that floated around her tall frame like a sigh, stepped into the hallway ahead of her son. “I’m sure that we could find a seat for you somewhere in the theater.”
“I’m certain, but thank you,” India assured her.
“Well, maybe you’d like me to stay home with you then.” Nick followed India through the doorway of the sitting room.
She laughed. “Then I’d be guaranteed not to get a damned bit of work accomplished.”
“Oh, but you’d enjoy every minute of every page you did not read.” He leaned closer and kissed the tip of her chin.
“No doubt I would. But I really have to—”
He silenced her with a kiss and she drank him in. Kissing Nick was like nothing she had ever experienced before, and it was becoming a very addictive habit.
“Nick,” she reminded him, “your mother is in the hallway.”
“Umm-hmm.” He nodded. “With your aunt. And Corri.”
He bent down as if to kiss her again when Delia called him from the hall. “Nicky, dear, we’re all waiting. Please don’t make me embarrass India by asking you what you’re doing.”
He laughed and hugged India to him, asking, “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay home with you?”
“Nick, I’m a big girl. I can stay home alone. Honest. I’ll be fine.” She followed him into the hall. “You all have a wonderful time, and tell Georgia I said hello.”
“We will, Indy. We’re going backstage, like we did in Paloma.” Corri chatted excitedly and stood still barely long enough for India to button up her coat and kiss her cheek. “And we are going all the way to Baltimore in a limousine!”
“That in itself is a treat,” India told her as the child flew out the door toward the waiting car.
Nick tucked a kiss right below her left ear on his way out.
“Have fun,” she called from the doorway, where she stood and watched as Delia’s long silver limo pulled down the street.
India crossed her arms against the chill and looked into the night sky. The clouds were low, snow clouds, and she hoped the weather would hold until she returned to Paloma. Part of her wished she was in the long sleek car, setting off for Baltimore to see a wonderful performance in a beautiful theater, to share the night with Nick and his mother, Aunt August and Corri. Had she not only last night said she wanted to make more time for her family this holiday?
And I will, she promised herself. As soon as this trial is over, as soon as I finish up this last bit of work.
There’s never going to be a last bit of work, she told herself. There’s always going to be another case. Another victim. Another trial.
How many bad guys do you have to convict, how many do you have to put away, before you can forgive yourself? Nick had asked.
India knelt in front of the fireplace and stacked a few more logs onto the fire, watching until the flames inched upward to the top of the stack.
How many bad guys, India?
Tossing a file onto the sofa, she spread its contents out before her and began to separate the work into her customary piles. Statements. Photographs. Diagrams. Forensic reports. Police reports. Medical reports.
How many, India?
She stared into the fire, Nick’s face rising before her in the flames, looking as he had when she walked into the hall tonight. The same look he had when he kissed her wrist in Carol’s the night before. The flames flickered just as the candlelight had danced across his face when he blessed her with his full and easy smile. She closed her eyes and felt his hands on her skin, his lips trailing down her throat. The memory of it sent a tingle down her spine all the way to the tips of her toes.
How many, India?
Maybe—just maybe—not as many as she had once thought.
She sighed and went to work.
It was almost seven-thirty when it occurred to her that she had not eaten since noon. Putting aside her notes, she padded into the kitchen on feet cushioned by thick woolen socks. The refrigerator was stocked with Thanksgiving leftovers, and India opened containers and foil-wrapped packages until she had a little of this and a little of that on her plate. A turkey sandwich on homemade whole wheat bread, a little mayonnaise, a little lettuce, a dollop of cranberry relish. Some black olives, celery stuffed with cream cheese. She made a nest of sorts on the floor in front of the fire with several throw pillows from the sofa and a soft crocheted afghan, and it was there that she curled up to eat her dinner. The house was so quiet, quiet enough to hear the ticking of the hall clock and the hum of the refrigerator’s motor when she went into the kitchen to rinse off her plate. She poked into the pantry and found one small slice of cranberry pear tart left, and it called to her. Leaving it on the small chipped china plate, she grabbed a fork out of the dishwasher and went back to sit by the fire.
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