Shades of Midnight

by Linda Winstead Jones

  “I’m a much better cook than Daisy,” Katherine said.

  “And I,” Garrick began, lifting his glass high, “I can’t really do much of anything, but chasing ghosts sounds like much more fun than running the mill with my father.”

  “There’s really nothing any of you…” Lucien began in a slow, certain voice.

  “We need a toast,” Garrick said, jumping to his feet. He rounded the table, refilling everyone’s whiskey glasses. “A drink to seal the bargain.”

  “There is no bargain,” Lucien said. They all ignored him.

  Everyone at the table lifted their glasses high. Laughing, Eve did the same. Finally, after accusing glances from the three women at the table, and a not very subtle clearing of his throat from Garrick, Lucien lifted his glass as well.

  “To the Plummerville Ghost Society,” Garrick said proudly. “Long may we reign.”

  He drained his glass. Everyone else took a sip.

  Daisy looked longingly at Lucien. “You must be president.”

  “Absolutely not,” he said indignantly.

  “Lucien can’t be president,” Katherine said with a telling lift of her eyebrows. “He’s a Yankee!”

  “Fine, I’ll be president,” Garrick said magnanimously.

  While everyone toasted their new society, Lucien turned to Eve and whispered, “I knew coming here tonight was a mistake.”

  “It will be fun.” She smiled and leaned in close. “Look at them, Lucien,” she whispered. “They adore you. I… adore you.” She caught her breath. She had almost admitted that she loved him!

  “Do you really?”

  “Just a little.”

  Lucien looked at each and every one of his grinning cohorts. “If we must have a society…”

  “We must,” Daisy said brightly.

  Lucien warned his hostess with a glare, and she pursed her lips prettily. “We must have a proper name. Plummervile Ghost Society makes it sound as if we are ghosts. Perhaps the Plummerville Society for the Investigation and Documentation of Psychical Activities.”

  Everyone stared at him, speechless. Finally Daisy asked, “How would I fit the initials for the Plummerville Society for… for… whatever that was you said, on our handkerchiefs?”

  Lucien started at her. “Handkerchiefs?”

  Daisy smiled. “We must all have matching hankies with the initials of our society. PGS.” Her smile dimmed. “Or PSFT… I already forgot, but that would be very unwieldy.”

  Lucien looked down at Eve. “Matching hankies?” he whispered.

  Garrick banged his whiskey glass on the table. “Order,” he said, trying to sound dignified. “Time for our first vote. All in favor of calling ourselves the Plummerville Ghost Society, raise your hands.”

  Five hands, including Eve’s, shot up.

  “All in favor of… whatever ridiculous name it is that Lucien wants to call us, raise your hand.” Garrick grinned at Lucien, who raised his hand even though he was clearly outnumbered.

  “Almost unanimous,” Garrick said. “As president, I hereby declare us the Plummerville Ghost Society.”

  Lucien shook his head, but he did smile, a little. And then he looked at his watch and his smile died. “Eve, it’s after ten o’clock. We have to go.”

  Chapter 14

  “I can’t watch Viola die again,” Eve insisted as Lucien pulled the horse and buggy to her door. “I can’t.”

  Lucien turned to look at the woman seated beside him. He could see her well, by the light of a bright moon. He saw her well enough to know that she was truly frightened by what lay ahead.

  “Would you like me to take you back to Daisy’s house? I’m sure she’d be happy to have you stay there until this is finished.”

  Eve actually considered the idea, for a moment. She drew her shawl closer, and stared toward a parlor window and the lace curtain there. The cool autumn breeze washed over her face and made the curls around her face dance, as she silently pondered the suggestion.

  “No,” she finally whispered. “I can’t run away. I don’t want to see Viola die again,” she insisted. “It’s going to hurt, it’s going to make me feel so helpless and angry. But at the same time, I can’t let her go through that alone.”

  “She doesn’t know you’re there,” Lucien assured her.

  “How can you be sure?”

  He leapt from the buggy and hurried around to Eve’s side. The air was brisk tonight. Maybe he could get Eve to go to bed before the murder took place again. It was too cold for her to wait out here, especially in that slip of a gown and thin shawl. What had she been thinking as she’d gotten ready for Daisy’s impromptu party? Evie was beautiful tonight, yes, but her attire was most impractical.

  “Come on,” he said, offering her his hand and assisting her from her seat on the buggy. “You need to get inside where it’s warm. I’ll start a fire, and then…”

  “Don’t go,” she whispered as she stepped down and landed before him.

  His heart jumped.

  “Not until they’re gone for the night. If I have to be here for Viola I will, but I don’t want to be alone.”

  Lucien took her arm and led her toward the red door. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said, awaiting an argument and ready to stand his ground. “I’m staying right here all night.”

  “You can’t,” Eve argued weakly.

  “There’s a murderer on the loose,” he said, his voice much sterner than Eve’s. “He might be flesh and blood, he might be dead thirty years. No matter what the case, I absolutely will not leave you here alone.”

  “The horse and buggy…”

  “Buster is going to come by and fetch them, after he sees Katherine home. Since you don’t have any way to care for the horse, and I refuse to leave you alone, it seemed a good solution.”

  “My reputation…” Eve began as Lucien opened the door.

  “Will be just fine,” Lucien finished for her. “Buster was sworn to secrecy. This ghost society nonsense might not be such a bad idea after all.”

  With the door closed behind them and their conversation done, they heard the ghostly lovers above stairs. Was it possible that Alistair and Viola were even louder tonight than they had been the night before?

  Eve shrugged off her shawl and walked into the parlor, dragging it behind her. If she heard the noises from above—and surely she did—she ignored them. “It was a lovely evening, and much more interesting than I had expected it to be.”

  She lowered herself to the sofa and closed her eyes, sitting there in the dark as Lucien struck a match and lit a lamp. “It was so exciting, my head is swimming.”

  “You haven’t drunk whiskey before tonight, have you?”

  “No. But I have had wine,” she said. “A few times.”

  “Whiskey is different.”

  “I understand that now.”

  After he got the fire going he sat, not on the sofa beside Eve but in the chair by the window. A safe distance was called for tonight.

  Eve’s eyes opened slowly, and she looked directly at him, bold and stirring. “Do you like my dress?”

  “It’s lovely. You should have worn something warmer, though, it’s chilly out.”

  She smiled. “It’s supposed to be beautiful, not practical. Enticing, not warm.” Her smile faded. “This is my wedding dress, Lucien. I wore it that day, all day. All day and all night. I haven’t put it on in two years.”

  Lucien felt the blood drain from his face. He didn’t want to talk about the mistake that had cost him Eve. Not now. Not tonight.

  “I thought wedding gowns were supposed to be white,” he said.

  “Sometimes they are, but I decided to be a little bit practical and choose something I could wear again. Gray instead of white, less flounces and frills than my aunt recommended for the occasion. I didn’t know that the gown would hang in my wardrobe for two years because every time I took it out I thought of you.”

  “I’m…”

  “Don’t tell me you’r
e sorry again. It really doesn’t help at all.” Strangely enough, she smiled again. “I rather like Garrick’s whiskey. It makes me feel warm and tingly and as if I can say and do anything I want.”

  “You barely drank a full glass,” Lucien said.

  “I know!”

  “I have a feeling you should stick with that occasional glass of wine and leave the whiskey to your friend Garrick.” Garrick, who would call on her when he was gone. If he ever left. Right now, he wasn’t so sure.

  “He’s your friend now, too,” she said. “And a fellow member of the Plummerville Ghost Society. President!” she added with an unlikely giggle.

  “Garrick Hunt will never be my friend, not as long as he continues to look at you like… like…”

  “Like you’re looking at me now?” Eve said softly.

  “Exactly.”

  Above, the headboard banged against the wall, Viola moaned, louder and more real tonight than ever before. A chill danced down Lucien’s spine.

  “You haven’t even kissed me tonight,” Eve said as she relaxed on the couch.

  “No, I have not,” he whispered.

  “Here I am, sitting before you in my wedding dress, fuzzy-headed and exceedingly vulnerable, and you haven’t even tried to kiss me.” She sighed. “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No.”

  “Then why…”

  Frustrated, he interrupted. “In order to get Buster to help with the horse and buggy, I had to promise him that my intentions were honorable and that I would not take advantage of a woman who had obviously had too much to drink.”

  “A kiss or two would not exactly be taking advantage of me.”

  “Tonight I couldn’t stop with a kiss or two,” Lucien said honestly.

  “Oh.” Eve closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the sofa. “I had no idea Buster was such a gentleman.” Did she really sound disappointed?

  “Neither did I,” Lucien muttered.

  One slippered foot danced, a little, and the hem of Eve’s silver-gray dress flipped up. When it did, Lucien caught a glimpse—just a glimpse—of something red. A red petticoat beneath her wedding dress? That petticoat was likely what had been wrapped in brown paper and left on her back doorstep, the gift from the dressmaker that had made Eve blush, that afternoon.

  Eve either slept or pretended to sleep, there on the couch with her head back and her body relaxed. Lucien fought the urge to move, to sit beside her and wrap an arm around her shoulders and give her a more comfortable place to lay her head. He stayed in his chair and watched her. If he got too close, if he held her tonight, he would likely break his promise to Buster.

  Sitting in the chair didn’t last long. Lucien felt as if his skin were on fire, as if everything inside him were jumping and dancing. Unable to sit still, he stood and began to pace before the fireplace.

  While he stalked back and forth in the parlor, which suddenly seemed unbearably small, Alistair and Viola continued on, as usual. Were they truly louder tonight than they had been before? Or did it just seem so because the house itself was so damned quiet? There was no conversation to cover the ghostly noises tonight.

  It wasn’t long before Lucien heard Buster collect the horse and buggy from out front and take them away. That chore was done. Eve’s reputation wouldn’t be damaged because his rented conveyance sat outside her cottage all night. And still, he paced.

  This had been an amazing day, in so many ways. He didn’t know what astounded him most: Eve herself, with her red petticoat and her strawberry corset and her passionate kisses, or the odd collection of dinner guests who had, in their own way, rallied around him and formed their silly society.

  They had been surprised, at first, when he’d admitted to his abilities, but they hadn’t been afraid. Not one of them had stalked away in disgust, or mentioned the devil, or stared at him in that way people had… like he had two heads or had sprouted a tail.

  He’d learned to expect the worst, when people discovered what he could do, and in most cases he got exactly what he expected. Accusations. Fear. Disbelief. But not tonight. No, not tonight.

  Lucien doubted that the Plummerville Ghost Society would be of any assistance where Alistair and Viola were concerned, but it had certainly been an evening to remember.

  *

  Eve buried her head against Lucien’s shoulder and cried softly. The scene she witnessed night after night never got any easier to watch. Since Lucien’s arrival, she’d come to know Viola so well, through the short burst of channeling and the dream visit. It was Lucien’s mere presence that made Viola strong enough to attempt such activities, as much as the approaching anniversary, Eve suspected.

  Whatever the reason for the deeper kinship, watching Viola die was like viewing the death of a dear friend. And as always, there was nothing she could do.

  “There, there,” Lucien said, one hand on her back, the other in her hair. The fingers in her hair stroked gently, while his arms surrounded and sheltered her. “Don’t cry. I hate it when you cry.” He shook his head, and in doing so cradled her even more closely, his head resting against hers. “You never cry.”

  “I do,” she said, sniffling, burrowing her head against his shoulder. “I just try not to make a blubbering fool out of myself in front of other people.”

  “You’re not making a fool of yourself,” he assured her.

  She would be satisfied to simply stand here, Lucien’s arms around her, her face hidden against his shoulder, for the entire night. Her father had never been one to offer physical comfort. Words of encouragement, yes. Words of affection, often. But Bernard Abernathy had been good with words, not physical affection. This embrace, it took away some of her pain. Having Lucien so close, it made her feel better, warmer, in spite of everything that had happened here.

  Viola and Alistair were gone for the night, and she and Lucien were alone. He intended to spend the night; in the parlor, he said. She really should argue with him. She should make him return to his rented room even if he had to walk to town again. It wasn’t right for him to stay here. It wasn’t proper at all.

  But she didn’t want him to leave. Not now, not ever.

  The effects of the whiskey had left her, for the most part. There was still a slight bit of fuzziness to her head and her thinking, but she didn’t feel woozy or inclined to say everything that crossed her mind.

  Not everything.

  “Lucien?” The way she said his name made him grow tense.

  “Yes?”

  “When I asked you how many times you’d been in love, and you said twice… can I assume that one of those times you were in love with me?”

  “Yes,” he said, almost grudgingly.

  “And the other?”

  He sighed. “I don’t think this is the correct time and place for that conversation. Do you?”

  “What is the correct time and place for such a conversation?”

  Lucien considered that question, for a moment. “Do you really want to know?”

  She hid against his shoulder. Did she? “Yes, I do. Was it… recently?” Had he forgotten her so quickly and fallen in love all over again while she’d cursed and grieved and missed him?

  “No.”

  She breathed a small sigh of relief. He hadn’t forgotten about her, in the past two years. Maybe he had missed her, too.

  “Do you love her still?”

  “Of course not,” he said gruffly. “Now, that’s enough about that. What about you?” he asked quickly, trying to change the direction of their conversation. “Have you fallen in love many times?”

  “I could answer that question,” she said, “but since I’m not the one who pledged eternal honesty you’d have no way of knowing if I’m telling the truth or spinning a pretty lie.”

  “True enough,” he conceded.

  Eve lifted her head and looked up so she could see Lucien’s face. As she had suspected, he was blushing terribly. “But you… you have sworn to tell only the truth.”

  H
e didn’t release his hold on her, which was good. She liked it here, no matter what direction the conversation had taken.

  “When does a man who travels constantly and gets lost in his work to the exclusion of all else find the time to fall in love?”

  “I was seventeen!” he answered, sounding embarrassed and truly disgusted with this line of questioning.

  “A childhood romance,” she whispered. “Was she a beautiful girl enraptured by the powers of the young Lucien Thorpe? Or a beautiful young lady you admired from afar, afraid to approach lest she…”

  “Stop it,” he ordered in a low voice. “I might have promised you the truth, but I now reserve the right to refuse to answer any of your questions. You are relentless, Evie.”

  She wished he would kiss her even though he had said he would not. He was so close, and she wanted that kiss so much. A bolder woman might lift herself up on her toes and kiss those lips without invitation, but in truth, Eve Abernathy had never been bold.

  “Most men would lie without a second thought, you know. They would say, I have never loved anyone but you. Women don’t really believe such fiction, but it’s nice to hear, in any case.”

  Eve glanced at the spot where Viola had died. “I wonder if Viola and Alistair had been in love before they met one another? They seem… they had their problems, but she loved him so deeply she’s able to love him still, even though she knows he killed her—or thinks he killed her,” she added, before Lucien could jump in with his argument that Alistair was not guilty of the crime. “And what of him? Alistair definitely seems like a ladies’ man, but had he ever actually been in love before he met Viola?”

  “We can’t know that, not unless they tell us.”

  “And they won’t.” She tried to melt back into place, resting her head against Lucien’s shoulder, but he stepped back and set her away from him.

  “You need to get to bed. Tomorrow will be another long day,” he said crisply.

  “That’s true.” And yet, she did not want to leave. “Maybe I should stay up for a while longer. I’m not really tired. We can work on the case, try to figure out who Viola’s lover was.”

  “No.” The refusal was unequivocal.