Lorna Tedder

by Dark Revelations (lit)

  I held my breath and knocked at the side door Robert had suggested I use. I waited. Maybe I was too late. Maybe Eric hadn’t been able to meet me after all. Maybe I’d seen the last of him.

  The curtain above the door moved very, very slightly, then fluttered. The door opened with a flourish and strong, masculine hands pulled me inside. The door slammed behind me.

  “You look damned good for a dead woman.” Eric grinned down at me. His lips found my cheek and then kissed my hairline all the way to my neck. “I thought I’d lost you.”

  “I thought I’d lost me, too.” I pushed away and peered into his pale blue eyes. Ah, yes. The same fire I’d seen in them on the steps of the main house at the palazzo. “Not anymore, though,” I added. “I know exactly where I’m going now.”

  He kissed me then, full on the lips, his mouth sinking into mine with a hunger I’d thought was mine alone. I thumbed open the buttons on his black shirt as he carried me into what I was vaguely aware was a bedroom. I fumbled with his jeans and tugged them down. He barely had my dress off before I’d pressed him down on the bed on his back and eased my body down onto his. I heard him cry out.

  Or maybe it was me who cried out.

  A little later, I sat facing him, both of us naked with our legs wrapped around one another, with him deep inside me and with his mouth hungry for mine. I felt the warmth of his body and my own tenderness for him, felt his flesh inside me, felt myself in his arms.

  Then the sensation of the tile energy wafted over me. Something inside me had been activated, and my senses had been on overload for weeks. I felt the essence of my soul shift in a half circle until it seemed that I was no longer in my body but in his. I felt the strength of his body from the inside. I felt the woman in his arms, the woman wrapped around his flesh. And then—

  I gasped. I felt his emotions, all those just-below-the-surface and oh-so-intense feelings he had for me, felt him trying to pull my body and soul closer to him as if he couldn’t get enough, felt the stirrings of a deep affection that made me shift back into my own body, break the seal of his mouth and cry out in surprise.

  “Shhh,” he whispered. “Did I hurt you?”

  I shook my head. I could never explain the thing that had just happened, but whatever healing the tiles had given me, this gift of seeing Eric’s feelings for me was a marvelous treasure.

  Sometime after that, I rolled over in bed and stretched like a cat. The linens in Robert’s unoccupied flat were crisp, white and felt oh-so-good against my skin. Then again, so did Eric.

  I snuggled against him. He was still hot, breathing heavily. I sighed a little too loudly.

  “Damn!” Eric grinned. “You sound like a contented woman!”

  I laughed. Laughing felt good, sounded good in my own ears. I couldn’t remember a laugh that felt so real.

  Propping on one elbow, I stared into his face. He closed his eyes as a genuine smile lifted his cheeks all the way into his eyes. I smoothed the damp curls on his forehead, then traced his nose to its tip. At his mouth, I pressed one finger against his lips. He kissed it. We’d been reunited for a whole two hours and had yet to come up for air.

  “Eventually,” I said, “we’re going to have to stop touching each other and actually talk.”

  “No, we’re not.” He gave his head a little shake. “Talking’s overrated, but touching’s good.” He opened his eyes and pulled me toward him.

  I brushed my lips over his and pulled back. “No, you don’t,” I whispered. “Luring me in again like that. I’m serious. At some point, we do need to talk.”

  “Oh, all right. I suppose I could use a rest.” He grinned at me.

  Eric Cabordes had been well worth my wait. This time I’d met him with open arms and an open heart. He’d said I looked different, happier, lighter somehow, as if the weight of the world had been lifted from my shoulders.

  I fell back into the bed beside him and pulled the sheet around me.

  “No, no, no. Don’t cover up.”

  “I have to. Or you won’t hear a word I say!”

  He pretended to be exasperated. “Oh, all right. Fine. I’m listening.”

  I closed my eyes and inhaled his scent. God, I could get used to this. “I don’t know if we can keep this up.”

  “As long as you let me rest every now and then…”

  “No. I mean meeting like this.”

  I hadn’t been to London in almost a year. The last time, I’d lifted a classified document from inside the Ministry of Defence at Whitehall. Those days were gone now. I didn’t do that anymore. I didn’t have to. To the rest of the world, Dr. Ginny Moon was dead, the result of a fiery boating accident. So was Dr. Lauren Hartford. So was Aubrey de Lune. As far as the Adrianos were concerned, I was dead. And that meant I was free.

  “We shouldn’t meet again here,” I advised. “It was nice of Robert to let us meet at his flat, but it’s too dangerous for us to come here again.”

  “Then we’ll meet someplace different. Josh has me couriering information and items for him several times a month when he’s with Benny. I could arrange to meet you for a day or two every few weeks. Different cities around Europe. Occasionally in the States.”

  I nodded. “I’m willing. I’d like to see you again.” I glanced down at his groin dip. And again…and again… “I will meet you wherever I need to, Eric Cabordes, but I am concerned that the Adrianos will find out and you’ll be in danger.”

  “No danger. Josh trusts me. Completely. In fact, he even told me about Benny’s dental chip. Volunteered the information.”

  “Why now? Because you brought Benny home?”

  “More than that. He knows I saved his son from Caleb. He knows what Caleb tried to do. So does Simon.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “I take it Caleb’s not too happy now.”

  “Not in a lot of ways. It doesn’t help that he and Scarlet had a big fight. She was gone before you left the premises, but he’s trying desperately to sweet-talk her back into his arms.”

  “Really?” I lowered my voice, anxious to hear the gossip. “I tried to warn her about him. Not just at the towers. Earlier this year, too.”

  “Nothing you could have said would have made any difference, and Caleb will probably talk her around. Scarlet didn’t see exactly what happened. And no one would give her straight answers. Not even Josh knows for sure it wasn’t an accident, which is the official family position in the police investigation. She’s not sure what she witnessed, but she knew enough to be scared when she left.”

  “About time.”

  “Simon disapproves of Scarlet, thinks she makes Caleb weak. He’s been after Caleb to get rid of her. And I’m not talking about breaking her heart over a candlelit dinner for two.”

  “And they don’t know about Lilah?”

  He shook his head. “They never knew you gave birth. When one of their men in California tipped them off that you had a daughter, it was a complete surprise. So now they think you had a daughter and she’s dead at their hands.”

  I winced, remembering poor Nicole. I would always feel responsible.

  “What about me? Are they absolutely convinced I’m dead?”

  “Yes. Thoroughly. They saw your red sweater before the boat crashed. I saw…I…” He stopped. “I thought you were dead, too. When you showed up here at Robert’s…” He kissed the top of my head and then fell back into his pillow. “They think you’re dead and that the artifacts were either on the boat when it blew up or that you’d hidden them away somewhere. They’re not sure which. Everyone at the palazzo is walking on eggshells right now. The tensions are high. Simon plans to step up his efforts to find others of your kind, but he’s not sure where to start. But yes, as far as you’re concerned, they think you’re dead.”

  Dead. Dead! I was dead! I was free.

  “Aubrey? Why are you smiling? And it had better be because of me.” He kissed the underside of my chin and worked his way up to my mouth.

  “Among other things
.”

  “What things?” he asked between kisses, but I answered with a giggle. “Do you have a plan, Aubrey de Lune?”

  “Don’t I always?”

  “Yes. How long have you been concocting this one?”

  “Hmm.” I deepened his kisses and pressed my body into his.

  “You do have a plan, don’t you?”

  “I do, but it’s one that life presented me. An opportunity came up, and I’m taking it, seeing where it leads me.”

  He pressed against my leg and then prodded his way between my thighs. No more than that. Not yet. But the promise was there.

  “I’ll be in Madrid in two weeks. Meet me there.”

  “Can’t.”

  He pushed away enough to frown into my face.

  Before he could say anything, I pressed a finger to his lips. “There’s something I have to do before I see you again. Someone I have to see.”

  Eric kissed my fingertip. “Your daughter.”

  My life was in that big cardboard box. My heart and my soul. The only earthly possessions I cared anything about.

  Other women at my stage in life would’ve moved into a new house with plenty of baggage: clothes that hadn’t been worn in ten years, dishes from their first marriage, mementos of their travels. Not me—and that’s saying a lot, considering how much I’ve traveled in my lifetime.

  I’d dipped into my bank accounts in South America and withdrawn enough money to buy a small cottage in a sleepy little college town in central Florida. The house I’d selected had big oak trees on either side, and it was white with a red door. The house hadn’t been for sale. With the help of a local attorney, I’d offered three times the real-estate value to the old woman who’d lived here. I’d had to have this house and only this house. No other would do. I never met the previous owner, but my attorney said she had been happy. I’d paid an extra hundred thousand for her to move out and turn over the keys to him by last night so that I could move in today.

  I hadn’t had time to buy any furniture. The floors were bare but clean, beautiful hardwood. The kind a real family might have. The walls were white, but they wouldn’t stay that way for long. I wanted color and lots of it. The steps outside were brick, just two, with a handrail, so I wouldn’t have much trouble getting in and out of the house before my knee healed. Most of all, I liked the fireplace and the broad mantel over it. It was the perfect place for pictures of friends—or of Eric, next time I saw him. And a picture of Cat, too. And a picture of…of other friends I’d make in the future. Friends who wouldn’t disappear overnight.

  I held my breath as I ripped open the box. Since there were no chairs yet in the entire house, I eased down to the floor and sat while I lifted out my treasures. My father’s journals. I sighed at the touch of them. A man I had never really known, yet he’d left journals about my mother and her mother before her. These I would dedicate to the local university library, to their special-collections department.

  I’d made a deal with the university. They would allow me to donate several million dollars to a special, secret trust. The books would not be advertised, particularly not the next one in the box…the incunable that had changed my life more than once. The manuscript would stay in a special vault inside the special-collections department. I had already paid to have the fireproof, burglarproof, Adriano-proof vault built. The books would be protected and safe, and as I could, I would add more “dangerous books” like these to their collection.

  In exchange, I was to be a guest lecturer at the university. They’d created a Chair of Medieval Antiquities for me. Funny how that happens when you make million-dollar donations! I would be allowed to lecture as I pleased, come and go as I pleased. I would spend much of my time in Europe, visiting with Eric when we could meet discreetly every couple of weeks, at least until the Adriano reign was brought to an end. The long-distance relationship wouldn’t be long-distance forever, but for now he had work to do and I had a new life to build. I could wait for him to join me. I’d waited longer for far less.

  All of this I’d done under another name. Another identity I’d created for myself. One I’d borrowed from the literature professor acquaintance I’d seen die during an art theft years ago in Europe. I had a new, legitimate life as Dr. Drusilla St. Augustine.

  I took a sip of my pomegranate juice, then reached deeper into the box and pulled out a shoebox of mementos. Pictures, clippings, things my private investigator had sent to me over the years. Photographs of Lilah in junior high, in high school, in college.

  I was making a life for myself, finally. The life I wanted. Reclaiming my life and reshaping my future into something I wanted.

  The first time I heard the knock on the door, I ignored it. No one knew I lived here. Not yet. There’d been no moving van or announcements of a new resident. I’d never even allowed a for sale sign or a sold sign to be placed in the front yard.

  Leaving the glass of pom juice on the floor, I tiptoed to the front door and pulled back the sheer curtain. Old habits die hard, I decided. Already I found myself reaching for a weapon, nervous. That would take time, I admitted. Time to settle into this new life of peace, love, friendship, of everything I’d wanted. All the things I had missed.

  I opened the door to a young woman on the steps, a big plate of brownies in her arms. She smiled at me through the screen door. A big, wide smile with a little bit of a quirk at the corner of her mouth. I blinked at her.

  The girl frowned for a second, as if she recognized me, then shook it off. “Hi,” she said through the screen. “I heard Miss Ida Mae had sold her house. I wanted to come meet my new neighbor. I hope you like brownies.” When I didn’t say anything, she added, “I live right across the street.” She jerked her thumb in the direction of the duplex apartment behind her.

  She was pretty. Beautiful green eyes that I would know anywhere. A little taller than I’d expected. Slim and athletic with dark hair that just skimmed her shoulders. Very different from the way she’d looked at ten—but then, I’d changed a lot, too.

  She didn’t need to tell me where she lived. I already knew. That’s why I’d picked this house, why I’d picked this town, this college, everything. To be close to her.

  “Oh! I’m sorry,” she said as I opened the screen door to her. “Where are my manners?” She balanced the brownies and extended one hand. “My name’s Lilah.”

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  ISBN: 1-55254-604-7

  DARK REVELATIONS

  Copyright © 2006 by Lorna Tedder

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