by Jill Jones
The kiss he stole took away her breath as well. Her breath, and her senses, and any thought she had of resisting. His lips had sought hers with an initial tenderness, but the moment they touched, the lightning outside, or the fury of the sound and light show performed by Caro’s ghost were nothing in comparison to the passion that sparked between them. He tasted her mouth as a hungry man approaches a feast, with an intensity of desire she absorbed into her own being. She opened to his kiss, returning it with a craving for more.
Much more.
She put her arms around his neck and ran her hands through his hair, wanting to know every inch of him. She felt the scratch of his cheeks against her face, and gloried in the maleness of it. She could feel his heart pounding only inches from her own as he held her tightly against him. His hands slipped down her back to cup her bottom, and she gasped as he pulled her against his groin.
More man than most.
Alison didn’t have a lot of experience with men in the way of comparison, but she didn’t need to at the moment. She knew exactly what Caroline’s ghost had meant.
“Oh, my God, Alison,” he whispered in her ear. “What are you doing to me?”
“I thought it was you doing the doing,” she murmured, breathless, running her hands across the expanse of his shoulders. She felt one of his hands move up the front of her body, slowly grazing her hipbone, her navel, the curve at her waist, and coming to rest upon her breast. She thought she would explode from the ecstasy of the sensations that swirled through her, but he brought her to even new heights when he released the scrap of fabric that was the top of her bathing suit and took her nipple gently between his thumb and forefinger and began to love it the way the rest of his body was loving all of her.
Instinctively, she wrapped her legs around him, bringing him as close as she could against her. Never had she felt such a need, a desire for closeness, to become one with a man.
“You’d better not do that,” he said raggedly, running his hands along one of her legs. “I’m not responsible for what happens next if you don’t move away.”
“I want what happens next,” Alison replied, wanting it with all her heart as well as with her body. “I’m not a child, Jeremy.”
“That you’re not.” His eyes held hers for a long moment, as if asking permission to proceed, and she smiled and nodded ever so slightly. Then she felt him loosen the string ties of her bikini, felt it fall away from her as he removed his shorts. Her belly contracted with need as the fire grew hotter. She encircled him again with her legs, and with his hands on her hips, he brought her to him.
Alison felt the pressure, the delicious warmth of him penetrate throughout her being. He seemed to fill her every cell and fiber with joy and love, replacing the hollow aching emptiness that had been her life until this moment. She felt for the first time complete, whole.
Wanted.
Home.
And with those thoughts, she allowed Jeremy to take her over the edge and beyond, to where all things are possible, and from where there is no turning back.
Jeremy hadn’t meant for this to happen, and the aftershock hit him with all the ramifications of what he’d just done. He’d lost all control, all good sense. He’d used no protection. He’d seduced Alison mercilessly, taken advantage of her naïveté.
And yet, he wasn’t sorry. Not if she wasn’t.
At the moment, she didn’t seem sorry at all. She was curled against him, her legs still tightly around his buttocks, and she was holding on to him as if she never wanted to let him go. He felt her shiver.
“You’re cold,” he whispered, kissing the top of her head. “Let’s find a towel.”
She nodded and looked up at him. “On the bench behind me.”
She released him and allowed him to pick her up and carry her through the water to the steps at the end of the pool. He set her down gently and reached for one of the two large, fluffy white towels that lay on the bench. He dried her face, her neck, her breasts, her belly, then wrapped the towel around her before things got out of hand again. He saw her glance down at the other towel.
“That’s odd,” she remarked.
“What?”
“I only brought one towel.”
Jeremy picked up the second one and dried off quickly, aware that she was watching with that same hungry look on her face he’d seen in the pool.
“I’m getting used to odd things happening when I’m around you,” he said with a grin as he tied the towel around his waist. He picked her up again, though she protested she was perfectly capable of walking. But he wanted her in his arms for as long as he could have her, and he knew once he saw her safely to her room, he would have to leave her. He would leave her, and Dewhurst Manor, and the memoirs, which suddenly no longer seemed important. He would go back to London, and his well-ordered life, escaping by a breath this woman who was unlike all others, who had the dangerous habit of taking away his autonomy, who awoke in him an essential longing that had slept undisturbed for many years.
They crept past the doorway behind which Drew Hawthorne had been consigned for the night and down the darkened hallway. “Are you hungry?” Jeremy asked Alison as he carried her up the stairs. “I’ll see what Mrs. Beasley has prepared…”
“Ummm,” was her sleepy reply. He opened the door and took her to the bed, where he gently laid her on the white windowpane lace coverlet. She was limp in his arms, like she was only half-conscious. He turned down one side of the bed and shifted her there, then unwound the damp towel from her body. She smiled faintly, but did not open her eyes.
Jeremy felt the familiar ache building inside him again as he gazed at her slim body lying against the pure linen sheets. Her skin was pale where she had worn a bikini recently in the sun, darker everywhere else. Her breasts were small but beautifully shaped, her nipples soft and inviting in the moonlight which crept over the windowsill. She was like a child now, not the passionate woman who had loved him with such fire only moments ago. She was soft, and tender, and vulnerable. He wanted with all his soul to lay down beside her and hold her in his arms until dawn, but he knew if he did, everything he had worked to create in his life would be meaningless.
And he’d worked too hard, for too many years. He’d forbidden himself these feelings, these desires for love and a woman who would love him in return. The complexities of love had turned into a nightmare for his own parents, a bad dream in which he had been an unwilling player. He wasn’t interested in a possible replay in his adult life.
He stared at her a moment longer, as if memorizing the vision she was lying asleep in the moonlight. Then, with a jagged breath, he covered her gently, tucking the sheets beneath her chin. He could not resist one last kiss, which he placed softly upon her cheek. Her breathing was deep and even. She wouldn’t even know when he left her.
Jeremy closed the door behind him, and in so doing, determined to close off his feelings for Alison and get on with his life. He listened to the house, dark now in the early nighttime. Toward the kitchen, he could hear Mrs. Beasley and the two young servants preparing the evening meal, and he knew it was just a matter of minutes before she would come in search of the lady of the house.
He didn’t want to be caught standing outside her door, clad only in a towel, nor did he wish to encounter anyone between here and his own room. So he made his way quickly along the upstairs gallery and down one of the two back staircases, arriving at his quarters unnoticed. He dressed in slacks and a pullover, then added his favorite cardigan, for he, too, had become chilled in his near-naked prowling around Dewhurst Manor.
His stomach growled, and he found suddenly that he was ravenously hungry. Nothing like good sex to work up an appetite, he thought, heading toward the kitchen, but he knew more than good sex had happened between him and Alison.
“Good evening,” he said, startling Mrs. Beasley, but rewarding her with one of his famous grins. “It smells delicious. What are you preparing this evening?”
The elderly woma
n recovered her composure, but blushed anyway. “It’s just a stew, sir, lamb stew. I thought I would make the most of the lamb I served yesterday. I hope y’ don’t mind that it’s the second day of it.”
“Mmmm,” he sniffed appreciatively. “It will be fine, I am sure, although,” he added hesitantly, “I don’t believe anyone is going to show up at the table for dinner.”
Mrs. Beasley looked crestfallen. “But I thought the Lady wished dinner at eight.” She looked at her watch. “It’s already quarter past now. Is she ill?”
“No. But she has gone to her room, I suspect for the night. Would you be so kind as to prepare three trays, Mrs. Beasley? Carry one to our uninvited guest, Mr. Hawthorne. He’s in the new wing, next to the swimming pool. I’ll take one to Miss Cunningham’s room and leave it by the fireplace if she’s asleep.” He didn’t miss the raised eyebrow at this, but he went on. “Then, if you please, I’ll come for my own tray and dine in my quarters this evening. I have a great deal of work to get done, and I’m hoping to leave in the morning.”
“Yes, sir,” Mrs. Beasley replied, her voice and expression professionally devoid of comment.
He waited while Alison’s tray was prepared, then carried it carefully along the winding passageway and through the Great Hall, which someone had made ready for the evening, with a welcoming fire and lamps lit. He was glad he hadn’t run into any servants, especially Mrs. Beasley, when he’d borne Alison back to her room. As it was, he was sure the “downstairs” tongues would be wagging by morning.
But by morning, he’d be gone, and it simply wouldn’t matter.
As he’d expected, Alison was sleeping soundly when he knocked lightly and opened her door. He silently laid the silver tray with its covered dishes on the table by the fireplace. Then he stirred the fire, added wood and watched until it blazed properly. He turned to where Alison lay on the bed. She hadn’t moved an inch from where he’d put her. “Good night, my Lady of Dewhurst,” he whispered. “Sleep well.”
Back in his own room, Jeremy ate the savory stew in thoughtful silence. He had much to ponder, much to try to assimilate. Like having seen a ghost. Not just having seen one, but having been thrown into the swimming pool by one. He poured himself a goblet of red wine and tasted the excellent bouquet, wondering absently who had selected such a fine wine for dinner. Old Beasley was quite a wonder, and Alison was lucky to have her.
Alison, Lady of Dewhurst.
That is what she would be if she purchased the old manor.
The ghost and the Lady.
Quite a pair.
As difficult as it was for Jeremy, normally a sane and conservative man, he at last had to suspend his disbelief in ghosts. He thought back over his short tenure at Dewhurst and realized that the only explanation for the “odd” happenings he’d experienced was the ghost. It must have been Lady Caroline’s shade playing the harpsichord that first night Alison had been here. Likely, the ghost had drunk his cognac. It had been the ghost who had taken the lock of hair, and returned it again, dressed to kill in that ephemeral gown that left nothing to a man’s imagination. And it had likely been the ghost who had doused him with the pillow feathers, although Alison had joined in the prank.
He was relieved to know that Alison Cunningham was not insane, as he’d thought her to be when he witnessed her one-sided conversations.
Unless they were now both insane.
He sipped the wine. He thought about Ashley T. Stone’s queer statement that Lady Caroline’s ghost had been gone a long time, and now it was back. Had it come in Alison’s luggage? He wanted to know how Alison had hooked up with the specter to begin with, and what her real motive was for coming to Dewhurst Manor. Was it, as she had claimed so believably, to find a home? Or was it to find Byron’s memoirs? If so, was it for the ghost alone? What was it Alison had said about honor? That she had promised the ghost to find the memoirs and bring them to the public, to vindicate Lady Caroline’s tarnished reputation…
Something like that.
It went against every grain of Jeremy’s rational business sense that someone would actually undertake such an endeavor without hope of financial gain. And yet, Alison, it appeared, certainly didn’t need the money. Hawthorne had carelessly dropped it that she had four million dollars “jingling in her pockets.”
Jeremy suspected that might just be the tip of the iceberg. The rest of her fortune, however large or complex it might be, was in trust. He surmised that Alison had a reputation for just the sort of impulsive behavior that had caused her to come to Dewhurst Manor…no, not just come here. To buy the damned place, to satisfy the whim of a ghost. That’s why wealthy parents put things in trust for their over-indulged offspring. And hired lawyers like Drew Hawthorne, who was here doing his job, which he’d described as “babysitting.”
Very rich. Very beautiful. Passionate.
And spoiled. Indulged. Impulsive.
She’s bad news, Jeremy warned himself. Get the hell out while you still have good sense.
He was too much of a professional not to finish the job he’d contracted for, however. He’d promised his friends at the bank he’d give them a full appraisal of everything in the house, and he intended to deliver. He’d finish the job. Somehow. He already had a number of the rooms inventoried and values placed on the furnishings. The library remained his biggest challenge. Perhaps he could have the books shipped to his warehouse in London, where he and an expert on antique books could complete the inventory of the impressive collection. It was possible, but he thought it a shame to take the library apart, when in all likelihood, it would never be put together again with the integrity with which the original owner had created it. Frowning, he sat up on the bed and put the wine glass down heavily on the night stand. Had it been Alison who demolished the library, he wondered suddenly, or had it been the ghost, searching for its lost papers? He chose it to be the latter.
What would he do if he came across the memoirs now? he wondered, crossing the room to peer out into the blackness of the Hertfordshire night. They were no longer his private secret. So there was no way he could “discover” them, prove them authentic, and then sell them for a pretty price to one of the many private collectors he knew would bid well for them. The ghost would get her way on this one. If he found them, or if Alison did, Jeremy was oddly eager to get them into the hands of experts and restore a part of history that Byron’s well-meaning friends had purposefully destroyed.
It wasn’t in his nature to be so magnanimous about the fate of a treasure such as Byron’s memoirs, but something had changed in the short time he had been at Dewhurst. Somehow the urgency of London life had left him. The thrill of the chase of something old and valuable had turned into a desire to see it placed in the right hands.
Jeremy shook his head in disbelief at the turn of his own thoughts. The ghostly sound and light show must have fried his brain.
Nonetheless, he was suddenly anxious to pursue the search once again, if for no other reason than to prove to Alison he wasn’t the bad guy she thought him to be. And to somehow make up to her for his reprehensible advances earlier this evening.
Glancing at his watch, Jeremy went to his briefcase and found his phone list and realized he’d left his cell phone in the library. He picked up the old fashioned phone on his bedside table, intending to call Malcomb McTighe, who always worked late, to see if he had been able to make a positive identification of the lock of hair he’d found in the library as being Lady Caroline’s. He was about to dial the number when he put the receiver to his ear and heard a man’s voice on the line.
“Yeah, I found her. The dumb kid is about to blow some major cash on this decrepit old house in the middle of nowhere. I have no idea what’s gotten into her. I thought I had it all handled after our last meeting in Boston.”
Another man’s voice. “You’d better get it handled, Hawthorne. I have everything in place for the California land deal. I’ve promised the big boys we can get the money. I made that promise,” the man
said slowly, with unmistakable meaning, “because you had assured me everything was in order. Don’t screw it up, or it may be the last mistake you ever make.”
Jeremy heard Drew Hawthorne’s nervous heavy breathing. “I can handle it, Fromme. Get off my case. But it may take me a few days. She seems hell-bent on going through with this, but you know how she is. By tomorrow, she may decide a trip to the Riviera is more to her taste.”
The other man didn’t laugh. “You haven’t got much time. And that injunction isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. Queer that deal and get the bitch back to Boston where we can keep an eye on her.”
A click, and the phone went dead, then Jeremy heard Hawthorne hang up on his end. Jeremy replaced his receiver as well.
It wasn’t hard to get the picture of what that greasy little man had planned for Alison’s four million dollars. A California land deal? Maybe it was a better investment, he allowed, but the way it was being handled was not only unprofessional, it was, he suspected, highly underhanded.
And Alison Cunningham, artless and naive about her own affairs, was a sitting duck for the wolves who circled about her.
“My sister! my sweet sister! if a name
Dearer & purer were, it should be thine.
Mountains & seas divide us, but I claim
No tears, but tenderness to answer mind:
Go where I will, to me thou art the same—
A loved regret which I would not resign,
There yet are two things in my destiny,—
A world to roam through, & a home with thee.
From “Epistle to Augusta” by Lord Byron
Caroline recovered & resumed her pursuit, but I withdrew my assault upon her Sanity. Indeed, I withdrew from much during this time. I had grown tired of Lady Oxford. Although I was greatly relieved to learn that I was not about to be a father, at the same time I also found out that I was not her only Paramour, & my Vanity was sorely wounded. By mid-May, we had dissolved plans to travel abroad together, & when she sailed in June, (with her Husband!) I was not sorry to see her go.
