Shades of Midnight (21 page)

Viola looked as if she were considering the possibility, and then she snapped her head toward the door. "Get out of the house," she whispered hoarsely. "Run." She turned her head slowly and laid her panicked eyes on Eve. "He's here."

Chapter 13

Intent as he was on his work, sitting cross-legged there on Eve's parlor floor, Lucien was still startled when soft footsteps sounded on the stairs. He could actually hear Eve breathing too hard, gasping as she ran down the stairway. By the time he stood she was rushing into the parlor, her hair mussed, her wrapper held close to her body.

"He's here," she whispered hoarsely.

"Who's..."

"Him!"

He was with Eve in two long strides, and lay his hands on her shoulders to calm her. She trembled deep. Hard. "Who is
he?"

"Viola's lover. And if you're right about Viola and Alistair both being murdered, the killer. He's here," she said breathlessly. She shook all over.

"No one is here but me," he said calmly, looking directly into her eyes and doing his best to calm her. "You no doubt had a dream..."

"Of course it was a dream," she snapped. "But it was also real. Ghosts do visit people in their dreams, you know."

"Yes, of course I know."

"And Viola visited me." The trembling subsided, a little. "She said I should leave this place, that I was in danger."

"From Alistair."

She wrinkled her nose. "I'm not sure. I don't think so, though." Her eyes grew bright. "Just before she left, she said that he was
here."

"Evie, no one is here, I assure you."

"She sounded so certain."

"Time and place for Viola is not the same as time and place for us. The man she speaks of might have been in the house at any time in the past thirty years, and to her it seems as if that time is
now.
That he is here now, when in fact it's been thirty years. Remember, Viola doesn't know she's dead. She might have been reliving that final night or any other day of her..."

"Oh, she does know she's dead!" Eve said. "Thanks to you. I'm not sure how, but... you did convince her."

"That's a step in the right direction," Lucien said, relieved that his time here had not been completely wasted.

Gradually, Eve relaxed. Her breathing became more normal, her pale face regained some color. Finally, she closed her eyes. "She was so real," Eve whispered. "I touched her."

"I want to know everything she said," Lucien insisted. "Every word you can remember. Tell me now, before the dream begins to fade."

She tilted her head back and looked him in the eye. With her hair going this way and that, and her ugly wrapper parted to reveal her throat, she was more tempting than she realized. "Viola wanted a child, and that desire drove her to... to make a mistake with another man, just as the Reverend Younger said. It was only one night, a night she immediately regretted, but this man kept coming back and he even threatened to tell Alistair what had happened. Viola thinks he did tell Alistair, and that's why he killed her."

"Who is this man?"

"She wouldn't tell me. She said she was ashamed of what had happened, and then before I could make her change her mind she said
he's here
and disappeared."

"Perhaps she was just changing the subject so she could leave without telling you his name."

"I don't think so. She was truly frightened."

"Well, no one is here but"—a rap on the front door silenced him, and made Eve almost jump out of her skin—"me," he finished.

"I can't answer the door like this!" Eve whispered.

"I can't answer the door at all. I'm not supposed to be here, remember?"

"Your horse and buggy are out front," she hissed.

"Oh, yes."

"Hello," a muffled male voice called out as another knock came. "Anyone home?"

"Garrick Hunt," Eve whispered. "What's he doing here?"

"What, indeed?" The idea of that idiotic pretty boy courting Eve after he'd gone rankled more than Lucien was ready to admit. Even to himself.

"Miss Abernathy. Mr. Thorpe," Garrick called too gaily. "If you don't answer the door I must assume you are in dire straits and in need of my daring rescue. I'm coming in to play the hero. One, two..."

Lucien moved Eve aside and rushed to the front door, just as Garrick Hunt said, "Three."

The idiot grinned as he looked up at Lucien. "Good afternoon," he said pleasantly.

"What do you want?" Lucien asked, his own manner less pleasant.

"I'm to deliver a message to Eve from Daisy. Your small supper has turned into a dinner party. Fancy dress. Parlor games. We must all be on our best behavior."

Behind him, Lucien heard Eve groan, low and distinct. Apparently Hunt heard as well. His grin widened. "You will deliver the message to Miss Abernathy for me, won't you?"

"Of course."

The annoying man did not move on. "I suppose she's indisposed at the moment."

Lucien didn't bother to answer.

Hunt leaned in close, and when he did Lucien smelled the whiskey on his breath. "A word of advice. My mother always told me not to be too persistent, where women are concerned. If they think you are besotted, they'll drag you around by your... well, whatever it is they can lay their hands on."

"Really?" Lucien asked dryly.

"People in town are already talking about you two," Hunt revealed in a whisper. "You've been spending entirely too much time in this house, and without a proper chaperone, at that. Another day or two and this talk might turn into a full-blown scandal."

And Eve's reputation would be ruined. At the moment, Lucien didn't much care.

"Thank you for your concern," Lucien said, slowly closing the door.

Hunt did not take the hint. "See you this evening, then," he said with that damnable smile of his.

"I suppose," Lucien said as the door continued to swing.

"I can hardly wait," Hunt said, raising his voice slightly. "See you tonight, Miss Abernathy, wherever you are."

Lucien grunted as the door slammed shut on Garrick Hunt.

"I believe he was drunk," he said as he turned to face Eve, who stepped out of the parlor looking as disgusted as he felt.

"Quite possible. I have seen him drink more than he should, on occasion." She pursed her lips. "A dinner party! Fancy dress! What was Daisy thinking?"

"Ghastly," Lucien muttered.

"Torture." Eve sighed.

They returned to the parlor, where Lucien placed a comforting arm around Evie. "Perhaps we should decline."

"We can't! Daisy is my best friend. I can't possibly cancel at the last moment, not when she's gone to so much trouble."

Lucien placed his hands on her shoulders again and made her face him squarely. "There was a time when I thought I was your best friend."

"I thought that, too," she said softly.

He lowered his lips toward hers, craving another kiss so badly he could taste it. His mouth was almost on hers when movement at the window made them both snap their heads in that direction.

"It was a man," Eve whispered.

"Stay here," he ordered, running for the front door.

The man who had startled them was surely that damn Garrick Hunt, snooping and no doubt giggling like a little girl. Well, enough was enough.

From the front porch, Lucien saw nothing unusual. His horse snorted. A cold breeze kicked up. Then, out of the corner of his eye, Lucien saw movement to his right. He took off running. Damned Hunt! At the corner of the house he turned, but again he saw nothing. There weren't many places for Hunt to hide... but where was the man's horse? It had been directly out front, before. When he'd burst out of the house in search of the peeper, the horse had been gone.

Afraid the movement he'd seen had been a figment of his own imagination, or else one of the many squirrels who inhabited the area in abundance, Lucien turned the corner that took him to the back of Eve's little cottage. Her gardens were here. One for flowers, another for vegetables. She'd been too late moving in to do much with the two small plots this year, but as she'd said, she had great plans for next year.

Had either of them ever been in one place long enough to even think of what next year would bring?

The door to her kitchen, which opened to the gardens on one side and a well to the other, was closer than the front door, and that was where he headed.

A package wrapped in brown paper was propped against that kitchen door.

Lucien grabbed the package as he opened the door. "Evie," he called, alerting her to the fact that he was the one coming in through the back door. "I didn't see anyone. Sorry. It was probably that damned Hunt."

She met him in the dining room. "Probably." She sighed. "So much for my reputation."

"Hang your reputation," Lucien said sourly.

"That's fine for you to say. When you're gone, I'm the one who has to live with it." She took the package he offered. "Not that it matters," she said, sounding dejected. "Sometimes I want, so much, to be proper and dignified and normal, but in truth I can't see myself married to Garrick or anyone else, settled down only to have babies and join ladies' clubs and throw boring parties." She looked down at the package. "I'm twenty-seven years old, and I don't know what I want. That's... horrid."

"Not so horrid. I'm thirty, and I don't know what I want. Well," he added in an attempt at total honesty, "I want
you,
but other than that..."

"Don't tease me."

"I never tease." He motioned to the package in her hand, anxious to change the subject. "Were you expecting a delivery?"

She shook the soft, brown-paper-wrapped package. "No. It's probably something Daisy sent over, or some samples from the dressmaker. I did a little shopping there this morning." For some reason, she pursed her lips.

Eve grabbed a pair of scissors from the buffet, laid the package on the dining room table, and cut the string. Brown paper fell back and away to reveal a scrap of white paper and a fold of red silk. Eve stared at the contents for a moment, and then she blushed prettily.

"Just an unexpected delivery from my dressmaker," she said, trying to fold the paper over the red silk.

Lucien reached past her and snapped up the note. The paper unfolded and he read, "Just a little something to get you started. This was finished, and just needed a tuck here and there. Consider it a gift from a new friend. Laverne." He dropped the note. "Started on what?"

"Nothing really." Her blush deepened. She peeled back a small piece of paper and lifted a corner of silk. "It's not at all important. It's... silly, actually. Very, very silly."

"You're never silly."

She sighed. "Perhaps I need to be, now and then."

"Aren't you going to at least let me see?"

She lifted the package and clutched it to her chest. "I don't think so."

* * *

Eve followed a chattering pink-silk clad Daisy into the kitchen. "I asked Garrick to join us, because three for dinner seemed like an odd number. But then I started to worry that he'd think we were a couple, so I invited Buster, because he was standing right there in the general store, buying tobacco, and it seemed like a good solution. And then I turned around and there was Katherine Cassidy, and I knew she had overheard so I felt obligated to invite her, knowing she would decline. You can imagine my surprise when she accepted the invitation. Still, six is a nice number."

"Daisy," Eve said, "take a breath."

Daisy did just that, as she turned to smile at Eve. "And look at you! I adore that dress."

Eve glanced down at the simple silver-gray satin gown she wore. It was elegant, she supposed, and flattering to her figure. She had only worn it once before, on the day that should have been her wedding day. Tonight there was something new, though. A red silk petticoat, hidden under the silver-gray skirt.

"It's not nearly as fancy as yours, of course," Eve said. "Why, Buster and Garrick will be fawning over you all evening."