Shades of Midnight (35 page)

He took Eve's face in his hands and kissed her, quick. "You stay behind me, no matter what. I'll get you to the door, and you run like hell while I hold him off."

Her eyes went wide. "No!"

"You made me a promise," he whispered. "I expect you to keep it." He kissed her one more time, and they headed for the door.

* * *

Since Lucien wasn't wearing a shirt for her to grasp, Eve held on to the waistband of his trousers with one hand, while the other hand carried the candle, held high and to the side. The flame cast a strangely dancing light down the stairs and, as they descended, into the foyer.

"Look," Eve said when the floor was partially lit. Muddy footprints marred the polished wood that had been spotless when Lucien had carried her to bed.

Lucien nodded. He was taking her to the front door, she knew. Before they got there, someone was going to try to stop them.

When they reached the foot of the stairs, a refined southern voice reached out of the darkened parlor. "Stop right there."

"Alistair?" Eve whispered.

"No," Lucien breathed.

They stepped toward the parlor, and Lucien took the candle from her. As he advanced, cane in one hand and candle in the other, a shadowy figure became clear. The man in the parlor held not a knife, but a gun. Lucien cursed.

"Run," he ordered.

"I can't," Eve whispered.

Lucien took another step forward, and suddenly they could see the killer's face. Gerald Porter.

Lucien placed the candle on a table near the parlor door, and forced Eve behind him, shielding her with his body as he shifted to the side so that Gerald wouldn't have a clear shot if she ran for the front door. "Go," he said. "You promised me you wouldn't take chances with your life."

She didn't want to leave him... but maybe she could get help. Her heart clenched. The nearest neighbor was a quarter of a mile away, and Gerald had a gun!

"You promised," he said again.

Tears in her eyes, Eve turned and ran. Her mind wasn't on desertion, but on getting help. Gerald had a horse, and it was probably hitched outside. If she could take his horse and go for help... She threw the front door open, and ran smack-dab into Justina Markham.

Justina had a knife.

"Lucien," Eve said softly.

"Run, dammit."

"I... can't."

Justina gave Eve a gentle shove and followed her inside. "For God's sake, Gerald, what's taking so long?" she snapped.

"What's your hurry?" Gerald asked, the voice his own once again. And then he smiled. "Getting a little anxious, my little Violet?" He asked the question in the same genteel drawl he'd used when she and Lucien had come creeping into the foyer.

Eve grabbed on to Lucien as Justina herded her into the parlor.

"Nice impersonation of Alistair you have there," Lucien said.

"How would you know?" Gerald asked, waving that gun about. "Were you even alive when he died?"

"I told you earlier tonight. He speaks to me."

"Hogwash," Gerald said. "There's no such thing as ghosts."

"It's a small man who only believes in what he can see," Lucien said softly. "Alistair and Viola are here now, in this very room."

Eve saw nothing, but then she didn't have Lucien's gift. "Are they really here?" she whispered.

Lucien nodded, once. "So, why did you do it?" he asked calmly. "Her I understand," he said, nodding toward Justina. "She's a bitter, jealous woman who would stop at nothing to get..."

An enraged Justina came toward Lucien with the knife. She touched his throat with the blade. "You'd better watch your mouth, fortune-teller."

"I'm not a fortune-teller!" he insisted, and then he returned his attention to Gerald.

Justina's knife dropped slowly. Eve suspected the woman didn't want to bloody her own hands. She was perfectly satisfied to allow Gerald to do her dirty work, once again.

"Why?" Lucien asked.

Gerald shrugged. "She paid me. I do all sorts of odd jobs. Yard work, deliveries, carpentry... anything at all."

Lucien shook his head in wonder. "You learned how to imitate Alistair's voice just so you could make Viola believe her husband killed her? That's... mad."

"No," Gerald said with a half smile. "I already knew how to do that. Miss Justina, she always liked it when I pretended to be Mr. Alistair. She liked it when I touched her and called her my little Violet. That's what she told me to call her when we were together, my little Violet."

"She paid you for that, too?" Lucien asked.

"In the beginning. These days I'll do it for free. Sometimes." Gerald's face softened. "She closes her eyes real tight and calls out another man's name, but I don't mind too much."

Justina appeared to be quite calm, even with this sordid secret made known.

"You didn't have to kill them," Eve said. "Just because he loved her and not you? It doesn't make sense."

Justina laid cold eyes on Eve. "He was going to tell her that I'd tried to seduce him. He felt that he had to confess everything, even though nothing really happened." She laughed. "A kiss. A wandering hand. And then he got an attack of conscience and sent me on my way. He said he'd have to tell Viola that her dearest friend was no friend at all." She shook her head. "My reputation would have been ruined."

Eve shook her head. "Why did you make her believe it was Alistair who killed her?"

"It was the only way I could think of to make her know what real pain was like," Justina said. "Viola never knew pain, before her death. It isn't right that some people know nothing but pain while others know none."

She turned to Gerald. "Kill them. Better make it look like a murder-suicide again." She smiled. "Coming on the anniversary and all, it should make a nice ghost story for future generations."

Gerald reached out and snagged something he'd placed on the chair at his side. It wafted delicately as he whipped it around and held it out. "Why don't you put this on, Miss Abernathy? I think you'd look right purty in it."

"Viola's wrapper," Eve whispered.

"Yeah. I hate to part with the keepsake, but since you've stirred up the town with talk of murder, I guess we'd better be rid of it." He shook his head. "What a shame. Miss Justina, she does like to put it on, now and then." He grinned. "Just so I can take it off of her."

Even from this distance, Lucien could see the stains. Viola's blood and mud from Gerald's hands. The wrapper had been washed and mended, but some stains never washed away.

"Come on," Gerald said, shaking the wrapper at Eve. "Take this thing and put it on."

"No," Eve whispered.

"We'll put it on her after she's dead," Justina said tightly. "Just get this over with!"

Gerald took aim, and tried to wave Lucien out of the way. Apparently Eve was to be the first target. Murder and suicide. She would be shot from a distance. Lucien's wound would have to be close enough to be judged self-inflicted. Or would he end up with a knife in his heart?

"No," Lucien said softly, and then he lunged. The walking stick swung up and out, knocking the knife from Justina's hand. She cried out as her wrist cracked.

Gerald squeezed the trigger, but something... someone... forced his hand up so the shot went off harmlessly. "What the hell..." he muttered as he regained control of the gun and took aim at Eve once again. An invisible force again shifted the weapon aside.

And then the force was not invisible. Alistair took shape and form, and so did Viola. They bracketed Gerald on either side, as Lucien picked up the heaviest object within his reach and swung it at Gerald's head.

Gerald went down with a thud, and the gun skidded away from his fallen hand.

Justina was silent and still, as she stared at the ghosts who now moved toward her. She grasped her wounded wrist delicately. Her face went white, her eyelids fluttered. The ghosts stood over her, hands clasped, eyes clear and smiling, and Viola leaned toward the woman who had once been her dearest friend. "No more secrets, now. Nothing to hide." Viola's hand reached out, as if to touch Justina's cheek. "We forgive you." Before that ghostly hand came in contact with a very real, very pale cheek, Viola and Alistair faded away.

"They're gone," Lucien said. "For good, this time."

Eve watched as Justina Markham's eyelids fluttered once again and she fainted dead away.

* * *

Lucien sat on the parlor floor with the badly damaged specter-o-meter in front of him. The sheriff had taken Gerald and Justina away, and there would be no problem with evidence, even after all this time. Gerald, still shaken by the appearance of the ghosts, had eagerly confessed.

Eve walked into the room and sat on the floor beside him. He smiled at her, and she smiled back.

"You hit Gerald over the head with your specter-o-meter," Eve said as she touched the dented device.

"I know. He was going to shoot you, Evie. A stick as a weapon simply would not suffice."

She caressed his cheek. "You didn't even think twice."

"I can fix this contraption. And if I can't, then I can build another one." He touched her as she touched him. "You, on the other hand, are irreplaceable."

She rested her head on his arm. "People are so blind, sometimes."

He mumbled an assent as he fiddled with the needle on the damaged specter-o-meter.

"Justina was jealous of Viola, thinking the woman didn't know pain, when Viola knew more pain than any woman I've ever known."

"She hid her pain well, even from Alistair."

Evie brushed her cheek against his arm. "Lucien?"

She sounded so tentative, he set the specter-o-meter aside so he could wrap his arm around her. "What is it, love?"

"You were right. Honesty is best, even when the truth is ugly. I will never lie to you."

"Of course you won't."

She snuggled against him, a little closer. "Do you think they're content now? Alistair and Viola. Do you think they're happy?"

Two very imperfect people who had fallen truly in love. All the secrets were gone, unimportant. Trivial, even. "I know they are," he said confidently.

Knowing that, Evie relaxed. He felt it, down the length of her body. "So, should we keep this house or should I sell it back to Hunt?"

"We will need someplace to stay, when we're not on the road."

"True," she said. "And at least this place has been cleared of ghosts, so we won't have
that
worry."

Lucien cleared his throat and looked to the corner, where a pale light danced. "Not cleared, exactly," he said.

Eve sighed. "Who is it?"

"A soldier who fought for the Confederacy in the War Between the States," he said, wrinkling his nose. "He won't talk to me because he doesn't like me. Seems even though the war's been over twenty years, I'm still a damn Yankee."

"Darling," she said, deepening her own southern drawl, "you will always be a damn Yankee. Is he dangerous?"

"No."

"What does he need to move on?"

"I don't know," Lucien said, shoving the broken contraption aside and taking Eve into his arms properly. "But I'll find out."

"After the wedding," Eve said as she placed her lips against his.

"Of course."

"And you'll be on time," she added with a smile.

"I'll arrive at the church early," he said. "Just to be safe." He nuzzled her neck. "Evie?"

"Yes, darling?"

He held her close, tight, gentle. Never before had he ever felt as if he belonged in this world more than he did the next one. "You want a home. Something... normal. I swear, until I loved you I didn't even know what home meant. It was a room here, a hotel there, but now I know better."

"Does this place feel like home to you?" she whispered.

"You're my home, Evie. Wherever you are, that's home. You're mine to love, to protect, and we will share everything good and everything not so good that life brings us."

"That sounds wonderful."

He kissed her properly, and when the kiss was finished—for the moment—he rested his forehead against hers.

"Evie?"

"Yes, darling?" she asked breathlessly and with a heart-wrenching smile.

"Do I now have the right to be proprietary?"

"We're engaged. I love you. I suppose you do."

"And you have just promised me the same honesty I have always offered you."

"Of course, darling."

"Good." Lucien smiled. "Where's O'Hara?"

The End