Shades of Midnight (37 page)

"That's really..." Not necessary? A frightening concept? At twenty-seven, Eve hardly needed instruction on marital relations. "Very sweet, but..."

"It's my duty," Constance said, patting Eve on the arm. "You mustn't be afraid, dear."

"I'm not..."

Constance spun around. "Harold, I'm quite exhausted from the day's travel. I'm off to bed. We have so much to do tomorrow!"

Eve watched her aunt and cousins climb the stairs and head for their bedrooms. Her heart was heavy, and she missed Lucien already!

Blast him, he'd been right all along. They should've eloped two months ago.

* * *

On his walk to town, Lucien stopped in front of the Cassidy house. He didn't knock on the door, not at this late hour, but he did stand there on the roadway and study the place for a few minutes. It was a pleasant little one-story house, not as nice as Eve's cottage, perhaps, but cozy and well kept. Katherine took good care of the home her husband had left to her upon his death.

He'd thought ridding the house of Katherine's late husband's ghost would be simple work, but it had not been easy at all. Jerome Cassidy was hanging on with every mean-spirited bit of his measly soul.

The widow Katherine Cassidy was a member of the Plummerville Ghost Society, a secret club of six people interested in the study of the psychical world. He and Evie were among those six. The others were... well, they had no supernatural gifts, that he had been able to discern, but they were all accepting of his own abilities. That in itself was amazing, to him, after a lifetime of being treated as an oddity, or worse. He suspected they accepted him because of their affection for Eve. She loved him, and so they welcomed him into their midst.

He wished Hugh and Lionel, friends and fellow researchers, were arriving sooner. They would be here late in the afternoon on the day before the wedding, according to Hugh's last telegram. Friday. Almost two days from now. Perhaps if they could be persuaded to stay a while after the wedding, they could assist in Lucien's attempts to send Jerome Cassidy on.

It was too cold to stand still for long, so Lucien resumed his trek to town. He would much rather be taking Eve to bed, right now, than walking to a dreary room where he would have to pretend that they weren't already man and wife in every way except legally. But Eve's reputation was important to her, and therefore important to him. She cared about what her aunt and uncle saw and heard. She wanted this one part of their lives, their wedding, to be as normal as possible.

He wanted to give her that, since the rest of their lives would likely be anything but normal.

"Look!" a familiar voice called from the darkness. "It's our happy groom!"

Lucien turned as Garrick Hunt, president of the Plummerville Ghost Society, and Buster Towry, a young man who worked a nearby farm and also a member of their secret association, stepped from the shadows. Garrick was well on his way to being drunk, as usual, and Buster was doing his best to keep Garrick out of trouble. Lucien didn't think the two had been friends before the formation of the Plummerville Ghost Society, but these days the son of the richest man in town and the pleasant farmer were often seen together.

"A drink!" Garrick offered his flask as he and Buster joined Lucien on the roadway. "A toast to the upcoming wedding!"

"No, thank you," Lucien said.

Garrick drew the ever-present flask in close to his chest. "You're a bit of a stick-in-the-mud, Lucien. Have I ever told you that?"

"Several times." Lucien resumed his walk, and the two men bracketed him so that they sauntered along the roadway side by side.

"I have an idea," Garrick said. He wasn't yet drunk, but he was certainly on his way. "We haven't done much, as an organization, and as president I feel it's my duty to make sure that things move along for our little group."

"Move along in what way?" Lucien asked suspiciously.

"We really should do something besides meet for pie now and then. Old ladies could do what we've done so far."

"Well, we did try to get rid of Katherine's husband," Buster said defensively.

"A dismal failure," Garrick said darkly. "Besides, Katherine's house is right here in town, on this very street. How tediously ordinary. I think we should have ourselves a grand adventure."

"Adventure?" Buster asked suspiciously.

"We'll discuss it at the next meeting," Lucien said, in hopes that by that time Garrick would have forgotten his whiskey-induced idea.

"Yes, we'll tell the ladies all about it then," Garrick said with a wave of his hand. "But don't you want to know what site I've chosen for our escapade?"

"You've already chosen a place?"

Garrick nodded. "The Honeycutt Hotel," he said proudly.

"Never heard of it," Lucien said.

"Oh, I had forgotten about that place," Buster said.

It was the peculiar tone of Buster's voice that grabbed Lucien's attention. "What's so special about the Honeycutt Hotel?" he asked.

Garrick grinned widely. "It used to be some kind of resort. Rich people from Atlanta and Savannah used to go there to spend a week or two soaking in the waters from a nearby underground spring that supposedly had some sort of healing power. It was an impressive business, for a while, and then six years ago the doors to the exclusive Honeycutt Hotel were closed."

Garrick tried to make his voice sound ominous, but so far, Lucien was not impressed. "Hotels, even fancy spas, do go out of business on occasion."

"Not like this one," Garrick said gleefully. "Apparently there was a ghastly murder at the Honeycutt Hotel, and in the ensuing investigation it was revealed that over the years a number of guests had checked into the hotel and never left. They simply..." Garrick paused for effect before whispering, "disappeared."

"And no one knew about these disappearances?" Lucien asked skeptically.

"Oh, the hotel owner, one Marshall Honeycutt, knew very well. He and his staff had gone to some trouble to cover up the disappearances. And then one day..." Garrick gave a dramatic wave of the hand that clasped his flask. "He vanished, too."

It was nice to have something to think about besides the upcoming wedding and how he'd be sleeping alone for the next three nights. "That might be interesting. Where is it, exactly?"

"North and west of here," Buster said. "Not too far off the road to Atlanta. Less than a day's trip, I reckon."

"Just a few hours away," Garrick added.

"I would want to check it out first," Lucien said thoughtfully. "I wouldn't want to drag the ladies into a house I hadn't yet explored."

"In the spring, perhaps," Garrick suggested. "You can examine the hotel and make sure it's safe for the ladies, and then we'll all go spend the weekend there."

"Spend the night in a haunted hotel?" Buster asked, obviously worried about the possibilities. "I can't. Spring is a busy time for me. The rest of you will just have to go on without..."

"Nonsense!" Garrick said, clapping his friend on the back. "If necessary we will hire someone to take on the farm chores until we return. You are one of us, Buster. You must join us." He offered Lucien the flask again. "Are you sure you don't want a drink?"

"Positive."

Garrick pulled the flask close to his chest. "So, after the wedding, you can check out the hotel to make sure everything is acceptable, and then the six of us will have ourselves an adventure."

"How far away did you say this hotel was?"

"A few hours," Garrick said.

A few hours. He had two and a half days to kill before the wedding. Two and a half long, boring, Eve-less days. He had a feeling Aunt Constance would do her best to keep him and Evie as far apart as possible.

His ectoplasm harvester and Thorpe Specter-o-Meter were both stored in a closet in one of Eve's empty bedrooms. She hadn't wanted her family to see the devices and ask questions she didn't care to answer. Still, he didn't have to carry those devices with him for the initial visit. If the hotel was active, he could take them on the next trip. Besides, he'd travel quicker without those heavy pieces of machinery.

Just what he needed. A way to pass the next two days and an excuse to stay far, far away from Aunt Constance and Uncle Harold.

* * *

Eve lay in the center of her big bed, Penelope on one side, Millicent on the other. They should all be asleep by now, but only Penelope was sleeping. She snored gently.

Eve stared at the ceiling and wished for sleep to come. She wished for happy dreams of Lucien. Most of all, she wished he were here.

"He's very handsome," Millicent whispered.

"Yes, he is," Eve replied.

"I don't really think Daddy would kill him."

Small comfort. "I'm sure he wouldn't." Of course, there would be no need. Lucien would be at the church this time. He would arrive promptly, not three days late.

"But Mama..." Millicent drawled, a touch of unexpected humor in her voice. "She's likely to do just about anything."

Millicent was fully grown and very pretty. Not only that, she had a decided femininity about her that most men found attractive. She knew what to wear, how to style her hair, what to say in any social circumstance. Those were attributes Eve had never possessed.

Eve wondered if Millicent had had that woman-to-woman chat with her mother. She thought not.

"Do you have a beau?" Eve asked, keeping her voice low so as not to disturb Penelope.

Millicent sighed. "A few. No one special, I'm afraid. There's certainly no one who would stand before my family and tell them that I'm so wonderful I could have any man in the world that I wanted. You're so lucky, Eve."

"I am," Eve whispered.

"Lucien is so... so handsome and smart, and he adores you!"

How do you tell a young woman who has never been in love that while all those things were nice, they weren't a reason to promise yourself to a man for the rest of your life?

"We belong together," Eve whispered. "I know it more strongly and certainly than I have ever known anything." She had never spoken to anyone about her feelings for Lucien. Her friend Daisy knew she loved Lucien to distraction, as did all her friends. But she had never actually told anyone out loud how she felt. "Sometimes I feel like he's inside me, all the time. Like he lives in my heart and in my bones, and without him... without him I would be nothing."

Millicent sighed. "I hope one day I love someone that much. But..." her head popped up. "Is it painful? To love someone so deeply, does it hurt?"

"Sometimes," Eve whispered.

But there would be no pain in the next few days, as she planned for her wedding. Her family and friends were either here in Plummerville or on their way. Her dress, surely the most beautiful wedding gown ever created, was almost finished. Laverne wanted to sew on a few more seed pearls, around the scooped neckline. Miss Gertrude, Lucien's landlady and the best cook in town, was going to bake a tasty and lavishly decorated cake to be shared with friends and family after the ceremony.

Most important, Lucien was here. If she needed to see him all she had to do was take the walk to town.

It didn't matter what Aunt Constance said about the days ahead being too busy for Eve to see her groom. If she needed to see Lucien, he would be there for her.

And since he was
here,
Lucien wasn't likely to get distracted by an intriguing ghost that would make him forget what day it was. He would always be close by, in the days to come, near enough to see and speak to at a moment's notice. She wouldn't have to worry about where he was. She wouldn't have to worry about him missing a train, oversleeping, forgetting where he was or where she was or when the wedding was to take place.

Millicent sighed and rolled over, very soon beginning to breathe in a deep and even way that told Eve she was asleep. It wasn't long before Eve relaxed and drifted toward sleep herself. She had nothing to worry about. All was well, in her world. Three days from now the wedding would be over and she and Lucien would be husband and wife at last.

Shades of Winter

by

Linda Fallon

~

Available in Fall, 2012