“I don’t understand.”
“Sweetwater men must marry women who can accept the talent and the compulsion that drives us to hunt, strong women who can be our partners as well as our lovers. We must choose women who can keep and protect the family secrets.”
“Well, yes, I can understand how trust would be of paramount importance in a Sweetwater marriage, given your family’s eccentricities, but that’s not my point here.”
“It goes far beyond trust,” Owen said evenly. “It is a matter of survival.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I am going to tell you the greatest Sweetwater secret of all. The men of my family can survive the hunt over time only if we succeed in finding the right women. Each of us must find the one with whom we can truly bond. If we fail to establish such a connection, we are doomed.”
“To die?” She gasped, horrified. “I can’t believe that.”
“Death is not what we fear. In the end we all die. What the men in my family risk is far worse, the slow, cold, empty doom we call nightwalking. When a Sweetwater becomes a true nightwalker he is consumed utterly by the passion for the hunt. Nothing else matters. The bloodlust is the only emotion he can feel, an absolute obsession that can never be satisfied. There is no peace, no rest, no other passion. The darkness takes over. He seeks the only escape available to him.”
“Suicide?”
“You could call it a form of suicide, perhaps.” Owen straightened away from the bed. “The Sweetwater who becomes a true nightwalker starts to take great risks. He shuts himself off from the family. He begins to hunt alone. He goes out again and again, seeking prey. Eventually he miscalculates. Some say deliberately.”
She shuddered. “That night, after you were attacked, one of your nephews said something to the effect that your family was worried because you were starting to walk the streets at night. Now I understand the concern. Are you sliding into this dangerous obsession you speak of?”
He smiled. “Not any longer. I have found you.” Methodically he began to unfasten his shirt. “Now all I have to do is convince you to marry me.”
This was the one man she could trust, she thought, the one she had been waiting for. If he said he loved her, she could believe him.
She smiled slowly. “Well, when you put it that way, I can hardly refuse.”
His hands dropped away from the unbuttoned shirt. His eyes burned with a stark hunger.
“Virginia—”
“I love you, Owen Sweetwater. You are the only man who has ever understood me, the only one who can handle my talent. I need you as much as you need me. I will love you to the end of my days and beyond, if such a thing is possible.”
He smiled his dangerous smile. “That’s how it’s supposed to work.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed. One boot hit the floor, and then the other. Virginia watched as he unbuckled the leather sheath containing the knife and placed it on the nightstand.
He stood long enough to remove his trousers, and then he came to her in a fever of passion. She shivered when he touched her, thrilling to his touch, as she always would. A great longing built deep inside her.
She felt his strong fingers move on her, stroking all the secret places. When she touched him intimately he shuddered in response. She could feel the perspiration on his sleek back.
He lowered himself on top of her and slowly, reverently joined their bodies together, generating the intimate currents of the most powerful force on the spectrum—the energy of love.
FORTY-FIVE
H
ow did you find us last night?” Mrs. Crofton asked.
They were gathered once again in the tiny parlor. The space was crowded. Virginia and Charlotte occupied the sofa. Mrs. Crofton sat on one of the dainty chairs. The four Sweetwater men ignored the spindly furniture. They lounged around the room like great cats or propped themselves gracefully against the walls and mantel.
“I discovered that a woman named Alcina Norgate was the sole beneficiary of Lady Hollister’s will,” Owen said. “But it appeared to be a dead end. So I went back to the start of the case and considered events from another angle.”
“What angle?” Nick asked.
Owen gripped the marble edge of the mantel. “It occurred to me that the killer was too sure of himself, too certain that his experiments with Ratford and Hackett were not likely to be disturbed. Later, after I did disturb them, he felt confident enough to place the curiosities on guard.”
“I understand,” Virginia said. “You wondered why he felt comfortable returning again and again to the scenes of the crimes.”
“It is not uncommon for a villain to do that,” Owen said. “But this particular killer seemed especially casual about it. There was one obvious reason why that might be true. If he owned the houses, he could make sure they remained empty as long as he wished.”
“Of course.” Enthusiasm leaped in Nick’s eyes. “He did not need to fear that a new occupant would move in.”
Owen looked at Virginia. “I paid a call on the agent who rented this house to you. It took some time, but I eventually discovered that Welch was your landlord. I also learned that he owned the two houses that had been rented by the glass-readers who were murdered.”
Tony grinned. “As my father would say, that is an example of the importance of basic detective work. No paranormal talent involved.”
“It wasn’t proof that Welch was a murderer,” Owen said. “But it did raise some interesting questions and suggested some answers.”
Virginia winced. “No wonder Mr. Welch was so helpful when I signed the contract with the Institute. He was delighted to find another glass-reader. He directed me to the agent who rented this house to me. I expect that is how the other two glass-readers came by their leased houses as well.”
“Yes.”
Charlotte looked at him, intrigued. “How did you discover Mr. Welch’s address?”
“That was not so easy,” Owen said. “The agent did not have it. He simply deposited the funds into a bank account. But I was fairly certain someone else did know where Welch lived.”
Mrs. Crofton’s brow wrinkled. “Who was that?”
Owen looked at her. “Gilmore Leybrook.”
Virginia raised her brows. “You called on Leybrook?”
Owen smiled his Sweetwater smile. “He was very helpful.”
Virginia groaned. “I doubt that. Please tell me that he is alive and in reasonably good condition.”
“Leybrook is recovering from a shock to the senses, but he is fine,” Owen said.
Virginia decided not to pursue that subject. She turned to Mrs. Crofton. “What did you learn from the Hollister housekeeper?”
“Mrs. Tapton was deep into her gin when I found her. She talked quite freely. Told me that Lady Hollister was mad but that Hollister himself was the one who terrified the staff. The only reason Mrs. Tapton stayed was out of loyalty to Lady Hollister. She had been with her since Lady Hollister was a girl in her teens. When Lady Hollister entered the mansion as a young bride, the housekeeper went with her.”
“Did the housekeeper and the rest of the staff know what was going on in the basement of the Hollister mansion?” Charlotte asked.
“No, I don’t think so,” Mrs. Crofton said. “I’m sure they sensed that something dreadful was happening inside that house, but they took the sensible approach.”
“In other words, they did not go looking for trouble,” Virginia said.
“They were paid well to look the other way,” Mrs. Crofton said. “And it is not as if the Hollister household was the only one in London that held secrets that the staff preferred not to know.”
“No,” Owen said. He caught Virginia’s eye. “Every house holds a few secrets.”
“Some secrets are decidedly more dreadful than others,” Virginia said briskly. She frowned in thought. “There is still one question that we have not answered. Who helped Lady Hollister stage the scene in the mirrored room under the mansion so that it would appear that I had murdered Hollister?”
Mrs. Crofton looked at her, surprised. “Isn’t it obvious? Who else could the lady of the house count on at such a time?”
“Of course,” Virginia said. “The housekeeper.”
FORTY-SIX
W
ell?” Virginia said. “Have you decided whether or not to make an appointment with Dr. Spinner?”
“I have decided that I won’t require Dr. Spinner’s therapy after all.” Charlotte poured tea into the pot with a serenely confident air. “As it happens, I have recently discovered another very effective cure for female hysteria.”
“Have you, indeed?”
“It is, I suspect, the same therapeutic remedy that you have begun to employ.”
Virginia smiled knowingly. “I had a feeling that might be the case when I saw you with Nick this morning. There was a certain energy in the air around you.”
“I love him, Virginia.” Charlotte carried the pot to the table and sat down. “I don’t understand it, and I certainly cannot explain it, but I realized the day I met him that deep inside I
recognized
him. It was as if I had been waiting for him to walk through the door of my shop my entire life.”
Virginia thought about the night that she had met Owen’s eyes in the mirror at the Pomeroy reading. “I know what you mean.”
“It was all very odd and confusing, I must admit. Nick says it was the same way for him, but he claims that it always happens like that for the men of the Sweetwater family when they find the right woman. He thinks it is a side effect of their talent, something to do with their ability to survive their peculiar psychical natures.”
They were seated in Charlotte’s small kitchen. Outside, the morning was sunny and warm. It felt to Virginia as if all of the shadows and darkness that had haunted her world for the past few weeks had been burned away by the fires that had been unleashed in Alcina Norgate’s mansion.
There would be more shadows and more darkness in the years ahead for both Owen and herself. It was the nature of their talents and the work that their abilities compelled them to do. It was also the nature of life. In that sense the Sweetwaters were no different from any other family, she thought. But she knew now that the bond of love that she shared with Owen would see them through the years ahead, regardless of what the future held.
She picked up the teacup that Charlotte had filled. “Perhaps it’s true what they say about love between two strong talents,” she said. “It does forge a metaphysical connection.”
“Just like in a sensation novel,” Charlotte said.
Virginia laughed. “Something tells me that no sensation novelist would approve of the heroine marrying into the Sweetwater family. That particular family does possess some unusual secrets.”
“
Bah.
Every family has secrets.”
“You’re right.” Virginia raised her cup in a small salute. “And you and I will keep those secrets.”
“Absolutely,” Charlotte said.
The bell over the door tinkled. Owen walked into the shop. Nick was with him.
“We’re in here,” Virginia called through the doorway of the back room.
Owen came to stand in the opening. He looked at the pot on the table and smiled.
“Excellent,” he said. “There’s tea.”
Nick ambled into the room, rubbing his hands in anticipation. “I am sorely in need of a cup. Are there any biscuits to go with the tea?”
“In the cupboard,” Charlotte said. “Help yourself.”
“Thank you, I’ll do that.”
Owen sat down next to Virginia. He took her hand underneath the table, gripping her fingers tightly. She felt the energy of his love enveloping her and knew that she would sense that energy for the rest of her life.
“My Aunt Ethel has given strict instructions for Nick and me to bring both of you to dinner this evening,” Owen said.
“We are to meet the rest of your family?” Charlotte asked, startled.
“Some of them.” Owen made a face. “They won’t all be there this evening, but there will more than enough, believe me.”
Nick opened a cupboard and took out a package of tea biscuits. “It will be relatively painless, I assure you,” he said. “Everyone is very excited to meet both of you. They had almost given up on Owen, and they were starting to fret about me. They will all be overjoyed to make your acquaintance.”
“No need to be concerned,” Owen said. “Talent aside, Sweetwaters are actually a very ordinary family.”
“Right,” Nick said. “Ordinary to the point of being rather dull.” He came back to the table with the biscuits and sat down. “Is there any tea left?”
Virginia and Charlotte exchanged glances, and then they looked at Owen and Nick. Both men munched on biscuits, oblivious.
“Ordinary,” Charlotte repeated.
“Dull,” Virginia said.
Owen smiled, his eyes heating.