Shades of Midnight (4 page)

"Apparently it wasn't a very important day," she countered. "At least, not to you."

"Eve..."

She held up a hand. "Can we call an end to this discussion? You're not here to relive and explain away ancient history. You're here to get rid of my ghosts. That is all."

"Fine," he said, settling back in his chair. A ghostly laugh drifted down. Something, a headboard perhaps, banged against a wall. He said no more. Torturous as it was, listening to two ghosts make passionate love above their heads was preferable to continuing this conversation.

* * *

Every other night since she'd become aware of the haunting, Eve dreaded the approach of this time. Eleven forty-seven. She hated to hear Viola scream and cry... she hated to hear the woman die at her husband's hand.

But tonight she'd be glad to get it over with.

Tonight the silence that always preceded the end of the evening was heavenly, more so than usual. To be forced to sit here and look at Lucien without visible emotion while amorous antics went on above their heads had been torment. Pure torment.

A few minutes of perfect and peaceful quiet always came before the final, violent event. In that eerie silence, Eve glanced at the clock, then nodded her head to Lucien as she stood. Together, they stepped into the foyer. He very carefully placed his ectoplasm harvester at the foot of the stairs. The Thorpe Specter-o-Meter was already sitting nearby.

Right on time, Viola appeared in the hallway on the second floor. She was clearer tonight than she had been last night, and last night she'd been more distinct than she'd been the night before. She was still a pale, white transparent figure, but each night the details became a little clearer. Eve couldn't help but wonder what Lucien, who always saw and heard more than anyone else, saw when he looked at Viola.

"Fully formed manifestation," he muttered, completely in awe as Viola, hair flowing and wrapper dancing around her legs, ran down the stairs. At the foot of the stairs, she stopped, looked into the parlor, and then turned away. The red needle on Lucien's specter-o-meter jumped and twitched. The spring broke, and with a final twist the needle jumped and fell crookedly and broken to one side. Lucien hardly seemed to notice his equipment's failure as the vision that was Viola threw her head back, screamed, and crumpled to the floor.

She didn't die right away; she never did. A wounded Viola lay there, facedown, and cried. She wailed, as if her heart was as broken as her body. Her wrapper slid down her back, as if someone... her killer... her husband... removed it slowly. When the wrapper passed her waist and revealed her backside, Lucien reached out and covered Eve's eyes with one large hand.

She slapped his hand away. "Oh for God's sake," she whispered. "I've seen this before."

Viola spoke, but her words were indistinct, as if they traveled over a long distance and could not quite reach the ears of the living. She sounded as if she were pleading; she probably did just that. Pleading with a man who had made love to her and then stabbed her. Begging the man she loved to spare her life. No wonder she haunted this house.

The woman lay, naked and shimmering, on the floor. Fair hair fell over her face, around her shoulders. Her back, marred by her own blood, rose and fell as she struggled to breathe. She tried to rise but the effort was weak, as if she knew struggling was useless.

Eve's heart jumped in her chest as Viola jerked violently, as the apparition was stabbed for the second time. She cried out, and this time the word she cried was distinct enough to send chills dancing down Eve's spine.
Alistair.
The woman on the floor crumpled, and the vision that was Viola faded.

For a long moment, both Eve and Lucien were completely quiet. The violence of the encounter hung in the air. The sadness for a life taken in that way was not dimmed by the passing years. Viola had been young—twenty-four, three years younger than Eve was today—when she'd died. It wasn't right.

"How horrible," Lucien said softly.

"Yes," Eve agreed.

Lucien squatted down and retrieved his ectoplasm harvester. It was full to overflowing. He glanced at the specter-o-meter and cursed beneath his breath. And then he looked up at her. "This happens every night?"

She nodded. "Just before midnight. At first I couldn't hear anything, and Viola and Alistair weren't well formed at all. They were bits of soft light, like the ones we saw at the Warwick haunting."

Lucien nodded and looked away, and Eve immediately regretted mentioning the Warwick case. She'd fallen in love with Lucien as they'd investigated that house, and she had believed he'd fallen in love with her. Turns out she'd been nothing more to him than a passing fancy, one easily dismissed.

Viola and Alistair were gone, and they wouldn't be back until tomorrow night, about ten-fifteen. They'd be more distinct than ever, come tomorrow. Louder and more vivid as they relived that last night of their lives once again.

Lucien had already gone to comfort and cuddle his specter-o-meter with gentle hands. "Off the scale," he muttered as he sat on the floor and fiddled with his contraption. "Amazing."

"Well," she said with a relieved sigh. "That's it for this evening. I'll see you tomorrow. You can leave your equipment here, if you like."

The expression on his face was one of revulsion.

"I won't touch anything," Eve assured him.

Lucien looked up from his position on the floor. "You don't really expect me to walk to the boarding house tonight, do you? Everyone there will surely be asleep, and besides... it's a long walk and it's cold out."

"Well, you can't stay here."

"Why not?"

She rolled her eyes in exasperation. The man was half-witted! "I live here in Plummerville. This is my home, and will be for many years to come. What would the neighbors think if I allowed a man to stay overnight?"

"What neighbors?" he asked blithely. "The nearest house is a quarter of a mile away."

Eve pursed her lips. True enough. "That detail is of no importance. Besides, I have four bedrooms upstairs, but only two are actually furnished with beds. My room and... Viola and Alistair's room. There's no place for you to stay."

"Let me fix this," Lucien said, returning his attention to the damaged contraption in his lap. "And when I'm done I'll sleep on the sofa."

Eve glanced at the serpentine-backed sofa in the parlor. It was about five feet long. Lucien was six foot two. "Fine," she said. "Ruin my reputation. Brand me as an immoral woman among my neighbors. Stay here so that no decent man will ever think of courting me."

"All right," Lucien said absently, his mind already elsewhere as he fiddled cautiously with his malfunctioning contraption.

Eve stomped one foot, another gesture that went unnoticed, and then climbed the stairs, leaving Lucien to repair the damage Viola had done to his specter-o-meter. She glanced down into the foyer as she reached the top of the stairs, and the anger she'd worked so hard to put on her face faded. Inside her, all that anger melted. Dissolved.

It wasn't fair. Lucien Thorpe was a genius. He could be kind, on occasion, and though he didn't smile often, when he did the effect was dazzling. He was handsome, tall, lean, dark, and even now, when she looked at him, her heart leapt in her chest and her stomach did flips. Many people said he was odd, and in truth she couldn't argue with that accusation. But when she looked at Lucien she saw more than an oddity. She saw all of him.

He'd kissed her, more than once, and he was a very fine kisser. In those moments when they'd embraced he hadn't been odd or a genius. He had just been a man. Her man. She could imagine, too well, what it would be like to laugh and moan in the dark, with Lucien touching and kissing her.

As she stood in the upstairs hallway and looked down, her heart sank. She would never know what it felt like to be with any man in that way, because the only man she would ever love was more fascinated by the dead than he would ever be with her.

Chapter 3

Lucien awoke to the unpleasant sensation of a solid object poking at his ribs. Repeatedly. He opened one eye to see that a frowning Eve stood over him, leaning slightly forward as she nudged him almost angrily with a cane. "Wake up," she insisted.

No one should be so beautiful in the morning, he thought dreamily. Even with that frown on her face and the unflattering brown dress stark against her fine skin, Evie was most beautiful. He was tempted to tell her so, but since she was armed with a walking cane and likely to whack him across the head if he said anything she might consider improper, he kept his thoughts to himself.

"It was sunrise before I got to sleep," he said, considering that explanation enough as he closed his eye.

"Too bad," she said, poking harder. "I'm expecting a delivery from the general store this morning, and Mrs. Markham is supposed to call before noon. You can't stay here. I can't have visitors arriving to find you sleeping on the parlor floor!"

"The couch was too short," he explained.

"Lucien!"

He sat up slowly. The woman was unmerciful. Beautiful, yes, but also quite unmerciful.

"If you insist on sleeping the morning away, you can use Viola and Alistair's room," she said, her voice tight and her spine rigid.

"You're up," he said as he stood carefully and stretched stiff muscles that protested his sleeping arrangements. "Why can't I sleep in your bed?"

"No!" Horror flashed in her eyes, and spots of color rose to her pale cheeks. "It wouldn't be proper."

"When did you get so all-fired concerned about what was proper?" he asked, collecting his jacket from the sofa and his shoes from the floor.

"When I came here to make a home." She sighed. "Viola and Alistair never appear before ten-fifteen at night. They won't bother you."

"My concern is that
I
will bother
them.
Now is not the time to disrupt their home, and they're obviously most... uh... comfortable in that particular room."

Eve followed him as he headed for the stairs. "I've never seen or heard any sign of them during the day," she said, stopping at the foot of the stairs as he continued upward.

"Perhaps they won't mind, then." Lucien stopped at the top of the stairs and turned to look down at Eve. Yes, she was always beautiful, but she was even more stunning when she smiled. And she had the most wonderful laugh, real and sweet. He had missed that laugh, in the past two years. Would he ever hear it again? "Who's Mrs. Markham?"

She didn't smile, but her eyes did light up. "Justina Markham. She was a friend of Viola's. She discovered the bodies."

Lucien's eyebrows popped up. "She did? And you're just now speaking with her?"

"She's been in Alabama visiting with her daughter, and only returned two days ago. She wanted a day or two to rest before speaking to me, but she agreed to stop by this morning."

"Wake me if she has anything interesting to say."

"Of course," Eve said brightly and much too sarcastically. "I'll just ask her to wait a moment while I go wake the man who's sleeping in my house!"

"Take notes, then," he said as he turned and headed for Viola and Alistair's bedroom.

"I always do."

The bed in the chamber at the end of the hall was neatly made. No sign of the ghostly activities that had taken place here last night lingered. Lucien closed the door and looked around, searching the darkest corners for signs that he was not alone. He often saw what others did not. A flash of light, a shimmer, a disturbance in the air. Spirits who showed themselves were visible to him long before they became visible to others. It had always been that way.

All seemed quiet here. He saw nothing, and still he felt that perhaps he was not alone.

He placed his jacket over the back of a chair and his shoes on the floor. "I don't want to disturb you," he said softly. "I only wish to rest in your bed for a few hours."

Nothing. Not a sound or a speck of light that did not belong. Perhaps Eve was right and the spirits only came at night. Timely hauntings were not an unheard-of phenomenon. He removed his shirt and trousers and underthings, and threw back the coverlet. If he had remembered to pack a nightshirt, he might wish he had carried his bag up the stairs, but as he had not it mattered little. He usually slept naked, anyway.