Chapter Thirteen
THERE WERE SHRIEKS around the table, and Madame Valenskaya jumped to her feet, toppling her chair over backward. Once their eyes adjusted, there was enough light coming in from the hallway to allow them to see, and the medium’s eyes were so wide and rounded that the faint light caught the whites around the pupils, making them glint.
“I—that—” the medium gasped, clearly shaken. “It is over. I cannot do it.”
Madame Valenskaya turned and fled the room. Her daughter got up, saying “Mama!” in a distressed voice, and rushed out of the room after the medium.
The remainder of the group was silent. The noise, Olivia realized, had vanished, as had the freezing cold.
“Well,” Rafe said at last, “you folks sure know how to put on a show.”
A ripple of nervous laughter responded to his quip, and Stephen stood up and began to relight the candles.
“I don’t understand,” Lady St. Leger said, looking puzzled and distressed. “The séances were never like this before. Madame Valenskaya is obviously upset.”
“I think,” Olivia said carefully, “that Madame Valenskaya has perhaps never had this sort of thing happen until now.”
“Would these things cease if we gave the Martyrs back their treasure?” Lady St. Leger asked, frowning, and Olivia could sense the first widening cracks in Lady St. Leger’s trust in the medium. “I mean, I don’t understand how we could give it to them. Bury it at their graves? But, you know, I don’t even know where they were buried. They were killed in London, after all.”
“Don’t distress yourself, Mother,” Stephen told her. “There is no way we can give them back their treasure. And even if we could, I feel sure that they do not want it. I doubt very seriously if ghosts have much need for jewelry.”
Lady St. Leger smiled faintly at his words. “It is quite distressing. I was telling Madame Valenskaya about it this afternoon, how the treasure is passed from father to son and doesn’t belong to me at all.”
“And Stephen would never give it over just to ease his mother’s distress, would you, Stephen?” Pamela asked in a hard voice.
“Pamela!” Lady St. Leger looked shocked. “I would never think of asking Stephen to do such a thing! The treasure belongs to the St. Legers. It is a family heirloom. It doesn’t belong only to one man or one generation. It is something that the current lord keeps in trust for the generations after him.”
Pamela grimaced.
“My dear,” Lady St. Leger went on gently, “I know it always upset you that Roderick would not let you wear any of the jewelry from that box, but it truly was not his to give, you know.”
“I don’t care about the jewelry,” Pamela said, rising. “Frankly, I find all this talk terribly boring. The séances used to be rather fun, but now...” She shrugged and walked out of the room.
“She is right, you know,” Lady St. Leger said somewhat sadly. “Madame’s sittings are no longer enjoyable. They have become so frightening. I can think of no other word for it. And poor Mr. Babington...”
“Don’t worry, my lady.” Great-uncle Bellard spoke up for the first time. “I feel sure that this will all be resolved in good time.”
Lady St. Leger smiled at him. “Thank you, Lord Moreland.” She rose to her feet. “I should go talk to Belinda. I imagine she feels a trifle lonely, missing the séance tonight. But it was fortunate that she decided not to come. I fear it would have scared her badly.”
Stephen’s mother left the room, and they were back down to the four who had sat together in the study that afternoon.
“Well,” Rafe said, “I think we can safely say that Madame Valenskaya didn’t plan or execute any of that. The woman looked scared witless.”
“Yes, and she was none too eager to perform the séance, either,” Bellard noted. “I think, whatever is happening, it is entirely out of her control, and she has no idea what to do about it.”
“You know, Stephen,” Olivia said, “if you simply want to be rid of Madame Valenskaya, I think you could achieve that now rather easily. I don’t think we would have to expose her fraud to your mother. I think you could suggest that Madame Valenskaya go back to London, and she would jump at the opportunity.”
“Especially if you offered her a mite of consolation money,” Rafe added.
“Yes, you are probably right,” Stephen agreed. “But what about Babington, unconscious up there in his room? And what about all the other things that have been happening? I don’t think Madame Valenskaya’s leaving will get rid of the rest of it.”
“No. But what are we going to do about the rest of it?” Olivia asked. “How do we stop Lady Alys and the others from popping into our dreams? Or keep whatever it was tonight from banging open doors and blowing out candles? I frankly don’t have any ideas.”
“I wonder...” Great-uncle Bellard mused. “Let us just suppose, for the sake of argument, that Madame Valenskaya is a complete fraud and that the dreams, visions and so forth are real. What happened tonight at the séance seemed quite real to me—the cold, the candles going out despite the fact that there was no draft, the doors flying open. Except possibly for the doors, I can’t think of any way those things could have been rigged to happen. And this Mr. Babington’s coma, at least, is confirmed by the doctor to be real, and from what the two of you say, it did not seem to you as if he were performing when he spoke in that ominous voice. Is that correct?”
Olivia and Stephen nodded.
“What if, despite Madame Valenskaya’s lack of any real skill, somehow, in that mishmash of words she mutters or even simply in her calling on the spirits, opening up the room to them, so to speak, she actually somehow opened up a pathway to, well, to another realm, for want of anything better to call it.”
“You mean she really did awaken the spirits?” Stephen asked skeptically.
“I’m not sure. But if we can believe there were ghosts from a twelfth-century love triangle somehow locked into this house, isn’t it possible that when Madame Valenskaya conducted these séances, she provided a connection to those shades? Perhaps something used her to somehow come into the room tonight, or to pop into that Babington chap and use him to speak for him.”
“Uncle!” Olivia shivered. “Now you are really scaring me.”
“We cannot discount the fact that you felt an evil presence in this house, as well,” Stephen said. “In your room that night you dreamed about Lady Alys, when you touched the gold casket, and in the room containing the casket. You have described it as a ‘dark presence,’ an overpowering sense of evil.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean Madame Valenskaya’s sessions brought the presence out,” Olivia argued.
“That’s true,” Rafe agreed. “I think that clearly what stirred this thing up is the feeling between you two. The connection between then and now is the love that this Lady Alys and Sir John felt, obviously strong enough to make them break their vows and risk the sort of tragedy that happened. They are drawn to you two because you have the same emotion.”
Olivia blushed to her hairline, and Stephen cast a dark look at his friend. “Rafe! The devil take it! Curb your tongue.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” Rafe said with a grin, looking uncontrite. “My mama was always shocked at my lack of breeding.”
“Mr. McIntyre has a point,” Great-uncle Bellard said unexpectedly. “There is a correlation, of course, though one hopes you will not proceed to such an ill-fated conclusion.”
Her great-uncle’s words left Olivia speechless. She could not bring herself even to look at Stephen. She hoped he would not think she had told her uncle there was anything between them.
Finally Stephen broke the awkward silence, saying, “Whatever has brought this chain of events upon us, what I would like to know is—how do we end it? I personally do not relish living in a house where spirits are apt to appear at any moment.”
“It would be rather disconcerting,” Rafe agreed with a grin. “You know, I have heard lots of tales about ghosts inhabiting a place, but I’ve never heard that anyone got rid of them.”
“Thank you,” Stephen retorted sarcastically. “You are most reassuring.”
“There is the rite of exorcism,” Great-uncle Bellard suggested.
“I suppose, although I think the vicar might be rather alarmed for my sanity if I suggested it.”
“Does that apply to ghosts?” Olivia asked. “I thought it was for demons and such.”
Stephen shrugged.
“One theory I have heard is that spirits who died a violent death cannot leave the place where the deaths happened because they are seeking something,” Rafe said. “Presumably, if one could provide what they were seeking...”
“But how the devil are we to do that?” Stephen countered. “I haven’t the vaguest notion what they might be seeking. What could be put right? The siege? Their deaths? We can hardly change something that happened seven hundred years ago.”
“Perhaps it is not they who are seeking something. Perhaps it is the evil presence that Livvy sensed,” Bellard suggested. “The presence that made itself known at the séances.”
“I cannot believe we are even talking seriously about such things,” Stephen commented.
Rafe shrugged. “Better than being unprepared.”
The conversation wound down after that, and soon Olivia excused herself and went up to her room, followed quickly by her great-uncle. Stephen and Rafe continued to chat in the study, fortified by cigars and brandy, ignoring the strange events of the day to reminisce about the years they had spent together in Colorado and the characters they had known. It was a good two hours before they made their way upstairs to their beds, and the rest of the house lay in quiet slumber.
Stephen got into bed quickly, dispensing with the services of his valet, and soon fell asleep.
* * *
HE WAS OUTNUMBERED. He was well aware of that. Only the winding, narrow nature of the stairs made it possible for him to keep the others at bay. He was backing up the stairs inch by inch, and at the top of them lay nothing but his eventual death. Still, there was nothing else he could do. His only hope was to protect her. He did not allow himself to think of what would happen when his body fell lifeless, at last, and they were free to break down the heavy wooden door.
All he would think of was keeping her safe.
He could feel her behind him. He felt sure she was facing outward, the small sack of her possessions in one hand, her dagger ready in the other. She had never lacked for courage; that was much of what he loved about her. It had taken courage to love him, knowing she was risking dishonor and even death should Sir Raymond find out. It had taken even more courage to be willing to leave all that she knew, the life of relative ease and comfort that was hers as lady of the castle, but that was what she had been ready to do. They had waited only for the opportunity presented by Sir Raymond leaving the castle to visit his overlord. She had packed what little she would take, waiting for a few days to pass so that Sir Raymond would have reached his destination. They had planned to sneak out of the castle tonight, running for their lives and their freedom.
But then Surton’s men had appeared out of nowhere, and some traitor within had opened the gates to them, letting the enemy flood in. And now, instead of running to a new life, they were trapped in the castle. Doomed to die.
“Get to the room,” he ordered, not daring to turn around. He lashed out with his booted foot and connected solidly with the head of a soldier trying to climb up the open side of the stairs.
“I cannot leave you!” she cried.
“You must!” he roared, meeting the downward slash of a sword with the upward swing of his own and sending the other’s sword flying. The soldier jumped off the side of the stairs to recover his weapon, but the one right behind him took his place. “If you love me,” he told her fiercely, “you will do this for me. Get to the room and bar the door!”
“No! John! Please, do not make me leave you!”
“Alys! If you love me, go!”
* * *
STEPHEN AWAKENED, PANTING for breath, his skin damp with sweat. A nameless dread filled him.
Quickly he swung out of bed and pulled on the trousers he had recently taken off. Thrusting his feet into slippers, he grabbed his shirt and shrugged into it as he hurried out of the room. His heart pounded in his chest, and he did not stop to reason as he made his way to Olivia’s door.
The knob turned easily in his hand, and he breathed a sigh of relief that she had not locked her door. He eased it open and shut the door behind him. There was little light in the room, only the moon and starlight that crept in around the curtains, but it was enough for his dark-adjusted eyes to see his way to her bed.
Olivia lay sleeping, her dark hair tumbled across her pillow, the fringe of her lashes shadowing her cheek. Emotion tightened in his throat, and he stretched out a hand to caress her face.
Her eyes flew open, and she drew in a sharp gasp of fear. Then she saw who it was, and she relaxed, saying, “Oh. Stephen.”
She sat up, her sleepy mind working at half pace. “What is it? Is something the matter?”
“No, I—” He let out a gust of breath. “I dreamed again.”
“What? You mean, about—”
He nodded. “The same as the other time. I am on a staircase, fighting to the death, and you—I mean, Lady Alys is on the stairs behind me. There is a door at the top of the stairs, the last point of defense in the castle. I—or I guess it is he—wants her to go there and bar the door, even though he knows that ultimately it will not protect her.”
“Oh, no. How sad.” Olivia looked at his face, stark with remembered emotions. She turned, sitting a little farther back on the bed and curling her legs up under her. She patted the space beside her. “Come. Sit down. You look exhausted.”
He did as she suggested, running one hand back through his hair. “I felt what he felt. He knew he was going to die. But that wasn’t what scared him. It was what would happen to her when he did. All he wanted, all he cared about, was keeping her safe.”
“He loved her.”
“They were leaving the castle. Running away together.”
“What?” Olivia turned to look at him, surprised.
He nodded. “That is what was in my head in the dream. That she had packed her things, and they were going to leave the castle while Sir Raymond was away and run off together. Then the enemy attacked, and they were trapped. She was carrying a sack of some sort in her hand. I felt it bump into my legs once as she moved. I think... I don’t know, but for some reason I think the gold casket was inside it.”
“Perhaps that was what she was packing for,” Olivia said. “In the dream I had, when she stopped and went to the window. Perhaps she was getting ready to leave with her lover.”
“Instead they died.”
“It’s very sad. I feel so sorry for them.”
“The evil cannot be them. There is nothing in them but love.”
Stephen turned to Olivia. Her hair fell in a thick silken mantle around her shoulders, inviting the touch of his hand. Her wide, soft eyes glimmered with unshed tears. Her mouth trembled, soft and vulnerable. Desire slammed into his loins like a fist.
“I know how he felt,” Stephen said quietly. “He wanted her beyond reason, beyond all thought of duty and honor.” His eyes moved over her, dropping down to the soft, hidden promise of her body beneath her nightdress. “I know...”
“Stephen...” Her voice was a little breathless.
She felt the caress of his eyes as surely as if he had touched her. Olivia remembered the way his mouth had felt on hers, the teasing, arousing touch of his tongue on her breasts, his hands gliding over her body, heat sizzling in their wake. She wanted suddenly, desperately, to experience those things again. She wanted his hands on her breasts; she wanted to savor the taste and texture of him. Olivia had never known desire until she met Stephen, and now it was an urgent, writhing thing inside her, hammering for release.
He saw the desire in her eyes, felt it slither down through him, sending his own hunger spiraling. He wanted to lay her naked on the sheets before him, her hair fanning out around her. He thought of burying his face in her hair, of setting his hands free on her creamy skin, and passion made him tremble.
“You are so beautiful,” he murmured.
Looking into his eyes, their silvery depths darkened with desire, Olivia felt for the first time in her life that she was beautiful. With a boldness she would never have dreamed she possessed, she reached down and grasped the hem of her loose nightgown and pulled it up and over her head, dropping it onto the bed beside her. She faced him, naked, her chest rising and falling rapidly, the pulse in her throat pounding.
Stephen sucked in his breath sharply, time and reason falling away as the dark, heady wine of passion filled him. He said her name, the word falling from his lips like a prayer. His eyes moved over her, taking in her rounded milk-white breasts, centered by pink-brown nipples, her slender waist flowing down into the fullness of her hips. His mouth turned dry; his breath rasped harshly in his throat.
Her nipples hardened under his gaze, and his loins tightened at the sight. He reached out and placed his hands upon her, letting them slide slowly over her shoulders and across the line of her collarbone, feeling the exquisite contrast of the hard bone under velvet-soft skin. His fingertips glided over her chest and onto her breasts, cupping them, and he watched in sensual enjoyment as the nipples prickled and thrust forward, eagerly awaiting his touch.
Olivia lay back against the sheets, giving herself up to the pleasure of his hands. When she thought about it later, she was amazed that she had felt no embarrassment, no shame, only a rippling, shivery delight as his fingers caressed and explored her. She let out a shuddering sigh as his fingers curled around her breasts and drifted downward over the lines of her rib cage and onto the soft flesh of her stomach. His fingertips circled the indention of the navel and spread out over the wider plain of her abdomen, curving out to caress her hip and thigh, then slipping back up the insides of her legs, moving slowly toward the ever-increasing heat at the center of her. He did not quite reach the spot but slid over her thigh and onto her abdomen, gently circling, teasing both of them by moving ever nearer, then gliding away, then slipping back.
Olivia burned for him. She moved her legs restlessly, unable to ease the ache that grew between them. She reached out to him, her hands going to his chest and sliding beneath the open edges of his shirt. His eyes glittered and his breath sharpened as she moved her hands over his chest, tangling through the hair and seeking out the flat, hard masculine nipples. She caressed the little buds, delighting in the way they hardened beneath her fingertips. She squeezed and released them, damp heat flooding her as a small moan of pleasure escaped him.
He skimmed out of his shirt and flung it aside, giving her free access to his chest, and bent over her, laying a gentle, brushing kiss on the quivering flesh of her stomach. Making lazy circles with his tongue over her skin, he moved slowly, tantalizingly upward until he reached the undercurve of her breast. He kissed the soft orb, his mouth moving lazily, heatedly over her. Olivia waited, tightening all over with each movement of his lips, waiting in an agony of pleasure and impatience, everything within her focused on that one spot that he moved toward yet did not touch. She arched upward, her hands digging into the sheets beneath her, heat pulsing in her.
And then his mouth encircled her nipple, pulling it into the hot, damp cave, and Olivia groaned at the exquisite pleasure she had been so urgently waiting to feel. She moved against the sheets, sighing, as he loved her with his mouth, pulling insistently at the hardening bud, caressing and lashing it with his tongue. And then, when she thought the pleasure in her could not possibly grow greater, his hand slid down her stomach, easing at last between her legs and seeking out the damp, pulsing center of her femininity.
She jerked, letting out a muffled noise of surprise and hunger, and opened her legs to him. Where he touched was like satin fire, and she writhed beneath his hand, digging in her heels and pushing upward against his palm. She moved her hands over his back, the feel of his skin and underlying muscle exciting her even more. She wanted to feel him everywhere, to taste and touch him. Her fingers were halted by the waistband of his trousers, and she slipped beneath it, seeking more. He groaned and moved away.
She gasped at the loss, reaching out for him. Stephen quickly divested himself of the encumbrance of his trousers, shoving them down and off his legs, and then he moved back over her, settling his mouth on her other breast and working the same magic on it. Olivia slid her hands over the sharp outcroppings of his hipbones and down the sides of his hips, curving back up and caressing, then digging in with her fingertips.
Urgently he moved her legs apart, his fingers opening her, exploring the slick flesh and slipping inside. She moaned, moving against him. He caressed the fleshy nub hidden between her nether lips, and his fingers moved within her, widening and stretching her. Olivia whimpered, aching for release. Never in her life had she felt this way—wild and feverish, primitively surging with desire. She ached for him at the very center of her being, longing for a fulfillment she could only guess at. This, she knew, was what she had waited for all her life. This moment. This man. This heated, hungry urgency.
Then he moved between her legs, his hands sliding beneath her hips and lifting her. She arched, the tension in her almost unbearable, as he slid slowly, carefully into her. Pain tugged at her, but it could not breach the onslaught of pleasure as he filled her. He moved within her, slowly building the passion until it was raging inside them, screaming for release. Olivia cried out as desire burst within her, pulsating outward in wondrous waves of delight. He shuddered, and his mouth came down to cover hers, drinking in the taste of her as he rode to the violent, explosive crest of his passion.
He collapsed against her, then rolled to his side, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her with him. Olivia lay with her head resting on his chest, his arms encircling her. Stephen pressed his lips against the top of her head, and she snuggled closer. They did not speak, merely lay in silent contentment. Olivia felt bonelessly relaxed and warm, satisfied to the depths of her soul. No thought, no problem, intruded as she floated in a halcyon realm. For the moment, there was no past love haunting Stephen, no mediums and séances, no ghostly women gliding the hallways of Blackhope or intruding on one’s dreams.
There was simply lying in the arms of the man she loved.
* * *
OLIVIA AWOKE SLOWLY the next morning, drifting to consciousness by degrees, then lay for a long time, savoring the pleasant happiness that still hummed within her. A smile crept across her face as she lay there, remembering what had happened the night before—the joy, then the gentle contentment of lying in Stephen’s arms afterward. After a while they had talked a little, whispering to each other, smiling, chuckling easily. They had said little of import, but it had meant everything to her.
She had been falling in love with Stephen almost from the moment they met, she realized now. Despite all the peculiar things that had happened over the past few weeks, she had arisen every morning eager to face the day. She knew now that it had been because she would be spending the day with Stephen.
Olivia had ignored the feelings rising within her until last night, when the realization had exploded within her, the tidal wave of emotion washing over her with as much force as the physical feelings had. She loved Stephen, and she hugged the feeling to herself.
She was much less certain that he returned the feeling, but that was not a matter which she wished to explore. It was enough for the moment to know that he felt passion for her, that he wanted her with the kind of raw, elemental need he had expressed last night. She had no wish to examine whether his feeling for Pamela had been greater than what he felt for her and even less desire to wonder how much of his feeling for her was simply the holdover of passion that they had experienced in their dreams of the medieval lovers.
All she wanted at this moment was to revel in what she had.
Olivia rose at last and went to her mirror, wondering if she looked as different as she felt inside. There was, she saw, something new in her face, a sparkle in her eyes, a faint flush to her cheek, a certain softness to her features, that had not been there before. She hoped it would not be as visible to others.
Joan came in to help her dress, and Olivia relaxed a little when the woman made no comment about how Olivia looked. Olivia went to the wardrobe to choose her dress for the day and stood for a moment, contemplating them. She wondered, with some irritation, why she always dressed so plainly. When she returned to London, she thought, she would purchase new dresses, colorful things that suited her mood.
She chose the prettiest of her day dresses, and when Joan fixed her hair atop her head in an artful arrangement of curls, Olivia made no protest. She went downstairs, rather pleased with the way she looked.
She was not sure what she would do when she saw Stephen for the first time today. She was afraid that a smile might break across her face with such a glowing intensity that everyone would guess what had happened. She felt a little shy and very eager, all at once. What would he say to her? How would he act?
It was a relief to walk into the dining room and find only Stephen there. He was seated at the table, sipping a cup of tea, and he jumped up when she came into the room, a smile lighting up his face.
“Olivia!” He came around the table, and for an instant she thought he was going to take her into his arms, but then his gaze flickered over to the footman standing beside the sideboard, and he hesitated, then merely held out her chair for her.
He remained behind her chair for a moment, and his hand brushed briefly over her shoulder. He walked back around to his own chair, saying, “Would you care for some tea?”
“Yes, thank you.”
The footman was beside her chair immediately, pouring her a cup, then retreating to his post. Olivia looked across the table at Stephen, glad there was no one else here to witness her smiling at him. She could not seem to control her face. If anyone had been here, she felt sure that they would have guessed immediately what had happened.
They went to the sideboard and dished up their meal, then sat and ate, chatting as they did so about the most mundane of subjects. It scarcely mattered to either of them what they said. All they wanted was to look at each other. Olivia wondered if he would come to her bed again that night, and even as she did so, she saw a light flicker in his eyes that assured her he would. She colored and looked down at her plate, smiling to herself.
Rafe came in after a time and joined them. He seemed to notice nothing unusual and made conversation in the same easy way he had the day before, inquiring politely how Olivia had slept. Olivia had to clamp her lips shut tightly to keep a giggle from escaping, but she managed to nod and return a polite reply.
They were, apparently, the last to come down to eat, for no one else joined them. After the meal, the three of them made their way through the great hall to the formal drawing room, where the footman had said Lady St. Leger was waiting for her guests.
They were somewhat surprised to find only Lady St. Leger in the room, and she explained that though she had breakfasted with Lord Moreland and Belinda, she had not seen them since.
“Lord Moreland, I believe, wanted to see the library,” she said, and Olivia chuckled.
“Yes. I am sure that he will spend most of his time there. My great-uncle is a dreadful guest, my lady, if you wish conversation—wonderful if what you desire is solitude,” Olivia told her.
“I find Lord Moreland quite charming, my dear,” Lady St. Leger said with a smile. “He is such a knowledgeable man. There is scarcely a topic about which he cannot talk.”
“And what of Belinda?” Stephen asked.
“She is, I hope, practicing her piano. She neglected it a good deal in London, I’m afraid.”
They continued to chat in this general way until they were interrupted by the sound of hurrying feet outside in the marble-tiled hall. As one, they turned curiously toward the door.
Irina Valenskaya rushed into the room, saying, “Mama?”
She stopped and glanced around the room, which clearly did not contain her mother. She turned to Lady St. Leger and asked abruptly, “Have you seen my mother this morning?”
“Why, no,” Lady St. Leger replied, looking puzzled. “What is wrong, child?”
“My mother!” Irina exclaimed, looking distraught. “She’s gone!”