CHAPTER SEVEN
Two months earlier Lenore had prayed and crossed her fingers that Nettie Widderschynnes would see her way of it and give Lenore a chance to join her crew. When the airship captain returned from the Redan, she countered Lenore’s offer with one of her own. Her letter arrived in the post a week after the Pollux docked in Maldon, drafted by one of the fleet’s secretaries.
Dear Miss Kenward,
This post is addressed to you on behalf of Captain Nettie Widderschynnes of the HMA Pollux. Your request for a post aboard this airship has been reviewed and a counter consideration offered. Temporary post as cabin boy aboard the HMA Terebullum is currently available. Captain Widderschynnes will lead a training crew on a test flight of the HMA Terebellum to Gibraltar, Spain. Total flight duration is seven days to begin 12th of February, departing from Maldon Airfield. At the end of the stated flight, consideration for a more permanent post will be discussed.
She scanned the remainder of the letter, noting the deadline for a reply and immediately set to scribbling her acceptance letter. Cabin boy wasn’t quite what she’d hoped for, but it was the perfect post for someone with no experience aboard ship. Nettie could just as easily have said no and put an end to it. Lenore had no intention of questioning her good fortune. Temporary and of lowest rank it might be and on a ship not the Pollux, but she had a post.
Gaining Nettie’s short-term approval was the easy part, defying a furious Jane Kenward, a battle hard-fought and costly.
Jane read the letter, crushed the parchment in her hand and glared at Lenore over her spectacle rims. “I forbid it,” she announced in tones low and seething. High color scorched her cheekbones, and the jet beads draped over her collar juttered against each other from her rapid breathing.
“You can’t forbid it, Mama,” Lenore replied in what she hoped was a serene voice. “I’ve already posted my acceptance and received both my travel instructions and ticket. I leave for Maldon Tuesday next.”
Jane’s nostrils flared, her outrage palpable. “I am your mother,” she bit out. “I demand your respect.”
Lenore’s patience began to fray. “You have it, but this isn’t about respect. This is about survival. We must retrench.” The second wave of creditors had already cleaned out Arthur’s workshop down to the last gear and pencil.
“I’m well aware of our circumstances, Lenore. However, that doesn’t mean you abandon all propriety and expectations of your class to go sailing off with some ragged lot of Shoreditch outcasts.” Jane rose from her chair to pace before the parlor window. Her skirts swept the floors in an agitated swish. “There are many positions available for an unmarried woman of your station.”
“And they pay one-third or less the rate of an airship crewman.” Lenore had made some effort in seeking out other employment possibilities. Even were she not so eager to avoid the slow, stifling death as a paid companion or harried governess, the pay of an airship crewman offered its own attraction.
Jane retrieved her fan from one of the side tables, its many ribs snapping each time she opened and closed it. “It’s vulgar to speak of money.”
Lenore clenched her teeth and prayed for patience. “It’s even more vulgar to starve.”
“A crewman’s pay is greater because the danger is significantly greater. As a governess, the most you might suffer is a recalcitrant child or his demanding mother. I doubt either of them will shoot at you, blow you up or try and devour you.”
Lenore couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped her lips. “Have you seen some of those children? Don’t be so sure.”
Jane bent a hard glare on her. “Lenore,” she warned.
Lenore exhaled a frustrated breath. “Mama, I love you with all my heart, but I am twenty-seven years old and capable of making independent decisions. We may argue this to death, but I’m not changing my mind. Let me help you.”
The two women clashed in a silent battle of wills, before Jane turned her back and found refuge on the nearby settee. She stared out the window onto the front garden washed in fragile morning light. “Were you married, we wouldn’t have this discussion.” Her voice had lost none of its edge, but Lenore sensed she’d given ground.
She sat, facing Jane. “As I recall, you were at first against me marrying Nathaniel Gordon.”
Jane’s frosty gaze didn’t thaw. “Foolish boy tossing away his birthright as if it were scrap. I wish you had never met him.”
Lenore refused to apologize. “I’m so very glad I did,” she said softly. She rose and smoothed her skirts.
Her mother’s eyebrows rose, and she frowned. “Where are you going?”
“To visit Papa.”
“That’s the second time this week.”
And if Lenore had anything to say about it, it wouldn’t be the last. “I go for us both. You’re welcome to join me.” She knew Jane’s answer before she made the offer.
The older woman stiffened and turned away, her voice a little more hollow this time. “Not yet,” she said. “Not yet.”
Lenore clasped her shoulder briefly before rising to leave. “I will return by tea.”
“Take Constance with you,” Jane called just as Lenore curled her hand around the door knob.
Lenore raised her eyes to the ceiling. “Mama, Constance is taking deliveries today and waiting for the washer woman. She’s far too busy to play nursemaid to me. I promised her I’d stop by the markets and pick up supplies for her as well.”
A muttered “Stubborn girl” followed her into the hallway, and Lenore closed the door behind her with a relieved “whew.”
Despite the hints of sunlight breaking through the clouds, the day was brutally cold, the only blessing the lack of a wind to cut through clothing. Lenore wrapped warmly in layers of wool coat, mittens and scarves. She’d rolled on her thickest stockings and donned her heaviest petticoats in a futile bid to stay warm. Only the crowded omnibus that transported her and others from Camberwell, across London Bridge to Camden and Swain’s Lane offered some relief and a little warmth. She pitied those who rode on the open upper deck.
Most would think her mad if she admitted to the nervous anticipation that sent her stomach in a tumble once she stood outside of Highgate’s grand entrance. A visit to a cemetery usually elicited tears or in many instances, much appreciated moments of peace and reflection on a Sunday afternoon. Lenore had not lied when she told Jane she planned to visit Arthur. She simply didn’t mention the hope she dare not acknowledge out loud that she might see and speak with the Guardian.
She passed the Lebanon Circle vaults, following a narrow path to where Arthur’s grave lay undisturbed. No longer a target for body snatchers, his remains rested beneath bricks turning green with lichen. Sometime between now and her last visit, someone had placed a bench close enough to the grave so she might sit and chat with her father’s spirit in comfort. The butterflies swirled in her belly. Had the Guardian been responsible for the thoughtful gesture? Those otherworldly eyes revealed nothing of his thoughts, but he had always been courteous to her, and kind.
Lenore set the basket she carried on the bench alongside her ever-present umbrella. Constance had slid it onto her arm before she left. “A bit of lunch for you should you have need of it.” Lenore would also use the basket to bring home those items the grocer didn’t deliver to the house.
Sunlight filtered through the bare trees and thick ivy, golden and alluring with its false promise of warmth. The flowers she laid on the grave three days earlier were already a black slimy mess. She retrieved a new bouquet from the basket, scraped the dead one aside with her shoe and placed the fresh flowers in its place. Like her, they shivered in the cold.
Lenore returned to the bench and perched on the edge. Huddled deep in her coat, she listened for the footfalls of any nearby visitors. Only the silence answered. Her breath clouded before her when she spoke.
“Good morning, Papa. I have news. Nettie has not yet agreed to me joining her crew permanently, but she has allowed me to join them on a test flight. Not the Pollux mind, but a new one—the Terebellum. Do you remember her? A cargo lifter. We saw her plans four years ago. The Vickers Armament modified Sir Smithson’s design so the engines will generate more horsepower with the possibility of speed at 61 knots. They’ve installed them on the Terebellum. Nettie has been offered the chance to test-fly her before she’s formally assigned captain and crew. A short run to Gibraltar and back. No more than a week out. I’m to play cabin boy.”
Lenore didn’t mention her argument with Jane or the fact that creditors had seized everything of value from his workshop and were now eyeing the furnishings in the house. Such things were the burdens of the living, not the dead. She spoke instead of the latest scandals posted in the scandal sheets and conjectured over what the secretive Guild mages might do to strengthen the barriers at the coast.
A faint whine interrupted her one-sided conversation. Lenore went silent, listening. Another whine followed the first, and she peered into a cluster of ivy to her left. A dog, thin and quaking, emerged from the foliage, wary but no doubt drawn to the scents wafting from her basket. Its fur, dark with caked mud, did little to hide its bony hips and ribcage.
Careful not to cause a scare, or worse, have her fingers bitten for the kindness, Lenore broke off a small bit of cheese from the wedge Constance packed and tossed it to her visitor. The mongrel sniffed before wolfing down the tidbit. It didn’t come any closer, but there was no mistaking the pleading look on its canine features. Just one more bite, please.
Lenore reached further into her basket and pulled out the rest of the cheese, slices of cold, boiled ham, a bun, still warm in its wrapping and a square of moist parkin. “Poor dog,” she crooned to the pathetic creature. “When was the last time you ate?” By the look of it, a long time ago. She tossed more of the cheese along with pieces pinched from the bun. The ham and the cake soon followed until there was nothing left of Constance’s carefully packed meal.
“I’m sorry, friend,” she said in response to the expectant look it gave her, along with a timid tail wag. “You’ve eaten everything. Hopefully, that will last until your next meal.”
She blew on her fingers, frozen even in the mittens she wore. “I’ve sat too long,” she said aloud. “My blood is turning to ice chips.”
She looped her umbrella over her forearm, grabbed the empty basket and rose from the bench. The dog lingered nearby, too shy to approach but unwilling to leave this newly discovered source of food. Lenore shooed it gently away with her umbrella. “I’m sure you’d make a fine companion, but I cannot take you home with me. My mother would get one look at you, and we’d both be on the streets hoping for handouts from strangers.”
The umbrella worked as a deterrent for two seconds at most. The dog simply skittered out of the way, only to return as Lenore’s tail-wagging shadow.
She sighed. For years, she had begged her parents for a pet, specifically a dog. Jane couldn’t abide them, and in this matter, Arthur bent to her wishes. Now, when Lenore was older and far more in control of her life, the timing didn’t suit. She had no doubt that were she to leave a rescued street mongrel with her mother while she went sailing off to Spain, she’d return to find the animal had mysteriously vanished.
Woman and mutt gazed at each other for a moment before Lenore gave in. “Care for a walk among the dead?” she asked. The dog cocked its head to the side as if considering her proposal before trotting a little closer, tail snapping back and forth even faster than before.
The unlikely pair traveled an ordered path through the cemetery, pausing periodically for Lenore to read the various headstones or admire the lavish memorials sculpted in marble and granite commemorating various people wealthy or famous or both. At each pause, she glanced over her shoulder or sought the shadows that played behind penitent angels in the hopes of seeing the white-haired, black-garbed Guardian. She refused to admit her disappointment to herself when he made no appearance.
She gave a start at the sudden rise of voices and clink of metal. The dog, her silent companion, laid back its ears and retreated farther behind her. Alerted by the animal’s wary behavior, Lenore crept softly toward the sounds and peeked around a marble cross.
Two men, dressed in ragged coats and tool belts bent to their work over a small grave. Mangled wreathes of fresh flowers lay strewn in haphazard chaos, pelted by the dirt the men shoveled off the new mound.
Lenore clapped a hand over her mouth, frozen in horror . Resurrectionists! In full daylight. The realization of what they dug for made blood roil in her veins in a red fury. They were defiling a child’s grave.
One of the body snatchers spoke. “I don’t like it. We shoulda done this at night.”
The second thief flung a shovel full of mud at his compatriot. “Shut your gob and dig,” he snarled. “Daylight means the bonekeeper won’t be watchin’ for us.”
Lenore’s anger made her careless. “You vile bastards,” she said aloud before freezing in place.
Both thieves spun to face her, shovel handles gripped in dirty fingers—weapons as a last resort to be used on anyone unfortunate enough to witness their crime.
Lenore was the first of the three jolted from their mutual surprise. She opened her mouth, drew a deep breath and screamed for all she was worth. The sound, fueled by sheer terror, exploded from her lungs and carried across the cemetery with the force of an enraged banshee. Both men dropped their shovels to cover their ears, and Lenore used that moment to turn and flee.
Her basket and umbrella lay somewhere in the shrubbery where she dropped them, and she sped down the path, skirt and crinoline hiked up to her knees. A cry went up behind her, much too close.
“Catch that bleedin’ trollop before we both end up ridin’ in the Black Maria!”
Lenore’s breath roared in her ears, even as her feet flew over the ground. Even when she veered from the path to race past headstones and over wild patches of vegetation not yet killed by winter frost, the main gate remained out of reach—as far away as the moon, especially with the resurrectionists hot on her heels.
A snarl sounded behind her followed by a surprised curse. “Stupid mutt!”
Lenore’s eyes filled with tears at the canine yelp of pain. Her erstwhile companion and unexpected protector. She prayed that sound had not been a death cry.
The hard thud of booted feet grew closer along with coarse panting. She didn’t dare look back, and her lungs burned as if she drew fire into her nostrils instead of air.
Fingers touched her shoulder. Lenore screamed and wrenched away. The movement proved her undoing. Her ankle gave, and she fell toward a headstone. She twisted sideways to avoid it, her outstretched hand saving her from splitting her skull open on the unforgiving marble. She hit the ground on her back, pain exploding in both her palm and the back of her head. Black spots burst across her vision, interspersed with colors that blurred and bled together.
A triumphant cackle sounded in her ear, only to be cut short by a gurgle and a snap, as if someone had stepped on a frozen twig. Lenore tried to raise her head only to watch the blurry world turn topsy-turvy. Her stomach heaved in reaction, and she lay still as the sky carouseled madly above her.
Darkness blotted out the anemic sun only to give way to twin stars that blazed white in a black ocean. Someone spoke, and she recognized the voice. Achingly familiar. Oddly hollow.
“Lenore. I have you, my sweet.”
“Nathaniel?” That wasn’t possible. She’d hit the ground a lot harder than she thought.
Icy fingers caressed her face, soothing despite their chill. “All is well, love. You’re safe with me.”
White stars. So distant. So beautiful. Lenore smiled, even as darkness encroached into her whirling vision. “I should make a wish” she said, wondering why the words felt as thick and sticky as treacle in her mouth. “Two wishes.”
She floated above the ground, light as a feather, pressed against velvet woven from night. A steady heartbeat drummed against her ear, and Nathaniel’s voice teased her once more. “What will you wish for, my Lenore?”
Lenore nuzzled her cheek into the soft fabric. “That you come back to me so I can tell you...”The words weighed heavy on her tongue, and a high ringing filled her ears.
The soothing voice rose it above it all. “Tell me what?”
“Tell you yes instead of no.” The white stars disappeared and the voice and ringing with them until she was only the feather, and even that faded to nothing.
She awakened to the pungent scent of cheese mixed with dog breath and the lap of something wet and warm sliding across her cheek. She groaned and covered her face with her arm. “Hello, dog.” The greeting earned her a soft bark and another damp lick, this time near her ear.
Lenore lay still for several moments, resting on her side, and struggled to find her bearings. Someone had removed her bonnet. It rested in the cove of her body, one side misshapen.
The pain in her head had lessened from a tower bell’s clamor to a hand bell’s chime. Her right hand still throbbed, and she raised it for a better look. She’d lost her mitten, and the illumination from an unknown light source revealed the lacerations across her knuckles and the swelling in both her ring and smallest fingers. An experimental wiggle assured her nothing was broken.
She rested on a wooden floor, facing a dark wall of linen fold paneling gone gray with dust and years without a proper oiling. An equally forgotten fireplace interrupted the expanse of wood, the ashes in its grate long cold. Winter sunlight forced its way through the cloudy panes of a nearby window and battled for dominance against the flame of a lit oil lamp on a small table.
Except for the table and two chairs that looked in imminent danger of collapsing if someone dropped so much as a tea cozy on them, the room was bare. Stark and abandoned and colder than a crypt.
The dog pressed against her back and rested its chin on her waist. Lenore welcomed the shared warmth if not the reek of canine exhalations. “Good dog,” she murmured. “Thank you for trying to help.”
She recalled its hurt yelp, the body snatcher’s curses and her sadness that violent death had been the poor creature’s reward for its bravery. She herself might well have perished, not from a thief’s attack but from her own clumsiness. Lenore would have laughed if her head didn’t pain her so much. What a ridiculous eulogy that would be. Lenore Kenward, unfortunate spinster taken far too young by the malevolent machinations of a headstone. She did chuckle then, the sound cut short by the return of the tower bell thrum between her temples.
“Laughter is always a good sign.”
Lenore gasped at the sight of a paler shadow separating itself from the darker ones clotting the chamber’s doorway.
The Highgate Guardian stood in the entrance, holding a basin and pitcher, linen towels draped over one arm. “Don’t be frightened, Miss Kenward. You’re safe.”
“Lenore. I have you, my sweet.”
She blinked. He had called her Lenore, not Miss Kenward and sounded like her beloved Nathaniel. Good God, how hard of a knock to the head did she suffer? “I fell,” she said.
He glided across the room and set his burden on the table by the lamp. “Yes. Fortunately, your quick reflexes saved you from worse injury. Had you struck the headstone, I doubt we’d be having this conversation now. You still managed to strike a tree root when you fell, and you’ve a cut on your scalp. If you will allow me, I’ll tend to your wound.”
“Unfortunately, my clumsiness nearly got me killed in the first place.” She tried sitting up, only to pause as the room swam before her eyes. When her vision cleared, she stared into the Guardian’s porcelain features.
“Peace, Miss Kenward. Let me help you.” He bent and scooped her effortlessly into his arms.
Lenore placed her hands on his shoulders, feeling the flex of muscle as he shifted her weight. Unlike the hard black armor he wore when she first met him, he was garbed in the sober apparel of a vicar, minus the brimmed hat or white collar.
He set her gently down on one of the questionable chairs. Lenore waited a few tense moments for it to collapse under her and send her sprawling in a heap of skirts, petticoats and crinoline.
She offered the Guardian a small relieved smile when the chair held, wondering if his kind not only heard the whispers of the dead but the thoughts of the living when he told her in a wry voice “It’s sturdier than it looks.”
He seated himself across from her and waited patiently while she removed the pins from her hair. Lenore’s cheeks burned hotter with every pin she laid on the table, and the silence in the room thickened. The last time she performed this small intimacy in front of another person, she had been standing before Nathaniel in his bedroom, dressed in nothing more than a blush.
The Guardian busied himself with filling the basin with water from the pitcher and wetting one of the towels, his gaze on his task. Yet Lenore felt the weight of his scrutiny, intense and admiring.
The thought made her pause. Did Guardians feel as other men felt? Know affection and passion for another? Or had Dr. Harvel’s gruesome experiments left them so transformed that they retained only the shades of emotion?
“I have you my sweet.”
Her breath caught in her throat. Whatever horrors this Guardian had suffered under the mad doctor’s hands, he still possessed the ability to show kindness and express sympathy. And feel desire. She was certain of it, knew it right down to her bones.
With the removal of the last pin, her hair fell around her shoulders, thick and straight. She’d have a devil of a time taming it back into a neat bun, especially with her scalp hurting the way it did.
The Guardian stared at her, pale features expressionless. “Lean forward, please. I’ll tend that cut.”
Lenore did as he instructed and bent toward him so he could better see the crown of her head. She closed her eyes at the light touch of his fingers parting her hair.
The tree root she struck had left a nasty gash, and she hissed when he applied the wet towel to the wound.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I will do my best to be quick and careful.”
“I know you will,” she replied. “I trust you.” Those gentle hands rested briefly on her head before continuing their work.
To ease the silence and take her mind off her stinging scalp while she stared into her lap, Lenore asked a question. “Did you see them? The resurrectionists? I thought they were like rats and only scurried out at night.”
“They’re either growing bolder or more desperate.”
Her mind raced. Desperate for what? “I think they escaped.”
“No, they didn’t.” The gloating satisfaction in the Guardian’s voice was palpable.
Lenore recalled one of the thieves crowing triumphantly when she fell, its abrupt end followed by a brittle snap. She didn’t ask her rescuer to expound on his statement.
He took up the fallen threads of conversation. “Who is your companion?”
Lenore glanced at the dog from the corner of her eye. It held sentry duty not far from the table, tail thumping when she met its gaze. “Some poor stray. It tried to protect me when the resurrectionists gave chase.”
“Cleaned up and fed, she’d make a fine companion.”
Lenore tried to straighten and regretted the action. “Ouch!”
The Guardian’s voice held a touch of amusement. “Patience, Miss Kenward. I’m almost finished.”
“The dog’s a girl?” Not that Lenore had looked closely, but for some reason she had assumed her canine friend was male.
“It’s hard to tell, as emaciated as she is, but I believe she’s still a pup, not yet whelped a litter. If her paws are anything to judge by, she’ll be a large bitch hound. A good hunter or guard dog.”
This mysterious, deathless being possessed more layers than Lenore imagined, and similarities to someone else that made her reel. They at least explained why she was so drawn to him. “I once knew a man with a keen eye for a good dog. He would have liked this one.”
The Guardian dropped the last bloody towel into the emptied basin. His hand on her shoulder prompted her to straighten. The stoic mask he wore hadn’t altered, but something flickered across his face—a yearning. “Then I suspect he also had a keen eye for dauntless women.” He gestured toward her forehead. “I’ve cleaned the gash and washed away the blood in your hair. I don’t think you need stitches, but once you’re home, I implore you to call out a physician. Let me see your hand.”
She offered him her scraped hand, squeezing his fingers when he instructed. Her two fingers ached, but were far less painful now.
“Nothing broken or sprained,” he announced. “That hand will be good as new by tomorrow.”
Lenore reached up to touch the laceration on her scalp, halting when the Guardian shook his head. “Resist the temptation,” he said. “And you may wish to forego both hair pins and bonnet for now, improper though it may be.”
She shrugged. “I’ve often thought the rules of society to be both inconvenient and illogical at times.”
A wide smile curved his pale lips. “Why does this not surprise me?”
He stood and retrieved her cloak from where it lay on the floor. “It’s still damp, but I have no coal for a fire to dry it or warm you. Not even a kettle for tea. But I have wine if you wish to partake.”
She accepted the cloak and his offer of wine. He gathered up pitcher, basin and towels and left her alone with the dog to disappear into the dark hallway from which he emerged earlier. No longer muzzy-headed and huddled in her damp cloak, Lenore abandoned her seat to travel a circuit around the room—a parlor once, from the look of the paneled wall on one side and the remnants of faded wall paper on the other three. Grime hid much of the decorative plaster work that edged the ceiling and filled the medallion from which a chandelier or gasolier once hung. The window, cloudy with dirt, looked onto a garden choked with dead weeds and surrounded by a low stone wall in tumbled disrepair.
The Guardian returned, this time bearing two goblets and a decanter of wine the red of faceted garnets. He placed them on the table. “Enjoying the view?” he asked as he poured the wine.
Lenore joined him at the table. “This was once a lovely home. With a little repair and a lot of scrubbing, not to mention a few more sticks of furniture, it could be that way again.” She accepted the glass he passed to her. “Do you live here?”
He shrugged. “I take sanctuary in here from the elements when needed.” Again that fleeting smile that so charmed her. “And minister to injured ladies.”
There was nothing suggestive in his remark, yet Lenore felt her face heat yet again as if with fever. The Guardian’s smile melted away, and she rushed to coax it back once more. “Then you are a very busy man,” she said. “Consorting with the departed, chasing off resurrectionists, rescuing women with clumsy feet. When do you find the time to socialize?”
Her teasing worked its magic, and his smile returned. “I’m doing so now, Miss Kenward.” He raised his glass in toast. “Not a rare vintage. A home brew made by the neighboring rector’s wife. I hope you like pomegranate.”
His features turned serious again, though not from awkwardness this time. “I don’t want to compromise your reputation. I’ve left a note with the rector’s housekeeper. Both he and his wife are currently out but will return soon. Due to my position and my appearance, I can’t accompany you home, but I won’t allow you to return alone, not with that head injury. Mr. and Mrs. Morris will see you safely home.”
Lenore shook her head, prepared to protest, until the room’s axis tilted a little. She stumbled and reached for the Guardian who steadied her with a hand at her waist. A scowl darkened his pale visage. “I must agree that yours is a proper plan,” she said.
His hand, pressed against her ribs, no longer chilly but scorching. She felt the heat all the way through layers of black wool, corset and shift. Neither wine nor wound made the blood surge through her body like this or made her so exquisitely aware of each breath this man took, each subtle slide of his coat against her skirts or the way the lamplight carved out the deep hollows beneath his cheekbones and made his long fall of hair shimmer in the gloom.
His fingers tightened before sliding to spread across her back and urge her closer. A glass fell to the floor. Hers or his, she didn’t know, nor did she care. Propriety be damned. For five years, she had lived a half life, numb to all but the darkest emotions. Now, in the arms of a man no longer considered one, she came alive. A gift of Mercy or Fate, she had no intention of squandering it.
Corded muscle tightened under her touch as she slid a hand from his elbow to his shoulder. “We’ve shared conversation and now wine,” she said softly. “And you’ve played both rescuer and nurse to me, yet still I don’t know your name.”
A smear of wine darkened his lower lip like blood on an Alba rose petal.
“Colin” he replied in equally subdued tones. “Colin Whitley.”
She startled, and his hand fell away.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded. “Are you dizzy? Do you need to lie down again?”
Lenore grasped his sleeve, refusing to allow the distance between them. Colin had been Nathaniel’s middle name. She didn’t believe in trickery of mediums or claims of reincarnation, but this was uncanny. “No, I am well.” She reached for his hand and returned it to her waist. “Thanks to you.” A lock of snowy hair caressed the back of her hand. “I am in your debt, Colin Whitley. Many times over.”
Once more his fingers splayed along her ribs before sliding to her back, urging her closer. He was taller than Nathaniel had been, sinuous as an adder and seemed to coil around her as well as loom over her. “There is no debt, Lenore,” he whispered.
One hand stroked a path up her arm, leaving hot trails on her skin through the black wool of her sleeve. It lingered at the slope of her shoulder before gliding over the stiff crape edging her frock’s high collar.
She arched her neck, inviting him to climb higher and stroke the skin bared to his touch. They were pressed together from shoulder to hip, confirming for Lenore that these beings of stark light and shadow still experienced the same sensual pleasures as other men.
The hand on her back ascended her spine to bury itself gently in her hair. The one at her shoulder accepted her invitation to curve around her throat before settling under her jaw. The Guardian’s black gaze with its white-sun pupils, held her captive. He lowered his head, breaking the spell. Lenore moaned softly as the tip of his nose glided down the bridge of hers.
“Come in to the garden, Maud,” he recited in a voice guaranteed to lead Eve out of Eden. “For the black bat, night, has flown.”
Her legs buckled at the suggestive verses, and she leaned hard against him.
“Come in to the garden, Maud. I am here at the gate alone.” Cool lips, damp with wine, tickled a path along her jaw.
Her arms twined around his narrow waist so that her hands clutched the fabric covering his back and shoulder blades.
“And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad.”
She tilted her head back, the ache behind her eyes nothing compared to the stunning pleasure of his mouth tracing a path over the arch of her throat to the hollow under her chin.
“And the musk of the rose is blown.”
His tongue slid into her mouth in a kiss deep, and hot, and possessive. A groan vibrated low in his throat when Lenore returned his caress by stroking her tongue along his.
It was glorious, this passion that awakened her after years of a deathless sleep. She would love Nathaniel Gordon all her life, but Colin Whitley in her arms eased the pain of her loss and made her remember joy.
He tasted of pomegranates and smelled of cinnamon. His lips were firm, coaxing, teaching her how to kiss him back. Lenore learned quickly, instinctively understanding how the tip of her tongue sliding along the underside of his upper lip might make his knees buckle as hers did or make the hand in her hair fall lower to clutch her buttocks with kneading fingers.
If he rucked her skirts at this moment, she’d urge him on with her legs around his waist. His kiss, his touch, everything about him drew her, and she went willingly. He could take her on the dusty, unforgiving floor in the frigid parlor, and she’d cry out his name. The carnal images accompanying those thoughts made her squirm in his arms, and her hips bucked hard against the erection pressed into her skirts and crushed crinoline.
A knock at the front door dashed Lenore’s fantasies. Colin broke their kiss with a gasp. His chest rose and fell like the bellows in a forge, and silvery color dusted his cheekbones. He pressed his forehead to hers.
“I would give all of eternity for one more hour with you,” he said. A second knock. He kissed her forehead. “But today, it’s not to be.”
Still dazed by what transpired only seconds before, Lenore let him help her with her cloak. Her senses slowly returned to normal, along with an unwelcome surge of embarrassment.
Colin grasped her chin. “Don’t,” he ordered in a stern voice. “You’ll not let those society rules you so abhor sully what’s between us, Lenore.”
She nodded and tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear with a trembling hand. “What do you want me to do?”
He kissed her briefly, as if unable to help himself, and pointed to a spot by the hearth. “Lie down and pretend to sleep. I’ll tell them you were already unconscious when I found you and never awakened while I tended to you. They’ll invent some tale to explain how you ended up here.”
“You mean they’ll lie. Not very clerical-like.”
Colin smirked. “All in the service of guarding an innocent’s virtue. They’ll assure themselves Heaven will grant forgiveness for so noble a cause.”
Lenore covered her mouth to stifle her laughter and lay down by the hearth. She watched through slitted eyes as he scooped up the fallen wine glass and decanter and once more disappeared into the corridor.
Low murmurs punctuated by horrified gasps echoed through the empty house. Lenore closed her eyes as footsteps drew closer and crossed the parlor to where she lay.
A woman’s soft hand pressed against her cheek before parting her hair to check the gash on her scalp. “He did a fine job of cleaning the wound, but the poor dear is feverish. Look at her cheeks, Robert. Rosy as a Christmas stocking. We need to return her home as soon as possible.”
The rector nearly stuttered in his outrage. “Vile body snatchers. Digging up children and attacking innocent women who come to grieve their parents. Highgate should have crawled with police once someone heard this girl scream. We can’t just leave this solely to one man, no matter how exceptional he is. His role is to protect the dead; now he must also protect the living? Something more must be done!”
His wife was far more practical. “For now my dear, that something is to get this young lady home to her family.” She lightly patted Lenore’s cheek, encouraging her to wake up.
Lenore played the role of confused victim, fuzzy with her memory and relieved to see the rector and his wife. She let them help her stand and leaned a little on the rector’s arm as he escorted her out of the abandoned house; it was the old rectory according to Mrs. Morris. A slender shadow, no more substantial than smoke, lingered at the edge of a stand of overgrown shrubbery and raised a hand in farewell.
She rode home between her escorts, assuring Mrs. Morris that she was on the mend and expected a full recovery within the week. The woman’s constant pressing of her cold hand on her cheek tested Lenore’s patience, but she only smiled and thanked her for her help. These were kind, well-meaning people, and she was grateful for their care. She only wished the Guardian had not solicited their aid quite so soon.
To her credit, Jane Kenward didn’t fly into hysterics when the Morrises explained events at the cemetery. She questioned Lenore as to how she felt, summoned a physician and packed her daughter off to bed to wait. The rector and his wife stayed for tea, served by a rattled Mrs. Harp who took every spare moment to poke her head into Lenore’s room and inquire after her health.
The doctor examined her scalp, pronounced the wound well-cleaned and prescribed steps for preventing infection. He also left a bottle of dark liquid by her bedside. “For your fever,” he said. “Two drops in a cup of tepid tea, once in the morning and once before bed time.”
Suspicious of whatever snake oil lurked in the smoked glass bottle, Lenore smiled her thanks and promised herself she’d dump the contents down the privy the first chance she had.
By the time the house quieted for the night, she was both exhausted and restless. Her head ached, and her body hummed with need. She closed her eyes and touched her lips, still tingling from the memory of the Guardian’s kiss and the pale caress that had ignited the fire burning inside her.
She closed her eyes, praying for sleep. Nathaniel’s face rose before her mind’s eye, Colin’s superimposed over it. Their features melded in a strange patchwork amalgamation, two beings attempting to merge as one.
Lenore opened her eyes. Moonlight spilled through the room, unblocked by the drapes neither she nor Constance remembered to close. The silvery light illuminated her bedside table and the books she’d left there. Her heart tripped a beat at the sight of her book of verse—Nathaniel’s gift to her.
The Guardian had recited Tennyson while he kissed her.