Darker Still (25 page)

I awoke with a shot, a pain at my abdomen. But no wound. No blood. No carved arm.

Only worry.

The dread thought that none of this will work, that this will fail miserably and a reversal may not occur, sits in my stomach like a rock. I may never be able to see Jonathon or touch him again. I may be harmed. I might be killed.

No.

I must not leave room for fear, for the shadows of my mind will only feed on it. I demand angels on my side.

Later…

I’m just back from an afternoon at the museum.

In desperate, strange times like these, the heart must be honest—or live to regret it. Lord Jonathon Denbury is a worthy man to be passionate about, and I’d best tell him so. Words wield power. Names have power because they are words. And there are three powerful words that I needed to speak.

I entered the painting, Father thinking I’d taken to sketching yet another wing of the museum.

I was caught in Jonathon’s arms as usual, and his pallor brightened at the sight of me. His smile was delicious as he said, “What a shame, I rather liked that nightgown. Now you’re all properly dressed.”

I blushed and laughed. “At least I’m not in men’s clothes.”

He didn’t let go as he continued: “You’re lovely no matter what. Ever since I first touched you, you’re the only thing that’s made sense. It’s as if we’ve always been friends or…”

“Lovers,” I supplied. He looked wistfully at my lips. “Mrs. Northe said when someone is meant to be in your life, it feels like that.”

“You are. Meant to be in my life. Was there ever a time when you were not a part of it?”

“Well, there won’t be from now on, if you’ll have it—” I nearly blurted my words right then and there, my oath, my declaration. But instead I spoke of the task at hand. “Tonight is the night. Be ready. And if something should happen…” I took a deep breath. “Please know that I…I care for you deeply.”

I was too nervous, too embarrassed to use the word
love
, even though that’s what I’d come here to say. How could I be so bold in some ways and so cowardly in others?

I had no idea how he would react to the declaration. The words might seem like another curse—like I was trying to wield more magic over him. Though powerful words were the best ones in times like this: words meant with care, hope, and affection—the opposite of the terror that could overcome us. Just as I’d sat with my father the night prior and wrote the words “I love you” on a note card, a gesture that had seemed to touch him more greatly than I’d expected, this was the time for such honesty.

“The Devil can’t win,” he rallied, touching my cheek. “We’ve angels and saints on our side.”

“I do hope you’re right.”

“I am right. In every fairy tale, love conquers all. Why should this be any different?” And here he took hold of me and stopped my breath with: “For I do love you, Natalie Stewart…”

I gasped, hearing those desperately hoped-for words. Tears sprang to my eyes.

Our lips met in a kiss full of promise. Promise for a brilliant future…

I breathed against him, a soft sound matched by his responding sigh. We had just made the vow I needed. I withdrew and saw that his cheeks were flush with health, his blue eyes never so piercing, and his scars lessened by our love. But not gone entirely. Still visible were signs of wear and aging, and strands of silver glistened in his youthful mop of black hair.

His eyes narrowed a bit and his jaw tensed as I pulled away. “And…you? You said you
cared
, but do you—”

“Oh! Yes, of course I love you too,” I gasped, giggling, a bit silly and certainly inelegant. But we kissed again. Fervently. His hands again roamed freely over me. Heaven.

“But it’s more than loving you,” I murmured. “It’s fate.”

He touched my cheek. “You are the angel your colorful light predicted,” he mused. “I wonder if I will continue to see such fateful omens outside the painting.”

“Perhaps it might give us an idea of whom to avoid in the future.”

“I’ll be grateful if I never encounter another supernatural event as long as I live.” His expression turned worrisome. “When, Natalie, when are you going to attempt your plan?”

“Midnight. Tonight. The ghosts of dead girls will haunt me forever if we delay.”

I shuddered. I now knew enough of ghost stories to fear far more than whispers and white lace.

I glanced at the door within the room, the one that should have led to the rest of the Denbury estate in reality, but that in my dream world revealed only the dark and unpredictable emptiness of my mind. He followed my gaze.

“That door opened onto a magnificent park, onto the New York you so beautifully described. You can change what haunts you. And you’ll show me that breathtaking view.”

“Yes,” I murmured, knowing he was right. I felt that the world could be ours, any world, real or imagined, that I had the power to turn my shadows into golden fields.

Overcome with emotion, I dragged him to our private corner of safety. “Touch me,” I said. It was my turn to reverse the demand he’d asked of me from the first, the demand that had drawn me in. “Give me another taste. Anything to forget the fear.”

Jonathon accepted his mission fastidiously, unbuttoning my blouse carefully. As each button was parted, he placed a kiss upon my bare skin. He slid the shoulders of my chemise aside, his fingertips on my bare shoulders sending coursing shivers of delight between us. The rigid bones of my corset made my already heightened gasps of breath even more difficult to capture. Though he was gentleman enough to keep my corset in place, I could still feel the press of his lips through the thin fabric, his breath gracing the swell of my bosom.

We sank to the floor, his body over mine, my head lolling to the side as he devoured my neck with kisses, supported fully lest I swoon in his covetous hold. His cravat, vest, and shirt lay open by the fumbling work of my fingers seeking his skin, brushing over the fine dusting of black hair and edging toward his heart. I needed to press my lips to his bare and pounding heartbeat. When I did, he sighed. “If I had ten hearts to give, I would. You’ve worked so hard to earn them all.”

We were a tangle of limbs and fabric, patches of bare skin and mussed hair. Waking raging fires, our curious touches crossed into foreign, hidden territory. I’d never been so gloriously undone; this exploratory passion was its own new world. This wasn’t how an unmarried lady purported herself. But if I was going to try to tempt a demon, I wanted the evidence of true, loving passion on my skin. To tell the true Denbury from the false one.

It was an unspoken knowledge that we both wanted as much as we could possibly have of one another, but we both knew we could not cross boundaries. To undo all my laces would have been to undo me entirely, and I did not think it wise to leave the whole of my carnal innocence, even the entwining of loving spirits, upon a foreign, magical threshold.

“Jonathon…You know I could lie with you like this indefinitely. But my body awaits beyond, as does our plan.”

“I’ll be with you. Just like the last time when you felt my hand on your shoulder. Promise me you’ll come back before—” he said.

“I’ll try.”

He helped me to my feet, his arms around me as we shuffled toward the portal wall. “Natalie, I…” He seemed to think further words were best offered physically so he gave me such a parting kiss so as there was no question.

I was Juliet bidding Romeo good-bye as I waved, stepping to the frame as if it were that famous balcony. “What’s in a name” indeed. His name was my quest. Two star-crossed lovers from two separate worlds. I’d bring him into my world again.

Or I’d die trying.

As I tumbled back into my whole body, I slumped down on the floor. I touched my lips and still felt him there.

“Hello, dear,” came a familiar voice that made me jump. Mrs. Northe awaited me in the room, and I was surprised but glad to see her. She helped me to my feet. Tumbling from one world to the next, thankfully I had two dear souls to help me up again.

I did not tell her of kisses, vows, or sacred touches. Those were my glorious secrets. She may have guessed from my flushed cheeks, being perceptive, to say the least. But she was rightly tempered by the gravity of the situation, and I could not revel long in girlish rhapsodies.

She closed and locked the exhibition door behind her and we were all business.

We discussed the plan, how I might appear within the basement of the Metropolitan. She insisted that “her man,” a Mr. Smith—the one who had dragged me up to meet her after my foray into the Five Points—would be on hand in case of emergency, there to deal with any of the beast’s entourage, though Crenfall was conveniently out of the way. Smith would remain hidden but on hand, and she herself would not be far. This was not negotiable, she said.

And so I would be at the mercy of the fiend until Mr. Smith came to check on me as she had demanded and, should it come to it, he would retrieve me back to this world if I’d gone too long into the painting or lend his hand in a brawl. The fact that Mrs. Northe trusted a grim person like Mr. Smith with something magical was shocking. But she said she paid him well and he never raised an eyebrow. Though it was disconcerting to entrust my life to a stranger, I did feel some relief in not having to be completely alone.

“Don’t think I’m being casual about your being put into danger,” she stated. “But I shouldn’t be the one there with you. Not if the fiend can sense…people like me.”

I raised my eyebrow.

“I have clairvoyant tendencies,” she explained.

I stared at her, wondering why she hadn’t told me, though I could have guessed as much.

“My gifts are very unpredictable, Natalie, and inconsistent,” she explained. “I didn’t dare tell you of them until I had something concrete to offer. When we met, I told you I knew you were important, but instinct is not clairvoyance. We’ve had to deal with this situation one step at a time. What if the beast sniffs something on me that he doesn’t like? He may have senses we do not; I can’t know. I could inadvertently put us all in danger.”

I furrowed my brow. But wouldn’t I set off some sort of similar alarm? Why was Mrs. Northe eager to see me do this?

“Why…if you know it is dangerous, are you not stopping me?” I asked, again hating how my voice sounded so different here than it did so softly against Jonathon’s cheek. But still, I muscled on. “You look at me knowingly. What do you see? There are things you’ve not been saying. Now is the time to tell me
everything
.”

She was reticent to speak of her gifts, as I suppose all persons gifted with something the world cannot accept seem to be. But my own fate rested in her hands, in a painting, and in an unpredictable, possessed body with a penchant for murder. I deserved answers.

“Do you really want to know?” she asked. Something in her tone indicated that perhaps I shouldn’t. But curiosity is a fierce creature. “Knowledge is power. Not all knowledge is welcome. I must be very careful what I say and when. I told you to steel your mind.”

I gulped. “It is steeled. My heart too. Tell me, please.”

She cleared her throat, her face masking deeper emotion. “I’m not stopping you because your mother told me not to.”

I stared. I felt my hands start to shake. My eyes watered, as they always did when Mother was mentioned, which is why our household never, ever, spoke of her. I could do nothing but wait for Mrs. Northe to continue.

“I didn’t…seek her out, Natalie. It doesn’t work that way for me. Every medium…every
person
deals with these…situations differently, and spirits deal with each medium differently.”

I let the tears flow. I was too afraid of missing a syllable to even reach up to dry them. Mrs. Northe paused.

“Is it all right to continue?” she asked. “These are delicate matters, surely, and I never know exactly how to broach them.”

“Please,” I murmured, gesturing for her to continue.

“I awoke one night, and there was a shimmering, transparent specter at my bedside, beautiful. You look just like her. She spoke your name and told me that I was to let your destiny unfold as it would.” Mrs. Northe smiled. “She was adamant, passionate. You must get that from her.”

I smiled and more tears dropped onto my hands.

“She said that the great and the magical, the mysterious and the wondrous, and yes, the truly terrible, would be laid at your feet. And that it would be best if the world left you to it. I know. It’s a bit vague. I thought she may give me some insight into our current problem, but it seems she speaks more grandly of your future.”

“With Lord Denbury?” My untried voice was hopeful.

“She didn’t say. But you’re meant to help him. You are meant for great things. I’m sure of it, and it’s confirmed from beyond the veil by your very own. Great things may not change the world, but they will change the lives around you. I think it has begun with him.” She gestured to the painting.

“You think we’ll be all right, somehow?” I said, staring up at Jonathon’s portrait, my body flooding with heat as I thought of how he’d just touched me in his alternate world. “Do you think luck might be on our side?”