Of Midnight Born (22 page)

Let them wonder.
Marriage was the last thing on his mind, but they didn’t need to know that. They didn’t need to know that he had fled from Serena when she showed signs of caring for him, fled with all the grace of Dickie with peas up his nose. Let them wonder; let them think he was cavorting with legions of the dead up in his castle on the hill.

God, he was drunk. A niggling instinct told him he was going to regret all this in the morning.

He rose carefully from his chair and set his drink on a small table. “I do hope I have satisfied your curiosities,” he said, giving them a formal, somewhat listing bow. “Now I am afraid I must retire for the evening. I will need to get an early start in the morning if my coachman, Nancy, is to return me to the loving arms of my ghost before nightfall. And so good night, gentlemen.”

He had made it to his bedroom and begun to undress with the ineffectual help of Dickie—standing in for the recovering Underhill—when there came a quick knock on the door, followed immediately by the appearance of Rhys.

Alex raised an eyebrow at his cousin. “I believe the ritual is for the knocker to await a response from the knocker before opening the door. Or were you longing to see me in my drawers?” he said, standing up and stepping out of his trousers.

“You’d have to pay me,” Rhys said. “It’s a sight that could frighten horses.”

Alex pretended to look down at his drawers in wonder. “I had not realized I was so impressive.”

Dickie snickered, reminding Alex he was still there. “You go on to bed,” he told the boy. “My dear cousin will make certain I am tucked safely to sleep.”

When the boy had gone, Rhys lost no time in coming to the point. “Alex, what’s happening to you? Do you have any idea how crazy you sounded in there?”

“Crazy as a bedbug,” Alex said, and sat on the edge of the bed to remove his socks. The room tilted and swayed around him, and he felt a hiccup of bile in his throat. He grimaced and swallowed it down. “Mad…as…a…hatter,” he said, pulling off his sock and letting his foot drop to the floor with a thud. He looked up at Rhys. “They say if you know you sound crazy, then you aren’t.”

“You’re not crazy, but from the sound of it you’re treading a path that may take you to the edge.”

“Ah. So she did tell you.”

“About the kiss, or whatever it was? Of course. She was pale as candle wax when she described it. I had to hold her for an hour until her shaking stopped.”

“How nice for you.”

“Damn it, Alex! Will you be serious for just a moment? This is not a joke. You are playing around with something very dangerous.”

Alex undid the cuffs and neck of his shirt and pulled it over his head, tossing the garment toward a chair. It hit the side and slid to the floor. It looked very comfortable there.

“I don’t want to tell you how to live your life—”

“Much appreciated,” Alex mumbled.

“But if I were in your shoes, I would hope that you would try to slap some sense into me. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t be concerned if I showed every sign of becoming obsessed by an affair with a ghost.”

“It’s not as if she were a monster,” Alex said.

“Like hell she’s not!”

“True, she has been known to go bump in the night, but she’s stopped that now. I’m teaching her to read.”

“Will you ask her to pour tea next?”

Alex frowned. “I don’t think she eats.”

Rhys let out a cry of frustration, throwing his hands up into the air. He took several breaths, then placed his hands on his hips and stared seriously at Alex. Alex returned the frown, trying to look attentive.

“However real she seems to you,” Rhys said, “she is still a ghost. She is
not
a living woman. I don’t know where she came from or where she’s going, and neither do you. You don’t know what she wants from you, or what she might do to get it.”

Alex widened his eyes in mock terror. “You don’t mean she’s after my virtue?”

Rhys shook his head in disgust. “Go to bed. I’d forgotten what a jackass you can be when you drink.”

“Yes, Mother.”

When Rhys had gone Alex forced himself to get up and use the water closet, then blew out the lamps on the way back to bed. He all but collapsed onto the mattress, pulling the covers up around him, too tired to crawl beneath them.

A scant two hours later he awoke, his dry tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, his bladder protesting. He rolled off the bed and went to relieve himself and get a glass of water from the nightstand, then got back into bed the proper way.

This time sleep would not come so easily. He was still half-drunk, but clearheaded enough to know that he had not been as far into his cups as he had allowed himself to pretend in the billiards room, and then later with Rhys. His cousin was right. He
was
a jackass when he drank, as if the whiskey gave him license to be the bastard he rarely was in normal life. The truth was, he had been in the mood to be obnoxious, and had needed an excuse to act on it.

He stared into the unremitting dark, absent of any presence but his own. Even in his facetious words to the other men, there had been an element of truth. He wanted Serena in his bed. He’d been fighting against that desire for three interminable weeks, and the battle had made him badtempered.

Enough of being noble. What was the point of it all, anyway? He was unhappy; she was probably unhappy; it did no one any good.

If she wanted his body, she could have it.

Serena stood in the corner bastion, practicing the moves of swordplay that her brothers had taught her.
Parry, thrust, retreat, lunge. Whack, chop off an arm. Slice, off with his head.
She held her imaginary sword before her, picturing Woding standing motionless with fright.

“But darling,” he would say. “You know I care for you. I truly needed to be gone for three weeks. I missed you the entire time, and regret going. Please, can’t we kiss and make up?”

“You’re a lying, scum-sucking, dog-licking bit of scrunge wiped from a pig’s trotters,” she said to the imaginary Woding. “Death would be too good for you. So take that!” she said, and stabbed at him, the sword piercing his thigh.

The pretend Woding slapped a hand over the wound. “Ow!” he cried. “That hurts.”

“Good! Take that!” she said again, and poked the blade between his ribs, puncturing a lung. “And that! And that!” She stabbed him full of holes, leaving small wounds dripping blood down his neat clothing.

“Ow! Ow! Ow!” Woding said, dropping to his knees and cowering, his arms crossed protectively above his head. “Please stop! Forgive me! You’re beautiful and wonderful, and I was an idiot to go away. I am not good enough for you. Please let me kiss the hem of your gown,” he said, crawling toward her.

“Kiss my shoe,” she ordered.

He did so, bending low to press his lips against the toe of her worn leather shoe.

“Now you may kiss my hem.”

He obeyed.

“Kiss my knees.”

Still kneeling, he pressed a kiss against each of her knees through the cloth.

“My hand.”

He took her hand, kissing the back of it, and then turning it over and pressing his face into her palm. One by one he undid the tight buttons that went up the side of her arm, his lips touching each new inch of skin as it was exposed.

“Damn it all,” Serena complained to herself, and pulled her hand away from the imaginary Woding. He and the sword vanished as she banished the fantasy.

“What are you looking at?” she asked Otto, who lay on the sun-warmed stones, watching her. Since the day the shadow had come after her, the Great Dane had lost his fear of her, even taking on a protective role. The slavering beast probably thought he was better than her now.
How humiliating.

Not half so humiliating, however, as being left by that bastard Woding after he’d had his hand on her most private of places, making her thrust and moan against him. Oh, God, she’d never be able to bury the shame of that. It had felt so
good
at the time. How could he have been so unaffected?

She must have done something wrong. She must have repulsed him by her reaction, or maybe she smelled bad. Whatever it was, he had been eager enough to get away the next morning.

The worst of it was, as angry as she was at him for abandoning her, she wanted him back. She wanted to feel his hand on her again, his mouth on her breasts, his lips on her neck. She wanted him to slip his finger inside her again, and bring her to that place of passion she had only guessed at having existed, too afraid to have explored her body on her own.

Damn the man.
And damn her own body and its desires. She’d think being a ghost would be some protection against such things.

She left the bastion and continued around the lower wall walkway, making the round she had made several times a day for the past three weeks. She wandered the halls of the castle; she wandered as far as she could in the tunnel; and she wandered the path in her garden. There was nothing to do but think about Woding and worry about a reappearance of le Gayne. There wasn’t even anyone left at the castle worth frightening. The only males were Ben Flury and his grandson John, and she cared too much for her garden to distress them in any way.

Otto followed her as she headed back to the garden, as he had been following her on most of her wanderings these past weeks. He was probably hoping to get a better chance at catching Beezely, the stupid hound.

The garden gate was open, Ben’s gardening tools on the path. She soon found the gardener and his grandson putting into place a stone bench near her cherry tree. She watched as they finished, and then they sat on the bench to enjoy the fruits of their labors. John looked up at the branches of the old tree, frowning.

“Shouldn’t we cut off those dead branches? They don’t look very good. The whole tree looks in sad shape. Maybe we should cut it down.”

Serena’s eyes went wide. She would strangle the boy before she’d let him touch her tree. Her heart started to race and a sweat broke out over her skin. They would not touch her tree!

“Not without Mr. Woding’s say-so,” Ben answered, stopping Serena where she had begun to move forward. “He wants to reproduce it, if he can. Which reminds me, I should be making a cutting soon. We’ll have to find a suitable sapling on which to graft it.”

“We’d better hurry,” John said, looking up at the cherry. “It doesn’t look like it’s going to survive much longer. It didn’t look this bad at the beginning of the summer, did it? I can’t remember.”

“No. But trees can surprise you. They can keep a spark of life long past when you’re certain it’s gone.”

Serena went to her tree and laid her hand against its trunk, hoping Ben’s words were true. Well over half the branches were dead, the leaves shriveled and brown where they still clung at all. She had been taking a terrible toll, what with her reading lessons and her touches exchanged with Woding. Had it been worth it?

It took only a moment to know the answer.
Yes.
Even the anger and humiliation she felt now, the lust and yearning, the distrust and confusion, it was all worth it. It made her feel alive. She would gladly trade another five centuries of merely existing for one more day of feeling that she lived. Well, make that one week of feeling that she lived. If it was all she was going to get, she wanted as much of it as possible.

Ben soon set John to work pruning one of the vines that grew against the wall. The older man knelt down beside one of the beds and started weeding and removing dead plants, a task that seemed never to end. Serena sat on the new bench and watched them, having nothing better to do. Also, she’d grown fond of Ben and his quiet ways.

A minute later a clatter of wheels and hooves in the courtyard drew her attention, and Otto’s ears suddenly perked up. He was instantly up and galloping out the gateway. Serena’s heart fluttered in her chest.

Woding. He was home.

“A, B, C, D,” Serena recited under her breath, “E, F, G.” Night had fallen, and still she had not summoned the courage to face Woding. With his ability to see her when no one
else could, it was impossible for her to spy on him, which she thought was a most lamentable circumstance.

She hadn’t greeted him upon his return because she didn’t want him to know how impatient she had been to have him back. Neither did she want him to know how angry she had been at his leaving, how hurt. Going to him for a resumption of her reading lessons was the only plausible, unembarrassing excuse to see him she could think of.

Perhaps she had waited long enough. She would not appear eager, and she would not seem to be avoiding him. She moved through the house, checked his room, then headed for his study in the tower.

She found him at his desk, papers spread before him but his eyes focused on something in the distance, unseen by any eye but his own. It was only a moment before he saw her.

“Serena!” he said, jumping up and coming around the desk toward her. “Where have you been? I was hoping to see you the moment I arrived.”

She looked at him sideways, not trusting this enthusiasm, and not certain what to make of it. Glad to see her, was he? “I was working on my letters,” she said, stepping around him and going to the desk, pretending to look at the papers there. “Did you have a good trip?”

“Good enough,” he said, coming back toward her. She saw from the corner of her eye that he was going to put his hands on her shoulders, so she stepped away to the side, and went to the window to look out at the night.

“You’re upset, aren’t you?” he asked, speaking to her back.

“Whatever do you mean?” She turned and raised an eyebrow innocently. “Upset? Of course not. You’re back, and I’m very happy.”

“No, you’re not. You’re angry as a wounded boar with me for leaving you so suddenly.”

“I do not know of what you speak,” she said haughtily. “I’m sure I barely noticed your absence.”

“How foolish of me to have been concerned!” he said, and she could not miss the irritation in his tone. “In that case, I certainly do not need to offer you any apology.” He sat down again and picked up a paper, studiously ignoring her.

The horrible man.
She stood for several long, silent minutes, waiting for him to ask her again what was wrong. He sat there, shuffling papers, glancing at her once or twice but showing no interest in her pout.

She wanted to kick him. He was supposed to force her to accept his apology, not sit idly by leaving her to ask for it herself. She wanted groveling! Agonies of regret! She wanted him to suffer.

He began to hum under his breath, a jaunty little tune that she recognized, and then he softly sang the words.

“There were three ravens sat on a tree, Down a down, hay down, hay down, There were three ravens sat on a tree, With a down.”

“Why are you singing that?” she asked sharply.

“Excuse me?” he said, looking up from his papers.

“That song.”

He hummed a few bars. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t even know the name of it. I’ve had it stuck in my head for weeks now. Why, do you recognize it?”

“Don’t sing it anymore.”

“Why not? I rather like it. I wish I knew the rest of the words. “‘There were three ravens—’” he sang.

She hurried over to him and put her hand over his mouth, her flesh becoming solid in order to silence him. “Don’t sing it, Woding,” she said threateningly.

He took her hand and pulled it down from his mouth. “Or what? You’re going to give me the cold shoulder again?”

She tried to jerk her hand out of his grip, but he tightened
his hold and then yanked her off balance, tumbling her into his lap. She grabbed for his shoulders to steady herself, and found herself exactly where she wanted to be: wrapped in his arms.

“It’s about time you found an excuse to come to me,” he said.

“It wasn’t an excuse. I loathe that song. It brings up all manner of unpleasant recollection.”

“Like what?” he asked, brushing his cheek lightly against her own, his mouth near her ear.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Tell me,” he said, and nibbled her earlobe. His hand went to the side of her rib cage, gently massaging her flesh.

“Not now.”

“I want to know what goes on in that mind of yours,” he said, and moved his hand up to cup her breast, his thumb rubbing over her nipple.

“Ah, I cannot think,” she said, her eyes going half-shut. His hand and lips felt so good, so very good. Her disgruntlement with him got shunted away, unimportant compared to continuing this pleasure. She was tired of being angry, anyway.

He slid his arm beneath her knees and stood, lifting her in his arms. She clung tightly to his neck, feeling his muscles flexing against her weight. Embarrassed by her size, she made herself less substantial to lighten the load.

“Stop that,” Woding said. “I want to feel you as a solid woman.”

She did as he bade, and he kissed her on the forehead and then released her legs, allowing her to stand, pressed up against him, her arms still around his neck. His hands went down to her buttocks, and he molded them in his palms, pulling and shaping them as he pressed his hips against hers. She opened her mouth and kissed him, playing with his lips
as he had played with hers, and pressing herself against the ridge of hardness she felt against her belly.

He parted from her and took her hand, leading her out the door and down the stairs. She followed willingly, albeit with her heart beating rapidly in her chest. She knew he was taking her to his bedroom, to repeat what he had done there before, and perhaps more. She felt the urgency in his strength as he led her, and knew that he would be asking more of her this time.

The thought frightened her, and that same fear sent ripples of excitement through her body. Each tug on her hand was a message that he wanted her, and that if she did not protest too hardily he would be having her.

They came to his room and he kicked the door shut behind them, pulling her to the edge of the bed.

“I want to see you naked,” he told her, and releasing her hand he stepped back, his eyes roving over the length of her body.

She crossed her arms, holding them tight against her chest. “You first.”

He shook his head. “You’ve seen me dozens of times. Fair is fair. It’s your turn.” He sat in the chair beside the bed and gazed at her. “Undress for me, Serena. Let me see you unadorned, as God made you.”

“’Twould be indecent!”

“I would enjoy it very much.”

She shifted from one foot to the other, trying to find a way through her conflicting emotions. It went against all habit and experience for her to willingly bare her body before the eyes of a man: the very thought was mortifying. And yet part of her wanted to do it, wanted to be wanton as a whore and flaunt her body to him, if she could be certain that his reaction would be lust and not laughter.

“It will give you pleasure?” she asked.

“Did it give you pleasure to watch me take a bath?” he asked back.

She kicked off her shoes in answer.

“Slowly, Serena,” he chided softly.

She put her hands to the clasp of her golden girdle, feeling suddenly unfamiliar with the task of undressing. How did one do such a basic thing slowly, and in a manner more erotic than mundane? “I have not undressed for a very long time,” she admitted. She had not removed her clothes in all the time that she had been a ghost. There had been no reason to, for they remained as clean as they were the day she died.

“If you forget how, I’ll be glad to help,” he said, and smiled.

She smiled back, reassured slightly that he did want to see her. She unclasped the girdle, holding one end as the chain fell from around her hips with a quiet, rippling series of clinks, then pulled the girdle through her other hand, as if playing with a snake. She felt a bit foolish, but a quick glimpse at Alex showed that he was watching every move.