Burning Lamp (7 page)

“You are offended?” he asked softly.

“Certainly, given that your dreamprints indicate that you suffer from nightmares,” she said. “What woman would want to feature in a man’s darkest, most unpleasant visions?”

He blinked. She knew she had surprised him. And then he started to smile. It was a slow, faint twist of his mouth but she sensed that the flash of amusement was genuine.

“Do you know, Mrs. Pyne, I think that we are going to get on very well together, in spite of the difference in our occupations and personal views.”

It was all too easy to believe that Griffin Winters was the direct descendant of a dangerous alchemist. Adelaide told herself that her intense fascination with him was natural under the circumstances. He was not only a man of strong talent, he was also powerful in other ways as well. After all, he ruled a large portion of London’s criminal underworld. But none of those facts explained the sparkling exhilaration she experienced in his presence.

He was not a handsome man but he was certainly the most compelling male she had ever encountered. His eyes were darkly brilliant and gem-green in color. His near-black hair was cut short in the current fashion. Sharply etched cheekbones, a high, intelligent forehead, an aquiline nose and an unforgiving jaw came together in a way that suited the aura of power that he wore so naturally.

There was something else about him as well: a sense of isolation, an abiding aloneness. Griffin Winters was a man who harbored secrets and kept them close.

She could well imagine him at work in a secret laboratory, stoking the fires of an alchemical furnace in search of arcane knowledge. Passion burned deep inside him but she sensed that it was securely locked behind an iron door. Griffin Winters would never allow that side of his nature to govern his actions. An oddly wistful sensation fluttered through her.

Don’t be an idiot, she thought. The man is a crime lord, for heaven’s sake, not a lost dog in search of a warm hearth and a kindly hand.

“At least I now know why I felt obliged to hang on to the lamp all these years,” she said. “It appears that I was waiting for the rightful owner to claim it.”

“Don’t tell me that you believe in destiny, Mrs. Pyne?”

“No. But I have a great deal of respect for my own intuition. It told me that I ought to keep the lamp safe.” She turned to walk away down the gallery. “My carriage is waiting in the street. My house is in Lexford Square. Number Five. I will meet you there. You shall have your lamp, Mr. Winters.”

“And the woman who can work it?” he asked softly behind her.

“That remains to be negotiated.”

 

 

HE ARRIVED in an anonymous black carriage that carried no markings or other identifying features.
One would hardly expect a man in his profession to go about in a vehicle inscribed with his initials or a family crest
, Adelaide thought, amused.

She watched from the drawing room window as Griffin opened the door of the cab and got out. He paused a moment, giving the square with its small park and respectable town houses an assessing glance.

She knew what he was doing. During her years in the American West she had seen others—lawmen, professional gamblers, gunfighters and outlaws—conduct the same quick analysis of their surroundings.

Griffin Winters no doubt possessed any number of enemies and rivals, she thought. She wondered what it was like living with the constant threat of violence. But he had chosen the path, she reminded herself.

Griffin went up the steps of Number Five and knocked once.

Mrs. Trevelyan’s footsteps sounded in the hall. The housekeeper, excited by the unusual prospect of greeting a visitor to the household, was hurrying.

The door opened. Adelaide heard Griffin enter the front hall. A strange excitement fluttered through her in response to his presence in her home. She got the uneasy feeling that for the rest of her life she would know whenever he was in the vicinity. And, more disconcertingly, when he was not nearby. It was as if during that brief meeting in the museum she had somehow become attuned to him.

“My name is Winters,” he said. “I believe I am expected.”

“Yes, sir,” Mrs. Trevelyan said. Her voice bubbled with enthusiasm and curiosity. “This way please, sir. Mrs. Pyne is in the drawing room. I’ll bring in the tea tray.”

Adelaide stepped quickly out into the hall. “No need for tea, Mrs. Trevelyan. Mr. Winters won’t be staying long. He is here to collect an item that belongs to him, that’s all. It’s in the attic. I’ll show him the way.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Mrs. Trevelyan’s face fell, but she rallied swiftly. “It’s very dusty up in the attic. I’m sure you’ll both be wanting tea after you come back down.”

“I don’t think so,” Adelaide said firmly. “Mr. Winters is a busy man. He’ll wish to be on his way as soon as possible and as I have plans to go to the theater tonight, I don’t have a great deal of time to spare, either.” She looked at Griffin. “If you’ll follow me, Mr. Winters, I’ll show you to the attic.”

She gripped the key ring tightly, whisked up her skirts and moved quickly toward the staircase. Griffin followed.

“Your housekeeper appears very eager to serve tea to your guests,” he remarked halfway up the stairs.

“I suspect that she gets quite bored with only me and the daily maid for company.”

“Yours is a small household, I take it?”

She reached the first landing and started up the next flight. “I live alone except for Mrs. Trevelyan.”

“You must find it difficult without your husband. My condolences on your loss.”

“Thank you. It has been several years now.”

“Yet you still wear mourning.”

“Sentiment aside, I find the veil useful, as I’m sure you noticed today at the museum.”

“Yes,” he said. “I can certainly understand the need for secrecy, given your hobby.”

She ignored that. “As for the lack of visitors in this house that is due to the fact that I have only recently returned from America. I do not know many people here and I have no family.”

“If you no longer have any connections to England why did you return?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. She had been asking herself the very same question for weeks. “All I can tell you is that it seemed like the right time to come back.”

She rounded another landing and climbed faster.

She set such a brisk pace on the last flight of stairs that by the time she reached the attic she was panting a little. Griffin, however, did not appear to be the least bit winded. In fact, it was obvious that he was in excellent physical condition.

It occurred to her that she had seen any number of gentlemen in various stages of undress in recent weeks, thanks to her new pastime, but very few had been endowed with the sort of manly physiques that made a lady want to look twice. She knew, however, that if she were ever to come upon a nude Griffin Winters she would not be able to resist a peek. Make that a thoroughly detailed scrutiny, she thought.

It was little wonder that Griffin was not breathless like her. He was not, after all, wearing several pounds of clothing. She had long ago eschewed the stiff bone corset and some of the multiple layers of undergarments that were currently fashionable. There was, however, no avoiding the great weight of the many yards of heavy fabric necessary to create a stylish gown, to say nothing of the petticoats required to support it. Her men’s clothing was infinitely more comfortable and far less exhausting to wear.

“You were right,” Griffin said. His voice was very soft. “I haven’t seen the lamp since I was sixteen but the energy is unmistakable. I can feel the currents even out here in the hall.”

She, too, was aware of the tendrils of dark energy leaking out from under the door. The dreamlight was so powerful that she could perceive it without raising her talent. But she was familiar with the lamp’s currents, she reminded herself. She had been living with them since her fifteenth year. For Griffin, however, the power of the lamp likely came as something of a shock to the senses.

“Did you think I lied to you?” she asked. There was no logical reason why she should have been offended by his lack of trust. When had she come to care for the opinion of a crime lord?

“No, Mrs. Pyne,” he said, studying the locked door. “I did not doubt that you believed you were telling the truth. But I had to allow for the possibility that you were mistaken.”

“I understand.” She gentled her tone. “You did not want to have your hopes raised only to see them dashed.”

He looked at her, brows slightly elevated, as though he found her sympathy charmingly naive.

“Something like that,” he agreed politely.

She cleared her throat. “I did warn you, it is not the sort of thing one keeps next to the bed,” she said.

“As I recall, you mentioned that it was not the sort of ornament one kept on the
maNtel
,” Griffin said neutrally.

She felt herself turn very warm and knew that her cheeks were probably quite pink. She could not believe that he was making her blush. But to give Winters his due, he gallantly pretended the word
bed
was not now hanging between them like a razor-sharp sword.

She inserted the key into the lock and opened the door, revealing the heavily shadowed interior of the attic. The low-ceilinged room was crowded with the usual flotsam and jetsam that tended to gravitate upward in any household: odd pieces of furniture, old paintings in heavy frames, a cracked mirror and two large steamer trunks. The bulk of the stored items had been left behind by the previous tenant; only the trunks belonged to Adelaide. Thirteen years spent on the road did not allow one to collect a great many personal possessions.

“The lamp is inside that trunk,” she said. She took one step into the room and nodded toward the second of the pair of steamers.

Griffin went past her and stopped at the large trunk. She watched him, aware of the seething energy swirling in the atmosphere. Not all of it was coming from the lamp. Much of it emanated from Griffin and for some inexplicable reason, she found it utterly enthralling.

“The artifact most certainly belongs to you, sir,” she said. “There cannot be any doubt. It is obviously an object of enormous power. But I find it difficult to believe that your ancestor actually thought it could endow him with additional talents.”

“I have translated the old bastard’s journal and studied it for years but even I don’t know the full truth about the lamp.” Griffin did not take his eyes off the trunk. “I’m not sure that Nicholas, himself, understood what he had created. He was quite unstable at the end. But he did not doubt the lamp’s power.”

She moved a little farther into the room. “You said that Nicholas and Sylvester Jones were first close friends and later rivals?”

“Mortal enemies would be a more accurate description. I suspect that they were both driven at least partially mad by their lust for additional paranormal talents as well as by their own alchemical experiments. They were convinced that if they solved the secret of enhancing psychical powers they would add decades onto their normal life spans.”

“The ultimate alchemical quest.”

“Yes. They believed that the paranormal state was so entwined with the normal physical state that an increase in talent would have a therapeutic effect on all the body’s organs.”

“But researchers have discovered that too much psychical stimulation drives one mad.”

“That’s certainly what Arcane’s experts have concluded.”

“There is some logic to the theory. Overstimulation of any of the senses results in pain and physical as well as psychical damage.”

“We’re talking about a couple of mad alchemists, remember. They did not approach the problem the same way modern scientists do. Sylvester tried to achieve the goal through chemistry.”

“The founder’s formula. I remember my father mentioning it. But surely that is just another Arcane legend.”

“I cannot say.” Griffin leaned down to unlock the trunk. “But I do know that my ancestor was more of an engineer. He was skilled in crystals and metals. He forged the lamp with the intention of using its radiation to make himself more powerful. But when the device was completed he discovered that he needed a dreamlight reader to manipulate the energy he had succeeded in trapping inside the thing.”

“Someone like me.”

“He found such a woman.” Griffin opened the trunk and contemplated the drawers built into each side. “Her name was Eleanor Fleming. According to the journal, Nicholas seduced her into working the device for him on three different occasions.”

“Why didn’t he just offer to pay her for her efforts?”

“He did. But the price she demanded was marriage. Nicholas had no intention of marrying a poor woman from a much lower class.”

“So he lied to her.”

“He agreed to the bargain, or so the story goes. He most certainly slept with her and produced offspring. I am living proof that that aspect of the legend is true. But because they had a sexual relationship there are still those within Arcane who believe that such an intimate connection is necessary before the artifact can be activated.”

Memories of the night in the brothel slammed through her. She swallowed hard and then cleared her throat.

“Do you believe that?” she asked evenly.

“No, of course not.” He glanced back at her, amused. “Calm yourself, Mrs. Pyne. I have no designs on your ever so respectable virtue. From my reading of the journal, it’s clear that a physical link of some kind is probably necessary, but I’m certain that it need not be anything more personal than a touching of the hands.”

“I see.” She told herself she should be greatly relieved. And she was. Most certainly. Ruthlessly she crushed the little flicker of excitement that had ignited somewhere deep inside her. “But you say there are those who are convinced that a more, ah, intimate connection is required?”