Authors: Allison Chase
Dark Obsession (22 page)
He tucked his chin atop her head, breathing in her spicy scent—he’d learned recently that she used cinnamon sticks to scrape the paint from around her fingernails. It was an aroma that tempted him to suckle each delicate finger.
‘‘Mmm.’’ She snaked an arm across his chest and buried her nose against his neck.
‘‘How like a child you sleep.’’ He brushed his lips against her hair while his better sense urged him to leave before it was too late.
He didn’t. With a barely steady fingertip he traced her from the arch of her hip to the curve of her throat, then ever so gently lay his open hand upon her breast.
Her hand came up, settling on his. ‘‘Ahh.’’
Daring more, he smoothed his thumb across her nipple, and the sensation of it beading through her cool linen shift set loose a devil that seized the remnants of his sanity.
Her mouth opened to release a soft and sultry "Yes ..."
Razor-sharp urgency sent him leaning over her, lifting her nightgown above her hips. Careful not to jostle the bed, he straddled her, anchoring his weight on his arms on either side and ready to roll away should she wake. Her breathing came in sharp little bursts, but her eyes remained closed. He dipped his head, lips nudging a careful sampling of hers.
Fingertips as smooth and sweet as the night breeze glided beneath his shirt. He shivered as liquid heat rained through him. She found his shoulders and with gentle insistence tugged him closer. A moan of longing spilled from her lips, hot across his cheek.
Obedient, he lowered himself carefully against her, his flesh barely touching hers. Her knees came up to cradle his thighs.
Perhaps they were both asleep, sharing the same dream. For it could only be a dream, he decided. Reality held no room for such madness as this.
Why resist?
Balancing on one arm, he fumbled open his trouser buttons. He positioned himself, kissed her lightly and . . .
Stopped. Horrified.
Good God. What kind of fiend would do such a thing?
Nora’s eyelids fluttered. His heart plummeted to his stomach, then ricocheted to his throat and stuck.
‘‘Gray . . .’’
Please God, let her have been awake the whole time, playing along. . . .
‘‘Mmm . . .’’
Or let her still be asleep.
Silent, thoroughly aghast, he watched her and listened. Her breathing continued deep and steady. With excruciating care he inched away, his swollen member throbbing in protest. The bed creaked. Nora’s breath hitched in a little gasp.
Working his buttons closed, he slid to the side of the bed, watching her for any movement. With a soft groan she turned her face to the pillow. Her eyes opened.
His feet hit the floor and he knelt, hoping to God the shadows hid him. That she would close her eyes and roll back into slumber, all memory of him sliding away into new dreams.
Her gaze found his, held it as a furrow formed between her brows. He didn’t so much as breathe.
Then she rolled until her back faced him. ‘‘Just a dream,’’ she murmured. ‘‘Oh, Grayson . . .’’
Some two hours later, unable to sleep, he stood in Aunt Pricilla’s former bedchamber, now Nora’s studio. A candle fluttered in the holder he gripped in one unsteady hand, sending his shadow into grotesque gyrations upon the wall. Before him stood the portrait she had unveiled earlier, hidden once more beneath the folds of the cloth.
He had to know if what he’d seen that morning bore any resemblance to what was actually imprinted on the canvas. Yet now as his fingers made contact with the concealing cloth, they went stiff. What answer could possibly lie beneath? That he’d lost his mind? That his brother’s spirit truly haunted him? That for either reason, no one near him was safe?
He jerked his hand away and started backing toward the door.
The crisp scent of lemons stopped him cold.
Lift it.
His head snapped up, eyes straining in the candlelight. Had the whisper been real, or had he merely thought the words?
A cool breeze grazed his forehead, ruffling his hair. A hasty glance at the window confirmed what he feared—the curtains were drawn and motionless, the casement beneath shut tight.
That set his feet in motion, but as he neared the door a blow to the chest emptied his lungs and sent him sprawling on the hardwood floor. The candle clattered away, sputtering and thrusting him into darkness.
As he lay immobile, he heard nothing, could perceive no movement in the blackness but the pounding of his own heart. Oddly, despite the shock he’d suffered his chest didn’t hurt. What had felt like a collision had knocked him down but left no lingering bruise.
Hair on his nape bristling, arms erupting in goose-flesh, he sat up, then pushed to his shaking legs. ‘‘Charlotte? Tom? Are you both haunting me now? Then show yourselves.’’
He scrubbed a hand across his eyes, aching now from lack of sleep. ‘‘For God’s sake, show yourselves and tell me what you want.’’
‘‘Do what you came here to do.’’
The whisper again reverberated inside his skull so that he didn’t know if he’d heard it or imagined it. But the message was clear.
He made his way first to the window, opening the curtains wide to the moonlight. Then he dragged the easel closer. There could be no question, no ambiguity caused by a lack of light.
His fingers closed on the cloth. He tugged . . .
And gazed upon his own unmistakable image. Not Tom falling to his death, but Grayson, or the Grayson he’d become these past months.
It was his hair, his eyes, his mouth. His face, pinched with grief. With guilt. And with greed. Yes, the same greed that kept him at Nora’s side, that had sent him to her chamber tonight when he knew—
knew
—she’d taken pains to keep him out. And when he knew he didn’t deserve her, couldn’t be trusted to keep her safe.
knew
—she’d taken pains to keep him out. And when he knew he didn’t deserve her, couldn’t be trusted to keep her safe.
Oh yes, that knowledge, along with his selfish disregard, was etched in the creases around his eyes, the slope of his brow, the dispassionate curve of his mouth. Nora had captured it all brilliantly. It was like gazing into a mirror that showed not the features he’d grown accustomed to all his life, but the face now shaped by the soul beneath.
A strident laugh broke from his lips, jarring in the silence. ‘‘Is this what you wanted? Did you think I needed this portrait to know what lies inside me?’’
‘‘Go to the cliffs.’’
An iron band clamped his chest. ‘‘The cliffs?’’
‘‘Go to the base of the cliffs.’’
‘‘To die?’’ As Tom did. It would be justice.
But the hollow reply offered no satisfaction.
‘‘Go.’’
Nora spread paper across the dining table, then reached into her basket for pens and pots of ink. Beside her Jonny stood waiting as she set out their art supplies, showing neither impatience nor enthusiasm to return to the picture he’d been sketching in the garden when sudden raindrops drove them indoors.
‘‘Now, then.’’ She smiled down at him. ‘‘Where were we when the weather so rudely interrupted us?’’
He stepped up to the table and traced a finger across the still-damp lines of his drawing, dragging a smear through a cluster of primroses. He shrugged.
‘‘Growing rather bored with this one, are we?’’
A second shrug provided the opportunity she’d been waiting for. Given the task of searching out the truth in this enigmatic house, what better place to start than with the one person who seemed to harbor the most secrets, secrets so onerous they had robbed him of his voice?
But as she well knew, there were other, infinitely more vivid ways of expressing oneself than with mere words.
Untying her bonnet, she set it on the table and then pushed aside a silver candelabrum. When she pulled out a chair and gestured to the boy, he scooted up onto his knees and leaned his elbows against the inlaid edge of the mahogany table.
‘‘I’ve been hoping you might draw something special for me today,’’ she said as casually as her taut nerves would allow. She didn’t particularly relish cajoling information from a child, but discovering the truth about his uncle might well prove Jonny’s salvation.
And perhaps Grayson’s as well.
What better moment would there be, with Grayson presently gone from the house. She had knocked on his door earlier—pounded, really—to confront him about the perplexing letter he’d somehow left on her bedside table last night despite two secured doors. And to inform him he wouldn’t be rid of her that easily.
He’d brushed by her, mumbling an apology about having to meet with a tenant farmer. He had hardly seemed fit to meet anyone, with his hair on end, his cravat askew and his wrinkled shirt hem trailing inside the same coat he’d worn yesterday.
And his eyes—sunken and glinting with a recklessness that frightened her. Frightened her nearly as much as the startling images that gripped her as she stared at his receding back.
His hands sizzling on her skin, his heated weight pinning her, his lust howling through her.
Had
he been in her room last night? Touching her? Covering her? Had she dreamed him, or had the real Grayson left her with tingling breasts and an insatiable need throbbing between her thighs?
Had
he been in her room last night? Touching her? Covering her? Had she dreamed him, or had the real Grayson left her with tingling breasts and an insatiable need throbbing between her thighs?
Dream or no, he hadn’t been her only visitor last night. Earlier, her lavender lady had seemed so substantial, so irrefutable. Yet upon awakening this morning, rising to the realities and responsibilities of a new day, how ludicrous it all seemed. Ghosts? She knew better.
As for the curtain she had found puddled on her floor . . .
She combed her fingers through Jonny’s hair. ‘‘I’d like you to draw me a picture of your Uncle Grayson, if you would be so kind.’’
She held her breath. Would he balk at the notion, as he so often balked at Gray’s efforts to be friendly? ‘‘Will you do that for me, dearest?’’
His dark eyebrows knotted above his nose as he picked up a pen.
Nora eased the lid from one of the inkpots. ‘‘Perhaps you might make a picture of the two of you. I could hang it in my bedchamber.’’
He dipped the pen, blotted it and set it to the paper. Nora took up another pen and tried to concentrate on capturing the scene directly outside the dining room’s broad windows. Or at least pretend to, lest Jonny sense her staring over his shoulder.
Try as she might, her lines went awry until the rain-blackened oaks she attempted to draw more resembled hulking monsters creeping up the front park. She was far too intent on the images forming beneath Jonny’s busy hand to concentrate on the form and detail of her own efforts. When he finally looked up and pushed his paper toward her, she stifled a gasp.
She struggled to betray nothing with her expression while searching for the right words to frame the questions rifling through her mind. ‘‘Well done, Jonny. Thank you.’’
The abrupt angles and smudged eyes produced a remarkable—and disturbing—likeness to Grayson. Jonny hadn’t simply captured his uncle’s features, but his turbulent state of mind. A state no child should ever have to witness in someone he depended upon.
And yet, that was not what troubled her most. While Jonny had drawn Gray large and in the forefront, he had placed his own diminutive image in the lower corner, with something resembling a tall rock between them.
Or . . . was it a headstone? Perhaps not, for a circle dangled from one side of the structure as if by a chain. Some sort of shackle?
She coughed to conceal a shiver. ‘‘You’re, ah, rather small here. Are you playing hide-and-seek?’’
He shrugged, offering not even a ghost of a smile. ‘‘Do you like to hide sometimes? I know I do. My favorite place to do so is behind my easel. I especially like to retreat to my paints when the people around me are angry or upset.’’
He nodded.
She reached for his hand. ‘‘Dearest, does your uncle sometimes seem upset?’’
His eyes grew large. She took that as an admission.
‘‘It troubles you, doesn’t it?’’
He lowered his gaze and traced his thumbnail along the grain of the table. A tiny shrug followed.
Nora took his hand in both of hers. ‘‘Are you sometimes afraid of Uncle Gray? It’s all right to say so,’’ she added in a whisper. ‘‘I promise I won’t tell.’’
He leveled his bright blue eyes on her and surprised her with his answer. An adamant shake of his head.
It was the certainty of his response that most took her aback. No hesitation, not an ounce of reluctance. She had been prepared to coax his reply, to prompt him with hypothetical situations and reassure him that admitting the truth would not be a betrayal of any kind.
Oh, but then why do you hide from him, Jonny? Why do you always bear the look of a frightened fawn whenever Gray enters the room?
Her questions dissipated into the wide-open gaze trained on her; into soft, little-boy cheeks with the faintest of dimples winking at her as he waited, as he always did, to take his cue from her mood.
She kissed one of those precious, warm, dimpled cheeks.
‘‘Good heavens!’’
She and the child both jumped. Turning, Nora beheld a crimson-faced Mrs. Dorn poised rigidly in the doorway.
‘‘Not on the inlaid dining table!’’ The woman stormed into the room with an expression not unlike that of a provoked bull. ‘‘Not on my Lady Clarington’s precious ivory and mahogany table brought all the way from Florence.’’
Nora eased to her feet and stood in front of Jonny, lending him the protective camouflage of her skirts. ‘‘We were drawing on the terrace, Mrs. Dorn, but it began to rain. This seemed the most convenient room at the time.’’
‘‘And that chair.’’ Mrs. Dorn’s finger shot out, the tip trembling as she thrust it toward Jonny. ‘‘He’s got his feet up on the fabric. He knows better than that. The damask was woven by the Sisters of St. Adelaide in Brussels and cannot, simply
cannot
be replaced.’’
cannot
be replaced.’’
‘‘Perhaps the sisters would appreciate a commission for new seat covers.’’
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