Mesmerized (20 page)

“Really?” Olivia asked, intrigued.

He nodded. “A small room between two others. There was a hidden door, cunningly done, and it was only after they had broken through the wall and found the room that they figured out where the door was and how it worked. Anyway, in this room, they found a small box, and in it there were various gold articles, as Madame Valenskaya hinted, including a large gold cross with a cabochon ruby in the center of it. They realized that it must have belonged to Lord Scorhill, the Catholic who was martyred, so that is how it got the name ‘Martyrs’ treasure.’ The secret room might have been a priest’s hole, or perhaps he built it for the express purpose of hiding the jewels. No one knew, of course. I presume that Scorhill must have hidden his treasures there, believing he and his family would eventually be released and would be able to return to their house and recover their wealth. Of course, they never had that chance.”

“How sad.” Olivia thought for a moment. “But why does Madame Valenskaya want that particular treasure? Why not ask for money or other jewels?”

He shrugged. “I suppose this treasure makes a good story—the martyred family, the ghosts not being able to rest, and so on, and they need to draw us into a good romantic story. It has a certain logic, more so than asking for the family silver or the St. Leger em
eralds. The casket and its contents are not really as valuable as the jewel collection in the safe, but they do have a certain degree of notoriety that the others do not. And since they are over three hundred years old, that would doubtless add to their value.”

He paused, then went on. “However, they have made a mistake in choosing them.”

“What?”

“For one thing, they are not Mother’s to give. She has several necklaces and rings and such that my father gave her, but like the heirloom jewels, the Martyrs’ treasure belongs to the present earl. It is passed down from generation to generation. The first earl decided to keep the secret room, with its cunning door, and he left the casket in the room. Only the lord of the house knows where that room is or how to enter it. It is a bit of knowledge that is passed down from the earl to his heir as soon as the heir reaches maturity.”

“So it is a treasure that one would hold on to even more than others.”

“Absolutely. I am the only one who could give the casket to them. Mother doesn’t even know where it is.”

“Perhaps they don’t know that only you have access to it. Or they think that your mother will be able to persuade you to give them the box.”

“I would hate that. But I can’t turn it over to them, even for Mother’s sake. I imagine she realizes that, too. You see, it has become something of a supersti
tion, this keeping the treasure safe and secret. The idea grew over the years that the family will continue to live and prosper only if the treasure is kept safe. There was some difficulty when my father died and Roderick became the earl. I then became the next heir, at least until Roderick had a son, so he should have shown me the room and the door and secret mechanism. But I was not here. I was already living in the United States. For a few years, only Roderick knew the secret. If he had died then, it would have been lost a second time.”

“What happened? How did you learn of it?”

“Roderick wrote me a letter telling me about the room and the secret mechanism, then sealed it and gave it to his solicitor. His instructions were to give the letter to me if he should die before I returned to England. Which, of course, is what happened.”

There was a sadness in his face, and impulsively Olivia reached out and laid her hand over Stephen’s. “It must have been very hard for you—both your father and your brother passing away, when you were not even here to say goodbye.”

He looked at her, a little surprised, and turned his hand over so that he was holding hers. “Yes,” he said. “It was hard. Doubly so because…there had been an estrangement between Roderick and me when I left the country. I said some harsh things to him, and he to me, and we were never able to put it right.”

Olivia squeezed his hand, her own chest tightening at the sorrow in Stephen’s eyes. “I am sure you
would have, had you had the chance to speak to him. No doubt he wanted to, as well.”

“I think so.” Stephen smiled at her faintly. “When I read that letter, it was like his dead hand reaching out to me. After he told me how to get to the treasure, he added a brief note. He said he was sorry for what had happened. He had hoped I would return and we would be…close again.”

“Oh, Stephen…” Tears swam in Olivia’s eyes.

He took her hand and raised it to his mouth, tenderly kissing her palm. “You are a remarkable woman, Olivia. Are you aware of that?”

“I am?” She did not quite know what to make of his words.

But then he tugged at her hand, pulling her up and toward him. She went willingly, if a little uncertainly, and he hooked his other hand around her waist, pulling her down into his lap. It felt, strangely, like a natural, comfortable place to be. She leaned against his chest, her head resting against him, and his arms went around her, holding her warmly, securely. She could feel the thump of his heart inside his chest, could smell the distinctive male scent of him. His warmth enveloped her, and Olivia felt as if she was exactly where she was meant to be.

His hand moved at her waist, gliding from her side to the center of her stomach, then back again, and the small movements set up a warm ache inside her. It was highly improper for her to be here like this, she
knew, but Olivia had no intention of ending the moment.

Stephen rubbed his cheek against her hair, his breath sighing out. He said her name again, the hunger clear in his voice. He twisted a little, his face coming down to hers, and he kissed her cheek, her chin, then, finally, her mouth. Fire flared between them, replacing the sweet warmth. They kissed deeply, passionately, her arms twining around his neck. His hand sank into her hair, sending hairpins popping from their moorings, and the thick tresses tumbled down over his hand, caressing his skin like silk.

Olivia moaned a little at the unaccustomed sensations flowing through her, and his fingers tightened against her scalp in response, his lips pressing even more deeply into hers. His hand roamed up the front of her dress and back down, spreading fire through her abdomen. He moved it back up, cupping her breast through the cloth of her dress, and her nipples tightened, her breasts suddenly fuller and aching in an exciting way. His thumb traced the circle of her nipple, feeling it grow taut and pointed with desire. With every movement, the pleasure and excitement inside Olivia multiplied. She had never experienced such things, had not even guessed they existed. She moved restlessly on his lap, not knowing what to do, wanting the pleasure to go on, yearning for something without knowing what it was.

The naive movement of her hips against him ex
cited him, and Stephen went to the neckline of her evening dress, caressing the rounded top of her breast, then slipping his fingers underneath the neckline. They slid beneath the thin cotton of her chemise, as well, releasing her breast and sliding over her smooth skin and onto the prickling bud of her nipple. Gently he took the button of flesh between his thumb and forefinger and squeezed and rolled it. Pleasure shot through Olivia in shocking, sizzling darts, taking her breath away. His fingers played over her, and moisture flooded between her legs, startling her. Everything he did was new and surprising; she could not think, only feel the wonderful sensations bombarding her.

Stephen tore his mouth from hers and kissed his way down her throat. His lips touched the top curve of her breast. She made a little noise deep in her throat, her head falling back as if to give him free access to her. He kissed the trembling flesh softly, moving across the smooth orb until his lips reached her nipple. Olivia tightened all over as his mouth grazed the hard bud once, then again. His tongue came out and delicately traced all around the button, finally moving over it in long, lazy strokes. She quivered, her fingers digging into his shoulder.

“Stephen…” she murmured, her face soft and languorous, her lips rosy and swollen from his kisses. The sight of her was so beautiful, the sound of her voice so seductive, that his whole body thrummed with desire.

His mouth fastened on her nipple, pulling it into the wet, warm cave of his mouth. Gently he suckled on it, and his tongue danced over the bud, laving and lashing it to an even harder point. He fumbled at the neckline of her dress, dragging it down and exposing the other white orb, centered deliciously by pink. His breath rasped in his throat as he moved to her other breast and began to feast in the same way on it. Olivia moaned, her hands moving restlessly up his neck and digging into his hair. She tugged at his hair, the sharp prickles of pain only increasing the supreme pleasure he felt at having his mouth on her.

Stephen wanted her, wanted to sink into her and possess her. His brain flamed with images of sliding down to the floor with her and pushing up her skirts, of riding inside her to his dark explosion of passion. But even as he thought it, he knew that he could not. Olivia was not the sort of woman that one could just take on the floor in a moment of desire.

With a muffled curse, he lifted his head from her breast and buried his face in her hair, struggling to regain control of himself.

“Stephen?” Olivia’s voice was quiet and confused. “What—”

“I’m sorry. God, I seem to be always saying that to you.” He lifted his head and looked down at her, clenching his teeth at the wave of hunger that washed over him. She looked so soft, so yielding, so utterly desirable, that for a moment he was not sure he could keep from kissing her again.

He cleared his throat. “This is insane. We must not.” He reached out and pulled up the front of her dress, unable to resist a caress of her breasts as he did so. “The, uh, the door is open. Anyone could come in.”

“What? Oh!” Red flamed in her cheeks, and Olivia scrambled off his lap, straightening her clothes.

She looked at him, embarrassed and still churning with unspent desire. Was she playing the fool with him? She had no idea what he still felt for Pamela or, indeed, what he felt for herself. Right now, she thought, all she knew was that if he had asked her into his bed, she would have gone in an instant. The thought made her cheeks burn even more brightly.

“I, um, it’s time for bed. I mean—I should be—excuse me.” She turned and fled from the room.

The séance the next evening was again lit dimly. Madame Valenskaya had seemingly decided to use the idea of the room being lit as another “proof” of her visitations and had taken charge of the lighting by having two oil lamps burning at their very lowest far from the séance table.

“You see,” she said in her guttural accent, indicating the lamps with a sweep of her hand, “I haff light so you can see I hide nothing.”

The result of the lamps was, Olivia thought, an even more poorly lit séance table than the evening before, but she made no comment, knowing it would
merely upset Lady St. Leger, who was obviously eager to please Madame Valenskaya tonight.

“There is no question of that, I’m sure,” Lady St. Leger said now, smiling at the medium. “But it is very kind of you, for Belinda’s sake.”

Madame Valenskaya nodded regally and motioned to them to sit down. They once again took their places as they had in the past, with Irina and Howard Babington on either side of the medium. Linking hands around the table, the group fell into silence. Olivia watched Madame Valenskaya as she went through the same routine she had the night before, her head nodding forward, then after a time rising slowly until her face was lifted up, as if she were communing with the heavens. Her eyes were closed.

As it had the other night, a ghostly tinkling tune played. Olivia felt sure it came from a small music box hidden in some capacious pocket about the medium’s person. However, she was not sure how it was activated, for she could see even in the faint light that Madame Valenskaya’s hands remained on the table, linked with Irina’s and Babington’s. The woman must, she thought, be activating the box somehow with her foot. It would not be too difficult to run a wire from the switch on the music box down inside her dress and into her shoe, where she could pull on it with her toes. Or she could run a wire down her sleeve and hold it in her hand to tug at some point, for her hands, of course, were in her accomplices’.

It was a clever thing to do, Olivia thought. By mak
ing the eerie music play while having a little light on, they could claim more proof that they were not frauds. Olivia thought she would try to take Madame Valenskaya’s hand for some reason after the séance, just to see if she could feel a wire. Of course, the medium could push the wire back into her sleeve when she was finished, or she might have done it with her feet, or it could even be that the music box was hidden in her daughter’s clothes and operated by her. Olivia gritted her teeth in frustration.

Apparently Madame Valenskaya’s usual spirit guide, the American Indian Chief Running Deer, was visiting them tonight, for the medium began to speak in a sort of pidgin English, asking them why they disturbed the spirits. Olivia suspected that this monologue was just a tease to make Lady St. Leger more impatient and desperate to speak with her son.

True to form, Lady St. Leger said, after Madame Valenskaya fell silent, “But what about Roderick? Is Roderick there? Can we not speak to him?”

Madame Valenskaya paused for a moment. Then, suddenly, a wind whooshed through the room, chilling them, and the lights in the oil lamps dipped and one went completely out. Belinda let out a shriek. Startled, Olivia looked up the table at Madame Valenskaya. The medium was sitting there, her eyes open now, looking as astonished as the rest of them.