I leaned my head against his shoulder and Linc put his arm around me as though I were his sister. Part of me was glad that his rampant sexual desire had been temporarily sated, but part of me missed the way he’d looked at me with red-hot lust.
We stayed like that for a few moments, then Linc moved to fish a piece of paper out of his pocket. It was his list of things Devlin had said we needed to do.
“We gave the slaves what they want,” Linc said, “but now they’re gone so how do we ask them anything?”
I didn’t want to move, didn’t want to think. I wanted to stay with my head against Linc’s shoulder and feel the warmth of a human male next to me. If I closed my eyes and concentrated, maybe, for one second, I could believe that Linc was Adam.
“You don’t have to have dark skin to be enslaved,” I said, thinking about Adam and Bo—and myself. We didn’t have a racial history of slavery but we were enslaved.
In the next moment, my eyes flew open and I saw that Linc was staring at me—and his thoughts were clear. Maybe all the dark slaves were gone but there’d been another slave in that house.
“Amelia,” Linc whispered.
“Amelia,” I answered.
Linc
Chapter Fourteen
WE WERE GOING TO TALK TO A GHOST!
I like to think I’m a courageous person, but I followed Darci with such reluctance that I couldn’t keep up with her short legs.
I had to work hard not to think Darci was the strangest person on earth, and for the thousandth time I wondered how her husband had dealt with her.
Last night had to be the strangest yet. Darci had gone crazy over some crystal ball so, like the gentleman I am, I said I’d help her get it. I risked my life to climb along a roof edge, then sneaked into the bedroom of a sleeping woman. I’d just unlocked the door for Darci when I looked back and there she was, awake. Ingrid was staring at me across a half-dark room, a question in her eyes.
So what was I supposed to do? Tell her the truth, that I was in the room to steal her crystal ball? That would get the cops called and get me splashed all over the newspapers in a way that wouldn’t do my career any good. However, if I’d sneaked in the room to steal her, so to speak, that was okay. Did that make possessions more valuable than people?
Anyway, there wasn’t anything else I could do but pretend I was after her. The truth was, though, that I figured she’d say no to me. In my lifetime I’d had only two women say no to me and they were Darci and her mother. But since they’d been the last two, I guess I thought my luck had changed.
It hadn’t. By the time I got within a foot of the bed, I knew the woman wanted me in the worst way. I climbed into bed with her, let her undress me, and we began to make love.
I wanted to make love slowly, to take all night at it because who knew when I’d get laid again? Between Alanna’s never being around, and Darci’s medieval attachment to a guy who was probably dead, I wanted to make the evening last.
I didn’t know the woman I was in bed with, but I knew she had some part in the whole strange thing I’d become involved in. I was sure Darci knew more than she was telling me, but I was reluctant to try to find out more.
As for the woman, the one time I tried to speak, she put her fingertips to my lips. We didn’t exchange a word the entire evening. We just touched and licked and sucked. By the time the sun rose there wasn’t an inch of her supple body that I didn’t know.
At dawn she turned her back to me and went to sleep. No words spoken, just turned to her side and went to sleep. It was a dismissal. Her back was not an invitation to do that most intimate of gestures: cuddling. As though I were a stallion hired for the evening, she was through with me.
I got up, pulled on some of my clothes, left through the door, and went to my own room downstairs. I wanted to sleep for a couple of hours before the women started demanding I rub them down. There were only six of them but they each wanted an appointment every day. And each one wanted more than the hour allotted. “I have a pain right here,” they’d whine, wanting me to spend an extra fifteen minutes on that area. I did it but I didn’t like it.
However, the minute I put my head on my own pillow I was wide awake. Somewhere during the night I’d looked up to see Darci and that ghost playing “whose is biggest” with the wall to the room. Devlin, dressed up like some ancient Highlander, was leaning against the wall that was sometimes not there—which I can tell you looked pretty weird. He’d make the wall disappear, then Darci, concentrating so hard her eyes were down to slits, would make it reappear. Devlin looked like he was having fun, but Darci seemed to be working hard. No wonder she can’t find my son, I thought, she doesn’t have enough power.
When Darci saw me watching her, she was embarrassed, the ghost laughed, and the wall reappeared. Beneath me, the blonde woman didn’t seem to be aware of anything that was going on, but I couldn’t take that as a compliment. She was like a robot that had been programmed to give pleasure. If I hadn’t been without female companionship for so long I wouldn’t have gone to bed with her. To me, sex is better if there’s a personal connection. Love makes it the best. Take Alanna, for instance. Or, maybe take Darci. She’d probably be fun in bed. Her little body could probably bend into some seriously interesting shapes, and what about that power of hers? She could read things that were in my mind. Could she put her visions and feeling into mine? If Darci and I had sex, could she make us feel both sides at once? I’d feel what she was feeling and she would feel what I did.
I lay in bed and thought about this for so long that someone knocked on my door and told me breakfast was being served in the dining room. Yawning, I got up, dressed, and thought about how I could ask Darci about her power as it related to sex. Subtly, of course.
After breakfast I was up to my elbows in too-soft white flesh. Maybe because I was feeling better I began to hint to each woman that I might be interested in her if she’d lose some weight and get a little muscle. At lunch Narcissa told me that they’d had to open the weight room because the women were demanding to use the equipment. “Maybe you could give some lessons,” she said.
Deliver me, I thought. Two-pound dumbbells and showing women how to do shoulder presses was not something I wanted to do. However, it was great news to be told there was a weight room somewhere. I smiled at Narcissa. “I’ll just let them watch me work out and hope that inspires them.”
I canceled all my massage appointments so I could work out after lunch, but Darci wanted me to break that glass ball I’d helped her steal. I figured that would take all of two minutes, then I’d be free. The truth was that after I worked out I planned to pay another visit to Ingrid.
But breaking the ball proved to be impossible. Darci told me a bizarre story about alien substances, especially one that had been around a key, but I tried not to think about what she was saying. All I wanted to do was work out, then go to bed with a pretty woman.
I should have known that Darci would have other ideas. Talking to a ghost was on the very bottom of my list of fun things to do.
We paused outside the door to the room she said was Amelia’s and according to Darci, Amelia was still in there. Still imprisoned, still waiting.
I was so nervous about what was behind the door that to lighten the mood I turned and started to walk away. Darci caught my shirt and pulled me back. I wanted her to laugh but she knew I was serious.
“Look,” she said, “the truth is that I doubt if you’ll be able to see anything. I’ve been around ghosts for years and only I could see them—and even then I couldn’t see them.”
“That makes sense,” I said.
“I could see them inside my head. It’s like in a dream. You can see the people in a dream clearly but no one else can. That’s how I’ve always seen ghosts.”
“Until this shape-guy, this Devlin.”
“Right. Devlin is different. The point I’m trying to make is that you probably won’t see any ghost. You’ll just see a bare room while I’ll see the ghost
.”
“If I won’t see anything, why should I bother to go in there?”
When Darci hesitated in answering, I knew she was trying to come up with a plausible lie, something I was to believe so she wouldn’t have to tell me the truth. I’d learned some things about little Miss Darci. One was that she embarrassed easily and second was that she could see what was inside my head if I touched her. Maybe if I embarrassed her and distracted her, I could then ask her questions and get the truth. Why did I have to go with her to see this ghost? What did she know that she wasn’t telling me?
Reaching out, I pulled her into my arms, her back to my front, and buried my face in her neck. I then began to go over last night in my mind, stroke by stroke, tongue on hot skin, groans, and especially the moment before the little death.
“Don’t,” Darci whispered, going limp in my arms.
“Please don’t.”
I couldn’t help myself, but the next second I was nuzzling her ear, and my head filled with visions of what I wanted to do to her.
If the door to the room hadn’t opened and we hadn’t nearly fallen inside, I don’t know what would have happened. I’d meant to tease Darci into making her tell me the truth, but instead I’d—
Turning my head, I looked into the room. It was clean but it was exactly as it must have been in 1843, when Amelia Barrister had given birth to a half-black child. There were those snowman-shaped lamps with roses painted on them, crocheted doilies over every wooden table, and there were at least half a dozen little tables scattered around. There was a canopied bed along the wall on the right, the canopy draped with a long white crocheted cloth. On the left was a sitting area with a hard little couch and a couple of hard-looking chairs, their seats low to the floor. The wall facing us had several tall French doors. They were standing open and I could see beyond to a small, deep porch that was at the corner of the building. A person could sit on that porch and see but not be seen by the people below.
The only thing odd about the room—other than that it looked like a step back in time, that is—was that there was a woman wearing old-fashioned clothes sitting on a chair just beyond the doors, and whipping a crochet needle around and around a piece of thread. She looked so solid that I was sure she was real. Maybe she was someone we hadn’t met, I thought. But then a breeze blew through the open doors, a couple of leaves blew in—and went right through the woman.
I tried to act brave. Humor under fire. “Tell me she’s one of the guests I haven’t met,” I whispered to Darci.
“’Fraid not,” she whispered back. “That’s two spirits in this house that people can see. That’s a lot of energy. A lot of hatred.”
The way she said this was as though she’d just seen a miracle, something wondrous and unique.
“I think we should—” I began, but the woman in the chair turned to me and smiled. She was very pretty, with blue eyes and dark blonde hair under a little lacy cap. I knew she wasn’t real, was dead even, but I couldn’t help thinking that, with the right makeup and good lighting, she could be a knockout. She had a little nose and beautiful, full lips. Her skin kind of glowed, but in a good way, not like a dead person’s skin might glow.
I decided to leave.
“Martin,” she said softly, “how good to see you. Come and sit by me.”
You know how it is. A ghost holds out her hand to you and you want to go, but your feet freeze. I just stood there, unable to move.
Darci gave me a push on the back and since my feet were rooted to the floor, I almost fell.
“My goodness!” she said. “Did you hurt yourself?”
“Uh, no, I…”
“Come and sit down. We’ll have some tea.” She turned to Darci. “Penny, would you make us some tea?”
I had the satisfaction of seeing Darci look bewildered, as though asking, Now what do I do?
“Yes,” I said loudly,“make us some tea…Penny.”
I walked forward and took the seat across from Amelia’s. If I hadn’t seen a leaf blow through her I would have sworn she was real. She had on a dress that was so tight around the waist I could see the thread stretching in the seams. I knew she was wearing a corset and if I were politically correct I’d think how unliberated she was, but she had a prodigious bosom, a tiny waist, and lots of hips under her gathered skirt. If she was an example of my great-great-great-grandfather’s taste in women, I’d say the men in our family hadn’t changed much.
“How are you today?” I asked. Behind her, Darci was pulling dishes from a cabinet and I wondered if she’d make real tea. It might be interesting to watch what happened when Amelia drank.
“I am well,” she said, then rolled her eyes back toward Darci. She was telling me that she couldn’t talk freely with Darci/Penny in the room.
“Here, girl!” I said sharply to Darci. “Go and fetch…” What? I wondered. “My horse.” Did Martin have a horse?
“Yes, masstah,” Darci said, glared at me, then left the room.
I looked at Amelia triumphantly, until I realized I’d isolated myself with a ghost.
The door had barely closed behind Darci when Amelia came toward me. She half floated, half walked. I was scared to death until she touched me. I could feel her touch.
Darci’d said that the ghosts could manifest themselves because of strong energy, strong hatred. But when Amelia put her shapely body on my lap and slid her arms around my neck, I decided that strong love could also cause a ghost to appear.
Amelia put her lips on mine. At first I could barely feel them, but when I began to return her kiss, I could feel her lips more strongly. When I put my hand on that tiny waist of hers it was like touching air, sort of not there but there. As the kiss deepened, her body became more substantial.
When my tongue touched hers I was ready to see what interesting clothes she had on under that dress. My hand went to the top of the row of tiny buttons down the front of her dress. I had six of them unfastened before she pulled her mouth from mine.
“No, dearest,” she said, her breath against my ear. “Not here and not now. Edward may return at any minute.”
“No, he’s with Jassy now so he’ll take all afternoon.”
As soon as I said it, I looked down at her in astonishment. Where had that come from? Please tell me a ghost wasn’t taking over my body! Please.
“Yes, I know. Penny tells me everything. She delights in telling me all that Edward does with the women. Dearest,” she said, putting her lips against mine. “We must be careful. Penny would tell Edward if she found out about us and he would…”
She buried her face in my neck. Maybe it was the corset—or maybe it was that she was dead—but she made me feel protective of her. And like I wanted her in bed with me more than I wanted to live. I unfastened two more buttons.
She laughed, a lovely sound that made me undo another button. “Behave now,” she said. “I’ll meet you tonight in the same place. Will you be there?”
I wanted her so much I was afraid I was going to start shaking like some high school kid. “With bells on,” I said.
“With nothing on,” she said so seductively that I grabbed at her as she got off my lap. “Not now,” she whispered, then ran her hand between my legs in a way that made me catch my breath.
In the next second the door opened, Darci entered the room, and Amelia sat back in her chair, looking for all the world like an angel—except that the front of her dress was unbuttoned halfway down to her waist.
Darci stood close to us, her eyes wide in shock as she looked at Amelia’s open dress, then at the front of my trousers. I crossed my legs and put a pillow on my lap.
“It is so warm in here,” Amelia said as she began to fasten her dress. “Now, Martin,” she said in a businesslike way,“what was it you wanted to talk to me about?”
“Jedediah,” I said before I thought.
When she looked at me, her face was so full of anguish that it nearly took my breath away. Then, to my horror, she aged. She went from bein
g young and beautiful to being an old, emaciated woman with all the misery of the world in her eyes, then she vanished. The room stayed the same, furnished like a Victorian movie set, the only difference being that Amelia was gone.
For a moment I sat still, staring at the empty chair, and feeling bereft, as though I’d lost someone very dear to me.
Darci plopped down in the chair where Amelia had been and I experienced culture shock. She had on jeans and a fuchsia-colored sweater. I felt disgusted by her attire. Women should wear skirts. Her waist was thick and straight; her hair was loose and slovenly and an unnatural color. And her face was painted like a cheap hussy’s.
I felt this for just a second, then it was gone. I looked at Darci and she looked quite nice.
“You really are disgusting,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Last night was the woman who wanted to kill you, a few minutes ago you were all over me, and now you hit on a ghost.” She looked pointedly between my legs.
“Back up. Who wanted to kill me? Other than in bed, that is.”
Darci waved her hand in dismissal. “That doesn’t matter. What did you get out of Amelia, other than what was inside her dress, that is.”
“You sound jealous.” I rubbed my hand over my face.
“I really need to go to the gym for about three hours, maybe five.” I started to get up but, yet again, Darci had paralyzed me. I couldn’t move.
“What did she say?” Darci asked, her voice just a whisper because she had to concentrate so hard to hold me in place.
“Not a word until you release me,” I said, my back teeth together.
Darci released me and I started to get up.
“Okay,” she said, “I apologize. Deeply and sincerely, I apologize. I was jealous. I admit it. I’ve had a lifetime of ghosts talking only to me, then to have one dismiss me like a servant—”