ThePerfectPoison
SEVENTEEN
“IT’S ALL CONNECTED,” CALEB SAID SOFTLY.
“What is?” she asked, a little breathless from the dancing and the cold fire of his energy swirling around her. “Have you had some sort of insight?”
“Yes, thanks to you.” His jaw tightened. “I should have thought to ask the obvious question back at the start of this affair. I was too intent on tracking Hulsey.”
“What is this obvious question?”
“How does your father’s murder and the murder of his partner connect to the theft of the fern?”
“What?” Shaken, she searched his shadow-etched face. “I don’t understand. How could there possibly be a link between those events?”
“That, Miss Bromley, is what I must discover.”
“But you sense that there is one?”
“As I said, I should have observed it sooner. I can only say that I have been somewhat distracted.”
“Well, it is not as if you have not had your hands full, what with destroying that evil cult and discovering that the man I knew as Dr. Knox was the mad scientist you have been searching for. Not to mention the little matter of finding Mrs. Daykin’s body and making certain that I did not get arrested for murder. You have been rather busy of late, sir. One can understand why you might not have bothered with the murders of two men who died a year and a half ago.”
“Those were only minor issues,” he said. “It was the other thing that got in the way.”
“What other thing?”
“While we are on the subject, I believe that your fiancé’s death is also linked to this business. It has to be.”
She was stunned anew. “You can’t mean to connect Mr. Glasson’s murder to this thing, too.”
“It is all of a piece,” he said. “The pattern is quite clear now. The problem, as I said, was the great distraction that has interfered with my thought processes.”
“Indeed?” She raised her brows. “And just what was this astonishing distraction that is so powerful it caused the very talented Caleb Jones to make a mistake?”
“You,” he said simply.
She was speechless.
“What?” she finally managed.
He caught her face between his strong hands. “You are the distraction, Lucinda. I have never known anyone who could disorder my thoughts the way you do.”
“That does not sound like a compliment.”
“It was not intended as a compliment. It was a statement of fact. Furthermore, I do not think I will be able to concentrate well until I know for certain that you find me to be equally distracting.”
“Oh,” she whispered. “Yes. Yes, I do find you distracting, sir. Extremely so.”
“I am very pleased to hear that.”
His mouth closed over hers.
Her senses were suddenly on fire, wide open to the night. The gardens came alive in the darkness, burning with an iridescent radiance that swept across the spectrum. Seconds ago the flowers blooming at the edge of the terrace had been invisible in the shadows. Now they were transformed into small fairy lanterns, pulsing light in a myriad of nameless colors. The grass produced an emerald aurora. The tall hedges were transformed into glowing green walls. The energy of life sang to her senses.
Caleb pulled her closer, tighter. His mouth slid heavily off hers and found her throat.
“Do you want me, Lucinda?” he asked roughly. “That is what I must know. I do not think that I will ever again be able to focus properly until the question is answered.”
She had abandoned all hope of ever experiencing the power of passion. Now the awesome force of it swirled through her like a great tempest. She would betray no one if she let these powerful winds sweep her away. The only risk was to her heart, and it was a grave one. But the thought of never knowing the glorious sensations that she sensed awaited her in Caleb’s arms was by far the more appalling alternative. Better to have loved and lost.
She raised her gloved fingers to his face. “I desire you, Caleb. Is that the answer you want?”
“More than I have ever wanted anything in my life.”
His mouth closed over hers, again, searing and hungry. The music and muffled sounds of the ballroom seemed to fade into another dimension. Raw power pulsed hot in the night. The tide of bright, fierce energy drew her deeper into an intoxicating chaos.
She wrapped her arms around Caleb’s neck and opened her mouth for him. The shimmering atmosphere shifted around her. It took her a few seconds to realize that Caleb had picked her up in his arms and was carrying her away from the terrace, deep into the phosphorescent gardens.
“I can feel the heat in you,” he said. “Your senses are hot, aren’t they?”
“Yes.” She drew her fingertip along the line of his jaw. “So are yours.”
“This garden is your world. What does it look like to you?”
“It is magical. Alive. Every plant, down to the tiniest blade of grass, gives off a faint luminescence. I can see a thousand shades of green in the leaves. The flowers shine with a light all their own.”
“It sounds like a fairy-tale landscape.”
“It is,” she said. “What do you see?”
“Only you.” He stopped in front of a low, darkened structure. “Open the door.”
She reached down, found the knob and twisted it. The door swung inward. A pleasant warmth and a maelstrom of intense botanical scents flowed out. Her senses hummed with the potent energy of dried lavender, roses, chamomile, mint, rosemary, thyme and bay. In the moonlight she could see dark bunches of herbs and flowers suspended from the ceiling. On the floor were a number of baskets filled with more fragrant clusters.
“A drying shed,” she said, enthralled. “I have one of my own.”
“We can be private here.”
He lowered her slowly to her feet and crossed the room to where a wooden chair stood. He picked up the chair and wedged it under the doorknob. Then he came back to her.
“You think of everything,” she said.
“I try.”
Very gently he removed her eyeglasses and set them aside. Then he took her back into his arms.
She was trembling so with anticipation and excitement that she had to clutch his shoulders in order to keep her balance.
He kissed her again and then he turned her gently so that her back was to him. He began to unfasten the delicate hooks of her stiffened bodice. Within moments the gown was open.
He kissed her bare shoulder. “Thank the Lord you are not wearing one of those damned steel corsets.”
“The Rational Dress Society considers them to be very unhealthy,” she explained.
He laughed, a low, throaty growl. “Not to mention a great nuisance at times like this.”
He turned her back to face him and gently lowered the bodice, taking the tiers of elaborately draped skirts with it, until the gown pooled around her feet. She was left in only her thin chemise, drawers, stockings and shoes.
Entranced, she unbuttoned his coat and pushed her hands inside, thrilling to the heat of his body. He shrugged out of the garment with quick, impatient motions, unknotted his tie and unfastened the front of his shirt. She flattened her palms against his bare chest.
“We need a bed,” Caleb said.
He moved away from her, picked up the nearest basket and turned it upside down. A vast quantity of dried herbs and flowers tumbled out of it, geraniums, rose petals, eucalyptus, lemon balm. He emptied a second and then a third and fourth basket until there was a large, aromatic heap on the floor. Her wide-open senses were so dazzled by the heady essence of so much massed botanical energy that it was all she could do not to dive into the pile.
Caleb covered the fragrant mattress with his coat and drew her down onto the makeshift bed. The fragile, dried herbs and petals were crushed beneath their weight, releasing more ethereal, intoxicating energy into the atmosphere.
He stretched out alongside her, half covering her, and closed one hand over the curve of her breast. Something inside her was stirred to an even higher level of awareness. She heard a soft, choked cry and realized that it had come from her own throat.
“Hush,” he ordered gently. He sounded as if he was swallowing laughter or possibly a groan. He brushed her lips in warning. “We have this place to ourselves but we do not want to risk drawing the attention of others who might decide to take a stroll through the gardens.”
She surfaced momentarily from the delightful trance. Her reputation could scarcely sink any lower in the eyes of the world but it would be beyond mortifying to be discovered nude in a man’s arms. Some things a woman simply could not live down.
“Never fear,” Caleb said. “I will know if anyone comes near this shed. I am not a true hunter but excellent hearing is a family trait.”
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“Will you not trust me to protect you?”
He was as solid as a block of granite. If he made a vow, he would keep it, she thought.
“I trust you,” she whispered, amazed to hear herself say the words. The truth shook her to the core. “I do trust you, Caleb Jones.”
He leaned over her and kissed her slowly, reverently. She knew that it was his way of sealing the promise he had made.
She softened against him, thrilling to his hard, heavy weight. He touched her as though she were a rare and exotic orchid. Energy flashed and pulsed between them, mixing with the potent essence of the dried herbs and flowers.
Shock snapped through her when she felt Caleb’s hand slide between her legs. She froze.
“I need to feel your heat,” he whispered.
She parted her thighs for him, hesitantly at first and then with a sense of pooling excitement. His warm palm moved along her stocking to the bare skin above her garter. The intimacy of the experience was almost unbearable. Heat pulsed deep within her.
“You hold everything a true alchemist could ever hope to find,” Caleb said. The words were thick with wonder. “All the secrets of midnight and fire.”
He stroked her gently, deeply, finding the sensitive places within and without, enchanting her. She drew in a sharp breath, every muscle tightening. The compelling tension twisting inside her somehow blended with the exotic energy of the drying shed until she could no longer distinguish between the normal and the paranormal.
Instinctively, wanting to know Caleb as intimately as he knew her, she slid her hand down his hard body. When she reached his trousers she discovered that he had already opened them. Her exploring fingers found the heavy, rigid length of his erection. Startled, she pulled back a little.
Caleb went very still.
“Do you find me . . . unacceptable?” he whispered. There was a terrible flat quality in the question. She sensed pain beneath the grim self-control.
“You are more than . . . acceptable.” She pressed her face against his chest, grateful for the darkness that concealed her head-to-toe blush. “It is just that I was not expecting quite so much that was so . . . acceptable.”
She felt his chest shake.
“Don’t you dare laugh at me, Caleb Jones.”
“Never,” he said.
“I can feel you laughing.”
“I’m smiling, not laughing. There is a significant difference.”
She started to argue the point but he was stroking her again, sending ripples of delicious tension through her, and she could no longer think coherently. She sensed that she was about to fly into the very heart of the storm. Impulsively she circled him with her fingers, no longer worried by his size. She heard him suck in a harsh breath.
“I hurt you,” she said, releasing him instantly.
“No,” he grated.
Tentatively she touched him again. He groaned into her throat.
“Come for me,” he said.
He moved his hand on her again but it was hardly necessary. The heat in the words generated more than enough power to fling her into the swirling currents. The tension inside her was released in a white-hot flash of energy that was unlike anything she had ever known.
Caleb moved on top of her and thrust heavily into her.
Pain and exquisite pleasure mingled for an unbearable moment, unleashing still more fire across the spectrum. Dark waves thundered through her. Caleb’s energy, she thought, flowing at full strength. She understood then that he had freed it from the talons of self-control that he employed to restrain it.
It was as though floodgates had been opened. A torrent of power engulfed her, drowning the pain, threatening to swamp her senses. The irresistible currents pulsed stronger as Caleb thrust again and again into her. Somehow she knew that she had to respond in some fashion.
She dug her nails into his shoulders and summoned every bit of her own power. Opposing currents clashed violently in the night. The embrace became a battle of wills. Caleb had raw strength on his side but she soon discovered that she had her own feminine power.
For a harrowing moment, she feared that they would somehow destroy each other as the rivers of psychical energy clashed and crashed together.
But even as disaster loomed, she sensed the currents start to resonate between them, each enhancing and sustaining the other until the power she and Caleb generated together was stronger than what either could create alone.
“Lucinda.” His voice was ragged, as though he was in great need or terrible pain.
She opened her eyes. He was watching her with such searing intensity she was amazed he did not set fire to the room.
“Lucinda.”
This time he spoke her name in wonder.
The muscles of his back turned to granite. His mouth opened on a muffled shout of exultation. And then his climax was upon him, eliciting a second, gentler wave of pleasure deep within her. She felt their auras fuse for a bright, shining moment of shattering intimacy.
Together they rode the flashing, rippling, pulsing currents into the heart of the night.
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