Forever and the Night (The Black Rose Chronicles) (7 page)

“Do you always go out walking at such odd times?” he asked. There was no irritation in the question, only a companionable kind of curiosity.

“No,” Neely answered, somewhat weakly. “No, I don’t. It’s just that I’ve been feeling very restless lately—”

“Any idea who the rascal in the woods might have been?”

Neely shook her head, embarrassed. She was making one hell of an impression. “I ran into the trees when he stopped and turned around, and he followed. He was probably harmless, but—”

“But you don’t think so?” he asked. They had gained the edge of Aidan’s sloping lawn.

Again she shook her head. “I have some formidable enemies,” she said.

“So do I,” he replied. They mounted the steps to the porch, and he held the door open for her, waiting politely while she passed over the threshold.

He led her into a parlor, where oil lamps burned cozily and a fire blazed on the hearth. “Here,” he said, depositing her in a large leather chair. “Have a seat and catch your breath. I’ll get that tea. Or would you rather have brandy?”

“Brandy,” Neely said without hesitation.

Aidan smiled, went to a sideboard, and poured amber liquid into an etched glass snifter. He brought Neely the drink but stood well away from her chair while she sipped.

“I know I’ve already disrupted your evening,” she began when her limbs had stopped quivering and her heart had slowed to its normal pace, “but I wonder if you’d mind driving me home. I’m afraid to walk, under the circumstances.”

He was near the fireplace, arms folded, his back braced against the mantelpiece. The first two times Neely had encountered him, she’d been struck by the unusual fairness of his complexion, but that night his face looked quite normal, almost ruddy. “I’ll bring the car around in a few minutes,” he said in that refined voice of his.

Neely stared at him over the rim of her glass, wanting to blurt out that she’d dreamed about him, that she wondered why. But she only nodded.

“These ‘powerful enemies’ of yours,” he said, watching her in a way that made her feel like some unparalleled work of art. “Can you tell me who they are?”

She sighed and sank back in the chair, slouching, running one index finger around the rim of the snifter. “It might not be wise to do that,” she mused after a long time. “It’s dangerous to know too much.”

One moment he was halfway across the room, the next, Aidan was crouching beside her chair.

“It’s often more dangerous not knowing enough, don’t you think?”

Neely felt a purely elemental pull toward him and turned her head slightly in order to protect herself. She sighed. “I used to work for a United States senator,” she said. “He was involved in some very crooked deals, and I gathered enough proof to put him, and the creeps he was dealing with, out of business. Or so I thought.” Out of the comer of her eye she saw that he was looking at the base of her throat, and she felt a sudden and inexplicable desire to surrender to the dark magic she saw in his eyes. “Now it appears that they’ve decided to make sure I can’t cause any more trouble,” she finished shakily in a distracted tone.

He bolted away from her with unsettling swiftness. Had he been anyone other than who he was, Neely would have thought he hadn’t heard her explanation, but she knew very little got by Aidan, whether he appeared to be paying attention or not.

“It will require some thought—your predicament, I mean,” he said gravely, avoiding her gaze. “Please, make yourself comfortable. I’ll bring the car to the front of the house in a few minutes. I don’t use it often, so the engine will need some time to warm up.”

Neely nodded, feeling both relief and disappointment at the prospect of being separated from him.

“Thank you,” she said.

Aidan left the room.

Neely waited, then raised herself out of the chair, supporting her weight with one hand and clutching the empty snifter in the other. Her legs were still trembling, and the small injury she’d done to her shin earlier stung like crazy, but the brandy had definitely restored her. And none of those things were of any consequence at all in comparison to the emotions and yearnings Aidan Tremayne brought out in her.

She crossed to Aidan’s desk and set the snifter down.

There was a music box sitting just to the left of the blotter, and Neely automatically reached for it, wanting to think of something else, if only for a moment, to shift her thoughts from the master of that spooky old house.

Besides, she had a collection of such boxes tucked away in a rented storage unit, along with most of her other belongings. The small mechanisms and delicate tunes had always appealed to her.

This one was clearly antique, perhaps dating back to the early nineteenth century. The case was carved of the finest rosewood, and there were tiny forest animals etched into its top.

Neely lifted the lid, and the tinkling notes of an old tune rose from inside. She trembled, and her heart lurched painfully.

It was the same melody she’d heard in her dream.

With a little cry Neely closed the music box and stepped back.

“Is something wrong?” an unfamiliar male voice inquired.

Neely whirled, one shock compounding with another. She had never seen the man standing behind her; he was enormous, imposing, and, she supposed, handsome, with his rich chestnut hair and discerning violet eyes. She clasped one hand to her chest and made an inarticulate sound.

“I’ve frightened you.” With a calm, easy smile the man bowed his head. “I apologize.”

Neely was still shaken, but she was beginning to regain her equilibrium. She would work out the music box thing later, she decided. As for the man’s sudden appearance, well, that was easily explained. The Tremayne house was large, and Aidan hadn’t said he was alone there. She had simply assumed that.

“My name is Valerian. Yours?”

“Neely,” she said, still breathing fast. Could this man be the same one who had chased her into the woods? No— she’d been watching too much television and reading too many thrillers, that was all. This guy was hardly the sort to go rambling through the trees in the dead of night, and it was impossible to imagine him behind the wheel of a Blazer. “Neely Wallace.”

“A pleasure,” he said, taking Neely’s hand, which she didn’t recall extending, and barely brushing the knuckles with his lips.

A shiver went through her, part pleasure and part primal fear. She felt light-headed, almost as if she’d been hypnotized. She wrenched back her hand just as Aidan entered the room again, bringing the scents of fresh air and snow with him.

He looked at Valerian but spoke to Neely.

“The car is ready,” he said. His tone was terse.

Neely nodded and scrambled into her coat, eager to be away. And, if she was to be honest, eager to be alone with Aidan again.

A white English sports car, a Triumph Spitfire with a canvas top and plenty of chrome, waited in front of the house. Aidan opened the passenger door for Neely before going around to the driver’s side and sliding behind the wheel.

“What’s going on around here?” she demanded, surprising even herself with the bluntness of the question. It seemed her troubled subconscious mind had decided to make a move on its own, bypassing the usual channels. “Aidan, I had a very strange, very vivid dream last night, about you. We danced, you and I, to an old-fashioned tune, one I’m certain I’ve never heard before. Tonight I lifted the lid of that music box on your desk, and out came that very same song.”

Aidan shifted the expensive car into gear and stepped on the accelerator. The machine navigated the snowy driveway with ease. “Coincidence,” he said, but he didn’t so much as glance in her direction.

“No,” Neely insisted. She was certain of that one conviction, if nothing else. “I couldn’t remember the dream— it drove me crazy all day long—but when I heard that tune, everything came back to me. You and I were dancing. And—and I’m not sure now that it really
was
a dream. What’s going on here, Aidan?” She paused to gather her courage. “Am I imagining the attraction between us?” she asked in a small but determined voice.

He shifted again, and the car fishtailed slightly but quickly regained its traction. “No,” he said, with succinct reluctance, and in spite of all the danger she was in, Neely felt a rush of wild, flamboyant joy. She wanted Aidan to kiss her again, the way he had in the dream or delusion, whatever it had been, but he didn’t even glance in her direction.

“We’re playing for very high stakes, here—much higher than you can possibly imagine. You must keep yourself safe, inasmuch as you can, and most of all you have to trust me.”

She sighed and settled back in the leather seat, clasping her hands in her lap and memorizing his profile. “Well,” she said. “That was certainly cryptic. Why do I get the feeling you don’t intend to explain?”

At last he looked at her, and even though he kept his distance, Neely had the oddest sensation that she’d just been soundly kissed. The incident left her dizzy and wanting Aidan with an embarrassing desperation.

“I will explain everything when I can,” he said kindly.

Neely touched her fingertips to her lips, which were still tingling from a kiss that hadn’t happened.

Aidan lifted one comer of his mouth in a teasing and damnably mysterious smile. “I can do other things as well,” he said, leaving her even more mystified than before. “One of these nights I’ll show you.”

Neely blushed and barely kept herself from blurting out that she wanted him to show her all his tricks, then and there.

They had reached the highway, and Aidan made a right turn, chuckling to himself as if he’d heard her thoughts. She squirmed as the small, sleek car shot toward the Lakeview Trailer Court and Motel.

Neely looked around, forcing herself to think of something besides the inexplicable need Aidan had managed to stir in her.

There was no sign of the Blazer; the only other vehicle they encountered was a county snowplow.

Aidan turned onto the gravel road that wound through the trailer court and came to a stop at Neely’s door.

She felt as awkward as a teenage wallflower at the biggest dance of the year. She wanted Aidan to touch her and at the same time was terrified that he would. She opened the car door hastily and climbed out. “Good night,” she said cheerfully. “And thank you.”

He left the car, walked Neely to her door, and waited patiently until she was inside. “Good night,” he said formally, although something mischievous smoldered in his eyes all the while, as she closed the door.

It was only after Aidan had driven away, the taillights of his car blinking red in an otherwise white night, that she realized she’d never told him which trailer was hers.

“Hunt with me,” Valerian pleaded as Aidan tossed his car keys into a china dish on the bookshelf behind his desk. His attention was focused on the music box.

“I’ve already fed,” he replied, picking up the little rosewood case and lifting the lid.

“Then feed again,” Valerian said.

At last Aidan lifted his gaze. “Why? You know I abhor it.”

Valerian sighed. “Yes,” he agreed. “But a surplus may heighten your powers. It is more important than ever that you be strong, Aidan.”

Now it was Aidan who sighed. “Another dire warning,” he said, returning the box to its place. “What would you have me do? Become a hedonist as well as a heretic, like you?”

The other vampire slammed his hands down hard on the top of Aidan’s desk, making the music box and several other items jump. “Spare me the moral discourse,” Valerian rasped, his eyes seeming to bum like Saint Elmo’s fire as he glared at Aidan from under his heavy brows. “Others have seen Lisette. She is beginning to circulate.”

Aidan shoved a hand through his hair. “Perhaps the thing to do is confront her,” he said.

Valerian shook his head. “In your present state, that would be disastrous. Lisette is the queen of all vampires, the first female ever created. Even after a long sleep, her powers will be formidable.”

Aidan’s mind touched on Neely, on her softness and warmth. He had to protect her, and the best way to do that was to leave twentieth-century Connecticut entirely. “All right,” he conceded raggedly, “I’ll put myself in your hands, Valerian. We’ll feed together, and I’ll at least listen to your counsel. I want one promise from you first, however.”

The elder vampire did not speak but simply raised one eyebrow in silent question.

“You must give me your sacred vow that you will not come back for the woman.”

Valerian made an exasperated sound. “I presume you mean Neely Wallace.”

“You presume correctly. I saw the way you looked at her, and I know what you were thinking. I want your word that you’ll leave her alone.”

Valerian laughed, but there was no mirth in the sound and certainly no joy. He raised one large hand as if to swear an oath. “I will not feed on the waitress,” he said. There was a pause. “Just remember, Aidan. I cannot speak for the others.”

“They won’t bother Neely unless you call their attention to her.”

“I could say the same thing to you, my friend.” With that, Valerian raised both his arms high in the air and made a sweeping and wholly theatrical gesture.