Always (13 page)

The group around her shifted as the mayor urged his wife to move on. For a fraction of a moment, the opening in the crowd revealed a sight that jolted Elinor's stomach.

Ten feet away, Cole stood with Norell Stephens. Beautiful in a black sheath dress, Norell had her arm tucked through his as he bent to catch her words.

"Elinor!" Daisy drew her attention away. "Mr. and Mrs. Fenton want to speak to you before they go."

Cole watched Elinor, engulfed in a crowd of friends. He observed the play of emotion over her face—sadness, gratitude, even laughter when one of her well-wishers remarked that old Daniel would probably scare the angel Gabriel into letting him into heaven.

Glad that he'd finally extricated himself from Norell, Cole's gaze wandered over the peaceful clearing. The cemetery stood some yards behind the house, set to one side. Enclosed in a wrought-iron fence, the masters of Oakleigh and their families were separated from the slaves' burial ground. Even in death there was a hierarchy.

The voices around Cole seemed to fade. He hadn't been in a cemetery since his father died, and he couldn't help but remember that turbulent time. All through today's sermon, his mind had been filled with thoughts of his father.

He was beginning to wonder if he hadn't been very wrong about the man who'd given him life.

Did all adolescents think their fathers were fools? As a teenager, he'd wanted his father to fight injustices with a fiery sword. He'd wanted him to stand up to the Daniel Prescotts of the world and demand to be dealt with fairly.

But John Whittier hadn't been a man to brandish swords of any kind. In hindsight, Cole could see the wisdom of that. Perhaps his father had been more astute than he knew.

Certainly wiser, Cole realized, than he'd been. He'd hated Daniel Prescott with the passion of the lowly for the almighty. And he'd held that anger for almost twenty years. It had faded, undeniably, but that hadn't altered Cole's determination to prove himself.

Behind him, the mourners' voices grew dim, and he could hear the occasional sound of cars driving away.

Standing here in the breeze-swept cemetery, Cole knew that if his father had been alive, he would have been there for Daniel's funeral. He would have been the first to offer Elinor condolences, and he would have meant them sincerely.

Cole wondered how long it would take him to learn his father's graciousness. There were some things he just couldn't let go of.

Turning back to the group under the trees, Cole realized they had all gone. Even Elinor was nowhere in sight. Only the mortuary workers remained, busily filling in the grave that would be Daniel's last resting place.

Across the backyard, Cole saw Charlie approaching, his dignity evident even in sorrow. Cole waited for him, thinking again how much respect the man deserved for handling his cantankerous charge all these years.

"Mister Cole." Charlie stopped in front of him, holding out a heavy ring of keys. "Miss Elinor is in the house by herself. Please give these to her and tell her that I cleaned all the rooms above stairs last week."

The weight of the key ring dropped into the hand that Cole had automatically extended. "Charlie, I'm sure she'll want to talk with you."

"Yes, sir." The older man's face was painfully stiff. "But I'm going home now, back to my sister's house. Miss Elinor knows how to reach me if she wants."

"Thank you, Charlie," Cole murmured as the other man turned and marched away, his thin body rigid.

The wind seemed to pick up as the sun went down. Cole wondered, as he walked slowly to the house, whether they were in for a storm.

The front door of the house stood open as were the doors of the rooms that opened onto the hall. Inside each room, most of which had been shut up for years Cole could see wide-open windows, their curtains surging in the breeze.

He walked into the hall, his steps echoing in the cavernous space. The great hall of Oakleigh extended up to the second floor with a graceful curving staircase set at the back. Cole stood in the open space, listening to the rustle of the wind and the silence of the house surrounded by nature's evening noises.

The first floor seemed void of human presence, the wind scourging through in a cross draft that had made the summers bearable in the days before air-conditioning. Standing in the hall, the heart of Oakleigh, Cole felt again the peculiar magic of the house.

It always hit him this way, this thud in his midsection, as if he'd found some perfect cosmic balance here. He'd felt it even in the days when cosmic experiences were not a mainstream concern.

And yet tonight there seemed an even greater buzzing, a bubbling in his veins that he knew had very human origins. Somewhere in this house was Elinor. The combination of the two sent a vortex of energy through him.

Quickly, Cole closed and bolted the front door. Sensing that Elinor wasn't on the first floor, he slowly mounted the staircase. Each maple tread held firm beneath his steps as he climbed steadily to the second floor, his heart thudding in his chest and his breath rapid in his throat.

Elinor wrestled with the window and won, jerking up the sash to let in the evening air. The ancient lace curtains billowed with the breeze, their yellowed cobweblike fabric more impression than substance.

She turned back, her gaze sweeping over the shadowed bedroom filled with graceful, dark furnishings. It seemed as if nothing had been touched as if she had stepped into some magic mansion, unchanged by the years.

A sound drew her attention to the doorway.

Cole leaned against the dooijamb, his dark suitcoat and tie discarded. The white of his shirt was luminous in the dusky light while his face seemed shadowed and still.

She couldn't quite see his expression, but she felt him watching her with an intensity that quickened every rhythm in her body.

Energy seemed to swirl around the room as invisible as the wind and just as powerful. Elinor felt the current, the intensity vibrating from Cole. His smile was absent now, replaced by a deep, brooding gaze that sent a thrumming along her veins.

"It seems so strange to be here," she ventured, trailing her hand along an ornately carved bedpost. "Almost mystical somehow."

"You've never really been in the house, have you?" he asked, his voice low and slumberously soft.

She shook her head. "Only downstairs to see Daniel." Behind her, the curtains heaved and rolled in a sudden gust that stirred her skirt around her legs. Her every sensory receptor seemed heightened, as if she were being drawn into a dream colored by desire.

"I hated this house as a child," she said, her steps wandering to where a brass cradle embellished with curlicues sat in a corner of the room. "Oakleigh was always so much a part of my father's craziness that I came to dislike even the name of the place."

Cole said nothing, his gaze following her with a fervent intensity.

"But now that I'm standing here, it seems like a beautiful place filled with memories I can only guess at. As if I can feel all the living that has gone on here."

Straightening from the doorway, Cole strolled to the huge, canopied bed.

"These rooms apparently haven't been touched in the last thirty years except to be cleaned," mused Elinor as she moved to admire a chest set below a heavy mirror. "I think this must have been my grandmother's rooms. This silver hairbrush set has her initials on it."

"The room suits you," he said softly. "I can see you here, dressed in silk and satin, your waist cinched in a lacy dress that sweeps down over a hoop."

"I'm sure it would be very uncomfortable," she murmured shakily, her body quickening as he drew nearer.

"Not for you," he promised. "Your slender waist was made for a hoop." He stopped, inches away from her, his expression compelling. "I can imagine you in a ballgown of pink silk, your ivory shoulders bare above your decolletage, dancing the night away in my arms."

"Decolletage?" she whispered weakly.

"One of the best aspects of plantation fashion," he murmured, the warmth of his body sweeping over her as he leaned nearer.

Cole's finger trailed down from her shoulder over the dark fabric of her dress, bisecting the row of small buttons to trace an imaginary line across her breasts.

Elinor heard her own swiftly drawn breath.

"Low necklines," confided Cole just as he bent to claim her mouth.

His lips encountered hers like a homecoming, a deep longing fulfilled in the texture of their touch. She felt paralyzed, stunned by the emotion that curled through her as heady and drugging as incense.

Elinor reached for him, hands on his shoulders for balance, as she swayed beneath the magic of his mouth on hers. Even through the fine texture of his shirt, his skin felt warm and vital beneath her fingers.

Cole drew back, his breathing faintly ragged. "Do you know what I would do if you were a plantation lady dressed for a ball?"

"No," she whispered, transfixed by his smoldering eyes. His intent was there, a mix of desire and determination. In a flash, Elinor decided. There were a thousand reasons to deny him and only one to stay. No one and nothing felt more like home than Cole.

He brushed back her hair with the lightest of touches. "If you were a plantation lady dressed for a ball, I would dance you away from the ball, into the darkness. And I would bring you up here where we could be alone."

Elinor's pulse went into double time. He stood next to her in this silent room that seemed out of time, his voice that same low whiskey-colored velvet that always seemed to brush over her skin.

"Can't you hear the music, El? Imagine us leaving the candlelit ballroom, stealing into the dark." He stroked a hand along the curve of her cheek.

"We would still be able to hear the music, and yet we would be totally alone."

The wind whispered through the house, drawing at the window and then puffing out again. Elinor felt its tug, the swirl of the wind and the pull of Cole's magic.

"And when we were here, alone, I would draw you into my arms, like this."

She let him pull her close again, half captured by the spell of his voice, and knowing where the magic would lead them.

"First," he murmured, "I would take off your earrings." A deft movement of his fingers at her ear and the pearl slid into his palm. "And the other."

His whispering touch left her languorous and aching. Elinor felt herself sway, a faltering of her strength as he pulled away from her to deposit her earrings on the carved wooden chest.

"If you were a plantation lady," he said, "your dress would have a row of tiny buttons up the back." His hand swept down her spine lingeringly, resting at the small of her back.

"And I would unfasten each one, ever so slowly." Cole reached for the top button of her dress, his fingers brushing the sensitive flesh at her neck.

Elinor allowed her head to fall back, giving in to the seduction of her own desire for him.

"Can you imagine," he asked, trailing his fingers from one button to the next, "how we would both ache waiting for each tiny button to be worked free?"

"Yes," Elinor gasped, sensation rocketing through her as his fingers brushed the inner curves of her breasts with each button he freed.

"And then." He paused, loosening the thin belt at her waist. "I would untie your sash. And your dress would fall open."

She could feel the rasp of his warm breath over her skin as her dress opened beneath his hands. He pushed the garment off her shoulders so that it sagged to her hips before ending up in a pool around her feet. The cool damp air felt pure against her heated flesh.

"Of course, you're a proper lady," Cole informed her, his words strained, "so you'd be wearing petticoats."

Shivering, she stood acquiescent beneath his hands as he tugged her half-slip down over her hips, his strong hands caressing her.

"And then I'd have to take your stockings off." Cole knelt on the floor in front of her, and slowly drew down her stretchy hose. Balancing with a hand on his broad shoulder, she helped him slip off her shoes and then lifted each foot for him to tug off the hose.

Straightening to his feet, Cole looked down at her with storm-dark, hungry eyes, his gaze growing heavy as he took in her half-naked body.

"The most fun," he rasped, "would be taking off your corset." He drew her into his arms, his face registering pain and pleasure as she sank against him. Burying his face in the curve of her neck, Cole nipped and suckled her sensitive skin as his fingers conquered the clasp of her bra.

Lifting away from her, he pulled the straps down her arms and she stood bare in the dim light, except for the silken wisp of her panties.

"And then," he said, his voice more strained than ever, "I'd take off your shift." He bent once more, slipping free the lacy fabric as his hands lingered on the swell of her hips.

Elinor stood before him as naked as the day she was born, and much less innocent. In her sleep, she had made love to him a hundred times, her dreams sabotaging her conscious will. But reality carried ten times the force of dreams. Anticipation shivered through her veins like an illegal substance.

Cole stood up, his face a mask of elemental passion. He undressed without haste, his eyes fastened to hers, telegraphing promises of a fulfillment she had never known.

When he had stripped as bare as she, he said "Do you know what I'd do when I had you naked El?"

"I hope so," she answered in a shaky whisper.

A smile curled his mouth, sensual and masculine. "When I had you naked I'd pick you up," he lifted her in his arms, "and lay you across the bed."

She felt a kaleidoscope of sensation, his skin against hers, and then the rough texture of the bedcoverings against her back as Cole placed her beneath the canopy.

"You are more beautiful than fantasy, El," he murmured kneeling on the bed next to her. "And more precious than treasure."

She reached for him and he met her with an uncompromised fervor, his lithe, powerful body straining against hers. She felt his hand on her bare leg, stroking the flesh above her knee with the touch of a lover as his lips found hers.