Emily's Ghost (39 page)

Somehow that got through
to her. She gave the faintest of nods and whispered, "This is the
most ... the most
unacceptable
moment of my life." Tears of mortification rolled
down her cheeks.

"Don't cry, dammit to
hell," growled Fergus. "It's yer own damn fault. Did ye think I
could stand by idly and watch ye give yerself to this -- this hunk?
I like him well enough," he added, "but not enough to share ye with
'im."

Emily pulled the sheet up
with both hands to her mouth to stifle a scream of frustration.
This was
it,
the
point at which she might well tip over into madness. She closed her
eyes and bit on the cloth, summoning every fiber of self-control
she possessed. When she opened her eyes, Fergus was still there and
Lee was standing alongside the bed, hauling his pants up over his
nakedness. It all seemed very funny. She let out a high-pitched
yelp of sheer nervous energy. The sound of it frightened her; she
bit the inside of her lip so hard that she tasted blood.

Lee came around to her
side of the bed and sat there, his thigh touching hers, his hands
gripping her shoulders. Emily searched his face for signs of fear
and revulsion, but all she found was a kind of overwhelming
humanity. "We'll walk through
it
together, darling; it's all right." He turned
around and looked right through Fergus, then turned back to her.
"Will he tolerate my being here with you?"

Her face became ashen.
Fergus could destroy Lee in one blinding flash. She'd been so
caught up in her own embarrassment that she'd forgotten the ghost's
power. She shook her head bleakly, incapable of putting together a
coherent explanation of the danger.

"Ah, hell, let 'im stay,"
Fergus said with a magnanimous wave of his hand.

Emily gazed over Lee's
shoulder into the green, dancing eyes of the ghost. She saw a cat,
ready to pounce. "He says you can stay," she repeated to Lee,
feeling foolish and fearful.

Lee seemed to relax.
"Well, that's a start, then. Where exactly is he?"

"He's standing at the foot
of the bed," she answered, gathering courage. "With his arms
crossed and a snotty expression on his face," she added
angrily.

Lee said calmly, "I
take
it
he
doesn't approve of what we are -- were -- doing?"

She shook her head and
said through clenched teeth, "He doesn't seem to want to share
me."

"Ye don't have to bloody
well tell him
everything,"
Fergus interrupted, flushing deeply.

"You're
the one who has the advantage in this little
dynamic," she shot back at him. "All the power, all the
knowledge!"

The ghost looked
surprised, then looked at Lee's broad, rippling back, and an
expression of torment twisted the features of his face. "Ye haven't
heard anything I've said if that's what ye believe," he said in a
voice cut low by her anger.

Lee was watching Emily's
reactions carefully; he saw the stricken look on her face. When she
had no answer for Fergus, he said simply, "He's hurt
you."

But Emily shook her head,
deeply distressed. "No, I'm the one who's hurt him." Hildie's
little tank top was on the nightstand; Emily picked it up and
pulled it over her head, not because she felt particularly modest,
but because she didn't want anyone to want her anymore. Maybe that
was the definition of modesty; she didn't know.

"Oh, no, ye don't," Fergus
said, in a lightning shift of mood. "Don't ye be layin' any guilt
trip on
me.
I
watch Donahue. I watch Oprah. I watch
Geraldo,
for God's sake. I know
everything there is to know about manipulation. Unh-unh. Take that
little thing off. Go back to yer business. I'll just wait outside.
From what I seen," he added with a sly and jealous glance at the
senator, "ye'll only be a minute."

Lee had been tracing the
play of emotions on Emily's face. "Now what?" he asked
her.

Emily turned defiant,
folding her arms across her chest. "He wants us to resume," she
explained with fine outrage, her foot tapping thin air under the
sheet. "He promises not to look."

Lee burst out in a laugh.
"Does he say
why
he wants us to resume?"

"He doesn't want to feel
guilty."

"Guilty! What does a ghost
know about guilt?"

"He watches all the talk
shows."

"Ah. Of course. Well. This
really is ... unbelievable," Lee said softly, shaking his
head.

"Don't say
'unbelievable,'" Emily moaned. "Or we'll be back where we
started."

"Wrong word," Lee said,
kissing the top of her hair. "I meant 'weird.'"

She was dismayed to see
Lee stand up and approach the spot where Fergus was standing. The
ghost remained where he was, arms akimbo now, watching Lee with a
narrow, calculating expression. Emily was reminded again of a cat.
Her heart began to pound as Lee paused, stared, moved to another
angle, and repeated the pattern. Fergus said nothing; only his
eyes, glittering and attentive, conveyed any sense of danger. Lee
brought one arm up and very calmly, very deliberately began to cut
a swath through the air.

Right through Fergus.
Emily cried, "Don't!" at the same time that she saw both Fergus's
image and Lee's broad, bare arm occupying the same space. The hair
on the back of her neck stood up. In one fell swoop Lee had
violated a taboo that Emily had been extremely careful to honor.
For an instant Fergus looked stunned. Then the light began:
blinding, terrifying, and focused completely on Lee.

"Fergus, don't!" Emily
cried out. "He didn't mean it! Stop it!" she commanded in a shrill
voice.

"Keep him away from
me,"
Fergus growled, and then he
disappeared. Instantly the light subsided, although random shafts
of brightness continued to play around the room, the way thunder
rolls after the initial crack of lightning. Lee, who hadn't been
seriously hurt, looked dazed.

"What was
that
all about?" he
asked in a voice that wasn't quite steady.

Emily had climbed back out
of bed and dressed. "You offended him, Lee," she said, zipping up
her shorts. She looked at him across the bed -- unoccupied, yet
again -- and said with a sigh, "He wants desperately to be a human
being again, and you made it really clear that he's
not."

"For that he was going to
annihilate me?"

"I don't know what he was
going to do. He's been very tense lately."

Lee pulled his dark polo
shirt back over his head and said in a voice muffled by fabric, "I
can't believe we're having this conversation." When his head popped
through, he gave Emily a look that was both ironic and
apologetic.
"But
. . . I do believe everything else." He came over to Emily
and locked his arms around the small of her back, holding her
close. "I love you, Emily. I love you. But I've got to admit, this
guy is formidable competition."

Emily laid her cheek
against his chest and said in a low, confused voice, "He'll
probably be glad to hear that."

They had coffee in the
kitchen after that, even though it was late. Lee rummaged around
for something sweet and came up with a still-warm carrot cake with
cream cheese frosting. They left the kitchen lights low and spoke
in undertones about Hessiah Talbot's murder. As it turned out,
Lee
had
read the
notebooks she'd left on the desk in her condo that first night; he
was more informed than she'd thought.

"Anyway, now that I've
found the photograph and identified the family as the Talbots, I
feel a lot more motivated about searching that pile of memorabilia
in the bedroom. I think there's a significant connection between
the mayor and them," she said. "If I can't find it in that pile,
I'm going back to Talbot Manor for those diaries."

"Not without telling me
first," he urged. "Maria Salva sounds more dangerous than
Fergus."

Emily agreed to keep him
posted. "This is crazy, Lee," she said, sliding her hand around the
back of his neck. "Somehow I thought that if you believed me,
everything else would fall into place -- including us, right into
each other's arms." She drew his face closer to hers and, moved by
an overwhelming feeling of tenderness toward him, kissed
him.

Lee answered the kiss in
kind, holding himself in check. But the kiss turned deeper; a low
sound escaped from his throat. "Unless you want to be carried off
to bed, this is not a good idea." His smile was taut.

"No," she said, sighing.
"You're right. I want to, but --" She laughed softly and shook her
head. "It'd have to be in a lead-lined room. You do understand,
don't you?" she asked, tracing her finger over the fullness of his
lips. "I don't want to hurt Fergus. I'm not sure I can actually
help him, but I can't -- I won't -- hurt him.

"And besides, you have a
primary race to run," she said, changing the subject.

But Lee didn't want to
talk about the primary. "You're pretty serious about this fellow,
aren't you? Should I be jealous?"

"Not in any normal sense
of the word," she said, coloring a little.

"Heck, if he were normal
we could duke it out behind the barn, winner take all -- with your
permission, of course," he added gallantly.

"Lee, I'm serious about
the primary," she said, switching the subject again. "For all we
know there's a reporter from the
Washington Post
hiding in your front
bushes right now. Even putting the subject of Fergus's hostility to
you aside, we don't dare be seen together until the primary next
month -- until after the election, I mean," she
corrected.

Lee's playful mood
evaporated. His brow became furrowed and his blue eyes went gray.
"I hate to say this. But I'm in trouble, Emily. I haven't let on to
my family yet, but I'm hanging by a thread. The projections don't
look good. Strom is picking up speed while I'm dropping back
fast."

"But it's early days yet,"
she argued. "This is politics. Anything can happen."

"Yeah. Maybe you can talk
Fergus into haunting Strom instead," he quipped. "Come on, I'll see
you safely to your bedroom door." He pointed a finger heavenward.
"You owe me for this, Fergus."

Emily found the mayor's
letter the next morning right after breakfast, long after Lee had
left for the mainland. She'd focused her search on anything written
in an old-school style, and she wasn't disappointed. The letter was
written on heavy official paper in a man's hand and undated. What
caught Emily's eye was the salutation: "Dearest H."

Dearest
H,

Let me say at once that I
am discouraged by the position you have taken regarding your
cousin. He has brought forth his suit in a most seemly way, and my
only regret is that John Talbot is not alive to give him the
support and encouragement you so perversely withhold. What can be
your possible objection to the man? He is well provided and of
impeccable character and manners. Most important, his family are
your own. I do not accept your frivolous lament to your brother
that Thomas Dayton lacks color. You are not in search of a rainbow;
you are in desperate need of a husband.

Stewart has led me to
understand that Thomas is in the process of angrily packing his
portmanteau, not so much because you will not take him as because
you will not take him seriously. Your brother seems to find your
irresponsible manner amusing -- I believe he encourages you -- but
I confess I find it incomprehensible and infuriating. While I am on
the subject, I also have had reason to believe that yet another
officer has caught your fancy. This I find truly insupportable.
Must I remind you that the only reason any man joins the military
is that he possesses neither a decent fortune nor a steadfast
heart? It is all very well for a debutante to be dazzled by the
shine of gold braid. But has it occurred to you that at the age of
twenty-six you are no longer an ingénue? I have no
choice

And there the letter
ended. Emily searched long and hard for page two but came up empty.
There was nothing else in the same hand or on the same stationery.
There was nothing, really, to prove that it
was
Mayor Abbott who was venting his
fury at Hessiah, except for the fact that the single sheet of paper
was embossed with the seal of the mayor's office.

"Still, that's good enough
for me," Emily murmured, satisfied. As always, she wanted to share
the news. "Fergus?"

He appeared at once,
seated in the wicker chair with his legs stretched out in front of
him, his elbows resting on the arms of the chair, his hands tipped
against his mouth in a prayerful pose. He looked both wary and
hopeful. "This had better be good, girl."

"I think it is, Fergus,"
Emily answered with an awkward, contrite smile. She still hadn't
come up with a decent method for smoothing over their fallings-out.
Lee was right. It'd be a lot easier if you could just stand there
and duke it out. The trouble was, one minute Fergus was there, and
then, just as you were working up a smart answer, he was
gone.