When She Said I Do (2 page)

Her dancing had made her warm so she let the canvas wrapper fall to her feet, which freed her hands to run her fingers through the heaped baubles. Playfully she tried them all on, layering strands of rubies, emeralds, and pearls. Her reflection in the mirror was scandalous. Callie grinned.

A slight noise behind her brought a halt to her breathy song. What was that?

Callie frowned at her reflection. It must have been the candle flame guttering, but she almost believed she’d seen a shadow move behind her. That was silliness, of course. The house was empty but for Mama and Papa sleeping downstairs. Perhaps a draft pushing past the shuttered windows had fluttered a bed curtain, just there … in the corner of her vision.

Staring so hard she felt her eyes grow hot, she watched the room behind her, too breathless with tension to even turn around. It seemed safer to stay where she was, standing before the vanity, with the mirror to give her the light of two flames instead of just one.

Then a shadow parted from the others and moved toward her. She shivered. “Dade, don’t play the fool.” Her voice, meant to be sharp, came out a breathless gasp instead. Even as she spoke the words, she knew it wasn’t her brother.

Turn. Turn and run. And scream.

She tried. She took one quick step to her right, prepared to spin on her heel and flee to the door. Her body came up against a solid mass and bounced back. Another swift step, this time to the left, only brought the edge of the vanity pressing to her hipbones once more.

Her throat closed in terror as she watched her own candlelit image in the mirror be dwarfed by the towering darkness behind her. A shade, left alone in the house to wander in mourning, or in anger.

But no, she had bounced off it as if she’d run full on into the chest of a human man. According to legend, a shade would have chilled her, overtaken her, perhaps even drawn the life from her—but bounced her?

“I—don’t—please—”

“Ah, but you do please.”

Two hands emerged from the darkness and came down to cover her shoulders. They were large and heavy, hot on her bare skin, on the narrow shoulders of her chemise. The weight of them pinned her like a butterfly in a collection, holding her there, standing before the vanity, watching her doom come at her in a mirror.

“I name you thief, sweet angel.”

Callie started at the deep voice.

“Or are you a wraith, sent to torment me with what I can never have? Stealing is a crime. Crimes have penalties, do they not?”

Then the hands slid inward, toward her neck, until her throat disappeared behind them.

I am to die, then.

The ruby necklace slipped its catch, slithering down almost between her breasts before being caught by one of the hands. The hand hefted the jewels.

“Warm, for a wraith.” The voice from behind her was husky and rough, although its tones were cultured. It was also a bit slurred. “Warm enough to heat the stones whilst they glowed upon your skin.”

She shivered as the hand drew the necklace away from her and deposited it back into the open jewel chest on the vanity. When she made to twist away, the hand swiftly returned to hold her still, gentle but implacable, hot and chilling at once.

The sapphire chain came next. This time the hands held the center stone to let the parted ends slither down beneath her chemise. When the skin-warmed silver hung dangling from her nipples, she realized how erect they were, pressing hard and high from beneath the thin batiste.

A warm exhalation upon the back of her neck told her she was not the only one to have seen. Her face flamed. As the hand holding the sapphire necklace left her to return its prize to the jewel chest, she tried to fold her arms over her chest.

“No.” The heavy hands slid smoothly down to her elbows and gently pulled them back, parting her hands and forcing her back to arch. Her breasts jutted obscenely against the tightened chemise, her nipples crowning them like diamond-hard jewels, clearly visible beneath the worn fabric.

“That’s better. This is
my
haunting, pretty wraith, and I wish to enjoy every moment of it.”

The hands moved slowly back up her arms, eventually allowing her to relax her embarrassing stance, but she dared not try to cross her arms again.

Hot fingers, roughened but gentle, retrieved the earbobs from her lobes. He was only removing what was doubtless his own property, which she’d been very naughty to pilfer, yet as each piece of shimmering glory left her, she felt more and more naked.

“I’m sorry,” she began. “I ought not to have—but if you would only let me exp—”

One large hand covered her mouth, wrapping clear across her face. She stiffened in terror, then began to struggle wildly.

One step forward was all it took for her captor to press her so firmly against the vanity that she was immobilized from the hips down. His large body pressed full against her back, flooding her with heat and fear and an intense awareness of being entirely at his mercy. She could see her own eyes, wide with shock in the mirror, then gazed higher to find that the shade had a face after all.

He was half in shadow still, the candlelight blocked by her body, so all that she could see was one eye, one slanting cheekbone, one side of a sculpted jaw. Dark hair fell long and unfettered against that unshaven cheek, shadowing his features until all she could see was that eye, dark and intense and perhaps a little mad.

Handsome. Dangerous. She’d never known a demon could be so beautiful.

Caught by that heated gaze, she didn’t move again, nor try to scream around his repressive hand. After a moment, the hand slid from her mouth and wrapped loosely about her throat. She let it, feeling the heat of his palm sink into her flesh, gentled in spite of her fear.

The other hand slid down her arm to remove the diamond bracelet from her wrist. As it reached across her to deposit the jewelry into the case, his muscled arm brushed against her rigid nipples. Callie gasped at the sensations jolting through her at such shocking contact.

Never. Never, ever. She’d never been touched … there.

And you never will. Your time has passed, remember? A spinster’s life, that’s all there is before you.

He froze as well, his arm still crossing her body. Then, slowly, he pulled it back, dragging it intentionally sideways. His fine white sleeve tugged slightly at the paper-thin chemise, rubbing the fabric into delicate flesh so tight it ached.

A sound came out of Callie’s throat. Part fear, part shock, part astonished, shivering awakening.

Never, ever.

She began to shiver now, her body caught in tremors beyond her ability to still. His arm dropped away. She closed her eyes tightly.

All he has done is take back his jewels. Perhaps he yet means me no harm.

“A virgin fantasy? Not my usual delusion, but one learns not to argue the point.” His tone was soft, odd, as if she weren’t even there.

“Seduction, then? Make her want me? Impossible. This is even worse than the damned dog…”

Callie’s eyes squeezed shut more tightly. He thought she wished to be seduced? Yet what else was a man to think, to find a soaking-wet, half-naked girl in his rooms? Horror laced through her, building in her throat, unable to be released in a scream.

One shoulder of her chemise began to slip down, down …

She started, jerking in his grasp. “Shh,” he whispered in her ear. “There’s nothing to fear, sweet wraith. You are simply too lovely to remain concealed.”

One half of Callie’s mind was gibbering in panic, running about in tiny circles and waving mad hands in the air. The other half wondered at a man who seemed so determined to be gentle with a woman so entirely in his power.

She felt his arm go around her and then the other tiny sleeve fell halfway down her elbow. A tug on the fabric was all it took to drag the damp, clinging fabric to puddle at her waist, her arms trapped at the elbow by the sleeves. The chill in the room sent another shiver through her that seemed to culminate in her ever-hardening nipples.

She felt rather than heard him drag in a long, deep breath.

“Open your eyes.”

Callie hesitated, then did as he commanded her in that roughened voice. The image in the mirror was a wicked one, indeed. Her shoulders, her torso, her breasts, bare and ivory against the larger darkness of him behind her. The crumpled chemise, pinning her arms, made her look shameless, somehow almost worse than being naked.

She raised her gaze to her own eyes in the mirror, wide and shocked above his big hand covering her mouth …
Is that me?

“You yet have something of mine.”

She still wore the long strand of perfect pearls. It draped down between her breasts, gleaming ethereally in the golden glow of the candle.

Her hands fluttered up to take it off, but he caught them like butterflies, trapped carefully in his larger ones. He pressed their tangled fingers between her breasts.

“You could keep it, delicious spirit, if you wish.”

The words were broken, as if torn from a throat unused to coaxing anyone for anything.

“A small request, perhaps? No, too many in my mind to choose … I could ask for more … one for each and every pearl?”

Warm fingers trailed down the strand, brushing lightly on her skin. “There are so many pearls … I could keep you for a year or more with such a bounty. Would you return to me each night to earn a pearl? A dying man’s wish? I would release you happily in the end, if only you would bring your warmth to my cold evenings and my colder dawns…”

Callie felt some of the fear leak away at the loneliness in his deep voice. He did not know what he said, locked into his brandy-soaked fancies. She would explain herself, convince him that she was a real girl, a gently bred one at that, fallen upon his hearth in need of shelter from the storm.

Then, releasing her, his hot hands closed over her breasts and his hot mouth dove down upon her neck. Her gasp of shock and protest was lost in the deep growl of need reverberating from his throat as he drew her back hard against him.

Then he was gone, torn from her with a violence that spun her hard against the vanity. Unable to catch herself with her arms pinned to her sides, she stumbled and fell to the floor. The strand of pearls caught upon the corner of the marble tabletop and broke as she fell. Iridescent orbs bounced and scattered everywhere.

She scrambled to her hands and knees, frantically tugging her chemise back up, then turned to see two struggling forms in the shadows.

“Dade!”

On her feet once more, she grabbed her candle and held it high. Two heads, one dark and one light—that would be Dade, his hair much more golden than her own! Callie searched for something heavy to swing, ready to enter the fray in defense of her brother.

Then the fight swung closer to her and she saw what had been hidden from her in the mirror. Her assailant’s face, twisted and half ruined—dark and demonic!

Callie screamed and lost her grip on the candlestick. The room went entirely dark.

Chapter 2

Quite possibly the most annoying thing about attending a duel was the early-morning hour. Callie yawned behind her glove. Truly, could idiot men not just as easily kill each other in the middle of the afternoon? Say, after a satisfying meal and perhaps a nap?

Callie, being secretly of the opinion that a great number of the world’s troubles could be solved by all parties toting themselves off for a relaxing nap, yawned again and glared at her brother. Anger was safe. Much better than thinking about her scandalous moment of madness last night.

Furthermore, Dade was a safer recipient of that glare than the alarming Mr. Porter. Dade wasn’t going to glare back, or raise his hand to point to her, or open his mouth and reveal all that had truly happened.

This entire matter would be best forgotten. She hadn’t been injured, nor had she injured anyone. It had been an odd mistake, made in a strange dreamlike moment of allowing herself to be someone whom she was most definitely not.

She was very tired from her sleepless night and she was cold and she wanted to go home. She wished Dade and Mr. Porter would get over their silliness, or at the very least finish up their ridiculous male posturing quickly.
Wave your pistols, fire into the air, declare yourselves avenged, or redeemed, or whatever, and let us all simply go home!

Only it didn’t look like silly male posturing. It looked very serious, with Dade stiffly formal in his blue surcoat, his face pale and ill and determined. Mr. Porter, in a hooded cape that hid his frightening face, looked none the less determined in posture and in the way his large hand gripped the pistol at his side. They stood back to back, the sturdy fair-haired young gentleman and the leaning, limping man of shadow.

Callie’s belly went ice-cold. This felt horribly wrong. Someone should stop them. Someone should do something! She looked to her parents, but they only stood arm in arm, looking worried and helpless and strangely old.

Archie glared in Mr. Porter’s direction. “It is only right that something should be done about the man. ‘He is as disproportionate in his manners as in his shape.’”

Iris leaned closer to Callie. “Prospero, you know.
The Tempest,
act five, scene one.”

Callie ignored her parents. It didn’t do to encourage them. They could go on for hours. She swallowed. “Dade—”

A sharp motion of his hand cut her off. Morgan, acting as second for Dade, began to count off the steps. “One. Two. Three.”

Both men moved out, Dade in a slow, purposeful stride, Mr. Porter in an off-center lurching gait.

“Ten.”

Twenty paces apart, the two men turned and pointed their pistols simultaneously. Mr. Porter fired at once. The explosion of gunpowder in the silent morning sent birds winging from the trees and Callie’s heart into her throat.

The bullet tore into the grass at Dade’s feet, sending soil and roots up in a spray to spatter his boots. Dade started, looked down, then looked back up at Mr. Porter, his jaw hardening.

“Do not think that will save you.”