Chapter 9
Elliot had taken Burke Devlin's measure while listening to him relate the story of his recent life. The man was certainly a survivor and evidently courageous. Elliot admired people who overcame evil circumstances with patience and grit, or who fought hard to better themselves—as his long-ago ancestor, Ben Stokes, had done. Burke was an engaging narrator. Also, there was a freshness about him, a roguish unpretentiousness that was quite attractive.
Assuming that anything he had just told them was the truth.
Elliot handed Burke a drink, and they talked with Veronika in low tones. Turning from them, Julia drew Barnabas back to the liquor cabinet and whispered, "I spoke to the coroner about those children. It's horrible, but it could have been worse."
"How do you mean?"
Distress puckered her brow. "Barnabas, they won't come back. The coroner is sure that the bite marks and blood loss were inflicted post-mortem. Just barely. The children were dead before the vampire drank their blood."
"What?!"
They signaled Elliot. He excused himself, leaving Veronika and Burke together. He received this news in silence.
"It makes no sense," he commented slowly, after a moment. "With this information, one could almost argue that the killer cannot be a vampire at all. And yet, we have Elizabeth."
They stared at one another.
"I don't see how it is possible!" Barnabas flared. "No vampire wants to feed in such a way! The coroner is certain about this?"
Julia nodded.
"Then what was the official cause of death?" Elliot demanded.
She gritted her teeth. "Each boy sustained trauma to the head and neck—they were bludgeoned with a heavy object. One child died from the blows."
Dread seized the men. One child?
"And the other boy?" Barnabas forced himself to ask.
Julia squared her shoulders. "The head wound of itself was enough to kill Alex Thurmond. The older boy, Grant Kelly, might have lived, but he was then suffocated."
Elliot looked at the floor without seeing it. Barnabas groaned in pain.
"All right," Elliot said slowly, his voice harsh with anger, "how do we explain this? If we continue to call this a vampire attack, and I feel that we must on account of Elizabeth, then what in the world is this vampire thinking? Vampires are powerful; they can bring one to a halt with their eyes and words alone. They mesmerize or they seize—they don't have to first hit their prey over the head!"
"Maybe because there were two victims?" Julia asked anxiously. She hated discussing child deaths. "The—monster thought that one boy would cry out or escape?"
"Eyes and words, you said," Barnabas repeated, frustrated. "Perhaps this vampire has no eyes? Can't speak? It's almost laughable! Next we'll be saying it doesn't have a body, and is floating through Collinsport like the common cold!"
Elliot gripped the other man's arm. "Steady on. Perhaps the vampire is deranged? Can a vampire suffer from insanity or brain damage, and be therefore unable to conduct itself as legend leads us to expect? I don't see why not. Vampires have incredible recuperative powers, but they're not gods."
"What else, what else?" Julia murmured. She brought her clasped hands to her lips, thinking. Barnabas ran a shaking hand over his face. Veronika and Burke laughed comfortably on the other side of the room.
"Could it have been angry and struck out at the children?" Julia said, her breath catching. "It wanted to express rage, and bloodsucking wasn't enough?"
"Had it wanted to hurt them," Barnabas muttered, "it should have allowed them to turn into monsters like itself."
Elliot laid a sudden hand on Barnabas.
"Or perhaps," he said softly, tapping his lips, "That's it right there. Only the other way around.
"I imagine a victim's blood would be just as hot and vital if the vampire slew and then drank just as the heart ceased beating. The blood would still nourish. But to kill first and drink second is utterly foreign to vampires.
"Have we, then, a vampire who so hates himself, or is so compassionate, that he deliberately worked the deaths so that those children could not rise?"
Angelique stepped into Collinwood for the first time since the cataclysmic dinner party back in April that had resulted in her pregnancy.
She stood in the foyer and watched Tisa mount the staircase with her packages. Since his niece had insisted upon shopping alone, Elliot had dropped her at a block of local boutiques and asked Angelique to pick her up afterwards. On the drive home, Tisa had told her something intriguing that Elliot didn't know about.
Angelique gazed desultorily on the closed doors of the drawing room. Elliot was probably within, talking to his friends.
She tried to avoid Collinwood whenever she could. As she was friendly with no one here but Elizabeth and the admiring Hallie, it seemed to make sense. Elizabeth remembered Angelique as Mrs. Sky Rumson, yet, inexplicably, didn't recognize her in her past role of Cassandra Collins—which was just as well. Perhaps some stray magic had lingered to block her memory, or else Elizabeth was losing her faculties. It made no difference.
Now she looked around the foyer. Not a thing had changed.
She fondled the soft collar of her jacket, pressing it to her cheek as the drawing room doors opened and Barnabas stepped into the foyer.
He froze, his eyes locked on her.
Right away, she felt herself bristling with hatred. She couldn't help it.
She loved him.
He looked a little haggard and she wondered why. Perhaps the current vampire hunt was not going according to plan. Too bad that she had no way of helping him, no longer having access to her magic. Or maybe he was starting to feel a little restricted by the ever-present Dr. Hoffman. Angelique continued to deny to herself that those two were actually engaged. She wouldn't be able to stand seeing them marry. Perhaps something would occur to upset their wedding plans.
She'd look into it.
Barnabas was staring fixedly at her. She regarded his handsome head, the wide-spaced dark eyes and high classic cheekbones. She loved the mysterious dents and wrinkles of his face. The last time he had voluntarily let her touch him had been in 1795. She remembered the rough silky texture of his hair between her fingers, and spasmodically gripped the warm collar at her throat.
As long as she had lived, there had never been a face to match his. He was an exception. There would not come another like him, and she could love no one else.
Barnabas faced Angelique. The last time he'd seen her, it was to accuse her of having set loose a baffling disease within Collinwood. Practically at the same moment, she'd revealed that she had conceived a child with Elliot Stokes. Barnabas had been sick with horror at the news; deeply sorry for Elliot (who was overjoyed) and uneasy of whatever being Angelique carried inside her. Hopefully it would just be a normal baby. Elliot loved Angelique, and she had consented to live with him in the uncertain period after losing her powers.
But Barnabas would have wished Angelique upon nobody.
Observing her now, he was astonished. Always a fabulous beauty, today every grace seemed heightened; pregnancy agreed with her. She had done her hair in a crown-style braid about her head. There seemed a new purity in the sweep of her brows, a breathtaking clarity in the cut of her lips. Her honey skin seemed incandescent. It was as if a slow fire inside her was nurturing her.
Without preamble he asked roughly, "Who hurt Elizabeth and killed those children? Are you involved in some way?"
She smothered a gasp of rage and instantly shot back, "Are you sure that you are not the one responsible, Barnabas?"
His eyes hardened, and she glimpsed hurt anger in them. Then Elliot and Julia exited the drawing room, followed a few seconds later by Veronika Liska and someone she didn't know.
Julia stiffened automatically upon seeing Angelique. Elliot smiled to see her. But Angelique's eyes were full of Burke Devlin.
A dashing man, tall, with an unconsciously regal bearing; not formal, simply classy. Better looking than Barnabas, perhaps. Graceful, handsome. She understood immediately that he had undergone some sort of deadly trial. The scars on Burke's head were difficult to see, and in fact, she didn't perceive them. What she saw was an aura about him.
A dark battle. What did it mean? She would save the impression to consider later, when she was alone.
Burke smiled and gazed appreciatively at her as Barnabas unhappily made the introduction.
"Burke Devlin, this is Angelique Bouchard. Angelique lives relatively close. With Elliot. Angelique, Burke is a Collinsport man from long ago, recently returned."
They took one another's hands, looking without speaking, as Elliot watched.
Within moments Burke Devlin had left Collinwood, and Elliot turned to Angelique, trying to ignore a pain near his heart. It had not escaped him that she had for a moment seemed enthralled with Devlin.
She eased her hands into the pockets of her jacket. "I'll go out and turn the car around. Whoever parked Julia's car, probably Barnabas, wasn't thinking about anyone coming up the drive behind them. I know he's still on a learner's permit." Angelique thought that that was riotously funny. Barnabas would probably need that learner's permit for the rest of his life!
Elliot smiled down on her warmly as he drew a watercolor silk scarf of pale blue from his breast pocket. "Look what was in my coat," he said.
After a second of startled silence, she smiled faintly. "I don't believe it. It was in your coat all these months? How strange." She reached out to touch its silkiness.
"In the sleeve. Got mixed up at the dry cleaner's, I suppose. I haven't worn this jacket since the spring, and when I thrust my fist into the sleeve today, there was the scarf."
As he gently settled it about her neck, she told him her news. His face instantly lost its smile.
"She's what?" Elliot cried, casting his glance quickly to the upper story of Collinwood.
Angelique shrugged. "If she's to be believed, she says that she and this Lars Castle person are in love, and that they're going to move in together. He's to come and get her sometime tomorrow."
"I can't let her do that. When did this happen?"
"I couldn't say. Are you ready to leave?"
Vexed, Elliot said, "Let me just go quickly speak to Tisa about this nonsense. What she's proposing is out of the question. I'll be back in a moment," he told her, already hurrying to the stairs.
Angelique left Collinwood to go and turn her car, drawing the silky blue scarf about her throat.
She walked slowly through the shadows, fingering her keys, the gravel of the drive scuffing under her heels.
Someone in the dark stopped her.
Julia had deliberately gone into the kitchen to count to five hundred. The place was welcoming and warm. Harry was whipping up a late dinner for himself and Tish, who sat backwards in a chair, shaking her head in amusement at the multiplicity of wild menu suggestions Roger had left her.
Julia chatted quietly with the young couple, who asked for an update on Mrs. Stoddard's condition. Harry was half in love with Elizabeth and most of the household knew it. Julia lingered on until she was certain that Angelique must have left. Then she slowly walked into the deserted foyer.
A movement drew her eyes to the upper landing of the stairs, where the hallway door was just closing. She'd just missed whoever it was.
Julia was in a pensive mood. Spending time tonight in Burke's company and hearing what had happened to him in Brazil had, of course, brought the past vividly to mind.
About four years ago, Burke had proposed to Vicky. Much to Barnabas' frustration, she had agreed to marry the man. Horrifying things began to happen, starting with the worst—the death of Dave Woodard—quickly followed by Burke's plane crash in the jungle. Barnabas had been plotting Burke's death, and when the plane was lost, he had quickly enlisted Carolyn to terrorize Julia, whom he viewed as the final enemy blocking his way to Vicky.
Then, Vicky had been inexplicably slammed back in time, to 1790s Collinsport. In the tumult of that experience, she had transferred the violence of her love for Burke Devlin to Peter Bradford, an eighteenth century man who had protected her. The changeover had been complete.
Vicky had at last accepted Burke's death and opened her heart to another. It had taken time, although to those who had not followed her into the past it felt like it happened in a moment. And all the while, Burke had been alive, suffering, struggling to return to her.
Awful times.
Julia's lips trembled at the memory of Dave Woodard, whom she had helped Barnabas murder. Dave, the longtime friend who had trusted her. She still couldn't forgive herself.
She didn't want to be thinking these thoughts. Not tonight, on top of the conversation she'd had with Elliot and Barnabas about the deaths of the kids in the woods.
She climbed the stairs of Collinwood to the second floor.
Upstairs, Julia saw no one. She turned quietly to the single door that opened onto the west wing of the house and touched the doorknob. She wondered what it would have been like for Burke to live with Vicky under the same roof as Roger, who despised him. And with the lethal Barnabas a constant visitor. Would any of it have worked? Would those on the Collinwood estate have grown closer, let past hatreds subside? Nobody would ever know.
She decided to walk through some of the west wing rooms to humor her strange, sad mood. Barnabas would soon wonder where she was, so she'd make her visit brief.
She found herself in a hushed room that had probably been a bedroom. She smiled weakly at the chandelier that hung from the ceiling, and shook her head.
All her shenanigans in the past with those pieces of chandelier. She'd used a piece to hypnotize Vicky and taken her to view Barnabas sleeping in his coffin. She'd fostered a subconscious revulsion in the girl that then overtook her whenever Barnabas tried to touch her.
Oh, the stupid things they had done to one another, all in the name of love.
Now Burke had come home and could build a new life among his friends. That counted for something.
Julia bowed her head in the dim room.
"Dave, I'm sorry," she said shakily. A tear rolled down her cheek. She sniffled, dried her eyes.
She had to pull herself together. Recounting the ghoulish topic of the dead kids had thrown her. She needed to get downstairs to Barnabas; it was time to go home.
Stepping toward the door she turned with a rush of fear, realizing abruptly that in this abandoned part of the house, someone was right behind her.
Surprised that Roger had spoken to no one but had gone straight upstairs when he and David had returned from the skating rink, Veronika went in search of him there.
He had had time to reconsider discussing with Veronika his past exchanges with Burke Devlin. It seemed to Roger's irritated feelings that in the eyes of his fiancée, her patient could do no wrong. And tonight Burke had apparently narrated a riveting story, sure to be bursting with self-sacrifice and derring-do. Roger didn't much care what had happened to the man in the intervening years. He honestly wished Burke hadn't come back at all, at least not to parade like a peacock before his fiancée and his son.
"Hallie is setting up next door. I think she'll be more comfortable here," Veronika announced as she entered the east wing room she and Roger intended to occupy upon their marriage. Roger now used the room to sleep in. He turned to her and grunted as she laid her car keys on the dresser.
There was a moment of guarded silence, which Veronika broke.
"What are you doing, hulking around up here all alone?" she asked in a low voice, and then went straight to the heart of what was bothering her. Crossing her arms before her, she approached him. "Roger, are you afraid of Burke Devlin?"
The question seemed to quiver in the middle of the room.
"Of course not," he said uneasily, jerking his shoulders. He regarded her squarely. "Where is our conquering hero? Swilling brandy in the drawing room, or perhaps strolling the grounds?"
"Burke? He went home a few minutes ago."
She sat on the bed and patted the bedspread beside her. Veronika had had a difficult time trying to quell her anger at Roger for the barbarous way he had treated Rafael. It had given her a sleepless night. "Come sit here and talk to me. I want to know what this is all about."
"I've decided I'd rather not discuss it."
He turned away from her. For a few seconds, she regarded the back of his neck.
She rose neatly as he turned. "I anticipated this," she said, directing eyes at him that held a new sort of calculation, as though she were totting up his worth. It frightened him.
She went to the dresser and swept up her keys. Roger blinked.
"Darling," he said hurriedly, "where are you going?"
"To get the story from your Burke Devlin, of course," she answered promptly. "I don't like to be lied to, Roger, and I'm shocked that you would hide things from me. I thought you and I had come to one another in honesty and openness."
"We did!" he cried, his eyes panicked. "We have!" He felt a burning pain in his gut. He reached out to grasp her arm. "Don't just leave me, Veronika!"
That odd, assessing stare again. "I won't," she said, "if you tell me every word of the truth. And I mean all the truth."
"Before I do," he said miserably, "tell me, how is your head feeling? How is your hip?"
She gave him a weak smile. She loved Roger, and he looked so lost just now. Her heart wept for him. She knew that he was about to tell her a story that she was not going to like.
"I'm okay," she said, and sat on the bed again, and patted it. "Tell me."
He told her. Every word.
"Don't go," he whispered as she got up. "I thought you were going to stay. Stay the night with me."
"I'm going home," she said woodenly.
"Why? You said if I told you, you wouldn't leave me!"
"I won't," she said unhappily. "I have to go home because I feel sick. But I am not leaving you. I promised I wouldn't leave you. Abandon you, break our engagement, I mean. I won't."
"Veronika! Oh, my God! Can't we—"
"Roger," she interrupted, "I've had a difficult day. I had clinic hours and home visits. I did paperwork and hospital admissions and fought with the director of the hospital lab, and now this awful, horrible story on top of it, and I'm tired. I hurt from the accident. And I don't know how to take what you just told me."
He stared at her. He felt as if he was losing his grip upon the very earth. He could not lose Veronika's love!
"You made me tell you," Roger groaned, "and now you punish me. At least you can understand why I was reluctant to go into it. Veronika, I'm in shock myself, and then—there's David. My son and I have grown close in these years, and now, of all people on the earth, Burke Devlin appears on the scene again. Did you see David's face?" Roger's voice rose. "Devlin is his hero! He doesn't feel that way towards me and I'm petrified that I'll lose him again!"
Veronika leaned forward, her eyes flashing. It was a danger signal. "Nobody here wants to take your son from you! David loves you, how can you possibly lose him? So what if he's fond of the man who was good to him while the two of you were estranged? Wouldn't it be a little odd if he wasn't?
"And I am angry with you," she cried suddenly, her face breaking into grief, "for what you did to Rafael! I mean, Burke! How could you do such a wrong thing? You will remember that I once lived in a hellhole where people sold one another for bread, and I thought I was done with it! I don't want evil in our lives!"
She came to Roger and put her arms around him, and in reaction, he seized her in desperation.
She loved this man. Her beautiful, difficult, courageous Roger. But superimposed over the image of her lover was now an overarching picture of cruelty. She was crushed. This man she had trusted and loved, her sweet Roger, had plunged an innocent man into hell to save his own skin! She could not have dreamed such a thing about him. She felt a sudden wave of nausea.
Roger held her tightly. What had he done? Why had he told her? He told her because she was right, she deserved to know everything, but … He felt acid rising in his stomach. Had he just destroyed their relationship? That look in her eyes, the hesitancy and withdrawal.
Burke Devlin! Damn the man! He was supposed to be dead, and yet here he was, ruining the best thing Roger had in life!
"I love you," Veronika whispered, pressing her forehead to his, "but I am astonished. I did not know you could do such things, and it hurts. Now I have to get used to this part of us and see whether I can bear it! And try to understand why you lied to me."
"Lied to you!" Roger roared, pushing her away. His blue eyes were furious. "But I told you every word of the truth, every last detestable bit of it! I didn't lie!"
"You did! By omission. What if I'd done something like you did to Burke, years and years of betrayal and infamy, and withheld it from you? Wouldn't you have deserved the truth? Oh, Roger, I'm sick from what you told me! Here I am, fighting so hard ..." She dropped her hands to her sides. "Let me go away and work this through."
"Had you admitted something similar to me," Roger said swiftly, eyes vivid with anger and despair, "I would have forgiven you. I'm a human being, so are you! So is the almighty Devlin! I would have tried to understand you."
She put her hand to her mouth, not looking at him.
"Veronika," he said hopelessly as her hand was on the doorknob, "be careful. Those dead children. There's a monster out there somewhere. If you must go, please be safe."
For a moment she had no idea what he was referring to, and then she got it. The children in the newspapers.
She turned to him tiredly. "You've given me such pain tonight. I feel as though you've shoved me sideways." She turned to him once more, lifting her hands helplessly. "You see, I made a friend, and not only did you hurt him—twice!—and embarrass me, but it turns out that he's someone you ought to go down on your knees to, asking his forgiveness, doing whatever you can to give him acceptance and—and friendship, and—" she bit her lip.
"And your heartfelt apology. Damn it. I'll talk to you tomorrow."
Veronika left.
Everyone had gone. In the foyer, Barnabas turned in surprise as Elliot let himself back into Collinwood, looking baffled.
"Elliot? Forget something?"
"I seem to have mislaid Angelique," he said uneasily. He thrust his hands into his jacket pockets. "Her car is gone, and yet I understood that she had come to collect me. She went outside to move the car while I spoke to Tisa upstairs. Did Angelique ... say anything to you?"
Barnabas grimaced. He hardly wanted Elliot to know just what words Angelique had had for him.
"I didn't see her after you did, I don't think. We introduced her to Burke, who said goodnight and went away. You and Angelique were here talking and I withdrew."
"Huh," Elliot said, rubbing his chin. "I hadn't realized Julia had left. I'd wanted to ask you both your impressions of Devlin's narrative."
"Julia hasn't gone." Barnabas looked around. "She might have stepped upstairs to check on Hallie. Veronika is the one who just went away, I saw her."
"Is that right?" Elliot asked, his eyes unreadable as he regarded his friend. "Julia's car is gone."
"Surely not?" Frowning, Barnabas opened the front doors of Collinwood and took a few steps out to the curve of the gravel drive. He saw Elizabeth's car, Tish's, and Roger's. Burke's Cadillac was gone and Angelique's wasn't there.
To his surprise, neither was Julia's.
He glanced around in the whispering darkness, bewildered.
He went back inside, past Elliot, to the kitchen to quiz Tish and Harry.
He strode upstairs, encountering Mrs. Johnson about to enter the east wing with an armful of clean laundry. She hadn't seen Dr. Hoffman. Barnabas followed her and found Hallie paging through Tiger Beat magazine in her new room. The girl supplied that she'd seen no one but Mrs. Johnson. In the central hallway he encountered a young woman who identified herself as Elliot's niece. Tisa had coolly assured him she hadn't seen a soul.
Downstairs, he placed himself once more before his friend.
"Well, this is odd. What the hell?" Barnabas said, running his hands over his hair. "How do you explain this?"
The men studied one another in the quiet of the foyer, confused.
"What'd you do?" Elliot joked gruffly.
Barnabas raised his eyebrows.
"What did I do? You mean—to make Julia leave me behind?"
"Was she angry with you? I can think of reasons why Angelique might abandon me, but I hardly see your adoring fiancée dumping you and taking off."
They grappled for an explanation.
"An impromptu auto race between the women, perhaps," Elliot suggested, grasping at straws. "How do you propose to get home?"
"Elliot, you can't be serious. I'm not going anywhere without Julia. This is preposterous. She must be here somewhere."
Elliot was looking increasingly grim. "Angelique is not here. She has apparently driven home without me."
"Don't be absurd. What could have happened? Oh, well—I can walk home. Perhaps there was an emergency? Let us not forget that Angelique is pregnant and that Julia is a doctor. Or—did the phone ring this evening? But Julia would have found me, or scrawled a note or message, surely."
The men stood there, annoyance mounting. They felt foolish.
"Walk home with me," Barnabas suddenly proposed. "Who knows? Maybe Julia is there. Perhaps Angelique followed her—possibly they wanted to have a conversation?"
"About what, for heaven's sake? The very idea gives me indigestion. Angelique and Julia are hardly on speaking terms."
Irritated, Barnabas growled, "I couldn't say. How can I know? Neither woman is here, so let's go see whether anybody is at the Old House."
Distractedly, Elliot agreed, and they set off.
Julia's car was out in front of the Old House, but they could find her nowhere. Barnabas grew increasingly alarmed. Elliot had a bad feeling. He left his friend, promising to phone from Arondel Cottage in case by some bizarre chance one or both of the women were there.
A cab took Elliot home, and in the wash of its headlights, he espied Angelique's automobile clumsily parked in front of the cottage.
He hurriedly entered his home. Without stopping to switch on the lights, he went directly to Angelique's bedroom and found the door locked.
"Angelique," he called, tapping his knuckles softly against the panel. "Angelique, are you all right?"
A pause.
"Well, what is it."
"Let me in, please. Why did you come home without me? Are you not feeling well? Is it the baby?"
"No." Her voice was distant, strange. He cocked his head, listening with all his might. She sounded ... how did she sound?
"Did you see Julia Hoffman this evening? What I mean is, do you know where Julia has gone? We can't seem to find her."
Silence.
Elliot paused, uncertain in the lightless hallway.
"My dear, may I come in?"
Another silence.
And then, standing before a shut door in the darkness of his own home, listening to the pounding of his heart, he felt the short hairs on the back of his neck begin to separate and stand on end.
"No, Elliot," came the uncharacteristically defeated voice. "Please leave me alone for a bit."
"Are you all right?"
"I'm all right," she said faintly. "I'm fine. I'll speak with you later, just please go to bed. I'm a little tired."
Downtown
He paced.
The lamplight in his room was bothering him for reasons that he couldn't quite make out. He craved the dark. That was insane; he'd had enough of darkness to last him the rest of his life.
He remembered the black of the pit where he'd been suspended for weeks, his flayed back tickled by his own sweat, insects burrowing into his open flesh, an inhuman threat walking above.
Still, the too-soft light irritated his eyes. He turned his face to the cooler, deeper shadows of the apartment.
He and she had spoken this evening of practically nothing after he'd delivered his monologue. They were not alone in the room. She'd asked questions. He'd answered them. They'd smiled and laughed, and all the while, there had been this thing building in him. He thought he could sense it in her also, an unspoken awareness. Sometimes she just ran out of words midway through a sentence, holding his gaze. He'd found his throat tightening, staring into her clear eyes, imagining pulling her clothes off, starting slowly but then with helpless urgency, and had had difficulty bringing his attention back to the drawing room.
Would she come to him? It wasn't possible, was it? But he ached for her, in spite of it all.
If she didn't come, he felt as though he'd die.
He snorted, ran his hands over his uneven hair. No, of course he wouldn't actually perish if she didn't come to him, for God's sake.
But it might be a close call.
The lamplight hurting him, Burke paced.
Collinwood
Four hours later
Unable any longer to restrain himself, Roger dialed Veronika at home.
Panna answered sleepily, and Roger begged her to bring Veronika to the telephone. Was it an emergency? No, but …
A very long time passed. Roger began to walk back and forth.
Connie's furious voice on the line: Veronika was sound asleep and Connie would not disturb her. She'd ask her sister to phone him as soon as possible tomorrow, and that would have to be good enough. She slammed down the phone.
Roger returned to his bedroom and sat on the edge of his bed, fully dressed, rocking himself. After a time, he buried his face in his hands.
At the cottage, Connie turned to glare at Panna. The beautiful sisters looked slightly deranged from having been jerked from sleep.
"You did right," Panna said hoarsely.
"I know I did," Connie snapped. "The question is, where the hell is she?"
Downtown
Four hours earlier
She was here.
Rafael Nunes—Burke Devlin—opened the door of Room 30 to someone's tap.
"Doc," he said simply.
She filtered past him without asking to come in, and he closed the door behind her, shutting out the impersonal light from the hallway.
He closed his eyes for a second, his back to her. He'd craved exactly this, prayed to the walls and to the door that she would come to him, and here she was, and now his blood was on fire. He felt an answering jolt in his groin. Did Veronika know the risk she was taking in being here?
He turned to watch her in the shadows as she wrestled out of her soft autumn jacket and scarf and dropped them to the rug. Then she stood moveless, gazing at him somberly.
Burke was barefoot, and wore only his trousers and shirt, the three top buttons undone. She could see the mat of hair on his chest, envision the wild pattern of thin scars on his back. He looked unutterably weary, and for a despairing moment, she wondered if he saw an imprint of Collinwood over her image, marking her as forever leagued with Roger, someone who would always stand against him.
Maybe he'd been pacing since he'd got back. He held a glass with a half-inch of whiskey in it.
"Roger owes you his freedom," she said softly. "He owes you his very life."
He watched her breathing for a moment, and her lemony fragrance drifted over to him faintly. Something new in her eyes, something hurt and unhappy, tore at his heart.
She continued. "I made him tell me what he did to you fifteen years ago. And just see the way he treated you last night, throwing you out of the house. I'm absolutely furious with him. Yes, I still love him, I'll marry him and forgive him for the atrocious things he's done—as far as it is up to me to forgive anything. Humans forgive one another. But not yet; maybe come sunrise. Right now, I'm only concerned with you."
She approached Burke and slowly slipped warm arms about his neck, nuzzling her face against his cheek.
"Oh," he faltered, and in spite of the hot physical need that shot through him, lightly pushed her away, abruptly turning his back. If he touched her, things were going to get out of control.
He could hardly believe that she'd come here to him tonight!
Behind him, Veronika asked huskily, "Don't you see that I want you? Don't you understand? And you want me. I knew Monday in that stale room downstairs that I was in trouble. I wanted to kick the door shut and just grab you, kiss you, even then."
"Ah, Christ," Burke groaned, clapping his glass down on a side table and turning to her, "stop. You—nobody at that goddamned house owes me a thing. Don't do this to me, okay? Just ... don't." He turned on his heel and left the doorway, going deeper into the small apartment, halting violently as he neared the bed. She followed him.
"Veronika." He angrily pivoted to face her. "You just want to punish him because you realize now that he's a shit. You want to hurt him, that's all this is. But you can't say these things … I didn't come home to … ah, Christ." He gave her a glance the likes of which she had never seen before, nearly venomous, dark with threat, and hunger, and sorrow.
She tried again. "Let me stay with you tonight, please," she said. Again, he turned stiffly from her and glared at the wall.
He'd always been great at controlling himself—but that was in the past. He wasn't as strong now. He wasn't going to be able to resist.
And what a sublime way to take revenge on Roger Collins.
For a second, his soul gloated. But did Veronika truly know what she was doing? If she fragmented her relationship with Collins to be with him tonight, no matter how Burke wanted her, she was going to get hurt.
Veronika's pulse was out of control, beating desperately in her head and neck; she thought she might fall straight to the carpet. She steadied herself and spoke.
"Rafael, I have such feelings for you and I don't know what to do with them. I … you're not mine, I can't have you, but God help me, I can't leave. If only you'd let me give you what I want to," she whispered. She shook her head. "Please. I want to make love with you, if you want me. Why do you make me beg?"
He gave a snort of disbelief. "If I want you. Sweet Christ." His voice was uneven. He shot her a look of pain, and in it was a last warning. He was so lean, beautiful, she thought. Severe, and brave, and so hurt.
Something occurred to him like an icy slap.
"What really brings you here tonight, Veronika? If it's pity, you can take it straight back to Collinwood where it belongs," he said vehemently, leveling his eyes at her.
"Pity!" Veronika exclaimed.
"You're not the—oh, the Collinwood sacrifice on a platter, ordained by heaven to make everything up to Burke Devlin. Do you understand?" he said heatedly.
"Collinwood!" she fairly shouted. "Is that what you see when you look at me—Collinwood? ... oh, I suppose you must," she said miserably, crossing her arms. Well, that was her worst fear confirmed. She sat abruptly on the arm of a beat-up armchair and tried not to cry.
"That's not what this is," she murmured. "Any pity I feel is for myself. You see, everything is wrong, all wrong, and I want … I want to do what I can't. I want to take away the pain. Blame it on my untapped mothering instinct if you like! I really don't care whether I'm reacting because of Collinwood or not."
"What do you mean?"
"I've said what I mean. All right, yes, it broke my heart to learn what Roger did to you, and to see him treat you like that last night! It's all wrong, everything that's been done to you, and I can't do one thing about it! I'm angry and ashamed. I'm not the Collinwood sacrifice, but I do want to remove some of the injustice. I've also confessed that I wanted to make love with you the minute I saw you."
He stared at her, his respiration quickening. She thought she could see his shirt tremble with the pounding of his heart.
He gave her one more chance. If he couldn't convince her to leave now, she was going to have to fight him off with a chair like a lion-tamer. "Do you know what you're doing?" he groaned. "You'll regret it."
"I won't."
"You might."
"Never."
"Don't speak to me this way, I'll—I haven't been with a woman in more than five years, and the minute I meet you, my dead libido jumps straight up like—like—" Burke's throat worked. "I'm telling you that if you don't leave in the next ten seconds, I won't hold myself back." His eyes were dilated, the irises lost in darkness. "Get out, quick. Because I want you. Because I won't ... be able to stop."
"I won't ask you to stop," she whispered.
With a growl of anguish he closed the distance between them and grabbed her head in his hands and kissed her fiercely, his mouth covering hers. Veronika drew him close and met his deep kisses. He pulled her hard against his heat, moaning, running his hands over every curve of her lovely, yielding body.
In time, his roving mouth sought her throat.