There was a gentle knock at her bedroom door. Elinor turned to look at it, her body still paralyzed from sleep. Whoever it was knocked again. She glanced at the clock. It was two in the morning. Crap!
She pushed herself up off the top of the blanket––she’d been too tired to crawl under it—and after indulging in a good stretch, she shuffled over to the door.
It was Margaret, still in her pajamas, the sleep still on her eyes. The frightened look on her kid sister’s face put Elinor on alert at once.
“Margaret, what is it?” she asked. “Is Marianne okay? Has she gotten worse again?” Marianne had been better for over twenty-four hours now. Maybe this was a relapse. Who knew how incubus fever worked?
Margaret shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. There’s someone at the front door asking to speak to you.”
Confused, Elinor stepped out of the room. Who on earth would be calling at this hour? And why did Margaret look so guilty? “Who is it?”
“Willoughby.”
Elinor stood up straight, shocked. That was the last thing she expected to hear. “Willoughby? Here?”
“Yes. He says wants to speak to you. He’s downstairs waiting for you in the kitchen.”
Elinor shot a glance over to their mother’s room, remembering what Mary said she’d do to him if she got the chance. “Where’s Mom?”
“She just fell asleep, I think. She only left Marianne a little bit ago.”
“Okay. Go and tell him I’ll be down in a minute. I just need to get dressed.” Margaret scurried back downstairs, and Elinor slipped back inside her bedroom. Willoughby! She couldn’t believe he had the balls to make an appearance. Especially now. Did he have any idea about Marianne’s state of health? Or how delicate she was even now? If he had come to rub it in, she might do for him herself.
Elinor brushed her hair and pinned it loosely up. She wasn’t about to make an effort for a piece of scum such as this.
As soon as she was decent, she braced herself for confrontation and left her room. The idea of seeing him again was grossly unpleasant to her, and she prayed she’d have the strength to rein in her temper. Indeed, if she were a man, she would march him outside and punch him in the face. And might do even yet.
Willoughby sat at their kitchen table, his hands hidden beneath it. He looked as uncomfortable as sin, and Elinor was glad of it. She hoped it was due to remorse. If it wasn’t, it ought to have been.
Margaret was standing by the kitchen sink, her eyes bright with excitement.
“Go to your room, Margaret.”
“But Elinor!”
“Please, do as I say.”
Margaret opened her mouth to argue but something in Elinor’s tone must have touched her. Her mouth dropped in a sulk, but she did as she was told. As soon as her baby sister was out of the room, Elinor turned on their visitor.
“Willoughby. You know you’re unwelcome here. Why have you come?”
“I—”
The incubus’s wings twitched uncomfortably, and he stared upward as if he could see Marianne through the ceiling. He was as handsome as ever, though there was just the hint of a few dark rings under his eyes, suggesting sleepless nights. Good. He deserved to be plagued with restlessness forever.
“I wanted––I came to explain.”
“There is nothing to explain. Anyway, Marianne can’t see you. She isn’t well right now.” Elinor didn’t tell him what was wrong with her. She didn’t want to give him that satisfaction.
“Yes. There is. Marianne doesn’t know any of it.”
Elinor noticed he hadn’t asked what was wrong with her. Perhaps he’d heard it on the grapevine. Or maybe he just didn’t care. “She knows you broke her heart. What else is there for her to know?”
“That I love her,” he blurted. “That I haven’t known a moment’s peace since she left me.”
Elinor wanted to slap him in the face for that. The cheek of it! “Love. What does an incubus know of love? All you know about is seeing to your own pleasure. Love. It makes me sick just to hear you say it.”
“And yet I do love her,” he protested, sliding a little forward across the table. “You have no idea the pressure I was under. I have an employer. Well, employer might be the wrong word. I owe a debt of honor to a demon. I had to do what I was told.”
Elinor scoffed at the word demon. In the back of her head, she remembered the one she had seen sitting with him at the bar down in Florida. Reluctantly, Willoughby now had her attention. “What does that have to do with Marianne?”
“Everything. All right, I confess. When I first met Marianne, it wasn’t an accident. She was an assignment, nothing more.”
“An assignment? What kind of assignment?”
“I had to––he wanted me to––” For some reason Willoughby had difficulty saying the actual words.
“Go on.” Elinor folded her arms impatiently in front of her. “You came here to explain. So explain.”
“Making women fall in love with me is what I do. As you keep reminding me, I am an incubus after all. I owe the demon a debt, and he makes me repay it by targeting the women of his choice. Usually they’re extremely rich, and generally they’re associated in some way with his gaming in Ocean City––I don’t usually ask him questions about it, I just do it. Together we bleed them dry until they’re broke, or ruined, or whatever retribution Angus sees fit to call my marker paid, I dunno. I don’t get involved on that side of his business. I just do my job.”
“Bully for you. You must be very proud.” She thought about Eliza and wondered just how many lives Willoughby and the demon had ruined.
“I’m not supposed to fall in love with them,” Willoughby continued, ignoring her quip. “And usually, I don’t. I was supposed to make her miserable, steal her happiness. That was my mission.”
“Well whoopee-do, mission accomplished, well done you.” Elinor didn’t even try to check the sarcasm in her tone.
Willoughby shook his head. “No. You don’t understand. Most of the demon’s targets are broken women, often older than I am, and I just go in and do what Angus asks me to do. But with Marianne, it was different. I felt a connection to her. Suddenly, I saw a different life, a simpler one, a life I wanted for my own. She touched emotions in me I never knew I had, and I fell in love with her.”
His bleeding heart story only increased Elinor’s irritation. If anything, what he had just told her made his betrayal even worse. Her gaze flicked around the kitchen, taking in the rack of knives, a frying pan, a meat tenderizer.
“Anyway, Angus got wind of how I felt about Marianne and gave me an ultimatum. Either give her up or he would take my soul. If I had refused him for Marianne’s sake, he would have destroyed us both. I couldn’t let that happen. I had to give her up. For both of us.”
Elinor was shocked. Her anger remained but was suddenly softened a little by understanding. No one should be expected to surrender their soul to a demon. No one. But that didn’t excuse what they did to women.
“So you just upped and left Marianne without even a word of explanation? You say you love her. That doesn’t sound like love to me. That sounds like selfishness, or worse, cruelty. And I was there, remember? Willoughby, you humiliated her—and in the worst possible way, in front of all those people. You can’t expect us to ever forgive you for that.”
He bowed his head in shame. Or was it self-pity? Elinor didn’t know and didn’t want to know. He was an incubus, an expert at manipulating the emotions and senses of others. How did she know he wasn’t messing with her now? No, he could not be trusted again. Not ever.
“Elinor, please. I didn’t know what else to do.”
He looked up and she saw directly into his eyes. Yes, perhaps there was a little remorse there. She hoped so, for his sake. Whatever he owed the demon, he would have to pay for it in time. Maybe even a lifetime. But that wasn’t her concern now. Only Marianne’s happiness and well-being mattered. Willoughby would have to look out for himself.
Still, perhaps she did feel a little sorry for him, but she did not forgive him. He had put her sister in an untenable situation she could not win, however it played out, and she hated him for it.
“You’ve given me your explanation and now you can go.”
“Elinor, what was I supposed to do? This was my soul. Have you no pity? One way or the other, I was going to lose.”
“Perhaps. All I know is your soul wasn’t worth one-thousandth of Marianne’s. Willoughby, you need to accept you have lost her forever. You’ve come and said your piece. Now, if you don’t mind, I would like you to leave. And please don’t ever come back. You are not welcome here anymore.”
Willoughby sighed and rose from the table. She didn’t know whether his sigh was for Marianne or himself, and frankly, she didn’t care. She just wanted him gone.
Elinor was standing in front of the door, and Willoughby paused as he reached her. A bitter glint entered his eyes. “You only know the half of it,” he hissed. And he left, slamming the front door behind him. She heard a flap of leathery wings. She hoped she would never hear them again.
Elinor closed her eyes and tried to compose her thoughts. Had that really just happened? She was still recovering from the shock of him being there at all. And from trying to guess what his parting words meant.
While she mulled all he had said over in his head, she looked up. Marianne was crouched down at the top of the stairs, her hands clinging to the banisters, her face void of any emotion.
“Did you hear it all?” Elinor asked.
Marianne nodded but said nothing.
“I’m sorry,” Elinor said. “Should I have let him talk to you?”
Her sister shook her head. “No. I wouldn’t have known what to say to him. At least I know everything now.”
“I think you had a lucky escape,” Elinor said, climbing the stairs and sitting on the top step next to Marianne. She wrapped her arm around her. “From what he was saying, things would only have gotten worse and worse as time went on.”
“I think so too. But at least I know he loved me now. I heard him say it. And I’ll always be able to tell myself that he did, whatever happens now. It was good to hear the words.”
Elinor thought his confession was hollow, but if it gave Marianne comfort, so be it. Maybe that was the most love an incubus could give. Willoughby wasn’t a dryad. Maybe he had given his best after all. But now they would never know. All that mattered was his coming here had made a difference to Marianne. Elinor could at least give him credit for that. “Yes, yes I suppose it was. Now I need you to get up and get back to bed. You’ve been very unwell. We don’t want you sick again, do we?”
Elinor helped Marianne to her feet and walked with her back to her room. She tidied the blankets and re-fluffed the pillows, then made sure Marianne was comfortable in the bed. She was about to leave when Marianne spoke up.
“Elinor. I need you to do me a favor.”
“Yes? What is it?”
“It was you and Chris who came for me, wasn’t it? He drove me home in his car.”
Elinor nodded.
“Send Chris a message for me, please. Tell him, tell him thank you. And tell him…”
“Yes?”
“Tell him I would like to see him. As soon as you think I’m well enough.”
“I will. Now go to sleep.”
Elinor switched off the light on the bedside table. It wouldn’t be hard getting a message to Chris. The man had been texting Elinor for news practically every hour of every day. Even now he was probably staring at his phone expecting some kind of update. She left the room and closed the door softly behind her, smiling.