Chapter Twenty-Nine

Topaz rose from the bed with a parting glance and caress for the man she left behind. As always when she looked at Romney, her heart stuttered in her breast. Of all the emotions she’d experienced in her life—daring, confidence, anger, loathing, or even fear—she found this tenderness the hardest to bear. Softness did not come easily to her, or this love that she felt, fierce as it might be.

He didn’t stir, still exhausted by what had befallen him at Grayson as well as their activities during the night. She knew just how deep his debility reached—she’d felt it on the most intimate of levels. By rights they shouldn’t be making love until he healed.

Yet he would have her believe lying with her restored his strength, along with his memories.

She hoped so, for she didn’t think she could give him up now if she tried.

Quietly she finished dressing, twisted her hair into a braid, and tiptoed from the room. In the dining room she found Mrs. Kilter along with a circle of dogs, several of which greeted her.

“Good morning.” Cat Kilter waved the toast in her hand. “Where’s your companion?”

“Still sleeping.”

“Come and have some breakfast. James has gone to do a job for his friend Tate Murphy. It’s just me and the animals.”

Topaz, nothing loath, pulled out a chair and sat down. Her inner sense—which once limbered now seemed to operate on its own—sensed only light and a great deal of joy filling this woman’s spirit.

“Help yourself.” Cat gestured at the generous selection of dishes on the table. “Tell me about yourself, at least what you can. I gather from what Pat said you shouldn’t give away much.”

“Better not.” Topaz eyed her hostess cautiously. She’d never been close with her older sisters and had very few female friends apart from the streetwalkers she helped train.

“Maybe,” Cat suggested, “just enough to satisfy my curiosity. How did you and your lover meet?” She dimpled. “That’s what he is, right? Your lover?”

“Yes.” Admitting it made it more real. Topaz helped herself to toast and sausage. “As for how we met—you wouldn’t believe it.”

“Try me.”

The small white dog jumped up onto Cat’s knee. The two of them—animal and woman—watched Topaz with identical hazel eyes.

Cautiously, Topaz asked, “Did Pat give you any idea who I am?”

“Said it wasn’t safe to tell me. But he didn’t have to. I recognize you—and I know who your father is. Most people in this city must.”

“Then you’re aware of his reputation, his…abilities? I inherited some of them. When I first met my lover, it was not in the flesh.”

“Oh.” Cat contemplated that and shrugged. “Not so inconceivable. As you may imagine, my attraction to Jamie didn’t begin with the physical, either.” Blithely she added, “Though I adore every inch of him now.”

Obviously.

“Some more than others. But I do believe I fell in love with his spirit almost immediately—strong, kind, and so beautiful.”

“He’s a lucky man that you saw all that in him.”

“I assure you, I’m the lucky one.”

Ruefully, Topaz said, “From the very beginning this has seemed like some mad dream, all of it. And I confess I can’t see our way clear of all the difficulties.”

Cat leaned forward and covered Topaz’s hand with hers. “I know how that feels, to despair over anything ever coming right. I was where you are once. But just look at me now.”

Topaz nodded gravely. The biggest of the dogs, the short-haired yellow lurcher Cat called Greta, sidled up to Topaz and fixed her with an enigmatic stare.

“Just look at that,” Cat remarked. “You must be special; Greta rarely responds to anyone.”

Topaz put out a hand, and the big dog placed her head under it. Fur like warm velvet met Topaz’s fingers.

“James will never believe that. He rescued her from a pit back before I met him.”

“A fighting pit, you mean?”

“Yes. If you look under the fur you can see her scars. She has a warrior’s heart.” Cat fixed Topaz with another enigmatic look. “Maybe she senses a kindred spirit in you.”

Before Topaz could answer, a knock sounded from downstairs. Barking immediately broke out, and Cat jumped up, the white dog caught in her arms.

“Somebody’s here.”

She went off and returned in a few moments followed by Patrick Kelly and Sapphire. Topaz leaped up and immediately froze, arrested by the expression in her brother’s eyes.

“Carlotta?” she questioned even as Greta pressed against her side.

Usually bold and careless, Sapphire’s face now wore a pinched look and grief filled his eyes.

“Oh, no,” Topaz lamented.

“We lost the child,” he blurted. “Carly—she’ll survive. But the little one is gone.”

Grief and remorse crashed over Topaz in equal parts. She barely saw Cat and Patrick Kelly leave the room. Most of the animals followed; only Greta remained at Topaz’s side.

“I’m so sorry.”

Sapphire looked at her accusingly. “Why don’t you tell me exactly what happened?”

“I…” How best to explain? “I used the key you got for me and searched the cellar. Sapph, I made a terrible discovery.” She knew Sapphire’s feelings toward Frederick were as complicated as her own, but she doubted he would easily accept the ramifications of this thing in which his father was now involved. “I couldn’t leave her there—Carly, I mean. I thought you’d want me to take her to safety.”

“You thought!” he exclaimed bitterly, his pain a weapon. “And you always know best, don’t you?”

“Me? I know nothing.” Topaz stated it with complete veracity.

“She was safe there.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“I meant to fetch her away the next day.”

“I know that now. But I wasn’t sure where you were and, Sapph, listen to me—that new partner of Father’s…”

“I don’t care about that! All I know is if you’d left her where she was, our child would still be alive.” Disconcerting tears filled Sapphire’s eyes. Topaz couldn’t remember ever seeing him cry, not even as a small boy. “Alive,” he emphasized, “instead of just a spirit released back into the ether—gone forever.”

“No,” Topaz breathed, appalled. “You’ll have other children.”

“Carly says no. She insists she’ll not marry me now, insists the only reason I asked her was because of the baby. She says she wants to go away; she sent me from the hospital, and—”

“Oh, Sapph! She’ll come round. She loves you. That’s just shock and reaction talking—and grief. But she’ll want to see you later.”

“You know that too, I suppose. Just like you knew it must be a good idea to take a fragile, pregnant girl out in a steamcab on icy streets.”

“I did what I thought best.”

“Yes, well,” he said savagely, “now you can live with the consequences. The steamcab driver died at the hospital. Did you know that?”

“No.”

“His wife was there. They have two teenaged children. Alone now, thanks to you.”

“Sapphire, please—” Instinctively, she reached for him, but he drew away. “Don’t touch me. And stay away from Carly, understand? Don’t try to find either of us. We don’t want to see you again.”

Topaz withdrew from the heat of his anger and the hatred in his eyes. Her brother might be many things but he had never been hateful—at least not toward her.

She flinched even as did Greta, who slunk away from the confrontation, her tail between her legs. Sapphire spun on his heel and stalked out, leaving Topaz’s heart bleeding.

****

“He’ll forgive you.” Romney drew Topaz closer in his arms, in their bed. Night had come; Topaz wished she could crawl into it like a black sack and hide from everything. Everything, that was, except this man who held her.

She could feel so many things about him: his pain that flickered through his body like the remnants of lightning; his bone-deep weariness; and the steady light that burned like a flame deep inside him. She nestled her head in the hollow of his shoulder.

“That was his grief talking,” Romney went on. “His fear.”

“I know.” Topaz bit her lip. “But you don’t understand—we were always so close. He was the only one in my family I could turn to. Now he hates me.”

“He doesn’t.”

“And, damn it, he has a right to hate me. Why didn’t I leave Carly at the house?”

“You had no way of knowing he meant to collect her so soon.”

“I just couldn’t bring myself to leave her in the same house as…him.” Horror crawled up from Topaz’s belly to her throat. “Not once I realized what he’s been doing—trapping spirits… Well, I always knew he did that. But to force them into other bodies—dead bodies reanimated by that fiend, Clifford. Getting Carly out of there was a gut reaction. Sapphire will never see it that way.”

Romney kissed her temple. His concern flooded through in a wave of comfort.

“Frederick Hathor’s my father,” she went on, revulsion sounding in her voice. “I always found it unbearable that he interfered with the spirits that were on their way to—well, to wherever they’re meant to go. I could feel their bewilderment, their fear, and their longing for their past and their future, both. But this is so much worse. What’s happened to Rose, that’s spiritual slavery. How could he do such things? He, above all others, who knows what it is to bond with those who come to him.”

“There must be a fortune in it, and greed is a powerful motivator.”

“But he already has all he needs. You’ve seen that house.” She slid her palm across the skin of his chest, naked beneath the shirt he wore. “Enough—more than enough for anyone.”

Before he could reply, she drew a breath and went on. “And it’s not as if he doesn’t understand the depth of the harm he does. He must have been able to feel Rose’s distress. I could feel it! My God, Rom, she’s thinking of killing this new body in which she’s trapped rather than endure living in it.”

He turned her face gently till her eyes met his. “I don’t think you have to worry about that. I doubt Patrick Kelly will permit her to do any such thing.”

“Pat?”

“He seems to have taken her under his metaphorical wing—which is not a bad place to be. When you think about it, he might prove her perfect protector. He understands her quandary, and there are only so many demands he can make on her.”

“Pat? And Rose?”

Romney smiled. “Rather, I think, their equally troubled spirits. If we’ve learned one thing from all this, Topaz, it’s that spirit bonds with spirit. Everything else is pure window dressing.”

He brushed her lips with his. “Though I have to admit I’m intensely attracted to your window dressing.”

“And I to yours.”

“Will you make love with me?” he asked simply.

She gazed into his eyes and saw there, in equal measures, her strength and her weakness.

“Only try to stop me.”