Margo Maguire (18 page)

L
eaving his camera, Sam dropped down to a lower branch, then jumped to the ground. “Lilly!” He took her hands and pulled her close. “I missed you this morning. Where did you go?”

She could only hold him, press her face into his chest and breathe deeply of his scent. “You’re still here.”

He laughed. “Of course I’m here. Where
would
I be?”

“B-but you…you’re going to India.”

He lowered his head and captured her lips in a soul-melting kiss. Lilly’s knees buckled, but he held her upright.

“I’m not ready to go to India, Lilly,” he said when he finally released her. “I’m not nearly finished with you.”

Oh, but he had to be,
Lilly thought. He could no more stay with her at Ravenwell than she could leave the inn to travel with him.

He ran one finger down the side of her face and cupped her chin. “Have supper with me tonight. In my room.”

“Samuel, I shouldn’t,” she whispered. Not only was it something no respectable woman would do, Lilly needed to guard her heart. The past few hours had been nearly unbearable, but she’d gotten through them.

She didn’t know if she could manage it again.

“But you will.” He took her hand and pulled her to the ladder hanging from the tree. “Come and look at my work.”

She took hold of the rope ladder, but he slid his hands around her waist before she could climb. Standing behind her, he nuzzled her hair, then her ear. “Did I tell you that I’m wild about you, Lilly Tearwater?”

Lilly swallowed. She had to resist his seductive words. He may not be gone yet, but he’d told her himself that his departure would be soon. “Samuel, I—”

He cupped her breasts through her cotton blouse and she forgot what she wanted to say. She felt him press against her buttocks—the long, hard length of him so exquisitely arousing.

She let her head fall back, and Samuel nibbled at her ear, then moved his lips down the side of her neck while he teased her nipples into hard peaks. It was all she could do to pull away and face him.

No one had ever aroused Sam so. Lilly stood just inches away, with her breasts heaving, her pulse visibly pounding in her throat and her hair curling in charming disarray.

“Samuel, it’s daylight. Anyone could come upon us.”

He moved toward her, feeling predatory and more
than slightly aroused. “Then climb up with me to my lair, sweet Lilly!”

“Samuel…”

He touched her cheek and let his thumb drift over the fullness of her lips. Her eyes darkened, then drifted closed with his touch. He knew he should not push her beyond the bounds of propriety, but he could not help himself. “I thought I’d never be able to touch you.” He cupped her jaw and stroked her ear.

His work was essentially finished here. He’d planned to pack up his equipment that afternoon and travel to London on the evening train. But his world had changed last night. He had Lilly.

He bent to kiss her, but she shifted away from him, her body tense and distraught.

“No one will come,” he said.

Her back was turned to him and she seemed small, deflated. Something was wrong.

She moved a few steps farther away before taking a deep breath and turning to face him. When she took a deep, shuddering breath, Sam was certain some disaster had occurred. “I’ll s-send Davy out here to help you load your equipment into the wagon. You’ll be able to make the six o’clock train to London.”

Sam stared blankly for a minute before he realized that she thought he still planned to leave her. Just like that—take her to bed, then abandon her.

“Good Christ, Lilly!” He took a few steps toward her. “Do you seriously believe I’d make love to you, then walk away at the first opportunity?”

Some emotion flashed in her eyes, but it was gone in the next second as she stepped back. Sam did not
relent. He stalked her until he’d backed her against the tree. He bracketed her shoulders with his hands, dipped his head and lightly touched her lips with his own.

“You must not think very highly of me, Lilly.”

“Oh, but I—”

He kissed her hard. “When I leave Ravenwell,” he growled, “you will go with me.”

She ducked under his arm and took a few steps away. “That’s just the problem, Samuel,” she said, oblivious to a single shimmering tear that slid down her cheek. “I cannot leave.”

“Lilly…” He closed the distance between them and blotted away her tear with one finger. “Travel with me. I want to show you all the places you’ve ever dreamed of.”

He heard her shuddering breath. “I have a responsibility here,” she said. “Without me, the inn would fail and Charlotte would have no living.”

Sam had been thinking about that, trying to figure out some way to deal with the inn and all its debts. There had to be some solution to the problem, as well as the question of what to do about Charlotte.

Lilly wouldn’t desert her, nor should she. Sam was counting on Tom to have the perfect solution, but Sam hadn’t seen him this morning. He’d been planning to go in search of Fletcher when Lilly arrived.

His beautiful Lilly, who didn’t have a selfish bone in her body. She’d given herself so guilelessly, without any expectations of him, but he was going to give her the world.

“We’ll work something out,” he declared, scooping her into his arms. “I want you in my life.

She trembled, and he stroked her back. He loved
her. Taking her to bed had only been part of that—a thoroughly astounding part, something he promised himself never to take for granted.

Lilly should have felt joy at Samuel’s words. Tucked into his embrace, she could almost believe they had a chance together. But reality quickly intruded.

She couldn’t just abandon Charlotte.

But all her thoughts and worries fled when Samuel gathered her close and touched his lips to hers. Lilly’s eyes slid closed and she gave in to the kiss, her bones melting when their tongues met. She tasted him, reveled in the heat of his body, the strength of his arms around her.

Lilly’s heart thundered in her ears and a deep ache centered in her lower body. She leaned into Samuel and he shifted, lifting her in his arms. He started to carry her toward the deep woods, but a frantic cry from behind stopped him.

It was Charlotte, rushing to the chestnut tree. Bees swarmed around her, and she whimpered in distress, batting at her face with her hat.

“She’s been stung!” Samuel said, lowering Lilly to the ground. He took several long strides, quickly reaching Charlotte to brush away the remaining bees from her exposed face and neck.

Lilly was horrified and helpless. The sting marks were fiercely red and beginning to swell. Charlotte had had a terrible reaction the last time she’d been stung, when they were children, but it had been nothing like this.

“Damn it, she must have stepped on the new hive down near the beach,” Sam said.

“We must get her back to the inn!” Lilly cried. “Maude’s ointment will—”

Charlotte made a choking sound and dropped to her knees in the dirt. Sam caught her before she fell, and lowered her gently to the ground.

“She is swelling,” he said, loosening the buttons at Charlotte’s neck. Her eyes rolled back and her face turned ghostly pale. “She’s going into shock, Lilly.”

Panic filled Lilly’s heart. She couldn’t let Charlotte die. “I’ll run up to Ravenwell and get Maude’s remedy. That will surely—”

“There’s no time,” he said, his expression grave. “She’s deathly allergic. If I’d known…”

They were just bee stings. No one died of a bee sting!

Charlotte made another horrible choking sound, and Lilly could see that her tongue was already swollen to twice its size. Her friend couldn’t breathe.

“Samuel!”

Tears streamed down Lilly’s face, unnoticed. She watched Sam lift Charlotte’s head up to optimize her breathing, but it was no use. Charlotte’s color was turning dusky.

She was dying.

“Lilly, there’s nothing that can be done. I’ve seen this reaction before…”

But Lilly hardly heard him. She was not going to allow this. Charlotte was her closest friend, her sister. She was young and vibrant, and Lilly had always taken care of her.

She would not stop doing so now.

“I won’t let you die, Charlotte,” she said. She
closed her eyes tightly and used her talent for the most important intervention of her life.

Sam blinked once, then again.

It could not be. At one moment, Charlotte was in a headlong rush toward death. A second later, her color was normal and her eyes opened.

And Lilly’s expression was not one of joy, of relief. If anything, she looked guilty.

It made no sense. Charlotte had clearly suffered anaphylaxis—a severe allergic reaction to the bee stings that should have killed her. Yet she bore no sign of distress now, nor was there any trace of the multiple stings
he knew
she had suffered.

“I—I couldn’t let her die,” Lilly whispered.

Sam couldn’t possibly have heard her correctly. Her words made no sense. “Lilly, what—”

A small pellet fell from the tree and bounced off his shoulder. Sam picked it up and held it in his hand.

It was a chestnut…a fresh, mature nut.

“Impossible,” he muttered, then looked up at the long-dead tree where he’d built his platform. Where he’d worked among the dry and brittle branches day after day. “What the…?”

The chestnut tree had blossomed. Its leaves were fresh and green, with candles of white flowers creating an elegant, fragrant canopy over them.

Lilly made a low sound of dismay, then jumped to her feet. Confused beyond reason, Sam looked at her with questioning eyes, then turned to Charlotte. Before he managed to gather his wits to compose a logical question, Lilly picked up her skirts and ran away, leaving Sam and Charlotte behind.

Charlotte appeared as puzzled as Sam felt, but normal. No swelling was visible, not one sign of a sting.

It was uncanny. And Sam had no idea what to make of it. Charlotte seemed to have recovered fully, so Sam left her where she stood, and went after Lilly.

He had questions.

But he had no idea where to begin.

He caught up with her at the lake, past the tall black rocks by the cove where he’d gone swimming with Lilly, Charlotte and Tom. Her shoes and stockings had been abandoned in the sand, and she stood almost knee-deep in the water. Sam was afraid she intended to put even more distance between them, and would try to swim, weighted down by her skirts.

“Lilly!”

A look of utter devastation marred her perfect features when she turned to him, her eyes bright with tears, her nose red from weeping. Sam couldn’t understand what had upset her so, any more than he was able to comprehend what had happened to Charlotte and the chestnut tree.

“It was me,” she said as if reading his thoughts. “I never asked for it, and I’ve never harmed anyone with it…but somehow—” A muted sob racked her body, and she hugged herself and turned away.

“What are you saying, Lilly?”

“This talent, or power—it’s something inside me,” she cried. “The ability to make things happen.
I kept Charlotte from dying.
It’s my fault the chestnut tree came into bloom again, although I didn’t intend that.”

Sam’s gaze remained locked on her, though his eyes wavered and went out of focus. It was not like
Lilly to be irrational, but this was illogical. She could not have saved Charlotte.

Nothing could have saved Charlotte.

But the girl was back in the woods, as healthy as if she’d never been attacked by the swarm of bees. And the long-dead chestnut tree had new blossoms on it.

Sam shoved his fingers through his hair. “Lilly,” he said as calmly as he could manage. He’d been right about Ravenwell. The entire district was haunted, just as he’d thought on his first day at the inn, when he’d heard a tree fall for no apparent reason. But sorcery?

He’d finally accepted that the ghosts at Ravenwell were real. Now he had to confront witches?

“Come out and talk to me.”

With downcast eyes she slogged to the shore, her demeanor betraying absolute misery.

“I want to understand.”

“You’ll never understand it,” she said quietly. “Even I don’t know what to make of this talent of mine.”

“Tell me, Lilly.”

She looked up at him then, her eyes so full of anguish that he wanted to pull her close and pretend that nothing had happened. But he could not. If what he had just seen was true, then Sam’s entire world of theories and his beloved scientific process was invalid.

“As long as I can remember, I’ve been able to make things happen—with just a thought,” she said in a low, quiet voice. “I used to think everyone could do it… But when Maude brought me to Ravenwell and realized that it was me making the garden
grow, stopping the rain when I wanted to play outside, laying out a meal when none had been prepared, she made me stop. Said it was unnatural.”

“You
make
things happen.” His voice was nothing but a raw croak.

Lilly nodded. “But there’s a drawback. Every time I intervene—use my talent—something strange happens. Something unpredictable and unplanned.”

“What are you saying?”

“A broken window in the attic…a sudden gust of wind…”

Sam thought of some of the other strange things that had occurred since his arrival. The odd weather, the old widow’s amazing vegetable garden, the phantom lovemaking on Penny Top…

He took a step back.

It wasn’t possible. None of this was true.

“The ghosts?” Lilly remarked in an offhand way, although her lower lip quivered and she spoke in an unsteady voice. “They’re not real. But they’re not fraudulent in any conventional way.”

Sam’s head started to throb. “It’s you? You make the ghosts appear…with just a thought?”

“I did it on a whim one night. Everyone was enthralled and I knew—”

“You made it all up so that Ravenwell would attract paying guests.”

“We never have empty rooms anymore,” she said in a small voice.

“The night they showed up in the dining room,” he said, not ready to question her about Penny Top. “What was that?”