Page 82 of His Wicked Charm

He had done it last night as well, after they’d returned to their rooms, not going to bed until the servants were up. His lack of sleep was telling on him. Now, as he sat there, he kept slipping into a doze, then awakening with a start.

It began to rain and the sound soothed him, lulling him to sleep. He woke up with a start at a clap of thunder. Groggily, he peered down the hall at Lilah’s closed door, then got up and went to the window. The rain had turned into a storm, clouds covering the moon, turning the night pitch-black until lightning flashed, illuminating the garden.

He glanced at the time. It was almost three. He wondered if it was safe to give up his watch now; the other times Lilah had gone out had been before this. Going to the door, he took another look down the hall. He stiffened. There was, he saw now, a thin line of black separating her door from its frame.

Heart hammering, he crossed the corridor. The door stood a trifle ajar. He pushed it open cautiously—the last thing he wanted was Lilah waking up and screaming at the presence of a man in her bedchamber.

But there was no possibility of that. Her bedcovers were turned back, her bed empty. The door key lay on the floor at his feet. Con turned and ran down the stairs. He told himself there was no reason to worry. She had done this several times now without coming to any harm. Her senses and instincts seemed to work even though her mind was unknowing. But Con could not subdue this feeling of urgency.

He cursed himself for falling asleep. Had her door been ajar when he woke up and he hadn’t noticed it in his stupor? Or had it been closed and she had left just a moment ago, while he was staring out the window?

He intended to go to the tower, but he pulled up short when he crossed the hall leading to the back door. Logic told him Lilah would have headed for the tower, as she had last night. But something else tugged at him, and he turned toward the back door. The loosening in his chest told him he was right.

He realized that between him and the door lay—not a light or a vision—just the hint of a disturbance in the air. The closest he could come to describing it was a faint shimmer or ripple, akin to the distortion of heat waves above a fire.

His steps quickened. This faint glimmer was what he had seen last night in the Great Hall, not light, when he had followed Lilah through the darkness. He burst out the door and began to run, following the indistinct ripple that stayed steadily before him. She had gone to the maze.

Thunder rumbled; the rain soaked him. And Lilah was out here in only her nightgown. She would come down sick. She could slip on the wet grass. She could lose herself in the maze. He charged into the tangled hedges. The glimmer flowed, not toward the center, but away from it, and he turned in that direction.

Lilah hadn’t gotten far. He found her in one of the blind alleys, the thick shrubbery looming around her, tiny branches reaching out like fingers toward her. She was on her knees beside a bench, her nightgown soaked through, her hair streaming water. She sobbed, hands over her face, her whole torso shaking under the force of her sobs.

“Lilah!” He ran to her.

She lifted her head. “Con. Oh, Con!” She threw herself into his arms, clinging, her face buried in his chest.

Con wrapped his arms around her, hugging her to him, searching frantically for what to say, what to do, to ease her pain. He murmured her name and kissed her head, saying helplessly, uselessly, “Shh, darling, it’s all right. I’m here. Don’t cry. You’re safe. I won’t let anything hurt you.”

“No,” she moaned, her arms tightening around his waist. “It’s not. You don’t know—”

“Tell me. Tell me what’s wrong. What can I do?”

“Nothing.” She pulled back, gazing up into his face. Her eyes were huge and wounded in the darkness. Rain ran down her face, mingling with her tears. “There’s nothing anyone can do. It’s in me. Oh, Con, it’s true! It’s all true!”

“What’s true?”

“The séance. This house.”

Nothing she could have said would have surprised him more. For a moment, he could only stare at her, speechless.

“I’ve been hiding and lying all these years.” Her words were rapid, panicked. “But it’s here and it—it’s going to take me over. It’s going to destroy me. It’s going to destroy us all.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

LILAH’S WORDS WERE met with a stunned silence. In the dark she couldn’t make out Con’s expression; she had no idea what he thought or felt. At the moment, she was too numb and drained to care. She shivered.

“Lilah...” She felt his hand stroke her head, and she leaned into Con, wanting the heat of him, the steady thumping of his heart. He scooped her up in his arms. “You’re freezing. Let’s get you inside.”

Con carried Lilah into the enormous kitchen and set her down on the wide stone hearth. Stirring the fire to life, he looked around and found a rough jacket hanging on a hook beside the door. He wrapped it around her. “This will help warm you while I get you something dry to wear.”

Lilah watched him leave. The room seemed colder without him. She wrapped the coat more tightly around her and huddled close to the flames. She couldn’t stop shivering. It wasn’t just the wet clothes that chilled her. It was that horror of waking up in the maze, thunder rumbling through her and that thing, that power, pulling at her. In that moment, she knew. She remembered it all.

When Con returned, he carried a pile of blankets and clothing, and he had obviously changed into dry clothes. His shirt, hanging outside his trousers, was simple, with loose sleeves and unfastened ties at the neck. His hair was damp and tumbled. He looked vaguely disreputable. Utterly desirable.

Con set a stack of folded blankets beside her. Atop it lay a nightgown and robe. The thought of his hands sifting through her gowns and undergarments sent a shiver through Lilah that owed nothing to being chilled. How could she be thinking such things at a time like this?

“Put these on. I won’t look.” He took the jacket from her and began to make tea, carefully keeping his back to her.

Lilah whisked off her nightgown, feeling exposed—and strangely a little aroused by that—and put on the dry one. Wrapping her dressing gown around her, she pulled a blanket around her as well and sat down once again by the fire.