The Shape of Night(19)

“You know my name.”

“I know far more about you than just your name. I sense your pain. I hear you weep in your sleep.”

“You watch me?”

“Someone must watch over you. Have you no one else?”

His question brings tears to my eyes. He caresses my face and it is not the cold hand of a corpse I feel. Jeremiah Brodie is alive and his touch makes me tremble.

    “Here in my house, what you seek is what you will find,” he says.

I close my eyes and shiver as he gently nudges aside my nightgown and kisses my shoulder. His unshaven face is rough against my skin and I sigh as my head lolls back. The nightgown slips off my other shoulder and moonlight spills across my breasts. I am shaking and utterly exposed to his gaze, yet I don’t feel afraid. His mouth meets mine and his kiss tastes of salt and rum. I gasp in a breath and smell damp wool and seawater. The scent of a man who has lived too long on a ship, a man who is hungry for the taste of a woman.

As hungry as I am for the taste of a man.

“I know what you desire,” he says.

What I desire is him. I need him to make me forget everything but what it feels like to be embraced by a man. I topple onto my back and at once he is on top of me, his weight pinning me to the mattress. He grasps both my wrists and traps them over my head. I cannot resist him. I don’t want to resist him.

“I know what you need.”

I suck in a startled breath as his hand closes around my breast. This is not a gentle embrace but a claiming, and I flinch as if he has just burned his brand into my skin.

“And I know what you deserve.”

My eyes fly open. I stare up at no one, at nothing. Wildly I look around the room, see the shapes of furniture, the glow of moonlight on the floor. And I see Hannibal’s eyes, green and ever watchful, staring at me.

“Jeremiah?” I whisper. No one answers.



* * *



—

The whine of an electric saw awakens me and I open my eyes to dazzling sunlight. The sheets are twisted around my legs, and beneath my thighs, the linen is damp. Even now, I am still wet and aching for him.

Was he really here?

    Heavy footsteps creak upstairs in the turret and a hammer pounds. Billy and Ned are back at work, and here I lie in the room just beneath them, my legs splayed apart, my skin flushed with desire. Suddenly I feel exposed and embarrassed. I climb out of bed and pull on the same clothes I wore yesterday. They’re still lying on the floor; I don’t even remember taking them off. Hannibal is already pawing at the closed door and he gives an impatient meow, demanding to be let out. As soon as I open the door, he darts out and heads downstairs to the kitchen. To breakfast, of course.

I don’t follow him, but make my way up to the turret room, where I’m startled to see a large hole in the wall. Billy and Ned have broken through the plaster, and they stand peering into the newly exposed cavity.

“What on earth is back there?” I ask.

Ned turns and frowns at my unkempt hair. “Oh, gosh. I hope we didn’t wake you up.”

“Um, yeah. You did.” I rub my eyes. “What time is it?”

“Nine-thirty. We knocked on the front door but I guess you didn’t hear us. We figured you went out for a walk or something.”

“What happened to you?” asks Billy, pointing at my arm.

I glance down at the claw marks. “Oh, that’s nothing. Hannibal scratched me the other day.”

“I mean your other arm.”

“What?” I stare down at a bruise encircling my forearm like an ugly blue bracelet. I don’t remember how I got it, just as I don’t remember how I bruised my knee the other night. I think of the captain and how he had pinned my arms to the bed. I remember the weight of his body, the taste of his mouth. But that was merely a dream, and dreams do not leave bruises. Did I stumble in the dark on my way to the bathroom? Or did it happen yesterday afternoon on the beach? Numb with wine, if I’d banged my arm against a rock, I might not have felt any pain.

My throat is so dry I can barely answer Billy’s question. “Maybe I got it in the kitchen. Sometimes I get so busy cooking, I don’t even notice when I hurt myself.” Anxious to escape, I turn to leave. “I really need coffee. I’ll get the pot going, if you want some.”

    “First come take a look at what we found behind this wall,” says Ned. He pulls off another chunk of drywall, opening up a wider view of the cavity behind it.

I peer through the opening and see the glint of a brass sconce and walls painted a mint green. “It’s a little alcove. How strange.”

“The floor back there’s still in good shape. And take a look at that crown molding. It’s original to the house. This space is like a time capsule, preserved all these years.”

“Why on earth would anyone wall off an alcove?”

“Arthur and I talked about it, and neither of us has any idea. We’re thinking it was done before his aunt’s time.”

“Maybe it was a bootlegger’s space, to hide liquor,” Billy suggests. “Or to hide a treasure.”

“There’s no door anywhere in or out, so how would you get to it?” Ned shakes his head. “No, this space was closed off, like a tomb. Like someone was trying to erase the fact it was ever here.”