Daring In a Blue Dress (21 page)

He thought for a few minutes. “Coincidence.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“It's an old house. Things shift in it.”

“Not trapdoors from their bases. No more than lights in hidden passageways.”

“Are you implying that Lisa is the one who has been going through the passages?”

She shrugged. “Possibly. Probably. But I'm not sure about that. I mean, it makes sense if she's looking for something.”

“For what?”

She bit her lip again, distracting Alden from the seriousness of their conversation. He wanted her in bed, his bed, all warm and pliant, and offering up her lips for him to nibble on. “That's a good question. I'm willing to bet you that she found something in the house papers that says there's something in the passages. Or in the smugglers' tunnel. Maybe an old treasure, or an old master painting, or an important historical document worth a fortune, or . . . oh, I don't know. Something worth a ton of money.”

“Unfortunately, I don't think that's very likely. According to the documents given to me at the sale, the Baskerville family fortune has declined since the day the house was first built. If later generations knew there was
something valuable hidden by earlier ancestors, they surely would have found it and used it to fund the estate.”

“Well, it has to be something,” Mercy insisted, waving her hand toward the hole. “Why else would Lisa be doing this?”

“We don't know it's Lisa.”

“Fine, whoever is doing it.” She took a deep breath, which again distracted him. He did so enjoy watching her breasts. And touching them. And tasting them. “All of this leads to the fact that I don't think the house is as dangerous as you say it is. Although I think it's a good idea to get Lisa out of here, since that'll limit her reasons for being in the house.”

He stretched out on his belly, and told Mercy to get back. “Just in case more of the floor goes,” he said, slowly inching his way forward toward the gaping hole. It took him almost forty minutes, but by the time he'd completed first one circuit of the damage on his belly, then another on his feet jumping up and down to test the floor, he had to admit that Mercy's idea about a trapdoor had merit. “Although who would place a trapdoor right in the middle of the gallery is beyond me.”

“Dunno, but I bet there's something about it in Lady Sybilla's papers. Dammit, why did Lisa have to show up and take that job away from me?”

Alden said nothing other than telling Mercy he'd put a temporary patch over the floor. She helped him haul some two-by-four boards he'd remembered seeing tucked away in one of the basements, and with a few nails, he made the hole safe from anyone else stepping through it.

By the time they returned to his room, he was tired,
sore, covered in dirt, dust, and cobwebs from the basement, and very much desirous of giving Mercy the attention she so obviously deserved. But first, the last comment she'd made about Lisa reminded him that he'd been keeping a secret from her, one that he was no longer comfortable hiding.

“So . . . about Lisa,” he said, opening the door to his bedroom, and gesturing her in.

“Yes? What about her?”

“There's something I haven't been forthright about. That is to say, I did tell you about it, but I didn't go into detail.” He coughed, suddenly self-conscious, a fact that made him swear to himself. He'd been getting better the last few days, so much better.

“Oh?” Mercy crossed her arms over her chest, her body language unmistakable. “And just what is this deep, dark secret concerning Lisa that you've held from me, the woman with whom you like to play Nancy Drew Visiting Ned in a Sleazy Motel?”

Alden would have laughed except he was now a bit concerned about the ire visible in Mercy's eyes. “Lisa coming here wasn't happenstance.”

“I gathered not. You said she was a blind date.”

“Yes, well . . .” He cleared his throat and wished desperately he could dash to the shower, where he'd have privacy to hide. “It's kind of like that. You see, I have a sister-in-law.”

“So?”

She wasn't making it any easier. For some reason, that fact eased some of his strain. It was because she loved him that she was so irate over the subject of Lisa. “She fancies herself a matchmaker. She's not that I know of, but that's what she believes, and my brother
humors her because she's pregnant. A few weeks ago, she promised she had the perfect woman for me, and would send her down to help at Bestwood.”

Mercy didn't say anything. Her expression hadn't budged, either.

“And that's who Lisa is,” he finished lamely. “She's the woman my sister-in-law thought would be perfect for me. That is why Lisa has been so . . . aggressive . . . in her attentions toward me. She assumed from what Alice—my sister-in-law—told her that I'd be just as interested in her. But I'm not.”

Mercy shifted her weight, her eyes losing some of their sparkly ire, turning more watchful than angry. “And that is because . . . ?”

“Because you love me,” he said matter-of-factly. He felt that the sooner Mercy faced up to that, the sooner they'd be in bed doing all those wonderful things to please each other. “Well, that's part of it. There's also the fact that you are enticing, and intriguing, and sexy as hell, and I can't think straight when I'm around you. So why don't you get into bed, and after I have a quick shower to wash off the worst of the dirt and dust, I'll join you and we can let Nancy have her way with Ned.”

She pursed her lips, thought for a moment or two, and then said brusquely, “I think I'll pass on that offer. Nancy isn't so desperate for Ned's attentions that she has to put up with him being an asshat.”

Alden gawked at her. “But—”

“No thanks, Alden. Seriously, if I wasn't pissed enough about that whole shooting thing and the fact that you think I'm lying about it—no, don't say you're not, because you keep bringing it up—then I'd be more than a little miffed that you'd jump into bed with me when
you thought your potential match was on her way here. Yeah, yeah, I know when we first met, you had said that there was a blind date coming out, but you acted like you didn't want to see her. At least you did until Lisa got here, and now you're all shades of defensive about her.”

“Are you . . . jealous?” Alden couldn't think of any other reason Mercy was acting so unreasonably.

“No, of course not! Maybe. Just a little, but that's certainly understandable, given the situation. I mean, what were you going to do if it turned out you liked Lisa better than me? Just dump me? Tell me I was a warm-up for the main action? Send me back to my mousey room without so much as a backward look?”

“Your room, and indeed this entire floor, have been demoused—”

“Faugh!” Mercy said, evidently having read one too many historical novels in her day, and marched out of his room, making sure to slam the door behind her.

“She loves me,” he told the still-vibrating door. “She's jealous, and angry because deep down she knows it's her love for me making her that. She's just a little resistant to that fact. But she'll figure it out in the end.” He strode to the bathroom, purpose filling him with every step. “And if she doesn't, I'll make sure she gets the help she needs to realize just how much she wants me. And needs me. And can't live without me.”

Pot, kettle, black,
a distant part of his mind said softly.

He ignored it. He had more important things to do than sit around and be introspective.

I
was of half a mind to go to the gatekeeper's lodge with the others, but decided after helping them haul all of Lady Sybilla's belongings to her new quarters that close confines with Lady S. and the others was the last thing I needed. It took Fenice, Lisa, Vandal, Alden, and me combined a total of three hours to get all of Lady Sybilla's things moved.

“Tell me again why she's not just taking an overnight bag like the rest of us,” Fenice groaned when we lifted an upholstered recliner onto Vandal's truck.

“Alden said she wouldn't leave without everything. Thank god Adams got the loose stuff into boxes.”

“I can think of about a million other things I'd rather do tonight,” Vandal said, passing with two cardboard boxes, which he loaded beside the chair.

“I think that goes for all of us.” I stretched and thought about telling Lady Sybilla just how unreasonable she was being, but decided it wasn't worth it.

We struggled on. The others took their things (which were easily packed) as well, but they didn't need help with that.

“You're sure you and lover boy don't want to stay with us?” Fenice asked, having picked one of the bedrooms at the lodge for her own. “If the house isn't safe—”

“It's safe enough,” I snapped, instantly feeling bad because it wasn't Fenice's fault I was such an idiot. “Sorry, I'm just cranky tonight. I think the house is perfectly safe, but thanks for thinking of me. Us. Oh, hell, just ignore me, I'm being an idiot.” I left with a quick wave.

“The whole issue with Alden aside,” I said to myself as I marched up the drive to the house, a flashlight picking out the potholes along the way, “if I had to be that close to Lisa, I'd be sure to punch her somewhere impolite. The murderous she-devil. Hussy she-devil. Murderous, hussified, obnoxious she-devil.”

I passed Alden, hauling a flat-screen TV on a dolly, as I entered the house, but said nothing. He had a confused air about him, as if he couldn't understand why I was upset. I paused at the door to the house, half wanting to run back after him and explain my feelings, but since I didn't even understand them, I figured it was better if I just kept to myself. “Especially if he thinks I'm crazy in love with him. Ha. I scoff.”

I held on to that and assorted other dismal thoughts while I undressed, and got into the bed in my room, now thankfully sans rodents of any sort.

“Boy, it's lonely in here,” I said aloud a half hour
later. I'd been lying in the dark, staring up at the ceiling, dimly aware of noises coming from Alden's room next door, half hoping to hear the silent swoosh of a letter being pushed under my door, but nothing appeared. Not even Alden at my door begging me to come to bed with him. “Lonely and quiet. So quiet I can hear house noises. Like that. That sounded like a footstep in the hall, but I know everyone but Alden and me are gone, and he's sure to have locked up.”

Although there
were
the secret tunnels. I sat up in bed at that thought, straining to listen, but the noise wasn't repeated. Surely if it was footsteps, I'd hear more. After ten more minutes of intense listening, I lay back and stared up at the ceiling again. “Lonely, lonely lonely. And it's all Alden's fault.”

I thought about how at fault he was, and decided to write him a note to let him know just what it was I found so objectionable about his actions. I pulled out a sheet of his notepaper that I'd filched and, with a book underneath it, sat on the edge of my bed and wrote.

Dear Alden,

You are probably feeling pretty sorry for yourself right now, telling yourself that you've done nothing wrong, and that I'm overreacting. So I thought, in the interest of Anglo-Canadian-American relations, to detail your wrongdoings.

“Yes,” I said, looking with approval at the letter. “It's a good start. My English Comp professor would be pleased.”

1. You insist that I shot you when I've told you repeatedly that I didn't.
   
2. You . . .
   

I stopped, frowning at the first item. Come to think of it, Alden hadn't recently accused me of shooting him. He'd agreed that I hadn't, and wondered who could have, since it hadn't been me and most likely wasn't Barry, unless the latter had smuggled a differently colored arrow upon his person. I struck out the first item, and restarted the list.

1. You didn't tell me that your potential girlfriend was coming to visit.
   

Dammit. That wasn't true, either. He
had
told me that a woman was coming to stay with him, although I had gotten the idea that it was a blind date, an unwanted one at that. But never had he actually said that. I bit my lip and, after a soft oath to myself, struck out the item and started again.

1. You allow Lisa to fawn all over you when you and I have a thing. OK, I know I said that we don't have a thing, but . . .
   

“Well, that's just balls, too,” I snapped, scratching out that item with unnecessary force.

1. You told me that I loved you. Ha! Double ha with bells on it! For one thing, you don't know my feelings, and for another thing, I don't in any way, shape, or form love . . .
   

I said an extremely rude word, and sat staring at the paper. The word
love
seemed to grow and throb, like an engorged penis, dancing around the page trying to attract my attention.

“Love,” I scoffed. “Just who does Alden think he is that he can tell me what I feel? Pfft. He wishes it was love.”

I kept on that vein for another two minutes, then eventually worked enough scoffing out of my system that I could face facts.

What I felt for Alden was more than just a casual hookup. Was it love? It certainly wasn't the crushes I'd had in college when I was a young thing. No, the emotions that Alden generated in me were more . . . deep. Profound. Unshakable. Oh, sure, I'd been angry with him earlier, but that didn't mean that I didn't at that exact moment want to be with him, touching him, kissing him, talking to him. I just wanted to be
with
him, to be a part of his life, to know I mattered to him.

“Well, hell, I
am
in love with the great big toad,” I said, somewhat at a loss. “When did that happen? When I saw him swinging the sword the first time? When he sent me that first note? When I thought he'd fallen into a hole and killed himself? And why the hell am I sitting here asking silly questions and describing why I'm angry with him over things that have no merit or basis in fact? Get up and go molest that man, Mercy! Seduce him like he's never been seduced before!”

I suited action to word, throwing away my note and donning my sexy nightie, figuring that if I had to make an apology for my behavior—and I definitely needed to do that—then I was going to do it in a garment that would give me the best chance of distracting him once
the apologizing was over. I grabbed a shawl I'd bought when I was in Scotland, and padded my way barefoot to Alden's door. I tried to open it, intending on slipping in to surprise him, but the door was locked.

“Crap. He must be pissed at me because I was so bitchy earlier. Guess he's really going to earn this apology.” I tapped on the door, and waited, mentally practicing my explanation of why I was there, and all the ways I'd been wrong in accusing him of bad behavior.

I frowned at the door after a couple of minutes. Maybe he was in the bathroom? I knocked again, this time putting my ear to the door to listen for sounds that he was willfully ignoring me.

There was no sound, but a scent wafted out from the doorjamb.

I sniffed a couple of times, then froze in horror. I knew that smell—it was natural gas, the stuff Bestwood used to heat up the ancient radiators that lurked in every room. What on earth was Alden doing turning on the heat when it had to be at least eighty during the day?

“Alden?” I banged loudly on the door, putting my face right up to it to yell. “Alden, what are you doing in there? Alden?”

There was still no answer, but as I gave a couple more sniffs, the smell of gas was still present.

What if he'd fallen down in the bathroom, and somehow turned on the gas while doing so? What if a gas pipe had broken and was expelling deadly fumes into his room at that very moment?

What if someone was trying to murder him in his sleep?

I spun around, and raced back into my room,
running to the windowsill, where I flung open the curtains, jerked up the window, and stuck a leg out while feeling for the six-inch-wide decorative stone ledge that ran under all the windows on that floor. I eased myself out, refusing to look down, clutching the smooth stone of the building as I got to my feet.

“Don't look down, don't look down,” I repeated in a desperate sort of mantra, edging my way along the building to the window of Alden's bathroom, which was between our two rooms. The mantra changed to, “Don't be dead, don't be dead,” when I (breathlessly) arrived at the window.

The urge to look down was almost overwhelming, but I kept my attention focused on staying balanced on the narrow ledge while bending down to pull up the window sash. Luckily, the heat of the day meant that Alden had left the bathroom window partially open, so all I had to do was grasp it with the hand not holding on to a decorative stone rose that dotted a line above the windows, and yank upward.

The smell of gas was strong—not overwhelming—in the bathroom, but the door to Alden's room was firmly shut. I hopped down and, clutching the doorknob, jerked it open, staggering back almost immediately from the smell of gas. It made me cough, and almost retch. I ran for the bedroom window, pulling it open and sticking my upper half out, drawing in long, gasping breaths of untainted air. The second my head cleared, I spun around and stumbled over to where the radiator sat along the wall near the bed. I twisted the knob that turned on the flow of gas, gratified to hear the sibilant hissing die down to nothing before turning to Alden.

He was lying half on the bed, his legs on the floor,
while his upper body had apparently melted onto the bed itself. No doubt he had tried to get up but was overcome by gas. I grabbed his arms, intending on carrying him out of the bedroom, but he was too big and heavy for me. Plus, I was holding my breath, and about to run out of air. I bolted to the window, took several painful gulps of air, and jerked the belt off Alden's bathrobe that hung from the bathroom door.

Two more quick breaths of nondeadly air, and I was back at his side, tying the belt around his chest and under his arms. I wrapped both hands around the belt and started pulling him backward to the door to the hall, having to breathe about halfway there. By the time I got his body to the door, and turned the old-fashioned key that was sticking out of the lock, I was giddy, my throat burned, and I was close to vomiting. Fumbling with the door, I managed to get it open, and hauled Alden the last few feet until we hit the cool wood of the hallway. I kicked the door shut, sliding down it onto the floor next to him.

“Alden,” I said hoarsely, crawling over to him. “You have to wake up. I can't carry you, and I doubt if I can drag you the entire way outdoors. You have to get up so we can get out of the house. Alden. Wake up.”

He lay still as death. Instantly, my brain rejected that thought, and I put a hand on his bare chest to make sure that its rising and falling weren't just my imagination. Beneath my hand, his heart beat steadily, if a little slowly.

I had to get him some medical help. I ran back into his room to grab his cell phone, dialed the emergency number once I was back in the hall, and spent eight minutes of frustration describing to the call center
where we were, why Alden needed help, and why the gas would be turned on during a summer heat wave.

“Look,” I finally said, uncaring if I was being rude, “I don't know why the gas was on, but I'm sure it wasn't a suicide attempt, and I don't know why you insist on arguing with me about how and why gas was turned on so that it almost killed Alden, when you should be sending medical aid!”

“Madam,” the woman on the other end said with cool indifference. “The paramedics were sent five minutes ago. I am merely trying to get additional information for the council. They like us to document regional emergencies so that they know better how to allocate funds designated for such events. You say this was not a suicide attempt, but how are you certain of that? Are you a family member?”

“No, I'm . . . I suppose you could say I'm his girlfriend. And what does that have to do with—”

“Would you say that this emergency is one that could be avoided with proper in-home safety measures?”

“No! Someone tried to kill Alden—”

“Would you agree that the city council has an obligation to investigate homes to ensure they are up to code, and that every protection is in place to eliminate the possibility of future emergencies?”

I hung up the phone, and stood staring down at Alden. I wanted desperately to go wait at the entrance of the house for the medics, but I didn't want to leave him alone, lest the murderous Lisa be lurking somewhere.

I ran back to my bedroom, leaving the door open so I'd see if she tried to creep past in order to get to Alden, and hurried into the nearest thing I could find—my blue archery dress. After a moment's thought, I snatched
the duvet off the bed and laid it down next to Alden, rolling him over onto it with a murmured apology. “Sorry, I know I probably shouldn't move you, but I can't leave you here for Lisa to find, and I have to be downstairs to let the paramedics in, so you have to come with me. Ready?”

Grasping the edge of the duvet firmly, I backed my way down the hallway, dragging Alden with me. It wasn't easy getting him down the stairs (at one point, he slid off the duvet and rolled down a couple of steps), but fifteen minutes later I triumphantly opened the front door to the two women waiting, and said in between gasps, “Hi . . . so glad . . . you're here. . . . He's over there. . . . Got a few bumps . . . on stairs . . . whew!”