Quicksilver - Amanda Quick [84]
“You are endowed with all of those attributes that Sweetwaters hold dear. I would trust you with my life and my secrets.”
She went still. “Truly?”
“Truly.” He brushed his mouth across her parted lips and straightened. “Speaking of family secrets, I have revealed a number of them to you. Which leaves me with only one safe alternative.”
“What is that?”
“You must marry me, of course.”
Her mouth fell open. “What?”
“Otherwise I shall have to spend the rest of my life worrying that you will reveal all of the dark Sweetwater secrets to some other man.”
“What?”
“I’m teasing you, of course. This is not the time to discuss our marriage plans. It is late, and you must go to bed.”
He released her, picked up his black evening coat and headed for the door.
“Owen, wait.”
“We will finish this conversation some other time,” he promised. He unlocked the door and moved out into the shadowed hall, smiling a little when he heard the quick patter of her bare feet behind him.
“You cannot just run off like this,” she hissed urgently. “Explain yourself, sir.”
He opened the front door and paused long enough to steal one last kiss.
“There is nothing more to explain, when you get right down to it,” he said. “I am asking you to marry me. I can only hope that you will say yes.”
“Damn it, Owen—”
He went out into the night. She started to pursue him and then evidently thought better of it when her bare feet touched the cold stone of the step. She moved back into the hall.
The shadows shifted down in the front area.
“I’m leaving now, Matt,” Owen said. “I expect you and Tony to take excellent care of Miss Dean.”
“Yes, sir,” Matt said cheerfully.
“Mr. Sweetwater,” Virginia snapped, her tone excruciatingly formal. “You can’t just leave like this. I have questions for you.”
“Another time, Miss Dean,” he said. “Don’t forget to lock the door.”
Virginia said something indistinct in a very low voice and closed the door with considerably more force than was necessary.
He listened for the rasp of iron on iron that told him Virginia had turned the key in the lock. When he heard it he went down the steps to the pavement.
“Uncle Owen?” Matt called softly.
He stopped. “Yes?”
“She’s the one, isn’t she? The woman everyone in the family says you’ve been waiting for.”
“Yes,” Owen said. “But I would take it as a favor if you don’t mention that to Miss Dean.”
“Why not?”
“Because she doesn’t understand that, not entirely. Not yet. I’m trying to break it to her gently. She needs time to become accustomed to the notion of marriage to me.”
“No offense, sir, but judging by the tone of her voice just now, I don’t think you’re doing a very good job of explaining the situation.”
“What do you expect? It’s the first time I’ve tried to do so.”
“You mustn’t hit her over the head with it. Women like to be romanced like the heroines in the sensation novels.”
“What the devil do you know about sensation novels?”
“A man can learn a great deal about women from novels,” Matt said. “You should try it sometime.”
THIRTY-TWO
Owen went to the end of the street and rounded the corner into the narrow lane that bordered the graveyard. The gas lamps were few and far between now, but he scarcely noticed the deeper darkness. His senses were slightly elevated, as they always were when he walked the night. He registered the small sounds and the shifts in the shadows around him without consciously thinking about it.
The hunter in him was on the prowl, searching for the spoor of the monsters, but he was aware that something was different tonight. He did not feel driven by the relentless compulsion that had been riding him so hard in the past year. The obsessive need to hunt had faded to a normal level or, rather, a level that felt normal for a Sweetwater. The men of his line would never be wholly civilized, he thought. But it was good to regain a sense of balance and perspective, good to be able to ignore, for now, at any rate, the terrible allure of the abyss of night that had been calling to him for months.
And, yes, it was good to feel this pleasantly euphoric,