The Other Side - J. D. Robb [89]
“You don’t have to say this. I know I’m—”
“Be quiet. Where I went wrong was, I mistook you for a different sort of girl. A conventional girl, if you can believe that. The sort of girl who would mind, or at least pretend to mind, if a man she liked a little bit tried to kiss her.”
Angie lowered her head.
He touched his lips to her forehead. “What about it? Do you like me just a little?”
She heaved a sigh. “Oh, Henry. What a silly question. But I need someone . . . ”
He was tired of chatting. He pulled her close and kissed her, a long, deep kiss, the sweetest he’d ever given or received. With his eyes shut tight, everything merged, the warm breeze, the perfume of roses, Angie’s soft, unpracticed lips. “You need someone . . . ”
“Completely . . . ”
“Completely . . . ?”
Her eyes cleared for a second. “Different. From you. You are exactly the kind of man I don’t want. Need, rather. I do . . . I do want ...”
They could argue or they could kiss. They kissed again, and again, but then he had to say, “You don’t know me. I am the kind of man you need; I just don’t look it.”
When she smiled, her kisses tasted even sweeter. “Oh, you look it.”
“What if I were?”
“Were what?” She caressed his cheek with her fingertips, dreamy-eyed again.
“Someone you could—be with. Stay with. What if I were that kind of man?”
“But you’re not, Baronet Spenser.”
“But if I were.”
“Oh, then.” She took his hand and held it to her lips for a long time. “Then I would be quite the lucky girl, wouldn’t I?” The faintest trace of sadness in her voice said she didn’t believe it, though.
He surrounded her face with his hands and came so close, their noses touched. “Let’s get this séance behind us and start over. Start all over—I’ll leave town and come back. And everything I say will be the truth.”
“Oh, my. Wouldn’t that be something?”
Again, though, he could tell she didn’t believe it. He’d just have to show her.
Eleven
Angie felt a raindrop on her wrist and quickened her pace. She was almost home, just two more blocks to Mrs. Mortimer’s. Would a rainstorm be good for the séance tonight? Thunder would certainly enhance the dramatic atmosphere, but flashes of lightning might reveal too much. Such as the fact that a certain “ectoplasmic manifestation” was a ball of netting suspended from the ceiling trolley with wires. And many other ingenious phenomena, not the least of which was the fact that the dancing ghost would really be Angie in her nightgown, spookily illuminated by a portable electric hand torch.
Everything was ready. She’d just left Henry at Willow House tacking a black metal plate onto the toe of his shoe, the better to make rapping sounds under the table. Well . . . actually, she’d left him holding her in his arms and kissing her. Something they’d done quite a good deal of in the last two days. Quite a good deal. She was still in a daze from their good-bye embrace.
Never in her life, despite all she’d seen and heard in her profoundly irregular childhood, never in her least inhibited dreams had she imagined how enjoyable the . . . the pleasures of the flesh could be. Henry had made the most improper suggestion this afternoon, straight-out, no flowery figures of speech to dress up the blunt meaning. And instead of feeling insulted, she’d melted. Almost melted—she’d come to her dizzy senses at the last second and told him she wasn’t quite that unconventional a girl. But that she wished she were.
They’d laughed—they did a good deal of that, too—but with a mutual edge of frustration this time. The situation couldn’t go on. What kind of girl was she? What kind of girl was he turning her into? Shocking, but also thrilling, to think she might soon find out.
In front of Mr. Smoak’s house, she was about to cross the street to Mrs. Mortimer’s when Smoak himself darted out the front door and accosted her. “Miss Darlington!”
“Mr. Smoak! What’s wrong?”
“Someone’s broken into Mr. Cleland’s room—he’s been robbed!”
“Robbed!”
“I think so! Should I call the police? The lock on the door