“You might call it the family business,” Owen said.
“Would I get to do more of the sort of inquiries that I did this afternoon?” Mrs. Crofton asked.
“If you like,” Owen said. “Sweetwaters are happy to take all the help we can get, so long as it comes from within the family.”
“My inquiry today left me sleeping in a glass coffin.”
“Perhaps you won’t want to continue with a career as an inquiry agent,” Owen said. “Understandable. There are other positions available.”
“Might have been a different outcome if I’d been properly armed,” Mrs. Crofton said. “A pistol in my handbag, for example, would have been useful.”
“That won’t be a problem in the future,” Owen said.
FORTY-FOUR
Virginia opened her eyes and saw Owen standing at the window, looking out into the moonlit night. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up on his forearms. His collar was open. He had one hand braced against the sill. The silver light limned his face in shadows and mysteries.
“Owen,” she said softly.
He turned and walked to the bed. His eyes heated.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
Tentatively she heightened her senses. There was no need to focus. One knew when one’s talent was functioning properly, just as one knew if one’s hearing or eyesight or sense of touch was working. She felt the familiar tingle of awareness.
“I feel fine,” she said. “What of Mrs. Crofton?”
“She has concluded that she has a talent for the private inquiry business, but she insists on being properly armed the next time she goes off to track down persons of interest in a case.”
“I told you at the start of this affair that she is an excellent housekeeper and that I was very lucky to have her.”
“So you did. She seems to think that she is fortunate in her employer, as well.”
“Hardly. I very nearly got her killed today.”
Owen leaned over the bed, palms flattened on either side of her shoulders. “I’m the one responsible for what happened today. I put you both at risk.”
“I was already at risk, if you will recall. That is why you came to me in the first place. You wanted to keep me safe.”
“I failed.”
“Here is what I know, Owen Sweetwater. If you had not come looking for me that night that I went to the Hollister mansion, I would likely never have made it out of that terrible place alive. The girl we found there would have died as well.”
“Virginia—”
“If you had not convinced me that I was in grave danger, and if you had not allowed me to participate in the investigation, I would not have been prepared for what happened tonight. The lock pick you gave me helped save Mrs. Crofton and me. By the time I had finished dealing with Alcina Norgate, I was so exhausted I would not have been able to escape the flames. But you carried me out of that storm of energy and fire. All in all, I would say that you took very good care of me.”
“However that may be, I swear I will do an infinitely better job of taking care of you in the future.”
She touched his hard jaw. “Will you?”
“I have no choice,” he said. “Last night when I carried you out of that chamber you said you loved me.”
“Yes.”
“I realized I had never told you that I love you. I have loved you since I watched you give the reading in Lady Pomeroy’s drawing room. I will always love you.”
A sensation of radiant joy rushed through her. Mercilessly, she crushed it with an act of will.
“You don’t have to romance me,” she said. “I understand that what you believe we have is some sort of psychical bond. But it is enough. For now.”
He leaned down and kissed her forehead. When he raised his head, his eyes burned. “For a man like me, there is no difference between the psychical bond and the bond of love. It is all one and the same.”
She searched his face in the shadows. “How can you know that?”
“Sweetwaters take this kind of thing very seriously. It is part of our talent. Trust me, I am certain.”
“You must realize that I will not be the mistress of a married man. I will not live in the shadows as my mother did.”
“Has some married man asked you to be his mistress?” Owen’s eyes glittered with dark laughter. “If so, give me his name and I will see to it that he disappears.”
“I am serious.”
“You insult me gravely if you think that I am the kind of man who would keep a lover on the side while I married another woman and fathered children by her. I realize that may be common in society, but we do not do that sort of thing in the Sweetwater family.” He smiled a quick, wicked smile. “Our ladies do not condone the practice.”
She stared at him. “But you must marry a woman of your own station. It is your duty to your family.”
He stopped smiling. “My family hunts monsters, Virginia, not foxes or deer or squirrels. What is more, we do it for money whenever possible. It is, as I made clear to Mrs. Crofton, the family business. I’m afraid that there is no getting around the fact that we are in trade. Where does that put us on the social ladder?”
“I hadn’t thought about it in those terms,” she admitted.
“Sweetwaters are not bound by society’s conventions when it comes to marriage. We cannot afford to abide by them. For us, too much depends on finding the right woman. I have found you. You are what I need to help me survive the night.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Sweetwater men must marry women who can accept the talent and the compulsion that drives us to hunt, strong women who can be our partners as well as our lovers. We must choose women who can keep and protect the family secrets.”
“Well, yes, I can understand how trust would be of paramount importance in a Sweetwater marriage, given your family’s eccentricities, but that’s not my point here.”
“It goes far beyond trust,” Owen said evenly. “It is a matter of survival.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I am going to tell you the greatest Sweetwater secret of all. The men of my family can survive the hunt over time only if we succeed in finding the right women. Each of us must find the one with whom we can truly bond. If we fail to establish such a connection, we are doomed.”
“To die?” She gasped, horrified. “I can’t believe that.”
“Death is not what we fear. In the end we all die. What the men in my family risk is far worse, the slow, cold, empty doom we call nightwalking. When a Sweetwater becomes a true nightwalker he is consumed utterly by the passion for the hunt. Nothing else matters. The bloodlust is the only emotion he can feel, an absolute obsession that can never be satisfied. There is no peace, no rest, no other passion. The darkness takes over. He seeks the only escape available to him.”
“Suicide?”
“You could call it a form of suicide, perhaps.” Owen straightened away from the bed. “The Sweetwater who becomes a true nightwalker starts to take great risks. He shuts himself off from the family. He begins to hunt alone. He goes out again and again, seeking prey. Eventually he miscalculates. Some say deliberately.”
She shuddered. “That night, after you were attacked, one of your nephews said something to the effect that your family was worried because you were starting to walk the streets at night. Now I understand the concern. Are you sliding into this dangerous obsession you speak of?”
He smiled. “Not any longer. I have found you.” Methodically he began to unfasten his shirt. “Now all I have to do is convince you to marry me.”
This was the one man she could trust, she thought, the one she had been waiting for. If he said he loved her, she could believe him.
She smiled slowly. “Well, when you put it that way, I can hardly refuse.”
His hands dropped away from the unbuttoned shirt. His eyes burned with a stark hunger.
“Virginia—”
“I love you, Owen Sweetwater. You are the only man who has ever understood me, the only one who can handle my talent. I need you as much as you need me. I will love you to the end of my days and beyond, if such a thing is possible.”