"One-legged? What makes you think that?"

"From the body, Miss LePage."

Body? They had a body? "Impossible! Christopher lost an eye, not a leg."

"He'd lost a leg, too," Jones said. "Hard to tell these days. It's not like the old metal legs from the war days.""He hadn't lost a leg." All three stared. She didn't much care. Whoever tried to kill Christopher had managed it with someone else. That thought stirred a rage for justice. "Christopher had both legs."

"Sure about that? Sure enough to swear in court?" Jones managed to sound interested and look bored at the same time.

"Yes!"

"Why would you be so certain?" Wyatt asked.

"I've seen both of them." She just hoped they wouldn't ask when. Jones looked at her in a way that made her wonder if extramarital s.e.x was a misdemeanor in Britain.

"You'd be willing to make a statement to that effect?"

"If necessary."

Jones nodded. "Get her name and phone number, Wyatt." Wyatt scribbled on his flip-top pad. "We'll be in contact about that statement in the next day or so, Miss LePage."

They turned back to the house. Or was it a crime scene? Had to be. Something was very rotten in Bringham and she was darn well going to find out what.

Dixie went back to her empty house, made a cup of tea and then watched the milk form a skin on the surface as it cooled.

Under her la.s.situde, tension coiled like a tight spring. She had to do something, anything, to keep her mind off a million questions. She could work in the garden. There was enough there to keep her occupied until the first frost. But no, if she as much as looked at the wheelbarrow or the garden shed, she'd break down and wail.

She settled for polis.h.i.+ng every piece of bra.s.s and silver in the house. She was halfway through the andirons and fender in the drawing room when the phone rang. It was Sally, insisting Dixie join her and Emma for lunch and shopping tomorrow. Why not? It might do her good to get out of Bringham for a while.

She glanced at her watch. Why not call it a day here and walk over to the Barley Mow?

Guinness in hand, Dixie took a table in the corner, away from the crowd at the bar. She did not feel social in any degree.

"Hey! Put a sock in it!" A heavy-set man at the bar called to his companions. "What about that? Who'd have thought it?"

Dixie looked up from the cauliflower cheese she hadn't been eating.

"Well, I'll be blowed!" His neighbor began, his eyes on the TV over the bar.

Dixie stared too. The pub went silent except for a few cheers from the people at the dartboard, but even they turned at the sudden quiet.

A sketch of Christopher's face stared from the TV screen. "... anxious to contact Mr. Christopher Marlowe. Anyone who knows his whereabouts or can give information is requested to contact the Surrey Constabulary..."

Good thing she hadn't eaten much. She'd be lucky to keep it down. If the police were looking for Christopher, it could only be on account of her big mouth. Until she spoke to Inspector Jones, they'd believed him dead.

The pub broke into a buzz of speculation. "What's he done?"

"Quiet chap. Wouldn't have thought it of him.""Anyway, I thought he was dead."

"Can't be if they're looking for him."

"Must be something about that fire."

"Maybe he set it off to get the insurance."

"He wouldn't have scampered then. Would he?"

"Maybe they figured it out and he off and run."

Alf grunted as he gathered gla.s.ses. "They were over here this afternoon, asking about Vernon. Monday, his mother reports him missing and they're too busy to bother. Now, all of a sudden they want to know if he and Marlowe were friends and if they spent time together." He wiped up the beer spills on the polished bar top. "I told them they'd better find him. I can't handle this place at night without him. They suggested I advertise for a replacement. I don't like to think what that means."

Neither did Dixie. And she certainly didn't want to ask if Vernon had a prosthesis. Remembering his shuffling gait as he worked his way round the room clearing tables, and the awkward way he bent to clean up the mess the time she'd dished her dinner on James, she didn't need to.

Vernon was the dead man in Dial Cottage and the police thought Christopher had killed him.

"You have to leave, Kit, as soon as it's dark. It's the safest place."

He couldn't argue with Tom. But Christopher wasn't even sure he wanted to be safe. Not without Dixie. He owed his existence to a mortal. He'd lost his heart to an auburn-haired human, with sparkling green eyes and lips that sent his body into overdrive, and he could never see her again! d.a.m.n it!

"I'm going, Tom, back to our haven. Maybe I should have stayed there." Christopher glanced down at his feet and for a minute or two amused himself by untying and retying his shoelaces with his mind. Last night, he'd climbed St. Paul's. His physical and mental strengths were back in full, but what use were they without Dixie?

Tom treated his friend to a long, intent stare. He might have been reading his mind. He probably was. "Kit, you're hurt, inside, where even we can't heal ourselves. Time is what you need. Remember when we were lads? Smashed and broken hearts heal.

Give yourself time."

He wasn't sure he wanted to. "What about Dixie? She can't s.n.a.t.c.h a vampire nap for a couple of decades to mend her heart. I didn't just break her heart, I smashed it to smithereens."

"Hurting her wasn't your choice. It happened."

Christopher turned at Justin's voice. "Came back to make sure I leave?"

"No, I came back to tell you she'll be safe. We'll watch her."

"For her sake, or ours?"

Justin shook his head. "You were always a cynical young man. For all our sakes, but mostly for hers. Few mortals have her courage or her faith. She almost deserves immortality."

A flare of hope surged in Christopher's aching heart. "You mean it?"Justin raised a hand. "Kit, think! She's young and healthy. No sign of disease. You know the colony's rules. No killing. No transformation before death. Don't even think about it."

He should have known better than to nurture false hopes. Dixie was mortal. In this day and age, young women seldom died, and there was nothing he could do about that except sleep away the decades. Until she aged and died a natural death-and hadn't her great-aunts lived into their nineties? He had a long rest ahead of him.

Tom poured three gla.s.ses of velvet-colored port. Christopher inhaled the rich bouquet that triggered thoughts of warm sun on dusty vines-and the taste of Dixie's lips. "A new one?"

Tom smiled as he raised his gla.s.s. "An 1800 pre-phyllox-era. In your honor."

Christopher nodded to acknowledge the compliment. "Must be one of the last bottles in London."

"The last but one. I'll save the other for your return."

His return! He'd sleep away the years while Dixie forgot him, aged, and died. But she'd never forget, any more than he could.

He had to see her, just see her, one last time. He was strong enough to transmogrify, fly there and still reach the refuge in Whitby before dawn.

They drank in silence. The only sounds were the traffic outside, the pedestrians pa.s.sing under the window, and the clock ticking on the mantel.

"Time, I think," Justin said quietly. Maybe he didn't even speak.

Christopher nodded and walked over to the window, throwing up the sash and looking down on the street below and up at the hazy blueness of a city night A knee on the sill, he turned back to his friends His oldest friends "Soon," he said, perched himself on the window ledge, and, in a flash, shot out into the murky sky.

Tom watched, long after mortal eyes could have seen the dark speck in the azure sky "He's going west, not north."

"Yes."

"Fool," Tom murmured.

Justin clapped him on the shoulder "That's one thing we still have in common with mortals."

She lay against the white sheets, like a beautiful dream The sweet truth of fair skin in the moonlight and auburn curls against the pillow Christopher willed himself to stay on the window ledge He could enter He had an invitation She'd given him that, and life and blood, but if he came close enough to touch, his resolve would melt in her warmth and he'd never leave.

Now he understood Justin's unease with humans A pair of sparkling green eyes, a smile as sweet as springtime, and a heart greater than the wide arc of the heavens had seduced his soul She'd given him life and blood, and he'd repaid with heartbreak.

He was leaving her for eternity, but he'd make this last contact as sweet and loving as her soul.

Reaching out to her mind, he sensed anxiety She worried about him! He'd half-drained her life and torn her heart from its roots and she worried about him. What had he ever done to merit this care? Giddy with the thought of her, he touched her forehead with his mind She stirred as he felt the warmth of her brow from her eyebrows to her ear A smile flicked on her full lips as he thought down the pale column of her neck.

The scent of her skin came heady as a new vintage He longed to taste her, feel the heat of life against his lips, but he anch.o.r.ed himself to the ledge and pictured his lips on her pulse. The low throbbing just beneath the pale skin set his teeth on edge. He stifled the sensation. He'd come to give, not take. His thoughts edged the sheet off her shoulders. Her lips parted as her tongue reached round to moisten them. She was aware. He vowed she'd remember each caress for the duration of her mortal life.

She s.h.i.+vered as the night air touched her. He breathed warmth on her and brought a relaxed smile to her moist lips. He yearned to devour those lips, to suck their sweetness until they swelled, took his satisfaction in watching them pout under his mind's touch, imagining their satin smoothness and the taste of her mouth.

Abel, how he wanted her!

How he ached to touch her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, mounds of nacre in the moonlight, and lying between them, the warm gleam of a silver chain and the oval of jet, dark as despair against the pale blue of her nightgown. He willed the taste of her breast into his mouth and felt the warm ridges of the rosy flesh against his tongue. She moaned as he imagined his lips closing on her hardening nipple. In the moonlight her hand rose like a silvery caress as she reached across the snowy pillow. "Christopher, I love you."

The whispered words tore across time and reverberated through s.p.a.ce. This woman loved him, after all he'd done.

In less than one of her heartbeats, he sloughed his clothes and crossed to her bedside. Her eyes opened. She knelt up and stretched out her arms, her face radiant. "Christopher," she whispered as clear as church chimes across a frosty night. "I thought I was dreaming." He melted into the circle of her arms and held her close in his own eternal embrace. "You're real."

Her eyes shone like gems in the moonlight. She tasted the curve of his shoulder and smiled. "I thought I'd never see you again.

Tell me I'm not dreaming."

"This," he replied, drawing her close to him, "is a real dream."

"You're the most real person I've ever known," she said as she traced the contours of his face with a touch that scared him.

How could a mere mortal leave him weak and longing and trembling in his soul? Her fingers moved slowly, as if memorizing each curve and hollow, across his face, down his neck. She snuggled against him as she smoothed the flat of her hand across his chest. "You're like a man, but more," she said, nestling her fingers amidst the thatch on his chest.

"How?" He chuckled as her fingers moved down his belly.

"You look like a man. Most places."

"The important ones I hope."

"Oh, yes."

He felt her shoulders shake under his circling arm. "Laughing at me are you?"

"On, no. Just thinking that you're very like a man about that!"

"And how am I different?"

Her chin nuzzled his neck. "Your face is smooth. You never have a five o'clock shadow. But you're very hairy on your chest and your legs." A warm foot snaked up his calf.

"Advantages of the vampire life... I never need to shave and my hair no longer grows. I did have a beard and moustache as a mortal, but I shaved then off in 1825 and they never grew back."

"Better not get a crew cut then," she replied, her hand ruffling his hair.

"Any other things?" he asked. "Beside the obvious ones of eternal longevity and ability to transmogrify?"She looked him straight in the eye. She never wavered or stared, but just met him as an equal being. But this time her sweet mouth twisted in a moue of mischief, and her green eyes glimmered like sun through a church window. "Well, I suppose you could say that..." She paused as she reined in a grin. "You kiss in a rather splendid way."

"Just splendid?" His hand cupped her breast as he spoke, feeling the warmth and softness of her flesh under her satin nightgown.

"Perhaps tremendous, incredible, fantastic are better words," she offered.

"Made a study, have you?" he replied, feeling a sudden urge to annihilate every mortal who'd ever touched her.

"It hasn't all been from books," she replied, leaning up on one elbow and looking down at him. "Did you come here in the middle of the night to discuss my past s.e.x life?"

No, and he didn't want to. He didn't want to even consider the thought that a mortal man might have desired, much less enjoyed her. "I came for just one glimpse, then I was going to fly away. But I couldn't. I promised myself one touch, no more.

But it didn't work. I don't understand what you do to me. I've never before felt what I feel with you, and heaven alone knows no other creature, mortal or immortal, has done what you did."

She leaned over, her lips parted so he felt the warmth of her breath like the kiss of life. Lips sweet as honey met his, her mouth as open as her heart and as warm as her soul. If he had a heart, it would be pounding. Instead his mind and body burned with the need of her. She drew him in like a vortex, whirling him from reality into the pa.s.sion of her soul. Her lips promising more than eternity as her warm arms locked behind his back. He levered himself up on his arms and looked down at her tousled head and glittering eyes. His body ached with need, but this time it would be slow. They'd spend all night loving.

She grinned up at him. "Definitely splendid."

"You're overdressed." His voice came dry as leaves in autumn. His fingers trembled untying the ribbon at her neck.

"Don't let it stop you." Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s shook as she chuckled, her nipples hard under the pale blue satin. Raising her shoulders with a protective arm, he eased her nightgown to her waist. He froze, the white splash of gauze on her left breast a stark reminder of the price she'd paid. For him. Her fingers tipped his chin to level his eye with hers. "You're not changing your mind, are you?"

"You're still healing. What if I hurt you more?"

"You won't. You couldn't."

"My dearest, I'm overwhelmed at what you did." With hesitating fingers, he traced the tops of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Wriggling her hips, she eased off the tangle of satin and kicked it away. Did she have any idea what she did to him? Oh, yes. She did. Her fingers trailed down his torso, lines of liquid fire that stopped just below his navel.

"I'd like to be overwhelmed, too," she said.

With something akin to awe, he cupped the underside of each breast and lowered his head. He wanted to suffocate in her warmth and drown in her loving. She smelled of soap, lavender, clean linen, and woman. He'd be happy to expire in her arms, but her hands kept him alive, teasing and searching while her body woke to his touch and she uttered sighs and cries of pleasure.