Tanith Lee - Shadow Kissing

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SHADOW KISSING
Tanith Lee
Chapter 1
She saw him that first day, in the old garden. It was a sort of shock. Addie hadn't warned her.
He stood just behind the riot of ivy and overblown roses, with the sun on his face. Vivien's heart lurched. Never, in
all her life, had she seen a man so handsome. No, perfect.
For some while she stood there, gazing up at him. And then she spoke aloud. "Well, I shall have to paint you. If
you'll allow me to." But of course he would. He was made of stone.
"You are so unworldly, Viv."
"Yes."
Vivien never liked being called by that particular moniker, but Addie nearly always used it. The "unworldliness"
Vivien had to accept. Not every artist, every painter, was like that, of course. Some were very practical.
The nonartistic Addie Preece was certainly practical. That Saturday morning when she brought around the keys, she
stared dismissively at Vivien's tiny Camden apartment.
"Please take the money for a taxi," said Addie. She slapped down a ten-pound note, which wasn't enough for the cab
fare from here to there. "I can't understand why you don't drive. No car, no computer—and you still don't have a mobile
phone. You are so unworldly, Viv."
And Vivien had coolly agreed.
She had already agreed to be live-in caretaker of Addie's flat for three weeks, while Addie was in the south of France
and Spain.
The flat was the last in a terrace of incredibly gracious London houses, dating from the eighteen hundreds, mostly
now turned into apartments to die for. Addie, however, was moving out in the near future. When she had invited Vivien
there last week, to suggest she flat-sit, Vivien had glimpsed furniture and belongings already under dust sheets or packed
in large sturdy boxes, rather like Addie herself.
"I haven't decided when I'll go. The first offer on the flat was way too low. I'm holding out for several thousand
more." She had assured Vivien, "I won't offer to pay you for flat-sitting. But it's quiet here—the other flats are empty, as
is the next-door property—another reason someone needs to keep an eye on things. But you could paint, couldn't you?
There's a garden—" She had waved at the closed after-dark drapes. "It's private, exclusive to this flat. And otherwise,
none of this is a big responsibility, is it? I'll leave you a list of anything you might need to know."
Addie, Vivien thought, was like certain wealthy people—rather mean. She had chosen Vivien because Vivien owed
her a favor and wouldn't ask for payment.
So all this was like an interview—similar to the interviews Vivien had had with Addie when Addie put her forward
for book-jacket illustrations with three reputable publishers. Interviewer and interviewee. They weren't friends.
I don't have any friends, Vivien thought, except Ellie, who has now moved back to the States. And no lovers.
That Saturday, after Addie had delivered the keys, Vivien had paused by her ornate, dusty mirror and looked at
herself pensively. She saw a slim, pale woman of twenty-eight. Her mass of dark hair poured back from her face and
over her shoulders, unrestrained, and her large gray eyes met themselves in the glass, almost questioning. Her second
name was Gray. People made jokes about gray-eyed Vivien Gray. And he had said to her, "Eyes gray as glass… "
Angrily Vivien turned from the mirror and the memory.
No friends, no lovers. The one she had loved ultimately hadn't wanted her, and in the three years since, she hadn't
wanted anyone else. And he was stuck there, in the bottom of her heart, like bottled darkness.
The taxi was hot and stuffy—the underground would probably have been worse. It was late July, the summer like a
hot blue lid clamped down over London. When they reached Coronet Square, the trees in the small public park looked
tarnished.
Vivien lugged her bags and folded-up easel round to the arched doorway of the gracious ground-floor flat.
Ten minutes later, throwing open Addie's French doors to the private garden, Vivien, startled and pleased, went out
along a lush green avenue, between rowdy bay trees and tangled lilacs, turned a corner and saw—him.
He was a life-size statue. He stood there, six feet tall, and naked but for a little modest drapery at the hips. He had no
look of anyone she had ever known—yet his beauty made him seem somehow familiar. Influenced rather by Greek
Classical style, but with a hint of Art Nouveau. He was astonishing.
Even his marble was polished by weather rather than stained or chipped—or maybe he had been recently cleaned. At
the thought of washing and rubbing this smooth male surface, Vivien felt a strange heat come into her face. How absurd.
His eyes were bleak, yet not truly blank in the way of most statues. His hair was long, thick and chiseled to look like
sea waves coiling down his back. His body was faultlessly proportioned—long runner's legs, the torso leanly muscular,
shoulders wide, neck a column. It made her think of lions, pumas, hunting dogs of the Renaissance. His face was that of
a pagan god.
She studied him some while.
Tomorrow, she would sketch the statue. It was a must.
Only as she was about to turn away did she see that letters had been cut into the plinth where he stood. Vivien drew
off the thin veil of ivy, and read, "My heart is turned to stone; I strike it, and it hurts my hand."
She thought she knew the words—Shakespeare, surely—but which play? Ellie would have known right off.
The sun now moved behind tall surrounding buildings. Shadows fell, changing the color of the roses to blood.
The flat was absolutely enormous. She hadn't seen it properly on the previous occasion. A hall, with a spacious
cloakroom on one side and a dining room and cupboards on the other, led into a vast, weird and wonderful eight-sided
room, with cornices and elaborate plasterwork overhead. It had a narrow window at one end, and more French windows
at the other. Further doors led off into a couple of separate halls.
There were, altogether, three bedrooms, plus Addie's study, which was a barren room full of files and four computers
—all switched off and under plastic tents—two bathrooms in ceramic tiles, and a small conservatory off the kitchen that
also opened onto the garden. No plants lived in the conservatory. Addie never bothered with things like that, which was
why the garden had run, literally, to seed.
The kitchen had a larder full of closed boxes and crates and depleted wine racks and a main area with white counters
sparsely manned by microwave, coffee grinder and so on.
The fridge was the size of a small bus, and contained a bottle of Evian, half a carton of milk—which had gone off—
and one slice of white bread, and a lettuce leaf that had obviously escaped and hidden long ago. Vivien needed to go
shopping.
When she came back from the expensive local store, it was almost seven. The phone was ringing on and on, its tape
clearly already message-full. As Vivien touched the phone, it rang off. Then, as she went back down the hall, it began
again.
"Hello?"
"Finally! Is that Adelaide Preece?" It was an impatient female voice.
"No, I'm afraid she isn't here right now."
"Who on earth's that then I'm speaking to?"
Vivien frowned. "May I ask who you are?"
"Cinnamon Boyle-Martin." Then, before Vivien could respond, she added rudely, "and you're Ms. Whoever, right.
So, my partner and I would like to come round tomorrow as agreed. Okay?"
"Why, exactly?"
"Adds must have told you. My partner and I are interested in some of her stuff."
"She didn't say anything."
"Too bad. She's selling off a few things. I'll bring her letter if I must. Do you have e-mail?"
"No," said Vivien firmly.
"Well, we'll be by about ten-thirty tomorrow morning."
"I'm not—"
"Ciao!" warbled Cinnamon, and was gone.
Had any of this been on Addie's lists of instructions? There was one under the grinder, but that seemed to be a
warning not to use Addie's coffee beans. The other list, Vivien, who had not paid it much attention, now checked over.
Ah. Scratched in the corner she read, Antique scavengers—CS and spice name, poss sun.
Vivien decided to worry about it tomorrow.
As the dark began to gather, she sat by the French windows on a chair released from its dust wrapper. The statue
wasn't to be seen from here. She shut her eyes and, not expecting to, fell asleep.
The nearly naked, perfect man stood before her, among the trees. Slowly his head turned towards her—his eyes
gleamed, human and alive, full of dark light…
Vivien woke with a start. It was nearly 11:00 p.m.
She switched on a lamp, which glimmered out through the glass and down the path. Presently she undid the doors
and went out.
Looking back up at the building, if she had had any doubts, now she could see there were no lights anywhere, nor in
the large house that immediately adjoined this one. Empty, as Addie had said. The dividing garden wall, half-hidden in
creepers and trees, was ten feet high at least.
Vivien walked back down the path, feeling strange yet foolish.
He stood there now in darkness. Yet faint illumination from the electric false "gas lamps" of the square dappled him
through the leaves.
Vivien stared. Who could ever compare with this?
Are you falling in love with a statue? Vivien asked herself. Listen, Gray, there are some mistakes even you aren't
allowed.
Her heart beat fast. That was the artist in her, she thought sternly, excited by the prospect of sketching this wonderful
image.
She could imagine telling Ellie, and Ellie hooting with laughter, hurtling her back to sanity once more. But she
couldn't very well call Ellie in New York on Addie's phone.
Vivien turned smartly to go back indoors.
Something…
She stopped, looking now intently where her shadow fell away from the dim streetlights. The shadow was faint, too,
and broken up by the shade-shapes of leaves—but there beside it stretched another, second shadow, which was male. By
some fluke of the garden's contours, the shadows suggested he stood right beside her. His right arm extended slightly, as
if… as if he had put his hand on her shoulder, intimately inviting her to stay…
Vivien looked back—it was irresistible. There he stood, above her, not close at all, unmoved and cold with night.
Vivien had set her alarm clock for seven-thirty, as usual, Unusually, it hadn't managed to wake her. She opened her
eyes just before ten.
She was standing in her robe, hair still damp from the shower and a mug of mint tea in hand, when the door buzzer
sounded on the kitchen wall.
Horrified, Vivien remembered what she had thought she wouldn't forget.
"Hello, yes?"
"Yes, this is Cinnamon Boyle-Martin and my partner, Connor Sinclair. Going to let us in?"
Her instinct was to say no. But good manners forced from her a reluctant "All right. Just a minute."
She drained her scalding tea like brandy. Confound it, why was she so nervous? They couldn't be burglars if they
knew Addie—could they?
Vivien, vulnerable in her long, belted robe, shook back her hair and undid the front door. And there they stood,
against the morning sunlight.
Her first impression was of Cinnamon, as rash and gaudy as expected. The tall man stood just behind her.
As Vivien's eyes adjusted, every element inside her body seemed to turn itself over. She didn't know what she felt—
but fear was surely paramount.
For she had seen the man at the door yesterday. Clothed and colored in, Connor Sinclair was like Addie's statue in
every way but one: He was flesh and blood.
Chapter 2
« ^ »
His hair was very thick and long, and black—very black. From the tanned, expressionless mask of his face, two eyes,
heavily inked in by brows and lashes, looked down at Vivien. They were the color of hot black coffee—and cold as ice.
He wore jeans and a white T-shirt, both of which showed very clearly the exact lines of a strong and muscular body,
broad shoulders, narrow hips, long legs. The sleeves of the shirt were rolled up. His muscled forearms were the deep
brown color of oak wood and dusted by dark hair. Beautiful hands, Vivien thought stupidly, powerful and calloused,
with long fingers whose ends were squared rather than tapering—a working artist's hands. Had she noticed this on the
statue—the statue whose living double this man was?
Decidedly, his eyes were as bleak and ungiving.
The Cinnamon woman was gabbling off some stuff about Addie, which Vivien wasn't taking in. Suddenly the man
spoke over her, not loudly but with the perfect pitch of an actor.
"Shut up, Cinnamon." And then to Vivien, he said flatly, "I don't know who you are, but either you can let us in, or I
can call the police."
"What?" Vivien now stared at him in astonishment.
"Well, you could be a vandal, or a squatter, couldn't you. Adelaide didn't say anyone was going to be here, except for
herself. I suppose she isn't here?"
Vivien tried to pull herself together. "No, she's not. I'm minding the place while she's away."
"Really? We'll have to take your word for that, won't we."
From stupefaction, and then purely physical admiration, Vivien felt herself pass into a rapid rage. How had he so
flawlessly wrong-footed her? She should slam the door in his face and call the cops herself—
Cinnamon thrust a card and a letter into Vivien's hand. Vivien read the card: Scavengers Ltd. And then his name:
Connor Sinclair. The badly written letter was from Addie. It agreed to something unreadable on Sunday.
"All right," said Vivien. She stepped aside, and Cinnamon dived past her like some sort of dyed-blond raccoon.
As he moved forward, Vivien found herself shrinking back against one wall, as if to be touched by him might burn
her—or would it be frostbite?
He stalked down the hall. Cinnamon was already in the octagonal room, turning round and round, hair and jangly
earrings dangling back so she could view the corniced ceiling.
"Pity we can't scrape that off, eh, Conn?"
"Mmm."
Noncommittal, he stood there, dominating the space. If the statue was six feet tall, Connor Sinclair was more like six
foot three. A difference, then.
Oh, there were plenty. The statue, for one thing, didn't have these eyes, or these bladed lashes, so dense, long and
black. Didn't have any of the colors. The statue was… unclothed.
A tingling flame stirred out of nowhere, suddenly, in Vivien's spine. Her sense of sexual desire was so abrupt, so
unwanted, it was almost hurtful.
"I gather she's left crates somewhere?" His musical, infuriating voice.
Vivien gathered herself together again.
"Yes, the kitchen."
"That's what I'm going to look at, then. Also there's something I want to see in the garden. If all that's quite all right
with you?"
His sarcasm was like a wasp sting.
"I can't very well stop you," she said.
"No. So I suggest you let me get on."
Vivien realized that, in this labyrinth of a flat, she must show him the way to the kitchen.
It was like taking the manorial lord downstairs. The second hallway became some long ramble in a stately home, and
Vivien, the downstairs maid, lowest of the low.
She could feel him at her back—actually feel his presence, like great heat… cold… pressure.
The kitchen might have been the surface of the moon. She gazed at it dementedly, and surprised herself by saying,
apparently as cool as ever, "The crates are in the larder. That's there—"
"Thank you. I can actually see where it is."
Cinnamon came springing in with a clatter of her ghastly jewelry.
"I'll leave you to it," said Vivien, picking up her pot of mint tea. She would offer these creatures nothing. A shame, it
might have been fun to poison them…
Back in her bedroom, Vivien threw on clothes, jeans and a loose black shirt, one of three she preferred to work in.
She brushed her hair and it sizzled with sparks.
For heaven's sake, she thought. He doesn't matter. They'll be gone in an hour or less.
Someone rapped on her door. It had to be him. It was like the knock of the Spanish Inquisition—besides, no jangle of
bangles.
"Yes?"
She stood glaring up at him. He was plainly as indifferent to her annoyance as to her.
"I need to see the garden now."
"Do you."
"The French doors are locked."
"So you just came along to this room?" She thought, He knew where I was. He must know this fiat, I'm sure of it.
"The sooner you allow me to do my work here, the sooner I'll be out of your hair." As he said this, he glanced at her
hair, then glanced, it seemed to her, right into and through her eyes. The effect on her was intense, and to dispel it, she
had to look and move away.
Back then to the eight-sided room. Cinnamon, cross-legged on the floor, had a box-load of items spread out before
her like exotic wares on an Eastern carpet. Vivien had no notion if these things—bowls, little boxes, candelabra—had
come from Addie's selected crates or been stolen by the Scavengers from cupboards.
When she had found the key and unlocked the doors, he walked straight past her into the garden.
It was a glorious day, hot already, the shade blue along the path, and the scent of late lilac and rose mingling with the
dustier aromas of London. He paused, looking around him.
Vivien thought once more, He knows this place.
He headed off along the path and unfalteringly turned the corner at the biggest lilac tree. He was now out of sight.
And he was where the statue was.
Cinnamon rattled out and down the path.
Nearly hypnotized, Vivien followed her.
He was standing looking up… at himself. His hair, which wasn't tied back, poured down his back in shining black
ropes. From this angle, Vivien couldn't see his face. Correction—yes, she could. For there it was again, looking back at
him from the plinth.
Cinnamon, too, was squinting at the statue. Abruptly she announced, "Y'know, it's a bit like you, Conn."
Vivien recoiled. She didn't know why. As if, ridiculously, the resemblance, so underestimated, had become her
property to defend.
Connor Sinclair said, not looking round, "So I've been told. I never see it, myself."
"No, but it is—it could be you, sort of—"
"I'm not that damned effete," he said.
He turned. He looked over Cinnamon's head at Vivien. "The statue's what I'm really after. I expect you guessed that?
It's called Jealousy."
Vivien swallowed. "Why?"
"You don't know the quote cut in the base? No—" Scornful of her ignorance, he spoke the line in his dark,
extraordinary voice: " 'My heart is turned to stone; I strike it, and it hurts my hand.' From Othello. Perhaps you don't
know the play."
"Of course I know the play," Vivien replied icily. "Presumably this comes after his mind has been turned against his
wife by Iago—when Othello begins to plan to kill her."
"Ten out of ten," said Connor Sinclair.
Cinnamon yawned. "I never could stand Shakespeare."
"No, Cinnamon," he said. That was all.
But she must have the hide of a rhinoceros, Vivien thought with reluctant envy, not to have shriveled at his tone.
By half-past twelve, Vivien decided she would have to go back to the main room and ask when they would be
leaving. As she had been sorting her painting things in the bedroom, she had thought she heard the front door open and
shut, but then had made out again the distant noises of objects being packed up or moved.
When she walked in, only he was there, sitting on the dust-sheeted couch, turning a tiny white figurine round in his
hands.
Vivien angrily noted they had made themselves coffee—and from the Colombian beans Vivien had bought herself
yesterday as a treat. At least he, the monster, hadn't drunk her milk. The dregs in his mug were black—just like his eyes.
He paid Vivien no attention. She might have been a small spider that had just crawled out on the carpet. Unless he
didn't like spiders, in which case he would, of course, step on her.
"Has your partner left?"
"My—Oh, Cinnamon. She isn't my partner, in any sense of the word. But yes, she's gone."
"And are you planning to leave?" Vivien asked, as discourteous as Cinnamon had been. "I have things to do."
"Don't let me stop you."
"You are stopping me, Mr. Sinclair. You're in my way. I need to set up in here."
At that he looked up. She found it very difficult to meet and hold his eyes. When she did so, he smiled fastidiously,
and then himself looked away. She had obviously failed another test.
"Set up? You have plans to redecorate the room?" He wrapped the figurine in newspaper. "You don't strike me as the
painter-decorator type."
"I'm not. I paint pictures. Your intrusion is holding up my work."
"I see. All right. Another ten minutes and I'll be out." Deflated, Vivien turned to go. He said, "However, I'm afraid I'll
be back tomorrow. I'll be bringing someone in to look at the statue."
"That garden isn't open to the public, Mr. Sinclair," she said frigidly.
He stood up. "While these debates with you are undoubtedly delightful, Ms.—?"
"Gray—"
"Ms. Gray. They seem to be wasting a lot of our mutual time. The statue is mine, and I'm moving it out. To do that
successfully I need someone else to take a look at it first."
"Yours? How can it be yours? It's part of the flat garden and it's from the late-nineteenth century—"
"I know that. Listen, Ms. Gray, I suggest you phone Adelaide Preece. Obviously she forgot to inform you of any of
this."
"I can't phone her—"
He swore. It wasn't the worst Vivien had heard, but coming from him, it was like a cold blow in the stomach.
He had produced a mobile phone. As he hit the buttons, Vivien grasped he was phoning Addie in France.
Feeling like a reprimanded child, and entirely mutinous, Vivien sat down on the nearest chair.
Connor Sinclair spoke to the mobile.
"Adelaide, good morning. Yes, Connor. Were you? Well, never mind, you're awake now. There is a young woman
living in your flat. She's—let's see—approximately a hundred and seven pounds, five foot four, has a few yards of
brunette hair, and—" he stared in Vivien's face, insulting, frankly terrifying "—eyes like Chaucer's nun, gray as glass."
Vivien's mouth fell open. She shut it firmly.
He was saying, "You know about her? Oh, good. Would you have a word with her, then? She is quite tenacious about
guarding what she considers to be your property, including the statue in the garden. She would make someone a lovely
guard dog. A rottweiler, possibly."
He strolled to Vivien and handed her the phone. He looked amused at her embarrassment and anger. How dare he—
all those personal details. To make it worse, he had judged her height exactly, even if he had knocked two pounds off her
weight. As for the Chaucer quote… only one other had ever applied that to Vivien. The reference had shaken her.
But Addie's voice, gruff with disturbed post-travel sleep and irritation, pounced into Vivien's ear.
"Didn't you read my note, Viv?"
"Yes, it didn't say—"
"The antique bits I've already sold him. The statue is Connor's own property, like a couple of other things there. For
heaven's sake, I bought the flat from him in the first place."
"Oh." Vivien felt herself flush. She didn't really know why. But she certainly had made a fool of herself, or been
made a fool of.
"Just let him get on with it, okay? Please don't call me again unless it's urgent."
The signal ceased as abruptly as a slap.
Vivien handed the mobile back to Connor Sinclair, her hand seemingly numbed by the feel of his personal electricity
all over it.
"I'm sorry. She didn't tell me, so I didn't know."
"Now you do."
He pointed at the new boxes he and Cinnamon had packed. "I'll take those out to the van."
She propped the front door open to make the maneuver easier for him. He carried the boxes out two by two, making
nothing of their weight, as he had verbally made nothing of hers. Or, of her.
Why should she apologize to him, anyway? He was a boor and a monster. He could have explained himself, and
found the kitchen and keys on his own.
The van was light blue. There was no lettering on it.
He came back along the front path and stopped in front of her. The sun was high now, gilding the black of his hair.
She saw for the first time, with sudden surprise, that his chiseled nose was slightly crooked—an imperfection!
"I'll be here about 9:00 a.m. tomorrow, Ms. Gray, with one other person. Should he and I bring any ID? Perhaps
family records… or would our passports do?"
Vivien looked him in the eyes. "Just bring better manners, Mr. Sinclair."
He started to laugh. She hadn't expected that. Oh, but it must amuse him so, when anyone was brave enough to
answer back.
She left him to it, retreating inside and shutting the door with what she hoped was the right amount of controlled
vehemence.
Her blood was boiling. But she couldn't entirely deceive herself—it wasn't only from fury.
Nor was her mood improved when, clearing up the mess of spilled coffee beans, spoiled milk and clogged grinder
Cinnamon had left, Vivien found the other half of Addie's note. It was squashed in with Addie's warning about the use of
coffee, and it picked up on the other note about CS and Scavengers, adding that a statue was due to be taken from the
garden.
Grim though Addie's handwriting was, there could now be absolutely no doubt.
Despite her best efforts, Vivien couldn't come to grips with any work that day.
The octagonal room, to which she had brought her drawing and painting materials, was soon littered with torn-off
pages marked in useless lines and curls. She was getting behind on the single commission she had been given this year,
which was for a book-jacket. Addie had got her the commission. Another black mark.
Vivien's plan had been to work all morning, take a short lunch break, then allow herself to sketch the garden, and the
statue.
She hadn't earned the right to attempt that yet, after her failure with the commissioned work. The heavens agreed
with her, it seemed. As she stood in the kitchen eating a piece of brie and an apple, the skies blackened, and then emptied
out a downpour of rain that crashed against the conservatory roof. The storm didn't clear until dusk was coming down.
She couldn't sleep. Finally she must have dozed, but woke at 2:00 a.m., alert and startled, as if someone had shouted
in her ear. She had an idea the phone had been ringing, but now it wasn't.
She had been dreaming. What had the dream involved?
Vivien could remember only that it had somehow been… uncomfortable.
She got up, and went along to the kitchen to make herbal tea.
As she waited there for the kettle to boil, her bare feet on the Italian-tiled floor, the close, still night around her,
Vivien caught herself once more thinking about Connor Sinclair.
Every time she did so, sparks of anger filled her. But also just sparks, glittering through and through her body,
making her even angrier. It was this, she knew, that had stopped her working. And probably this that she had dreamed
about.
Vivien, don't fancy a man who has the social skills of a pig crossed with a hunting leopard. The voice in her head
was reasonable and sane. You'll get hurt.
Oh—she thought back at it—and I've never been hurt before, have I.
Why had Connor Sinclair used that one phrase—the one he, back there in her past, had used? Eyes gray as glass…
I won't think about him. About either of them.
She took her tea back to bed, downed it and dropped herself on the pillows, determined to lose consciousness, despite
the ominous creakings of the unknown flat above and around her. She managed to sleep almost at once.
The rain was gone, just a light crystal sparkle here and there on bay leaves and rose petals. In the ghostly lambency
of the streetlights the statue stood on his plinth, gazing down at her. His eyes were dark now. Alive now.
In awe, but not horror, Vivien watched as he stepped casually off the plinth. He walked towards her, and Vivien, half
surprised at herself, backed away.
Surprised because it seemed really quite natural that a stone man had moved, and now approached her.
He walked in a slow, easy prowl. Yet he was, despite the living eyes, still a creature formed from marble.
Raindrops brushed off into Vivien's hair; she felt them on her bare skin. She was naked, then, as the statue—more
naked than he.
She continued to edge away. And suddenly the glass of the French windows met her back, cold in the warmth of the
heavy summer night.
He did not pause. Why would he? She had no escape from him now.
She imagined, astonished, what it would be like, that icy caress of smooth stone hands, sliding over her naked body,
gently teasing on her breasts, subtle and sure between her thighs…
But somehow, she was in through the closed doors, inside the glass and in the room—though still he came towards
her and still she backed away.
His hands were not yet on her, but on the lock of the doors. Could he undo it? Had she even locked them—did she
want this, desire it—or was she utterly afraid… ?
Vivien woke. She threw herself upright in the bed, gasping—and heard again, in the waking world, the quiet scrape
of stone against metal.
"Oh God—"
Vivien sprang from the bed, slamming at the light switch, blinding herself for a moment as the lamps came on.
Her impulse was to race for the French doors and secure them. Then something occurred to her. She couldn't surely
have heard such a soft scraping from here. No. It must come from much nearer, from down the hall—the conservatory
off the kitchen.
Vivien wildly pulled on a T-shirt. She flew along the passage. She jumped into the kitchen, bashing on the overhead
light as she passed. She had had to do it all like that. Her true inclination had been to hide under the bed.
Beyond the lighted kitchen, the black glass box of the empty conservatory showed only the faintest wisp of filtered
lamplight.
Nothing was out there. Nothing wonderful and terrible scratched at the door.
Where light fell on the paved path between the trees, the rain had already dried. Only shadows lay there.
Vivien checked the door. It was locked, the padlock rusty, bolted, too, on the inside. The glass, Addie had informed
her, like that of the French doors and all the windows, was bulletproof.
Vivien went to check every window, and the French doors in the octagonal room. Nothing was out of place, despite
the apprehension she felt each time. Only the closeness of night, dully synchronized by far-off London sounds—none of
which were like the noise of stone fingers moving on a lock.
She did not go to check if the statue was still on the plinth. Instead, she left on every light in the apartment.
At five-thirty, when it was full daylight, Vivien got up again and showered and dressed. She hadn't got any more
sleep, and she had that muzzy, cinder-eyed reaction to insomnia she always did. When she went back to the kitchen and
looked through into the conservatory, however, her blurry vision showed her something that last night, in the brilliance
of the kitchen spotlights, she hadn't seen.
It lay there in the conservatory's far corner. Now unmissable.
A rose. Perfect, she thought, until she touched it Only the stem, fierce with thorns, stayed intact. The flower's head
had already fallen apart—or been shattered—every petal like a drop of blood.
Chapter 3
« ^ »
"Hi. I'm Lewis Blake. You must be Ms. Gray?"
Vivien stared at the tallish, heavily muscular man in her doorway. He wore a tattered black T-shirt, and jeans covered
in dust or chalk—both garments seemed to have been expensive but he had cheerfully ruined them without a backward
glance. He looked cheerful, too, despite his bristly shaven head and the gold ring through his eyebrow.
Not meaning to, like a child watching for Santa Claus—or the bogeyman—Vivien's eyes slid around him.
"Don't be apprehensive yet," said Lewis Blake, grinning in a curiously kind manner. "I'm afraid he is coming—but
he'll be about five minutes. Monday morning traffic leaves nowhere to park the van."
"You mean Mr. Sinclair?" Vivien thought she sounded arch and silly. "You're here with him about the statue?"
Lewis nodded. "Sure am. But it's fine if you want to wait till he gets here, to verify my status. I can appreciate you
don't just want to let any old stranger loose in the flat."
"A shame Mr. Sinclair didn't appreciate that." It was out before she could contain it.
But Lewis Blake looked intently at her. "Sorry about that," he said.
"You didn't do it."
"No, well… I don't have much reason to."
"Oh, look," she said, "please come in."
As they walked in through the first hall, Lewis said, "Do I gather he gave you a bit of a rough time? He can be…
Well, there are reasons, I suppose."
Vivien ignored this. The monster hadn't even arrived yet, and already they were talking about him, conjuring him up.
Her head ached from lack of sleep. From puzzling over a broken rose that couldn't have been where it was.
"Would you like some coffee?"
"Love it. Ta."
They went along to the kitchen. Vivien poured them a mug each. Lewis enthusiastically spooned brown sugar into
his.
"Nice garden out there. I like letting things relax in a garden. I've got a woman like a demon, though, daren't leave
her alone five minutes but she's off hauling wildflowers out of the lawn. Butterflies like those. Will she listen? But I'm
crazy about her anyway. Need to be. With her family, she's probably nuttier than I am."
Vivien felt an actual pang of envy. For Lewis Blake and his woman with a nutty family. How good that sounded.
Some people did manage to have those, and also to meet each other and be happy in a relationship. What was the secret?
She liked him despite her envy. He was likable—if only by default.
"Tell me about the statue," Vivien said. She wasn't making conversation; by now she felt she needed to know.
"It's a genuine Nevins. You've never heard of him, probably. A little-known but now somewhat collectible sculptor
of the late 1800s. Someone wants this one for a film from the period. That's what we do at Scavengers. We don't pick up
antiques to sell. We hire them out to film companies and the theaters. You may have seen bits of our stuff in movies.
Ever see The Lion's Answer?"
"Yes," said Vivien.
"We practically dressed every set. Statues, fountains, chairs, clocks—the National Theatre had a load of things off us
for their last production of Venice Preserved."
"I saw that, too."
Vivien was mildly, pleasantly impressed. Or was that only because Lewis was a nice guy and actually bothering to
speak to her like a human being?
"That statue of Connor's, though, that's got a funny history," said Lewis.
"Funny how?"
"Well, more a rotten history. Er, I guess it's all right to tell you, you'd find it in any book that listed Nevins. He took
up with a married lady, an actress. In fact, she was the wife of the subject of the statue. And—" Lewis broke off.
Vivien saw he had said more than maybe he had meant to. Why such a dark secret about something over a century
old?
She decided to tease him. "The usual tale, then. Infidelity, jealousy, crime and punishment."
She saw he wasn't teased, only on edge.
"While Nevins was sculpting the handsome image of the lady's husband, and making love to the lady, the husband
found out. As they do. He was an actor-manager—one of those fantastically successful ones, a bit like Tree, and Martin-
Harvey—he had it all in front of him. But he went off his head and shot her—Emily, his wife. And then he shot himself.
The quote on the base—Nevins put it there afterwards, before he went and drank himself to death. Nevins, you see, the
angry husband never touched. Nevins is supposed to have said he wished Sinclair had done it—punished him, too."
Vivien spoke softly. "You said Sinclair?"
"Yup. Forget I'm saying this. I mean, Connor is my boss, he started Scavengers… But the jealous actor was Patrick
Aspen Sinclair, and his wife was Emily Sinclair, famous in her day for her portrayals of Juliet and Ophelia. Some people
say the Nevins statue looks like Conn. It does. Conn won't ever see it But there's a reason for the resemblance. Patrick
and Emily died young, he saw to that. But they left children. Patrick Aspen Sinclair was Connor's great-great-
grandfather."
Something cold and shadowy had settled in the kitchen.
Into the depths of it the front-door buzzer drilled with the shock of a bullet.
"I'd better go let my boss in," said Lewis. He was his old breezy self again. "Remember, I didn't tell you any of this."
Vivien's impulse was to vacate the kitchen and find something "urgent she must do elsewhere." There was also, of
course, the opposite impulse.
Resist, she thought. Connor Sinclair is the worst kind of man, and he has fallen deeply in dislike of you—which is
mutual. Admire his looks if you must. That's all.
A double dose of coffee had cleared her head—perhaps too much. She felt hyped up and a little dizzy.
The other question remained. How had a shattered red rose gotten into the conservatory through a locked and bolted
door?
Almost irresistibly, she walked into the conservatory. She stood there looking at the rose. Who could she have asked
about this? In the day's heat, already the petals and the stalk were withering.
She was standing over the dead rose when Lewis—and Connor—came into the kitchen. She had left flight too late.
She must turn now, and confront him.
"I like these tiles, Conn," Lewis was saying—trying, Vivien supposed, to behave as if they were all normal people.
Connor said, "They're all right."
His voice seemed to pull Vivien's eyes towards him, like some kind of science fiction power-beam.
He wore black jeans today and a sky-blue shirt tucked into them. His body, which all his clothes seemed carefully
made to describe, filled Vivien with a deep, thrilling, deadly vertigo. She wished she could step out of her body and
shake herself.
Somehow, she spoke levelly. "Good morning, Mr. Sinclair."
"Good morning, Ms. Gray." His eyes flicked over her, and were gone. "Do we have your gracious permission to go
into the garden?"
Vivien saw Lewis raise his eyes to heaven.
She refused to be fazed.
"Both doors are unlocked. You know where everything is. I'll leave you to it."
As she left the room, she heard Lewis give a low, half mocking, half appreciative whistle. "Well, that's you sorted,
Conn."
摘要：

SHADOWKISSINGTanithLeeChapter1Shesawhimthatfirstday,intheoldgarden.Itwasasortofshock.Addiehadn'twarnedher.Hestoodjustbehindtheriotofivyandoverblownroses,withthesunonhisface.Vivien'sheartlurched.Never,inallherlife,hadsheseenamansohandsome.No,perfect.Forsomewhileshestoodthere,gazingupathim.Andthenshes...

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