The Kiss (14 page)

Eva had made so many sketches it was difficult to count, but she
began placing them in piles—quickly—aware that the splashing in the next room
had ceased. She counted as fast as she could, moving sketches from one pile to
the other. There were twelve, twelve separate statues, twelve people.

...
Eva, the Estate has over a hundred rooms, there are twelve
staff… and we’re expecting only twelve guests...

Grace’s words rang in her mind and a buzzing filled Eva’s ears.
Oh
my God, it can’t be true, surely it can’t be true! Am I going fucking mad?

“Eva, what are you doing?”

She lifted her shocked gaze to see Adam stood in front of her.
She hadn’t even heard him approach. The buzzing increased and Eva gulped
unsteadily, trying to gain control.

“I was just...” She didn’t know what to say, how to explain the
thoughts that were rapidly becoming a certainty, so she trailed off and bit
down on her lip.

“Lover?” he prompted.

Naked but for a pristine white towel draped across his hips, the
image jarred Eva’s memory. She knew why immediately and she wanted to weep. The
towel covered only his front. She could see that because the back of him was
perfectly reflected in the full length mirror next to the closet. The same one
she had looked in on her very first day.

“Eva, you look like you’re going to cry! What’s wrong?” he asked,
eyes full of concern, and he stepped forward to reach for her.

She scrambled to her feet and backed away from him as fast as she
could. He looked hurt but Eva couldn’t deal with that now. Her eyes were still
on his reflection and she saw it, it was right there.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. “Oh my God, no!”

“Eva, what is the matter?” he asked urgently, and she shook her
head, unable to believe what she was seeing.

There just below his left shoulder blade was a scar, a scar
shaped exactly like a sculptor’s blade.

Adam turned to see what held her gaze, and like her his eyes went
right to the distinctive mark. A look Eva couldn’t even begin to understand
darkened his features. Panic filled her mind, adrenaline flooded her body and
her head was ringing with the same words over and over again.
It can’t be
true. Surely it can’t be true?

But it was. Eva knew it with a certainty deep to her bones. There
was no other explanation.

Adam looked down at the sketches and back at Eva’s shocked face.
His eyes darkened further and he frowned.  “Eva,” he demanded. “Talk to me
please.”

She chocked back a scream, and looked into his perfectly brandy
eyes, the eyes that she had never seen before, the eyes that had been focused
only on the sky.

You, Eva, you can call me Adonis

Because he’d heard her say it, it was the name she had given him.
He didn’t look through my things, he didn’t collude with Grace. I’ve been
talking to him all week! Telling him everything. All my worries, all my dreams.
Falling for him all fucking week!

The buzzing grew louder and for one awful moment Eva thought she
was going to faint. Only Adam’s hand reaching for her pulled her back from the
brink. She jerked away from him, a shudder racing through her. “What are you?”
she whispered. “What the hell are you?”

“Eva, don’t,” he said and he reached for her again and then
finally she gave in and screamed.

Chapter
Twenty-One

Adam grabbed her by the waist and clamped a hand across her
mouth. ‘Please don’t scream,’ he said quickly. “If the others hear you they’ll
realize.”

Eva pushed at him to try and get away but he pulled her closer,
his arms were like rock around her body and her stomach dropped as soon as she
thought it.
They are rock! Or stone or something, Dear God I can’t believe
it, he isn’t human, he isn’t real.

“Please, lovely, let me explain. I’m going to take my hand away
from your mouth and you’re going to listen. Do not scream again please, I beg
you.”

Eva looked at him, really looked at him and her heart felt like
it was being squeezed. Where had this pain come from? How had her lustful
feelings transformed into something more? She couldn’t understand it and yet
the hurt she felt was undeniable. Hurt mixed in with panic, and fear, and a
strange sort of anger. It was too much and Eva was suddenly glad of his hand
across her mouth preventing another scream from escaping.

 His eyes were full of tender concern, he didn’t seem angry
although from the looks of it he knew exactly why she had screamed. Eva knew
from their conversations that he was an intelligent man, he’d seen the
sketches, seen the way she looked at him and he knew that she knew.

“Please, lover,” he said and his voice was so affectionate that
the scream Eva had wanted to release turned into a sob. “Just give me a chance
to explain.”

What choice did she have? Eva knew she wasn’t strong enough to
fight him off, that she’d never make it out of the Estate on her own. And in
truth despite the hurt she was curious, horribly, fascinatingly curious to know
more.

Nodding behind his hand he relaxed slightly, his arms slackening.
She couldn’t imagine what he was going to say, the whole thing was ridiculously
surreal but Eva knew that she wouldn’t scream again. This was Adam after all,
she told herself. The man she’d spent the last two days with. He wouldn’t hurt
her. Surely he wouldn’t.

‘Promise me?’ he said and she nodded.

He removed his hand, paced up and down, before taking a step
back. “Sit with me?”

Eva lowered herself gingerly to the bed, making sure there was a
bit of space between them. Despite knowing he was actually some sort of half
man half bloody statue she was still fervently attracted to him.
What on
earth is wrong with me?

“You’ve worked it out,” Adam began. “I don’t know how, you’re the
first to ever do so.” He leaned forward and placed his head in his hands. He
looked so sad and Eva wanted to rub his back, almost lifting a hand to do so,
before remembering herself and the situation.
The totally fucked up
situation.

“Though to be fair you’re also the first to ever spend the week
beforehand stomping around the Estate sketching us all,” he continued running a
hand through his hair, tousling it. “That week, that first week is supposed to
be a time for you to relax. A time for you to become comfortable here, most
never leave the house. They eat and drink and enjoy each other but not you Eva,
not you.”

“I was bored,” Eva whispered. “And something didn’t feel right.”

“Yes I know. You told me whilst you were sketching. You told me
lots about yourself, more than you probably realize, as you captured me on your
bits of paper. I waited each morning for you to arrive. I waited knowing that
soon I would get to meet you in person.”

“This can’t be real,” Eva said, more to herself than him. “It’s
not possible.”

Adam lifted his head. “Believe me, it’s real. I’ve lived with it
for more time than you can comprehend.”

“But how can you be a statue?” she cried. “You’re here in front
of me now, breathing and talking and then before you were what? What were you,
Adam? What
are
you?”

“I’m a human being,” Adam insisted. “Before anything else I’m
that.”

“You didn’t look that way when you were cast in stone. You didn’t
look that way when I was sketching you for hours at a time. You didn’t move,
you didn’t speak, you were just.... a statue!”

“There’s more to this world of ours than you could ever realize,
lover,” he replied and the misery in his voice was palpable. “More than I ever
realized.”

“Then explain it to me,” Eva demanded. “Explain to me how this
can be possible. This is… real life… for crikes sake, it’s not a novel or a
movie or a bloody fairytale! It’s real life and things like this do not
happen.”

He sighed and reached for her hands. Eva pulled them back not
wanting the distraction of his skin touching hers.
Skin that is alternately
real and then stone
. She shuddered. He was too perceptive not to see and
without a word he placed his hands on his lap.

“We have to go back so many years that to me they seem like
forever but to you they would be what? Nearly two hundred ago,” he began. “I
was the Earl then, the Earl of this Estate. I was young and thoughtless and so
ignorant. I was rich in those days, money was inherited and my father, the Earl
before me, left me so much that today it would be an unimaginable amount. I had
always been spoilt, always had everything I wanted that it got so that I
expected it.”

He paused and Eva waited unbelieving what she was hearing. 

“More than that I had the responsibility thrust on me at such a
young age. I know it’s no excuse, Eva, damn I know. But the idea of being
responsible for hundreds of people was too much for me and I reacted badly.”

Eva’s words left her as a whisper. “What did you do?”

He shook his head and clenched his fists and Eva could feel the
tension radiating off him. “I threw house parties in those days, huge parties
that were frowned upon by the more respectable people in the area. They were
full of young men and women who had an appetite for, how shall we put it,
raucous living. My reputation, which was important back then, was in tatters,
but I didn’t really care what people thought of me anyway,” he paused. “I was
young and foolish, still I should have cared.”

“What happened?” Eva asked when it looked like he wasn’t going to
continue.

“This was a working Estate back then,” he replied, “and we had
tenement farms, cottages and such dotted all over the area. One cottage was
lived in by a very elderly woman and her granddaughter. Her name was Evie.”

Eva inhaled shakily. “Like me.”

“In some ways yes. The curls and the vulnerability, but in others
no.”

“I don’t understand.” Eva said because she could feel tension
building and knew something was coming, something she wouldn’t like.

“She was an innocent. All young respectable girls were back
then.”

“What happened?” Eva asked uneasily.

“She was so young,” he said. “Her hair, like I said, was very
like yours, only lighter. But the curls were just as wild. No doubt some
thought she was too.’

“You what? Dated her?” Eva asked and he laughed.

“Wouldn’t have been allowed back then Eva, class distinctions were
pretty rigid. No, I barely knew the girl… until one day…”

 “One day what?”

He grimaced. “Her innocence was no more.”

“You didn’t?” Eva asked horrified, then regretted her hasty words
at the look on his face.

“No.
I
didn’t but someone did.”

“No, Adam…”

“Yes,” he sighed. “You have no idea how much I regret having to
tell you this, Eva, how I wish I didn’t have to sully your ears with the truth
but there is, no escaping from it. I know that better than anyone.”

“Tell me then,” she demanded. 

‘I don’t know how he even ended up being invited,” Adam began.
“I’ve wondered about that since but I’m at a loss to explain it. I invited a
bunch of people to the party, over thirty in all. Respectable gentlemen and
their mistresses. No married couples would have joined in the sort of
entertainments I had on offer. Maybe a friend of a friend invited him? I don’t
know,” he shrugged, “in those days to be honest, Eva, I wouldn’t have cared
much either way.”

“Who was he?”

“His name was Lord Felton, an older lord even more selfish than
I. The absolute epitome of all that was wrong with our class at that point in
time. ”

“And?”

“I came upon them. I’d gone out for a ride, it wasn’t something I
did very often but on that day it felt like the right thing to do. Something
was changing in me, Eva, things starting to make sense, so I rode, and I
happened upon an outbuilding.” He clenched his fists again. “It was the sobs I
heard first, and the laughter, how could I not investigate? Maybe part of me
knew what I was going to find before I even did? Felton, in there, with her.”

Eva knew what he was going to say before he even said it. “He
raped her?”

Adam nodded. “Yes.”

“Oh my God, that poor girl.”

“I found him, Eva. Found them and the images never leave me. I
swear they’re burned into my brain, seared there in perfect memory. I can
recall everything as clearly as if it happened yesterday.”

He sounded so tortured Eva couldn’t help but try to reassure him.
“Surely it wasn’t your fault?”

“We were all lost to polite society certainly,” he added, as
though he hadn’t heard her. “But none of us could have condoned his behavior.
That was just completely beyond the pale. I whipped him to within an inch of
his life and demanded that he leave immediately. He did.’

“He deserved far worse,” Eva said, anger for the other Evie
pumping through her blood.

Adam nodded. “I know, it wasn’t enough, I should have done more.”

“Why didn’t you report him, to the police I mean, or whatever
they were called back then?”

Adam reached forward again to take her hands and this time she
let him. Eva could see the tension in his shoulders, see how much this
confession was costing him and despite her conflicted feelings part of her
wanted to comfort him somehow.

“He was a member of the aristocracy, Eva, in those days no one
would ever have believed the word of a farm girl against his. They wouldn’t
have believed mine either if I’m honest.”

“That’s outrageous.”

“Yes but true, such was the world we live in. I took Evie home
immediately, to her grandmother. Granny Hildegarde.”

“What happened?”

“She was… not happy to say the least. I waited whilst she tended
to her. Waited in the strangest house I’ve ever been in. I’d been there once
before of course. I was just a boy then and it had seemed exciting, mysterious
even. Now though I was worried, uneasy, something wasn’t right in that house
and I felt it deep to my bones.”