Midnight Jewels

discover the truth.
    Everything was intertwined. There was no way yet to separate out parts of the whole without ruining the delicate pattern that was being woven. Repairing a broken Circle took care and patience and precision.
    He was doing what had to be done, Croft assured himself. The seduction tonight had been necessary, as necessary as any of his other plans. He accepted that even though he had his doubts that Mercy would be able to accept it if she knew all he did about the situation. He had done what had to be done.
    No, it wasn't self-chastisement that was keeping him awake.
    What kept him from sleep was the knowledge that in the final analysis, he hadn't been completely in control of himself or the lovemaking. Instead he had been caught up by the overwhelming lure of Mercy's response to him. It had sucked him in, surrounded him, captivated him even as he told himself he was possessing her.
    In the end he had not been the careful, deliberate seducer, able to guide every step of the action from start to finish.
    He had been seduced himself.

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Chapter FIVE

    Erasmus Gladstone lounged in the elegant white leather chair and gazed at the spectacular mountain scenery outside the sitting room window. He sipped at the glass of fine port Isobel had just poured and told himself for the thousandth time that this mountain retreat was exactly what he wanted. Beautiful. Isolated. Protected.
    It was also equipped with several different escape routes. He had learned his lesson three years before when his escape had depended on a single, fragile old tunnel that could have collapsed on him at any moment. He hadn't paid much attention to having the tunnel properly prepared because he hadn't expected to have to use it. Here the tunnel had been prepared first, even before the vault was added to the house.
    The workman who had helped him dig and reinforce the underground corridor had suffered an unfortunate accident on the mountain roads shortly after the escape route was finished. Gladstone felt safe now. No one else knew about the tunnel. Dallas and Lance and Isobel had not arrived until after it had been completed.
    On the island he had thought himself safe. Geography had kept him safe from the laws of the United States and the small island governments that were scattered about the Caribbean. Business acumen had kept him safe from his competitors. The mindless fanaticism of his followers had kept him safe from betrayal, or so he had thought. Arming the more violent and fanatical among the faithful had kept him safe from the possibility of attack by a small mercenary army.
    But he had not been safe from a single ghost who had appeared in the night.
    This second time around Gladstone had decided he would not make the mistake of surrounding himself with an army of blithering idiots. He would not rely on fanaticism and dope to ensure loyalty. Such a method carried far too many risks—as he had learned to his cost three years earlier.
    This time he had opted for simplicity. The isolated location in the mountains, the escape routes, the electronic security mechanisms, the dogs, the three handpicked bodyguards whose loyalty was ensured by blackmail, money and charm, these were the guarantors of his new life. It made for a smaller, more select crowd, Gladstone nought in amusement. A manageable group. Any stranger or ghost who appeared among them would be instantly recognizable.
    Erasmus leaned his silvered head back against the chair, closed his vivid blue eyes and remembered the screams and the raging fire and the choking smoke. The scene was indelibly imprinted on his memory because he had almost died that night; almost died at the hands of a man he had never seen; a ghost, his followers had screamed in despair.
    He knew the single warrior had been a man, not a ghost, in spite of the hysterical claims of the panicked members of the Society who had stupidly turned to their leader for salvation during those last frantic moments. He had had no time to worry about anyone except himself. But whoever had destroyed the island stronghold of the Society of the Graced might just as well have been a dark specter from hell as far as Gladstone was concerned. The results had been a disaster from which Gladstone knew he was only now recovering.
    It had been a long struggle. Gladstone found himself thinking about the destruction of the island fortress every day of his life. He had operated with such power down in the Caribbean. It would be a