She kept calling his name as she started up the stairs. When she reached the first landing, the hidden door in the wall opened. She and Declan choked back simultaneous screams.
With a gasping laugh, she clutched at her heart and stared at him. He had cobwebs in his hair, dirt smeared on his cheek and hands. The flashlight he carried bobbled.
'Lord, cher, next time just shoot me and get it over with.”
'Same goes.' He blew out a breath, dragged at his hair and the cobwebs lacing it. 'You scared five years off me.”
'Well, I called out a couple times, then decided I'd just hunt you up.' She peered over his shoulder. 'What've you got here, secret passages?”
'No, servants' access. There are doors on every level, so I thought I'd take a look. It's kind of cool, but a real mess.' He looked down at his filthy hands. 'Why don't you go fix yourself a drink or something? I'll clean up.”
'I might be persuaded to fix us both a drink. What're you in the mood for?”
'Could use a beer.' But he was studying her face now that he'd recovered from the jolt. 'What's wrong, Lena?”
'Nothing, other than you frightening the wits out of me.”
'You're upset. I can see it.”
She tried a suggestive smile. 'Maybe I'm sulking 'cause you don't bother to kiss me hello.”
'Maybe you don't trust me enough yet, and figure all I'm looking for with you is a good time.' He used one knuckle to lift her chin, stared into her eyes until hers began to sting. 'You're wrong. I love you.' He waited a beat, then nodded when she didn't respond. 'I'll be down in a minute.”
She started down the steps, then stopped, speaking without looking back. 'Declan, I don't think you're looking for a good time, but I don't know as I have what it is you are looking for.”
'Angelina. You're what I've looked for all my life.”
He didn't press. If she needed to pretend she wasn't upset and skittish, he'd give her room. They took a walk through the rear gardens as dusk crept in.
'This place. All these years, people come, people go. Mostly they go. And here you are, doing more in a few months than anyone's done since before I can remember.”
She turned to study the house. Oh, it still needed work. Wood and paint. New shutters here and there. But it no longer seemed … dead, she realized. It hadn't just been abandoned, it had been dead until he'd come.
'You're bringing it back to life. It's more than the money and the work.”
'Could you live here?”
Her eyes, startled, even panicked, whipped back to his. But his gaze stayed calm and level. 'I have my own place.”
'That's not what I asked. I asked if you could. If you could be comfortable here, or if the idea of sharing the place with … ghosts or memories, whatever you'd call it, would bother you.”
'If it bothered me I wouldn't have come over tonight so you could feed me. Which reminds me, what are you feeding me, cher?”
'I'm going to try my hand at grilling tuna.' He pulled his pocket watch out. 'In a bit,' he said after checking the time.
She was mesmerized by the watch in his hand. Her stomach jittered as it had done when she'd seen the candlesticks. 'Where did you get that?”
'I found it at a shop today.' Alerted by her tone, fascinated by it, he held the watch out. 'Look familiar?”
'You just don't see many men using that type of watch anymore.”
'I knew it was mine as soon as I saw it. I think you bought it for me,' he said, and her head jerked up. 'A long time ago.' He turned the watch over so she could read the inscription on the back.
'Lucian's.' Because her instinct was to curl her fingers into her palms, she made herself reach out and touch the engraving. 'Very strange. Strange indeed, Declan. You think I was Abigail?”
'Yeah, I do.”
She shook her head. 'Don't you think that's a little too neat and tidy-and self-serving?”
'Murder, despair, suicide, a century of wandering souls?' He shrugged and slipped the watch back in his pocket. 'Not very tidy, if you ask me. But I think, Lena, that maybe love is patient enough to wait until its time comes around again.”
'God, you are so … appealing. And it's irritating that I have to be the sensible one around here. I like being with you, Declan.”
She toyed with the key on her neck chain as she spoke. A habit, he thought, she was probably unaware of.
'I like your company, I like your looks. And I like making love with you. That's all I have right now.”
He took her into his arms. 'I'll take it.”
Lena rolled over, slid along one pillow to the other. She heard singing-a deep, male voice in a dreamy refrain. And sighing, she ran her hand over the sheets.
He wasn't beside her in bed, but his warmth was.
Opening her eyes, she blinked against the misty sunlight. She hadn't meant to stay the night. But with Declan, her intentions often twisted around to meet his wishes. More, somehow his wishes circled until they ended up being hers as well.
Clever man, she mused, yawning as she burrowed into the pillow. He rarely seemed to push, never appeared to be unreasonable. And always got his way.
Damned if she didn't admire him for it.
Even now, though she'd have preferred waking in her own bed, she was glad she'd stayed. Her mood had been heavy, and a bit prickly, when she'd arrived. Seeing her mother usually had that effect on her. For a few hours, she'd forgotten about it, and had just enjoyed being with him.
That was enough-and would have to be enough for both of them for as long as it lasted. Seeing Lilibeth was a stark reminder of the promises Lena had made to herself.
To succeed, on her own terms. To live, precisely how she chose to live. And never, never to place her hopes, her needs, her wants in the hands of another.
Declan would move along sooner or later. Everyone did. But she cared more this time, and would make a genuine effort to be and to remain friends.
So, she would be very, very careful not to fall in love with him. Very careful not to hurt him while he believed he loved her.
Her brow creased. She did hear singing. In the shower, she realized, Declan's voice over the drum of water.
'Long years have passed, child-I've never wed, true to my lost love, though she is dead.”
An odd tune for a man to belt out in the shower, she thought, and found herself singing the refrain with him in her mind. After the ball is over, after the break of morn.
Puzzled-where had those lyrics come from?-she rose and went to the bathroom door. She knew the tune, but more, she knew the words. The sad story of lack of faith, of death, melded to the romantic melody.
And her heart was pounding. She felt the pulse of it jump in her throat.
Dancing in the moonlight with the house a white beacon against the night. A girl in faded muslin, and the young man in elegant black tie. The smell of lilacs. Heavy and sweet.
The air's thick with flowers. So thick it's hard to breathe. So thick it makes you dizzy as you spin around and around through the garden, along the bricks with the music playing.
Dizzy, dizzy from the dance. Dizzy, dizzy from the fall into love.
She swayed, reaching out to brace a hand against the door. But it opened, and steam poured out as she fell forward.
'Whoa!' Declan caught her, scooped her off her feet. Still wet from the shower, his hair dripping onto her face, he carried her back to bed.
'I'm okay. I just … lost my balance.”
'Baby, you're white as a sheet.' He brushed her hair back, rubbed her chilled hand between both of his. 'What happened?”
'Nothing.' Torn between confusion and embarrassment, she nudged him back to sit up. 'I got up too fast, is
