sensual in the act, something strongly erotic, though he had barely grazed her. He inhaled sharply as desire streaked through him, setting all his nerve endings ablaze.
“And who are the munchkins?” he asked, trying to offset his reaction with a bit of levity. He barely recognized his own voice, it was so hoarse and low.
The absurdity of the question struck Rachel in the tattered remains of her sense of humor, and she managed a soft laugh. There was something wonderful about a man who could make her laugh on a night when her whole life seemed like a bad dream.
She turned away from the window and looked up into his eyes, so warm and caring behind his glasses. He was much too near. She had told herself to keep him at least an arm’s length away at all times, but there he was, no more than a deep breath away, and, while her wary heart told her to flee, Rachel found herself rooted to the spot.
“I never thanked you for this afternoon.” She rolled her eyes and smiled wryly. “I never dreamed Mother would try to take off with my car. Thank God no one was hurt. You saved the day.”
Bryan shrugged it off, uncomfortable with genuine praise. “Any other magical being would have done the same. See how invaluable I’ll be to have around?”
It was the perfect opportunity to tell him he couldn’t stay, Rachel thought. But she couldn’t bring herself to say the words or even to consider the consequences of allowing him to remain in Drake House and in her life. She couldn’t bring herself to say anything at all.
She stood staring up at him as if transfixed by a spell. The light from the fire cast her face in an amber halo, glistened off the vulnerable curve of her lower lip. It caught on the black jet beads adorning the old dress she wore and set each one with a miniature starburst of light.
“Have I told you how beautiful you are in this dress?” Bryan asked softly, something vital trembling deep inside him, something that had lain dormant, like a seed beneath the snows of winter. He felt it struggling to come to life with each shallow breath.
“I think you did,” Rachel murmured.
“Oh.” His mouth quirked up on the right in sheepish self-deprecation. Again he raised his hand to touch her hair, this time letting his fingers sift through the strands of silk. “Then, have I told you how much I want to kiss you?”
He didn’t wait for a reply. He didn’t wait to question himself or his vow of nonromantic involvement. He bent his head to hers and brushed his mouth gently across the satin of her lips. She tasted of sweetness and wine and need, a need that called out to her own lonely soul. His fingers threaded deeper into her hair, his hand sliding to cup the back of her head, to tilt her face to a better angle as the first kiss faded and the second began.
Just a kiss, Rachel thought. What harm could there be in a kiss? The solace and warmth and tenderness she found as she let herself melt into Bryan’s arms-how could anything bad come of this? She felt so alone, and he was so sweet. She had forgotten what it was like to feel like a woman, and he was so masculine. She had been so filled with misery, and he was magic.
Her hands slid up to grip the solid strength of his arms, her fingers drinking in the feel of his tuxedo jacket as her mouth drank in the taste of him-warmth and whiskey and desire. It was a tender kiss, but not a tame one. There was a hunger in the way his lips rubbed against hers, a barely leashed demand for more. His tongue slid gently along the line of her mouth, asking for entrance, then taking it at the first hint of acquiescence.
Rachel sighed as she allowed him the intimacy. Her heart raced as her breasts molded against the planes of his chest. She lost all sense of time and place, of who and where they were. She forgot all about duty and practicality. She gave herself over to a kind of sweet, gentle bliss that could have carried her into the night… until a crash and a scream shattered the still air.
SIX
Bryan bolted for the door with Rachel right behind him. He took the grand staircase two steps at a time and ran straight for Addie’s room. Addie shrieked again as he burst into the room.
“Blast you, Hennessy!” she blustered, shaking a gnarled fist at him. “I ought to pop you one! You startled the life out of me!”
Bryan brushed the reprimand aside. “Addie, what happened? We heard a crash. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, no thanks to you.” She clutched a fistful of nightgown to her chest. Her knuckles were white. “There was a ghost outside my window, trying to get in! Go out there and catch it,” she ordered, thrusting a finger at the portal. “You’re supposed to be good at that, aren’t you?”
For all her effort to appear calm, she was still terribly rattled. She’d been lying in bed, trying to sleep as memories tumbled through her mind all out of order, like the colors in a kaleidoscope, when the apparition had appeared. The shock had thrown her into a mental tailspin. Now fragments of the past mingled with the present so that she couldn’t distinguish one from the other. Her heart beat frantically as she tried to sort it all out.
“Mother!” Rachel gasped as she burst into the room belatedly, her shoes having hindered her progress on the stairs. “Are you all right?”
Rachel. Addie stared at her, confused. Love ached inside her. She lifted a wrinkled hand to brush her daughter’s hair back from her flushed face. “Rachel,” she said firmly but with far more gentleness than she’d used in years. “You ought to be in bed. You’re going to ruin your voice, staying up all hours. What will Mrs. Ackerman say?”
Rachel blinked at her. She hadn’t had a voice lesson with Mrs. Ackerman in ten years, but she couldn’t bring herself to say that to Addie. She didn’t want to do anything to ruin this single fragile moment of peace between them. Still, something had happened in this room, and they had to find out what it was.
“Mother, why did you scream?” she asked carefully.
Addie looked at her blankly.
“The ghost,” Bryan prompted. “Was it Wimsey?”
Rachel scowled at him. Why did he persist in this ghost business? How would Addie be able to cling to any part of her sanity with Bryan encouraging her hallucinations?
“Of course it wasn’t,” Addie muttered crossly as she backed up and sat down on her rumpled bed. She couldn’t think for the life of her who Wimsey was. It seemed best to lay the blame elsewhere. “It was a ghoul. It was the ugliest thing I’ve seen since Rowena Mortonson bought that horrid little Chinese dog. Perfectly hideous little thing. You couldn’t tell if it was coming or going.”
“Who’s Rowena Mortonson?” Bryan asked Rachel.
“She was our next-door neighbor in Berkeley.”
“Don’t speak as if she’s dead, Rachel. She’s only gone to Los Angeles to visit that effeminate son of hers,” Addie muttered, playing with the fraying end of her braid. “There’s a boy who needs a can of starch in his shorts.”
“What did it look like?” Bryan questioned.
“Oh, he favored Rowena, poor homely boy-pug nose, receding chin, limp brown hair. That pretty well describes the dog too.”
“No, Addie. The ghost that was at your window. What did it look like?” Bryan asked, earning himself another glare from Rachel.
“Oooooh…” Addie shuddered. “Pasty white with black eye sockets, and it made the most horrible strangled wretching sound.”
“You say this ghost was trying to break in?” Bryan asked.
“The window
“The glass was broken from the inside,” Bryan said, examining the gaping hole in the window. Shards littered the footwide ledge outside. Carefully, he raised the window and stepped out with one foot. He looked up at the gable peak and around the ledge itself, which was ornamented by a rusting wrought iron railing that had come loose
