Magic

After locking up and thoroughly checking the downstairs for any sign of an intruder, Bryan climbed back up the servant’s staircase, going slowly in hopes of picking up some sense of who their uninvited guest had been. Rachel met him at the door in the second-floor hall.

“I got Mother to go back to bed,” she said quietly, wrapping a sweater around her shoulders. “Did you find anything?”

Bryan shook his head. “No, but I have an idea or two.”

“Casper the Cleanly Ghost?” she suggested with an irrepressible smile.

“Very funny,” he drawled, sliding an arm around her and steering her down the hall toward her bedroom.

“Ammonia and hydrochloric acid. It’s an old magic trick,” he explained. “You soak a wad of cotton in ammonia and one in hydrochloric acid. Forcing air through the cotton produces volumes of white smoke. Very eerie-looking stuff. My dad taught me how to do it when I was ten. You can’t imagine the trouble I got into in Sister Agnes’s religion class when Mark Tucker and I engineered a surprise reenactment of the Ascension, using that trick.”

Rachel had a fleeting impression of the adorable little boy he must have been with his serious expression and his glasses sliding down his nose, his bag of magic tricks tucked under one arm. A little more of her heart gave itself over to him.

“So,” she said, forcing herself to stay on the topic, “you’re admitting what Mother saw wasn’t a manifestation from the spirit world after all?”

“Reluctantly. I’m not saying Wimsey isn’t legitimate, but I think our other visitor is a ghost of a different color.”

They stopped at the open door of Rachel’s room. Bryan leaned back against one side of the jamb and Rachel leaned back against the other. He gave her a serious look. “I think someone is trying to frighten Addie into leaving Drake House.”

An automatic shiver ran through Rachel at the thought, but she dismissed it. “Why would anyone do that? It seems to be common knowledge that we’re going to sell the place. Why would anyone bother?”

“Why, indeed,” Bryan murmured, combing a hand back through his hair. He had his theories, but they were only beginning to form. For the moment he had nothing concrete to share with Rachel, and heaven knew she had enough on her mind already.

A sexy smile curving his mouth, he pushed himself away from his side of the door frame. Bracing his hands above Rachel’s head, he leaned close and brushed his lips across hers. “I think we ought to sleep on that.”

“Really?” she whispered, heat sweeping through her. She ran her hands under his open sweater and up his sides, following the outward slope from his lean waist to his solid chest. “I was going to suggest we sleep on the bed.”

“Were you?” He chuckled, a low, masculine sound that rumbled deep in his throat as he pinned Rachel to the door frame with his hips.

“Mmmm…” she sighed, forgetting all about ghosts and goblins as her body melted into his. “Clean sheets, no ants.”

“Sounds inviting,” he said, nibbling at her earlobe. “Can I make one more suggestion?”

“What?”

“Let’s skip the sleep. I can think of better things to do in abed.”

TEN

“Thieves! Thieves! We’re being overrun by thieves!”

Addie stamped her foot on the hall floor, causing several more people to turn their heads and stare at her. She glared back at them. The gall. For all these people to simply walk into her home and steal her things! She couldn’t imagine what the world was coming to. No good, that was for certain.

One of the strangers, a pudgy, middle-aged woman in a brown pants suit and a bad blond wig, emerged from the parlor, cradling a large white wire bird cage in her arms. Addie gasped in outrage, her narrow gaze boring into the woman. She recognized the culprit as being the receptionist for the intolerable Nazi doctor, Moore.

“I should have known you’d be a thief!” Addie snapped, launching herself at the woman.

She grabbed at the bird cage, her fingers threading through the wire. The startled receptionist hung on to the other side of the cage and the two women jerked each other around the hall like children fighting over a new toy.

“Mother! For heaven’s sake!” Rachel exclaimed, pushing her way through the crowd of bargain hunters. She grabbed Addie by the shoulders, halting the tussle.

“She’s stealing my bird cage!” Addie accused the receptionist as she gave her the evil eye.

“She’s not stealing it, Mother,” Rachel explained patiently, even though her patience had pretty much worn out an hour into the tag sale. She pried her mother’s fingers away from the now-bent wire cage. “Mrs. Anderson is buying this bird cage. We’re having a tag sale, Mother. We can’t take all this furniture with us to San Francisco, so we’re selling it.”

She turned to the receptionist, whose wig was askew, and mustered an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Anderson. Mother is a little… confused about all this.”

“It’s all right, Rachel,” the woman said, composing herself like a plump pigeon whose feathers had been ruffled. “I understand.”

“Oh, I get it,” Addie said, turning on her daughter. “You’re in on it. It’s a conspiracy.”

“It’s a tag sale, Mother,” Rachel said through her teeth as she bit back her temper and her feelings of guilt.

It was a conspiracy. There was no getting around that fact. She had conspired to usurp her mother’s authority over her own property. The fact that she didn’t have a choice, that what she was doing was perfectly legal, that Addie wasn’t competent to handle these affairs, didn’t make it any more palatable. Not even thoughts of their dwindling finances and the upcoming visit from the IRS could make her feel justified.

“I’m calling the police,” Addie said flatly.

Rachel’s shoulders slumped, and she heaved a weary sigh as she watched her mother stomp away. She debated whether it would take more strength to stop her from calling or to deal with Deputy Skreawupp’s ire after the fact. Suddenly Bryan bounded into the hall, blowing a party horn. His magic hat was perched on his head.

“Hennessy!” Addie said. “What is the meaning of this?”

“It’s a party, beautiful!” Bryan declared, flashing her his most brilliant smile. He removed his hat with a flourish and pulled another party horn out of it for Addie. “Let’s go dancing on the lawn.”

Addie scowled at him, uncertainty flashing in her eyes. She didn’t like what was going on here. She didn’t like that she seemed to have no control over it. And all the strange faces in her house frightened her. There were so many of them, she had trouble distinguishing one from the next. But Hennessy, she knew. Hennessy, she trusted.

“I love your hair that way, Addie,” he commented. “It’s very… carefree.”

She raised a hand to pat at the hairdo, blushing like a schoolgirl. She had hacked off her long tresses with a pinking shears because she hadn’t been able to remember how to braid it. Now it fringed her face in a kind of frenetic pixie look. “You’re such a flirt, you big Irish rascal.”

Bryan tucked her arm through his and led her down the hall toward the front door, shooting a wink at Rachel as they went.

Rachel smiled her appreciation and mouthed a thank-you. Clutching her clipboard to her chest, she sighed up into the limp curls that had long ago escaped her sensible hairstyle. What would she have done without Bryan here these past few days? What would she do without him when she and Addie moved to the city?

“He’s something, isn’t he?”

She turned in surprise toward the voice that had suddenly sounded beside her. Alaina Montgomery-Harrison stood there, looking cool and immaculate in her Pierre Cardin ensemble of a black pleated skirt and cream-colored sweater. Tall, angular, elegant, she was just one of Bryan’s many friends who had volunteered to help with the tag sale.