Magic

was sorry fate had thrown them together at such an inopportune time. She was sorry she couldn’t believe in magic the way he did.

“I don’t want us to fight,” she whispered, twisting around in his embrace and throwing her arms around his neck. Their time together was going to be too short as it was, she thought, her heart aching. There was no sense wasting it on senseless battles about ideology.

Bryan hugged her tight, closing his eyes against another wave of pain. He had to find some way to show her that her life didn’t have to be all sacrifice. He especially had to find a way to show her they didn’t need to sacrifice their love, that it would be strong enough to withstand anything if only she would believe.

He gave her a tentative, heart-stealing smile, his blue eyes brimming with vulnerability. “Friends again?”

Rachel nodded. She sniffed, blinked back the last of her tears, and lifted a hand to brush at the errant lock of tawny hair that fell across Bryan’s forehead and into his eyes. A gentle smile curved her mouth.

“I thought you were going to get a haircut.”

His expression went comically blank, then guilty. A warm blush colored his high cheekbones. He ducked his head sheepishly. “Um… I guess I forgot.”

“Come on,” Rachel said, chuckling softly. “Maybe we can get Mother to do it for you. She’s a whiz with a scissors, you know.”

They shared a smile, letting the moment heal the wounds they had inflicted, then Bryan turned the doorknob with suspicious ease and they walked out of the study together.

TWELVE

The term fool’s gold had taken on a whole new, personal dimension for Bryan. In the three days since he’d discovered the possibility of there being a treasure hidden somewhere in or around Drake House, he had spent nearly every waking moment searching for it. He had inspected the house from its musty, cobweb-filled attic to its dank, dark cellar. He had painstakingly examined every wall and floor in search of hidden compartments. He had experienced considerable excitement upon discovering a secret vault in the basement, only to be visited by crushing disappointment hours later when he finally managed to get the thing open and found nothing inside but some old National Geographics and a ship in a bottle.

His search of the grounds had been no less futile. If Arthur “Ducky” Drake had buried his booty, he had certainly left behind no clues in the lawn as to where it was. Of course, nearly sixty years had gone by. Whatever Ducky might have left behind could have been long gone by now.

Bryan heaved a sigh as he went over it all in his mind yet again. He’d spent the entire morning in the study, mostly sitting and staring. This had presumably been Arthur Drake’s favorite room. It was where the man had hung his portrait. It was probably where he had written the journal Porky and Rat so coveted-the journal Bryan had photocopied in its entirety before handing it over to them.

He went over the last of the entries again, then pulled his glasses off and rubbed at his weary eyes. The nearest thing to a clue he had found in Drake’s writings was mention of his pleasure boat, the Treasure. It was on that craft Ducky Drake had met his end on Armistice Day, 1931, when the ship had gone down with all aboard her. The last few notes Drake had made in his journal after the mention of “sticking the pig” were about his concerns over the whereabouts of his vanished friend A.W. and a couple of vague references to having some workmen come to do minor repairs around the house-plumbing and brickwork and the like.

Maybe Arthur Drake and his gold were both now lying at the bottom of the Pacific. Maybe Lorraine Clement had been correct in her hunch that Wimsey had been the elusive gentleman bandit, in which case poring over the Drake journal was a waste of time. But if Wimsey were the thief, why wouldn’t he tell Addie where the gold was? Because it wasn’t there?

Maybe Rachel was right, he conceded. Maybe it was all a big wild goose chase.

“That’s no way to think,” Bryan muttered to himself in disgust. Pessimism had never gotten anybody anywhere.

Pushing himself up out of the desk chair, he stretched and cast a cursory glance over his shoulder at the image of Arthur Drake that hung on the wall. He would unravel this mystery as he had unraveled dozens of others over the years. But he needed a clear head to do it.

He had run himself into the ground, spending his days searching for the gold and his nights watching out for signs of Wimsey, not to mention their other nocturnal visitor. What little time he’d spent in bed he’d spent making love to Rachel, trying his best to bind her to him in the most elemental way he could, trying to show her with his body how much he loved her. He couldn’t escape the sinking feeling that his message wasn’t getting through. Or maybe she was simply ignoring it.

Even though they hadn’t argued again, neither had things been the same as before their fight. There was a tension straining their relationship. Bryan could sense the invisible barrier Rachel was erecting layer by thin layer between them. She might have forgiven him for his harsh words, but she couldn’t forgive him for believing in things that couldn’t be seen or touched. And the harder he tried to convince her that his outlook was a better one, the farther she drifted away from him.

She had been working as hard as he, slaving over the state of Addie’s finances and struggling with Addie herself, fighting a futile battle to repair her relationship with her mother before it was too late.

Standing by the French doors, Bryan heaved a sigh. Outside, the morning had turned blue and beautiful. He flung open the doors and drank in the scents. The air was fresh with the tang of the sea and the sweetness of sun-warmed grass and wildflowers.

It was the kind of day meant for playing hooky. It was the kind of day meant for picnics and handin-hand walks, for taking leisurely drives along the shore and making love under the afternoon sun. It was the kind of day too many people let pass by, sure that another would come along at a more convenient time in their lives. Bryan knew for a fact that wasn’t always true. You had to enjoy life moment to moment because tomorrow was a promise that wasn’t always kept. Too many people waited until it was too late, then looked back on their lives with bitterness and regret.

He couldn’t let Rachel be one of them.

Determination giving him a fresh burst of strength, he strode to the desk and picked up the telephone.

“My word, that’s a lovely color on you, Abbey,” Aunt Roberta commented. “Just lovely. And the feathers are really you. Don’t you think so, Rebecca? I think they’re really her.”

Rachel sighed wearily and raised her head, looking past the sea of bank statements, bills, and canceled checks spread out across the dining room table to where her mother sat in a pool of yellow light near the window, glowering at her.

Addie wore another of her nondescript loose housedresses and had an emerald-green feather boa draped around her neck. In her hands she clutched a pottery ashtray the size of a Frisbee, and every so often she thrust it beneath Roberta’s cigarette to catch the fallout. Roberta sat in a rocker beside her, pumping the thing as if she were out to set some kind of record. Smoke billowed from her nostrils, giving the impression that her boundless nervous energy came from a combustion engine.

“For goodness’ sake, Rowena, you look exhausted!”

“I’ve had a lot of work to do.”

“Stealing my money,” Addie muttered.

“There isn’t any money to steal, Mother,” Rachel shot back. Gritting her teeth, she tamped down her temper. “I’m trying to help you. I came back here to help you.”

Addie narrowed her eyes. Her lips thinned to a white line of disapproval. It made her so angry to see Rachel going through her business papers. It made her angry to know she couldn’t have gone through them herself because they made no sense to her anymore. She certainly didn’t want Rachel sifting through them looking for yet another way to humiliate her and snatch away a little more of her independence.

“She’s not my daughter, you know,” she said to Roberta.

Rachel rolled her eyes.