Spellbinder: A Love Story With Magical Interruptions

by Melanie Rawn

  He slid an arm around her waist and somehow managed a smile—and kept himself from crushing her close in mindless gratitude. “Y’know what?”

  She searched his eyes, then smiled. “I love you, too, a chuisle.”

  “Is that gonna be your speech for tonight?”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “You’ll do great.”

  “I just hope I don’t trip in these heels,”

  He made his voice a throaty purr and whispered in her ear, “Pretend all you’ve got on is those shoes and that little black thing you have the nerve to call a slip—”

  She choked on a stifled giggle. “Evan!”

  “—and you’re comin’ into the bedroom on a rainy night—”

  “Stop it!” Holly hissed. “I’ll never be able to keep a straight face!”

  “—and it’s all candlelight and that ‘82 merlot and those white silk sheets—”

  “You’ll pay for this, Lachlan.” She swayed a little against him as her knees started to buckle. Ever the considerate gentleman, he held her elbow to keep her upright—because he had a great finish planned.

  “—and I’m in bed waitin’ for you, with this bow tie and a really, really big—”

  She glared at him.

  “—smile,” he concluded with unabashed glee.

  NINETY MINUTES LATER, HER SPEECH given and applauded, he was idly finger-stroking her bare silken shoulder while people he didn’t know came by to chat and check him out head to foot while wondering who the hell he was. Sharply curious eyes saw a tall, fortyish man in an elegant tux, with no clue as to what he did for a living or anything else other than that he was H. Elizabeth McClure’s escort. He smiled and said very little—and held Holly tighter.

  On impulse he pressed his lips briefly to her temple. She looked up in the middle of what she was saying, a question in her blue eyes. He noted with a smile that with that one gesture he had managed to make her forget whoever it was she was talking to as well as whatever it was she’d been saying. Center of her world; reason for its creation.

  “So you’re finally going to do it,” said Elias Bradshaw—who was developing a habit of appearing rather suddenly. “Nice rock,” he added by way of explanation, nodding to Holly’s left hand.

  “I know,” she replied.

  “I liked your speech.” His eyes said he more than liked it. Then, with a half-step to one side that revealed a young woman standing nearby: “I don’t know if you’ve met Deputy Marshal Leah Towsley.”

  “I’ve been nagging His Honor all evening to introduce me,” Towsley said, moving forward to shake hands. She was about five-foot-four, African-American, dressed in a slither of red and white sequins, and, to Lachlan’s discerning eye, built like a brick dollhouse.

  “Thanks—but it’s not a gown, it’s a costume!” Holly laughed in response to Leah’s compliment on her dress. “I write medieval, so people expect to see medieval. Frankly, I’d kill to be able to wear that masterpiece you’ve got on—vintage Halston?”

  Elegant brows arched. “You have a good eye. It was a real find—I picked it up in a retread shop last year. Judge Bradshaw, do me a favor and stand between us—I feel like half of a flag!”

  “I have a question for Holly,” Bradshaw said as he duly placed his tuxedoed self between the red-and-white dress and the blue one.

  Leah Towsley interrupted with mock severity. “Not before I read her the riot act about Jerusalem Lost. It kept me up all night—best cry I’ve had in years.”

  “Sorry about that,” Holly said ruefully, as Bradshaw turned an incredulous look on his marshal.

  “So you’re my replacement,” Evan remarked, smiling.

  Holly gave a start. “Oh, good grief, I’m sorry—Marshal Towsley, this is my fiance, Evan Lachlan.”

  As they shook hands, Towsley said, “Congratulations on your engagement. And I didn’t replace you—I just kept the bench warm.” She cocked an eyebrow at Bradshaw.

  “Nothing of the kind,” he assured her. “I need Marshal Lachlan for a special assignment, that’s all.”

  “Special—?” Holly began, but the judge interrupted her.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about establishing this fellowship in Susannah’s name? Why did I have to learn about it in your speech? And why the hell did you make me one of the trustees?”

  “Well …”

  As she launched into explanations, Evan gazed down a foot at his fellow marshal’s dazzling dark brown eyes. “So how do you like workin’ with His Honor?”

  “Beats inventorying confiscated property in New Jersey,” she replied, which let him know she knew all about him.

  “I’m not after my old job back, I promise.”

  “I didn’t think you were. Anyone who’d consciously volunteer to babysit Elias Bradshaw is nuts. Despite what I’ve heard, you don’t look that crazy to me.”

  He laughed. “Appearances can be deceiving.”

  “MY GOD, YOU’VE MELLOWED!” Holly exclaimed in the car. Her shoes were off, and her belt, and she was stretching her shoulders and spine in ways he would have liked to appreciate with more than a sidelong glance. But he was driving.

  “Yeah?” he said, negotiating the Beemer through late-night traffic.

  “Yeah. Used to be I could hardly get you to stay at those things for an hour. But you were very sweet and obliging tonight.”

  “Uh-oh. Does that mean you think I’ve turned into a wimp?”

  “No,” she replied solemnly. “I think you’ve become one very fine man. You started out that way—but purest gold can’t shine brightest until it’s been through fire.”

  He gave her a crooked smile. “We both oughta be 24-karat by now.”

  It was probably ridiculous—no, it was definitely ridiculous—but the fact that she’d never changed the seat settings he’d programmed into her BMW really got to him. Nobody else had made it far enough into her life—but more important, no matter what she said, deep inside she’d known he’d be coming back. It was funny and silly and touching, and it made him realize that for the first time in more than a year his entire world was right.

  “So Elias had ulterior motives,” she said suddenly. “What did he tell you?”

  “Not much. We’re going to have a little chat soon.”

  “I couldn’t get anything out of him, either. But obviously he thinks you can help find out who killed Susannah.”

  He was too good a driver to allow the car to swerve with his reaction. “I think,” he said quietly, “that you and I better have a little chat tonight.”

  She talked; he listened. Of all the things she recounted—Long Island dirt, splinters, code, Noel, and so on—his instincts kept snagging on the bracelet.

  “I had the same feeling,” she said when he mentioned it. “Only there’s no reason.”

  “And no reason for her to take it off and put it in her pocket, either. Come on, Holly. Susannah was a very sharp lady. Tell me everything you know about the bracelet, starting with the day she bought it.”

  “I drove us to Connecticut. Suze spent that night with her mother and took the train back to the city. I went to see Alec and Nicky. But there wasn’t anything special we said or did.”

  “Just tell me what happened.” Knowing it was there without knowing exactly how he knew; it was the same feeling he got whenever all the little dance steps his fugitive quarry did were finally coming together, and he knew that one more move and he’d have the whole pattern.

  “We left early—it was a Saturday. We stopped for breakfast in some little town, and did some shopping. There was a place that sold pewter, and a quilt shop, antiques—the usual touristy stuff. And a jewelry store. That’s where she bought it.”

  Lachlan pulled the BMW into the garage and parked. “Keep thinking,” he said as they left the car and walked to the elevator. “Pretend it’s a movie and you’re watching the scene.”

  Casting him a doubting glance, she shrugged, leaned back against the elevator wall, and closed
her eyes.

  “Oh, c’mon, Size—you’ve always wanted one.It’s a great price, and I’ve never seen another one like it. The craftsmanhip is gorgeous.”

  “I don’t know. I mean, it’s beautiful, but—”

  “Well, if you’re waiting for Elias Bradshaw to cough up, forget it. He has all the earmarks of a man who doesrn’t know that diamond jewelry is like chocolate. Women not only want it, they need it!”

  Susannah laughed and consulted her checkbook balance. Holly took the artisan aside, ostensibly to ask about a brooch in another case, and murmured that it would be a very good thing if be knocked a bit off the bracelet’s price—and passed him four crisp fifties. When they returned to Susannah, be lowered the price by three hundred dollars—saying it was because of Susannah’s beatiful smile.

  A touch on her arm opened her eyes. Evan guided her out the elevator and down the hall to her door. “Anything?” he said when they were inside her foyer.

  She shook her head. “I just don’t remember.” Taking off her coat, she draped it on the hall tree and started for the kitchen.

  He followed. Relentless. “What was the name of the town?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The place you had breakfast?”

  She took refuge behind the pantry door, rummaging for something to eat. “I don’t remember that, either.”

  “Goddammit, Holly—”

  “Maybe she put it in her pocket so they wouldn’t steal it!”

  “They didn’t take any of her other jewelry, did they?” he shot back. “Did the jeweler say anything? What’d he look like? What was the name of the shop? What was his name?”

  Holly slammed the pantry door. “I don’t fucking know, okay?”

  “Yes, you do. You just don’t know that you do.”

  “Will you quit being a cop?”

  “I did,” he answered, low-voiced. “Not of my own choosing, but—” With a shrug: “Turns out it’s like you with the writing—it’s not just that I do it, I am it.” He shrugged. “You ready to think some more about this, or should we call it a night?”

  She stood straighter, bracing herself. “Are you saying you want to go?” His brows knotted. “I told you I wouldn’t leave.”

  “But do you want to stay?”

  “McClure, what the hell am I gonna do with you?” he snarled, taking her left hand. “See that?” he went on, pointing to the ring. “Remember what it means?”

  “I know what it means to me,” she replied.

  “So what did that bracelet mean that Susannah wanted you to remember?”

  “Christ on a kayak, Lachlan—you never stop! All right, all right, we’re waiting for the jeweler to finish with her check, and looking at other pieces … they were all one-of-a-kind, mostly nautical themes, seashells and fish …” She closed her eyes again, picturing the shop. “She asked about a starfish pin, and the jeweler said he was Portuguese, he’d been in the fishing fleet for twenty years, then retired to make jewelry—San Jacinto!” she exclaimed, looking up at Evan. “He named his store after the patron saint of sailors!” Triumph was there and gone before she could really feel it. “But what’s that got to do with anything?”

  Evan was looking the way he did when he’d polished off a four-course dinner and was anticipating the sweet trolley. “Oh, yeah—Susannah was a very sharp lady.”

  “She was, but I’m not,” she snapped.

  “Jacinto?” he repeated, brows arching expectantly. When she stayed stubbornly silent, he relented. “Hyacinth, writer-lady. Hyacinth.”

  “So? Hyacinthe Rigaud was a French painter at the court of Louis XIV. There’s a Vermeer called ‘Girl in Hyacinth Blue.’ There’s—”

  “No lectures, please.” He held up both hands in surrender, smiling. “The dirt from Long Island is just dirt from Long Island. But ‘hyacinth’ tells us where on Long Island.”

  “It does?”

  “Yeah. Got a map? No, forget it, we’ll hit the computer.” And he was striding through to her office before she could say another word.

  She made coffee, then joined him. He was leaning back in her desk chair, and glanced around when she came in. “Got it,” he said.

  “Is it something she saw out the car window?”

  “Nope. There’s a St. Hyacinth’s Catholic Church in Glen Head. But that’s not the reference. I checked out all ‘hyacinth’ references to make sure. What she wanted us to know, where she was directing us—it ain’t no church.”

  She peered at the computer screen. A real estate site, but having about as much in common with the average Realtor as Sotheby’s had with the local junk shop. There, in full color, was a photo of a Victorian mansion, the kind built by stupendously wealthy New Yorkers wanting a seaside escape from the city’s summer heat. That whole section of Suffolk County was known as the Gold Coast. And the turreted, towered, crenellated mansion in the picture was known as The Hyacinths.

  Twenty-four

  LACHLAN HAD BEEN INSIDE Elias Bradshaw’s house five times: twice into the living room, once to the kitchen, once to the hall bathroom, and once just to the foyer. Now, on Monday night a week after Susannah’s death, he went up the stairs holding Holly’s hand, and was admitted to a room without electrical outlets, telephone jack, lamps, or any other modern technology. The only light glittered from a single white candle burning in a silver holder on a small table.

  Holly left him to go speak to a blonde woman over by the fireplace. Feeling a little lost, Evan glanced around. The floor was inlaid with a five-pointed star of pale wood within a circle of what might have been mahogany. There was a hearth without a fire, wooden chairs without cushions, and a heavy iron-bound chest without a lock. The only attempt at comfort was the small one-armed sofa over in a corner. From a garment rack hung robes in various colors; rainbowhued candles were arranged on a shelf.

  “Welcome to the sanctum sanctorum,” said Nicholas Orlov, approaching with a slight smile and a double handclasp that Lachlan returned rather nervously. “Did Holly remember to bring something for you to wear?”

  “Uh—I don’t know.”

  “I brought my extra,” Alec Singleton said, proffering a black robe that smelled faintly of cinnamon. “Don’t worry, Evan, we’ll all look just as silly as you.”

  “I’ll just pretend I’ve been promoted to judge, or got my Ph.D., or something.”

  Alec smiled. “The rest will be some time getting ready. Come sit down.”

  He followed Holly’s honorary uncle over to the hearth. Nick joined the others in setting up the space, placing various stones from his pockets at what Lachlan figured were the cardinal points of the compass.

  “The tall black guy with the sword-sized athame is Martin,” Singleton began. “He’ll be in the South.”

  “Fire and St. Michael, right?”

  “Very good. But I think you learned most of what you know on your own, didn’t you? Holly’s rather casual about things she doesn’t have to be involved in, such as Calling the Quarters.”

  “Not casual,” he protested. “She knows why she’s here —”

  “—and you don’t much enjoy the idea of her bleeding whenever Elias requires it of her.”

  “Not especially.” He shrugged.

  “The other Quarters will be Ian in the North—the one in green, he’s Martin’s partner the way Nick’s mine—Nick in the West, and myself in the East. I usually take the South, but tonight we’re improvising. The blonde lady is Kate, our Apothecary. She’ll be in the Southeast. Simon is the wily codger with the chalice, and tonight he’ll take the Northwest. Elias will be in the Northeast, and you’ll stand Southwest. Shall I describe the process to you?”

  “I think I remember most of it from Beltane with Holly.”

  “I just bet you do. This Circle is already laid out in the floor — which is why this room is off-limits to everyone but the Circle, since it’s been spelled to them. Elias spent this afternoon including Nick and me and you. It’s nine feet, with boundaries o
f stones, incense, and candles. Because you’ll be in the Southwest, we’ve chosen a purple candle—a mix of red and blue — which also nicely calls the protections you’ll need.”

  “Which are — ?”

  “It’s Male, for one thing,” Alec smiled. “It shields from danger, especially magical danger. It’s symbolic of the law, as well. As for the rock—I chose one from my personal stash that I thought would do you the most good. And the moonstone connects you with Holly, and with me.” He fingered the milky white gem hanging from a silver chain around his neck.

  “I know it’s kinda late to ask, but—does all this really work?”

  “Nick can give you his lecture sometime. The short version is that yes, it does, but not for the reasons one might expect.”

  “Actually,” he admitted, “I’m not sure what I’m expecting.”

  “Don’t even try,” Alec advised. “Not tonight. Magic isn’t inherent in stones or scents or chalices, it’s inside us. Some people hear music in color, for instance.”

  “Is that why they call it ‘the blues’?” Lachlan smiled.

  “Could be! Ever see Fantasia? The colors used for Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor had to come from somewhere. That they feel right to most of the rest of us may mean there’s something going on inside our brains that equates certain colors with certain sounds. The medical term for it is “synesthesia.” Most people never recognize or develop the instinct.

  “There are places in our brains we can’t begin to understand,” he went on. “Combine a scent, a color, maybe the ringing of a bell, words that evoke images, some sort of rhythmic chant, and something in your brain wakes up and responds to the stimuli — and that’s magic, for lack of a better term.”

  “Proust,” Lachlan said suddenly. “The madeleines.”

  “Precisely. Smell is primal — it’s why we give off pheromones, which make us respond at a visceral level. Nothing to do with the parts of our brains that think and reason. We perceive, but not with our conscious minds. And sometimes your brain fights so hard against what consciousness perceives as irrational that —” He broke off and resettled himself in the hard wooden chair, crossing long legs at the knees under his white robe. “And to think I accuse poor Nick of lecturing,” he said wryly.