Goddamn the man with the voice like sandpaper. Goddamn the people who came spying, day after day.
Goddamn them all!
But the twelfth Viscount Draycott knew that the man had spoken the truth. Unless he came up with a miracle by Friday, he was a dead man.
Awkwardly, he came to his feet and tossed the crumpled cigarette pack down onto his dresser. The muscles at his chest rippled as he rubbed his neck tiredly, then bent down and tugged on a pair of charcoal trousers.
In the darkened room, the scars at his left thigh were barely visible. No more than a phantom network, they radiated from his pelvic bone to the outside of his knee.
He barely noticed them now, beyond a stiffness when he over-exerted himself. His silver eyes narrowed. Someday maybe the rest of the scars from Bhanlai would fade, too.
Frowning, he strode to the telephone and punched out a number.
“Six-two-one-five” came a clipped voice at the other end.
“Inspector Jamieson. Nicholas Draycott calling.” His face dark, Draycott stared down at the crumbled cigarette pack.
“Lord Draycott? Has something—”
“Nothing new, inspector. I merely wanted to see if you’d got anything on the men who took my Turners.”
“I’m afraid not, Lord Draycott. These were no amateurs, unfortunately. We’re tracking our regular sources just in case the stolen paintings surface, but it could take weeks…”
And time is the one thing I don’t have, Nicholas thought grimly. “What about Trang? Anything new there?”
From the other end of the line came the rustle of papers. “There has been some revived activity in his part of Burma. A few munitions purchases, the usual opium deals. Nothing significant, however. The villagers swear they saw this man Trang cut down in the barrage after your release and that he is buried in the hills outside Bhanlai. Which leaves me wondering why you’d doubt their opinion. Is there perhaps something you’re not telling us, Lord Draycott?”
For a moment, rage darkened Nicholas’s vision. There was a bloody lot he wasn’t telling the inspector—but only because it was none of his damn business. And as for Bhanlai’s grimy little dictator—Nicholas, too, had seen him fall in the gunfire when he was rescued. And yet who else but Trang could be behind the harassing phone calls he’d been getting? Who else but Trang knew the details of those last desperate days at Bhanlai and a woman who had betrayed him?
One of the warlord’s men, perhaps? Or one of that motley horde of a hundred different nationalities who drifted around Trang, men of no allegiance to anything except themselves? And what did they want from him anyway?
Nicholas’s hands tightened as he felt the old gnawing sense of powerlessness begin to choke him.
“Lord Draycott? Are you there?”
“I’m here, inspector.”
“Are you going to answer my question?”
Draycott’s eyes were unreadable. “Just call it an instinct. Trang and I got to know each other pretty well up there in the jungle. I guess it’s often that way between captor and captive. And lately I’ve had the feeling…” That I’m being watched. That I’m walking right on the edge of a precipice.
But Nicholas didn’t tell Jamieson that. It would only bring another horde of police flocking down to Draycott Abbey, and all he wanted now was to be left alone.
“Just a feeling, Lord Draycott?” The inspector’s voice was sharp with disbelief. “You won’t be more specific than that?”
“No.”
“Did you know that Trang was supposed to have buried a fortune in jewels somewhere in those hills? Not one piece has ever been recovered, as a matter of fact.”
“Are you calling me a liar, inspector?”
There was a silence at the other end. “Not a liar. Not quite. But I think there’s a damn sight more that you’re not telling us, my lord.”
“I can’t remember, damn it!” Draycott’s hand clenched and unclenched at his side. Even this much he hated to reveal.
The inspector’s next words were slow and careful. “There are ways of remembering, you know. Relaxation techniques. Hypnosis.” A momentary silence. “Drugs.”
Draycott cursed low and graphically. “And have my brain ripped open all over again, so that some stranger can pick through whatever bits he finds interesting? Thanks but no bloody thanks, inspector. I’m done with Bhanlai. All I want now is to get on with my life!” Nicholas’s fingers whitened on the receiver. If I ever can.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Lord Draycott. Because I’m afraid there is very little we can do for you in that case. Not until you give us something more concrete to go on.”
Nicholas’s jaw hardened to a rigid line. He’d expected nothing more than this, of course. Were he in Jamieson’s shoes, Nicholas supposed he’d have said the same. But time was running out, and he was nowhere nearer to an answer than before.
“Of course, inspector,” he said flatly. “Good night.”
After cradling the receiver, he stalked to the window and pulled aside the curtain. To the east, the valley was tinged with purple shadows, while the distant Wealden Hills beyond shone vermillion in the setting sun.
And that’s when he saw her—a long, cool column of womanhood poured into a pair of expensive denims so favored by the bloody Americans. A mane of blond hair spilled about her shoulders. On her feet were a pair of lavishly hand-tooled leather boots.
A muscle flashed at Draycott’s jaw as he watched the woman move around to the side of the house. In the slanting sunlight, her hair shone honey-gold, the color of the finest Burmese silk.
He cursed, long and savagely. So she was another gossip hunter. Another maggot come to feed off the wounds of Bhanlai. When would they learn that his privacy was not for sale? That he refused to see his story become cheap copy to fuel tabloid sales? Photojournalists! A fancy word for voyeurs, he thought angrily.
But this one would be no more successful than any of the others who’d come in search of a story, he swore, even though she was stunning.
Trust Edward Armistead, one of Fleet Street’s most ruthless gossip peddlers, to find someone like her. Armistead was an expert when it came to acquiring gossip, and he never stinted on money or personnel when tracking down a story.
Furious, Draycott turned from the window, a wild plan already forming in his head. Yes, the woman deserved exactly what she got, he decided.
For right now, Nicholas Draycott was no longer a gentleman. No longer the hero of Bhanlai.
Tonight he was only a man—a man who had reached the end of his rope.
CHAPTER TWO
THE AIR WAS STILL AND heavy, rich with the scent of thyme and hyacinth as Kacey moved forward into the cool shadows of the stable. She called out several times, but no one answered.
Frowning, she tried to gather the few scraps of information she’d been given before leaving New York.
“Lord Draycott is an unusual man,” Kacey’s employer, Cassandra Edwards, had announced. “He’s intensely protective of his privacy. Obnoxiously so, in fact. You’d do best just to keep out of his way. I imagine his staff will provide you with anything you need. The man probably won’t even be in residence at the abbey—he has homes all over England, did you know?”
As it happened, Kacey hadn’t known, but that suited her just fine. The last thing she wanted was a nervous owner hovering about while she examined the would-be Whistler canvas.
And with several million dollars riding on her decision, she couldn’t blame an owner for being a little nervous about her findings.
Still, she hadn’t thought the earl would be quite so eccentric as to leave the house closed up and silent, with no one at all to meet her. After all, he had stipulated this weekend as the best time for her to arrive.
Kacey pulled her case higher on her shoulder, frowning. Perhaps money and pedigree did that to a person—made him cold and careless of others. She made a mental note to avoid the viscount at all costs.
Inside the stables, the
air was still and cool, little motes of dust dancing across the last golden beams of sun slanting down through the high windows.
Kacey’s breath caught. Even here, the sense of timelessness, of being caught in a dream, lingered, for the stalls were all empty, pooled with shadows.
So where was everyone? she wondered crossly. She had been punctual to the dot. The bus had dropped her at the foot of the home wood, as the driver referred to the dark expanse of beeches and elms. He had provided her with careful directions to the abbey, but his look, Kacey recalled now, had been frankly curious.
And faintly hostile.
Her brow creased in thought, she dropped her canvas bag and sat down on an upturned wooden crate. She tugged off her right boot, massaging her cramped and blistered toes.
Her gaze wandered up to the ceiling, crisscrossed by massive overhanging beams. That was when she first noticed the meticulous carving atop the first stall—three horses in full gallop, tails flying, hooves aloft.
On an impulse, she unzipped her bag and extracted her camera. Unless she missed her guess, that detail was an eighteenth-century masterpiece, perhaps the work of Grinling Gibbons himself! Quickly she switched on her flash and began to shoot. She would ask the viscount for permission when she saw him, of course, but meanwhile, this was just too good a chance to pass up, especially since Cassandra had just received a commission to restore a pair of sculptures by Gibbons in Cheshire.
In the excitement of her discovery, Kacey forgot that she should be looking for the man who belonged to that sleek black sports car parked outside or tracking down a place to sleep. Already the sun was melting over the treetops.
Instead, she saw only the fine details of wood and plaster, intent on capturing them on film.
Concentrating on her documentation, she didn’t notice the tall shadow which separated from the darkness of the front court.
Nor did she see the glittering eyes which scrutinized her, harder than burnished steel.
“Nice…very nice,” a hard voice growled. “And it’s about bloody time you got here.”
Her breath checked, Kacey spun about.
He stood well over six feet, broad-shouldered and lean, eased into a battered tweed jacket and form-fitting charcoal trousers. His face was a fascinating play of angles and shadows in the darkness of the stables.
His eyes smoldered.
Dangerous, she thought dimly, sensing an aura of power about him that fairly crackled.
And made her own skin tingle in response.
Frowning, Kacey tamped down her rioting pulse. “Who—” To her fury, she found she had to swallow before continuing. “Who are you? You nearly terrified me.”
The man continued to study her in silence, a lock of black hair fallen across his brow.
Her frown grew. “Lord Draycott? But I thought…” For the first time, Kacey noticed the faint silver scar running across the man’s cheekbone.
It gave him the cold look of a pirate—a modern-day pirate, the sort who would raid corporations rather than coastal settlements.
One dark brow slanted up, mocking her.
The sight made Kacey lift her chin and stare back coolly, her green eyes glittering.
“Don’t let them intimidate you, love,” Cassandra had warned her back in New York. “These wretched bluebloods will walk all over you if you give them half a chance. Don’t forget, it’s still the sixteenth century as far as they’re concerned.”
Only Kacey wasn’t about to be any man’s doormat.
Her lips tight, she shot him a challenging look. “I’m K. C. Mallory. Cassandra Edwards sent me.”
The man’s expression did not change. “Cassandra Edwards?” He seemed to find the name unfamiliar.
His voice was dark silk, and it made Kacey’s skin tighten and prickle. The sight of that dark hair shadowing his open collar was doing equally strange things to her pulse.
Get a hold of yourself, Kacey girl.
“I’ve come about the—” She started to say “the Whistler,” then recalled that Lord Draycott had stipulated that the project be kept totally secret. “About the research work,” she finished carefully.
His eyes slid from her windblown hair to the tips of her boots, missing no detail. Finally his full lips curved in the ghost of a smile.
“Nice. Yes, very nice, indeed. I shall have to thank—Cassandra, did you say her name was?” He moved a step closer, his face made even leaner by the shadows.
“Cassandra Edwards,” Kacey repeated impatiently, trying to ignore the sudden trip beat of her heart. She saw his lips tense in a hard line, as if he were struggling to retain his control.
Dimly, Kacey found herself wondering just what it would take to make him lose that control, to melt the ice in those wintry eyes. She shivered slightly, her pulse jerky. “You are Lord Draycott, aren’t you?”
“Does it matter?”
Kacey frowned. What was wrong with the man, anyway? “I’d like an answer. Now. If you are not Lord Draycott, then I’m wasting my time here.”
“Oh, you’re not wasting your time, my dear. I assure you of that.” Smiling, the man moved a step closer, so close now that Kacey could feel the heat of his hard body. “The Cassandra Edwards in New York, is it, by any chance?”
“Of course it is. She received your cable last—” Kacey had time for no more. Somehow his fingers were cradling her face, his thumb tracing the curve of her cheek.
She froze. “What do you think you’re—”
“First things first, my dear,” he murmured, moving closer, so that she felt his heat in earnest, along with the barely unleashed power of his lean body.
Until she wanted to feel much, much more.
What in the name of heaven was happening to her?
As she stumbled away from him, his lips quirked in a mocking challenge. “I shall have to assess your qualifications before we talk business, my dear.”
Kacey took another step back. Her pulse was wild, her heart slamming against her ribs. Something was very, very wrong here.
“Cassandra sent my vita ages ago,” she snapped. “Or are you having second thoughts because I’m a woman?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t have it any other way, my dear,” he said silkily.
Their eyes locked, slate-gray to jade-green. The force of the contact was enough to make her jump.
Kacey’s jaw set in a mutinous line. The man was a bastard, no mistake about it, but this job was too important to risk losing. Steady, kiddo. Show him that it takes a damn sight more than one insolent Englishman to frighten you away!
She was just getting ready to tell him so when his hand curved around her shoulder, slipping deep into the warm hair at the back of her neck. Her eyes widened in shocked inquiry. She tried to speak, but her throat was suddenly too dry.
“Very nice indeed,” he murmured. “Kacey, did you say your name was? Let me see—personable. Intelligent. Open to new ideas. Everything I requested. You are all those things, aren’t you?” His voice, just beside her ear, was low and darkly intimate, as if they were sharing a private joke.
“Yes, I suppose so,” Kacey began impatiently. “But—”
And then his mouth came down on hers, darker than the shadows gathering through the stable. As electric as the bright, jagged bolts playing out over the channel.
As fiercely erotic as any of those forbidden thoughts she had been trying so hard to ignore.
His mouth opened, urgent and persuasive, demanding a response. And somehow Kacey gave it, her lips softening beneath his.
His breath hissed out in a hot growl of triumph.
He wanted her, she thought dimly.
And, dear God, she wanted him to want her. Suddenly it seemed as if her whole life had been no more than a prelude to this moment.
She didn’t move, dizzy with shock. What was happening to her? For wild heartbeats, she stood paralyzed beneath his touch, aware of a thousand different sensations at once.
The cold still air on her face and neck.
The lingering smell of hay and old leather. The distracting tickle of his tweed collar against her neck.
And always there was the raw awareness of the man himself. His mouth hot against hers. His fingers, powerful and demanding, where they teased her neck to electric awareness. His restless tongue exploring the locked barrier of her lips.
He moved over her like a man with a mission, and dimly Kacey realized that right now she was the mission.
She caught back a moan. Suddenly she was dizzy and spinning and nothing else in the world mattered but that he stop.
And that he never stop.
His ribs crushed her chest, and his taut thighs backed her against the wall. She blinked, stunned by the hardness of his body pressing against her softness.
A raw, choked moan escaped her dry throat. Was she mad? She drew her palms up to his chest, meaning to push him away.
But he caught the sound of her moan between his open lips and answered with a hoarse groan of his own. He seemed to sense exactly where to skim her neck to drive her wild, exactly how to stroke her tongue until she was shivering with need.
And somehow Kacey seemed to know the same. How to smooth the hard, corded muscles at his shoulders. How to feather her fingers through the black hair at his temples. How much he enjoyed it when she tightened her lips around his restless tongue and drew a ragged moan from him in turn.
Not if, but when. As if she’d done this all a thousand times before.
Her fingers tensed at his chest. But you have touched him like this before, a dark voice whispered. And he’s touched you just the same. Until you begged him for more—much more—than this.
Dark, heated images swept over her.
Images of hard thighs and soft, yielding hips.
Images of his long fingers, sure and urgent, feathering over her naked thighs, parting her softness. His body rising over her.
Kacey’s breath caught in a ragged gasp. Madness!
“St-stop!” she hissed, even then feeling the pull of those erotic images. She balled her hands into fists and shoved desperately at his chest. “Let—let me go!”
Enchantment & Bridge of Dreams Page 2