Just as she waited?
Forget him, will you!
Suppressing an irritated sigh, she carried the bulky painting to a chair near the window. Carefully, she tilted it back to catch the full rays of the midmorning sun. Despite modern technology, there was simply nothing like natural sunlight to reveal faint details in painting.
The canvas was clearly fragile, weakened by the hard treatment Whistler was famous for meting out to his paintings. Never content with a single stroke, he often scoured the cloth, digging with brush and file to soften the background for the muted subtlety he prized.
But a few hours of exposure would not harm this one, Kacey decided. There seemed to be little damage beyond a slight buckling of the wooden struts and some crackling of the paint near the signature. In several spots, the pigment appeared to be losing tone—a constant problem with works by Whistler, who grandly ignored every rule of chemistry and artistic practice in mixing his colors.
Her green eyes lit with excitement, Kacey pulled out her jeweler’s loupe. There by the window she knelt and began meticulously inspecting the canvas, inch by inch.
KACEY WAS STILL HUNCHED in that same position two hours later when Marston came to inquire if she would care to take tea downstairs.
At first his soft question did not register.
She blinked, squinting through the small frame of the magnifying lens. The question came again.
Frowning, Kacey looked up, her eyes vague and confused. Only then did she register the butler’s presence. Slowly she sat back, rubbing her sore back and shoulders. Unfortunately, she had discovered long ago that aching muscles were an occupational hazard for a restorer.
Yes, it was definitely time for a break, she decided, trying to fight the excitement bubbling up inside her. The pigments were of the correct composition, range, and period; the canvas preparation appeared entirely in keeping with Whistler’s practice. With any luck at all, this just might turn out to be the lost Whistler she so hoped it was!
“Might I suggest the front salon?” the butler murmured as she tucked back a long strand of tawny hair and flexed her shoulders wearily. “That room is very pleasant this time of day, with the light reflected from the moat.”
A few minutes later, he pushed open a polished wooden door and stood back while Kacey entered a bright room filled with chintz, Chinese blue and white porcelain, and freshly cut flowers. At the center of the far wall, an unbroken expanse of leaded windows opened onto the glittering sweep of the lily-strewn moat and the dark woods beyond.
Kacey caught her breath at the beauty of the scene, moving to the window for a closer look.
Somewhere nearby, a telephone pealed shrilly.
A flicker of annoyance—and something more?—crossed the butler’s face as he excused himself to answer.
He returned far sooner than she’d expected. “You have a telephone call, Miss Mallory. You may take it across the hall in the library.”
Kacey followed him to a book-lined retreat whose French windows overlooked the rolling lawns to the south and the faint blue haze of the channel. Marston held out a telephone, then retired silently.
“Hello? This is Kacey Mallory.”
“Any luck?” It was a low dark murmur, just as if they’d picked up their conversation after a lapse of mere seconds.
“Luck?” Despite her firmest intentions, Kacey’s heart lurched uncomfortably. “Oh—you mean about the painting.” Of course Draycott meant the painting! “I’m afraid it’s far too soon to say anything definite. I thought I explained that to you this morning, Lord Draycott.”
“Nicholas.”
Kacey plunged ahead, ignoring him. “The choice of subject is quite acceptable, the brushwork extremely good. Masterful even. All of that is very promising, of course, but I must remind you that there are still any number of tests to be done—chemical analysis, canvas inspection, possibly even U-V photography.”
“Is it or is it not a forgery, Miss Mallory?” he asked impatiently. “Or aren’t you capable of telling me that?”
Kacey’s face went white with fury. “No, I can’t tell you that. Not yet, at least. No reputable appraiser could, without doing one or two tests. And anyone who tells you otherwise is a damn charlatan! Lord Draycott,” she added furiously.
A faint whisper of sound crossed the line. A sigh? And if so, was it of relief, of regret, or of exasperation?
“Very well,” the viscount said. “We dine at seven. Try to be prompt, if you please.” With that brusque utterance, the phone went dead in her hand.
Kacey put down the receiver, seething at this latest insult. She was still standing that way when the phone rang again.
So now he meant to apologize, did he? Her lips set in a line of sheer stubbornness. This was one apology she wasn’t going to miss!
She jerked the phone to her ear. “Draycott Abbey,” she purred.
Silence met her—five seconds, then ten.
“Hello?” Kacey repeated irritably. She was nearing the end of her patience with this infuriating man!
“Tell Lord Draycott that my patience is nearly at an end. He now has two days left.” It was a male voice, low and clipped.
English with a faint touch of something else, Kacey thought. “Two days? What do you mean?”
“Draycott will know what I mean. I wonder if he will die well. I shall enjoy finding out, I think. And…” There was the faintest calculated pause. “Enjoy your stay at the abbey, Miss Mallory.”
Kacey’s heart began to pound. The last two words were spoken slowly and very precisely, as if the person at the other end wanted to make it clear that he knew every detail of what went on at the abbey.
Was this Draycott’s thief? she wondered wildly. “Who—who is this?” The line went dead.
Her fingers gripped the receiver, white with tension. Suddenly Kacey felt painfully vulnerable and exposed.
Most of all, she found herself wishing that Nicholas Draycott was a great deal closer at hand.
TEATIME CAME AND WENT, then dinner. Lord Draycott was nowhere to be seen.
In the end, Kacey took her dinner on a tray in the long gallery, where she could enjoy the beauty of the golden-tinged Wealden Hills.
The food had been excellent, the setting exquisite. And yet she’d eaten almost nothing.
She returned to work, weary and on edge. Several times she spun about, certain she was being watched. But there was no one behind her—nothing but shadows.
And the taste of her own fear.
Finally, her nerves drawn taut as a bowstring, Kacey angled the mounted canvas back against the wall and stood up. So far, every detail had been absolutely accurate—the physical details, at least. Pigment, backing, canvas, and stroke detail—all appeared correct.
But most of all, the painting felt real. Of course, Kacey was wise enough to admit that she wanted the canvas to be genuine. And that was very dangerous, because experience had taught her that skepticism was her only true friend when it came to the exacting work she did.
A cool draft brushed her cheek, lifting a long strand of honey-gold hair. Kacey frowned, feeling her muscles throb in the aftermath of her meticulous work.
And yes, God help her, with expectancy and an excitement she could barely contain.
The laugh came at her ear, low and dark with triumph. “You just can’t keep away from it, can you, Kacey Mallory?”
CHAPTER SIX
KACEY WENT TOTALLY STILL, her fingers clenched on the wooden slats of the painting. Every muscle leaped to aching attention. Every inch of feminine skin flushed with tense awareness.
Until she could calm her rioting pulse, she refused to turn around.
But that just might be never, with this man around you, a mocking voice whispered.
His warm breath teased her neck, playing over her unbound hair. She felt the force of his silver eyes sweep over her, and the power of it made the tiny hairs at the back of her neck tingle.
“Go away,” Kacey said flatly. �
��I’m working, and you are most definitely bothering me.”
Draycott made a muffled noise somewhere between a laugh and a curse. Slowly he pulled the frame from her fingers, then tilted it to rest against an antique armchair with gilt legs.
What a ridiculous chair, Kacey thought, her eyes stubbornly glued to its spindly gold legs.
“Stand up, Kacey.”
She didn’t move.
“Look at me.” It was a husky growl.
She tried to ignore him. With every straining fiber of her body, she tried. But it was useless.
His hand fell to her shoulder, and the touch was like a jolt of raw energy. Kacey flinched, her muscles throbbing.
In places she shouldn’t even be aware of. In ways she shouldn’t be imagining.
The long fingers curved over her skin and then slowly tightened. As if he felt her stiffness, Nicholas began to smooth the taut muscles aching from a day of painstaking detail work.
His thumb hit a knot of angry, corded muscle. Kacey gasped softly. Instantly his fingers stilled. “Kacey? What is it?”
She wouldn’t face him. Somehow that would make this moment, these feelings, all too real.
Draycott’s mouth was at her ear. “Look at me, damn it! Tell me what’s wrong.”
As if in a dream, Kacey angled her head, staring up at him through a curtain of tawny lashes, her long legs tucked useless and immobile beneath her.
The sight of her creamy skin and wide, haunted eyes stunned Draycott, even though by now he should have become used to her beauty. But something told him he would never become used to the sight of her, nor ever take this woman for granted.
And then hunger was a tangible thing, a painful thing, twisting through every inch of his body. Suddenly he was restless and hungry.
For her. Somehow it had always been her, Nicholas Draycott thought dimly. “Did I hurt you?” he demanded.
Oh, you hurt me all right, Kacey thought. You hurt me the very first second I laid eyes on you.
Maybe even before.
“It’s—it’s my neck.” Her eyes fell, wide and smoky, riveted to his hard mouth. She blinked, trying to forget what it felt like to be flush against him, his lips hard and seeking. His body hot, hungry with need. “It—it always happens. When I work. No time. I—forget—”
She was babbling, but she couldn’t seem to stop. Besides, Kacey realized if she stopped she might do something really crazy.
Like pull him down to kiss her. Like comb her fingers through that dense black hair teasing her from the opening of his white shirt.
“Let me touch you, Kacey.” It was an urgent command, raw with infinite hunger.
Her heart slammed against her ribs. She couldn’t have spoken if she’d been drowning.
Which she was, suddenly. In the dark, hard textures of him. In the heated memories his closeness provoked.
Draycott smothered a curse. With one swift, fluid movement, he came down to kneel beside her, his slate eyes never leaving her face.
Beautiful cheeks, he thought dimly. Beautiful mouth. Beautiful everything. “Don’t worry—I’m simply protecting my investment,” he murmured, trying hard to believe it himself. Before she could protest, he pulled her between his thighs and drew her back against his chest. His fingers cupped her shoulders and dug smoothly at the knots of tension, splaying and contracting rhythmically. “You’re very expensive, Yank, in case you didn’t know it.”
Kacey’s eyes closed, then jerked open sharply as she fought the power of those masterful fingers. “Oh, I do—know it. But…something tells me—ummm—you’re very good at…protecting your investments.”
Draycott laughed huskily. Strong and certain, his hands played over her shoulders while pleasure lapped through her in drugging waves. “Tell me how it feels, Kacey.” His voice was a dark caress against the lobe of her ear.
“Good,” she whispered, barely realizing she’d spoken. “Too good.” Her eyelids fluttered down, and this time they did not reopen.
Nicholas’s mouth curved up. Soon I’ll make it feel even better, he promised silently.
His hands followed the slim line of her neck downward, picking out the exact inch of skin where a cluster of muscles screamed in agony. With practiced skill, he circled the tense center, gradually narrowing the circle. Long weeks in the hospital had taught him a great deal about physical suffering, after all. Now he knew all there was to know about pain and the thousand ways of releasing it. In the weeks after Bhanlai, physical therapy had helped him survive and restored his sanity.
“How did you know? Who…” With a sigh, Kacey gave up trying to talk, her question forgotten midsentence.
Draycott’s laugh was a dark, intimate thing. “You work too hard, Connecticut. It’s unhealthy, too much work, don’t you know that?”
Kacey’s eye cracked open. “Who—who told you I was from Connecticut?” she muttered.
Draycott’s fingers paused for a fraction of a second. “Your address was there in your letters of recommendation. I looked them over this morning.”
“Oh.” Kacey’s frown faded and her eyes closed once more. “And now I suppose you’re gong to tell me—ummm—that you’re the very person to teach me how to relax?”
Draycott’s smile widened. “However did you guess?”
She tried to scoff, to tense, to push him away. But she couldn’t, because his fingers were heaven itself. Dear God, her bones were turning to jelly, and Kacey realized she would do anything to ensure that he didn’t stop.
For the span of a heartbeat, he hesitated.
Her soft protest tumbled out before she knew it.
Even before that, Draycott had felt the exact moment she stopped fighting him. The instant her mind let down its barriers, and her body surrendered to his pleasure.
He knew, and the knowledge stabbed him with hot, primal, male triumph. First round to me, Kacey Mallory.
Her head fell back, cradled against his forearm and chest. Her breath escaped in a sigh—soft and husky and endlessly female.
Mine, Draycott thought. Every silken inch, every sweet sigh mine. And suddenly he felt a reckless need to make her sigh that way again. But this time with a woman’s pleasure.
At that moment, a high-pitched hum swept the room, followed by a faint click. A second later, every bulb in the long gallery flickered and went out.
The bloody power was out again, Draycott realized.
He looked down at the woman in his arms, his eyes already adapted to the darkness. Her eyes were closed, Draycott saw, her head tilted back. Her hair spilled like a warm honey cloud over his chest and shoulders.
Fire pooled heavy in his groin. He felt himself harden and swell with a passion he hadn’t known for months. But he didn’t move, wanting to savor the sweet, aching need.
She hadn’t noticed the sudden darkness, he realized. Right now, she felt nothing but the dark power of his kneading fingers. Right now, she was intensely vulnerable, infinitely female.
And that realization gave Nicholas Draycott stunning pleasure.
When her fingers moved a moment later, cupping his taut thigh, he felt it right down to the tip of his toes, right out to his fingernails, right up to the fevered pleasure centers of his brain.
So this is what it’s supposed to feel like, the hard-eyed Englishman thought in wonder.
Wanting—a thousand kinds of wanting.
Needing—in ways that hadn’t even been invented yet.
And through it all, feeling that somehow he had done all these things before.
He didn’t notice her stiffening until her breathless gasp caught him short. Suddenly her fingers were hard on his thigh—and this time she was pushing him away.
“L-let me go!”
“Kacey, don’t—”
“Right now, damn you!” She twisted back and stumbled to her feet, blind in the encompassing darkness. “You arrogant bastard! You misbegotten slime! What have you done with the lights?”
What have you done to me? Kacey
screamed inwardly.
Draycott’s jaw tightened. He had an advantage over her, knowing exactly where he was in spite of the darkness. Right now, for example, she was only inches from a sixteenth-century marquetry card table.
He smiled faintly, the movement a slash of white against the darkness. “I did nothing. The electricity’s merely gone out again. The construction teams nick a cable every few weeks. They’re in too much of a rush to bother reading utility maps.”
He heard her stumble, then curse beneath her breath. A moment later, the card table crashed to the floor.
“Aren’t you going to do something?” Kacey demanded irritably.
“I thought I was. And very nicely, too.”
He was laughing at her! Kacey thought. Damn the man! How could she have been so stupid as to trust him? To let him touch here, to allow herself to feel so—so safe in his arms?
It’s only lust, Katharine Chelsea. Only a matter of hormones. After all, it’s been almost a year since—
She closed her mind to that particular avenue of thought. “Well, if you want to sit here like a fool, then go ahead. But I’m going down to find a candle.”
“You’ll never make it in the dark.”
“Wanna bet?”
“It’s three flights down to the kitchen.”
“Ask real nice, and I might bring back a candle for you. No, on second thought—”
“You’d bloody well try it, wouldn’t you? And in the process, you’d stumble and break that stubborn neck of yours. Then, no doubt, you’d try to sue me for aggravated assault. No thanks—you’re going to stay right here while I go and get the candle. Then I’ll see you safely to your room. And you’ll damn well stay there until the power is restored.”
She heard him turn, his soft soles padding over the wooden floor.
Kacey’s fingers clenched into fists. The man was a complete throwback to the Dark Ages! “Now just wait one minute!” She started after him and promptly stumbled. The next second, she felt hard fingers grip her arm.
Enchantment & Bridge of Dreams Page 6