Bewitching Hour

by Stuart, Anne

  Even through the blowing and drifting snow he didn’t have any trouble finding the old white farmhouse that held the society’s headquarters. It was already decorated for Christmas—tiny white lights outlined ever multi-panel window, and a massive wreath covered most of the front door. A single light was burning in the front of the building, with more in the back, and one snow-covered Subaru was parked out front. At least the secretary had stayed to welcome him. What was her name—Sybil something? He knew just what to expect. Some wispy spinster in her fifties, with filmy trailing garments, vague eyes and the IQ of a toaster. He pulled the Jaguar to a stop and had the distinctly unpleasant experience of having it slide two feet more until it bumped gently against the snowy retaining wall. With a savage curse, he turned off the key and bounded out into the night air.

  The door was unlocked. For a moment he just stood inside the hall, letting the heat and light surround him. There was no one in the darkened office, but he could hear music from the back of the building. Or at least, he thought it might be music. Shaking the snow off his head, he ducked under the low doorway and headed toward the noise.

  SYBIL SAT BACK on her heels, surveying the display of dowsing rods with a critical air. Her last order had definitely been misguided—pendulums with shiny glass ornaments instead of steel pointers were distracting. She liked the traditional small brass ones best—they could fit in someone’s purse and be ready for any likely occurrence, but they didn’t fit the rack she’d built for the longer, L-shaped rods, and she didn’t want them just huddled together on the counter. She picked up a pair, hefting them lightly in her hands. She had somewhat better luck with rods than with pendulums, but not much.

  With a sudden, uncanny movement the twin rods shifted to the right, moving with precision and coming to a full stop. Sybil’s brown eyes followed their path to discover they were pointing at a pair of snowy feet standing in the doorway. Slowly her eyes moved upward, way upward, past long, jeans-clad legs, past a fisherman knit sweater with melting snow glistening on it, way up to a face. She uttered a tiny sound of complete panic. She felt as if she were looking into the face of the devil himself.

  He was standing motionless, watching her, and the eerie stillness of his long, lean body added to the sensation. She stared back, mesmerized, unable to move. He had a narrow, dangerously beautiful face, with a thin, sensual mouth and the most disturbing eyes she’d ever seen. They were a golden topaz that seemed to glow with an unearthly light as they stared down at her. His hair was black, unfashionably long, and he had a widow’s peak in front. His eyebrows were equally black and sharply defined, emphasizing those strange, otherworldly eyes. He stood there without saying a word, and those eyes seemed to hypnotize her.

  She stared up at him, unmoving, and gulped.

  “I suppose you’re Sybil.” The vision shimmered, altered, moved and dissolved. The man standing in the doorway walked into the room, and she could see that he was only a man after all, albeit a good-looking one. Also an extremely bad-tempered one. “Don’t they ever salt the roads around here? I’ve been sliding on sheer ice for the last thirty miles.”

  “Salt is bad for the environment,” she said absently. “Yes, I’m Sybil Richardson. Who are you?” It was a stupid question. She didn’t need psychic powers to guess, and to know that all her previous suppositions had been dead wrong.

  “Nicholas Fitzsimmons. You were expecting someone else on a night like this?” he snapped. Even in temper it was a charming voice, she had to admit that. Low-pitched, musical, as mesmerizing as his golden eyes had been, except those eyes were so bad-tempered and blazing they no longer had any effect on her except irritation.

  “Hope springs eternal,” she said cheerfully, dropping the brass rods back onto the shelf and rising to her full height. On top of everything else her entire family was taller than she was, most of them topping five feet ten, and the lean giant in front of her brought out her usual feelings of inadequacy. A short, sweating hunk was what she wanted, she added to herself. “I’m sorry about the roads, but as I expect you realize, they’re not my fault.”

  For a moment he seemed to collect himself. “No, you’re right,” he said grudgingly. “They’re not your fault.”

  “Besides,” she added with a trace of mischief, “they’re not really that bad.”

  “When were you last out, Miss Richardson?” he demanded in a voice as icy as Route 15.

  “An hour ago,” Sybil lied blithely.

  “Then why were there no tire tracks in the snow?”

  She grinned. “I did what I always do in bad weather, Mr. Fitzsimmons. I levitated.”

  “Very funny,” he said sourly.

  Finally Sybil took pity on him. “You’ll get used to them sooner or later,” she said, flicking off the lights and moving toward him, forcing herself not to react to his intimidating height. “And you’ll feel better after you’ve eaten.”

  He was still watching her warily. “Deke Appleton said you’d make arrangements for me?”

  She smiled, only a twinge of guilt marring her composure. “And I have. First you’re coming to a meeting of our psychic group. It’s the best way for you to meet everyone, and we’re having a potluck supper so you’ll be well fed. You’ll be spending the night at Deke’s, and tomorrow we’ll get you settled into the old Black Farm.”

  “What’s wrong with the old Black Farm?”

  She looked up at him. She was sure her voice had sounded completely normal when she’d mentioned it. “Why, nothing at all. It’s got all the amenities, including electric heat if you get tired of dealing with the wood stoves. You’ll be very comfortable.”

  He just looked at her, and those topaz eyes glowed slightly in the dimly lit room. “Maybe,” he said. His voice sounded low, sexy and very skeptical.

  Sybil, remembering the Black Farm’s history, merely smiled.

  Chapter Two

  THE TEMPERATURE had dropped drastically since earlier in the day, and Sybil shivered as she pulled her down coat closer around her, ducking her head as she stepped outside. The temperature had to be down in the teens, and the snow was falling at an unpleasantly enthusiastic rate. She looked at the sleek, beautiful lines of the Jaguar sedan and gave an audible sniff.

  “No wonder you slid all the way,” she said. “You need something a little more prosaic on these roads.”

  “Like that?” His tone of voice as he gestured to her aging Subaru was as contemptuous as hers had been.

  “It’ll get you where you want to go,” she replied, sweeping the drifts of snow off the windshield. “Which is more than I can say of yours.”

  With an effort her unwelcome visitor controlled his temper, but she could see the irritation sweep across his handsome face. Good, she thought, ignoring her spasm of guilt. If he could be argumentative and bad-tempered then so could she.

  “Would you care to place a small bet on it?” he said evenly.

  “Nope. Deke lives on a back road and I don’t want to spend hours digging you out of whatever snowdrift your elegant car chooses to slide into. You’ll have to drive with me. We’re late anyway, and the group likes to get started promptly during the winter months so everyone can get home early.”

  “Then you admit the roads are bad.”

  “Of course I do. We treat the weather and the roads with the respect they’re due. We don’t try to drive too fast in cars that are unequipped for the weather. I bet you don’t even have snow tires.”

  “All-weather radials.”

  She shook her head. “Not good enough. Steve at the garage can fix you up with studded snows. That is, if you’re still planning to stay for a while.”

  “I’m planning to stay,” he said in a deceptively even voice. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

  She gave him her dazzling smile, and for a second he looked startled, blinking those extrao
rdinary eyes of his. “Oh, I’m not disappointed,” she said. “I think you’ll end up being quite entertaining. The cat among the pigeons, and all that.”

  “I aim to please,” he said.

  “I find that very unlikely,” she said frankly. “I happen to have read your books, and your reactionary views aren’t going to be very welcome. But winters are long and boring around here, and you’ll provide fodder for some good arguments if nothing else.”

  “I’m glad I have my uses.”

  “Get in the car,” she said, scraping the ice off the windshield. “Just dump the papers in the back seat.”

  He opened the door. “What about the soda cans littering the floor?” he demanded.

  “Kick ’em out of the way. Deke’s farm is only three miles away—you won’t even notice them.”

  “Don’t you want to start warming up the car?”

  “It wastes gas. We try to be energy-conscious around here.” He was shivering slightly as he slid into the front seat, and for a moment Sybil took pity on him. With an effort she hardened her heart. Nicholas Fitzsimmons mocked everything she held dear; she was damned if she was going to welcome him into her world just because he was the best-looking man she’d ever seen in her life.

  Besides, it wouldn’t matter. The moment he set those wonderful topaz eyes on Dulcy he’d be lost, and Sybil Richardson would be relegated to the status of a sexless maiden aunt. She’d seen it happen too many times, and it failed to disturb her. It wouldn’t bother her this time, either. Dulcy would know just how to handle him; Sybil wasn’t sure that she could.

  She climbed into the driver’s seat, turned the frozen key that she’d left in the ignition and listened to the engine’s customary whine of protest. Nicholas Wyndham was shivering beside her, his long arms were wrapped around his torso and his teeth were clenched. She turned the key again, and once more the engine chugged, sputtered and died.

  “Third time’s the trick,” she said, turning it again. It caught, rumbled ominously and died.

  “Why don’t you dowse it and find out what’s wrong?” Nicholas said cynically, the effect ruined by his chattering teeth.

  “Good idea,” Sybil said, whipping off her glove and running her fingers on the dashboard.

  “What in God’s name are you doing besides courting frostbite?”

  “Dowsing. You can find all sorts of things besides water, you know. I run my fingers over any smooth surface and if it sticks the answer’s yes.”

  “Or else your fingers have frozen to the dashboard,” he snapped.

  She ignored him. “Nope, the car’s okay,” she said, putting her glove back on. She turned the key once more and the engine zoomed into life. They sat there for a long moment, both of them listening intently. “What did I tell you?” she said proudly.

  “Where’s the heat?”

  “It won’t do any good to turn it on yet. It’ll just blast cold air on your feet.”

  “Cold air is already blasting on my feet,” Nicholas said. “Turn the damned thing on.”

  “It’s your funeral.” She turned the blower on high, shoved the stubborn gear into reverse and backed out onto the icy road.

  They drove in a silence only marred by the sound of Nicholas’s chattering teeth. Sybil’s guilt finally got the better of her. “I have a blanket in the back,” she offered.

  “No, thanks. I like freezing to death,” he said with mock politeness. “Did you say you were taking me to Deke’s?”

  “Only for the night. He and Margaret are leaving for Europe tomorrow. It’s a shame, too. Besides being the president of the SOWWs . . .”

  “Sows?”

  “Society of Water Witches. SOWWs for short. Anyway, Deke’s a water dowser, or water witch—right up your alley. You’ll get along like a house on fire.”

  “At least I’d be warm,” he muttered. “So what’s this psychic group we’re going to? Is it part of the SOWWs?”

  “Yes and no. All the members of the group are members of the SOWWs, and they all believe in dowsing. But half of the society doesn’t believe the stuff we’re into. New Age stuff, like earth energies, sacred geometry, past-life regressions, trance mediums, Wicca, nature religions.”

  “Nature religions like witchcraft?” he asked.

  She steeled herself for his disapproval. “White witchcraft,” she corrected. “And Native American religions. That sort of thing.”

  “You’re a bunch of dangerous idiots,” he said calmly enough.

  The red haze of fury that formed in front of Sybil’s eyes almost obscured the icy road. “And you’re an opinionated asshole.”

  She felt rather than saw the meditative smile that lighted up his dark face. “As long as we have that clear in our minds.”

  “Quite clear.”

  “You do realize that I find you as infuriating as you find me?” he inquired as Sybil slid to a stop in the crowded driveway of the brightly-lit house.

  “That’s some consolation,” she said sweetly, turning off the car. She turned to face him in the darkness, about to order him out into the cold, when she stopped, motionless, astonished. The heat had never come on during the short ride, and her breath was a billow of icy vapor that rose and met his, mingling with it in the confines of the old Subaru. She stared at the clouds of breath in front of her, watching them entwine and tangle like two lovers, and a frisson of premonition ran over her backbone.

  She met his eyes. He looked almost as startled as she did, and his breath, his mouth, moved suddenly closer.

  “What are you doing?” she whispered, not moving, not backing away.

  He stopped within millimeters of her, and she could feel the warmth of his breath in the cold car. “I’m not sure,” he said in an equally soft voice. “I’m either making a pass at you or trying to intimidate you. Maybe both.”

  “Either way it’s a lost cause,” she said, believing it.

  “Oh, I’m not so sure . . .” He moved closer, but this time she did move, ducking out of his reach and out of the door before he could make contact.

  “Bring those papers with you, will you?” Her voice sounded admirably calm. She kept her pace modest, decorous, as she headed for the front door, and he caught up with her before she made it.

  “I don’t suppose there’ll be something hot and strong in there?” he asked, and the moment in the car might never have existed.

  “Herb tea or hot cider.”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of coffee and whiskey.”

  “Drugs cloud the mind and affect your psychic concentration,” she said.

  “I have no psychic concentration. I just have a frozen body.”

  “I’m sure Deke will take pity on you.”

  “I don’t know if there’s any pity in the entire state of Vermont,” he said morosely, following her into the light and warmth of the crowded old farmhouse. Sybil made no reply.

  She could never enter Deke and Margaret Appleton’s place without a sense of disorientation. On the outside it was the perfect, rustic Vermont farmhouse, with narrow, white-painted clapboards and green shutters, a tin roof to repel the snow and cozy little dormer windows placed at haphazard angles. Inside it was pure Scarsdale, imported by the Appletons when they retired from their suburban New York home. From the baby-blue wall-to-wall carpeting that always got tracked with mud, salt and snow, to the beige chintz sofas that always picked up every trace of dog hair clinging to Sybil’s clothing, to the spindly little Chippendale bamboo chairs that looked as if they wouldn’t safely hold anyone over forty-five pounds and were now obscured beneath several two-hundred-pound-plus Vermonters, it was elegant, downstate and impractical.

  Margaret Appleton had resisted the impulse to put up her Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving, as far too many Vermonters had begun doing, b
ut there were a few tasteful touches—a papier-mâché reindeer and sleigh on the mantel, some artfully arranged evergreens in a copper vase. Cat spruce, Sybil thought, wrinkling her nose at the litter-box smell. Trust a flatlander not to know the difference between balsam and its smelly cousin.

  There was a good crowd tonight, despite the weather, she realized with a start of nervousness. The smells that filled the house were wonderfully down-home in contrast to the upscale luxury—the baked beans that were de rigueur for any potluck dinner, spicy chili and Leona’s latest concoction, which always tasted of rosemary no matter what she cooked. The scent of the mulled cider mingled with the wood smoke and the faint, lingering trace of wet wool slowly drying in the warmth of the overheated house. She gave Nicholas a glance in time to see him wrinkle the nose that was just as aristocratic as she had imagined. Maybe she had more psychic ability than she thought. She certainly knew he’d have that disdainful nose. She just hadn’t realized it would come with such a handsome face, such amazing eyes

  “Too many people,” she muttered to a surprisingly patient Nicholas. “Let’s find the kitchen.” Without thinking she took his hand to pull him from the crowded, noisy room. It was a mistake—she wasn’t used to touching men, and his hand was cool and strong beneath hers, but not for anything would she back off. She pulled him into the gleaming modern kitchen, shut the door behind them and leaned against the granite countertop with a sigh of relief.