Bewitching Hour

by Stuart, Anne

  Right, her cynical brain replied. Stop looking for excuses and knock on the damned door. And raising her gloved hand, she did just that.

  It took him a moment to get there. She’d practiced all the things she planned on saying, rehearsed all the pithy little comments she intended to make. When he opened the door, tall and dark with the light behind him, his topaz eyes gleaming down at her, all conscious thought left her brain. She stood there, silent, staring, unable to shake the sudden, uneasy suspicion that she confronted a creature of the night.

  The creature of the night broke the silence. That fallen-angel grin lit his face, and he reached out and pulled her into the warmth and light. “Welcome to Carfax Abbey.”

  “You still don’t make it as Dracula,” she said, hiding the sudden shiver that swept over her backbone. She moved out of reach of those long, graceful hands of his. “Is this a bad time?”

  “A bad time for what?”

  “A bad time for a visit. I wanted to talk to you, and since your phone doesn’t work . . .”

  “Actually, it does. They fixed it late this afternoon. And you couldn’t have picked a better time for a visit—I just made some of an herb drink I found in an antique recipe book. You can be my first victim.”

  She gave him a long, suspicious glance before shrugging out of her down coat. “I don’t need anything. I won’t be staying long.”

  “You’ll be staying long enough to have a drink. Don’t be graceless, Saralee. You can certainly manage to be pleasant for an hour or so.” Once more he put his hands on her, warm, strong hands, and he pushed her gently in the direction of the living room. “Go in and have a seat and I’ll bring you your drink.”

  “Is that what you’ve been having?” she demanded.

  He smiled, a curiously mischievous smile, and she wondered, if she looked closely, whether she might discover fangs. “Cognac,” he replied. “A little too much, but it won’t do me any harm.”

  “Then I’ll have cognac too.”

  “Sorry, I drank it all.” He was lying; she knew it, but there was no way she could prove it. He gave her another gentle push toward the living room, the warmth and light spilling over into the darkened hallway.

  “Stop shoving,” she protested. “I’ll go along quietly.”

  “And you’ll drink my herb drink? It’s the least you can do when I keep you supplied with Tab.”

  She stopped inside the doorway, turning to stare up at him, all her suspicions aroused. He just smiled at her, with such sweet innocence that she knew she was in deep trouble. She could always run while he was getting his herb drink.

  But no, she wasn’t a coward, and she wasn’t going to let Nick intimidate her. She’d sit there, drink his damned drink and calmly, rationally, convince him that Leona had nothing to do with the recent raft of bankruptcies among the old ladies of Danbury. Then she’d leave, immune from any sort of attraction, and when she got home she’d give the pendulum to the dogs to eat.

  She smiled at him with equal innocence. “I’ll drink your herb drink,” she said. “As long as I don’t have to spend six months of the year underground.” Idiot, she told herself. When would she learn not to toss classical allusions around? People tended to look a her with glazed eyes when she did.

  “It’s not to Hell I’d be taking you, Persephone.” And his smile was downright demonic.

  Chapter Eight

  IT WAS AMAZING, the subtle changes someone’s presence wrought in a room, Sybil thought when Nick immediately disappeared. Already the living room of the Black Farm was altered, different, a chair pushed closer to the wood stove, books scattered on the coffee table, a sweater tossed over the back of the sofa. It looked and felt less like an empty house with an unhappy history and more like a home, and she could feel herself begin to relax. Damn the man!

  She perched gingerly on the edge of the chair nearest to the wood stove. For all the deceptive comfort of the place, she knew perfectly well she shouldn’t be there. Nick was up to no good, that much was clear, and his mysterious herb drink had something to do with it.

  Maybe it was just some of Leona’s rosemary wine, and he wanted to see whether it had some nefarious hallucinatory powers. Or maybe he had concocted a hallucinatory potion himself. She rose quickly when he entered the room, that seraphic smile on his wickedly gorgeous face, and the brown liquid in the tulip-shaped wineglass looked absolutely awful.

  “Here you go. I promise you, the stuff is completely innocent. It’s just a simple mixture of common herbs and a bit of vodka to bind it together.”

  She eyed it warily. “It’s a love potion, isn’t it?”

  His grin broadened. “My, my, you do have a high opinion of yourself, Saralee. Why should I want to ply you with a love potion?”

  She didn’t even blush. “Because you’ve got an odd sense of humor. You took the book of spells and potions home with you, Nick. I’ve read it from cover to cover, and the only potions of any interest are for love potions. Unless you’re trying to cure me of syphilis or help me conceive, I think you are probably fooling around with the aphrodisiac.”

  “Guilty. I looked interesting, and I thought you’d be a better subject than Leona,”. He said, shuddering slightly. “See, I’m being completely transparent about it.”

  She gave him a dubious look. If he was being one hundred percent honest then she was the Wicked Witch of the West. But she couldn’t imagine what his ulterior motives might be. It was hardly likely to be a sudden passion for her—after all, he’d rejected Dulcy. “It won’t work,” she said, her voice flat.

  “Let’s try it and see.” He moved closer, his tall body dwarfing hers.

  “I don’t have to try it. I made some up a long time ago and tried it then. Nothing happened. Besides, it tastes very nasty. Like liquid cigarettes.”

  “Humor me.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t imagine why you bothered doing it. You’re the great skeptic—compared with you I’m Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, and even I don’t believe in love potions.”

  Nick set the glass down on the mantel, reaching around her, and for a moment she felt trapped. And for a moment it felt good. When he moved away she released her pent-up breath, silently, so that he wouldn’t hear it. “I was curious. Bored, too. You accused me of having a closed mind earlier today and I wanted to prove you wrong. Just a little experiment in the name of science.”

  The man was wicked. “Messing around with antique spells isn’t going to prove me wrong, it’s just going to prove a waste of time.”

  He smiled, a slow, devilish smile. “So if it’s harmless, ineffective and a waste of time, you won’t mind trying it. Unless you’re afraid it might work.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, then shut it again. “Okay,” she said finally. “I’ll drink some. Then I want to talk about what I came over here for.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Leona and your outrageous suspicions.”

  “I don’t want to talk about Leona,” he said flatly. “She bores me.”

  “Then I can leave right now.” She started to move, but he reached out and caught her, his strong hands a deceptively gentle restraint.

  “Okay, we’ll talk about Leona, and you can tell me how pure and innocent and kindly she is.”

  “She is!”

  “I’m sure,” he said. “But we’ll talk about it after we try my experiment.”

  Sybil sighed. “Okay. Hand me the potion.”

  “Not yet. We have to do this in a scientific manner.” He was standing very close to her. He hadn’t yet released her arms, and his eyes had a gleam that made her very nervous.

  She swallowed once, wishing she could move back, away from him, unwilling to let him know how he affected her—particularly since she wasn’t sure herself. “Okay, we’ll do it in a scientific mann
er.”

  “We need a basis for comparison.”

  “How do you plan to do that?”

  He smiled. “Simple. I’ll kiss you before you drink the potion and we’ll see how you respond. Then I’ll kiss you after the potion.”

  “You’ll what?” Her voice came out in a shriek, and she cleared her throat. Why did she let this man get to her? “But I don’t want to kiss you!”

  He raised an eyebrow, but he was smart enough not to dispute it. “Science, remember? You can take one for the team.”

  “What if the potion works? I may fling you to the floor, rip off your clothes and have my wicked way with you.”

  “You might do that anyway, thanks to my overwhelming magnetism and sheer sexual prowess.”

  “Nick . . .” Her voice was a warning.

  “Stop arguing. This is for the sake of pure science. If you get unruly I can slap you down.” His hands slid up her arms, pulling her closer, so that she was within inches of him. For a moment she panicked, struggling, and his hands were very strong. “What’s the matter, Saralee?” he whispered, his breath warm and sweet on her upturned face. “Afraid I’ll be irresistible?”

  She stopped her useless struggles. “Not likely. Do your worst, then.”

  “I have every intention of doing my best.” His mouth descended, touching hers, briefly, gently, a mere flirtation of a kiss that left her astonishingly aroused and longing for more. She kept her eyes open, looking up into his golden ones with more than faint mistrust.

  She started to pull away, but he still held her firmly. “That was just to get you used to the idea,” he murmured, a thread of laughter in his voice. Pulling her into the warmth of his body, he kissed her again.

  She tried to keep her mouth closed against his, but it was a losing battle. Slowly, seductively his tongue reached out, breaching her defenses, slipping into her mouth, invading her, possessing her, as his hands molded her suddenly pliant body against his. He tasted of brandy, she thought as her eyelids fluttered closed. He tasted of love. And she moved her hands up to rest against his shoulders, and her fingers clutched at him.

  She would have liked to think that she had been the one to pull away, but she doubted it. After all, it had been more than three years since she’d been kissed like that. Hell, maybe she’d never been kissed like that. When she opened her eyes she was standing alone, and despite the roaring fire in the wood stove she was cold.

  “Ready for the potion?” he inquired innocently.

  She looked at him. He appeared totally unmoved by that kiss, he just stood there, waiting patiently. But when she looked closer she noticed the rapid rise and fall of his chest. It would have been too crass to let her eyes drop lower, but while she had been concentrating on what he was doing to her mouth, the rest of her body still felt the imprint of his, and she was pretty sure she’d felt his interest.

  Two could play at that game, she thought. If it took every ounce of her ability, she could appear undisturbed, too. She smiled coolly. “Ready.” She stepped toward him, taking the wineglass from his hands and holding it to her lips.

  It looked like weak tea with cigarettes crumpled in it. It would probably taste worse. “Here’s mud in your eye,” she said deliberately, toasting him with the glass. She took a cautious sip.

  “You’ve got to have more than that,” he protested when she grimaced in distaste.

  “How much more?”

  “Half the glass at least.”

  “Nick . . .”

  “For the sake of science.”

  She looked up at him suspiciously. When it came right down to it, if she didn’t drink the nasty stuff he’d have no reason to kiss her again. And she very much wanted another kiss—just one, and then she’d stop. Surely one more couldn’t hurt her.

  She took a deep gulp, drinking most of it, then handed him the glass. “For the sake of science,” she said, shuddering. She graced the glass of water he proffered and drank it down quickly to get the taste from her mouth.

  “You want to sit down for this one?” he inquired, setting the glass on the mantel.

  “You think you’re going to sweep me off my feet?” she responded, still fighting. “I’m afraid it’s not working. I’m still wonderfully impervious to your charm.”

  “Sure you are, Sybil. So why don’t you sit down so we can do a proper job of this?”

  She managed, just managed, to emit a long-suffering sigh before sinking down on the sofa. She spoke no more than the truth—she wasn’t overcome with any sudden upsurge of uncontrollable lust. She’d been suffering from that from the second time he kissed her.

  He sat down beside her, very close, a light of humor and something else in those hypnotic eyes. His hands were warm and strong as they reached out and touched her neck, cradling her head, his long fingers stroking her jaw. He must have felt the trembling in her pulses; there was no way he could have missed it.

  “What I don’t understand,” she murmured, putting off the inevitable, “is why you bothered trying this on me. Why not on Dulcy, or someone more amenable?”

  “If I tried it with someone more amenable, it wouldn’t be much of a test, would it?” His thumbs were tracing the line of her lips, a gentle, erotic caress.

  “No, I suppose it wouldn’t.” she agreed, trying to sound prosaic. Her voice came out breathless, her lips moving against his thumbs were a tentative kiss. “But I would have thought you’d at least try it with someone you really wanted.”

  His eyes were dancing with humor and something more. Something even Sybil had to recognize, whether she wanted to or not. “Oh, Saralee,” he said, his voice soft, “what makes you think I don’t want you? I don’t know if I’ve ever wanted anyone so much in my life.” And before she had a chance to do more than open her mouth in astonishment he pushed her down on the sofa, his mouth taking hers.

  A white hot spasm of longing swept over her, one so intense that it almost hurt. Her hands reached out to pull him closer, her tongue touched his, shyly at first, then with renewed hunger, until all that existed were their mouths, twining, joining, thrusting and retreating, heat and love and desire all tumbled together. Somewhere in the back of her brain Sybil reached for sanity, trying to tell herself that it was simple hormones, it had nothing to do with magic potions, nothing to do with a man she was sure she disliked. He simply knew how to kiss, and she was normal enough to respond. She told herself that as she clung to him, fighting a sexual response that was nothing but trouble.

  Just when the last bit of her control was about to shatter, just as she was about to do what she’d joked about and rip off his clothes, he pulled his mouth away, mere inches, far enough for her to catch her breath, far enough for her to reach for the fast disappearing traces of common sense.

  “What do you think?” he whispered, his voice husky. “Did it work?”

  She was stretched out on the sofa, and he was lying half beside her, half on top of her. The weight of him was hot and strong, arousing and protecting, and she wanted to pull him all the way over her, into her. She could feel his heart racing against hers, feel the hardness of him pressed against her hip, could see the fierce look of desire he was trying so hard to keep from his eyes. And she knew she must look even more vulnerable.

  She took a deep breath. “Nope,” she said.

  He moved so quickly she was taken by surprise. One moment she was cradled in his arms, in the next she was lying alone on the couch, chilled by the sudden withdrawal of his heat and strength. He was over by the mantel, and his eyes were hooded.

  He shrugged. “It was worth a try. Guess we won’t market it quite yet.”

  She sat up, pulling her clothes together with hands that trembled. She supposed he could see that she was shaken; he probably knew perfectly well that she was lying. It didn’t matter. He’d chosen to let her be,
and his insistence that he really wanted her had been just one more manipulative trick.

  “Want some coffee?” he said casually, as if the last five minutes hadn’t taken place. “It’ll only take me a moment.”

  She rose, giving him a regal smile that was only slightly lopsided. “No, thank you. I think I’ve had quite enough stimulation as it is.”

  He paused. “You found it stimulating?”

  She met his gaze fearlessly. “You do know how to kiss,” she said. “I certainly grant you that much. You just aren’t much of a potion maker.”

  He nodded. “Would you like some cognac, then?”

  “I thought you said you drank it all.”

  “I lied.”

  So did I, she thought with just a trace of mournfulness. “No, thank you.”

  He grinned then. “Another shot of love potion?”

  “Don’t push it,” she warned. “I think I’d better just go home.”

  “I thought we were going to talk about Leona?”

  “I don’t feel like it now.”

  “Why not? I thought you were impervious to my charms.”

  “I’m impervious,” she said. “I’m just tired. I’m sure by Monday you’ll realize your suspicions were all ridiculous.”

  “Monday? Is the office closed on the weekend?”

  “It is. I’m sure you’ll find something to entertain you. Maybe you could try coming up with a cure for constipation out of that book.”

  “For those of a dangerously costive disposition? I might have a hard time finding a guinea pig.”

  “If you do with that book what I’d like to suggest you do with it,” Sybil said sweetly, “then you can practice on yourself.”