Bewitching: His Secret Agenda

by Carla Neggers

  He grunted and waved a hand. “I knew that days ago.”

  “Do you hate me for being a Marsh?”

  “Nope. I don’t trust you, but I don’t hate you.”

  A fine distinction. Hannah let it pass.

  “Be stupid to trust you,” Jonathan added.

  “I suppose, given the history of our two families, that’s not unreasonable. Also given my own behavior. I’m leaving Boston today—”

  “Win know?”

  She bristled. “Why should he?”

  “I didn’t say he should or shouldn’t,” the old man replied, matching her gruffness. “Just asked if he did.”

  “No. I haven’t seen him since last night.”

  “You going to tell him?”

  “I don’t see any reason to tell your nephew anything, and I didn’t come here to discuss him. I...” She frowned. “What are you looking at?”

  “You. Trying to figure you out. How come you go all snot-nosed professor when someone asks you a personal question?”

  “I’m not a professor.”

  He rocked back in his chair. “You and Win got something going?”

  “Mr. Harling...”

  “He threw me out last night after I started asking him personal questions. I do it all the time. Pride myself on being able to say anything I want to my own nephew, but I mentioned you, and out on my ear I went.” He folded his scrawny hands in his lap. “Must be you two got something going.”

  Only Hannah’s years of dealing with her exasperating Cousin Thackeray kept her from gaping at Jonathan Harling or throwing something at him. Or politely leaving. “Dr. Harling, I suspect your rather salty speech pattern is a total fake. You’re a scholar yourself.”

  He waved a hand dismissively.

  “Legal history. You taught at Harvard for fifty years.”

  “What, you writing a biography of me? I thought your only subjects were dead people.”

  She couldn’t suppress a smile. “You’re not dead yet.”

  “Glad you noticed.”

  “Look, I just came by to tell you I had nothing to do with yesterday’s break-in. I only wanted to look at the Harling Collection for research purposes. I didn’t know it might include a valuable copy of the Declaration of Independence. And I’m going home.” She climbed to her feet. “It’s been interesting meeting you. Should I send you a copy of my biography of Priscilla Marsh when it comes out?”

  He lifted his bony shoulders, clearly feigning disinterest. “If you remember.”

  “Oh, I’ll remember.”

  She told him not to bother seeing her to the door, but halfway there she felt his presence behind her and spun around. He was leaning on his cane, alert, still handsome in his own way. “Will you be mentioning Anne Harling?”

  “Who?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Yes, I did, but I’m not familiar...” She paused, searching her memory. “Cotton Harling’s brother was married to a woman named Anne, wasn’t he? She died before Priscilla was executed, as I recall.”

  “I’m talking about my great-aunt.”

  Hannah frowned, uncertain where he was leading her.

  “She never married. Lived in the Harling House on Louisburg Square until her death, late in the last century. Interesting woman. She’s the one who supposedly gathered the family documents together into the Harling Collection.”

  “I see,” Hannah said, although she didn’t.

  Jonathan smiled knowingly. “Her diary was stolen from this apartment yesterday.”

  His words only took a few seconds to penetrate. “Oh, my. And you think...it would seem logical that I...”

  “That you stole it, yes.”

  “But I didn’t.”

  “So you say.”

  “Win... Have you told your nephew?”

  “Told him last night.”

  And he hadn’t broken her door down at dawn to demand an explanation. Maybe he didn’t care nearly as much about her supposedly larcenous tendencies as much as he claimed. Or maybe hadn’t liked the idea of dragging her out of bed at the crack of dawn. With his blood boiling and hers about to boil, who knew where it would have lead?

  “I thought perhaps that was why you were leaving town,” Jonathan Harling said, looking decidedly smug.

  Hannah threw back her shoulders. “It isn’t.”

  “Win’s not going to scare you off, eh?”

  “Nobody will.”

  “Then you’re going to stay?”

  She felt Jonathan Harling’s trap snap shut around her and knew all she could do was wriggle and complain. Or chew her leg off. Figuratively speaking. “You haven’t left me any choice.”

  He grinned. “That was the whole idea.”

  * * *

  WIN WAS WAITING, slouching against Hannah’s apartment door, when she rounded the corner of Pinckney Street. He could hear her sharp intake of breath when she spotted him. His own reaction was more under control; he’d had a few extra seconds to adjust to her imminent presence. He watched her slow down, saw a wariness creep into her gait. He also noticed how her hair tangled in the afternoon wind and glistened in the bright sun.

  “I thought you’d be working,” she said, coming closer.

  “I left early.”

  “Is it costing you?”

  He smiled. “In more ways than you probably would want to know.”

  “Try me.”

  Oh, lady, he thought. “I’d better resist. Let’s just say I don’t take many afternoons off. Mind if I come in?”

  Without answering, she unlocked the heavy black door that led to the two basement apartments. The main entrance to the building was up the steps to their right, the first floor elevated, so that Hannah’s borrowed apartment was almost at ground level. She unlocked that door, too. The apartment was predictably small, cluttered with her laptop computer, index cards, spiral notebooks, folders, papers, books.

  “Look,” she began, going straight into the kitchen area and filling a kettle with water, “if this is about Anne Harling’s missing diary, I’ve already spoken to your uncle. He told me everything. I don’t know what happened to it. I honestly don’t. I didn’t steal it.”

  “Did he tell you she was the one who gathered together the Harling Collection?”

  She nodded, setting the kettle upon the stove. She dried her hands and headed back into the living area, where Win was clearly considering just where he might sit. Not one surface was free. She settled the matter for him, lifting a pile of folders from a chair and dropping them onto the floor. “Have a seat. Would you like tea?”

  “No, thank you.”

  What a life she must lead, he thought, sitting down. Steeped in the past. Inundated with books, documents, paper. Did she have friends? Romances? Or was her strength the past, not the present? He wondered about her and men.

  “I borrowed this place from a friend of mine. She’s taking my cottage on Marsh Point sometime this summer.” Hannah returned to the kitchen area, banging around as she pulled out a cup, saucer, strainer and teapot—anxious, he thought, to stay busy. “I can always stay with Cousin Thackeray if I can’t get away when she wants the place.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “Thackeray Marsh. He reminds me somewhat of your Uncle Jonathan.”

  “Lucky you,” Win said, amused.

  She laughed. “Thackeray would hang me out to dry for saying that. He’s not much on Harlings. But...” Her shoulders lifted, as if she couldn’t quite express her feelings. “I owe him.”

  “For what?”

  “Saving me.”

  And she yanked open the refrigerator, blocking Win’s view of her. She had said more than she’d meant to. More, certainly, than she felt he deserved to know. But it
wasn’t enough. He wanted to know more, everything.

  “You’re sure you don’t want tea? I can make coffee, too. I have one of those one-cup drip things.”

  “I’m fine. Thanks. How did your cousin save you, Hannah?”

  “After my mother died five years ago—my father was already dead—I found myself wanting to see Marsh Point, and I met him. He’s a historian, too. He understood me, knew I needed roots, a place to belong.” She shut the refrigerator door and glared at Win. “I won’t let you take Marsh Point away from him.”

  He said nothing. Her relationship with her cousin, he sensed, was much like his own with his uncle. What else might they have in common?

  She set about her tea making. Win hated the stuff himself, but any more coffee today and he’d spin off to the moon. After Hannah’s abrupt departure last night and Uncle Jonathan’s peculiar visit, Win had taken a long walk up and down the meandering streets of Beacon Hill, trying to piece his thoughts and feelings into some kind of rational whole. But there were too many variables, too many bizarre, uncontrollable longings. Back home, he’d slept for a couple of hours, but had been up again at dawn, making a pot of coffee, seeing Hannah Marsh with him in his kitchen, imagining them up together at dawn after a night of lovemaking. Wondering if she really was a lying thief.

  “So, why,” she said thoughtfully, carrying her tea into the living area, “do you think Anne Harling’s diary was stolen?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Come on. You have a dozen reasons why you think I stole it. I presume that’s why you’re here, to interrogate me on the possibilities.”

  “I’m here to talk to you. That’s all. No accusations, no offensive questions, just straightforward talk.”

  “We’ll be logical and rational.”

  He ignored her sarcasm. “Right.”

  “Is that what you tell your clients? Let’s be logical and rational about your financial portfolio?”

  “Sometimes. Other times logic and rationality aren’t at issue. Emotion is, wants and needs that go to the heart of a client’s being, what he or she is about, what makes them feel alive. Sometimes a client just needs my encouragement to go for the impulsive and outrageous.”

  “All in a day’s work, I suppose,” she said lightly, but he could see that his words had had an effect. Their kiss had been impulsive and maybe even outrageous. It was still on her mind, just as it was on his.

  She dropped to the floor and sat cross-legged amid her scattered research materials. Uncle Jonathan’s apartment hadn’t looked much worse than this yesterday, after it had been ransacked. But she seemed relaxed enough, setting her cup and saucer upon an enormous dictionary, muttering something about computer dictionaries just not being the same, no comparison. She ran her fingers through her hair, working out several small tangles.

  “If I were going to break into your uncle’s apartment specifically to steal Anne Harling’s diary,” she said, “don’t you think I’d have gone out of my way to make it look like a real robbery and stolen a bunch of other stuff?”

  “Not necessarily. You might have thought Uncle Jonathan wouldn’t miss the diary until too late, if at all. You might have thought he didn’t even realize he had it.”

  “Quite a risk.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. If Uncle Jonathan did realize the diary was missing, he would assume the other things had been taken as a smoke screen. If you were going to get caught, better with just an old diary in your possession than the family silver, so to speak.”

  “The ‘you’ here being a hypothetical you, not me.”

  He smiled. “Of course.”

  “So, the thief took a chance.”

  “Possibly.”

  “It’s also possible, wouldn’t you say, that the diary isn’t missing, that your uncle got rid of it years ago, or maybe never had it to begin with and just forgot.”

  “Obviously you don’t know Uncle Jonathan, but never mind. How do you explain the break-in?”

  She shrugged. “He’s on the first floor of a nice building. He, or someone else in his building, could have left the front door ajar, and our would-be thief took advantage. He got into your uncle’s apartment, pulled the place apart, didn’t find any ready cash or easily fenced valuables and took off, cutting his losses.”

  “Highly coincidental, don’t you think?”

  “Life is full of coincidences.” She drank some of her tea, watching him over the rim of her cup. “What’s so special about Anne Harling’s diary?”

  “Nothing, so far as I know. That’s the point. It’s what you think is special about it that’s important.” Win stretched his legs. “Suppose you believe it contains a clue as to what happened to the Harling Collection.”

  She shook her head. “Ridiculous. The Harlings being the Harlings, they’d have discovered the clue decades ago and skimmed off anything of value in the collection themselves.”

  “I can’t argue with that. But maybe it’s a clue you—”

  “Our thief.”

  “As you wish. Maybe you’re the only one who understands the significance of the clue.”

  “Pretty far-fetched.”

  “But the risk of breaking into Uncle Jonathan’s apartment would have to be worth the potential benefit. Don’t you agree?”

  “I still like my idea about it being a coincidence.”

  “That’s because it lets you off the hook.” Win rose and walked over to where she sat, looking so casual and honest with her cup of tea. So unselfconsciously sexy. He lifted a manila folder marked Puritan Hangings of the 1690s. Charming subject. “You’ve been steeping yourself in Marsh-Harling history for how long?”

  “I began work on Priscilla’s biography last September.”

  “And you’ve been in Boston over a week, immersing yourself in three centuries of history that you can feel and touch. You’ve traveled the same streets Priscilla Marsh traveled. You’ve seen what Cotton Harling’s descendants have become.”

  She set her teacup upon the floor beside her, a slight tremble in her hand. “I don’t know what you’re getting at, but I’m a professional historian. I don’t get emotionally involved in my subjects.”

  “You’re human, Hannah,” Win said softly, reaching out and touching her hair. “Your mother’s mother’s mother’s mother. How far back does it go? Does it even matter? Priscilla Marsh was wrongly hanged, and here in Boston you’ve been immersed in that wrong. It would be understandable if you let yourself get carried away.”

  “Into ransacking an old man’s apartment?”

  “And other things,” he said deliberately.

  She wriggled her legs apart and shot up. She appeared ready to bolt. But there was nowhere to go. This was her apartment, her space. And he hadn’t moved an inch. To get past him, she would have to leap over stacks of books and files, a fact he could see her assessing, processing.

  “You can’t run from what’s going on between us,” he said, hearing his voice outwardly calm but laced with tension, desire—and determination. “Neither can I.”

  “I’m going back to Maine,” she blurted.

  “I figured as much.”

  “If you want to search my things before I leave...”

  “If you did take the diary, you’d be too smart to leave it here. You wouldn’t risk my showing up and tearing apart the place until I found it.”

  “Was that your plan when you came here?”

  She held her chin raised, haughty and unafraid—or at least she was trying to appear so. Her eyes gave her away. But she wasn’t afraid of him. He could see that. She was afraid, he thought, only of herself, of their muddled feelings about each other, on top of the very clear, obvious and tenacious physical attraction between them. Emotions, not just overexcited hormones, were at work and at stake.

 
“No,” he said. “This was.”

  He tucked one finger under her chin, giving her a chance to tell him to go to hell, but she didn’t. He breathed deeply, knowing he was crazy. They both were.

  “Hannah,” he whispered, and closed his mouth over hers.

  Her lips were smooth and soft and if not welcoming him, at least not turning him away. He tasted them. She tasted back.

  “I wish I didn’t want this to happen,” she whispered into his mouth.

  “I know.”

  But it was happening, and neither of them wanted it to stop. He pulled her to him, felt her hands around his middle, her slender body pressed against him. Her tongue slid into his mouth, tentatively at first, then more boldly. He could feel every fiber of him responding...aching...wanting....

  And then it was over.

  He couldn’t say if it was he or she who pulled back. He wasn’t sure it mattered. He only knew that within too short a time he was back on Pinckney Street’s brick sidewalk, looking at the Charles River in the distance and wondering what in blue hell had happened.

  She had wanted him. He had wanted her.

  So, why the devil wasn’t he in there, making love to Hannah Marsh?

  He raked one hand through his hair and heaved a sigh. He hadn’t been motivated by any false nobility or nebulous impression that making love to her wasn’t, deep down, what she wanted, as well. And it sure as hell wasn’t the missing diary of some aunt who’d been dead for over a hundred years or his eccentric, crotchety old uncle that had stopped him.

  It was, he thought, very simple.

  He was falling for Hannah Marsh and didn’t want to make a wrong move.

  And right now, taking into account not only the history that had brought them to this moment but all he didn’t know about this woman, who could seem so outrageous and cocky one minute and so prim and proper the next, scooping her up and carting her off to bed would be a mistake. Never mind how much he wanted it. Never mind how much she wanted it.

  First things first, he told himself. First he had to learn more about Hannah Priscilla Marsh. Find out what made her tick. Then...