Enchantment & Bridge of Dreams (9 page)

“Brother?” Kacey croaked. So that explained the similarity of proud nose and angular jaw. The familiar curve of the sensual lips. She hadn't realized that the viscount had an older brother, but then she was no expert on the Draycott family tree.

“His twin, to be exact. Fraternal twin. Unfortunately, I had a bit of an accident when I was seven years old. We were exploring along the foot of the cliffs, and I was trapped in a cave when the tide came in.”

He studied her for long seconds, his eyes as black as Gideon's paws. “My brother managed to escape, but I, unfortunately, did not.”

Kacey's eyes widened “I b-beg your pardon?”

“Drowning isn't really such a bad way to go, all in all. First the cold, then the gradual numbing. And then—” He seemed to catch himself. “But I digress. My brother's labors over that generator will not keep him away much longer, and he had better not find the two of us here when that happens. It would raise all the old jealousies…” The shadowed mouth curved in a faint smile. “Not that he would see me. He never does. But it would make things deucedly unpleasant for you to be seen speaking to thin air, my dear Katharine.”

A thousand wild questions flew to Kacey's lips. In her lap, Gideon began to purr softly, and somehow the noise only made her more uncomfortable. “You—you can't really expect me to—to believe—”

“That I'm a ghost?” he finished for her. “No, I suppose I don't expect you to believe that. Not yet. But I do expect you to listen. For a man needs your help this night. Two men, in fact,” he muttered, turning to stoke the fire that was not there. Warming his long fingers at flames that did not exist.

Kacey started to protest, to hurl a barrage of cold, hard questions at him, but his head turned just then. His eyes changed, naked and vulnerable now. “Once again it is the three of us, just as it was all those years ago. You can remember none of it?”

Kacey shook her head blindly, fighting down the beginnings of hysteria. “I don't know who you are or what you want, but—”

The figure smiled rather sadly. “I am Adrian, Nicholas's brother, Katharine. Just as I was his brother then. And what I want is to help you.”

A raw laugh escaped her locked lips. “A ghost? Just grand! You're telling me I'm talking to a
ghost?
”

“Please, my dear—just listen. Do it for Nicholas. Do it for me. Most of all, do it for yourself.” The man's gaze swept her face, chill and light as fingers of mist. “Between us, we tore you apart, Katharine. Neither one of us could let you go, even though we should have seen what it was doing to you.”

Unable to speak, Kacey only shook her head. It must be some sort of joke! Of course she couldn't be sitting her conversing with a—

The man at the grate frowned. “I see it will take something more to convince you, stubborn one.” On the floor, the forgotten file fluttered open. Suddenly the pages began to turn.

Soundlessly. By hands unseen.

All at once, images began pouring through Kacey's mind,
images of lush rice fields, of ancient stone cities hidden beneath an emerald jungle. She saw Nicholas Draycott—young, ambitious and driven.

Then the walls closed in, and the darkness began to crush her. The silent screaming began.

Bhanlai.
The word hissed down, burning like acid into her head. She understood it all so clearly now.

For she saw—no, she
became
his past, tried it on like a coat, felt it ripple and surge over her like a river of light and sound.

Now she knew why Draycott was hounded by the tabloids for his story. Now she understood the ghosts that returned, night after night, haunting him, shaking him tense and screaming from sleep.

An ambitious Englishman trying just a little too hard to do his job. A Golden Triangle drug lord flexing his muscle. A dirty little war in a dirty little village in a very dirty little corner of Asia.

And Nicholas Draycott had landed in the middle of the cross-fire as three countries scrambled for the pickings. Tossed in a dark, muddy hole, he had become the symbol of everything Trang wanted to destroy.

Stunned, Kacey stared at the man beside the fire, tears sliding down her pale cheeks.

“He's a lucky fool, my brother. I only hope he realizes that in time. If things were different—if I had the chance—I'd take you away from him,” Adrian Draycott said fiercely. “Just as I did
then.
” His face turned shuttered, and he seemed to give himself a shake. “But things aren't different, are they? And it's his chance now, not mine,” he muttered bitterly.

Kacey could only stare at him, aghast, unable to believe what he was saying.

For a moment his face burned with the dark flares of remembrance. “There was never anyone else like you, Katharine. No one who even came close, though you refused to believe that. That was always your greatest mistake, in fact—underestimating yourself.”

Kacey shivered. Why did he say her name just so, as if there were a lifetime of feeling behind the word? And why did it affect her so strongly?

She raised a trembling hand, trying to fight the chill that gripped the room. She felt a sudden, gnawing premonition that he was about to reveal some frightening truth.

His gaze burned over her.

Suddenly he stiffened, his eyebrows raised in imperious slants. “Good God, woman, what are those unspeakable things on your feet?”

Trancelike, Kacey looked down. What was wrong with her boots?

She gave herself a mental shake. Who was he really? A relative of Draycott's who'd come to play a little trick on the visiting Yank? Or merely a neighbor who'd had too much to drink?

“No neighbor. No relative. Draycott has none left, poor fellow. Not alive, that is.”

Kacey stiffened. She hadn't
said
anything, only thought it. “How—”

“A simple enough thing, actually. For one of
us.
And one of the bloody few vices we're still permitted.”

Suddenly Kacey pushed to her feet, grim-lipped, paying no attention as she dumped an irate Gideon hissing to the floor. “I—I won't listen, do you hear? It's all a trick!” she cried wildly. “An illusion. I'm leaving now, before you can toy with me any more!”

Slowly, Adrian Draycott rose and braced his long body against the mantel. His eyes narrowed. “How would you like to know Whistler's favorite pigment? Shall I tell you the exact proportions to match that
Nocturne
upstairs?”

Sheet-white, Kacey took a step back. “Stop it! I refuse to listen to another word!”

The strange eyes darkened. Across the room, they seemed to seek her out, to glow and widen, fire-flecked. “You
must
listen,
Katharine—before it is too late. You are in gravest danger here, as is my stubborn, arrogant brother. No, don't interrupt—I can only manage this materialization for a few more minutes, I fear.”

Gasping, Kacey spun about, refusing to listen. Immediately she felt a faint stirring of wind across her shoulders. Her neck began to prickle, almost as if shot through with static electricity.

“Maybe it's because I loved you once,” the dark voice continued. “Or maybe it's because of the harm I did you both then.” The sound moved closer, low and rough and bitter. “Damn it, perhaps the whys aren't important. What
is
important is that I've been given the chance to come back. To warn you both, so that things do not end as they did before—out there on the cliffs in the slashing wind. So heed this warning well, my dearest heart. There is greed and great hatred at work here, along with something even darker.”

Dimly, Kacey felt herself fall beneath the dark rhythm of his words, pulled deep into his spell. Even as she fought him, his voice rippled over her, became part of her. “It was never suicide, though they found your bodies together at the base of the collapsed cliff. No, if anything it was murder—and
I
was the murderer.” His voice caught for a moment. “But I never thought you'd take it so hard, Katharine. And I couldn't marry you, don't you see? I had the estate and the Draycott name to think of. You were just a village girl—and an artist's model to boot.”

Kacey heard him curse, and then, feather-light, a current of air rose and skimmed her cheek. “You
can
remember what happened then. It is with you even now. All you lack is the desire to know.”

Even as he spoke, Kacey had a queer vision of silver cliffs above a leaden sea, of horse's hooves pounding through the rainswept night.

And then raw terror as the ground fell away beneath her and she plummeted down…

Down…

Into darkness.

She froze, rigid with fear.

Suddenly the scent of roses surrounded her. “But now I must say goodbye, my beautiful Katharine,” the wind whispered, combing through her long hair. “I can come only once more. And it must be through
you,
since Nicholas refuses to see me or allow me in. The rest is up to the two of you. Until then…tell my brother not to grieve about what happened in the cave all those years ago. Tell him it was—necessary, for many, many reasons. Had I lived…well, I am just coming to understand all of that myself.”

The rich voice wavered for a moment. “Just tell him Adrian found the pirate treasure after all, though it cost him dear. I pray to God he will not make the same mistakes that I did. As for you, my beautiful Katharine—trust in Nicholas. Help him trust in himself. He loved you very much then—far more than I did. He deserved better than what he got.
My
fault, again.”

The words seemed to fade. And then out of the darkness behind her came the whisper of fluttering curtains.

Her heart slamming against her ribs, Kacey summoned her courage and slowly turned.

The dark figure was gone.

Only a quiet room remained, and a file that lay closed on the rug, exactly where she had dropped it long minutes before.

Only a locked door and tightly drawn curtains.

Only a dark fireplace and a chill room, with no one in it but her.

A
RAGGED CRY RIPPED FROM
Kacey's throat. White-faced, she moved to pick up the file, which lay forgotten on the carpet.

At that moment, the door burst open behind her. Nicholas's face was outlined against the bright rectangle of light from the doorway. “The bloody power's still out, and I'm afraid the generator won't—” Suddenly he stopped, his silver-gray eyes narrowed on the file Kacey clutched to her chest.

A vein beat at his temple, and the scar at his cheekbone gleamed silver in the light of the desk lamp.

Suddenly Kacey saw the image of a different man in that doorway—a man taller and slightly leaner, clad in sapphire velvet. In his hand, he carried a single candle that flickered in a ceaseless play of light and shadow over his deeply lined face.

A beloved face. The face of a man who loved too much…

And then her breath snagged as she had a keen image of those strong, callused fingers loosening her long gown.

Gown? she thought, frowning.

Next, her lace-edged chemise and a boned undergarment of some sort opened, and then his naked skin met hers.

She caught back a moan, feeling the touch of his hand at her breast, the steely length of his thigh. Pleasure shot through her—
remembered
pleasure. Kacey realized that she knew just how to make this man groan with ecstasy, just when to stop to make him wild with desire.

Could it possibly be true? Had she and Nicholas really been lovers in some other time? Had they somehow managed to find each other again, haunted by a tragedy that had separated them two hundred years before?

No, it couldn't be! She was a nice, normal person; things like this didn't happen to
normal
people!

Kacey shivered in the chill grip of hysteria. She started to offer the file to him, only to feel the string closure snag on her blouse. With trembling fingers, she ripped it free, sending a button flying onto the carpet.

But she barely noticed. Suddenly she had to know for certain whether Adrian had spoken the truth. Her hands clenched, and she studied Nicholas's face. “You really should stop feeling guilty for what happened…back in that cave. It was meant to be.”

The only sign that Draycott heard came in the tensing of his fingers on the door frame. “Cave? I haven't the faintest idea what you're—”

“There were just the two of you.” Kacey watched his face for a response—and saw none. “The tide came in. You didn't notice until the cave was half covered.”

Suddenly, just as before, images began to flood into her mind, like slides clicking in a swift, ceaseless flow across a bright screen. First came the image of two boys, dark-haired and slate-eyed, scrambling over a beach of white sand. She could hear their high, reckless laughter above the crash of the surf.

“It was a dare. His dare.” She frowned, concentrating—and then tried not to concentrate as she discovered it was best just to let the images flow over her. “It was your—your seventh birthday. You were sick from too much cake. Plum cake—it was always your favorite, though Adrian—”

Draycott's breath exploded in a curse. “You bloody little liar!”

Kacey flinched beneath the force of his anger, but she had come too far to stop now. Most of all, she had to have an end to this
terrible uncertainty. “You called and called, but he wouldn't come away from the tunnel he was searching. And then the tide surged.”

“Don't do this, Kacey,” Nicholas rasped. “I can't take much more tonight, I warn you.”

And then she saw it all, as clear as the pages in a book. “Dear God, you just managed to get out and—and Adrian didn't.”

Draycott's curse cut her off. “Who told you those things?
Who,
damn you?”

“
He
told me.”

“He? Armistead, you mean?” Nicholas pounded across the room, seizing her shoulders in a hard grip. “How much did he pay you to—”

“Can't you stop looking for villains? I didn't say anything about Armistead. It wasn't Armistead who told me. It was—” Kacey took a quick, unsteady breath. “It was…Adrian.”

A muscle flashed at his jaw. “Stop this bloody charade, Kacey. My brother has been dead for almost thirty years.”

“I didn't believe it either. Not at first. But I saw him, can't you understand? He was standing right there by the French doors, his cloak steaming, his shirt fluttering in the wind. He said…he said we were both in danger.”

Nicholas's mouth twisted. “In danger, are we? So that's where all this is leading. How much? How bloody much do you expect me to pay you?”

“Stop it, Nicholas. Just listen to me!”

But he didn't stop. Grim-faced, he pressed her back, step by step, until a ridge of books bit into her spine.

Struggling vainly, Kacey closed her eyes, trying to ignore the fire of him, the searing steel of him, desperate to make him listen.

“Do you think that you're the first to try this scam?” the Englishman growled. “Over the last ten years, dozens of helpful mediums have written to offer their services so that I might escape a terrible fate that's supposedly hanging over me.”

Kacey's shot open. “And you paid no attention?”

“Half of England must know the story of the Draycott ghost. Any one of those people could tell you that the ghost appears only when a member of the family is in danger. Why should I listen to every crackpot who—”

“But you must! There's a reason the ghost is appearing, don't you see? If we don't listen, he said it will happen all over again. Dear God, the storm—the cliffs—” She swayed as the dark images flashed over her again: lashing wind, ragged lightning, the explosive fury of collapsing earth.

And then the thunder was beside her, in the growl that ripped from Nicholas's throat. In the savage force of his body wedged against hers.

“How did you know, Kacey? No one but Adrian and I knew those things! And did you guess the rest of it—that I was jealous of Adrian? Dear God, maybe I even…wanted him to die.”

Suddenly Nicholas stiffened. His glittering eyes seemed to look right through her. “So you think you know the whole of it, do you, my sweet?” He laughed mildly, mirthlessly. “You never could let it alone, could you? You just couldn't accept the fact that Adrian and I were enemies, and you the cause of that enmity. No, you always had to be about your infernal meddling, determined to smooth over what could never be set right.” His fingers tightened on her wrists. “He doesn't love you, Katharine, haven't you realized that by now? Adrian is incapable of love—except for himself. And perhaps for that great gray cat of his!”

Kacey's breath caught. She had the riveting sensation that she was looking into the blank eyes of a stranger.

The man he had been two hundred years ago?

Nicholas's eyes smoldered silver, scouring her face. “But you're mine, do you hear? You were always meant for me. I won't let Adrian hurt you anymore, and I'll see to it that you have the
things he would never give you. I'll give you the security of my name—a home. A family.” His voice turned raw and hoarse. “Oh, God, Katharine, how I want to see you heavy with our child.”

His eyes narrowed on her face, and Kacey had the feeling that he was more than a little mad at that moment. Desperately, she lashed out with her foot and struck him soundly in the ankle.

Draycott flinched. With a start, his eyes refocused. For long moments, he simply stared down at her, frowning. “What did I—” He shook his head sharply. “Do you still think you're the only one with questions, Kacey? There are other kinds of ghosts, you know. Do you want to hear about those?”

“Let me go, Nicholas,” she gasped, trying to ignore the heat seeping through her shirt. Trying to ignore the hot hard length of his body, which was doing crazy things to her pulse.

“Not until you answer a few questions for me, I think.”

“
Now,
Nicholas. I'm tired of these games. I've an immense amount of work to complete tomorrow before—” A tiny, breathless sound escaped her drawn lips as his thumb rose to trace her cheek.

Once again, Kacey caught the fleeting scent of roses. The air around her seemed to hang heavy with regret and the acrid bite of sadness.

He is your life now,
the darkness seemed to whisper.
Let the rest go. Forget how it ended all those years ago. Teach him to trust you, Katharine. Then take this happiness and never look back.

Kacey shivered as Nicholas's finger slid along the arch of her lower lip. “Why do you fight it? Is there a boyfriend waiting somewhere back in the States?”

Kacey stiffened instantly.

“Ah. A no. Are you married?”

“Never!”

“Now that, my sweet Kacey, would be a terrible waste.” His eyes fixed on her lips.

“What in the—are you—” She swallowed and tried again. “Just what do you think you're doing?”

“Doing? I'm asking some questions of my own, Kacey. Like how you can feel so bloody soft. How that sexy mouth of yours can rip me apart. And I'm going to find out just what excites you in turn.” Even as he spoke, Nicholas's thumb teased the locked line of her lips.

Kacey shuddered. First had come Adrian's revelations. And now she was caught in dark sensations stronger than anything she'd ever known. Were they
both
going mad?

“Get—get away from me,” she whispered, her mind reeling. “You promised not to—”

“I promised to do nothing you didn't want me to do, Kacey. And you've been wanting me to touch you like this since the first moment you got here. Which is just as long as I've wanted to do the touching,” Draycott added hoarsely.

“That's a lie!”

“Is it?” he growled. His fingers brushed the line of crimson staining Kacey's cheeks. “This heat says no.” His hands moved to the pulse point just behind her ear. “This skittish pulse says the same.” His eyes searched her face. “There's no need for lies between us, Kacey. We're both adults. I'll make it good between us—incredibly good. I've thought about this since the first moment I set eyes on you. Maybe even before that,” he muttered, half to himself. “Maybe I've been waiting my whole bloody life for this moment.”

Kacey tried to steady her plunging pulse. What was he up to now? Or was this Adrian's doing?

With a groan, Nicholas splayed his fingers open over her ribs, measuring her resistance ridge by ridge before coming to a halt just beneath the yearning swell of her breasts. His mouth was at her ear, low and hard and hungry. “I want to see you wrapped in moonlight, Kacey. In warm moonlight and cold shadows and not
a stitch of anything else.” Each word was a fierce, erotic rasp, punctuated by the sleek velvet stroke of his tongue against her neck. “I want to hear you when I fit myself all the way inside your heat. I want it to be
my
name you whisper,
my
shoulders you dig your fingers into when you go spinning away into space. And, by God, it'll be
my
body you want deep inside you when the pleasure shatters you into a thousand pieces.”

One by one, the dark images triggered shock waves down Kacey's spine. Too late, she realized he had freed her shirt from her jeans. Moving across her naked skin, his hard fingers subverted her last vestige of stubborn resistance.

Dear God, why do I want those things, too?
Gasping, Kacey tried to break free, realizing clearly that with this man things could never be halfway or halfhearted. Yes, this man would sweep inside and claim her very soul.

And she would welcome his fierce claiming, which could bring her only searing pain and loneliness.

For whatever was happening between them was too strange, too powerful to be real or lasting. “
No,
Nicholas. This is all wrong!” Kacey caught back a moan. Her hand broke free and flattened against his chest. When she felt hot naked skin and crisp wiry hair beneath her fingers, a shudder stabbed through her.

Nicholas smothered a curse. “You're trying to tell me you don't want this, Kacey?”

“No, I—I don't!”

A dark light flashed in his eyes and then disappeared. Kacey watched a hard line settle over his jaw.

“Then you'll have to prove it to me, because I'm afraid I just don't believe you.”

In taut silence, Nicholas's silver gaze stripped her bare. He had to find out how far he could push her, and not just for the painting. He had already accepted the fact that there was more than the Whistler at stake here.

“I don't have to prove anything, damn it!”

“Try to tell me you haven't felt it too, Kacey. Tell me you haven't had the crazy feeling that this has all happened before between us. You know
exactly
how it feels when I kiss you, when you wrap your sweet legs around me and take me all the way home inside you.”