Rachel swallowed down the last of her unshed tears and cleared her throat. She took the chance to speak but didn’t turn to face him, afraid her eyes might betray the overwhelming emotions she had been struggling to keep at bay. “We haven’t got a butler.”
“I suppose I could take that as an insult, but, being such a sweet-tempered soul, I won’t. At any rate, I suppose it’s a matter of opinion.”
“It’s a matter of money,” Rachel said firmly. “Which is something I haven’t got much of.”
“That’s all right,” Bryan said, taking a position beside her and eyeing the dirty dinner dishes. “I work cheap. Find me a ghost or two, and I’ll be as happy as a clam. Where’s Addie?”
Rachel gave a short, humorless laugh. “She chose to retire to her room rather than spend another minute in my tainted company.” The tears threatened again, but she lowered her head and fought them off with a tremendous burst of will.
“I see,” Bryan said quietly. Then, coming to a decision, he waved a hand at the sink in a gesture of dismissal. “These dishes can wait. Come along.”
Rachel started to protest as he took her by the hand and led her from the room, but the set of his jaw told her it would be pointless. For all his pleasant manner, the man had a stubborn streak a mile wide. She trailed along after him, marveling instead at how strong his hand was, and yet how gentle.
He towed her into a study, a masculine room with cherry paneling and a fireplace. After depositing her on a leather-covered camel-back love seat, he knelt on the hearth and put flame to the kindling already lying beneath the andirons. Warmth bloomed outward from the blaze as Bryan went around behind the desk, withdrew a cut glass bottle from a drawer, and poured amber liquid into two of the glasses that sat on a tarnished silver tray on one corner of the desk. He returned to her then and pressed a glass into her hand.
Rachel scooted back into one corner of the love seat as Bryan settled at the opposite end. She watched him, taken by surprise by his sudden air of authority. He was regarding her through his spectacles with serious eyes.
“Rachel,” he said with utmost gravity. “I think it’s only fair to warn you: I’m going to help you whether you like it or not.”
“Help me?” she questioned, eyeing him suspiciously. “Help me what?”
“Deal with Addie. I get the distinct impression you’re not good at accepting help.”
“Probably because I haven’t had much practice recently,” she murmured candidly as she stared down into the liquid in her glass.
“Are you going to explain that rather cryptic remark, or I do get to make use of those interrogation methods I’m not supposed to talk about?”
She glanced up at him sharply, completely unable to tell whether he was joking or not. He wore a pleasant expression-the mask again, she decided.
“I know this much: you and Addie had a falling out five years ago, you left with Clarence somebody-or-other and didn’t come back,” Bryan began, priming the pump for her in hopes that she would jump in with the rest of the story.
Rachel placed her drink on the low butler’s table and stood up. “I really don’t think there’s any need for you to know all the details of my life, Mr. Hennessy,” she said, her sense of self-preservation rushing to the fore. “The gist of the story is this: One time in my entire life I defied my mother’s authority, and she has never forgiven me.”
“You were in love with this Clarence?”
“Terence.”
Bryan noted with a certain satisfaction that she corrected him only on the name, not on the past tense he had used in regard to the relationship. “Where is he now?”
Rachel wandered away from the heat of the fire to the cool air near the French doors that led out onto a terrace shrouded in mist. “Chasing a rainbow,” she murmured softly. Terence Bretton seemed a lifetime away from her now, so far removed from her situation that even his memory seemed unreal.
“And what about you, Rachel?” Bryan whispered.
She jumped a bit at the sound of his voice. He had come up behind her without her realizing it, but her sudden awareness of him was acute. She could feel the heat of his body, hear the subtle sigh of fabric on fabric as he shifted position. He didn’t touch her, but she realized to her shame that she wanted him to. She hadn’t known the man two days, and she wanted him to take her in his arms and hold her. She wanted it so badly, she ached.
Her lashes fluttered down, and she was immediately overtaken by the imagined sensation of being held. His arms were hard and strong, but his touch was gentle… She felt herself leaning back, almost as if she were being pushed back, and she caught herself and fought the strange feeling off.
“What about you, Rachel?” he asked. “Where does your rainbow end?”
“You mean this isn’t Oz?” she said ruefully, an acute sadness filling her, a sadness that came through in the soft, clear tone of her voice. “I was so sure it was. You’re the Wizard and Mother…”
Addie was the wicked witch telling her she could never go home, telling her she was destined to be trapped in a surrealistic nightmare, that somewhere over the rainbow was a place dreamers longed for but could never find.
In the silence Bryan could feel her disillusionment as sharply as if it had been his own, and he hurt for her. Whatever she had given up to return to Addie had been better than the future she faced here.
Seemingly of its own volition, his hand rose toward the shimmering fall of Rachel’s hair. It spilled down her back, a pale river of moonspun silk. He couldn’t quite bring himself to resist the urge to touch it. Like a man trying to touch a dream, his fingers reached out hesitantly to brush against the curling ends. There was something incredibly sensual in the act, something strongly erotic, though he had barely grazed her. He inhaled sharply as desire streaked through him, setting all his nerve endings ablaze.
“And who are the munchkins?” he asked, trying to offset his reaction with a bit of levity. He barely recognized his own voice, it was so hoarse and low.
The absurdity of the question struck Rachel in the tattered remains of her sense of humor, and she managed a soft laugh. There was something wonderful about a man who could make her laugh on a night when her whole life seemed like a bad dream.
She turned away from the window and looked up into his eyes, so warm and caring behind his glasses. He was much too near. She had told herself to keep him at least an arm’s length away at all times, but there he was, no more than a deep breath away, and, while her wary heart told her to flee, Rachel found herself rooted to the spot.
“I never thanked you for this afternoon.” She rolled her eyes and smiled wryly. “I never dreamed Mother would try to take off with my car. Thank God no one was hurt. You saved the day.”
Bryan shrugged it off, uncomfortable with genuine praise. “Any other magical being would have done the same. See how invaluable I’ll be to have around?”
It was the perfect opportunity to tell him he couldn’t stay, Rachel thought. But she couldn’t bring herself to say the words or even to consider the consequences of allowing him to remain in Drake House and in her life. She couldn’t bring herself to say anything at all.
She stood staring up at him as if transfixed by a spell. The light from the fire cast her face in an amber halo, glistened off the vulnerable curve of her lower lip. It caught on the black jet beads adorning the old dress she wore and set each one with a miniature starburst of light.
“Have I told you how beautiful you are in this dress?” Bryan asked softly, something vital trembling deep inside him, something that had lain dormant, like a seed beneath the snows of winter. He felt it struggling to come to life with each shallow breath.
“I think you did,” Rachel murmured.
“Oh.” His mouth quirked up on the right in sheepish self-deprecation. Again he raised his hand to touch her hair, this time letting his fingers sift through the strands of silk. “Then, have I told you how much I want to kiss you?”