“Good as new and more interesting to look at,” he said as he dug a crumpled scrap of paper out of his trouser pocket and scribbled something down.
Relieved, Addie’s shoulders relaxed as she let out a breath. She slipped out of Rachel’s loose embrace and went forward to pat Bryan’s cheek. “Good boy,” she said as if he were a dutiful spaniel.
“I know how fond you are of your room, Addie,” he said. He took her hand in his, but his gaze went meaningfully to Rachel. “We don’t want to uproot you if we don’t have to.”
“Hennessy, you’re a treasure,” Addie said.
Rachel sat on the bed, running a finger absently across her lower lip, reflecting on Bryan’s actions-both there and in the study below. She could still feel his arms around her, could still taste him. He kissed wonderfully. Whether or not she should have allowed him to kiss her, she felt stronger and less alone now than she had before.
Her mother looked relaxed and was happily fussing with the painting at the window, straightening it to her satisfaction, the incident of the ghost apparently forgotten already. Rachel’s thoughtful gaze slowly swept around the room with its garish red moiré silk wallpaper. A place for everything and everything in its place. Everything in the room was arranged just so. Not all the items seemed to belong there-like the weird assortment of smooth stones on the white linen dresser runner-but Addie apparently found comfort in having them there, just as she found comfort in being in the room itself.
“Good night, Addie,” Bryan said. His gaze was on Rachel as he crossed to the bed and took her by the hand. He smiled gently. “Come along, Rachel. We don’t want you to ruin your voice staying up late; what would Mrs. Ackerman say?”
She’d say you were a treasure, Hennessy, Rachel thought, a small ember of warmth glowing inside her, but she kept the words to herself as Bryan escorted her out of the room and down the hall.
“I’ll have a look around outside, and I’ll keep an eye on her room,” Bryan said. “But I doubt anything more will happen tonight.”
“I doubt anything happened at all,” Rachel muttered. “I wish you wouldn’t persist in encouraging these fantasies of hers.”
“What makes you think this was a fantasy?”
Rachel gave him a look. “An ill woman looks out her second-story window and sees a ghost she knows is trying to break in to steal her bird cages. You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure this out.”
“Well,” Bryan conceded grudgingly. “I’ll admit the bird cage thing is a little farfetched.”
They stopped outside the door of Rachel’s room, and Bryan leaned a shoulder against the frame. Rachel looked up at him pleadingly. “Don’t you see it, Bryan? She imagined there was something there, panicked, and threw a rock through the window.”
Bryan frowned, the corners of his handsome mouth cutting into the lean planes of his cheeks. He looked disappointed. “You didn’t see it, therefore it doesn’t exist? There are lots of things in this world that can’t quite be explained, Rachel. The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, but are felt in the heart.’ Helen Keller wrote that. She was blind and deaf. Just because she couldn’t see or hear the rest of the world, do you think she gave up thinking it existed?” he asked quietly.
Rachel took a breath, preparing to argue, but it occurred to her suddenly that he had changed the subject, had subtly altered the slant of the conversation so that ghosts were only a small part of it. The man was much more clever than that innocent smile of his let on.
Holding her gaze with his, he reached up into the darkness of the hall, and when he brought his hand back down, he held a tiny white flower between his thumb and forefinger. He tickled her nose with it and gave her a sweet, lopsided smile.
“Explain that, Miss Lindquist.”
Rachel laughed and batted his hand away. “You had that up your sleeve, you charlatan.”
“You’ll never know for sure, unless you get me to take my shirt off,” he said, teasing. “And I’m not that kind of boy,” he added, squaring his big shoulders and lifting his nose in the air.
“Don’t let Mother hear you say that,” Rachel said, eyes twinkling. “She’ll think you need starch in your shorts.”
“Hardly,” Bryan muttered dryly, gritting his teeth on the surge of desire that came automatically from just looking at her. He couldn’t seem to keep his gaze from wandering to the low V of her neckline. With every subtle movement she made, the silk of the old dress slid sensuously over her creamy flesh. Lord, how he envied that dress! Just the thought of touching her made his lungs hurt from lack of oxygen.
Rachel smiled up at him, unaware of his torment. It was wonderful the way he made her feel relaxed and playful in spite of all that had happened. He had a rare way with people, Bryan did. And he was a heck of a kisser.
As if he had read her mind, he leaned down and brushed his lips across hers. The kiss caught fire as quickly as dry kindling, burning hotter and hotter as Bryan’s mouth slanted across Rachel’s. He pinned her between the doorjamb and his own body, seeking as much contact as he could get. Rachel’s arms wound around his neck, and she arched into him, swept away by a flood of physical desire that had leapt out of control before she had even had a chance to consider damming it up.
Need built inside them and around them in waves of heat. Rachel gasped at the feel of Bryan’s hand skimming down her side, tracing the outer swell of her breast, following the inward curve of her waist and the flare of her hip. His fingers stroked downward to cup her bottom and lift her against him. She gasped again at the feel of his arousal, pressing hard and urgent against her belly, and succeeded in drawing his tongue deeper into her mouth.
Somewhere in the dimming regions of her mind she knew she should have been putting an end to this instead of encouraging it, but her sense of logic seemed to have little control over the situation. Her body wanted Bryan Hennessy. She’d never been one to throw herself at a man, but it felt as if her body was ready to change that trait right now.
It didn’t make sense, she thought, struggling against the wanton need rampaging inside her. Why would she lose control this way with a man like Bryan, a man who believed in ghosts and magic, a man who, in the end, would only bring her more disappointment. She couldn’t fall for him. It just wasn’t smart.
“Good night, angel,” he whispered softly, pushing himself away from her. His chest rose and fell quickly with shallow breaths. There was a sadness in his steady gaze that made Rachel want to apologize, though she wasn’t certain for what.
He slipped the tiny white flower into her hair behind her ear and backed into the hall, tucking his hands into his trouser pockets in a vain attempt to disguise his state of arousal. “Put the flower under your pillow and you’ll have sweet dreams.”
Her confusion plain on her face, Rachel Waved to him as she disappeared into her room. And Bryan turned and wandered down the hall, thinking it was going to be another endless night.
In the long, sometimes illustrious life of Drake House, not once had the estate been owned by anyone named Wimsey. Nor had any of the owners had any children with the first name Wimsey. These facts Bryan had managed to discover easily enough, checking old records and browsing through the library books he had found. That left a number of possibilities. Wimsey might have been someone’s nickname, or he might have been a servant of one of the families or a friend or an enemy.
Or he might have been, as Rachel had interpreted the name, a whimsy, a figment of Addie’s deteriorating mind.
“No,” Bryan muttered, paging through yet another book. “I don’t believe that.”