Once More With Feeling

by Nora Roberts

  There was no doubt that he had awakened her physically. Her fears had been swept away by the tides of love. Raven found that in this aspect of their relationship she could indeed give herself to Brand unreservedly. Knowing she could arouse him strengthened her growing confidence as a woman. She learned her passions were as strong and sensitive as his. She had kept them restricted far too long. If Brand could heat her blood with a look, Raven was aware he was just as susceptible to her. There was nothing of the cool, British reserve in his lovemaking; she thought of him as all Irish then, stormy and passionate.

  One morning he woke her at dawn by strewing the bed with wild rosebuds. The following evening he surprised her with iced champagne while she bathed in the ancient footed tub. At night he could be brutally passionate, waking and taking her with a desperate urgency that allowed no time for surprise, protest or response. At times he appeared deliriously happy; at others she would catch him studying her with an odd, searching expression.

  Raven loved him, but she could not yet bring herself to trust him completely. They both knew it, and they both avoided speaking of it.

  ***

  Seated next to Brand at the piano, Raven experimented with chords for the opening bars of a duet. “I really think a minor mode with a raised seventh.” She frowned thoughtfully. “I imagine a lot of strings here, a big orchestration of violins and cellos.” She played more, hearing the imagined arrangement rather than the solitary piano. “What do you think?” Raven turned her head to find Brand looking down at her.

  “Go ahead,” he suggested, drawing on a cigarette. “Play the lot.”

  She began, only to have him interrupt during a bridge. “No.” He shook his head. “That part doesn’t fit.”

  “That was your part,” she reminded him with a grin.

  “Genius is obliged to correct itself,” he returned, and Raven gave an unladylike snort. He looked down his very straight British nose. “Had you a comment, then?”

  “Who, me? I never interrupt genius.”

  “Wise,” he said and turned back to spread his own fingers over the keys. “Like this.” Brand played the same melody from the beginning, only altering a few notes on the bridge section.

  “Did you change something?”

  “I realize your inferior ear might not detect the subtlety,” he began. She jammed her elbow into his ribs. “Well said,” he murmured, rubbing the spot. “Shall we try again?”

  “I love it when you’re dignified, Brandon.”

  “Really?” He lifted an inquiring brow. “Now, where was I?”

  “You were about to demonstrate the first movement from Tchaikovsky’s Second Symphony.”

  “Ah.” Nodding, Brand turned back to the keys. He ran through the difficult movement with a fluid skill that had Raven shaking her head.

  “Show-off,” she accused when he finished with a flourish.

  “You’re just jealous.”

  With a sigh she lifted her shoulders. “Unfortunately, you’re right.”

  Brand laughed and put his hand palm to palm with hers. “I have the advantage in spread.”

  Raven studied her small, narrow-boned hand. “It’s a good thing I didn’t want to be a concert pianist.”

  “Beautiful hands,” Brand told her, making one of his sudden and completely natural romantic gestures by lifting her fingers to his lips. “I’m quite helplessly in love with them.”

  “Brandon.” Disarmed, Raven could only look at him. A tremble of warmth shot up her spine.

  “They always smell of that lotion you have in the little white pot on the dresser.”

  “I didn’t think you’d notice something like that.” She shivered in response when his lips brushed the inside of her wrist.

  “There’s nothing about you I don’t notice.” He kissed her other wrist. “You like your bath too hot, and you leave your shoes in the most unexpected places. And you always keep time with your left foot.” Brand looked back up at her, keeping one hand entwined with hers while he reached up with the other to brush the hair from her shoulder. “And when I touch you like this, your eyes go to smoke.” He ran a fingertip gently over the point of her breast and watched her irises darken and cloud. Very slowly he leaned over and touched his lips to hers. Lazily he ran his finger back and forth until her nipple was taut and straining against the fabric of her blouse.

  Her mouth was soft and opened willingly. Raven tilted her head back, inviting him to take more. Currents of pleasure were already racing along her skin. Brand drew her closer, one hand lingering at her breast.

  “I can feel your bones melt,” he murmured. His mouth grew hungrier, his hand more insistent. “It drives me crazy.” His fingers drifted from her breast to the top button of her blouse. Even as he loosened it, the phone shrilled from the table across the room. He swore, and Raven gave a laugh and hugged him.

  “Never mind, love,” she said on a deep breath. “I’ll remind you where you left off this time, too.” Slipping out of his arms, she crossed the room to answer. “Hello.”

  “Hello, I’d like to speak with Brandon Carstairs, please,” a voice said.

  Raven smiled at the musical lilt in the voice and wondered vaguely how one of Brand’s fans had gotten access to his number. “Mr. Carstairs is quite busy at the moment.” She grinned over at him and got both a grin and a nod of approval before he crossed to her. He began to distract her by kissing her neck.

  “Would you ask him to call his mother when he’s free?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Raven stifled a giggle and tried to struggle out of Brand’s arms.

  “His mother, dear,” the voice repeated. “Ask him to call his mother when he has a minute, won’t you? He has the number.”

  “Oh, please, Mrs. Carstairs, wait! I’m sorry.” Wide-eyed, she looked up at Brand. “Brandon’s right here. Your mother,” Raven said in a horrified whisper that had him grinning again. Still holding her firmly to his side, he accepted the receiver.

  “Hullo, Mum.” Brand kissed the top of Raven’s head, then chuckled. “Yes, I was busy. I was kissing a beautiful woman I’m madly in love with.” The color rising in Raven’s cheeks had him laughing. “No, no, it’s all right, love, I intend to get back to it. How are you? And the rest?”

  Raven nudged herself free of Brand’s arm. “I’ll make some tea,” she said quietly, then slipped from the room.

  Mrs. Pengalley had left the kitchen spotlessly clean, and Raven spent some time puttering around it aimlessly while the kettle heated on the stove. She found herself suddenly hungry, then remembered that she and Brand had worked straight through lunch. She got out the bread, deciding to make buttered toast fingers to serve with the tea.

  Afternoon tea was one of Brand’s rituals, and Raven had grown fond of it. She enjoyed the late afternoon breaks in front of the fireplace with tea and biscuits or scones or buttered toast. They could be any two people then, Raven mused, two people sitting in front of a fireplace having unimportant conversations. The kettle sang out, and she moved to switch off the flame.

  Raven went about the mechanical domestic tasks of brewing tea and buttering toast, but her thoughts kept drifting back to Brand. There had been such effortless affection in his voice when he had spoken to his mother, such relaxed love. And Raven had felt a swift flash of envy. It was something she had experienced throughout childhood and adolescence, but she hadn’t expected to feel it again. Raven reminded herself she was twenty-five and no longer a child.

  The chores soothed her. She loaded the tray and started back down the hall with her feelings more settled. When she heard Brand’s voice, she hesitated, not wanting to interrupt his conversation. But the weight of the tray outbalanced her sense of propriety.

  He was sunk into one of the chairs by the fire when Raven entered. With a smile he gestured her over so that she crossed the room and set the tray on the table beside him. “I will, Mum, perhaps next month. Give everyone my love.” He paused and smiled again, taking Raven’s hand. “She�
�s got big gray eyes, the same color as the dove Shawn kept in the coop on the roof. Yes, I’ll tell her. Bye, Mum. I love you.”

  Hanging up, Brand glanced at the ladened tea tray, then up at Raven. “You’ve been busy.”

  She crouched down and began pouring. “I discovered I was starving.” She watched with the usual shake of her head as he added milk to his tea. That was one English habit Raven knew she would never comprehend. She took her own plain.

  “My mother says to tell you you’ve a lovely voice over the phone.” Brand picked up a toast finger and bit into it.

  “You didn’t have to tell her you’d been kissing me,” Raven mumbled, faintly embarrassed. Brand laughed, and she glared at him.

  “Mum knows I have a habit of kissing women,” he explained gravely. “She probably knows I’ve occasionally done a bit more than that, but we haven’t discussed that particular aspect of my life for some time.” He took another bite of toast, studying Raven’s face. “She wants to meet you. If the score keeps going along at this pace, I thought we might drive up to London next month.”

  “I’m not used to families, Brandon,” she said. Raven reached for her cup, but he placed his hand over hers, waiting until she looked back up at him.

  “They’re easy people, Raven. They’re important to me. You’re important to me. I want them to know you.”

  She felt her stomach tighten, and lowered her eyes.

  “Raven.” Brand gave a short, exasperated sigh. “When are you going to talk to me?”

  She couldn’t pretend not to understand him. She could only shake her head and avoid the subject a little while longer. The time when they would have to return to California and face reality would come soon enough. “Please, tell me about your family. It might help me get used to being confronted with all of them if I know a bit more than I’ve read in the gossip columns.” Raven smiled. Her eyes asked him to smile back and not to probe. Not yet.

  Brand struggled with a sense of frustration but gave in. He could give her a little more time. “I’m the oldest of five.” He gestured toward the mantel. “Michael’s the distinguished-looking one with the pretty blond wife. He’s a solicitor.” Brand smiled, remembering the pleasure it had given him to send his brother to a good university. He’d been the first Carstairs to receive that sort of education. “There was nothing distinguished about him at all as a boy,” Brand remarked. “He liked to give anyone within reach a bloody nose.”

  “Sounds like a good lawyer,” Raven observed dryly. “Please go on.”

  “Alison’s next. She graduated from Oxford at the top of her class.” He watched Raven glance up at the photo of the fragile, lovely blonde. “An amazing brain,” Brand continued, smiling. “She does something incomprehensible with computers and has a particular fondness for rowdy rugby matches. That’s where she met her husband.”

  Raven shook her head, trying to imagine the delicate-looking woman shouting at rugby games or programming sophisticated computers. “I suppose your other brother’s a physicist.”

  “No, Shawn’s a veterinarian.” Affection slipped into Brand’s voice.

  “Your favorite?”

  He tilted his head as he reached for more tea. “If one has a favorite among brothers and sisters, I suppose so. He’s simply one of the nicest people I know. He’s incapable of hurting anyone. As a boy he was the one who always found the bird with the broken wing or the dog with a sore paw. You know the type.”

  Raven didn’t, but she murmured something and continued to sip at her tea. Brands family was beginning to fascinate her. Somehow, she had thought that people raised in the same house under the same circumstances would be more the same. These people seemed remarkably diverse. “And your other sister?”

  “Moray.” He grinned. “She’s in school yet, claims she’s going into finance or drama. Or perhaps,” he added, “anthropology. She’s undecided.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Eighteen. She thinks your records are smashing, by the way, and had them all the last time I was home.”

  “I believe I’ll like her,” Raven decided. She let her gaze sweep the mantel again. “Your parents must be very proud of all of you. What does your father do?”

  “He’s a carpenter.” Brand wondered if she was aware of the wistful look in her eyes. “He still works six days a week, even though he knows money isn’t a problem anymore. He has a great deal of pride.” He paused a moment, stirring his tea, his eyes on Raven. “Mum still hangs sheets out on a line, even though I bought her a perfectly good dryer ten years ago. That’s the sort of people they are.”

  “You’re very lucky,” Raven told him and rose to wander about the room.

  “Yes, I know that.” Brand watched her move around the room with her quick, nervous stride. “Though I doubt I thought a great deal about it while I was growing up. It’s very easy to take it all for granted. It must have been very difficult for you.”

  Raven lifted her shoulders, then let them fall. “I survived.” Walking to the window, she looked out on the cliffs and the sea. “Let’s go for a walk, Brandon. It’s so lovely out.”

  He rose and walked to her. Taking her by the shoulders, Brand turned her around to face him. “There’s more to life than surviving, Raven.”

  “I survived intact,” she told him. “Not everyone does.”

  “Raven, I know you call home twice a week, but you never tell me anything about it.” He gave her a quick, caring shake. “Talk to me.”

  “Not about that, not now, not here.” She slipped her arms around him and pressed her cheek to his chest. “I don’t want anything to touch us here—nothing from the past, nothing from tomorrow. Oh, there’s so much ugliness, Brandon, so many responsibilities. I want time. Is that so wrong?” She held him tighter, suddenly possessive. “Can’t this be our fantasy, Brandon? That there isn’t anybody but us? Just for a little while.”

  She heard him sigh as his lips brushed the crown of her head. “For a little while, Raven. But fantasies have to end, and I want the reality, too.”

  Raven lifted her face, then framed his with her hands. “Like Joe in the script,” she reflected and smiled. “He finds his reality in the end, doesn’t he?”

  “Yes.” Brand bent to kiss her and found himself lingering over it longer than he had intended. “Proving dreams come true,” he murmured.

  “But I’m not a dream, Brandon.” She took both of his hands in hers while her eyes smiled at him. “And you’ve already brought me to life.”

  “And without magic.”

  Raven lifted a brow. “That depends on your point of view,” she countered. “I still feel the magic.” Slowly she lifted his hand to the neckline of her blouse. “I think you were here when we left off.”

  “So I was.” He loosened the next button, watching her face. “What about that walk?”

  “Walk? In all that rain?” Raven glanced over to the sun-filled window. “No.” Shaking her head, she looked back at Brand. “I think we’d better stay inside until it blows over.”

  He ran his finger down to the next button, smiling at her while he toyed with it. “You’re probably right.”

  Chapter 13

  Mrs. Pengalley made it a point to clean the music room first whenever Raven and Brand left her alone in the house. It was here they spent all their time working—if what show people did could be considered work. She had her own opinion on that. She gathered up the cups, as she always did, and sniffed them. Tea. Now and again she had sniffed wine and occasionally some bourbon, but she was forced to admit that Mr. Carstairs didn’t seem to live up to the reputation of heavy drinking that show people had. Mrs. Pengalley was the smallest bit disappointed.

  They lived quietly, too. She had been sure when Brand had notified her to expect him to be in residence for three months that he would have plans to entertain. Mrs. Pengalley knew what sort of entertainment show business people went in for. She had waited for the fancy cars to start arriving, the fancy people in their outra
geous clothes. She had told Mr. Pengalley it was just a matter of time.

  But no one had come, no one at all. There had been no disgraceful parties to clean up after. There had only been Mr. Carstairs and the young girl with the big gray eyes who sang as pretty as you please. But of course, Mrs. Pengalley reminded herself, she was in that business, too.

  Mrs. Pengalley walked over to shake the wrinkles from the drapes at the side window. From there she could see Raven and Brand walking along the cliffs. Always in each other’s pockets, she mused and sniffed to prevent herself from smiling at them. She snapped the drape back into place and began dusting off the furniture.

  And how was a body supposed to give anything a proper dusting, she wanted to know, when they were always leaving their papers with the chicken scratchings on them all over everywhere? Picking up a piece of staff paper, Mrs. Pengalley scowled down at the lines and notes. She couldn’t make head nor tail out of the notations; she scanned the words instead.

  Loving you is no dream/I need you here to hold on to/Wanting you is everything/Come back to me.

  She clucked her tongue and set the paper back down. Fine song, that one, she thought, resuming her dusting. Doesn’t even rhyme.

  Outside, the wind from the sea was strong, and Brand slipped his arm around Raven’s shoulders. Turning her swiftly to face him, he bent her backward and gave her a long, lingering kiss. She