by Julie Leto
Fingers of warmth curled around her shoulders. Alexa allowed her head to drop forward, and the sensations smoothed over her neck, then eased down her spine. Yes, she wanted to stay. Yes, she wanted to be here alone.
“Alexa?”
Jacob grabbed her arm and tugged her away from the wall.
“What’s wrong with you?”
Alexa shook her head. Wrong? Nothing was wrong. Was it? She was simply tired. Overwhelmed by her experience earlier in the helicopter and now in the castle.
“Look, you’ll only be gone for a few hours, right? The Coast Guard knows I’m here and I have the portable GPS. I can activate the distress signal if I need to and our friends will come running, I’m sure. And I have my phone.”
“I just lost the signal on mine,” he said, his expression incredulous.
Guard dog.
“A cell, not satellite. And you had the phone working long enough to hear the complicated and business-threatening tales of woe from Boston. If I call you and all you hear is ‘help,’ get here quick, okay? I’ve got water and supplies. Just come get me before dark.”
His eyebrows slanted together at a hard angle. “I can’t just leave you here.”
“Why not?” The farther she walked onto the landing, the more the warmth seeped out of her, the clearer her mind focused on the possibilities of the castle as a Crown Chandler resort property. The stairs would be polished, the cracks repaired. Lush tapestries would keep out the drafts and keep in the cool air that seemed trapped in the stone walls. She’d insist on electric or gas-powered torches to provide ambience and just enough light to keep the shadows sufficiently spooky.
This could work.
She just needed time alone to concentrate. To allow the ideas to flow uninterrupted.
She spun and lifted her chin. “Just take care of business on the mainland and let me do my stuff here.”
Jacob made no move to leave.
She stared at him intently.
He groaned. “There’s no arguing with you when your chin tilts up that way.”
She smiled. He was right.
“I’ll be back in two hours or less,” he promised. He jogged down a few steps, then returned, removing a necklace from around his neck. “Wait. Wear this.”
Alexa eyed the offering warily. She wasn’t sure she’d seen Jacob wear this particular trinket before—a gold triangle with a jagged corner, as if it were ripped off a larger design.
“What’s this?”
“A talisman,” he answered.
She crossed her arms.
He rolled his eyes. “Take the damned thing, Alexa. It’s for luck. I’m betting this charm kept us from falling out of the sky today on that helicopter.”
She shook her head. “I don’t need a good-luck charm.”
He thrust the necklace at her. “Take it or I’m not leaving.”
Alexa knew how to assess an opponent. From across a boardroom table or on the landing of an ancient castle staircase, she could estimate with amazing accuracy when her adversaries would back down and when they would not. Jacob had correctly assessed her stubbornness a moment before. Now he was the one who wasn’t budging. Which meant the crisis at Crown Chandler would only snowball. Sunlight would slip away. Her chance to roam the castle halls would be lost.
She yanked the necklace out of his hand and, while he watched, twisted the chain around her neck. “There,” she said. “Satisfied?”
After a quick kiss on her cheek, Jacob told her to be careful and left.
Instantly, Alexa turned to the painting. Fingering the triangle now dangling from her neck, she approached the portrait with soft, measured steps. The closer she got, the more intensely her body reacted. Her chest tightened. Sweat curled along the back of her neck. Her breathing shortened. His eyes seemed to rake over her. She jolted when her nipples hardened in response.
Whoa.
She stopped. “Just who are you?” she asked the painting.
Touch me and find out.
She staggered backward, then spun around. The door at the bottom of the stairs remained firmly closed. The voice had been a whisper in her ear, a hot breath along the nape of her neck…and yet, she was alone.
Alexa swallowed hard and turned sharply. She hadn’t come this far to be afraid. She marched to the canvas and balanced her fists on her hips.
“Say again?”
She waited.
Nothing.
“Just when things were getting interesting, you turn shy?” she quipped.
His expression remained stoic, unchanged, but his eyes brimmed with wild fury like thunderclouds rolling over white-capped waves. Even through the layers of grime coating the canvas, masking what she anticipated was a rich depth of color, he intrigued her at the same time that he unnerved her.
She shrugged out of the silk shirt she’d worn over a lacy chemise and approached the canvas.
Hung high, the painting remained mostly out of reach. She stretched on her tiptoes and flicked the shirt at the corners, removing most of the powdery dirt and spiderwebs that had accumulated on the surface and in the corners of the once-gilded frame. With a shiver, she tossed the ruined material to the floor, but admired her handiwork nonetheless.
He was gorgeous. The fire of male strength and power had been captured in his eyes, in the set of his shoulders, in the broad width of his chest. The fabric and detail in the cut of his clothes reflected money. Perhaps influence. The time period eluded her, but she’d have experts tackle that question. She was more concerned with who he was—and if he was the man she’d seen in the window. Was he the type of man who would defy time, space and, perhaps, death?
She closed her eyes and concentrated.
Who are you?
She ran her fingers over the frame. Once again, she felt a surge of warmth. Funny. Ghosts were supposed to announce their presence with cold, weren’t they? Clearly, this was no ordinary spirit.
Or she was taking this fantasy thing way too seriously.
She nearly pulled her hand away when she heard the whispered baritone once again.
Touch me.
She kept her hand steady. “I don’t go around touching strangers,” she countered.
The air around her swirled with heat.
I’m not a stranger. We’ve met before. In a dream. In your fantasy. Touch me and see.
Alexa couldn’t resist. She slid her hand off the frame, then up the portrayal of his waist. She stretched as high as she could on the balls of her feet and reached until her palm settled on the spot where his heart would beat.
Did beat.
Strong.
Hot.
Heat seared her hand, and yet she couldn’t pull away.
The temperature rose. Her skin seemed to melt into the canvas.
She opened her mouth to scream, but darkness dropped over her and pulled her into a vortex. She scratched out, stretched and twisted, fighting to keep from falling…but lost.
Four
This time the awakening came slowly.
No rush of air.
No blinding light.
Just the gradual saturation of life into his body, the gentle peeling of his skin away from the moist oil and canvas that had held him captive for what he guessed must have been centuries. The moment his boot hit stone, his vision cleared. The redheaded woman was sprawled on the ground at his feet.
He hoped she wasn’t dead. Pity if such an enchanting female perished only to set him free.
On bended knee, he reached to touch her, but stopped before his fingers made contact with her alabaster cheek. Her hair, pulled back tightly from her face, gave him pause. How many centuries had elapsed since the Gypsy woman had warned him that a woman with flames in her hair would be the instrument of his destiny? Her predictions had thus far proved ominous. He’d married his wife, Anne, partially because of her station and dowry, and partially because her burnished tresses garnered renown among the whole of King George’s court. He’d been so curious to see if the
Gypsy’s prediction would prove true, he’d sacrificed his bachelorhood.
Yet despite the fire in her hair, Anne had proved as cold as the Thames in winter. He’d then found himself with Renata, his mistress, drawn by her passionate mien and crimson curls. Too late he’d learned she’d used henna the first night they’d met and changed her hair color on a whim. Sweet natured and warm, Renata had been a welcome distraction during his sojourns to London, but she had not affected his destiny in any way.
Except on the night of his imprisonment, when he’d thought—for a brief, insane instant—that Rogan had trapped her in a painting.
He glanced from the woman on the floor to the portrait on the wall, now devoid of subject. On the night of his sister’s disappearance, there had been a redhead in the portrait. In a corner shadow. In a doorway that did not exist. She’d lured him in and yanked him out of his time and into this new world where machines flew in the sky and women, like the one now crumpled on the floor, ordered men in uniform about as if she were queen.
At that thought, he touched her. A lock of hair had escaped the severe queue she’d tied at the nape of her shapely neck, so he merely brushed the hair aside. She moved, made a sound quite like a cat’s mewling.
He looked up.
No, it was only Rogan’s cursed cat.
Golden eyes ablaze, the flat-faced feline leaped out of the portrait, landing on its paws with a skilled bounce. The infernal animal stared at him accusingly, as if to suggest that Damon had once again developed a soft spot for a woman with red hair.
Despite the animal’s uncanny presence, Damon dismissed its omniscient look. He cared nothing for this woman except that she had somehow freed him.
She was, admittedly, beautiful. And before the force of the magic had knocked her unconscious, responsive. He hadn’t missed how her nipples had hardened beneath her blouse or how her breathing had changed when he’d entered her mind with his sensual suggestions. She might have made a worthy conquest, if not for the fact that he had only one thing on his mind at this moment—escape.
“What do you think, beast?” He scowled at the animal, still unsure after all these years if the animal was friend or foe. “Is she the one who shall be the instrument of my destiny?”
The cat replied by licking its paw.
With a frown, Damon stood and assessed his surroundings, his eyes drawn instantly to the door across the great hall.
“Or perhaps she already is.”
He strode down the stairs, invigorated by the stretch of his muscles, the power in his thighs and shoulders. He breathed in deeply and the smells of the sea were unmistakable. With a backward glance, he noted that the woman who had freed him remained on the floor. A pang of something he assumed was guilt nearly caused him to pause, but he managed to push the intrusive emotion aside and concentrate on his goal.
Freedom.
Nothing would delay him.
Nothing and no one.
Not even the beautiful flame-haired woman who’d freed him from his prison.
At the top of the stairs, the cat howled.
Damon continued to the door.
He grasped the latch but didn’t yet pull. What manner of insanity existed outside these castle walls? He touched his waist. His sword was long gone. Machines that flew might be just one insignificant hint of how the world had changed. Damon was an educated man, a resourceful man. But even he understood that a man out of time would be vulnerable in ways he might not adequately anticipate.
Still, he couldn’t remain here any longer. Rogan’s castle brimmed with dark, evil magic. Questions ranging from the deep and philosophical to the shallow and mundane coursed through his mind. Were his brothers still alive as was he? Had they found his sister? Vanquished Rogan? There was no ocean near Valoren, so he knew the castle no longer existed there. How did one move a castle? And was he now in England? He’d heard the strangers speak as they milled beneath his portrait prison. They did not sound like any of his countrymen, but they spoke the mother tongue. At least, a bastardization of the language. Had his country changed so much over the years?
He pressed down on the latch.
Nothing happened.
He tugged and pulled, bracing his arm on the doorjamb to create leverage. He buoyed all his strength against the lock, straining until sweat broke out on his brow.
From across the hall, the cat hissed.
With a curse, Damon stopped. Apparently, the witch on the landing had released him only so far. What magic did she brew that kept him entrapped?
He crossed the hall in seconds, then took the stairs three at a time, catching her as she raised herself on her arms and groaned.
A sensual sound, even when laced with pain, “Move slowly, my dear,” he said. “You’ve suffered a great shock.”
She defied him instantly, spinning to face him with a decided bounce on her backside.
A rather lovely backside, truth be told.
“Who are you?” She winced as she smoothed her hand over the back of her head. “Or should I ask, what are you?”
She slid her palm over her forehead, squinting beneath her fingers despite the dim light on the landing. Damon glanced at the torches, unlit for all these centuries. He wondered if there was a way to light them when, suddenly, they flamed to life.
Interesting.
“I could ask you the same question,” he said, extending his hand to her.
She looked at him defiantly, her expression crisp with suspicion.
“I mean you no harm,” he emphasized.
“Then explain the knot on the back of my head.”
“A consequence of the dark magic imbued in these castle walls, I suspect.”
“Your magic?” she asked.
He sniffed derisively. “Hardly. I wouldn’t have trapped myself here, would I?”
Though her wary expression did not falter, she accepted his help in standing. Her hand was small in his, but her intrepid comportment compensated for her lack of size. The minute she regained her balance, she yanked her hand from his and stepped back to establish distance.
“I apologize, my lady. As for what I am, I cannot yet say. As to who, I am Damon Forsyth.”
She popped the tie holding her hair in place, releasing the red strands in thick, shiny waves. She sighed. Apparently loosening her hair alleviated some of the pain in her head. Her jaw relaxed, but only slightly.
“So, Damon Forsyth, are you dead?”
Damon glanced down at his body, examining the coarse texture of his breeches and the slick leather of his boots. “I do not believe so, madam. Quite frankly, I’ve not felt this alive for centuries.”
“Then what are you?”
“I’m quite certain I do not yet know. Previously, I was the son of John Forsyth, a British baron and governor of a Gypsy colony in a land called—”
“Valoren?”
Damon gaped. “You know this place?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t know it at all. Just the name. And you’re not in Kansas anymore, Sir Damon. Then again, neither am I.”
Wavering on her feet, she reached out to find her balance. Luckily, Damon was the nearest solid object. Her hand gripped his powerfully, and for a split second he imagined those same fingers seizing his naked shoulders or raking across his back.
He cleared his throat and shook the bawdy image from his mind. “What is this…’can sis’?”
She snickered. “It’s Kansas. Wizard of—oh, never mind. Okay. You’re not dead. And unlike when I saw you in the window earlier, you are now solid. Which means?”
Damon took a second before he realized he was supposed to provide the missing information to her supposition. “I know not, my lady. My last memory includes a powerful anger toward a dark sorcerer. I must suppose that this anger led me here.”
She blew out a breath and managed to stand solidly on her own. “So, you pissed off some magician who locked you in the painting?”
Damon winced. Such language from a woman of
breeding was wholly unexpected, but nonetheless intriguing. “What makes you think I angered him?”
She broadened her stance in a pose that looked vaguely defensive. “He wouldn’t have trapped his best friend in here all this time, would he?”
Damon thought of the cat. “I would not be so sure.” Eyeing her skeptically, he wondered at the breadth of their conversation. For a woman who’d just confronted someone whose presence could not be explained scientifically, she appeared mostly unruffled. Did such occurrences happen daily in her century?
“You have no trouble accepting that I am a man out of time?” he asked.
She laughed. Not a tinkling, genteel giggle, but an out-and-out guffaw. “I have a lot of trouble, believe me. But I can’t ignore what is right in front of me.”
Nor could he. She was hauntingly lovely, with eyes the color of leaves in spring and skin that, despite a natural pale hue, glowed with life. But mostly, she possessed a fire he’d never witnessed in a woman so young, so lonely. She’d reacted to him too easily to be a woman who warmed herself regularly in any man’s bed.
“Perhaps I am not real at all,” he offered, wanting to verify his suspicions, “but a figment of your powerful fantasy?”
Her shock, followed by a quick flash of anger, told Damon more than she intended, he was sure. That she was lonely. That she was in need of a lover. And that she wasn’t happy about it. Not, at least, when someone else voiced her innermost desires.
She pinched him on the arm. Instinctively, he stepped back and voiced his displeasure with a random curse.
Her chuckle infuriated him, but he had to admit, she possessed a wealth of courage. She’d turned the tables, saucy wench.
“You’re as real as the knot on my head,” she insisted. “At least, for my purposes. Question is, why are you here?”
Damon took a deep breath, invigorated again by the rush of air into his lungs. This, coupled with his attraction to this beautiful, headstrong woman, was a sensation he never wanted to forget. “I have no idea, my lady, but I do intend to find out.”
Her hand shot out and grabbed his wrist before he could react. He squelched his instinct to twist out of her grip, startled by the heat of her flesh. She turned his hand and pressed her fingers tightly on his palm. Satisfied by what she felt there, she quickly scratched her nails across his skin.
