Enchantment & Bridge of Dreams Read Online Free PDF Page B

come here to do, of course. And like a fool he’d told her exactly where to find the Whistler.
    Kiss it goodbye, imbecile. If it’s the Whistler she’s after she knows how to get it. If it’s information she wants she can get that, too. And she’ll be long gone before you can even work that bloody door free!
    The viscount’s eyes rose, smoking with rage, assessing the twelve-foot walls around him with disgust.
    Bloody blazing hell, Nicholas Draycott thought grimly.
    How could he possibly be such a damn fool?
    Again.

CHAPTER FOUR
    K ACEY WAS GASPING BY THE time she reached the front of the stable. Just beyond, sheer granite walls beckoned across a silver sheet of water, shadowed and smooth in the gathering darkness.
    Somewhere to the south, heat lightning dug phosphorous fingers into the channel, but she barely noticed.
    He must have come out this way. There had to be a wretched door here somewhere! Breathlessly, she ran over the narrow two-arched stone bridge that spanned the moat. And then she saw the door, tucked behind the base of a chimney, painted gray to blend in with the granite walls.
    Kacey’s heart raced. Did she dare? What if she met someone—a servant or a relative?
    A wife?
    She resolutely ignored the faint sliver of emotion that pricked her at the thought, seizing the doorknob and twisting violently.
    The door slid open smoothly before her, revealing a long corridor of spotless, sparkling marble. She stopped, turning back to listen to the night.
    No noise, no angry shouting. Good, he must have given up. Now to find the stairway.
    Warily, she slipped inside, feeling a shiver work down her spine as the silence of the abbey’s interior fell over her like a cool, enveloping cloak.
    Welcome, the house seemed to say. We’ve been waiting for you…
    Kacey caught her breath, fighting her dark fancies. Too much traveling, she told herself. Too little to eat.
    Of course—it was all so simple. There was nothing wrong with her that a decent meal and a full night’s sleep wouldn’t cure.
    She stopped only long enough to tug off her boots and tuck them under one arm. Then, soundless and graceful, she darted off toward the stairway and her waiting Whistler, determined to have at least one sight of the tantalizing canvas before she turned her back on this place forever.
    Never say forever, the house seemed to whisper.
    Forever has a way of happening. In places and ways you haven’t begun to imagine.
    That dim warning, too, Kacey ignored, gripping her lip between her teeth and telling herself to get on with this wild escapade and then get the devil out of here.
    It took her only seconds to find the massive oak staircase. She looked neither right nor left, denying herself the pleasure of that rare and ancient house. Somehow she knew she must close her eyes to its beauty, that if she dropped her guard even once she would never find the strength to leave.
    And now there was a clock ticking in her head, telling her that a silver-eyed predator was only minutes behind her. Driven by sheer adrenaline, she found her way to the top floor.
    And there she forgot her fear. For now the luminous canvas was before her, shimmering in the first faint rays of moonlight spilling through the long gallery’s tall windows.
    There Kacey made her last, and most deadly, mistake, which was to underestimate the man with the voice like silk and the eyes like beaten silver.
    Eyes that she seemed to have known forever.
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    H E FOUND HER AT THE SOUTH wall of the long gallery, seated before the great canvas. Her long legs were tucked beneath her, and her eyes were radiant.
    The Englishman’s face filled with awe at the picture she made, her long hair gleaming silver in the moonlight, her whole being suffused with love for the canvas before her.
    Suddenly he was ripped by jealousy at the warmth that glowed from her eyes, angry that he wasn’t the one who’d put it there.
    Suddenly he