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wanted to be an artist so he could paint her.
    A poet so he could capture her in exquisite words.
    Most of all, he wanted to be her lover so he could know her warmth always and in a thousand intimate ways.
    And then, like a dirty tide, memories of Bhanlai washed over him. Memories of betrayal. Memories of deceit and the blinding pain and rage that came in its aftermath.
    Memories of the other woman for whom he had also wanted to be all those things—a woman who’d taught him everything there was to know about betrayal.
    Draycott’s jaw clenched. In the moonlight, the muscles at his neck stood out clearly. He fought down the urge to stride through the gallery and shake her. He shook beneath a fierce need to touch her—to crush her against the wall and bury himself deep in her heat and softness.
    Unaware of the brooding presence behind her, the woman came slowly to her feet. She shook herself slightly, as if fighting the spell of the great canvas. Her eyes were fixed still on the dim, phantom boat that rocked in timeless silence beneath a lavender moon.
    Her heart filled with its beauty, Kacey breathed a silent song of thanks for this rare gift she’d been given.
    For having glimpsed such a masterpiece, even once. Most of all, for the knowledge, deep in her heart, that it was indeed from Whistler’s hand.
    A tear slipped down her cheek, For long moments, she didn’t move, struggling with nameless regrets and disturbing memories,shadowed fragments that clamored up from some dark place inside her, so deep that she had never before guessed they existed.
    Go now, Katherine Chelsea. Go now, or you’ll never go!
    One hand to her lips, she spun about and stumbled toward the door. In her desperation to be away, she didn’t notice the tall shadow unmoving amid the other shadows of the silent room.
    Her trembling fingers rose, sweeping her eyes blindly, and then she was gone.
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    H IDDEN IN THE SHADOWS OF the long gallery, Nicholas Draycott stood frozen, his hard fingers clenched into fists. His head spun as he tried to grasp what he’d just seen. She hadn’t taken the painting after all. And that meant—
    Abruptly his expression hardened. It means nothing, you fool. It means that she wants photographs and juicy gossip, not canvases. She probably doesn’t even now what the hell she’s looking at.
    Draycott reminded himself what she’d said back in the stable. She’d called the canvas a pretty picture, for God’s sake!
    But try as he might, he couldn’t forget her hesitation and the dreamy look on her face. Right now, every sense was clamoring that he was wrong about her.
    In spite of that instinct, something made him hold back, waiting silently in the shadows outside the door.
    Merely the logical need to learn her real intentions, he told himself coldly. Merely a natural desire to see that she took nothing with her when she left.
    By the time she reached the front staircase, he was gone, melting back into the darkness, where an ancient rear staircase ran down to a hidden passage leading out to the gatehouse.
    Just in case she stole something else on her way out, Draycott told himself.
    But he knew that, too, was a lie.
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    T HE FIRST FAT DROPS OF rain had just begun to fall when Kacey jerked open the side door. Her shoulders slumped as she stood staring out into the night. A long sigh escaped her tense lips.
    So this was it—no way out except to walk to town. So be it. She absolutely refused to go back and ask that misbegotten swine in the stable for anything, not even if her life depended on it!
    She tossed her bag firmly over her shoulder. At least these wretched boots might actually prove to be of some use, she thought, smiling grimly.
    She turned up her collar, then tugged the top of her trench coat up over her head, fighting to see through the slanting sheets of wind-driven rain.
    Far to the south, ghostly fingers of fire ripped the sky, and a tremor