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conscious thought in the rushing tide.
    He frantically tried to grasp hold of the important ones, his eyes desperately searching for an escape.
    And that’s when they met a brilliant blue pair watching him from across the crowded room.
     

    Abigail watched in shock as Rainewood appeared suddenly, completely out of sorts, on the other side of the ballroom.
    And was he wearing the same clothing from two nights past? Yes, definitely. When it came to Rainewood, her memory was chisel-sharp.
    Where had he popped in from? A forty-eight-hour binge of women and alcohol, no doubt.
    His eyes caught hers and held much too long. There was something primal and unfocused in his dark eyes. Then he started toward her. Her thoughts straightened and her attention strengthened as she prepared for war. He never approached her in full view of the ton, save for the incident two days past. Why would he now be heading her way as if hell-bent on a personal vendetta? Had she finally pushed him over the edge?
    She paused suddenly as her mother’s face caught in her periphery. No matter what his desire, Rainewood wouldn’t taunt her in front of the elders, not even her social-climbing mother.
    She took a deep breath, ready to face whatever it was head on, as she watched his tall broad-shouldered frame advance through the ballroom, the careless gleam in his eyes gone for once, his usually perfectly groomed hair messy and rakish.
    He was advancing on her with remarkable speed, the usual path that flowed around him even more accommodating. And then suddenly, she watched one of the matrons pass right through him.
    Her heart stopped beating.
    “Miss Smart?”
    Dear God.
    She shook her head to clear it. Surely she had been mistaken…
    Rainewood passed through two men without breaking stride, without a single pause. His eyes glittered and her hand rose without direct consent to her lips.
    “Miss Smart?”
    Panic licked her spine and she jerked her eyes from the terrible sight to concentrate on Mr. Farnswourth. “Yes, Mr. Farnswourth?” She wiped suddenly moist and clammy hands on her dress and tried to catch her breath.
    “I say, are you well?”
    Her mother was looking at her sharply and Abigail pasted on a smile—the hundredth such time she had done so tonight—but much, much more strained than ever before. She tried to ignore the man, ghost, oh god , striding her way. “I am, thank you. You were saying a—. About the musicale next week?”
    Dead, dead, dead . The word continued on an infinite loop. Speculation about where he had been for the past two days froze, cracked, then shattered in her head. Surely she had been mistaken. Valerian—no, Rainewood , she corrected—wasn’t dead. She had seen something, somebody, anything , else.
    She refused to turn her head to look again. To confirm the bone-deep certainty that she would never mistake Rainewood for anyone else.
    “Oh, yes, jolly good time it should be,” Mr. Farnswourth said. “My cousin is quite proficient at the pianoforte. I would most enjoy—”
    “You can see me.” That familiar silky, deep, masculine voice said at her elbow. Her eyes tightened. Nothing there, no one there. A figment of her imagination. She would not look.
    “—if you would join me,” Mr. Farnswourth finished.
    A tall, darkly dressed man moved into her vision. Stood before her, dark eyes piercing. “You can see me,” he repeated forcefully.
    Her lips parted and her brain froze. Rainewood was standing there, caught in the circle of the surrounding bodies; he had just spoken, and no one had noticed . She closed her eyes and inhaled a shaky breath, then took another.
    A tingle brushed down her arm in a parody of his usual taunting touch, and a profound shiver followed in its wake. Not the usual maddening shiver he produced in her, but one equally as unnerving.
    She hesitated a second too long over the feeling. She had to pull her thoughts together.
    If she ignored the situation, maybe she would wake to find