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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