Breath of Magic

  Copperfield's matter-of-fact voice washed over them like a bucket of ice water. "Sorry, Tristan, but you can't blame your precocious little witch for this one. It was some sort of citywide blackout. I called Con Ed and they said some idiot probably dropped his electric shaver in the bath – " He lurched to a halt on the verge of stumbling over their entwined bodies, then emitted a low whistle. "Well, I'll be damned…"

  Arian squinted against the flood of light, fearing it was not Copperfield, but she who would be damned for her wanton behavior. After being cocooned in such seductive darkness, even the recessed track lighting Copperfield had switched on seemed unbearably harsh.

  The light threw Tristan's broad shoulders into silhouette and cast an ugly shadow over what had been lovely in the darkness: the puffy tenderness of her well-kissed lips, the provocative juxtaposition of their bodies, the glint of raw hunger in Tristan's eyes.

  Eyes that were glazing over with an impenetrable shield of frost even as Arian watched, leaving her with nothing but a scalding blush and a wretched sense of loss.

  His lazy grace untarnished, Tristan rose to face his friend, dismissing her as easily as he flicked a speck of carpet fuzz from the sleeve of his shirt. Feeling nude instead of just mildly rumpled, Arian sat up and jerked the nightshirt closed at the throat.

  Copperfield rocked back on his heels. "Well, well… no wonder there are so many babies born nine months after a blackout."

  Arian sensed the condemnation in Copperfield's eyes wasn't intended for her, but she still lunged to her feet, dragging the back of her hand across her tingling lips. "You might have warned me," she cried.

  Tristan turned on her as if relieved to find an outlet for his own frustration. "I didn't think I had to warn you. Any three-year-old knows not to stick a spoon into an electric socket."

  "I was trying to smother the flame at its source," Arian shot back at him. "I kept unscrewing the globe, but every time I screwed it back in, the lamp would come on again. But I wasn't talking about the lamp. I was talking about the baby. What if your impertinent kisses have gotten me with child?"

  The anger fled Tristan's face, leaving him looking mildly dazed. "With child?" he echoed, as if she had spoken in a foreign tongue.

  Copperfield frowned at his friend in blatant disgust. "Very intelligent, Lennox. This is New York City in the nineties, the woman is a total stranger, and you didn't even bother to use protection?"

  "I didn't need any protection," Tristan said softly, the speculative gleam in his eyes deepening. "Except maybe from her." His deft fingers captured Arian's jaw in a mocking travesty of his earlier caress. "Would you care to repeat what you just said?"

  Already sensing that she'd erred in some irredeemable manner, Arian pressed her lips together and shook her head.

  Tristan's tender smile did nothing to relieve her fears. "Your selective amnesia must be flaring up again, darling. Allow me to refresh your memory. You said, 'What if your impertinent kisses have gotten me with child?' And to think, Cop," he tossed over his shoulder, "all these years I thought it was letting a woman drink after me that posed the danger." His narrowed eyes searched her face, their scrutiny so intense it made her want to squirm. "Who the hell are you, Arian Whitewood?"

  Arian bit her lip to keep from spilling out the truth, knowing silence was her only defense. But Tristan wasn't offering pardon, only condemnation.

  His expression resolute, he grabbed her hand and dragged her past a gaping Copperfield to the elevator.

  Arian feared he was taking her somewhere to explain exactly how babies were conceived or perhaps even to show her. "Where are we going?"

  His terse reply sent a shiver of foreboding down her spine. "On a witch hunt."

  Arian trotted along behind Tristan in her bare feet, forced to take three steps to each of his determined strides. His possessive grip on her hand never slackened, not even when their trek through the endless corridors of Lennox Enterprises brought them face-to-face with several of his employees whose departures had been delayed by the chaos created by the brief blackout.

  "E-e-excuse me, sir," yelped a shiny-faced young man, plastering himself against the wall as they passed.

  "Mr. Lennox! I thought you'd left for the day." A gawking woman vaulted out of their path, hugging her briefcase like a shield.

  Although Tristan seemed oblivious, the astounded stares and shocked whispers made Arian want to cringe. She feared the immaculately groomed men and women all knew she'd been tussling on the penthouse floor with their employer. She might not have a scarlet letter emblazoned on her chest, but her lips were still moist and swollen from Tristan's kisses, her hair tumbled from his caresses. She slowed to tug the nightshirt down with her free hand, breathing a prayer of thanksgiving that it at least covered her naked legs to the knees.

  Tristan's pace quickened. Stumbling after him, Arian glared at his back with mounting resentment. Did he seek to punish her for her carnal weakness or his own?

  A shiny plaque engraved with tasteful script identified their ultimate destination as Lennox Labs.

  Tristan shoved open the swinging door with the heel of his hand, revealing a group of workers hovering over glowing screens and glass tubes. Their expressions were no less startled than those they'd confronted in the corridor.

  "Out," he commanded. "You have three minutes to clear the lab."

  "Yes, sir!"

  "Aye, Mr. Lennox!"

  The white-coated figures scurried to obey, leaving Arian at Tristan's mercy. He dragged her over to a keypad on the far wall and began to tap out a complex string of numbers. As his fingers flew over the keys, Arian reluctantly marveled at their tapered grace. It already seemed a lifetime ago that they'd caressed her with such wrenching tenderness.

  A hidden panel swished open.

  As Tristan drew her into the room beyond, Arian knew instinctively that she was being granted entry to the inner sanctum of Tristan's domain. Merciless white light flooded the sterile chamber. There were no shadows here. Nowhere to hide.

  Relinquishing her hand, he left her standing in the center of the room, a dark blot upon its dazzling purity. He stepped up on a shallow platform, bent over a panel, and began to flip switches and twist knobs. An ominous humming filled the air. The light flickered from white to pale green, casting a sinister mask over Tristan's handsome features. He shoved up his shirtsleeves, sending his cuff links bouncing across the room and revealing a tanned expanse of forearm. This was the real Tristan Lennox, Arian realized. With his polished veneer stripped away, he was as comfortable in these laboratory surroundings as any sorcerer of old.

  "I designed this software to measure metaphysical telekinetic energy," he said, swiping a stray lock of hair from his eyes with a disregard Arian found dangerously endearing. He swiveled a glowing monitor around to face her. "This graph will fluctuate in the presence of any extrasensory manifestation stemming from aberrant brain wave activity."

  Arian sniffed. "Aberrant? Are you suggesting I am a freak, sir?"

  He straightened. "I'm suggesting you're a flagrant phony. But I thought it only fair to give you one last chance to prove me wrong before I call you a cab for the airport." He smiled sweetly and folded his arms over his chest in mocking challenge. "Or would you prefer a broom?"

  Arian would have preferred to hurl a fireball hot enough to singe his smug eyebrows off. Instead, she crossed her own arms and glared at him, her muteness now more rebellion than defense. She refused to allow him to provoke or bully her into a confession. If he was seeking a witch, then he would hunt in vain.

  He stepped down from the platform to circle her like the predator he had become. "What's wrong, Miss Whitewood? Cat got your tongue? I suppose you do have a cat somewhere, don't you? A big, black one that shape-shifts into a raven when the moon is full? Every good witch has a familiar, you know." He paused to chuck her under the chin. "And you are a very good little witch, aren't you?"

  Arian clenched her teeth to keep from biting his finger. You
must learn to guard that temper of yours, daughter. 'Tis the meek who shall inherit the earth. Chastened by the memory of Marcus's words, she fought to keep her anger at a low simmer.

  "After all, you were clever enough to infiltrate my competition, my life…" – moving behind her, Tristan pushed aside the heavy fall of her curls, his heated whisper tickling the baby-fine hairs at her nape – "my bed."

  Arian was shocked to realize his indrawn breath was no more steady than her own. Dropping her hair as if it were a nest of baby cobras, he strode back to the platform, putting as much distance between them as the lab would allow.

  "I'm no fool, Arian Whitewood," he snapped, spinning around to face her. His normally imperturbable expression was so savage with desperation that she wondered if he was trying to convince her or himself. "And you're no witch. You're a fraud. A shameless cheat whose sole purpose in coming here was to swindle me out of a million dollars."

  Nearly choking on a cry of denial, Arian drew herself up to her full five feet half an inch.

  Tristan's voice softened with lethal scorn. "What really gets me is that I was actually on the verge of believing you… of believing in you. But you blew it with that pathetic performance upstairs. Too bad Sven wasn't there to witness your acting debut." His insulting gaze swept her rumpled form from head to toe, striking invisible tongues of flame wherever it lingered. "This is nineteen ninety-six, sweetheart. I'd be a hell of a lot more likely to believe you're a witch than a virgin."

  Arian's hand closed around the amulet. The emerald pulsed against her palm like a sullen throb of thunder warning of a coming storm.

  "Why, you couldn't pull a rabbit out of a rabbit hutch!" Tristan's contempt spilled like acid over the shame of her many failures. "You couldn't bend a spoon with both hands. You couldn't charm your way out of a paper – "

  "Enough!" The cry of pure fury burst from Arian's throat at the precise instant the ball of lightning leapt from her outstretched fingertips, shooting straight for Tristan's head.

  PART II

  There be none of Beauty's daughters

  With a magic like thee;

  And like music on the waters

  Is thy sweet voice to me

  – George Noel Gordon, Lord Byron

  Everything that deceives may be said to enchant.

  – Plato

  15

  "Sweet Jesu, I've killed him!" Arian clapped a hand to her mouth, gazing with utter horror upon the blackened, smoking crater where Tristan had stood. A sob escaped her parted fingers. "Grandmama always tried to warn me my tantrums were most unbecoming."

  "I hope you'll forgive me if I agree with her." The wry, shaken voice came from behind the panel.

  Arian's breath caught in her throat as a tousled golden head emerged, followed by a pair of broad shoulders. She was too giddy with relief to be gratified by Tristan's dazed expression, the rumpled condition of his shirt, or the smudge of soot marring his patrician nose.

  Gripping what remained of the panel for support, he climbed to his feet, eyeing her with a curious mixture of awe and wariness. "You don't, by any chance, suffer from PMS, do you?"

  Arian's first ridiculous urge to rush into his arms, smother his face with kisses, and beg his forgiveness was tempered by caution as she realized just what her ugly little fit had revealed. She no longer believed she could bear it if Tristan turned out to be cut from the same starched broadcloth as Linnet.

  She lowered her eyes to hide her vulnerability. "The only thing I was suffering from, sir, was your heartless taunts."

  Dragging his gaze away from Arian's averted face, Tristan glanced back at the computer monitor to confirm his suspicions. The wildly zigzagging line of the graph was off the scale. He reached over to gently flick off the machine before the influx of impossible data could crash its hard drive. His own senses threatened a similar overload. His ears still crackled and the stench of burning ozone flooded his nostrils. He stepped off the platform, his heart pounding wildly in his ears.

  He suspected he would recover from his reckless dive behind the panel long before he'd recover from the shock of discovering that Arian's magic was no cheap parlor trick. In the instant before she'd blasted him, he'd seen no sign of a radio transmitter, no microprocessor, not even a puff of smoke or the betraying flash of a mirror.

  There had been only Arian in his silk pajama shirt and bare feet, her dark eyes flashing with anger, her soft lips quivering because his cruelty had almost driven her to tears.

  His unsteady legs betrayed him. He sat down abruptly on the edge of the platform, resting his hands on his knees to control their violent trembling. "Who the hell are you?" he whispered, searching her face.

  Gazing into the molten pewter of Tristan's eyes, Arian realized he was no longer demanding, but pleading. A plea she found it nearly impossible to resist.

  "I'm Arian Whitewood," she whispered back, spreading the oversized nightshirt to bob a shy curtsy.

  "From France?" he added hoarsely.

  She nearly blurted out the truth, but some small, superstitious part of her was hesitant to invoke the Reverend Linnet's name. The sin had been solely his, but the shame of that dark episode seemed to taint even this shadowless haven. She longed to leave Linnet and Gloucester in the past where they belonged.

  Tristan watched Arian hesitate, saw the shadow pass over her face. How many times had he felt the presence of a private specter only to have Eddie Hobbes or some other reporter drag it into the sunlight for strangers to poke and prod? He certainly 'didn't want Arian or anyone else delving into his past or nudging his ghosts into wakefulness.

  "Don't," he said, lifting his hand to stay her words. "All I asked for was proof of magic. You don't owe me anything beyond that." A choked laugh escaped him. "Unless, of course, the Prattler's right and you really are a lascivious alien with insatiable appetites who's going to whisk me off to Venus and keep me in sexual bondage until I father a new race of superbeings." Tristan had frequently entertained such fantasies as a sex-starved, Star Trek-obsessed teenager, and to his keen chagrin, he discovered it wasn't such a stretch of his imagination to picture Arian in a silver foil bikini leveling a laser gun at his heart. Hell, she might not even need the gun.

  Her cheeks had darkened in an endearing blush. "Don't be ridiculous. I'm only a witch."

  "Only a witch," Tristan echoed, clambering to his feet. Wonder crept over him, as gently and irrevocably as a mist of green stealing over a slumbering garden. "Just a cauldron-stirring, lightning-hurling, broom-riding princess of darkness."

  Arian sniffled. "I do believe that's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me."

  Tristan approached her with the respect he would have accorded her from the beginning had he not been so desperate to elude her enchantment. "I haven't been very nice to you, have I? I was a dreadful bully."

  "An absolute wretch." Her voice subsided to a defensive mumble. "I could so pull a rabbit out of a rabbit hutch."

  Tristan winced. "Lightning was too good for me. You should have turned me into a frog."

  "A tadpole," she concurred with a sullen nod. " 'Twould have been no more than you deserved for – " She glanced up at him, her eyes brightening with poorly disguised hope. "Do you honestly believe I could? Turn you into a frog?"

  As Tristan cupped her chin in his palm, his thumb strayed out to caress her parted lips. He had thought to wring a confession from them, but it seemed he would be the one compelled to confess tonight.

  "Yes, Arian," he said softly. "I believe."

  Beguiled by the reverent glow in his eyes, Arian wondered how she could feel so blissfully elated and so miserably uncertain at the same time. Beneath the guise of smoothing a wrinkle, she tucked the amulet into her nightshirt, praying Tristan's newfound faith was not misplaced.

  When Tristan marched into Copperfield's office the next morning, clutching a paper sack from a nearby hardware store instead of a stack of files, Cop's scowl warned him that his allegiance had shifted. He might as wel
l have had "Michael Copperfield, Defender of Chaste Witches" lettered in gold on his door. Tristan could have told his friend that his vigilance was unnecessary. He had every intention of protecting Arian from himself.

  Copperfield snapped open a folder and used it to shield his mutinous expression. "Don't nag. I've been working on the Monkman account since dawn. I'll have a copy of my report on your desk by noon or you can dock my – "

  "There's no rush. You've been working far too hard lately. Maybe you need a vacation." Gratified by the drop of Cop's jaw, Tristan added, "As a matter of fact, I've decided to take the day off myself."

  His attorney couldn't have looked any more flabbergasted had Tristan announced he was donating all of his assets to charity and joining a Sicilian monastery. "But you haven't had a day off since nineteen eighty-nine!"

  "Precisely my point." He planted his palms on Cop's desk, too wired with anticipation to care if his eyes betrayed his delight. "I want you to come with me. I have an extraordinary surprise for you."

  "The ninety-six profit projections?" Cop ventured.

  "Something a hell of a lot more interesting." He grabbed Copperfield's arm and dragged him toward the door.

  Cop sniffed at his breath. "I haven't seen you this giddy since the Republicans reclaimed Congress. Have you been drinking?"

  Although the Tower was still ringed with news vans and reporters waving microphones, the atrium of Lennox Enterprises was mercifully devoid of their shouting and jostling. Tristan had ordered extra security posted at each entrance with express orders to deny access to anyone who was not an employee or resident of the building. His refusal to comment on Arian's status had only whetted the press's insatiable curiosity. His lips twitched as he suppressed a calculating smile. The press conference he'd scheduled for noon should send them all scurrying back to their holes to sharpen their teeth and claws in anticipation of a fresh kill.