The Thorndyke Trilogy 2: Dancing at Midnight (3 page)

“I can’t do this.” He turned on his heel and left abruptly.

“Awkward.” Spreading her hands, she shrugged. What was his problem? What was hers? How could she want this man so much after nearly dying in the snow? Surely she should be tired or recovering or some shit like that?

Never mind
. This was a gorgeous place, and she was here. Time she investigated the shower.

After stamping her feet to ensure the pins and needles were gone, she cautiously stood and headed for the bathroom.

* * * *

She managed ten minutes. Although the shower tempted her to linger under its enveloping spray, she only waited until she was warmed through, then scrubbed a towel over her hair and body and scrambled into the robe. If it weren’t full-length and so thick and fluffy it covered every hint of her shape, she’d have been embarrassed to go down dressed in it and nothing else. But sugar-pink fluffiness appealed to her inner girly side, and the slippers matched. So she forgot any misgivings and left the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

Voices drifted to her from the floor below. “You are an arrogant fuck, Nathan. You think she nearly killed herself trying to get in here?”

“Why not?” Nathan’s cool, clear voice sounded as if she were standing next to him. “Are you trying to tell me it’s a coincidence? Here she is, a dancer, and here I am, one of the people who can guarantee her a job. She could’ve persuaded somebody to drop her off close by. It’s not so bad outside that an all-weather vehicle couldn’t cope.”

Dalton gave a sound of disgust. “You are kidding me. That woman could have died out there. Nobody would risk that just to get to you.”

“You haven’t met the kind of dancers I have.”

Boiling with fury, Kirsten spun around and headed for her room, where she grabbed her phone from the charger. She had plenty of juice now but still no signal. It didn’t matter. It would serve her needs.

This time, she slammed the door, making sure they heard, and held the phone to her ear. “Yes, sure. Look, I’ll be there as soon as I can.” She paused, as if listening. “Yeah. Can you ask them not to recognize me? Call me by my real name, Kristen Lowe, and not Isadora Bennett? Yes, give me a place at the back of the corps de ballet. I want to watch for a week or two. Then I’ll decide if the Chicago Ballet is a place I want to be. Tell the London Ballet I might be available. But let me take care of this first.”

Then, as if caught out, she touched the End button and dropped the useless piece of junk in the pocket of her robe. “Oh!” Effortlessly, she tripped down the stairs, demonstrating the movements of a born dancer. “You didn’t hear any of that, did you?”

The two men, fallen silent, gazed at her. Dalton nodded. They were both on their feet, but she refused to let their superior height intimidate her.

She shrugged. “So you know my secret. Yes, I’m a dancer, but I’m not as well-known here as I am in Europe.”

How dare this arrogant bastard assume she was willing to risk her life for the chance of an audition? She wished her phone did work so she could check his details. Although she didn’t know his surname, she bet if she put
Nathan, dance, Chicago
into a search engine, she’d find something. Maybe he had a small-time company, she thought spitefully. Although from the look of this place, he wasn’t short of money.

He wasn’t a dancer currently on the circuit. She’d have seen him or heard of him. Nobody as striking as this man could stay hidden for long. The media would pounce on him, and he’d be at the big red-carpet events. Perhaps he was in another capacity, but with the myopia of a dedicated artist, she rarely took notice of anything outside her sphere.

Now she had to take her bluff forward. “I’d really appreciate it if you said nothing to anyone outside this house. Would you, please?” She forced a winsome pleading into her expression, adding a dash of humor.

At least it worked on Dalton, who grinned. “I wouldn’t dream of saying anything.” It was a sexy, attractive smile, but it didn’t move her one iota.

With a shaded glance at her, Nathan nodded.

She pushed every possibility out of her mind except the one she’d chosen. She was a famous dancer on her way to Chicago for an incognito assignment. No other reality existed. She didn’t lie because she was no good at it, but her temper had urged her into making a massive falsehood—one she had to sustain.

Nathan exchanged a glance with Dalton, and this time the corner of his mouth quirked. That was nearly a smile. She almost fainted from shock. “Your secret is safe with us,” he said.

Coolly, she thanked him, stuck up her chin, and went to sit on the sofa.

The food was hot and delicious, though afterward Kristen couldn’t remember what they’d had. Except that they’d eaten apple pie, her favorite indulgence. She did refuse the cream that accompanied it, her last shield against the calories that plagued her existence. When she was working, she burned off enough to keep her weight steady, but she still had to stick to a rigorous diet. Dancers, especially ballet dancers, had no fat on their bodies. None.

They didn’t talk to her about her career, something that relieved her and made it possible for her to eat.

Concerned about her masquerade, she excused herself shortly after dinner, pleading exhaustion.

“Get in the tub before you sleep,” Cora told her. “You’ll ease any aches.”

That sounded like a good idea.

Chapter Two

Dalton kept his voice low this time, even though he and Nathan had remained in the dining room after eating, and closed the door. “She’s a famous dancer?”

“Like I’m a famous actor. In other words, not a chance.” Nathan poured two glasses of Scotch and handed one to Dalton. “There’s nothing like good single malt to warm you from the inside out.”

“Whatever did we do before Scotch existed?”

Nathan raised a brow. “We drank brandy.”

Dalton’s easy laughter coursed through the room, but he spoke in quieter tones. “She moves like a dancer.”

Nathan took a sip of the warming spirit. A Scotch of this quality would do anything but burn, but it heated his insides nicely. “There are any number of good failed dancers. Too many dancers, too few stages. In any case, you forgot something.” He leaned forward. “I turned off the satellite signal to the house.”

“Does that mean we can’t watch TV?”

“Yep.”

Dalton gave an exaggerated sigh. “I daresay the game was cancelled if the weather was bad.”

“I have the emergency phone in the office.” He grinned. “That masquerade livened the evening nicely. I was tempted to send Cora away and get some more lies out of Kristen.”

He couldn’t deny he liked Kristen’s spirit. In the face of his obvious boredom and—he had to admit—his arrogance, she’d come back fighting. But it was true. Women had thrown themselves at him, not because of who he was but what he represented. They wanted a job, in short. And maybe an introduction to some of the richest people in town.

After over two hundred years of that shit, he was ready to give up and get a blue-collar job. Living in obscurity for a while appealed. He’d always enjoyed his wealth, ensured it went with him from life to life. He’d been born into riches, and while he’d never taken it for granted, it had only increased over the years. Except once in 1929, when he’d been wiped out. But starting again had been an exhilarating challenge, and he’d ended the thirties richer than ever.

Baiting her would serve well to keep her at a distance. Even though her lies had amused rather than angered him. Her reaction to his suspicions had put them all to rest. He’d skimmed her mind and found her furious.

“Maybe she is a dancer,” he said. “You heard her talk about the corps de ballet. Ballet’s a field I don’t work in. And her feet told their own story.” He shrugged. “We might be harboring a prima ballerina in our midst. We should ask about her in Chicago. Maybe someone’s seen her.”

Dalton brightened. “I should. Maybe I’ll take a visit to the ballet. It’d make a change.”

“It would, that.” Nathan finished his drink and got to his feet. “And what you said earlier? You are so right. I’m going for a flight. It’s time I did.”

“Ice on the wings no problem?”

He gave his friend a pitying look. “Never heard of ice dragons?” Not that he was one, but he knew a few.

With the Scotch coursing merrily through his veins, he climbed the stairs and went into his room, leaving Dalton to return to the great room and dream by the fire.

After stripping and dropping his clothes in untidy piles on the floor, Nathan unlatched the big door and strolled out to the balcony stark naked. Almost noiselessly, the door slid closed behind him. Snow fell in soft kisses on his bare body, and he shivered before he took a leap into the air.

He loved this part. Not every shape-shifter could do it, shift while in midair, but Nathan had always found it effortless. His limbs changed, scales spread over him, and his skull lengthened as his human body gave way to his dragon. He spread his wings and flew. Snow surrounded him, fell over him, but in this form, he didn’t feel the cold, only featherlight touches.

Immediately his mood relaxed as his body eased into its new form. He’d been too busy to take even the shortest flight recently, and his dragon had grown restless.

He soared toward the moon, or where it should be, but the cloud cover was heavy and he couldn’t see it, only sense its presence. Every shifter knew the moon and its phases. The knowledge was built in to them, part of their natures.

He flew higher. Flicking out his tongue, he took a brief taste of the air, absorbing in a few flakes of snow and savoring the spikes of coolness.

When he looked down, he was nearly blinded by the blanket of white covering everything as far as he could see. Stretching out his senses, he felt for other Talents, using the kind of radar Talents had. They could detect the presence of others by a buzz in the mind. Unless they put up their shields completely.

Either they weren’t listening or there weren’t any nearby, apart from Dalton, who ignored Nathan’s sensing, knowing it wasn’t for him. Dalton had taken the whiskey with him into the great room and was making inroads. Soon he’d sleep, and Nathan knew from long experience that his old friend was hard to wake once he’d had enough drink to numb his clever mind.

Nathan couldn’t see Kristen’s car. Either she didn’t have one or the snow had engulfed it. He guessed he’d better do something about that, try to rescue it when the snow cleared. If it existed. It could be days—weeks, even—before the roads reappeared.

The cool air blasted past his face, but as a cold-blooded creature, it didn’t bother him one bit.

When he banked and turned, ready to return to the house, he noticed a hump in the snow. He swooped down to investigate. He didn’t bother to fuzz his form, using the camouflage that enabled him to fly unnoticed over populated areas. Fuzzing was probably a form of hypnotism, but Nathan had been born with the ability. All it did was persuade people that they saw what reason told them they saw. Dragons appeared to them as shadows, airplanes, even dragon-shaped balloons. Not the real thing because dragons didn’t exist, did they?

Nobody would recognize him. Who was out in this weather? Apart from desperate dancers. At the thought of Kristen, his body stirred. Shit, even when he was a dragon she got to him.

He’d nearly caved when he’d felt her warm body nestled against his as he’d carried her. So easy to ignore the guest rooms and head straight for his own, where he’d have joined her on the bed and made damn sure she didn’t feel cold again tonight.

Something about her appealed to him on a level far more than he was comfortable with. He’d caught his breath at the curtain of shining black hair, the ponytail cascading down her back when he’d pulled that stupid woolen hat off her head. And her eyes were such a deep blue, soft and welcoming.

She had the body of a dancer. He’d spotted that as soon as she’d taken off her coat, before he’d seen her feet and recognized what she was. He’d discerned the graceful form under her thick sweater and her jeans, the easy way she moved. Mouthwatering.

Anger seared him. With himself, for wanting her.

He snorted in disgust. Surely he could control his reactions better at his age.

A glimmer of paint attracted his attention, and he dove low enough to sweep a tranche of fresh snow away with his wing.

That was the top of a car, no doubt about it. He took a few more passes and cleared enough of it to see. Cold and dead and empty. It could be Kristen’s.

When he stretched his senses, he detected her lingering essence in the vehicle. Anger swept through him, heating his cold blood when he took note of the make and age of the vehicle. She could have died. Despite the storm being worse than anybody had expected, there was no excuse for setting out in a piece of crap like this.

What was she thinking?

He arrowed into the sky, shooting up until the wind streaked past him and brought him to his senses. All he had to do was get through tonight. Then he’d send her on her way and never see her again.

Coming to a soft, expert landing on his balcony, he shape-shifted back to mortal. The cold struck him immediately, right to his bones. Shivering, he pushed the door to his bedroom. And pushed it again. The cold must have iced it shut.

Partially shifting, he warmed the edge with his breath, then tried again.
Nope, not moving.

Reaching out with his mind, he tried to contact Dalton. The bastard was asleep, profoundly so. He could wake Dalton, but he’d try something else first.

The balcony was a long one, linking all the bedrooms on this side of the house. He’d given Kristen the one at the end, farthest from his. The bedroom light wasn’t on. Only the bathroom.

He walked along the balcony, testing the other bedroom doors, but they were all shut. When he got to hers, he saw a crack of light. It was unlocked. He could get through her room without any trouble if she was bathing, get to his without disturbing anybody. Cora was out hunting, and he didn’t want to bother her. She hadn’t fed for a while. He reached out with his mind for any mortal presence in the bedroom. None.