Twin of Fire Read online

  When he began to kiss her neck, her cheek, her temple, she leaned into him, slipped her arms around his neck and kept dancing slowly, seductively.

  “You said you could be different,” he whispered, but Blair didn’t hear any words. “Come, kiss me once more before we have to leave.”

  Only some of the words reached her brain. She didn’t want to leave, wanted this moment never to end, and when he kissed her again, it weakened her more than before, and Lee had to hold her against him or her knees would have given way.

  He pulled back and for a moment she couldn’t move, her eyes closed, her head back.

  When she did look at him, he was grinning—an expression of delight on his face such as she’d never seen before. She smiled, too.

  “Come on, sweetheart,” he laughed, sweeping her into his arms. “I want to show you to the world.”

  Once Lee’d put her in the carriage, Blair’s mind began to work again. This evening was not going as she’d planned. She’d wanted to find out if her sister was marrying the right man and, instead of making a scientific study, every time Leander touched her, her knees turned to jelly.

  “This is utterly ridiculous.”

  “What is?” Lee asked from beside her in the carriage.

  “That…that I should have acquired this raging headache all of a sudden. I think I ought to go home.”

  “Here, let me look.”

  “No,” Blair said, leaning away from him.

  His long, strong fingers took hold of her chin as he moved his face closer to hers. “I don’t see any signs of pain,” he whispered, “except maybe this little vein right here,” he said, kissing her forehead at her hairline. “Does that help any?”

  “Please,” she whispered, trying to turn away. “Please don’t.”

  After a slow, lingering caress, he took the reins to the horse and drove them out of the park.

  Blair put her hand to her breast and her pounding heart. At least they would be in a public place, she thought, and then he’d take her home, and she’d once again be able to be herself—and keep this dangerous man in his place, which was in her sister’s arms, not hers.

  Later, someone told Blair that there had indeed been a reception for the governor, and that she had attended and met him, and had managed to speak in a coherent manner, but she couldn’t remember any of it. She had seemed to always be in Leander’s arms for those few hours, dancing across a floor of glass and seeing nothing but his eyes, drowning in the green depths of them.

  She remembered several people telling her that they’d never seen her looking lovelier or seen Lee so happy. There were a thousand questions about the wedding and Blair knew none of the answers, but it didn’t matter because Lee was always there to take her away to the dance floor again.

  If they had talked, she remembered nothing of what they had said. She thought only of his arms and his eyes and how he made her feel.

  It was when a boy brought a message to say that Lee was needed elsewhere that she came to her senses and realized that this magic night was over. She felt like Cinderella, and now she had to pay the price for her wonderful night.

  “You may stay and I’ll get someone to take you home,” Lee said. “Or you can go with me.”

  “You,” was all she said and he took her to his waiting carriage. They didn’t speak on the drive through the quiet streets of Chandler, but Blair knew that she was long past any coherent thoughts.

  He reached over, took her hand in his, and when she looked at him, he smiled. For a moment, Blair remembered her sister and knew that she shouldn’t be here now, that what she’d seen tonight was too intimate a thing to share, that these smiles and kisses were for Houston, and Blair had no right to intrude on their love. Until this night, she’d had no idea that the twin bond was as strong as it was, that she could spend one evening with the man her sister loved and, through that bond, could react so strongly to this man, could almost feel that it was she who was in love with him.

  “Warm enough?” Lee asked and she nodded.

  Warm enough, cold enough, drunk enough, sober enough, she thought.

  Leander stopped the carriage in front of a house that Blair’d never seen before. “Is your patient here? I thought we were going to the Infirmary.”

  Lee lifted his arms for her. “I’d like to think that my presence has made you forget the house we chose.”

  Before Blair could cover her error, he continued.

  “I thought maybe we could talk about some of the plans for the wedding. We haven’t been able to talk much lately.”

  “But what about your patient? Shouldn’t we—”

  He swung her down. “There is no emergency, nor is there a patient. I wanted an excuse to get out of there and I’m afraid I used my profession. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “I really must get home. It’s already late and Mother will probably be waiting up for me.”

  “I thought your mother was a heavy sleeper and you had trouble waking her?”

  “Well, yes, she is, but what with Blair home, she’s changing.” Blair smiled at his puzzled frown and quickly said that she’d love to talk about the wedding. She swept past him and stopped at the locked door, hoping that he wouldn’t ask her too many more questions.

  The interior was lovely, feminine without excluding the masculine. Blair was sure that Houston had decorated it. In the parlor, a small fire was burning against the Colorado mountain chill, and in front of it was a low table set with candles, roast duckling, caviar, oysters, chocolate truffles and four silver buckets filled with ice and French champagne. Fat pillows surrounded the table.

  Blair took one look at Lee standing there in the firelight and at the food and the champagne and thought, I’m in trouble.

  Chapter 5

  The way Leander stood there looking at her made Blair feel as if the blood were draining from her body. She’d spent the last week near this man and she’d never noticed that he had any special powers over women, especially not over her. It had to be the twin bond that was making her react this way. Houston was certainly a sly one who managed to conceal all this passion under her cool persona. No one, not even her own sister, had ever guessed what fires lay beneath that haughty-seeming exterior. And how Houston must have laughed to herself at Blair’s fears that she and Lee weren’t compatible!

  Of course, Blair thought, if I were engaged to a man who made me tremble every time he so much as brushed against me, I don’t think I’d allow another woman to be alone with him—not even my own sister, or perhaps especially not my own sister.

  But even as Blair thought those words, she told herself that she did have a man who made her tremble with his every touch. Well, perhaps not with every touch, but with enough touches to make her love him.

  As she looked at Lee again, at the way his upper lip curled and at the burning intensity of his eyes, she knew that if she were honest, she would have to admit that no man anywhere had ever made her feel like this before, nor had she had any idea that this kind of passion was possible.

  “I think I should go home. I think I forgot to do something,” Blair mumbled.

  “Such as?” He was advancing on her in slow, steady steps.

  “Stay there,” she answered, swallowing hard.

  Lee took her arm. “You aren’t afraid of me, are you? Come over here and sit down. I’ve never seen you like this. Not that I don’t like it, but…”

  Blair tried to relax, tried to remember that she was supposed to be her sister. If she told Lee now of the trick the twins had been playing on him all evening, he’d be furious—perhaps furious enough to break the engagement. She thought that if she could keep him talking, if they could eat a little, drink very little, then maybe she could get him to take her home. Anything, so long as she didn’t allow this man to touch her.

  She took a seat on one of the pillows and helped herself to a raw oyster. “I haven’t seen you very often as Dr. Westfield,” she said, not looking up at him, but she heard the sou