Page 56 of His Sinful Touch

“I understand. I’ve felt that way with a fever, as if nothing is quite real, and you drift in and out of consciousness. Even when I’m not ill, I’ve had dreams in which I was looking at a person and yet somehow I couldn’t make out his features.”

“Exactly.” Sabrina let out a sigh of relief. “That’s the way it is, and I know there’s a man there with us, and he keeps talking and talking. I don’t know what he was saying, and as you said, I remember it all in just bits and pieces. But he’s standing right in front of us and—Oh, Lilah, he’s wearing a white collar!”

Lilah stared. “You mean...”

“Like a priest,” Sabrina said flatly. “Yes. I think... I’m afraid I’m remembering a wedding ceremony.”

Chapter Nineteen

“IT’S BARELY PAST NOON, but I think a drink is in order after that scene,” Con told his brother as they returned to the smoking room.

“I agree.” Alex crossed the room and pulled the stopper from one of the decanters.

“What do you plan to do now?” Con asked.

“I don’t know. You’re the one who’s a detective. I merely draw blueprints.”

“Seems like you’ve done well enough so far.” Con grinned, taking the glass his brother held out to him. “You’ve started everything in the right direction. I dig into the Dearborns’ finances, see whether they’ve lost a fortune or have a gambling problem. It also wouldn’t hurt to learn exactly how much fortune we’re talking about Miss Blair inheriting—and whether or not Dearborn has been sneaking money for himself all these years he was her guardian. But all that will tell us is why they want Miss Blair back so much. What we really need to find out is whether or not your lady really married that weasel.”

“Sabrina’s not ‘my lady,’ but yes, we must make sure she’s not married to him—and if she is, figure out how to get her out of it.”

“That, dear brother, would not be an easy task.”

“I know. But I have no intention of sending her back to that lot.”

Con regarded him in silence for a moment, then said quietly, “You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

Alex shrugged one shoulder. “Love? I barely know her. Indeed, I don’t know her.”

Con snorted. “Don’t be daft. You have the look of the Moreland male in love—like you’ve just been struck between the eyes with a cricket bat.”

“Don’t start all that Moreland love-at-first-sight lecture again.”

“It’s worked well enough for all the others. I don’t seem to have that ability any more than I can foretell the future or whatever it is you do.” A certain wistfulness touched his face before he grinned and went on. “It would certainly be nice to have Anna here. Maybe she could tell us what happened to Miss Blair.”

“I don’t think she’s all-knowing, Con. She just gets flashes of events that are going to occur.”

“She knew where those murders happened—she felt it at the scene. Remember?”

“All too clearly. I remember tossing up my accounts.”

“It was rather gruesome.”

“In any case, I am able to feel that sort of thing, too, and it hasn’t helped me a bit. Although...I have found that I can do more than I realized. I’ve been working at it a little since Sabrina arrived, and I’m getting rather good at getting at least some sense of a person who’s emotionally connected to an object. I’m able to detect the gender most of the time now, and I can even distinguish in some vague way whether I’m getting the same person from various objects. It works better the more recent it is.”

“You can identify the person?”

“I don’t know who they are. I can’t describe them. But I can recognize it as the same sensation that was connected to something else.”

“I don’t know why you were the one to get the talent. Your ability would be much more useful for me. Although...” Con mused. “What would be best is to be able to tell when someone’s lying—the way I can tell you are when you say you don’t love Miss Blair.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t love her.”

“No, you just avoided it. Which, I must add, is another thing you’re terribly good at.”

“The devil take it, of course I care for her. I could care a great deal. It would be the easiest thing in the world to fall in love with Sabrina.”

“So what’s stopping you?”