The Other Side - J. D. Robb [87]
“It’s not?”
“No. It’s hand on wrist. Like so.” He surrounded her small wrist with his hand, pressing gently, feeling the fragile bones. “This way, each can feel the other’s pulse. The group’s heart beats as one. The collective magnetism is liberated, and the force becomes . . . irresistible.”
He bent toward her. “And then, if the medium momentarily breaks the circle”—he let go of her wrist—“because he needs his handkerchief, for example, or he must write something down, any excuse will do—to reunite the circle, he simply shifts a little, grasping his right-hand neighbor’s wrist again”—he took Angie’s wrist back—“while the neighbor on his left, thinking he—or she—is taking the medium’s left wrist again, actually takes . . . his right.”
Angie’s face, so close, was a study in awe.
“And now the medium has a free hand with which to do . . . anything he likes.”
And what he wanted to do was touch the side of Angie’s face with his fingers, caress her soft skin, gently tilt her mouth to his and kiss her. But he held perfectly still. If either of them was breathing, they made no sound.
Then something wonderful happened. Angie slid her hand from Henry’s grasp and laid it on his shoulder. Slowly, her eyes downcast, she moved her head toward his. Their lips met. So lightly. As if—almost—by accident. The moment held, stretched, until the flutter of her eyelashes undid him. He pulled her close with both arms and kissed her.
When he let her go, something—an excess of belated gentle-manliness, perhaps, although that seemed unlikely—prompted him to say, “I’m sorry.”
“You . . . are?”
Too late to say, No, that was a lie, and instead he compounded the error by adding, “I shouldn’t have done that.”
She colored, looking away, and he remembered that she’d started it. “I’m the one who’s sorry,” she said.
“Well, what I meant—”
“No, you’re right, seduction wasn’t part of our bargain.” She stepped away. “But don’t worry, you’ll still get—”
“Angie!” he said in alarm.
“You’ll still get paid without adding that to your duties.”
“Stop it, you know that’s not—”
He froze: so did she. Footsteps sounded directly above them.
Who? he mouthed.
My cousin, she mouthed back.
They couldn’t be found down here, manufacturing séance props. Angie hid her portable electric hand torch in a dark shelf corner, and Henry shoved the music box under the workbench. The half-sawn boards were all right, nothing wrong with making the séance table round. But the dressmaker’s form might make a good ghost, so he pushed it behind a cabinet and threw a burlap bag over it.
“Hurry,” Angie urged. “Go.”
He went ahead of her up the outside stairs while she switched off the light and locked the door, then raced up the steps after him. Astra, who had been dozing under a dogwood, jumped up to greet them, expecting a game.
“Now what?” said Henry.
She’d left a canvas bag on the grass. She found a pair of pruning shears in it and pushed them into his hands. “Now prune something. But not really! Just pretend.”
“Thanks for your vote of confidence.”
She didn’t smile. He’d ruined everything.
She took a pair of garden gloves from the bag, knelt down, and started to weed under a rosebush. “Quick, before he comes out. You’re pruning. You’re helping me.”
“Fine.” He made a few snips in the air near a rose trellis. “But as soon as he leaves, you and I are going to have a talk.”
Lucien’s affection for Henry hadn’t increased any since last they’d met. His doughy, vacuous face soured when he saw him pretend-clipping roses. “You,” was his cordial greeting. “What are you doing here?”
“Lucien,” Angie said, rising, brushing pretend grass from her knees. “Lovely to see you. To what