Charon's Crossing

"Oh, for God's sake!"

He made a sound of disgust and knelt down beside her, but his frown had deepened.

Was it an act? Lord knew she was an expert in all the feminine wiles. Still, he suspected that not even Catherine could deliberately manage to make the blood drain from her face.

He reached for her hand and picked it up. It lay unmoving in his. He turned it over and placed his fingers lightly against her blue-veined wrist. The beat of her pulse was strong and steady.

Hell, he thought with a choked laugh, what did that mean? His pulse was strong and steady, too, and he was dead.

But she wasn't. He could see the color slowly coming back under her skin, flushing her cheeks the pale pink of morning. Her fingers stirred lightly against his, their touch as light as the brush of a butterfly's wings. Her lips parted, and a sighing whisper escaped from between them. Her breath was warm, and sweet...

Matthew dropped her hand and shot to his feet.

"Hell and damnation," he growled.

He strode across the room to the cabinet where he knew her father had kept his spirits. What she needed was something to get the blood flowing again.

What he needed was something to keep his from pooling in the part of his anatomy that had led him astray in the first place.

He opened the doors of the cabinet, his face grim. There was half a decanter of something dark on the bottom shelf; he unstoppered it, took a whiff, and nodded. •

Rum. Good, West Indian rum. That would bring her around. He poured two fingers into a cut-glass tumbler, frowned, added another two fingers for good measure, then held the glass to the light.

It was a long time since he'd tasted rum. Now that he thought about it, it was a long time since he'd tasted anything.

Could he do such simple things? Could he eat and drink, if he wished to do so?

It was a good question. Thus far, little about his ghostly existence was predictable. Or known. He felt like an explorer in a distant land, learning the limits of his new world and adding to his store of knowledge hour by hour.

He could walk through walls but he couldn't pass through an open gate.

He could see his reflection in the mirror but there were occasions when he was transparent.

And right now, the smell of the rum was making his mouth water.

Matthew hesitated, then lifted the glass to his lips and took a small, questioning sip.

A beatific smile swept across his face.

The taste was heaven. The silken glide of the liquor across his tongue, the fiery kick of it as it slid down his throat... He had almost forgotten the pleasure of it.

He had the glass halfway to his lips again when Catherine spoke.

"You're supposed to give whiskey to the person who passes out, not drink it yourself."

He swung around. She was sitting up in a corner of the settee. Her face was still pale, though two patches of color had blossomed in her cheeks.

He felt a dark flush rise in his own face.

"It's rum, not whiskey. And I was simply testing it. Who knows how long it's been in that decanter? Its condition might be unsuitable for consumption."

Her dark eyebrows lifted a fractional inch.

"A taste test," she said. "How thoughtful."

Matthew cleared his throat. "It was nothing."

"Oh, on the contrary. An intruder with a sense of chivalry is very definitely something. I think the police will find it a fascinating detail."