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An Unexpected Pleasure
Candace Camp
PROLOGUE
New York, 1879
The shriek cut through the night.

In her bed, Megan Mulcahey sat straight up, instantly awake, her heart pounding. It took her a moment to realize what had awakened her. Then she heard her sister's voice again.

"No. No!"

Megan was out of her bed in a flash and running through the door. Theirs was not a large home\u2014a narrow brownstone row house with three bedrooms upstairs\u2014and it took only a moment to reach Deirdre's door and fling it open.

Deirdre was sitting up in bed, her eyes wide and staring, horrified. Her arms stretched out in front of her toward something only she could see, and tears pooled in her eyes before rolling down her cheeks.

"Deirdre!" Megan crossed the room and sat down on her sister's bed, taking Deirdre's shoulders firmly in her hands. "What is it? Wake up! Deirdre!"

She gave the girl a shake, and something changed in her sister's face, the frightening blankness slipping away, replaced by a dawning consciousness.

"Megan!" Deirdre let out a sob and threw her arms around her older
sister. "Oh, Megan. It was terrible. Terrible!"
"Saints preserve us!" Their father's voice sounded from the doorway.
"What in the name of all that's holy is going on?"

"Deirdre had a bad dream, that's all," Megan replied, keeping her voice calm and soothing, as she stroked her sister's hair. "Isn't that right, Dee? It was nothing but a nightmare."

"No." Deirdre gulped and pulled back from Megan a little, wiping the tears from her cheeks and looking first at Megan, then at their father. Her eyes were still wide and shadowed. "Megan. Da. I saw Dennis!"

"You dreamed about Dennis?" Megan asked.
"It wasn't a dream," Deirdre responded. "Dennis was here. He spoke to
me."
A shiver ran down Megan's spine. "But, Dee, you couldn't have seen
him. Dennis has been dead for ten years."
"It was him," Deirdre insisted. "I saw him, plain as day. He spoke to
me."

Their father crossed the room eagerly and went down on one knee before his daughter, looking into her face. "Are you sure, then, Deirdre? It was really Denny?"

"Yes. Oh, yes. He looked like he did the day he sailed away."
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