Free A Man Of Many Talents by Deborah Simmons Page B

at dinner that the great hall isn’t safe? What if you are struck by falling stone? What if this ghost of yours attacks you?” With every question he uttered, Christian stepped forward, while she held her ground, her head high.
    “I have noticed no debris in the hall,” she answered. “Nor do I think any phantom capable of seizing a person.”
    “And what if your specter is man-made? How will you fend off a human attack, with only your lantern and …” Christian trailed off. He was standing in front of her now, quite close, in fact, and realized that she was wearing a robe.
    “… in your nightclothes?” he croaked, his voice suddenly tight, his breeches more so.
    Christian swallowed, trying to gather his wits. It wasn’t as though she were lounging about in some diaphanous shift. Indeed, her robe appeared to be plain and serviceable and not the slightest bit enticing. So why, then, was he enticed? He let out his breath, trying not to focus on the folds of the material, where a bit of pristine white showed at her throat.
    “So you believe that one of my cousins might murder me?” she asked. Her tone was her usual firm one, and yet Christian noted a certain breathy quality in it that he had never heard before.
    “Perhaps. How well do you know them?” he asked, his gaze moving up her pale neck to her hair. Let it be loose, he thought. Let it be loose. “Or the footsteps you heard might belong to anyone—a housebreaker, a turned-off servant bent upon reveng e, an old enemy of the family…”
    Again Christian’s voice trailed off as he saw that her hair fell neatly down her back in a plait, but was not pulled as tightly from her face as during the day. In that moment of delicious discovery, he decided that he had never seen anything quite as alluring as that long, heavy braid. He shifted his gaze to her face to find her usual severe expression gone. Her eyes, he realized, were a gentle blue that reminded him of something. Lilacs. Christian loosed a low sigh of pleasure at the discovery, while she stared up at him with wonder… or was it alarm?
    Suddenly thunder boomed outside, a ferocious roar that made her hand dip and the lantern sway. But, to Christian’s great disappointment, she didn’t jump into his arms as a typical female might have. Instead, she seemed to recover her equanimity with distressing swiftness. Drawing a deep breath, she appeared ready to launch into one of he r lectures, but Christian held up a hand.
    “Shhh! Did you hear that?” he whispered. The rhythmic sound was back, or perhaps it had never stopped, Christian having been t oo distracted by his hostess to notice.
    “Of course I heard it! One would be deaf not to,” she snapped, though she pitched her voice low.
    “Not the thunder, the tapping,” Christian replied.
    Frowning at him suspiciously, Miss Parkinson cocked her head, and he could tell the moment at which she discerned the sound. Instead of evincing the slightest bit of unease, she turned unerringly toward the fretwork . “Perhaps it is Sir Boundefort, ” she whispered.
    Christian lifted his brows ever so slightly. “What’s he doing? Walking with a cane?”
    “How would I know? You’re the ghost expert.”
    Christian opened his mouth to argue, then promptly shut it again.
    “It sounds like knocking,” Miss Parkinson whispered.
    Oh, good. That was his area of expertise. Unfortunately, the knocking didn’t seem to be in answer to anything, nor was it emanating from a bed of any kind.
    “And it’s coming from underneath us,” his hostess said in a hushed voice, rife with excitement. Christian stared at her, momentarily nonplussed by the lack of gove rn ess-like expression upon her face. In fact, in the soft light, with her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright, she looked positively … beaut iful. Christian sucked in a breath as she swung the lamp lower and bent over to examine the old tiles. “Perhaps there is some sort of trapdoor,” she said.
    At her words