Free Patricia Rice by This Magic Moment Page B

days.”
    Leaving behind a trail of dismay and male laughter, she dashed up the drive in pursuit of the faint rainbow floating just inside the old manor. A house as old as this one might possess dozens of spirits. She might finally learn to converse with them. What if this apparition was the old duke or Harry’s brother come to inspect her?
    Halting abruptly at that appalling thought, Christina stopped just short of the single step to call for Harry.
    In that moment of hesitation, a limestone lintel from the roof smashed to the granite stair, missing her by inches.
    Overhead, thunder cracked, lightning flashed, and the first drops of rain began to fall.

Six
    Peter reached Christina before Harry could, protecting her from the cloud of dust raised by the crashing stone and catching her arm to keep her from falling backward in shock.
    Harry contemplated punching his handsome cousin’s eyes out but decided that would be an undukely reaction, especially since his duchess shook herself free to crouch beside the crumbled lintel, showing no sign of demurely fainting away.
    For a brief moment, he’d had a devastating image of Christina lying crushed and lifeless on his doorstep, and his heart had stopped beating. He never wanted to experience that terror again. The house had claimed far too many lives already. To have it harm Christina in any way was a disaster to be prevented at all cost.
    “How extraordinary,” Christina cried, setting Harry’s heart back in motion. “I think the ghost was warning me to stay back.”
    Ignoring Peter’s upraised eyebrow at the duchess’s interesting viewpoint, Harry crouched beside her to be certain she hadn’t been hurt. His cousins would think Christina as eccentric as his father, but his concern right now was to remove her from harm.
    Later, he’d worry about how his bride’s predilection for ghost-hunting would appear to both family and rural society.
    “Why the devil hasn’t this hovel been pulled down by now?” he roared at no one in particular as thunder rumbled in the background.
    Instead of inspecting the shattered stone, he brushed the hair from Christina’s face and ran his fingers along her jaw to be certain she hadn’t been hit by flying debris. Startled by his action, she watched him through widened eyes. Ascertaining she hadn’t received so much as a bruise, he pulled her to her feet and half carried her—protesting—away from the Tudor entrance. “You’d think with all the construction, someone would have fixed the crumbling bits,” he growled.
    Christina dug in her heels, but Harry had already had enough of this homecoming. Forcing his cousins to follow, he caught Christina’s hand and dragged her through the raindrops across the lawn toward the entrance of the new wing. “I want men out here on the morrow to either fix it or tear the death trap down.”
    “Oh, Harry, no, you can’t do that!” Christina ran to catch up with him, halting in his path and laying her gloved hand against his chest while raindrops cascaded down her brow. “It’s a perfectly splendid house, and I do so want to meet your ancestors.”
    “My ancestors are dead and in their graves, just as they should be!” He never yelled. He was known for his unshakable good humor. What the devil had come over him? Christina, most likely. He couldn’t get rid of the bloody image of her lying crushed under a chunk of stone. “The place isn’t haunted—the foundation is crumbling and the walls should have been pulled down long ago. The house killed my family!”
    She looked suitably shocked and thoughtful by his vehemence. Good. Maybe now she would leave the moldering manor alone. Taking her arm, he continued their rainy progress toward the new wing.
    “Actually, if the foundation was failing, the workmen would have noticed when they built the tunnel,” Peter said, falling in beside them as if Harry wasn’t having a howling fit on the front lawn.
    “Parapets do not crumble and lintels do