Free The Lord Who Sneered and Other Tales by Heidi Ashworth

the corner of hers, the unaccustomed contact sent a jolt throughout his body, as breathtaking as it was unexpected. He haddelayed marriage until he had found a woman who was as good as she was beautiful; now that he had found her, he was unprepared for the overwhelming hunger he felt for her.
    “How long,” he murmured, “can I go on like this?”
    “Go on…like what?” she asked, her voice alluringly breathless.
    “Like this,” he moaned, his lungs laboring for breath as, lightly, he drew his lips across her cheek, “wishing to kiss you.”
    He heard the breath catch in her throat and impatiently endured the tiny pause that prefaced her response. “Have you been? Truly?”
    “Yes,” he said as he placed a hand behind her head to pull it back while, with the arm that encircled her tiny waist, he drew her to her toes so as to have better access to her lips from his great height. “I have, from the moment I first saw you.”
    “Oh,” she said faintly as he drew her ever closer and searched her eyes for signs that she might oppose his intentions. Finding none, he bent his head and kissed her with a barely restrained passion made up of all his finer feelings of admiration, regard and even worship. When she put her arms around his neck and pulled herself deeper into his kiss, he knew what her answer to his proposal would be.
    After a dizzying interlude that left Theo in no doubt as to his future happiness, he emerged from his abstraction long enough to recall that he had not yet asked the crucial question. “Mrs. Crenshaw—my own, dear Anne—will you marry me?”
    “Yes, Theo, for I am persuaded I shall love being married to you above all things. But only if you profess always to allow me to be first served from the bacon platter,” she said as she stretched upwards for another kiss.
    “Dearest girl,” Theo said, scarcely able to believe his excellent fortune, “if it suits you, you shall have your own pig!
    *
    It was with a great sense of relief that Baldwin watched the Dowager’s guests emerge from the trees and enter the house, a sensation that was short lived when the ghost that haunted the house of Crenshaw materialized at his side, his face set in lines of stony anger.
    “Why must you tell such falsehoods?” the ghost wailed.
    “Surely, you don’t expect me to allow you to scare that young woman half out of her wits. And what of Her Grace? She is beside herself with worry as to the possible fate of her grandson.”
    “But if they do not believe in me, how am I to warn them? It is my fate to warn,” moaned the ghost.
    “Well then, out with it and be off,” Baldwin demanded.
    The ghost looked a bit affronted but did not hesitate to speak his piece. “If the current duke does not mend his ways, he shall suffer an ignominious death.”
    “What ways might those be?”
    “His extreme hubris and sense of entitlement, his belief that his good fortune is due to his superiority rather than an accident of birth, his lack of concern for his fellowman, as well as his enormous care for comfort and power at the expense of all whom his life touches.”
    “What is there in that?” Baldwin asked. “You have described more than half the men and women in the kingdom, titled or not. The Duke is amongst the worst of the lot; I’ll give you that. There is not a soul who should mourn his passing nor be in the least surprised that he’s dead.”
    “But I must warn,” keened the ghost. “It is my penance.”
    “Then tell me; what of Sir Anthony? Is he doomed to die in the next year?”
    “No, he is safe. Never shall he be doomed to spend eternity warning his descendants of impending disaster.”
    Baldwin grunted. “Well, that is a relief, to be sure. If that is all, I have my bed to think of.”
    There came a pause as the ghost seemed to grow in size and transparency. “There is a babe,” he intoned.
    “There be two babes, one belonging to Sir Anthony and one to the Duke.”
    “The son of the Duke is