The maid shook her head as fright marched across her face. “It’s All Hallow’s Eve, miss. Ghosts are about and it will take far too long to walk there.”
Hellfire and damnation! “I have a racing carriage outside and a horse. If Miss Hasting summons the footman, will you allow him to take you to the manor?” Not that he knew where that was or what it was. “I wish to have a few words with Miss Hasting about who has the legal right to use this property.”
“Ha!” Miss Hasting frowned and shook her head. “What gives you the right to order any of us about? I’m one of Baron Landover’s daughters. You are just a wandering vagrant, and from the looks of how you are swaying where you stand, in your cups.”
Ah, Baron Landover. The man with pockets to let, taxes due on his country property, and daughters forced to take paying positions. Those ladies were frequent subjects of gossip in the clubs, for their marriages hadn’t truly helped out with the estate.
Wedding for love. What a concept.
“Because I’m the Du—” At the last second, he cut himself off, for he didn’t want anyone to know who he was, and if he didn’t tell them he was a duke, they would treat him like any other man instead of hiding behind respectability. He cleared his throat. “That is to say, I am the owner of Ivy Cottage, and I have the paperwork to prove it.” Summoning his most ducal glare, he included them both in it. “Now, if you are going to have the footman accompany you to the manor house, I suggest you do it posthaste. It will rain soon.”
The maid threw a panicked look at Miss Hasting. “I shouldn’t leave you alone with the likes ofhim…”
To her credit, the blonde looked at him as if he were something she’d just tread upon. “I shall be all right.” Yet the hand holding the stick shook, and he suddenly wanted to know why she was nervous… or afraid. “Take the footman. By the time he returns, I will have evicted our uninvited guest.”
“Very well.” The maid nodded. “But he ate—”
Miss Hasting held up her free hand. “I know. I shall bear that in mind as well. If worse comes to worst, I’ll toss him in the garden and lock the doors.”
Christian tamped the urge to laugh, for the whole conversation was ridiculous. He could grind the girl’s reputation into dust if he so chose. Then he cocked his head slightly to one side and truly gazed at Miss Hasting. Her pink lips specifically. Would they feel as soft as they appeared? Was she an untried innocent or was she experienced in kissing?
His fuzzy brain didn’t care. One way or another, he’d find out for himself before the night was over.
Chapter Three
Emmaline gaped atthe intruder while her chest tightened. How dare he break intohercottage! Knots of worry pulled in her stomach.Washe the true owner, though? Did that mean her newly found independence was at an end?
She tightened her grip on the stick she’d found while Mary left the cottage with wide eyes. There had been an authority, a command in this man’s voice that could possibly mark him as a member of thebeau monde, but as of yet, he hadn’t identified himself. However, none of that was vital just now, for the more worrying aspect of this evening was the fact he had eaten half the plate of love spell cakes as well as helped himself to the tea she’d dried and jarred for her friend who wished to entice the major.
“Were you the one who ate those cakes?” This could be a rather large problem.
“I was.” He watched her with eyes the color of strong coffee. There was a wicked gleam to them she didn’t quite trust. “They were delicious, and since the rest are here in my cottage, I intend to gobble up them as well.”
At least there was that. Originally, she’d thought there had been a ghost in the cottage. “I had wondered if the recipe was any good.” Then she remembered he was a stranger, and she had no business talking with him. “Why did you send my maid away? You have no authority to do that.” Having the maid and footman with her had been a condition of her mother in order to live onher own. She hadn’t minded the company, but she’d truly wished to be left alone.
She hadn’t had that her whole life.
“I am not at liberty to say.” One of his dark brown eyebrows rose as if in challenge. “So that brings us back around to why you are in my cottage. And have apparently set up housekeeping. You don’t belong here.”
“I absolutely do, though.” Slightly desperate to remain, Emmaline moved to the table. She deposited her basket of late-season herbs as well as her stick onto the surface with an eye to the remains of the tea the man had consumed. Would the love spell activate soon now that it was making its way through his system? “Can you not feel the welcome? To me, it is like a lovely hug from someone you love.”
“As a matter of fact, Ididfeel such a thing.” When he frowned, she couldn’t stop looking at his mouth. How was it that those two pieces of flesh were so sensual and inviting?
“Oh?” Since she had the opportunity, she continued to peer at him, for he was an attractive sort of fellow in an understated way. Dark brown hair prone to curling, a sharp jaw covered with an evening shadow immediately put her in mind of a devil-may-care man who didn’t necessarily abide by society’s rules. Though he was dressed in the first stare of fashion, his cravat was loosened, and the buttons of his jacket undone. Had he thought to bed down here for the night? The thought of him beneath the same roof as her, in a state of dishabille, put heat into her cheeks. “You feel a belonging here, too?”
“Oddly, yes.” Their gazes met, and she sucked in a breath. Outside, the wind blew up and rattled one of the windows. “Or rather, perhaps it’s an attraction—to you.” With another wicked twinkle in his eye, he edged around the table toward her, prompting Emmaline to retreat. “How about a kiss for me this All Hallow’s Eve?”
That suggestion had the power to make her slightly weak at the knees. That a handsome strangermightwant to steal one from her was something she’d always dreamed about, but it wasn’t true in this case. “Stay back, you.”Oh, dear.It was probably the love spell taking effect. She raised a hand and continued to retreat, matching him step by step around the table.I should have kept hold of the stick.But it was on the far side of the table near the man, and she couldn’t get to it.
“Just one kiss, Miss Hasting. Where is the harm in that?” He continued to chase her around the table.
“Oh, there is plenty of harm in such a thing.” For one, now that he’d put the idea into the air, it was all she could think about, and secondly, she had no idea who he was, and third, she’d never done anything remotely scandalous before. Usually, her sister Gigi was the one who did such things, but ever since she’d married two years before, there’d been no scandal to speak of with the Hasting sisters. “Who are you?”
The man paused in his pursuit, which gave her the opportunity to edge toward the front door that opened into the common room. Perhaps if she could escape, she could… what? Call for help in the face of a gathering storm? There was no one about and no one close enough. Depending on how long it would take her maid and footman to reach the manor, there shouldn’t be rescue any time soon.
“My name is Christian Delamare.” Then he waited with a look of expectation on his face. What in the world did he expect?
“Well, Mr. Delamare, I am not one of those women who goes around kissing every man I meet.” In fact, the only kissing she’d done had been in her dreams, and even then, it was to an unnamed duke, the same one her sisters always teased her about meeting, some fictional man who would swoop into her life and carry her off to unknown places because he’d fallen madly in lovewith her. Still, her cheeks heated again, even more so when he took up the chase once more.
