An unladylike snort of laughter issued from her. “I rather doubt I could have hurt you. It isn’t in my nature.”
“Ah, so then your preferred weapons are teas, tinctures, and poisons? It’s less messy that way, right?”
A dainty blush colored her cheeks a light pink. “Perhaps.”
A heavy,loudthud that came from somewhere upstairs interrupted whatever he might have wished to say.
She gasped and her eyes rounded. “What was that?”
“I have no idea.” Quickly resting his mug of tea on a small round table near the side of the sofa, Christian scrambled to his feet. “Shall I take a peek and discover the source?”
“Yes, but I’m coming with you.” As soon as Emmaline rested her mug on the low table in front of her, she fought her way out from the blanket and followed him across the room to the wooden staircase. “Be careful.”
With a grunt in return, he crept up the stairs as quietly as he could, but a few of them squealed and creaked beneath his weight. The touch of her hand on his back as they gained the upper level brought unexpected comfort and calmed his racing pulse. “I will check the two small rooms. You do the same to the larger one.”
“All right.”
As soon as they separated, the hairs on the back of his neck stood to attention. He further loosened the knot of his cravat in the event he might need to secure the hands or ankles of an intruder. An efficient search of the two rooms didn’t produce an intruder—living or otherwise, but when another thud echoed again, this time from the space where he assumed the attic was located, a muffled scream issued from her.
“Emmaline?” He barely made it into the narrow corridor before she flew out of the room and crashed headlong into his arms. “Are you all right?” With nothing else to do but enclose her into a protective embrace, he waited for her reply.
“Yes, just frightened.” When she peered up at him with genuine fear in the blue-gray pools of her eyes, the sensation of falling assailed him. “What if there is truly a ghost in the cottage?”
“Then I will either oust it for you or defend you from it. Either way, you’ll come to no harm.”
Because need flooded his system, Christian lowered his head and claimed her lips. Like their first foray, those two petal soft pieces of flesh welcomed him in a way that boggled his mind and played havoc with his shaft. A faint sigh escaped her throat, and when she slipped her hands hesitantly up his chest to clutch his shoulders, he held her more securely. This time, he explored her mouth with a bit more ardor and insistence, and as he drew the tip of his tongue along the seam of her lips, Emmaline gasped. Cheeky bastard that he was, he took the opportunity to touch that organ to hers.
Part of him expected her to slap him, but after a few seconds’ pause, she returned his advance, and though there was no experience behind her kiss, that very innocent exploration had the power to turn his blood molten. One of her hands curled into his loosened cravat and she pressed herself closer so that he leaned his back against the wall, but he was certain of one thing.
If therewasa ghost in Ivy Cottage, it could wait, for the mystery of Emmaline Hasting needed solving before he evicted a spirit, and suddenly it was the only thing he wished to avail himself of on this Halloween night.
Chapter Five
Goodness, but heis potent!
Emmaline cast Christian a look, for they’d returned to the sofa downstairs after not finding the source of the odd noise. Thunder continued to roll and rattle through the sky, but the bulk of the storm never came close to their location. Occasionally, weak flashes of lightning cut through the darkness, and the rain continued to come down quite heavily at times. Eventually it settled into a cozy rhythm that lulled her into a sense of security and even domesticity.
As he went about the lower floor of the cottage, extinguishing unneeded candles and closing draperies at the windows, her mind kept dancing back to that second kiss and how different it had been from the first. It had been unexpected, and it had certainly distracted her from the noise in the attic. Feeling his arms around her had been wonderful.
But why? Was she being silly because he was the first man to have ever kissed her?
Once he checked that both doors were locked and then stoked the fire, he joined her on the sofa, and in the shadows, he was even more attractive than he’d been before. At some point while she’d been lost in her musings, he’d removed his cravat, cuffs, and collar, as well as his waistcoat. Not that she could blame him. It was probably uncomfortable to have all of that on, but was the fact he’d shown himself in this stage of undress aninsult to her sensibilities, or did he merely feel comfortable in her presence?
Perhaps it didn’t matter, for if this was to be her only adventure, she meant to enjoy it to the hilt. “Christian?” With shaking hands, she removed the pins from her hair, and when the heavy mass tumbled about her shoulders and back, she sighed, for sometimes the pins hurt her scalp by the end of the day.
“Hmm?” He kept his focus on the dancing flames behind the grate.
“Do you believe there is truly a ghost up there?” A shiver moved down her spine. “Of course, it would be my luck since I am finally by myself and away from home.” Then she snorted. “Yet this isn’t my cottage, so it doesn’t truly matter, does it?”
“It matters.” When he turned his head to look at her, flutters went through her belly. “You feel how you feel, and as I told you upstairs, I’m not going to let anyone—or anything—hurt you.”
“Why? You don’t know me.”
“True, but I know enough, and you don’t deserve to be haunted.” He shrugged. “As for the cottage, well, don’t worry about that. Things will work themselves out.”
“You can’t know that.” Though it somehow gave her confidence that he might.
“Oh?” Once more he shot her that grin that sent tingles through her insides. “I rather think I do.” He shifted his position on the sofa, and before she knew what he was about, Christian tugged her into his arms so that she lay over his chest peering down at him with the lower portion of her body between his splayed legs, the blanket hopelessly twisted beneath her. “Do you know what else I know?”
