Chapter 1
THE END.
Emma Blake sat back and stretched. She’d written the very last word of her historical romance. Her characters’ voices were finally silent.
This was her third novel, and with each one, she’d lived through her characters, experiencing their heartaches and loves right along with them. But this story had been special, inspired by the portrait of a woman she had seen in her father’s high-end antique shop on Newbury Street in Boston, Massachusetts.
“I’m afraid that is not how it ended.”
The voice came out of nowhere. Gasping, she spun around in her chair, goosebumps popping on her arms. “Who’s there?” She flung the question into the empty room.
No answer.
Frozen, Emma scanned the space, looking for signs of an intruder — a shadow that shouldn’t be there, a billowing curtain where there was no breeze. All she saw was the undisturbed living room in her father’s London flat, his pied-à-terre when he returned to his birth city on a buying trip for antiques. She’d left Boston to try to escape the grief of her father’s sudden death, and had holed up in the flat for the three months she needed to finish her manuscript.
And she was alone.
Of course she was. She must have imagined the voice. Last night, she’d watched the classic movie, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, so materializing spirits and speaking ghosts were probably still bobbing around in her subconscious. But still, that voice sounded very real.
Discombobulated, a bit uneasy, she shook her head at her imagination, rubbed her eyes and turned back to the computer screen. She’d been working nearly non-stop all day after getting the call from her editor that she needed the manuscript now, so they could put out ARCs ― Advance Reader Copies. On top of that, she’d been writing five to six hours a day for three months straight, and that was bound to make her brain soggy. But she’d been driven to finish the novel, wanting to give the woman in the portrait a happily-ever-after, because the woman’s eyes looked sad.
Emma had done some research and learned the subject of the painting was a woman named Elizabeth Sommers, and that she was quite young when she died, only in her early twenties, but that’s all she could discover. Emma had decided to write a happy life for the woman, because she wrote romances, and romances had happy endings. Always. So she had given Elizabeth a hero who swept her off her feet and adored her. Emma wasn’t going to change a thing in her novel, despite what she’d imagined that voice said, whatever or whoever it was, or where it came from. Because she had fallen in love with her hero right along with Elizabeth.
She scrolled back to the scene where the heroine meets the hero for the first time.
His face was solemn as he reached out to help her stand, but his gray eyes held an amused glint. Placing her hand in his, she felt the restrained power of his hold. With effortless ease, he pulled her to her feet as if she weighed nothing.
Tilting her head back to look up into his face, she saw he was quite handsome, with smoky gray eyes, straight nose, and strong jaw. A curl of black hair had fallen over his forehead and made him look like an impish lad who had just pilfered one of Cook’s freshly baked pies. Despite her annoyance at being knocked into the filth of the street, she found she could not deny the smile that curved her lips in answer to the roguish grin that now graced his face.
Yes, she’d created a great “book boyfriend.” But that was all he was, a fiction, a made-up man who would never be as handsome or kind or generous or loving as a real-life person. She’d had experience with some of the self-centered ignoramuses on the dating apps, and her last relationship had ended very badly. But her hero was perfect. Well, almost. She hoped her readers would fall in love with him like she had.
Just as she was about to save her work, she watched in disbelief as “THE END” disappeared letter by letter. She ground the heels of her hands into her eyes and looked again. The curser flickered with benign menace over the period of her last sentence. She glanced down at the keyboard, then glowered at her fingers. Had she erased those words by mistake? Was she so tired that she couldn’t remember? She immediately hit the Undo button, and blew out a breath to see the words reappear.
“No one lives happily ever after,” the voice said right next to her.
With a yelp, she shot from her chair. Her heart lurched into overdrive. The voice was definitely male, smooth and deeply melodic. Dreading what she might see, she turned in a full circle and peered around the room.
No one was there.
This was spooky. More than spooky. Weird. Eerie. Maybe even threatening. She grabbed an antique paperweight that sat on her desk. It was a heavy globe of glass the size of her two fists together, with a medallion depicting Venus embedded in the bottom, a knickknack from her father’s antique shop, and would make a decent weapon. He had gifted it to her upon the sale of her first book.
Taking two steps forward, she was ready to confront the intruder. Then she halted, not sure where he might be hiding. Hefting the paperweight, she glared into the room.
“Come out now, or I’ll call the police.” She edged toward her phone on the table a few feet away.
No one appeared.
No one answered.
Her heart thumped as she swept up the phone. Her hands shook. She took a deep breath as she tried to steady her fingers long enough to punch in the emergency number. But she had a niggling feeling that the police would find that no one had broken into her flat. That idea didn’t comfort her at all, because it meant…what? That she was hearing voices that weren’t real? That the flat might be haunted?
Both of those options sent chills down her spine. But she’d never heard disembodied voices before, not when her dad would sometimes bring her and her sisters with him on his business trips, and not during the months she’d lived here. Her dad had never spoken of any ghostly manifestation in the flat. Even though she believed in spirits haunting places, nothing like that had ever happened to her. She sent an apprehensive glance around the space, then relief rushed through her when the dispatcher answered.
“This is Emma Blake. I think there’s an intruder in my flat.” She congratulated herself for sounding so calm. She gave the dispatcher her address and disconnected the call. The police would take care of the intruder.
A soft male chuckle floated to her from the vicinity of the sofa, but no one was there. Of course.
“I must be exhausted,” she said aloud, just so she could hear a real voice. “I need a rest, a vacation. That’s it. That’s all it is. It’s just stress. Trying to finish the manuscript. And Dad…”
She swallowed back her grief and took a breath. Her father had been in a catastrophic plane crash nearly six months ago. He’d had his pilot’s license and owned a small two-seater plane that he flew to out of state auctions and consulting jobs. The plane had plunged into Cape Cod Bay and his body had never been found. The authorities blamed the crazy currents that ran through the bay. But in a tiny corner of her mind, she always thought of him as alive somewhere, maybe with amnesia, happily living out his life. It was an absurd idea, but it was the only thing that helped her deal with the grief.
He had been a great father, acting as both dad and mom to Emma and her two younger sisters their whole lives, since their mother had died when they were very young. Emma hardly remembered their mother. She had only vague memories of a beautiful, gentle woman who would sing her to sleep. Now she had no father or mother. But she had to move on with her life, and at this moment, she had to deal with whatever was going on in the flat.
With another glance around the empty room, deciding she was exhausted, she said, “As soon as I send off this manuscript, I’ll take a long vacation. Starting tomorrow.”
“Not tomorrow,” the voice murmured in her ear.
“Yow!” She jumped away. Had she felt his breath? She rubbed her ear and scowled at the air. This was too much. Grabbing her purse and keys, she hurried out into the hall and slammed the apartment door behind her.
Her heart thumped. Her knees turned rubbery. As she leaned against the wall to keep herself upright, she took long deep breaths. The intruder was welcome to whatever he wanted. Except her manuscript. Anything but that. Then she remembered she hadn’t saved those last few pages. How could she have been so stupid? The thought of her unguarded computer and the possibility that all her hard work on that unsaved chapter might be erased drew her back. She put her hand on the doorknob.
“Idiot,” she mumbled. What if he wasn’t after her manuscript or anything else in her flat? What if he was only after her? She released the doorknob, clamped her lips together and rushed downstairs to wait for the police.
A few minutes later, a police car pulled up with lights flashing. The two constables searched the flat, room by room. Of course, they didn’t find anything unusual or out of place. Bravely, Emma told them about the voice, and she was grateful that they very politely didn’t look at her as if she’d lost her mind. Instead, they suggested that she might have heard voices from the street coming through the window. But all her windows had been shut.
After they left with admonitions to keep her doors and windows locked, she prowled the flat, paperweight in hand. Nothing had changed. Everything was in its proper place. It was the same London flat she’d been living in for the past three months. Her dad’s flat.
His bedroom, with a forgotten tie still draped over the closet doorknob.
His chair near the window with the shade of the reading lamp next to it tipped just so.
His favorite brand of tea still in its canister on the kitchen counter.
Maybe it was her dad’s ghost who was trying to connect with her. But it didn’t sound like her dad and he’d never interfere in her writing. Maybe she was trying to block her grief by staying inside the fictional world she’d created where everything ended happily ever after. Maybe she hadn’t really heard a voice. Maybe she was still in writing mode and she was hearing characters in her head.
She drew in a shaky breath, tears stuck in her throat. This was the real world and everything didn’t end happily ever after. Her dad had died in a plane crash. One day he was here, and the next he was gone. And she missed him terribly. So yeah, she’d immersed herself in a fictional world that she could control, but the real world wasn’t like that. For instance, the voice that had come out of nowhere. Maybe it was some weirdo who had invaded her space.
She couldn’t control fate, but she could take control of an intruder in the flat—or whoever had spoken. Gripping the paperweight, she swallowed back her tears, straightened her shoulders, raised her chin, and took three strong steps into the middle of the living room.
“Whoever you are,” she announced, “I’m not afraid of you.” Liar. “And if you touch my computer again, I’ll knock you over the head with this.” She held up the heavy paperweight.
Right. What if the guy was six-eight and weighed three-fifty? Straightening to her full five-feet-two-and-a-half-inch height, she declared, “And I know karate, too, so don’t think I can’t defend myself.” The self-defense moves she knew could fit on a pinhead, but this guy didn’t need to know that.
She glowered at the room, but all she got was silence. A falling feather would have been louder. Either her visitor had left, or he wasn’t talking.
She glanced down at the paperweight. What was she thinking? She’d been speaking to thin air. There was no one in the room. She hadn’t heard any voice. Her imagination had run wild.
She turned to her computer, re-saved that last chapter, and sent the manuscript off to her editor. “There. Done.” As a wave of exhaustion hit her, she headed toward her bedroom. To her fluffy comforter. Soft pillows. And wonderful, glorious sleep. First thing in the morning, she’d make plans for an extended vacation and invite her sisters. And she wouldn’t tell a soul about that darn voice.
But she set the paperweight on her nightstand within easy reach. Just to be safe.
***
Emma swam up into vague awareness from a deep sleep. She rolled over, trying to figure out what woke her. Cracking open her gluey eyelids, she saw the sun peeking through the blinds. With a groan, she burrowed down into the pillow and squeezed her eyes shut.
Her manuscript was done. She’d sent it off yesterday. She could sleep late this morning. And go back to dreaming about her hunky hero.
But a noise from the living room made her eyes pop open. She stayed absolutely still and listened. What was that sound? Was her intruder back? A chill shot down her spine. Whirr, click-click. Whirr, click-click. She bolted upright. It was her printer.
She jumped out of bed, dashed into the living room and stopped short. The printer was spitting out page after page. And no one was there.
The voice last night. A man’s voice. The intruder. Was he back? Was he some creepy stalker working remotely? Was he holed up in some empty warehouse and watching her? Had he somehow hacked into every electronic device in her flat?
Black spots swam before her eyes and the room undulated. Collapsing into a chair, she put her head down between her knees before she passed out. After a few deep breaths, after the oxygen and blood reached her brain, she felt better.
While she was upside-down, she gave herself a good scolding. She was being ridiculous. She had forgotten to shut down the computer last night. There’d been a power surge. Or something. There had to be a logical explanation. But the idea of a power surge snapped her head up in panic.
She rushed over to the computer. Not only had she forgotten to shut it down, she hadn’t backed up her work. Stupid, stupid, stupid. All those words, sentences, paragraphs, chapters could be dissolved in one flash of an electrical surge. Despite having her manuscript in the Cloud, she worried that she wouldn’t be able to retrieve it. And even though she’d sent the manuscript off to her editor, she worried that it hadn’t arrived, because she hadn’t received a confirmation last night. Maybe the weirdo stalker had wiped it out. Anxiously, she checked her email and saw that her editor had indeed received the story. While the manuscript was printing―it never hurt to have a hard copy―she backed it up again, then puffed out a breath of relief. Her book was safe.
“It’s all right,” she said aloud.
“I apologize for causing you any difficulty.” The voice came from somewhere behind her.
She screeched, shot from her chair, and swung around. Of course, no one was there.
“I wished to see how you made everything end happily ever after,” the voice said.
“Who are you?” She was having trouble breathing.
“Him.”
“Him?” She squeaked the word.
“Yes, him. The one in your story. Brandon Connaught.”
“That’s impossible.” She felt faint again and grabbed the back of her chair. “You’re not really real. You’re fiction. I made you up.”
“I assure you, I am quite real, or at least, I was at one time.” There was a hint of melancholy in his voice.
“So, you’re a ghost?” Her question squeaked. Again.
“I prefer spirit,” he said.
“But how can that be? I never knew he—you—existed. I made up the story after I saw that portrait of a woman in my father’s antique shop.” Emma thought she might be having a very realistic dream.
“Ah, yes. The portrait. Elizabeth.” He spoke her name in a sorrowful tone.
“Elizabeth?” The question came out in a third squeak. She swallowed and cleared her throat. “You know—knew—the heroine in my story?”
“Of course. Miss Elizabeth Sommers, the woman I was to marry, the subject of the portrait in your father’s antique shop in Boston.”
“But I made up her character in my story after I saw the painting.” Emma was very sure about that.
“Did you?” His tone implied that she was wrong.
“You mean I didn’t make it all up?” She was glad she was holding onto the chair. Her stomach felt a bit queasy.
“The mind can do very strange things. Perhaps I’m your muse,” he suggested.
She thought about that. Then she straightened as his meaning whammed into her brain. “Are you saying you put thoughts and ideas in my head?”
“In a way.”
Okay. Her hero had taken over and written the story for her. Having a conversation with one of her characters was a bit extreme, but when she was writing, they seemed alive. Then reality checked in. What was she thinking? Talking to one of her characters? One of her characters writing the story? Unh-unh. No way. That was just crazy.
But she’d been talking with someone. She was certain of that. Maybe she really was speaking with a ghost. A ghost who claimed to be the hero of her story. Goosebumps popped down her arms and up the back of her neck.
She sank into her chair, her thoughts reeling. Maybe she’d tripped over his name while she’d been doing research and he’d stuck in her subconscious, only to leak out when she was putting words on a page. What if he was the ghost of her hero? What if the character she had created had actually lived during the Regency period in England? The ramifications of speaking with someone who had been alive back then exploded in her brain. She could ask him all sorts of questions.
“This is great!” she enthused. “A historical romance that actually took place! Knowing that the Earl of Cranleigh had a great love in his life and was a hero is so exciting.”
“A hero?” His voice was rich with amusement. “No. I was most certainly not a hero.” “What do you mean?” If he hadn’t been a hero, then what had he been? A cad? A blackguard? A villain? Warily, she stood and put the chair between her and the spot where the voice came from. She’d left the paperweight on the nightstand in the bedroom. Damn.
“Miss Sommers and I did not live happily ever after, unlike your story. She was forced to marry my half-brother, that scheming wretch. I was never the Earl of Cranleigh.”
If he hadn’t been Cranleigh, how had she written him in her book? “Then who were—are— you?”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to decide that for yourself.”
“How am I supposed to do that?” She started to edge toward her bedroom where the paperweight was. If he was a villain, she needed a weapon to defend herself if he attacked, and the bedroom was closer than the kitchen where the knives were.
“Going after that paperweight?” he asked, amusement rippling beneath his words.
“Ah…” Damn, how did he know that?
“It used to be mine.”
Her mouth dropped open and she froze.
“I’m glad you like it,” he said. “Miss Sommers gifted it to me. Just before her parents locked her away in her bedchamber and forced her to wed my half-brother.”
Sympathy for the woman shut her mouth and she swallowed. “That’s awful. It’s barbaric.”
Before he could respond, a knock sounded at the door to the flat. From the other side, a voice announced, “Flower delivery.”
“From an admirer?” The ghost’s words held cool curiosity.
“I have no idea who they’re from,” she said, wondering who could have sent them.
“It’s not proper for ladies to receive flowers from strangers,” he said. “I shall send the delivery boy away.”
“No!” She panicked at the thought of what might happen if the voice — or ghost — or whatever — made his presence known to the unsuspecting young man on the other side of the door. “Don’t say a word,” she warned as she walked to the door.
“I will be as silent as the grave,” he said from across the room.
Obviously, the grave wasn’t so silent, because he’d been talking to her since she finished her manuscript. Ignoring him, she peered through the spy hole. Seeing a scrawny teenager with a long white box in his hands, she undid the two locks on the door, but left on the safety chain, and peered around its edge. The delivery boy stood grinning at her. She was suspicious and feeling vulnerable, especially with an unknown spirit in her living room, because she hadn’t buzzed the delivery boy in past the security door to the building.
“How did you get inside?” she demanded.
He shrugged. “Came in with another tenant, didn’t I.” He shoved the long box at her. “Here you go, then.” With another grin, he was gone, not even waiting for a tip.
Relieved the ghost had remained silent, she closed the door, relocked it, and smiled at the unexpected pleasure of the delivery. Who could the flowers be from? She untied the huge red bow and took off the cover. Inside were a dozen yellow roses with a small white card lying on top.
“Do you get flowers often?” His voice came from the middle of the room and held a note of disapproval.
Emma shook her head as she sniffed one of the roses. “Aren’t they gorgeous?”
“A bit ostentatious.” His voice was a little nearer. “Who sent them?”
“I don’t know.” She picked up the card.
“Pemberton,” he read, next to her ear.
Startled, she twitched away and flattened the card against her chest. “Do you mind? This is private.”
“Hardly private to receive such a conspicuous gift,” the ghost said as his voice moved away.
Emma glanced down at the card again. She had no idea who Pemberton was or why they would be sending her flowers.
From across the room, the ghost said, “My half-brother held the title of Viscount Pemberton before he became Earl.”
The coincidence gave her pause. “The one who stole Elizabeth?”
“The very same.” His tone was guardedly neutral.
Tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Taking a breath, she tried to make sense of the bizarre situation. Why would Viscount Pemberton be sending her flowers? She was sure she’d never met anyone with a noble title. Was the ghost telling the truth? But what reason would he have to lie? She wished she could see his face so she could know what he was thinking.
Relying on common sense, she said, “Well, I have no idea who Pemberton is. The delivery boy probably mixed up the orders and delivered the flowers to the wrong address.” Except her name and address had been on the box.
“Are you sure?”
She narrowed her eyes at the spot where the voice came from. “Are you saying that I just received flowers from a descendant of your brother?”
“Yes.” His single word was indisputable.
She carefully placed the card face-down onto the table and shook her head. “No, that’s impossible. He can’t be a descendant. Why would a descendant of your brother send me flowers?”
Her phone rang before he could answer. The name that came up on the screen was her father’s contact in London, Stephen Thrale. She’d had a crush on him for several years, ever since the first time he flew to Boston to consult with her dad, and she had met him several times when she accompanied her dad to London so she could do research.
Stephen was a handsome man in his mid-thirties, suave and debonair, with perfect manners. And he was quite wealthy. They would flirt whenever they met, just for fun, and she’d fantasized about having a relationship with him.
Just after she had arrived in London three months ago, when she was still deep in her grief, she had met him by chance at the Victoria and Albert Museum. He’d asked her to a late lunch that went on for hours. They talked. He sympathized with her grief. They flirted. He invited her back to his flat. By that point, her better judgement had disappeared out the window. And they wound up in his bed about two minutes after they crossed his threshold.
Their relationship blossomed, and she thought she had found Mr. Right. Stephen was attentive and caring and romantic. For about a month.
Emma blew out a breath. She was trying to avoid thinking about the last time she’d seen him. In his enormous flat. In his enormous bed. Just after they’d spent the night together. Because the last time she’d seen him was the morning after, still tangled in the sheets, when he was on his cell phone talking to the fiancée she didn’t know he had.
Being thirty-two years old, she should have had more sense and been more cautious. She thought he was an honorable man, especially as a business associate of her dad, but she had been blinded by the fantasies of her younger self. Embarrassed, hurt, disillusioned, she had pushed that whole month out of her mind. Or tried to. Now, the only fantasy in her life was in her books.
She let the phone ring several times as she tried to decide if she wanted to answer it.
“Can you stop that infernal noise?” the ghost complained.
Huffing an annoyed breath in his direction, she stared at Stephen’s name on her phone’s screen. Her curiosity at the reason for his call made her decision.
“Hello?” she said in the most impersonal tone she could muster.
Stephen’s smooth baritone curled into her ear. “I wanted to see if you received the flowers.”
“They were from you?” Surprise and confusion and anger halted her breath for a moment. “Why did you send me flowers?”
“I’m sorry about how things ended the last time I saw you. I’d like to make it up to you.” He sounded contrite.
Emma wanted to lash out at him. The last time they’d seen each other was two months ago, when she’d scrambled from his bed after learning who he was talking to on his cell phone. He’d waited two whole months to apologize. The words he’d spouted as he followed her around while she threw on her clothes didn’t count.
She’d been insulted and hurt that he thought he could use her to cheat on his fiancée. She had considered him a friend. Her father had relied on his expertise and had been quite fond of him. She didn’t want to make things awkward if Maggie, her middle sister who had taken over the antique shop, wanted to continue her business relationship with him. But he had been a first-rate jerk.
“Does your fiancée know you sent me flowers?” she finally asked.
“We are no longer together.” His cool words revealed nothing about how he felt about that, or even if he told the truth.
Emma decided she didn’t want to know details. Instead she asked, “Why was the card signed Pemberton?”
The hesitation before he answered was minuscule, but Emma heard it.
“Yes, sorry about that. I had my assistant order the flowers and she told the florist what to put on the card.”
Of course he had his assistant place the order. He wouldn’t have performed such a menial task himself, not even to apologize for seducing her. She pushed away her anger because she needed to verify the truth of her ghost’s information. “Is Pemberton your last name? I always thought it was Thrale. Or is that something else you lied about?”
A quick intake of breath from his end, then, “Thrale is my family name. Pemberton is my title.”
“Your title?”
“Viscount Pemberton.”
His announcement turned her speechless.
At her silence, he said, “I rang you up to ask you to go out to dinner with me.”
She nearly threw the phone across the room at his conceited, self-centered audacity. But after taking a breath, she focused on getting information rather than releasing her anger. “Why didn’t I know that you are a viscount? Why didn’t you tell me? Did my father know you had a title?”
Another tiny hesitation on his end. “Yes. I asked him not to reveal it to anyone.”
She felt a tiny sting that her dad knew and hadn’t told her. But if Stephen had made the request of her father, then her dad would have kept the secret because he had principles. Unlike Stephen. But the request sounded strange.
“Why?” she asked.
“For privacy.” His short answer held a barely audible sigh of vexation, as if he was constantly hounded by the paparazzi.
Okay. She could understand that. Sort of. But why wouldn’t he tell her? She nearly asked him, then decided she didn’t want to know because she was done with their relationship.
After a pause, he said, “You didn’t answer my question. Dinner? This evening?”
No, she did not want to go to dinner with him. She wanted to slap his handsome face. Why did he extend the invitation now, and what was his reason?
“Do you think I’m that easy, Stephen?” she snapped. “Do you think sending me flowers will make up for what you did? You were engaged. You lied. For a whole month.”
She sensed his wince through the phone. “I’m sorry. I wish to explain and make it up to you.” He paused, then said, “I can tell you about my ancestors. Aren’t you always looking to do research?”
He had dangled the perfect bait. Was Stephen the descendant of the ghost’s half-brother? If she went to dinner, maybe she could find out for certain. But could she tamp down her anger in order to spend an evening with him to fish for information?
She had to think this through, so she put him off. “I’m running up against my deadline,” she lied, but close enough to the truth. “Can I get back to you in a few days?”
“Of course.” His tone turned intimate. “I’ll be waiting to hear from you. Please don’t disappoint me, Emma.”
While his last words sounded like a request, she had the sense they were more of a command, and that added to her anger. After they disconnected, she stared at the phone as her thoughts whirled in her head and her emotions see-sawed. She really didn’t want to spend an evening with him. On the other hand, the ghost’s tidbit of information about his half-brother intrigued her, so if she went to dinner with Stephen, she might be able to learn more about his ancestor and about poor Elizabeth.
“Was I correct?” The voice spoke right next to her.
She startled. “Will you please stop sneaking up on me?” she snapped and backed away two steps.
“My apologies,” he said, sounding not at all sorry. “Did you discover that your admirer is my brother’s descendant?”
Emma tried to process what she’d just learned. Stephen was the Viscount Pemberton. That meant that at least part of what the ghost told her was true.
His voice came from across the room. “Ah, I see that you did.”
“All I learned is that Stephen is the Viscount Pemberton,” she said. “How do I know that you’re not making up this story about an evil half-brother?”
She felt his heavy sigh like a chilly, light breeze through the room.
“I suppose I must tell you the rest of my story.” His tone was part reluctance and part exasperation.
“The rest—?” She took a breath. What more could he tell her? What she had learned from him so far had been tragic. But she was curious. “Yes, I would like to hear it.”
He was silent for so long that she thought he might have left, gone to wherever ghosts go when they weren’t haunting someone. Finally, his voice came from the vicinity of the couch.
“As I told you, Miss Sommers wed my half-brother, because I was not considered Quality.”
“Not Quality? But weren’t you the son of an earl?”
“Yes. His bastard son.” His answer was nearly a hiss. After a short pause, he continued, “I did not inherit the title. My younger brother, that swiving cur, convinced the authorities that I murdered our father. And I was shot in the back, supposedly while trying to escape to the Continent.”
“That’s terrible!” she sympathized, then sent a suspicious glance in his voice’s direction. “Did you?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Murder your father?”
“Of course I did not!” He sounded quite insulted. “I may have been considered a rake and a rogue, but I certainly was not a murderer.”
Emma thought that over.
“You do not believe me,” he said.
She was afraid if she admitted that she had doubts, he might get angry. But what could an angry ghost do?
“Would it help if I showed myself to you?” he asked in an equitable tone.
Emma wasn’t sure she wanted to see him. Would he be filmy and floaty and see-through and wearing something like a sheet? Would he be horribly decayed with his flesh dripping from him? Would he be desiccated and shriveled like a mummy?
“You can do that?” she asked.
“Of course, if that’s what you wish.”
“Um…”
Before she could make up her mind, the air seemed to glitter. The sparkles coalesced and he was there, his hip perched on the back of sofa. Unnerved, in shock, she shot from her chair and stumbled backed a few steps to put some distance between them.
He wasn’t transparent, but he wasn’t solid either. He sort of shimmered. His face and hands glowed oddly, the only parts of his skin she could see, because the rest of him was dressed in perfect Regency era clothing — high white collar, intricate cravat, dark blue coat, pale yellow waistcoat, and soft tan leather breeches. Because of the sofa between them, she couldn’t see his legs below the knees, but she’d bet any money he was wearing highly polished Hessian boots.
His hair was dark. It could be black. His eyes were gray. They glinted with humor. Straight nose, strong jaw.
Holy smoke!
He looked exactly the way she had described him in her book!
And he was gorgeous.
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