“It looks like you pulled away in time,” Mr. Payne said.
She didn’t understand him at first because she felt pulled toward him rather than away. There were still days before they’d reach Charles, days more of this close contact when she shouldn’t be thinking of anything except her intended.
Siân delicately removed her hand from his. “I think it startled more than pained me.”
His brows drew down before his eyes snapped up to hers…and held. A soft, bewildered light flitted across the hazel depths before it disappeared like the shadows in the room. She was left with only that inscrutable regard of his again.
It was a look that was becoming familiar, as well, because ever since he’d shown up at her door, she’d caught him gazing at her with a similar expression.
“You startled me,” he said, his voice low and intimate.
“I didn’t mean—”
“There’s a ghost here?”
That wasn’t what she thought he’d mention, although his engaging in anything else would have been more perplexing.
“Did you see her?” she asked.
“I saw nothing.” He sat further back on his haunches and held his hands out to the fire.
She kept hers safely tucked onto her lap. There was a slight sting, but no blistering, and she welcomed it a bit, if only because it kept her grounded. She couldn’t believe she was in this room, warm, becoming dry, but with her back to the darkest shadows so she could watch this man more.
When did this appeal of him happen? Yesterday, while he got the worst of the straw out of the barn, or perhaps when he held the gelding for the farrier? He looked like a tutor, but he possessed a strength she found intriguing.
Taciturn and hardworking, he’d revealed so much of himself yesterday. Much more than his words ever could. He was so different than she’d thought as he stood at her doorway telling her about Charles. Charles!
“There’s a ghost,” she said. “I can’t say everyone sees her, but I can say I think I did when I was very young.”
“You think you did.”
He said it so slowly that she knew he didn’t believe her, but what else did she expect? “Many people reported seeing her. Some of them have come here explicitly to do so. In truth, talking of her could conjure her.”
Sitting back, he rested his arms on his bent knees. “You mean it.”
“You’ve seen the rest of the ruins, and this part almost completely intact. Why do you doubt it?”
“The tree line protects the roof and the floor,” he said.
“But you saw movement.”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. “I’m cold. I could have been wishing for a blanket.”
She knew he wasn’t saying these things to be cruel. “I wish I didn’t believe it.”
“Why don’t you tell me of her?” When she hesitated, he continued, “It can’t hurt, can it, since we’re already talking of her?”
Possibly, but why invite more trouble? Simply being with this man, alone, in this keep or on this journey, was a risk. And yet she wanted him to know, if for no other reason than he wouldn’t think her completely mad.
“You just let me know if the room gets cold or if anything starts creeping over my head,” she said.
“Scared?” he teased.
“Terrified,” she admitted.
“Now you have to tell me.”
A little more than two days ago, she didn’t know Reginald—Mr. Payne; she must remind herself to call him that, but it was getting more difficult the longer they spent together. And she didn’t know why she bothered when he’d called her by her Christian name almost from the beginning.
