Charlotte blinked, convinced she was at the whimsical mercy of a certified lunatic. Blast her cousin anyway for dragging out that corset and putting all kinds of sordid notions in this man's head.
He claimed he had been chased here. Here? Into her bedroom, of all places. Did he expect her to believe him? He was wounded, but still fast and strong. Stronger than she was. Still, could she make it to the door and down the stairs before him? If she bolted up, threw a pillow in his face, kicked that trunk into his path, well, perhaps. It had worked once when Henry was chasing her after she had stolen one of his coded messages to pay him back for teasing her.
Except that the wretched door to the hall, warped at the hinges, always took at least three good tugs to work free. Benedic would catch her before she could escape, and she would have angered him, not a good risk to take.
His voice jolted her back to reality. "I asked you a question."
"What?" she whispered, stalling for time, hoping that someone in the house would sense her danger, her desperation. 'Please let Pamela sneak back up to help me unpack. . . .'
"I asked where you went tonight."
A fresh wave of fear washed over her. Why did he care about her personal life? She suspected he was unbalanced, definitely dangerous. "It was—"
What did he want her to say? The wrong answer could set him off into a rage. Should she admit she attended a local dance? Dull enough in reality, but it might sound a little frivolous and was likely to make him think of romance. Heaven forbid that she put any ideas of that nature into his mind. Let him think her shy and boring, not the wild hellion who worried her family to death.
"I attended a musicale with my aunt and uncle." There. A half truth might satisfy him. He needn't know she'd been flirting her heart out with Lord Sinclair.
He snorted in derision. She noticed that he had a beautifully molded mouth, despite his insulting expression as he drawled, "How utterly thrilling. A Christlebury musicale. And you lived through it." To her mortification, he picked up the corset and dangled it between them. "What, may I inquire, was the point in wearing this?"
She drew back, refusing to follow his thoughts. "You said you were chased here?"
"That's what I said."
He was examining the undergarment in thoughtful amusement, almost as if he were picturing her in it.
She moistened her lower lip. Was he going to insist she put the corset on for him? "Do the people who chased you know you're hiding in my room?"
"No." He glanced up, gazing into her apprehensive blue eyes as he added, softly, "And you aren't going to tell anyone, are you?"
The tension strained her nerves; if he asked her to perform some lurid act, she decided she would rather jump out the window herself. Dealing with five boisterous brothers hadn't exactly left her defenseless. "Why would I tell anyone?" Her voice rose in tart indignation; it wasn't in Chloe's nature to submit to anything without a fuss, another family trait that frequently got her into trouble. "Why should I mind having a man break into my room and bully me about with brute force?"
His thick black eyebrows lifted at her outburst. He cleared his throat. "Would you mind keeping your voice down? I have only done what was necessary. Be forewarned—as I will continue to do so."
"But . . . what do you want from me?"
"I used to own this house, this land," he mused. "Your uncle bought it from me. Are you aware of that?"
"I suppose he told me. I don't remember."
"You do know who I am?" he asked her, more a statement than a question.
Charlotte watched him remove his pistol from his waistband and place it beside him on the bed. "The Strathmere Ghost," she said without thinking. She glanced up into his dark sardonic face. "Lord Strathmere, I mean."
"Ah." His gray eyes fluttered with irony. "The legend grows. Tell me—gossip reaches me slowly at the grave—am I still up to my nocturnal mischief?"
Charlotte actually blushed, remembering the carnal sins her aunt and practically every person in the parish had accused him of committing as a ghost. She had half wished only an hour ago that he would commit those sins upon her romance-starved self. "Shall we just say that you are believed to enjoy an active afterlife?"
He gave her a mordant smile. "If only it were true."
*A/N: Please be my patron in Patre*n and read chapters in advance. My other works are also available there. Or if you just want to support me. Please look for creator Zetar086.
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