Read Online Ready & Willing by Elizabeth Bevarly - Free Book Online
Authors: Elizabeth Bevarly
Ads: Link
nodded. “Okay. And how far down will I have to go to find these cuff links?”
“Just past the bend in the flue.”
She dropped to her knees and stuck her hand down the vent, pushing her fingers through the dust and sediment until they bumped something that was small and blunt. Her heart hammered hard as she moved her hand further and encountered a second something that was small and blunt. Gingerly, she closed her fingers over what felt very much like two cuff links. When she withdrew her hand and opened it, she saw what also looked very much like two cuff links. Two dust-coated gold cuff links. She swiped her thumb over the flat part of one of them, and when she saw the asterisk-like design inset in blue stone and surrounded by a braid of rope, her mouth went dry.
It was only then that Audrey realized she had been convinced she was imagining the good captain. His appearance could have been triggered by her reaction to the break-in, or might have even been the result of some leftover grief for Sean at her sudden fear of being alone. She’d always felt safer when her husband was alive, had never worried about things like break-ins the way a single woman would. A threat to her safety now might understandably generate a desire to have Sean back, and with the recent addition of Silas Summerfield’s portrait to her house, her brain could have manufactured him instead of Sean as a suitable protector.
Up until the cuff links, everything Silas had said to her could have been something she could have conceivably invented in her own subconscious. Even the things he’d told her about his great-great-however-many-greats-grandson could have, as Nathaniel himself had pointed out, come from her unconscious absorption of some news story about the guy. But the cuff links . . .
There was no way she could have known they were there. And there was no way she could have known what they would look like. So her hallucination couldn’t have plucked that information from some dark recess in her mind. Having found them here, this way, after Silas had told her what to look for and where, could only mean one thing.
Her house was haunted. By the ghost of Captain Silas Leyton Summerfield. And, judging by the look of him, he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
NEVER IN HIS NINETY-THREE YEARS ON EARTH—NOR his seventy-six years elsewhere—had Silas seen someone go white the way Mrs. Magill did just then.
“Mrs. Magill?” he said. “Are you all right?”
She uttered a strangled sound in response, something that reminded Silas of the creak and whine of the steam as it primed the engine of Desdemona , his paddle wheeler. The vessel had been as contrary as . . . as . . . Well, as Mrs. Magill. But he’d never lost his respect or admiration for the old girl.
“Mrs. Magill?” he said again. “Are you all right?”
This time she sputtered something that sounded vaguely like English, but Silas couldn’t be sure. The language had, after all, changed rather a lot since his day.
“Perhaps you should sit down,” he told her. Automatically, he started to reach out to her, then remembered he couldn’t touch anything, so would be of no help. His temper flared at feeling so impotent—a condition he had never suffered in life—and his next words came out a little harsher than he had intended them. “Oh, for God’s sake, woman. I’m just a ghost. I can do you less harm than the damned spider.”
She worked her mouth a few more times, expelled a few more incoherent sounds, then, finally, managed, “That spider is something I can explain through rational means. You, on the other hand . . .”
He grinned at that, relieved she was regaining some of her spirit. “Are you calling me irrational, Mrs. Magill?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m calling myself irrational. This can’t be happening. You can’t be a ghost haunting my house.”
“Why not? As you can see for yourself, I am here.” He nodded toward the cuff links that lay
“Just past the bend in the flue.”
She dropped to her knees and stuck her hand down the vent, pushing her fingers through the dust and sediment until they bumped something that was small and blunt. Her heart hammered hard as she moved her hand further and encountered a second something that was small and blunt. Gingerly, she closed her fingers over what felt very much like two cuff links. When she withdrew her hand and opened it, she saw what also looked very much like two cuff links. Two dust-coated gold cuff links. She swiped her thumb over the flat part of one of them, and when she saw the asterisk-like design inset in blue stone and surrounded by a braid of rope, her mouth went dry.
It was only then that Audrey realized she had been convinced she was imagining the good captain. His appearance could have been triggered by her reaction to the break-in, or might have even been the result of some leftover grief for Sean at her sudden fear of being alone. She’d always felt safer when her husband was alive, had never worried about things like break-ins the way a single woman would. A threat to her safety now might understandably generate a desire to have Sean back, and with the recent addition of Silas Summerfield’s portrait to her house, her brain could have manufactured him instead of Sean as a suitable protector.
Up until the cuff links, everything Silas had said to her could have been something she could have conceivably invented in her own subconscious. Even the things he’d told her about his great-great-however-many-greats-grandson could have, as Nathaniel himself had pointed out, come from her unconscious absorption of some news story about the guy. But the cuff links . . .
There was no way she could have known they were there. And there was no way she could have known what they would look like. So her hallucination couldn’t have plucked that information from some dark recess in her mind. Having found them here, this way, after Silas had told her what to look for and where, could only mean one thing.
Her house was haunted. By the ghost of Captain Silas Leyton Summerfield. And, judging by the look of him, he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
NEVER IN HIS NINETY-THREE YEARS ON EARTH—NOR his seventy-six years elsewhere—had Silas seen someone go white the way Mrs. Magill did just then.
“Mrs. Magill?” he said. “Are you all right?”
She uttered a strangled sound in response, something that reminded Silas of the creak and whine of the steam as it primed the engine of Desdemona , his paddle wheeler. The vessel had been as contrary as . . . as . . . Well, as Mrs. Magill. But he’d never lost his respect or admiration for the old girl.
“Mrs. Magill?” he said again. “Are you all right?”
This time she sputtered something that sounded vaguely like English, but Silas couldn’t be sure. The language had, after all, changed rather a lot since his day.
“Perhaps you should sit down,” he told her. Automatically, he started to reach out to her, then remembered he couldn’t touch anything, so would be of no help. His temper flared at feeling so impotent—a condition he had never suffered in life—and his next words came out a little harsher than he had intended them. “Oh, for God’s sake, woman. I’m just a ghost. I can do you less harm than the damned spider.”
She worked her mouth a few more times, expelled a few more incoherent sounds, then, finally, managed, “That spider is something I can explain through rational means. You, on the other hand . . .”
He grinned at that, relieved she was regaining some of her spirit. “Are you calling me irrational, Mrs. Magill?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m calling myself irrational. This can’t be happening. You can’t be a ghost haunting my house.”
“Why not? As you can see for yourself, I am here.” He nodded toward the cuff links that lay
Similar Books
