“And what is that supposed to mean, pray tell?”
He smiled slightly at the suspicious tone of her voice. “Isn’t it obvious?” He swung his greatcoat off his shoulders and tossed it over a chair. He was wearing only his shirt and breeches beneath it. He had decided a coat and cravat were not called for on such an occasion. “I’m here to help you investigate your newest case of spectral phenomena.”
“I do not require your assistance, my lord. I thought we agreed this afternoon that we would not work together on our cases.”
“As to that,” Sebastian said easily, “I’ve reconsidered the matter.”
“You have?” The pale light illuminated the hopeful look on her expressive face. “That is wonderful news.”
“It’s not as if I had a great deal of choice in the matter,” Sebastian muttered under his breath.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Never mind.” There would be time enough at some later date to explain precisely how their new partnership would work.
It was very simple, really. Sebastian fully intended to supervise Prudence’s more adventurous investigations, but he had no intention of letting her risk her neck helping him with his own cases.
Prudence put the pistol on the end table. “How did you find me in this particular bedchamber?”
Sebastian shrugged. “I watched for the last light to be extinguished in this wing.”
“Very clever of you.” Prudence went to the window and looked down into the gardens. “Good heavens, it is a sheer drop. However did you climb up the wall?”
“I didn’t. I entered the house through the kitchens and climbed the stairs to this floor. Then I opened a window in an empty room and discovered that very convenient ledge outside. It led me straight to this bedchamber.”
“An excellent approach to the problem, my lord.”
“It was nothing, really. A matter of simple logic and reason,” Sebastian said modestly.
“Yes, of course, but I doubt that many people would have thought of that approach.”
“Possibly not,” he admitted, gratified by her admiration.
It occurred to Sebastian that although he had not given a damn about anyone’s opinion since his parents and brother had died, lately he found himself increasingly hungry for Prudence’s approval.
She was the only female he knew who was capable of appreciating his peculiar talents and interests. He wondered if she had any notion of how badly he wanted to bed her.
He watched her standing at the window and contemplated the possibility that he was going slightly mad. No woman had ever had such an effect on him. When he was with her the icy barrier inside him seemed much smaller and farther away. He could almost forget it and the emptiness that it concealed.
At that moment Prudence turned her head to look at him. The weak moonlight fell across her features, revealing her glowing smile. Desire swept through Sebastian in a great wave, leaving him shaken.
It had become painfully clear during the past few days that the sensual hunger Prudence had aroused in him that first night was no fleeting fancy.
It was equally clear and profoundly annoying to realize that Prudence’s interest in him appeared to be inspired primarily by his hobby. He wondered again how much Under-brink had meant to her. He had been gnawing on that question ever since he had returned from the drive in the park that afternoon.
“Now that you are here, we ought to make some new plans.” Prudence cast a thoughtful glance at the wardrobe. “We must discover a way to conceal you in case the apparition appears.”
“You may forget the wardrobe,” Sebastian said. “I have no intention of spending the rest of the night in it.”
“Where will you hide, then? Under the bed?”
Sebastian swore softly. “I don’t think it will be necessary for me to conceal myself until we have some indication that the ghost is about to make his appearance.”
“But if the apparition proves to be one of Mrs. Leacock’s nephews, we don’t want to let him know you’re here. We cannot light a candle and we must be very quiet.”
Sebastian raised his brows. “I assure you, I can be extremely quiet. There is plenty of light from the moon, so we do not need a candle. For once there is no damned fog, although I suspect it will arrive again at dawn. Our only concern now is how to pass the time until our ghost chooses to appear.”
She looked at him expectantly. “We probably should not converse. We might be overheard.”
“I agree.” Sebastian walked toward her.
“I suppose we could play a hand of whist,” Prudence suggested. “Unfortunately, I do not happen to have any cards with me.”
“Then we shall have to think of some other method of amusing ourselves.” Sebastian caught her chin between thumb and forefinger. He gently raised her face so that he could see her eyes more clearly.
Prudence stood very still, as if the touch of his hand had stunned her into immobility. She looked up at him with a wide, searching gaze that held both curiosity and wariness.
“My lord?” she whispered breathlessly.
“There is something I wish to know, Prue.”
Her lips parted slightly. The tip of her tongue touched the corner of her mouth. “What is that?”
“Do you think it possible that you can discover something more to recommend me than just my amusing little hobby?”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Allow me to show you,” he said softly.
Sebastian bent his head and brushed his mouth slowly across her lips. She made a small, inarticulate little sound that utterly captivated him.
Deliberately he deepened the kiss and traced the fine line of her jaw with his thumb.
A delicate shiver went through Prudence. Sebastian felt it instantly. Relief and satisfaction poured through him. He could make her want him, he told himself.
Prudence moaned softly as he eased apart her lips. He felt her hands move first to his shoulders. Then her arms stole around his neck. She pressed herself closer.
Heat rose within him. He could hardly feel the cold at all now. It had been temporarily banished by the fire of his need for Prudence.
Prudence gasped when he temporarily freed her mouth to explore her soft neck. “Sebastian, I don’t know if this is a sound notion.”
“Trust me, Prue.”
“I do trust you,” she said quickly.
“Good.” He slid his hand down her back, deliberately urging her closer until her soft breasts were crushed against his chest and the gentle curve of her mound pressed against his shaft. His body was already hard with arousal.
“Sebastian, you make me feel so very strange.” Prudence gently touched the nape of his neck. The caress sent a thrill of anticipation through him. She stood on tiptoe and tangled her fingers in his hair. Then she began to return his kisses with untutored passion.
She had obviously not learned much from Underbrink, Sebastian thought with deep satisfaction.
His blood surged through his veins like heavy lightning. All thoughts of trapping a ghost fled. He could handle an apparition or two if one happened to appear tonight. In the meantime there were far more important matters.
He was going to make love to Prudence, who, whether she knew it or not, would soon be his wife.
“Sebastian?”
“It’s all right, my sweet” He drew her toward the vast bed. “Everything will be all right.”
“I cannot seem to think clearly when you are kissing me,” she complained.
“Neither can I.” Sebastian smiled. “Fortunately, there is no pressing need for clear thinking at a time like this.” He gently removed her spectacles and set them on the night-stand.
She gazed anxiously at him, as if he had lifted a veil and left her completely exposed. An aching tenderness welled up within Sebastian.
“You are lovely,” he whispered.
Her eyes widened in startled surprise. “Do you really think so?”
“Yes, I really think so.” He to
ok her earlobe between his teeth and bit gently. “And I want you very much.”
“You want me?” She sounded dazed now, as if her exceedingly clever little brain had suddenly come up against a truly baffling dilemma. “I’m not certain I comprehend your meaning, my lord.”
“You will comprehend it soon enough. God knows I cannot hide it much longer. You have no notion of your effect on me, do you?”
Her smile was tremulous. “If my effect on you is anything like yours on me, we are faced with a most unusual problem, sir. I am not at all certain what we should do next.”
“As it happens, I know precisely what to do next.”
Sebastian lowered his head and kissed her again. Her arms tightened around his neck. When he felt her lean into him in a silent signal of feminine surrender, he eased the toe of his boot between her slippered feet.
She drew in her breath but made no protest when he gently forced his thigh between her legs. The skirts of her gown rode upward as he lifted his knee and planted his foot on the bed behind her.
Prudence gave a tiny, muffled shriek when she abruptly found herself straddling his thigh as if she were perched astride a horse.
“Sebastian. Good heavens.” She clung to him in shock.
“Hush, my sweet. We must not make too much noise. We don’t want to scare off the ghost.” Sebastian groaned as he felt the intimate heat of her soft, warm femininity burning through his breeches.
Not just heat, he thought triumphantly, but a telltale dampness, too. He caught the faint, tantalizing scent of Prudence’s growing arousal and very nearly lost his self-control.
“My lovely, Prue,” he said in awed wonder. “Where have you been all these years?”
“In Dorset,” she said very seriously.
Sebastian hid his smile in her hair. He slipped his hand up along her stocking-clad leg and touched the top of her bare silken thigh. She flinched in reaction. Then she breathed deeply.
“For some reason,” Sebastian said, “I feel I know you very, very well. It is as if we were old friends, you and I. Or perhaps lovers.”
“How very odd.” Her voice was dreamy now, soft and warm and thick with desire. “I was thinking much the same thing just before you arrived. It is as if we have been intimate acquaintances for years, although we have known each other for only a very short time.”
“We are going to know each other even more intimately before this night is done,” Sebastian vowed.
He could wait no longer. She wanted him and he wanted her. They were engaged. It was suddenly all very simple and straightforward.
Sebastian eased his booted foot back down off the quilt, lowering Prudence slowly onto her toes. Before her feet had quite touched the floor, he was pushing her back onto the bed.
He drew in his breath at the sight of her lying there amid the rumpled white sheets. Her skirts foamed above her knees, revealing the garters that secured her practical cotton stockings. The curve of her calf was very elegant as it tapered down to her delicately shaped ankle. Above the garters her thighs were beautifully rounded.
Sebastian stared down at Prudence’s legs and envisioned them wrapped around his waist. He heard himself make a hoarse, inarticulate sound deep in his throat.
“Is something wrong?” Prudence looked up at him in concern.
“No, nothing is wrong. Nothing has ever been this right.” Sebastian ripped at the fastenings of his shirt. He heard the fine linen tear, but he paid no attention. All that mattered now was making love to Prudence.
He got the shirt open, but he did not take the time to shed it completely. He was too impatient to feel Prudence’s fingers on his bare skin. He sat down on the edge of the bed and yanked off his boots.
“You seem in a great hurry, Sebastian.”
“I am.”
He lowered himself down beside Prue and gathered her into his arms.
“Touch me,” he said. He caught her hand in his and guided it inside his open shirt. “I want to feel your hands on me.”
“Yes. Yes, I would like that very much, too.” Prudence gave a tiny, broken exclamation of pleasure as she skimmed her fingers across his bare chest. She grasped handfuls of the thick, curling hair she found there.
Sebastian sucked in his breath.
Prudence looked up at him. “I love the feel of you. There is so much strength; and power in you. The first night I saw you, I thought you were the most wonderful creature I had ever seen.”
He was stunned into temporary speechlessness by the sweet, honest desire in her moonlit eyes. There was no coyness in her, he thought. No artifice at all.
He thrust his thigh between hers, bent his head, and kissed her throat. He finally found his voice. “You won’t regret this, Prue. I swear it on my honor.”
Her lips brushed across his shoulder. “I do not expect to regret anything that I do with you. How could I? It is all far too wonderful for words.”
“Prue, you take my breath away.” Sebastian pulled her close and started to unfasten the row of shell buttons that closed the back of her gown. The process seemed to take forever. So damned many buttons.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered, fumbling with the last of the buttons. He was suddenly chagrined at his lack of self-control.
“Are you all right, Sebastian?”
“I’m fine.” But that was not true, he thought as he slowly lowered the bodice of her gown and revealed her small, firm breasts. He was far from all right. His hands were shaking. He fell as if he were consumed by fever. His lower body was throbbing. His mind was dazed with the force of his need.
No, he was definitely not all right. But that was all right, too. He had not felt so completely right for longer than he cared to remember.
“Sebastian?”
He stared down at her exquisitely curved breasts. He really was going mad.
“God, but you are perfect, Prue.” He bent his head and took one firm little nipple between his teeth.
“Oh.” Her fingers clenched in his hair and her slender body arched as if she had touched an electricity machine.
Her instant reaction to his caress drove Sebastian closer to the edge of his control. He reached down and pushed his hand up beneath the edge of her skirts.
He stroked her thighs until she trembled. Then he probed higher, seeking the moist heat he knew he would find waiting for him. Just for him. Only for him.
He found it.
“Sebastian.” Prudence shuddered and tried to lock her legs against him. He sensed the movement was instinctive on her part, her natural reaction to a caress she had never before experienced.
“It’s all right,” he whispered encouragingly. “I want to feel all the secret places. I want to know you as intimately as a man can know a woman.”
“Yes, but this is so strange.” Her voice was muffled against his shirt.
“You are a lady who delights in investigating the strange and the unusual,” he reminded her. He gently forced her thighs apart again and found the soft petals hidden in the even softer hair.
“Yes, I know, but … Oh. Good heavens. Oh, my God. Sebastian, what are you doing?”
She was as hot and wet as he had known she would be. Sebastian sank one finger deep into her slick, tight channel. The small passage tightened around him like a well-made glove. The sensation was indescribable. He feared he would humiliate himself by spilling his seed then and there.
“I did not know making love would feel like this,” Prudence confided breathlessly.
Sebastian looked down into her wide-open eyes. “Neither did I.”
Suddenly his own pounding desire was not nearly as important as his need to give Prudence her first real taste of passion. He wanted her to experience the thrill of release and to know that he had been responsible for that release. There would be plenty of time to satisfy himself later. They had all night.
Sebastian eased his finger out of her until he felt her clench in frustration. He found the sensitive bud with his thumb and slowly pushed hi
s finger back into her wondrously warm passage.
Prudence made a tiny sound that was halfway between a shriek and a moan. Sebastian covered her mouth with his own and deliberately repeated the caress between her legs.
She gave another muffled cry and clutched at the fabric of his shirt. Her knees clamped shut again, trapping his hand against her.
“You must relax a little.” Sebastian dropped a series of soft, persuasive kisses across her breasts. “Open yourself. Yes, that’s it, my sweet. Let me inside, Prue. Deep inside.” He felt her hesitate and then slowly part her soft thighs again. “You are so warm,” he whispered. “I want to feel your heat. I need to feel it.”
He stroked into her again and again, gradually widening her until he thought he could slide a second finger into her. He started to do so.
Prudence’s reaction was immediate and intense. She went rigid. Her mouth opened on a soft, silent scream and then she started to shiver. Sebastian felt the tiny ripples rush through her. The moment of her release was gratifying beyond anything he had ever experienced in his life.
He raised his head and watched Prudence’s face as she gave herself up to her climax.
“Beautiful,” he whispered.
And then she went limp against him. She mumbled something into his shirt that Sebastian could not understand. He smiled and reluctantly withdrew his hand from between her legs.
Now it was his turn.
He inhaled Prudence’s scent as he started to unfasten his breeches. He was so fully aroused that he doubted he would be able to last for more than a few strokes at the most. Hell, he thought, he would be lucky to last long enough to get inside her.
The muffled clank of a chain broke the spell.
Sebastian felt as if someone had just doused him with a bucket of ice-cold water. He went absolutely still. He felt Prudence tense.
“The ghost,” she whispered.
“Bloody hell.” Sebastian shook his head in an attempt to clear away the cobwebs of passion. He fumbled with the opening of his breeches and managed to get it closed. “If this is an example of the sort of poor timing that damned specter exhibited when he was alive, it’s no wonder someone murdered him.”
The heavy clanking sound came again. It was closer now, reverberating through the walls. A low moan came from the other side of the connecting door.