A Scot to the Heart (Desperately Seeking Duke #2) - Caroline Linden Page 0,64

gave a start, nearly dropping his lamp. He glanced at her, and almost fumbled the lamp again at the exhilaration in her face. If not for that dratted chain hitting his knee, he could easily believe this was a rendezvous, two lovers meeting in the dark of night because they couldn’t keep away from each other a moment longer.

Unsettled, he put one finger to his lips, and only when they had gained the staircase, with the door gently closed behind them—on hinges that were blessedly oiled into silence, thanks to Mrs. Watkins—did he speak.

“They want to hear a ghost,” he said quietly. “I thought I would . . . just . . .” He rattled the chain.

She folded her arms and tapped one finger to her chin. Standing two steps above him, her bosom was right at eye level, and Drew was mesmerized by the sight. Her dressing gown was fine lawn, like her nightdress, and he could swear he spied a dusky nipple—

“You’ll have to make more noise than that,” she said thoughtfully. “These old houses have thick walls and floors. Some stomping, I think, and dragging the chain on the floor.” She turned and darted up the stairs, into the stygian darkness, without so much as a backward look. Drew started out of his daze of arousal and hurried after her, holding the lamp higher.

“Oh my,” she breathed. He could barely make her out, even in her white garments. “It’s empty.” She turned to him, a wicked smile on her face. “We can make so much noise up here.”

As it turned out, the attics were not empty. No doubt thanks to Mrs. Watkins’s efficiency, trunks and crates were stacked neatly at the far end of the room. Ghostly figures turned out to be furniture draped in dust coverings. But that left a long run of open space where they could, indeed, make an unholy racket. Ilsa located a heavy padlock on a shorter length of chain, which made a satisfying thump against the wooden planks. Drew mentally mapped out the floor beneath, and paced off where he thought his sisters’ rooms were.

“Some wailing would be enormously helpful,” she whispered.

“Wailing?” He was still thinking about the way her dressing gown shifted over her breasts as she moved.

“Remember? The stairs to the roof,” she whispered. “You said it made a howl like a banshee when the door was left open.”

The roof, where he’d kissed her and she’d kissed him and things might have reached a truly spectacular level if Felix Duncan hadn’t been wandering about sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. “Right,” said Drew, his brain too fixated on that night and what might have been to make any other sensible reply.

“There’s a window here,” she went on. “Open it, and I’ll open the door when you’re ready to give Winnie her ghost, and then—”

“The wind will howl down the stairs,” he finished. It was a wild, raw night outside. The windows had been rattling since dinnertime. He set the lamp aside and managed to pry open the rusted latch and shove open the small window.

The breeze that rushed in was cold and damp and raised the hair on his arms. Ilsa leaned near it and breathed deeply. “It smells of the sea,” she whispered.

It smells of home, he thought. The briny tang of the North Sea was in the air, along with heather and peat. And there was a note of something else, something softer and warmer . . .

She leaned farther toward the window and inhaled. The soft warm scent tugged at him, and Drew realized that was her, her perfume, her skin, her hair. Unconsciously he leaned toward her, breathing deeply—

He stopped. Perhaps this had been a mistake. He’d thought it the perfect way to end the visit, this caper to make Winnie laugh and steal a few more minutes with Ilsa at the same time, and instead he’d fallen into a bottomless pool of desire. He wanted to kick the chains into the shadows and make love to Ilsa on the bare attic floor, never mind ghostly pranks.

“I’ll open the door at the bottom of the stairs,” he said to distract himself from that, but was unable to resist sneaking one more look at her as he turned away.

She stood in front of the window, her arms braced on the sides, face lifted in ecstasy to the night sky. Her hair and dressing gown billowed in the stiff breeze. She was the spirit haunting him