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Ashton studied her very closely as she fumbled with her gown in a vain attempt to achieve some semblance of modesty.
    “Were you tied up for a long time?” he asked. Guilt pinched at him over the fact that he had not asked her that before and had hesitated to untie her.
    “Oh, nay. I mean, no, I do not think so,” Penelope replied, beginning to experience an alarming unsteadiness in her body and her mind. “Where are my clothes? I think I must hurry and dress. That nasty potion Mrs. Cratchitt forced down my throat does not feel so very pleasant now. I think I may soon be very ill or very unconscious and very soon.”
    Ashton cursed and heard the youth echo it. “I will get her clothes,” he muttered even as he looked around the room. He spotted them piled on the floor near the door and went to get them. “Put the gun away,” he told Artemis as he set Penelope’s clothes on the bed. “You will need some help getting her dressed.” He sighed when the boy hesitated. “It is a little late to worry about her modesty in front of me. I also have no desire to take a woman who has had to be drugged to share a bed with me.”
    “How late?” demanded Artemis.
    There were very few men Ashton knew who could have put such cold, deadly fury into two small words. “Not that late,” he replied and was relieved when the boy set his pistol aside and moved to help him dress Penelope.
    “But I will be naked,” Penelope protested as her brother and Ashton started to remove the thin gown Mrs. Cratchitt had forced her to wear.
    “You are as good as naked now,” muttered Artemis and then he frowned at her. “You were given some potion?”
    “Mrs. Cratchitt forced it on me. It made me very calm for a while, very accepting of my fate. Now it is making me very dizzy and a little nauseous. How did you find me?”
    “Paul slipped out and followed you for aways. He saw those men grab you, ran back home to us, and told me about it. I had already sensed that something was very wrong and was preparing to set out after you.”
    “I was very frightened.”
    “I know,” he said in a soft, gentle tone and he stroked her hair. “Between that and questioning a few boys here and there, we were able to pick up your trail. Then, well, it was as if a lantern had been lit to lead me straight to this place and this room. I did not have to roam about outside for very long before I knew exactly where you were. The potion, I suppose. It has made things uncomfortable for you?”
    “Quite uncomfortable. This is a very sad place, full of ill feelings and angry spirits. Someone died in this bed,” she added, sorrow weighting her every word. “Poor Faith.”
    “What are you saying?” asked Ashton, eyeing the siblings warily as he finished tugging Penelope’s dress on her increasingly limp body. He did not completely understand the meaning of their words but what little he guessed at made him very uneasy.
    “Oh, you are still naked,” murmured Penelope, unable to stop herself from looking him over very thoroughly. He was so handsome, she thought and sighed.
    “I can finish this unaided now,” said Artemis and he scowled at Ashton. “You can go and get yourself dressed now. Boys, watch him closely.”
    Ashton moved to where his clothes had been set down. He looked at the boys who had been ordered to watch him, caught the direction of the interested gazes of the younger ones, and hurried to get dressed. He understood a young boy’s fascination with that part of a grown man’s body but he was in no mood to be the object of their study. He was embarrassed enough by how matters had turned against him.
    What little he could hear of the conversation between Penelope and her brother made him inwardly shake his head. They seemed to believe they could feel things and see things others could not, could snatch emotions from the air and speak to the dead. She spoke of this specter named Faith as if the vision were not born of the potion Cratchitt had