The Ravencliff Bride Read Online Free PDF Page B

reason, Sara felt it was rude. He should have sent his apologies, and she had half a mind to march into his study and tell him so. That was where she presumed him to be, since she saw a sliver of candlelight showing under the study door when she came down to dinner.
    After the meal, she decided to do just that, but the study door was ajar, and the candles had been extinguished—recently, judging by the strong odor of smoke and tallow in the musty air. Gripping the doorknob she eased it open a little wider and peered inside. The fire in the hearth had died to glowing embers, casting just enough light to show her that the room was empty. Nicholas’s Hessians stood beside the wing chair, and what looked like some of his clothing lay in a heap on the floor. The boots were caked with mud, and the clothing looked wet. Had he been out in the storm? What were his clothes doing here—had he left them for the servants to collect? Was he accustomed to changing in the study? Her breath caught. He could be coming back! Cold chills gripped her at the thought of being found there, and she repositioned the door just as she’d found it. Glancing up and down the corridor, she searched the shadows, but nothing moved, and she hurried toward the grand staircase and went straight to her suite.
    Entering through the little foyer, she turned right, and opened the door to her bedchamber, where Nell had turned down the bed and was laying out her ecru silk nightgown and wrapper.
    “Oh, la, my lady!” the abigail said. “Ya look like ya just seen a ghost!”
    “Nothing of the kind,” Sara responded. “I took the stairs too quickly after eating.”
    “If you say so, my lady.”
    “How long have you been in service here, Nell?” Sara asked.
    “Long enough ta know the tales o’ ghosts are
true
,” said the maid, casting a furtive glance about the room.
    “I haven’t heard any such tales.”
    “You will. Just ask any o’ the servants, they’ll tell ya. There’s strange goin’s-on in this old house, my lady, you’ll see.”
    Sara didn’t dispute that for a minute, though she wasn’t prepared to subscribe to ghosts. As far as she was concerned, the enigmatic Baron Nicholas Walraven was at the bottom of the “strange goings-on” at Ravencliff, and that was more frightening than ghosts.
    It was still early, and she wasn’t tired, but she did want to be alone to order her thoughts. That meant dismissing Nell. She let the maid help her change and brush out her shoulder-length hair before the vanity mirror in the dressing room, then bade her good night. Snuffing out the dressing room candles, she stepped back over the threshold into her bedchamber only to pull up short before Nero, sitting on his haunches in the middle of the Aubusson carpet, watching her, his eyes like mirrors glowing red in the firelight.
    “Nero?” she breathed. “You frightened me. How did you get in here?” She took a cautious step closer, but the animal made no hostile move, and she ventured nearer still. “You shouldn’t be here, you know, but I shan’t tell.” Squatting down to his level, she reached to stroke his shaggy black coat. “You’re soaking wet!” she discovered. “Have you been out in the storm, too? So that’s why the master’s clothes were all wet. He was out looking for you, wasn’t he? And you’ve escaped him. Well he mustn’t find you here. He knows you visited me last night, and it’s the first place he’ll look.” She surged to her feet and started toward the foyer. “Well, come on, then.”
    Nero hesitated, then stood and padded toward her. Sara gasped again, taking a good look at the animal—at the long, corded legs, and slender, barrel-chested body; at the way he held his head, and the way the strange eyes staring at her picked up the firelight. It was impossible to tell their true color.
    “You do have wolf in you, don’t you?” she murmured. “If I didn’t know better . . .”
    The door to the corridor was ajar.