Page 62 of This Haunted Heart

I grumbled at him as he worked, but he continued to ignore me. The mark Gertrude had left on my wrist was starting to fade, but the sting of it lingered.

Inspecting the strange injury, he ran his thumb over what remained of it. “This shouldn’t leave a burn. It’s already starting to disappear.”

“Gertrude attacked me,” I said. “I didn’t mean to upset her . . . She’d surprised me. I was just trying to make sense of what I was looking at.”

“They don’t like it when the living stare through them,” he reminded me, removing the lid on a jar of clear balm that smelled like herbs. He rubbed the mixture into the irritated skin of my wrist just under the knotted stocking. “I don’t think they like anything that reminds them they’re differentnow. But don’t fret. Grabbing you hurts them as much as it hurts you. It’s a rare angry spirit that would dare it.”

I remembered the strange marks on his body, the blotchy burns. “They hurt you sometimes,” I said solemnly.

“Not anymore. I know how to handle them now, and I know not to stare,” he said. “Now they’re an annoyance. Not a threat. Like house mice, most of the time.”

“I don’t like that they hurt you.” I ground my teeth. It was one thing if I scratched him, but no one else had better. “They’re lucky they’re dead.”

Lochlan chuckled. “You’d like to avenge me, eh?”

“I would,” I grumbled. “They’d best keep their hands to themselves from now on, if touching me hurts them, too. Let that be a warning to any ghost listening. If you grab Loch, I’ll touch you all over!”

A laugh rumbled out of his chest. I didn’t feel Gertrude’s presence in the room at all. Her talc scent was gone. The vase was empty of flowers.

“She took the roses,” I said.

Lochlan finished filing down my thumbnail, then he glanced over his shoulder at the fireplace. “What roses . . . ? Ah yes. I used to see them around the house sometimes as well.”

I jerked my hand out of his, repressing a shiver. “What do you meansometimes? Don’t say it like that.”

“How am I supposed to say it?” He took my hand back, prying open my fingers and resuming his work.

“Goodness’ sake. Flowers are either there or they’re not!”

“Well, in this house, they’re both,” he said ominously.

Gooseflesh broke out across my skin.

Lochlan left briefly to fetch a fingerbowl full of warm water. After he was satisfied that my nails were filed down to aharmless length, properly shaped, and picked clean, he washed my hands in the soapy water. Then he used an ivory tool from his kit to carefully push back my cuticles. With a block, he buffed my nails to a high shine and finished it all off by rubbing almond oil into my skin.

“I was just trying to help you, you know,” he said gently, eyes averted. “You were screaming.”

Guilt stirred in my belly. The monster on my back dug in its cruel talons a little deeper. “I realize that now . . . I’m sorry I scratched you all up. I didn’t know you were you. I thought you were a ghost.”

“And then when you did realize I was me, what was all that about?” he pried.

I used my shoulder to rub the bottom of my chin. My skin had gone itchy. “I panicked and felt like I needed to flee, but you wouldn’t let me. I’m done with that now though. You can untie me.”

He didn’t untie me.

Strands of walnut hair fell across his lashes while he gave each one of my fingers his undivided attention. If my wrists hadn’t been tied together, I would have pushed those glossy strands behind his ears so I could study him better.

I searched for more signs of the young man I once knew. His beard was gone, strong jaw cleanshaven. Muscles filled out his waistcoat. He had charming crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes, and his skin was a ruddier gold down his nose and across his cheeks where the sun had touched him.

“You look so different now,” I said. “I still have to remind myself that Finley and Lochlan aren’t two completely different people.”

Lips pursed, he rubbed more almond oil into the calluses ofmy right palm, pressing with his thumbs in a way that made muscles low in my belly clench. “I suppose they are different people in a way.”

“I don’t want that to be true,” I said solemnly.

“Why not?” Studying my hands, a furrow deepened between his brows.

“It would break my heart if you weren’t my Lochlan anymore,” I said quietly. “I don’t want you to be so different that he’s all gone.”

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