Page 560 of Flirting with Darkness

Even if she was, he might be a brigand, but he had his limits.

He would not touch such a flower for all his father’s gold.

She smiled at him shyly, as if noting something in his appraisal she didn’t quite understand. Or possibly she saw something in it that made her uncomfortable.

Ghost was used to his effect on the fairer sex.

Or, as Maggie liked to qualify, theweak-minded foolsamong the fairer sex.

He used to think it merely an attempt by Mags to be insulting, as she didn’t approve of his carousing and time-killing, and thought it put them all at risk.

However, after she’d said it a few times, he realized she meant it.

She meant it derisively, but not really towards him. She told him once they only saw his face, nothing about what lived behind it, nothing about who he truly was.

Once he saw that… reallysawit… he could not unsee it.

Now, he observed only the blankness of those stares.

The vapidity of how they saw him.

Choosing to act on such a thing inevitably left him feeling unsatisfied. It rarely if ever proved a rewarding endeavor, nor a flattering one, for either himself or them.

Unless he was feeling particularly sadistic.

The waiter brought her sherry in a small, etched glass.

The same waiter requested her choice of meal, and after he listed off the remaining choices, she ordered a roasted squab with potatoes, gravy, and bread with butter.

Ghost knew he perhaps should have ordered for her, but he found it interesting, watching her attempt to put herself forward in the world, when she obviously had so little experience with any of it. Overbearing mother perhaps? Youngest of many brothers and sisters? A controlling, rich grandfather? Or perhaps she simply had a father who assumed all women fools, ignoring them but to marry them off when they came of age?

He really considered asking her family situation, when she glanced up, taking a sip of the sherry. An instant later she jumped, her long eyelashes fluttering.

He thought at first it was from the taste of the wine.

Then he realized she’d seen something.

As the thought reached him, she flushed bright red and slid over on the seat, making herself small by the window to Ghost’s left.

Following her eyes, he turned his head, gazing over his own shoulder.

He found a severely thin woman with a hawk-like face, near-black eyes, and a faintly flushed complexion. Looking at her, and the coldly disapproving look she aimed at him, Ghost assumed she must be the mother.

Or perhaps––

“Aunt Charlotte,” the girl exclaimed.

The younger woman’s face grew even redder. She cleared her throat, arranging the glass of sherry on the white tablecloth with delicate fingers. She spilled just a drop of the sherry in the process. The dark red spread in a stain on the white cloth.

It made Ghost think of blood.

His Traveler blood told him it was an omen.

That, or perhaps it was the lingering effect of his waking dream-nightmare.

Or whatever the hell that had been.

But he didn’t want to think aboutthatagain.

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