Page 34 of To Swoon and to Spar
Jane barely seemed to hear him. “This always happens in books,” she muttered. “Someone is listening intently for a mysterious noise, and then someone creeps up behind them…” She looked almost cheerful, which Penvale found mildly disturbing. “It’s so nice when things actually work out the way they do in novels, isn’t it? So satisfying.” She paused, mock-thoughtful. “Oh. I don’t suppose you’d know, would you?”
“Jane.”
“Right. Sorry.” She looked entirely unrepentant. “Did you hear anything, then?”
“I didn’t get the chance to, did I?” he asked irritably. “Before you crept up behind me like…”
“A ghost?” she suggested.
He cut a glare at her.
She gazed back at him, straight-faced.
He turned back to the wall, as if it were about to reveal all of its bloody secrets under the strength of his glare. It looked…
Like a wall. Obviously.
“What is your plan here, exactly?” Jane inquired.
He tossed her another irritated look over his shoulder. “I don’t know,” he admitted through gritted teeth. He wished—absurdly, pointlessly—for his father. His father, who had been dead for nearly two decades. His father, who never got around to teaching Penvale all the things he needed to know to be the viscount, to be in charge of this land and this house and everyone within it. Not, he supposed, that his father ever had to contend with a damned haunting, of all things.
As if on cue, another shriek, so loud it sounded as though it were directly on the opposite side of the wall.
Penvale jumped back with a muffled curse—at this rate, he would never get within five feet of a wall ever again—and, after taking a moment to allow his heart to resume beating, he took a couple of quick steps to the left, where he yanked open the door to the adjoining room, which revealed a small drawing room. It was dark and still, no sign of having recently been occupied, but an interior door was ajar, leading to a bedroom, and another beyond it, all connected by interior doorsthat allowed one to quickly travel through the rooms without going into the hall.
“Jane,” Penvale said quickly, “go into the hall and make sure no one enters it. I’ll meet you in your morning room.” He then set off with quick, quiet steps, listening intently; had he imagined it, or did he hear the faint sound of running footsteps? He increased his own pace as much as stealth would allow, until he finally reached the end of the series of interconnected rooms, the last of which was Jane’s morning room. It was at the very edge of the house, directly above his study, both within a turret featuring curved walls.
The room was empty.
He turned in a circle, listening carefully, but whatever footsteps he had heard—or imagined he’d heard—were gone, the only sound the wind.
The door to the hallway opened, and Jane burst in. “Did you—”
He shook his head. “No,” he said shortly. “There’s no one here.”
“Oh,” she said, and something odd flickered across her face for half a second, gone before he could identify it. “Shall we return to bed, then?” She sounded almost eager at the prospect, not that Penvale supposed he could blame her; it was late, and this had been a bit of a wild-goose chase. He led the way silently back through the halls until they reached his sitting room, and he exhaled a long breath as the door to the hallway shut behind them.
No sooner had they entered the room and taken a moment to stand in peaceful silence than the window clattered open and a gust of snow blew in.
“Of course,” Penvale muttered after his heart had resumed beating once more; prior to moving to Cornwall, he had not consideredhimself an easily startled man by nature, but he was becoming downright twitchy. If Diana were here, she would no doubt mock him mercilessly, but he could not help sparing a dark wish that his mysterious ghost would make an appearance in his sister’s bedchamber when she visited in the spring. He had years of grievances filed away, waiting for the moment he could exact his revenge.
“Are you going to close that?” Jane asked, interrupting his contemplation of ways he could torture his sibling, and he spared a sheepish glance for his wife before crossing the room to close the window, squinting slightly against the snowflakes pelting his face, carried into the room on the strong wind gusting off the ocean. He slammed the window shut, then regarded it thoughtfully. It latched securely, with no wiggle or sign that it was becoming loose; Penvale had latched it earlier just as firmly. How had it opened? It was windy, to be sure, but notthatwindy.
“Is the latch broken?” Jane asked as he turned to face her, and for a fraction of a second he paused, taking notice of something in her tone. He couldn’t put his finger on what it was—hadn’t even realized that he knew her well enough, had paid close enough attention to note such a thing—but all at once he was certain, down to his bones, that this was not the innocent inquiry it appeared to be.
He took slow, deliberate steps toward her; she did not move, that violet gaze locked with his, but a faint hint of color appeared in her cheeks. Jane was many things—shy, an awkward conversationalist, and frequently openly hostile toward her spouse—but she was not much of a blusher.
“The latch is not broken,” he said calmly, watching her carefully. “The latch appears to be functioning perfectly, and I myself was the one who latched it not an hour ago, when I stuck my head out the window to see how hard it was snowing.”
Jane frowned, her blush fading. “Why on earth would you do that?”
“I wanted to see if it was letting up.” He came to a halt before her.
“And you couldn’t have merely looked out the window?” She looked utterly perplexed.
“It was… foggy,” he said. “From the warmth,” he added, nodding sagely, as if he had the faintest idea what he was talking about. He didn’t want to admit what he’d really been doing—trying to get a better listen to the wind outside, when he’d first heard it begin to howl. Because to admit that would be to admit that he was, perhaps, only slightly, a little bit… well, rattled.
“I wanted to see how deep the snowdrifts were,” he added hastily, and then plunged on before Jane could ask any further questions, as if anything he had just said made any sense whatsoever. “The point is, I closed that window myself, and I do not believe I am such a spoiled London gentleman that I’m incapable of latching a window properly.”
