You are a twit, Eve Ormond.
With a sound of disgust, she tossed back the coverlet and scowled at the plaster ceiling of the modest chambers she’d been afforded. If her departed father could see her hiding under the covers like a scared girl, he’d have delivered one of his military lectures about courage and pride. All rubbish when coming from a man who’d betrayed his country, but still, it would be deserved coming from anyone.
She did not cower in her rooms like a scared child. Having walked the bloodied battlefields to tend dying and injured men, she’d developed a toughened skin. Or she’d thought so. Despite the whispering of the handful of servants inside Castle Rayne and Captain Lucas Rayne’s own taunting a few weeks prior, there were no ghosts.
Thump.
Her pulse jumped. There was, however, that odd thumping.
Eve briefly contemplated her white coverlet and then, with a sigh, she swung her legs over the side of the bed. She’d been brought up to fear nothing and no one, and the longer she remained in her chambers with that odd distant noise from deep within the manor, she’d remain sleepless. She shivered as her feet collided with the stone floor.
Before her courage deserted her, Eve hurried across the room, gathered her white wrapper, and made for the door. Fingers on the metal handle, she paused. Captain Lucas Rayne doesn’t want a soul wandering about past the midnight hour. Mrs. Bramble’s earlier warnings whispered around the chambers of her mind. “Well, Captain Lucas Rayne does not leave his chambers,” Eve muttered under her breath. Squaring her shoulders, she drew the door open. What there was—
Creeeeak. She held her breath as the hinges, in desperate need of oiling, groaned in protest. Then, slipping out into the darkened halls, Eve carefully picked her way along the stone corridors. The handful of lit sconces cast an eerie glow off the walls, with ominous shadows set to dancing.
What manner of hell had Lucas known that he’d prefer this cold and barren home? Devoid of all cheer and warmth, there existed nothing but darkness and fear. She squared her jaw. And she would not allow herself to be victim to the same.
At the end of the corridor, Eve stopped, her ears trained for any hint of that earlier rhythmic thumping. Then she heard it. From deep within the castle, the haunting strains of a piano. She clutched the sides of her wrapper, as fear lapped at her senses. Her breath came hard and fast, filling the corridors, and she cast a quick, desperate look back at her rooms.
The playing took on a frantic rhythm, drawing her forward. Eve hastened her stride, until she sprinted down the halls. With each step, the sound and fury of that playing soared to a crescendo pitch that blended agony with desperation, in a maelstrom of emotion that left her breathless.
Eve skidded to a stop outside the room from where the music came. She eyed the arched doorway with a lion-headed handle better suited to a dungeon. All the earliest warnings on her first days here came rushing back...of ghosts and curses and haunted souls roaming these halls. With tremulous fingers, she pressed the handle and peered inside the darkened quarters. She blinked, attempting to adjust to the dimly lit space...and then her gaze landed on him.
Lucas?
She froze, attempting to make sense of what her eyes saw. Surely she imagined him before her now. For the haunted man she saw daily did not leave his chambers. Only, there could be no imagining the long, midnight strands that shook under the fury of his movements.
Her heart froze and she gripped the edge of the doorway, breathless. The piano, long in need of tuning, did little to detract from the effortless command of those keys. A haunting melody soared as Lucas stroked the keys, coaxing each chord, each note, until they blended together in a heartbreaking symphony that brought her eyes closed. His song, one of agony and hopelessness, climbed upward, until her chest ached for peace from the torture played.
He played as a man whose heart had long ago been broken and whose soul sought strength. And a woman who well-knew the pain of those desperate yearnings, felt his storm-tossed melody go through her, reaching inside and—
The chords ended sharply, as Lucas spun around. Even with the distance between them, their gazes locked. Her own shock and panic were reflected in his.
She touched a hand to her heart to calm the frantically beating organ.
“What are you doing here?” Had he shouted that demand, it could not have contained more fury and power than that steely whisper.
Eve wetted her lips. I should leave. I should race off and pretend this meeting never occurred and pray he doesn’t sack me from my post for defying his orders. “You do leave your rooms,” she said, unable to keep the faint accusation from that statement.
Lucas flared his eyes, but said nothing.
Did his family know their son and brother escaped deep within the manor when the house slumbered? Did they know and were content to allow him his secrets? Or did they sleep and live, failing to see the true depths of how Lucas had been changed by life? Uninvited, Eve entered the parlor and pushed the door closed behind her. The hinges squeaked noisily and that sound jolted him into movement.
He surged out from behind the bench and the legs scraped along the hardwood floor. “You were instructed not to wander the halls past midnight.” Had his voice been sharp and furious, mayhap she would have yanked the door open and darted back to her rooms. A servant stealing about her employer’s home in nothing more than a wrapper and nightshift would be turned out of any respectable household.
Yet, there was a faint entreaty to his retort that urged her closer. “It is because you wander the halls during these hours,” she said softly, at last piecing together the reason for the peculiar orders she’d been issued. There were no ghosts here. Not of the otherworldly sorts. Rather, there was the ghost of a man who lived within this world, alone, determined to keep all out.
Lucas warily eyed her approach. He dipped his eyes. His hot gaze briefly lingered on her breasts and a wave of heat went through her. Never had she felt beautiful. Tall, plain, and brown-haired when blonde ringlets were in favor, she fit not at all with Society’s vision of beauty. Yet, with Lucas, with a single look, he showed her a feminine power she’d never believed herself capable of, and it was heady stuff, indeed.
Eve stopped on the opposite end of the bench. “You play beautifully,” she said when she trusted herself to speak. She promptly warmed at that pathetic compliment that did little to capture the depth of his mastery of that instrument.
“I was a French prisoner,” he said quietly.
She stilled. He’d been imprisoned by Boney’s forces. Oh, God, what had they done to him? Eve bit down hard on the inside of her lower lip, as pain filled her...and awe for him, this man who’d survived, despite the cruelties visited upon him. What hell must he have endured?
“I was kept in a small room that had nothing more than a bed,” he continued, as though he’d followed the path her unspoken questioning had wandered as he’d always done through her time here. “There was a table, chair, and a pianoforte.”
To give her restless fingers something to do, she trailed a hand along the top of the magnificent piece.
“There were times I hungered for that goddamned instrument more than I did food and water,” he murmured that last part, his gaze trained beyond her head.
Eve’s heart wrenched. “You are free now,” she said on an aching whisper, willing him to see that those chains had been broken. She gestured to the room. “This is your home. The only person imprisoning you now is you, Lucas.”
A bitter laugh escaped him as he came around her. “Are we ever truly free?” No, he was correct on that score. Her breath hitched, as he layered his front against her back, bringing their bodies flush. “What of you?” his deep voice rumbled in the quiet.