Chapter Seven

"I don't think we're mad," Sarah said firmly. "The private files mention a few similar incidents in the past. What did your ghost look like? Was it like the countess's fluffy gray cat?"

Rafe tried to remember the brief shocked glimpse he'd seen of the ghost. "No, it seemed to be a black cat with white whiskers and mittens and a ragged left ear."

"That sounds like one of the castle cats, the Black Rogue. He's rather wild and likes to knock things off shelves to break them. He also lurks around corners so he can claw women's skirts." Sarah chuckled. "Particularly if the gown is an expensive one. My clothing is very modest, which may be why he sometimes lets me scratch his head. If I'm really fortunate, he even purrs."

"How many references are there to ghostly cats?"

"Not many, but people might not talk about them for obvious reasons."

Rafe grinned into the darkness. "I won't tell anyone about your ghost if you don't talk about mine."

"Agreed!"

He returned to a question he'd had earlier. "Why weren't you at tonight's entertainment? You're a well-born young lady and I would have been happy to see you again." More than happy!

"The guests are well-born young ladies with dowries and beautiful gowns and I have neither," she scoffed. "Nor was I invited. I'm one of her ladyship's servants, not an eligible potential countess."

Apparently Sarah was considered to be at the same social level as a governess or tutor. She deserved better than that. He'd never known a woman who was kinder or more honorable. "You wouldn't have fit with that pack of fortune hunters," Rafe said. "One followed me from the salon and started in pursuit. That's why I ended up in the attic."

Sarah chuckled before saying apologetically, "I'm sorry, it must have been deeply annoying for you, but having survived Waterloo, I'm sure you can outmaneuver a flock of ambitious damsels."

"Which is why I'm here, with much better company." He tightened his arm around her. "My summers at the castle are the best memories of my childhood." His voice dropped to a whisper. "And you were the very best part."

She slid an arm around his waist and hugged him. "Do you remember the first time we met?"

He would never forget it. His mother had just died and his father was off with his regiment, so Rafe had been sent to Castle Carrollton to spend the summer and be tutored to prepare him for Eton in the autumn.

Having lost his friends and home and worst of all, his mother, he'd been achingly sad. He hardly cared when he'd been taken to the vicarage to meet Reverend Wesley, who would be his tutor. The vicar was a kind man who questioned him to ascertain Rafe's level of education. At the end of the session, he rang a bell and said, "My daughter, Sarah, will take you to the kitchen for cakes and tea."

Sarah had entered, a bright-eyed cherub whose warm smile started to melt the ice in his soul. "After your father examined me, you took my hand and said, ‘We have kittens in the barn!'" He smiled into the darkness. "It was the beginning of a wonderful afternoon." And also the beginning of his most cherished friendship.

"We had such good times. You encouraged me to go swimming and climb trees and do all sorts of unladylike things," she said with a smile in her voice. "I was very fortunate!"

Rafe laughed. "And because you persuaded your father to include you in my lessons, I learned a lot more because I didn't want to admit that a girl, even you, was more intelligent that I was."

She joined his laughter. "The competition was good for both of us. I learned a great deal in those summer sessions."

"So did I." After a moment of hesitation, he said, "I've always thought that you insisted on joining me for lessons because you thought I needed a friend."

"Well, yes," Sarah said with some reluctance. "You were so sad at first. I liked that I could usually make you smile."

"Always," he said simply. "I looked forward to coming here every summer. As soon as I paid my respects to the earl and countess, I came to find you."

"I also looked forward to your summer returns. You were the only boy I knew who treated me as an equal."

"An equal who was delightfully different." After a long moment, he said softly, "You were the first girl I ever kissed."

Equally softly, she said, "And you were the first boy who ever kissed me. The first and by far the best. But that was at the end of your last summer at the castle."

"The sweetest kiss I've ever known," he said huskily. "I wonder…"

He reached gently through the darkness, his fingers touching her hair, then skimming down her smooth, cool cheek. Finding her lips and bending into a gentle kiss.

Sarah gave a small squeak of surprise, but she didn't pull away. Her mouth opened tentatively under his as she touched his hair, lightly at first, until burying her fingers in it.

The kiss was even sweeter than he remembered and carried promise of so much more—until her fingers drifted down to his cheek and she touched the ridged scar that ran across his face.

He jerked away, remembering his disfigurement. "I'm sorry, I should have warned you," he said tightly. "Courtesy of a French soldier, my faced has been ruined and small children turn away from me, or so I've been informed. If I didn't have a title and fortune, no woman would come near me."

"Nonsense," Sarah said as her fingertips traced gently across the scar. "I was watching from above when you arrived earlier. My first thought was to thank God that the blade missed your eyes." She stretched up so she could slide a warm, gentle kiss across the scar. "My second thought was you are still the most attractive man I've ever known."

Trying to control the way her kiss resonated through him, he said, "You lie very sweetly, Sarah, but most of the countess's eligible young ladies can't quite look at me without their gazes sliding away."

"That's because they are hen-witted," Sarah said tartly. "For which I'm grateful, because it reduces the competition."

He blinked in the darkness, wondering if he heard rightly. "Competition?"

She pulled away and he heard embarrassment in her voice. "It means that the women worthy of you appreciate the honorable, kind, intelligent man you are."

"Sarah, you haven't seen me for a dozen years! I may have changed out of all recognition." His voice turned rueful. "If I were honorable, I wouldn't be compromising a well-born young lady in an attic."

"We've already determined that these are hardship conditions." After a long pause, she whispered, "Perhaps it's presumptuous of me, but I've always felt that I know you on a deep level. Though that may be my imagination."

"I don't think so, because I've always felt the same about you. You shaped my soul, Sarah, but it's taken quite a battering in the years since I've seen you."

Giving into impulse, he turned on the sofa and slid his arms under her and swooped her onto his lap so he could embrace her more thoroughly. She gave a small, startled sound before settling against him, her head on his shoulder and her arm around his waist. "You really are most wonderfully warm, Rafe."

She was also warm. Soft. So perfectly, wonderfully Sarah. It felt absolutely right to have her curled up on his lap. When had he ever felt such rightness?

Not since the last time he'd seen Sarah before going off to join his regiment. This new sense of rightness started in his heart and expanded through his whole being.

Choosing his words carefully, "Sarah, the last time I saw you and we kissed, I almost asked you to marry me, but I didn't dare. We were both so young and I was going off to war and an uncertain future. It seemed wrong to ask, but if I had proposed to you then, what would your answer have been?"

Sarah went absolutely still in his arms. In a voice touched with shadow, she replied, "I would have said yes. I had dreams of following the drum with you. But as you say, we were both so young. Too young. It was wise of you not to ask."

Rafe took a deep breath, gathering his courage as he did when Napoleon's Imperial Guard swept onto the field of Waterloo, determined to crush France's enemies. But the Allies had won, and he prayed for another victory now. "Sarah. What would be your answer if I asked you to marry me now?