Haunted Hearts

7

Elphi shook Roderick's left shoulder and repeated for the third time with exasperation in her voice, "Roderick."

A few seconds passed before he blinked and turned to look at her.

She arched a brow. "We've arrived. Are you coming in, or do you wish to return home to your pillow? You look exhausted."

"I am, but I can't leave until this is over," He shook off her hand and exited the carriage. "I made a promise to be here, so I am obligated to attend tonight; blast it all."

"What do you mean you made a promise?" Elphi sidestepped a suspicious-looking pile in her path to the stone staircase and glanced at her brother. "A promise to whom?"

"To your nemesis, the liar," Rufus said, joining Roderick at the bottom step as he delivered a hearty slap to Roderick's right shoulder in greeting.

"Lord Treadway," Elphi gasped. She stiffened in alarm and clutched a hand to her bosom to still her pounding heart.

Where had he come from? He'd practically materialized from thin air and looked more handsome than they'd met the first night. "What are you doing here?"

Rufus arched a brow and lowered his voice, saying just loud enough for her to hear, "Your sister's tone suggests she would prefer slapping me and spitting in my eye to seeing me here tonight. Does that mean I'm excused?"

"No, it bloody well doesn't," Roderick muttered between clenched teeth, then turned to Elphi. "Melphia," he growled in warning as he delivered a pointed stare that said she was lucky they were in public. "Behave."

"What?" Elphi squared her shoulders and folded her arms across her chest, refusing to be cowed by her brother despite inwardly acknowledging that her tone was unforgivably rude and she really ought to apologize. "He's the one who declared seance's to be utter purgatory and all but questioned my sanity for subjecting myself to them more than twice a month. If anything, it's a reasonable enough, and dare I say, courteous question to ask."

Rufus and Roderick shared a look as though deciding whether or not to let the moment pass before Roderick heaved a weary sigh and muttered something under his breath that made Rufus laugh out loud.

There was a stiffness to it, as though the act of laughing were a somewhat unfamiliar and slightly uncomfortable activity. And yet, it was a deep, wonderful, and contagious sound that caused peculiar sensations to swirl and coalesce in the pit of Elphi's stomach before launching tendrils of achy need and wanting into her appendages.

Never before had she experienced such a reaction when hearing masculine laughter, but it didn't take more than a few heartbeats to know the feelings it stirred to life were far more dangerous than some simple attraction, as she first believed.

So, in a desperate attempt to add another flaw or seven to the current list, Elphi studied Rufus—her sworn enemy, he'd so graciously reminded her and was taken aback when her gaze snagged on the beguiling dimple in his left cheek. It lent him an undeniable, attractive boyish charm that vanished when he caught her watching him.

Rufus's bushy black eyebrows slammed together in what Elphi was now beginning to consider his customary frown. "For your information-"

"I wouldn't say anything if I were you, Rufus," Roderick murmured, not even bothering to conceal the laughter in his voice as he prodded Elphi forward with a sharp nudge to the small of her back. "It's best to ignore her when she gets like this."

"How dare you!" Elphi gasped and leveled a heated scowl over her shoulder at her brother as they walked up the remainder of the stone staircase.

Roderick shrugged and grinned, unconcerned, and most likely in an attempt to divert the conversation, asked no one in particular, "Shall we make a friendly wager of how tonight will proceed?"