“Please, don’t go,” she said on a rush, and he froze. “Not that you should remain in here, per se . . . but rather, stay here in the—”

“No.”

“Corridor, just until I finish bathi—”

“No.” As in, absolutely, bloody not.

And against all better judgment, born of thoughts purely beyond his control, an image slipped in of Myrtle shedding her garments and climbing into that steaming bath. The heat of that water would leave a crimson flush about her skin, skin he’d wager was cream white, or did the same freckles he spotted on the bridge of her nose cover the rest of her? Desire consumed him. An unfamiliar response for him toward any woman since his wife’s death, but also a physical response as old as time.

His shaft grew hard and throbbed uncomfortably at the images his traitorous mind had called forth.

“Val?” Myrtle’s voice, with its slightly high-pitched elfin quality, as he’d come to think of it, contained a trace of hesitancy.

“I’m not staying here while you bathe, Myrtle,” he said impatiently, finding his way once more. “As it is, me being here with you now, like this”—in any way—“would see you ruined.” He should find a servant. Send word for his brother, indicating he needed a pair of maids.

So why didn’t you . . . ? a voice taunted.

Because he’d wanted to be here with her.

He grunted. “I have to go, Myrtle.”

“But I’m scared . . .”

Her voice came small and desperate, and they were such sentiments he’d not expected this bold woman to be capable of. And he’d hand it to her—she’d proven braver than most women at having found herself in the circumstances she did, for as long as she had.

Closing his eyes, Val balled his fists. She isn’t your problem. She isn’t your problem.

That mantra proved as useless this time as it had all the previous ones.

And as he failed to convince himself, he did the next best thing: he attempted to convince her.

“There is nothing to be worried about, Myrtle,” he said, infusing a touch of exasperation in his voice in an attempt to break through her irrational—but still understandable—fears at being alone. “No one is here.”

“That is it exactly,” she said, and then rushed forward. “No one is here but me.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “And they know it, too . . .”

When he’d been a boy, and he and his brother had both been in the nursery, they’d stayed up late while their nursemaid had snored. And over her snorting breaths of exhaustion, he and Sidney had regaled one another with familiar and made-up tales of pirates whose ghosts had returned. The eerie tones Myrtle now spoke in recalled those same ones he and his brother had used.

Annoyance brought Myrtle’s brow dipping low. “Did you hear me, Val? I said—”