Alva was silent for several beats, staring out at the dead winter pasture. “For one thing, I can’t afford them,” she said. “If my house was actually haunted, that could be the end of my whole project. No one would come to do the work on the house, my designs would never be implemented or photographed, I wouldn’t make my deadlines, and there’d be no book. I have … everything resting on this.”

“All right,” Sam said. “I understand that.”

“And—” She broke off, looking away.

“And?”

She shrugged. “And it would be too horrible,” she said, her voice rigidly composed. “That a person who tormented you in life could come back to torment you after death. If I—if people believed that, they wouldn’t be able to go on.”

Sam thought back to his research and came up with a pretty good idea as to whom she was referring to. His skin went cold. All the scandal in the newspapers—what had it been covering up?

“No one’s going to hurt you,” he heard himself say. “I’ll see to it.”

She laughed, but it sounded empty and mean, as if she was mocking herself. “I’ve been rescuing myself for a while, Professor Moore. It’s just … I’d rather not add ghostly specters to my enemies.”

He felt a little dizzy. Why had he said that? Of course it wasn’t his right to protect her. Except she was standing rather close to him and she really was very beautiful, all dark eyes and bravado.

“Is it such a long enemies list?”

“It’s shorter now,” she said.

“And do you never have help with these foes? Even Queen Elizabeth had knights, you know.”

She turned to look at him, one elegant eyebrow winging up. “Who mostly wanted to marry her and steal her throne,” she said.

“I would never steal your throne,” he said, and immediately felt ridiculous. He was talking like a sixteen-year-old boy. He was feeling like one, too, every second tight with anticipation and yearning. He needed to take a step back, calm down. This was not how you wooed women. You waited for them patiently, and eventually they would probably come to you. And if they didn’t, well, it wasn’t the end of the world.

But she wasn’t looking at him like he was ridiculous. There was something there—sadness? Longing? Wistfulness, he thought. Like she was looking at something she couldn’t have.

Suddenly the most important thing in the world was to tell her she could have it. Him. Whatever she wanted, really. He lifted his hand and ran two fingers gently across her cheek. “You have such a delicate face,” he murmured. “But strong, too. Delicate skin and strong bones. I seem to find the combination almost irresistible.”