Seduction Becomes Her by Shirlee Busbee Read Free Book Online

time—it could have led to another bedroom or a sitting room, and it means nothing. Absolutely nothing. She swallowed. I hope.

    Sleep was impossible. She sat in a chair by the fire and either stared at the flames or at the section of wall with its faint outline of a doorway. I did not, she told herself repeatedly, see a ghost. I do not believe in ghosts. Whatever I thought I saw was caused by the unfamiliarity of the room, tiredness…or it was simply my imagination. There are any number of logical reasons for what I thought I saw and heard. There was nothing really in the room with me. I could not have heard that queer warble, or whatever it was, and I could not have seen a ghost—it was a trick of my mind.

    And if you believe that so strongly, purred a sly voice in her brain, why won’t you get into your bed and go back to sleep?

    She took in a deep, shaky breath. Because, she admitted grimly, I do not want to go to sleep and awake to find it crooning gibberish next to my bed. I know that it was my imagination…. Yes, it must have been my imagination—I am not given to hysterical fancies, she reminded herself stoutly. So it had to have been her imagination. She was over-tired and sleeping in unfamiliar surroundings, surroundings that certainly lent themselves to odd sightings, and her imagination had run rampant—that had to be the explanation. Yet, despite all her rational arguments, Daphne couldn’t shake the certainty that she had heard that soft crying in the darkness and that she had seen something. She bit her lip. There had been something there, something that had reacted to her voice and actions. She shivered. She wanted what had occurred to be easily explained away, but she couldn’t forget the way the thing had recoiled when she stepped toward it, nor how the singsong sound had stopped so abruptly at her command.

    She wrapped her robe tighter around her, wishing for daylight. She looked at the ormolu clock ticking on the mantle. 4:00 A.M . Shortly, the servants would be tiptoeing around the house, completing their early morning chores. Soon enough, one would be coming into her room with hot water and a tea tray…. She closed her aching eyes, suppressing a yawn. She should crawl into bed so that nothing would seem amiss, not that anything was amiss.

    If the servant who crept into the room later that morning with the big pewter tray was surprised to find Miss asleep in a chair by the fire, she gave no sign. She quietly went about her business and in a few minutes, her chores done, slipped from the room, shutting the door behind her.

    It was the sound of the shutting door that woke Daphne. She jerked upright with a small, startled shriek, then felt enormously silly when she realized what had woken her.

    Daphne wasted little time on her morning ablutions, and half an hour later, she startled Goodson in the morning room where he was just beginning to set up for breakfast.

    “Oh, Miss! I did not expect you at this hour,” he exclaimed. “It will only take me a moment to finish here, and I shall let Cook know that you are eager for your breakfast. We shall have something for you to eat in no time at all. Will the others be joining you?”

    Daphne gave him a wane smile and seating herself in one of the chintz-covered chairs by a window that overlooked the side garden, said, “No, my brother and sister are still fast asleep in their beds. I am the only early riser this morning. A cup of hot tea and some toast will suit me fine.”

    At this time of year, the garden was not in its finest flush, and Daphne was surprised to see red geraniums and white camellias blooming against the soft green foliage of the boxwood hedge that enclosed this section. Dew kissed the shrubbery, and though the hour was early, the sun was already transforming the dew into diamond dust wherever it touched.

    Once he’d seen to her needs, Goodson went back to his regular routine. Sipping the hot brew, Daphne stared out the