Chapter 17

Bastian leaned back against the wall next to Jane's closed door. His body was rigid, tension coiled like snakes in his muscles. He had kissed her again, had almost lost control again. But she had tasted so good, like wine and her own natural sweetness. The way she had shivered and gasped, breathless as he held her, still echoed in his ears and made him ache bone deep to go back into her room and finish what he had started. Neither of them spoke about the drawing room incident or how they had been so intimate there yet like distant voyeurs. However, the kitchen and her bedroomthose two kisses belonged solely to them and not to the past.

They couldn't keep doing this, a dance circling closer and closer to each other until they made the mistake of sleeping together. It couldn't be allowed to happen. She didn't seem strong enough to stay away from him, so he would have to be the one to stop it. But damned if he hadn't been the one kissing her! He raked a hand through his hair, tugging hard on the strands in his desperation to think. Maybe if he chose to completely avoid her the rest of the week, then he could just send her packing and be done with it and they'd never cross paths again. Yes, that might work. Stormclyffe was large. He could easily avoid one little bookworm.

He pushed away from the wall, regret making his steps heavy, and his boots knocked into something.

A bag toppled over at his feet. Jane's briefcase. He started to pick it up when he noticed a leather-bound book with a blank spine lay on top of her notebook. It was old, not a textbook or research material. He knew he should just slide it inside the bag and leave it alone, but his hands were already curling around the tome and lifting it up. He hissed as an electric shock pulsed through his skin at his palms and fingers where he held the book. Rather than drop it, he suddenly found he couldn't let go of it. How could a book shock him? They didn't carry electric current

It fell open, the yellowed paper parting soundlessly. Handwriting in faded ink flowed in delicate swirls and loops across the pages. Bastian's eyes widened as he read the first couple of lines.

This was his ancestor Richard's diary. How had Jane found this? Where had she found it? A part of him snarled. She had kept this a secret from him. He had every right to know what lay in the pages, to see the story his ancestor told. It was his family not hers, and he had expressly denied her access to his family's private papers. His fist was halfway raised in front of her door before he realized he was about to knock. He didn't want to quarrel with her. No. He would simply take the diary and protect it. She could come to him if she really wanted it. And she'd have to admit to him that she'd found it and was keeping it from him. If she wasn't brave enough to confront him, then he'd have the diary safe with him.

He crossed the hall and entered his own bedroom. It was a mirror of Jane's room, only with midnight-blue hangings around the bed, and it lacked a portrait over the fireplace of course. Instead there was a lovely mural of Stormclyffe Hall surrounded by the woods. Several black fallow deer were at the edge of the forest. They were beautiful creatures. There was a wild herd that had lived on the estate's lands for the last two-hundred-and fifty years. They weren't shy, and he had successfully hand-fed a few of them the first week he had moved in. The old groundskeeper he had hired to oversee the estate's lands had advised him on how to work with the deer.

He set the journal down on the bed, a little relieved that he could let go of the book that had clung to his hands like a magnet only a few seconds before. Then he went over to the tall armoire against one wall. The old wood creaked as he opened the door and retrieved his silk pajama bottoms. After stripping off his clothes, he donned the pants and turned around.

"Christ!" He nearly jumped at the sight of the diary on the bed.

It was lying open to a section in the middle. He'd been sure that when he had set the journal down it had been closed. He strode over to the bed, and flipped it shut and then, experimenting, he pressed the bed down next to the book. Bastian wasn't sure what he expected, maybe that the book would flip open due to a dipping spot in the mattress.

The book didn't move.

The fine hairs on his arm stood on end, and a cool breeze teased him from behind as though some cold beast from the far north breathed down the back of his neck. He knew if Jane was here, she would mention ghosts and hauntings. He didn't want to entertain that possibility. He picked up the journal, closed it, and just stared at the cover. What did he expect? To suddenly see visions or hear the voice of a man long dead? He shook his head when nothing happened. Jane was having a bad influence on him. Stillthere was no harm in browsing a few pages. The book became heavy in his hands, and when he loosened his hold, it parted again to that same spot. He began to read.