Move Heaven and Earth by Christina Dodd

were a rat trapped in a glass dome. Her breath made too much noise. She could hear the great clock ticking all the way down the hall, and the smaller clock ticking within her room. Then with one dramatic note, the minute hand reached the hour hand, and, in unison, the clocks began to strike midnight. Each chime reverberated through her head. Now time would stop, and that specter in the hall would step through the wall and—
    With a tremulous laugh, she leaped to her feet. Stupid, she scolded. Scaring herself into next week.
    She was Sylvan Miles, bold and dashing adventuress. By heavens, she’d prove herself to her father, fulfill the duke of Clairmont’s every expectation, and in the process, lay her own ghosts to rest. Taking a quiveringbreath, she nodded. A long dead duke couldn’t walk, and by God she’d prove it.
    The last notes of the clocks struck as she picked up the candelabra, went to the door, and swung it wide.
    She froze in shock and horror.
    The white-cloaked figure of a man walked away from her down the hall.
    When she got her breath and gasped, he seemed to hear it. He half turned and looked, and she realized she had been wrong. He didn’t stare at her from cavernous holes where his eyes had been. He stared with the menacing glint of long dead eyes.
     
    “He looks just like me, doesn’t he?”
    Sylvan gripped the handles of the wheelchair so tightly Rand could feel her tremble. “He does,” she admitted.
    “Radolf was a mean old bastard, they say.” The trembling increased. What was wrong with the woman this morning? “Bred children all over the estate, but he cared for nothing but Clairmont Court and establishing a dynasty. He married heiress after heiress, but none of them lasted long.”
    “One of them must have lasted long enough to produce an heir,” she said. “ You’re here.”
    He straightened the ruffles on his white shirt and smoothed his trousers. He’d gotten dressed for her this morning, and she hadn’t noticed. “Yes, he got his heir at last. They say the wife that gave him his son led him a merry dance, and when she died he refused to marry again.”
    “Why should he? He got what he wanted.” If bitterness could be distilled, she’d have produced a pint. “A son.”
    “One son?” Rand swiveled around and looked at her. “Even today, a son is easily lost. No, the duke should have remarried and produced more, but he didn’t.”
    “Maybe she turned the tables on him and made him miserable. Maybe he discovered how dreadful it is to live, day by day, in a bad marriage.”
    “The story is, he swore never to leave Clairmont Court from the day of his wife’s death. They say he never would leave in life, and that’s why he’s still here.”
    She jerked the wheelchair as if her knees had given out, and Rand gestured to the window stools that lined the long gallery. “Sit down before you fall down. You’re trembling like a leaf. Don’t you know I’m the only invalid allowed in this house?”
    He sounded grimly amused, but he watched her with concern as she sank onto a seat. What was wrong with the woman? After that kiss last night, he’d expected her to be shy this morning. To blush and bridle when he teased her.
    Instead, she’d shown up looking as if she’d been dragged through a knothole by a team of farm horses.
    “Didn’t you sleep last night?” he demanded.
    She tore her gaze away from the portrait of Duke Radolf and stared at Rand as though she didn’t know him. “What? Oh, yes, I slept.”
    “How much?”
    “You know how it is. One doesn’t sleep deeply the first night in a strange place.”
    “Perhaps you should go to your room and try again.”
    “What?”
    She was staring at the duke again, and that irked Rand. True, his ancestor was an impressive figure, painted in full armor. His cape flowed around his shoulders and his dogs leaped around his feet. But his facehad a wooden appearance and his sternness looked more like a snarl. The first duke