Devil at Midnight by Emma Holly

to.
    “You were with me all day,” he said.
    She had been, drifting to and fro in the bailey as he tested his healing back with a light practice. Grace’s figure was so pretty, so womanly, that he had worried she would distract him. Instead, he had fought better than he hoped, as if he were an idiot knight with his damsel fair watching him. Idiocy aside, his performance told him he would be well enough to travel soon.
    “I like being with you,” Grace said. “Your company ... feels good.”
    Given that he barely knew her, Christian did not want to admit how acutely he concurred with this. It was as if his whole life a piece of him had been missing, and Grace fit perfectly into the spot. That she had quite a few spots he wished to fit into went without saying. Would that he could plumb them now, and innocence be damned. After a day in public, they were alone again in his room. That simple difference heated him.
    “You need me,” she said, forcing him to wonder if she could read his mind. “You said yourself you thought this minstrel woman was dangerous.”
    “And, pray tell, Grace, how do you expect to aid me? No one else can see or hear you. You cannot even cry for help.”
    “I don’t know. Maybe if you were in danger, I’d find a way. Ghosts are supposed to be able to do things. Make floorboards creak and fling pictures off of walls. Maybe I just need more practice.”
    “You tried practicing this morning.” He growled the words, his earlier frustration not forgotten.
    Grace’s cheeks were red enough to glow. “You could have ... taken care of the results without me.”
    Christian backed her against the edge of the window where they had been standing. He both reveled in and was ready to grind his teeth at the way she squirmed inside the cage of his arms. He knew exactly why she shifted. With every breath, her body declared its desire for him.
    “It is your pleasure I crave,” he said, his voice so low it rumbled in his chest. “Your pleasure bursting like a ripe, juicy fruit with mine. When you agree to touch yourself, I will no longer withhold those actions you seem so eager to watch again.”
    “Christian.” Gasping for air, Grace laid her ghostly hands on his ribs—as though she had the power to push him off. The effect she did have was bad enough. The contact ran like effervescence through his veins, straight to the part of him that least needed it. He wanted to touch himself there, to rub the terrible itch that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in his crown.
    “Grace,” he responded with his jaw gritted, “if your manner were not so gentle, I would swear you were a devil sent to torment me.”
    “You have more experience,” she said, shrinking back as he pressed forward. “You’re more comfortable with these things.”
    She was blinking rapidly, nervous and excited at his nearness. Her girlish timidity was like a flag waved before a bull. Christian dropped his arms with a muttered curse. He did not have the time to continue this skirmish now.
    “You may come with me to the tavern,” he conceded. “But please do not speak unless we are alone.”
    “I’ll be as quiet as a mouse,” Grace promised, making a gesture with her thumb and finger as if turning a key in her lips. “You won’t even know I’m there.”
    Somehow, Christian doubted that.
     
     
    G race was so excited to see a real medieval town that she was beside herself. The streets were narrower than she expected, the buildings taller and more substantial. Some of the handsomer ones towered as many as six stories. Though the sun was setting, color assailed her on every side: in the cheery frescoes on the houses’ fronts, in the people’s clothes, in the charming window boxes still abloom with bright flowers. Christian could hardly drag her away from a pretty wooden well where women in long skirts and head scarves were gathering.
    “You would think the girl had never seen a bucket!” Christian exclaimed