Page 60 of To Catch A Rogue

"Nothing,"he signed."Just dust, soot, and broken furniture."

They moved on, working methodically.

Ghosts haunted the palace, but they were her ghosts. There was no sign of anything else.

"I'll check down the hall,"Charlie signed.

Nodding, Lark opened the door to her father's study, wincing at the creak. The carpets weren't as dusty here, but she couldn't be certain if someone had passed by, or whether the room had been sealed away from most of the damage.

Hidden passages riddled the palace. She could recall playing hide and seek with Nikolai and Yekaterina. Lark crossed to the fireplace and felt around for the small indentation beneath the decorative corner piece. If anyone were trying to hide a kidnapped duke, it would be in the passages.

A whisper of wind swept over the back of her neck.

She spun, but the room remained empty.

Cold. Still. Quiet.

There's no one here,she told herself, but suddenly she wasn't so certain if there weren't ghosts, after all.

Lark let the seconds tick out, her mouth going dry. Where the hell was Charlie?

Pressing the indentation made the fireplace click, and the entire brick wall swiveled open on silent hinges.

Slipping into the narrow staircase, she glanced up the moonlit stairs. There'd been dust in the ballroom and bedrooms. Leaning down, she brushed her fingers against the middle of the stairs. Exactly as she'd suspected: no dust. Someone used these passages regularly.

Sliding her knife into her hand, she ghosted up the stairs.

They led to one of the towers overlooking the river. The shutters were open, gaslights twinkling in the distance.

Lark crossed to the desk, a replica of the one in her father's study. There were several ledgers and books resting on its surface, and no sign of dust. Several unused candles sat in ornate holders, and there was fresh ink in the inkwell. Someone visited this place frequently. Someone who didn't want others to know he or she was here.

She needed to get out of here.

But as if some part of the predator within her sensed it was too late, the hairs on the back of her neck lifted.

"I thought I heard little mice scurrying around."

Lark spun around and jumped when she saw the figure standing in the doorway. Her heart thundered behind her sternum, every sense she owned suddenly on high alert. No way past him. No way out, unless she leapt through one of the windows, and she of all people knew how long the fall was from here.

For a second she wondered if all this talk of ghosts had gotten to her, and whether he was really there or not.

Until she saw the stretch of shadow beneath his cloak.

"Who are you?" she whispered, drawing the pistol strapped to her hip.

Chapter 12

"The question is... who are you?" demanded the stranger in flawless Russian.

Lark kept her pistol aimed directly at him, her heart stuttering in her chest. Where the hell had he come from?

"So you're one of the famed ghosts of Grigoriev Dvorets," she said boldly. No wonder locals had caught a glimpse of lights gleaming through the darkened windows of the palace.

"A ghost, am I?" His smile flashed like the edge of a knife. "I suppose you could say that. And yourself?"

Lark backed toward the wall as he took a step toward her. "Don't move."

Coldly elegant in a black velvet coat with a black silk cravat, he closed his knuckles around the silver-tipped handle of his cane. A slash of shadow hid his face. "If you wanted to shoot me, you would have."