Snowstorms & Sleigh Bells: A Stitch in Time holiday novella
Page 10
“Child?” I sputter. “We are of an age.”
“Hardly,” he says. “I am six-and-twenty.”
“As am I.”
He smiles. “Does anyone actually believe such a story, child? You cannot be more than eighteen. Now put down that sword or I shall be forced to take it from you hand.”
I raise the weapon, and his eyes harden.
“Do not play this game, little one,” he says as he comes toward me. “A sword is no toy. It is a dangerous weapon that requires years of training, and you will only injure yourself if you attempt to use it.”
I execute a perfect lunge and thrust.
He stops in his tracks. “My mistake.”
“Evidently.” I lift my chin. “I am not a child. I am Miranda Hastings, friend to the gentleman whose home you are burgling.”
“You mean Lord Thorne? The man whom I call friend? The man whose house you are burgling?”
“Burgling?” I squawk. “Do I look like a thief to you?”
He eyes my dress. “I am not certain. Your dress does seem unnecessarily ostentatious, whatever your intent.”
“Unnecessarily ostentatious?” I stop myself with the reminder that I am not in my world, where my dress is perfectly fashionable. That’s also when I get my first good look at him. I look to see what he’s wearing—to get an idea of the future fashion. I see him in full then, head to toe, for the first time, and my stomach clenches with recognition.
I know him.
Dear Lord, I know him.
Not as a man, but as a ghost.
About the Author
Kelley Armstrong believes experience is the best teacher, though she’s been told this shouldn’t apply to writing her murder scenes. To craft her books, she has studied aikido, archery and fencing. She sucks at all of them. She has also crawled through very shallow cave systems and climbed half a mountain before chickening out. She is however an expert coffee drinker and a true connoisseur of chocolate-chip cookies.
Visit her online:
www.KelleyArmstrong.com
mail@kelleyarmstrong.com