A Well Favored Gentleman

Chapter 1

Scotland, 1800

Someone held a knife to his throat.

Ian Fairchild snapped out of his deep slumber and held himself perfectly still, eyes closed and breathing even in a parody of sleep.

Someone held a knife to his throat, and it wasn't the first time, but this time he'd been caught by surprise. He hadn't had time to make enemies in Scotland. He'd arrived only today, and had found his father, the only person here who would gladly kill him, too sick to leave his bed.

So who was it who had slipped into his bedchamber as the hour struck midnight?

Carefully he opened his eyes a slit -- and stared into the face of a ghost.

A lovely, feminine, fiercely determined ghost, if her expression was anything to go by.

His eyes widened. "You're an idiot, Ian." He spoke aloud, seeing no harm in addressing a phantom and finding the sound of his own voice vastly reassuring. "It's only a dream." And he tried to move to prove it.

He couldn't. The ghost sat on his chest, the dream held him in thrall, and he couldn't bloody move.

A normal turn of events in a dream, he supposed. If only that steel pressed against his windpipe didn't feel so cold and so real. If only he didn't feel so... odd. More than sleepy, he was drifting, illogically relaxed beneath the threat of violence.

He blinked, bringing the phantom into focus. Wisps of hair sprang defiantly from her hairline. Her features were angular: square jawline, sharp cheekbones, wide mouth. Her eyes slanted up, her brows slanted up, her snub nose rose to a little point. A fascinating face, one filled with character and lively convictions. Not ghostly at all. "I know who you are. You're dead. You're Lady Alanna."

Both of her hands gripped that knife. He could see them in his peripheral vision, and they shook a little at the sound of her name.

Fear cleared his brain for one brief moment. The tip of that imaginary blade seemed so very honed. "Careful, there. We wouldn't want a bloody accident."