A sudden flurry to the right drew his eyes to a tall, slim young woman hurrying towards them. She was clothed in a serviceable woollen shawl, her light brown hair escaping from beneath its folds.
She stopped some distance away and dropped into a short curtsy. “May I ask your name, sir?”
She spoke too well to be a servant, yet was not dressed as fine as a lady.
“I am Sir Callum Baine.”
He was confident that his father’s name would not be known in these parts, but the lady’s hazel eyes opened wider.
“Sir Callum Baine,” she repeated, more loudly than he thought necessary.
Was this a trap?
“Aye.” He widened his stance. He could reach his sword in less than a second. “I am of Egremont House,” he added, evoking his mother’s ancestral home. The place where he grew up. The house his father had wrenched him from within days of his mother’s death.
The lady nodded, as nervous as a rabbit. “I am Miss Mirabel Duval.”
God’s bones. Why did he know that name?
There was too much here not adding up. Callum swung his gaze around to his men, reassuring himself of their presence.The mist had closed in around them, giving him a strong sense of being all alone.
She straightened her spine. “There is no lord here for you to speak to. But I will carry a message to my lady.”
Her words made no sense to him. Callum repeated them stupidly. “No lord?”
“No lord.” Mirabel was emphatic. She folded her arms about herself, holding the shawl closed.
Callum cleared his throat, grappling with the blow of all his carefully laid plans unravelling. “May I speak directly with your lady?”
“She is not at home.”
It was a lie. He could tell by the strain in her voice and the anxious darting of her eyes.
“That is most unfortunate.” Callum glanced towards the guard, stood just feet away and closely watching their exchange. If Callum made any attempt to enter the gate, he could tell that he would have a sword pointed at his chest within moments. He looked back towards Mirabel. “When do you expect her to return?”
“I do not,” Mirabel protested, her voice scarcely carrying through the mist.
Callum took a small step towards her. One more question and she would cave, he was sure of it.
But before he could frame that question, all capacity for rational thought deserted him. His mouth gaped open as an ethereal figure appeared behind Mirabel, walking steadily towards him as gracefully as a swan gliding across a lake.
Her figure was tall and slim. Her face angelic, framed with cascading hair that was whiter than winter.
Her hair had changed colour, but he would know those piercing blue eyes anywhere. They had once looked up into his,bright with laughter. He had held her hand and not wanted to let it go.
Is she real? Or am I haunted by an apparition?
His mouth went dry. Blood roared in his ears.
This was Frida de Neville.
His deceased love.
Chapter Three
It is him.
The man she wanted to see least in all the world.
