“Are you sure?”
“Quite sure. After all, why wouldn’t they stare? No doubt they have never seen anyone even half as lovely as you.”
She flushed looking away. “Somehow I doubt it’s me they are staring at. You cleaned up quite nice as well.”
“But I could never hold a candle to the vision you are tonight.”
She flushed looking away. “You are bing far too sweet.”
“Only because you deserve it.”
She flushed, looking away.
The pair danced through another three or four songs, when a sound cut through the ball room.
The main door slammed open and a nervous looking butler stepped in.
In a trembling voice, he siad, “i would liek to annouse His Grace, Alexander Hotchkiss Duke of St. Vail.
Christopher went as white as a sheet.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The name rang out in the ball room for what felt like hours. It echoed off of every surface, with a weight and gravity that seemed to permeate the very air of the room.
It was too much.
Christopher couldn’t breathe.
He couldn’t move.
He couldn’t do anything but stare at the ghost making his way across the room. His hair was longer, and messier, yet the features were impossibly familiar.It couldn’t be.
There was no way he could pick him out so easily from all the way on the dance floor, was there?
“Christopher,” Veronica’s voice pulled him from his thoughts, forcing his eyes away from the ghost and down to her. She was looking up at him with concern in her eyes. “I’m not quite sure I follow. Who is that man? Do you know him?”
“I don’t understand,” he whispered, shaking his head, eyes already drifting back to the man slowly making his way across the room. “How could he have survived”
“Christopher, please talk to me. Who is he? How do you know him? None of this is making any sense.”
“That’s him. My friend.”
“Friend?” she frowned, his words slowly washing over her. “You- you mean-”
He cut her off, eyes still staring in shock. “That’s- that’s Alexander. He’s here. He’s- he’s alive.”
“What? Are you sure it’s him?”
“I have never been more sure of anything in my life.”
“But how is that possible?”
Christopher shook his head. “I don’t know. How could he have been alive all this time? I don’t understand.”
She took a deep breath before taking a step back. “Then you need to go talk to him. Immediately.”
“You are right. I don’t know what I will say—what Icansay—but I must speak to him.”
