“I’m certain it doesn’t come close to how much I dislike it,” he countered. “Of all the people through time, a Montgomery is the one who can see and hear me.”
“And what’s wrong with that?”
Clouds formed in his eyes. “I hate Montgomerys.”
Her scowl grew darker. There went him helping to prove Lady Eleanor’s innocence. “For a dead guy, you’re still pretty immature.”
Her insult washed off him as if it were made of the water dripping off him. “I don’t care what you think of me.”
“Is that so?” She raised an auburn brow. “Well then, tell me, why did you throw yourself over the wall when you believed your wife betrayed you?”
She knew it would get him angry and it worked. His expression grew dark—or was it the atmosphere that had darkened? He glared at her for a moment, and then turned toward the fortress and the masons working.
She watched in horror as he swooshed toward the men and then wove between them. Maggie didn’t know what they were seeing, but judging by the way they dropped their tools and took off toward their trucks, it wasn’t good.
Chapter Three
“Just wait! Don’tgo!”
None of the men paid attention to her. Oliver watched them piling into their trucks, satisfied that he’d thoroughly scared the hell out of them.
“It’s a just ghost,” she told them in a hurried voice. “It can’t hurt you.”
Oliver scowled and switched the “on” button of one of the electric saws. It wasn’t the extent of his ability to move physical objects, but it was close to it. Right now though, it was all he needed to get the men behind the wheels of two trucks, moving.
He smiled, thinking about how technology had its benefits, as they drove away despite Miss Montgomery’s protests.
“What is wrong with you?’ she demanded, turning to face him. “Are you insane? Those men were going to repair these crumbling walls!”
“You will leave the walls alone,” he warned her for the last time.
“But they’ll fall—”
“Let them fall!”
“How can you not care?” she demanded.
“Mayhap when this place is gone, I’ll find some peace,” he said, then disappeared without waiting for her response. He appeared a moment later on the battlement wall overlooking the sea and stared out at the same view he’d been seeing for toolong. He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw. If he could end this existence, he would. He didn’t want anything restored. Let Graven fall into the sea. Let it fall.
He wasn’t sure how long he stood there. What was time anyway? Ten minutes or two hours. It was all the same to him. Nothing ever changed.
“I knew you’d be here.”
Except today, someone was here who could see and hear him. Someone who could find him when he chose to hide. Why had she come looking for him?
She was a Montgomery.
“Did the fact that I left your company not enter your head? Why did you come up here?” Did he mind that she looked for him?
“I…you just vanished.”
“So?” he asked, sounding too tender to his own ears.
She came closer. He didn’t move back. “My job…my dream has been to restore this place.” Her voice fell across his ears and despite the rapturous delight of hearing it directed at him, her words were troublesome.
“I can’t give that up,” she finished.
He stood over her and stared into her eyes. “You came looking for me to tell me that?” He tossed her a mocking smile. “You are a Montgomery indeed.”
