“Get off!” Eleanor demanded, clenching her teeth as her husband held on for dear life.
“No! No!” Maggie screamed. “Don’t do it. Pull him back!”
Her eyes filled with tears as her grandmother several times removed closed her fingers over his gloved hand—and pushed him away hard enough to pull off his glove.
Maggie looked into his eyes as he tumbled into the angry sea below. She should have run the other way. Her disobedient gaze fell to him. Pure terror, betrayal, regret, anger, rage, all played out on his face, in his eyes in an instant.
It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real. Maggie tried to tell herself—but he was gone.
She turned to the woman who just murdered her husband.
“What did you do? Why did you let him fall?” she demanded on the verge of hysteria.
She not only let him fall, she pushed him away.
She stared into Lady Eleanor’s eyes. The murderess couldn’t see or hear her. She patted her flaxen braid and smiled as if she was here to enjoy the weather. Maggie wanted to shout at her, maybe punch her pretty white teeth out.
Maggie opened her eyes. She was back in the library. Had she left it? What had just happened? Did the gauntlet fling her into the past to witness the truth? She laughed but she felt like crying.She got up, leaving the gauntlet where it was as she exited the library. She locked the door, having one of the keys to Graven’s best-cared-for room.
She peered around the hall. What was she looking for? Him. Should she tell him about what just happened? How would she explain it? Had she been dreaming? Would she dream of him for the rest of her life? She tried to reason in her head that any red-blooded woman would have a difficult time getting Lord Oliver Gracehaven out of their thoughts once they’d met him. His specialty was frightening people, but Maggie didn’t see the graphic images he produced of himself. She saw him as he was before his death. Starkly handsome with skin the color of clouds and full, shapely lips the color of crimson and soft as rose petals. When he spoke, especially when he shouted, he naturally pursed his mouth and twice while he was yelling and demanding, she had the urge to lean in and maybe press her lips against him. What would happen if she did that?
She was mad. Crazy. A psycho. How could she eventhinkof something so macabre? Kiss a ghost?! Yuck! Her eye caught a movement near the stairs, a shock of black hair, a glint of chainmail on his shoulder. He flitted around three of the carpenters, breathing cold air on them and snatching away the energy from their electric tools.
“Hey Brian,” one of the carpenters said, “do you feel that cold air?”
“Like the devil’s breath,” Brian agreed.
Approaching them, Maggie drew in a deep breath. One way or another, she was going to have to stop Graven’s ghost from terrorizing the workmen.
“Alright, Ghost,” she commanded for the men’s sake. “Leave these men alone. No one is afraid of you! Please, leave!”
“Miss?” Brian’s friend hurried closer and said in a shaky voice. “I don’t think you should provoke him.”
“He’s provoking me!” she argued. “Lord Harwich, this is my last warning before I go find a priest.”
They all heard the booming laughter coming from everywhere. The three carpenters took off running. Maggie bit her lip to keep from shouting. “Will you stop?”
He appeared inches before her and smiled. “No. I won’t.”
Maggie’s reason abandoned her when he smiled. She hoped he never did it again or she’d be utterly doomed. Was he making her see him as this dazzling black diamond in an effort to win her over? She worried that it might work. And it might have taken over her senses and logic altogether if she hadn’t just seen him die.
“Lord Harwich, though I feel differently now…” Did she? Was that it? Was her dream over? Why would she restore the home where this man was murdered? “Though I feel differently now, I ask from a purely business standpoint—a lot has gone into making this restoration happen.”
He shrugged. “And I alone will stop it. I already told you why.”
Oh! He was infuriating! For a moment she forgot him flailing as he fell from the wall. She took a slow breath and smiled. “And I’m telling you that itwillhappen.”
“You are truly a Montgomery,” he replied coolly. “You wish to take what I value most.”
“No! I want to restore it,” she argued softly. She didn’t want to fight him. She saw him as he fell. She didn’t know what had happened to her, or if it was real. But he broke her heart. How could she make amends with him for what her blood relative had done?
He shook his head and cast her a look of disappointment. “This fortress is not the thing I value the most.”
“Then what is it?” she asked, her eyes going wide.
“The end of my existence.”
He’d mentioned it before but she’d chosen to ignore it. “No,” she whispered before she could stop herself.
