“Then I’m afraid you are doomed to remain at Keyvnor a bit longer,” Diana ground out as Somerton offered his arm to Miss Baily and escorted her toward the wooded path.
He stopped and pressed the bridge of his nose as his shoulders dropped. The young woman looked up at him with concern, then he turned to her, offered a slight bow before he excused himself.
“How every odd,” Diana muttered.
“Not odd at all,” Sir Orwen said. “Lady Isolda just gave him a thorough tongue lashing.”
“How did you even hear her from so far away?” Diana asked.
“We are connected. She could have been at the far edge of the property and we still would have heard her,” Sir Orwen complained.
“She told Somerton to concentrate on you, and that it must be you, Miss Vail, and not some ninny miss,” Sir Gilbert laughed.
“Well, he didn’t listen,” Sir Orwen grumbled, “Or Somerton would be marching in our direction instead of away.”
“Are you certain it must be him and I?” Diana questioned. “Might you have misunderstood?”
“Misunderstood?” Sir Orwen asked affronted. “Misunderstood? We’ve been cursed for nearly three hundred years. Yes, we understood. Now go after him and fall in love and make him fall in love with you.” He pointed in Somerton’s direction.
“One doesn’t simply fall in love because they are ordered to do so,” Diana hissed, resenting him ordering her to do so. Yes, she understood Sir Orwen’s desire to be free, but she wasn’t going to ruin her life in the process.
Chapter 10
Washe to get no peace?
James assumed that he could fall in love with anyone. Not that he expected to fall in love in a few days but thought Lady Isola would be happy with him for taking an interest in any available miss. Instead, she blistered his ears and informed him that itmustbe Diana.
Blast it all!
“Go to her,” Lady Isolda whispered in his ear.
“If Diana wished to speak to me, she’d come here.”
“Have matters changed so much that misses now court gentlemen?”
He kicked at a pebble on the walk. “No.”
“Then go to her.”
“She doesn’t want me,” James reminded the ghost.
“Oh, you poor, foolish man,” She tisked. “Until your gender evolves, though it’s highly unlikely as it hasn’t in three hundred years, I’ll be bound to Keyvnor for eternity.”
“Isn’t that a bit melodramatic.”
She speared him with a look that would kill a lesser man. “Three hundred years!” she emphasized. “You are here, and she is there.”
“You forget, she doesn’t want me.”
“Must we continue to have the same discussion?”
“It’s the truth.”
“No, it is not, and you are blind!”
His heart lifted. “How do you know?” he asked slowly.
“Simply by the look in her eyes when she sees you and you aren’t looking. You need to make right what you’ve done wrong.”
