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1822
     
    “Won’t you marry me, Bea, and have over with these ridiculous refusals? It begins to grate on a fellow.”
    This constituted Lord Cheriot’s highly intimate and wondrously gallant proposal of marriage to me this afternoon.
    Can I be blamed for declining? I don’t understand why he won’t leave me in peace and go bother some other wretched spinster-in-the-making. Or he might even try proposing to a lady who deserves his oh-so-charming nonchalance. I have it on excellent authority ( cousin Amelia spent the season in London) that he is considered a prize on the Marriage Mart. Of course he is. He admitted to me today, however, that he is weary of town. Little there interests him, he said.
    Sometimes he looks at me very oddly. Then he speaks of light matters, a glimmer in his teasing eye, and my heartbeats slow again to nearly regular speed. Never entirely, though. My heart beats for him.
    It will always beat for him, no matter how shabbily he treats me. I am horrified to admit this.
    I should accept him once, merely so that he will suffer a touch of the misery he thrusts upon me each time he asks. What a surprise that would be for him! And a terrible awakening. Ah ha! Perhaps next time, Diary, if I am courageous (and if there is a next time), I shall. But then I would be obliged to cry off afterward. Or to marry him.
    I suppose it would not do to accept him, after all.
     
    ~ ~ ~
     

 
     
    CHAPTER THREE
     
    Bea frowned. “Thomas, we are already here. This is not necessary.”
    Her brother fixed an irritated look on her. “I can’t expect you to see the right of it. Only a girl of real understanding, like Lady Bronwyn, would—”
    “That is enough, Sinclaire .”
    Thomas’s gaze shot to Tip, momentarily repentant. Bea’s remained averted, but pink colored her cheeks.
    “I’m sorry, Bea, I didn’t mean to be unkind,” Thomas said, too begrudgingly for Tip’s taste. But it seemed to mollify his sister. She set her slender hand on her twin’s arm again.
    “Thomas, what on earth leads you to believe that a ghost haunts this castle?”
    “He doesn’t precisely haunt the entire castle. Only Lady Bronwyn.” His face grew stormy. “He intends to marry her.”
    “To whom?”
    “To himself!”
    “Oh, I see.” Bea’s hand dropped.
    “You don’t look as though you do.” The petulance had returned to Thomas’s voice. “I tell you, Bea, this blackguard says he’ll haunt her until she promises to wed him.”
    “A ghost , Thomas?” Her smooth brow creased again. “How can a ghost marry anyone, let alone a living woman?”
    “I’m certain I don’t know,” he admitted. “But he intends to do it.”
    “How do you know that?”
    “He told her, of course.”
    “He did? That is interesting. And why doesn’t Lady Bronwyn simply leave?”
    “At first she chose not to leave because her grandmother is too frail and can’t relocate. But when she finally attempted escape, he wouldn’t allow it.”
    “How singular.”
    Thomas crossed his arms in an attitude of exasperation and looked across to Tip. “What do you think of this, Cheriot ?”
    “I admit . . .” He paused. “It strains credulity.”
    Bea’s lips quivered, but her cheeks remained bright. Feverishly so. Her soft eyes too. She looked peculiarly agitated and astoundingly pretty.
    Tip’s mouth went dry.
    “Well, I believe Lady Bronwyn,” Thomas said staunchly. “What’s more, I’ve heard him speak.”
    “You have? You’ve really heard him?” Bea’s fingers twisted together, her quickening breaths now apparent through the slight movement of her lovely breasts. “What did he say?” Her voice was a wisp of its normally even tones.
    Unthinkable . Beatrice Sinclaire’s voice did not waver. Ever. Except, perhaps, once. On the third of November, 1821. Tip would never forget it.
    And now again.
    He stared at her, thoroughly transfixed.
    “He wasn’t speaking to me at the time,” Thomas said. “He was telling Lady Bronwyn