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stranger was still so sharp in my mind that it seemed redundant to write a description of him. The word redundant sounded a familiar echo. Surely that is redundant! I could almost hear someone say it—a man’s voice. I shook the thought away and continued my work.
    My editor, Anne Morrissey, had begun hounding me about Rebel Heart, but what I really wanted to write was Arabella’s story. It intrigued me, which is odd, for it was not my special period, and there was really not much to it. Just the tale of a young woman who had jilted her lover, or refused to become the man’s lover, or something, and been murdered by him. Perhaps it tweaked my interest because of the unrequited romance and the ghost.
    It would still be a historical novel, but set in the early nineteenth century instead of the seventeenth. The Regency period, Emily had called it. I was familiar with Byron and Austen, but I’d have to buy or beg more books from the period to get the zeitgeist and terminology. Anachronisms were anathema to readers of historical fiction.
    My attention strayed back to the dream stranger. He needed a name, something gallant and dashing, yet with a touch of class. I was just going to the fridge to scrounge for lunch when there was a tap at the door. I opened it to see Mollie. Her gleaming eyes told me she was up to some new mischief.
    “It’s been confirmed,” she announced, stepping in. She wore another of her wildly flowered balloons, with the same pink spike-heeled shoes. “We did raise a spirit last night. I’ve been around to Emily’s place. Her candle burned blue, too. Did I tell you mine did?”
    “No. Does that mean there’s a spirit abroad?”
    “Of course!”
    I led her to the kitchen and poured her a cup of coffee. She ladled in an unconscionable quantity of sugar and cream, stirred distractedly, and continued chattering.
    “I lit my candle the minute I got home. There was definitely a presence. I felt it even before the candle burned blue.” She leaned toward me, green eyes sparkling. “It was in a wicked temper, Belle. It tossed the candle right onto the floor and darn near burned the house down. I was worried about you, here so close to the meadow where she roams.”
    “You think it was Arabella?”
    “That’s what Emily thinks. Of course, it was Arabella who was murdered, and disturbed spirits do walk. But so do evil spirits. I’m quite sure this one was a man.”
    “Why do you think that? Does the candle burn differently for a man?”
    “No, but I sense a woman’s presence in the head and heart. I feel a male in the loins. The sensation was so strong that I know my spirit was a rake. You didn’t experience anything, you being so close to Chêne Bay?”
    “No, I didn’t.”
    She looked disappointed.
    I said, “But I had a really weird dream about a man. He was dressed in the costume of the Regency period. I suppose all that talk at Thorndyke’s place filled my head with ideas.”
    She asked eagerly, “What did he look like?”
    I closed my eyes, and the image of him returned, clear and vivid. “He was tall, with black hair, handsome. He asked me what I was doing at the weir, and when I said I was looking for Arabella, he said he was looking for her, too.”
    “That sounds like Vanejul.”
    “The man who killed her?”
    “That’s right. He was her lover, whatever Sappho may say. She always has to be different. Mind you, a lover in those days might mean no more than a boyfriend. He was a handsome rascal, to go by the pictures. Or it could have been the other man in her life, the one she was engaged to.”
    “As I said, it was only a dream, but a vivid one.”
    ‘You’re sure it was a dream?” she asked archly. “Are you sure you’re not fooling yourself? A state of denial is quite common on a person’s first encounter with the spirit world. Same as when you catch a fatal disease.”
    “I’m sure. How did Vanejul murder Arabella?”
    “According to the legend, he drowned her in