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A silk hair ribbon, stiff and discolored, stained with white…just as if it had been plunged into the ocean and left to dry on the sun-swept rocks below.

Chapter 4
    Richmond would have to die.
    Lancaster stared into the low flames of his bedchamber’s hearth and nodded at the sparks that floated up. Richmond must die.
    His death wouldn’t remove the guilt eating at Lancaster’s heart, but it was the only thing he could think to offer the ghost of Cynthia Merrithorpe.
    She’d entered his room for three nights now, always after he slept, always leaving some token of her presence. A ribbon. A surf-smoothed stone. And last night, worst of all, a cold, wet strand of seaweed on the floor near his bed, as if it had clung to her dead foot on her journey from the cliffs.
    Likely, she wouldn’t follow him to London if he left; he’d never heard of ghosts traveling. But he didn’t think he could live with the knowledge that she was stranded here, wandering these lonely rooms for all eternity. Mrs. Pell might not appreciate it either.
    Wondering if he was going mad, Lancaster folded his clothes and eased wearily beneath the icy sheets of his bed. Tired as he was, he didn’t think he’d sleep. His thoughts were tumbling over themselves, getting caught up on wisps of bad dreams and hateful memories.
    He’d been just fifteen when his father had sent him on that trip to the Lake District. At the time, his family had only recently become sure that the current viscount, a distant cousin, would not pass his title to his rightful heir. The young boy had begun to suffer fits on his sixth birthday and, according to rumor, had only deteriorated as time passed. There had been speculation that he was close to death for years, but the viscount hadn’t wanted to admit, to himself or anyone else, that his son would not live to adulthood.
    So despite the fact that Nicholas’s father would one day ascend to the title, no one could acknowledge it. The family had no social connections and no means of developing them. They were left poor and waiting on the barren Yorkshire moors, like crows anticipating the death of a young boy.
    Isolated from society, his family had been thrilled when an opportunity had presented itself. A tour of the Lake District. A chance for Nick to make connections with good families.
    Lancaster felt nauseous at the memory. My God, what country fools they’d been. Fish in a barrel, unaware of danger looming overhead.
    But it no longer mattered. None of it. Cynthia was dead, and it was Lancaster’s fault as much as it was Richmond’s. Even the spirit world recognized that.
    So Richmond would die. It was the only solution to this mess that Lancaster could conjure up, and it would serve two purposes. First, Cynthia would hopefully be hastened on to heaven…or whatever place avenged ghosts went. Second, it would keep Richmond from ever harming anyone again. Plus there was one added advantage: the thought of shooting that man between the eyes satisfied the dark need that lurked deep inside Lancaster’s soul.
    That primal thing had shaken with joy at the first thought of murder. Lancaster might end up damned for killing, but he would go to hell with a clearer conscience than he had now. He’d neglected this responsibility for far too long. Cynthia certainly believed so, or she wouldn’t bother with haunting his house.
    A board creaked somewhere nearby, and he raised his head, wondering if this would be the night he’d see her without the veil of sleep to cloud his eyes. But no wraith lurked at the foot of his bed. Just the spirit of the old manor settling around him, or perhaps the new maids readying for bed.
    Weariness tugged at him despite his restlessness. Perhaps he would sleep after all, tossing and turning, fighting ghosts and memory. Lancaster lay his head to the pillow and closed his eyes.
     
    Cynthia eased into the narrow space of the old servants’ stairs. Her thick stockings were too slippery on the risers,