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having a living and breathing encyclopedia.”
    A waitress appeared; drinks were ordered. As the menu promised, they arrived steaming and frothing, and the threesome laughed as they tried to keep talking through the slowly diminishing haze. But the haze reminded her of the mist that night had brought to the pond, and she discovered that she was wandering once more.
    “Serena really tells the story better.”
    She glanced at Marc blankly with horror. He took a deep breath and said with impatience lying just below his pleasant tone, “Eleanora, Serena.”
    “Oh … ah …” She took a sip of her drink and harshly warned herself to stop daydreaming and to pay attention. “There really aren’t too many records available on her—just the notation that she was among the accused who disappeared and that she was nineteen at the time, the wife of a certain John Hawk, first owner of the Golden Hawk. He was more than twice her age, but it wasn’t unusual at that time for a young girl to be married to an older man of means. Anyway, John was terribly in love with her, but long before the witchcraft trials began, he had begun to suspect her of adultery. He took to following her each time she would leave the house.” Serena hesitated only a moment, then continued, “He discovered that she did have a lover, a sea captain she had stumbled into at the pond near her house. He had been watering his horse, or some such thing, while looking for land. Legend has it that he was young and handsome and charismatic and strong—all things that the elderly Hawk certainly wasn’t. And he fell head over heels in love with Eleanora. The two lovers made plans to run away. But Eleanora was accused of witchcraft. It’s believed her husband secretly instigated the charge. Eleanora was terrified—several had already been hanged at the time—and with her lover away on the last voyage before their intended escape together, the poor lady turned to her husband, who pretended a desire to save her. He told her she must hide in the hidden staircase, and that when the house was searched it would be believed that she had already fled.
    “When the sea captain returned, John Hawk informed him that Eleanora had fled with another man. Betrayed and desolate, the sea captain was beset by other trials: as Eleanora’s known lover, he was accused of witchcraft before he could escape to his ship. Chained in his jail cell, he became desperately ill with a strange malady. He died, deliriously cursing his treacherous mistress, swearing he would find his vengeance.” Serena lifted her hands in a poignant shrug. “Eleanora’s bones weren’t discovered until almost a century later—when the stair well was broken into by a grandson of Hawk and Eleanora during the Revolutionary War in order to hide certain leaders when a British attack was believed imminent.”
    Serena lifted a brow delicately in Mr. Kloon’s direction. “She is known, of course, to be the inn’s most vocal haunt. There is a strong rumor that her screams echo through the stairwells. She does make a perfect ghost, don’t you think, Mr. Kloon? A beautiful young girl betrayed by husband and peers and bereft of a lover?”
    Kloon laughed. “A wonderful sales pitch, Serena. A romantic and tragic story. I believe—”
    Suddenly, Serena wasn’t listening any more. She had lifted her eyes from Kloon, and they had fallen across the room.
    On a man.
    Tall and dark and elegantly but ruggedly distinguished as he entered the lounge with a stunning brunette on his arm.
    She barely noted the woman.
    She was too shocked at seeing the man.
    He wore the casual dinner jacket beautifully; he was terribly broad of shoulders with trim hips and waist. Even at a distance she could feel the power that radiated from his most simple flicker of movement. He looked completely at ease, and yet he looked as if he could suddenly rise and toss over the heavy wooden tables in a fit of primitive anger.
    What a stupid thought. He