"Are they like Iversly?"

"Oh, no. He is a great deal more unhappy." She plucked up a pink silk and pinned it to the edge of the cap for Bea's mother.

Bea grasped her great-aunt's hands to still them. Aunt Julia's merry hazel eyes met hers.

"Aunt Julia, did he say anything to you that might help us here tonight? Is he sincere in his threats?"

"Perfectly, I should say." She laid a wrinkled palm on Bea's cheek. "Dear, dear Beatrice. We will miss you when you are gone. And Harriet will be so cross. She has always considered you the best of her children, however she goes on about Sylvia's beauty. And of course your father will grieve. He admires dear Georgianna so, but he depends upon you."

Bea gaped. "They will not miss me." The words popped out. They felt good and awful at once. "I suspect they will barely know I am gone." Except, of course, that Mama would have to find someone new to order around.

But even if Bea somehow did return to Hart House, those days were over. At least, she wanted them to be. At present, with her dreams of Peter Cheriot finally destroyed, she didn't know if she had the strength to make any lifetime decisions.

"Of course they will know, and they will miss you," Aunt Julia patted her knee and returned to her sewing. "And poor darling Peter will be devastated."

Bea's heart tightened.

Lady Marstowe marched into the room. "Come, Beatrice. Dinner is served and you must maintain your strength for tonight. Perhaps Iversly will make a mistake."

Bea didn't have stomach for the meal. Aunt Julia ate heartily, and Aunt Grace commented on the village and Miss Minturn's ridiculous behavior. When they returned to the parlor, the dowager called for tea as though it were a typical night. Bea appreciated the pretense, but still she could not eat a bite. She nursed a cup until it grew cold, then poured herself another.

She met Lady Marstowe's gaze across the table. "You should go to bed, Aunt Grace."

"I will do so when I am ready."

Bea cast her gaze to Aunt Julia, who was scooping spoonful after spoonful of sugar into her cup. Clearly they intended to wait for midnight with her.

She took up a book and tried to read, but remembered nothing at the end of each page. Tip's words from the stairwell kept returning to her, that he was not able to choose as he liked. But not only his words. His touch, his desire, his eager possession of her. Her body filled with yearnings and despair. She hardly knew how to think of his departure now.

When the great-aunts fell asleep on the couch, Bea fled the chamber, trying to escape her thoughts.

In the library she rifled through piles of scrolls and loose papers, and studied the shelves again. Halfway across the chamber she came upon a small, leather-bound book with gilt edges. It appeared to be a diary of sorts. Heartbeats quick, she opened it. The entries dated to 1770 and recounted the daily life of an elderly widowed gentleman residing at the castle. She read through it, flipping pages swiftly. It said nothing of Iversly.

Hopes momentarily dashed, Bea continued searching. Eventually, she sat back and sighed.

"You are a coward." Iversly's voice sounded distant.

"I don't care what you think of me," she retorted.

"You will shortly."

A shiver slithered up Bea's back. She repressed it. "What time is it?"

"Nearly too late for you, my dear."

"Do you still think I will come to you willingly?"

"As the hour nears, panic will get the better of you. You will come before midnight."

"Perhaps I would prefer death."

"I know what you would prefer. But that is not to be your lot, is it?"

Bea turned. Iversly stood before the closed window shutter.

Her breaths stalled. "You are desperate to be free of this castle, aren't you? It must be the reason you so often stand before windows. They offer you tantalizing glimpses of what you cannot have."

"Mayhap I prefer the dramatic effect." His voice sounded gravelly.

"You said earlier that you didn't care about such things any longer."

He was silent for a moment. "In my day, my dear, they described that as the pot calling the kettle black."

Bea shook her head. "You think you are very clever, don't you? Earlier, you said those things to shame me. But you are not clever. You are simply cruel."

"I am desperate, as you say. You foolishly discarded the only chance I will give you. I am somewhat disappointed. But alas, it cannot be helped now." His face looked almost too impassive.

Bea's stomach churned. He could not be trusted. She could not put Aunt Julia in danger. "Would you have hurt her?" she made herself ask.

"We will never know, will we?"

Panic trickled through her veins. "You are disgusting. Horrid. Sufficient words do not exist for you."

"You warm my heart, dear lady."

"You have no heart."

"Better that than your pitiful condition. Forsooth, I am relieved you have failed to come to terms with your young lord. The foolish boy and silly girl proved wearying enough to observe."

Bea's eyes went wide. "You watched them?"

"I had a particular interest in the matter."

Sticky loathing wrapped around Bea's insides. A chill descended on her skin, seeping beneath the surface in icy fingers. She pulled her wrap tighter around her shoulders, but the cold seemed to come from beneath her clothing. A cool breath of air wafted through the library chamber, stirring the tiny hairs about her brow and cheeks against her skin.

She glanced at the door. It was closed.

Her gaze shot to Iversly. He was no longer there.

A frigid hand spread upon the nape of her neck. Bea gasped. Another seemed to stroke her thigh, heavy and cold as death. She leapt up and away, slamming her back into a bookcase.

"Is it you?" she breathed. "What are you doing?"

"Touching you."

"But you said you do not have the sense of touch."

"The hour draws near."

"How dare you?" she hurled into the lamplight.

Silence. The caress came again, icy upon her arm. She jerked aside. "But I cannot see you!"

"Over the centuries I have learned a few useful tricks." He chuckled, a wicked snarl of pleasure.

"You cannot do it. You will not," she insisted.

"I can and I will," he countered. "Even now I feel blood in my veins. Warmth. After a century, it intoxicates."

"No. You are bluffing."

"I am not." His voice seemed very near, in a single spot for the first time.

Bea pivoted around. He stood a yard away. The lamp burning on the table behind him did not seep through him. Instead it cast his body in an aura of gold, silhouetting him. Pale gray, almost ephemeral, his shadow stretched upon the ground.

Lord Rhys Iversly stood before her. The ghost of Gwynedd Castle was a man.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

Tremors seized Bea. "What is going on? You look-" she choked. "You look real."

He tilted his head, and the light flickered around him. "I must be, briefly, to consummate our union."

"It is not yet midnight."

"It shall be in minutes, my dear. Then we shall both be free."

"I do not want to be free of anything."

"Are you certain of that?" he challenged.

"Yes. No!" She wrung her hands. "If you know so much, than you must know I no longer wish to be servant to my mother. But I will not trade that for servitude to you."

"Not servitude. Partnership."

"Why are you so eager to continue as a ghost?" she demanded. "Do you wish to be freed of that existence or not?"

"A man becomes accustomed to life in whatever form he is allowed it. I suspect your young lord would have something to say to that, were he here." His black gaze bored into hers.

Bea shook her head, backing to the door. "Are you speaking in riddles to confuse me? To make me agree to go with you or refuse you?"

"I do not offer riddles, only truth. You are, however, too late to grasp its bounty."

"I don't understand."

"It matters not. You have but moments now."

"No!" Bea grabbed the lamp, yanked the door open, and ran down the corridor. She found the door to the courtyard and bolted through it, her feet slipping on the grass in the courtyard, rain blinding her as she threw herself through the darkness. The eastern tower rose up before her, black, solid, enormous amidst the downpour. She wrenched up the door latch and stumbled in.

The space was entirely empty, a long cylinder of thick stone stretching up three stories into complete darkness. In the center of the round chamber, a rope hung lifeless from the void above.

A bell tower? Dear Lord, it was like a mockery.

But it could not be real. It simply could not.

"Did you think to escape me?"

This time his voice came from above, echoing down from the belfry. No interior staircase circled the walls. Access to the bell had to be from the parapets. But he could not possibly have climbed that distance in such a short time.

"Are you corporeal yet?"

"Nearly," came the ominous reply.

"Then why aren't you down here? How can you still move from place to place like a spirit?" Bea spoke to prevent herself from screaming. Her lips and fingers were numb. Straw littered the floor, dry and crackling beneath her feet. She set down the lamp, her hands shaking so hard she feared to drop it and set the whole aflame.

He did not reply. Wind moaned through the belfry, drowning the sound of the spattering rain. In its cage, the bell wheel creaked into motion.

"But no one is ringing it!" Bea exclaimed as the rope began to swish across the dirt floor.

"You think such a curse requires a human hand to put it into motion?" Iversly's voice was horrible. "You cannot trick destiny, my dear."

"This is not my destiny!"

"But it is the one you have chosen."

The sound of the bell heaving into position drove dread down her back.

"So it begins," Iversly's voice cascaded through the tower, reverberations of hope in it that she did not want to hear.

A cold wind wrapped around Bea, her arms prickling. "What will happen?"

"Choose now, and discover that for yourself."

"That is not what I mean."

"Then what, my dear?" he echoed.

Bea's insides twisted. "What will you do?"

"After the final stroke of midnight, I will take full corporeal form long enough to take your body." He paused. "Then I will take your soul."

"Not if I can prevent it." Tip's voice cut across the tower like a summer wind, strong and warm. Bea whirled around, a sob choking her throat.