"Then she is doomed to disappointment."

Warmth shimmered through Bea. Ridiculous. She was a complete fool, just as her mother always said. But she could not halt herself.

"There must be dozens of young ladies in town, not to mention Derbyshire, who will be disappointed as well."

He rounded on her. "What are you doing? Do you want to ruin yourself?"

She choked beneath the full force of his stare. "I already did that, two nights ago."

"Not entirely, but you are doing so now. Do you wish to be released from your obligation to me, Bea? Is that what this is about?"

She couldn't breathe. She could save him now. He was offering her the opportunity. No one else would ever need to know about what had happened between them. Given his own situation, Thomas could be convinced this was for the best. Aunt Grace would be more difficult to persuade, but she would see the right of it once Bea explained. She must.

Tip's eyes seemed almost black in the dim corridor. He stood for another moment watching her as she searched frantically for words that would suffice. Nothing came.

"I will take your silence as assent," he said in a low voice. He turned away. "Unless you find yourself with child, you are released."

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.

Bea's lungs felt as though they collapsed. She sucked in desperate breaths.

What had she done?

"I don't want criticism from you." She ached to reach out and put her hand on his rigid back.

He turned a cool gaze on her. "You have just assured that you will get nothing whatsoever from me now."

"Peter-"

"No, Bea. This is not how it works. I will not replay my parents' foolishness, arguing until someone weeps, then reconciling to the detriment of everyone around, most especially themselves." He swallowed hard. "Do you know how my mother died?"

Bea nodded.

"In a carriage accident?" he supplied. "As published in the papers?" His eyes glinted with derision. "Elizabeth and I wrote that, inventing a faulty axle and a skittish lead horse so as not to be obliged to write the truth, that she went out alone at night on a horse that was barely broken. She sought the exact spot on the road where my father fell from his mount a year earlier while racing to apologize to her for yet another infidelity. She arrived there in one piece, amazingly enough. But she hadn't left matters up to fate. She brought a pistol in the event that the horse did not finish her off first."

Bea's hand slipped over her open mouth.

Tip nodded slowly. "So you see the way of it now, I trust." He took a hard breath, shuddering slightly on the exhale. "I will not have any part of that life." He turned to the door and knocked.

Bea hardly knew when Peg opened the door and Lady Marstowe came into the corridor. Her mind and heart were a sea of confusion.

"Iversly has been here," the dowager said, her sharp gaze shooting to Bea, then back to Tip. Her brow creased. "What is amiss? Beatrice, you look as though you are ill, too."

"I-I-"

"She has had an encounter with her brother that overset her," Tip said smoothly.

"The nincompoop." Lady Marstowe scowled. "I will see about him once we are finished with this."

Bea bore down on the tears surging behind her eyes. "What did Lord Iversly say, Aunt Grace?"

"He believes he has found the source of Julia's malady, but he requires your assistance, Lord Cheriot. And yours, Beatrice."

"If it will help Miss Dews return to health, he has it," Tip said.

"Of course, Aunt Grace."

"You must go to the village," she said to Tip, "to that woman's cottage."

"Miss Minturn?" Bea asked. "Whatever for?"

"He wishes to speak with her."

"And if she will not return here with me?" Tip asked.

The dowager's assessing gaze shifted between them.

"He believes that he may be able to communicate through the pair of you."

"What do you mean, Aunt Grace? Does he wish for us to hold some sort of seance? I understand they are all the rage in London now. Mama attended one, though she would not take me."

"No," the dowager scowled. "Iversly does not need conjuring up. He is perfectly present here, of course."

"What does he wish us to do?" Tip's mouth was set in a thin line.

"He believes that if Beatrice remains here in contact with him, you will be able to speak on his behalf. He depends upon your bond with one another."

"That is ridiculous." His implacable tone hit Bea like a slap.

"It does seem improbable," she managed to say barely over a whisper. Her throat would not function properly.

"I told him the same thing," the dowager said, her lips pursed. "But looking at the two of you now, I am beginning to see his way of it."

Tip didn't move or speak. His jaw looked like stone, his shoulders stiff.

"If Aunt Julia's welfare depends upon it," Bea said, "I will do whatever he suggests."

"Why not prepare a speech that I may repeat to her?" Tip said.

"I asked him that," the dowager shook her head. "He says it will not suffice. She will only respond to him, apparently."

"Why, Aunt Grace? How can she help?"

"She will provide us with an antidote for Julia's illness. It seems that Miss Minturn is a witch. To get revenge on Iversly, she has poisoned my sister."

Bea stood across her bedchamber from Iversly. He was by the window, as usual. He had informed her of his location, a strange consideration given how awful he could be at times. But he was not the man any of them had imagined. His actions now proved it. And his voice held a harsh note of anxiety, as though Aunt Julia's fate truly mattered to him.

"The woman has been teaching herself potions and the art of sorcery for a dozen years," he said.

"Since you broke her heart."

Iversly remained silent.

Bea crossed the chamber to her dressing table chair and sat on the edge of it. Aunt Julia's fever had risen again, and Lady Marstowe was seeing to her comfort while Peg ensured that Lady Harriet and the servants from Hart House were busily engaged elsewhere.

"How did you learn about the poison?" she asked. "You were gone for quite some time."

"I heard rumors of it, then needed only confirmation."

"Rumors? How?"

"The dead, my dear, practice methods of communication that would shock your innocent senses."

"After this week, I do not feel particularly innocent any longer. In many ways." She tilted her head. "I thought you could not communicate with other ghosts."

"Not all the dead are ghosts." His voice grated.

"I see."

"I hope you do not."

"Why must you speak with her yourself?"

"She fears no others. She will bend only to my will."

"Do you truly believe this will suffice, or is it merely another method to mend fences between me and Lord Cheriot?"

"I was not aware that those fences required mending at this time." His tone sounded lighter, as though the change of topic relieved him.

"I guess I have grown accustomed to you knowing the details of everyone's lives around here, I thought- But you were away all night and day, of course."

"Have you displeased him? I cannot imagine it of you. Nor of him."

Bea wished she had not broached the topic. She looked to the clock on the mantel. Nearly six. Tip would arrive at Miss Minturn's cottage in moments. He had left without a word, neither giving his consent to the experiment nor withholding it. Aunt Grace assumed his cooperation, of course. Bea suspected he would go through the motions of it, if only to please the dowager and Aunt Julia.

One more minute.

"We must begin soon," Iversly said quietly.

A shiver of apprehension went through Bea. "What will you do?"

"I will enter you."

Her eyes shot wide. "You did not-"

"Not as you imagine. Though it is a pity, forsooth," he rumbled. "I may only take corporeal form once each century, as you know. Tonight, I will remain ethereal."

"Then how will you do what you must to communicate with her?"

"I will slip within your soul sufficient to use it and your young lord's as my conduits. Your intimate connection will allow it."

Bea's breaths shortened. "Will it give him pain?"

"Ah, you think of his comfort before your own. True love." He chuckled derisively. "No," he replied, his voice odd now. "No pain to speak of."

"Have you done this before?"

"I have walked this earth for so many decades, my dear, there are few things I have not done."

"That isn't an answer."

Iversly remained silent. Then: "It must begin now."

Bea's gaze shot to the clock. The hands pointed opposite each other. Her fingers in her lap shook.

"All right," she said. "What do you wish me to do?"

"Stand, but remain relaxed."

"This will not work," she said, coming to her feet and resting her arms by her sides. She clamped her eyes shut. "He is very angry. He wants nothing to do with me now."

"So you say," the ghost murmured.

Abruptly, chill air swished around Bea's arms, blowing across her exposed throat and face. Like liquid, it crept beneath the fabric of her gown. Goose bumps lifted across her skin, her hair prickling with cold energy on her head and each down-like follicle along her limbs. She shivered, the sensations so intimate, as though she wore nothing.

Across her lips and cheeks an icy breeze seemed to pass, brushing almost tangibly, settling on her face and neck and above her bodice where her skin showed. Then on her breasts, down her belly, between her thighs and along her legs, circling back up to her buttocks. It caressed her back and shoulders with frozen fingers, and curled around her neck.

Then it delved within.

Her heart leapt, and then raced.

"Lord Iversly?" she gasped.

Frost clutched at her lungs, crept around her stomach, bowels and heart like certain death, climbing up her spine, along her neck. Her body seemed suspended, floating, light like air, yet so heavy she could not lift a hand. She tried to move and her arm snapped back to her side tightly. Ropes of tension bound her, icy straps clasping about her wrists, ankles, waist, and neck, bending her head back, splaying her palms upward, trapping her immobile. Her mouth fell open, her eyelids thick caps of frigid lead denying sight.

All thought fled, subsumed within emotion.

Apprehension, sharp and hard.

Fear.

Then, gradually, growing until it swelled in her head, her chest, and belly- Terror.