An Unlikely Match (8 page)

Mr. Castleton listened raptly, no doubt catching every ridiculous word.

“This nonsense has to stop, Dafydd,” Nickolas answered. “You have very nearly frightened Miss Castleton out of her wits.”

Dafydd’s gaze slipped in the young lady’s direction. She listened rather closely but appeared far less excited than her father.

“Last night’s mischief upset her quite profoundly,” Nickolas said, knowing he ought to make more of an effort to make amends to his houseguest beyond his earlier apologies, though he still found himself occasionally wishing she’d approached the problem with a little more fortitude.

“Forgive me, Miss Castleton, if I unduly alarmed you,” Dafydd said, crossing to where she stood. “Gwen can be forceful at times, but I do not wish you to be overset.”

“Not exactly what I had in mind,” Nickolas muttered. Why would not Dafydd give up this ridiculous game of his?

“I do not wish to upset
her
,” Miss Castleton answered, not quite looking at Dafydd.

“She is rather insistent about her room,” Dafydd said. “That wing is part of the original castle. And that room was hers during her lifetime. She does not like it to be disturbed.”

“I do believe you have taken this too far,” Nickolas interrupted. “As a story and a legend, it is diverting, I admit. But you push too much.”

“You still do not believe me?” Dafydd raised an eyebrow.

Nickolas gave him a look of exasperation. Of course he did not believe such a taradiddle.

“Tell me this: was anything in the room tied in knots?” Dafydd asked.

“The bed curtains.” A slight tremor shook Miss Castleton’s voice.

“That is one of Gwen’s signature tricks,” Dafydd said. “And unaccounted-for gusts of wind.”

“Precisely what we felt.” Mr. Castleton nodded emphatically.

Nickolas shook his head. He refused to believe anything so ridiculous. Griffith, however, looked intrigued. Surely a gentleman of Griffith’s intelligent and logical nature could see how ridiculous the idea was.

“Don’t tell me you are beginning to believe this nonsense?”

Griffith didn’t look convinced one way or the other. He simply watched them all.

Miss Castleton, to Nickolas’s disappointment, was entirely taken in. Did she not question the strange story even a little? Was he the only sane person left in the room?

“Has Mr. Pritchard provided you with an alternate bedchamber, Miss Castleton?” Dafydd asked.

A slight flush spread across the young lady’s cheeks. Nickolas very nearly smiled at his friend’s faux pas. Sleeping arrangements were not generally discussed in the drawing room over postsupper tea.

“He has, Mr. Evans.”

“Then I believe you need not worry over Gwen causing further mischief for you,” Dafydd said, explaining the reason for the unconventional turn of his conversation. “Your host, however, may not be entirely in the clear. I believe he has made an enemy.” Dafydd shot Nickolas a look of warning.

Griffith seemed to find that declaration significant. “Ghosts are always rather fearsome in Welsh legends.” A note of caution hung in his words.

“An enemy?” Miss Castleton spoke in an anguished whisper.

“Miss Castleton.” Nickolas stood beside her, Dafydd on her other side, Griffith watching all three of them. “I am not concerned, and therefore, I beg you not to be either.”

“But I do not wish for anything unpleasant to happen to you.” She turned her enormous brown eyes on him.

And Nickolas found himself quite suddenly in accord with his friends. “I assure you nothing untoward will befall me at the hands of this Gwen.” Nickolas offered her a smile, which she returned, much to his delight. “I will, however, fall most decidedly into a decline if you do not agree to treat us to a performance on the pianoforte.”

Miss Castleton laughed lightly, the same twinkling laugh Nickolas remembered from London, one that had inspired many an ode from her bevy of admirers. He had never written one, not being a poet himself.

Her color a little high, but smiling as Nickolas intended, Miss Castleton made her way to the very fine instrument he’d been pleased to discover upon taking up residence at Tŷ Mynydd. Soon the melodious sounds of some composer or another floated around the drawing room, leaving Nickolas free to berate his friend without fear of further upsetting Miss Castleton.

She seemed to upset easily. He quickly pushed away the uncharitable evaluation.

“Was it entirely necessary to disturb Miss Castleton’s peace for the sake of a simple wager?” Nickolas asked.

Dafydd smiled back at him. “You think I am being insistent because of our bet?” Dafydd actually laughed quietly. “I am insistent because what I say is true, Nickolas. Absolutely true.”

If not for Dafydd’s infectious laugh, Nickolas might have been irrevocably put out with him. He’d taken the joke too far, certainly. But he didn’t seem to mean any harm by it.

“What of you, Griffith?” Nickolas asked. “Have you decided to begin believing in ghosts? Or are you and Dafydd coconspirators as I guessed yesterday?”

“He and I spoke earlier this evening,” Griffith said. “He makes a convincing argument.”

Had everyone in the house lost their minds?

Nickolas shook his head and made his way to an empty chair. What a wearying twenty-four hours he’d passed. First the uproar of the night before, then Mr. Castleton’s vigorous report of all he’d apparently experienced in
her
room, as every single guest, even those who did not believe a word of the legend, had come to call it. According to Mr. Castleton, a gusty wind had blown around the room all the remainder of the night, sweeping all of his daughter’s gowns into a pile in one corner and tumbling the bed curtains around the bed posts. He’d insisted it was an invigorating experience.

The Castletons had waited with bated breath for the arrival of
that vicar
, as Mrs. Castleton referred to Dafydd, so they might learn more about the specter that seemed so interested in their family. Nickolas found the entire thing exhausting. If he hadn’t been entirely positive that Miss Castleton was precisely the lady for him, he might not have been so patient with her flutterings.

A rustling of papers accompanied the abrupt stop to the notes Miss Castleton had been expertly producing. Nickolas glanced toward the pianoforte. Sheets of music flew off the instrument in all directions.

Miss Castleton hopped up and ran directly to Dafydd, something Nickolas did not particularly appreciate. Her hands clutched his arm. “What have I done to upset her? Does Gwen not like Bach?”

At the instrument the wind continued, growing stronger and swirling more compactly above the keys. Nickolas felt himself tense and his stomach clench. What could have caused such a strange phenomenon? He refused to think of anything supernatural.

Dafydd passed Miss Castleton to her mother’s embrace, his own eyes glued to the pianoforte, along with every other pair in the room. Then amidst the flying papers and whipping wind, notes began to play, slowly at first but picking up speed until Nickolas realized a tune was being plunked out.

Mr. Davis recognized it first and quite unexpectedly began to sing. The words were Welsh.

“That’s an old Welsh battle anthem,” Dafydd whispered. “One which takes great pride in proclaiming war on the English and predicting their painful and inevitable demise.” He gave Nickolas a significant look. “She has declared war.”

Griffith soon joined his father, singing with gusto. Dafydd took up the tune as well, along with the remaining members of the Davis family. Finally, even the footmen threw in their voices. Nickolas had often heard that the Welsh were excellent singers, and he now believed it, even if he did not particularly appreciate the performance.

As the notes from the pianoforte died away, the remaining papers floated to the floor, and the wind all but extinguished. Just as Nickolas was racking his brain for a reasonable explanation of what he’d just witnessed, his eyes popped.

A lady quite suddenly appeared directly in front of him.

Nickolas stared, unable to speak or move, quite at a loss to reconcile what he was seeing with his own convictions on the supernatural. She was pale and translucent and just as Miss Castleton had said the previous day:
shimmery.

“Oh, lud,” Nickolas whispered. This was not at all what he had anticipated.

Apparently, Mrs. Castleton had not expected it either. She slumped to the floor in a very ungraceful swoon. Everyone seemed too riveted to the scene playing out to pay her much mind.

The shimmery woman spoke then. Nickolas had absolutely no idea what she said, since she quite obviously spoke in Welsh.

Griffith laughed outright, something Nickolas had heard him do only a handful of times in the many years he’d known the generally quiet gentleman. Dafydd simply grinned.

“There are ladies present, Gwen,” Dafydd said. “Ladies who understand Welsh. Perhaps you might consider modulating your speech.”

Gwen?
Dafydd had called her that. Quite calmly. Quite unaffectedly. Nickolas shook his head to dislodge the sudden suspicion that appeared there. He’d never been one to believe in apparitions but could not discount what he was seeing, what they
all
were seeing.

“You are Gwen?” Nickolas heard himself ask and recognized the stunned disbelief in his tone.

“You are English,” she snapped back as though it were a dire insult to point out as much.

Nickolas opened his mouth to reply, but the words died unspoken. She stalked toward him, a whipping wind kicking up in her wake. Something in her countenance made him excruciatingly nervous.

“No one goes into my room.” She spoke in a harsh and nerve-rattling whisper. “It will be empty tonight, or
you
will bear the consequences.”

So chilling was her tone that Nickolas could do naught but nod mutely.

“Mark my words, Englishman. None of your countrymen have yet driven a Welshman from this stronghold, and you will not be the first.” With a fierce gust, she disappeared. Vanished.

“Dafydd.” Nickolas still stared at the spot she had only just vacated.

“Yes, my friend?” He sounded disturbingly like he was laughing.

“How many blankets do you suppose I need?”

“Blankets?”

“I have a feeling it is deucedly cold in The Tower.”

Dafydd laughed harder after that. Once their wager had been explained, the rest of the room laughed as well. The unexpected but undeniable appearance of a woman with no need to actually stand upon the floor—she spent their entire conversation hovering at least six inches above the Turkish carpet—who was not entirely opaque, seemed to have convinced all the skeptics in the room.

“Famous!” Mr. Castleton exclaimed. “Capital!”

Miss Castleton finally managed to rouse her mother. The Davises were excitedly discussing the events of the evening. Dafydd smiled quite smugly.

“You seemed less surprised than the rest of us.” Nickolas raised an eyebrow.

“I told you she would make an appearance. It was only a matter of time.”

“You’ve seen her before.” Nickolas suddenly realized it was true.

“I grew up in the area.” Dafydd clearly thought Nickolas should have made the connection on his own. “I have known Gwen all my life.”

“And has she always been so fierce?” Nickolas had not liked the encounter.

Dafydd pondered a moment. “Gwen is a rather complicated ghost.”

What an odd statement that would seem taken out of context.

“I have known her to gently sing a baby to sleep, but I have also seen her reduce a grown man to tears of sheer terror.” Dafydd spoke in utter sincerity, not a hint of exaggeration in his tone. “If she likes a person, Gwen can be a staunch ally. However, should one displease her, she can make that person’s life a nightmare.”

“Perfect. She already hates me.”

Dafydd actually laughed, and despite his discomfort, Nickolas couldn’t hold back a smile of his own. “I suggest you think of a way to win her over.”

Nickolas rubbed his chin as if in thought. “Do ghosts like chocolates? Flowers, perhaps?”

“This ghost values only one thing—her bedchamber.”