An Unlikely Match (9 page)

“I should put it to rights, then? And see that she is not disturbed there?” Nickolas already knew the answer to his question.

Dafydd nodded. “Without delay.”

“Do you plan to make me fulfill my debt this very night?” He felt a little of his good humor returning. Embracing the existence of the Tŷ Mynydd ghost wasn’t coming easily, but Dafydd’s infectious laugh was easing the knot in Nickolas’s stomach.

“’Tis raining,” Dafydd said. “And I cannot guarantee The Tower doesn’t leak. Perhaps another night. You can spend this one undoing some of the trouble you have caused.”

By the time the party broke up for the evening, Nickolas was less convinced of what he’d seen. His more logical side waged war with the report of his senses. Never mind that eight other people had witnessed the phenomenon as well. Never mind that he could not yet get the rousing, menacing tune they’d sung out of his mind. Nickolas attempted to convince himself that he’d somehow imagined the entire thing or that it had been a joke of some sort, no doubt orchestrated by Dafydd.

Intent on proving the accuracy of his skepticism, Nickolas sent away his valet halfway through his nightly ritual and, pulling his dressing gown over his shirt and breeches, made his way toward the now-empty white bedchamber with a candle in hand. Miss Castleton had been moved to another room, one far less pleasingly appointed but where she vowed she would be more comfortable.

Entering the still, white room, Nickolas felt the need to hold his breath. The peaceful feeling he’d enjoyed on his first visit to the room had been missing during the short interval during which Miss Castleton had occupied it. The realization bothered him. He felt almost as though he’d desecrated it somehow by allowing someone to stay there. Mrs. Baines had implied just that beforehand.

Nickolas shook his head. ’Twas a rather absurd notion.

He glanced around the room. Brand-new candles sat in the wall sconces and table candelabras. The maids had reported that all the candles had gone missing, something Mrs. Baines seemed to think was to be expected. Nickolas lit a few candles, enough to better see his surroundings.

The curtains had been rehung. The floor was free of clutter. The bed curtains, however, remained knotted. That seemed odd. Why hadn’t that been seen to? Such a sight felt almost blasphemous.

Nickolas set his candlestick on the bedside table and set to work undoing the damage that everyone credited to the ghost, Gwen. The knots weren’t tight, simply plentiful. Nickolas worked for some time at untying the curtains, moving to each corner, finding unexpected satisfaction in putting the room completely to rights.

“Why are you here?”

Nickolas spun around. He hadn’t heard anyone enter. The voice was deeply accented but did not sound like any of the maids, the housekeeper, or Mrs. or Miss Davis, though the cadence was unmistakably Welsh. His heart seemed to screech to a halt when his eyes settled on the speaker.

Gwen.

She stood in the middle of the room, no menacing wind, no threatening demeanor. She looked genuinely confused. And shockingly beautiful, considering she was nearly transparent. Her face was pale, made even more so by the bright white of her gown. Her long, flowing hair was decidedly red. He could not recall ever seeing a more striking face, her features symmetrical and classical. He had not noticed that the last time he’d seen her. The fact that she was a ghost had rather distracted him.

“I told you my room was supposed to be empty.” A tiny breeze picked up in the room. Somehow, Nickolas knew that meant she was upset.

“I was merely checking to see if the room had been restored.” That was patently untrue. He’d come to prove to himself that
she
didn’t exist.

“I specifically asked that it be restored
and
emptied.” Her look could not have been more pointed.

“You do not approve of me being here, I see.”

“I am not certain I approve of you
at all
.”

“And what can I do to rectify that?” He did not like the way the curtains rustled in the growing wind.

“You can do nothing,” she answered matter-of-factly. “My approval is my own to bestow.”

“I have, somehow, in the space of three weeks, having never actually spoken to you, proven unworthy of your esteem?” Nickolas smiled at the irony, willing her to share his humor.

She spoke at length in Welsh as she had earlier that evening. When she finished, Gwen looked at him expectantly.

“I am afraid I understood not a single word of that,” Nickolas reminded her.

“You”—she skewered him with a look that sent shivers down his spine—“are not Welsh.”

It was a statement of condemnation, Nickolas could tell—the same gripe she’d cited before. His shortcomings had been summed up in four words. It was his parentage and his monolingualism that were responsible for her disapproval of him. That seemed a little harsh.

“My ancestors must have been Welsh, mustn’t they?” Nickolas asked. “Else I would not be here.”

“The English have been here before,” was the reply. “They are not to be trusted.”

“That is a rather all-encompassing evaluation. Are you sure it is warranted?”

“Are you sure it is not?”

An unexpected reply, to be sure. Any retort that might have risen to Nickolas’s lips died unspoken. A mirror hung not far from where he stood, and in it, he could clearly make out his reflection and a great deal of the room. Staring, Nickolas moved closer. According to the mirror, which he couldn’t imagine would lie to him, he stood alone in the white bedchamber.

Nickolas snapped his head back. Gwen still floated in the midst of the room, watching him with narrowed eyes.

Again, he studied the image in the mirror. Though he could clearly see the exact spot in the room where she stood, his mysterious companion made no reflection in the mirror.

Good heavens! He really was talking to a ghost.

“Why are you in my house?” Nickolas asked. Suddenly, her presence was unnerving. He could feel his heart rate increase.

“On the contrary, Mr. Pritchard,” she answered, “you are in
my
home.”

Chapter Eight

“I suppose yours
is
the prior claim,” Nickolas admitted with a shrug.
I really am talking to a ghost
, he thought, no less amazed than he’d been during their previous encounter.

She actually seemed to smile the slightest bit at his rejoinder. “I have been here four hundred nineteen years. Can you top that?”

“I didn’t want to bring it up, but I
do
look young for my age.” He actually smiled a little.

Gwen looked doubtful.

“Do you think I could pass for four hundred years old?” he asked.

“Do you think
I
could?”

He immediately shook his head. “No.” She appeared young—quite young, actually.

She seemed to like his answer. The tension in her face appeared to lessen, and her eyes softened. ’Twas strange how even translucent features could be readable.

“You are very much like Padrig,” Gwen said quite unexpectedly.

“And who is Padrig?”

“He was a son of this house,” Gwen answered, “and your several-greats grandfather—the one who hied himself to England. If he’d stayed put we all would have been spared the degradation of seeing Tŷ Mynydd fall into the hands of an Englishman.”

He arranged his features in a look of theatrical disapproval. “Those blasted English.”

“Words I have uttered many times,” Gwen said.

Nickolas actually chuckled. Something about her affronted attitude was no longer menacing but almost petulant, not unlike a child stamping her foot in frustration.

“So is my similarity to this ancestor of mine a positive thing or a negative thing?”

“Both,” she answered sharply. “He too was fond of turning anything and everything into a joke, as if there was something to laugh about in every situation. It could be excessively frustrating.”

“Strange. I have often been told it is excessively charming.”

She did not bother to hide her disbelief. “Is everything a joke to you?”

“I assure you, it is not. Though I have adopted as my life philosophy that ’tis better to laugh than to cry.”

She actually smiled, though only slightly. “Padrig once said he’d rather shed tears of laughter than tears of sorrow.”

“A wise man, obviously. No doubt he gave rise to extremely wise offspring.”

“If he did, I have yet to meet any of them.”

Somehow, Nickolas knew a laugh hid under her sharp words. “You disliked him so much, then?”

“I did not dislike him.”

“Why is that?” Perhaps he could discover the key to changing her opinion of him if he knew how his ancestor had won her over.

“He was intelligent and well behaved.”

There had to be more to it than that. “And . . .” Nickolas prodded.

“And”—she tossed her head of ghostly red hair—“he was far more enjoyable a companion than most of his contemporaries.” It sounded as if the words were being ripped from her involuntarily.

“Because he tended to laugh rather than rant and rave.”

“That might have had something to do with it.” She noticeably fought the admission.

“Am
I
an enjoyable companion?” Nickolas asked, one of his famous smiles slipping across his face. “What with my tendency to laugh and all?”

She seemed even more put out with him than before. Why he enjoyed ruffling her feathers, Nickolas couldn’t say. The breeze in the room picked up again, and Nickolas thought it time to change topics.

“You’ll notice that Miss Castleton has been relocated,” he said. “You have your room back again.”

“Except you are still in it,” she snapped back.

Nickolas chuckled, though he probably ought to have been worried. He’d been warned not to earn her ire. Everyone else seemed to think such a thing inexcusably foolhardy. He had a suspicion, though he couldn’t say where the conviction came from, that Gwen was more inclined to be quiet and unobtrusive than the legend would suggest. He couldn’t help thinking that she became fearsome more out of necessity than character.

Something about his unplanned laughter brought a change in Gwen’s countenance. Her eyes lost their snapping pride and became infinitesimally pleading. “Your claim to the rest of the house, despite my longer residence, supersedes my own. You have ownership of everything else. But this room is mine. It is
mine.
And I want it back.”

“Promise you won’t vandalize the place again?” Nickolas asked, teasing her further.

“I would not have done any of that if you hadn’t forced me to.”

“I forced you to tie your own bed curtains in knots?” He laughed in amused disbelief.

“Mrs. Baines told you to leave my room empty, but you wouldn’t. When Miss Castleton first requested to be moved, you talked her into staying. You forced me to run her out.” The curtains snapped in a sudden, angry wind.

Run her out.
That was the phrase that did it. Gwen had scared Miss Castleton—quite a bit, actually. Nickolas ought to have thought of that slightly sooner, but he’d been distracted. With the memory once again in the forefront of his mind, he found himself growing upset with the vexing specter. “Was it necessary to upset my guest so much?” he asked, feeling the tension inside growing.

“It would not have been if you had acted reasonably. Any of the former owners of Tŷ Mynydd would have seen the error of their ways far sooner than you have.”

So now the whole mess was
his
fault?
He
hadn’t made a mess of the bedchamber.
He
hadn’t put on that ridiculous display around the pianoforte.
He
hadn’t gone about the house nearly knocking people over in gusts of ill-directed anger. And to question his suitability to be master of his own home? It was the outside of enough.

“Regardless of your opinion of my suitability, I am the current master of Tŷ Mynydd. You would do well to resign yourself to that fact.”