One year later

Village Chapel, Manly Manor

For some unknown universal reason, babies don't like being anointed with water. Or wearing long, stiff gowns they have a habit of spitting up on. Our son was no different and completely indifferent to the fate of the two hundred-year-old christening gown he wore. Or that he'd just been given one of Ren's lesser titles, that of marquis. And two loving godparents had sworn to love and guide him.

Ren held and cooed to our beautiful, screaming baby boy, who was plainly indignant at the injustice of being paraded around in front of a church full of strangers. Strangers to him, anyway. And it was almost feeding time, too. Which meant my breasts were heavy with milk.

We held the christening on Manly's birthday, near the white lady's tomb, beneath Manly's newly dedicated ducal plaque. Which was a fitting tribute to my almost-husband and the white lady. Manly would have been proud of the new heir to his dukedom. Our boy looked like Ren, who looked like Manly. And from what I could tell, he also had their charm and intelligence. Maybe that was just my bias coming through.

The white lady had been quiet this past year. Her curse appeared to be broken. She wasn't so malevolent after all, was she? She'd helped me get over my doubts about Ren by walking through the spot where the box was. She'd helped me piece the past together and see Ren for the wonderful man he was. Future brides, I thought, wouldn't need to worry about seeing her before their weddings.

I planned to make the castle a destination wedding venue, too. As soon as the renovation was finished. Maybe next year. Like all building projects, Ren assured me, it was over budget and behind schedule.

It was also our anniversary and a Sunday. Ren said we might as well put everything on the same date. It was easier to remember them that way, just one day to think about.

I told him there was a downside—if we forgot that one date, we were in really big trouble.

As an anniversary present, I gave Ren the portrait I'd had painted of him. The contractors were coming in on Monday to hang it in place of Manly's. We were moving Manly to a spot in the hall with his ancestors. It was time I had my duke to stare at as I came down the stairs.

I had everything I wanted now—the castle, a baby, Ren. We had a real marriage, a wonderful marriage. Neither of us wanted to end it, certainly not at the year mark, when the contract ended. Which, surprisingly, made Mom happy. She liked Ren. And she was happy to be saved the trouble of getting me a clean divorce.

Several more mysteries had been solved during the year. Libby confessed to putting the first journal in my bedroom the night before the wedding at Manly's request. It was supposed to be a wedding present for me to help me sell the castle as terribly haunted. The problem was that Manly had gotten confused. He mistakenly believed he was giving me the sanitized journal from the library. Oops.

As I suspected, the old dukes were behind the missing keys to the white lady's room. Hardly confessed after he found out I was pregnant and his job was done. Sadly, he'd passed away this spring.

The two main lessons I'd learned since meeting Ren and living in a haunted castle: ghosts aren't just supernatural beings. Sometimes the most frightening are the ones you make for yourself.

And there are often innocent explanations for the seemingly mysterious. Sometimes the truth is simple. And sometimes it's much more complicated and takes faith to see.

Eight months earlier

Hardison Castle

Surviving the winter should have seemed like more of a victory. Winter was hard on old people. It was the season of death. The bleak days could do anybody in. Gloominess. Seasonal depression. But it was the cold, especially in a castle. The cold down to the bone. The aches that never went away. The feeling that you were in the winter of your life, the last season. Yes, it should have felt like a win to greet spring. But life had lost its verve since Manly's death. What was a trio with only two members?

Fortunately, Hardly had his promise and his plan to keep him going. But his health was failing and his conscience was acting up. Did he have the right to choose the heirs to his title, cutting out those mandated by tradition and law? Were hundreds of years of family honor and history worth the price he was prepared to pay? It felt like his immortal soul hung in the balance.

Could he live with himself for what he'd done and was still about to do? That was a laughable phrase, really. He wouldn't have to live with himself long. Not unless you counted eternity.

He'd always had the most scruples of the three. Hardly envied Manly for not having to make the choices that he'd had to. Life was unfair. Fate was unfair. But what was the point of railing at it?

Hardly had done what he'd done. He couldn't let the title go extinct and the estate pass out of the family. He'd given his two worthless heirs choices. If they fell to the temptations, could even the Almighty find Hardly guilty of murder?

This was a fight for survival. Surely the rules were different. Self-defense and all that. Self-defense of the family name.

He sat outside in his favorite chair on his favorite terrace with his favorite novel in his hand, bundled tightly as he sat in the warm spring sunshine. He was permanently confined to a chair now. He was always cold these days, but now his heart was frozen, too.

Despite all his research, despite Axe encouraging him, and Manly when he was still alive, Hardly was taking an extreme chance. There was no guarantee the new heir would step up to the task of being the next duke. The duke that saved the family for his generation and instilled the importance of the family into his children and grandchildren.

Oh, yes, Hardly could tip the young man's hand well enough. Manly and Axe were diabolical and had absolutely helped Hardly see to that. He didn't foresee any real struggle getting him to leave the States and come to Hardison Castle. At least for a time. But did the presumed heir have the business sense to carry on? Running and preserving an estate in the twenty-first century wasn't a task for the faint of heart. It would take a risk-taker with an entrepreneurial streak to do it successfully, even with whatever advantage Hardly could give him.

But falling in love with the castle was subjective in nature. Purely a matter of taste. And although the heir was a British subject, he'd been raised American. A major impediment, that. And, yes, the trio had devised a plan to get the heir to fall in love with the castle, but was it enough? Was anything enough?

Hardly took a sip from the cup of tea on the small side table next to him. He loved spring, but this would be his last. The thought filled him with inconsolable sadness. He tried to take heart in the future he was trying to set in motion. The castle as a family home filled with children and future dukes. Eventually filled with grandchildren. People of his bloodline, however indirect. Maybe one of them would bear some slight resemblance to him. Have his nose or the deep creases around his eyes when he smiled. If fate smiled on him, they might even look on his portrait in the family gallery with awe and love. This was the duke who'd secured their future and given them this joyous life.

His cell phone sat on a side table next to him. It rang, startling him. Everything startled him. Everything that broke through his dulled senses. His vision was bad. His hearing was weak. He'd lost most of his sense of smell and could barely taste. He glanced at the name of the caller and smiled. He'd been expecting this call. Hanging on tenaciously through the winter for it. At least, he hoped it was the call he'd been waiting for, that everything was finally wrapped up. He picked up and addressed the caller by name.

"Duke, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news," the caller said. "I'm afraid there's been an accident. Your nephew and his oldest son were killed in a farming accident in Alberta this morning. My condolences."

Hardly made the appropriate noises of distress. But what was the point? There was no one about to watch his charade. "The arrangements for the next son, the American, have been made?"

He listened intently to the answer. The call lasted no more than a few minutes. Hardly would have to instruct his private assistant to send flowers to the funerals. He set the phone down and turned his face to the sun, feeling really warmed for the first time since Manly's death.

He should call Axe and arrange a meeting to celebrate. Something simple.

At his age, there was no time like the present. As he reached for the phone, his right arm felt uncharacteristically weak. He tried lifting both arms together. His right arm dropped down. The left seemed fine.

His heart raced. He'd experienced this before. He managed to grab hold of his phone and turn the camera toward him as if taking a selfie. He smiled into the lens. One side of his face noticeably drooped.

He called out for his nurse, but the words came out weak and garbled.

FAST—the acronym he'd memorized to remember the symptoms of a stroke. Now there was only the last one, T—time. Get help quickly. There was medicine that might help, but it had to be administered quickly.

With great effort, Hardly set the phone back on the side table and turned his face to feel the sun on it again. I'm sorry, Axe. I would have liked to say goodbye. But I was too late.

He could have called Axe, but his speech was already too garbled to understand anything Hardly would try to tell him. And Hardly couldn't come up with a good reason for putting his friend through the trauma of watching him die over the phone. This brought a whole new meaning to "dead air."

Better to go in peace in his garden. To hear the birds singing and smell the fresh air. To feel the sun on his face. Much less dramatic and public than Manly's death. But Manly had always been a show-off.

Hardly closed his eyes and smiled as much as his dying body would let him, half his face drooping. His breathing became ragged. There was no reason to hang on. Plan B. Axe and Thorne would take care of it. He'd held on just long enough.