Thomasina hopped and hobbled, barefoot and torn, around the shrubbery. “James!” she cried, sobbing. “James, where are you?”

“Coming.” He backed through the gap in the holly. She flung herself into his arms.

“Oh, my love, my darling.” He held her as if he would never let her go. “I thought I’d lost you.” He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her over and over, and she clung to him. She loved him so much.

At the sound of the ghost close by, they broke apart.

“Thank you, Max,” Thomasina said. “You saved my life.”

“You’re a hero,” James said. He said it again in Latin, just to make sure the ghost understood. Max grinned and answered, and James laughed.

“What?” she asked.

“He says to go indoors. If you catch your death of cold now, he will have wasted his effort. What happened to your foot?”

“He twisted it. It hurts when I walk.”

“Bloody bastard.” James swept her off her feet. She put her arms around his neck and rested her head on his chest. So strong and so safe…

“Sam…fell down the well, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

She hesitated, but she had to know. “Did you push him?”

“No, although Max wanted me to. Furbelow swung at me, but by some miracle I ducked, and the blow glanced off my shoulder. He lost his balance and fell.” He frowned down at her. “What the deuce were you doing out here?”

“You said Sam was an excellent bowler, and it suddenly occurred to me that he might have thrown the rope over the bushes that surround the old well.”

“Not the way one bowls in cricket, but he definitely has a strong arm. Had one, that is.”

“I never dreamed the boards had rotted.” She shuddered. “I wanted to prove to Papa that you were right. He was so unfair to you, and I couldn’t bear it.”

She took a deep breath. The time had come to confess her true feelings. To explain that she had changed, and…

“Miss Thomasina!” Mrs. Day trudged around the corner of the house. “Whatever is going on out here?”

Curse it, thought James, as Mrs. Day shepherded them through the front door. This very public entry might lead to another of Mr. Warren’s attempts to force his daughter into marriage.

As it chanced, the old man was too caught up by the dreadful news about Sam Furbelow. “He what? That well’s been closed up forever!”

“The boards have rotted away,” Thomasina said from a chair by the fire, where James had deposited her to warm her frozen toes. Mrs. Day fussed about, bathing her scratched face and hands, and wrapping a bandage around her twisted ankle. “Sam threw the rope down there after pulling the stone off the parapet.”

A wave of murmurs rose from the crowd of villagers.

“Come now,” the old man rapped. “Sheer nonsense!”

“No, it’s true,” Thomasina said calmly. “Sam told me so—just before he informed me that he meant to kill me. He had planned it all so that Max would get the blame, and as the next of kin, Sam would get your entire fortune.”

The old man’s jaw worked. “He would not!”

“I think he meant you to die before you had a chance to change your will.” She allowed Mrs. Day to put a stocking on her other foot, but waved away a steaming cup of lamb’s wool. “I’m quite warm now, thank you.”

“Meant to suffocate me, I suppose,” the old man ruminated. “Well, I’m not such a fool to risk my estate getting into his hands! If anything had happened to you—” His voice cracked. “The estate would have gone in equal parts to Colin and Lord Garrison.” He glowered, master of himself once more. “And what, my girl, were you doing out there in the first place?”

“I wanted to see if Sam could have thrown the rope there,” she said. “I wanted to prove that Mr. Blakely was right, and that Max was right, too. Max warned us over and over. He’s a hero!”

“Maybe so, but you risked your own life,” Papa growled.

“I didn’t know my life was at stake. My sense of justice was outraged. And don’t you dare say I don’t have a sense of justice, or honor, or anything of the sort. Women are not fools—or at least no more than men are.”

The old man harrumphed. “I wasn’t going to say that. You’re reasonably intelligent for a girl. As for Max—I’ve always said he was a good sort of ghost!”

Plans were made to send a man down the well in the morning to retrieve Sam’s body. Thomasina was put to bed by a solicitous Mrs. Day. James wondered if he should go to her bedchamber…but probably not. She must be exhausted, and she had a twisted ankle.

But the way she’d clung to him and kissed him…surely that spoke of love.

Or maybe just relief. Whatever it meant to her, it had given him an astonishing erection at the time, and although he’d subdued it, his cock knew what it wanted—and wanted now.

“They all know I’m a hero!” Max appeared beside him on the stairs. “They can never execute me again.” He didn’t sound bitter this time, but rather deliriously happy, and James couldn’t help smiling back.

Perhaps Max had suffered humiliation and injustice over and over, as both accidents and murders, in which he’d tried to save a woman, were blamed on him over the years. Whatever he’d done the first time—and James bet it had something to do with the death of a woman—he had striven to redeem himself again and again. At last he had been recognized for the hero he was.

Max danced away down the corridor, softly singing Io Saturnalia, and disappeared. For once, he didn’t urge James to go to Thomasina. Maybe, now that she was safe, it didn’t matter to him anymore.

It mattered to James. He repaired to his own chamber, where he washed his scratched and torn hands. He removed his cravat. Before he undressed completely, he should at least check on her—bid her goodnight, and tell her…

No. His role was to wait.

Damn, he hated waiting. He needed to do something. Now.

A soft knock sounded on his door. He opened it with a whoosh of relief. “I hope you don’t mind,” Thomasina said. “I tried to postpone it, but I couldn’t sleep.”

“Postpone what?” Losing her virginity to him? His cock rose eagerly.

“I have to tell you now,” she said. “It won’t make any difference, though—I still want to go to bed with you. But if it means you can no longer do so, I shall understand.”

“I can’t imagine not wanting to go to bed with you.” He pulled her into his arms.

He kissed her, and kissed her again, so soundly and so thoroughly that Thomasina could scarcely think, much less speak. Boldly, his hands roamed her back, cupped her bum and squeezed. Through the fabric of their clothing, his erection made itself known. She shivered with desire.

“Ever since I got here,” he said, “Max has been ordering me to make you mine. I think it’s finally time.”

She opened her eyes. “He’s not here in the room, is he?”

“I hope not. I don’t want him seeing you naked.” Slowly, he raised her nightdress, running a hot hand up her legs. A pulse began to beat between her thighs. He pulled the nightdress over her head. “Oh, my beautiful darling.” His eyes were dark with lust. And love?

She didn’t know, but she didn’t want to think. Not now.

He bent to kiss her breasts, and she clutched him, quivering. He picked her up and carried her to the bed. She sat on the edge, a little shy, but powerful in a strange, heady female way. He rid himself of his shirt and would have continued, but she reached out and pulled him to her.

Determined to be bold, she unbuttoned the flap of his breeches. His erect cock sprang out, hot and lusty. He shucked his breeches and stockings and reached for her.

“I can’t,” she realized. “Not yet.”

Consternation crossed his dear features. “No?”

“I have to say something first.” If she backed down now, she would wonder and regret forever. “Please sit down. Over there on the sofa, by the hearth rug.”

“Why?”

She slid off the bed. “Because I’m about to go down on one knee,” she snapped, “and the floor is cold, and—” She cursed softly. “I had it all planned, but I didn’t mean to do it naked. And now, with this stupid twisted ankle, I don’t know if I can.”

“Down on one knee? My dear girl, why?” But his lips twitched, and she wondered if he guessed. He wasn’t frowning…

He picked her up and deposited her on the sofa, then sat next to her. So what if she was naked? For he was, too. She summoned her courage once again; fickle emotion, it deserted her at every turn.

“Well?” he said.

“I’ve changed my mind about something,” she whispered.

“But not about going to bed with me?”

“No,” she choked. “But I’m afraid that if I tell you what I’ve changed my mind about, you’ll refuse to bed me. Again.”

He laughed. “Not likely.”

“Oh, drat and damn and—” She grabbed both his hands and squeezed them. “I don’t know how you bear being a man. James…”

“Yes, Thomasina?”

“Will you marry me?”

He whooped, lifted her off the sofa, and twirled her around. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

“You will?” she squeaked. “Oh, thank you, thank you. I was so afraid you would say no.”

He laid her on the bed and crawled over her, kissing her until they were both hot and out of breath. “I don’t know how you bear being a woman, waiting and waiting for a proposal. I feared it would take months…years to wear you down.”

She laughed and kissed him again. “It took a day and a half. Less, even. Oh, James, I love you so much.”

“I love you too, Thomasina.”

He proceeded to make her his, and she made him hers. At last they slept, wrapped in each other’s arms. The ghost danced all night along the Roman Wall, and Christmas dawned clear and bright.