A little more than four years later

Wanted: Exorcist to rid medieval manor house of murderous ghost. Excellent spoken Latin a necessity. Ample compensation for the risk to life and limb. Apply in writing to Hearth House, nr. Carlisle.

Chuckling, James set aside the clipping from The Times and settled back in his chair to read the letter from his old friend, Colin Warren, in which it had been enclosed.

My dear James, wrote Colin, the instant I read this advertisement, I thought of you. No, it’s not a jest. Hearth House belongs to my elderly cousin, Walt Warren, and its ghost is a Roman soldier who has patrolled Hadrian’s Wall for centuries. As the advertisement indicates, he’s a violent sort of ghost. My cousin owns the death masks of three of his unfortunate victims.

James rolled his eyes at this absurdity.

You, my dear James, are the obvious candidate for the job. You possess the unenviable ability to see ghosts, and you not only read Latin, but speak it, too. (I remember well your mind-numbing conversations with the Latin master, so don’t try to deny it.) What better fun (for you, my scholarly friend) than to practice on a fellow from Ancient Rome?

Yes, indeed—such a very old ghost, and speaking with him would be a welcome change from the lovelorn poet. Not that he had any reason to complain about his family’s dashing ancestor, for James had published the poems—anonymously, of course, claiming that they were written by a Cavalier and had only recently come to light. To James’s surprise, they were selling extremely well.

To add an incentive you probably don’t need, you’ll also be doing a good deed. Walt’s daughter, Thomasina, is about to become betrothed at last.

Oh, so Miss Warren had changed her mind about marriage. Thomasina hadn’t spoken a word to him the day after that midnight contretemps four years ago, and since then she deigned nothing but polite indifference. The only time he’d asked her to dance, she had agreed with scarcely-concealed reluctance, remained aloofly courteous throughout, and hurried away the instant it was over.

Why she should be offended with him, he had no idea. He’d only done his duty as a responsible gentleman. After she’d left his room, he had watched her all the way to her bedchamber, and then returned to be reprimanded by the ghost with a poem about missed chances and lost loves.

Thomasina will inherit Hearth House and a respectable fortune, but apparently the ghost is a sticking point. The suitor is afraid of it, and refuses to go forward with the marriage unless it is got rid of.

James snorted. Some suitor!

I know, I know, he must be a complete ass, but if Thomasina wants him, who are we to object?

James certainly had no right to do so. She was no business of his, and yet he’d found himself worrying about her, dreading the day when the promised scandal would break. On the contrary, she had become known for her perfect propriety—so much so that people called her The One Good Warren.

He had rather expected her to disclose to society that he was the source—and perhaps suggest that he was actually the author—of those ghastly love poems, but she hadn’t. Maybe she wasn’t a vengeful sort of female. Or maybe she didn’t read poetry.

Since you’re not going home for Christmas, why not go to Hearth House instead?

Why not indeed? James’s father had banned him from the family estate for refusing to marry any of the suitable heiresses he’d presented. James didn’t much fancy spending Christmas alone in London.

At least he needn’t fear matchmaking at Hearth House. Thomasina disliked him, and furthermore, she was on the verge of marrying someone else.

An idiot—and a cowardly one at that.

For some strange reason, that cinched it.

Thomasina Warren was pottering about in the kitchen at five o’clock on a winter morning because of a nightmare. She didn’t usually have bad dreams, but Decimus Maximus, their resident ghost, was always more restless during the Christmas season. In the dream, he’d murdered her suitor, Melrose Tilson. She wanted to get rid of Mr. Tilson, but hopefully not in such a drastic manner.

She left a saucepan of milk warming at the back of the stove and padded over to the window. The kitchen of Hearth House abutted a portion of Hadrian’s Wall. Its foundation was built upon the remains of one of the many guard posts the Romans had erected hundreds of years earlier. Decimus Maximus, a faithful soldier if ever there was one, still patrolled his section of the wall.

He was out there now, armored and helmeted. When she’d first come down to the kitchen, she’d noticed him marching away, his fierce gaze scanning the north side of the wall for any sign of the barbarians who had plagued their Roman conquerors so long ago. There weren’t any more barbarians, but the terrain was definitely wilder on that side of the wall: rocky outcrops, trees, and patchy meadows. On this side of the wall were the kitchen garden and the apple orchard, which had a substantial crop of mistletoe, soon to be cut for Christmas.

She grimaced. Mr. Tilson would probably try to kiss her. The ghost would object to such a liberty; perhaps that was the reason for her dream. Decimus Maximus (generally known by the nickname of Max) rarely tried to frighten women, but men, particularly those he disapproved of, were fair game. Roman soldiers didn’t suffer cowards easily, and he had therefore taken a particularly venomous dislike to her suitor. Hopefully Max would scare Mr. Tilson away for good without doing him irreparable harm.

She gazed into the night, so bright with yesterday’s new snow that it was almost as light as on a gloomy day. No one had succeeded, in the past fourteen hundred years, at getting rid of Max. As long as he remained, she was safe from wedded not-bliss.

A sudden movement caught her eye: an intruder in the garden! A man, clad in a long driving coat and a beaver hat, came into view, leading a dappled horse by the reins. A burglar?

No, surely not; wouldn’t a thief be more furtive about his arrival? Hide his horse in the copse at the far end of the drive, for example? Skulk about and so on?

Regardless, she should wake the footman to send the intruder away.

And then it occurred to her: this person must have come because of the advertisement Papa had placed in the papers. They’d had several responses so far, all of them from charlatans or crackbrains. She eyed the man, pondering whether to leave him to the ghost’s tender mercies…but something about his stance changed her mind. He seemed…confident. At ease. His horse nuzzled him hopefully, and he took something from his pocket and offered it to the beast.

She should warn him, before the returning ghost terrified his horse and most likely him as well. She hurried to the cloakroom by the kitchen door, pulled on her old boots, and donned one of her father’s greatcoats, which was long enough to completely cover her nightdress. She tucked her nighttime plait into a red woolen cap, slid back the heavy bolts on the kitchen door, and trod firmly into the night.

Hearth House was an ancient stone building comprised of a central tower complete with battlements, two wings with half-timbered upper stories, and a kitchen and other service areas at the rear, hard by Hadrian’s Wall. Shrubs nestled beneath the windows; a carriage drive swept past in an arc before heading toward the stables. A vast lawn, dotted higgledy-piggledy with shrubs, flower beds, and clumps of box and holly, stretched toward the road.

James had ridden over from the inn where he’d spent the night, and worked his way carefully and quietly around the house, avoiding the outbuildings, hoping to introduce himself to the ghost and get his side of the story before meeting the living denizens of Hearth House.

Too late. The sound of bolts drawn back alerted James, but instead of a burly footman, a strange figure emerged from the house—a petite woman enveloped in a massive greatcoat meant for a man. A maidservant, perhaps, likely the only occupant of the house awake at this hour, charged with getting the fires going.

“Who are you,” she demanded, approaching him, “and why are you here?”

In the dim light of the snowy night he recognized her. He had decided not to write to Mr. Warren, but rather to arrive unheralded—why, he wasn’t quite sure. Perhaps to avoid warning his daughter, although she wouldn’t have been able to stop him from coming. She wouldn’t like it, but she might actually find herself obliged to him, if he got rid of the ghost.

He swept off his hat and bowed. “Your servant, Miss Warren.”

She stared, and after a long pause said, “Mr. Blakely?”

He suppressed a grin. “A picturesque morning, isn’t it?” Their meeting was bound to be awkward, so he’d opted for the weather, that universal refuge when there is nothing else to say.

“What the devil are you doing here?”

So much for the weather. “Such language from The One Good Warren,” he drawled.

“Don’t call me that!” She clenched her fists and stomped up to him. The coat fell open, revealing what she wore underneath it—a nightdress.

Appalled, he smothered a laugh.

“You know perfectly well how not-good I am.” She clutched the coat about herself again. “Go away.”

“I beg your pardon, but I’m here to see your father, not you.”

“At this ungodly time of day?”

“Admittedly, I should have waited until a more civilized hour and come by the front door, but I wanted to get a glimpse of the ghost beforehand.”

“Why?” Her eyes widened. “Oh, you communicate with ghosts, don’t you? I realized that after you published the Cavalier’s poems. Don’t tell me you’ve come in answer to that ridiculous advertisement.”

“Your cousin Colin suggested I might be able to help.”

“The last thing I want is help. Go away. Now.” She made a shooing motion, for all the world as if he were a goose which had wandered into the garden. “The ghost is due back any minute, and he doesn’t take kindly to intruders.”

She glanced eastward down the uneven length of the wall. He followed her gaze. Coming slowly closer was a spectral being clad in the garb of a Roman legionary. James couldn’t help grinning with delight. “What a fine figure of a soldier!”

She muttered something under her breath; it might have been a curse. “I can’t prevent you from visiting my father, but truly, you must leave for now. Even if you are so foolish as to be unafraid, the ghost may try to mount your horse, which will spook him. I’d rather he didn’t trample the entire garden.”

Damn. Romulus was accustomed to the ghost at James’s ancestral home, perhaps because the Cavalier was too occupied with mooning about his lost love to attempt to ride him.

The kitchen door opened, and a plump servant in a mobcap and a voluminous dressing gown stuck her head out. “Miss Tommie, whatever are you doing out in the snow?” She planted herself in the doorway, arms akimbo. “And who might you be, sir?”

“It’s quite all right, Mrs. Day,” Miss Warren said. “This is Mr. Blakely, a friend of my cousin Colin. He has come to see Papa about getting rid of the ghost.” She glanced down the wall again. The spectral soldier marched faster now, spear poised. Romulus gave an uneasy little whicker.

James sighed, wondering what to do. Courtesy worked as well with the dead as with the living—that is to say, most of the time—but judging by what Miss Warren had said so far, he doubted the ghost encountered anything but anger and fear.

“Do come inside, Miss Tommie.” Mrs. Day glanced uneasily about. “You’ll catch a chill out here.” No doubt the ghost was contributing to the chill, but the servant gave no sign of seeing him.

“In a minute, Mrs. Day.” Miss Warren hustled the servant indoors.

Down along the wall, a spectral voice howled, “Quo vadis?”

Miss Warren turned again to James. “Please leave the garden immediately. Go ahead and stable your horse. You may tell Mick, our groom, that I sent you.” She made another of those shooing motions.

With a last regretful glance at the ghost, he thanked her, bowed, and led the agitated Romulus away.

Thomasina waved at Max to let him know she was safe, and retreated worriedly into the house. Not many intruders saw the ghost. Mostly, they peered into the darkness, often in the wrong direction, and only succumbed to belief and the resultant terror when the ghost descended upon them as a deathly cold wind, roaring and howling with rage.

Mr. Blakely had grinned, drat the man, as if he intended to march up and offer to shake the spectral hand.

Oh, dear. It was bad enough that he’d come to Hearth House, but far worse, what if he succeeded in sending Decimus Maximus away? She mustn’t let that happen. Max was her friend as well as her bulwark against marriage. She would gladly curse Colin for interfering. Why must men assume that a woman’s purpose in life is to tie herself to some stupid man? For years and years, she’d tried to explain to Papa, but he simply refused to understand.

“Miss Tommie!” cried Mrs. Day the instant Thomasina closed the door behind her. “Venturing out in your nightdress to accost a complete stranger! Whatever is the world coming to?”

Thomasina stamped the snow off her boots. “He’s not a stranger. He’s a son of the Earl of Statham. I’ve met him often in London. And I was completely covered by Papa’s greatcoat.” She removed the coat and hung it on its hook.

“The son of an earl? Even worse! Whatever must he think of you?” the housekeeper exclaimed. “A friend of Master Colin’s, too.” She still thought of Colin as the charming, irrepressible boy who had come to visit from time to time when Thomasina was a girl.

“Pooh! Who cares what he thinks?” Thomasina said.

“Gentlemen gossip, Miss Tommie,” said Mrs. Day grimly.

Not this one. He was a true gentleman, through and through. After failing to seduce Mr. Blakely, she’d sought half-heartedly for another gentleman to ruin her, but none of them appealed to her as he had. She’d given up on that method of avoiding marriage, resigning herself to outright refusal instead.

Mrs. Day squeezed out a rag and scrubbed the stove. Belatedly, Thomasina noticed the aroma of scalded milk. Steam arose from the wet rag. “Tsk. I forgot the milk, and it boiled over. Why not leave that to Martha to clean up?”

“Because it needs doing now, Miss Tommie, not when Martha gets her lazy behind up and moving. What’s left of the milk is in that mug on the table,” Mrs. Day grumbled. “Gentlemen gossip,” she repeated, “and what if it should come to Mr. Tilson’s ears?”

If only it would, thought Thomasina glumly, but nothing was likely to counteract her pristine reputation. How she wished she could be like the other Warren women—heedless of public opinion, risking their reputations by bathing naked in a lake, seducing smugglers, and so on. But the opportunity to behave disgracefully had only come her way once, and she’d been rejected.

That still rankled. She should be grateful to him for behaving like the perfect gentleman, but she wasn’t. How could she be, when he’d made it clear he found her both disgusting and disgraceful? Since then, she’d managed to avoid him for the most part, but now, speaking to him again… Dratted man, it still hurt.

He’d laughed when her coat had fallen open. Seemingly he remembered that day with nothing but amusement. “I don’t suppose Mr. Blakely even noticed what I was wearing,” she lied.

“No young man could fail to notice a pretty girl in her nightdress.”

“He was thinking of nothing but the ghost.”

“Oh, come now.” Nevertheless, Mrs. Day shivered. “I hope he can make it go away.”

I don’t. Occasionally the ghost became rather noisy and rumbustious, but it was well worth the year-round protection he gave her from suitors.

Thomasina filled a pitcher with hot water from the stove, took the mug of milk, and went upstairs to get dressed.

She stirred up the bedchamber fire, shivering, and sipped the lukewarm milk. How she wished Mr. Blakely hadn’t come. Perhaps she could explain to him why she would rather keep the ghost.

She sighed. What was the use? He hadn’t believed her last time she’d tried. Men never understood, which made no sense, seeing as frequently men didn’t wish to marry, either.

Once the fire was crackling merrily, she brushed her hair and moved away to her dressing table. A thin film of ice had formed over the water in her washbasin. She cracked the ice and went to the window to empty it.

That dratted Mr. Blakely was in the garden again.

After seeing his horse safely bestowed, James returned just in time to see the Roman soldier once more, before he faded to wherever ghosts go at dawn. The soldier raised his spear and opened his mouth wide to roar a threat, but his power was rapidly waning.

James raised a hand in greeting. “Salve, amice!”

The ghost lowered the spear. From his gaping mouth came a faint cry, “Virginem…” His voice faded away. Before James could ask for an explanation, the ghost was gone.

Virginem…. Something to do with a maiden, a virgin.

At a sound from above, he looked up. Framed in an open casement, the chestnut curls he remembered so well cascading about her face, was Miss Warren.

Who might or might not be a virgin. He assumed not; despite her reputation as The One Good Warren, he couldn’t imagine a woman so eager to ruin herself had remained untouched for four more years. She’d as much as admitted it this morning: You know perfectly well how not-good I am. Perhaps she had belatedly acquired the commonsense to keep the fact of her folly to herself.

Not that it was any of his business, nor of the ghost’s as far as he could see. More likely, the Roman solder was referring to some maiden in the distant past.

“Stand back, Mr. Blakely,” said Miss Warren and immediately tipped a basin of water out the window. It missed him by a couple of feet. “The front door, I think we agreed? Not the kitchen garden.” She shut the casement with a snap.

He hadn’t agreed to anything, but he made his way around the house, wishing he hadn’t come at all. He would simply have to ignore Miss Warren and get on with dealing with the ghost.

He tramped round to the front door and banged the knocker hard.

“Colin sent you, did he?” said Walt Warren. “Is that supposed to inspire confidence? Ha!” He was much the same as four years earlier, bent and hollow-chested with bushy eyebrows, but his wheeze had grown more persistent.

“He’s speaking from experience,” James said. “I dealt with an obnoxious ghost at our school.”

The old man snorted and waved him toward the array of dishes on the sideboard. “Sit down then, have some breakfast. The kippers are quite good. Can’t say the same for the muffins, but at least they’re not burnt.”

James helped himself to a kipper, scrambled eggs, and a muffin. After being ushered by Mrs. Day through a cavernous Great Hall and down a whitewashed corridor, he had spent the last hour in the kitchen—the only room with a fire at the crack of dawn. He’d drunk several cups of coffee, while Mrs. Day probed into his provenance, a young footman named Joey grinned sympathetically, and a maid called Martha ogled him without shame. At last Miss Warren had appeared, prim and coolly civil, to invite him to a small breakfast parlor with a view onto the snow-covered garden. He took a seat opposite her on the old man’s left, and wondered how long it would take to get rid of the ghost and be on his way.

Walt Warren picked the bones out of a kipper. “Your father and I fought over a woman. Did he ever tell you about that?”

James shook his head. “A duel, sir?”

“We tried, but someone tattled to the authorities, and Statham lost his temper, blaming me. Said I was a coward. I couldn’t stomach that, so I planted him a facer. Nothing like a bout of fisticuffs to restore a friendship.” He chuckled. “The damned trollop took up with another fellow entirely.”

Miss Warren didn’t bat an eye, calmly buttering a slice of toast.

The old man forked a slice of ham. “Those were the days, I tell you. We sowed our wild oats but did what we were told in the end.”

Now some emotion crossed Miss Warren’s face, so quickly James wondered if he’d seen it. This was the sort of comment James’s father made when trying to justify marrying James off to whichever heiress he chose. You don’t have to find her attractive. That’s what mistresses are for.

But mistresses, in James’s experience, were no more appealing than prospective wives. He had nothing against marriage as such, but so far no woman had tempted him to give up his comfortable bachelor existence.

Miss Warren lifted the coffeepot, raising delicate brows above those cool grey eyes. Was she civil now because of her father’s presence? James smiled and nodded his thanks. She didn’t smile back, but poured for him and said, “More coffee, Papa?”

The old man shook his head and frowned at James. “Fancy yourself an exorcist, do you?”

“Not at all, sir. I see ghosts and speak to them.”

“Humph,” said Mr. Warren. “My daughter sees our ghost. So do a few of the villagers. The rest of us only hear him, and damned noisy he can be, cursing and moaning in Latin. One would think, after all these centuries, he’d have picked up a smattering of English.” He wheezed another laugh. “Saw him this morning, did you, Blakely?”

“Yes, for a few seconds. I might have spoken to him if not for Romulus, my horse. He doesn’t object to the ghost at Statham, so it never occurred to me that he might balk at this one.”

“The ghost at Statham is charming,” Miss Warren said. “I remember him well—a swashbuckling Cavalier, complete with sword, cloak, and plumed hat.”

“You saw him?”

She smirked. “I’m used to pretending I don’t see ghosts, for it puts people off.”

“A Cavalier, eh?” said Mr. Warren. “They’re all the rage with the ladies nowadays, thanks to those poems.”

“Lamentations of a Cavalier Lover,” Miss Warren said. “It’s frightfully romantic.”

James eyed her warily. Why hadn’t she revealed his secret long ago?

“Not to your taste?” she asked, those expressive eyes a weapon of mockery.

“Surely it’s intended for the ladies,” he temporized. “My sisters enjoy it.” They didn’t know the poems had been written by their own ancestor, for if his sisters learned, all society would find out.

“Romantic folderol,” Mr. Warren said dismissively. “The opposite of commonsense.”

Something in the way Thomasina Warren pursed her lips at this made James add, “Some of the poems are quite good, but I prefer Latin poetry.” He was translating Ovid’s erotic poems for the fun of it, but could hardly mention that here.

“Good God,” Mr. Warren said. “You’re a scholar, are you? And what does your father say to that?”

“That it’s a waste of time.” James was a disappointment to his father in more than just his unwillingness to marry. No matter how he excelled at various manly sports, such as shooting, fencing, cricket, and so on, his scholarly bent made him a lesser man.

“Maybe not, if you want to banish a Roman ghost.” Mr. Warren laughed so hard that he burst into a fit of coughing, turned purple, and finally regained his breath. “So if you’re not an exorcist, how do you propose to rid us of our ghost?”

“By speaking with him,” James said. “Ghosts appreciate courtesy.”

“Not this one,” Walt said. “Tommie, you’ll accompany him, and this time, make damned sure the ghost knows he’s welcome. Say, amicus. Or amice, I forget which. It means friend.”

James pondered explaining which to use, but decided not to. It would sound pedantic, and the ghost would understand; one doesn’t expect foreigners to be fluent in one’s own language.

“I’ve told you this before, so don’t pretend you’ve forgotten,” Walt said.

The annoyance deepened on Thomasina’s face.

Walt turned to James again. “So you speak to him. Then what?”

“I hope to persuade him to leave,” James said.

The moment Thomasina Warren opened her mouth, her father turned on her. “Don’t start spouting that namby-pamby nonsense about hurting the ghost’s feelings! Your future is more important than any ghost. He’s a blasted nuisance, and he has to go.”

“This is his home,” she said. “He has been here for hundreds of years. It’s cruel to make him go away.”

The old man banged his fist on the table, rattling the coffee cups. “The ghost is scaring off an excellent suitor for your hand.” He scowled at his daughter. “He’s dead, girl. He should be in Hades. And he’s a murderer—thrice over, apart from whatever he must have done during his life.” He turned to James. “We have three death masks to prove it.”

“So Colin told me. I’d like to see them.”

“I can’t get up those stairs anymore,” her father grunted. “My daughter will show you.”

Surprised, James turned to Miss Warren. Surely such a sight was inappropriate for a lady.

“I’ll take you up to the tower,” she said.