Chapter Four

H e was gone. Maggie breathed a sigh of relief. She didn't want to believe that Lady Eleanor had really murdered her husband. But, he seemed too convinced. It would make sense that he was so furious. For the first time in her adult life, Maggie doubted Lady Eleanor's innocence. She felt terrible, like the worst traitor in history. Why did she believe some apparition? Why could she see him and feel his sorrow? She covered her head in her hands. Her therapist was never going to believe this. She could hardly believe it and it was happening to her! What was she supposed to do? Was it dangerous that her heart rate was so high since seeing him on the battlements? He was a ghost. She closed her eyes letting it sink in. Despite all the stories she'd read about the Ghost of Graven, she'd never seen or heard him for herself.

Everything had changed. He was real. She opened her eyes, almost hoping he was there. He wasn't. She set her gaze on the gauntlet. It was his. Now she knew how he lost it. He'd been grasping at his wife's skirts for help as he fell over the wall.

Tears still burned at the rims of her eyes. Memories of herself about to tumble over the wall flooded through her. Reaching for his help. Her hands going through him. It chilled her bones and made her shiver. Had he reached for his wife's help and…? It was too horrible to imagine.

He couldn't be a hologram because she felt him go through her. She felt his enraged presence almost overtake her, and she smelled what it left behind.

He was real, just no longer flesh and bone and blood.

She sank to the floor and sat before the encased gauntlet. She had no idea who'd gone through the trouble of proving her lineage. She hadn't believed it at first. She wasn't sure if being tied to Lady Eleanor Montgomery was a blessing or a curse. Eleanor Montgomery's innocence was shrouded in controversy. But every time Maggie received another item, like a bowl, or a garden tool, a battle ax, or the warrior's gauntlet, she felt the weight of responsibility grow heavier on her shoulders. Like the fortress, she cherished every treasure placed in her hands.

This gauntlet was an artifact. So what if it had been Lord Harwich's glove? She couldn't give it to him. It would fall through his fingers. Though she was nowhere in sight, Lady Eleanor haunted her. Had she tried to save her handsome, young husband? Or had she been the one to push him to his death?

The desire to touch the gauntlet overwhelmed her. Just one touch. She reached out and opened the glass. The longing to touch it grew stronger.

Reaching out, she gave in to her desire and ran her fingers over the glove.

Instantly, she was transported to another place…the battlements—like a dream when she really wasn't dreaming. How did she just get here? She was in the library with the gauntlet…she touched it, and everything changed. She could hear the waves crashing into the rocks below. A salty sea breeze tickled her nostrils. This was real. She squinted into the misty moonlight and noticed a figure—a well-dressed woman—standing before a man. Moonlight glinted over his broad, chain-mailed shoulders. He was slumped over. Lord Harwich. The past! She'd gone into the past! Maggie hurried forward but she was too late. He began to fall. He reached for the woman there with him. Lady Eleanor she realized.

Maggie watched with a stilled heart as he reached for his wife and grabbed hold of her skirts. He must have woken up. They struggled.

"Help him! Save him!" Maggie screamed, rushing forward. But when she reached Lady Eleanor and tried to push her away, she realized that here—wherever this was—she was the apparition, made of mist. She could do nothing to help him.

"Get off!" Eleanor demanded, clenching her teeth as her husband held on for dear life.

"No! No!" Maggie screamed. "Don't do it. Pull him back!"

Her eyes filled with tears as her grandmother several times removed closed her fingers over his gloved hand—and pushed him away hard enough to pull off his glove.

Maggie looked into his eyes as he tumbled into the angry sea below. She should have run the other way. Her disobedient gaze fell to him. Pure terror, betrayal, regret, anger, rage, all played out on his face, in his eyes in an instant.

It wasn't real. It wasn't real. Maggie tried to tell herself—but he was gone.

She turned to the woman who just murdered her husband.

"What did you do? Why did you let him fall?" she demanded on the verge of hysteria.

She not only let him fall, she pushed him away.

She stared into Lady Eleanor's eyes. The murderess couldn't see or hear her. She patted her flaxen braid and smiled as if she was here to enjoy the weather. Maggie wanted to shout at her, maybe punch her pretty white teeth out.

Maggie opened her eyes. She was back in the library. Had she left it? What had just happened? Did the gauntlet fling her into the past to witness the truth? She laughed but she felt like crying. She got up, leaving the gauntlet where it was as she exited the library. She locked the door, having one of the keys to Graven's best-cared-for room.

She peered around the hall. What was she looking for? Him. Should she tell him about what just happened? How would she explain it? Had she been dreaming? Would she dream of him for the rest of her life? She tried to reason in her head that any red-blooded woman would have a difficult time getting Lord Oliver Gracehaven out of their thoughts once they'd met him. His specialty was frightening people, but Maggie didn't see the graphic images he produced of himself. She saw him as he was before his death. Starkly handsome with skin the color of clouds and full, shapely lips the color of crimson and soft as rose petals. When he spoke, especially when he shouted, he naturally pursed his mouth and twice while he was yelling and demanding, she had the urge to lean in and maybe press her lips against him. What would happen if she did that?

She was mad. Crazy. A psycho. How could she even think of something so macabre? Kiss a ghost?! Yuck! Her eye caught a movement near the stairs, a shock of black hair, a glint of chainmail on his shoulder. He flitted around three of the carpenters, breathing cold air on them and snatching away the energy from their electric tools.

"Hey Brian," one of the carpenters said, "do you feel that cold air?"

"Like the devil's breath," Brian agreed.

Approaching them, Maggie drew in a deep breath. One way or another, she was going to have to stop Graven's ghost from terrorizing the workmen.

"Alright, Ghost," she commanded for the men's sake. "Leave these men alone. No one is afraid of you! Please, leave!"

"Miss?" Brian's friend hurried closer and said in a shaky voice. "I don't think you should provoke him."

"He's provoking me!" she argued. "Lord Harwich, this is my last warning before I go find a priest."

They all heard the booming laughter coming from everywhere. The three carpenters took off running. Maggie bit her lip to keep from shouting. "Will you stop?"

He appeared inches before her and smiled. "No. I won't."

Maggie's reason abandoned her when he smiled. She hoped he never did it again or she'd be utterly doomed. Was he making her see him as this dazzling black diamond in an effort to win her over? She worried that it might work. And it might have taken over her senses and logic altogether if she hadn't just seen him die.

"Lord Harwich, though I feel differently now…" Did she? Was that it? Was her dream over? Why would she restore the home where this man was murdered? "Though I feel differently now, I ask from a purely business standpoint—a lot has gone into making this restoration happen."

He shrugged. "And I alone will stop it. I already told you why."

Oh! He was infuriating! For a moment she forgot him flailing as he fell from the wall. She took a slow breath and smiled. "And I'm telling you that it will happen."

"You are truly a Montgomery," he replied coolly. "You wish to take what I value most."

"No! I want to restore it," she argued softly. She didn't want to fight him. She saw him as he fell. She didn't know what had happened to her, or if it was real. But he broke her heart. How could she make amends with him for what her blood relative had done?

He shook his head and cast her a look of disappointment. "This fortress is not the thing I value the most."

"Then what is it?" she asked, her eyes going wide.

"The end of my existence."

He'd mentioned it before but she'd chosen to ignore it. "No," she whispered before she could stop herself.

His smile grew wider, softer for just a moment. "You care if I exist or not?"

"Yes."

"Why would you?"

Held captive by his compelling gaze, she could do nothing but search the fathomless depths of his eyes. What was she searching for? Why did she care if he existed? "I know the truth about your death, Lord Harwich."

He turned away as he spoke. "Oh? And what's the truth?"

"Lady Eleanor pushed you over the edge of the wall to your watery death." She let her gaze rove over the water droplets in his hair, on his skin. "Over the years of studying Graven, I heard terrible things, one of them being that she pushed you. But I never believed it."

"Then you're a fool," he ground out.

She wanted to tell him the truth about who she was. Didn't he deserve that much? He was going to be angry. He might frighten away all the rest of the men. But the whole thing was mad. Why should she live in the madness alone? Maybe telling him the truth, no matter how bad it was, would help him trust her. Although, looking into the cold gaze of his murderess wife probably destroyed any ounce of trust he had.

"Eleanor Montgomery is my distant grandmother."