Grave Refrain: A Love/Ghost Story (66 page)

“Who are you?” he demanded.

“Are? You do insult me with such a word. I have not ‘been’ in a long, long while.”

Emily sat up next to him, her eyes taking in the bone-chilling apparition. He wanted to haul her back to his side, but she kneeled forward, sitting even straighter.

“Andrew, she’s The Lady in White,” she whispered to him, never taking her eyes from the ghost.

“Ahhhh…behold a Thomas, and she is no longer alone. No, not alone at all. And the lovely lad is naked too. Tsk, tsk.” Her sing-song spectral laughter echoed like a wind chime made of glass shards. Her deep green eyes glimmered.

He didn’t care for the insinuation behind her words, nor the angle of her sight for that matter, and he pulled the sheet tighter around his hips. She was a formidable old thing, even in death; the very air pulsed with her aura. Emily, however, didn’t seem to mind. Oblivious to any danger, she leaned perilously closer to the eerie ringlets of hair that snaked wildly about the specter’s face like a spray of asps.

“Thank you for protecting me today. You were extremely brave.”

“You saw her—today? Where?” he demanded under his breath.

“The caves,” Emily whispered back. “That’s why I went down there in the first place.”

“Didn’t you think this was a bit of information worth sharing?”

“I was preoccupied with trying to stay alive at the time.”

The spirit studied him some more, making the hair on the back of his neck stand on end as well as filling him with the strong desire for a robe. Before she turned her attention to Emily, her black lips puckered suggestively at him, and if he didn’t know better, he would have sworn she winked. As she turned to stare at Emily, her eyes darkened and narrowed slightly; she rested her hand coquettishly against her transparent cheek.

“I know you didn’t have to help,” Emily went on in a rushed tone. “I know there are rules about things like that, but I never got a chance to thank you. I’m Emily Thomas, by the way, but I guess you already know that. And this is Andrew Hayes.”

The pallid rays emanating from her body rippled with her dissatisfaction as the jeweled dress thrashed the air. She inspected him anew, her head tilting in a perturbed sort of query, as if she was not pleased with what she had heard. Not pleased at all.

“You have pledged yourself to her, pretty boy?”

Andrew tried to grasp the meaning of her words, anchoring them in whatever time she had come from. Had he pledged himself to Emily? Proposed marriage? Is that what she meant?

“Yes.”

Suddenly, the air around them dropped another ten degrees. His attention shot back to The Lady in White, whose eyes had narrowed to slits and blackened entirely. “Why? Why did you have to do that to her?” she wailed, her hands clawing at her gown. “Why curse her? Why must it always be that way with you?”

He stared at her in confusion. This was hardly the reaction he was expecting. Wouldn’t this have been acceptable behavior during her lifetime? Lying naked with a girl in an unmade bed centuries ago—he better damn well be pledged to her.

“Because I love her.”

“If you loved her, you would leave her now, never to see her again. She is far better off without you.” Her vapors bled black to match the darkness of her words.

He opened his mouth to protest when Emily moved even closer to her. “Please, please, do you know where Nick Chamberlain’s ashes are?”

“You come this close when I am angry. Your heart…I can hear it beating. You are still afraid, I can tell.”

“I’m…sorry. I don’t mean to be. Do you prefer to be addressed as The Lady in White—or is there another name I can call you? I mean may I call you,” Emily stammered.

“No one has spoken my name for centuries,” she sighed.

“I’m sorry, it was rather rude of me to ask.”

“No—it is simply painful to hear it said aloud. I am not sure I remember how to say it anymore. There are so few of us left. So many of our brethren have passed on. Those who knew our names and those whose voices called for us in the night have long slipped away.”

Her melancholy enveloped them like mist.

“But I’d like to know your name—that way you wouldn’t be forgotten.”

The Lady in White swirled to the window, hesitating, vibrations shaking her image.

“You would—you would do that for me? Something this fearful?”

“Fearful? No, you’re beautiful. I’ve never seen someone like you. I could never forget you.”

“Emily…” Andrew warned. Despite his love for Emily, the depth of compassion in her tone bothered him. Two ghosts in one house were bad enough, and he definitely was not bringing this one home.

“What you told me in the caves, what did you mean? What did you mean when you said you told Mrs. Chamberlain the truth?”

“She must tell you. I cannot. But—”

“What truth? What did you tell Mrs. Chamberlain?” Andrew asked sharply, clearly annoyed that there was yet another vital detail that Emily had forgotten to tell him. The Lady in White glared at him.

“Go on, please,” Emily pleaded.

The specter fixed her blackened eyes on Emily. “Life is not without hope. You are proof of that. There may be hope for Nick and Nora, but you must be strong, stronger than all the rest. Are you strong, Emily Thomas?” She swept toward her, almost blanketing Emily in her silver glow.

“Yes, I think so.”

“Can you live without your heart?”

“Wait!” Andrew cried. “What are you saying? No one is touching this woman. Her heart stays where it is!”

“Please tell me…if we find Nick,” Emily asked quickly, “will there be peace for Nick and Nora? Will they be reunited?”

“Peace is a mercurial word. You may only have so much peace in this life. But you have the keys for it. Use them. If you do so, then yes, there will be peace. In its way.”

“Keys? What keys?” Emily was nearly nose to nose with the ghost now.

Just then a knocking came from the door. The Lady in White swirled in alarm.

“No, wait! Don’t go!” Emily cried.

“Emily Thomas, seek what you want…where the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow…” And with that she pushed open the shutters and leveled them both with her withering gaze. “But I must warn you. Time is—”

“Fuck no, you’re not! You are not going to warn us about time running out. I’m bloody sick of hearing it. No more! Just get the hell out of here.”

“Andrew!” cried Emily.

The Lady in White swept toward the ceiling and glared down at him. “Arrogant, smug, overconfident boy—you are all alike. Every time. Only you are so much more so. The worst ever.”

“Thank you for your high opinion of men. Now go fucking haunt somewhere else, I’ve had enough.”

“You—you are not scared of me in the least, are you?”

“Not a bit. But I dig the dress.”

“Insolent bastard. Breathtaking and stunning you are, with that comely face and eyes of blue, those fine, long, muscles. Yes, you are truly an exquisite specimen. You would make such a superb ghost. Care to try?”

“Shan’t happen, not if I have anything to say about it.”

She whooshed down from the ceiling until she was inches from the bed, her eyes drinking him in, ravenous, hungry, smoldering…

Bloody hell…he recognized that look—he had seen it a thousand times before—from the stage. He had an undead fan. Christ. There was only one thing he could do.

Cocking a roughish eyebrow at her, he held back his shoulders and leveled her with an equally hungry and ravenous smile.

She froze in midair, stunned. Then the impossible occurred. She seemed to blush. Every one of her silver spectral wisps turned a deep crimson.

“Good night…m’lady,” he whispered huskily.

Her ebony lips curled into a trembling, radiant little
O
. The knocking came even louder. She sluiced through the window and was lost to the night.

Emily stared at him in shock. The knocking was quickly escalating into pounding.

“I’ll get it,” he said, grabbing a towel.

“I’m coming with you!” Emily grabbed another, and they headed for the front door.

“What? Are you expecting others? Was anyone else down there you haven’t told me about?”

“I don’t think so. But I’ll bet you just got yourself another girlfriend,” she said, impressed.

“I’d like to take this opportunity to say I’m getting bloody pissed at every damn ghost telling us the end is nigh. It’s truly starting to get on my nerves. And I have no desire for another girlfriend. I’m having problems enough trying to keep the one I have under control,” he said before yanking open the door.

Simon stood outside, freshly showered and dressed in a pair of navy slacks and crisp white dress shirt, holding their suitcases in his hands.

“You’re a bellboy now?” Andrew asked.

“Compliments of the stoner express.” Simon dumped the two bags on the threshold, then tried to peer inside the cottage, clearly intrigued.

“Sucks to be you,” Andrew retorted, resting his arm against the door jamb and blocking his view of Emily, who stood next to him struggling to keep on her towel.

“My, my, look at this place.”

“Trust me, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

“Why is it that you always get all the luck?”

“Because I am a truly exquisite specimen and evidently would make a superb ghost.”

“Really?” Simon frowned at him and tried for another look but met with Andrew’s shoulder. “Fine. Meet us in the lobby in an hour. Zoey’s orders.”

“She’s back?”

“I was half tempted to throw everything in the boot of the truck and head home, screw waiting around for some sodding ghost. And I still might if I can’t get at least one bloody peaceful evening for a change.”

“Goodbye, Simon.”

Andrew slammed the door in his face.

“Our clothes, thank God,” Emily cried.

She grabbed her small bags and headed back to the bedroom, throwing on every light in the cottage in her wake. He could tell from the intensity of her movements that she was in full detective mode, of which he was infinitely grateful. Only Emily could face a phantom and become jazzed. He, for one, was not there yet.

“Hope. She said hope. In all of this—in all this talk of death and terror, there’s still a way. It’s possible!”

“What’s possible?”

“A way to help Nick and Nora. And you know what I think? If we can reunite them, they’ll break the cycle of whatever is replaying itself over and over again through us. Because you know that it is, I can tell, no matter what you say. Peace, she said, there could be peace. Now all we have to do is find his ashes.”

“Are you forgetting something? She also bitched me out, demanded that I leave you, asked if you could live without your heart, and tried to announce that time was running out. Not my idea of a bloody pep talk. Oh, and she also classified peace as mercurial, so you may not want to hang your hat on that one.”

“Where the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow. Why is that so familiar? Why do I know that from somewhere?”

“Miss Thomas, are you listening to me at all?”

“It’s beautiful and sad. The purple-stemmed wild raspberries…”

“Rather cheekily poetic for a ghost, don’t you think?”

Her eyes widened. “Yes! It is from a poem. Oh, where have I heard that? It’s on the tip of my tongue.”

She was pacing. “But we still need keys. She said we had the keys. Are there keys in the poem? Oh bloody fucking hell, why can’t I remember?”

“I believe my piss-poor language is beginning to corrupt you. Is there alcohol in here? I need a drink.” He began scanning a room for anything with a label.

“A key! But we have a key! The key we found in the keepsake box. Oh crap, it’s back at home.”

Andrew begrudgingly headed for the bedroom.

“Where are you going?”

His coat lay in a pile of cast off clothing. He nearly sighed at the sight. These bloody ghosts were seriously cutting into his sex life. He thrust his hand into the pocket and felt Nick’s ring, then the key.

He held it out to her. It shone like a new penny.

Emily threw herself into his arms, and he twirled her around. Her enthusiasm was contagious. In light of all this terror and horror, she saw the silver lining. And to her, real-life ghosts meant nothing if it meant an end to their nightmares, if it meant peace.

Yes, perhaps they could beat this. The pieces were falling into place. Together they could do anything. His hands brushed her wet hair over her shoulder.

“I love you,” he told her. “Right now, in this life. In this very second. And no one is taking that away. Understand, sweet girl?”

“Yes.”

“Emily, you aren’t—you’re not scared of this cottage? Do you want to find another place to sleep tonight? You’ve been through a ghastly day.”

“And you haven’t? No, I don’t want to leave. We were here first.” She said this almost offhand, her eyes now focused on the ocean out their bedroom window, her thoughts lost to him. “We were.”