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“Do not thank me. I ought to have been more vigilant and done something about your treatment sooner. I promise you, it will be addressed this very day. But we are running out of time to discuss this matter of your ties to my home and the Singing Caves. I should have told you when we met yesterday on the cliff and you mentioned the girl on the beach…”

“I saw her there again this morning.”

He frowned. “You went down to the beach?”

“No, merely looked out across it from atop the cliff. Is it not odd that she was there? Does she not have a home?”

“Well…” He raked a hand through his hair. “Miss Alwyn, there is something I must tell you about her. This girl… Gad, you are never going to believe me. This girl… She isn’t real. You must have heard about the MacArran ghost who haunts these caves.”

“Yes, but surely…” She jumped up and turned to him with her fists curled at her sides. “Your Grace? What game are you playing? Do you think I cannot tell what a ghost looks like? Some frail, wispy emanation within a cloud of smoke. That girl was healthy and real.”

“That you see her so clearly alarms me all the more. Sit down, Miss Alwyn,” he said with commanding authority. “I do not jest about those caves or the ghost. What did she look like to you? A girl of about seventeen with dark blonde hair she wears in a braid, just as you are wearing yours now? It is said her eyes are green, the color of meadow grass, just like yours. And she wears a plaid frock.”

“My gowns are all in solid colors.” She glanced at the severe, dark green muslin she wore.

“Because you dress like an old woman and not a young girl. Oh, do not be offended. You look lovely. You could wear rags and still look like an elfin princess. But you must admit, there is nothing stylish about your clothes.”

“I dress for my work. I am not a debutante, merely an old woman’s companion.”

“We are getting off the point.”

She arched a golden eyebrow. “Which is?”

“You resemble the ghost. Gold hair and green eyes. You can see the ghost and hear the song in the Singing Caves. You know my home perhaps better than I do. Why do you think you rattle me so? Do I look like a man who is easily overset?”

“No, Your Grace.”

Since she had ignored his command to sit down, he now rose and put his hands on her shoulders. “Our MacArran Grange ghost is connected to you, Miss Alwyn. I am worried she will hurt you…or that my house will somehow swallow you up. I have noticed you walk toward a wall a time or two as though expecting to find a door there. I have seen you study the fireplace in the parlor as though it is out of place.”

She shook her head. “Not out of place. I think something is hidden behind it.”

“It was an old smuggler’s tunnel that I’ve had blocked off, since it was in danger of caving in.” He sighed. “What else do you see when you look at my house? Has the ghost appeared to you indoors?”

“No.”

“Are you sure? I’ve seen you pause a time or two at the top of the stairs, or stop to stare at a painting. Why?”

Her eyes grew wide. “You noticed all this about me?”

He cast her a mirthless smile. “I have not taken my eyes off you since you appeared on my doorstep two weeks ago.”

She shook her head. “You must have thought I was the ghost invading your beloved home.”

“No, Miss Alwyn. I assure you, I knew you were very real.”

“Oh.” She blushed again as he rubbed his thumbs gently along her shoulders.

He silently admonished himself for embarrassing her, but not even he could deny the spark between them. “Why are you able to see this ghost? Why do you resemble her? Tell me all you know. Everything youfeel. All of it is important.”

“But I don’t know anything. My father’s estate is—was—in Yorkshire. As far as I know, I have only ever been in the north, and more recently London. I had never been to Cornwall before arriving for your house party…and yet what is happening, Your Grace? Why do I know this place?”

“The logical reason is that you must have come here as a little girl but were too young to remember.”

“In this house? How is it possible?”

“What of your mother? It is likely she grew up around here, perhaps in the village of St. Austell. She might have told you stories of this place. What is her family name? Who were her parents?”

She shook her head. “I have no idea where my mother was born and raised. Even if she did tell me stories, I was too young to recall them. I don’t know who her parents were because my father would never tell me. Our servants might have known, for most were in service before I was born. However, they would never talk to me about her or them. All I ever found out was my mother’s maiden name. It is Evans. Her name was Bella Evans.”