He waggled his brows at her. “Ooh! Where?” He made a show of peering into the shadows of the hayloft. There was nothing there, of course, not even living people. It was Christmas day, after all, and everyone was at home celebrating with their families.
“No, really.” She took his hand and explained. “Gwenivere and I both do. And Mama. We don’t know about the younger ones yet.”
He frowned. “Is this another one of your fairy tales?”
“No.” She bit her lip. “It comes from my mother’s side. We don’t talk about it unless someone’s being haunted. And then we help. Well, Mama does, but she’s teaching me and Gwenivere.”
He sat back, his expression confused. “What are you talking about?”
“Remember all those mishaps Mr. Harking kept having? He was being haunted by his sister. I saw her ghost hurting him. Gwenivere could hear it. She doesn’t see as well as I do, but then I can’t hear them very well. I told Mama and she…” She shrugged. “She helped the ghost pass on completely.”
He studied her, his expression tightening. “You’re saying…you see ghosts. Gwen—”
“Hears them, mostly.”
“And your mother—the vicar’s wife—helps them pass on.”
She nodded.
He exhaled slowly. “Giselle, I love your imagination. I love it when you tell fairy tales to the children. But you know that a countess—my countess—can’t tell tales like that.” He gathered her hands in his. “Tell me any silliness you want. We live in theCotswolds where every tree has a fairy or ghost, but that’s not true in London. And I don’t want to imagine what would happen if you said something like that to my father.” He shuddered. “He’d have you locked up in Bedlam.”
She swallowed. He’d just voiced her biggest fear. Not everyone accepted ghosts like they did in their tiny county. It was one of the reasons her mother liked it here. Especially since her grandmother—Giselle’s great, grandmother—had been burned at the stake for witchcraft. That was why the family had fled to England.
“Your father likes me. You said so!”
Jonathan’s grip tightened. “He does! Everyone likes you. But…” He grimaced. “Father has some very specific ideas about how a countess should act.”
“Like your mother?” She was a weak, whining woman with a whole lot of “poor me” mixed in. For a woman who was a wealthy countess, she was the opposite of what Giselle admired. It was the opposite of what Jonathan admired, too! “I thought you liked me because I’m different. Because I’m nothing like your mother.”
“I do! The last thing I want is to marry a society woman like my mother. But there are still expectations. You can’t go around telling people you see ghosts. Or that the miller was haunted. They won’t know you’re pretending.”
“I’m not pretending,” she said in a quiet voice.
“Of course you are. There are no such things as ghosts. You know that.”
She narrowed her eyes. “And yet there is so much more in the world than is dreamt of—”
“In my philosophy,” he finished for her. “Shakespeare aside, ghosts don’t exist.”
She folded her hands in her lap while pain churned in her gut. But if she could face down a howling ghost—and she had—she could face the man she loved with the truth.
“You are being close-minded,” she said. “Just like your father.”
That last part was a hard blow, but it was necessary. He’d complained to her that his father just wouldn’t listen. He wouldn’t accept any ideas other than his own, and that made him rigid and short-sighted. Those were Jonathan’s words, not hers. And she didn’t need to say them for him to hear it.
She looked at him, her brows arched, daring him to challenge her. And when he said nothing, she said her final piece.
“My father is a man of God. He is a vicar, and he believes us. The church does exorcisms too, so the church believes us.”
“Are you saying you see demons?”
She shook her head. “Never. At least, I never have and neither has Mama. She says that ghosts are people who got lost or need something before they go to heaven. They’re caught halfway between here and there, so we must help them across.”
“You help them cross.” His words weren’t a question, but she answered them anyway.
“Yes, I do.” She swallowed. “And as my husband you need to accept that.” Then she flashed him a small smile. “My father helps my mother. They usually go together.”
“I will be a viscount.”
