“From across the room!” Susanne cried. “It flew from the bookcase, across the room, to smack him right in the forehead. I saw it! We have a ghost.”
Everyone waited in taut silence to see what the twins would say, but they twins didn’t respond. They simply shared a glance—one that spoke volumes to each other but no one else—and then went back to what they were doing. Giselle was gently cleaning his wound. He’d already gotten a basin of water but hadn’t yet used it. He was waiting for the wound to stop bleeding.
As for Gwenivere, she folded her arms and glared at everyone as if her attitude made anything better. It didn’t. She didn’t. So he touched Giselle’s arm.
“What was that about? What aren’t you saying?”
“Hmm?”
He pulled her hand away and tilted his head, so they were eye to eye. “Pretend we don’t know each other. Pretend everything that happened before never did—”
“That’s a tall order.”
“What would you say to me then? To all of us?”
She swallowed. “Probably nothing,” she answered. “There’s nothing here except a bit of blood.”
Susanne took a step forward. “But I saw—”
“It’s not herenow,” Giselle interrupted. Then she glanced to her twin. “Do you hear anything?”
“All quiet.”
She turned back to Jonathan. “See. All good.”
“But you think there was something here.” He didn’t want to admit it. Hell, he didn’t want tothinkabout it. But Susanne was right. A book had inexplicably flown off the shelf to smack him hard in the forehead.
“I wasn’t there,” Giselle said. “I don’t know what happened.”
“Stop it!” he snapped, unreasonably angry. “You never lied to me before. Why are you hedging your words now?”
She took a step back, her expression hardening. Her sister had gasped at his outburst, but it was the look of angry hurt on Giselle’s face that made him cringe.
“You dare ask me that?” she said. There was barely any breath behind her words, as if he’d dealt her a body blow. But he heard her clearly nonetheless.
Fury built hot and hard inside him. He felt out of control, and that always made him angry. “I don’t like this talk of ghosts and fairies and whatnot. It was all well and good when we were kids. Back home, you couldn’t kick a rock without someone saying you’d disturbed a fairy cairn. But we’re all grown up now. Andwe’re in London, for God’s sake. That sort of talk is for children, and you are a woman grown.”
“And yet, you brought me here.”
“I didn’t,” he shot back. “My si—My sister did.” He’d almost saidsillysister, but he knew better than to insult Susanne that way. Especially since that’s what his father used to call her. But she wasn’t silly. She hadn’t been for years.
It didn’t matter. Susanne heard the near insult and bristled.
“You explain it,” she said, her voice level and cold. “You tell me how that book hit you in the head.”
He didn’t have an answer, and that was exactly the problem.
“What book was it?” Giselle asked.
“What?”
“What book hit you? Where is it?”
Oh. “Um, still in the library, I think.”
Giselle’s brows rose, but she didn’t challenge him. Unlike her twin.
“You were hit in the library, and you came out here? You didn’t stop and take care of your wound immediately? Right where it happened?”
