“How many times?”
She didn’t know why she was holding back. He knew she’d been doing this since she was young. Or at least seeing ghosts. She’d told him that when she was sixteen.
“Giselle, how many—”
“Dozens,” Gwen interrupted. “Since our earliest days. Mostly it was Mama and Papa, but we’ve all done it together or by ourselves. It’s just something we do. You get rich off of peasants and mock people who are different. We cross ghosts over.”
“Gwenivere!” Giselle snapped. “That was unnecessary!”
Her twin didn’t seem repentant. But to her surprise, it was Jonathan who had the strangest reaction.
“Actually,” he said, “she’s right.” And at Giselle’s shocked look, he shrugged. “Not about getting rich off peasants. That’s not even worth addressing. But…” His gaze took in them both. “I was cruel to you. My father even more. He hurt your father. He named you the troubled twins, and I never stopped it. Even among my friends. I don’t even know why.”
She did. “You did it for the same reason Gwenivere can’t keep herself from insulting you. And why I…” She swallowed. “Why it sometimes hurts to even look at you.” She couldn’t count thenumber of times she’d cursed his name. “We meant something to each other, once upon a time. And then—suddenly—we didn’t. You threw me aside and Father lost the parish and…”
“You were saying such crazy things,” he said. “About seeing ghosts.” His words ended with a self-conscious shrug, then he added, “I couldn’t accept what I thought was madness.”
“And so we ended.”
“Everythingended,” Gwenivere said.
“And I became angry,” Jonathan said. “I hated you and I wanted you and…I was awful, Giselle. And I’m so sorry.”
What could she say to that except the truth?
“I will help you, Jonathan. I’ll do what I can about your ghost. I will even listen to whatever it is you want to say to me. But do not believe that I will ever forgive you. You abandoned me the moment you heard my deepest secret. I risked everything by telling you who I was. And it destroyed me when you ran away.”
Chapter Six
Jonathan gaped atGiselle, seeing now the depth of the misunderstanding between them. “I didn’t run away from you because you can see ghosts,” he said. He’d run because he wanted to marry her, and his father would have none of it. He’d stood up to his father, or at least he tried. But at sixteen, he had no ability to fight, especially when his father had her entire family ousted from the vicarage and sent away. Not to mention how he’d sent Jonathan all the way to Scotland.
But rather than face his part in that debacle, he’d turned her into a crazy, troublesome twin in his mind. He’d allowed awful things to be said about her and her family. And it had taken him a decade to mature enough to realize what he had done.
“Well?” her twin prodded. “Why did you run from her?”
He looked at Gwenivere who stood there daring him to say anything. Then he consciously blocked her out to focus on Giselle.
“I should like to talk to you about it,” he said softly. “But not now. Perhaps after we…” He sighed as he looked at the mess around him. He could order the staff to clean up the room, but if he was unsettled to be in here, he wasn’t going to force any maid or footman to face it either. “I think I shall put away some books while we wait.” He looked back at Giselle. “That is what we’re doing, yes? Waiting for the, um, situation to come back.”
“The ghost,” Giselle corrected.
Her twin’s comment was more caustic. “If you can’t say it, you can’t face it.”
“Or help it move on,” Giselle said as she shot her twin a dark look.
Susanne’s voice was a great deal more tentative. “Do we have any idea when that might happen?”
“There’s no telling when,” Giselle answered.
“But you’ll be here when it happens, won’t you? I mean, you’re not leaving, are you?” Barely restrained panic was etched on his sister’s face. He wanted to soothe her, but he had the same anxiety. What if the ghost reappeared when Giselle was across town? It would take forever for a message to be sent to her and have her return. Better to have her stay with them until this situation was resolved.
“Why don’t you stay here?” he offered quickly. “We have the room, and it’s perfectly proper. Mother and Susanne are here.”
Typically, Gwenivere was immediately contrary. “We can’t wait with you until the ghost comes back! We have things to do.”
Giselle dropped her hands on her hips. “We can’t just abandon them either.”
“Like he did to you?”
