But around her, all was still. This was even better! “There’s a ghost, and she agrees with me!”
She could see his struggling to understand there may truly be a ghost who was now darting about, finding objects to fling in his direction. Siân almost laughed when he scrambled out of the way of a particularly large log.
That would have hurt if it connected, but she had no sympathy for him. She’d told him there was a ghost, and he hadn’t believed her. Ha! The liar thought she lied!
“What agreement?” He tried to dodge five rocks, but one got his shin, and he cursed.
“What agreement?” She grinned, not caring if she looked angry or hurt. She was! “That you’re the worst human being, Mr. Payne. Good luck to you, I’m leaving. You got your revenge, just like—”
“We’re not them,” he shouted. “We’re not them! Siân, don’t go. I don’t want to tell you this way.”
“You don’t have to tell me anything at all. I’m quite satisfied with this.” Soon she’d be far away from this man who made her feel like love could exist. “Don’t come after me!”
Pivoting, she easily strode around the corner at the sound of Mr. Liar getting hit with more rocks. Revenge was simply divine.
“The letter calls off the arrangement!” he shouted.
She took a dozen more steps until his words registered, and then a few more when she realized they made no sense.
Storming back, she rounded on him. “That letter calls off the arrangement?”
He covered his head as another stick almost struck him. “It’s in my cloak. You can read it.”
As if he could stop her! She winked at the ghost. “Thank you for that, but I have it from here.”
The wind stilled, and the stick dropped at his feet.
Mr. Payne cursed. “She really is there.”
“How are your shins?” She flipped his cloak and easily found the correspondence.
“It’s where the boot flew straight into my chest that truly aches.”
Even better. Ripping it open, she read the contents. It didn’t take long—there were only three sentences. Of course there were. Even when Charles was being an utter coward for not telling her in person, he still couldn’t be a gentleman.
Their families had made promises, and they had grown up together. This was how he repaid her? By writing there would be no marriage, and inserting a few thinly veiled insults on why? She was…angry.
But not as wrathful as she was at a certain someone who stood still in a room with a watchful ghost.
Siân glanced at her. The woman was calmer, different, and not as clear. Mr. Payne, however, was still a liar.
“You knew he wanted to call it off and you were still taking me to him?”
He managed to look contrite. Oh, he was a good deceiver, he was.
“My reasoning was faulty, and I am entirely to blame.”
“That I agree on, because I still do not understand,” she said.
He glanced around.
“She’s still here,” she said. “Do continue, Mr. Payne.”
He winced. “I stood on that porch, unable to speak because you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. And I thought Charles a fool for letting you go. So I thought, once he saw you, once I told him of all your redeeming qualities—”
“My redeeming qualities?”
“You’re just so…efficient.” When her expression most likely darkened like a storm coming, he added, “It’s useful on the farm.”
