Page 40 of The Right to Remain Single

She flapped a hand at him and headed through the Great Hall toward the passageway to the kitchen.

He caught up with her. “Or I could have bedded down with Romulus in the stable. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve found myself unexpectedly without shelter—but that wouldn’t do over the long term.”

“The long term won’t be necessary. Once Sam is gone, I shall be perfectly fine.”

He ignored that. “Although come to think of it, I daresay I could have hidden myself in your priest’s hole. You do have one, I assume?”

Her voice trembled. “No, we have not.”

“A hermit’s cell in the home wood, perhaps? It might be a bit chilly in this weather, but—”

“Please don’t make me laugh.” Briefly, her eyes met his. “I have to think, and I can’t when—”

Good God, were those tears? She dabbed at her eyes and once again left him behind.

If he read her father aright, the old curmudgeon still had hopes of forcing a marriage between them. Unfortunately, any attempt by Mr. Warren would likely make matters worse—perhaps had done so already. Did that explain Thomasina’s extreme uneasiness now?

“You will leave in a few days,” she said, “and in the meantime, we must avoid each other.”

Damnation. On the other hand, she’d said she had to think…about what?

Darkness had fallen, and the ghost was making his rounds to the tune of an obscene marching song. James chuckled, opening his mouth to share the jest with her—and shut it again. This wasn’t the right time. Maybe later, in bed, he would soften her up, wear down her resistance, and make her realize how perfect they were for one another.

“Max will protect me,” she said.

In her own way, she was as stubborn as the old man. “He can’t protect you from Sam Furbelow anymore,” James said. “Nor from your father’s machinations. Regardless of what he orders, I’m not going anywhere.”

“So very kind of you, but truly, you needn’t—”

A cry, followed by a series of thuds, came from the Great Hall.

* * *

Thomasina lifted her skirts and dashed past James, thankful for a reason to escape this conversation. She scurried into the Great Hall. Brother Antoine lay at the bottom of the staircase, groaning. Max appeared next to him, shouting in Latin, pointing up the stairs. James came into the room, followed by Joey.

“Are you hurt?” she asked the monk.

“It is nothing.” The monk tried raising himself on hands and knees, but crumpled with a yelp of pain.

“It’s not nothing,” she said. “You’ve broken something.”

He rolled onto his side, cradling his left wrist. “It is only a sprain.” He caught her eyes, a plea in his own. “It was the ghost. He pushed me!”

“Surely not.” James frowned and said something softly to Max. The ghost responded with a stream of furious Latin. Once again, James spoke calmly. The ghost vanished, and James put out a hand and helped the monk to stand. “Max says he didn’t do it, and I believe him. Ghosts don’t push people down the stairs.”

Papa came tottering out of his study in time to hear this. “So speaks the world’s greatest expert on the behavior of ghosts.”

A crack of nasty laughter came from the head of the stairs. Cousin Sam leaned over the balustrade. “The ghost was right here, making a racket, when you came into the room. Isn’t that so, Tommie-love?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t prove anything,” she retorted.

“He dropped a stone on me last night,” Sam said. “Since Brother Antoine is planning to exorcise him, it makes perfect sense that he pushed him. He wants to get rid of us both.”

He’s not the only one. “Perhaps he startled you, Brother Antoine, and you slipped.”

“He pushed me,” the monk insisted with a convincing shudder—and the same imploring expression in his eyes. “I felt a cold wind, and then a hand on my back.”

“The wind, perhaps. The hand on your back, impossible,” James said.