Page 6 of The Right to Remain Single

Who might or might not be a virgin. He assumed not; despite her reputation as The One Good Warren, he couldn’t imagine a woman so eager to ruin herself had remained untouched for four more years. She’d as much as admitted it this morning: You know perfectly well how not-good I am. Perhaps she had belatedly acquired the commonsense to keep the fact of her folly to herself.

Not that it was any of his business, nor of the ghost’s as far as he could see. More likely, the Roman solder was referring to some maiden in the distant past.

“Stand back, Mr. Blakely,” said Miss Warren and immediately tipped a basin of water out the window. It missed him by a couple of feet. “The front door, I think we agreed? Not the kitchen garden.” She shut the casement with a snap.

He hadn’t agreed to anything, but he made his way around the house, wishing he hadn’t come at all. He would simply have to ignore Miss Warren and get on with dealing with the ghost.

He tramped round to the front door and banged the knocker hard.

* * *

“Colin sent you, did he?” said Walt Warren. “Is that supposed to inspire confidence? Ha!” He was much the same as four years earlier, bent and hollow-chested with bushy eyebrows, but his wheeze had grown more persistent.

“He’s speaking from experience,” James said. “I dealt with an obnoxious ghost at our school.”

The old man snorted and waved him toward the array of dishes on the sideboard. “Sit down then, have some breakfast. The kippers are quite good. Can’t say the same for the muffins, but at least they’re not burnt.”

James helped himself to a kipper, scrambled eggs, and a muffin. After being ushered by Mrs. Day through a cavernous Great Hall and down a whitewashed corridor, he had spent the last hour in the kitchen—the only room with a fire at the crack of dawn. He’d drunk several cups of coffee, while Mrs. Day probed into his provenance, a young footman named Joey grinned sympathetically, and a maid called Martha ogled him without shame. At last Miss Warren had appeared, prim and coolly civil, to invite him to a small breakfast parlor with a view onto the snow-covered garden. He took a seat opposite her on the old man’s left, and wondered how long it would take to get rid of the ghost and be on his way.

Walt Warren picked the bones out of a kipper. “Your father and I fought over a woman. Did he ever tell you about that?”

James shook his head. “A duel, sir?”

“We tried, but someone tattled to the authorities, and Statham lost his temper, blaming me. Said I was a coward. I couldn’t stomach that, so I planted him a facer. Nothing like a bout of fisticuffs to restore a friendship.” He chuckled. “The damned trollop took up with another fellow entirely.”

Miss Warren didn’t bat an eye, calmly buttering a slice of toast.

The old man forked a slice of ham. “Those were the days, I tell you. We sowed our wild oats but did what we were told in the end.”

Now some emotion crossed Miss Warren’s face, so quickly James wondered if he’d seen it. This was the sort of comment James’s father made when trying to justify marrying James off to whichever heiress he chose. You don’t have to find her attractive. That’s what mistresses are for.

But mistresses, in James’s experience, were no more appealing than prospective wives. He had nothing against marriage as such, but so far no woman had tempted him to give up his comfortable bachelor existence.

Miss Warren lifted the coffeepot, raising delicate brows above those cool grey eyes. Was she civil now because of her father’s presence? James smiled and nodded his thanks. She didn’t smile back, but poured for him and said, “More coffee, Papa?”

The old man shook his head and frowned at James. “Fancy yourself an exorcist, do you?”

“Not at all, sir. I see ghosts and speak to them.”

“Humph,” said Mr. Warren. “My daughter sees our ghost. So do a few of the villagers. The rest of us only hear him, and damned noisy he can be, cursing and moaning in Latin. One would think, after all these centuries, he’d have picked up a smattering of English.” He wheezed another laugh. “Saw him this morning, did you, Blakely?”

“Yes, for a few seconds. I might have spoken to him if not for Romulus, my horse. He doesn’t object to the ghost at Statham, so it never occurred to me that he might balk at this one.”

“The ghost at Statham is charming,” Miss Warren said. “I remember him well—a swashbuckling Cavalier, complete with sword, cloak, and plumed hat.”

“You saw him?”

She smirked. “I’m used to pretending I don’t see ghosts, for it puts people off.”

“A Cavalier, eh?” said Mr. Warren. “They’re all the rage with the ladies nowadays, thanks to those poems.”

“Lamentations of a Cavalier Lover,” Miss Warren said. “It’s frightfully romantic.”

James eyed her warily. Why hadn’t she revealed his secret long ago?

“Not to your taste?” she asked, those expressive eyes a weapon of mockery.

“Surely it’s intended for the ladies,” he temporized. “My sisters enjoy it.” They didn’t know the poems had been written by their own ancestor, for if his sisters learned, all society would find out.