“Oh, Ravenna, how kind you are to come over.”
“Of course I came over. You are the nicest person in the room, perhaps alongside Mr. Pettigrew.” She refused to include Sir Beverley in that company. “But also, Ann, I am eager to know what you did not finish telling me about your encounter with Mr. Walsh.”
Ann’s soft face was pale, her eyes rounder than ever. “I fear I have done a great wrong to withhold that information from the mayor while I have shared it with you. His royal highness puts such faith in Monsieur Sepic.”
“I beg of you, Ann, tell me the rest of your story.”
Ann lowered her voice to the whisper of moth wings. “It was not yet midnight. Perhaps even before eleven o’clock. I had not yet heard the bell chime in the hall. I was walking through the gallery. Papa had bid me braid Mama’s hair in the absence of her maid. Mama likes the way I do it. She often asks me to do her hair even when her maid is able.”
Ravenna nodded. Eleanor had tried and tried again to bind her hair so it would please the headmistress at the foundling home, and later their father, and to teach her how to bind it herself. For years. Then one afternoon, watching Ravenna struggle over it, Eleanor had snatched away the ribbons and declared that her hands had been made for much greater tasks than primping. “A girl must be what God intended her to be, not what others expect of her,” she stated. Then she kissed each of Ravenna’s palms, tied a single ribbon around her hair, and sent her out into the summer day with Beast.
“I was returning to my bedchamber later than expected,” Ann continued, “and I came upon him in the gallery. He was wearing a suit of armor. I could not speak a word. I thought perhaps that he was— That he was—”
“That he was what?”
Ann whispered, “A ghost.”
Ravenna suppressed her smile.
“When I heard that he had died—that he had been murdered—I was sorry he was not a ghost from medieval times, instead a poor man who had been living that very day.” She looked about with wide eyes and lowered her voice yet further. “Ravenna, do you think that a murdered man might roam about looking for the person who killed him?”
“What? Do you mean in corridors or attics, chains clanging and the like?”
“No. Rather, in bedchambers. Searching. But without chains, I think.”
“Have you heard something that suggests to you that Mr. Walsh is haunting this castle?”
“Last night I heard . . . noises. In the chamber beside mine.”
“What sorts of noises?”
“Creaking,” Ann whispered. “And thumping.”
Ravenna’s mind returned to the turret with Iona and the earl. Whose bedchamber flanked Ann’s? No. She did not wish to know.
Ann’s face had paled further. “Do you think it might have been . . . him?”
“I suppose a ghost might wish to haunt Chevriot,” if it could find a chamber free of amorous couples. “It needn’t be Mr. Walsh, though. Please tell me about the armor. Did he wear a full suit?” The hair pressed in ringlets about Ann’s face was precisely the color Ravenna had pulled from around the coat button.
“No, I think. Not all of the pieces. There were some pieces over his arms, and perhaps on one leg. A large piece of it flopped away, as though he had forgotten to buckle it.”
“Over his chest?”
“Yes. How did you guess?”
“I found him in that suit, Ann.”
“Oh, goodness.” Ann’s hand covered her mouth. “How dreadful. And how frightened you must have been.”
She had not been frightened because—it occurred to her now—Lord Vitor had been there too. The boast she had made to him on the turret stairs was not entirely true.
“Did Mr. Walsh speak to you, or you to him?” she said.
“No. He seemed confused. I thought him intoxicated at first, the way Papa gets after a winning race. He was staggering terribly. Then he began gasping and I feared he was ill. That was when I heard a footstep.”
“A footstep?”
“At the other end of the gallery. A light step.”
“A woman’s step?”
“I believe so. But a small man in slippers could have sounded similar, I guess.”
Ravenna nodded. Ann’s awkward shyness and frilly gowns hid a mind attuned to details.
“He grabbed my wrist and spoke to me, but I could not understand him. I tried to pull away—we had not been introduced, after all—I had never seen him and though I knew him to be a gentleman from his hair and clothing, he was unknown to me. But before I could escape, he grabbed me against him. I found him to be strangely weak, however, and I was able to break away quite easily. I asked him if he wished me to summon help. That was when I heard the footsteps.” Her nose pinched and she pressed her hands together in her lap. “I ran. I am ashamed that I ran, Ravenna! I should have remained to help him, or called out for help. But all I could think was that he was a fiend, and the footsteps were those of his colleague in fiendishness.”
A mind for details with a turn toward the supernaturally dramatic, it seemed.
“I shouldn’t blame yourself for running, Ann. I might have too.”
“I don’t believe that.” Timidity returned to her round eyes. “I admire you greatly, Ravenna—your free spirit and your courage. I can see that others here admire it too. Especially Prince Sebastiao.” Now her eyes went soft and slightly out of focus. “I admire him the more for it. You are so delightfully refreshing.”
“I asked you about the armor because I found a hair—a long, dark hair that matches yours—trapped in Mr. Walsh’s coat button.”
Ann’s palm flew to her mouth again. “Do you— But you cannot— Ravenna, I did not kill him!”
She grasped Ann’s shaking hand. “I am fairly certain you did not.”
“Miss Caulfield.” The prince’s voice came close behind her. “While I am your servant now and forever, I cannot bear to see this lady distressed. What have you said just now that has turned her cheeks to chalk? You must tell us all at this instant.”
Ravenna could say nothing. While her back had been turned to the room, Lady Iona had entered, and now sent her an entreating look.
Ann’s lashes fell, but her voice came steadily. “She told me a ghost story, your highness. I am ever so fond of them and begged her for it. I hope you will forgive her, for the truth of it is that I like the sort of distress one feels when hearing a ghost tale.”
Ravenna stared at her with new respect.
“Aha, I also enjoy a hair-raising ghost story,” the prince said with a smile. “Miss Caulfield, you must repeat it to me this instant.”
“Oh, your highness,” Ann said, finally drawing her eyes up. “If Miss Caulfield does not mind my intrusion, may I tell it? It would help fix the story in my memory.” Briefly she glanced at Ravenna as if in apology. But behind the gray orbs Ravenna now saw a girl who, without the overbearing mother blocking her way, might very well become a force of even greater reckoning than Lady Margaret. She now held the prince’s entire attention.
With a reassuring smile, Ravenna excused herself. Before she could escape, Lady Iona came upon her in a swirl of rose perfume, fiery tresses, and pale pink skirts. She had changed her gown and arranged her hair in a braided coronet. She looked stunning and fashionable and every bit the virginal daughter of a duke seeking the hand of a prince.