Nina Coombs Pykare by Dangerous Decision

milord. I’m sure you have better things to do.”
    “What!” he exclaimed, with a hint of his old brash smile, “Surely you don’t expect me to leave you to the mercies of the ghost.”
    “I do not believe in ghosts,” she said firmly. “There has to be some other reason for what happened. Some logical reason.”
    He shook his head, but all he said was, “Very well. But I intend to accompany you anyway.” He opened the door, stood aside with a slight bow, and motioned for her to pass through before him.
    The narrow winding staircase was dimly lit through very small windows—actually more like slits—in the thick stone walls. The walls themselves were dirt-encrusted, festooned with spider webs, and altogether the filthiest things she’d ever seen. And the stairwell was icy cold, the kind of cold that pierces clear to the bone and lingers long after a person gets out into the sun again.
    Clutching her skirts close, Edwina shivered, hoping the spiders would keep their distance, and made her way up the steep stairs. She pushed open the door to the roof, and had to stop and blink hard, pressing a hand against the wall to steady herself. The sunshine was so bright after the darkness of the tower that it almost blinded her. She shaded her eyes with her free hand and looked about. The view was wonderful. It was easy to see why Lady Catherine had loved it up here.
    In one direction lay the sea, capped by little white waves, shimmering green in the sunlight. Inland, the green Dover countryside extended for long long distances. This must have been a lovely place to walk of an evening. Edwina could almost see the earl, Lady Catherine by his side, and the girls chattering merrily nearby while they took the evening air.
    “I’m afraid you’ll find nothing up here,” the viscount said, pulling her thoughts back to her brush with death. “Ghosts do not leave tracks, you know. They’re beings of spirit. Ethereal and all that.”
    “As I said before,” she retorted with rather more fervor than was needed, “I do not believe in ghosts.”
    The viscount shrugged. “That is your right. For myself, I do not believe in thunderstorms that dislodge great stones, especially long after the storm in question is over.”
    She gave him a scathing look. What kind of pea brain did he think she was? “Neither do I. I said that for the benefit of the children. I didn’t want them frightened any more than they already were. Of course no thunderstorm dislodged a stone of that size.” She moved toward the big gap in the parapet that showed where the missing stone had once rested. The mortar on the surrounding stones was crumbled, but it was impossible to tell what could have caused the missing one to fall from its place.
    While the viscount looked out over the park land to the left, she tested the stones surrounding the gap. They were all firmly mortared in place. It seemed unlikely that only one would have come loose. And to fall like that ... Absently, she ran her fingers around the edges of the gap. At the outer edge, they encountered something soft, not at all like stone. She leaned forward to look. Could a scrap of material have been caught on the rough edge of a stone? Could someone have leaned over and ...
    “Have you found something there?” the viscount asked, turning back to her.
    “No, no.” She looked over her shoulder at him. “The stones are rough here. I’m just looking at them.”
    He nodded. “Be careful then. Don’t scrape yourself.”
    “Yes, I’ll be careful.” She closed her fingers around the scrap without looking down at it. It was not that she didn’t trust the viscount, but she didn’t know any of these people that well yet. So it was best to keep what she’d found to herself, for the time being at least.
    She looked around. “I just don’t see how that stone could have fallen accidentally.”
    “Ghosts,” he suggested again with that cheerful grin.
    “Oh, do be sensible.” She put her hand