Of Midnight Born by Lisa Cach Page A

his leg.”
    Alex grimaced. “So that part got out as well? Then it’s no wonder only women were willing to hire on. I’m assumingthey all believe the part of the legend that says it is only men Serena dislikes.”
    “There’s an element of competition to it now,” Rhys said, tossing twigs into the water. “Every woman for ten miles is using Marcy and Daisy as her proof that when push comes to shove, women have more backbone than men. They are even laying bets on it.”
    “I can only hope, for the sake of my clean shirts, that they win those bets.”
    Rhys stopped his twig tossing and looked at Alex, his brows drawn together. “Did Leboff truly have bite marks on his leg?”
    Alex shrugged and resumed walking along the wooded path. “Yes, but in the chaos of the dark, I think it just as likely that Dickie bit him as that a ghost did.”
    “You’re still trying to explain things away. God, Alex! I should think it plain even to you by now that something is wrong at that castle.”
    “There have been no disturbances since that night.”
    “Most likely because Serena got what she wanted. The only males who will sleep there now are a frightened boy and you. Have you seen nothing unusual yourself?”
    “Nothing I would swear to.” He could not be certain he had seen that white mist, after all, and in the light of day he could make himself doubt that his desk had shaken, or his pen been pulled from his hand. An experience was not necessarily proof.
    Rhys narrowed his eyes at him. “Don’t play word games with me. I didn’t ask if you would be willing to tell the tale to a judge.”
    Alex shrugged. “I’ve done my share of imagining, along with the rest. I’m not willing to completely believe any of it, though.”
    “You should leave that place. There are other houses with good views. There’s no reason to stay.”
    “I won’t be chased out of my home by something that might not exist. Maybe there is something going on up there—but I don’t know what, and I cannot be absolutely certain there is a ghost. There is no evidence.”
    “What more do you need?” Rhys demanded.
    They came out of the woods, walking back up the sloping pasture. Alex stopped, looking over the green fields and up at the soft, hazy blue sky. “I don’t know what would convince me. Perhaps being led to a previously unknown tomb, or an ancient goblet appearing out of thin air. Something concrete and unknown. I can’t let myself believe in the supernatural, while there yet remain other explanations, however far-fetched.”
    Rhys slapped Alex on the shoulder. “You are one stubborn bastard. Serena could sit on your lap and give you a kiss, and you still wouldn’t believe.”
    Alex grimaced. “Let us hope it never comes to that.”
    The clock was striking two A.M. when Alex finally lifted his eyes from the pages of Ivanhoe, turning the book over on his leg to hold the place while he rubbed his eyes and pushed himself up straight in his chair, feeling the ache in his neck from holding the same position for too long. He yawned, and then as he looked around the library he felt the hairs slowly rise on the back of his neck.
    She —or it —was in the room.
    It was not so strong a sensation as he had had before, else he most likely would have been stirred from his reading, but the sensation was definitely there.
    The last time he had spoken to her, or whatever it was, his staff had had a night of hell. Beth’s theory that Serena was lonely and simply wanted attention was obviously flawed.
    Tonight he would try a far saner course than speaking to the invisible: he would not acknowledge the sensed presencein any way. He would not look toward it; he would not speak to it. This way he might even teach his own imaginative psyche that there was nothing there.
    He was privately worried that the more he let himself even think about the possibility of there being a ghost, the more likely he would come to believe it to be true, whether or not