“I’ve read bits of it, and it’s actually fascinating to see how people worked and survived at the time,” Harry said. He gestured to the castle. “Just think, you’re going to be sleeping in the same castle where generations of nobility and their servants have lived and died.”

I stopped walking and stared up at the thick stone walls. They glowed softly in the golden afternoon light. People had died in there. I wasn’t sure why this hadn’t occurred to me before, but it hadn’t.

“This place is definitely haunted,” I said. I don’t know what it said about my character that this actually thrilled me, but I was ridiculously excited to get inside and poke around.

“I’ve only heard stories of one ghost,” Harry said. “A woman, if I remember right. I can’t remember how she died but she’s said to haunt the castle to this day.”

“I wonder if I’ll see her,” I said. The thought gave me a delicious shiver.

“Oh, no,” Harry said. He shook his head and pulled me close. “You just promised not to get into trouble.”

“Well, I can’t help it if the place is haunted,” I said. I looped my arms around his neck. “I mean, ghosts are gonna ghost, you know?”

“Now you’re going to have to ring me a couple of times a day,” he said. “Just so I know you’re all right.”

“Of course,” I agreed. “After all, I’ll need updates on Bella. I know she’s a daddy’s girl but I would like to think she’ll miss me at least a little.”

“She will,” he said. “And I will, too.”

Harry planted a lingering kiss on my mouth. It was just tipping into inappropriate in public when an angry voice broke through the passionate haze.

“How dare you?” a woman’s voice cried.

I froze with my mouth against Harry’s. At first, I thought it was Piper chewing me out for kissing Harry, her former whatever, never mind that I was now engaged to the man. But the voice wasn’t right. It was shrill and defensive and scared.

“You can’t do this to me! It will ruin everything, everything. Is that what you want? To expose me?”

Harry, who had also gone still, broke the kiss and peered down at me in alarm. He jerked his head in the opposite direction of where the yelling was taking place, which was the other side of the thick rose arbor.

A man’s voice, indiscernible apart from its masculine tone, responded to the woman, sounding curt. Whatever he’d said, the woman was not having it.

“I will see you in hell first,” she snapped.