She shook her head and headed farther into the garden. Running from him. Aggie was never supposed to run from him.
“Aggie, don’t run. I need…” He swallowed and started after her. “I need to tell you something.” He gained on her rapidly, chasing her through the garden and toward the chapel. Toward the tomb of Katherine Parr. He wasn’t sure why she was headed in that direction, but he had to stop her before she reached the building. After her near miss with the chandelier, he was starting to believe that ghosts could harm a person. And he could not let that happen.
When she was finally within reach, he grabbed her from behind and encircled her body, wrapping his arms around her waist, pressing her back securely to his chest. He tried to inhale her, pull her inside him where she’d be safe. Protected. Warm.
She didn’t struggle, just sagged against him.
“Why did you run from me?” he asked.
“I wasn’t running from you,” she said. “After the chandelier fell, I saw someone—someone who wasn’t you—standing there looking at me.”
“Thomas,” Jace guessed.
“You don’t sound surprised,” she said. “Why don’t you sound surprised?”
“I don’t think it’s Thomas you need to worry about.” He was pretty sure it was Katherine slamming doors and ripping light fixtures from ceilings.
“He scared the shit out of me. Do you know what’s going on? Am I losing my mind?”
“If you are, we both are,” he said, pressing his forehead to her shoulder. “Aggie, I think I’m being haunted.”
“Well, that makes two of us,” Aggie said. “Any idea what we should do about it?”
“Not a clue.”
Chapter Ten
Aggie rubbed the stiffness from her icy fingertips. She’d almost shit a brick when she’d seen some stranger standing in Jace’s place on the dance floor. Almost being beaned on the head with a chandelier had been nothing compared to that.
“Do you think we should leave?” she asked. She hated to cancel their wedding, but this was some freaky shit they were dealing with, and she was not keen on being the mark of some crazy, dead Queen of England.
Jace sighed and his arms tightened around her. He felt so good behind her. So solid and real and… and un-ghost-like. She shuddered at the thought of what she’d seen back in the castle.
“Maybe we need to help them reconcile. That should make them leave us alone. I think I’m the one who brought Thomas here from the Tower of London, and she’s been here waiting for him all this time.”
Aggie shook her head, glad her senses were returning. She’d completely freaked out in the ballroom, but now she was half-convinced that she hadn’t actually seen Thomas Seymour’s likeness. It made a heck of a lot more sense to think she’d just imagined it.
But Jace was talking about both of them—two ghosts—as if they were real.
“Okay, this is just too bizarre,” she said. “I don’t believe in this kind of thing at all.”
“Me neither, but it’s kind of hard to deny it’s happening when you’re living it.”
She begged to differ. “I am perfectly capable of remaining in denial, thank you very much.”
“Have you heard the voices too?” He squeezed her as if trying to force agreement from her lips.
“No, I just see things. You can hear them?”
“Unfortunately. I hear him a lot. I even hear her. And I see her sometimes. In you. I thought I was losing my mind.”
Aggie shuddered. “Maybe you are.”
“Maybe.”
“Then I am too.” Aggie turned in Jace's arms and clung to him. “I don't have much experience with this kind of thing."
He snorted through a small laugh and nuzzled her neck. “Does anyone?”
“Maybe the guy from Crossing Over.”
“I always thought that was fake.”
“Me too.”
“I don't think these two intend any harm,” he said, pulling her tighter. “Or I didn't until that chandelier came crashing down. It could have killed you.”
“I'm okay,” she assured him. “Not something I'd like to repeat, however. Maybe we should let them talk this out.”
“And how do we do that?”
She shrugged. “No idea. Like I said, I don't have much experience with this kind of thing.”
“Where's a good ghost whisperer when you need one? Or maybe an exorcist is better qualified for the job.”
She chuckled and pulled away so she could turn to stare into his eyes in the dim light of the lanterns that lit the garden. The snow had changed over to a dreary drizzle, and she began to feel the cold seeping into her skin. Before, she'd been too freaked out and juiced up on adrenaline to notice the temperature. She snuggled close to Jace again, telling herself she just wanted to be next to him for warmth, not because she was afraid of things she didn’t believe existed and because Jace made her feel safe.
He seemed to be more sensitive to this bizarreness than she was, so she asked, “When did you first hear the voices?”
It was infinitely easier to talk about it if it was his problem, not hers.
“When we stepped out of the car five months ago.”
She stiffened. “You heard them the first time we visited? Is that why you were acting so strange that day?”
“Yeah.”
“And you agreed to come back to this place? I'd have run for the hills.”
“I felt drawn to this place. I still do.”