Page 52 of Thus with a Kiss I Die

“Last night, I did.”

Elder, you said I was the only one. Where are you?“This ghost was in Nonna Ursula’s bedchamber?”

“I saw a dark cloaked form slip from her sitting room and drift toward the tower.” Pasqueta kept shivering, little quivers of remembered terror. “He wore the old prince’s cloak. The one from the portrait! I saw it. I knew it!”

“What did you do?”

She blushed, such a rapid change from her previous pale complexion I was afraid she’d keel over from the change. “I ran in the other direction, back the way I came.”

“And?”

“I’m so ashamed. I splashed half the posset out of the cup.”

My gaze fell to her flexing hands; livid blisters had risen and discolored her skin.

The worse was yet to come. “I left Princess Ursula alone while I worked up my nerve to creep back. I’m such a coward. When my princess said she’d hold a séance, I knew she would rouse the spirits, and she did. She did!”

Although Elder had found a way of defusing my trembling fear of ghosts—his caustic sentiments made him seem less a phantom from beyond and more an in-law to be avoided—yet I could still comprehend her overwhelming fright. “You didn’t confess to Friar Laurence because . . . ?”

“Old Maria was right to sound the warning against me. I failed in my duty to my beloved mistress.” Her eyes, wretched with guilt, overflowed and she wept in true remorse.

I patted her shoulder, and when she’d gained control, I grasped her wrist. “A ghost is a spirit without a body. Without flesh, it cannot pick up a weapon. It cannot beat an old woman senseless.”

“But you don’t know what a ghost can do . . .”

I stared, impressing on her my true knowledge.

“You’ve seen a ghost?” Her voice grew hoarse. “You’ve seen the spirit of the murdered prince?”

“Have you not heard such claims?”

“The palace gossip claims it’s so, but to me, you seem so . . . normal.”

Fooled her!“Do you understand what I’m saying? If the figure you saw is a ghost, he couldn’t have hurt Nonna Ursula. Plus, Prince Escalus the elder truly loves and admires his mother.”

Pasqueta scooted her chair back from mine.

I continued, “If the villain who attacked the dowager princess is a man—”

“But the window!” She pointed. “He escaped out the window!”

“Perhaps not. Perhaps he came in the window and left through the door. If he found the right place to hide, he might still be within the palace.”

“ ‘Within the palace’?” She clutched at her chest.

I didn’t know whether she feared the ghost or the intruder more. Or me, because she continued to scoot backward. “We’re all in danger!” She stood in a rush.

I still gripped her wrist. “We have guards. Tommaso stands by the window, and two of the palace men are outside the outer door. We’re safe.”

Pasqueta’s gaze swung from Tommaso, who watched and listened, toward the sitting room and back again. “I dare not stay!”

My opinion of her started a steep downward slide. “You’d leave Princess Ursula in her time of need?”

“No. No, I don’t mean that.” Pasqueta wrung her hands. “But a man in the palace. And a ghost. The guards can stop a man, if that’s what it was, but they can’t stop a ghost!”

She had me there. So I added, “Old Maria will be glad to know she’s won the competition as the most loyal of Princess Ursula’s serving maids.”

Pasqueta looked at Old Maria.