GhostlyPersuasion (3 page)

With her head down, she didn’t notice Seamus standing in the
middle of the room until she practically ran into him.

“Jesus!” She jumped back in alarm. “Don’t do that!”

“Do what?” Seamus asked even though a smiled played across
his lips.

“Just… Just…” Katie shook her open hand in his direction to
indicate she meant all of him. “Just show up like that. Can’t you knock or
something?”

“Actually—”

“Oh, never mind,” she said, exasperated. Her heart was
racing and she struggled to get it under control. “I know you can’t knock but
you should announce yourself instead of just poofing in. Sheesh.”

“Poofing? I don’t think I have ever poofed in to anything.”
Seamus sounded somewhat insulted.

“Oh you know what I mean.” Katie stomped over to the couch.
“One minute you’re not there and suddenly you are.” She dropped onto her chosen
seat then waved in Seamus’ direction. “Poof.”

“Ah. I see.” He followed her to the sitting area and took a
seat at the other end of the couch. “I’m guessing that I don’t always manifest
this state in a way that you can see me.”

“This state?”

“Before I answer your obvious question, I believe that you
owe me an introduction.”

“Oh my God.” Katie sat up straight on the couch. “I’m so
sorry. I’m normally not that rude. My name is Katherine, well, Katie, to my
friends, Ward. From America.”

“Katherine Ward.” Seamus smiled. “I had deduced by your
accent that you were from the Americas. What brings you to Tullamore?”

Katie pulled her feet up under her. “I’m bringing my
mother’s ashes home.”

Seamus dipped his head. “I’m sorry for your loss. Did she
recently pass?”

“No. Actually she died about three years ago.” At the
questioning look in his eye she added, “I wasn’t told of her request to be
brought home to Ireland until a couple of weeks ago.”

“Then I’m doubly sorry for your loss.” He regarded her for a
moment. “Your mother was Irish then.” It was a statement more than a question.

“Yes.”

“You do look like a daughter of Ireland.” A frown creased
his forehead as he continued to study her.

Katie squirmed nervously. “Did I suddenly sprout horns out
of the top of my head?” she finally asked, uncomfortable with the way Seamus
was looking at her.

“I was just thinking you look like someone I’ve seen
before.” He absently rubbed his chin as he got lost in his thoughts once again.
Then he shook his head as if to clear it and said, “I’ll think of it later.”

“If you say so,” Katie mumbled. “So,” she said brightly,
changing the subject. “How did you come to be a spirit at Tullamore? Were you
mortally wounded in battle on the castle grounds? Or did you fall off one of
the castle walls during a siege? Or anything like that?”

Seamus’ face darkened. Katie instinctively leaned back, away
from the rage and disgust she saw in his eyes.

“I was cursed by a whore pretending to be a lady.”

“Cursed?” Katie asked. Chills broke out across her skin. Was
he for real?

Based on all her experiences with the odd and the unusual it
was hard for her to dispute what he said, but the idea of someone being cursed
was horrifying.

Seamus nodded curtly. “Aye, cursed.”

“So you were killed when the, er, when you were cursed?”

“I wasn’t killed.” At her wide-eyed stare he added, “I’m not
dead.”

“But…”

He shook his head, continuing to deny what she insisted was
the truth.

“I can see you though,” she insisted.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re one of the few
who can.”

“Yeah, but I see ghosts. You know, people who have died but
their spirits haven’t gone over to the other side? How is it that I can see you
if you aren’t dead?”

“You see people who are still alive too.” He shrugged.
“Maybe it’s because I’m both. Or neither.” He stood suddenly and raked his hand
through his hair. “I’m not sure what I am. I haven’t known for a great many
years.” His voice trailed off as he added, “Somewhere along the way I gave up
trying to figure it out.”

Katie’s heart ached for him. It must be horrible living a
half-life and not being able to interact with people the way he used to. She
pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “What
happened when you were… Well, when this curse went into effect?”

Her question jarred Seamus from his thoughts. He walked over
to the window closest to the fireplace and looked out. “I was born in the year
of our Lord, 1703.”

Katie couldn’t contain her gasp of surprise.

“When I was fourteen I apprenticed with a well-known
woodcarver in a neighboring town. After I served out my apprenticeship I
returned to Kilmorny to be near my family.

“My younger brother had died the previous year and my father
was in poor health. Once I saw how much my mother needed me, I set out to find
work. Lord Thomas Chichester held Tullamore back then and was working on one of
the many expansions to the castle. I made an agreement with him for a few small
carvings and once he saw my work, he decided to hire me exclusively for the
work in the new section of the castle.”

Katie shifted on the couch but Seamus didn’t turn away from
the window. She guessed it was hard for him to dredge up those memories.

“I spent a lot of time at Tullamore. Along with dozens of
other local men who had been hired to work there. Unfortunately having that
many able-bodied men behind the castle walls drew the attention of the Lord’s
much-younger and over-pampered wife Etain.

“Etain was a beautiful woman. It was far too easy for her to
catch the eye of the men around her. And almost every man she lured to her bed
went, whether they were married or not.”

Seamus finally turned and looked at Katie. “Until me.”

“You told her no?” she asked.

Seamus nodded.

“And she didn’t like it,” Katie guessed.

“No, she didn’t.” Seamus paced the width of the room. “At
first she thought I was just trying to do right by his Lordship, but after
repeatedly refusing her, she became angry.

“She tried telling me his Lordship would never know. Then
she tried to make me feel sorry for her. More than once she hinted at how
lonely it was living in the castle with nothing but servants because her
husband was too busy doing things for the king or settling disputes between
peasants.”

At Katie’s snort of disbelief, Seamus grinned. “She truly
had a gift for weaving a sad story.”

“I’m sure she did.” Katie let her contempt show in each
word.

“When she realized I wasn’t falling for her story, she
resorted to trickery. She followed me around, waiting for opportunities to
corner me. She told me if I didn’t do as she wanted, she would tell her husband
I had attacked her.”

“Damn. How desperate was she?” Katie exclaimed.

Seamus seemed surprised by Katie’s outburst.

“Not that I’m surprised she’d want to sleep with you
because, well, you…” Katie’s face blushed scarlet. “I mean that you’re so…”

She waved a hand in his direction but couldn’t look him in
the eye. “I’m just making a blunder of this,” Katie muttered. She folded her
arms across her chest and sank into the corner of the couch.

“How about if I just take that as a compliment and go on
with my story, then?” Seamus asked with a quirk of his lips.

“Please do.” Katie sulked.

“I found myself going to great lengths to make sure I was
never alone with Etain. Any time she was around, if I couldn’t leave
immediately I had at least two other people nearby.”

“That had to be annoying.”

“To be sure,” Seamus agreed. “But I needed the work and, in
truth, I enjoyed putting my training to use.” He raised his hand up in front of
his face and curled his fingers into a fist then flexed them out again. “After
all these years, I do miss working the wood,” he said wistfully.

“I’m sure avoiding Etain drove her up the wall. What did she
do?”

“It took a few decades to figure out, but I learned Etain
went to the local wisewoman to purchase a love spell and ended up stealing her
spell book.”

“A wisewoman who sold love spells?” she asked with a lift of
one eyebrow.

Shrugging one shoulder, Seamus said, “Wisewoman. Healer.
Witch. They’ve been called many things. All I can tell you is that there have
been generations of women who have lived in this area and have helped and even
protected the people of Tullamore Castle with their extraordinary gifts.”

“All women?”

“Yes. Apparently the abilities and the knowledge pass from
mother to daughter. What few sons were born to these women had none of their
gifts.”

“What kind of gifts?” Katie’s heartbeat sped up.

Seamus turned in her direction. “Stories have been told of
the Mac au Bhaird for centuries. Most had a skill for growing herbs and for
healing. Because of their close ties to Tullamore, they are able to sense when
danger approaches. Some could even tell you what was going to happen. There
were others that could supposedly control the weather.”

Katie shivered as a chill passed through her. “Interesting,”
she mumbled. She was determined not to give anything away about her connection
to the Mac au Bhaird family. That knowledge was still new to her and she wasn’t
sure what to think. Perhaps once she’d met some of the family she’d feel
better. If they had similar abilities to her and her mother, maybe she’d feel
less like a freak. Katie shook free of her thoughts and asked, “So how did she
put the spell on you? Say a few magic words and wave a wand? Or did she give
you some kind of potion?”

“A potion, I’m afraid.”

“How did she get you to drink it?”

“That was easy enough,” he snorted. “She sent one of the
kitchenmaids with a tankard of drink out to where I was working. It was a warm
summer day and I was caught up in the carving I was working on. I thought it
was full of spiced cider until after I had swallowed most of it.”

Seamus began to pace again.

“You don’t have to tell me the rest if you don’t want to,”
Katie said quietly. “I can tell it bothers you.”

“I don’t mind the telling.” He ran one hand through his hair
and rubbed his forehead as if it ached right between his eyes. “It’s difficult
to sift through the gaps of what I remember about that day.”

Once more Seamus returned to the window. “I remember
thinking the drink tasted funny and that I’d been poisoned. My head was
swimming and I tried to get help.”

He stared out the window but Katie could tell he wasn’t
seeing anything outside. He was focused on the scene in his head.

“Everything got fuzzy and I collapsed before I could even
get to the door. Next time I opened my eyes, Etain was kneeling next to me,
telling me how she wished she didn’t have to do it, but that I needed to say
something. Something about her and me. Then there was a woman screaming and a
slap. When I opened my eyes again, Etain had the kitchen girl by the arm and
was telling her to keep quiet or she’d be sorry. The girl was holding her cheek
and crying. What was odd was she was looking at me and appeared to be more
afraid of me than of Etain.

“When I reached for the girl, wanting to help her, she
became even more frightened and backed away despite Etain’s grip on her arm.
That’s when I noticed that I could see through most of my hand and arm.”

“Oh God, Seamus,” Katie whispered.

“I’m not sure what happened next. Etain said something but I
didn’t pay attention because I was trying to figure out what was happening to
me. I remember thinking my body felt as if it were stuffed with wool and there
was an odd tingling everywhere. I must have blacked out because the next thing
I knew I was in a dark room with no candles or lamps.

“I stumbled around the room, trying to figure out where I
was, but I was weak and my head felt as if I had been drinking the strongest
ale made. It didn’t take long to realize I couldn’t feel things as I used to.
As I lay on the floor, it was no longer cold or hard. Just there, somehow. As I
stumbled around the room I felt no furniture in my path. When I stumbled
through the wall into the hallway with no impediment, I knew something was
very, very wrong.”

Seamus turned to look at Katie. She stared back, misty-eyed.
She couldn’t even imagine going through that without losing a little bit of
sanity.

He walked to the couch and crouched down before her. “Why do
you cry?”

“It’s just not right that someone could do something like
that to another person,” Katie said emphatically. “To curse you to a
pseudo-life for no reason. No reason other than her own greed.”

Seamus reached up and Katie thought he was going to wipe her
tear away. She was surprised when something cool and tingly brushed her cheek.
“What did you just do?”

“I…” Seamus looked at his hand. “I touched your tear.” He
rubbed his finger and thumb together. “And maybe your face.” He sat back on his
haunches.

“But I felt something. Something that felt cool and kind of
buzzy.” Katie absently patted the spot on her cheek where he had touched. “It
was kind of like putting your tongue on the prongs of a nine-volt battery.”
When she got no response from Seamus she asked, “You’ve never done that, have
you?”

He shook his head.

“Well, it’s a weird feeling. Not painful. Just, well, weird.
What did it feel like to you?”

“For the first time in hundreds of years, I felt warmth. It
was, as you said, weird. And surprising.”

“In all this time, you haven’t felt warmth whenever you
touched anyone else?”

“No. And believe me, I’ve tried a lot of different things,
testing the limits of being a spirit. Some of those, quite frankly, were even
done as a desperate attempt to end this existence.”

He cocked his head to one side. “Would you mind if I tried
it again, to see if it was just a chance occurrence?”

“You want to touch me again?” Katie sat up straight. “No. I
mean, yes.” A faint blush warmed her cheeks. “I mean I don’t mind.”

“Are you sure?” Seamus tried to hold back his grin but
failed.

“Yes, I’m sure.” She cleared her throat. “I’m, uh, curious.
In the past, when I’ve come in contact with spirits, I have never felt anything
other than chilled air.”

Katie turned her face and leaned closer, basically
presenting her cheek to him. “All right. Go ahead.”

When he didn’t move, Katie glanced at him from the corner of
her eye. He seemed more interested in the freckles on her nose and cheeks than
the tingles he’d felt.

“Did it work?” Katie prompted.

“I, uh, sorry. I got lost in a thought,” he said, shaking
off whatever he’d been thinking. He raised his hand to touch her and Katie saw
it tremble just inches away from her face.

When they made contact, it surprised them both.

“Whoa.” Katie’s eyes widened but she didn’t pull away. “There
is definitely something there.”

Seamus slid his hand up her cheek and into her hair.

“What does that feel like?” he asked Katie, his voice rough
with emotion.

“It’s… It’s a cool, tingly feeling. Almost like the way
peppermint feels.”

“Peppermint.” He ran his hand through her hair, following
the strands down her shoulder and onto her arm. “So is that a good thing or a
bad thing?”

“I, uh… It’s definitely not a bad thing.” Katie swallowed
nervously. “What about you? You said you felt warmth?”

He looked up. “Not a great deal. But after hundreds of years
of nothingness, even that bit of warmth is a blessing.”

“How about if I try it?”

“Try what?”

“Try touching you.”

“Please do.”

“Okay, sit back and close your eyes. I don’t want you to
anticipate feeling something. I’d rather know for sure you did.”

“All right.” He did as she asked.

Instead of his cheek, Katie tried to touch his chest where
it was exposed through his shirt. “Well?” she asked quietly.

“It’s warm.” Without opening his eyes he put his hand over
the spot she was touching. “Right here.”

“So it’s not just me.”

He opened his eyes. “No.”

For a moment their gazes locked and neither of them moved.
Finally Katie said, “Okay then.”