Sinners On Tour 06 Sinners at the Altar (47 page)

“Shut up,” he growled.

Thomas!
The name echoed through his mind.

His legs started to move again, carrying him down the passageway he’d seen her take, out a side door, into a garden. Flurries of snowflakes fell from the dark sky, melting as soon as they landed. His breath billowed like a cloud before him as he panted to catch his breath.

“Katherine?” he called.

Stay away!
He heard her wrath within himself. Felt it even.

He caught a motion up ahead and his heart stuttered. Aggie stood in the garden with both arms wrapped around her body as she tried to hold in wracking sobs.

“Aggie?” He stepped closer. “You okay?”

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.”

“So have you been possessed by the spirit of Thomas Seymour your entire life?”

Aggie felt the lift of Jace's shoulders as he shrugged.
“Never met him before that last visit. I think he's using me as some sort of guide. He can't find this place unless I'm here.”

“But why you?”

“Hell if I know. It isn't as if he tells me his plans or how these things work.”

“And you see her too?”

“Sometimes,” he said, “when I look at you. And I'll be honest, it freaks me the fuck out.”

“I still think maybe we should just leave. It isn't as if Thomas bothers you when we aren't here, and our chandeliers at home are brand new.”

“You don't think we should try to help them? They want to be together, but they suck at communication.”

Aggie laughed and gave Jace a squeeze. “We used to struggle with that.”

“Are you guys out here?” Eric yelled from the steps of a side entrance.

“Yeah,” Jace called.

“Is she still breathing? We banished the evil chandelier from the dance floor. You can come back now.”

“We’re sort of busy at that moment,” Jace returned.

“Are you two having sex out there?” he asked. “Can I watch? It's been a while since I’ve watched anyone but myself and Reb.”

“No and no,” Aggie yelled.

“Dammit,” he muttered before turning away. “You should come back inside soon. It's cold.”

Aggie covered Jace's chilled ears with her hands. “I hardly noticed,” she whispered. “I'm kind of afraid to go back to the ball. People must think I’m crazy for running out like that.”

“I’m sure they just think you were rattled from a chandelier attempting to kill you.”

“Well, I guess that’s better than what
really
has me rattled,” she said.

“Let’s walk the gardens for a bit. I’m not ready to face the crowd or the questions.”

He was staring at her with a rare intensity. If she wasn’t mistaken, his eyes were misty.

“What’s wrong, baby?” she asked.

“When that chandelier came crashing down, I thought…” He swallowed. “I thought I might lose you.”

“The night before our wedding?”
Aggie said. “You should be so lucky.”

Aggie moved away from Jace and took his hand. She could definitely feel the cold now that he wasn't pressed firmly against her.
She couldn’t believe he’d been suffering with this in silence. Actually, she could believe it. And she suddenly felt like a complete jerk for intentionally messing with him earlier.

“Jace, I have a confession.
And an apology.” She squeezed his fingers. “I’m sorry I tried to scare you. If I’d known that you really were hearing things and seeing ghosts, I wouldn’t have done it.”

“Scare me? When did you scare me?” he asked.

“
I
wrote that message on the mirror. A kind of Halloween practical joke. I figured we’d get a good laugh out of it tomorrow, but I don’t think it’s funny anymore.”

Jace kissed her soundly on the lips. “Thank God it was you. I was starting to think these ghosts could do real damage. Maybe that chandelier falling right after I said I didn’t love Katherine was just a coincidence.”

“Maybe,” she said, but she kind of doubted it.

“But we need to make sure,” he said, drawing her to a halt at the steps of the chapel.

“Why are we here?”

“We’re going
inside. To visit Katherine’s tomb.”

Aggie stopped in midstride. “Oh no, we’re not,” she said, shaking her head vehemently. “I’m not going in there on Halloween night.”

“Why not? You don’t believe there are really ghosts in there, do you?”

“Maybe.
I’d love to say we could explain all this away, but if they’re talking to you and you’re seeing things…” She patted his shoulder. “Let me put it this way, I’d rather believe in ghosts than believe you’re crazy.”

“Good. Because I need to deal with this, this
haunting
or whatever it is,” he said. “Now that you know what’s been happening to me and you haven’t called the loony wagon yet, I feel like I can face the problem head on. I want to face it. With you. Does that make sense?”

She squeezed his chilled fingers and smiled. “Yeah and it makes me happy that you feel that way.”

Well, happy in a
I don’t really want to do this but can’t refuse the man anything because he asks so little
kind of way. Jace was the type who didn’t put his whole heart into many things—with the exception of his band and their music, his woman, his cat, and apparently the troubled romance of a couple who’d been dead for nearly five hundred years—so Aggie supposed she had no choice but to follow him to Queen Katherine’s tomb. On Halloween night. When the woman’s jealous spirit was pissed as hell at her.

Chapter Eleven

Jace entered the dimly lit tomb alone. Aggie hung back in the corridor, peering around with wide eyes. Now that Jace had come to terms with what was going on, he and Aggie had shifted roles. It was common for that to happen in their relationship, so he didn’t waste time pondering why Aggie was afraid of things that probably couldn’t hurt her and he was paralyzed by the things that could. The sight of that chandelier on the floor where Aggie had been standing split seconds before—and the very
thought
of losing her—had immediately put everything into perspective for him. Jace refused to let a pair of wayward souls endanger his woman or encroach upon what would be the happiest day of his life, so he was going to put an end to this nonsense right now. At least that’s what he told himself until a breeze swept into the room, causing the few lit candles around the perimeter of the tomb to sputter. He wondered if they burned candles in the tomb every night or if Halloween was a special occasion.

“Jace!”
Aggie whispered loudly. “Let’s go back to the ball. People are probably worried about us.”

“Not until these two agree to leave us alone.”

“They can’t follow us back to L.A., can they?”

“It wasn’t likely,” he said, smirking at his shoes, “until you just told them where to find us.”

“I refuse to be haunted the rest of my life,” Aggie said. She darted into the tomb and grabbed Jace’s hand, squeezing it hard enough for the pain to rob him of his breath.

“Katherine, I know you’re in here. Come out and talk to us.”

I won’t talk to her. Your
whore
. Did you wait until my body was cold before you took her to your bed, Thomas?

Aggie glanced around
curiously, her full lower lip trapped between her teeth, but didn’t seem upset. She obviously hadn’t heard Katherine’s insult; Aggie didn’t take shit from anyone. Not even queens or ghosts of queens.

“You have me confused with someone else,” Jace said. “I’m not Thomas.”

“Are you talking to her right now?” Aggie whispered.

Jace nodded.

“I can’t hear her.”

“She said she doesn’t want to talk to you. She thinks you’re the one Thomas slept with after she died.”

I know you slept with her. I saw you together in the cottage.

Okay, a ghost watching them have sex was even weirder than when his cat decided to play captivated audience.

“What did she say?” Aggie asked.

“Uh… She… well…” His cheeks burned with the heat of embarrassment. It quickly spread to both ears. “…saw us together.”

Aggie lifted an eyebrow at him. “Saw us together? When?”

His cheeks flamed hotter.

“In the cottage this afternoon?”

He is mine!
Katherine’s voice roared through Jace’s head.

Aggie stiffened. “Okay, I heard that.”

“She thinks I’m Thomas.”

“Probably because he’s latched on to you for some reason,” Aggie said. “Is he with you now?”

Jace went still and listened, hoping for the first time to hear those weird voices in his head. Jace’s shrink would have a field day with the entire experience. If he ever told him about it. He hadn’t been to therapy in ages, no longer felt a need for it. Strange that he’d consider it now.

“I think he’s gone. I haven’t sensed his presence since we were in the garden. It seems he’s more afraid of facing Katherine than we are.”

“I’m not afraid of her.” Aggie grabbed Jace by the lapels of his jacket and pulled him close so she could take his mouth in a deep, passionate kiss. At first he was too stunned to push her away and then, as the heat between them escalated, he didn’t want to. His arms circled her back and drew her closer as his lips and tongue met hers.

The sounds of sobs echoed through Jace’s head, growing fainter until he could no longer hear them.

“You two seriously aren’t going to do it in a tomb, are you?” a soft voice said behind them. “I have a taste for the macabre myself, but that’s pretty hardcore, even for you, Ice.”

Jace stiffened. He’d purposely been avoiding Starr—
Fire
—since Aggie had told him they’d once been lovers, but there was no way out of the tomb except the way they’d entered, and Starr happened to be standing in the doorway.

Aggie tugged her mouth from Jace’s. “I hadn’t planned to take it that far,
” she said to Starr, and then lowered her voice to a whisper, “but if we’re trying to upset a jealous ghost, I think that would do it.”

“I don’t want to upset her any more than we already have,” Jace said quietly, hoping Starr wouldn’t overhear. Aggie knowing that he was being haunted was one thing. Starr knowing it was entirely different. “I want her to find peace, even if it’s with a philandering traitor who abandoned his own child and put his ambitions before his family.”

What would you have me do?
Thomas’s voice echoed through Jace’s head.
I would have gladly laid down in the grave beside her and died to spare myself the last miserable months of my existence.

“He’s back,” Jace whispered. “I can hear him again.”

Aggie released Jace and turned to Starr. “Were you looking for me or did you just happen upon me making out with my fiancé in a tomb by accident?”

Starr grinned. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have interrupted. Looked as if it were about to get interesting.”

“You have no idea,” Aggie muttered.

“I wasn’t looking for you—just trying to avoid that tall whack-job who keeps asking me to autograph things—but I’m glad I found you. I don’t have anyone to talk to but you.”

Jace snorted. Eric was a whack-job, but he couldn’t believe Eric would actually hound Starr for autographs. On second thought, he could totally believe it.

“I thought you had a thing for Dare Mills,” Aggie said.

“Oh, I do. Unfortunately he doesn’t have a thing for me.” Starr scratched her ear and met Jace’s eyes before swinging her gaze back to Aggie. “Can we talk?” This time she gave Jace a pointed look. “
Alone
?”

“Anything you need to say to me, you can say in front of Jace,” Aggie said.

Starr shook her head. “You don’t want him to hear this. This is about that
thing
you’re trying to pretend didn’t happen.”

“Do you mean our past sexual relationship?” Aggie asked bluntly.

Starr’s eyebrows shot toward her hairline. “Uh, I thought you didn’t want him to know.” She nodded toward Jace.

“I told him. Because
someone
gave enough hints to make him question my relationship with you. And
someone
is giving enough hints now that if the first round hadn’t tipped him off, this encounter certainly would. Why are you doing this, Starr?”

“You’re okay with marrying a lesbian?” Starr directed the question at Jace.

“I’m not marrying a label. I’m marrying Aggie and everything that comes with her—past, present, and future.”

Starr shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Now isn’t that touching?”

“Don’t make me regret asking you to be here for me,” Aggie said. “I’ve been trying to hold on to pieces of my old life so I never forget where I came from, but maybe it’s time to let all that go.”

Jace stared at Aggie in disbelief. She wasn’t serious was she? Her past had made her the woman she was—the woman he loved. Would she change into something unrecognizable if she let it go?

Aggie chuckled. “Of course that would mean admitting my mother was right and that ain’t never gonna happen. So why are you really here, Starr?”

“I just came to check on you. If you need to talk to someone about the way he treats you, I’m all ears.”

“The way he treats me?” Aggie swiveled her head in Starr’s direction. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I just know how guys treat women like us. We are alike—you and I—and men see us a certain way. They treat us a certain way. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, Aggie.”

Jace saw very few similarities between Aggie and Starr, so he wasn’t sure why Starr insisted they were lumped in the same category.

“Oh my God, Starr,” Aggie bellowed. “Are you fucking kidding me? You know he doesn’t treat me like his slut. I’d never put up with that bull. Now stop being a jealous bitch and pull your shit together.”

Starr’s jaw dropped, and for a moment Jace thought he was going to have to break up a cat fight, but then Starr laughed.

“You’re right,” she said and shook her head, sending her dangling earrings swaying. “You are right. I’m jealous. I am. I admit it. And I’m not jealous of Jace for winning you. I cou
ld have had you if I’d wanted you. I’m jealous of
you
for finding someone to accept you the way he does.
Christ
, he saved your life tonight, Aggie. Did you even thank him?”

Aggie glanced at Jace, who suddenly wished he was invisible. He didn’t need her thanks. He was just glad she hadn’t been hurt.

“Thanks, baby,” Aggie said and placed a rather platonic kiss on his cheek.

“It was nothing.”

“It wasn’t nothing,” Starr said. “I don’t have
anyone
who would stick their neck out for me like that.”

Jace tilted his head to the side. “I would.” He’d have shoved a perfect stranger out of harm’s way. It wasn’t a big deal.

“You would?” Starr squeaked.

“Of course he would,” Aggie said. “I’m not sure what you’re so worked up about.”

“Do you know how fucking rare it is to find a man like him, Ice?”

Aggie nodded and turned her head to look at Jace. “Yeah, I do. And that’s why I’ll never let anything come between us.
Not you or anyone else; living or dead.”

The redhead is exceptionally attractive,
Thomas’s voice sounded through Jace’s head unexpectedly.
Do you think I could have a go at her?

“Where do you find a guy like him?” Starr asked. “You wouldn’t happen to have a brother, would you, Jace?”

Jace shook his head, answering Thomas and Starr simultaneously. But he did have an annoying ghost Starr was welcome to have.

“Let’s go back to the party,” Aggie said. “People probably think we’re fighting.”

“Most of them know better,” Jace said.

Aggie laughed. “Yeah, most of them probably think we bailed early so we could spend time dancing between the sheets rather than on the dance floor. No telling what Eric told them we were up since he was the one who checked on us.”

He’d love to be alone with Aggie dancing between the sheets. Unfortunately, they weren’t alone no matter where they went while at the castle. And Jace sure didn’t want Thomas and Katherine yelling in his head when he was pouring his heart out to Aggie the next day. The ghosts had to go and he had to be the one to make them leave.

“You two head on back,” he said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

Aggie’s eyebrows drew together. “What’s going on?”

Jace chuckled.
“Voices in my head.”

Starr gave him an odd look, but Aggie nodded before kissing him gently. “Don’t keep me waiting too long. I don’t want anyone thinking I murdered you and buried you in the garden.”

He grinned. “I won’t.”

He watched her walk away with Starr, and then he sat on the ledge of Queen Katherine’s tomb.

“You still there, Thomas?” He spoke to the stone floor.

I am.

“Go after her. Go after Katherine. Don’t hesitate. Go now.”

She doesn’t want me.

“She waited for you for five hundred years. She wants you. She loves you. But you hurt her, so you have to fix it. You don’t want to spend eternity alone, do you?”

A deep sorrow settled in Jace’s heart. He didn’t know if it was his sadness or Thomas’s.
An eternity alone? And he’d once thought a life lived alone was unbearable. He couldn’t imagine spending all eternity alone.

If I’d known I’d see her again, I wouldn’t have tried to forget her in the arms of other women. Kat was different. Kat saw me, the man beneath the scoundrel. She knew what I was and loved me anyway.

“I have a woman like that,” Jace said.

Treat her well.

Jace nodded. “I’ll do my best.”

He sat quietly for a moment, wondering if his best was really good enough for Aggie. Even with a lifetime of loving stretching before them, he wasn’t sure if that was enough time to give her all that she deserved.
But if they could be together forever—beyond death—then maybe… Maybe she could come to realize the depth of his devotion.

He couldn’t imagine the devastation that Thomas must have endured when Katherine died
; first watching his child grow within her, seeing her hold that child, love that child, then watching her die days later, leaving them to carry on without her. Jace didn’t know that he’d have made the same decisions Thomas made—being unable to love the child they’d created—or if he’d have clung to and cherish the little piece of her left on Earth, but he knew that if he ever lost Aggie, his heart might as well stop beating.