“I would have done them later.” She bit her bottom lip, the green of her eyes sparkling in the overhead light. “But thanks. You didn’t have to do that.”
“I know.” He wanted to bite that lip and suck it into his mouth. Nova fought the urge to reach out and pull her into his arms, shocked by the raw need coursing through him.
Molly grabbed a full coffeepot and backed toward the swinging door, pausing as she pressed her shoulder to the door. “You should be out there enjoying your dessert with the others.”
“I’ll sit when you join us.”
Before he’d finished his words, she was shaking her head. “Not possible. This is my busiest time of the day, besides breakfast. I rarely sit.”
He dried his hands, gathered a second pot of coffee and turned toward her. “Then let me help you.”
With a smile that lit up the room, she said, “Thanks. It is a little busier than I’m used to.”
Together, he and Molly made it around the room, pouring coffee into mugs and then gathering the dessert plates as the guests polished off the last of the miniature pies.
The ghost hunters and Nova’s own table of friends pushed back and stood, moving toward the dining-room door.
Molly made one more pass to collect the last of the dishes and asked if anyone wanted anything else. “If you’re ready, you can step into the lounge. I’ll be there in a moment.”
Gabe McGregor took the plates from Molly’s hands. “Go on. Kayla and I can finish up the dishes while you see to the guests.”
Nova let Kayla take his plate and he followed Molly into the study along with Creed, Tazer and the ghost hunters.
Molly stood in front of the fireplace and waited for everyone to take a seat, then she began.
When she started, her smile was bright, her face open and frank.
“Ian McGregor came to this country from Scotland in the late eighteen hundreds to escape political oppression and make his fortune. Not long after he arrived, he signed on with the Burlington Northern Railroad Company and helped build the rail system that spanned the United States from coast to coast.
“He worked his way up the chain until he was a highly paid supervisor over a thousand men. His keen business sense allowed him to amass a significant amount of savings, which he used to buy land and businesses.
“In his late thirties, he retired from the railroad and settled here in Cape Churn, where he met the prettiest girl in town, Rose Engelmann, a beauty whose family had fallen on hard times. He courted Rose and asked her to marry him, but she had fallen in love with a pirate and had secretly been seeing him without her parents’ knowledge. Rose refused to marry Ian McGregor.
“Unbeknownst to her, Ian paid the pirate a visit to gauge the man’s intentions toward the lovely Rose. The pirate laughed about his affair with the beauty, claiming he left a woman in every port.
“Ian paid the man a hefty sum to leave and never return. As Ian had anticipated, the pirate took the money and left Cape Churn.
“Rose was heartbroken and, with her family in dire straits, agreed to marry Ian.” Molly’s brows lowered, the gleam disappearing from her eyes as she enthralled her listeners with her tale.
Nova was no exception. He leaned forward, clinging to every word, caught up in her story, almost feeling the pain of Ian’s unrequited love.
“Ian knew she didn’t care for him, but he set out to do everything in his power to make her fall in love with him, to woo her heart over to him by building her this mansion fit for a princess. He surrounded it with rose arbors and gardens so beautiful she couldn’t help but fall in love with the place as well as him. He was a kind and gentle lover, not asking more than any man would ask of his wife and treating her with respect and love.”
Molly’s gaze slipped to Nova.
His heart flipped over and beat faster, his groin tightening.
Then she lowered her lashes, hiding her emerald-green eyes as she continued, “She bore a single son, but alas, Rose couldn’t or wouldn’t fall in love with Ian—her heart still belonged to a pirate who never loved her in the first place.
“Ian was proud of his son and loved him dearly. For years he tried to gain the love of his wife, but finally gave up, growing more despondent, until one day he caught pneumonia and didn’t want to fight his way back to good health. As his physical condition declined, a ship sailed into Cape Churn, carrying Rose’s pirate. He learned of the pirate’s return from his loyal servant and valet.
“Calling Rose into his bedroom, he told her what he’d done all those years ago. If she was still in love with the pirate, and if the pirate shared the same feelings, she was free to go.
“Rose hurried to the village, anxious to be reunited with the pirate. When she arrived at his hotel, she hurried up the stairs to the room they’d shared in secret and found him in the arms of another woman. She begged him to take her back and leave the woman he was with. He laughed and told her to go away.
“Rose returned to McGregor Manor sad, angry and disappointed. Ian dragged himself out of his bed to soothe her. But she would not be consoled. Instead, she ran outside during a night when the devil had cloaked the land and cliffs in its ghostly shroud—when the fog had gathered at its thickest.
“Ian followed her, weak and sick, stumbling toward the sounds of her sobs. He found her at the edge of the cliff and tried to talk her into returning to the mansion. She refused, blaming him for driving her lover away. When he grabbed her arm to lead her back to the house, she pushed him away. He staggered backward and fell over the cliff onto the rocks below.
“Horrified, Rose finally realized what a fool she’d been. Ian had loved her and wanted nothing but the best for her. She’d thrown his love away and then pushed him to his death. Distraught and grieving for all her mistakes and for destroying her chances at love, she threw herself over the cliff to join Ian in death.
“The legend says that because neither found love in life, they wander the gardens and the mansion’s halls—Ian searching for Rose, and Rose searching for Ian. Neither ever quite finding the other.
“Many times, I’ve heard Rose’s sobs in the middle of the night.” Molly’s eyes were filled with tears at the end of the story, her voice dropping to a sad whisper. “And when the Devil’s Shroud blankets the cliffs, I swear I’ve heard the echo of Ian calling to Rose and Rose’s sobs in the sound of the waves splashing against the cliffs.”
The crowd of onlookers, including Casanova, remained silent for a full minute after Molly finished, mesmerized by Molly’s storytelling and complete believability. Whether the story was true or not didn’t matter. Everyone believed.
The room erupted in applause.
“Wow, that was beautiful.” Emma Jenkins wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “Not that I’d want to run into the pair in a dark hallway.” She shivered. “Ghosts give me the creeps just thinking about them.”
“You sure Rose didn’t kill Ian on purpose?” a woman with auburn hair asked. “Ian did send her lover away.”
