Free An Unlikely Match by Sarah M. Eden Page A

gripe she’d cited before. His shortcomings had been summed up in four words. It was his parentage and his monolingualism that were responsible for her disapproval of him. That seemed a little harsh.
    “My ancestors must have been Welsh, mustn’t they?” Nickolas asked. “Else I would not be here.”
    “The English have been here before,” was the reply. “They are not to be trusted.”
    “That is a rather all-encompassing evaluation. Are you sure it is warranted?”
    “Are you sure it is not?”
    An unexpected reply, to be sure. Any retort that might have risen to Nickolas’s lips died unspoken. A mirror hung not far from where he stood, and in it, he could clearly make out his reflection and a great deal of the room. Staring, Nickolas moved closer. According to the mirror, which he couldn’t imagine would lie to him, he stood alone in the white bedchamber.
    Nickolas snapped his head back. Gwen still floated in the midst of the room, watching him with narrowed eyes.
    Again, he studied the image in the mirror. Though he could clearly see the exact spot in the room where she stood, his mysterious companion made no reflection in the mirror.
    Good heavens! He really was talking to a ghost.
    “Why are you in my house?” Nickolas asked. Suddenly, her presence was unnerving. He could feel his heart rate increase.
    “On the contrary, Mr. Pritchard,” she answered, “you are in my home.”

Chapter Eight
     
    “I suppose yours is the prior claim,” Nickolas admitted with a shrug. I really am talking to a ghost , he thought, no less amazed than he’d been during their previous encounter.
    She actually seemed to smile the slightest bit at his rejoinder. “I have been here four hundred nineteen years. Can you top that?”
    “I didn’t want to bring it up, but I do look young for my age.” He actually smiled a little.
    Gwen looked doubtful.
    “Do you think I could pass for four hundred years old?” he asked.
    “Do you think I could?”
    He immediately shook his head. “No.” She appeared young—quite young, actually.
    She seemed to like his answer. The tension in her face appeared to lessen, and her eyes softened. ’Twas strange how even translucent features could be readable.
    “You are very much like Padrig,” Gwen said quite unexpectedly.
    “And who is Padrig?”
    “He was a son of this house,” Gwen answered, “and your several-greats grandfather—the one who hied himself to England. If he’d stayed put we all would have been spared the degradation of seeing Tŷ Mynydd fall into the hands of an Englishman.”
    He arranged his features in a look of theatrical disapproval. “Those blasted English.”
    “Words I have uttered many times,” Gwen said.
    Nickolas actually chuckled. Something about her affronted attitude was no longer menacing but almost petulant, not unlike a child stamping her foot in frustration.
    “So is my similarity to this ancestor of mine a positive thing or a negative thing?”
    “Both,” she answered sharply. “He too was fond of turning anything and everything into a joke, as if there was something to laugh about in every situation. It could be excessively frustrating.”
    “Strange. I have often been told it is excessively charming.”
    She did not bother to hide her disbelief. “Is everything a joke to you?”
    “I assure you, it is not. Though I have adopted as my life philosophy that ’tis better to laugh than to cry.”
    She actually smiled, though only slightly. “Padrig once said he’d rather shed tears of laughter than tears of sorrow.”
    “A wise man, obviously. No doubt he gave rise to extremely wise offspring.”
    “If he did, I have yet to meet any of them.”
    Somehow, Nickolas knew a laugh hid under her sharp words. “You disliked him so much, then?”
    “I did not dislike him.”
    “Why is that?” Perhaps he could discover the key to changing her opinion of him if he knew how his ancestor had won her over.
    “He was intelligent and well