Free Born In Ice by Nora Roberts Page A

place like this?"

    He parked the car, shut it off. "I nearly did, then I heard about your inn. Call it impulse." He flashed a grin at her. "I like impulses."

    He climbed out of the car, took her hand to lead her up the stone steps into the great hall.

    It was spacious and lush, as castles should be, with dark wood and deep red carpets. There was the smell of wood-smoke from the fire, the glint of crystal, the lonely sound of harp music.

    "I stayed in a castle in Scotland," he began, moving toward the dining room with his fingers twined with hers. "And one in Cornwall. Fascinating places, full of shades and shadows."

    "You believe in ghosts?"

    "Of course." His eyes met hers as he reached out to take her coat. "Don't you?"

    "I do, yes. We have some, you know, at home."

    "The stone circle."

    Even as she felt surprise, she realized she shouldn't. He would have been there, and he would have felt it. "There, yes, and other places."

    Gray turned to the maitre d'. "Thane," he said simply.

    They were welcomed, shown to their table. As Gray accepted the wine list, he glanced at Brianna. "Would you like wine?"

    "That would be nice."

    He took a brief glance, smiled up at the sommelier. "The Chassagne-Montrachet."

    "Yes, sir."

    "Hungry?" he asked Brianna, who was all but devouring the menu.

    "I'm trying to memorize it," she murmured. "I dined here once with Maggie and Rogan, and I've come close to duplicating this chicken in honey and wine."

    "Read it for pleasure," he suggested. "We'll get a copy of the menu for you."

    She eyed him over the top. "They won't give one to you."

    "Sure they will."

    She gave a short laugh and chose her meal at random. Once they'd placed their orders and sampled the wine, Gray leaned forward. "Now, tell me."

    She blinked. "Tell you what?"

    "About the ghosts."

    "Oh." She smiled a little, running a finger down her wineglass. "Well, years ago, as it happened, there were lovers. She was betrothed to another, so they met in secret. He was a poor man, a simple farmer so they say, and she the daughter of the English landlord. But they loved, and made desperate plans to run off and be together. This night, they met at the stone circle. There, they thought, at that holy place, that magic place, they would ask the gods to bless them. She carried his child now, you see, and they had no time to lose. They knelt there, at the center, and she told him she was with child. It's said they wept together, with joy and with fear as the wind whispered cold and the old stones sheltered them. And there they loved each other a last time. He would go, he told her, and take his horse from his plow, gather whatever he could, and come back for her. They would leave that very night."

    Brianna sighed a little, her eyes dreamy. "So he left her there, in the center of the circle of stones. But when he reached his farm, they were waiting for him. The men of the English landlord. They cut him down so that his blood stained the land, and they burned his house, his crops. His only thought as he lay dying was of his love."

    She paused, with the innate timing of one who knows and spins tales. The harpist in the far corner plucked softly at a ballad of ill-fated love. "And she waited there, in the center of the circle of stones. While she waited, she grew cold, so cold she began to tremble. Her lover's voice came across the fields to her, like tears in the air. She knew he was dead. And knowing, she laid down, closed her eyes, and sent herself to him. When they found her the next morning, she was smiling. But she was cold, very cold, and her heart was not beating. There are nights, if you stand in the center of the circle of stones, you can hear them whisper their promises to each other and the grass grows damp with their tears."

    Letting out a long breath, Gray sat back and sipped at his wine. "You have talent, Brianna, for storytelling."

    "I tell you only as it was told to me. Love survives, you see. Through fear,