"A bean shth," she corrected. "One who has been condemned to spend eternity as a messenger of death."

"Messenger of death?"

"Aye."

Her story was too outrageous and he began to wonder if he had unwittingly become a dupe in one of those television prank shows.

"So you're sort of like Santa Claus? You fly around at night but instead of bringing presents you bring death." Caden crossed his arms over his chest. "With six billion people on the planet, you must be awfully busy."

"You do not believe me, Caden Maxwell?"

Caden uncrossed his arms and motioned for Hades to come to him.

"Okay, who are you and how do you know my name?"

"I told you, I am a bean shth."

Caden ignored her bizarre statement and repeated his second question. "How do you know my name?"

"I have known your name since it was given to you."

Hades trotted up and stood by Caden's side. The dog did not growl, shake or bark, but appeared strangely calm.

"You're a banshee?"

Deidre nodded.

"And you came to Blackstone House to let James Maxwell know that he is about to die?"

"Aye."

"You did that, so now what? Will you evaporate? Hop on a broom and fly over to France to scare the wits out of some other dying soul?"

Her eyes shimmered like the sea and for a moment she looked sad and weary.

"You do not understand."

"Enlighten me."

"I cannot leave this land." She looked at him in a raw, vulnerable way that made his heart ache. "Though it is not my wish, I am a bean shth for the Maxwell Clan. Mine is a wretched existence, tied to the misery and sorrow of the descendants of a man who once caused me misery and sorrow."

He could not look away from her bewitching, green-eyed gaze. And the longer he looked in her eyes, the more he believed her story.

"You said you were once human. How did you become a banshee?"

Birds began chirping and weak, watery sunlight filtered through the black, silhouetted trees as dawn approached.

"I once loved a man named Robert Maxwell and I thought he loved me, too," she brushed past him and he thought he could almost feel the hem of her gown pass over his boots. "But I was mistaken. He was a wicked man."

He joined her and together they walked along the shore towards Caerlaverock Castle, towering over the trees in the distance. Hades followed.

"On the eve he was to ask my father for my hand, he told me that he intended to marry another. He was terribly cruel," her voice trembled.

Apparently, caught in a web of sticky memories, she fell silent. Caden did not press her. He waited patiently until she resumed her tale.

She told him about her quarrel with Robert Maxwell on the roof of the derelict tower, candidly describing his callousness and her heartbreak, and Caden found himself wondering if there was something written into the Maxwell DNA that caused them to treat women with cruel disregard.

He hoped not. He didn't think he would able to live with himself if he ever acted in such a way.

As she described her death at the hands of his ancestor, Caden felt a blend of emotions. Fortunately, the loathing he felt for Robert Maxwell a man he'd never met, a man who had lived five hundred years before Caden's birth was surpassed by his sympathy for Deirdre Monreith.

Without thinking, he reached for her hand and was shocked when he felt her warm, slender fingers intertwine with his.

They stopped walking and turned to look at each other. Deidre's form no longer shimmered. She was not a vapourous, amorphous shape but a solid, well-proportioned woman with real, smooth skin that glowed in the orange rays of dawn.

"I don't understand!" She blushed and pulled her hand away. "You touched me and I felt it! How can that be?"

Caden shrugged.

"Beats me. I am still trying to figure out how you became a banshee."

"I don't know, but I believe someone must have uttered a curse over my dying body. Ever since my death, I have spent my days and nights in an unearthly limbo, able to see and hear the world around me but unable to interact with the people in it. Until you, the only people who could see or hear me were the dying descendants of Robert Maxwell."

Deidre wrapped her arms around her waist and let out a sigh that nearly broke Caden's heart. There was a vulnerability about her that aroused primitive, protective instincts in him.

"I have spent five hundred years silently observing the Maxwells; a mute and reluctant witness to the lives of people Fate determined I should abhor." Deidre looked deep into his eyes in a way that both excited and unnerved him. "I've watched with anticipation the birth of each Maxwell heir, hoping he would be the one to unlock the secret of my curse, for there must be some reason I am tethered to this family by supernatural ties."

"Wait a minute!" Caden raked his fingers through his hair. "Are you saying you were present at my birth?"

"Aye ... yes."

The breath left Caden's body in one violent exhalation, as if he had been tackled by a two-hundred and ninety pound defensive tackle. He took a seat on a boulder near the mudflats that joined the Solway Firth. Deidre joined him but did not press him to speak. He watched a gaggle of whooper swans gliding gracefully through the water while he tried to absorb her mind-blowing confession.

He had spent the last five years working as a day trader in the futures market, a challenging profession that required brains and balls. The most successful day traders possessed strong analytical skills, nerves of steel, and the ability to make a quick, shrewd decision despite shifting data. The most successful day traders were open-minded and unflappable. And he was definitely successful.

He believed he had made millions for his clients and himself because he possessed the ability to quickly process information. And yet, his mind reeled from all he had learned. He was trying to put it all in order, to find reason amid confusion, to alter long-held beliefs to adapt to the current trend. But accepting the downward movement of a particular stock was a lot easier than embracing the notion that a hot woman was really a banshee who had been haunting his father's family for generations.

He looked at Deidre.

"What did you see? The day I was born?"

Sadness altered her lovely features and she turned away.

"Sometimes it is better to leave the past buried lest you unearth more than you ever hoped to find."

"Really? Does that mean you don't want me to try to learn more about the circumstances surrounding your death and the curse that made you a banshee?"

She caught her lower lip between her pearly front teeth and nibbled on it.

"I will make you a bargain, Caden Maxwell. If you help me discover more about the curse, I will tell you what you wish to know about your birth."

Caden wanted to tell her that there was no need for her to bargain with him; he would have helped her anyway.

"It's a deal."

He held out his hand and she shook it.

"If you are bound to the Maxwells and a Maxwell caused your death, weren't you there to witness the charm?"

"Curse! It was a curse, not a charm."

"Right, curse."

"I do not remember the curse but I suspect Agnes is the one who cast it."

"Agnes?"

"Aye." She bent over and snatched a rock, rubbing the smooth, water-worn surface with her fingers. "Agnes Bowquat was a white witch who lived in a hut in the woods bordering Caerlaverock."

"White witch?"

His mind was spinning again. He thought white witches were villains who fed naughty boys Turkish Delight and turned fauns into statues, like in The Chronicles of Narnia.

"A white witch was someone who practised the ancient arts of healing and acted as a mediator between the earthly world and the spiritual worlds."

"I'm trying to wrap my head around all of this, but it's not easy."

Her eyes widened and she gasped.

"I'm sorry," he said, suddenly realizing his faux pas. "Poor choice of words. It's a saying meaning I'm trying to comprehend everything you've told me."

Mollified, she finished telling him about the night of her death. She said she remembered lying on the cold stone, feeling the energy drain from her body and blood from her head ooze down her cheek. She remembered hearing Robert's footsteps echo in the stairwell and how good it had felt to close her eyes. The next thing she remembered was walking into Caerlaverock and realizing nobody could see or hear her.

"Five days after he killed me, Robert married Janet Douglas," she said, her voice thick with emotion.

"Jesus! What a bastard!"

He instantly felt guilty using such language in front of a lady, but Deidre did not seem to mind.

"Aye." Deidre flicked her wrist and sent the stone skipping across the glassine surface, then turned to look at him. "I am sorry to say most of Robert's descendants have been bastards. But you are different, I think."

"I hope so."

The weight of exhaustion pressed heavily upon him and he knew he should return to Blackstone House to rest and check on James, but he didn't want to leave Deidre. He stood and stretched his muscles.

When she saw him struggling to stifle a yawn, she smiled and said, "You are tired. You should go home and sleep."

"I can't leave you here alone," he said, holding out his hand to Deidre. "Come with me."

Deidre looked at Caden and her heart joyfully skipped a beat. How tempted she was to take his hand and let him lead her back to Blackstone House, but this was the first day in five hundred years that she was able to feel, physically and emotionally, and she did not know how long it would last. If this was her only day to be whole and human again, did she want to spend it in the home of a dying Maxwell? With the son of a dying Maxwell?

Caden smiled, a charming, lopsided grin that caused dimples to appear near the corners of his mouth and her heart to skip another beat. His dimpled grin and easy charm reminded her of Robert, but that's where the resemblance ended. Tall, tanned, ruggedly built, with dark blond hair and piercing blue eyes, Caden looked quite different from the Maxwells she had haunted.

She wondered what it would be like to be truly loved by a man as handsome and compassionate as Caden Maxwell.

She took his hand and together they walked through the woods to Blackstone House. He asked her many questions about her life before the curse and seemed particularly pleased when she confessed she had always wanted to learn how to blow glass.

"Seriously? That's cool," he said, holding a branch back so she could pass beneath it. "My mother teaches glassblowing at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma. It's just a hobby of hers but I know she would be happy to teach you if"

He let his sentence fade away but his if lingered in the air. If the curse had finally been broken. If she remained human. If they were ever to see each other again. It amazed her that such a small word could contain so many hopes.

They were climbing the steps to Blackstone House when the front door suddenly swung open and a plump, elderly woman appeared, a worried frown tugging at the corners of her mouth.

"Thank God," she said, putting her hands on her hips. "Whar huv ye bin? Ah huv bin so worried aboot ye!"

"I am sorry I worried you, Mrs Harriet. I couldn't sleep so I went for a walk and must have lost track of time," Caden said, squeezing her hand gently and releasing it. "Is James all right?"

"Aye." Mrs Harriet's expression softened. "Yer da is resting."

Hades came loping up, his blue-grey fur flecked with dried mud and leaves, and would have trotted in the front door and across Mrs Harriet's freshly scrubbed floor had the housekeeper not grabbed him by the collar.

"Just whaur dae ye think yer gaun?"

With a docile and properly chastened Hades still firmly in her grasp, Mrs Harriet walked down the steps. "Ah left ye a plate o' neeps hash 'n' eggs 'n' thare ur fresh scones in th' basket on the table," she called over her shoulder before leading Hades around the house towards the stables.

Mrs Harriet passed through Deidre as if moving through thin air.

Caden noticed the pain in Deidre's hazel eyes and the tears glistening on her long lashes and all he wanted to do was comfort her. Wrapping an arm around her shaking shoulders, he led her up the stairs to his room.

"She passed through me as if I weren't even there!" she sobbed, burying her face in her hands. "The curse has not been broken."

Nothing unsettled Caden more than a woman crying. It lacerated his heart like a shard of glass. It made him feel anxious and helpless.

Desperate to ease her suffering, Caden gathered Deidre up in his arms, carried her to the bed, and rocked her until her sobs subsided. He felt the warmth of her body through her thick gown, the curve of her shapely body on his thighs, the silky strands of her hair teasing his chin, and it took all of his self-control not to toss her on his bed, hike up her skirt, and bury himself between her thighs.

But Deidre was not like the other women he had known. He couldn't wine her, dine her, and nail her all in the same night. Even though she had spent the last five hundred years watching the world evolve, she was still from a different time, when women had gentle dispositions and delicate sensibilities.

When she looked up at him with tears still trembling on her lashes, the slender tether restraining his desire nearly snapped.

As a spirit of the netherworld, hovering near but never interacting with humans, Deidre had spent centuries watching people flirt and fall in love. Once, quite by accident, she had happened upon one of Robert's grandsons making love to a serving wench behind a boulder in the glen near Caerlaverock.

She'd often wondered what it would feel like to be kissed and caressed again, but had long since given up hope it would ever happen. Now, Caden Maxwell was pressing his lips to hers and pushing his tongue inside her mouth.

When she finally mustered the courage to reach up and run her fingers through his close-cropped, honey-hued hair, his passionate response chased away her fears and doubts. He moaned and deepened his kiss.

The stubble covering his cheeks abraded the tender skin around her mouth, but she did not mind. In fact, she liked the intriguing pleasure-pain sensations it aroused.

Agitation pricked at her, prodded her. She wanted something from him but did not know what.