Husband? Her brows knit in confusion as she took three steps to where the two men were on the ground. “Husband? Don’t be absurd.” Then she swatted Bennet’s shoulder. “Now let him up, you’re scaring his actual wife.”
Bennet scanned the area, his gaze landing on Alexi. But it was Dillan who responded. “If you two are acquainted, why were you fighting?”
Which only reminded Rebecca of all the reasons she was so deeply angry. “Because he clearly wasn’t a ghost and neither was he dead. This is my…” Before she said the words, she realized the problem. Bennet was still her fiancé. “This is the new Marquess of Northampton.”
Bennet eased up and stood, reaching a hand down to help Dillan.
“And this is Baron Brightmore,” she said.
“Pleasure,” Bennet murmured as he tugged on the lapels of his jacket.
“I wish I could say the same,” Dillan answered, looking at Rebecca. “Not many men get the drop on me like that. Military, you said?”
“That’s right.”
“And yet you still chose to argue with him?” Dillan said as Bennet helped him from the ground.
She shook her head. “Bennet here intended to leave without explanation and I found that unacceptable.” She looked away from Dillan, catching Bennet’s gaze with her hardest glare. “To make it up to me, he’s going to escort me home and then explain. Everything.”
“Rebecca,” Bennet said, holding out his hands. “I can’t go anywhere near your home. It’s for your own safety.”
“And then there are the particulars of how we dissolve our engagement…” Even the words made her ache. She couldn’t marry him. Not after the last three years, but the idea of letting him go knowing he was alive… That hurt almost as much as losing him had. Whether she meant the words or not, they had the intended affect.
Bennet’s jaw hardened. “What?”
“You heard me.” She straightened. “Come. Dillan will surely have his carriage. We can use it so as to not be seen in a public hack together.”
Bennet didn’t move. “I can’t tell you where I’ve been.”
“So you’ve said. We’ll talk about me then.” It hurt that he hadn’t asked—anything. “I work for the paper. Just in case you’d wondered.”
“I know.”
Those two words stole her breath again. “You’ve been spying on me.”
“No. I read the paper.”
She made a choking noise. That was a fair point. But she wasn’t in much of a mood to give him credit about anything. She pointed toward the mausoleum. “If you don’t want more details about me, don’t you want to know about your father’s last days?”
“You were with him?” There was a pain in his voice that softened her. At least a bit.
“Of course I was with him.” And then her voice caught. Because today had begun with a funeral and would end with herknowing the details of how her ghost had come back to life. “He was the only family I had left.”
She couldn’t disguise the pain in her voice, but she’d half expected Bennet to say that it wasn’t true. It had always been Ben and Bec, Bec and Ben. But he stared down at her, his gaze unreadable. “Do you have the key?”
“The key?”
“To the mausoleum. Do you have it?”
Her eyes drifted closed. She’d been given it just this morning before the services and still carried it in her reticule. She didn’t trust herself to even say the wordyesas she pulled open the bag, fishing through the other contents until her fingers wrapped around the cool metal. After pulling it out, she held out her open hand to him. “Here.”
He gently took it from her palm, his fingers brushing the clothed skin of her hand, but even that sent a tingle racing through her. “Thank you.”
“I’ll take it back as soon as you’re done.”
His brows lifted. “He is my father.”
“Yes. But you’re dead. And you won’t tell me why or when you might officially be undead…. I think that came out wrong.” Rebecca drew in a breath. She was babbling. “But either way, until you’re settled, I think it’s better that I keep it.”