She wondered how much he had seen. It would have had to have been enough to warrant such an expression on his face. She wondered if he would believe her now when she told the story of the woman in white. She wondered if he would be as dismissive now.
She waved him over and he made the journey on stiff legs. She could tell that he was in shock, and she couldn’t help but feel a little satisfied by it. She wished no ill will on him, but she was glad that he had seen. He needed to see. He needed to believe, because it had happened and she had been there. And it had changed her.
“Do you believe me now, Barry?” She asked when he was down at the pond with them. She tried to keep the smugness out of her voice but it was hard.
He nodded, his eyes still wide and staring at the pond. “What exactly just happened?” He looked from Kate to Kayra. “What was all of that?”
“We no longer have a ghost problem,” she said. Looking back at the pond and feeling a bit of sadness. She would have been okay with the ghosts, she realised. The demon put a damper on things, but the Smythe family had been a pleasant sight. It was still tragic to think about what had happened to them.
“But what was all of that?” Barry waved a hand towards the pond. “What was that with the light and the ghosts and the smoke? It looked like something out of a horror movie.”
“You wouldn’t be far off,” Kate agreed. She laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Kayra had to summon the ghosts in order to lay them to rest. We had a bit of a hiccup when it came to the demon, the black smoke you saw, but it handled itself.”
She was still a little surprised by that. She hadn’t expected the demon to follow the Smythe family into the light. It didn’t seem logical. But then again, its mission was complete. Its purpose was to bring death to them. And if they found peace, then it would stand to reason that the demon could no longer bring death to them.
“We are forever in your debt then, Kayra.” Barry looked at the young man. It was his first time standing face to face with him. There was something strange about him, something different that Barry couldn’t quite put his finger on. “What can we do to repay you?”
“I seek no payment.” Kayra shook his head and held his hands up in protest. “I only wanted to help and reverse the damage that my people caused so long ago to this family and this house. I did not want to see that go on any longer.”
“Really, is there nothing we can do? You’ve done so very much for us, Kayra.” Kate looked at him in earnest. She hoped that there was at least some way that she could repay him for the time and effort he’d put in. He had risked his life in order to fix their problem.
He glanced down at his feet and shuffled them bashfully. “Well if you don’t mind renting out that yet to be renovated room, I’d gladly take it. My college dorm is done in a few days and I’m in need of a place pretty badly.”
Kate and Barry exchanged a look. The top floor room needed a lot of work, but if he was happy with it then he could have it. They weren’t going to put up a fight. But they would also do their best to push up the scheduled updates to that room to make it better for him. It was the least they could do after all that he’d done for them.
“It’s yours for as long as your want it, half price.” Kate smiled. After all, they couldn’t put a price on peace and quiet and he’d given them that.
The Christmas Haunting at Ferguson Hall
Prologue
Ferguson Hall
County Kent, England
December 25, 1456
* * *
She was sure that it was going to be today. After days and days of illness, she was certain that today would be the day that it all came to an end. Not that she wanted the lady to die, but it was tragic to watch her suffer the way that she was.
Emma crept into her bedchamber and observed that Lady Edith was still curled up underneath the thick cover. That would just not do. Sir Cuthbert would be very displeased if she missed the Christmas festivities, and Lady Edith would be equally perturbed if she missed her own party.
Emma walked on silent feet towards the bed. She debated whether it would be best to first pull the curtains back to let some light into the room. She decided to do just that, hoping the last bit of sunlight for the day would wake her mistress.
The ray of afternoon sunlight shone into the room and fell across the bed. Emma yanked on the curtains harder so that the light would land squarely on her mistress’s face. She knew that it was a little rude, but she needed her to wake up.
It didn’t matter that she was feeling a little ill. She had guests. She had responsibilities. And Emma didn’t want to be punished because tomorrow the woman was feeling better and regretted missing all of it.
Lady Edith was fickle like that. Emma had learned to get used to her many moods over the years. She had become accustomed to ducking her mistress when she was in a temper, and being at her every beck and call when she was feeling down. There was a careful balance to be maintained and Emma strived to keep that balance. If she toed a line, then she was likely to get whipped for it.
The shaft of light fell squarely on her mistress’s face and Emma sucked in a breath. The woman looked as pale as death beneath her heavy comforter. She was usually pale in appearance, but her skin held almost a grey hue to it at the moment.
Emma felt her heart sink. This was not good. This was not good at all.
She raced to her mistress’s side and tried to shake her awake but her skin was cold to the touch. Her chest was not moving with breath. It was clear to Emma that the Lady Edith was dead, and had likely been dead for a few hours now.
Emma felt the panic rise inside of her. She knew that she needed to run for help. She knew that she needed to sound the alarm. The lady of the house was dead. There had clearly been some form of foul play. She’d just been a little unwell.
Perfectly healthy people who were just feeling a little queasy didn’t die in their sleep. If there had been cause for concern, a physician would have been called. But no one had been worried about the lady. They had put her to bed and that had been the end of it.
And that had been the end of her, Emma thought and cursed her own morbid sense of humour. Now was not the time to be making light of the situation.
She glanced towards the door. She could slip out of the room and no one would notice. No one noticed handmaids. No one ever paid her any mind. She could just walk out into the hall, leave the house, and be on her way.
Her conscious nagged at her as she glanced back at the lifeless body of Lady Edith. She knew that it was wrong to just leave her there. But she also knew that she would be blamed if she remained. Evidence be damned. She knew that she was an easy target.
Emma chewed on her lower lip as she considered, but already she could feel herself creeping towards the door.
“Sorry,” she muttered and slipped through the door into the hall. She had no sooner closed the door behind her when she turned to find herself face-to-face with Sir Cuthbert.
Her breath caught in her throat as she stared up at the imposing man. He was such a striking figure. Her heart raced at the sight of him, and to be standing so close to him was a rarity. She folded her hands to resist the urge to reach out and straighten his cravat. It was much too personal a gesture, and one she had no right making.
She had always found that there were lines she wanted to cross when it came to the master of the house. Perhaps it was his appearance. Perhaps it was his striking figure. Or perhaps it was just because she was so young and that she still did not quite understand the feelings rushing through her body.
But she resisted the urges to be informal with him because she had a job to keep. She valued her employment more than she did his attention. And she didn’t need to compromise her position at the house. She couldn’t afford to.
“Is Lady Edith out of bed yet?” He inquired, his voice deep and his brows creased with concern for his wife. He looked past the young girl at the firmly closed door.
“Oh yes, sir.�
� Emma nodded vigorously and hoped that the lie wasn’t written all over her face. Luckily he barely sent her a glance.
His lips pressed into a thin line as he seemed to consider her answer. “Will she be ready in time for dinner?”
Emma continued to nod. “Most definitely, sir. I will make sure of it.”
“Good, good.” His eyes softened and he sent her a quick glance. “Is she feeling better this afternoon?”
Emma tried her best to keep a straight face. “She is back to her old self, sir. She is very much looking forward to the party.”
“Good.” He gave a curt nod and then turned on heel to leave.
Emma let out the breath she hadn’t realized that she’d been holding. She watched his retreating back until he turned the corner at the end of the hall and then continued in the opposite direction.
She needed to get out of the house. She needed to get as far away from the house as fast as she could before someone else discovered Lady Edith. She needed to escape.
The guilt clawed at her stomach as she raced down the servant’s stairs towards the back door and out into the cold night. She didn’t even bother with a coat. The snow on the ground soaked into her thin slippers immediately, but she didn’t care.
If she ran quickly she could get into the village and get warm clothes before anyone raised the alarm. She could get a horse. She could leave. She just needed to hurry. Time was of the essence.
She had just hit the edge of the village when she heard the alarm bells sound. Her heart sank in her chest, but she kept running. It was her only hope at freedom, and even then she knew that it was a thin hope. But still, she ran.
Chapter 1
Holiday Plans
* * *
County Kent, England
December 23, 2016
* * *
The Christmas holidays were both a curse and a blessing for Charlotte Bainbridge. On one hand, she was home from uni for several weeks and didn’t have to worry about attending lectures or doing coursework. On the other hand, she had to be around her family.
It wasn’t that she disliked her family. In fact, it seemed that four months away had done some good things for her relationship with her brother, Stuart, and her. But she didn’t like the holidays. It always meant that they had to visit the family that they would usually avoid for the rest of the year.
She had never understood that tradition. You spend the entire year avoiding all of your family, yet when Christmas rolls around, you suddenly have to go out and eat a meal with them and exchange gifts that you don’t really care for and that you know your family will likely exchange.
Perhaps uni was making her cynical. She could remember a time when she’d enjoyed the Christmas holidays. She could remember the magic of it. But now it just seemed like a huge inconvenience. All she wanted to do was eat a lot of home cooked food, hang out in bed, and pretend that she didn’t have four more months of uni to make it through.
She let out a loud sigh at the dinner table and had everyone turning to look at her. She raised a brow as she skimmed the faces of her family. “What?”
“What was the heavy sigh for, Charlotte? Have the weight of the world on your shoulders again?” Harry Bainbridge, her father, teased as he continued to eat his roast beef and potatoes.
“It’s nothing,” she muttered and looked down at her dinner plate. She hadn’t meant to sigh out loud. She hadn’t meant to draw attention to herself. The last thing she needed was to have some in-depth discussion over her now cold potatoes about her lack of holiday spirit.
“That didn’t sound like nothing,” Sarah Bainbridge, her mother, chastised. She waved her fork at her daughter. “Is there something going on at uni you aren’t telling us about? You have some boy drama you’re keeping hidden?”
“No, mum!” Charlotte rolled her eyes. It was always boy drama with her mother. She was always a little too hopeful that her daughter would get a boyfriend. “I’m just not really looking forward to going over to Amelia’s for Christmas.”
Much to her surprise, Sarah nodded in understanding. “It will be quite the event. It won’t be like our normal, quiet, Christmas celebration.”
Charlotte raised a brow. “Are you saying you aren’t looking forward to it either?”
Sarah exchanged a knowing glance with her husband. They’d had a similar conversation the night before. It was interesting to see it play out again at the dinner table. “Amelia is very excited to have us for the holidays. She is very excited to show us her new home and celebrate Christmas for the first time now that she is married. It is our job to make sure we are there to take part in that.”
“Well that was a very political non-answer,” Stuart criticized but with a grin on his face. His response even got a chuckle out of his father.
“Well you know that your mother is very good at those.” Harry sent his wife a smile even though she was glaring at him.
“It’s important to play politics when you have a family the size of ours. And especially one as diverse as ours…” Sarah said, her voice trailing off a little towards the end.
“I hope you don’t mean ethnically diverse, mum, because we’re all pretty white,” Charlotte joked as she picked at her potatoes.
“No, Miss University, I wasn’t talking about skin colour. We are a bit of a financially diverse family.” Sarah’s lips pressed into a thin line and she bit back the rude thoughts that flooded into her head following that statement.
“And now-filthy-rich Amelia wants to show off how filthy-rich she is?” Stuart grinned as his mother grimaced. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
“Can we not just let this be about Christmas and family?” Sarah pleaded. “Can we not just go and have a good time?”
“And eat expensive food and sleep on expensive sheets and live the high life for a few days.” Stuart added with a grin. “It doesn’t sound terrible.”
“Stuart, please stop harassing your mother and finish your dinner,” Harry instructed noting the exasperated expression on his wife’s face. “It’s going to be an interesting enough holiday without us all bickering at each other.”
“We’re not bickering, dad,” Charlotte smiled. “We’re having an engaging conversation.”
He rolled his eyes. “Save your uni-talk. You’re going to Amelia’s whether you like it or not, so you can engage with that concept as much as you like.” He chuckled at the pout that popped immediately to her mouth. It had been the same expression for her since she was two years old and had been told she couldn’t have a biscuit.
“I should have stayed on campus for the holidays,” she muttered and ate another forkful of potatoes.
“Well now you’ll know for next year,” Harry said with a smile and loved that her mouth dropped open in surprise.
While the kids were busy cleaning up the dinner dishes, Harry and Sarah settled down with a cup of tea in the living room. It had been their routine for years, since the kids had been old enough to clean up at least. And they were definitely old enough now.
If he trusted them to cook, he would make them cook dinner too. But he liked food, and the last time Stuart had tried, they’d eaten burnt spaghetti. The boy was definitely not a master chef. Charlotte had managed better, but he was trying to give her a bit of a break now that she was back.
He’d missed his little girl while she was gone. True; she wasn’t so little anymore, but she would always be his little girl. That was one of those things that would never change for him.
He settled down on the couch with Sarah and handed her a cup of tea. She took it with a smile.
“Are the kids up to their elbows in dirty dishes?” She asked sipping at the tea. It was the perfect temperature. She would never understand how he always managed that.
“It’s not the worst mess that we’ve left the kitchen in ever, but they’ll be occupied for a little bit.” He glanced over at her. “How are you doing with our holiday plan?”
“You know how my niece is. And even worse, you kn
ow how Graham is, Iris isn’t much better. We’re going to be spending the whole holiday trying to keep up with the Joneses and falling flat on our faces.” She gave a heavy sigh. She was exhausted just at the thought of it.
“You know that we have nothing to prove to them. We have two lovely children. We have a house that we love. We have jobs that we love. We’re happy.” He gave her a kiss. “Just because they’re rich doesn’t mean they have that.”
“Being rich might be nice, though,” she mumbled and enjoyed his arm around her shoulders.
“But would you be as happy as you are right now on our well-worn in couch, in your comfy clothes, and with a mug of homemade tea?” He raised a brow when she frowned. “I’ll take my tea back.”
“No,” she pulled it closer, “don’t do that.” She smiled. “I likely wouldn’t be happy at all with all that money. It just clouds the mind.”
He nodded. “It’s going to be fun to see how the other half lives for a few days, though. You have to admit that.”
“I’ll admit nothing. I may steal some of their silverware. I could probably fetch a good price for it at the pawnshop down the road. I bet it’ll even be real silver.” She laughed alongside him. “And I’m going to drink their fancy wine and eat their fancy food. It’ll be a grand old time. I just hope the kids won’t be too put out by it all.”
Harry shrugged. “They’re kids. They’ll find something to entertain themselves with. I know Amelia is a little older and a lot more pretentious, but I’m sure they can find something to talk about.”
Sara hoped so. Charlotte had been acting so strangely since she’d come back from uni. Sara just wanted to blame it on being away for so long, but it was hard to say. She’d been hopeful for their usual small family gathering for Christmas. Something intimate and just them, but Amelia had railroaded that idea completely. Now they were forced to go with the large family gathering at Amelia’s new home.
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