by M. C. Beaton
“The tide had uncovered it. But how did you get it and when did you go to the cave?”
“There was a box in our room you missed,” Amanda said. “We went to the cave the morning of the day you were due to return.”
Surely the tides would have disintegrated the box by now, thought Jean. But she did so want to believe them.
“You must not eat chocolates again,” she said gently. “Your skin is lovely when you do not and your figures were becoming quite distinguished. Now we will all go to bed and say no more about it.”
Amanda leaned down and kissed Jean on the cheek. “Thank you for believing us,” she said. And then Clarissa, too, kissed Jean.
Jean blinked back tears, and she stood up and gave them both a hug. “Now, off to bed with you,” she said. She returned to her own room and for a while could not sleep because she was so elated, so happy, over those tender little signs of growing trust and affection.
Next morning the viscount stood in the hall, looking down in amusement at Jean as she proudly told him of how the twins had actually kissed her. “And they are not normally given to demonstrations of affection,” she said.
“No,” he agreed with a smile. “So that should put you on your guard. And they were simply on their way to the kitchens. In their night rail?”
“They were fully dressed, but it is a long way to the kitchens.”
“Before you came, Amanda and Clarissa used to wander around the house in their undress until the afternoon. It seems to me that they have more chocolates hidden outside the castle and planned to go out. They are quite cunning. They calculated you would be disarmed by a show of affection, and so you were. Poor Miss Morrison. So eager for kisses?”
Jean colored angrily. “I was merely pleased to think I was doing my job well, my lord. Now I must return to the schoolroom.”
He watched her mount the stairs and wondered ruefully what had prompted him to make a flirtatious remark to a governess.
The twins, noticing Jean’s steely eyes and the way she went briskly about the morning’s lessons, came to the uneasy conclusion that they might not have fooled her at all.
And that night, when they cautiously opened the door of their room and saw her sitting on guard as she had done the night before, became convinced of it.
“Now what are we to do?” Clarissa asked. “I’m getting mortal sick o’ this governess. How do we frighten her away? Can’t ill treat her or he’ll step in.”
Amanda sat and scowled as she always did when she thought hard. At last she said, “Do you ‘member you asked her if she believed in ghosts? And she look half ashamed but said she did? And we’ve got a ghost.”
“Oh, you mean the gray lady the servants talk about. But no one’s ever seen her.”
“They’re going to now,” Amanda said with a grin. “Here’s my plan….”
In order to continue the slimming process, Jean took the twins out walking the following afternoon. Amanda began to talk about the ghost of the gray lady.
“And where does she walk?” Jean asked.
“The long gallery, above the hall,” Clarissa said.
“And what is the story of the gray lady?”
“Well,” Amanda said eagerly, “it was when Trelawney Castle really was a castle, in the last century. Her name was Mary Courtney and she was a great heiress. She fell in love with one of the grooms and tried to run off with him. But one of his friends betrayed them to Mr. Jasper Courtney, who was the master then. She was sent home while they took that there groom up to the cliffs and threw him over into the sea. She went mad after that and did nothing else but pace up and down the gallery.”
“But how could she pace up and down the gallery if it wasn’t this house but the old castle?” Jean asked sharply.
“The hall and gallery are to the same plan as the great hall and gallery in the old castle,” Amanda said quickly, and Clarissa threw her sister a look of admiration.
“These old stories are fascinating,” Jean said, “but they are only stories. I mean, has anyone seen her?”
“I have,” Amanda said in a low voice.
Jean tried to keep her voice light, although she experienced a superstitious Highland shiver of dread. “And what did she look like? Did she give you good eee?”
“I couldn’t see her face,” Amanda said, she and Clarissa having already decided on the costume. “She’s veiled all in gray and she do moan dreadful.”
“She does moan dreadfully,” Jean corrected her automatically. She gave another little shiver. Gusts of wind were blowing storm clouds in from the sea.
That evening she said good night to the girls, but when she returned to her room to find a book to keep her awake while she guarded the corridor, the twins slipped out and hastened to the long gallery.
Amanda quickly took out her disguise from the bottom drawer of a china cabinet. The sky outside had cleared, and great shafts of moonlight were striking down through the windows and onto the long gallery. The twins had discovered piles of gray gauze in a trunk in the attics, an old-fashioned gown and high-heeled shoes to increase Amanda’s height.
“Now what?” Clarissa demanded, stifling a nervous giggle.
“As planned. You know where to hide and keep the door open for me. Now I got to moan, loud enough so as to bring her but not loud enough so as to wake anyone else. Here goes!”
Jean was reading a romance. It was full of ghosts and horrors. And then she realized that the faint ghostly moaning she thought was her imagination was actually coming from somewhere in the house. She rose slowly, her book falling to the floor, and went to the head of the staircase, holding her candle, the flame of which wavered in the draft, sending weird shadows flying up around the walls.
“Who’s there?” she called softly.
Again, that unearthly moaning.
Alarmed, and putting all thoughts of ghosts firmly from her mind, Jean thought that some servant might be in pain and walked down the stairs.
Then she realized the moans were coming from the long gallery and remembered the gray lady.
With a trembling hand she opened the door to the long gallery. There, standing in a shaft of moonlight, was the gray lady. Then she appeared to drift forward into the black shadows at the end of the gallery and disappear.
Jean opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. She turned away and stumbled up the stairs, making little whimpering sounds of fright. Her steps instinctively took her to the viscount’s bedchamber.
She staggered in and then ran to the bed and drew back the curtains. The viscount started up in alarm. “What the deuce …!” he began.
And Jean Morrison threw herself straight into his arms.
Chapter 5
“OH, M-MY L-LORD,” Jean babbled. “The ghost!”
He hugged her, and the sensations that evoked were singularly pleasant, and so he hugged her closer. “Calmly now,” he said. “What ghost?”
“In the long gallery,” Jean whispered. “The ghost of the gray lady.”
Jean was not wearing any stays. Her body was soft and yielding under his comforting hands which were stroking her back and were now itching to move around to her front. “And what did she look like?” he murmured against her hair, beginning to enjoy himself immensely and wondering whether a comforting kiss would be in order.
But Jean recovered enough to be aware that she was in, or rather on, the viscount’s bed and that he was holding her very closely. She extricated herself and stood a little way away from the bed in a shaft of moonlight that showed the viscount clearly the rise and fall of her excellent bosom. “I should not have burst in on you in this hurly-burly way,” Jean said shakily. “But I am monstrous frightened.”
He sighed a little and swung his legs down from the bed. “Hand me my dressing gown, Miss Morrison. It is there, behind you, on the chair. Light the lamp and we will go and lay your ghost.”
Jean fumbled with the tinderbox, striking weak, ineffectual sparks from it while the viscount
donned his dressing gown, took the tinderbox from her shaking fingers, and lit the lamp.
He picked it up and said, “Lead the way.”
Given courage by his calm manner, Jean walked before him to the long gallery. It was empty. The shafts of moonlight still struck down. She stood in the doorway as he carefully walked the length of it, holding the lamp high and searching about.
“Nothing,” he said cheerfully. “And why are you dressed?”
“I was sitting on the landing, on guard,” Jean said, “in case the twins tried to go out. And then I heard the moaning.”
“And it could not be either of those wretched girls, playing a trick? Did you look in on them before you sat guard?”
“N-no.”
“There you are.”
“But the ghost was taller than either of them and it just disappeared into thin air.”
“Come with me.” He led the way up to the twins’ bedroom. Jean unlocked the door. The maid had earlier locked it after having put the girls to bed and had given Jean the key. Both were lying asleep.
Jean and the viscount retreated quietly.
“It was the buttered crab at dinner,” the viscount said sympathetically. He walked to the landing. “And here is your book. Tut-tut, Miss Morrison. Such horrors are enough to make anyone see ghosts. Off to bed with you. But should you hear any moaning again, come to me first.”
“I wish he wouldn’t interfere!” Amanda said crossly when she heard all was silent outside again. “But she was frit enough. We’ll give her another haunting tomorrow night.”
“She’ll lock us in,” Clarissa pointed out.
“So? We have a duplicate key.”
“But if she looks in on us and then sits on guard, we can’t use the backstairs on the landing as an escape.”
“I’ll think o’ something,” Amanda said comfortably. “I always do.”
Jean found it almost impossible to look the viscount in the face the next day. She kept remembering the feel of his arms around her. She blushed furiously when she considered he might have thought she had invented the ghost in order to throw herself at him.
She grew hot and then cold when he came near her; her body was acting strangely, full of stabbing pains and sweet yearning. By dinnertime she felt she could not bear it any longer and miserably asked to be excused, explaining she did not feel well.
She went early to bed, and after tossing and turning for an hour, she eventually fell asleep.
Jean awoke three hours later, conscious that there was someone in her room. “Who’s there?” she cried.
“It is I, Hunterdon” came the viscount’s voice. “Rouse yourself, Miss Morrison. There is moaning coming from the long gallery. The ghost walks again.”
Jean shrank back against the pillows as he lit the candle beside her bed. “Perhaps, my lord, you might go yourself to investigate.”
“No, Miss Morrison, I think you should be there. Come!”
She climbed reluctantly down from her high bed and pulled on a wrapper.
Together they walked down to the long gallery. There in front of them was the ghost. It walked to the end of the gallery and disappeared in the blackness. The viscount, holding the candle high, walked to the end as well and stood frowning. There was nothing but a sofa in front of a lacquered cabinet on high, spindly legs. He set the candle in its stick on the floor and pulled the sofa forward. Then he slid the cabinet to one side on the polished floorboards.
“Come here, Miss Morrison,” he said over his shoulder.
Jean approached him. He held up the candle. The cabinet and sofa had been hiding a narrow door.
“That’s how it was done,” he said, amused. “Your ghost rolled under the sofa and under the cabinet and through this door held open by an accomplice. I should guess that this place is a warren of passages and stairs. Now, for our revenge on those brats.”
“Can it really be them? Betty would lock them in.”
“And I am sure they have a duplicate key.”
“So … so what are you going to do?”
“What are we going to do. Do you know, on reflection, I think we are just going to ignore the whole thing. Do not lock their room anymore or keep guard on them. If you ignore them, they will not try any more tricks. It is high time they became interested in themselves as women.”
“At fifteen years!”
“Never too late to begin, Miss Morrison. I shall hold a ball. Perhaps the prospect of ball gowns and beaux will turn their minds in a more civilized direction.”
“I will do my best. But they need a dancing master. They would not try to dance well with me.”
“I will endeavor to find one. Do you like balls, Miss Morrison?”
“I do not know, my lord, never having been to one.”
“Poor Miss Morrison. You shall dance at mine.”
“That would not be correct, my lord, and would occasion comment.”
He was irritated. “Oh, excellent and moral Miss Morrison. Do you not wish to have some fun?”
“Oh, yes, my lord.” Jean looked steadily at him. “But I must consider my future. Once the girls are of age, my work here will be finished. It will become necessary to find new employ. If I behave correctly in front of the county, then I may have hopes of obtaining employment in the future with one of the local families. If I am bold enough to dance, then I will be considered unsuitable.”
He stood looking down at her. It had been very pleasant holding her close. She probably danced like an angel. He smiled at her suddenly. “It will be a costume ball, a masked ball, Miss Morrison. Nothing wrong in you dancing at such an affair.”
Jean took a slow breath and her eyes shone. “It would be wonderful. You have no idea how irritating it is to have been trained in the steps of all the dances, even the waltz, and never to have danced them, except with Miss Tiggs.”
“Miss Tiggs?”
“My governess.”
“So do not worry about your charges. They will be so excited about the prospect of a costume ball that they will forget to try to escape at night to eat chocolates!”
To Jean’s surprise, the twins did indeed seem elated at the prospect of the ball and talked endlessly of their costumes. Not only that, but with their amazing knowledge of who was resident in the neighborhood, they said they knew of a dancing master, lately come to St. Giles.
The viscount said cynically that there was not enough scope in a market town to keep a dancing master in shoes, but Amanda said this one was resident at The George, a gentleman, and reported to be only on a brief stay. He was a French émigré, Jacques Perdu.
“What an odd name,” Jean exclaimed. “Perdu means ‘lost.’ But it might answer and he could converse in French with Amanda and Clarissa to improve their accent.”
“The English accent is in need of improving first,” the viscount said dryly. “Very well, I will ride to St. Giles today and look him over.”
The viscount was pleasurably surprised by Mr. Perdu. He was an elegant young Frenchman who said his parents had escaped the Terror and were now resident in London. He himself had been visiting friends and had stayed on in Dorset in order to enjoy the English countryside before returning to London. He danced for the viscount to demonstrate how well he knew all the steps. He was a small man with an acrobat’s figure, curly black hair, an olive skin, and sparkling black eyes. When offered the temporary post of dancing master, he accepted gracefully. “The Misses Courtney have an excellent governess, or, rather, companion,” said the viscount, “but it is always better to have a gentleman teach them the steps. You will find they lack manners and elegance. Do your best. I do not expect miracles. Just make sure they know enough not to cripple their partners.”
Both Jean and the viscount expected that the twins would try to make the dancing master’s life hell, but to their surprise, both Amanda and Clarissa seemed almost in awe of the little Frenchman and both desperately tried to please him.
“I feel quite put out,” Jean confided to t
he viscount. “I am obviously of the wrong sex.”
“Don’t think on’t,” the viscount urged. “Take a holiday and concentrate on your own costume. Schoolbooks can be put aside until after the ball. You will notice they have given up haunting. What do you think of the gardens at the back of the house? Quite a jungle.”
“It’s a pity it’s the back of the house,” Jean said, “for there are the most beautiful views of the sea.”
His eyes lit up. “No reason why we cannot turn this architectural horror back to front. But after the ball. I suppose I must include my cousin Basil among the invitations. It is a wonder he has not called before this. If he can find aught amiss with the upbringing of the girls, then he can write to the lawyers and try to get the estates moved to him.”
Jean looked at him uneasily. “Do the twins know this?”
“Yes.”
“What if they meet Mr. Devenham and decide they prefer him to you? They could make all sorts of mischief.”
“They’re happy enough with their Frenchman, and I’ll make sure Basil is kept away from them.”
Jean decided to walk through the terraced gardens at the back and see if she could come up with some idea of how they might be cleared and landscaped. That way she could have yet another opportunity to talk to the viscount alone. She was thankful, or so she told herself severely, that all those silly feelings she had briefly had about him had died away. It was—again she lectured herself—because she had no other adults to talk to except the servants.
The day was hazy and warm. A few brave roses struggled through the undergrowth of weeds and hung their heavy-scented heads over the mossy paths. Instead of taking the path that led straight down to the beach, Jean turned along one that led to the left. Briars tore at her skirts, and she would have turned back had she not seen a glimpse of the low roof of what looked like a folly, or summerhouse, so she forged on. A sea gull screamed somewhere nearby, and then came the call of another, reminding her of that day when she had found the cave.
She heard a twig crack and looked back along the path which was like a green tunnel. Perhaps it might be better to return to the house and just tell the viscount that she thought there was an interesting folly, or summerhouse, in the grounds. But perhaps, just a little farther on to get a look at it. She impatiently stepped over a fallen log.