Jacob stuck his head in the door. “I was?” he asked and couldn’t hide an unexpected welling of warmth that brought a tinge of color into his face. As a schoolboy and later as a very young man, he’d enjoyed visiting High Moor Hall and staying with his lordship, but it had never occurred to him that the old man, a bit of a tartar, had enjoyed his immature company in any way.
“Of course you were. On the other hand,” added that sly lady, her eyes twinkling, “you cannot think his heir any competition for his favors.”
Jacob grimaced. “Mud is an ass.”
Mrs. Jennings sobered. She shook her head. “I think your cousin more than that, Jacob, and none of it good. You watch your back. The fourth Lord Everston will not take kindly to the notion that much of the property he intended to enjoy to the full is not, after all, his. The way the will was written will tease him into doing his vicious best to see none of you manage to fulfill the conditions of inheritance.”
“None of them?” asked a soft feminine voice.
Jacob had nearly—not quite, but nearly—forgotten Verity’s presence.
Jenna turned to her niece. “His lordship willed four unentailed properties to four of his younger relatives, but only if they obey his instructions and restrictions during this, the first year,” explained the elderly woman leaning against a mound of soft pillows.
Verity’s brows rose. She turned toward Jacob. “And your orders?”
“That I live here for one full year, going no farther than York in the north or Cambridge to the south. And that I never leave the property for more than a week at any time and that, when I do go, then I must return for a full month before leaving again…” He frowned, thinking. “Something else…”
“That you entertain your neighbors at four soirees or balls or something of that nature and that you hold smaller entertainments monthly, dinners or picnics, for instance. Or an evening of music or cards—or whatever you think you can tolerate,” said Mrs. Jennings, a tiny smile twitching her lips and a twinkle in her eyes.
“Ah, yes. Now I remember. I think I forgot because, at the time, I suspected that the sly old gentleman hoped I’d fall madly in love with some gentleman farmer’s daughter and wed her out of hand,” he said as lightly as he could.
“He hoped you’d marry some time in the next few years, yes, but only if you find someone with whom you can live in harmony. Someone who could enjoy country life as much as you do—or as you did no more than six or seven years ago.”
That last was said in a tone as dry as a good French wine and, once again, had Jacob feeling heat—this time in his ears. “Has it been so long as that since I last visited here?” he asked.
“You know it has.” The sick woman had sounded much like her old self, but now, in the way of an invalid, tired suddenly. Her head fell back for a moment before she straightened it—obviously with effort.
Jacob glanced at Verity, saw her mouth tighten, and, lightly, he said, “I’m glad you are recovering from your illness, Jenna-mine, but I think I should leave you to your breakfast and come again later. Perhaps this afternoon?”
“Teatime. The two of you,” said Jenna, glancing at her niece. “Come and have tea with me.”
“We will,” he promised even as he saw the girl give a tight little shake of her head. He caught and held Verity’s gaze. “If that is what you want, Jenna-mine,” he said to the sick woman, although he didn’t look away from Verity, “then of course we will. The both of us.”
Verity’s mouth compressed. Then, with a soft little sigh, she relaxed. “Yes, of course we will, my best beloved aunt.”
“Your only aunt.” And then Mrs. Jennings frowned. “But that isn’t true, is it? You’ve relatives on your father’s side. Verity, did you ever meet any of them?”
“Only Aunt Mary.” Verity smiled. “Aunt Mary, traveling with a companion, arrived on our doorstep when I was… Oh, what was I? Sixteen? Seventeen? Such an oddity.”
“Cousin Mary is not an oddity.” There was almost a growl in Jacob’s voice.
“An eccentric then. You’ll have to admit to that,” said Verity. Before he could object again, she added, “I liked her.”
Jacob relaxed. “So do I.” He looked thoughtful for a moment and then gave Verity a sharp glance. He nodded once and turned back to the sick woman who had watched the exchange through slightly hooded eyes. “Jenna-mine, I will see you again this afternoon.” He departed and headed back to the breakfast room, which, he discovered, had been cleared. He sighed, wondered if he dared go to the kitchens to steal a roll or an apple as he’d not have hesitated doing when a lad, decided he’d better not, returned from the ground floor to the first and went to the library at the far end from the family bedrooms.
There he took out paper, found an old-fashioned pen that wasn’t too badly in need of sharpening and opened the ink bottle. The ink, he discovered, was nearly gone. He was forced to tip the bottle in order to dip the nib deeply enough for the ink to rise up the quill’s center, but he wouldn’t need much. Thank the fates his cousin was in England and not off on one of her dangerous jaunts into the unknown. Cousin Mary would understand even a brief note. And she wouldn’t delay coming to his rescue. His lordship’s granddaughter must not live under the same roof as he himself did. Not without a chaperon—whatever the housekeeper’s niece felt was or was not necessary.
Jacob looked up. “I suppose,” he said to the ambient air, “that it must be a trifle confusing, her place in life. But she is my granduncle’s granddaughter and that is how she should behave.” Leaning back and running the quill’s barbs through his fingers, he continued softly, “In fact, I think it is time for Mrs. Jennings to retire. There is no reason at all why she cannot live here with the two of us. But—” he straightened up and laid aside the quill, “even if I can convince her to do so, Cousin Mary will be the more acceptable chaperon. Acceptable to the neighborhood, I mean.” He folded and sealed his letter.
Across the room, perched cross-legged on top of the globe, the late Lord Everston nodded. A very good thought that, he said.
Jacob’s head snapped around—but there was nothing to see. He looked at the glass of burgundy he’d poured, blinked, shook his head as if to chase away a ringing in his ears. Pushing the glass away, he stood, stared at the wine. Once again he glanced around the room and then drew in a deep breath, which he blew out slowly. “Maybe I’ve been dipping a little deep lately?” he asked.
Told you you have, said that voice. This time it sounded cross rather than approving.
Jacob stiffened. Without another glance, he picked up his letter to Verity’s Aunt Mary and left for the stables. He didn’t relax until he was speaking with the head groom. The head groom chose a good steady man, who, after packing a saddlebag for a few days on the road, left High Moor Hall carrying the letter for Lady Mary Tomlinson who lived on a small estate, situated on the Thames between London and Richmond.
“And what about you, sir?” asked the head groom. “We’ve not so many horses as we once had but I think I can find something you’ll like.”
Jacob decided a ride, reacquainting himself with all those places that had once been favorite haunts, was an excellent notion. Anything that would take him away from that blasted voice. A voice that did not, could not, exist. Had he really been drinking so much he was on the verge of requiring a place in a bedlam?
Jacob looked over the gelding led out for his inspection. “Moorland’s Ghost?” he asked, thinking of the irony of the name when it was a ghost—or rather it wasn’t a ghost—that had chased him from the library. “He’ll do very well,” he said approvingly and was soon on his way across broad acres populated with clumps of white where fat sheep grazed. He wondered idly when they were sheared, something he’d always wanted to watch but which he’d never before been present to see.
This year, he thought, I’ll be here. He was surprised by the satisfaction he felt at the knowledge.
Half an hour after leaving the stables, he reached the ri
verbank where he’d once spent hours and hours fishing, casting his line as his granduncle taught him to do. Occasionally, just often enough to keep him interested, he’d catch something. It was a nice swift-running stream, tumbling over rocks as it fell down from the hills that bordered the northern edge of the estate and, older now, Jacob saw the natural beauty surrounding him as well as the opportunity for sport. He breathed in cool fresh air—air untainted by harsh coal smoke and the acrid odor left by too many horses pulling too many carts, the equally unpleasant stink of open sewers that every breeze wafted into all parts of London. The better areas had solved only part of that particular problem, getting rid of open sewers and allowing the dealers in night soil to grow wealthy off the, um, leavings of the rich…
Jacob breathed in deeply and smiled. A feeling of satisfaction filled him. And, setting his mount to an easy canter, he continued on his way. This time he headed for the home farm where he used to visit Mrs. Green’s kitchen, enjoy her excellent baking…and, having missed his breakfast, he rather hoped that perhaps he might once again be so indulged.
* * * * *
Verity compressed her mouth into a hard line. “No. You don’t understand. You must not.”
Mrs. Jennings looked at her niece through narrowed eyes. “Must not? You will tell me I must not?” She scowled. “And why must I not?”
“You cannot tell him to go. This is his home. If anyone leaves, it must be me.” The panic she’d first felt as her first grief at the news of her family’s deaths faded once again snaked up her spine. Where would I go? Where could I go? she wondered. “Besides, he must live here. The will insists on that. You know he must.”
“It will not contravene the will if he stops at the inn in the village for a few days. Just until we can contrive…something.”
“I am your niece. I am a servant in his house. I do not need a chaperon.”
“You are your father’s daughter and you do. I have told you, you are not to take on my duties, that Emma is well enough trained to do so.” But thinking of Emma, the ill housekeeper once again frowned.
“Emma is all very well in her way but she has a very bad habit of dithering when she discovers a servant isn’t doing exactly as she’d like. She lacks…firmness.”
Mrs. Jennings smiled a quickly disappearing grin at the understatement. “It is the one thing I have not been able to train out of her, that diffidence. She knows the work from the top of the house to the bottom. She knows the yearly schedule better than I do. She is someone I can depend on absolutely.”
“But she is not housekeeper material, Aunt. Under-housekeeper, yes, but not housekeeper. What is more, she knows it. She isn’t happy when she must take on the mantle of authority you’ve had to lay down.”
“For a time,” said Verity’s aunt, inserting the words quickly, before Verity could say others she didn’t want to hear. And then she sighed. “I do not,” she said crossly, “understand why I tire so easily.”
“Will you not accept that you very nearly died, that you frightened us all to death? That it will take time for you to recover? That you must rest? And rest you will. I will leave you now and you will sleep. In an hour or so it will be time for a bit of luncheon and I will join you here for that.”
“And in the meantime you will do all those things I have forbidden you to do.” Mrs. Jennings scowled at her niece but then yawned a huge gaping yawn. “Drat. I’ve not the energy to argue with you. Go then. Pretend you are not your grandfather’s granddaughter. You’ll make him angry, but why would you care for that?”
She yawned again, her eyes closing. When she opened them sometime later, her niece was gone but sitting on the side of her bed was his lordship—or rather the ghost of his very dead lordship. “Ah. Mel, my love. There you are.” She brightened. “I wondered where you’d gotten to.”
Did you think I’d left you alone to muddle through the mess I’ve left behind me? he asked, both the tone of his voice and the look in his eyes that of tenderness. Ah, my love—my one and only love—I am not such a marplot as that. Never fear. I’ll not go from this plane of existence until you can go with me.
“No one would believe me if I told them you visit me in this fashion.” Jenna smiled.
Oh, I don’t know. It seems Jacob can hear me. He doesn’t believe it is me, of course, but he does hear me. It is quite humorous, that faint edge of fear it rouses in him—but that’s mostly because he thinks he’s on the verge of being taken off to Bedlam. Hearing voices, you know, is not a good sign. I think, he said, suppressing a smile, that just perhaps that will be all that is needed to take care of one of my grandnephew’s problems.
“And that is?” The housekeeper edged her hand along the covers. Melton moved his closer to it.
His drinking. He’s concluded he’s been drinking too much. Which, of course, he has, but not to the point he’s hearing things.
They stared at their two hands, the one showing a few age spots, the other a shadowy, not quite solid but stronger-looking and longer-fingered, a more masculine hand. They each sighed and then looked at each other. “I do wish I could feel you as well as see and talk to you. I miss…our loving,” said Honey Jennings. The name had been given her at birth but no one still living knew it. His lordship did but of course he didn’t exactly live. Not as in live and breathe…
So do I wish it, Honey. Oh, my love… He sighed. But it isn’t your time. And I’ve an eternity of time now. Waiting for you… Well, I am glad we can at least discuss our problems.
“I’ve a new one, you know. Your granddaughter must be chaperoned if he is to live here.”
Mel chuckled, a rather hollow sound but very pleasant. “My grandnephew agrees. He has sent for Mary.”
Honey Jennings relaxed. She moved her hand just a trifle nearer his, felt the ghostly chill they’d discovered she could not tolerate and edged it back again. “Will it be long before I come to you?” she asked after a moment and with a touch of longing.
I don’t know, my dear. I only know it is not yet, that there are things you must do. But I want you to listen to Jacob when he suggests you retire, which he means to do and then you are to help chaperon Verity. Verity needs you—but you do not need the work and worry and, now I’m dead, I’m going to insist, as I should have done after my wife died, that you give up this nonsense of being merely the housekeeper.
“Your neighbors will have a fit.” There was a pettish note in that. It was an old argument, after all. “Worse, they may ostracize my niece Verity when they won’t your granddaughter Verity.”
Mary and Jacob will see that doesn’t happen. You’ve been very ill, Honey. I want you to do whatever is necessary to recover your old health—and not squander it in worrying about running this household. He grinned a rather sly grin. Instead, you can squander it worrying about Verity and Jacob.
She lifted her eyes to meet his gaze. “Verity…and Jacob,” she repeated, her tone flat.
I want them married.
“I…don’t think that’s a good idea.” Again her voice had that flat note it got when she knew she was going to disagree with him.
He’ll change, Honey. Lose any rakish tendencies he may have and he’ll stop drinking. Don’t worry about all that. They’ll fall in love and they’ll wed and they’ll live here and fill the nursery with children, with laughter and love and…and all those things that have been missing at High Moor for so long.
I didn’t mean that, she thought. “You know I didn’t mean his character,” she said and followed it immediately with, “Besides, just whose fault was it that no one used the nurseries?”
Mine. All mine. Me and my temper. He shook his head sadly. Even when his older brother died and I reinstated him, my younger son wouldn’t come home. Except the occasional short visit. He resented my attitude toward his wife…
“Mine too,” she said quickly and reached her fingers to touch the back of his hand and then, the cold spilling into her, jerking away. “Oh, Mel, it was so bad of us to disapprove
that marriage. They loved each other and neither of us was willing to admit it, saw only the misalliance of it.” She sighed, a sad sound.
It was a misalliance, love, but it was also, from everything I could discover, a very happy marriage. We must remember that.
“But if your son and my sister hadn’t…” She paused, drew in a breath, tried again. “If they hadn’t resented our attitude, they’d have come home when your elder son died, they’d have been here and not romping around in those blasted Swiss mountains and…” Tears welled and spilled down Honey’s faintly lined cheeks.
And they’d be alive, he finished for her, speaking softly. He started to reach a comforting hand for hers but drew back as he remembered they could not touch. Or they could but it would not be at all comforting for Honey… Merely cold. Cold as the grave…
Chapter Three
It wasn’t until the next morning that Verity knew that Jacob Moorhead had not slept in his bed and was nowhere to be found. Yesterday, she’d been angry when Jacob had not appeared for tea with her aunt. Then, later, she’d shrugged when he’d not come to supper. He was a man after all and, according to rumor, a rake, a wild spirit, probably a gambler as well. He couldn’t be expected to enjoy a tame existence at High Moor, which lacked equally wild friends and women and…and whatever.
I can’t be expected to know all he misses, can I?
But, if truth be told, she’d felt more than anger when he hadn’t come at teatime as he’d promised Aunt Jenna. She’d felt restless for reasons she couldn’t understand. Or refused to understand? She swept that thought from her mind. In any case, she’d wandered the house for hours. Finally, tired, she’d locked both her bedroom doors and, much in need of a nap, fell into a restless doze, which turned into much-needed and very deep sleep.
When she rose the next morning she was forced to change from the rumpled gown in which she’d slept the night through. She entered the hall where an upper-housemaid informed her Jacob’s bed had not been slept in. She frowned and thought for a moment before sending a footman to the stables to ask if Jacob’s horse had returned. When word returned that it had not, she frowned in earnest and sent for the butler.
The Ghost and Jacob Moorhead Page 3