“I do hope we can do this again soon,” Alice continued. She eyed Lady Fredericka who was adding up the figures still again. “What is the bad news, my lady?”
“I surely cannot be doing this correctly,” said that lady, frowning at the paper she held up and out, staring at it at arm’s length.
“Let me,” said Melissa. “I’m very good with figures.”
Fredericka passed the paper across the table and Alice rose to stand just behind Melissa’s elbow, watching as, once again, the figures were totted up. “Oh my,” she murmured.
“Oh my, indeed,” said Melissa, frowning. “You did it correctly, Lady Freddy, um, Fredericka.” She looked up and across the table. “I apologize for using the name you dislike but, you see, I do like it, so I’ve difficulty remembering you do not. Lady Merriweather, you have won and won handsomely. Congratulations,” finished Melissa just a trifle acidly. She didn’t owe so much as the other two women but she did wonder just how she’d manage to pay the rather large sum. “I’m forced to write a chit, I fear. What I brought with me, in case I lost, was more the sort of thing one carries to an afternoon playing silver loo.”
Lady Alice, rather white, also wrote a vowel. Lady Fredericka, however, pulled a bulging purse from her reticule and, rather grimly, counted out a far larger sum than Melissa had ever thought to carry with her anywhere for any reason. She rather wondered how Freddy, as she persisted in thinking of the woman, could have so much to hand. She’d rather thought she recalled gossip that her ladyship was left in somewhat straitened circumstances… Not that it was any of her business, of course.
“I must leave,” said Lady Alice. “It is already overly late. My companion,” she said, forcing a jocularity she quite obviously didn’t feel, “has a nasty habit of writing long letters to my husband’s mother. The dowager never liked me. She loves hearing that I’ve done something to justify her belief her son married beneath himself and that I have no right to even the widow’s portion I was left, let alone to the townhouse which I’m to have for my life.”
Melissa wondered if the woman would regret saying so much if she recalled it at some later date. She herself would never mention her own unhappy position. Or her hopes for the future, as Alice had persisted in doing, revealing her dream of wedding a man she could love. Or at the very least, she’d gone on to say, one she could respect. And then she’d counted over the possibles on the marriage market, mostly widowers requiring women to manage their homes and, often, their nurseries. In one case, she’d spoken of a man with a daughter who must be brought out in the next season, poring over his family tree to see if he didn’t need a wife rather than depending on a relative to see to the matter.
And there was mention, of course, of Jacob Moorhead—the others giving her a quick look that she’d returned, she hoped, with bland incomprehension. That definitely was not a subject for discussion, her hopes of marriage to the only man who had ever in any way managed to rouse her senses—the only man excepting one other, that was, but she’d been so young then and he was lost to her…
The others were standing, speaking those things that meant imminent departure, and Melissa, coming to her senses, also rose. And yawned.
Lady Alice giggled. “It seems we are all out of practice for staying up late. Shall we make plans for our next meeting? Next week perhaps? At my house?” she suggested and then frowned. “Or no, perhaps not. My companion…” Her voice trailed off.
“We will meet at my house,” said Lady Fredericka firmly.
They left as a group, tripping down the steps and moving toward the hansom cab Lady Merriweather’s footman had called for them. “We will,” said Lady Fredericka softly so that only Melissa could hear, “meet at my house with no handy mirrors available for any of us to peer into.”
Melissa, about to follow Lady Alice into the cab, hesitated. Was Lady Freddy really suggesting that Lady Merriweather had cheated? She stepped back down onto the paving and turned to question her ladyship—and stared into the face of one of the ton’s stricter and surely the most judgmental of dowagers. “Lady Fisher–Stone,” said Melissa, dipping into a quick curtsey.
Lady Fredericka swung around. “Ah…my lady.” She too dropped a curtsey.
Lady Fisher–Stone glanced from the widows to the house from which they’d obviously come and back. She sniffed, her nose rising a notch, and, without a word, moved on and up the stairs to the adjoining house.
“That’s torn it,” muttered Lady Fredericka. “It will be all over town we’ve been carousing and heaven only knows what else.” She climbed into the cab. “You, my dear Lady Alice,” she said to the lady already ensconced in the forward-facing seat, “are very fortunate you were not seen.”
Melissa, wondering just how bad the gossip would run, followed Lady Fredericka, settled herself with her back to the horses and tapped the roof. The horse set forward to the first address. Melissa realized that somehow she’d been left to the last and gritted her teeth. On top of owing a large debt of honor to a woman who had cheated to earn it, she’d been left with paying the jarvey driving the cab.
That vowel. How was she to retrieve it?
And just how vicious would Lady Fisher–Stone be in setting the ton on its ears concerning their evening of pleasure. How much deeper would the hole grow, the one into which she’d stumbled when she’d been unable to control her hopes of wedding Jacob? Had allowed too many to guess those hopes?
Finally alone in the cab, Melissa relieved her feelings with a string of soft swearwords. She was still swearing when the jarvey pulled up at her front door and came down from his perch to open the door.
He stood there, firmly in her way, until he was paid.
* * * * *
Jacob nudged the linen cupboard door an inch farther open. He watched his Cousin Mary enter her sitting room—and heard her speak. “Rube? Aren’t you early?”
The man, thought Jacob, is already there?
“A bit perhaps. I found a book in your father’s library that I find exquisitely amusing.”
“Book?”
Jacob assumed the silence meant she looked at the title—hoped that was all it was…
“A traveler’s tale? Why is that amusing?”
“He visited my part of the world and if he is as wrong about everything else he reports as he is about my people then it is a book of fiction and something one should find amusing, correct?”
Jacob heard Mary chuckle. “Did he spend much time with your people?”
“He claims to have been with us for a year or so, but that is unlikely for surely I would remember it or at least have heard tales of his visit. I will ask in my next letter home. Assuming it reaches my family then someone will remember, will respond and, assuming that letter reaches me, I will discover if the man is a liar or if he simply has no ability to actually understand another’s point of view.”
“Hm.” There was another, longer, silence. Then, hesitantly, Mary asked, “Rube, am I so lacking in understanding? Have I wasted my life traveling and…”
This time it was a low rumbling masculine laugh coming from behind the door. “You have more empathy in your little finger than most have in the whole of their bodies, Mary. You understand those you meet. When you don’t, you ask the right questions. And, still better, you ask them in such a way you do not set up anyone’s back.” He paused. “Do I have that right?” he asked a trifle diffidently.
“Set up their backs? Yes, of course you do. Except, perhaps that is the problem…”
After a long moment’s silence, Rube suggested, “You are thinking about your stay there.”
Jacob guessed Mary nodded.
“Try again, Mary. Take your time and think carefully. Repeat exactly what you did, what you said and perhaps we can put together something that will explain how the king came to conclude you murdered his son. Or—” He paused and his tone was slightly more caustic when he continued. “Perhaps you will now admit the man is mad.”
Mary ignored the
last. “I’ll try.”
“But not tonight. You are yawning. Go to bed and I’ll see you aren’t disturbed.”
“Don’t stay up too late.”
“No. I’m near the end of this chapter and will put the book down when I finish it.”
Jacob waited and heard a door close—obviously the door to his cousin’s bedroom. He rose to his feet, stretched away the stiffness that had crept in while he awaited Rube’s arrival—except Rube had already been there. Jacob frowned. What had Mary implied when she referred to…the problem?
Problem? And murder? What had the foreign prince meant by murder? Something else I must discover, he thought as he opened the linen cupboard’s door, which squeaked. Almost instantly the door across the hall opened as well. Jacob stared into the steely look in Rube’s face, glanced at the knife the man held in his hand and then back at his face.
Rube relaxed somewhat. “Yes?”
“Come out,” said Jacob softly but with very nearly the same steel he’d seen on the other man’s visage. “I want to talk to you.”
Rube grimaced. “Because I am in Mary’s rooms?” He sighed. “We had hoped to keep from you that…”
“That you are lovers?” asked Jacob, his whole body stiff with outrage.
“Lovers?” Rube blinked. Then he laughed softly. “Oh no. That would never do. My father would fall into fits and my mother die of embarrassment if I were to take a lover from among your sort. I would not wish to do that to my family.”
Jacob recognized irony when he heard it. He sighed. “You suggest that your family would be as outraged as mine. Very well. Then, if you are not sharing her bed, what are you doing?”
“Guarding her,” said Rube.
Jacob glanced at the place where the knife had disappeared within the man’s robes. “She’s…in danger?”
“She managed to insult a man who cannot abide insult. At least he calls it insult and threatens revenge.” Rube frowned. “He has made no overt move against her for very nearly two years now but we know his minions keep watch. Perhaps we have thrown them off stride by coming here. We were very careful and, with luck, they’ll not find her. At least not for some time. But I will not relax my vigilance since we cannot know.”
“Insulted someone important? Some man overseas somewhere. I was listening, you know. I heard you mention murder? May I know the details?”
“Insult is perhaps not the correct word…my inadequate English…” mused Rube but then shook his head. “Since you know so much I’ll tell Mary she must discuss the situation with you. Perhaps you’ll decide you must find someone else to chaperon your cousin, that it is too dangerous for others living here for Mary to remain.” Rube shrugged. “The two of you will come to a decision one way or another. But not now. Tomorrow. It is far too late tonight and Mary is tired.”
Jacob wanted to argue but decided the man was right. “You have her safe?”
“Go see.” He gestured toward Lady Mary’s bedroom.
Jacob crossed the room and tapped on the door. There was no answer. Frightened by Rube’s story, he threw back the door and rushed into the bedroom—only to find it empty. He looked around. Spun around. Stared at the impassive Rube who stood cross-armed in the doorway. He relaxed. “Where is she?”
Rube nodded toward another door at the far side of the room.
“The dressing room?” Jacob crossed to it and knocked softly.
After a moment his sleepy-looking cousin opened the door. “Jacob?” she asked and, suddenly alert, glanced to where Rube stood.
Rube nodded. “He knows.”
She sighed. “All of it?”
“No. Only that you are in danger.”
She heaved a still deeper sigh. “Fiddle.”
Jacob laughed at her sour expression. “Tomorrow you will tell me the tale and we will decide what to do.”
She nodded, shut the door and, after a few more words with Rube, Jacob found a nearby flight of servants’ stairs and went down them to the first-floor hall and into his bedroom. Once there, he settled into the well-worn and very comfortable chair set before the fire. He turned up the lamp, picked up his book and laid it on his lap.
Then, ignoring it, he stared into the fire. “Danger.”
Danger?
Jacob winced at the voice. “It appears Mary is in danger of her life. Thus the bodyguard.”
I don’t like it. My little Mary in danger.
“I don’t particularly like it either. Especially since Mrs. Jennings and Miss Tomlinson are here as well.” What the devil am I doing, having a conversation with an impossibility? “And I haven’t even been drinking.”
Do something. The impossible voice sounded stern.
“Once I know more, I will. Mary will explain all tomorrow.”
There was a gentle sigh. Jacob waited. When nothing more was forthcoming he sighed softly himself and relaxed a tension he’d not realized he was feeling. He touched the book in his lap and shook his head. Ten minutes later he was ready for bed, doused the lamp. He put himself to bed, glad his valet had turned down the covers so he need not fumble his way between the sheets.
* * * * *
Honey?
“Mel, dear?”
There better not be another who can contact you from this side!
Jenna chuckled. “I agree. It was hard enough to accept when it is only you.”
Ah, my love. I miss that.
“What do you miss?”
Your gentle sense of humor… Other things as well. A ghostly hand approached hers but not so near the cold hurt. There is something you must know, the voice said much more abruptly.
“Tell me.”
Mary is in danger. Tomorrow she will explain to Jacob. I think we should all hear the tale.
“Danger… What? Why?”
I don’t know, do I?
Jenna tipped her head, stared at the ghostly replica of the man she’d loved for so long. “Jacob will do something. I’m sure he will know exactly what to do.”
That foreign man who arrived with Mary? He’s her bodyguard.
“So you do know something.”
Not enough.
“Tomorrow.” Jenna yawned.
Oh, my love. You are tired and I keep you awake with my nonsense.
“If Mary is in danger it is hardly nonsense.”
True… But sleep now. I will watch over you.
“Nonsense. Go watch over Mary. Then if something happens you can warn Jacob.” She stared at him. “You can, can you not?”
He hears me. Even when he isn’t drunk nearly out of his mind, he hears me.
Jenna smiled at the satisfaction she heard.
But you are correct—as you usually are. I will go watch over my daughter. He floated up off the bed and toward the door just as if he had to move through space to reach Mary’s room. At the door he paused. I love you. I wish you’d had the courage to marry me when we could have done the trick. Then I’d not worry so much about you now.
Jenna’s smile faded and her lips compressed into a stubborn line.
Her lover’s ghost sighed…and disappeared.
Chapter Five
A poorly dressed man burst into the one room fit for human habitation in the abandoned house. “They’ve gone.”
“Lady Mary? Gone?” The second, a seedy-looking man, looked up from where he cast, one hand against the other, a pair of dice.
“You heard me,” said the first, a vicious note creeping into his voice. “Gone, and what do we do now?”
The dicer straightened, stared into the hard stare the other sent his way. “Gone…”
“The foreigner won’t be happy.”
“The foreigner will be livid.”
Eyes flickered, glanced to one side then back to meet again. “You go tell him,” they said simultaneously. Each shook his head. Quiet descended on the only room in the deserted farmhouse that still boasted four walls and a roof.
“What we gonna do, Alf?”
Alf heard fear i
n the younger man’s voice. He tossed the dice, caught them one-handed and closed his fist around them. “I don’t know about you, my boy, but I know a certain captain that works off the coast just east of Brighton. I think I’ll go see if he’s got room for a passenger on his next trip across the channel.”
“Think he’d have room for two?” asked the other after a moment.
“Think he might… But the foreigner has got to be told.”
“Write him a letter?” suggested the younger.
Alf looked startled. “You can write?”
Embarrassed, the other nodded. “Not very pretty but so you can read it.”
“So some can read it, maybe,” said Alf on a dry note. “Think the foreigner can read English?”
“His problem.” The younger man shrugged. “We’d ‘ave done our duty by informing him.”
Alf thought about that and nodded. “You go buy paper and whatever else you need while I pack. We can drop the letter in the mailbag at the posting inn in Richmond before heading south.”
* * * * *
Jacob looked around Jenna’s room and nodded. “We’re all here. Now, Cousin Mary, a round tale and don’t leave out any bits you think unsuitable for anyone’s ears.” He glanced toward Verity and away.
Verity scowled. “If you mean me then say so.”
“Very well. Anything unsuitable for Miss Tomlinson’s ears must still be voiced. She’ll just have to blush and we’ll politely ignore her crimson cheeks. Cousin?”
“Now why,” asked Mary, “do you think there will be anything in this tale an innocent shouldn’t hear?” Before Jacob could do more than open his mouth, she continued. “Actually, there may be.” Her mouth compressed into a hard line for a moment. “Rube will tell you much of it is, but he still thinks in terms of harems and women who must be kept away from any man not father or husband.” She grinned when Rube’s face twisted into a moue. “Yes, you do. You wouldn’t keep such a close watch on me if you did not.”
“I keep close watch, Lady Mary, because you are in danger of your life and only for that reason. I know better than most that you can deal with very nearly any situation a man might face.”
The Ghost and Jacob Moorhead Page 6