“You may thank me,” said Jacob, closing the door behind them, “by taking away the…er…Mrs. Rumford.”
Lester huffed. “I want nothing to do with her. If her coach hadn’t broken down near my home I’d not have known she was in the region. She is not someone I wish to associate with and I feel no more responsibility now she is where she wishes to be.”
“Has she a clue as to the danger she’s come into?” asked Jenna.
McAllen turned, seeing her for the first time. Spots of color marred his cheekbones. “I’m sorry. I don’t believe we’ve met?”
“She is Verity Tomlinson’s aunt. Verity is my cousin. Mrs. Jennings, may I introduce Lester McAllen to your notice.”
Jenna bit her lip when she realized Jacob had no intention of telling the man she was merely a housekeeper—retired. She lowered her gaze and nodded. Then she looked up. “Does she know?” she asked more bluntly than she might have done if she were not so embarrassed.
Lester hesitated. “Danger.” It wasn’t exactly a question but not quite a mere repetition either.
“That mess you ran into yesterday.”
McAllen glanced at Jacob. “Highway robbery. I’ve not heard of it in this region in years. Certainly not while I’ve lived here.”
“Decades, I should think,” said Jacob.
Forty years more or less.
Jacob glanced toward the voice. “Yes, decades. It was not,” he continued, “merely robbery. Those men wanted my cousin.”
“Miss Tomlinson?”
“Yes.”
Your other cousin, idiot.
“Oh.” Jacob felt a flush rise up his throat at the ghost’s sarcasm. “You meant Verity. No. It’s my granduncle’s daughter, Lady Mary, they attempted to kidnap, not his granddaughter.”
There was silence for a moment and then McAllen’s voice had a sharp note when he asked, “Lady Mary Tomlinson?”
Jacob nodded.
“A woman of a certain age? A traveler?”
Jacob tipped his head slightly. “She has traveled widely.”
Lester hesitated. “I think I met her. A number of years ago… In India…” He frowned. “She’s in danger?” He didn’t wait for a response but immediately asked, “Why?”
It was Jacob’s turn to hesitate. “If she weren’t preoccupied with a badly wounded man I’d have her tell you what she can. Jenna?” His look asked her how much they should tell a stranger. Even one who might have known Mary at some point.
Jenna hesitated. “Lady Mary…somehow…insulted a… Perhaps he is a king?” She looked toward Jacob who shrugged. “He…is not nice.”
Lester barked a harsh laugh. “If he’s sent men to kill her then I’d say that was a bit of an understatement.” He turned back to Jacob. “Has he?”
“He wants her returned to him for…punishment.”
“Torture and death,” guessed Lester. He nodded, a grim look cooling his eyes and hardening his jaw.
Jacob nodded.
“I owe Lady Mary a great deal. Whether you like it or not, while she is in danger I’ll not leave. You’ll just have to put up with me,” said Lester and abruptly he left the room.
Jenna and the ghost stared at each other. Jacob cleared his throat and Jenna turned a querying look his way. “That’s rather interesting, is it not?” asked Jenna slowly.
“Owes her? For what?” asked Jacob.
Good question.
Jacob sighed. “A good question, but not about to be answered. At least not now. I dare not question Cousin Mary while she wants nothing but to care for Rube. I doubt McAllen will cooperate by explaining anything. But if he won’t go, then how do I rid this place of the tart?”
“Jacob,” scolded Jenna. “You stop that at once. You must not call her that.”
“Even if it’s true?” he asked politely.
“Especially if it is true. She’s a lady. Now behave,” ordered Jenna much as she’d have done years earlier when he was a mere lad and running wild about the estate. Then she sighed, drooping ever-so slightly. “Drat. I’m tired again. This is such nonsense,” she said crossly.
“I suppose I’d better find the—” He glanced at Jenna. “Her,” he finished.
“And I suppose I’d better find a chaise lounge or return to my room for a while,” said Jenna. “I am so tired of being tired all the time!” she said, her voice cross. She moved from the room with none of her usual light quickness about her.
Jacob watched her go and shook his head. “She was so very sick,” he muttered. “Will she ever recover?”
She feels better all the time. She just forgets how much she’s improving, so whenever she needs to rest she feels it as an insult.
Jacob, who had forgotten his ghost, twitched. “Don’t do that.”
Don’t do what?
“Frighten me half out of my wits.”
Don’t see what I can do about that. Ghosts are supposed to frighten people. But you know, Jacob, I’ve begun to think it is mostly that we are so unexpected that we rouse fear.
Jacob didn’t agree but didn’t argue. “I must find Melissa.” He sighed as he left the room.
His ghostly granduncle knew where the tart could be found but didn’t tell his grandnephew. Gives the lad a few extra minutes’ peace if he must track her down, he muttered as he set his mind to being with Jenna—a method of transport he’d found very convenient. There are advantages to being a ghost, he thought as he settled beside his love and waited—far more patiently than he’d ever have done when still alive—for her to wake.
* * * * *
A day or so later, Verity finished discussing menus with the new housekeeper, asked if her rooms were satisfactory and, when they were, asked if there were any problems.
Mrs. Brownley hesitated. “There is…Emma.”
Verity’s head jerked slightly to one side. “Emma? What can possibly be wrong with that meek little rabbit of a woman?”
“You told me in York she’d be a great help to me. I find her more of a hindrance,” said the housekeeper.
“Hindrance? In what way?”
“No matter what it is I order done, she clears her throat and then in that irritatingly hesitant manner with ‘ums’ and ‘ers’ and ‘you sees’ and—the worst of all—‘we’ve always’ she proceeds to tell me how things should be done.” There was just a touch of acid in her tone. “Miss Tomlinson, I’ve been keeping house for over twenty years. I am not a novice who must be taught how things are done. This insistence that there is nothing better than what has always been done is irritating beyond belief. Please have a word with the creature or I will hand in my resignation before I’ve even begun to settle in. I will have to go since I am aware that it is very nearly impossible to be rid of old and loyal servants.”
Verity hesitated a moment. “Every house has traditions—” she began.
“About the order in which the rooms are dusted in the morning?” interrupted Mrs. Brownley.
“Is your order so very different from what has always,” Verity smiled at the word, taking some of the sting from it, “been done?”
The woman deflated. “I suppose in part it is that I resent her interference. But it is interference, Miss Tomlinson, and it is intolerable if I am ever to gain and retain any sort of authority over the servants.”
Verity nodded. “I see that and will see what I can do.” She glanced out the window and then back at the new housekeeper. “Give me a day or two. I may ask the retiring housekeeper to have that talk with Emma. It might have more—authority?”
Mrs. Brownley smiled at that but sobered quickly. “Loyal old servants can be the very devil,” she said and then flushed ever-so slightly at the language her temper had forced from her mouth.
Verity maintained a bland look as she replied, “The very devil.” She nodded and, flushing even more, Mrs. Brownley rose to her feet. “I will see what I can do.”
Verity frowned slightly as the door closed behind the housekeeper and then sighed softly. On top of
everything else, she didn’t need Emma attempting to protect Jenna by trying to maintain Jenna’s ways in all things, particularly such routines as in which order the rooms were cleaned. “Aunt Jenna will know how to deal with her.” She rose and headed toward the front stairs, meaning to find her aunt and discuss the problem instantly—before she forgot the task in all else that needed doing.
Verity’s approach to the stairs brought her near one of the salons. A lilting voice brought her up short.
“Oh, Jacob, dearest, you cannot know how much I have missed this.”
Verity couldn’t hear Jacob’s response and feared it was more physical than verbal. Turning on her heel, she hurried away, while, if only she’d waited, she’d have heard Jacob’s next words and been reassured…
* * * * *
Melissa pouted, her wrists held in Jacob’s firm but careful grip. “But, Jacob, love…”
“I am not your love, Melissa. We had this out before I left London. I enjoyed our arrangement, as you know. I think you did as well. I certainly hope so. But it is over.”
“No…oh no, Jacob.” A sparkling tear ran down her cheek. “Not over. Please…”
He shook his head, his jaw firming. He hated feminine tears and believed they were, in the parlance of the ring, a hit below the belt. And if so then they were a despicable and ignoble advantage and one he must resist. Very gently he pushed her still farther away, noting how her fingers turned into something resembling claws—which made him wonder if the tears were from anger rather than hurt.
That thought made it easier for him to relax into a fair semblance of tolerance. He said, “I suspect you spent funds you could ill afford in coming here, so I will hire you a post chaise for your return and send an agent with you to see to changes of horses and getting you proper rooms wherever you must put up for the night. You shake your head… Why?”
“I cannot return to London.” She pulled free and turned her back. “You don’t know what it was like, Jacob. I’m so lonely I sometimes think I’d prefer to jump into the river and end it all than go on as I’ve had to do.”
He frowned. “Lonely?”
“A widow is allowed very little in the way of entertainment, Jacob,” she said on a wry note. “The one simple entertainment I arranged, nothing more than a little card party for three other widows and myself, resulted in scandal, if you can believe it. There are some people who have nothing to do but gossip and they are the sort who always put the worst possible twist to whatever they say.” The wry note had changed to something between chagrin and disgust. Then her shoulders drooped but, head high, she stared into some distant prospect that wasn’t there. “I could not bear it.”
In that Jacob heard a touch of real anguish. He bit the corner of his lip and then, when she noticed and drew nearer, raising a hand toward his chest, he backed away a step and then another. Again he caught her wrist. “No. I cannot have you here for other reasons as well as that you do not belong. Besides that, there is danger as you know. That attempt to get at Lady Mary, in which you had a small part, will not be the last. Until we can capture the agent involved, it will go on and on… You must go.”
Melissa pouted again. She crossed her arms and the pout changed to belligerency. “I won’t go. You cannot make me go. I will raise a scene such as you’ve never experienced if you try to force me to leave…and then again at every posting house if you insist I must travel south. I will tell the world what an evil man you are. I will—”
She stopped when Jacob threw up his hands.
“Very well,” he said.
He spoke in such a cold tone she knew she’d lost him, had no further chance to fulfill her mission and a chill ran up her back.
“You may stay but on your head be it. There will be no amusements, Melissa. We cannot very well have company with all the strange grooms and other servants that involves, when we’ve no clue as to whom Mary’s enemy might hire. You’ll be as bored here as ever you were in London.” He turned on his heel and left the room.
Melissa, at first relieved she’d avoided immediate dismissal and an ignominious return to London, realized long before the day ended that he’d meant every word. She would be as bored here as there. She brightened slightly at the thought she’d not have to put up with scandal as well as boredom. But then she wondered what she could do. “I cannot bear to be alone,” she whispered to the empty room. “Where is everyone?”
If she meant anyone other than Jacob, and this time as she did refer to the ladies she knew occupied his house, well, they were occupied with Rube who had developed a fever overnight.
“More ice,” ordered Verity, sticking her head out the door. “It is late in the summer so we may be running low. Ask my aunt who might have some they will give us or sell us or, if you must, steal it. We must get this fever down.”
She hurried back into the room where she joined Mary at the bedside. Mary handed her a warm towel and Verity, slightly belatedly, wrung out another and handed it over. She dropped the warm one into the tub of ice water, sloshed it around and was ready when Mary needed the next. A maid tiptoed in, dropped a basin of chipped ice into the tub, glanced fearfully at the sick man, blushed rosily at his state of undress and tiptoed out again far more quickly than she’d come in.
“I’d better ask a footman the next time we need ice,” said Verity, a touch of humor in her tone.
“Why?” asked Mary, her visage stern and determined.
“That maid just turned as rosy as poor Rube here, seeing all that skin.”
It occurred to Mary that Verity, unmarried and still young if not in her first youth, shouldn’t be seeing it either. “It doesn’t bother you, my dear?”
“Illness is no respecter of a person’s modesty. I once helped nurse my parents when Mama caught my father’s illness. We had them both in a fever for several days. So if you think I’m shocked by the sight of a masculine body, I’m not. A very good body it is too…”
Mary straightened from the bed, whipping around. And then she accused, “You did that on purpose.” But she was grinning.
“Yes. A very wise woman once told me that humor is important. That it makes us human. And that it lightens burdens. Here.” She handed over another cold towel and took the one hanging from Mary’s hand. “Get on with it, woman! We’ve got to get that fever down.”
But when Mary was paying her no attention, Verity’s thoughts were of the widow and her intentions toward Jacob. And Jacob… Verity’s heart took on a more rapid rhythm—which annoyed her.
Anger, she told herself. It is anger that he’d even think of dalliance when so much of importance is going on.
Hours passed and they got on with it, more ice arriving as needed.
* * * * *
Jenna sat on the chaise and watched the ghost flit here and there about the room, always coming back to her. “What is it, Mel, my love?”
That woman. That widow. The tart! Why did she come just now?
“Widow? Oh, Mrs. Rumford. I suspect she came to see if she could wheedle her way back into Jacob’s bed.”
That’s what I fear. The ghost heaved what would have been a huge sigh if he’d had breath with which to heave it. What possessed Jacob to involve himself with such as her?
“My guess is that he was bored. You said it yourself. He was in a rut there in London. He just carried on from day to day, even though he’d long ago lost interest in that way of life. He’s not happy she’s here, Mel.”
He’s been celibate now for two getting on for three weeks. How long do you think that will last?
“Don’t sound bitter. You saw to it that he could choose to come here, to get away from his carousing and…how do I know what else? He came. He’s stopped drinking to excess. He likes dealing with your agent and learning about property management. He is doing very well.”
That’s all very well but you know as well as I do that once you start that, it’s hard to stop.
She chuckled. “That meaning…” She gestured toward
the bed.
The ghost growled.
“You’ve stopped,” she added, chuckling.
Not by choice. Bloody hell, Honey, he exploded. You know I miss touching you, holding you, making love to you…You cannot know how much I miss all that.
“Oh, can I not? I too have been forced to stop that, you know.”
Almost the ghost lost control and engulfed his love in an embrace. He caught himself just in time, backing away before Jenna felt more than a chill. They both sighed.
And while they softly made verbal love to each other, McAllen rode out and about and then returned his mount to the stables. “High Moor is excellently run,” he said to the groom who had been assigned to care for his horses. “Excellently.”
“His old lordship loved the land here. He were a good landlord,” said the groom.
“And the new young master?” asked Lester.
“He’s learning. Wants to learn. He’ll do.”
Lester nodded. It was what he’d thought from what he’d seen on his ride but his knowledge of London gossip concerning Jacob made it difficult to believe. Thoughtfully, he strolled toward the house but, seeing Melissa wandering soulfully around the garden among the guards there, he turned aside and approached her. “You are looking particularly lovely today,” he offered.
She looked up in surprise. “And you. Riding gear always did flatter you,” she said and felt a flush across her bosom and up her neck. She turned and hung her head, awaiting one of his sarcastic remarks, since she’d been fool enough to remind him of their past.
“Thank you.”
After a moment she turned, wide-eyed. “Just…thank you?”
He smiled but there was a touch of hardness in his gaze. “Shall we stroll? I think I can protect you if we run into evildoers.” He touched his pocket, which was ever-so slightly distorted by the small handgun hidden there. “So perhaps we might find somewhere just a trifle more private?” His eyebrows arched with the question.
The Ghost and Jacob Moorhead Page 14