by Kruger, Mary
“You have heard of the legend of this house? My legend?”
“Not really. Lady Pamela mentioned a ghost—you—but she seems more concerned with the Valentine family legend.”
He snorted and rose, pacing the room. “Foolish woman. Quite pretty once, but she’s faded. Ah, but that’s beside the point.” The long skirts of his coat swirled around him as he turned. She couldn’t have imagined this, Alana thought. Her dreams tended to be much more prosaic. “I have had a hundred fifty years to repent, and to consider the wrongs I did. I hurt someone very badly once.”
Alana crossed her arms and surreptitiously pinched the inside of her elbow. It hurt. She was awake, then. “Everyone has hurt someone at some time in their lives.”
“Ah, but not like this. I was married, you see, to the sweetest, loveliest lady. Madeleine. She was French. Petite, dark, with snapping dark eyes. You remind me of her.”
“Me? But she sounds nothing like me.”
“Not in looks perhaps, but in spirit. I’ve been watching you, you see.”
Somehow, that alarmed Alana more than anything else he had said. “Watching me?”
“As I watch everyone who comes into the house.” He turned towards her, a gleam in his eyes. “You are most attractive, you know, though you pretend not to be.”
Good heavens, he was flirting with her! Alana hastily glanced away, biting the inside of her lips. How was she to deal with an amorous ghost? “Go on, sir. I would like to hear more of your lady.”
“Ah, yes. Madeleine. I treated her shabbily, I fear. I sought, shall we say, other distractions elsewhere.”
“You gambled, wenched, and drank.”
He stared at her. “And how does a young lady like you know of such things?”
“Men haven’t changed, sir. I wonder your lady wife put up with it.”
“She didn’t. She had a temper, my Madeleine.” A smile touched his lips. “Threw any number of things at me, here in this room.”
“Here?” Alana looked around, alarmed.
“This was our chamber.”
“Oh.” That explained why she had been given this room. No one in the family would wish to occupy it. “Did you frighten off the last companion, sir?”
He snorted. “She was a foolish woman. Wasn’t doing Honoria any good. You’ll be better for her. But, dear lady.” He went down on one knee before her, and she drew back. “You don’t believe I intend to hurt you?”
“I don’t know what you intend, sir.” Alana held herself steady. “I think, though, that if you wished me harm, you would have done so already.”
“I am not a cruel man.” He got to his feet, frowning. “I may be a ghost, but by the lord Harry, I am not cruel. The damned woman had the nerve to try to conjure me up.”
“She did? How?”
“She fancied herself a witch. Used to conduct rituals in here, intoning my name. Nearly set the room afire, burning her herbs. Dreadful stench. Couldn’t have that.”
“No, of course not,” Alana murmured. She had gone mad, that was what it was. There could be no other explanation for this. “So, tell me, sir. Why do you not try to frighten me?”
“As I have told you, I need your help. My Madeleine—.” He stopped. “I was a fool. Even when she begged me to stop what I was doing, I didn’t. She threatened to leave me, and I wouldn’t stop. She was only a woman, after all, and it was my life. But, by the lord Harry, I loved her.” He stood still, his hand to his mouth. “We had a new parlormaid. I—well, I meant nothing by it! Just a kiss. But Madeleine saw us.”
“If you ask me, sir, you deserve anything she did to repay you.”
“Yes. That I did. Didn’t think so then, though. Was relieved when she didn’t even so much as yell. She just looked at me. Thought everything was all right, but when I came home the next day, she was gone.”
“Gone?”
“Gone. She left me. I thought it was a ruse at first, but then I saw she took everything she had brought with her to our marriage, and nothing more. That was when I realized she was gone, and I’d been a fool.” Agitatedly, he paced around the room. “I was bored, you see. Not with her, but with life. So I kept seeking newer things, hoping to find something to make my life worthwhile, and all the while it was here, waiting for me.”
“Madeleine,” Alana said, caught up in his tale in spite of herself.
“It was Valentine’s Day. We had the custom of exchanging tokens on the day, no matter if we’d been arguing. Valentine’s Day, and she left me.”
“What did you have for her, sir?”
“A heart. A crystal heart on a chain. It was nothing, just trumpery, but when I knew she’d left, I realized it was my heart I was giving her. I had to get her back.”
“Where had she gone?”
“To my sister’s house, a few miles distant. It does not matter. It didn’t, then. I would have gone to the ends of the earth to get her back. I called to have my horse saddled and I rode out of the stables at a furious pace. It was raining. I remember that well. The hard, driving kind of rain that soaks through your clothes and lowers your spirit. I think I must have been a little mad that day. I didn’t care about the rain, or my mount. I spurred him on, faster and faster. And—”
“And?”
“As we came around the corner of the stables, he slipped on the cobblestones. He righted himself immediately, but I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing. I took a header.”
“Oh, no!”
“Dear lady, do not distress yourself. I assure you, I felt nothing. I was beyond feeling anything. I was dying, you see.” He leaned forward. “And as I lay there, the rain in my face, I vowed that someday the damage I had caused would be undone, if not by me, by one of my descendants. I vowed that he would learn, as I did, but in time, to give up his roistering ways for what really mattered. As proof, he would give his true love a crystal heart, on Valentine’s Day. And then—”
“Then?”
“Then I found myself here,” he said, simply. “I have been here since.”
Alana rose, turning away and wiping at her eyes. In spite of herself, she was touched by his story, and his plight. “It is a very sad story,” she said, when she had her voice under control. “I am sorry for it. But I do not see what I can do to help you.”
“You can help me fulfill the vow.” He leaned forward and his hair fell about his face. Again Alana saw a vague resemblance to someone, and then it was gone. “I have been waiting all these years for you.”
“Help you? How? I’m not one of your descendants, and I do not lead a roistering life, I assure you.”
“No, no, I didn’t say you did. And I don’t know why you are the one. I simply know that you are.”
Alana stared at him. Stranger and stranger. But then, what could be stranger than sitting and talking with a man who professed to be a ghost, and believing him? “Well, I certainly never have been the chosen one before,” she said, her good humor reasserting itself, “but I will help you, if I can. If it means I will have peace in my own room.”
Sir Gabriel drew back. “Dear lady, you don’t think I would bother you, do I?”
“Heavens, I hope not!” The thought hadn’t occurred to her before, but now she remembered that roguish gleam in his eyes. Ghost or not, she wasn’t sure she entirely trusted him. “What can I do to help?”
“I’ve lost track of my family.” He rose and began pacing again. “After I passed over, the house was sold, and Madeleine moved away. I heard she had a child.” He stood, his back to her. “I never saw him. But I know there are Folletts somewhere. I just don’t know where.”
“And you cannot leave the house to search.”
“No. It is my doom to stay here, until the vow is fulfilled.”
“Hm.” She looked thoughtful. “Tracing your family shouldn’t be too hard. I could write to—no. That I cannot. But there are ways to find out. What, though, do we do then?”
“We give him the crystal heart.”
“You have it, sir?”
“No, it’s disappeared as well. That is the other thing I need you to do. To find it.”
“I see. So. We find your descendant, give him the crystal heart, and tell him to mend his ways.” She laughed. “It’s madness! Why should he listen to me, whoever he is?”
“Not you. I will tell him.”
That caused her to laugh harder. “How am I to get him here to talk with you? No.” She shook her head. “It is a farce. He’ll never believe it. I’m not sure I do,” she added, to herself.
“Madam, I assure you I am real!” he roared. The glow about him intensified, and then abruptly faded, as his upper half disappeared.
Alana jumped up, her chair clattering back and her hand to her throat. “Don’t do that! If you are going to try such tricks with me, I will not help you, I assure you of that!”
Sir Gabriel rematerialized as quickly as he had disappeared. “Damme, but you have a temper!”
“I mean it. You can do what you will, but I will not help you if you insist upon throwing tantrums.”
“Tantrums!”
“Well, what would you call it?”
He stared at her for a moment, and then smiled, slowly. “By the lord Harry, you do remind me of Madeleine.”
“My misfortune. I will help you find your descendants and the crystal heart, but only if you behave yourself. What happens after that is something I cannot control. Have we a bargain, sir?”
He looked at her consideringly. “I believe we do. If you will help me, I promise I will not do what ghosts are generally supposed to do.”
“Thank you. I think.”
“Thank you, dear lady. It relieves my mind, knowing you are here.” He bowed again. “I will leave you now. Good night.”
Absurdly, Alana found herself curtsying. “Good night to you, sir.” She rose. “Sir Gabriel,” she began, and stopped. He was gone.
All the strength left her legs, making her sink into the chair again. Good heavens, what had just happened here? Had this happened to anyone else she would have insisted it was a dream, but it hadn’t. Sir Gabriel Follett had stood there, looking as real as a man could look, and she had carried on that mad conversation with him. Worse, she had agreed to help him, whatever that entailed. Madness. She would end up in Bedlam, if she continued with this delusion. For that was all it could be. Everyone knew there was no such things as ghosts.
Suddenly weary, she passed a shuddering hand over her brow and rose. It had been a very long, and eventful, day. Time for her to be abed. Pulling her nightshift from a dresser drawer, she began to unlace her gown, only to stop and look around. The room was empty. At least, she thought it was, but then, she had no way of knowing where Sir Gabriel was. Quickly, feeling foolish, she snuffed the candle, and continued disrobing in the dark. Her last thought, as she slipped under the covers and succumbed to sleep, was that it all must have been a product of her overtired mind.
John had just fetched his tray for luncheon when the door to the kitchen opened and Alana walked in. She looked tired, he thought, and a little harried, which was no wonder, from what he’d heard about Lady Honoria. She couldn’t be easy to work for. He supposed he should feel sympathy for her, but he didn’t. Not after the way she had acted yesterday, giving him setdowns, as if she considered him inferior. When he was the Viscount—but she didn’t know that, of course. He wondered how she would react if she did. Like every other silly female did, he supposed, bedazzled by the title and the prospect of making a good catch. He was rather surprised to find that he was glad she didn’t know.
“Miss Sterling,” he said, nodding as he passed her.
“Mr. Winston,” she replied, stopping. “Might I have a word with you?”
He stopped, too, staring at her with one eyebrow raised, in unconscious imitation of his father’s mannerism. “Are you sure it is me you wish, ma’am?”
She brushed at a strand of hair that had come loose from her chignon. Long, glossy hair, he noted. “Yes, I am sure. If you will wait until I get my tray?”
“Of course.” He glanced over at the cook, who was watching them with open interest, and gave her a wink. “Luncheon looks excellent, Mrs. D.”
“Glad I am of that,” the cook replied, beaming at him. “Like to see a man enjoy his food, that I do.”
“Well, I enjoy yours.” He grinned as the cook turned pink.
“Shall we go, sir?” Alana said from behind him, and he turned. The smile faded. She was eyeing him with distinct censure. It was new in his experience, and it rankled.
“Of course.” He held the door open for her. “Thank you, Mrs. D. And behave yourself.”
The door closed behind them to the sound of the cook’s chuckles. “What did you call her, sir?”
“Mrs. Doolittle? Mrs. D.”
“Why?”
“She seems to like it.”
“Most improper, sir.”
He shrugged. “Perhaps.” Standing back, he held open the green baize door for her, and they stepped into the main part of the house. “What did you wish to see me about, ma’am?”
For the first time in their acquaintance, Alana looked a bit self-conscious. “I was wondering if we could take luncheon together, sir. In the library.”
John’s eyebrow rose again. Hadn’t he asked her this very thing last evening, and been rebuffed? “Certainly. I’m honored.”
“Well, don’t be.” She sounded cross as she walked into the library and set her tray down onto the table. “What I need to ask you concerns your work.”
“Oh?” He sat across from her, lifting the napkin from his tray. “Ah. Look what Mrs. D. has made for us. Baked ham with raisins, and I do believe that is trifle.”
“So it is. Tell me, sir.” She set her hands on the table. “In your work, have you come across any mention of the Follett family?”
John glanced back at his work table, piled with books and papers. “I’ve hardly begun. Fascinating work, though.”
“You sound surprised.”
“No, no.” Truth to tell, though, his enjoyment in this morning’s work did come as a surprise to him, it was so different from what he was accustomed to. But then, he always had enjoyed this kind of work when he was at school. “Is there anything in particular you need to know?”
“Well—I was wondering if you’d look for any mention of where the family went after they sold the house.”
“I suppose I could.” He smiled. “What do I get in return?”
Alana set down her fork with a clatter. “Pray do not be so odious!”
“And pray you don’t be so condescending,” he shot back. “You earn your employment here, just like me.”
“You flirt too much, sir.”
“Is that bad?”
“In my experience, yes.”
“Pity.” He leaned back. “Someone as pretty as you, behaving like a dried-up spinster.”
“I am not dried up, sir!”
“Never said you were.” He reached for the plain pewter tankard set on the tray and found it filled with cider. Simple fare, but delicious. “Why do you want to know about the Folletts?”
Alana took a moment to answer. “I’m curious,” she said, averting her eyes.
John leaned forward. “There’s more to it than that. Now tell me, or I won’t tell you what you wish to know.”
She stared at him, her brow crinkled. “I can’t.”
“What do you mean, you can’t?”
“You wouldn’t believe me.”
“Why? Are you a long-lost connection of the Folletts’, perhaps?”
“No, not quite.” She threw her napkin down and rose, stepping away and then whirling to face him. “Very well. I shall tell you. Last night I met Sir Gabriel Follett.”
“Who?”
“Sir Gabriel Follett.” She paused. “The ghost.”
Chapter Four
John stared at her for a moment, and then let out a laugh. “You’re joking,” he said.
Alana touc
hed her napkin to her lips. “No, Mr. Winston. I only wish I were.”
“A ghost? You can’t seriously expect me to believe it.” He stared at her as she continued eating, as calmly as if she had said nothing unusual. “You are serious.”
“Yes.”
He laughed again. “Then, Miss Sterling, you must have windmills in your head. Ghosts don’t exist.”
Alana took a bite of ham. “I assure you, sir, I am not insane. And, before you accuse me of being foxed, let me also assure you that I never touch spirits.” A smile tilted her lips. “At least, not spirits of the liquid variety.”
“Miss Sterling-”
“I am no more sure than you of what happened,” she went on. “I do know I was not dreaming, but other than that, I cannot say for certain that I really saw anything.” She paused. “Except that he certainly seemed real.”
“I am real, madam,” a voice said behind her, and she started, turning, to see Sir Gabriel.
“Heavens!” Her hand flew to her heart. “You startled me.”
“What are you talking about?” John asked.
“Tell him I am here,” Sir Gabriel commanded.
“Heavens.” Alana turned back. “Sir Gabriel is here.”
“What? Where?”
“Standing behind me.”
John peered past her. “I don’t see anything.”
“I assure you, he is there.” She turned. “Will you show yourself to Mr. Winston?”
“That Jack-a-dandy? No.
“Then do please go away, sir. I cannot talk with you hanging over my shoulder.”
“Oh, very well,” Sir Gabriel grumbled, and faded.
Alana turned to see John regarding her with a strange look on his face. “If he had to do that, I wish he had appeared to you as well.”
“You really believe you see him.”
“Indeed, sir, I do. Oh, I know it sounds absurd!” She set her fork down. “If I were you, I wouldn’t believe it, either. It’s a ridiculous story.”
“So it is.” He stared at her. Miss Sterling baffled him. Yesterday she had given him a severe setdown, and yet today she had actively sought him out. “Assume for a moment that what you are saying is true. What do you expect me to do about it?”