Phantom Bride

by Cach, Lisa

  “However,” Woding said on a sigh, and with that one word a warm light flared to life in Nancy’s eyes, “it is also true that women work beside the men in my mills, and women have always labored in the fields at harvest. If you can show me that you can indeed bring the horses through the tunnel without their shying, then you have the job. Room, board, and the going wage for stableboys.”

  Shock froze Serena in place, a soft grunt of disbelief bubbling in her throat. He was… Woding was… He’d given the girl the job! Her world tilted, and she felt herself sliding off it into confounding chaos.

  He didn’t berate Nancy for her temerity. He didn’t beat her. He didn’t sneer. Instead, he gave her a chance to prove herself based on ability, not sex.

  Serena blinked at Woding, realizing she hadn’t understood him at all. He saw Nancy, as an individual person, with skills and hopes. He saw her! He saw everyone, she now realized. No one was beneath his notice.

  Was that why he sensed her, too?

  Nancy was nodding her head in a brisk, male gesture of thanks. “Shall I bring the horses through now, sir?”

  “In a bit. I have some letters to attend to; then I’ll join both you and your aunt in the courtyard.”

  Nancy nodded again, and let her aunt guide her from the room.

  Serena followed the women to the door, then a few steps down the hall. The reaction she’d been waiting for came as, once out of sight of Woding, Nancy turned and enveloped her aunt in a rib-cracking hug, lifting the stout woman almost off her feet. “Thank you, Aunt Daisy,” Nancy said, and kissed the woman on the cheek. “I shall never forget this.”

  Mrs. Hutchins shook out her skirts and rearranged her apron when Nancy released her. “Make me proud, dumpling. ’Tis all I ask.”

  Staggering in a queer, thrilled disbelief, Serena returned to the office.

  Woding was reading a letter, a grimace on his face. When he reached the end of the second page he tossed it to the desk, then for a moment looked right at her, accusation in his eyes.

  Her lips parted in surprise. What? What had she done?

  Alex looked away from the presence that he now called Serena in his mind, remembering his determination not to acknowledge her in any way. It was hard, though, when her game of touching Beth’s hair had led to the letter now sitting on his desk.

  Little sister Sophie was coming to visit, and God only knew who or what she would bring with her. He would count himself lucky if it was only a crackpot priest to do an exorcism of the castle. Sophie’s fascination with the supernatural was a great annoyance to both himself and his other sisters.

  Sophie would want to know all about his experiences of Serena, of course. The ones that troubled him most, though, were the ones he could never share with anyone: the erotic nightmares. Like all dreams, they began to slip away the moment he woke, but he was left each time with the memory of intense yearning––whether his or Serena’s, or a mingling of the two, he didn’t know––and the perverse, erotic, sickening thrill of intense sex with a woman as cold as snow.

  Rhys would say that he’d been too long without a woman. God knew that was the truth. He couldn’t fail to notice the wish fulfillment element of his fantasy lover, either, who was a tall, strong woman of few words and animal passion: the opposite in every way from frivolous, delicate Frances.

  As disturbing as the dreams were, though, he was beginning to look forward to them.

  God help him.

  He pushed the thought from his mind. He had a bit of time left before his peace was disturbed by Sophie, and he wouldn’t have it ruined by worrying over phantoms of the mind.

  He went to go join Mrs. Hutchins and her niece in the courtyard, wondering as he went down the stairs what had overcome him in regard to that situation. A stable-lass? Sommer would not be pleased.

  On the other hand, he himself was not pleased to hear that Sommer’s nervousness had made it necessary for supplies to be hauled by hand up through the tunnel. He’d known the man wouldn’t bring the horses through, but hadn’t realized it was causing inconvenience to others besides himself.

  If Sommer didn’t like having a stable-lass on hand, then he had better start doing his job properly.

  Alex came out into the sunlight of the courtyard, his eyes wincing at the brightness. He was getting too used to the half-light of indoors, and the soothing darkness of night. Daylight glared, as painful as lemon juice to his eye.

  “Why, hello, puss,” he heard Nancy say. She was squatting down, the hem of her smock pooling on the paving stones, looking at something he could not see. “Where did you come from? I didn’t see you there.”

  Alex stared at the girl.

  Otto, who had been sleeping in a patch of sunlight in the courtyard, lifted his head, and then came completely awake, scrambling to his feet with a “Woof!”

  Nancy’s head turned, as if watching something streak away, and for a moment from the corner of his eye Alex thought he saw a blur of orange down near the ground. Otto, barking madly, went galloping in the same direction.

  “Oh, now that’s funny,” Nancy said, standing up, her placid brow showing only the slightest sign of consternation.

  “What’s that?” Alex asked, at the same time sensing Serena’s presence by his side.

  “That orange cat. I don’t know where it went.” She walked several feet in the direction Otto had gone, then stopped. Otto could be heard somewhere along the curtain wall, still barking.

  “Cat?” Mrs. Hutchins asked. “I didn’t see a cat.”

  “Sure you did. A big orange one, with tattered ears.”

  “I didn’t see any cat,” Mrs. Hutchins repeated.

  Both the women turned to Alex, as their master and therefore the authority on the disagreement. “I wasn’t really paying attention,” he said, his voice cracking. “It sounds as if Otto saw a cat, though, doesn’t it? Hmm?” He smiled at them and changed the subject. “Shall we get on with it, then?” he said, and set off toward the tunnel, his mind clanking along on gears suddenly thrust out of sync.

  A ghost cat? Serena and a cat? This was the time for him to start cackling like a lunatic. Maybe there were ghost horses, ghost dogs, ghost chickens, even. The whole mountaintop could be infested with ghosts. It was no wonder Otto went wild when it looked like nothing was there.

  He blinked, shaking his head. Somehow he was beginning to both believe and disbelieve in ghosts at the same time. How could his brain hold such opposites within its bounds, allowing them to coexist?

  The cool darkness of the tunnel was a relief after the bright sunlight, and the muscles around his eyes relaxed. The two women followed behind, their footsteps echoing his. As they wound down and around, for the first time in several days he felt Serena fading away, and by the time the sunlight of the lower entrance was visible, he had lost the sense of her entirely.

  Interesting.

  Sommer, predictably, did not like the idea of a stable-lass, and liked even less that Nancy was to be allowed to try to bring the horses through the tunnel. He turned a frightening shade of red when Nancy had the temerity to suggest that he stay behind, as his nervousness might infect the horses.

  Logic forced Alex to agree with Nancy. Sommer spewed some particularly rude comments about women and then stomped off to sulk in his quarters, leaving Alex with the distinct sense that if Nancy passed her test, he might soon be short a coachman. So be it, if so: Sommer had only himself to blame for the situation. Alex wasn’t going to let Sommer’s rigid thinking cause inconvenience for the household.

  Ten minutes later, he had a new stable-lass. The horses had shown not the least hint of shying anywhere in the tunnel, nodding their heads and blowing, ears forward, completely at their ease all the way up to the courtyard.

  As soon as Nancy disappeared back into the tunnel with the horses in tow, Alex felt Serena return to his side. It took all his willpower not to look toward her, not to acknowledge in some way what that return told him. If not for her deliberately staying
out of the tunnel and courtyard just now, Nancy would likely be on her way home, jobless.

  What they said was true: Serena haunted only men. Furthermore, there was some form of intelligent awareness to her, some element of reason and motive. Emotion, too?

  Movement from behind the gate to the walled garden caught his eye; if that was Ben Flury at work, he wanted to talk to him. He tried to shrug off thoughts of Serena, which were becoming perilously close to assuming she was a real woman who just happened to be invisible. The gears of his brain screeched and clanked again, trying to both accept and deny the possibility.

  He found the elderly man kneeling beside a flower bed, his hands gently massaging the dirt, pulling out weeds without disturbing the plants that grew beside them. His grandson did the same on the opposite side of the bed, albeit with less grace.

  “Mr. Flury, hello,” Alex said.

  “Mr. Woding.” Flury sat back on his heels, then pushed himself to his feet. The process was slow and painful-looking.

  “The gardens look wonderful, all of them,” Alex said. “I am glad that you’ve stayed on to work them.”

  The older man gave a gentle smile. “I couldn’t leave you to a houseful of women, now, could I?”

  “I would certainly hope not,” Alex said, although he thought Serena would enjoy having Maiden Castle live up to its name by having a female gardener as well. “You wouldn’t have happened to have seen an orange cat about anywhere, would you?” he asked.

  “With chewed ears? Aye, I’ve seen him once or twice.”

  “You have?”

  “Never lets me get close enough to touch him, but aye, he’s been around.”

  John spoke up from behind his bush again. “I’ve never seen him.”

  “Since when do cats like noisy young boys?” Flury asked his grandson.

  Alex chewed his upper lip a moment, thinking how to phrase his next question. “Do you know to whom it belongs?”

  “No, sir,” he said. “But I should think the only owner possible is Serena.”

  Alex blinked at him. Clank, clank, clank went his brain.

  “You do know it’s a ghost cat, don’t you?” Flury asked, as matter-of-fact as you please.

  “Er, I had rather suspected, yes,” he said in a choked voice.

  “Well, there you are then. It won’t hurt you none, if that’s what concerns you. Harmless little beast. Seems to enjoy tormenting that hound of yours, though.”

  “Yes.” Alex stood silent, staring at the unruffled man, the machinery of his mind perilously close to seizing up altogether. “Yes, well, thank you for clearing that up. What I truly wanted to ask you, though, was a question about the cherry tree.”

  He and Flury followed the path over to the gnarled tree. Flury reached up and touched a dead branch, bits of bark crumbling into his hand. “It doesn’t look good,” he said.

  “I was thinking it was unlikely it would last more than another year or two,” Alex said. “But I don’t know much about trees. What do you think?”

  “This branch was alive a few weeks ago. See the leaves? It looks as if it may have caught some disease. Do you want me to take it down?”

  Some small movement from the corner of his eye caught Alex’s attention. He turned his head, but saw nothing amiss. He turned slowly back to the tree, and as he did so a tall figure became vaguely visible, at the very corner of his vision. He stood stock-still.

  “No, I was wondering if there was some way to save it,” Alex said, absurdly trying not to move his mouth while he spoke. The figure started coming closer to him, impossible to focus on from the corner of his eye, but from the shape of her silhouette, it was a woman. A very tall woman. Tingling awareness started at the base of his spine and spread over his body.

  “I don’t know if that’s possible,” Flury was said. “It’s quite old.”

  “It has the most unusual blossoms I have ever seen,” Alex said, trying to sound normal. “I had hoped that there might be a way, if not to save it, then at least to reproduce it.” The figure stopped right beside him, and he caught his breath, feeling that heavy sense of presence that Serena gave him, stronger than ever.

  Flury rubbed his chin. “We might try grafting a branch onto another tree,” he said. “Or we might be able to start one by seed.” He looked down at the ground, clear of any cherry debris. “If we can find a seed, that is.”

  The figure still hovered at the edge of his vision, only barely holding the form of a woman. He thought he might be able to see the garden through her, but could not be certain.

  “Try whatever you can,” he said. And then, tentatively, “Do you ever see anything besides the cat?”

  “Like Serena herself?”

  Alex raised his eyebrows in confirmation.

  “Just the cat.”

  “Ah.”

  “Is Serena giving you trouble, Mr. Woding?” Flury asked, concern on his brow.

  “No, no, not at all.”

  “They do say as that Briggs had a bad time of it while he was living here. I shouldn’t be surprised to see her play her games with you, as well.”

  “You seem remarkably unconcerned about her,” Alex said, his throat dry as the white figure hovered in the corner of his vision.

  “Aye, well. I’ve seen a ghost or two in my time, and never known them to do any real harm. As far as Serena is concerned, my guess is she likes her flowers, same as any other woman. I figure that’s why she leaves me alone.”

  Alex jerkily nodded his thanks to the man and started back to the castle. The figure vanished from his periphery when he turned his head away, and he felt the presence following behind him as he walked back into the courtyard. At the main door he paused and turned, as if taking a last glance outside. He held still when the faint shape came into view, again from the corner of his eye. She was definitely there, not two feet from him.

  Either he was having hallucinations now, to go with the imaginary sense of a presence, or he was seeing the ghost that followed him day and night.

  The ghost.

  God in heaven, he was being haunted.

  Chapter Eleven

  Woding seemed more tense than usual, Serena thought. His eyes had the wide watchfulness of a wary horse, as if he was expecting something to jump out at him from behind every corner. It was what she wanted, but she wished she knew what had brought it on so suddenly. Maybe it was that whole incident with Beezely.

  The cat even now brushed up against her leg, and she bent down to pet him. “Naughty kitty,” she said, scratching him under his chin, feeling his purr rumble against her fingers. “Do you appear to them on purpose?”

  She followed Woding to his bedroom, where he shucked off his shoes and lay down on the bed. She knew his habits well enough by now to know that he must be intending to watch stars tonight, and sought to prepare himself with a nap. The clear sky boded well for stargazing.

  He didn’t look in the proper state of mind for napping, though. He lay flat on his back, his hands clasped together on his belly, his ankles crossed. She sat down cross-legged on the empty half of the bed, pulling at her skirts so they were loose over her knees. She put her chin in her palm, her elbow on one knee, and settled in to wait.

  This was her least favorite part of haunting Woding. Observing him sleep was entertaining for only the first few minutes, and then she began to get both jealous and bored. Jealous because she no longer knew the joys of sleep: she could fade into oblivion easily enough, but it was a black and empty oblivion, devoid of dreams or the luxurious sensations of slumber. The boredom came because he did nothing but lie there. The thrashings of his nightmares held a certain interest, but even that was a frustration, as she had no way of knowing what images tormented his mind.

  Woding was staring wide-eyed at the fabric lining the underside of the tester, a vein throbbing in his temple. She leaned over to look directly into his face. It was a handsome face, she had to admit. She wondered what he’d do if she touched it, maybe brushed her fingerti
ps across those tightly closed lips. Those smooth, well-formed lips that looked soft and firm at once.

  Her fingers tingled with the desire to do it, but she held back. She had to remember that he was the enemy. She should not be having thoughts like this about him.

  Eventually he closed his eyes, and bit by bit his breathing deepened. She stretched out beside him on the covers, her fingers playing with the ends of his hair on the pillow, passing through without disturbing them.

  He wasn’t an entirely bad man, she reluctantly admitted to herself, watching him sleep. She could imagine no other hiring a stable-lass. She still couldn’t quite believe that he had done it. Maybe all those times she thought he was being manipulative of servants or of his sister, he was instead being kind.

  No, that couldn’t be right. Manipulative and sly fit her vision of him much better than did generous and kind. He might use the carrot instead of the stick, but he still managed to get his own way. Her brothers would have underestimated him, thinking him weak and laughing at his methods. But who would have laughed last? The sly fox, that’s who.

  And yet… She had never once see him be unkind. Exasperated and annoyed, yes, but the only temper she’d seen him display had been directed at her, after she’d thrown a tantrum in his study.

  The thought made her uncomfortable. She nibbled a thumbnail. If Woding was a good man, where did that leave her and her plans to be rid of him?

  Alex woke feeling more tired than when he had laid down, restless images from his dreams flitting through his disjointed memory. She was the cause of his poor sleep; he was certain of it. Daytime be damned, it was Serena who had him thrashing and sweating when he sought calm slumber. He turned his head, catching the pale shape in the corner of his eye.