The Lady's Ghost

by Colleen Ladd

  “My lord,” Foxkin said before he reached the door. “If you weren’t so blind, you might see the surgeon at your door.”

  “What the deuce is that supposed to mean?”

  “You might also have noticed the holes in your roof.”

  “I bloody well know I’ve got damned great holes in the roof. Blister it, man! What’s that to do with anything?”

  “I gave Lady Portia Ashburne money enough when she brought me that silver t’other day that she might have bought several gowns. Now, she’s had Mr. Millbank out to the Hall, and she’s asked me to send someone to see to the roof, but I haven’t heard she’s ordered so much as a scrap from the modiste. But,” Foxkin said in an infuriatingly mild tone, “no doubt your lordship knows better.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Portia sighed and stretched her aching back.

  All the books were now back on the bookcases, excepting those that went on the top shelf. She’d stacked them neatly next to the cases they went in, in readiness should she ever get anyone to put them away. Courtland was tall enough, but one could hardly ask a visiting lord to mount a ladder and help out. The lamp guttered on the table—heaven only knew when last it was filled—and her eyes burned.

  She needn’t have whiled afternoon into evening setting the library to rights. There was no one to notice or care if she left things as they were. But Courtland left without materially adding to her small store of knowledge about Lady Amelia’s murder, and Portia could either put herself to work reshelving the books or she could spend the time brooding over the task she’d set herself.

  Little had she known when she opened her mouth to the Duke of Ransley what kind of mess she was getting herself into. And yet... What else was there to do but prove Lord Ashburne’s innocence?

  Pray heaven he was innocent!

  If he wasn’t, Portia might as well pack herself up bag and baggage, and throw herself on James Ashburne’s mercy, for the Hall would never become livable on her tiny income and only in London could she spout enough of the plate to effect any appreciable change. If it came to that, the quality of James’ mercy being strained indeed, Portia might as well throw herself on Ransley’s mercy, though she was more than half convinced he had none at all.

  He must though, mustn’t he? The locals, after all, looked to him to solve disputes fairly. Portia snorted—fair-mindedness was hardly the impression he’d made on her. Still, she had to believe that, if she could only get him to speak with her, he could be brought to see how much good she could do Lady Clarissa. But how could she make the man see reason when she couldn’t even get him to listen civilly? Pray heaven proving Ashburne’s innocence would somehow sweeten the duke’s disposition. Assuming he was innocent—

  “Oh for God’s sake,” Portia said aloud and blew out the tarnished lantern that sat in such high state on the huge library table. She wished she could snuff out her thoughts as easily.

  Carrying the stub of a candle she’d lit from the lantern, her tired eyes watering at the stench of the tallow, Portia nudged the cat out the door with her foot, locked the library, and headed up the stairs. She hesitated at the landing, empty without Ashburne’s portrait glaring down upon it, and thought briefly of going up to check on Mr. McFerran. But Ellie was sitting with him now and the surgeon had said he was on the mend before leaving another outrageous bill.

  Portia turned down the hall to the family apartments. Time to see if Giles Ashburne was still her guest.

  The portrait was not leaning against the chair by her bed. Portia let out a careful breath, surprised to feel a touch of loss in her relief. It was the uncertainty, she decided. If it wasn’t on the landing and it wasn’t here, where was it?

  She knew a moment later, when the feeble light of her candle reached the cold hearth. It picked out his eyes first, gleaming in the dimness, and Portia stepped back before she could help herself.

  “Don’t you know it’s discourteous to linger in a lady’s chamber, Lord Ashburne?” Perhaps Portia oughtn’t have thought about having the portrait hung over her mantel shelf to disconcert Mrs. McFerran. It seemed now like tempting Fate. Portia scowled at herself and knelt to light the fire from her candle. It was slow to catch, and she had to force herself to keep at it, the feeling of him staring down at her raising the hairs at the nape of her neck. She shivered, the cold fingers walking up her spine having nothing to do with the storm that blustered outside or the damp chill of her chamber.

  Portia bounced to her feet the moment the kindling caught, her eyes darting to the portrait. Not surprisingly, neither it nor its subject had moved. Giles Ashburne still stood immoveable before a lowering sky, as if unaware of the storm that gathered at his back. She hadn’t been certain whether he was smiling when she first saw the portrait. She was certain of it now. It was an oblique smile, amusement without welcome. She thought, irrationally, that he was pleased with his recent efforts.

  “Well, my lord,” she made herself say aloud, her voice going some way to disperse the gathering clouds of superstition. Much more of this and she would become as flighty as her maid. “Have you at last found a place you like, or will you be wandering off when the mood takes you?”

  Portia made herself look away from the portrait before she could begin searching it for similarities with the face she’d seen bent over her but two nights gone. That visage was burnt into her mind, and she found herself looking for it in the portrait, as if it might be hidden inside the smooth implacable glare of the man in the painting. Of course it could not be there. The man in the painting was not the same man who’d labored over letters to his lady love, pouring out his heart on the page to a woman doomed to betray him. Not the man who’d fled his home to die on some distant shore. How embittered Ashburne must have become.

  Portia shook herself free of useless speculation and imagination. It was all imagination. To believe otherwise was to fall into Ellie’s brand of mindless superstition. The fire had done little to warm the room and there was no point in standing around growing cold when she should be preparing for bed.

  When her light fell on the dressing table, the candle wobbled in her hand, dripping hot tallow across her knuckles. Portia barely felt the burn. Her traveling desk was open, letters spread across the table. Her breath grew tight in her chest, outrage filling her at Mrs. McFerran’s audacity. How thankless the housekeeper was, how unmoved by Portia’s efforts on her husband’s behalf.

  Portia put the candle on the corner of the dressing table and wiped the back of her hand on the dressing gown that was draped over the chair. Her singed knuckles smarted at the rough treatment, but she was beyond noticing. She began gathering up the letters, and was brought up short when she came to a single letter placed dead center on the table. Her hands shook so badly the others scattered from her grasp. Slowly, she sank into the chair, reaching trembling fingers for the letter.

  It was one of Tony’s and must have been smoothed flat with some care to avoid tearing it at the folds, which had grown thin with much handling. Someone had marked red ink in a hard bold hand across Tony’s familiar handwriting.

  “Who can find a virtuous woman? Her price is far above rubies.” And, below it, in a vicious scrawl, “Get out of my house!”

  This handwriting, too, was familiar. It was Giles Ashburne’s.

  The letter fluttered to the floor. Portia folded her hands under her chin, pulled her feet up under her, and sat huddled in the dressing table chair, curled into the tightest ball she could manage.

  Eventually, she made herself move. Made herself change out of her dress and into her nightrail, turning her back to the portrait as she disrobed without asking herself why she did so. And then, as if movement had been an end in itself, she ground to a halt in front of the fire and stood staring into the flames until her feet were blocks of ice. Finally, she spurred herself into motion once more, put on her dressing gown and slippers, took up her candle, and went out of the room.

  She did not look at the portrait over her hearth.<
br />
  Portia shooed Ellie away from Mr. McFerran’s sick bed, only realizing after the maid was gone that she ought to have mentioned that Ashburne’s portrait now hung over her mantel shelf. She sighed, for it was too late to call her back, and resigned herself to more smashed crockery in the morning.

  Mr. McFerran slept quietly, his brow dry, his color good. Portia settled herself at his bedside and watched through the night, taking comfort in the clear signs he was on the mend, finding a kind of peace in his soft, gentle breathing.

  Some endless time later, she had the impression of rising through fathoms-deep water to see a man clad in black standing opposite her, looking down at the invalid. As Portia stared, the man looked up and saw her. His face was expressionless, but there was something in his eyes that was not in his portrait, like a door softly opened. He put one finger to his lips and walked out, making not a sound, though he wore scuffed top boots.

  Portia blinked, coming fully awake, and dashed after him, but when she gained the hall, he was gone.

  *****

  Finding Portia once more nodding by McFerran’s bedside was the last straw.

  Giles had come home wet to the skin, the wind-whipped rain seeping inexorably under his cloak, and went straight up to the attic. He found the oiled canvas stretched over the hole in the attic floor by splashing into the water that built up on the edge, and investigated the extent of the hole by feel, impressed by the effort it had taken to shift the furniture into place to hold the canvas.

  Foxkin’s scold marched through his head, as it had all the wet walk home.

  Giles stripped off his sodden cloak and went down to check on the invalid. He found her there, as he had once before, nothing but peace in her sleep. “All right,” he said to himself and to the specter of Foxkin that rode him, “so I’ve misjudged her. In this at least.”

  She caught him there, and he found her charming despite himself, so muzzy with sleep that she let him walk out without a word spoken. He wondered with some amusement how much she would think she’d dreamt.

  Then, for he was, at least some of the time, a fair man, he waited through the long hours, shivering until his clothes dried on him, for her to hand her merciful duty over to Mrs. McFerran and retire to her bed. And an hour after that to make certain she slept, for he did not mean to frighten her this time.

  When he had finished filling her dressing room—all the dresses he’d taken and more besides—he found himself hesitating before her chamber door. He’d done all he need do, plus some by way of apology and guaranteeing she’d not need money for clothing in the near future. He’d stripped her of her wardrobe for pawning his silver; it was only right to return it when he discovered that she hadn’t bought fancy ribbons and expensive French lace but surgeon’s visits and shingles. But there his debt to her ended, for though she was better than he’d painted her, her correspondence showed her to be a woman of easy virtue and broken vows. He would not permit himself to regret the note he’d left her.

  He found the key that matched her bed chamber and turned it silently in the lock, slipping into the darkness where she slept, as he had long-since discovered, as deeply as any child.

  His eyes already accustomed to the dark, he could see the letters he’d left on her dressing table, now strewn over the floor. He gathered them up, placed the one he’d written on at the top, and tucked them away in her traveling desk. For a minute, he allowed himself to be distracted by the sight of his own portrait looking down from above the softly glowing fire. For that, and for sending her screaming in the night, he did feel regret. There were other ways to achieve his ends.

  Finally, responding to the lure of her, which he’d felt even on the other side of the dressing room door, he drifted to the bedside, standing well back so she would not see him if she woke.

  Her hair lay strewn across the pillow, surrounding her face in an inky cloud. He remembered how it had looked when he stood there last, light from his candle flickering in the mahogany depths. His fingers itched to touch, to find out if her hair was as silky as it looked, to brush the impossible softness of her cheek. But to touch her would be to wake her. He allowed himself to imagine her as he’d seen her, climbing the stairs by the light of her candle, her worn dressing gown clinging to her ripe curves. He wanted to peel back the counterpane and watch the dim firelight touch her body as he could not, stroking her through her thin shift, brushing the soft mound of her breast, the curve of her hip.

  Giles tore himself from her side, cursing. Just because she wasn’t the grasping harpy he'd thought her didn’t mean she was a woman he could allow himself to want.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Roused the next morning by a terrible crash, Portia rolled over and sighed.

  “Oh miss,” Ellie gasped, her tone as near to a shriek as she could get without raising her voice, “it’s... it’s...”

  “Over the mantel shelf. Yes, Ellie, I know.” Portia sat up, yawned and stretched.

  “You—”

  “It was there last night, and therefore reasonable to expect it might be there still.”

  “Nothing in this house is reasonable,” Ellie muttered, crouching to pick up the scattered toast and shattered tea service.

  Portia ignored the maid’s grizzling and slid out of bed, dancing on the cold carpet until she found her slippers. “I put the grey walking dress under my pillow again.” She didn’t apologize for it—Ellie could complain all she liked; nothing would convince Portia to risk finding herself with only a shift to wear come morning.

  Ellie pulled it out with a long-suffering sigh. “It’ll be down to the kitchen with us again this morning, my lady.”

  “Let me at least get into my chemise first. I’m not fond of shivering in my skin in the kitchen.”

  “I’ll just get your ladyship a fresh shift.” Ellie went to get the keys from the dressing table and Portia remembered the mess of letters she’d left there the night before. If Ellie saw the one with Lord Ashburne’s writing on it, she’d have a fit so profound even a liberal application of the vinaigrette wouldn’t let them get on with the day for some time. She reached the dressing table at the same moment as Ellie and stood gaping at the clear surface of the table while Ellie walked off with the keys. Portia lifted the lid of her traveling desk just far enough to see that the letters were there. Someone had been in her bedchamber again during the night. Portia shivered, though this felt different from the rest. Her ghost had done a superb job so far of tearing things apart. This was the first time he’d tidied up, which was almost more unsettling. She wondered if it was the start of a new tactic.

  Her relief that Ellie hadn’t seen the letter was tempered somewhat by the belated realization that, having never seen Giles Ashburne’s handwriting, Ellie would have made little of the letter. It was also, apparently, premature. Portia’s heart kicked into a gallop when Ellie screamed.

  She only realized it wasn’t terror when she joined the maid in the doorway and found herself gaping at a dressing room crammed full of brilliant, expensive gowns. Her own looked mousy and very poor indeed tucked away in one corner.

  “They’re back,” Ellie gasped.

  And then some, Portia saw, but did not say. She only hoped they wouldn’t vanish again before she had a chance to wear them. Ellie must have had the same thought, for she was gathering finery into her arms in a flurry of activity that paid little mind to color, quality or purpose, morning gowns next to ballgowns next to silk shifts, gray with green with burgundy.

  “If you wouldn’t mind,” Portia said, trying very hard not even to smile for fear she’d burst out laughing, “I think I would prefer to dress—” She plucked out one of her old gowns. “—before I go down to breakfast.”

  *****

  Portia descended the stairs in a brown study, not certain whether the reappearance of her dresses was some kind of peace offering or the next step in a campaign that would see them vanish again just when she could least afford it. Did it mark a sea change or just an e
bbing of the tide?

  She found Mrs. McFerran in the kitchen. Asked for tea and toast, the housekeeper provided it silently, but for the first time not sullenly. The toast was neither burnt nor soggy, the tea dark and hot. And when Portia thanked her for it, she swore she saw a touch of humanity flash across the woman’s eyes. Perhaps there was hope for them yet.

  The surgeon’s visits and Portia’s turns at the old man’s bedside may have at last cracked the ice. And in that context, the return of Portia’s dresses made sense. Mrs. McFerran was of course responsible for that, as she’d been responsible for their disappearance in the first place. After all, what made more sense, an angry housekeeper, or a vengeful ghost with a predilection for stealing lady’s dresses?

  What did not make sense was the letter. The handwriting was without doubt Ashburne’s, but the very ease with which Portia could identify it after only a brief acquaintance with his correspondence meant it was so individual in character as to be simple to mimic. Any of his retainers might have learned how. But how, in a single night, had Mrs. McFerran gone from penning so hostile a message to filling Portia’s dressing room with the dowager Lady Ashburne’s gowns? What had Portia done in the intervening hours to bring about a change of heart?

  Sat at Mr. McFerran’s bedside? She’d done that before—why should it make such a difference now?

  Portia tried not to dwell on what she’d dreamed as she nodded over Mr. McFerran’s sickbed. She couldn’t fathom why she would dream of Giles Ashburne standing over Mr. McFerran, watching him sleep. It was disturbing enough to conjure up vengeful ghosts; she hadn’t the slightest idea what to make of the softening she felt in him. Rather, in her imagined version of him. For of course he wasn’t real, and if he was no longer frightening, it was nothing to do with him. Perhaps her mind was trying to tell her something? Oh bother!

  She banished such considerations. Rather than growing easier in her mind, the more she told over all her reasonable explanations, the more uncertain she became. It was too easy to brush logic and reason aside and blame these pranks on him. Her ghost. She wasn’t certain she liked the drift of her thoughts.