The Lady's Ghost

by Colleen Ladd

  He recovered quickly from his surprise at having the lady of the house open the door to him, and before he’d even knocked. “I’ve come for my ward.”

  “Lady Clarissa? I don’t understand.” Portia hoped Mrs. McFerran had the sense to take herself off to the stables and warn the chit. Thank heavens Tony had insisted on taking Gunpowder to the stables or they’d be in the soup already. As it was, Clary could leave through the home wood with Ransley none the wiser.

  “Don’t try to bam me, madam, I know she’s here. I know she’s been here on several occasions. Now where is she?” He stormed into the great hall and stopped short, like a horse balking at a fence. For a moment, as he took in the destruction of the once-beautiful house, there was shock reflected in his eyes. Then he blinked and banished it utterly. “I am waiting, madam.”

  “You will wait a long time,” Portia rejoined tartly, “if you expect to see her here.” Pray God it was true.

  “On the contrary, Lady Ashburne, I know well that she is.” He stared her down, his pale eyes colorless in the dim hall. “Did you think I wouldn’t get wind of her flouting my wishes? I’m certain I made it quite clear to you that she was to have nothing to do with you or this place.”

  “Whoever told you she was here is no friend.”

  “Not yours. And perhaps not mine, but I make myself certain he told truth. Where is my ward?”

  “She’s not in the Hall.”

  “You will not win, madam.” Ransley’s voice so soft it would have been inaudible if he hadn’t loomed so close. “I will not allow Lady Clarissa to go the way of her half-sister, turning to Banbury tales, sneaking about under my nose—”

  Portia shook with fury at the imputation. “If, sir, you find the same faults in both your wards, perhaps the problem lies in you.”

  “You dare much, madam!” Ransley snapped, eyes blazing. “I will have my ward, Lady Ashburne, and you will cease these outrages. I will countenance no further interference.” He glanced about the great hall, and if there was a flicker of sadness in his eyes, it did not show on his face, which hardened when his eyes lit on Giles Ashburne’s portrait. “I vowed I would never set foot in this accursed place again. I will not forget that you made me break my oath. Now produce my niece.”

  Portia lifted her chin. “You are under a misapprehension, Your Grace. Your niece is not here.”

  Just then, proving that God, in His divine wisdom, thoroughly despised her, Tony and Lady Clarissa came through from the kitchen, their heads bent close in conversation. They could not smell more obviously of April and May, and they couldn’t have had worse timing.

  “What is the meaning of this, sir?”

  Clary gave a little shriek at the sound of her uncle’s voice and instantly turned mute as a fish. Tony jumped at the unexpected address but acquitted himself surprisingly well, immediately sweeping Ransley a bow. “Your Grace, I presume. Antony Durose, Lady Ashburne’s brother, at your service. I have just finished seeing Lady Clarissa’s horse settled comfortably in the stables.”

  “Un-settle him, sir,” Ransley snapped. “The horse and my niece will be leaving here on the instant.”

  Tony glanced at Clary, who had turned a rather unattractive shade of gray, then at Portia, who shook her head helplessly. He turned back to Ransley. “My deepest apologies, Your Grace, but you appear to be under a misapprehension—” Portia winced at his choice of words.

  “Enough, sirrah. I do not know how long your acquaintance with my niece is—” His tone made clear he’d have Tony’s head if it was more than a few minutes. “—but it is you who are under a misapprehension if you think I would knowingly allow my niece to pass so much as a minute with a member of this accursed family.”

  “To be fair,” Portia said as mildly as she could with the undercurrents between the duke and her brother making the hair stand up on the back of her neck, “Mr. Durose is no relation of the Ashburnes.”

  Ransley paid her no mind. “Lady Clarissa, if you would.” It was not a question and Clary went without a sound. Ransley turned on Portia. “I will countenance no further interference from you or yours, Lady Ashburne. You may make yourself certain of that.”

  The door closed with a hard slam echoed by a crash somewhere in the depths of the Hall. Out on the drive, Ransley could be heard shouting at his tiger to get Lady Clarissa’s horse and get himself home.

  “Tony—” Portia broke off at his glare. He stormed out the rear of the house, the slamming of that door at least not jarring anything else off a shelf somewhere. Portia went back into the library.

  “Damn, damn and double damn.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  “You swear like a fishwife.” Giles kept a weather eye on the library door. He’d heard Ransley’s carriage wheeling down the drive a minute ago, but wasn’t certain where Durose had got off to.

  “No,” Portia said, though her cheeks pinked with embarrassment, “Roger swore like a fishwife. I have better breeding.” She sighed and rubbed her temples. “Pray, sir, do not rip up at me, I’m in no wise equal to it just now.”

  Giles watched her sink down upon the couch and wished he could offer her a glass of something for her nerves. Portia looked as burnt to the socket as he felt. It was strange to think the greatest peace he’d ever felt was found working alongside her in the library the few days they’d had to themselves. Since her brother came, Giles had flown from one peak of feeling to the next, barely alighting before he was bowled over by some new event.

  He’d been enraged when she dared install her lover in his bedchamber. He could not stop himself imagining the puppy going to her through the dressing room. He’d spent hours in that bedchamber himself, waiting for the laudanum to dull the pain in his shoulder while he stared at her dressing room door and thought of how very close she was. How very easy it would be to go to her. Only respect for her honor and his own had stopped him, and when Durose’s arrival reminded Giles she had none, he’d been incandescent with rage and failed opportunities.

  Giles wasn’t certain even now what he’d meant to do when he went to her bedchamber, other than tell her to get out and take her lover with her. He’d waited nearly an hour after she retired, keeping an eye on her bedchamber door all the while, and when he entered to find her absent, there could be no doubt where she’d gone. Only a lingering shred of self-preservation kept him from charging into Durose’s room and tearing them apart. He sat in the dark, suffering in Portia’s lavender scent, and waited, his fury mounting. When she snuck back through the dressing room in the dead of night, he could contain himself no longer.

  To discover, in the midst of his rage, that he’d horribly misjudged her so derailed him that he’d forgotten he ought still tell her to leave, and especially tell her to find some excuse to send her brother away. Antony Durose was a threat, and worse an impediment. Just when Giles had begun to make real progress on the library, he was shoved back into hiding. It was not to be borne.

  And yet it must. How could he, his misjudgment of her preying on his mind, force her out now? Guilt, Giles assured himself, was what stayed his hand. Not the taste of her mouth, the soft give of her body. He dared not allow himself to think these delights were his to sample, whatever the momentary weakness that had given him that first taste. Nor could he risk keeping her near when he feared he did so only in hopes of repeating his trespass. He should not touch her again. Next time, he might not be able to stop. He might push aside the dress she wore so beguilingly, might taste her soft skin, might lay her down and himself upon her—

  Hoofbeats pounded across the grounds. Giles twitched the drapes open far enough to look out. “Your brother has just galloped off on that chestnut of his. Is he fool enough to follow Ransley?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Giles shook the drapes back into place and turned from the window. The puppy had likely only fled to the Duck and Drake to drown his sorrows. Giles seated himself on the couch, close enough to fill his senses with her, far enough he would
not be tempted more than he could resist. “Portia Ashburne, I’m beginning to think having you around is more dangerous than strong winds and high seas.”

  She gave a watery laugh. “Only beginning? My lord, I’m sorry, I did not intend—”

  “To pave Hell? That’s the problem with good intentions, my lady. They can be so easily twisted from their purpose.” He ought still be angry with her. She’d not only brought two innocent calflings down on him, but Ransley as well. “You realize,” he said quietly, “that your brother cannot stay here.” He could no longer ignore the folly of keeping them around. While she was in residence, there would be far too many people making free of his house without so much as a by your leave. The next time—and there would be a next time, for neither Portia nor Clary were anything but stubborn and Durose no better—could be his undoing. If Ransley even suspected Giles was alive, let alone in the Hall, Giles, and everything he loved, was lost.

  Portia wrung her fingers around and around each other. If she’d had a bonnet or reticule, the strings would be in impenetrable knots. Giles put his hand over hers. “Portia.”

  “I can’t. I can’t just turn him out, what am I to say?”

  “You’ll say that you require his escort back to Rosewood.”

  Portia gave him a strangely wild look, an uncharacteristic giggle bursting from her lips. “Surely you’re not serious, my lord.”

  “It’s not safe for you to stay, Lady Ashburne.” Giles realized he was leaning toward her and made himself release her hand and shift away. “I should have sent you home the moment it became clear someone meant you harm. I’m sorry, Portia, but you really must go.” For her safety and his peace of mind. Now that he knew what she tasted like without the tang of fear on her tongue, he wanted so badly to taste her again that it was fortunate her brother had arrived to act as unwitting chaperone. Whatever Giles had once thought her, Portia Ashburne was not some shameless lightskirt, ripe for a meaningless tumble.

  “Go, my lord? You’re putting me out?”

  “I see no choice in the matter.”

  “And where am I to go?”

  “You are not attending me, Lady Ashburne,” Giles snapped. “You’re to go home.”

  “This is my home.”

  Giles stood and walked away for fear he would shake her otherwise. “Return to Rosewood, Lady Ashburne. You told me you’ve kept it up the last few years; it’s surely more comfortable than the Hall. And no one will try to kill you there.”

  She muttered something that may have been “Are you quite sure of that?” Before he could demand to know what she was on about, she said, “If you would be so good, Lord Ashburne, answer me this: what shall I tell my brother-in-law?”

  “Why, tell him the truth.” Giles said, realizing only then that he’d never asked himself why she was really at the Hall after learning how wrong his initial assumption that James had sent her off as a punishment was. “Ashburne Hall isn’t fit for man nor beast.”

  “You are much mistaken if you think that would make a difference to him. James Ashburne sent me here because his wife couldn’t bear to share the house and title. He would not welcome me back.”

  Giles stared foolishly at her several moments before he was able to make sense of her words. “James always was a prating prig of a man; I’ve never met his wife.”

  Portia’s laugh was far too harsh. “She is quite his equal, I assure you. Between them, they make Ashburne Hall a delight by comparison. Not that it signifies whether I wish to return or not. They do not want me.”

  “Then do not go to them. You’re a widowed woman, Lady Ashburne. Propriety does not required you to remain under your husband’s roof.” But somewhere in Giles’ mind, words he'd overheard Tony say were going round and round, growing louder and louder. The pittance Roger left you. The pittance Roger left you. The pittance Roger left you.

  “I am a widowed woman, Lord Ashburne,” Portia echoed with a mocking edge, “and have not relied upon my husband, or his kin, since the morning after my wedding, when Roger put me in a coach for Rosewood with a few pounds in my reticule and no idea where I was going. All the Ashburne wealth was not blunt enough for Roger. He thought nothing of letting the family seat go begging. What makes you think he bothered his head about doing the same to his wife?”

  Giles cursed. “He made no provision for you? He left you nothing?”

  Portia’s gesture encompassed not only the library, but the Hall, cold and dank and crumbling around them. “What was there to leave, my lord?”

  Giles strode to the door and back, jaw clenched and hands working. His cousins were fortunate, Roger that he was beyond Giles’ reach, James that a trip to Rosewood was too dangerous for a man in Giles’ circumstances. They deserved all the horrors of Hell for what they had between them done to Portia. No wonder she balked at his every request. His cousins had so tarnished the Ashburne name that Giles couldn’t help but be blackened by the brush. His relations had blighted him in this woman’s eyes before he even had a chance to know her.

  “Pray do not take on so, my lord.” Portia’s chin was up, her color high. Impossible to tell if it was shame or determination that put the flags in her cheeks. “I have a small competence from my grandfather. It is enough to live on, so long—” She stumbled slightly and her blush deepened. “—so long as I’m not thrown completely on my own devices. I must have a roof over my head, sir.”

  “Durose, does he—”

  Her chin inched up still farther. “He will have a small income once he graduates. It is not sufficient to support the both of us, and I wouldn’t batten onto him in any case.”

  “My apologies, my lady.” Ashburne sat next to her on the couch, all the wind taken out of him. “I did not intend to suggest you might.”

  He was falling again, tumbled off the prominence on which he’d thought himself secure. So these were the souls he’d taken unwillingly into his house and unwittingly under his wing: a stunning woman with more courage than coin and her hay-go-mad brother, sent down from university in what was doubtless but one in a series of rustications. How often had Giles hosted Roger in just such circumstances? Always the good excuse, the unforgiving master who wouldn’t listen to apology or explanation, the other student who instigated it all. Over and over, Roger had come to laze about Ashburne Hall, ride his horse neck or nothing about the countryside, and sit in Courtland’s pocket, the two of them drinking and carousing as if they were of an age. Just so had Roger spoiled his chances, running unconcernedly through his own small competence, always under the hatches, always relying upon Giles to bail him out. Until he’d been forced to tell Roger he wouldn’t keep putting up the blunt to bail him out of River Tick. He’d taken that step, he realized now, but two months before Roger inherited the entire Ashburne fortune.

  He’d never thought it more than a schoolboy’s carousing. He’d dipped into such waters himself when he was in school, and his father had cut him off, just as he had Roger. Giles had taken the lesson to heart. But when the money was his, Roger had managed to make ducks and drakes of the lot, just as Durose would no doubt fritter away anything that came his way. And Portia? She would make excuses for her brother, give him money and pay his debts, and find herself in search of a rich husband or wealthy protector just to keep a roof over her head.

  The realization curdled Giles’ thoughts. No woman had ever wanted him for aught but his money. Even Amelia had been taken with the Hall, the silver, the family jewels. It was now painfully clear that Portia was no different.

  “May we stay, then, Lord Ashburne?” Portia asked stiffly.

  He had been silent too long. “You may, my lady.”

  It was not her fault. Roger Ashburne had left his wife with no option but to marry money, and James Ashburne had ensured, all unwitting, that the first eligible man she met after she was widowed was a wretch poor in everything but money. Giles had worked hard in exile and amassed a substantial pile for himself while Roger was busily destroying everything Giles loved.
Or could love, it seemed.

  Even as his heart sank within him, Giles could not blame her, could not call her a shameless fortune-hunter and banish her from his affections. The time for that had passed him by. He cast back through recent days as after a possession lost somewhere by the road, though what he sought was far less tangible than a misplaced handkerchief and could not be so easily recovered. There were those, even before Amelia’s death, who called Giles Ashburne heartless. Though he did not wear his heart upon his sleeve, nor give it away easily, yet still he had one, and where he had bestowed it, he could not easily retrieve it. For this reason, he continued to shoulder the guilt of Amelia’s death, though he was not the author of it. He’d known long before her death that he could no longer bear to wed her, but neither could he bring himself to denounce her. Had he done so, she might have been ruined, but alive.

  Must he take on more guilt now? Guilt for Portia, her life endangered trying to prove his innocence. He’d money enough to keep her in any house or inn, but he knew her stubborn independence would allow her neither to take his money nor to leave. He was stuck with her, and she him. Once he did clear himself, what then? So long as she was trapped in the Hall, whether by a murderer or her own poverty, the choice was not her own to make. Locked in his dark room after he sent her to bed, his body aching for her, heart aching with a tenderness he would rather not feel, Giles had thought of offering his hand, and known he could not do so while his name was tainted. Now he saw that even clearing himself would not be enough—however much he wanted Portia Ashburne, he would not take her when she had no choice but to accept him. She must have the freedom to decide without the specter of penury hanging over her, though he couldn’t rightly see how he could give her that choice without giving her money, which he knew she wouldn’t accept.

  Giles had not thought he could be more determined to prove himself innocent than he was when he first set his foot upon this path. Now, however, he must clear his name not only for his sake, but for Portia’s.