The Lady's Ghost

by Colleen Ladd

  Of Giles, even less could be seen. In his severe black, he appeared a mere shadow in the moonlight, poised too far from the edge of the clearing to run.

  “You can understand my surprise when I heard you were back at the Hall,” Courtland said conversationally. “You’re lucky, by the by, that the rabble that frequent the Duck and Drake still hold you in such high esteem, or Ransley would have known within an hour of your arrival. As it was, it cost me a deal of blunt to ensure I would receive news of your return, should it ever come. I had an edge over the others, of course. I knew you weren’t among the dead when that ship foundered. The shipwreck was a stroke of luck for you.”

  “Fifty men died, Courtland,” Giles said in a strangely soft voice that raised the hair on the back of Portia’s neck.

  Lord Courtland seemed not to feel it. “Their loss. And your gain. No need to bribe some official to send proof of your death when your loving family could do it for you. Roger assumed you were among those whose bodies were not recovered. I wasn’t so certain. I’ve been watching for you.”

  “You were the one who set Ransley on me.”

  “On the contrary! Had I thought he had even the slightest chance of finding you, I would never have told him his ward was coming over the common Haymarket doxy at Ashburne Hall.”

  “Why then?”

  “A little mischief.” Courtland smiled. “I couldn’t resist. Though I must say, I was much relieved to see him leave without you, Ashburne. If I want to reap the benefit of your capture, I must encompass it myself.”

  “Benefit?” A laugh stormed from Giles’ throat. “There’s no reward for my capture. They all believe me dead.”

  “But Ransley will reward me if I bring him you. He’ll strike me from his black books, Ashburne.” Courtland’s voice dropped and he moved closer to Giles, the gun hanging loose in his hand. “He’ll fling such laurels about the shoulders of the man who delivers you to him that he’ll even let a man like me court his ward. Lovely little thing, Lady Clarissa, quite as innocent as the chit Roger married, though a great deal plumper in the pockets. I wouldn’t have pressed him to marry her if I hadn’t been so misled as to the state of her finances. A delectable morsel, Portia. I’d have had her myself. Though not, I think, to wed.”

  Giles lunged, but Courtland realized his error in time. He leapt back, the gun coming up to press against Giles’ breastbone. Portia held her breath, cold sweat prickling down her back, until Giles stepped back. She remembered her own gun suddenly and lifted it against the rough bark of the tree, but her hand wobbled with the weight of it. She’d never fired a pistol before and was by no means certain of her aim. If she hit Giles....

  “Dearest Portia,” Courtland murmured, a parody of affection. “How unfair of you to tell her I was trying to kill her that night, when I only wanted to frighten her off. I’d not have hit her.”

  “You hit me.”

  Courtland flashed a cold smile. “What a gift to spot you charging after her. I could hardly believe my luck. You ducked too quickly, Ashburne, or I should have ended it then and there.”

  “Dammit, Courtland! Why the devil are you out for me? You know I didn’t kill Lady Amelia or you wouldn’t have helped me escape the country.”

  “Of course I know you didn’t kill her, my dear Ashburne.” Courtland pressed the muzzle of his gun to the base of Giles’ throat, tipping his head as if to whisper in Giles’ ear, though the words carrying clearly to where Portia knelt in the fragrant loam. “I did.”

  Giles grabbed Courtland about the waist and jerked him off his feet. Portia’s nails bit into rough bark, a scream caught in her throat. She raised the gun again, but couldn’t tell one man from the other as they grappled in the dirt, heaving and grunting. Portia’s scream nearly tore free when she saw the gleaming barrel of the pistol raise. It fell on Giles’ dark head with an audible thump, and he rolled off.

  Courtland staggered to his feet, breathing heavily. He brushed dirt from his clothes with one hand, the gun never straying from Giles. Portia might shoot him now, but she was afraid of missing or only winging him. He could so easily squeeze the trigger before he fell. If she hit him at all. She held her breath. Giles, groaning, rolled to hands and knees.

  “You,” Giles panted, “why? What did she do to you?”

  Courtland chuckled as if Giles had said the most delightfully amusing thing. “Why nothing, Ashburne. Nothing at all. It was you I needed. Or rather, your money.”

  “Money?” Giles echoed, as if the word meant nothing to him. Perhaps it didn’t, with his head still ringing with Courtland’s blow. Even to Portia, it had the sound of a word she had once understood.

  “Money, Ashburne.” Courtland used the muzzle of the gun to lift Giles’ chin. “Blunt. The ready. In order to pay off certain debts of honor, I borrowed money from some unsavory gentlemen who refused to be put off. They were most insistent I pay up and prepared to do me physical injury if I did not. And you, Ashburne, you had cut Roger off.”

  Giles twisted his head away. “Do you dare tell me you killed her for a handful of sovereigns?”

  “Oh, a great deal more than that. Don’t take on so,” he added with false compassion. “Even if you hadn’t refused Roger further assistance, I should soon have had to resort to such lengths. Roger would have given me anything I asked, but really, he had so much less to offer than you did. Until he became Lord Ashburne.”

  Giles lifted his hand to his head and looked at his fingers as if wondering where the blood had come from. He dragged himself to his feet, Courtland backing away. It came to Portia suddenly that, even while he held Giles’ death in his hands, Courtland was afraid of him. “Why would Roger pay you so well once he held the title? What did he owe you?”

  “Oh, everything, Ashburne. Everything. Roger and I were the best of friends. He’d have done anything for me, especially after I covered up the murder for him. If it had come out that he killed Lady Amelia—”

  “You said you killed her.”

  “Oh, I did,” Courtland said without the slightest hint of remorse. “But Roger was never able to remember what he did while in his cups and always so trusting of anything I told him. He was ridiculously easy to convince. All it took was the sight of his own handkerchief smeared with her blood.”

  Giles’ eyes closed and Portia thought she saw him swallow. “Why? Why would you....” He faltered.

  “Why? To have him in my debt, Ashburne. Forever in my debt. I have lived high and well these last ten years. My debts paid, my least desire fulfilled. Roger was a gambler, a rake, and a fool, but did you really think he could run through the entire Ashburne fortune by himself? I found him far less amusing once his pockets were to let. It was just as well he died when he did. He was becoming a burden.

  “Then,” Courtland went on in a sprightly tone that made Portia feel as sick as Giles looked, “just when I was coming to my wits’ end—I even considered sticking my neck in parson’s mousetrap, could I but find a wealthy chit with an inattentive guardian—I got word you’d returned. Why did you come back, Ashburne? So long as you kept out of England, I was satisfied to leave well enough alone.” He laughed. “Oh, but you’ve done me the most marvelous turn. I feared you at first, but then I saw how to turn your foolhardiness to my advantage.

  “Ransley would pay anything for his revenge, but I’m not interested in anything so crude, and ultimately limited, as a gift of his money. I’ll take the hand of his niece and with it all her blunt and a nice chunk of his. Ransley’s settled a pretty penny on the Seabrooke chit when he dies. He has to stick his spoon in the wall sooner or later—and sooner can always be arranged. I shall be set for life and have a fetching doxy of a wife. She can’t be as innocent as she looks, not riding over the neighborhood in men’s breeches. Some farmer or stable boy’s surely already tumbled her. Even if she turns out to be dull as dishwater, well, there’s always Lady Ashburne. No doubt Roger taught her a thing or two.”

  Giles sprang wildly at Courtland, who le
apt away, brandishing the gun. “Don’t make me shoot you, Ashburne.” Giles didn’t seem to hear him until the muzzle of the gun was against his head.

  Portia’s lungs ached from holding back a scream. Her fingers slipped on the gun. She must shoot. Courtland wasn’t going to let Giles live. He couldn’t afford to give Giles the chance to tell what he now knew. Oh, but they were standing so close and her hands shook so.

  “Such passion,” Courtland mocked. “A pity you didn’t show it to Lady Amelia. She might not have been so easy to lure from your side. And she was, Ashburne,” he murmured, the muzzle of his gun pressed against Giles’ head. “So easy to woo with pretty words, to bring traipsing gaily into my arms in her flimsy finery. I almost regretted killing her before I had a chance to taste her charms.

  “And you made it so easy. I’d prepared the field—gossip spreads like wildfire, you know, and by the day of the ball, the entire house party knew of Lady Amelia’s infidelities—and I knew I could count on Roger’s assistance in directing everyone’s attention to you once I broke the sad news. But then you went and found the body.... Oh, that was too perfect to plan for.”

  “But you did. It was you who suggested she might have gone to inspect the grounds for the morrow’s picnic. I made nothing of it then.” A bark of laughter escaped him. “Obvious enough now. It was you who led me to her.”

  “Did I now? How delightful. One forgets.”

  “No, one does not,” Giles said heavily, and Portia knew he was remembering the night he carried Lady Amelia home, blood soaking his linen. “You’ll pay for this, Courtland.”

  Courtland laughed. “You seem to forget that I have the gun. And the man Ransley’s despised for more than a decade. Who will look beyond you, my dear Ashburne? Who will bother? Take heart. You’ll be too dead to care. Unless, of course,” he said with sickening levity, “your spirit should return to haunt the Hall. Now that would be ironic.”

  It was then Portia knew what she must do. She laid the gun on the ground and stripped open the ribbons of her cloak, her hands shaking horribly. She cursed herself, infuriated that she couldn’t accomplish even so simple an act as reversing her cloak without fumbling. It took only a moment to turn the white lining of her cloak out, but it felt like an eternity.

  “You must understand, Ashburne,” Courtland said carelessly. “It’s not that I believe he’d listen to a word you said. But one mustn’t take chances.” He raised the gun and Portia, looking up from the struggle to get her cloak about her again, caught her breath in terror, for there was now neither amusement nor mercy in him. The sprig of fashion was gone. Only the murderer remained. “I really must thank you for coming back, Ashburne. You gave me a few bad moments, I own, but thanks to you, the rest of my life....” He smiled. “The rest of my life will be quite comfortable.”

  There was no time to prick up her courage or have second thoughts. Portia could see Giles gathering himself to leap on Courtland, for all he could not fail to be shot. Courtland could see it too, and he smiled as if to encourage Giles.

  Portia picked up the gun and pulled the hood of her cloak as far forward as she could without blinding herself entirely. “Simon....” she called, striving to sound like nothing of this earth. Portia rose from behind the stump. “Simon, dearest....”

  *****

  Courtland blanched. He half-turned, his mouth forming Amelia’s name, but Giles couldn’t hear him for the roar of his blood. For the first time in what was surely an eternity, he was not looking into the mouth of Hell through the black muzzle of Courtland’s gun.

  “Giles!”

  The cry staggered him in mid-lunge. He turned toward Portia’s voice and the moonlit specter threw something to him. Instinctively, he caught it, cold metal slapping his hands. More sensed than seen, Courtland swung back, leading with the pistol. Giles fired just as Courtland’s gun belched flames.

  Something hot burrowed into his side, a buzzing numbness spreading out from it like ripples on a pond. His legs went out from under him, and Giles crashed to his knees. He vaguely heard Portia cry his name from some murky distance. Then she was on him. At her touch, he surfaced with a great indrawing of breath that seared his side.

  Courtland still stood, the pistol dangling from his hand. His eyes had a strange inward look and blood blossomed under his cravat, a crimson flower unfolding across white linen. He swayed and dropped the gun, but stubbornly kept to his feet. He coughed, and his eyes focused on Portia. “Little bitch,” he said, his words coming thick and slow. “Should have shot you when I had the chance.” His eyes drifted to Giles and he smiled suddenly, blood black on his teeth. “How will you prove your innocence now?” With that, he crumpled.

  Giles stared at Courtland’s body, triumph turned to ash in his mouth. There was no proof. No way he could demonstrate the truth of anything Courtland had said. Ransley would certainly not believe Giles, nor Portia if she spoke on his behalf. It was done for good this time. He would leave England and not look back, though he left his heart behind him. For a brief shining moment, Giles dreamt of taking Portia with him. He could happily pass the rest of his life in exile if only he had her by his side.

  “Giles! Giles, are you hurt?”

  Giles found Portia’s hand and pressed her delicate fingers. No. An exile’s life was not for her. “Nothing to signify, though I’m afraid you’ll have to stitch up my worthless hide again, love.” He cursed the fate that decreed their last hour together should be taken up with blood and gore. But there could be no further delay. Courtland couldn’t have resisted dropping hints to Ransley, who was far from a fool. The duke could even now be awaiting Giles’ delivery on his doorstep. Or worse, have grown impatient and come looking for him.

  “Where?” Portia pushed at his coat. He hesitated, savoring this last chance to feel her light fingers ghosting across his chest, then pushed her gently away and touched his hand to the bright pain in his side. She made a soft sound when he brought it out painted with blood, but his Portia neither fainted nor panicked. “We should—” She broke off when he lurched to his feet and wrapped her arms around him to help, seeming not to notice his blood staining her white cloak. She was so slight he didn’t dare lean more than a fraction of his weight on her, but still he kept her close, to feel her small body pressed against his one last time. “Have you a handkerchief?”

  Her hands delved into his coat, but Giles was unable to help her. Standing had driven the swarm of bees from under his ribs into his head, and the world had gone gray.

  “Here.”

  A hard hand pushed against the wet agony of Giles’ side. He hissed through his teeth and looked into pale gray eyes that had once been as dear as a brother’s. Giles jerked, but Ransley had his shoulder in a hard grip.

  “Your lady’s visit made me suspicious,” the duke said quietly, pressing his handkerchief steadily against the furrow Courtland’s bullet had dug across Giles’ ribs. “I came hunting for a murderer.” He glanced at Courtland’s body, then back at Giles. “It seems I found one.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  “Have you news?” Portia called to Foxkin as she turned into the innyard in a shining gig borrowed from Ransley’s stables. Lady Clarissa rode alongside, which explained Tony, sprawled on the bench next to her. Portia wasn’t fool enough to think he’d come along purely for the pleasure of his sister’s company.

  Foxkin smiled at Portia, settling the horse with the calming touch of his hand. “You would know better than I, my lady.”

  Portia sighed. “I had hoped you might have heard something.” It was near two months since Giles and Ransley left for London and she’d heard little since. Clary had gotten two short letters from her uncle, saying only that their efforts were proceeding apace. Giles had not written.

  Foxkin shook his head. “And you, my lady,” he said to Lady Clarissa, whose horse stamped restlessly beside Portia’s carriage. “May I compliment you on your fine sidesaddle?”

  Clary beamed down at him. “You may, sir.” She l
ooked very becoming, outfitted in a proper riding habit and perched on a new sidesaddle.

  “I’ll send word soon as I should get any,” Foxkin told Portia, slapping her horse on the withers to send them once more into motion. “Pray you do the same,” he called after her.

  “Shouldn’t carry on with innkeepers,” Tony muttered when they were out of earshot. He was slouched with his head tipped back against the squabs and his hat over his face, and it was impossible to tell if he was talking to Portia or Clary.

  “Foxkin’s no mere innkeeper,” Clary objected. “Foxkin’s... well, Foxkin.”

  “Excellent logic, my lady. And you, sis,” he went on without moving. “Patience.”

  “It’s been two months! Surely it can’t take that long to clear Giles’ name in the House of Lords. Not with the Duke of Ransley speaking for him.”

  “How long do you think it’ll take to wrest the title and estates from James bloody Ashburne’s greedy grasping paws? Roger helped conceal a murder and place the blame on Ashburne, but James had nothing to do with it. He inherited in good faith, I’m sorry to say. Every lord in the Committee of Privileges with a title that descends through an ancestor whose death was the least bit questionable is asking himself what he’d do if that bloke or one of his descendants appeared and demanded everything back.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Life ain’t fair, sis.” Tony yawned and boosted himself upright on the seat, returning his hat to its proper place on his head. “Ashburne will get it back, of course. The entire peerage would collapse if the Committee of Privileges couldn’t decide such a clear-cut case. Be patient, puss. Ashburne’s too busy to come dashing down from Town just to have a coze.”

  Yes, Portia thought, but he could at least write. “I’m not a puss, Antony Durose. I’ll have you remember I’m five years your senior.”