They had no sooner finished the beef stock than the waiter came with a platter and Lord Vance served them each from the capon and vegetables that was presented. The food was well cooked for such a crowded inn. And Fisk had nothing to do with the quality of their fare. It suddenly occurred to him how horrible his life would be without his trusty servant, a man who was no doubt missing his own dinner at this moment.
How much worse to lose a sister and a twin at that. His own brother Robert was a twin but not identical. Then something about her story confused him. “But why did your brother wait all this time to get rid of the letter?”
“That has me in a puzzle as well. But he was going to visit a friend overnight so perhaps he was afraid I might come across it. Which is really insulting when you come to think about it. As though I would sneak and go through his papers when he is not around, a bunch of fusty sermons. Who cares?”
He smiled at the flush of anger in her cheeks. “What will you do if the trail ends here?”
“Oh, how can it? She must have gone somewhere.”
“But after a whole year will anyone remember?” Miss Fetters asked.
“I don’t know,” Sarah said. “Now I wish I had not made that wretched innkeeper so angry. He would be the very one to ask.”
“If he knows anything I will get it out of him.” And Vance meant it. He would leave no stone unturned for he could see Sarah would never let herself be happy until they had discovered what had become of Annabelle.
“If I cannot find her I am not going home,” Sarah said.
Lord Vance stared at her. “Where will you go?”
“I don’t know but I won’t go back.”
“Don’t say that,” her companion chided. “Your brother isn’t inhuman. He will be worried.”
“He never seemed to worry about Annabelle. He will not even let her name be spoken.”
“Do you know what I think?” Vance asked.
“What?” They both replied.
“If we fail to find word of her soon, you should come on a visit to my mother and sister-in-law at Vance Hall. There you will have a safe place to stay while I search.”
Miss Fetters almost choked. “But she doesn’t even know your mother. That would be highly improper.”
“But once I introduce both of you to her, you will know her. And if I know my mother she will trace the lineage of both families until she finds a connection however remote. You will all be bosom friends.” He tossed off the rest of his wine as though that settled the matter.
“You expect us to ride there in your carriage with you?” Miss Fetters demanded.
“No, that is, yes, but not with me. I shall be riding a horse. You may have to share the carriage with my valet Fisk. He’s getting on in years and should stay out of the cold.”
“Oh, I don’t think I should,” Sarah said. “How can I look for Annabelle if I am to stay in one place?”
“You don’t have to look for her. I will do that. I simply have to know you are safe.”
“Why?” Sarah asked.
“Why?” Vance repeated. Since this was a new impulse for him, he didn’t know why he must keep her safe but he must.
Miss Fetters stopped eating and glared at him. “Yes, why?”
He turned to Sarah with no idea how to answer her. “Because I love you,” he whispered.
“What did you say?” Miss Fetters demanded.
“Because I love to do things like this, investigations. It’s my favorite thing in the world.”
Sarah nodded slowly and he was not sure if she had heard him the first time or if she now believed what he’d just said. And which did he want it to be? He really did love her.
“We should retire now,” Miss Fetters said like glass breaking.
Lord Vance tore his gaze away from Sarah when he saw Fisk hailing him from the hall. He excused himself and went to speak with him, then returned to them and reported, “No word of her with the shopkeepers or menservants, but do not despair. If you walk about the village with me tomorrow someone may recognize her features in you.”
“Do you really think so?”
“I am counting on it. Now let me tell you how we celebrate Christmas at Vance Hall while we have some fruit and tea. We decorate the whole house, not just the hall. Sometimes my brother is home with his wife and two sons. They all go ice skating on the pond once it freezes. We have a family dinner Christmas Eve, then a dinner for the tenant farmers Christmas Day with dancing and much merrymaking. The day after is for the servants. Sometimes I think it is the only day they all get off together during the whole year. We need to give them more time off.” He realized he should indeed have done something about that years ago, but now he must.
He noticed Miss Fetters was looking at him as though he had run mad but there was only worshipfulness in Sarah’s eyes. She could make him feel like a hero just for having good intentions. He found himself completely unlovable and yet she admired him. So there must be something about him that could be redeemed. There was hope especially now that he had found Sarah.
“And what then?” she asked.
“When the weather is good we make a round of visits to the neighbors and they all come to Vance Hall for the New Year. Sometimes there is a hunt.”
“Do you sing together,” Sarah asked.
“Yes, almost every evening,” he replied.
“That is what I miss the most, singing with Annabelle. I can’t do it alone.”
“I’m sure you have a lovely voice,” he said.
“I have no heart for it. How wonderful to have a big family around you all the time.”
“Oh, I don’t live at Vance Hall. My mother lives there with my sister-in-law and nephews. My brother as well when he’s not on campaign. I live in London.”
“If I had such a home I would never want to leave it,” Sarah said in awe.
“Well, my family don’t exactly approve of me.” Too late he realized this was a damning admission.
“Why not?” Sarah asked, her delicate brows puckered in sympathy.
“Because I have not married.”
“And why is that?” Miss Fetters demanded.
“I had not found the right woman until now.”
“I think it’s time we turned in.” Her companion rose and Sarah had no choice but to go with her. The girl’s gaze lingered on his and she smiled over her shoulder even as Miss Fetters led her toward the stairs.
He was committed. And no panic had set in. Each of his other near misses with matrimony had left him sweating and feeling ill. But he felt wonderful, as though Sarah could solve all his future problems just by listening to him. He felt that he could conquer the world with her at his side. And when he thought of breaking the news to his mother that he had proposed to a parson’s daughter rather than one of the elite on her list of eligibles he did not get sick to his stomach. He felt good that he had found his own bride. Even if his mother initially disapproved Sarah would win her over. How could anyone not like her? He poured himself another glass of wine and leaned back in his chair to contemplate his happy future. There was just one small task to perform before Sarah could turn her attentions to him.
“He has a good storytelling voice, doesn’t he?” Sarah asked when they got back to the room and Miss Fetters began fussing with night clothes and slippers.
“Lies more like. He painted far too idyllic a picture of his home life. If he’s such a paragon why isn’t he married with a brood of children? He said himself his own family disapproves of him. He’s a libertine, that’s what he is. All that nonsense about him only wanting to help. He wants you. That’s plain enough.” Miss Fetters prodded the fire with the poker as though she were skewering Vance.
“I do not care what his motives are if he can get me some word of Annabelle. Otherwise I’ll have to speak to the servants myself.”
“That ye shall not. I can ask after her, but what is the point? If she stayed here on her way to somewhere else, she isn’t here now. That letter was
dated a year ago. We should go back home when the weather abates.” Miss Fetters replaced the poker and turned down the covers of the bed.
Sarah went to the window and gazed out, wishing that helpful snow angel would come again with another dream. “I know the trail is very cold.”
“That’s not the only thing that’s cold. These sheets are freezing.”
“I bet that Fisk will show up to bring a warming pan.”
“Did you dream that?” Miss Fetters paused to stare at her.
“No, but Fisk is like Vance in many ways, caring and comforting.”
“You and your silly predictions. You just set yourself up for disappointment.”
“I’ll find her. I know it.” Sarah came to warm her hands at the meager fire.
“And why hasn’t she written since?”
“Don’t you see?” She whirled to face her companion. “If Jerome burned one letter from her he was capable of destroying other letters including Annabelle’s goodbye note. There was a lot of ash in the grate.” She sniffed as she said this, wishing her dream of her sister had awakened her just a few minutes earlier.
Miss Fetters frowned. “Yes, he would be capable of that. Go to sleep now. What a terrible place to spend Christmas Eve.”
There was a rap at the door. “It’s Fisk come to build up the fire,” he called through the panel. “And I brought a warming pan of coals from the kitchen.”
Sarah giggled while Miss Fetters went to let him in.
After Fisk had left Sarah luxuriated in her half of the warm bed, but she felt bad that Vance would have no place to sleep. What a hero to give up his bedchamber to them. And if she mistook not, he had said he loved her. But he’d then glided away from the topic so she could not be sure. He was handsome and attentive, but she could not afford to fall in love at the moment.
Once she had found Annabelle then she would welcome Vance’s attentions, and that would give him time to reconsider. He seemed an impulsive young man and she had to remind herself that however freely he helped them he might not be serious about his feelings for her. Still it was comfortable to have someone pamper her for a change. It made her feel optimistic though logically she knew she had no right to be.
* * * * *
Sarah’s room door swung open into the hallway. A jovial male voice, perhaps the one that had awakened her, called from below stairs. “Be merry. It’s Christmas Eve.” A girl, glowing with an ethereal light as she glided across the room on bare feet, disappeared into the dark hall. Sarah ran after the image, her own footsteps making no more sound than those of the apparition. It looked like Annabelle from the back. It had to be her. Sarah saw her still glowing in the dim hallway as she made her way to the end.
The girl wrested open a double door that wasn’t a door. For Sarah could see stars beyond and the outside air blew past her, carrying in a cold smell of death and freezing her in her robe. Sarah had the most awful feeling something terrible was about to happen. And then she saw what Annabelle saw, snow and ice on the cobblestones of the stable yard a story below as though she was the one at the window. She looked down and tried to scream but could not utter a sound.
Vance abandoned the raucous card game when the noise gave him a headache. The laughter seemed to be echoing inside his brain. Probably too much wine. When he came up the stairs he saw Miss Pelham standing at the end of the hall at a window. Strange, he did not recall a window at the end of the hall. “Miss Pelham? You should not be out of your room and in your nightdress. You’ll catch your death.”
She did not hear him and he wondered if she was still asleep. Then the cold blast told him that the double window she was standing in front of was open. He crept up on her and when he was close enough he touched her shoulder and realized the opening went to the floor and that a single step could plummet her to her death. She turned her head and stared at him, her beautiful eyes bemused. He quickly embraced her waist with his arm. If he had not come up the stairs when he did she might have pitched forward into the cobbled courtyard. She looked away again and called, “Annabelle,” then took a step into thin air. He caught her and dragged her backward. His heart was hammering in his chest at the disaster so narrowly averted and he rested his chin on her head protectively.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
“Lord Vance.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Saving your life.”
A silhouette appeared in the doorway of her room down the hall and Miss Fetters squeaked. “What the devil is going on?”
“I think she is walking in her sleep.”
“Unhand her.”
“Only if you can make sure she does not walk off into space again. She very nearly fell to the courtyard.”
The woman came to take Sarah’s arm and looked down, then gasped at the drop to the snowy cobbles. “Why is there such a dangerous door left open?”
“I have no idea, but I will speak to the innkeeper.”
“I saw her, Miss Fetters,” Sarah said. “It was Annabelle.”
“Your sister? Where?”
“Here. At this window. This must be where she died. She stayed at this inn and must have fallen from this window.”
“What do you mean you saw her?” Vance asked.
“Her ghost, I suppose.” Sarah did not heave and sob but the large tears welling in her eyes and sliding down her cold cheeks made Vance want to take her in his arms and shelter her. Instead he did the gentlemanly thing. Vance finally relaxed his hold on her and Miss Fetters walked Sarah back to their bedroom.
“Lock the door and keep the key,” he advised.
The woman looked back and nodded.
Vance closed the double doors but they blew open again as though the angel of death was trying to get in. He got the shaving stand from his room with which to block the opening until something could be nailed over it. He was jockeying this into place when Fisk came up the stairs, stinking of ale and smoke.
“Wot the devil? Thinking of jumping?”
“Don’t sound so hopeful. Miss Pelham almost fell from here. The latch must be defective. Guard the opening until I can get the landlord.”
“No, you stay here. You’ll never drag him away from his customers.”
“I want to do it.” It took him ten minutes but he finally badgered the landlord into supplying him with the requisite board, hammer and nails. His valet was sitting up sleeping against the wall to the left of the double door.
Vance had seen openings like this in Europe, used to winch furniture between floors since the stairways are so narrow. It only just now occurred to him that his man might have fallen out as well. Suddenly he cared very much what happened to everyone in his life. He had been taking them all for granted, including his mother, brother and other relatives.
He fastened the door knob, held the board at waist height with his hip and drove a nail through it into the window frame.
“Have mercy,” Fisk begged. “My head is splitting.”
“Are you drunk?”
“Along with half the town. I’d trouble gettin’ sense out of any of them.”
“What about Annabelle?”
“The cook remembered her.” Fisk placed his hands on each side of his head as Vance drove in the other nail. “She stayed here with her husband on their way home.”
“Husband?”
“That’s what she said, though the cook thought it might have been a runaway marriage and perhaps the man was not yet her husband. She thought it were romantic.”
“Did she say anything about a girl dying after falling out this door?”
“No! After me asking about the girl and two maids remembering her, they would have said if she had died here. Who told you this girl was dead?”
“Sarah seems to think so based on her dream.”
“The one who asked you to find her? Are you sure she is quite stable?”
“She is perhaps overwrought, but she is as sane as you or me.”
“That’s not sayi
ng much.”
“You don’t understand. I have to help Sarah. She has no one else.”
“That’s what you always say. It’s the eyes. They always work a spell on you with their eyes. You’re putty.”
“There are worse things to be.”
Vance went to bed working on a plan. Since the girl had come from Muybridge they need not check back in that direction, but they would check all the churches south east along a swath toward London, not a small task by any means. It could take months but it was something he could do.
He saw her again on a snowy street but this time she turned to face him and as he had guessed the girl in his dream was Sarah. She was looking for something and glided away. Why was he immobilized? He felt like he could not even breathe.
A jovial male voice almost shouted in his ear, “Well go after her. Don’t lose her now. She’s the one. Besides it’s Christmas. Time to be merry and to marry if you have the courage.”
It sounded a bit like his brother’s voice when he’d been drinking, but how would he know about the girl of his dreams? Vance had never confided that bit of fantasy to anyone, least of all to a captain of guards. Why was his brother’s jovial voice in this dream? Wait. If it was a dream how did he know it was? Then he remembered he always figured out he was in a dream and tried to make it come out right.
He gasped and fought off the pile of coverlets and lap robes his valet had tried to suffocate him with. When Vance had returned to the room he’d found Fisk sprawled on the settee so he’d covered him and stretched out on the carpet in front of the fire. Fisk must have awakened later and felt guilty.
The dream made him uneasy. He did not like to dream about his brother. When he did he always waited for bad news but sighed with relief when they got a letter saying he was safe. The war was over and Robert was posted to Paris. There was even some talk of him getting leave to come home for a month but Vance was glad he had not tried to make a crossing in this fiendish weather.
Dreams of Christmas Page 3