Always in My Dreams

by Jo Goodman

  "He's a nice young man."

  Not wanting to give her mother any reason to hope, Skye nodded absently. "Has Jay Mac talked any more about his idea?" she asked.

  "Almost nonstop since you left," Moira said. Her smile was indulgent. "I banished him to the study."

  "What do you think?"

  Moira didn't hesitate. The lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth deepened as she said sternly, "I think it's as foolish an idea as Jay Mac ever gets in his head."

  Skye laughed. "We agree, then. What do you think I should do?"

  "Whatever will make you happy."

  Moira's answer gave Skye pause. She leaned against the doorframe and tucked a tendril of bright-red hair behind her ear. Her green eyes darkened with speculation. "You don't think I'm happy?" she asked.

  The lines of Moira's face smoothed as she stopped working on her embroidery. "I think you're making yourself miserable working at being so happy. Sure, and it shouldn't be so hard."

  Skye's mouth sagged a little as her mother neatly summed up what she had been feeling for months, perhaps years. "Then you wouldn't mind if I didn't return to college?"

  "You have to want it for yourself, Skye. Just because your sisters went doesn't mean you have to follow in their wake."

  "Perhaps if it weren't so confining," she said almost apologetically.

  "It's not the classroom. You're confined if you're not moving." Sensing her daughter was about to interrupt, Moira held up one hand to cut her off. "It's no good telling me you think otherwise. Mary Francis, Michael, Rennie, and Maggie all had direction. They were going somewhere specific. Whereas you..." Moira's gentle smile touched her eyes. "Whereas you, Mary Schyler, want to go everywhere."

  "I do, Mama, I really do." Her voice had the sound of youth, earnest and eager.

  "Then you have your father to deal with, not me." Moira bent her head and examined her needlework. "Look at this. I've used the wrong thread on this rose." Moira didn't expect a response. She knew she was alone and that Skye had gone in search of Jay Mac.

  Skye pushed open the door of the study, not bothering to knock. Jay Mac was at his desk. Behind him flames were crackling in the fireplace. A number of books were stacked haphazardly on one corner of the desk and ledgers and papers covered the rest of the surface.

  Jay Mac pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose and looked up as Skye closed the door. "Too cold for skating, I imagine," he said, leaning back in his large leather chair. The soft burgundy padding cushioned him as he situated himself comfortably.

  "Something like that," Skye admitted.

  "That Pendergrass boy isn't still skulking around, is he?"

  Skye gave her father a small smile. "No, Papa, he's gone home. I think he's a little afraid of you."

  "What?"

  "Don't pretend you're surprised. You like it that way." Skye didn't give him an opportunity to deny it. She dropped her hat and muff on a chair and followed it with her coat, draping it over the back. She walked over to the fireplace and held out her hands. "Did you know that Daniel's friends think I'm carrying a child?" she asked bluntly.

  Jay Mac's broad face took on a ruddy cast. He clutched the pen in his hand so tightly his knuckles went white. "No, I didn't know," he said carefully.

  Skye recognized when her father's temper was strained to the limit. "It's not true, Jay Mac. I just wondered if you'd heard the rumor. I thought perhaps it was one of the reasons you suggested that I go live with this inventor for a while."

  "Well, it wasn't. I never heard that nonsense. Who's repeating it?"

  She shrugged. "I imagine most everyone. Daniel's friends let it slip this evening. It was the first I'd heard. I fainted at the Bilroths' masquerade. Remember? I told you and Mama about it."

  "I remember. Daniel brought you home. You both said it was stifling hot in their ballroom."

  "It was. But I suppose other people put a different construction on events."

  Jay Mac turned in his chair and faced the fire. Skye was a slender silhouette against the flames. "Perhaps this isn't the best time for you to leave the city."

  She turned, surprised. A wisp of hair fell across her brow and she pushed it back. "What do you mean? I thought you wanted me to go."

  "I did... I do. But I wonder if it's a good thing for you. It will support the rumors. Everyone will think you've gone away to have your child."

  Skye knew he was thinking of Maggie. It was what her sister had done when she had had to face the real dilemma. "If I stay, people will assume I had an abortion."

  Jay Mac's lips flattened. "I can't say that I like your plain speaking."

  "People will believe what they want to," she said. "That's all I was trying to say."

  "I didn't say I didn't understand it," he pointed out. "Just that I didn't like it." Jay Mac took off his spectacles and cleaned the lenses with a handkerchief from his breast pocket. The action was more indicative of the fact he was thinking than of his spectacles being smudged. "You and your sisters have had to deal with a lot of sly rumors over the years," he said quietly, almost sadly. "If I could have known..."

  Skye perched herself on the arm of her father's chair and rested one hand on his shoulder. "What would you have done differently?" she asked. "Not loved Mother? Not had children with her?"

  He shook his head. Life without Moira was unimaginable. Life without his five daughters would not have been nearly so joyful. "There's nothing I could have done," he admitted.

  "I'm glad to hear it." She meant it. Regret was wasteful. "Now, if we agree there's nothing to be changed in your life, perhaps we can agree that it's time to change something in mine. I've decided I'd like nothing better than to spy for you."

  "Mary Schyler," he said sternly. "If you think—"

  She patted his shoulder. "I know. I know. You don't want me to spy. You want me to steal." Skye felt her father's shoulders rise and fall as he sighed. "All right. What you really want me to do is become a housekeeper for—" She paused, waiting for Jay Mac to fill in a name.

  "Jonathan Parnell."

  "Jonathan Parnell," she repeated thoughtfully. "I think I could be a housekeeper for Mr. Parnell. How would I acquire the position?"

  "There's no trick to it, Skye. You'd have to apply."

  "Do you mean he's advertised?"

  "In this morning's Chronicle. It's what gave me the idea."

  That gave Skye pause. She would have thought her father had been working on this plan for weeks, if not months. It was not like him to leave things to chance. Skye had supposed he would have already thought of a way to make certain the position was hers. She wondered if she could believe him. "Do you have the paper?"

  Jay Mac pointed to the newspaper neatly folded on one corner of his desk. Skye left her perch on his chair and picked it up. It took her a few minutes to find it. When she did, she looked up, surprised. "This address is in the Hudson Valley."

  "Where did you think I was sending you?"

  "I don't know." But she had hoped it would be somewhere more distant than upstate New York. Her brows came together and her mouth flattened as she read the ad again. "Why, this house can't be far from our summer home."

  He heard her disappointment. "It's not."

  She glanced up, thoughtful now. "It seems I remember someone buying the Granville place. It wasn't so many years ago. You don't mean..."

  Jay Mac was nodding. "Parnell's the owner."

  Skye's eyes widened. "But that house is haunted!" As soon as the words were out, Skye was flushing with embarrassment. It was an old tale, something she had heard rumored for as long as Jay Mac had made the valley their summer home. That had been every bit of fifteen years. "Rennie said so," she finished lamely.

  Her father laughed. "So you do remember those stories. I wondered."

  Skye leaned against the desk, her arms crossed casually in front of her. "How could I forget? It was a source of speculation every summer." She smiled now, remembering. "Would the Granville ghost leave his ho
use and come for us? Rennie assigned us all watch duty. I took first watch because I was the youngest."

  Jay Mac's laughter deepened. "Do you really think any of your sisters kept vigil after you?" His eyes crinkled at the corners as he took stock of Skye's expression. "You never suspected, did you?"

  "Those brats! I can't believe they... yes, I can... it's just like them. Especially Rennie. Wait until I see her! I used to sit at the window seat in the attic for two horrifying hours looking out for that ghost! I thought I was protecting them and all the while they were having a laugh at my expense!"

  Jay Mac thought he couldn't laugh any harder, but Skye's outrage was very real. One would think her sisters' prank had happened yesterday, not a dozen or more years ago. He was forced to pull out a handkerchief and dab at his damp eyes. "Forgive me," he finally managed to say. "It's just that..."

  "I was such a fool. Yes," she said tartly, a little hurt by her father's amusement, "it was a good joke on me."

  "Mary Francis put a stop to it."

  That didn't appease Skye. "I think I was ten when Rennie told me I could stop keeping watch. By then I was actually volunteering for it. Everyone let it go on for years."

  "You can take that up with your sisters," he said. "Your mother and I didn't know a thing until it was stopped. Then Mary Francis made everyone confess."

  "Thank God she had a conscience," Skye said feelingly.

  Jay Mac cleared his throat and looked a little uncomfortable. "I believe Mary Francis was tired of carrying you down from the attic after you fell asleep during your watch." He shrugged apologetically. "At least, that's the story I remember."

  Skye snorted indelicately. "It will be a pleasure plotting my revenge," she said. "And after all this time, surely surprise is on my side."

  Jay Mac could almost feel sorry for his other daughters because he was confident that Skye would think of something. His eyes fell to the newspaper again. "You intend to respond to Mr. Parnell?" he asked.

  It took Skye a moment to understand her father's question. Her thoughts had gone spinning in another direction entirely. She picked up the paper, rolled it, and tapped it lightly, thoughtfully, against the edge of the desk. "I'll compose a letter this evening. I suppose I shall need references."

  Jay Mac had already considered that. "I've talked to Dr. Turner and Logan Marshall. They would both be willing to write letters of recommendation."

  "And all of it done today. Imagine that. You were very certain of me."

  He shook his head. "I was hopeful."

  "This means I'll be missing the spring term at school."

  "Is that a sacrifice?" he asked. "I didn't think you were enjoying yourself."

  Skye couldn't remember that her father had ever thought she should attend college to enjoy herself. His lecture had invariably included the fact that she should study harder. "It's not a sacrifice. I wasn't doing very well."

  "That's not because you're not smart enough," he said.

  Suspecting that he was warming up to a speech, Skye leaned forward, dropped a kiss on her father's cheek, and bade him goodnight. In the hallway she called the same to her mother before tripping lightly up the stairs.

  Skye's bedroom was in a separate wing from that of her parents. At one time she had her sisters on every side of her. Now she was alone. Some nights she missed the sharing and confiding, the laughter and tears, but this evening she didn't mind them being gone. One of them might have tried to talk her out of going to the valley. Someone, probably Rennie, would have brought up the Granville ghost and tried to frighten her out of her plan.

  Skye caught her reflection in the mirror above her vanity. Her mouth was lifted at one corner in a half smile. She shook her head, laughing at herself. That ghost. From the moment she realized her destination was the Granville house she'd felt a thrill of fear that made her instantly feel all of five again. And not only fear. There was curiosity that was almost like a hunger. Excitement squeezed her stomach and heart. It was the kind of anxiety that skirted the edge of panic and gave her restless energy instead.

  She'd felt that same way in the park tonight, not when she was surrounded by Daniel and his friends, but when she was hiding in the pines, watching the stranger face his enemies.

  Skye sat at her vanity, dropped the newspaper among her perfumes and creams and rouge, and took the pins from her hair. As she threaded it with her fingers, her hair was like fiery silk against her skin. She massaged her temples, easing the tension that had begun to form there.

  The stranger. She had managed to put the incident behind her, but not the feelings. She wanted her life to be that exciting. It hadn't seemed earlier that being a housekeeper for Jonathan Parnell quite fit the bill. Now, thinking of confronting that childhood ghost, for all that it was only a story meant to scare her, it seemed that a door had been opened to her. There was no sense in not stepping through it.

  Skye unbuttoned the throat of her velvet bodice. Flipping open the paper again, she reread Parnell's ad.

  Housekeeper desired for year-round employment. Small staff. Must be able to do both heavy and light work. Room and board. $50 per month. Please reply to 224 Brooke Place, Baileyboro, New York.

  Heavy work... she wondered if he expected his housekeeper to move the furniture as well as dust it. The wages were less than her father gave her for an allowance, but she would survive quite nicely in Baileyboro. There was no place in the hamlet to spend her money. Small staff. She remembered the Granville home as being every bit as big as anything ever built on Fifth Avenue. It was curious that he didn't require a full staff.

  Skye got up from the vanity and turned down her bed. She lighted a lamp on her small writing desk, then went to the armoire and withdrew a nightgown and robe. The nightdress had a border of eyelet lace on the neck, sleeves, and hem, and pearl buttons on the bodice. The material was so voluminous that Skye always felt she was being wrapped in a cloud. The very feminine cut of the nightgown disappeared as Skye slipped into her comfortable old robe. The plain cotton wrapper, shiny at the elbows, worn at the hem, and frayed along the sash, had certainly seen better days, but Skye couldn't part with it.

  After belting the sash, Skye sat down to compose her response to the ad. It took her several attempts to find the right words. She didn't want to sound too young or inexperienced, afraid that if Mr. Parnell suspected she was young, she might not even be granted an interview. The references from Dr. Turner and Logan Marshall would help, but she had to pass muster first.

  Unaware of passing time, Skye looked over her last draft and decided it was worth recopying in her best handwriting. She stretched, arms flung wide, back arched, before hunching over the desk again like an accounting clerk. She had just set pen to paper when she heard a thud below stairs.

  Skye paused, cocked her head to one side, and listened. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the clock on the mantel. It was after one, too late for either her father or her mother still to be up. Mrs. Cavanaugh and her husband had long since retired to their apartment above the carriage house. There were no other servants living on the property.

  But there was the unmistakable sound of footsteps.

  Rising gingerly from her chair, careful to be quiet, Skye padded barefoot to the door. She fingered the worn threads of her sash as she moved along the hallway to the backstairs. Below her there was silence again. She waited, barely breathing. Just at the point she began to believe she had imagined it, she heard movement again.

  It was not possible to know the precise location of the noise. As Skye stealthily made her way down the stairs, she kept hoping she'd find her father in the kitchen with a glass of warm milk, or Mrs. Cavanaugh returned from the carriage house because she'd had a sudden urge to bake bread. Neither explanation seemed particularly likely, and when she reached the bottom of the steps she learned that neither was true. The kitchen was dark and empty and the sounds were coming from somewhere down the hall behind her.

  Skye had not considered a weapon unt
il now. She picked up a butcher knife from the wooden cutting block and went into the hallway. There was silence again and Skye learned firsthand how it was possible for silence to be deafening. Blood rushed in her ears, her heart slammed in her chest, and her imagination was marching ahead double time. Having no clear idea what she would do if confronted by an intruder, she went on, opening one door after another, peeking in each room, then stepping back when she found no one.

  Outside her father's study she paused again, this time pressing her ear to the door. She crouched and looked through the keyhole. There was a vague light in the room and it startled her until she remembered there had been a fire in the grate. It was only the dying embers, she realized, and turned the handle.

  It took a single step into the room to know she was not alone. She felt the presence of another person, the warmth of a body nearby, the tension of fear, the barely audible hum of controlled breathing.

  Skye's knuckles whitened on the door handle. She tried to slam the door with herself safely in the hallway, but a foot wedged itself between the door and frame. She opened her mouth to scream and almost immediately something capped the sound. It took her a moment to identify the thing over her mouth as a hand and the texture and smell against her skin and nose as leather. As she fought for breath, another hand captured her wrist and squeezed. In the same motion she was dragged back into the room, her weapon useless now in nerveless fingers. She dropped it as the door was pushed closed behind her. The knife made no sound when it fell on the oriental carpet.

  The realization that no one could hear her, or had heard her, made Skye redouble her efforts. She kicked backward, connecting twice in her struggle, but the hold on her never relented. She tried to bite and actually managed to get the leather glove between her teeth once before she sensed a creeping blackness on the edge of her vision. The pressure in her chest became enormous and she clawed at the hand over her mouth. The last thing she remembered was a voice near her ear, the breath hot and damp, telling her to hush.

  She didn't imagine she was unconscious long. When she woke she couldn't move or see and she could breathe only through her nose. It was odd, she thought, that she could recognize the cloth that bound and gagged her as scraps from the robe she'd been wearing. She tested the binding at her wrist and ankles. It wasn't tight enough to eliminate circulation, but it was more than sufficient to keep her from getting free.