by Cheryl Bolen
“It’s not Lizzie,” she said. “It’s I.” Pause. “Edwina.”
A silence, followed by a growl. “What the devil do you want now?”
“To talk to you.”
“We have nothing to discuss that can’t wait until morning.”
“Richard, it’s important!” He wasn’t going to let her in. Oh, damn! By letting her temper fly, she’d lost whatever headway she’d made with him since she had arrived.
“The only possible subject of importance between you and me is the education of my children. I repeat, it can wait until morning.”
Evidently she had offended him beyond bearing. Oh, how she rued her too-ready tongue.
She grasped for something, anything. The only thing he cared about. “It’s—it’s about the ghost.”
He made a rude noise. “Try again, Edwina. Or rather, don’t bother. I fell for you once, but now I’m immune to your wiles. I’m going to sleep.”
He must think she had come in hope of seducing him! Shamefully, some part of her wished she could do exactly that. “I’m serious, Richard. The ghost’s voice woke me.”
“Just now?” He laughed without humor. “And you call me a liar. You’ve barely had time to fall asleep, much less be wakened by a ghost.”
“No, no, it happened earlier. In the excitement about the intruders, I forgot. She woke me last night, too.”
He opened the door.
*
The devious woman knew exactly how to get Richard’s attention. She was almost certainly lying—but what if she wasn’t?
She stared up at him, wide-eyed. Her candle wavered. “It’s freezing out here.”
“What a pity,” he drawled, blocking the doorway. “Earlier today, you told me you didn’t wake to any ghostly voices last night. Why the sudden change in your story?”
Her teeth began to chatter. “When you f-first asked me, I had forgotten about it, and then I didn’t want to t-tell you, because I didn’t know whether I believed in the ghost or not. I thought I would look ridiculous.”
“And now you look like a liar. Ironic, isn’t it?”
“Richard, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that about you.”
“No, you shouldn’t, but it’s too late to take it back.” Thank God, because his foolish heart had started yearning for her again. Fortunately, his cock seemed to have retired for the night.
“It’s not too late! I want to apologize, and—and explain.”
He hardened his heart. “I’m not interested in your explanation. Just tell me what the ghost supposedly said to you.”
“She wanted me to come with her.”
He let out a derisive puff of air. “To do what?”
“To save someone,” Edwina said. “She didn’t say whom.”
“You can come up with a better lie than that, Edwina.”
“It’s not a lie. That’s all she said,” Edwina insisted in a quavering voice which sounded sincere, but probably just because she was shivering. “I don’t know if she is still trying to save her own son, or if she wants me to help save yours.”
He couldn’t hide his disgust. “Why not make the lie more convincing by saying that tonight she specified that she meant my John?”
“I swear it’s not a lie.” Edwina’s teeth chattered even more, but he felt no urge to invite her into the relative warmth of his bedchamber. “T-tonight she kept trying to tell me something in my dream, but I couldn’t hear her properly. It was something urgent.” She paused, her frown quite convincingly desperate. What an actress, indeed. “I can’t remember her exact words. And then she woke me with a dreadful shriek.”
The ghost’s shriek might well have woken Edwina, but he didn’t believe the rest. “We all heard that shriek, but I doubt she was talking to you at the time.”
“Not that shriek,” Edwina said. “It was–”
He interrupted her. “Good night.” He shut the door.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Miserably, Edwina returned to bed.
She didn’t blame him for rejecting her so summarily. Not only had she offended him, but what of her actions upon hearing he’d been thrown into prison years ago? It didn’t say much about her love for him that she’d assumed he’d lied and deceived her without even considering other possibilities. She’d been as lacking in faith as she’d believed him to be.
Once again she huddled into a shivering ball, refusing to think about that for now. The current situation was all she could deal with at the moment. Not the part about how her heart had sped up and she’d almost lost her breath when he loomed over her, his mouth so close, his male aroma surrounding her.
Nor the fact that the second time he’d opened the door to her, he had covered himself again—and treated her as if she’d come to his room to seduce him like a calculating little whore. A decent man shouldn’t tup the governess, but if he did, he would feel obliged to marry her, to give her the safety and security she longed for. She didn’t blame him for coming to such a horrid conclusion.
She blushed for shame. As usual, she should have thought before opening her mouth. Yes, Richard’s children had played the ghost, but he hadn’t primed Lizzie to come to his room to invite Edwina to join in future charades; he’d had no chance to do so. Her talk of the unreliable ghost and driving the treasure hunters away had been entirely open and forthright—nothing feigned. Lizzie, like the men outside, had seen and heard the ghost tonight. And John had too, if that was what he’d meant about having help. But did Richard truly believe in the ghost as well?
If those lies from years ago weren’t lies, then she had no reason to disbelieve anything he said now.
Except that ghosts didn’t exist, and curses weren’t real…
*
Slap!
Edwina scrambled up, cringing against the headboard. Her face stung. This time the presence in the room was almost palpable, and the voice cried inside her mind.
You ruined everything! He loved you. He would have made you the new mistress of the Grange… The voice died away on a string of bitter sobs.
Edwina got a hold of herself. She had overslept; a grey light told her the winter dawn was about to break. “You…you think he would have married me?” she whispered, and immediately sensed such fury that she put up her hands to fend off another slap. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
What use is sorry? the voice scoffed. Do you know how hard it is to make you mortals see and hear me?
“I’m listening now,” Edwina said, but the presence—the ghost—was gone.
She got out of bed, a hand to her still-stinging cheek, and stared into the dim room. Time to admit it to herself: she was as much in love with Richard as she’d been twelve years earlier. Far worse, she had just ruined her chances of rekindling that same love in him.
It was bad enough to accuse him of lying, but she’d couldn’t have put the cap on it more effectively than by bringing up the subject of the ghost and revealing her own lie—and yet, she’d been telling the truth. It seemed the ghost truly wanted to save John, to end the curse, perhaps to pass at last to wherever spirits went after death.
Really, nothing had changed since yesterday, when she’d decided John’s predicament was far more important than her own. The only difference was that now she’d had a glimpse of what might have been if only she’d shown some maturity, a decent measure of self-control.
Richard didn’t love her anymore—couldn’t possibly, and she could hardly blame him—but he’d told Lizzie she had spirit.
She might be faithless, she might jump to conclusions and burn bridges, but yes, she did have spirit. “Very well, Lady Ballister,” she said to the empty room. “I will do everything I can.”
Now that she’d ruined her chances of reconciliation with Richard, she must find the necklace, after which he would get himself a wife. At which point, Edwina would have to leave the Grange. She couldn’t live in the same house with Richard Ballister and a woman who was his wife.
She got out of bed, washe
d, and dressed herself in her usual drab gown. She brushed her hair tightly back from her face. Her right cheek was red from the slap; she might well develop a bruise there. Who would have thought a ghost could cause one?
She shook herself. Until a few hours ago, she hadn’t believed in ghosts at all.
She made her way slowly to the kitchen, not at all looking forward to meeting Richard, but he wasn’t there. She let out a sigh of relief. Suddenly she was ravenous, perhaps in anticipation of a future where she would once again have to count her pennies. She poured herself some coffee and sat across from Lizzie, who was buttering a piece of toast. On the table before them a platter of ham and a large hunk of very ripe cheese beckoned. She helped herself to several slivers of ham, sliced some cheese, and buttered two pieces of toast. “What a wonderful breakfast. Thank you, Mrs. Cropper.”
“You’re welcome, ma’am,” the cook said. “Looks like you have more appetite than Sir Richard this morning. He pecked at his food.”
“Papa is cranky today,” Lizzie said, and Edwina knew a guilty pang for his bad mood, which must be at least partly her fault. She piled ham and cheese on the bread and took a bite.
“Papa and John are already going over the next three rooms,” Lizzie said, spreading marmalade on her toast. “What happened to your cheek?”
Hurriedly Edwina took another bite, giving herself time to think. Should she tell Lizzie the truth or make up a convincing lie? Richard would be angry–angrier, rather–if he thought she was lying to his daughter.
She would have to risk that. This incredible situation called for complete frankness. She swallowed. “I’m not entirely sure, but I think the ghost slapped me awake this morning.”
“That’s a new one,” Mrs. Cropper said. “She never did that before.”
Lizzie’s face fell. “She didn’t tell you to leave, did she?”
“No, but she seemed awfully crotchety.” Edwina washed the mouthful down with some coffee. “Perhaps frightening the intruders last night tired her out.”
Lizzie finished her toast and drank the last of her cup of milk. “Being slapped is better than being pushed out of bed and told to go away. The ghost told that governess she was the wrong one.”
“The wrong one for what?”
“The ghost didn’t tell her that,” Lizzie said. “She refused to spend another night here.”
“No blame to her,” Mrs. Cropper said.
The wrong woman for Richard? That made sense in light of the ghost’s rage this morning. Edwina had been the right woman until she’d insulted Richard. “She woke me as if the matter was urgent. She wants me to do something, and do it quickly.”
“Do what?” Lizzie asked.
“Help find the necklace, I assume.”
“Then we mustn’t waste time on lessons.” Lizzie scowled. “Papa says we are not to search the attics but to do lessons instead.”
Did this mean he didn’t trust Edwina to search for the necklace? Her natural indignation reared its head, but hurriedly she suppressed it. Learning self-control had suddenly become a matter of life and death. As placidly as possible under the circumstances, she took another bite of toast.
“It’s not fair. John gets to help him.” Tears glistened behind Lizzie’s eyes. “Does he think I don’t care enough about John?”
“No, of course not,” Edwina said. “Perhaps it’s because he knows that John will do his lessons as well as help him, but I have an idea. We’ll do both. We’ll search the attics whilst conversing entirely in French!”
*
The cellars were gloomy at the best of times, but Richard’s mood was far worse. Moving barrels of ale and bottles of wine, meticulously inspecting the stone walls behind them, and moving them back again wasn’t an interesting way to spend a morning, but he didn’t mind that. This was necessary work.
But he had blundered this morning when he’d told Lizzie she couldn’t search the attics with Edwina. Worry hung heavily over him today. He was making no headway with his search. Christmas loomed closer and closer, and he needed all the help he could get. He still didn’t understand why Edwina had come to him last night with those blatant lies—surely she didn’t think he would forget her insults so easily–but she wasn’t a thief. If she found the necklace, she wouldn’t try to steal it, so that couldn’t be the reason he’d made such a stupid decision.
No, a combination of pride and a permanently wounded heart had caused that blunder. He couldn’t do much about the pain in his heart, but he could well dispense with pride. He needed someone to talk to, to confide in. Surprisingly, despite the tension between them, explaining the situation to Edwina yesterday had been a relief. “I’m going upstairs for a minute or two,” he told John. “Put all those wine bottles back on their racks. Very carefully, mind, so as to disturb them as little as possible.”
“I know that, Papa.” John grinned—the sweet, endearing smile that never failed to pierce Richard’s heart, more so now than ever before.
Slowly, tired when he shouldn’t be, Richard made his way up to the schoolroom, where he would find a way to enlist Edwina’s aid again, hopefully without either ruffling her feathers or admitting that he believed her nonsense.
She wasn’t there, and nor was Lizzie. This in itself wasn’t disturbing, but if Lizzie had deliberately disobeyed him by going up to the attic, or if she’d told Edwina, who had then encouraged her disobedience, he couldn’t just let it go. Sighing, he approached the attic stairs.
A feminine voice floated down, speaking French. “C’est une robe à l’anglaise,” Edwina said, continuing in that language. “An informal one, perhaps over a century old, also known as a sacque. One can tell by the pleats at–”
Crash!
All thoughts of disobedience fled his mind as he leapt down the stairs again, his heart in his throat.
John was alive. He must be. Richard plunged through the door at the bottom of the cellar stairs.
John stood in a puddle of wine, surrounded by shattered glass, and blood all over…no, that was wine on his shirt, and only a trickle of blood down his cheek, mingled with tears. Richard slumped with relief. “What happened?”
“I d-don’t know.” John caught himself on a sob and wiped his nose on his sleeve. “I was putting a bottle on the rack, just as you told me, when that lantern fell from the ceiling.”
Richard picked his way across the floor and retrieved the lantern, which had hung from a hook firmly embedded in a joist. The hook was still there, so what had made the lantern fall? The other lantern, a few yards further on, still hung from its hook.
Grimly, Richard took his handkerchief and dabbed the blood and tears off John’s cheek.
“That was a near miss,” John said, valiantly feigning calm. “If that lantern had hit my head instead of the bottle, it would have killed me.”
“I doubt it,” Richard said. “But you would have had quite a goose egg.”
“It’s not supposed to happen now,” John said. “I haven’t finished with Latin and Greek, and I’ve barely started mathematics, and it’s not yet Christmas.”
“It was an accident, John. There’s no reason to suppose you will die anytime soon.” Worried female voices reached them. “Here come the womenfolk.”
John sniffled manfully. “They’ll make a big fuss about nothing.” He wiped his nose on his sleeve again. They picked their way around the broken glass to where all three females now crowded the entrance to the cellar. “It’s only wine,” he said.
“Go change your clothes while I clean up the mess,” Richard said.
“Tsk,” Mrs. Cropper said, herding John up the steps. “Those stains will never come out.”
“What happened?” Lizzie followed her brother and the cook. Edwina didn’t move.
“I dropped a wine bottle,” John said. “Papa will make me do extra Latin lessons for clumsiness.”
That brought a few chuckles; good for John. Richard picked up the largest shards and dropped them into a bin. Meanwhile, Ed
wina hovered silently at the foot of the stairs, a disturbing presence. Reprimanding her didn’t seem to matter so much anymore.
“Did he really just drop a bottle?” Edwina asked softly. “That looks like two bottles worth of glass to me.”
“The lantern fell from above, narrowly missing John’s head and breaking a couple of bottles as it fell,” Richard said.
Edwina glanced at the ceiling, which was mostly cloaked in gloom.
“The hook is still there. The lantern seemed perfectly secure when I hung it.” Richard thought he saw Edwina’s eyes widen, and shrugged. “It was an accident and means nothing.”
“How can you say that?” she retorted. “Even if the blow hadn’t killed him, what if he had fallen unconscious onto a shard of glass and lost a great deal of blood, or—or the wound had turned septic? A putrefying wound could keep him alive until Christmas.” Her voice trembled. “What if it was because of the curse?”
Why this sudden about-face? Yesterday she’d been a firm disbeliever. Obviously she was shaken, but she wasn’t the hysterical sort. He couldn’t drum up last night’s anger, but that didn’t mean he believed she had so thoroughly changed her mind. “If it was the curse, why didn’t it kill him?”
“I don’t know,” Edwina said, but she didn’t leave.
“The curse doesn’t almost kill people,” he said, but she still didn’t go away.
He took a broom from against the wall and began to sweep. When the silence had stretched too long, he asked, “Did you make any headway in the attic?”
“With regard to French, yes. Lizzie’s vocabulary is now larger by several words. With regard to ruby necklaces, unfortunately not.” She spoke stiffly, as if expecting a reprimand, and in her hands she clutched a crumpled piece of fabric.
“What’s that you’re holding?”
“Oh!” She released the fabric from her grip and smoothed it out. “In my concern over what might have happened down here, I forgot that I was holding it. It’s a pretty piece of embroidery that we found in a chest.” A few bits of dried herbs clung to it, and she brushed them off. “It’s a representation of the four sections of the knot garden, and I think it must have been done by the first Lady Ballister to live here. Her initials are in the bottom right corner: L.B.”