Catherine Coulter the Sherbrooke Series Novels 6-10 (9781101562123)

by Coulter, Catherine

  “Where does the title Mountjoy come from?”

  “It had become extinct but the year before, displeasing the queen, even though she herself had beheaded the final earl in the line. But the first earl didn’t settle down. You see, he was a very successful trader before he threw in his lot with Raleigh, and so he went out again. Not three months later, his ship sank in the Mediterranean. He was the only survivor. He never wrote about it, only that he’d been both cursed and blessed, whatever that means.

  “My grandfather told me the first earl kept a journal. He’d written that he’d pictured this house or castle or manor house, whatever you wish to call it, in his mind, all full-blown down to the last white round tower stone, and his new heiress wife had enthusiastically poured all her money into the venture, and Wyverly Chase was the result.”

  “I trust the Wyverly heiress gained an excellent husband for her money.”

  “Well, they both lived a long time, if that is any measure. His name was Jared Vail. From his portrait—it’s in the long picture gallery in the east wing—he was a strapping gentleman, the flashing dark eyes of a pirate, face ruddy from the wind and sea, and a wicked smile. Fortunately, the Vail men have been fairly astute in dealing with finances over the years and have flourished.” Nicholas grinned. “Do you know Captain Jared also wrote of that dreadful day in 1618 when Raleigh was beheaded with an axe? He claimed Raleigh boomed out before the axe fell, ‘This is a sharp Medicine, but it is a Physician for all Diseases.’”

  She studied his face. “I agree, the Wyverly heiress wasn’t the magic one, it was this ship captain, Jared Vail, he was magic and you know it, else he couldn’t have built this magnificent house that must whisper of secrets and ancient magic rattling about behind its walls. You also know it because you carry your grandfather’s blood and his teachings, and he carried his father’s blood all the way back to Jared Vail. I want to see your grandfather’s library, Nicholas. I want to see his copy of the Rules of the Pale.”

  “You will,” he said, looked at her mouth again, and lifted her onto his lap. “Let me kiss you, and don’t try to leap away from me in shock.”

  For the moment, the magnificent magic house receded to the back of her mind. Rosalind gave him a slow smile. “I’ve never had a man’s tongue in my mouth, Nicholas. I’ve been kissed before you, naturally, but not this way. Grayson was the first.”

  “Grayson?” His temperature of his voice plummeted. “Grayson?”

  Rosalind poked him in the arm. “Yes, but truth be told, I goaded him into doing it. I told him Raymond Sikes was the best kisser in all of Lower Slaughter and I was willing to wager a shilling that Grayson couldn’t come close to him.” She laughed. “Poor Grayson, he didn’t know what to do. I was fourteen and he was quite the young man, newly up from Oxford, ready to sample all London’s wickedness. I remember I puckered up when he forced himself to lean down and peck my mouth.” She paused a moment, remembering the appalled look on his face, then giggled, a delightful sound Nicholas had never heard out of her before. Who knew Rosalind could giggle like any other young girl? Then she laughed. “Poor Grayson looked so revolted, so guilty, really, and so I told him I’d kissed a frog not more than five minutes before he’d kissed me—he fled to London. I didn’t see him for six months. Do you know that I was convinced to kiss three more frogs?”

  “None of them turned into princes, I gather.”

  “Not even a duke. I worried for months I would get warts, but I didn’t.”

  “What about Raymond Sikes?”

  “Oh, I made him up. Poor Grayson never knew I’d plucked the name out of nothing at all. I suppose now that I am married, I should tell him. He can’t smack a wife, can he?”

  “It would be very bad form,” Nicholas said, then shook his head. “So Grayson gave you your first and only kiss before me?”

  “Well, to be perfectly honest about it, yes.”

  He kissed her again, this time running his tongue over her bottom lip, and whispered, his breath hot and exciting, “Open your mouth, Rosalind. Open now.”

  She did. All of his focus was on her mouth. He wanted the warmth and wet of her and so he eased his tongue—

  The new footman he’d hired himself a month before yelled right outside the window, “My lord! We’ve arrived! Shall I open the door for you and her ladyship or would you prefer that Mr. Lee Po and I carry in all the luggage and leave you alone here with your new bride, perhaps until it is dark?”

  Nicholas hadn’t even realized the carriage had stopped in the wide circular drive in front of Wyverly. Given the dazed expression in Rosalind’s eyes, neither had she. He wanted to kill. He wanted to cry. Instead, he rolled his eyes and removed his tongue from his wife’s mouth. His wife, what a thought that was. He’d known her for nine days, and she was now his wife.

  He pulled himself together and stuck his head out of the carriage window. “Thank you for felling me with your wit, John. Ah, I see Block is opening the front doors. Tell him we need several more footmen. Introduce him to Lee Po. Go.”

  John didn’t want to go. He wanted a nice long look into the carriage even though a blind man would know exactly what was going on. He was being small and nosy, and enjoying it immensely. He sighed.

  “Go!”

  Nicholas straightened Rosalind’s gown, her bonnet, lightly touched his fingertip to her mouth, still open in surprise, and wondered if he could have her in his bed in under five minutes.

  “Goodness,” she said and lightly touched her fingertips to her mouth.

  “I plan to treat you to the unexpected for the next thirty years. What do you think?”

  She looked up at him through her lashes. “Perhaps I’ll have some unexpected surprises for you too, Nicholas.”

  His eyes nearly crossed. He lifted her down from the carriage and walked beside her up the foot-worn stone steps. “You’re ignorant,” he said, not looking at her. “You don’t know a blessed thing, much less anything about surprises.”

  “Aunt Sophie gave me a book. With pictures. She said they’re not as explicit as the naked statues at Northcliffe Hall, which I was never allowed to see, by the way, but informative enough.”

  “You will show me this book.”

  She gave him a wicked smile.

  Block said to him without preamble, “It is not all a disaster, my lord. There are a few of us who have stuck and will continue to stick. As will Mr. Pritchard, who is sleeping in the entrance hall to guard us.”

  28

  She blinked at the instant change in her new husband. He now looked suddenly hard, ready to fight. He looked dangerous. She’d swear his eyes had darkened to black, but his voice was calm, low. “Peter is guarding you? What the devil is going on here, Block?”

  “I did not mean to overly alarm you, my lord.”

  “Ah, so I take it that rats are racing through the kitchen? Perhaps smoke is billowing out of the bedchamber fireplace? Oh, yes, Block, this is my new wife, Lady Mountjoy. Rosalind, this is Block. He was with my grandfather for twenty years. To the best of my knowledge, Block has never encountered a problem he couldn’t resolve.”

  Rosalind smiled at the old man, who looked ancient as the single pine tree whose gnarly branches waved against the second story of the house. He walked right up to her, eyed her briefly, then said close to Nicholas’s ear, “It is not rats or smoke, my lord, it is the return of the old earl. No, no, don’t think for a moment he is displeased. He appears quite happy that you are wed and that you and your new wife are here at Wyverly. Since he has never presented himself before, I must assume it is because you have wed and returned home.

  “We have heard him singing at the top of his lungs, and laughing, and banging into things, as if he were blind and couldn’t see that the old Indian chest was right in front of him. He told me I had at least seven more years before I departed to the hereafter. I told him it wasn’t enough years but he told me to get hold of myself, that I would be older than he was when I finally croaked it. Unfo
rtunately, he wasn’t specific about my final destination. He sang it all in rhymes that were not at all felicitous.”

  “I see,” Nicholas said slowly, eyeing Block, whose expression never changed, remaining aloof, only a slight tic at the corner of his left eye. “Well, then, since my grandfather is singing because her ladyship is here now, he is bound to sing even louder when he meets her.”

  “I would, were I he,” Block said, and gave her a formal bow and a smile that showed a near full mouth of beautiful teeth. “It is a pleasure, my lady. Welcome to Wyverly Chase. If it would please you, my lady, I will also sing to you. I would accompany myself on the pianoforte. Do you like rousing Scottish tunes? Do you know, his old lordship doesn’t ever sing Scottish ditties.”

  Rosalind was charmed even though she didn’t have the slightest idea what was going on. There was a ghost singing in the house? Nicholas’s grandfather?

  She smiled at Block. “I should love to hear you sing, Block.” She noticed the old man’s linen was as white as the cumulus clouds overhead, his black suit such a shiny black she could see herself. She said, “Willicombe, our butler in London, has always wished for his trousers and coat to be shiny like yours, Block, but has never managed results such as yours. Perhaps you could write to him and tell him how it is done?”

  “I have done nothing, my lady,” Block said. “These clothes are as ancient as the Moorish tiles in the bathing closet. What you see is the high shine of honest age. How I enjoy viewing my noble countenance when I chance to gaze down at my sleeve, and thus have refused new clothes. Our laundress knows how to brush them just so, so they remain shiny. Do not be alarmed. I assure you that no moths hunker down in my seams, my lady.”

  “Thank you, Block. I will communicate with Willicombe and tell him to simply refuse all new clothes. So our laundress hasn’t left?”

  “She and her assistant are too far away from the library to hear the old earl sing and bang into furniture. Cook tells me that as long as she feeds Mrs. Bates and Chloe her excellent stuffed chicken necks, they will be content to remain and wash and iron.”

  Nicholas heard Peter Pritchard’s deep melodic voice. “The old earl was singing a moment ago in the library, my lord. Earlier in the day I believe he was reading. If you would care to assure him that you and your new wife are home to remain, perhaps he will depart the premises and continue on to the heavenly climes.”

  Block said, “Perhaps it is the possibility of traveling in the other direction that keeps him earthbound.”

  Rosalind looked from one face to the next. She stared at Peter Pritchard. “What does he sing, Mr. Pritchard?”

  “Ditties, my lady. At least they sound like something a man might sing while striding a ship deck.”

  To the best of Nicholas’s knowledge, his grandfather had never set foot on a ship deck in his life.

  Rosalind asked, “What does he read?”

  Peter gave her a lovely bow. “Forgive me, my lady, I am Peter Pritchard, the earl’s estate manager. I fear I have been a bit distracted.”

  You have a ghost in the house. No wonder.

  Peter said, “Yes, things have been rather at sixes and sevens here for the past several days, actually, since the day his lordship sent a messenger informing us of his plans to return home with a wife. Forgive me, my lady. You asked me what the old earl reads. There are piles of books on the floor beside his favorite chair. The one on top is a treatise on hermit wizards who dwell in caves in the Bulgar and eschew all human contact.”

  Rosalind said, “If they eschew all human contact, I wonder how anyone could write a treatise about them.”

  Nicholas laughed.

  Rosalind slipped her hand into his. “I should like to accompany his lordship to the library and make the acquaintance of my grandfather-in-law’s ghost.”

  Block heaved a sigh. “How fortuitous that you do not appear to be of a highly sensitive nature, my lady. Indeed, an overabundance of nerves could possibly prove fatal to your marital bliss, given our current visitation.”

  “Not I, Block. I am as stout of heart as Lee Po.”

  “Ah, his lordship’s man of affairs. Lee Po tells the grandest stories. Come now, Cook has chilled one of the old earl’s bottles of French champagne and made her exquisite gooseberry tarts. If you would like to enter, my lady, I will introduce you to the maid, Marigold, who appears to be about the same age as that young maid of yours, who looks really rather alarmed and a bit white about the mouth.”

  Rosalind turned to Matilde and smiled. “Come along, Matilde, everything is all right.”

  Matilde nodded even though she didn’t think anything was all right, and dutifully trailed after Rosalind into the massive ugly house, which gave her the shudders. At least Mr. Lee Po was here. No one and nothing would try to harm her whilst he was about.

  Only one young girl, dressed in a dark muslin gown, a white cap perched on the side of her head, stood at attention in the center of the massive black-and-white-tiled entrance hall. She saw Nicholas and Rosalind and quickly dropped a curtsy. “Oh, dear, here ye are, standing right here in front of me eyes.” She bobbed another curtsy. “Me name’s Marigold. Me mum loves yellow, she does, that’s why she named me Marigold.” And she curtsied again.

  Block said, “Marigold laughs when the old earl sings. Or sings along with him, depending on her mood.”

  “He doesn’t carry enough of a beat for me to dance,” Marigold said. “But we do make lovely harmony.”

  Rosalind smiled at her and said, “This is Matilde. If you would show her to her room, Marigold, and introduce her to Cook, Mrs. Bates, Chloe, and the tweeny.”

  “The tweeny would be Mrs. Sweet, my lady. She’s fair to doddering, but still can polish an armoire to a high shine. Not as high a shine as Mr. Block’s suits, but high enough to remark upon.”

  Rosalind hadn’t met many tweenies, but she’d never heard of one older than sixteen. “How old is Mrs. Sweet, Marigold?”

  “Older than me mum, my lady, got three teeth left in ’er mouth, all in the front, a good thing, me mum says, else she’d have to gnaw ’er food with ’er gums.”

  “I see. I would also like you to give Matilde a tour of the house. Matilde, when you are finished, come to my room. Go along now. Thank you, Marigold.”

  “Yes, my lady.” And yet another curtsy, this one deeper, nearly toppling her onto her face. “Matilde, now that’s a purty name too, I’ll ask me mum what she thinks of it.” And off they went.

  Nicholas was looking toward the library, listening.

  Block said, “I suppose even a ghost must occasionally take a respite.”

  At that moment, they heard a strong loud bass voice sing out,

  I went to sea as a wee young goat.

  I crossed the waves in a very small boat.

  I learned to swim—I can tell you that!

  And never once did I wear a hat.

  Hey ho. Hiddy ho.

  The sun burned and blistered but there I sat

  And not once did I wear a hat.

  There were three more eminently forgettable verses, then silence, dead and utter silence.

  Peter gave them a crooked smile. “The hair on my arms no longer rises. To become used to the presence of the ghost of my old master, now, doesn’t that bespeak a tortured brain? But the fact is he is indeed here and so what is one to do?”

  Nicholas saw a pallet lying in the corner. Peter’s bed, he supposed. “Rosalind, why don’t you accompany Block upstairs and I will go bid Grandfather hello.”

  Like that would ever happen, she thought. “Oh, no, I’m coming with you. Do you know, perhaps the two of us can sing a duet.”

  Peter Pritchard gave her an amazed look, then laughed and coughed behind his hand.

  Nicholas gave one final fond thought to his huge bed upstairs with Rosalind naked on her back in the middle of it, perhaps beckoning to him, smiling, then took a resolute step toward the closed library door at the end of the long corridor.

  “I
leave the door open,” Peter said, “but it always closes. Always. At first I was disconcerted, frightened to my booted heels, to be honest about it, but now—” He shrugged and gave Rosalind another smile. “You do not appear to be afraid, my lady.”

  “Oh, no, I adore singing,” Rosalind said and gave the young man with the clever eyes and tousled bronze hair a sunny smile.

  29

  Silence, dead silence. Appropriate, Nicholas thought, given his grandfather was dead and really shouldn’t have anything to say about it.

  He and Rosalind stepped into the huge library, so shadowed and so long you couldn’t see either end of it. It was rather narrow and there were more books than Rosalind had ever seen in a single library in her entire life, and that was saying something, given Uncle Douglas’s immense library at Northcliffe Hall, not to mention Uncle Tysen’s vast collection at the parsonage.

  “Are there windows anywhere in this room?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Nicholas said and strode to the front end and flung back the thick dark gold velvet draperies. He looped the thick braided cords over golden hooks. Then he flung open the windows. Light and fresh spring air flooded into the room. He sucked in the blessed fresh air, then turned to say—

  There was a moan.

  Both Nicholas and Rosalind froze where they stood.

  “I’m sorry, I forgot to tell you,” Peter said, now coming into the library, “but I suppose he doesn’t like the light. Perhaps if you’ve been dead a long time, you’re quite used to the dark. If you wait a bit, those draperies will close themselves again.”