Spirited Brides

by Amanda McCabe

  He did not even appear to see Louisa at all, but Cassie thought it seemed quite normal to be in her company now. It could have been any evening stroll, really, if only her companion did not float above the sand rather than walk on it.

  Louisa paused for a moment, then answered, “We want to know where they go.”

  “Where they go?”

  “The ghosts who only stay for a brief while, and the people who die and do not become ghosts at all, like my husband. Sir Belvedere and I are the only ones who have stayed here so long, and we often wonder why. We just thought Lady Lettice might be the most likely to return, since she was here a rather long time as well.”

  Cassie nodded. She, too, would like to know where they had all gone. Perhaps then she would know about her parents.

  Louisa paused and turned her head to look out at the moonlit sea. The hood of her cloak hid her face. “I just want to know,” she whispered.

  Cassie reached out to squeeze her hand, but felt only cool air. “If anyone can find out, it is Antoinette.”

  “Yes. Of course,” said Louisa, her voice cheerful in a rather determined way. Then she looked ahead and gave a little, glowing wave. “Look! There is Sir Belvedere, waiting at the tunnel.” She floated away, leaving Cassie standing alone on the shore.

  She shivered a bit and pulled her red cloak closer about her. She did want to know, just as much as Louisa did. If she could just know that her parents were at peace, that they were together again . . .

  But there was also a part of her that didn’t really want to know at all. A very tiny part that was afraid.

  Phillip came up beside her and gently touched her arm. “Having second thoughts?” he said softly.

  Cassie looked up at him. The moonlight gave a silvery cast to his handsome face, making him look even more beautiful and rather otherworldly. Everything seemed cast in unreality tonight, even this solid, logical man.

  She drew herself up to her full height, only to find that she still barely came to his shoulder. “Of course not,” she said stoutly. “Are you? Oh, no, you would not be. You think nothing is going to happen tonight.”

  “I never said that. I simply do not know what is going to happen.”

  He looked to the tunnels, where the others had already gone in. The light of their lanterns and candles sent a golden wash out of the entrance onto the rocks and sand.

  Cassie studied him carefully. Did he feel it, too, then? This sense that tonight was—special.

  He smiled down at her and held out his arm. “Shall we, then?”

  She nodded and slipped her hand onto the sleeve of his greatcoat, grateful for its warm solidity beneath her touch. And she knew then that, no matter what happened, she would be safe with him at her side.

  “Oh, spirits of the night, of the sea and air! Hear my summons. Come to me!”

  Antoinette’s voice, deep and resonant, echoed in the dim, shallow tunnel. They had put out their lanterns, and the smoke from the circle of candles stung Cassie’s eyes. She rubbed them before opening them again to look around her.

  Antoinette stood in the middle of the circle of lights, her eyes half-closed, her mother’s book open at her feet. She swayed slightly as she murmured, her green robe shimmering in the light. The others were gathered in a ragged oval outside the lights, holding hands and watching Antoinette with wide eyes.

  There was a palpable air of tension and expectation in the still, cold air. No one knew what was going to happen next, and everyone looked about with nervous, darting little glances before looking at Antoinette again.

  Cassie saw Aunt Chat look toward the tunnel entrance, her expression full of longing. Her hand tugged slightly in Cassie’s grasp, but Cassie gave it a reassuring squeeze and she turned back to the group.

  Phillip’s hand lay still and warm in Cassie’s other hand, his palm slightly rough against her skin. He, too, watched Antoinette closely, with a small, puzzled frown on his face. He looked as if he was listening to a rather fascinating lecture at Oxford.

  Cassie wished she could be as calm as he was, as clinical. Her stomach felt fluttery and tight, and her hands were cold. As Antoinette’s voice became louder, her words faster, Cassie longed to throw herself into Phillip’s arms and shout out for her to stop.

  She had even moved a step closer to him, tugging Aunt Chat with her, when a loud explosion echoed from the back of the tunnel. Bright blue-green light flashed, followed by a shower of sparks.

  Cassie screamed and really did fall into Phillip’s arms. He held her tightly against him, and she buried her face in the starchy, clean scent of his shirtfront.

  But she couldn’t help peeking back at the tunnel.

  Antoinette ceased her chanting, and stared, mouth agape, at the darkness beyond the candles. Chat and Lady Royce clung to each other, also staring. Chat, unflappable Aunt Chat, trembled under her Indian print shawl. Louisa and Sir Belvedere, hovering near the entrance, watched with avid eyes.

  In the wake of the brilliant explosion, the back of the tunnel seemed even darker than before. A faint drift of smoke floated to the ceiling.

  Then a woman stepped forward, with a little, childlike man holding on to her hand. She was quite an amazing vision, tall and slim, with dark red hair coiled atop her head and crowned with a red velvet, pearl-trimmed cap. She wore a red satin gown in the Elizabethan style, richly embroidered, spread wide over a drum farthingale, with a tall, lacy ruff framing her pale, glowing face.

  She stared back at them, faintly bewildered. It was deeply quiet in the tunnel.

  Phillip pulled Cassie closer to him, and her hands tightened on the wool of his greatcoat. She couldn’t breathe from wondering what might happen next.

  The little man-child the woman held by the hand leaped up and down, the bells on his blue velvet cap and doublet jingling discordantly. He tugged at the woman’s beringed hand and cried, “What is happening, Lady Lettice? Angelo is confused!”

  “Hush, Angelo,” the woman said quietly, taking in their gaping gathering with one sweeping glance. Then she saw Louisa and Sir Belvedere, and her eyes widened.

  “Louisa,” she said, her voice low and calm. “Sir Belvedere. So lovely to see you again. Have you moved on, or have I returned to Royce Castle?” Before they could answer, she glided forward, her skirts rustling silkily, the little man tugged in her wake. “But I can see that I am back at the castle. I remember these tunnels. Oh, indeed I do.”

  “Hello, Lettice,” said Louisa.

  “Fair Lady Lettice,” Sir Belvedere said, then did one of his clanking bows. “We are very happy to see you again.”

  “Are you?” Lettice murmured. She looked at Antoinette, who still stood in her circle of lights. “And I suppose you are the one who brought me here?”

  Antoinette tilted her chin back, her eyes narrowed as she examined Lettice. “I am Miss Antoinette Duvall,” she answered. “I am the one who summoned you.”

  Lettice frowned, her pale forehead puckering under the widow’s peak of her hair. “But whatever for?”

  “It was at our request,” Louisa said. “We wanted to see you again.”

  “Did you?” Lettice asked, still looking most puzzled.

  Then Angelo pulled at her hand again and squealed, “Angelo is hungry, my lady! They took me away from my cakes and ale.”

  “Hush, Angelo. You are always hungry.” Lettice pressed one hand on her throat, clattering the long strands of pearls and rubies there. “I need to leave these tunnels!”

  She floated quickly out into the night, along with the noisy Angelo. Louisa and Sir Belvedere followed her, leaving the humans alone.

  Cassie pulled away from Phillip to look up at his face. She expected to see him scornful and doubting, perhaps with his brow raised or a cynical little smile on his lips.

  Instead, he was almost as pale as Lady Lettice. He stared unseeing into the depths of the tunnel, where the ghosts had appeared.

  Cassie reached up and gently touched his cheek, bringing his gaze b
ack to her. His skin was cold. “Phillip?” she whispered.

  He placed his hand over hers, holding it to his cheek. “This is some sort of dream, is it not, Cassandra? A dream that has you in it, as well. I knew I should not have eaten that mushroom tart at supper.”

  “It is not a dream,” Cassie answered. “I told you Antoinette has powers, but you did not believe me. Now you can see that there really are spirits, right here in your very home.”

  He frowned. “How do I know that these people are not actors you have hired to play out this little scene?”

  His mother heard his words. She pulled away from Chat and straightened her cloak over her shoulders. She, too, was a bit pale, but her eyes were bright with excitement. “Don’t be so ridiculous, Phillip! How could we get them to fly? To glow? And why would we go to so much trouble just to play a joke on you? My dear, you are just going to have to face the fact that there are things in this world that your books cannot explain. That logic cannot dismiss.”

  With a decisive little nod, she hurried out of the tunnel in search of the ghosts. Chat followed her.

  Antoinette was gathering up her book and herbs, her dark face suffused with joy. “I did it!” she murmured as she blew out most of the candles. “I truly did it. Oh, I wish Mama could see this!”

  And, she, too, left the tunnel, not even seeing Phillip and Cassie still standing there.

  In the cold gloom, Phillip staggered over to an old upturned crate and sat down on it heavily. “So it was not a dream?” he muttered. “How can that be? What was it?”

  Cassie was very worried. He did not sound at all like his usual scholarly self. He sounded, and looked, like a little lost boy.

  She thought with a fright that perhaps the shock had undone him. She hurried over to his side and pulled the collar of his coat closer about his throat.

  “It is all right,” she soothed. “Quite all right. Spirits have always been with us, even in ancient Greece. They believed in spirits, too, did they not?” She wasn’t exactly sure if they had or not, but she certainly hoped it was so. If only she had finished reading his book!

  “Rational thinkers rejected such superstitions,” he said uncertainly.

  “Would you doubt the rationality of your own eyes?” Cassie argued. “Did you not see them yourself? Right here? And they cannot be a dream or hallucination, because we all saw them.”

  Phillip took her hand and looked up steadily into her eyes. “But what are they? Tell me, Cassandra. I must know.”

  Cassie shook her head. This was something she had wondered herself, but then she had come to the conclusion that it was simply unknowable. “I do not know exactly. They are the spirits of people who have lived here before, but I don’t know why they are still here. They do not even know. But perhaps Lady Lettice can tell us something.”

  He shook his head and pulled away from her. The color had returned to his face, but now he looked angry and confused. He stood up and paced across the tunnel, his arms crossed. “Then if you cannot tell me the purpose, the truth, of this, why have you done it?”

  “Because we do not know, of course!” Cassie said, confused. She had seen him cynical and doubting, and stuffy and smart, but never angry. Now he strolled the narrow periphery of the tunnel, kicking out at the extinguished candles, the spent piles of herbs. “We—we thought we might learn something . . .”

  “Did you have to do it here?” he said, staring at her with burning eyes. “Perhaps things of this sort are usual in Jamaica, but we are in England. This has no place in a civilized, ordered society.” He gave her one more glare for good measure. “No place.”

  Then he turned and stormed out of the tunnel.

  Cassie was stunned. She would not have guessed that Phillip had such depths of temper in him. She had disrupted the calm, unruffled order of his life, and now he was unsure. She completely understood his feelings.

  But why did he have to take out his anger on her? She had meant no harm at all. She had only wanted to help him see beyond his blasted logic, to expand his horizons.

  It appeared she had made a great mistake. After all, some people did not want their horizons expanded. She would not have thought that Phillip, a scholar, would be one of them.

  Her eyes stung with unshed tears. She wiped at them fiercely with the back of her hand, squared her shoulders, and marched out of the tunnel. Standing about feeling sorry for herself would do no one any good at all.

  And she was not about to let such an old fusty-musty as Lord Royce ruin her pleasure in the successful ceremony!

  On the beach, the four ghosts were gathered near the water, whispering and gesturing. The only thing that could be heard from them was the clatter of Sir Belvedere’s armor and the jingle of Angelo’s bells.

  Antoinette was sitting down on a large rock, looking thoroughly exhausted but also exultant. She held her mother’s book against her, stroking her hand over the worn leather cover.

  Chat and Lady Royce hovered near her, talking excitedly. When Cassie emerged into the moonlight, they hurried over to her.

  “Cassie, dear, are you quite all right?” Chat said worriedly. “We saw Lord Royce come stomping past earlier. Did you quarrel?”

  Cassie gave them a weak smile. “He is rather angry over what happened tonight. I tried to talk to him, but . . .”

  “Of course he is angry!” Lady Royce cried. “He would never listen to me before, never even consider that the castle might be haunted. Now he has been proven wrong, proven wrong by women, and he is upset. Such a man. I cannot believe I raised him.”

  Cassie thought there was probably more to it than that, but she was too tired to talk about it, or even think about it any more tonight.

  “I am sure you are right, Lady Royce,” she answered.

  “We will all talk to him tomorrow,” Lady Royce said. “I am sure he will see sense in the clear light of day.” She did not seem to realize the irony of having ghosts be “sense.”

  “You should be in your bed, dear,” said Chat. “You and Antoinette both look thoroughly exhausted.”

  Cassie let herself be led away along the shore; her feet felt like lead in her boots. It had been a long, eventful, tiring evening.

  Before they turned away to climb the steps up the cliff, she looked back over her shoulder at the gathering of ghosts. Louisa caught her eye and gave her a cheerful little wave.

  Cassie waved back. At least someone seemed happy about the proceedings.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “So you know nothing of what happens when we leave here?” Louisa asked Lady Lettice. “Nothing at all?”

  Lady Lettice shook her head. “Only what I have told you. Angelo and I were in a sort of sitting room the entire time. It was rather pleasant. There were always people to play cards with, especially that nice Roman gentleman, Didius.”

  “There was ale and cakes!” Angelo cried. “And roast beef and peacock . . .”

  Lady Lettice tugged impatiently at his hand, and he lapsed into quiet mutters. “And sugared almonds and stewed quail and puddings . . .” he whispered, kicking at the pebbles with the upturned toe of his shoe.

  “There was plenty of food,” Lady Lettice said. “Sometimes a man would come and ask us very impertinent questions, and write things down. But I do not know why I was there, or why I returned, except that you summoned me.”

  “And you did not see—well, anyone interesting there?” Louisa asked haltingly.

  Lady Lettice gave her a knowing look. “Someone like your William, perhaps?”

  “He was not my William,” Louisa cried indignantly. “Not even when he was alive.”

  Lady Lettice nodded. “Be that as it may, I did not see him. Or indeed anyone I knew except Angelo. It was sometimes rather dull, despite the food and cards and Didius, so I cannot say I am completely sorry to be back at Royce Castle. Especially with such interesting people in residence. Who is the dark-skinned female who summoned me here? Does she live in the castle?”

  Louisa
looked over to where the humans had disappeared over the crest of the cliffs. Their figures could be seen faintly, moving up the path to the castle. “That is Miss Antoinette Duvall, from Jamaica. She is visiting here with Miss Cassandra Richards and Lady Willowby, Miss Richards’ aunt. Miss Richards is also from Jamaica; we have had interesting discussions about it. I wish that ghosts could choose where they travel, so I could see it for myself. They believe in ghosts there!”

  “Does anyone really live in such a wild place as that?” Lady Lettice asked coolly, lifting up a small feathered fan from where it dangled on her belt and waving it languidly. “I heard in my lifetime that there was nothing but savages there. I would rather still be in the sitting room of the afterlife than go to Jamaica.”

  As Louisa looked at her, she remembered what a snobbish wench Lady Lettice could be at times. She wondered why she had ever wanted her summoned back.

  “Angelo would like to see Jamaica,” Lady Lettice’s dwarf piped up. “There is fruit there as big as your head! And fish to be cooked in spices and rum . . .”

  Lady Lettice smiled down at him fondly and patted the top of his head. “Angelo, my chuck, you think far too much about food. Ghosts cannot even eat here on earth!”

  “Angelo can remember eating,” he mumbled. “We could eat in the sitting room of the afterlife.”

  “Well, we are here now, and it is impossible to eat in our present form. Now, Louisa, Sir Belvedere,” Lady Lettice said decisively, dropping her fan and turning to face them. “It appears I have arrived just in time. Things at Royce Castle seem to be getting completely unruly. Let us go up to my chamber, which I hope has been aired and cleaned properly, and you may tell me all about what has been going on here.” Then her voice changed from its usual strident tones to a soft purr. “Especially about that handsome gentleman with the long, dark hair . . .”