After several long moments, and many thorny scrapes later, she gave up. The pounding in her head was so heavy now that she was starting to feel sick again, and her fingers were shaking so badly that she could hardly lift them to her face to stop the trickle of moisture running down her cheek. She glanced down at her blood stained fingers and tried to focus on them. Her eyes just didn’t seem able to look at anything properly. The pounding in her head increased and left her with little option but to lean her head against the wall for a moment, and wonder if she was going to be sick in the bushes.
“Cecily?” Jamie went cold at the sight of the blood covering one side of her face. From the unsteady way in which she was weaving toward him, something, or someone, had attacked her. A heavy surge of protectiveness swept through him and he lunged forward to catch her when she threatened to topple onto her face. “Cecily, what happened? Who did this to you?”
Cecily glanced blearily up into his face and frowned. “Nobody,” she whispered, shivering at the forbidding expression on his face. “I hit my head on something.” She nodded toward the wall behind her and winced as her head immediately protested.
Jamie scowled at her, alarmed by her slurred words and the slightly vague look on her face. Although her arms were scratched, there was nothing around for her to hit herself on. “Where have you been?”
His mind raced. His eyes scanned every nook and cranny around them for any sign of imminent danger. He had to get her inside now. Not only because she looked like she might pass out at any moment, but she was clearly not sure what had happened to her, and was in danger being out in the open like this.
He shouted for Potter to fetch a doctor and swept Cecily off her feet, stalking toward the house. Shouldering open the door he ignored the startled gasps of Mrs Nantwich, and Sophie, shouting orders as he stalked through the house. He should take her to the safety of her room but instead moved toward his study where he placed her tenderly down onto the chaise before the fire. She was so very cold, her lips were turning blue.
Throwing several logs onto the fire, he poked the flames into a dull roar before turning to study her. She was now sitting upright holding her head in her hands. He didn’t need to study the gash on her head closely to know that it was deep and still bleeding.
“Where were you, Cecily? What happened, can you tell me?” His gaze flicked to Jonathan, who came pounding through the door, panting heavily. The dark scowl on his face landed on Cecily, and he cursed at the bedraggled sight of her. “I’ll do a search,” he snapped, bristling with fury as he stalked out. He wasn’t shy of the sight of blood, but would rather leave women to men like Jamie. He had no idea how to handle a distressed female. With a shudder Jonathan disappeared into the dark recesses of the house, his eyes scanning the area around him with ruthless determination.
“I was in the corridor,” Cecily whispered, wishing the pounding in her head would stop so she could at least gather her thoughts. “It was so very dark. I was following the man.”
“Man?” Jamie snapped, frowning deeply as he placed a thick pad of cloth Mrs Nantwich had arrived with, against Cecily’s head. “What man?”
“I saw a man in the corridor. I was lost and couldn’t find my way out because it was dark. It was so cold,” Cecily whispered, trying to recall the details of the man. “The man showed me the way out.”
Jamie frowned at Mrs Nantwich, who looked at Cecily with growing concern. “Let’s get her upstairs, the doctor will be here soon.”
“I am fine, really.”
“You need that cut seeing to, darling,” Jamie murmured, easing her into his arms and striding for the door. “Where were you in the corridor?”
“What?” Cecily asked, hating feeling so weak. She fought the confusion to try to make sense of his words but failed.
“Which room were you in downstairs?”
“I was upstairs?” Cecily whispered, frowning in consternation.
Jamie was looking at her warily. Clearly the bump on the head had made her muddled and while she was in this state, there was very little chance of getting any accurate information from her. He cursed himself for being stupid enough to consider, for one brief moment, that they would be safe at Melvedere. Clearly they weren’t and, whoever was responsible had taken advantage of Jamie’s arrogant stupidity to try to take Cecily by knocking her over the head so she wouldn’t put up a fight.
“I’m sorry, Cecily, I have failed you,” Jamie murmured as he deposited her carefully on the bed. He waited beside her for an age, watching her sleep. She was so lifeless. The mere sight of her lying so still filled him with an awful sense of dread that made him want to put his own head in his hands. He was pacing up and down restlessly before the fire when the scuffle of footsteps at the door heralded the arrival of a heavily panting doctor, who nodded briskly at Jamie before ushering him out of the door.
Dr Richardson had been the family doctor since Jamie was a young child, and was about the only man Jamie would leave in a room alone with Cecily. Cursing fluidly, he used the time that Dr Richardson was tending to Cecily, to find Jonathan, and agree on what they were going to do now.
Cecily was back in the corridor, but it was dark, then light, then dark. Shadows swirled and collided as she pushed against the walls but couldn’t get out. Books were everywhere, piles and piles of them. Twisting this way and that, she frantically tried to stop them moving but couldn’t grab hold of them.
With a gasp she woke with a jerk, bathed in sweat. The heavy throbbing in her head had reduced to a dull thud which was much more bearable, but she was now so incredibly thirsty. Shivering against the cool night air, she blinked the last vestiges of sleep out of her eyes and sat up.
She froze.
Her breath fogged out before her. She turned slowly to face the bottom of the bed.
There, standing at the foot of the bed, still holding his candle, was the man out of the corridor.
Cecily swallowed and stared at him. The room around them dimmed to the far recesses of her consciousness. She watched as the man nodded once and smiled at her before moving backward toward the far corner of the room. Once there, he turned and walked into the wall. The gentle click of a door closing sounded like gunfire in the silence of the room and jerked her out of her stunned disbelief.
The man had walked through the wall, he hadn’t used the door.
Her skin tingled, and she physically shook with the need to do something, but she was unable to do anything but sit there and try to absorb what she had just witnessed. She was aware of the room slowly growing warmer, and wondered if the knock on the head had been harder than she had realised. But, she reasoned, she hadn’t had the knock on the head when she had seen the man for the first time. If it wasn’t for him, she would probably still be wandering aimlessly around that awful corridor, destined never to see daylight again.
Shaken, she was grateful to whoever had been blessed with the foresight to place a glass of water beside the bed. With trembling fingers she took a sip, one eye cautiously but firmly locked upon the far wall of her bedroom.
Unable to find the courage to leave the bed, she slowly lay back down and stared blankly up at the canopy. Sleep would definitely elude her now, but there was little she could do about it.
Cecily slept far longer than she ought. Morning sunshine was streaming through the windows again when she sluggishly rolled over in bed the following day. The heavy pounding in her head had retreated to a very dull throb that was considerably more bearable. Her stomach rumbled hungrily at the lack of evening meal, but at least she had managed to fall asleep after the strange events last night. In fact, she couldn’t remember staring at the canopy for long. Had it all been a dream?
Cautiously pushing herself to sit on the side of the bed, she rose and studied the corner of her room carefully. Apart from her hunger, she felt far better than she thought she would. All adverse effects from yesterday’s adventure were now gone, if not yet forgotten.
Had she dreamt it all? Was
her wayward imagination getting away with her? She knew she hadn’t imagined the corridor, but had she imagined the man? Had fear triggered something within her that had latched on to an imaginary helper? She couldn’t be sure but that didn’t explain why her imaginary helper woke her up in the middle of the night to show her he could walk through walls. Or had he?
Tugging on the bell pull, she used the time before Doreen arrived to study the panelling closely. Everywhere in Melvedere seemed to be panelled, except the morning room, sitting room and dining room. Those were wallpapered in brightly coloured silks that were elegantly understated yet clearly expensive.
She cautiously patted the wall in front of her, reassured by the solid thud. Tapping each panel in turn gave her the same sound. With her back to the bedroom doorway, she patted the panels and shivered at same dull thudding noise that came back at her.
A slow shiver of unease swept through her. She didn’t believe in ghosts. They didn’t exist. As soon as one left this mortal coil that was it, you ceased to exist. Didn’t you? She touched the top of her head tenderly and wondered why the man had come back last night. What had he wanted? Why had he awoken her? Was he just checking up on her? Or did he just want her to know that he was a ghost, and that he was around and keeping an eye on her? Or did he want something else entirely?
No, really, Cecily mentally chided herself. Ghosts don’t exist, you ninny.
Still, a small cautionary voice inside asked her what she was going to do if she was wrong.
Later that morning, having been washed, dressed and fussed over by an anxious Doreen, Cecily felt strong enough to answer Jamie’s summons. If she was well enough to attend him, could she please go down to the study seemed a reasonable enough request. He undoubtedly wanted to know what had happened to her yesterday. She had very little recollection of what had happened after she had stumbled out of the corridor, back into daylight, except the fierce anger on Jamie’s face. She wondered if he was angry at her for venturing off on her own. But, she reasoned, it wasn’t as though she had intended to do it. It had been purely by chance that she had fallen through the doorway.
She left her room and stopped outside the door long enough to carefully tie a piece of red ribbon around the handle. With a satisfied nod that she wouldn’t get caught out a second time, instead of turning toward the end of the corridor that would take her to the large hallway and main staircase, she turned toward the wall next to the back staircase.
Yesterday she had been certain that the secret corridor had run in both directions, so why hadn’t she been able to see the wall of the servants’ stairs? The servants’ stairs were made of stone and certainly solid enough. To reassure herself she pushed open the servants’ door and peered down the stairs. The echoing sound of pots and pans clanging reached her ears.
Nothing so strange there, she mused, closing the door quietly. With a glance around her, she slowly and carefully began to pat the panelling on the wall beside the door, trying to locate the exact position she had been standing in earlier. It didn’t take her long before her knocks changed from dull thuds to echoes.
She pushed each panel cautiously, frowning in consternation when nothing gave, clicked, or allowed her to swing the door open. Why? She had no intention of leaning against the wall again, thank you very much, she wasn’t going to go back in there again without Jamie, a candle and some very long rope tied to something solid in the corridor. But she wondered how she had found it so easy to get in yesterday. As far as she had been aware, she hadn’t pushed any levers and, as far as she could see, there was no handle to get into the corridor, so how had she managed to get in?
She frowned at the panelling, stymied for a moment to find an explanation. Putting the matter to one side for now, Cecily slowly made her way down the stairs to the study, and Jamie.
“Doreen told me that you were up,” Jamie muttered, rising from his desk. He had just spent the longest hours of his life. Although he had checked on her several times throughout the night, he had grown increasingly concerned with how solidly she had slept, and was very glad to be able to ease his fears by seeing her up and about, even if she did look so pale she was almost translucent again.
Cecily closed the door behind her and had barely taken more than two steps before she was swept against Jamie’s chest. Closing her eyes, she stood meekly wrapped in his arms, aware of the similarity of their hold to yesterday’s embrace.
Several long moments later, Jamie eased back enough to study her closely for any signs of hidden pain or distress. His relief grew at the pure blue, faintly teasing glint in her eye.
“Don’t ever do that to me again,” he growled, capturing her lips in a quick yet very thorough kiss. He was far more shaken than he cared to admit when he finally released her. Grabbing hold of her wrist, he led her toward the chaise and drew her down to sit beside him, nodding toward a tray of tea things already waiting on the small table.
“Would you like tea?”
“I’ll pour,” Cecily offered, feeling slightly strange at the familiarity of his greeting, and the almost domesticated ritual of taking tea with him.
“I am sorry about yesterday,” she whispered after several moments of companionable silence.
“Can you remember much of what happened?”
“Everything,” Cecily declared firmly, meeting his curious gaze with a determined stare. “I may have had a knock to the head, but I am not so befuddled that I cannot remember exactly what happened.”
“What did happen?” Jamie demanded when she made no attempt to expand on her explanation.
“I -” She froze, her cup half way to her mouth as she stared with horror filled eyes at the tall man in the painting beside the door and she read the small brass plaque at the bottom of the painting. Michael James Calverton, Lord Melvedere.
Her blood turned cold as she stared at the hauntingly familiar face of the man who had escorted her out of the hidden passageway yesterday, and who had appeared at the end of her bed last night: Lord Melvedere’s Ghost.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Who -” she gulped, nodding toward the portrait of the austere looking gentleman who looked like an older version of Jamie.
“Who? That? He is my father, Michael Calverton, Lord Melvedere,” Jamie glanced from the familiar portrait of his long deceased father, to Cecily’s horror filled gaze. “What’s wrong? Did you know him?”
Cecily mentally ran through what she could remember of the man from the corridor. The gentle smile was absent in the portrait, replaced by a rather arrogant look that matched the military pose. One booted foot resting casually on a stone beside the stream and, unless she was mistaken, it was the stream she had been sitting at on her first day here. On his knee rested a book.
“Cecily? What is it? Do you want me to get a doctor again?”
Cecily winced at the mention of the doctor. Although Doctor Richardson had been a very kindly man, and had apologised profusely for the discomfort, he had seen to her cut with a ruthless efficiency that had her clawing at the sheets and sweating in agony. It had been a blessed relief to see the man go.
“No!” She winced at the unintended ferocity behind her protest and immediately mumbled an apology. “I am fine.”
Her mind raced frantically, wondering whether she could tell him. She wasn’t entirely sure she believed it herself. Ghosts? Really? Dragging her gaze back to her teacup, she carefully placed back in the saucer with shaky hands.
“He is just someone I can vaguely recall meeting somewhere before, that’s all.”
“Where?” Jamie frowned, nonplussed. As far as he knew, his father’s contacts had all been in London, and he had never been in Tissington in all of his life, let alone since Cecily had been born. His father had been dead for the past five years, at least.
“I cannot remember,” Cecily replied vaguely. “Maybe he looks like someone who is familiar,” Cecily offered with a rueful smile of apology before resuming her tea. She took a deep breath to fortify her ner
ves. She hated keeping secrets from anyone, let alone Jamie who had been so kind and thoughtful toward her, but seeing a ghost; his father’s ghost, was something that she was struggling to make sense of for herself. How could she explain it to someone as stoically logical as Jamie?
“You still haven’t told me what happened yesterday,” Jamie gently reminded her, when she made no attempt to engage in conversation. He mentally sighed, and wondered just how difficult it was going to be to get reliable information out of her. Even if she did remember anything, he couldn’t be sure if her bump to the head had jumbled the information up.
“How long has he been dead?” Cecily whispered, nodding back toward the portrait. She couldn’t bring herself to look at it again, and shivered as she waited for his answer.
“It will be about five years this January, I think, why?”
“I take it that he liked books? It is unusual in portraits like that for someone to be carrying a book, usually the pose is with a hunting dog, or something,” she whispered vaguely.
“My father adored books. He lived for them, and spent his entire life collecting rare and out of print copies as often as he could. I do believe that he has read nearly all of the books in the library,” Jamie declared almost proudly. “When he purchased one or two, he always insisted on reading them before they went onto the shelves. Of course, some of them have been handed down through the generations and are centuries old.”
“Miss Emstridge is cataloguing them, is she not?”
“Supposedly,” Jamie sighed ruefully, making a mental note to start to question Miss Emstridge a bit more carefully before giving her notice. “I have yet to see any of her lists though.”
“Is this your family seat?” Cecily asked, trying to find a way of discovering if Jamie was already aware of the hidden passageways or not.
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