Lord Melvedere's Ghost

by King, Rebecca

  “It is. I inherited the estates when my father passed away,” Jamie had no idea where this line of questioning was going, but was pleased that she wanted to know more about him, the house and his family. It still didn’t divert his attention from finding out what he really needed to know, but if she wanted a few moments to satisfy her curiosity then he was more than willing to accommodate her.

  “So you know every inch of this house like the back of your hand?” Cecily sighed, staring at the panelling surrounding them with cautious eyes.

  “Yes, I think so,” Jamie replied carefully, watching Cecily closely. She was staring at the wall as though something was going to jump out and bite her.

  “Are you sure?” Cecily’s voice was gentle, but the careful look she gave him was asking him something else, something he couldn’t pick up on.

  “I -” she jumped when the study door opened suddenly and Miss Emstridge stalked in.

  “Oh, I am sorry, I didn’t realise Miss Tinsdale was still in here,” Miss Emstridge announced, casting a disparaging glance at their proximity on the chaise and the half drunk tea. “I wanted to speak to you about a rare and precious tome coming up for sale later this month, my lord. I think your father wanted to add it to his collection,” Miss Emstridge announced, completely ignoring the fact that she had just barged in and disrupted their meeting.

  Jamie wondered how Miss Emstridge knew that, given she had only been in employment a few months before his father passed and even then he had been too ill during the last few weeks of his life to spend much, if any, time in his beloved library.

  “Later, please, Miss Emstridge. If you could come back in about an hour, there is something I wish to discuss with you too. Oh, and if you could bring the catalogue you have been detailing, I should like a look at it.” He wasn’t oblivious to the sudden narrowing of Miss Emstridge’s gaze at his request to see hard evidence of her five years’ of work. His time in the Star Elite had taught him how to observe, and look for a person’s true feelings, and he knew Miss Emstridge wasn’t what she appeared. Mentally cursing his own lack of attention to detail with regards to running his own estates, he dismissed Miss Emstridge with a nod and a wave of his hand. He noted the flash of anger in her eyes as she turned away and considered the quiet, almost silent glide the woman used as she left the study.

  “Sorry about that,” Jamie muttered, finishing the last of his tea. He wondered if he would have to apply thumb screws, or undertake some heavy seduction to get any information out of Cecily at all.

  “I haven’t seen Jonathan recently, is he still here?”

  Jamie mentally rolled his eyes. “Yes, he is still here.” He felt a surge of jealousy toward his colleague and chided himself for being ridiculous. Cecily was merely grasping at any strands of conversation she could to take his mind off getting the information he really wanted. He had seen the ploy used more times than he cared to count, but Cecily didn’t know that she was up against a master. He wasn’t about to give up his quest for information without one hell of a fight.

  “He is busy securing the area and keeping watch, so you won’t see him around much, I am afraid.” He wasn’t the least bit sorry and made a mental note to make sure that Jonathan remained outside as much as was practically possible without offending his friend and colleague. Jonathan had offered to reside in the local tavern, but after yesterday they had both decided that he would be better off keeping watch outside, while Jamie kept the house under control. They were fairly certain now that whatever had happened to Cecily yesterday, nobody else had been involved but weren’t going to allow themselves to be caught off guard.

  “What are you going to do with your afternoon?” Jamie asked, pouring Cecily another cup of tea.

  “I think I should like to take a look at the library,” Cecily declared softly, “although I think I will leave that until Miss Emstridge is not around.”

  Jamie balked at that suggestion and cursed himself for not getting a grip on Miss Emstridge’s presence in his house long before now. He wanted Cecily to feel at home at Melvedere and that meant giving her the freedom to move around as she chose. If he had his way, it was going to be her home too from now on and the quicker she felt at home the better as far as he was concerned.

  “Nonsense, let’s go and take a look now,” Jamie suggested, pushing to his feet and officiously holding his arm out to her. “I don’t know about you but I find the woman scary too but, between us, I am sure that we can allow the terrier to release her hold on the bone. After all, the library isn’t hers.”

  Determination hardened his gaze as he led Cecily out of the room. Moments later, they swept into the library, banging the door back against the wall with a resounding thud.

  “Oh, dear me, no,” Miss Emstridge gushed, pushing away from her desk with a scowl on her face when she caught sight of Cecily. Her anger receded a little at the sight of a clearly glowering Jamie behind her, and she resumed her seat cautiously without saying anything else.

  “If you would excuse us, Miss Emstridge, I am sure you are due to take a break. Miss Tinsdale and I will be availing ourselves of the library for a while.” His tone brooked no argument and he purposely held the door open, beckoning her out of the door. His eyes met and held the challenging Miss Emstridge for several long moments, before the woman decided to return to the guise of bespectacled, and slightly eccentric, librarian.

  Jamie made a mental note to get Jonathan to find out what he could about his suspicious employee at the first available opportunity, and studied Cecily carefully as soon as the woman had vanished. Was Miss Emstridge responsible for Cecily’s injury? But why had Miss Emstridge hit Cecily on the head? What could Cecily have possibly done to the curious woman in his library? Wondering if he was just being overly protective and seeing monsters where there were none, he paused just inside the door for several moments and watched the awe and wonder on Cecily’s gaze as she studied the rows upon rows of books in all colours and sizes.

  Tipping her head sideways, she studied the gold lettered titles as she meandered slowly down the rows, shaking her head at the long forgotten stories she had heard about but never had the chance to read for herself. If it wasn’t for her mother, she would never have been taught to read at all, and for that she was very grateful. Her fingers positively tingled with the urge to pull the books off the shelves and run her fingers through the fine, silken pages.

  “So, have you found anything interesting?” Jamie asked, studying the shelving carefully. They were crammed full to bursting, with yet more books lying across the top. However, unless he was very mistaken, there were several books missing. He was sure he could remember the top shelves having more lying on the top that were there. He studied the desk Miss Emstridge used, and the huge towering pile of books sitting to one side, presumably to be catalogued, and mentally shrugged. Instead, he meandered behind her as she sauntered around the room.

  “There are so many to choose from,” she whispered reverently, her eyes alight with the excitement of a small child.

  “Well then, might I suggest you start by the door? Pick a book and get reading. You will be old and grey by the time you get half way around, of course, but the subjects you will have read will be wide and varied.” He wished he had kept his mouth shut when he watched the excitement dim from her eyes, and knew she was thinking about leaving.

  “Think about what I have said, Cecily,” Jamie whispered, wishing he could offer her reassurances out his honourable intentions but, in order to do that, he needed to know a bit more about what was happening with the Star Elite and her father. He didn’t want her accepting his offer of accommodation because she had nowhere to go, while refusing to even consider a future with him. He knew now that if she chose not to marry him yet stay in the Dowager’s house, she would condemn not only herself, but him as well, to a life without matrimony and a family of their own, because he had no intention of marrying anyone else. He had chosen his bride. Now all he had to do was convince her that he
would be a good husband.

  “Can I choose a book to read while I am here?” Cecily asked, pulling a book of the shelf randomly. She frowned at the weight of it. It was far lighter than she thought it should be. Although she had not read many books in her life, she had picked up a couple and could remember them being far heavier than this one. Frowning down at the gold lettering in her hand she turned it over. Something wasn’t right about it.

  “What is it?” Jamie asked, moving closer to her. He watched Cecily’s slim fingers turn the cover back.

  They both stared nonplussed at the blank, wooden page that lay in her hands. Turning the book over, Cecily studied the back, then the binding, then the edge where there should have been pages, but instead it appeared that the wood had been carefully painted to look like pages. Glancing up at Jamie, her eyes met his in confusion.

  Jamie lifted the book in her hands and studied it carefully. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled in alarm, and he knew there was something nefarious going on. He studied the title carefully. It didn’t ring any particular warning bells with him, it was just a book but, he knew that his father would never have knowingly had such a thing in his library. He was an avid book collector, and bought hundreds of them through his lifetime. He had no reason to want to pretend to have full shelves when his shelves had already been full to bursting.

  Jamie held the book for a moment and watched Cecily pick up the book that had been sitting next to it. The thin pages flew threw her fingers as she studied it carefully.

  “Try some more,” Jamie ordered, searching the shelves carefully. At the first glance there was nothing untoward with any of it, so just how many were like the one in his hand? He had to fight the urge to stalk out of the door and demand an immediate interview with Miss Emstridge, and instead watched as Cecily pulled several more books off the shelves, all of which were as they should be, full of pages ready to be read.

  “Why?” Cecily demanded several minutes later when book after book had proven to be real.

  “I have no idea, but I am going to find out.” Making a note of the title, Jamie carefully slid the book back into position on the shelf. He turned back to Cecily. “Until we know a bit more, I should be grateful if you do not discuss this with anyone.”

  “Who am I going to discuss it with?” Cecily asked, keeping her voice low. “I mean, you cannot accuse Miss Emstridge of anything, you have no proof.”

  “I know,” Jamie sighed, feeling more in tune with Cecily than ever before and loving it. Although he could not involve her in any of the work of the Star Elite, he could use this to his advantage if he was clever enough. As long as she wasn’t put at any risk, there was no reason not to involve her in a little investigation of her own.

  “I need your help,” he announced, watching Cecily’s brows lift in surprise. He took a breath to explain only for Cecily to lift her hand and stop him.

  Cecily tried not to study the area around them, but could feel that they were being watched. She didn’t know if it was the events from yesterday, or her own wayward imagination, or both, but she couldn’t discount the knowledge that there was a secret passageway running along the walls around here, and that passageway could run alongside the library. Anyone, including Miss Emstridge, could be listening right now from the shadowy depths of a room Jamie didn’t seem to know was there.

  “Let’s go outside,” Cecily announced, staring meaningfully at Jamie who merely nodded warily. “I’ll explain more in a minute,” she whispered directly into his ear as she passed.

  She should have pushed the hand away that landed on her waist, but couldn’t resist the lure of his lips as they descended to hers. The kiss was brief, yet deep, and she felt positively shaken by the time he released her and opened the door for her to precede him from the room.

  Inside the room, the painting of the old Lord of Belvedere stood ever watchful and silent, gazing down with thoughtful eyes on the occupants of the room as they left. No sooner had the door closed behind Jamie, and the room fell into silence once more, than the painted eyes of the portrait slid quietly back into place.

  Once outside, Cecily took Jamie’s arm and steered him away from the house, toward a pagoda that sat on the far edge of the lawns. She could feel Jamie’s curious eyes on her as she practically dragged him across the gardens, but she didn’t stop until they were standing in the sheltered canopy of the huge wooden structure, safe from prying eyes. From their position in the garden, nobody could approach without being seen. It was perfect.

  Jamie lifted his brows in silent query, and watched as Cecily scanned the area around them. His lips quirked in wry amusement at her furtive behaviour but he had to admit it, he was intrigued.

  “Just how much do you know about your house?” Cecily demanded, moving to stand beside him. She studied the huge building now several hundred feet away. Jamie had perched his hips on the low running balcony and stood with his back to the house he called home.

  “I have been there all of my life, and know it like the back of my hand,” he declared confidently.

  “Do you?” Cecily’s voice was crisp and searching. “Are you sure?”

  “What do you mean?” Jamie felt uneasy, and wondered just what the hell he had missed.

  “Do you know about the secret passageways?”

  Jamie froze and stared at her. His initial reaction had been to laugh her comment off as a joke, but the deadly seriousness on Cecily’s face made him stop. He turned around to stare at the walls around them. “There are secret passageways?”

  “Yes, there are. They run upstairs and downstairs.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I was in one yesterday,” Cecily declared firmly, turning angry eyes on the house. She had read his scepticism and didn’t know whether she was angry at him or herself. She knew she couldn’t tell him about the man, he just wouldn’t understand, and she wasn’t entirely sure she believed it herself, but she could tell him about the secret passageways in his own home. She felt she owed that much to him, especially after his hospitality and the strange librarian he was saddled with.

  Her thoughts flickered back to her dream of the swarming books and the appearance of his father. Had he been trying to tell her about the books? Giving herself a mental shake, she pushed the thought aside to think about more carefully later.

  “Where are they?” Jamie frowned at her. He felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck and he glanced about them cautiously. Had he spent his life in a house with secret passageways and not known of them? How? He had played in the house throughout his entire childhood. Had his father known about them? Jamie couldn’t ever remember his father ever mentioning them before.

  “The door to the passage I came out of sits at the back of the rose trellis on the terrace. I fell into the corridor from the upstairs passageway, right next to the servants’ stairs.”

  “Fell into it?” Jamie announced each word carefully as though trying to assess her honesty.

  Cecily sighed in frustration and wanted to shake him. She couldn’t really blame his scepticism. After all, it sounded wildly improbable, even to her, but she knew what she had experienced was real.

  Seeing the growing concern in his eyes, she sighed and grabbed hold of his wrist. Ignoring the jolt of awareness that flew up her arm, she dragged him across the lawns toward the terrace in question. Jamie was intrigued. He had never seen this fire in Cecily before, even when she had been riding on a horse the first time. He was enthralled; intrigued. Amazed at the possibility of secret corridors and, although he wouldn’t normally agree to her dragging him around his own lawns, he could not find it within him to protest. He quite liked this slightly domineering side to her.

  He stood meekly to one side while she began to fumble through the rosebush, ignoring the scratches that began to score her arms. After several minutes of her rather frantic rummaging, Jamie placed his hands on her shoulders and eased her to one side.

  “My turn,” he said gently, placing a kiss
on her flushed cheek. To his stunned surprise, his fingers found the cold metal of a small circular latch hidden behind the trellis. Turning to study Cecily with newfound respect, he twisted the latch and watched in amazement as the door opened silently before them to reveal the dark rectangle of an unlit corridor.

  It was only about three feet wide, but enough for a person to use, frequently, if the sight of the disturbed dust on the floor was any indication. Scanning the area just inside the doorway carefully, it looked as though someone had used this corridor a lot in recent months. The stone floor was practically clear of the cobwebs and dust that littered the walls and ceilings.

  “Good God,” Jamie muttered, grabbing hold of Cecily’s wrist as he peered inside. “Where did you get in again?”

  “Upstairs, at the end of the corridor near to my room,” Cecily replied, pulling back when Jamie moved to stand just inside the corridor.

  “Please, I don’t want to go back in there again,” she shivered in the cold air of the dark corridor and tried to pull free of Jamie’s hold.

  “It’s alright darling, we are not going to go in, I just want to pull the door closed a little so nobody sees us,” he whispered, watching her hesitantly ease into the confined space to stand beside him.

  He saw the fear in her eyes, and drew her closer to him. He tried not to smile when she immediately hugged his side like a barnacle. He quite liked her clinging to him. Now, however, he wanted to investigate and get the answers that were starting to build. It was suddenly imperative that he knew everything about the mysterious passageways, and not stop until every inch had been thoroughly explored.

  “I never knew,” Jamie sighed, studying the doorway carefully. It looked as though it had been constructed when the house had been built. It certainly was part of the structure, and not a later add-on. But who would put one in? Why? “God Cecily, how can I not know about this?” he whispered, looking down at her in appreciation.