“I wouldn’t say that.” Drew felt his own face turn warm. “Not all of them, surely.”
“I heard there was a certain Miss Pomphrey-Hughes who was just perishing to be Mrs. Farthering.”
Drew winced. “How ever did you hear that?”
“Sabrina told me when I mentioned asking you and your wife up here. She said she wondered that you were married to a Madeline and not a Daphne.”
“I didn’t think she and Daphne had ever met.”
“I believe she heard it from Bunny Marsden-Brathwaite. When the two of them were an item.”
Drew fought to keep his expression blank. Beaky was certainly nonchalant when discussing his wife’s former lover. But then Drew had only his assumptions to go by concerning Bunny’s relationship with Sabrina Prestwick. Clearly Sabrina had convinced Beaky there was nothing but innocence in it or Beaky wouldn’t have brought it up so casually. Knowing his infatuation with her, perhaps she hadn’t had to do much convincing at all.
“Anyway,” Beaky said, “which particular girls they were doesn’t matter. The point is that you’re Drew Farthering and I’m Beaky Bloodworth, a carrot-topped bean pole who can’t put two words together talking to girls.” His mouth twisted into a wry grin. “And to top it all off, I’ve got this monumental snout no one will ever let me forget.”
“Listen, old man, when we called you Beaky, I don’t think anyone ever meant—”
“Don’t be silly,” Beaky said. “You don’t know how comforting it was back in school to have my friends call me that. It made the actually cruel remarks not sting so badly.”
Drew merely waited for him to go on.
“So, no, Drew, you’re a capital fellow and all that, but you really have no idea what it is to be someone like me. And then to have someone like Sabrina love me, I mean truly love me, it frightens me sometimes. It makes me wonder when it’s going to all come crashing down around me.” There was just the tiniest bit of a quiver in his voice. “Or when I’m going to wake up and find it’s all been just a cruel joke.”
“That would be unthinkable,” Drew said, trying to sound reassuring, knowing Beaky had suffered more than his share of cruel jokes when they were in school simply because he was awkward and plain. But to himself Drew swore he would find out whether or not his friend was being deceived and by whom.
Four
Madeline huddled into her coat, certain that her nose and cheeks were frozen solid. The sky was an unrelieved gray, and she was sure it was cold enough that, if there were precipitation, this time they would get snow rather than rain. The moor stretched out in all directions, hills and dales but no trees, only heather and gorse and the leavings of the ever-present sheep.
“I wish you had borrowed a pair of my boots if you were going to come out with us today,” Sabrina told her, not slowing her brisk stride as they tried to keep up with Raphael, who was trotting a few yards ahead of them. “We’ll have to go into the village and find you something this afternoon. We might have to go into Harrogate if you want something even remotely stylish. You may as well be comfortable while you’re here.”
“That’s a good idea. I don’t know why I didn’t think to bring anything like that with me. I suppose I’m still getting used to my new country.”
Sabrina looked her over, just the hint of a smirk on her red lips. “If I can get used to this, I suppose you can, too. Do you miss it? America, I mean.”
“Sometimes very much,” Madeline admitted, lengthening her stride as the dog began trotting faster. “I have two aunts and an uncle in Chicago I’d love to see again. Letters are never quite the same, are they?”
Sabrina shook her head.
“And sometimes I just miss being back there,” Madeline added. “I miss the sounds and the smells and the taste of it. I miss the great bigness of it. But then again I love it here in England.” She looked down at her low-heeled shoes that were all wrong for walking on the moor. “Now wherever Drew happens to be is home to me.”
Sabrina snickered. “You sound like one of those oh-so-sincere stories where the factory girl meets the handsome young mechanic who turns out to be a duke in disguise.” She took Madeline’s arm. “I’m glad you two came up to see us. I don’t know how much either of you can do about our difficulties, but Beaky’s enjoying it at any rate. And I have to admit it’s good to have another woman to talk to. Besides Miss Windham, I mean. Raphael! Not so fast!”
The terrier came back, sniffing the ground and then panting up at her, eager-eyed and adoring, before trotting ahead once again.
“Don’t you like Miss Windham?” Madeline asked, hurrying again to keep up.
“That’s not really it,” Sabrina said. “Miss Windham, if you must know, does not approve of me.”
“Really? Why would you think that?”
“Because it’s true. None of the people who were here when Beaky was a boy know what to make of me. Not that they’d say anything. We all have a very . . . cordial relationship. But unless I want to spend my days in the company of the cook and the scullery girl, my options for girl talk are rather limited here in Bunting’s Nest.”
They walked on for a while. The only sounds were the wind on the moor and the panting dog. Soon they passed a stone marker engraved ROAD TO BUNTING’S NEST with an arrow pointing back the way they had come.
“I suppose your husband told you we met a time or two in London a while back,” Sabrina said, keeping her eyes on Raphael, who had gone farther ahead than before.
“He said you knew his friend Bunny.”
Sabrina shrugged. “You know how those things are. Bunny and I had some laughs a couple of years ago. He’s decidedly got more money than sense, but we parted friends as far as I can tell. I met Beaky a few months later and decided it was time I settled down.”
“No one in between?” Madeline asked.
Sabrina laughed almost inaudibly. “That’s old news. I’m happy here, even if the only nightlife I get now is listening to the dance bands on the wireless.” The dog was scurrying even farther ahead of them now. Sabrina put her hands on her hips. “Come back now, Raffie. Raphael! Not down there. Raphael! Come back!”
But the little dog had disappeared down a mostly overgrown path that turned sharply to the left and into a deep hollow.
Sabrina was half running now. “Raphael!”
“What’s over there?” Madeline was hurrying beside her. “He’s not going to get into something he shouldn’t, is he?”
Sabrina looked annoyed, but Madeline couldn’t tell if there was another emotion in her expression. Anxiety? Fear?
“Raphael!” Sabrina snapped. “Come on now or you can just spend the night out here.”
They rushed around a clump of trees and came upon a ruin of worn stone and weathered wood that looked as if it had been there since Anglo-Saxon times. Perhaps before. It was hardly more than a couple of battered walls jutting out of the side of the hill and only halfway up now, one wall with a broken opening where a window must have been, along with a little square tower with a wooden door. Several large stones lay half buried in the ground around it, cracked and battered from centuries of sun and storm.
Sabrina stood watching as Raphael sniffed along the ground of the ruin, whining softly.
“What is it?” Madeline asked. “Or what was it?”
“I heard it was once an old church, but I’m not sure exactly. If it ever was a church, I think it was abandoned and used for something else later. Maybe it’s just this place that gives me the creeps. Like Merlin Hill.”
“What’s that?”
“Oh, it’s nothing really. Just a bluff that looks over the house. The locals say it was one of the pagan high places a long while back. It’s nothing but bare rock now.” Her mouth tightened at Madeline’s inquisitive look. “No, I haven’t ever seen anything unnatural out there. And I don’t think our north wing is haunted either, no matter what Beaky says. He never knows when I’m teasing him. Raphael, come back here right now or I’m going to b
e very cross with you.”
The dog made a yipping sound but did not look back at her, his attention fixed on whatever scent he had picked up. Madeline looked at Sabrina, wondering why she didn’t just go pick him up before he wandered out of sight.
“I’ll get him,” she said, but Sabrina caught her arm, holding her back.
“He’ll come back. I’d rather you didn’t get too close.”
Madeline drew her brows together. “Why not? What’s the matter?”
Sabrina shook her head, but her attempt to look scornful failed miserably. “Nothing. I just don’t like the look of the place. Never have. Raphael! Where did you go?”
The dog was nowhere to be seen now.
“He must be on the other side,” Madeline said. “I can get him.”
Before she could change her mind, she took long, quick strides toward the ruined church. Halfway there, Raphael let out a high yelp and came tearing around the corner. Madeline caught him as he tried to dart past her and then almost dropped him again when he snarled and snapped at her.
“Raphael!” Sabrina came close enough to take the dog from her and then looked back at the old church, her eyes wide. “Come on. Really. I don’t think we should be here right now.”
With the still-growling dog clutched against her, she led Madeline out of the hollow and across the moor. The looming dark shape of Bloodworth Park Lodge was a welcome sight when it came into view. Even more welcome was the sight of Beaky’s car pulling up to the house and then Drew and Beaky getting out of it and walking over to them.
“Hullo, darling.” Drew wrapped Madeline in his arms and kissed her forehead. “Miss me?”
“You don’t know how much.”
He pulled back from her, looking into her eyes. “What is it? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
“No ghosts,” Sabrina said, her expression snide and superior. “Raphael spooked himself over by the stone church, that’s all.” She lowered her head and nuzzled the squirming terrier in her arms. “Isn’t that right, Raffie, darling? There wasn’t anything there.”
Beaky came over and put a hand on her arm. “Are you sure? Are you both all right?”
She hugged the dog closer, pulling away from her husband. “Of course we are. We’re just cold and tired and want our tea. Come on, Raffie.”
Beaky gave Madeline an apologetic smile. “I meant you and Sabrina, not her and the dog. Sorry about that.”
“That’s quite all right.” Madeline took Drew’s arm and started them toward the door. “She spoke for me as well as Raphael.”
“Poor darling,” Drew said. “Are you certain you didn’t see anything?”
“Nothing, although Raphael was on to something. He was trailing a scent, but there must have been something that scared him because he tore back the way he had come. I was afraid he’d bite me, growling and snapping the way he was.”
“That’s not like Raphael,” Beaky said. “Poor little chap.”
“But you didn’t actually see anything,” Drew pressed, escorting her through the front door after Beaky opened it for them. “Nothing out of the ordinary?”
“No. But I didn’t like the feel of the place, Drew.”
“Well, never mind,” he said, settling with her before the fire on the drawing room sofa. “I’ll have a look out there when I can.”
“Not alone,” she urged. “I don’t want you to go alone. Please.”
He looked at her strangely.
“I think I’ve spooked myself with all this talk about strange happenings on the moor.” Madeline took a deep breath and smiled. “It’s all right. Really.”
Drew didn’t look at all convinced.
Dinner that night was quiet. Afterward the two couples played bridge, but no one seemed very interested in the game and it broke up early. Not very much later, they all went up to bed. Drew was glad. He had wanted to talk to Madeline in private about what had happened earlier that day out on the moor, though she had made it clear she didn’t want to say anything more about it in front of their hosts.
He lay back against the pillows, watching her as she prepared for bed. Usually he had to wait until her maid had finished undoing whatever it was that had to be done up to make her presentable for dinner, but they had left maid and valet behind for once. Now he could silently admire the graceful movement of her body as she stepped from the bathroom to the dresser to the wardrobe in just her slip, the little pout of annoyance when she couldn’t find some folderol she wanted, and the tinge of pink in her freshly washed face.
“You’re wishing you’d brought Beryl along by now, I daresay.”
She made a face at him in the mirror. “Shows what you know. Actually, I was just thinking how nice it was for it to be just us in the evening for a change without anyone else around.”
“It is, isn’t it?”
“It’s in the morning that I really miss having a maid, especially doing my hair. I can’t believe how clumsy I’ve gotten in little more than a year and a half.”
“Beryl will be glad to know she’s been missed. I’m just glad Plumfield can’t see me now. I’m certain the tie I had on today was just the wrong shade of charcoal to go with my smoke-colored waistcoat and slate jacket.”
She laughed. “He’s probably spending the time we’re away organizing your socks and ties into perfectly coordinated sets.”
“Plumfield and Beryl both deserve a bit of time away from us, don’t you think? They both have such lovely tempers, we wouldn’t want to spoil everything by being around too much. Speaking of spoilt things, how are you and Mrs. Bloodworth getting on?”
She scowled at him. “Be nice now. You were going to be fair, remember?”
“Yes.” He sighed. “Yes, I was. She just . . .”
He trailed off with a shrug and another sigh, and she gave him a look that was all love and understanding.
“She reminds you of Fleur.”
He nodded. Fleur and Sabrina looked nothing alike, were nothing alike, except they were both stunning beauties, both stylish and self-possessed, both heedless of any casualties left in their wakes. No, he was going to be fair. He didn’t know Sabrina, not really. He wasn’t eighteen anymore, and Fleur wasn’t toying with his unwary heart. It was ridiculous to suspect every woman just because of one. It wasn’t fair.
“She hasn’t done anything to make you think badly of her,” Madeline said gently.
Sabrina, not Fleur. Fleur was in the past.
“Oh, I suppose not.” He sat up and punched the pillow a time or two to get it into just the right shape and then lay back again. “Anyhow, how are you two getting along? Any shocking confessions or hitherto undetected clues?”
“Nothing you don’t know.” Madeline got into bed beside him. “It may take longer than I thought to get her to confide in me. She’s not the type.”
“Did you ask her about the north wing?”
“We talked about it.” Madeline pulled the coverlet up to her chin and turned to nestle under his arm. “She says she was only teasing about it being haunted, but I’m not so sure about that. She looks, oh, I don’t know, unnerved whenever she talks about it.”
“But why? What’s she seen? Headless cavaliers? A weeping White Lady? A smuggler’s grinning skeleton?”
“Nothing as dramatic as that,” she assured him, toying absently with one of the buttons on his pajamas. “Just some noises now and then. Nothing she can quite put her finger on, yet they shouldn’t be there. Nothing should be there.”
“You saw it when we were driving back from the village. Why anyone should be afraid of the place, I can’t begin to imagine.”
“Well, we saw it from the road in broad daylight. It has to be very different when it’s right on the other side of a wall in the middle of the night and you’re alone and still not quite used to the country.”
“I happen to know Beaky’s had some of his men look over the whole wing more than once, and they haven’t found a sign of anything but mice. Oh, and a fami
ly of squirrels in the box room. They didn’t find any of them particularly terrifying.”
She huffed. “Fine. But if we find out later there’s a secret room haunted by the ghosts of the murdered brides of some eighteenth-century Bloodworth Bluebeard, I am certainly going to say I told you so.”
“Whatever we’re dealing with, my imaginative darling, it’s almost assuredly not ghosts.”
“There were pagans here once, you know. There’s a precipice that looks over the Lodge and all the Bloodworth land, Sabrina says, that used to be one of their high places. Makes me shudder, no matter how long ago that was.”
He pulled her closer. “Well, if you’re menaced by any pagans, ghostly or otherwise, you send them straight to me. I’ll familiarize them with the tale of Elijah and the prophets of Baal and let the Lord answer for me.”
“My hero.” She gave him a smacking kiss and then slipped her arms around him and nuzzled his jaw. “You’re so nice to have around, I may just keep you after all.”
“Cheeky,” he breathed, but whatever else he might have said was lost in her kiss.
The next day, when Madeline and Sabrina went into the village to buy Madeline a pair of boots, Drew made his way to the study that was just off the library. Beaky was sitting at the desk, his chin resting on his hand, frowning at a stack of papers and opened envelopes.
Drew tapped on the doorframe, making him jump.
“Drew. With all this talk of ghosts and devils and murders, you really ought to learn to tread a bit heavier.”
“Sorry, old man. What have you been about?”
Beaky waved a dismissive hand over the desk. “Bills, bills, bills. And then there’s always someone asking for money. Do you get those?”
Drew chuckled. “All the time. Many of them are quite worthy. I wish I could send along more than I do.”
“That’s true, and I feel the same, but there are just so many.” Beaky filed through the handful of letters on one corner of the desk. “Charity hospital, orphans’ home, home for the blind, for disabled servicemen. I feel as though I’m spitting in the ocean for all the difference it makes.”
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