Watch for Me by Moonlight

by Kirsty Ferry

  Hartsford Mysteries

  Books in Series:

  Watch for Me by Moonlihgt

  Watch for Me by Candlelight

  Watch for Me by Twilight (Autumn 2018)

  Copyright © 2017 Kirsty Ferry

  Published 2017 by Choc Lit Limited

  Penrose House, Crawley Drive, Camberley, Surrey GU15 2AB, UK

  www.choc-lit.com

  The right of Kirsty Ferry to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying. In the UK such licences are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Barnards Inn, 86 Fetter Lane, London EC4A 1EN

  EPUB: 978-1-78189-387-6

  For my family, with whom I’ve spent many happy holidays on the Norfolk/Suffolk border

  Contents

  Title page

  Copyright information

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Thank You

  About the Author

  More Choc Lit

  Introducing Choc Lit

  Preview of Watch for Me by Candlelight by Kirsty Ferry

  Acknowledgements

  I put the finishing touches to this book in Norfolk, or, more specifically, in a cottage in Brockdish, on the border of Norfolk and Suffolk. The cottage is owned by Jackie and John Spooner, and a quick reckoning had me realising we’ve been coming here on family holidays since 1997. Not every year, but perhaps every two or three years on average. It’s a place I love and hold very dear to my heart – and the place we brought our son for his first holiday in 2002. He was almost eighteen months old and was obsessed by the Quack Quacks on the River Waveney that runs along the bottom of the garden.

  The village of ‘Hartsford’ is quite a bit bigger than Brockdish, which is little more than one street, and Hartsford Hall is an amalgamation of many beautiful stately homes we’ve visited in the past. It’s mostly, I would say, Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire and Ickworth in Suffolk; and Georgiana’s tomb is definitely based on Mary Curzon’s tomb at Kedleston. As Elodie suggests in this novel, “she had the most delightful tomb – if you could ever call a tomb delightful”. Georgiana’s monument also takes, in some small part, inspiration from Lady Elizabeth Nightingale’s tomb in Westminster Abbey – a deliciously Gothic confection which captured my imagination many years ago, when I carefully stored it away for future use.

  The character of Highwayman Ben is based on Claude Duval, who, unlike most other highwaymen, distinguished himself with rather gentlemanly behaviour and fashionable clothes. Duval reputedly never used violence; but he did have a penchant for tying people to trees as he robbed them. One story goes that he took only a part of his potential loot from a gentleman, when his wife agreed to dance the “courante” with him in the wayside.

  In order to pull all these threads together and bring this lovely story to life, I have to thank the wonderful team at Choc Lit. Huge thanks to the readers who have enjoyed my previous books, and to the Tasting Panel for agreeing this one was good enough to publish with special thanks to Yvonne G, Elisabeth H, Anne E, Dimitra E, Els E, Joy S, Barbara B, Gill L, Claire W, Lizzie D, Karen M, Sheila S, Linda S and Rosie S. Also, thanks to my super editor, my fabulous cover designer and the wider Choc Lit family, who are always there for chats, rants, general despair, and providing unfailing support for one another. Last but definitely not least, I have to thank my family, without whom a holiday in Norfolk would have been a very lonely affair! I wouldn’t even know about this place if my parents hadn’t sourced it out in 1997, so the biggest thanks, this time, should really go to them. Thank you!

  “Look for me by moonlight;

  Watch for me by moonlight;

  I’ll come to thee by moonlight,

  though hell should bar the way!”

  From The Highwayman, by Alfred Noyes

  Chapter One

  None of it would have happened without the storm.

  It had begun as a perfectly normal day and Elodie Bright was helping out in the Hartsford Hall gift shop. They’d just finished serving a large group of German people who’d rocked up on a bus-trip, when her colleague Margaret, a tall, bespectacled lady with a heart of gold, frowned and commented, ‘Is it just me, or is it getting dark?’

  Elodie looked outside. The honey-coloured Hall seemed to be standing out more brightly than usual against the sky, which was, quite dramatically, turning black. The solar lights she had stuck, porcupine-like, in the plant pots outside came on one by one, and there was a deep, ominous silence that seemed to bury everything beneath it. The first drops of rain began to fall, and, suddenly, it was as if someone up in the heavens released the floodgates and there was a complete and utter deluge.

  Margaret dashed over to the window and peered out as droplets slammed against the glass. ‘Have you seen that rain, Elodie?’ she asked, clearly shocked.

  Elodie hid a smile. ‘It’s hard to miss it!’

  The bell on the door of the shop was going mad as the German contingent did a swift about-turn and other tourists ran inside to shelter. Most of them were shouting out the same obvious statement as Margaret.

  ‘Look at that rain!’

  ‘My word! That’s coming down!’

  ‘Mein Gott! Es regnet!’

  Elodie didn’t speak much German, but she understood that. She agreed with everyone and, giving up her space behind the counter, pushed forward and joined the throng of bodies at the window.

  That was when she saw the lightning strike the church.

  The sky split open and a dazzling, jagged fork appeared out of the seething mass of darkness. It was as if it knew exactly where to aim for. You would have thought it would have gone for the spire and the metal weather vane at the top, but it didn’t. At the last moment, the fork veered and hit the roof of the Lady Chapel, illuminating the whole church like some awful Gothic nightmare. Pieces of the roof exploded outwards and upwards and rained down on the ancient building.

  For a moment, there was a stunned silence in the gift shop. Elodie had never seen lightning strike anything, ever; and she didn’t think anyone in the shop had either, judging by the shocked faces and the comprehensive intake of breath. Then everyone suddenly began to point and chatter, but for a moment none of the words registered. Mouths were moving and customers were pushing forwards for a better view, but she didn’t notice any of it.

  She couldn’t think of anything except Georgiana’s tomb.

  Hartsford
Hall belonged to the current Earl of Hartsford, Alexander Aldrich – or, as Elodie knew him, Alex. Georgiana had been one of Alex’s ancestors and she’d died in 1796, at the age of nineteen.

  She had the most delightful tomb – if you could ever call a tomb delightful. It was made of marble and so elegantly carved that the effigy of her took your breath away. Elodie could stare at it for hours. How could anyone ever have been that perfect? It was sometimes hard to believe, for there was surely just dust and bones in there now – that the gorgeous young woman depicted on the top, with her eyelashes brushing her smooth cheeks and her long, wavy hair spilling out over the marble pillow, was no more. Alex hadn’t understood the fascination when they were children, but for Elodie, Georgiana was like the big sister she’d never had.

  Elodie and Alex had known each other forever, or so it seemed. In primary school, they’d been inseparable. But because the other children thought he was special – being a viscount and heir to an earl – they had turned their noses up at Elodie and decided, jealously, to ignore her. In their minds, she was privileged and undeserving of their friendship. All because her father was the Hartsford Estate Manager and her mother had helped look after Alex when his mother had abandoned him and his sister. As a result, Elodie was sometimes desperately lonely. Alex couldn’t take the place of a giggly female friend – he was utterly useless at that kind of thing. So Lady Georgiana had to do until Elodie grew up and made proper, living friends. Elodie used to creep into the church and sit cross-legged in front of the marble effigy, talking to her. She made a great confidante.

  Alex just didn’t get it.

  And then Elodie moved to London, and stayed there, as she had sworn to do; but she was convinced that Georgiana witnessed her wedding to Piers Bingham-Scott beforehand. She had felt her nearby. It wasn’t something she usually talked about – not to the bullying, hurtful children at school, anyway – but Elodie had seen ghosts and shadows all her life, unclear figures who never meant that much to her, but she knew they were there.

  It annoyed her that she’d never seen Georgiana properly. Having said that, at the wedding, Georgiana’s presence had left her uncomfortable and out of kilter – it was not at all like how it had been when she was younger. With hindsight, the ghost had probably been trying to tell her she was making a huge mistake marrying Piers – who turned out, sadly, to be a very wealthy playboy investment banker type, and not at all the husband she deserved. Still, the hefty divorce settlement had been welcome, and left her with a big Range Rover and a substantial nest-egg as she moved back to Hartsford.

  But right now, in the midst of the torrential rain and the rolls of thunder and the forked lightning that had blown the roof clean off the church, Piers Bingham-Scott and the ghosts of her old life in London were the last things on Elodie’s mind.

  All that mattered was Georgiana.

  Elodie had no idea how she made it to the church so quickly when she could barely see anything for the rain bucketing down in front of her eyes.

  Pushing her way out of the gift shop, she ran, ploughing through mud and churned up grass, splashing through ankle deep puddles. Water was fountaining out of the drain covers like so many geysers, but Elodie didn’t look down, didn’t look to see where her feet were going. Her trainers would need to be binned and her clothes would probably never dry out again, but who cared? She just kept her sights on the church.

  Against the shadows, she saw a tall figure running towards the place and knew instinctively who it was.

  ‘Alex!’ The wind tore the words out of her mouth and blew them somewhere towards Norfolk.

  He reached the church moments before she did and stopped short at the door.

  ‘Alex!’

  This time he heard her and spun around, rain dripping off his messy dark hair and into his midnight-blue eyes. ‘The roof, Elodie, it’s been hit. I was in the greenhouse. I saw it happening.’

  ‘I know!’ She drew up next to him, quite breathless. ‘I saw it too, from the gift shop.’ She hurried past him and put one hand on the ancient bronze door handle, but Alex’s hand came down on her wrist and held it in place.

  ‘Let me go first. I don’t know if it’s safe.’

  Elodie relinquished the handle and hovered near him as he pulled the door open.

  They both coughed as a cloud of dust and plaster came out, but thankfully there was no smell of burning.

  ‘Thank God,’ said Alex, clearly expecting the worst. ‘I’m still going in first though. You stay here until I call you.’

  ‘Okay. But come right back out if it’s looking bad!’

  ‘Don’t worry, I won’t hang around if it is.’ He disappeared into the building and Elodie peered anxiously in after him. After what seemed like an age, he called out to her. ‘It’s pretty grotty, but safe enough I think. The Lady Chapel got the worst of it. You can come in if you’re careful. But if it’s too much for your asthma, go straight back out.’

  ‘I will. But the poor Lady Chapel!’ Her heart pounding, she hurried into the church. As she stood there in the dark with the modern-day emergency lighting glowing in the rafters, and tiles smashed beneath her feet, and one of the beams hanging at a crazy angle from the ceiling to the floor, and one candle still miraculously lit and flickering wildly in an alcove near the altar, Elodie fought back the worst feeling of dread she’d ever experienced in her life.

  ‘Oh, my God!’

  The Lady Chapel, which housed Georgiana’s tomb, was behind the fallen beam and rain was streaming down as if someone had aimed a garden hose through the roof. If anywhere in the place had suffered the worst from the lightning strike, it was, as Alex had said, that area. It had been built on to the church especially for Georgiana’s monument and never seemed to be quite fully part of the old building. The storm had obviously decided that the time had come to sever the connection completely – and it just felt all wrong, somehow. Damn.

  ‘I have to check Georgiana!’ Elodie scrambled over the rubble and crunched her way towards the Lady Chapel.

  ‘You’re not going over there on your own! God knows what it might be like. I’m coming with you.’ Alex tossed some bits of wood out of the way and followed her. With difficulty, they climbed over the beam and choked their way through the plaster cloud, the rain still hammering down and bouncing off the stone floor, but doing little to dampen the dust. Elodie felt the tell-tale tightening in her chest that warned of lungs that weren’t particularly happy in that sort of environment, but she had other things to think about and tried to ignore it.

  She’d never forget what she saw after that – Georgiana’s beautiful marble tomb was split, right down the middle. It was as if the lightning strike had come straight through the roof and pierced the heart of the monument. It was all sort of broken in half and the place wasn’t filled with plaster dust: it was more like a mist of marble fragments. There were shards of the stuff scattered around and huge parts of the figure were shattered too. Even Georgiana’s lovely face was cracked from forehead to chin, yet she still looked so, so peaceful. And with the rain flowing over her cheeks, it seemed as if she was crying.

  ‘Oh, Georgiana!’ Elodie whispered and reached out, touching her hair.

  There was an ominous creaking and groaning – then: ‘Look out!’ Alex grabbed hold of her arm and pulled her towards him as the whole tomb collapsed in on itself. The side fell off and Alex yanked Elodie out of the way. She lurched into him and automatically buried her head in his sopping wet chest. Then there was a horrible silence and all she could hear was the rain pounding on the wreckage of the tomb and Alex’s heart beating.

  The silence was broken by Alex swearing.

  ‘Where is she?’ he asked. ‘Where the hell is she?’

  ‘Who?’ Elodie pulled away from his chest and turned to face the mess that had been the tomb. His arms were still around her, and, seeing what she saw, perhaps it was just as well.

  Amidst all the mess that had been Georgiana’s tomb, there was no Georgiana. The
re was no actual body inside it. There wasn’t even a trace of a body ever having been there. No ragged cloth that might have once been a beautiful gown; no bleached white bones rattling across the floor; no long, wavy hair spilling out. Elodie had a sudden memory of someone telling her about Lizzie Siddal, the artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s muse. Lizzie died and it was said that when they exhumed the body, her red hair had filled the coffin and her body was still well–preserved.

  At that moment, Elodie felt quite sick. She didn’t know what would have been worse – getting an eyeful of Georgiana’s hair filling the coffin and the mummified remains of the girl grinning at her, or the fact that she had been filched from her tomb and nothing remained of her. Which was odd, because she’d seen so many ghosts in her life that the idea of simply seeing a skeleton shouldn’t have been that repellent. But it was.

  ‘Grave robbers. It has to be.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Alex broke away from her and splashed and crunched his way across the floor. It was just as well it was made of stone flags – any sort of wooden floorboards would have been ruined by now, thanks to the rain still streaming into the place. Elodie followed him closely and he didn’t bother to tell her to stay back.

  ‘Grave robbers didn’t come here – surely!’ He frowned, his dark blue eyes troubled. ‘I mean, I know in Scotland and London and what have you they were rife … but here? No. I suppose there could have been an opportunist …’

  He turned to her and pushed his wet hair out of his face. His expression was one of bafflement and she didn’t blame him. ‘Where is she?’ he asked, again. ‘Where the hell is Georgiana?’

  Elodie felt torn between feeling sorry for him, horrified for Georgiana and sick to her stomach at the thought the girl hadn’t been there. At all. The whole time she’d sat and talked to her – she wasn’t there, physically, at least. Bloody hell.

  She felt as if the world, not just the church and the monument, was being washed away from under her feet. Nothing made any sense. She couldn’t even speak to answer Alex, so she just shook her head.