My Lady Ghost

by June Calvin

  “Jamie! Just what we needed to brighten up a rainy spring day!” She welcomed her cousin with a wide smile, which slipped somewhat as she beheld another man following him into the foyer.

  “Look who I brought with me,” James announced. “Captain Newcomb, late of his majesty’s service. Do you know one another?”

  As James introduced them, Allison grew uncomfortable under the intent regard of this man whom she knew by reputation as a gamester and rake.

  “Ran into Newcomb in London. Wanted to come for the fight. It’ll be a famous mill. Roads completely choked. Every sporting gentleman in the kingdom must be on his way here.” Hanging up his own coat and hat, and peeling off his gloves as he talked, James Betterton motioned the tardy butler to assist his friend.

  Allison retreated to the parlor, scowling. “What has he brought that rackety captain here for?”

  “Hush, dear, your manners,” Lady Catherton warned her, sotto voce. “He is very highly thought of, you know, and so very handsome. You might do a great deal worse.”

  She darted forward and embraced James, then welcomed Captain Newcomb warmly. “I told you what it was, Allison. ‘The roads quite choked.’ Dear boy, we had begun to fear your curricle had overturned—such a dangerous conveyance, those high-perch phaetons.”

  “Never fear. Aunt Delphinia. Came in the captain’s coach, safe and snug.” James patted her cheek soothingly.

  After greetings had been exchanged all around, and the cool, wet weather remarked upon, and the captain had paid effusive compliments to both ladies, his bold eyes on Allison the whole time, they settled down to tea.

  “We had a letter from your mother today,” Allison said as she served James. “Full of gossip about your friend Viscount Faverill.”

  “Poor Jared. Quarreled with his wife already. He is inconsolable.”

  “He looked well consoled to me last night, with La Fontaine on his arm.” Captain Newcomb winked broadly.

  James frowned, and Allison felt the heal rising in her cheeks, but Delphinia chose to see no impropriety in this remark. Eager to turn the conversation in less disturbing channels, Allison addressed James again on the subject of Aunt Henrietta’s letter.

  “Your mother spoke of that unusual party you attended last Halloween at Hammerswold.”

  “Lud, what a show that was. You wouldn’t believe the half of it! Ghosts all around, terrifying maids and guests alike. Poor Fotheringay—he decamped after the second sighting.”

  “Fotheringay saw the ghost?” Allison’s brows lifted.

  “But I heard he sees a great many things when he is in his cups,” Delphinia countered, ever vigilant against ghostly manifestations.

  “Not sure he actually saw it. The mere thought was enough to drive him from our midst.”

  “Of course he didn't see it. There is no such thing!” Delphinia cast her daughter a challenging look.

  “Well, as to that, all of us saw something, and the young women in the party actually conversed with him.”

  “Ah, but those young women were doubtless vying for the opportunity to wed Jared. You’d be surprised what one can see. when it is to one’s advantage to do so.”

  “Well, Aunt, how do you explain the Beasley chit's terrified maid? She had nothing to gain; indeed, she abandoned her post and fled the castle because she saw spirits everywhere. Lady Hammerswold said she was able to see ghosts that the family thought had faded forever.”

  “She abandoned ... she left them without a maid?” Delphinia's eyes were wide.

  James nodded. “Shocking, isn’t it.” He winked at Allison.

  “Shocking!” Delphinia’s agreement was heartfelt. Allison bit the corner of her mouth to control the smile that was trying to emerge. A pang of regret quickly supplanted her amusement. Her mother did love to have a personal maid, a luxury no longer possible for them.

  “We misread her letter. I thought she said the maid saw a ghost at Fairmont.” Allison picked up the letter and examined it once again.

  “Really? I had no idea we had any of them about,” James answered. “Told Mama not to hire her, but she would do it, as a favor to the Beasleys.”

  Captain Newcomb had left off ogling Allison to listen intently to James. Now he leaned forward, his florid face flushed with excitement. “You should take this maid to Silverthorne. That’s where your ancestral treasure lies hidden, isn’t it? Get her to follow the Silver Lady to it.”

  “I say! The very thing!” James turned admiring eyes on the captain. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  Delphinia snapped, “Foolishness! Don’t even think of going there, James, or you, Captain Newcomb, with or without that maid. The Silverthorne treasure, if it still exists, is buried beneath tons of rubble.

  “And surrounded by unstable walls,” Allison added. “Don’t forget, Lord Silverthorne’s father and half brother were killed seeking the treasure. He permits no one to go there now.”

  “But that is doubtless because they didn’t know where to look. I say, James, think I’ll call on your mother—see if the seer would take a look at some property I have in Ireland.”

  James looked doubtful. “That maid was terrified of spirits. Much chance she’d deliberately look for one.”

  “That explains it.” Allison held his mother’s letter out to James. “Does this say that the maid has left her service?”

  James looked at his mother’s crabbed handwriting and scratched his head. “Think so. Stands to reason, if the creature saw any ghosts at Fairmont.”

  Newcomb sat back in his chair with a disgusted sigh. “Pity, for I know of several sites where there are rumors of treasures guarded by spirits.”

  “Are you returning to your regiment, Captain?” Delphinia made a transparent bid to change the subject. Newcomb willingly launched into a recitation of his reasons for selling out, chief among which was the small chance of gaining advancement.

  “Can't distinguish oneself for valor when the country is at peace,” he asserted.

  “Indeed, no, but your courage has more than earned your place in military history,” Delphinia replied, eyes alight with admiration.

  Allison listened without comment. Her dear deceased Charles had been highly skeptical of the account of Captain Newcomb’s valor that had made him a nine-day wonder after Badajoz. “Never saw him do anything but hold back until someone else had done the dirty work.” her husband had told her. “Then he and his troop arrived in time to join in the looting. It was a very near-run thing that Wellington did not have him hanged instead of decorated!”

  Allison found herself growing less and less pleased with her cousin for introducing Newcomb to them. Though she knew James could be a sad romp, he never before had brought one of his rackety friends among his female relatives. Why had he done so now?

  She didn’t have to wonder much longer.

  “By the way,” James asked her under cover of Newcomb’s loud retelling of his brave actions in war, “when is Thorne returning from Paris?”

  Through clenched teeth she replied, “I haven’t the least idea, Jamie. We are in no way connected now, as you well know.”

  James leaned forward to touch her hand comfortingly. “Sorry— didn’t mean to open that wound. It’s just that I’m somewhat beneath the hatches. Hoped he might be back soon. Hate to ask him for money, of course, for Thorne’ll read me a jaw-me-dead and try to put me to work supervising some estate or other, but—”

  “You’ve been gambling again, haven’t you? Oh, Jamie. You promised me you wouldn’t.”

  He could not meet her eyes. “Something came up—thought it was a sure thing. Truth is, the captain here loaned me a small sum—I'm sure to be able to pay it back on quarter day, but he doesn’t want to wait that long.”

  “Perhaps I can help. How much is it?”

  “No, no. I haven’t come here to ask you for money. Know you are not plump in the pocket.”

  “Haven’t you? For you read the court papers as well as I, and Thorne’s sojourn
in Paris was mentioned there.”

  James looked down at his highly polished Hessians. He had asked her for a loan, of course, by his very mention of the problem. “Fifty guineas.”

  “Fif... Oh, James. I can’t. Nothing even close to that. We spent almost all of our money on the move and leasing this cottage.”

  “You leased this wretched thing?” James looked around disdainfully. “It is so small, and I cannot like the situation, on this busy street.”

  “Which is one reason we could afford it.”

  “Afford what, dear?” Delphinia had apparently heard enough of Captain Newcomb’s heroics.

  “I was telling Jamie about the cottage. We made a very good bargain.”

  “Humph.” Newcomb glanced disparagingly around the room. “I am surprised at Thorne for doing so poorly by you. You would have done better to remain in London. There you might have been much better entertained.”

  Allison suspected she knew how the captain thought she ought to entertain herself. He thinks I was Thorne’s mistress, and am now pensioned off. Another five minutes and he 'll he offering me carte blanche. She stood abruptly. “Why Mama, look at the time. We are going to miss vespers.”

  Delphinia quickly hid her surprise, for they never went to church during the week. “Oh, dear. That would be a pity. Would you care to join us, gentlemen? They have such a lovely service here.”

  Alarmed, James sounded the retreat. “By no means. Aunt Delphinia. We had best locate the field where the fight is taking place now, get our carriage in a good position. Going to be quite a crush.”

  As the men put on their coats, Allison went to her desk and took out a locked box. From the small pile inside she extracted ten guineas, which she slipped into James’s pocket as she hugged him in farewell. He whispered a promise to return it by quarter day at the latest.

  After they had left, Delphinia sat down by her daughter, who was staring moodily out the window. “What is it, dearest? You did not seem best pleased to have the handsome captain visit us. He was most taken with you.”

  “I cannot like him. You should know that Charles had no great opinion of him as a soldier.”

  “Well, but he isn’t a soldier any longer, dear. Doubtless he is looking about him for a wife. And from the way he looked at you, I think with very little effort on your part he would search no farther. Small wonder, too.” Lady Catherton’s eyes swept her daughter’s trim figure approvingly. “You are in looks today. I have ever thought that shade of blue quite lovely with your coloring.”

  “Captain Newcomb was looking at me as if I were Haymarket ware. Mother, not a candidate for a wife. Which is just as well, for I want nothing to do with him.”

  “I am very pleased to hear you say it.”

  Allison stared. “You perplex me. Mama.”

  “Yes, very pleased. You rightly think the heroine in this book of yours a foolish creature.” Delphinia brandished the copy of Pride and Prejudice triumphantly. “Yet you won’t even look at another man, which only proves to me that, whatever you say, you have not given up all hope of Thorne! No, indeed, so don’t swell up. You hope to be reconciled when he returns. I doubt not he will offer for your hand as soon as the matter is cleared up.”

  On that, Delphinia swept grandly from the room, quite as if it had been the Prince Regent’s most elegant salon, and not a mean little cottage parlor. Allison was left to argue, not with her mother, but with her own foolish heart.

  Chapter Four

  Thorne shuffled through the morning’s post diffidently. In addition to several demands for payment of James’s bills, there were no fewer than three billet-doux in his mail, but none of them were in the hand he yearned for. Not that he expected anything addressed to him in that hand, and particularly not a love letter. With a sigh he broke the seal on a thick packet from Edward Bartholomew, his secretary in London, and began reading.

  Not three minutes later, a loud crash shattered the quiet of the stately Parisian residence. “My lord?” Thorne’s butler inquired after cautiously opening the library door.

  The marquess pointed to the clutter of books, letters, and what had once been a beautifully presented breakfast tray, now sprawled across the parquet floor. “Clean up this mess and inform my valet that I go to England immediately.”

  Martin stepped back out of the room and snapped his fingers at a footman, then followed in his employer’s wake as he strode from the room and up the stairs. “Should the rest of the staff begin packing, my lord?”

  “No. I will be returning within the week, once I have taught a certain headstrong young widow a lesson.”

  “Not those! Those are daisies. These are the weeds.” Allison held out the offending plant for her young employee to study. “Keep this with you, and pull out only the plants that look like it.” The boy scratched his head in puzzlement. ‘They don’ look that much diffrent tuh me.”

  Patiently, Allison pointed out the differences in the daisy’s leaf and that of plantain. Then she watched closely for a while as Danny plucked plants from the choked flower beds. Satisfied at last, she moved away to inspect the grapevine that dangled hither and thither, medusalike, from the arbor trellis it covered. Shears in hand, she set about the task of trimming it back, while still preserving sufficient limbs for some grape production.

  As she worked, she mulled over her interview that morning with the headmistress of Purvey’s Academy for Young Ladies. In spite of Lady Langley’s letter, Mrs. Purvey had been openly suspicious of her, and had refused to hire her until she received written responses from Allison’s list of references. Moreover, she found Allison’s qualifications too limited for teaching anything but music and French, and Mrs. Purvey herself taught the French classes. This meant she could offer Allison only a half-day of work at best. I should have harassed my governesses less, and learned more, she thought ruefully. She had more than once wished for a better education while debating with Thorne, but had never expected to need it to earn her livelihood.

  Her mother’s voice interrupted her uneasy thoughts. “Allison, where are you? Come see who is here!” Lady Catherton stood in the French doors that looked out onto the garden, shielding her eyes from the morning sun. “Allison?”

  “She be over there, ma'am,” Danny volunteered.

  Allison straightened, bracing her back with the palm of her hand as she did so. “Here, Mother. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

  “Take this, boy. There’s a gingerbread vendor down the street. And do not hurry back.”

  The deep masculine voice made Allison’s heart jump. She whirled around and saw Thorne bestowing a coin on the beaming boy.

  She set down her shears carefully, as if they might break. Ah, why does he have to be so handsome? Allison’s pulse jumped at the sight of him. His dark wavy hair tumbled about his forehead in disarray, suggesting that he had traveled on horseback. His face was in shadow, so his expression was inscrutable. She hoped his clear grey eyes would be shining with love, and he would go down on his knees to propose to her, having learned that he could not live without her. She had fantasized this moment many times over the last two weeks.

  “Thorne is here to take us back to London. It was a misunderstanding, just as I’ve said all along. Come, we will talk over lemonade, and he’ll make all right.”

  Rooted to the spot, Allison could not respond to her mother’s happy summons. Unless he lied to her mother, there could be no satisfactory explanation. Unless he came to propose, there was no way to make all right. Her fingers twisted nervously in the fabric of her gown.

  Thorne turned and murmured something to Lady Catherton, who waved to her daughter and went back into the cottage.

  All the way from Paris to London, he had worried about where she had gone. After learning of her whereabouts from his secretary, all the way from London to Bristol he had worried about what her situation might be. He had been right to worry, Thorne knew as he looked about the dusty, weed-choked garden. A tiny cottage on a main thoroughfare. N
o servants to speak of. Two impoverished women, living alone, one of them young and beautiful, though looking hollow-eyed and sadly downpin. Fury—at her, and at himself—had driven him to find her, and now it saved him from the urge to fold her in his arms.

  He is angry! When he moved close enough for her to see his face, Allison’s numbness began to dissipate. Her response was not fear, however, but an equal surge of anger.

  How dare he look at me that way. What right has he to be angry! She fisted her hands and straightened her spine, holding her ground as he stalked close enough that she had to tilt her head back to meet eyes that were hard now, like grey marble.

  “What the devil do you think you are about, Allison Weatherby? When Bartholomew wrote me that you had disappeared, I feared you might do something rash, but this . . . this is beyond anything!”

  Instead of responding to this attack, Allison launched her own. “So, you’ve explained it all to her, have you, Thorne? And it was a misunderstanding? I am vastly relieved to hear it. That humiliating scene on the sofa was a figment of my imagination? A dream? No, wait. I have it. When I thought you said ‘come to bed with me,’ you really said ‘come wed with me!’ No wonder you were so surprised at my indignant refusal.”

  “That is quite enough! I cannot credit that you told your mother—”

  “She thinks you embody all the knightly virtues, Thorne. How else was I to convince her that we had to leave your home?”

  “You didn’t have to leave my home. I left precisely so that you wouldn’t—”

  She stomped her foot and whirled around, giving him her back as she grabbed up her shears and began whacking randomly at the grapevine. “As if I would stay after that night.”

  Thorne took her elbow none too gently, turning her back around. “You cannot have believed I would importune you after your forceful rejection?”