“The church wasn’t exactly packed,” I replied. “Only the Library League came. But all in all it was a very nice send-off for Miss Bunch. Eudora made an extremely kind reference to how well Miss Bunch managed the reference desk.” I did not mention it was difficult for our lady vicar to elaborate when she, Eudora, is not a member of the library and Miss Bunch did not attend St. Anselm’s except occasionally for Easter or Christmas.
“Surely the woman had friends.” Setting Tobias Cat down on the floor, Ben stood up and stretched with a purposeful languor that signalled to me he was about to suggest that this meeting be adjourned to the bedroom.
“I don’t think she had any special pals.” I was on my feet, gathering up the coffee cups and looking around the room for cushions to be plumped up, or tapestry table runners to be straightened. “She had a dog, which one of the neighbours took in on a temporary basis. But the poor thing will probably have to be put down if no one volunteers to adopt it.”
Tobias converted a grin into a yawn as I looked down at him.
“And don’t tell me not to get any ideas, Ben …”
“I wasn’t going to say anything of the sort.” He strode towards me and stood gazing into my eyes in a manner that caused the coffee spoons to rattle on their saucers. “It will perhaps come as no surprise, sweetheart, that I returned home early this evening in hope that you might come up with one of your entrancing ideas.”
He gathered me to him at great risk to crockery and silverware. Unbidden, the uneasy thought occurred that he had been taking a peek at my latest library book. Surely the dashing Sir Gavin Galbraithe had spoken in much the same terms to Hester Rosewood on the night he had offered to deflower her on the billiard table. But no, it was as ridiculous to imagine Ben thumbing through a romance novel as it was to imagine Brigadier Lester-Smith or Mr. Gladstone Spike writing purple prose.
“Darling.” I exercised a wife’s prerogative to misunderstand her mate. “I have no ideas, enchanting or otherwise, for spiriting Miss Bunch’s orphaned pooch into this house. From what I hear, he is a great lumbering animal who would eat the twins as soon as look at them. I am, when all is said and done, a mother first and—”
“And what?” Ben removed the coffee cups from my hands as if they were a major barrier to full communication. “What comes next after the house, the Library League, the Hearthside Guild, and all your other volunteer commitments?”
“A return to work as an interior designer.” If I sounded defiant, it was because I was remembering how bitterly thwarted Hester Rosewood had felt when Sir Gavin had insisted she retire from her duties as governess to his spirited children, Avignon and Runnymede. “Ben, darling, it’s not that I don’t love being a homemaker. But you know how very much I want to establish a clientele and get back into the thick of window treatments and what’s new in sofa tables.”
“I do know.” Ben’s eyebrows drew together in a black bar over his nose, reminding me of the days when he used to get seriously cross with me. “If you remember, I was the one who suggested we engage an au pair to free you up for a major career move.”
“Part-time,” I assured him. “But at the moment even that is academic, considering neither of the au pairs we have yet interviewed was anywhere near up to snuff.”
“Agreed,” Ben said. “I could picture both those females hanging the twins out of an upstairs window by their heels if they didn’t finish their morning porridge. But at least we have Mrs. Malloy two days a week.”
“True. And if she hadn’t agreed to come in this afternoon and watch the twins, I don’t know what I would have done. But never mind.” I smiled. “Mrs. M. will think of a way for me to show my appreciation.”
“Meantime”—Ben stacked one cup and saucer on top of the other—“you’re going to sit down and write her a thank-you note.”
“I hadn’t planned to.” I stared at him in surprise. “Do you think I should?”
“It occurred to me, sweetheart, that you must have important matters claiming your attention, seeing I’m getting the distinct impression you aren’t planning on coming up to bed for a while.”
“Well”—I firmly dismissed the eerie verbal resemblance to Sir Gavin and took the coffee cups back from him—“I do have to rinse these out, and while I’m at the sink I might just as well wash my hair, and then I’ll have to wait for it to dry.”
“You don’t have to hang it on the line, do you?” Ben’s smile had an edge to it that could readily be explained by his being seriously fatigued. He worked long days at Abigail’s, and I would have been a complete trollop to take him up on his generous hints that we re-consummate our marriage.
“The hair dryer gives me split ends,” I told him gently.
“Completely unacceptable.” With a quirk of his left eyebrow, he left me.
“Sleep tight,” I called after him as he went out into the hall on his way up to bed.
I loved my kitchen at night. The Aga cooker was ensconced like a benevolent patriarch, basking in the friendly gleam of the copper bowls hanging from the iron rack and the smiling faces of the plates on the Welsh dresser. The rocking chair before the open hearth proffered a welcoming lap. The plants in the greenhouse window took on the mysterious appeal of a miniature jungle where Tobias could prowl as undisputed king. And I was queen of all this quiet. A quiet that was presently enhanced, not spoiled, by the kettle coming to a boil. No need for me to cup my hand over its whistling snout. On this, as on all other nights, it kept its voice down to a throaty purr.
While waiting for the tea to infuse in the pot, I crept upstairs, past my bedroom door, and along the gallery to the twins’ room with its blue-and-yellow nursery-rhyme decorating scheme. Guided by the pale gleam from the man-in-the-moon night-light, I tiptoed from one junior bed to the other, smoothing Tam’s tousled hair back from his brow, bending to press a whisper of a kiss on Abbey’s chubby fist. Happiness flooded through me, a happiness tinged with sadness for Miss Bunch, whose real life would appear to have been lived at the library and whose death had brought no more than polite regret. Picking up Peter Rabbit and tucking him in beside Tam, I stood wondering what my darlings dreamed about, before retreating down to the kitchen.
Having poured my cup of tea, I opened the pantry, gathered up the tin of digestive biscuits, and returned to the drawing room. For a person who had been a fat child and a less-than-skinny adult, nothing could have been more deliciously sinful than a period of uninterrupted intimacy with a food that was neither green nor lean. It wasn’t that Ben watched what I ate, or sized me up before and after I sat down to a meal. Guilt was the bogeyman who stood behind me at the table, wincing each time I reached for a second helping of shepherd’s pie or reminding me that eating dessert is no longer deemed politically correct. But in the still of the night the bogeyman retreated into the shadows. Then I could forget that there are people in this world (such as my unrepentantly gorgeous cousin Vanessa) who can eat a baker’s dozen of doughnuts in one scoff and still span their waist with two fingers.
Lolling back on the sofa, with a clutch of digestives in one hand and my cup of tea comfortingly alongside, I relished the moment of unutterable peace before picking up my library book and reentering the world of Hester Rosewood, spirited governess and determined virgin.
Shame on me! I have to confess that virginity was never something I had prized unduly, considering everyone gets to be one at least for a while. It was always something I’d hoped I would outgrow, along with my childhood tendency to bronchitis. But the time had come when I’d begun to feel I was saddled with the condition for life, unless I overcame my terror of horses, took up riding, and was lucky enough to fall off the saddle. By the time Ben appeared on the scene, in my late twenties, I was convinced I was walking around with the scarlet letter V on my forehead for all the world to see.
Opening Her Master’s Voice at the page I had left off reading, my life, my world, fell away as I entered the world of Hester Rosewood. I walked with her at dead of night
towards the churchyard, and when we passed through the lichgate, we merged so that I became Hester of the eighteen-inch waist and deceptively demure bosom. It was my heart that pounded with mounting fear that Sir Gavin would follow the lantern’s wavering gleam and demand my immediate return to Darkmoor House. It was my soul that cried out for him in the silence that told me he would not come, because his invalid wife would be staging one of her deliriums.
Somewhere within the branches of one of the looming elms an owl hooted, a sound both forlorn and predatory. Was I a fool to flee the man I worshipped with every fibre of my being? Could I bear to return to Cousin Bertha’s dreary house, knowing my pulse would never again quicken at the sound of my beloved’s footsteps on the stairs?
Out in the hall the grandfather clock doled out twelve somber strokes. My hall, my clock. And the telephone that now rang once … twice … had to be my telephone because such intrusions did not exist in the world of Hester Rosewood. Whoever could be ringing up at this hour? Closing my book with a disgruntled sigh, I climbed off the sofa, took a sip of tea, now as cold as the graveyard, and braced myself for Ben’s voice calling over the banister that my cousin Freddy was on the line and eager to give me a harrowing account of his camping holiday with Jonas. Freddy, being a confirmed night-owl, never worries about disrupting other people’s sleep. There was not the least reason for me to panic that Jonas had broken his leg climbing into his sleeping bag, or had been attacked by a swarm of killer bees released into the woods by a mad scientist. Without resorting to running—never one of my favourite indoor sports—I crossed to the door, only to be met with deathly silence. No heavy thump, indicating that Ben had passed out cold on hearing ominous news, whatever its specifics. No urgent voice demanding I get upstairs on the double. Whether the caller had dialed a wrong number or was one of Ben’s employees at Abigail’s requesting instructions on how to reprogram the dishwasher, there was no reason for me to turn off the drawing room light and abandon Hester Rosewood to the gloom of the graveyard.
Ben probably hadn’t noticed that I wasn’t in bed yet. If I knew him, he had rolled over in a tangle of sheets, fumbled sleepily for the phone, mumbled some sort of semi-coherent response into the receiver, and, immediately after hanging up, burrowed back into sleep. For me to go up now and risk jolting him awake just wouldn’t be fair. Far better to finish up the last of the digestive biscuits, while seeing poor Hester safely out of the churchyard. Things were looking dark indeed for her when I reopened the book.
“You shiver, my dear Miss Rosewood.” He reached out a hand to peel open the button at my throat. “Let me warm you with my caress. Your skin has the soft glow of moonlight and your breath is as sweetly intoxicating as the night air.” A muscle tensed in Sir Gavin’s jaw as he surveyed me from his great height with dark and slumberous eyes. His voice grew dangerously deep when he said: “Did you think I would let you go, my dear delight?” His eyes never leaving my face, he removed his clothing a slow button at a time, to reveal a body so magnificent in the glory of its manhood that I had to bite down on my lip in order to hold back a scream of ecstasy that verged on reverence.
“Please desist, sir.” I stepped back from his embrace and strove valiantly to remember I was a bishop’s niece. “I want to look at you, to revel in your broad chest, to glory in your firm flanks, rippling muscles, and splendid calves. Let me feast my eyes on the vigorous thrust of your man … ly jaw.”
Somewhere on the outskirts of my mind a bell was pealing with an urgency that brought me off the sofa with sufficient speed that I dropped my book smack down on the floor. Still in the throes of Sir Gavin’s embrace, I was convinced for a horrific ten seconds that his invalid wife was pulling on the bell rope in a frenzy of jealousy that bade ill for virginal Hester Rosewood’s continued employment at Darkmoor House.
Who could be ringing the doorbell at one-thirty in the morning?
If I’d been thinking straight, I would have armed myself with the poker before going out into the hall, or have waited for Ben to come stumbling bleary-eyed down the stairs. As it was, I exercised merely enough sense to feel uneasy as I approached the front door. My hair had come straggling out of its French twist, and my face was flushed from the exertion of turning the pages.
“Who’s there?”
“Let me in!” Fists pounded on the door. The voice was hysterical.
“I’m afraid I did not catch your name.” In the act of reaching to draw back the bolt, my hand froze. Whoever it was could be a full-fledged maniac in the manner of Sir Gavin’s wife. Or at the very least, an Avon lady grimly bent on making her daily quota of lipstick sales.
“God in heaven!” A scream ricocheted through the door, already bulging from the force of increased pounding. “Another moment and it will be too late! I will be torn to shreds by the beast with the head of a grizzly bear!”
“Hold on!” It wasn’t the midnight visitor’s sobbing pronouncement that the creature had devoured one of her legs and was proceeding to polish off her real leather handbag that persuaded me to open up. What did the trick was the unmistakable sound of a deep-throated growl, followed by an evil belch.
My fumbling hands fought with the bolt. A woman hurtled into the hall, almost knocking me out in the process and rocking the twin suits of armour back against the staircase.
“Quick! Quick! Do not let him in!” The woman crouched down on the flagstone floor and swiftly made the sign of the cross. Her hand trembled so badly, it missed her forehead by a mile. Too late! As I debated whether to climb over her or dodge sideways in order to slam the door shut, a form—blacker than the angel of death—glided into the hall, leapt up the staircase, then doubled back to sit still and silent as the grave a few inches from my feet.
“It’s a dog!” I informed the stranger who had slithered up against the door and bumped it shut with her rump, effectively closing us in with our four-legged adversary. “Not an especially handsome dog; although”—I took one look at the animal’s fiery orbs and made haste to add—“handsome is as handsome does.”
As if in appreciation of this verbal bouquet, the animal promptly lay down, nose on his enormous paws, and began to pant in a way that stretched his mouth into a smile wide enough to swallow a dinner plate.
“He comes after me, from behind a tombstone in the churchyard.” The woman had mustered the physical and emotional wherewithal to rise to her knees and again make the sign of the cross, in patent hope of banishing the huge canine back from whence he came. “And when I scream and start to run, he chases me all the way down the road to this house. One minute he nips at my heels, the next time he makes the circles around me like I am a sheep he has to round up into the pen. That was not nice of him.” Her accent was not from these parts.
A foreigner? Perhaps from some village in Transylvania where phantom dogs routinely set upon unwary travellers? My mind raced from this possibility to the realization that the poor woman might have come to serious grief. In her panic she could have blundered off the road and over the cliff, which in places sheered down to where the sea came slathering up over the rocks. Thank God she had made it safely to our gates and had reached the house before expiring of terror.
“He is the devil in dog’s fur.” The woman resisted my attempt to raise her to an upright position.
“We mustn’t jump to conclusions.” I went to stand over the dog, who cocked a hopeful ear and looked at me with the eyes of one ready and eager to be redeemed from a life of frightening helpless females out of their wits. I’m not a doggy person, mainly because Tobias Cat wouldn’t have approved, but I’ve never been unduly nervous around dogs. “Look, he’s wearing a collar with a tag. Hold tight a minute.” I smiled reassuringly over my shoulder before bending down to lift the brass disk away from the furry throat and read the inscription.
“My goodness!” I exclaimed.
“His name is Lucifer?” The woman pressed a hand to her mouth.
“No, Heathcliff!” I said. “Which means …”
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br /> “What?” she demanded fearfully.
“That he belongs, or, I should say, belonged to our local librarian. Poor Miss Bunch died of a rare virus that shuts down the heart. Sometimes the victim suffers flu-like symptoms, but just as often there are no warning signs. It was a shock, particularly, I am sure, for Heathcliff here.” I went on softly, very much aware that the dog had lowered his head onto his paws and was uttering a series of infinitely sad woofs like a dirge. “Miss Bunch was buried today in St. Anselm’s churchyard, and this sad little orphan must have escaped from the people who were temporarily housing him and followed his mistress to her final resting place.”
“Her ghost! I saw it, walking on feet that do not touch the ground, between the tombstones. A woman—dressed in black from the head to the feet. She wears a veil that flutters like a big cobweb in the wind. And she twists her bony hands and she talks to herself.” My female visitor was pallid with terror.
“A tall, thin woman with stooped shoulders?” I asked.
“This is so.”
“That wasn’t Miss Bunch. She was only of medium height and quite stout. I think you must have seen Ione Tunbridge, one of our local characters. She’s close to eighty now and has haunted, in a manner of speaking, St. Anselm’s since the day her bridegroom failed to turn up at the church for the wedding ceremony.” While speaking, I began to wonder if I had somehow become trapped within the pages of Her Master’s Voice as a punishment for scoffing so many digestive biscuits. Was I doomed to wander from one melodrama to another throughout eternity?
“Miss Tunbridge hasn’t left her house in daylight in nearly sixty years,” I bumbled on, “but every so often she is spotted, between dusk and daylight, wandering around the churchyard. These days St. Anselm’s is locked at night, so she can no longer get inside to kneel before the altar … waiting for the sound of her bridegroom’s footsteps hastening down the nave to explain what had caused him to be more than half a century late showing up with the ring.”
How to Murder the Man of Your Dreams Page 3
