The Ghost and Miss Demure

by Melanie Jackson

  There was a sudden glint at the window. Refracted lighted momentarily blinded her, and Karo put up a hand to shield her face. As she squinted against the intense ray, a clear and preemptory idea popped into her head. It was clear to her that the Malleus Maleficarum was an evil thing and should be destroyed. Sending it away wasn’t enough. It had been used by greedy men to justify the female holocaust of the Inquisition and should never be put on casual display for the titillation of tourists. It was a weapon, a symbol of oppression as great as slavery and as shameful. It should be buried deep in the ground or even burned in a ritual fire. Why, the book might even still be used to trap a poor spirit on the earthly plane by a vengeful woman, a spirit that longed to go free. And Karo could destroy it with very little effort when it was found.

  She blinked and shook her head slowly from side to side, denying the idea. That wasn’t right, was it? She didn’t believe in burning books—any books. Not even the very worst Barbara Cartland novels her mother mailed to her. Karo shivered and then gave herself a mental clout on the nose. It took a moment for her to regain her sight, even after she looked away from the window.

  “…fine, Karo?” she heard Tristam ask.

  “I’m sorry. What did you say?” She turned back to her employer. He had set his cup aside and risen to his feet. His gaze was intent. Watchful. Predatory.

  Was he spying on her? Did he know what she was thinking? He didn’t seem to care about the house at all—not really. Everything was secrets and lies. For a moment, she looked at him and saw an enemy.

  “I asked how you were feeling.”

  “Fine.” The tone was a little too trenchant for good manners. She tried to make a joke. “I haven’t been blasted by lightning in the last few days, so no worries.”

  “I’m ever so glad,” he said. “So, where did your lovely brain go for the last four minutes?”

  Four minutes? Had it been so long?

  “Trinidad, Rio…” She waved an airy hand, knowing she had to lie. “Another century.” She swallowed. “Tristam, can I ask you something? Just hypothetically.”

  “Ask away.” He took a step closer, and her ganglia began to tingle. She could almost swear that there were eyes focused on her back and a hand poised to reach inside her skin and grab her heart, ready to turn her into a fleshy puppet.

  She suddenly wondered where ’Stein had gone to. He hadn’t been bothering them for breakfast. Did he know they weren’t alone now and was choosing to avoid this room? Cats were supposed to be able to sense the presence of supernatural creatures.

  She had to ask. “Do you think that there might actually be a ghost here?” She addressed the vee in Tristam’s shirt, not daring to look her employer in the eye in case he started laughing at her.

  “No. Unless you’re from the press. Then I believe it absolutely.” A small smile flashed past, and a splash of his mutant pheromones raced up her nostrils. Her nerves began a different sort of tingling. Her body was trying to simultaneous go tense and go limp. As an aerobic workout, it beat the usual isometric exercises. She could feel herself beginning to sweat in the valley between her breasts and in her tightly curled palms.

  The last several days had been spent wearing a government certified safety mask that was guaranteed to filter out spray paint, pollen, grain dust, silica and asbestos as she sorted through the accumulations of the ages. Karo wondered if the #9 micron screen would offer any defense against the very potent Tristam English musk. Alas, it seemed unlikely that anything less than an enclosed, environmental suit would do the trick—and then only if she couldn’t see him.

  She pried her eyes up from his golden flesh. They both tended to spend the days half unbuttoned with their sleeves rolled up, but she still found the sight of his down-covered chest to be disturbing. Normally she’d enjoy the distraction, but not now. There was something more important that had to be done.

  “Why do you ask? Seen any more ghosts? Are you hante?” he asked, smiling slightly.

  “No fair speaking French,” she managed to reply, though it felt like her heart was pressing against the back of her teeth. The room had grown very warm, the oxygen all being burned up. No wonder ’Stein had given breakfast a pass. He’d have had kitty heatstroke in two seconds flat.

  But, the heat reminded her of something.

  “You’re being evasive.” Tristam advanced another two feet. A shadow slipped over his face, changing him; mild-mannered and meek had done a skip around the corner and left his evil twin behind. This bold doppelganger insisted, “Tell me what’s worrying you. Let me help.”

  “I’m being cautious and thoughtful.”

  He was too close. She was burning up. The elastic in her bra was beginning to melt into her flesh right above her fourth rib, and she had the feeling that she was suffocating on moldering air.

  “You’re white as—forgive the cliché—a sheet. But you’re also sweating. Are you certain that you are well?” Another yard of hard pine disappeared under a single, long-limbed step. This was what had happened the first night she met him, down in the library. The room could be measured in acres and she still felt that she was running out of safe kitchen space. If he took another step she would reach critical mass and combust all over the shiny floor. She had to get away. Had to get some air.

  “Maybe. Maybe not,” she hedged, stepping away from Tristam and nearer to the kitchen door. “What I am going to do is take a quick walk out to the guest cottage and have a look around. It should be dry by now.”

  “Karo!” His voice was hurt, but he halted his advance. “I thought you trusted me. I’ve been a lamb, haven’t I? Why flee now?”

  “Don’t be stupid!” she flashed with sudden irritation. “I’m just interested in the old cookhouse. That’s what it was in the old days, right?”

  “And slave quarters.” He came no closer. Perhaps he could see the flames licking at her ears. They felt on fire, sunburned. She felt something pressing in on her, like a blast wave that went on and on. “I wish that you would tell me what is troubling you, my dear. Is it the book? Does it truly frighten you?”

  “Yes.” She had been worried about the book, hadn’t she? “And the fact that I don’t know about the wisdom of promoting a ghost like a tourist attraction.” Not when it was real. Was it real?

  “A few minutes ago you were all for it,” he pointed out.

  Had she been? His words seemed to be eating up all the air in the kitchen. She was feeling light-headed. She had to get outside, but he kept her here talking!

  “Think of the Cantervilles. Hamlet. Sleepy Hollow,” he said. Karo couldn’t think much of anything except the need for cool air, but she made an effort to stay coherent. It would be unwise to let him know that…What didn’t she want him to know?

  “A few minutes ago, I didn’t know that someone else had seen Vellacourt’s ghost,” she managed. “And I didn’t know about the book.”

  “Someone else? You mean Valperga? You still don’t know she saw anything. The old bat was nuts. Absolutely whacko. The trick cyclists would have had a field day with her. She might have just had rats in the belfry.”

  “And in the garret. And that’s hairsplitting…What’s a trick cyclist?” She scratched at a sudden itch in her palms. Her whole skin felt vaguely prickled. She was perspiring in the small of her back and soaking the waistband of her pants.

  “An old time headshrinker,” he translated. “Look at it this way, Vellacourt was an exhibitionist. If his ectoplasm was really still hanging about, he would probably enjoy showing off for the gardeners and such. But no one has seen a thing. Other than you after being hit by lightning.” Tristam sounded both calm and irritated. It was an interesting vocal trick, like two people both using his voice at the same time. “I know that the atmosphere here is unpleasant and a lot of the art suggestive of horrid things, but mightn’t it just be that you had a bad start? Being hit by a million volts can do strange things to the mind.”

  “Condescension will get you nowhere,” Karo
snapped. “You’re the boss. Do what you want. Now back off before I throw something heavy at your head. I want to go outside.”

  He laughed suddenly and the tension broke. He again looked like Tristam. Fresh air filled the overheated vacuum around her body and Karo could feel moisture condensing on her skin in heavy drops. Her muscles went limp and she almost staggered with relief. She wanted to lie down on the shiny wood floor and take a ten-hour nap.

  “So. What’s in the cookhouse, do you think? Have I missed something?” he asked, turning back for his coffee. He looked quite cool in his turned-up shirtsleeves, but there was a betraying sheen of dew on the back of his neck that said he had also been affected, if not to the degree that she had.

  “Nothing, I hope. I’d like to move some of the house hold accouterments out there. It really is the best place for them.” Karo took a furtive swipe at her brow.

  “Good idea. Let me know what you find and I’ll get whatever stuff you want moved out.” His PDA was again consulted. The two of them were back to business, as if the previous odd exchange had never taken place.

  “Are you going to get the gardeners to help? The cauldrons in particular are heavy,” she added. A grounds crew had arrived two days after the storm and begun a cleanup and aesthetic transformation of Belle Ange’s riotous gardens.

  “No need. This body isn’t all for show. I can bung that stuff about. Just shout me up when you’re ready. I’ll be in the library.”

  He did not again suggest that she join him.

  “Okay. I won’t be long,” she promised.

  “Take your time,” he said agreeably. “It will be a help to clear out some working space instead of just shifting the masses around. And don’t worry about that book. We can look for it this evening or even tomorrow. It’s too stuffy to be doing intense poking around right now.”

  “Okay,” she said again, and then headed for the door. She was bent on escape, but she still noticed his change of priorities concerning the Mal-leus Maleficarum. Was he trying to keep her away from the book? Did he know that for a moment she had thought about destroying it?

  Tristam stared after Karo, wondering what had just happened. They had been having a pleasant breakfast conversation and then all of sudden the tension had been so thick he’d nearly had to swim through it. The moment he got halfway to Karo’s side, she’d broken into a sweat and run away.

  “Where are you running, my dear?” he asked whimsically. “Just away from the big bad wolf? Am I really so scary? Or was it just that book? Can you really be so frightened by an artifact?”

  He poured out his cold coffee, frowning at the brown drops that ran down the sparkling porcelain sink. A sudden embarrassment had come over him. What had he been thinking, stalking her that way? He’d never chased a woman in his life—he’d never had to. At home, the English name had always been ample attraction for women, working for both him and his older brother, Jeremy. In the States, the women seemed to have a different outlook, and that had made it even easier! Being more aggressive than their Euro pe an counterparts, American women skipped the usual catch-me-if-you-can bed races. They were also quite amenable to his lifestyle; they always understood that one or the other of them would eventually be moving on, and he’d always been content to have it that way.

  Of course, he’d never had any of these women look at him like he was a roasted leg of lamb smothered in mint jelly before, a seven-course meal held just out of reach of the starving victim. And it wasn’t his imagination indulging in a spot of wishful thinking. It actually happened sometimes: Karo would stare at him, and suddenly she would begin to breathe deeply, almost as if she was inhaling his scent and having an erotic daydream. Her eyes would go sort of blank and dreamy. At those times, her very readable face was an almost unbearable turn-on. It made him feel unusually hawkish and territorial.

  He’d resisted her firmly for several days, but she kept doing it, so he’d finally given in and answered her silent siren call…only to see her turn away from him, to reject him completely—and apparently over some damn book.

  A new, foreign instinct said to pounce quickly before she got away from him. He felt almost possessed, as if some entity compelled him to swoop down and take her, willing or not. But aberrant desires were no excuse for bad behavior, and he knew Karo’s history with unscrupulous employers. Hadn’t he already had a stern talking to with himself on that very subject? So, what ailed him all of a sudden?

  His too tight slacks provided the readiest answer. The divine and insane matchmaker had been at it again. Only, this time the usual roles were reversed: it was a gold arrow for him, and apparently only a silver one for the object of his desire. He did not at all care for being on the other side of the coin.

  “Bloody hell!” he said in disgust. “And it’s only been a week. I’m probably going to die before we get this house in order.”

  Karo made her way across the shell drive. The sound was not cheerful. Every crunch reminded her of the last time she’d been out grinding across the sea’s dead bones. Now, there was an unpleasant old phrase that people didn’t use anymore. Dead bones. There was a cemetery full of human bones just behind the cookhouse, too. She had never previously been troubled by the thought of the dead being close at hand, but the thought of old Vellacourt perhaps hanging out in his family crypt was not a pleasant one. Of course, far better the crypt than the library. What had she seen that day?

  Karo ignored her sniveling id as she pushed her reluctant limbs past an overgrown rhododendron and walked up the shadowed step of the first outbuilding she came to. Giving a businesslike shove of the narrow door—she could be Clint Eastwood when she had to—she nearly fell on her face. The hasp wasn’t latched and someone had oiled the hinges. Surprising.

  The inside of the old cookhouse was dark, and her graceless entrance had stirred up a smell of melancholy and disuse. The atmosphere was even less appealing than she expected, but that might have been doubled because she was half-prone on the packed earth floor and churning up a great deal of dust and droppings into an unhealthful miasma that made her wonder about the Hunta virus.

  She had plenty of time while climbing back to her feet to be grateful that Tristam had convinced her to bunk in the main house. She hadn’t taken up archaeology because she didn’t like being in dirt or dealing with critters that had more than four legs or less than two. This bleak hole had both filth and a probable collection of creatures with improper leg counts. The dust was sticking to her sweaty body with aggravating persis tence, and it itched fiercely. Finishing up her search as quickly as possible, she would rush back to the main house where she could have a wash in antiseptic conditions.

  Upright, Karo surveyed the moldy room, letting her eyes grow accustomed to the new dusk. She grimaced at the dozen saucer-sized daddy longlegs hanging on the wall in a living wallpaper. Arachnids, her least favorite too-manylimbed creatures—it figured that they would be here in abundance. At least this kind wasn’t dangerous since their fangs were too small to penetrate the skin. She was a bit prepared for rural perils. Of course, she had other things to deal with. Like, a ghost?

  Bravely, she turned her back on the eight-legged abominations and considered the room with an artist’s eye. The space would be marginally brighter when the one tiny window was scraped clean of what she had mistakenly thought were rotted curtains but in actuality were cobwebs and other filth grown dense from years of neglect. “Ugh.” Nothing was going to make the place cheery. An electric light might help the gloom, but it smelled swampy and inhabited by unhealthful objects.

  “What did you expect of the slaves’ cookhouse—Bokhara rugs and skylights?” she muttered, taking another shallow breath and then following her nose to the far left corner where the floor had settled at the foundation. It was no great shock to find that there was a small pool of stagnant water beside the old hearth; it went without saying that the roof leaked.

  Karo leaned over the squirming puddle. The brown water bulged with mosquito larva.
Her insides dipped sharply and she was glad that she hadn’t inhaled a large plate of Tristam’s bacon and eggs before facing this. She would have to get the gardeners in here right away; none of them needed these bloodsuckers crawling out in the lingering autumn heat and plaguing their nights.

  She straightened and turned her inspection to the scorched fireplace. It also seemed to be alive with scurrying insects. She nudged the ashes with a cautious toe and disturbed a pile of black beetles in the soot and char, though what they could be hunting for, she couldn’t begin to imagine.

  “Great. A roach motel,” she muttered, wiping at her forehead with the back of her dirtied hands. The temperature was absolutely stifling. They would have to do something about the ventilation in the little building or people would be dropping like flies on a pest strip.

  She saw a movement from the corner of her eye and turned reluctantly. Half of the room was very dark and filled with old pots. Could something be nesting here—an opossum or a baby squirrel? She hoped it wasn’t a snake trapped inside after the storm. Next to spiders, the creatures she feared most were snakes.

  “Okay, guy. Show yourself,” she demanded bravely. “Slither for it now and you won’t get exterminated. Oh, spit!”

  Once again, the spiky shadow unfolded with inhuman speed. Old Vellacourt himself was soon hanging in the corner and turning the cookhouse into a coke blaster. Karo fell back against the wall, too frightened to care about the spiders.

  Amazingly, through her terror, she found her voice. “Look. If it’s about the book, there’s nothing I can do,” she whispered, wondering with half her brain if she was truly still sane, while the other half cataloged the ghost’s seventeenth-century riding regalia. The black and gold was severely elegant and went well with his insect eyes. He was dressed as a cavalier and not a Roundhead. She tried not to think about the way his overcape billowed around him in the drafts of hot air rising up from the floor. It was much too evocative of watching sulfur clouds billow up from hell.