by Colleen Ladd
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Blurb
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
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Colleen's Bio
THE LADY’S GHOST
by
Colleen Ladd
The Lady’s Ghost
Copyright © 2014 Marian Kelly
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from Marian Kelly (aka Colleen Ladd).
Published by Marian Kelly
United States of America
Electronic Edition: July 2014
ISBN 978-1-941881-00-2
This book is a work of fiction and all characters exist solely in the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Any references to places, events or locales are used in a fictitious manner.
Many thanks to Linda White (aka Regina Duke) for all her advice and encouragement over the years, not to mention the expert proofreading assistance, and to my family for believing in me even when it might have been smarter not to.
Formatting by StevieDeInk. [email protected]
Cover design by Laura J Miller.
www.anauthorsart.com
THE LADY'S GHOST -- A Regency Romance by Colleen Ladd
After her husband’s death, Portia Ashburne is banished to dilapidated Ashburne Hall and left to fend for herself.
Ten years ago, when Giles, the previous Lord Ashburne, was accused of murdering his fiancée, he fled on a ship that was lost at sea. Locals claim his spirit haunts Ashburne Hall.
Portia doesn’t believe in ghosts. She suspects the Hall’s hostile caretakers are playing tricks on her. When she sets out to prove it, she puts herself on a crash course with both Giles and the real killer. Will The Lady’s Ghost be able to save her?
CHAPTER ONE
“Of all the dratted luck!”
“My lady!”
Portia scowled at her maid in the dim confines of the carriage. “Don’t you ‘my lady’ me, Ellie Brown. If a horse coming up lame this close to the Hall doesn’t justify a ‘drat’ or two, I don’t know what does.” It justified a great deal more than that, coming on top of a long and weary journey in the cold, musty coach. One of her late husband’s favorite epithets rose to mind—Roger had not been disposed to remember his manners when he was foxed—but she refrained from voicing it, needing no further scolding from her maid.
For her part, Ellie did not hesitate to scowl back. Portia’s sole ally and confidante during her brief marriage, the maid was fiercely protective and not in the least inclined to hold her mistress in awe. It was just as well. Awe would scarcely have sustained Portia through her husband’s dissolute indifference, his outright contempt for the sanctity of his marriage.
“This is what comes of hiring carriages.” Ellie’s lips compressed to a thin line, opening a moment later to add, “And on the cheap too, I’ll be bound.”
Portia burrowed her hands farther into her muff and tried not to shiver. Night was coming on fast and the hot brick the coachman placed at their feet at the last stop had long since gone cold. “I’m sure Lord Ashburne did the best he could.”
James Ashburne was a stiff-rumped skinflint, but Portia couldn’t blame the cheapness of their travel arrangements on that. The man was badly purse-pinched, saddled with three entailed estates, two of which cost more in upkeep than they produced and the third barely squeaking by. The Ashburnes had been rich as Croesus when Roger inherited the title, but in the ten years he held it, money ran like water through his fingers. He’d already been well up the River Tick when he pitched head-first from his phaeton while deep in his cups, and would soon have found himself in desperate straits.
Straits Portia was all too familiar with. Roger barely paid any mind to his wife while he was alive; it wouldn’t have occurred to him to provide for her after his death, even if he’d had the blunt to manage it. The new Viscount Ashburne was even more down-at-heels and substantially less inclined to spend his meager funds on his brother’s widow. Portia could hardly throw herself on his charity—he didn’t have any. Nor any mercy, not after his wife made it clear she wouldn’t be happy, or quiet, until she no longer shared her house or her title with Portia. There was nothing to be done about the latter; Portia would remain Lady Ashburne until she remarried, if she ever did. The other complaint, however, was eminently fixable.
And so Portia found herself jostling along in a cheap hired carriage, packed off to Ashburne Hall like so much unwanted baggage. Weary as she was of traveling, she did not look forward to arriving. She’d been made well aware of Roger’s antipathy toward the family seat; it couldn’t have suited Roger better if the Hall crumbled to the ground. Portia only hoped it wouldn’t be crumbling around her ears.
The carriage swung slowly into a turn, the horses picking up their limping pace. Portia pushed aside the drafty leather window-covering and peered through the mizzling rain. An inn. The building was low and brooding, but light spilled cheerfully from the windows, casting long fingers across the yard.
When the coach drew to a halt, the postilion leapt down and walked stiffly up to hold the horses—the boy must be half-frozen. A moment later, the carriage rocked with the coachman’s descent. Portia watched the man walk about the dark yard, alternately rubbing his hands together and pressing them against his lower back. Guilt settled in the pit of her stomach, though it was James who decreed they accomplish a nearly four-day trip in two. He had no intention of paying for more than one night’s lodging, no matter the strain it put on man and beast.
“Coachman.”
“Yes, m’lady.” He took off his hat as he approached, the desultory drizzle spangling his hair. He’d been unfailingly polite and done everything in his power to see to the comfort of his passengers, though Portia knew he was not being paid overmuch for his care.
She smiled. “John, is it?”
“Yes, m’lady.”
“How much farther to the Hall?”
He peered off into the distance and scratched his beard. “Not more’n half an hour’s drive, I’ll be bound. But this bain’t no coaching inn, my lady. Can’t be certain how long ‘fore we get a fresh horse.”
So short a distance.... If their destination had been Portia’s childhood home or even Rosewood Close, the house she’d kept for Roger and the only one of his estates still solvent, she’d have left it at that, knowing the coachman would be well attended once they arrived. She had no idea what kind of welcome to expect at the Hall.
“Well then, let us go inside and wait where it’s warm.” Portia opened the door and allowed the startled coachman to hand her out, ignoring Ellie’s shocked exclamation and scramble to follow.
“You and your boy must be half-frozen. Come inside
and get something warm into you.” Portia took up her skirts to keep them out of the mud and started for the door.
“Who’s going to pay for it, my lady?” Ellie muttered.
“I still have a little money of my own.”
“Yes, my lady. A little.”
The innkeeper, a stocky giant of a man wearing an apron gray with age, met her in the chilly entranceway. His smile, when she requested a private parlor, was faintly mocking and his diction surprisingly crisp. She wondered if he’d been in service somewhere. “We aren’t so fancy here. No, miss, taproom’s all there is.” His expression said quite clearly he expected her to take a seat in the common room and stop putting on airs. Portia couldn’t blame him. Two days’ travel had left its stamp on her, and her traveling dress, quite out of fashion and dyed an unflattering black, hardly gave her the look of a lady. He doubtless thought her some jumped up shopkeeper’s daughter, traveling with a maid to give herself an undeserved air of consequence.
She’d never before had to tell someone she was Quality and was wondering how one went about it when the door banged loudly. Blowing in the cold, the coachman drew his caped coat about him with a shudder. “M’lady?”
The innkeeper blinked, and Portia fought back a smile. There was no point in aggravating the poor man. “Yes, John?”
“Ostler says it’ll be most half an hour ‘fore we can be gettin’ on to the Hall.”
“Very well. You and that boy of yours come in and warm yourselves at the fire.” She glanced at the innkeeper, who was still gaping, and couldn’t resist adding, “It appears I’ll be joining you in the common room.” Ellie made a choked-off noise.
“Miss, ah, my lady, ah—” The innkeeper cleared his throat with a noise like an avalanche, which seemed to startle him sufficiently to get him started. “I’m terribly sorry, my lady. But there really is only the common room. We’ve holes in the parlor roof and with the rain....” He shifted his great shoulders, looking as grossly uncomfortable as a man of his stature could.
“No matter.” Portia reflected that Ellie really did sound as if she were choking on something. “Just find me someplace warm for the next half hour.”
“But my lady,” he protested, genuinely upset, “it isn’t possible to do better for your ladyship than a settle before the fire.”
“Then,” Portia said, used to accepting hardship philosophically, “that will have to do.”
“Yes, my lady,” he said doubtfully. He dove through the door into the common room, his passage attended by the sounds of upheaval and upraised voices.
“My lady,” Ellie whispered, “you can’t—”
“Would you rather freeze in the carriage?”
Ellie jammed her mouth shut with an audible click of teeth and glared. Portia glared back until the innkeeper returned. “This way, if you please, my lady.”
Portia stepped for the first time in her life into the common taproom of an inn and found it dark and rough-hewn, dimly lit by the fire and a few lamps that hung from the low ceiling. The close heat pressed Portia’s breath back in her throat. She forced a slow breath against the suffocating feeling and was struck by the odor of the place, a pungent brew of horse, leather, and man. The innkeeper sidled over to a settle near the fire, keeping his bulk between Portia and the other occupants. They were largely silent, but their very presence filled the room with a sibilant tide of whispering and fidgeting. The noise swelled slightly once Portia and Ellie were established in the high-backed settle where they could neither see nor be seen, but didn’t reach the level it had before she entered the inn. Portia’s lips twitched as she considered the power of a lady’s presence to silence a roomful of men.
“If I may, my lady,” the innkeeper bent his great head to murmur deferentially. “Some tea?”
She mentally counted the scanty coins in her purse and decided she could just afford it. “That would be lovely.” More than lovely, her empty stomach reminded her; James had given her little enough traveling money and she’d had no dinner that day. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure, my lady.” Rather than bustling off to see to it, he stood wrapping the corner of his apron around his thumb in a nervous gesture at odds with his bulk. “My lady, if I may.... Your coachman said the Hall? Would you be Lady Ashburne?”
“I am.”
“Ah.” He bobbed his head. “W-welcome.” It sounded strangely tentative, which might have been why he cleared his throat and said it again, his thunderous voice momentarily cutting off all other conversation in the room. “Welcome, Lady Ashburne.” He bobbed his head again and left, the murmur of voices flowing in to fill the void left by his departure.
Portia leaned into the hard corner of the settle and sighed. The fire bathed her in welcome heat and she found that the odor of men and animals faded, so long as she didn’t pay particular attention to it. “Do you know, Ellie, I begin to think I may eventually thaw out.”
Ellie said nothing, her lips compressed in a hard line. Portia sighed again and wondered if Ellie’s offended silence would last until they reached the Hall. The remainder of the trip would be more peaceful if it did.
Portia stretched her hands out to the fire, less because they needed the extra heat than to prevent herself from nodding off in the blissful warmth. She was aware of the little postilion and the red-faced coachman tentatively warming themselves at the other end of the enormous hearth, but didn’t worry herself over it. It was large enough for them all, and she couldn’t see standing on ceremony under the circumstances. If one set the matter of title aside, there was little difference between Portia and the men fidgeting quietly in the room behind her. Many of them likely had better roofs over their heads than she could look forward to.
Their curiosity, colored with irritation that they should be put out on her account, beat like waves upon the sheltering settle. Portia tried to ignore it, but when a pair of bright eyes peered at her around the edge of the heavy furniture, she couldn’t quite restrain a gasp.
The boy flinched back, but crept forward again immediately. “D’he say the Hall?” he asked in a hoarse little voice. “D’he?”
Portia smiled. “Yes. I’m going to the Hall.”
“Is Lord Ashburne with you?”
Someone alarmingly close snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous, Jemmy. Giles Ashburne never leaves the Hall.”
Portia nearly laughed at the nonsensical statement, but the room dropped into a silence so sudden and so deep that it quashed any such reaction.
“You’re drunk, George,” the innkeeper boomed, sweeping up with a steaming tea tray. “Giles Ashburne’s been dead these ten years.” He hooked a small table with his foot and dragged it over to set the tea tray on. Once his hands were free, he cuffed the boy lightly with one huge paw. “Off with you, Jemmy. Leave the lady alone. Terribly sorry, my lady,” he said as the boy scampered away. “You’d think this lot’d never seen Quality before.” He settled the tea tray in front of her, arranging the pot and cups with surprising delicacy, the odor of tea and toast making Portia’s stomach grumble. “I’ve taken the liberty,” he added, sounding suddenly so like her grandfather’s butler that tears came to Portia’s eyes, “of sending the potboy to the Hall to alert them to your arrival.”
“Thank you...” She hesitated and he hurried to say, “Foxkin, my lady. I used to do up at the Hall, a long time ago now.” He was fiddling with the corner of his apron again.
Portia smiled. “Thank you, Foxkin. You’ve been very helpful.”
“I hope so, my lady. “ Looking oddly doubtful, he took himself off.
“Well,” Portia said, to herself, since Ellie was still in a snit, “that was interesting.” When the toast was finished, she cradled her teacup between her hands and sat there soaking up warmth inside and out, waiting for her carriage to be ready and wondering what awaited her up at the Hall.
*****
Ellie nudged Portia out of a light doze when the coachman came to say that a fresh horse had been found and they could b
e getting on.
Dozens of faces appeared in the windows of the inn when Portia crossed the innyard to her chilly carriage. Ellie tried to shield her from their gaze with her own body; not having the innkeeper’s bulk, she didn’t succeed. Portia kept her head high, refusing to quail under the weight of their glittering eyes, and only after the inn dropped behind them did it occur to her that they were merely trying to get a look at their new neighbor.
After all, Portia had never before been to the Hall. To the best of her knowledge, Roger had not visited the place either. He’d established Portia at Rosewood Close immediately after their wedding and visited a mere handful of times over the five years they were married, far more devoted to his Town pleasures than he was to her. It would’ve been exceedingly strange if he had bothered to visit Ashburne Hall, which was even farther removed from London. No wonder the villagers were consumed with curiosity when Lady Ashburne came to visit.
To stay, Portia corrected herself. Perhaps forever.
She wouldn’t miss London. She’d spent but one Season there and barely made it through even that before she found herself a married lady. She’d passed their marriage alone at Rosewood Close and would have been happy to stay there if it hadn’t been the only one of the estates James Ashburne and his wife could reasonably live in. Portia had worked hard to make it into a comfortable home, as comfortable as could be managed on the pittance Roger allowed her.
