by Janni Nell
I turned ingenuously toward her. “What was the name of the bookshop you worked in?”
Her pale skin turned even paler.
“You never worked in a bookshop, did you?” I said. “Where did you really meet your husband?”
Sir Alastair must have had a sixth sense. Or maybe it was just his good luck that ensured he reappeared at that moment.
“The storm’s still raging,” said Casper, looking very pleased with himself. “Sir Alastair has insisted we stay the night.”
Lady Justina managed to look alarmed and pleased at the same time.
“Which rooms will they have?” she asked.
Sir Alastair touched her shoulder. There was nothing overtly violent about his gesture but there was a subtext that sent shivers down my spine.
“Phillips will organize the rooms, my dear.” He turned to us. “Please excuse us. My wife is tired.”
She didn’t look tired. She looked as though she’d be happy to stay up all night. I guessed she’d do anything to avoid the marital bed.
Taking his wife’s hand, Sir Alastair led the way out of the drawing room. Casper and I followed him up a very grand staircase. At the top he wished us a good night and disappeared down the hall.
I turned to Casper. “What do we do now? Find our own rooms?”
A male voice said, “Certainly not, Ms. Fairweather.”
I whirled around to see Phillips standing beside me. I wasn’t sure where he’d come from, but I didn’t like the way he’d sneaked up on us.
“Please follow me.” Phillips turned right, the opposite direction Sir Alastair had taken, and led us down a long hall.
Opening one of the doors with a flourish, he said to Casper, “Your room for the night, sir. Breakfast is served from seven-thirty. Would you like a wake-up call?”
Casper declined. As he entered his room I caught a glimpse of masculine décor. I was counting the many different shades of brown when Phillips spoke again.
“This way, madam.”
I hurried after him, but we didn’t go far. He stopped outside the room next to Casper’s. Opening the door, he reminded me about breakfast and offered me a wake-up call. Unlike Casper, I accepted. I had a feeling I’d need a bit of help getting up in the morning. It was going to be a busy night.
Chapter Nine
The room had too many frills for my taste but I quite liked the color scheme. Peach and cream. Upbeat and soothing at the same time. After tugging off my shoes I threw myself on the quilt. It was sinfully soft.
Mom would have loved this room. She would have called it tasteful and elegant. She would’ve thought—but not voiced her opinion—that I was the one thing in the room that was out of place. She might have been right.
I had never shared her interest in pretty feminine things. Keeping up to date with fashion bored me, and I had never seen the point of having more than two or three pairs of shoes. Flat-heeled. Running shoes. All the better to chase those pesky paranormal buggers.
I knew Mom loved me. I did, really. She just loved my sister more. No, that’s not fair. Mom tried to love us equally but it was hard to do that when she had so much in common with Lily. Especially now Lily had married The Senator’s son. It’s not really incestuous. Lily isn’t related to Steven junior by blood.
Clasping my hands behind my head, I wondered what their kids would be like. The baby was due next month and I couldn’t help thinking that any child Lily produced would be as cute and plump as the cherubs that decorated the ceiling above me.
“Allegra.”
It was a whisper but I jumped off the bed as though I’d heard a gunshot.
“Casper?”
Slowly he appeared—right at the end of the bed.
“What’re you doing in here?” I asked.
“I had a feeling you might be planning something.”
He was right but, although I was glad of his company, I wasn’t too thrilled about him appearing unannounced in my room.
“I could have been getting undressed,” I said.
“You weren’t.”
“But how would you know unless you peeked?” He didn’t answer. I felt a blush creep up my cheeks. What was wrong with me? I never blushed. “Casper, were you watching me before you appeared?” He shook his head. So I voiced my worst suspicion. “Have you ever watched me get undressed?”
“No,” he said immediately.
“But what if I’d been getting undressed tonight when you materialized? You would have seen me, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes,” he admitted reluctantly. “But only for a second. Then I’d have gone back to my own room.”
“You sure you wouldn’t have watched me?”
He looked a little sheepish. “It isn’t allowed.”
I couldn’t resist asking, “If it was allowed, would you watch me?”
He turned away so I couldn’t see his expression.
“That’s a no-win question,” he said. “If I say no, you’ll accuse me of insulting you. If I say yes—well I’d be a pretty poor guardian angel if I acted like a Peeping Tom.”
I stared at Casper’s back. He was looking out the window—or he would have been if the drapes hadn’t been closed. I wondered what he found so interesting about the peach and cream striped material.
Folding my arms, I said, “You’ve neatly avoided answering my question.”
“It was unfair of you to ask it.” He turned to face me.
Our eyes met. I couldn’t look away. It was like looking into the glow of an enchanted forest. I wanted to enter and never come out. I think I took a step toward him. I must have, because he said, “Stop!” Urgently.
That broke the spell. I stopped in my tracks. My heart hammered. As I blinked hard I realized our faces were only inches apart. How had I gotten so close without realizing it? But more to the point, why had he let me?
He backed away as far as he could get without actually leaving the room. “Tell me what you are planning for tonight.”
It was a relief to talk about the case. “I’m going to take a look around while everyone’s asleep. Are you coming?”
He looked as though he wanted to refuse but he couldn’t—not if he thought I was walking into trouble.
“Where do we start?” he asked.
“With the rooms nearby.” Grabbing my flashlight, I said, “Come on,” and stepped into the dark hall outside my room.
Moving down the hall, I selected a room at random and pushed open the door. My flashlight picked out a plethora of antique furniture. It was similar to my room but this one was clearly uninhabited. There was no wood in the fireplace and the bed had been stripped back to a bare mattress.
I pulled open a few drawers hoping to find something interesting but all I found were yellowing drawer liners and a faint floral scent that was long past its best.
“What’re you looking for?” asked Casper.
I shrugged. “I’ll know when I find it.”
The truth was I was hoping to find something that linked Sir Alastair or his wife to the paranormal activity in the village. So far I had come up with zilch.
Sure, there were a lot of unanswered questions regarding Lady Justina, but they could be easily explained if she’d been an illegal immigrant prior to her marriage to Sir Alastair. I shut the last drawer and straightened up.
“There’s nothing in here. Let’s move on to the next room.”
The next three rooms were carbon copies of the first. I was disappointed but I reminded myself that this was the guest wing. Apparently Sir Alastair didn’t get many visitors.
I turned to Casper. “Let’s try the wing where Sir Alastair and Lady Justina sleep.”
We crept down the hall. After passing the grand staircase, we moved into another wing of the stately home.
“Casper,” I whispered, “do you know which room our hosts sleep in?”
I wasn’t sure whether this kind of help would be permitted but it must have been ok because Casper answered immediately by poi
nting to a door on our left.
He put his mouth close to my ear. “Sir Alastair sleeps in there.”
Casper’s warm breath on my ear caused a flutter of butterflies to rise in my stomach. I shooed them away and focused on what he was telling me.
“That room is Lady Justina’s.” He pointed to the door on the right. “But I don’t think she sleeps there.”
I suppressed a shudder at the thought of her sleeping beside Sir Alastair.
Avoiding the rooms of our hosts, we crept further down the hall and entered another bedroom. I swept the beam of my flashlight over the empty fireplace and stripped bed. No surprises here. It was just like all the other rooms. I went through the motions of checking the drawers but, as I had expected, didn’t find anything.
Four bedrooms and five doors later, I found the stairs that led to the attic.
It was dusty and cluttered with the cast-offs of the Maitland clan. As my flashlight raked the piles of junk my big toe began to itch.
I wriggled it but the itching got worse so I rubbed it up and down on the back of my leg as though I was shining my shoe.
“What’s wrong?” asked Casper.
“Just a cramp.” Even Casper doesn’t know about my itching toe. I don’t know why I haven’t told him. I guess it’s because an itching toe is such a silly thing. It isn’t glamorous like being surrounded by a golden glow or sexy like getting a tingle down my spine. It’s just odd.
Leaving Casper to sit on a packing case—he was there to protect, not help—I began sorting through the piles of junk.
I soon realized that not all of it was junk. There were several oil paintings, ancestral portraits, that looked as though they might have been valuable. What they were doing gathering dust in an attic was anyone’s guess. My guess was that Sir Alastair had too much money. He should share some of it. Preferably with me. Paranormal investigating isn’t that well paid. Most of the time.
I picked up a wooden music box, turned the key and opened the lid. It played an old fashioned waltz. Something by Strauss, I think. A battered ballerina twirled before a little mirror.
Like most music boxes it doubled as a jewelry box. Inside there was some costume jewelry, long beads like they wore in the 1920s, but nothing that appeared valuable. I stared at the ballerina until the tinkly tune slowed then stopped altogether. Gently I closed the music box and left it exactly where I’d found it.
I sorted my way through old bikes and a tricycle, creepy dolls with China heads, and some furniture. There was a wooden cradle and a cot that both looked old enough to have been Sir Alastair’s. I wondered whether he’d had any kids. Maybe he hadn’t. Maybe Lady Justina was his last chance to produce an heir.
Casper interrupted my thoughts. “We’ve been up here a long time. If you want to get some sleep maybe we should call it a night.”
I checked my watch. The hands were closing on two o’clock.
“I’m not going to bed,” I told Casper, “until I finish up here.”
I forced myself to wade through more junk wasting my time on wooden chests that contained school books and memorabilia, photographs of weddings and graduations, and yellowed greeting cards. Other chests contained clothes that were long out of date.
One even contained a collection of furs. I picked up an ugly fox stole—the kind where the mouth fastens onto the tail. Yuck. Underneath it was a long soft coat that might have been mink. Beneath the mink was a smooth dark pelt that I couldn’t identify. It hadn’t been made into a coat or stole. Probably someone had intended to have it made up then changed their mind. I bet it had cost a fortune.
As I replaced the coats in the chest, Casper asked, “Have you finished?”
I sighed. “There’s nothing here.”
So why was my toe still itching? Maybe I was tired. Or maybe there was a ghost living in the attic. A ghost would certainly explain the sensations in my toe.
Right about then I realized I was standing near the music box. Once again I picked it up. I ran my hand over the smooth lacquered wood. Had the itch in my toe gotten worse? No, I must be imagining it. I was certain—well, almost certain—that there was nothing paranormal about the music box.
I turned to Casper. “We’d better get back to our rooms.”
“Good idea,” he said.
We retraced our steps, tiptoeing past the rooms of our hosts. When we reached my room, I said, “Maybe I’ve got it wrong, Casper. Maybe these people have nothing to do with McEwen’s death.”
“What’s your gut telling you?”
“Not much. Except that maybe I drank too much wine with dinner.”
Casper gave me the kind of look you get from a teacher when you’re not trying hard enough. I tried harder.
“At this stage,” I warned Casper, “I’m just thinking out loud. Okay?” He assured me it was quite okay and I continued, “On the night McEwen died, he told me that Lady Justina had cast a spell and made him fall in love with her. He was angry, so, hypothetically, let’s say he confronted her. If she really was a witch she could have cast a death spell on him.”
That was a stretch and I knew it. Lady Justina was not a powerful woman. Besides, if she was capable of a death spell I was pretty sure she would cast it on Sir Alastair.
“My theory has a lot of holes,” I said. “It doesn’t explain the bite marks on McEwen’s body or its disappearance. There has to be an explanation that ties all the loose ends together.” Including why my toe itched when I was near the music box.
Casper yawned and eased himself into a chair in the corner of my room.
Folding my arms, I muttered, “I hope that yawn isn’t a comment on my theory.”
He smiled and shook his head. “I’m tired. That’s all.”
I was tired too but I was also perplexed. I could feel a frown biting deep into my forehead. Smoothing it away with my fingertips, I decided to give my mind a break from the problems of this investigation.
“No more theories tonight,” I said. Noticing Casper’s dark-circled eyes, I went on, “How much sleep do Angels need?”
He smiled at the question. “About as much as humans. Most of our needs are very close to human needs.”
“With the exception of sex.” I shouldn’t have said that but I did and I couldn’t take it back.
Casper hesitated a moment. “Only in my case. The punishment for each guardian angel is different. Some might be forbidden to eat or drink wine. It depends on the way they lived their life and what kind of amends they have to make to enter Heaven.”
“Do you think you’re close to entering Heaven?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “The Powers-That-Be don’t tell us that kind of thing. The call to enter Heaven will come unannounced.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. Any time, any day, he could get the call to enter Heaven and he’d leave me. What would life be like without Casper? Like one of those big black holes in space. Or like Leith with that empty space in his chest forever searching for the heart that had been stolen.
“What’s wrong?” asked Casper. “Do you have a pain?”
Glancing down I saw that my hand had moved to cover my heart. I could feel the thumps vibrating through my body.
“Casper,” I said, “when you get the call to enter Heaven, will you be allowed to say goodbye?”
He seemed surprised by my question. He looked down at his large square hands. When he raised his head, his expression was very serious. He stood up.
Placing his hand over his heart, much as I was doing, he said, “I give you my word, as an honorable warrior, I won’t leave you without saying goodbye.”
Chapter Ten
Breakfast was served in the manner of English period movies. A kind of smorgasbord had been laid out on the sideboard. Under shiny covers rested tasty things like bacon and scrambled eggs, sausages and grilled tomatoes. And less tasty things like kidneys and lambs fry.
Piling my plate with the tasty stuff, I joined Sir Alastair and his wife at the table
. Casper had not come down yet. Apparently he was exhausted after our adventure last night. Personally I was trying to forget it.
I was still smarting about my failure to find anything that appeared remotely paranormal. It was particularly annoying considering the itch I’d had in my big toe. Maybe my toe was malfunctioning. I suppose even a paranormal-detecting toe can have a bad day. Right now it felt as though it was going to have another bad day. It itched as I cut my bacon. Paranormal bacon? I had a sudden vision of pigs flying. Don’t even go there, Allegra.
Pushing all thoughts of the paranormal out of my mind, I concentrated on breakfast. Yum. Since arriving in this country my breakfasts could accurately have been described as cholesterol overload, but they were a pleasant change from the muesli and yogurt I usually had at home. I was pausing to sip the truly excellent coffee when Sir Alastair spoke.
“The storm has abated,” he said. “You can return to the village this morning.” He tried valiantly but failed to keep the note of pleasure out of his voice.
“Thank you for letting us stay,” I said. It seemed an appropriate response.
Lady Justina replied, “It was a pleasure.” There was no doubting the sincerity of her words.
Sir Alastair gave her a disapproving glance.
“You have such a beautiful home,” I said, hoping Sir Alastair wouldn’t see where I was going with this. “You must be very happy living here. My mother lives in a large house now that she’s married to The Senator. She says it’s way too large for the two of them. That it needs to be filled with grandchildren. I’m a bit of a disappointment in that respect but my sister’s doing the right thing. She’s going to have a baby next year.” I probably sounded as though I was rambling. Sir Alastair was all but rolling his eyes, but I was priming him for my next question. “Do you have grandchildren, Sir Alastair?”
He looked at me as if I was crazy. “Grandchildren? I don’t even have children.”
