The ground rushed up and Win gripped clumps of sand and seagrass. Then silence. The wailing stopped. Even the sea sounds seemed to fade. The specter faded too.
Realization came all at once. The lady had lost a loved one in the mine. A husband? A brother? A son? She mourned him still. Waited here each day for him to emerge from the ground and come back to her.
Win settled onto the cold ground and wrapped her arms around her knees. Tears came unbidden. Ghosts did that to her sometimes. Conveyed their story, not in words, but feelings. Unbidden emotions bubbled up. Not Win’s emotions, but an echo of theirs. A remnant of their pain.
Footsteps crunched in the pebbles beside her and a shadow fell across her face, blocking out the sun.
“Are you all right?” Septimus knelt beside her. “Did you stumble?” He placed one hand on her upper arm, the other on her knee. “Speak to me.”
Her tongue wouldn’t work. She opened her mouth but no sound emerged. Instead, she nodded to let him know she was well and uninjured.
“Is it your parents?” He stroked a gloved thumb, ever so gently, against her damp cheek. “I asked about your troubles carelessly, forgetting how fresh your grief must be. Forgive me.”
Win nodded again. She couldn’t explain why she was crying, or what she’d seen and heard.
His shoulders dipped as if relieved, then he gazed out toward the sea. “I lost my parents too. My mother, many years ago, from a sudden illness. Then, a year later, my father. The senselessness of his death made it harder to accept. Even now, I wonder why. Why him? Why that deadly moment?”
“How did he die?” Win found her voice and posed the question quietly, just above a whisper. Death was a topic ladies and gentlemen were not meant to speak of. Not openly. Not honestly. In the past months, Win had learned all the euphemisms for death, most of which still left people disconcerted.
Septimus got to his feet. Win thought he might retreat entirely and leave her sitting on the beach alone. To keep the secret of how her parents had died, she would have done the same. But he didn’t move from her side and, eventually, he answered. One word. The last one she expected.
“Lightning.” His voice turned raspy and rough. “He was traveling to visit my dying uncle. That was my father’s way. Duty first. Always. In this case, duty above good sense.”
Septimus reached a hand down to help Win to her feet. He continued holding onto her once they stood face to face. “I begged him to wait a day. I knew a storm was coming. Even as child, I could feel a strange charge in the air before a storm. Electricity. His coachman was struck dead by a bolt of lightning. I suspect the horses were terrified. The carriage accident took them both.”
“I’m so sorry.” Win knew the words changed nothing. She’d heard them herself over and over since her parent’s death. Yet when they were offered by someone who truly cared, like Aunt Elinor, they helped her feel a little better.
“Thank you. And I’m deeply sorry for your loss, Win.”
They started back down to the beach. Win’s palm felt strangely empty when Septimus released her hand at the top of the uneven stairs. She braced herself for the appearance of the wailing woman, but saw nothing. As they made their way down, she heard only the crash of the waves. Septimus kept quiet, but once they reached the beach Win tried drawing him out of the contemplative mood he’d fallen into.
“You still love storms?” The fact seemed strange now that she knew of his father’s fate.
“I bear no anger toward the storm. Nature can’t be blamed for acting on natural principles.” He clenched his teeth and a muscle jumped near the edge of his jaw. “For a long while I blamed my father. He was a man of impulse and emotion, and I’ve done all in my power to avoid being like him.”
He drew in a sharp breath and looked at her. Inch by inch, his mouth softened into a grin. “You know far too much about me now. Tell me why you like storms.”
“The sounds. The smell. A storm clears the air.” And they reminded Win that there was something more powerful in the world than her father’s cruelty.
“Agreed.” Despite his easy agreement, a question lit the depths of his forest green eyes.
Win tensed, fearing the question she’d been fending off since her parent’s death. There wasn’t a single sliver of that story she wished to confess.
The wind kicked up, riffling Septimus’s dark hair into tangled waves. He ran a hand through the artful mess, but his black locks would not be tamed. Win was glad for it.
Though he’d confided the painful story of his father’s death, his reaction had been tempered. Controlled. She understood him. Her father’s rages had been unpredictable. Her mother’s moods too. She’d longed for steadiness. For a world that did not change.
Ironically, the ghosts, who were stuck mourning their past, taught Win that seeking a quiet, steady life was folly. One had to be prepared for the unexpected. “Is that why you study the weather?” Realization dawned all at once. “To know when the next storm will come?”
“Indeed, though not simply to predict a storm. What I seek is lightning. I wish to collect its energy and study electricity.”
“Like the scientist who reanimated frog legs with electricity?”
“You speak of Galvani.” His brow furrowed into deep lines. “Have you read his work?” The doubt threaded through his tone was unmistakable.
“No.” Though now Win wished she had. “I’ve simply read about the frogs.”
He offered her his arm as they started up the rise toward Penwithyn. “My experiments build on his findings, though I am not interested in animating dead frogs or animal electricity of any kind. I wish to harness electrical power. Study its elements.”
“But for what purpose?”
He stopped and looked down at her. “Knowledge. I can’t think of a worthier endeavor than seeking to better understand nature and its laws.”
There was more. Win sensed he’d left a great deal unsaid. Perhaps by studying electricity, he was seeking the control she understood so well and had given up on achieving.
As they approached Penwithyn, she couldn’t help but wonder if Septimus truly valued all knowledge. Truths that weren’t bound by his books and scientific laws. Would he wish to know that in some places and around some people, specters hovered like gathering thunderclouds?
4
The next morning, Sep bent over his notebook, entering details with deft, quick strokes as he took readings from each device he’d installed in the observatory. There was a single empty entry in his ledger. He’d failed to take readings the previous morning, but he couldn’t bring himself to regret his jaunt with Win.
The young lady offered a tantalizing turn from his usual round of regimented days. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d broken from his schedule. Upon awakening, he’d told himself that returning to routine would set his world aright.
But he still felt off-kilter. Adrift. Unsteady. As if he’d just descended the plank of a ship after months at sea.
He couldn’t stop thinking of the moment he’d found Win crying. Couldn’t stop wondering how she’d lost her parents and why he’d been willing to confess the details of his own father’s tragedy. Junia Simmons had allowed him to babble on about electricity, but she’d never given him a sense of ease great enough to dredge up those painful memories.
Lady Winifred had an extraordinary ability to listen sympathetically, and yet she offered little about herself in return. As a seeker of knowledge, he failed miserably with her. He couldn’t bring himself to ask about her parents with his usual bluntness. He’d sensed her edging away from the topic, the way one flinches to protect a wound.
Pushing thoughts of Win away, he focused on his work. He’d identified the timing of the next lightning strike and adjusted the calibrations to prepare his receiving device. The exact hour was almost impossible to calculate until he could assess weather on the day, but he knew Christmas Eve would be his best chance to harness the lightning’s electrical charge. Through
a combination of family ties and friendly cajoling, he had obtained permission from the Banfields to set up a small secondary device on the castle parapet, the highest point in the village.
Pulling out a separate sheet of foolscap, he worked out the calibrations for that device too. Sketching the original design, he took up a stub of blue chalk and added new layers and attachments that would enhance receptivity. Half an hour later, his fingers were smudged and next to the altered electrical receiver, a badly drawn image of Win stared up at him from the paper.
He couldn’t keep the woman from his thoughts, even while preoccupied with work.
The stone walls of the observatory, which were usually a comfort, began to close in. Sep stood, gathered his papers, and bolted down the steps. Bursting from the tower, he sucked in fresh air and tipped his face toward the sunlight like a man escaping prison.
Mercy, what had come over him? He had an urge to return to the seashore and wade in as Win had wished to do. Damn the frigid water and propriety and the chance a fearsome wave would pull him under. Today, he wanted to vary his routine, strike out on an adventure, break the rut of his self-imposed discipline.
Damned fool. The curse stopped Sep in his tracks. He’d said as much of his father’s recklessness. Of Sixtus Locke’s tendency to give in to every pang of sentiment and caprice.
He would not follow in his father’s footsteps.
Castle Keyvnor and his work there beckoned. He had enough equipment stored on the parapet walk to make modifications to his device on site. All he lacked were a few tools in his rooms at Penwithyn.
As the cottage’s chimneys came into view, an inner battle commenced. Like a madman, he began quarreling with himself in his head. If he entered, he’d seek out Win. And then…what? His work would fade and the prospect of returning to the seaside with her, or seeking some other diversion, would be irresistible.
Sep started past the cottage. He’d manage with the materials he kept at the castle. Perhaps a groundskeeper could lend him a wrench and knife to assist with the modifications he planned to make.
Then he heard her through the library’s open window. Win’s voice was familiar after only a day’s acquaintance. She spoke to someone in a fast, animated voice. Sep couldn’t decipher her words, but he imagined Cornelia, Miss Renshawe, and Win would have a good deal to say to each other. He had no wish to disturb their conversation.
A moment later, Cornelia and Mrs. Renshawe emerged from Penwithyn’s front door and began a leisurely stroll across the heath toward the sea. Had they left Win alone?
It didn’t matter. He had work to do.
Christmas Eve was only a few days away. The device at the castle needed to be ready in case the one in the observatory failed.
He returned to the path toward the castle. Win could talk to the cottage walls if she wished. The young lady was no concern of his.
Sep tucked his head as the wind changed direction, buffeting his body as he climbed the rise toward the castle. Past the whistle of the wind, he heard a crash and snapped his head toward the sound.
Win.
Twisting on his heel, he ran toward Penwithyn.
* * *
“I didn’t mean it. You can stop now.” Win tried reasoning with the foggy outline of the blue man.
What had possessed her to ask him to speak to her? He’d appeared the moment she awoke, frightening her half to death by looming in the corner of her bedchamber. After shooing him away, he’d appeared again in the hallway. Then at the door of what turned out to be a cozy room full of books. As much as she wished to avoid the specter, she’d been unable to resist the lure of the tidy library.
After stepping inside, he’d vanished. She’d actually offered up a word of thanks to him for leading her to such an appealing spot. Especially after noting that many of the books were on scientific topics.
Septimus’s books.
She collected a few to peruse, lowered herself into an overstuffed chair, and the spirt appeared again.
This time Win felt as well as saw him. Sensed his need. A kind of clawing desperation, but for what, she could not divine.
“What is it? Tell me.” The lingering dead, she’d found, always needed something. That need tied them to the living like an anchor. “Can you speak to me?”
That question prompted a book to fall from the shelf. Though it wasn’t a natural fall, as if gravity’s pull had dragged the volume from its shelf. The book shot out, hung in the air, and then crashed to the floor.
Win’s belly plunged to her toes, and she’d nearly jumped straight out of her boots.
No apparition had ever moved an object in her presence before.
She tiptoed over to the book and bent for a closer look. A copy of Dr. Johnson’s dictionary lay split open to the first page of words beginning with G. The word at the top was gabardine. A coarse frock; any mean dress.
Win glanced down at the pretty bottle green dress her aunt had ordered for her to wear on their Cornish journey. Surely the ghost wasn’t critiquing her clothing.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered to the empty room.
Another book flew out from the bookshelf.
Win skittered out of the way, slamming her backside against a well-worn settee.
Rather than hang midair, like a stunned bird, this book flapped around the room in a full circle before thwacking to the floor next to its partner.
Creeping forward, she identified the second volume of Dr. Johnson’s dictionary. This time, the tome flipped open to the first page of O words. After a brief description of the letter itself, the first word listed was oaf. According to the good doctor, the word was a corruption of the German name for a fairy or demon. A changeling. The definition only got worse. The second option was a dolt; a blockhead; an idiot.
Win planted her hands on her hips and glared into the corner where cerulean mist shifted and shimmered. “I’ve been called a fairy before. Even a changeling. And I’m sure some have thought me a demon but were too polite to say so. But I’ve never considered myself a dolt.”
The apparition flickered, glowing bright, like a fire sputtering to life.
Win stared at the dictionary pages. G and O. Was the spirit telling her to go? To leave Penwithyn? To get out of this room? Such a message made no sense, since he’d been the one to lead her to the spot.
The mist expanded. Features became defined. Definitely a man, and an old one. White-haired and whiskered. If she squinted, Win could make out the brassy glint of spectacles perched on his translucent nose. His desperation bore down on her, expanding like a miasma filling every inch of the room.
“Tell me,” she begged. Her chest hurt and a spot at the back of her head throbbed. The ghost’s pain, both physical aches and a well of despair, overtook her. “What do you want?”
“Who on Earth are you talking to?”
Win spun to find Septimus’s tall frame and broad shoulders filling the library doorway.
His mouth fell open and his eyes ballooned, as if something he saw in her face disturbed him. He glanced at the empty spots on the bookshelf, then moved close, until his boots brushed the hem of her dress. He lifted his hands as if he wished to touch her but refrained. “What’s happened? Are you unwell?”
“I’m well.” She dragged in a few breaths, fighting to steady her pulse. Her body trembled, not with fear, but the apparition’s need and frustration. Yet the longer she stood close to Septimus, she sensed the spirit’s power fade. Tipping her head, she surreptitiously examined the corner. The ghost was gone.
Septimus pressed a hand to Win’s forehead. “You’re burning up. Are you feverish?”
The shock of his skin against hers made her gasp. He’d shed his gloves and his palm was blessedly cool.
“Not at all.” She edged away from his touch because she knew she should, not because she truly wished to. “Just a bit warm. The room is small.”
“Welcome to Penwithyn.” His mouth kicked up at the edge. “Every room is pocket-size
d, I’m afraid.”
Too small for Win to hide her notice of the specter reappearing behind Septimus. She tried averting her gaze, but couldn’t quell the pang in her chest. The apparition became clearer. She could make out a gentleman’s wrinkled visage. His green gaze peered out through square-shaped spectacles. Deep, rich green eyes. Like the clustered canopy of trees in a forest. Like Septimus’s eyes.
“Win?” Septimus positioned himself in front of her. The top button of his slate grey waistcoat stared her in the eye. “I’ll leave you to your solitude if you prefer, but if you wish to speak to someone of your parents—”
“Not my parents.” That way lay secrets she’d vowed to keep.
“Then what?”
Win shook her head. He wouldn’t believe her. He’d scoff at her. Or worse, he’d think her mad as a March hare.
When she said no more, he began to withdraw, only stopping to sketch a little bow at the doorway. Rather than irritation at her refusal to confide in him, Septimus offered her a disappointed grin that hinted at dimples in his clean-shaven cheeks. “I’ll leave you alone to read.” He glanced down at the books splayed on the floor. “Though it may take you awhile if you intend to tackle every word in Dr. Johnson’s dictionaries.”
A panicked agitation burst from the apparition as Septimus edged closer to the door. The blue mist vibrated and moved with him, clinging to his back. What Win had initially imagined as a threat, she now thought was a protective impulse. A father wishing to shepherd his son. Wishing to convey something that even she couldn’t decipher.
“Do you sense anything strange in the room?” Win asked before Septimus could take a step past the threshold. “An odd sensation?”
“Yes.”
Win’s heart leapt in her chest. Could he see the ghost? Sense it?
Septimus strode back in and kept moving toward her until they were toe-to-toe. “To be honest,” he said, his voice low and raspy, “I always detect an unusual energy when you’re about. From the very moment we met.”
Love for Lady Winter: A Secrets of Gissing Hall Novella Page 4
